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After his big breakout last season, Martin Necas has had a rough go of it this season.  Much like his team, he's started to turn his game around over the last month.  Since coming back from a two week injury on January 19th, when Necas had 9 goals on the season, he has seven goals in seven games, culminating with a natural hat trick in the first period against the Avalanche on Thursday.  On top of the goals, Necas has been taking a ton of shots.  He's averaging five shots on goal per game in the past seven, with 4+ in six of the last seven games.  If you're lucky enough to be in the 20% of leagues that Necas is available in, grab him immediately.  If you've held onto him, here's to hoping he keeps up this form to make up for the poor first half.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
Out of the top ranked goalies in the preseason, only Hellebuyck has played at an elite level.  This is a big reason why I don't take goalies in the first two rounds, if not longer, because the variance is too high.  My #1 goalie going into the season was Jake Oettinger.  He didn't play well in the first half and also missed time due to injury.  The All-Star break proved to be a good reset, as Oettinger was out of his mind on Tuesday.  Oettinger made 47 saves in the 2-1 win over the Sabres, stealing the game for the Stars.  After tomorrow, there's only two back-to-backs in the next four weeks for the Stars.  We should see Oettinger get plenty of action, and I'd bet on him finishing the season strong.  I don't do midseason rankings because I don't see a lot of value for the time it takes.  You have the team you have, and if you are making trades, you need to target your weaknesses to improve.  That said, if I was ranking for the rest of the season, Oettinger would still be a top five goalie.  I'm not betting against him.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
The Leafs were coming off a dominant victory over the Rangers heading into a home game against Columbus.  They managed to go down 5-0 in the second, and it was that way heading into the third period.  Then, as we've seen in the past, Toronto made a massive rally, tying the game with 45 seconds left to earn a point.  Then, like usual, they managed to lose anyways.  The 6-5 OT win for Columbus is one of the craziest games you'll ever seen.  Auston Matthews led the comeback with two goals and an assist with nine shots.  Patrik Laine scored an early goal before leaving the game injured, while Kent Johnson was the hero.  The former fifth overall pick had two goals and an assist, including the game winner.  It's undeniably been a slow start to Johnson's career.  However, for most players, it takes time, and we're starting to see the signs.  Johnson now has six points in his last four games, and if Laine is down for a while, we could see Johnson becoming a fantasy factor.  For now, I'm bumping him up to middling streamer, but he's definitely worth monitoring.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
Nothing like a hat trick to regain the NHL lead in goals.  Especially in what was a timed game.  Brock Boeser finished Tuesday with a natural hat trick, securing a 4-1 win over the Lightning.  That brings him to a whopping 21 goals, well on his way to obliterating his previous career high.  They aren't the same type of player, but it reminds of Kreider's 50 goal year.  A solid player who has everything go right for a year.  Now, it's still early that Boeser is far from a lock for 50, but if he stays healthy, 40 is close to a lock.  It's far from sustainable going to the next few seasons, but the important thing is Boeser is back on his A game ignoring the good fortune.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
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:
Steve Yzerman can't ask for a better start from his big offseason swing.  After his first game without a point as a Red Wing, Alex DeBrincat followed it up with a hat trick and an assist with five shots in Sunday's win over the Flames.  That brings DeBrincat to a whopping eight goals and four assists in his first six games with Detroit.  He's clicked with Dylan Larkin (two goals and three assists over two games) to give Detroit an elite first line.  We've seen DeBrincat score 41 goals twice before playing with Kane, so it's not like this is completely out of nowhere.  While this shooting percentage won't last, given how much Detroit is rolling the first line, I'm expecting career highs across the board for DeBrincat.  There's a real chance Detroit plays its way into the playoff picture this season if the first line can win its matchups on a regular basis.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
Obviously you guys know that I've gone out of order with my rankings, but I had to get my Top 200 out there for everybody's drafts.  If you've missed it, you can see those rankings here.  Today, I'm going to show you the method behind the madness of my forward rankings.  Part one will be out today, part two will be out tomorrow.  I'm going to try and get a bold predictions post out on Monday as well, and then the season will be underway.  As a heads up, I am going to be in London from Thursday until Tuesday.  I will probably only get to the site once per day, but I will be sure to answer everybody's questions on all posts when I get the chance.  Thanks for your understanding.  And with that, the first half of my forward rankings.
