LOGIN
It's been a long road to recovery for Artturi Lehkonen.  With Big Val in the player assistance program, it couldn't have happened at a better time.  After being eased back into the lineup, Lehkonen moved onto the top line the game before Tuesday night.  While he went to the second line to open the game, Lehkonen blew up against the Capitals, scoring two goals and adding two assists putting five shots on goal in the 6-3 win.  There's a few encouraging things here.  One, Lehkonen was on the first power play unit.  That alone is massive for his value.  Additionally, it was Lehkonen, not Drouin, closing the game for the Avs, as Lehkonen scored an empty netter with a minute left from MacKinnon and Rantanen.  Even in this role, Lehkonen received 18 minutes, which is plenty to succeed.  This puts him right back on the fringe.  Gun to head, I lean towards holding, but his schedule in the near term is heavy on busy days, so I see the case for leaving him as an elite streamer.  Let's take a look at what else happened the last two nights:
It's been a disastrous season for the Wild, and it's hard to imagine them digging out of this hole.  Monday was a lone bright spot, both for the team and their oldest player.  The Wild beat the Islanders 5-0, with Marc-Andre Fleury posting a 21 save shutout.  The win gave Fleury the second most wins in NHL history, passing Patrick Roy.  It's been a very up and down career for Fleury.  He was incredible in the 2008 playoffs getting Pittsburgh to the finals.  His most iconic moment clinched the Cup the year after.  There were a handful of years right after that where his poor play was the reason the Penguins were eliminated early in the playoffs.  They won a Stanley Cup with him as the backup.  He also saved them the next year when Murray struggled early in the playoffs to lead Pittsburgh to back-to-back cups.  He carried Vegas to the Cup finals in their inaugural season.  That's how I'm going to remember MAF.  There were too many down years for him to be in that inner circle of all-time goalies, and his best generally wasn't among the current elite, as evidenced by him being a Vezina finalist once in 20 seasons.  However, when he was at his best, it was incredible to watch, and that will put him in the Hockey Hall of Fame sooner than later.  For this season, Gustavsson is back, so I expect them to split the games fairly evenly.  He's a streamer in good matchups for now, but like most goalies, MAF can turn into a hold sooner than later, or be complete unusable.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
When the Flames acquired Yegor Sharangovich and a third round pick for Toffoli, the consensus was the Flames didn't get nearly enough for Toffoli off a 34 goal season.  Well, here we are at the midway point of the season, and Sharangovich has more goals than Toffoli.  Sharagovich had a hat trick on six shots on Thursday in the 6-2 victory over the Coyotes.  That gives him 17+30 in 42 games.  The minutes have been through the roof lately, and Sharangovich has rewarded Huska with 6+5 and over three shots per game in his last ten appearances. His speed is an absolute weapon and he's starting to be a focal point on the power play.  At the end of the day, Sharangovich is probably somebody who is on the fringe, but for now, he's a definite hold.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
Before we start, I just wanted to highlight two posts that came out on Monday much later than scheduled because of technical difficulties with the website.  Jules' weekly streaming post can be read here, while I also updated my hold/stream list.  Now back to the scheduled daily notes... It looks worse because of their record, but in reality, Carolina is playing very close to the same level as last season.  The difference is that their goaltending has been dreadful for the better part of three months, and that's from all three goalies.  Thankfully, when they needed it most as Andersen was out with blood clots and Raanta completely lost his game, Pyotr Kochetkov has rounded back into form.  On Tuesday, Kochetkov saved 28 of 29 shots in the Carolina 6-1 win over the Rangers.  Going back to Kochetkov's last ten starts, he's allowed only one goal five times, and has only one game allowing more than three.  Kochetkov has a 2.00 GAA in that stretch so it's no surprise to see Carolina back in second place in the division.  There's a very reasonable chance they finish atop the division again.  Kochetkov is still owned in less than 50% of leagues, and that doesn't make any sense to me.  He's a top five goalie for the last month and should be owned in all leagues.  Let's take a look at what else happened on Tuesday night:
Hello everyone. Welcome to the seventh edition of JOT This Down! Thank you to everyone who provided feedback in volume six. I appreciate it.  Keep the questions, comments, and concerns coming. I’ll be here all week to answer any and everything you may have.
Vincent Trocheck was off to an awful start this season with only four points in his first ten games with no positive signs.  Well, Chytil went down injured, and that set Trocheck off on a resurgence.  Trocheck had a goal and two assists with two shots in the 4-1 win over the Wild.  That give Trocheck six points in his last three games, but more importantly, the playing time has skyrocketed.  He played only 16:46 on Thursday because the game was in hand, but before that, Trocheck had topped 20 minutes in four of the last five games.  Now, it hasn't been perfect.  The shot rate is down quite a bit, and it hasn't changed that much with more playing time.  I lean towards holding him again in all formats, but if you include SOG, Trocheck is on the very bottom end of holds towards the fringe.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
We know that Jack Hughes has dominated the first three weeks of the season, but his older brother has started off extremely well, while his teammate and younger brother is starting to get going as well.  Let's start with Quinn Hughes.  On Friday, Hughes scored two goals on four shots, adding two PIM.  Against the Rangers, he had three shots on goal, which sounds disappointing, but it illustrates a large change in Quinn's game.  The one thing that has been holding Quinn back for years in terms of fantasy value is his shot rate.  This was his sixth straight game with 3+ shots, and 7th in eight total games.  It signifies a huge chance in his game, one that does fantasy owners wonders.  He has eight points in eight games and certainly can come close to repeating last season's 76 points in 78 games, if not topping it.  He was always an elite #2 with flaws, but now, he's a #1.  Sure, the hits are dreadful, but everything else is magical.
You guys know I like to start my posts about players who could be available in a large percentage of leagues that you can target on the waiver wire.  After all, being aggressive at the bottom of your roster is a huge factor in fantasy hockey.  However, sometimes a player has a weekend so good that you have to give him his due.  This time, that player is Auston Matthews.  Matthews scored three goals on Saturday, recording his second hat trick in as many games.  Look, everybody knows the upside.  We're talking about a guy who scored 60 goals two seasons ago on his way to the Hart trophy.  He's obviously in that tier right behind McDavid, and the only reason I had him towards the bottom of the tier is that he tends to miss 10-15 games a season.  If Matthews can play 75+ games, a repeat of 60 goals is well within reason.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend: