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Oh, the irony of the timing.  Right as Ryan Smith, owner of the Utah Jazz, puts out a release saying that he’s ready to bring a hockey team to Utah, the Arizona Coyotes go on a 14 game losing streak.  Over the weekend, they managed to right the ship.  The Coyotes snapped their skid on Friday, beating Ottawa 5-3, before defeating the Capitals 5-2 on Sunday.  The featured performance was their former 9th overall pick Dylan Guenther.  Guenther had a goal and an assist with two shots on Friday before scoring a goal and two assists with five shots and two PIM against the Capitals.  Guenther playing over 18 minutes on Sunday was extremely encouraging.  With Clayton Keller out, Guenther moved to the point on the first power play unit, and delivered three PPP over the two games.  I’ve been a fan of Guenther’s as a prospect and it looks like he’s finding his game in the NHL.  He’s an elite streamer for the time being who you can hold for this week if you’d like.  Arizona has four games, including two against the Blackhawks.  In dynasties, I see a guy that eventually becomes a hold in all formats.  I think he’ll be a guy who gets three shots on goal per game on average, resulting in 25ish goals with upside for more with a good shooting percentage.  Let’s take a look at what else happened over the weekend:

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For most of last season, Zach Hyman led the league in expected goals.  By the end of the season, he had a career high with 36 goals, but didn’t even sniff the league lead.  This season, he’s starting to finish at an elite level, resulting in him pushing towards the league lead in goals.  Hyman had a hat trick on eight shots on Saturday, carrying the Oilers to a 3-1 win over the Senators.  That gives Hyman 25 goals on the season to go along with 15 assists, a +13 rating, 32 PIM, and almost four shots on goal per game.  He’s been a top ten forward so far, and while I expect a bit of a drop off in the second half, I don’t see much of one coming.  That’s how good Hyman has been.  Let’s take a look at what else happened over the weekend:

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What’s poppin’, Razzpimples?

If you’re new to this column or have no idea what the Friday/Sunday split is, it’s a simple yet effective way to maximize your weekly output no matter the format of your league. Typically — and it’s not always the case — heavy game loads are Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, whereas Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays are lighter. Streaming players on those lighter days is almost a necessity to ensure you’re getting the most of each week, but this column focuses on just Fridays and Sundays. Reason being is that you get more bang for your waiver add buck in picking up a guy who will play those two days and will almost always be able to slot into your starting lineup without having to sacrifice someone else to the bench.

Let’s do it to it.

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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:

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The trade deadline has come and gone with teams making their final moves, either to set up their playoff push, or to sell for the future.  I covered all of the trades on this very site over the last week, so if you want to get my previous analysis, go back and take a look.  Today, I’m going to take a look at early returns on all of the trades.  What role are these players getting, how are they doing, etc.  Let’s get to it!

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It’s one of my favorite posts of the year!  Sure, a lot of trades have been done in advance of the deadline, but there’s sure to be more action today.  Starting around noon eastern, I’ll be updating this post with instant analysis on every trade that takes place.  All of the moves from Wednesday and Thursday are below as well, with all previous moves in other posts.  

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Another star player has made his way to the Eastern Conference well ahead of the trade deadline.  We already had Horvat and Tarasenko move, and now we have a former Conn Smythe winner.  Ryan O’Reilly was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs, along with Noel Acciari, for a bevy of draft picks.  The Wild also acquired a pick for retaining salary, and there were prospects involved, but none of them are particularly relevant.  For fantasy, we care about RoR and Acciari.  Let’s start with Acciari because it’s easier.  Acciari moved right onto Toronto’s fourth line.  He scored a goal against the Blackhawks on Sunday, and is piling up hits.  He’ll be a deep league value for his hits and decent goal rate.  O’Reilly is an interesting debate.  He’s easily having the worst offensive season in the last decade.  On the other hand, RoR has been playing much better lately, and he went right onto the second line with Tavares and Marner.  He dished an assist in his debut on Saturday playing just over 16 minutes in the 5-1 blowout against Montreal.  He also won 12 of 14 draws, which is notable that he bumped Tavares from the faceoff circle most of the time.  I’m not rushing to pick up RoR, mostly because we know that he’s not cracking Toronto’s first power play unit.  That said, there’s upside in Toronto that he couldn’t touch in St. Louis again.  If you want to stream him on Tuesday against the Sabres and see where it goes, I can get behind that.  