We had a game of the year performance on Monday night by Connor Hellebuyck.  Hellebuyck saved 50 of 51 shots in the 4-1 win over the Rangers, ending their winning streak.  One of my best rankings this season over ADP was banking on Hellebuyck to bounce back after last season's disaster.  I even said in my bold prediction that he'd win the Vezina, which Ullmark will probably ruin, but his season has certainly been Vezina worthy.  But enough of patting myself on the back.  Hellebuyck is sitting with a 2.39/.926, putting him in a battle with Oettinger for the #2 overall goalie to this point (the gap to #4 is massive).  He's as good of a bet as any to finish the best goalie for the rest of the season considering the top end volume.  Bottom line, Hellebuyck is entering his prime now and since he gets to play in a Bowness system, he should stay in tier one for the indefinite future.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
Carolina's offense has been a bit disappointing overall, with only Aho sitting around a point per game.  The injury to Patches really put a hole in their lineup that I assume they're going to address before the trade deadline.  On the bright side, their most recent high draft pick just had the game of his early career.  Seth Jarvis scored a hat trick in the 6-2 win over Montreal on Thursday.  Overall, Jarvis has taken a step back offensively this season which is disappointing.  His points are down despite playing 2 minutes more per game on average.  It's dropped him down to being a middling streamer, but it hasn't really changed my long term opinion of him.  He has great speed, solid hands, and an elite compete level.  Jarvis just turned 21 years old so the best is yet to come.  If you owned him in a dynasty, I wouldn't panic.  He's going to be a top six winger for a long time.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
While the NFL steals the spotlight during Championship Week, the Rangers started the weekend blowing out two top teams in Seattle and Carolina.  They scored six goals in both games to bring their winning streak up to five.  While it was a group effort on Friday, Artemi Panarin stole the show on Saturday.  The Breadman scored four goals and an assist with five shots and two PIM against Carolina, after dishing an assist against the Kraken.  Gallant shuffled the lines after Tarasenko's arrival, with Vincent Trocheck and Jimmy Vesey playing with Panarin again, setting up two of his goals.  It was Panarin's third three-point game in his last eight, as he starts to heat up.  While he hasn't approached his point production of his first three seasons in New York, Panarin is still on pace for 90+ points.  That shows what kind of floor he has and why he's worthy of an early draft pick every year.  Despite lower shots and PIM/hits, even his below average year (by his standards) is a top 50 player.  Who knows, Panarin could finish the season on a massive heater and finally get to 100 points.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
Hello, weekend! Hopefully all of you NHL fans enjoyed the all star layoff and are ready to get back to some DFS goodness! At the very least, I will not be dressing up as our underdog namesake Happy Gilmore and skating around my office while I type this out. (Poor Pasta). Speaking of Poor Pasta, after I punched up the rough outline for today’s names I realized that we had more than a few double lettered names. Alliteration station, indeed!  We’ll go with our goalie here as the main focus. I was all set to run with an alliterative goalie, Matt Murray, and even spoke to his newfound health in his Leafs renaissance…then apparently reality set in and Murray was placed on the IR on Thursday with an ankle injury. Ouch. Literally.
The Senators have been a disappointment this season despite their big forward acquisitions in the summer.  Turns out that you can't get away with completely ignoring the blue line and being forced to give bad players big minutes.  Anyways, we don't care about that for fantasy, we care about their scoring, and their top players have largely delivered.  Claude Giroux had a great weekend, totaling three goals and two assists with ten shots over two games.  Giroux is having his best goal scoring season since his monstrous 34 goal, 102 point season in 2017-18.  Unsurprisingly, that season and this season are Giroux's two highest shooting percentages, but it seems a bit more sustainable in this environment in Ottawa.  Even with an inconsistent PP1 role, Giroux has still played his way into being a bottom end hold in all formats.  The one problem is that after Ottawa's game on Tuesday, they don't play again until February 11th.  My biggest point here with bottom end holds over these bye weeks is that you need to know your league format and whether the waiver wire is strong enough that you can drop someone like Giroux to get more games.  In head to head leagues, volume is king, so you can make a case after Tuesday that you can let him go for players with a bunch of games after the All-Star break. In roto, I would hold onto Giroux without hesitation.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend: