The first draft pick in Vegas history, Cody Glass, scored the first goal of his career in his first game, a 4-1 win over the Sharks. First, the good news. He played with Mark Stone (G+A) and Max Pacioretty (A, 5 SOG) which puts Glass in a great position to succeed going forward. He also played with these guys on the power play. The bad news: his minutes were down because Gallant doesn’t trust him defensively yet. Whenever they had a defensive zone start, Stastny started on the ice and would go off for Glass if they exited the zone. Yes, it’s only a defensive zone start, but on a team that transitions as well as Vegas does, the more minutes the better, and Glass didn’t cross the 15 minute mark. I’m good with picking him up if you want the upside, but let’s not go crazy spending a lot of FAAB on Glass. I like him plenty long term, and perhaps Stone drags him into be a hold all season, but it’s far from a guarantee. Let’s take a look at what else happened over the first two nights of the season:
Brady Tkachuk – Goal on two shots with two PIM and six hits. Breaking even at even strength is a nice sign for Tkachuk. I’d have liked to see even more than the 17 minutes he received, but a good start nonetheless.
Tyson Barrie – Two assists with six shots and two PIM. Excellent start for Barrie in his Leafs debut. Wish he saw 20+ minutes, but he’ll produce plenty even in smaller ice time.
Auston Matthews – Two goals on eight shots. Ottawa is just hopeless against superstars.
Ilya Mikheyev – Goal and an assist. The 24 year old looked like he belonged but didn’t get power play time so for now, he’s only a deep league option. Welcome to the Razzball Database!
Lars Eller – Two assists with four shots. Solid streamer for the next two games until Kuznetsov comes back.
John Carlson – Two assists playing 27 minutes. Would have liked to see some shots but no concern there at this point.
Ryan O’Reilly – Two assists with three shots. Nice start for the Conn Smythe winner.
Leon Draisaitl – Goal and two assists with six shots playing almost 27 minutes. It’s telling to me that Draisaitl played 26:46 and even McDavid played only 21:40. Draisaitl was outstanding all game and looks primed for another massive season.
Zack Kassian – Goal and an assist playing 17 minutes. If you need hits, Kassian is a great option while he’s playing this much.
Matt Benning – Two assists with two PIM. He only played 11:47. And there’s your Matt Benning update!
Reilly Smith – Two goals on five shots, both assisted by William Karlsson, who had six shots on goal. The minutes were down for these guys but I’m chalking that up to the team being comfortably ahead, nothing else.
Carter Hutton – 28 saves on 29 shots in the 3-1 win over the Pens. I don’t want to overreact to one game (especially as a Sabres fan) but the Sabres absolutely dominating the Penguins was not what I expected. The high danger chances were 11-1 and the Penguins only had 0.88 expected goals, so Hutton didn’t do much as the team defensively was excellent. That said, we don’t care how he gives up one goal, we’re only happy that Hutton gave up only one goal. It still looks to be a time share so no overreacting to Hutton’s value, but Krueger may be such an upgrade over Housley that the Sabres are relevant. Time will tell.
Conor Sheary – Two goals on three shots. He played only 9 minutes, but Sheary is a big fan of the revenge game. If he got to play Pittsburgh every night, Gretzky’s records would be in trouble.
Casey Mittelstadt – Two assists with two shots and two PIM. He looked great in his ice time, but he only played 9:25. He could be a post-hype breakout but it’ll take more minutes than this.
Johnny Gaudreau – Goal and an assist as did Sean Monahan. We’ve come to expect the success from these guys, even against other top lines around the league.
Joonas Donskoi – Two goals on three shots in his Colorado debut. One was an empty netter so let’s not freak out and grab Donskoi. He’s a middling streamer at best right now.
Mikko Rantanen – Two goals on five shots. No rust at all after the holdout for almost the entire preseason and training camp.
Dougie Hamilton – Two assists with five shots. He only played 21 minutes in a game that went to a shootout, which isn’t what I was hoping, but I’m still a staunch supporter of Dougie.
Nikolaj Ehlers – Three assists with eight shots. Ehlers looked excellent on the first line and has a prime opportunity to bounce back with Scheifele and…
Blake Wheeler – Two goals on nine shots playing 23 minutes. Excellent start for Wheeler who has dropped in shot rate for a few years running now. I had him as a second rounder even given that and there’s no reason to question that after this start.
Mika Zibanejad – Goal and three assists with seven shots. Oh, Mika you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind, hey Mika! I was the high man on Mika and it was encouraging to see the Rangers top line get off to a great start.
Jacob Trouba – Goal and two assists with three shots in his Rangers debut against his old team. Trouba should end up a 2D come the end of the season, but he has the upside to push towards being a bottom end #1.
Artemi Panarin – Goal and an assist. He was ranked absurdly low by the “big sites” and it made absolutely zero sense to me. Anyways, Panarin should be his usual self in New York and he’s off to a great start.
Vincent Trocheck – Goal and an assist with three shots. He played 18:37 which is quite a bit lower than he played under Boughner. As I mentioned in my Wednesday post, this is something we have to monitor.
Mikhail Sergachev – Three assists with four PIM. Nice start for Razzball Sleeper Mikhail Sergachev.
Nikita Kucherov – Goal and an assist with two shots. Only two shots? What a bum.
Alex Killorn – Two assists with a shot. He played big minutes on the second line so he’s a reasonable streamer for now.
Matt Duchene – Three assists with a shot. Great start to the new look first line in Nashville with Filip Forsberg scoring a goal and an assist with six shots while Mikael Granlund scored a goal on two shots. I’m excited to see what these guys do over the course of the season.
Tuukka Rask – 28 saves on 29 shots in the 2-1 win over the Stars. Typical Tuukka. The only thing keeping him for the top tier of fantasy goalies is the lack of volume.
John Gibson – 32 saves on 33 shots in the 2-1 win over the Coyotes. The best goalie in the league started off extremely well. Here’s to hoping the team doesn’t fall apart in front of him.
That’s all for now guys. I’ll be back on Monday recapping all of the action from the weekend. As always, feel free to ask any questions, leave any comments, or give any suggestions below. Thanks for reading, take care!