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Kevin Fiala’s first two games for the Kings left a lot to be desired.  He didn’t generate much in terms of chances, he took a stupid penalty in their opener against Vegas, and his ice time suffered as a result.  His old team, the Wild, were coming off giving up seven goals against the Rangers and were big favorites to get their first win of the season.  Instead, the Wild gave up seven goals again, with the Los Angeles top line leading the way.  Fiala scored a goal and two assists with six shots in the 7-6 win, while Anze Kopitar dished three assists and Adrian Kempe scored two goals and an assist with three shots and four PIM.  My biggest takeaway from this trio in the early going is that I was too low on Kempe this season.  While he’s not the focal point of the power play anymore, he’s still vital to its success, and the addition of Fiala strengthened the top line.  All of them are easy holds at the moment and I don’t expect that to change.  Let’s take a look at what else happened on Friday and Saturday:

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It’s that time of the year again.  For those of you who haven’t seen this post in the past, I will break down every team’s schedule for fantasy hockey playoffs i.e. starting on this coming Monday, 4/4.  I will note when a team has a back to back or a light day.  A light day is a day where there are four or less games on the schedule, with the exception of Wednesday, 4/27.  I am including that day where there are five games because it’s the last day of the season where you’ll need streaming, as the last two days both have a lot of games.  I will do the teams in alphabetical order so it’s easy to find everyone, and next to each team, there will be (A,B,C,D).  Those numbers will be how many games the team has in each of the four weeks left in the season.  For example, (4,2,3,3) means they have four games from 4/4 – 4/10, two games from 4/11 -4/17, etc.  This post is going to be extremely long, so it will be broken into two parts, with part two coming on Monday.  If you have a specific question about a team next week that will be in part two and you need it answered immediately, please let it be known in the comments section and I’ll answer it for you.  And away we go!

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Those of you that have been patient holding Evander Kane for almost four months were rewarded on Saturday night.  Kane played his first game of the season with the Oilers and went right on McDavid’s wing.  Kane scored in the first period and finished with three shots in the 7-2 win over the Canadiens.  He’s still available in 50% of ESPN leagues and very close to that on other sites.  Kane is a must own immediately, and if you use FAAB, you should bid a large amount of your budget.  Yes, he could do something stupid and be banished, but the upside is too high for him to be on waivers.  Let’s take a look at what else happened over the weekend:

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My love for Alex Ovechkin is no secret for the readers who frequent these parts.  The best goal scorer of all time continues to torment the opposition as he’s in the midst of one of the best starts of his career.  Ovechkin had a goal and two assists with six shots against the Sabres on Monday.  Through twelve games, Ovechkin has a ridiculous 11+10 with 60 shots on goals.  That’s five shots per game, which he’s had that or more in seven straight games.  The Great Eight is playing his best hockey at even strength in years at age 36.  Don’t take Alex Ovechkin for granted!  Let’s take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:

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Joel Eriksson Ek took a big step forward last season, one of the main reasons the Wild made the playoffs with relative ease.  It was more on the defensive end than offensively, but he showed plenty of offense with 19 goals in 56 games.  On Tuesday, Eriksson Ek controlled the game for the Wild, scoring a hat trick on seven shots in the 6-5 OT win over the Jets.  Eriksson Ek averaged just over two shots per game last season, but he now has twelve shots in three games.  The minutes are going to be there so there’s a chance he could push into bottom end hold territory.  For now, he’s an elite streamer.  Let’s take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:

Please, blog, may I have some more?