I certainly won't be doing any victory laps after the first weekend, but Sam Bennett made me look good on Saturday, scoring a hat trick on six shots in the 5-1 win over the Islanders. Bennett finds himself in the same role as last season when he blew up after the trade deadline. Remarkably, he's still available in 40% of leagues on ESPN. I assume nobody that reads my posts would be in a league where Bennett is on the waiver wire, but if he is, grab him right now. Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
There was plenty of craziness on Thursday night, but the Detroit-Tampa game takes the cake. The Red Wings took the lead 6-3 in the third on the back of four, count them four, Tyler Bertuzzi goals, only to blow the game and lose in overtime 7-6. Bertuzzi looks to be a solid streamer, but it's going to take a lot more to hold him. He's been inconsistent in the past, and he's unvaccinated. That means he won't be able to play any games in Canada. The Red Wings already have a one off in Montreal next Saturday and another game in Toronto the week after. It's simply too hard to hold a player that's missing games for something other than an injury. Let's take a look at what else happened on the ice on Thursday night:
The best goal scorer of all-time started off the season on the right foot. Alex Ovechkin scored two goals and added two assists in the Washington 5-1 win over the Rangers. Please, blog, may I have some more?
The season is upon us! Tonight, the Lightning start another title defense while we also get the debut of the Kraken. I’m going to write up some quick notes from around the league to get everybody up to date on what’s happening around the league. Please, blog, may I have some more?
With the season less than a week away, it's time to give some bold predictions. I have 5 from JKJ that I'll start with and comment on then italics before I do 10 predictions of my own. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section on any of these!
JKJ's Five Bold Predictions:
1) Philipp Grubauer finishes outside fantasy's Top 10 goalies (standard formats). Riding the Colorado coattails last season and playing for an expansion team this season will catch up to him.
Below is my list of the Top 200 players for this season. I’ll have a post on Friday with bold predictions from JKJ and myself. There’s a couple things I’d like to mention before I start the list. Please, blog, may I have some more?
We wrap up the forward rankings today with the Top 100. If you've missed the early parts, you can start with the Top 60 here and go backwards from there. In a few days, I'll have my Top 200 list out and before you know it, the season will be starting. Let's get to it!
61) Bryan Rust - The point per game season will probably be an outlier, but Rust has a high floor no matter who his center is. Like Guentzel, I wouldn't be surprised if the shot volume goes up a tad while Crosby and Malkin are out because the Penguins will need the puck on their sticks more.
We're keeping things moving right now with the Top 60 forwards. For those who missed the beginning of the forward rankings, you can see the Top 40 here. JKJ is cranking out his team previews right now so be sure to check those out! There's a lot of great stuff in each section. And with that, let's get going!
And now we move to where around half of your starters come from. The guys who really put up the points, the forwards. Because I cover so many forwards in the Top 20 overall (18 to be exact), this post will cover the top 40 forwards instead of only the top twenty. From there on out, each post will be 20 players. Let's get right to it!
We're keeping it moving here at Razzball with the Top 40 defensemen. If you didn't see the top 20, you can read that here. I have some good news as well! JKJ, who writes on the baseball side of things, is going to be helping me out with hockey this year. He's going to have a weekly post during the season to focus on streaming. As of now, the plan is for that to come out on Thursdays to cover the weekend since streaming is prevalent on Friday and Saturday. Additionally, he's going to do quick team previews for the entire league. Look out for those starting next week! Now let's get to the top 40:
We're moving out from the crease to the blue liners in my rankings. Today, I'll be going through the top 20 defensemen with the Top 40 coming out later in the week. Let's get right to it!
1) Cale Makar - Covered in the Top 20 overall here.
2) Dougie Hamilton - The top defenseman last season by a fairly wide margin, Hamilton moved from Carolina to New Jersey. It's a little worrisome, but I still expect big things from Dougie. I wouldn't be surprised if Hamilton ends up getting more minutes than he did while he was in Carolina.
Things have changed quite a bit with goaltending in the NHL since I started writing at Razzball. When I started, there were tons of workhorses with very few teams using a platoon. Now, more than half of the teams have a duo where the backup is getting at least 1/3 of the starts, if not a complete split. Among the few workhorses that we have left, there are only six that I completely trust to be a #1 goalie this year. I am breaking down all of the goalies in the NHL into tiers (and ranking them within in each tier), but be sure to understand how your league format can change the value of certain players. For example, if you're in a head to head league, Marc-Andre Fleury is going to be more valuable than in a roto league because the volume should be there. In a roto league where you have a set number of starts, someone like Ilya Sorokin, who, barring injury, should start 35-40 games, gets a boost because the quality of starts matters a lot more than volume. If you have specific questions, ask them in the comments section, but I'll have a quick note on everyone when necessary. Let's get to it!
