Fantasy Hockey Advice

Right off the bat it doesn’t look like David Backes had a bad season:  24G/30A/17PPP/+15/101PIM/234SOG….  Well actually, on second glance, that is a pretty good season…  “Why do you hate David Backes?”  I don’t hate David Backes VTB.  In fact I’m not even sure why I thought my preseason “bust” prediction for him was accurate….  Aaaahhh, I see.  Here is what I wrote: “I still like St. Louis in general this year, but I’ve never been that high on Backes as a fantasy player and my view of him hasn’t changed this year.  Lets face some facts: In his career, he has 102 Goals and 116 Assists in 364 Career games.  He had career highs last year in every category (except PIM’s) but I saw it as more of a peak season than a harbinger of a huge breakout this year.  I’m expecting a drop in every category so buyer beware…”  First sentence?  Correct.  3rd Sentence?  Will prove to be correct.  Last Sentence?  Mostly correct (He improved in PIM’s by 8 and SOG’s by 23)… And that, my friends, is C.Y.A. 101….

Mark Streit – D (NYI):  Here’s another “meh” pick from me.  There was some good, some bad, some toast, some butter….mmmmmmm….. sorry I like to have breakfast food late at night…  Back to Streit:  On the positive side, he had 40 Assists.  On the flip side of positive, which I think is un-positive.  Or is it non-positive?  Either way along with those 40 Assists Streit had a measely 7 Goals and was an abysmal -27.  If his +/- were a temperature, it would be the coldest day in America this year.  It got so bad that the Islanders installed an up-to-the-minute chart above the scoreboard showing Streit’s +/- versus the National debt…

Dan Boyle – D (SJ):  ”Meh” pick #3 (I’ve spoken to Grey about making “Mr. Meh” the official mascot of Razzball. Just take off the hat and the uniform and Voila!)…   And yeah Dan Boyle had a decent year but much like most of his teammates, the decline is in full effect.

James Wisniewski - D (Cls):  “Wizzy wizzy wizzy, can’t you see?  You’re more injury proned than Sidney Crosby…”  And there is my rapping debut.  I will now retire…

Mike Richards – C (LA):  I live very close to Los Angeles, so believe me I’m fully aware of Richards’ season.  He is so unpopular right now if he ran against Kim Kardashian for Mayor of Glendale he’d lose in a landslide…

Jeff Skinner - C/RW (Car):  I’d like to think that after his awful season (and a real step back from his ROY season) Jeff Skinner will be fawned over as a bounce-back or “sleeper” next pre-season.  I say hogwash.  He’s just not that good.  And he hasn’t been properly motivated.  If I were running the Hurricane’s I’d fire the head coach and hire  this guy.

Roberto Luongo – G (Van):  So what can I say?  Sometimes you just have to just pull a huge name out and imagine a scenario where he doesn’t perform….   Maybe I was confused back in September and thought playoff stats counted this year…

Danny Briere – C/LW (Phi):  Actually if I had Briere in the same post as Luongo then I knew playoff stats didn’t count…  The real question now though?  Can Briere’s post-season awesomeness overcome the Penguin title wave bearing down on Philadelphia?  I say no.  Penguins win 4-3.  You heard it here 101st!

Today we look at  some of my worst prognostications from 7 months ago.  The list is long and pretty damning, but then again I’m not a professional prognosticator – I just play one on this blog!  HIIIOOOOOOOO!!!  Ahem… Lets just get started shall we?   My first guest today…errr… disappointment is none other than Sid the concussed Kid.  I’m sure many of you are thinking:  “It was stupid to rank him #6 overall when he was still dealing with concussion issues back in September!”  And you’d be right.  Aren’t you a smart guy!  But in my defense, or D-IIII if you’re in the stands at a football game, it’d been over 6 months since his last concussion and when I was growing up, the remedy for a concussion was to shake your head back & forth and sniff a few smelling salts.  Then if you could recognize the 2 fingers the Coach was holding up, you were cured!!   No year long breaks spent “recovering”.  No worrying about getting “dizzy” or not being able to go outside in the day because of ”light” from the “sun”.  You can act like a man!  Alright in all seriousness though, I clearly underestimated the power of the “C” word this year and have learned a lesson.  Not as big a lesson as I learned when I underestimated the power of the other “C” word, but big nonetheless… As far as Sidney Crosby‘s ranking for next year?  Well you’ll have to wait and find out, but I can’t ignore the fact he only played in 22 Games and still had 37 Points…. as I wipe the druel collecting in my Goatee….  No!  Can’t!  Won’t!…………. 

