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:
One of the highest variance players for fantasy hockey this season is Logan Thompson. You can't ask for much of a better start. Thompson had a 27 save shutout on Thursday, and the Golden Knights needed every bit of it in the 1-0 win over the Blackhawks. He also had 27 saves on 30 shots in the first Vegas win, 4-3 over the Kings. I liked Thompson as a #2 this year, and this start makes me feel better about it. It's not going to be smooth, but that happens for only a few goalies in the entire league. Outside of the worst matchups, I feel good about rolling Thompson against everybody for the time being. Let's see what else happened on Thursday:
With all of the Boston injuries to start the season, there was no easing David Krejci back into the NHL after a year in Czechia. In the season opener, Krejci delivered and then some. He scored a goal and two assists, one of which came on the power play, in the 5-2 win over the Capitals. Krejci went right onto the first power play unit and was excellent on the second line with David Pastrnak (goal, three assists, six shots) so as long as you're okay with below average shots, you can hold Krejci. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
We're finally at opening night for the NHL season after two day games in Europe at the end of last week. I'll be back on Thursday doing my usual daily notes for the first two nights, but today, I want to hit on a few topics quickly. I want to discuss both games in Europe and what I took away from the Predators and Sharks. Then, I want to do a quick preview of Tuesday's and Wednesday's games highlighting some stuff that I'll hit on in Thursday's post. Then, I want to mention a few teams I'm higher and lower on than consensus when it comes to this season's expectations. Let's get to it!
We're one day from the start of the season with the Predators and Sharks facing off in Europe. It's time for my annual post with 10 bold predictions for this year. Among the correct predictions I made last season were Sam Reinhart scoring 30+ goals and being over a point per game and Cale Makar having 85+ points, being the first to do so in 28 years. Well, technically Josi got to 85 before Makar, but I'm still counting it! We won't talk about me predicting the Devils to make the playoffs... let's get to this year's 10!
In the last few rounds of my draft, the best strategy is to take players with high ceilings. Odds are, even if you take the "safe" guy, you end up cutting that player to stream somebody else at some point, so you might as well target somebody who could turn into a hold. Today, I'm going to tell you the ten guys that I like the most as dart throws at the end of your draft. Last season, among the notable late hits I highlighted were Rasmus Andersson and Noah Dobson, with Victor Olofsson's rookie breakout a big win from the past. I'm going to use players whose ADP is after 180, which is 15 rounds in a 12 man league. Let's get to it!
I know I still need to do one forward post, but I wanted to get this out for everyone doing drafts this weekend. This list is fluid and will be updated leading up to drafts. Please, blog, may I have some more?
We're cutting right to the chase today with forwards ranked 41-60 for this season. You can see the Top 40 here.
41) Patrick Kane - It feels wrong to rank Kane this low. Maybe it is. But Chicago is going to be a complete mess, and I don't see Kane being traded until closer to the deadline. Kane has already been bad at even strength and now he loses DeBrincat. -30 isn't out of the realm of possibility. Will the PP be good enough around Kane for him to repeat last season's 31 points? He doesn't take penalties or pile up hits, which already lowers his ceiling. The shots will be elite, and I'm sure he'll get plenty of points, but it could be harmful elsewhere. Kane is a guy I'm not looking to draft, but to target in a trade around New Year's if you're doing well to have him for the stretch run on a presumed new team.
Today, I move into the forwards section of my rankings. I'm going to go through the top 40 forwards overall, 18 of which were covered in my Top 10 and 20 posts (linked below). My plan for the rest of the week is to plow through 80 forwards before compiling a top 200 list to be out Friday for everyone's drafts over the next week. I'm sure this will be a long one so let's get to it!
We move through more defensemen today going through my Top 40. For those that didn't see my Top 20, you can check that out here. I have some good news before I get going with these rankings. JKJ is going to be back! He's going to shift his focus this season towards defensemen, similar to what he does on the baseball side of things with relief pitchers. Look for him to be writing again in the near future, with a rebuttal to my defenseman rankings the first thing coming. And now, let's get to it!
We're keeping it moving here at Razzball Hockey HQ today looking at the top 20 defensemen in my 2022-23 Fantasy Hockey Rankings. My goaltending rankings and top 20 overall are easily available on the Razzball Hockey home page. Unlike when I made a list of players that I considered for my Top 20 overall where I had 35 potential candidates, I only wrote down 22 names for Top 20 defenseman candidates. Defensemen remains an extremely top heavy positions, so differentiating the players in the 11-50 range will go a long way. Last year, I nailed Ekblad as an elite D ranking him 6th, and also had DeAngelo and McAvoy well above consensus in my Top 20. Andersson and Seider were my big wins lower down. For failures, Barrie and Petry lead the way, along with ranking Doughty too low. Let's hope for better this time around. Let's get to it!
Today, I'm going to complete my goaltending rankings with tiers 5-8. If you draft one of these guys as your #2 goalie, you're carrying a bit of risk that they could implode. There are guys in tiers 5-7 that have upside, whether it's needing an injury to the other goalie on the team, or being the #1 on a team with a lot of variance. Let's get to it!