Jarome Iginla – RW (Cgy):  This one really hurts cuz when I originally put together my rankings I had brotha Jarome down around number 20, then I dug a little deeper into his 2010-2011 season and liked what I saw so much I moved him all the way up to #10.  So what did I get for going out on a limb with a 34 year old who was just a year removed from his worst season ever?   Well lets just say the limb snapped, much like they’re prone to do with eldery gentleman…

Martin St. Louis – RW (TB):  Speaking of elderly gentleman, heeeeeere’s Marty!  Now I’m sure if you drafted St. Louis 7th overall (which is where I had him ranked) it wouldn’t have been impossible to still have a good team.  He did put up 74 points afterall.  But the real problem was the complete and almost biblical drop in Power Play Points.  He went from averaging 39PPP’s each of the last 2 seasons to 16 this year!   SIXTEEN!  The last time he had fewer, Bob Probert and Stu Grimson were still around concussing…… ERRRRRR….. fighting each other.  The real surprising part about St. Louis’ disappointing season is that Stamkos had his best season ever.  If I’d had known that before doing last year’s rankings Marty probably would’ve cracked the Top 5.  So technically it could have been worse right?  RIGHT???

Ryan Getzlaf – C (Ana):  In all honesty Getzlaf probably deserves top billing on this post (I had him ranked #13), but he helped bring my team a Stanley Cup so what can I say?  I’m a sucker for hardware.  What I won’t be a sucker for is ranking Getz anywhere near the Top 25-30 ever again, let alone the top 13!  In fact this season was so bad I don’t even wanna yuck up this post with the numbers, go look them up for yourself if you wanna see just how truly god-awful Ryan Getzlaf was in 2011-2012.

Ryan Kesler – C (Van):  I oscillated (word of the day!) back and forth with Kesler.  He missed the first 5 games of the season with an injury and I personally believe he never fully recovered from it.  HOWEVA, when you rank a guy 14th overall and he goes 22G/27A/+11/19PPP’s/56PIM/222SOG, something was off in you’re calculations.  Or mine.  You know what I mean…

Keith Yandle – D (Phx):  Okay it’s official I will never trust another Defenseman ever again.  I stuck my neck out and ranked Yandle as my Top Defenseman (23rd overall) and he proceeded to slash my throat with his stick.  It was a solid season, but when I recommend taking him ahead of the holy trinity of Weber-Lidstrom-Chara, “solid” just doesn’t cut it.  And I’m just gonna leave it at that before I beat myself up too much…  “He plays for the Coyotes!  Don’t  you remember Mike Green and Drew Doughty from 2 years ago!”   NO!  STOP!!!

Alexander Semin – LW/RW (Wsh):  Man I’ve sure got some doozies (or dookies?) in my Top 30 don’t I?  Semin was supposed to be a Goal scoring specialist who couldn’t stay healthy, but instead he played in 77 games and scored just 21 Goals. I feel the same way a porn-star must feel after having sex with a regular dude:  What a disappointing load…

Jimmy Howard – G (Det):  “What is the great Jimmy Howard doing on this list?  He had a Vezina caliber season for the Mighty Red Wings!”  Yes I know he had a good season VTB and that’s exactly why he’s on this list.  I had him as one of my “busts” in the preseason.  Damn you J-HO!  Damn you!!!

So that does it.  What did we learn from all this?  It’s pretty simple:  Never trust Defenseman, Russians, concussion victims or the elderly when drafting for Fantasy Hockey… 

Okay I have a couple-few more busts to go over and don’t forget, the season starts in 2 1/2 days!  I might be reaching a little bit with some of these guys, but I already identified my top busts here… Oh wait, that’s for my personal column.  My top hockey busts are here.   But before I get to that, we still need 6-7 more people for the last remaining RCL League.  Here is the information – League ID:  53273 / PW: drive425.  And for those of you too lazy to do it yourself, click here and enter the league ID and Password into the sections on the left of the page.  And I don’t want people who are already in another RCL League you hear?  This is for new entrants ONLY.  And just to set the record for number of “here’s” in an opening paragraph – HERE HERE!  Now, onto some more busts…

Jordan Staal – C (Pit):  Every year it seems like Staal is a prime candidate to “bust out” but every year he either gets hurt or ends up back on the #3 line as the defensive stopper.  It’s not necessarily his fault though, he is stuck behind 2 of the greatest Centers in the world and the Pens really are a better team with him anchoring a shutdown 3rd line.  Still, we are in the business of production and I just don’t trust Staal to do anything more than the 49 Points (only 5 PPP’s) he got 2 years ago in his best NHL season.

Jimmy Howard – G (Det):  I’ve always said the only good thing about Jimmy Howard is that he plays for the Red Wings.  If he were Jim Howard, starting goalie for this year’s Ottawa Senators neither you or I would want to draft him.  He’d be ranked somewhere behind Semyon Varlamov and ahead of Rick DiPietro..  But I think this year he struggles even more than last year (when he had a sub-par 2.79GAA and .908SV%).  Part of the reason is just gut feeling, but I also think the loss of Draper and Rafalski to retirement is going to hurt the Red Wing Defense.

Danny Briere – C/RW (Phi):  I still like most Philly players, but I think Briere is one of the guys who will be affected by the loss of Carter & Richards.  He’s the top dog in the city of brotherly hate now and opposing coaches will be focusing on stopping him (well at least until they realize Giroux is the better player).  Plus he’s overdue for an injury.  Put all that together and you see that last season was easily his career year (excluding his Buffalo contract year of course).

David Backes – RW (Stl):  I still like St. Louis in general this year, but I’ve never been that high on Backes as a fantasy player and my view of him hasn’t changed this year.  Lets face some facts: In his career, he has 102 Goals and 116 Assists in 364 Career games.  He had career highs last year in every category (except PIM’s) but I saw it as more of a peak season than a harbinger of a huge breakout this year.  I’m expecting a drop in every category so buyer beware…

Mark Streit – D (NYI):  Yes I’ve said before I love the D-men who double as Power Play quarterbacks and Streit is one of them.  HOWEVA, people are going a little nuts in regards to his ranking.  I’ve seen him in the Top 10 Defenseman more than once – which is crazy.  I just don’t trust him to stay healthy and no way I’m taking him over guys like Goligoski or Keith or Pietrangelo.

So there are 5 more busts to add to the 5 I already did.  Now watch them all go out and have career years…  Seacrest OUT!

So the old man had 2 Goals and an Assist last night after a Goal and an Assist in the Flyer’s 1st preseason game.  What does this mean you ask?  I have no idea, but if I had to guess I’d say it’s just preseason noise.  (And BTW I watched that game between New York and Philly tonight – can you guys please tone it down in the preseason? I’m all about fighting but when you combine for 77 Penalty Minutes and have borderline brawls 8 minutes into the game it’s time to grow up… Okay I’ve stepped off my soap-box)…  Back to Jar-o-mir, I didn’t even rank him in my Top 30 Right Wingers, and it was for one reason and one reason only:  He won’t play in more than 60 games this year.  He just won’t.  The last 3 years he’s been playing for the infamous Avangard Omsk of the KHL.  The level of competition is not close to what Jagr will encounter in the NHL plus KHL seasons are only 56 games long.  I don’t care how much harder he (supposedly) trained this offseason, there will still be a bunch of LBI’s, UBI’s, strains, tweaks and pulls.  HOWEVA (as evidenced by tonights game) he still has lightning quick hands and great puck awareness.  So when he does play he’ll be effective.  Not Teemu from last year effective, but if he plays 60 games I’d give him a line of 20G/30A/20PPP’s/180SOG – which is definately useful.  Just not as useful as his pre-draft rankings would indicate on certain other sites… {cough}  ESPN  {cough}.  And that reminds me, programming note: I’ll be going over the ESPN pre-draft rankings later in the week.  I will skewer most of them but as a hat tip to fairness I promise to agree with at least 1.  Now lets look at a few players who I think will be busts in 2011-2012:

James Wisniewski – D (CBJ):  So I have to admit I was a little peeved when I found out Wisniewski was suspended for the first 8 games of the regular season.  I had him lined up as my top bust for this year a while ago.  Now he’s going to get knocked down everyone’s draft board and I won’t look as smart when he underperforms this year.  Jerk.  I hope someone takes a wiz on your new skis…

Dan Boyle - D (SJ):  Here is one of the guys I guarantee won’t be on my team this year.  He’s 35 and only scored 9 Goals last season.  The Shots (199), Assists (41) and PPP’s (27) were still there so there is some hope he can at least repeat that, but I doubt it.  Personally I’d rather wait 4 or 5 rounds and take his new teammate Brent Burns who will be stealing alot of Boyle’s Power Play minutes.

Jeff Skinner – C/RW (Car):  Now don’t get me wrong, I like Skinner long term and I love the dual eligibility (at least on Yahoo) for this year.  But I have zero faith in his teammates (not named Eric Staal).  The good news is he’ll get Power Play minutes with Staal, but bottom line don’t look for anything more than what he gave you last year: 31G/32A/18PPP’s/215SOG/+3..  And that’s only if he plays in all 82 games again this season.

Roberto Luongo – G (Van):  You all know I hate Goalies to begin with, but Luongo is going either 1 or 2 (amongst Goalies) in just about every league.  That’s too high and the reason is a little known stat called Games Played.  Yeah that’s kinda important for a Goalie.  And Luongo played in less games than he ever has last season and with the best backup in hockey (Schneider) still on the team the ‘nucks have no reason to not play him even less this year.

Mike Richards – C (LA):  As my preview to the ESPN Preseason rankings post, I give you Mike Richards, who is currently #21 OVERALL in their rankings..  21.  Twenty-One.  Veintiuno.  He’s ranked ahead of Iginla, Kesler, Backstrom, Nash and Eric Staal (just to name a few).  Richards had 66 Points (only 21 on the Power Play) in 81 Games last year playing for the same team he’s played his entire career with… So why would he do any better on a completely new team with (at best) the same talent level as he had in Philly?   “Because he is coming to the land of Kobe where he will adopt the warrior mindset!”  Okay VTB you’re right that’s probably ESPN’s reasoning for that horrible ranking.

Okay that’s it and remember, don’t forget to get your spot in one of our Razzball Commenter Leagues!  Seacrest OUT!