Cory Schneider has been atrocious all season and Keith Kinkaid has had a brutal December. Enter Mackenzie Blackwood into the crease for the Devils, and the former second round pick has immediately caught fire. Blackwood posted his second straight shutout on Monday night, stopping all 25 shots he faced in the 4-0 win over the Canucks. He’s now allowed six goals total over six appearances in net over the last two weeks. Do I expect this to keep up? Obviously not. That said, the 22 year old could take over for the rest of the season, becoming the goalie of the present sooner than anticipated. In dynasty leagues, he’s a must own for the long term upside. For redrafts, it’s a closer decision, but the schedule is somewhat favorable this month (at least in terms of opponent, there are a fair number of away games). If you want to grab him and see what happens, I’m all for it. You don’t have much to lose, but perhaps he can be a difference maker for you for a few more weeks or more. Let’s take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
Monday’s Games
Ryan Johansen – Goal and two assists with three shots. The shot rate has fallen back off to a poor level, and the penalty minutes have dried up. He should still be owned, but it’s nowhere near as good as it could be.
Mattias Ekholm – Two assists with a shot and two PIM. I’m more likely to leave him on the wire with Subban back, but with all the injuries to defensemen right now, I’m fine with grabbing him as a bottom end guy.
Rocco Grimaldi – Goal and an assist with five shots. Grimaldi is the classic AAAA player. Easy pass.
Viktor Arvidsson – Goal and an assist with three shots. I’ve been an aggressive ranker of Arvidsson the past two seasons, and I could see a monster second half for him. He needs to stay healthy, but Forsberg’s imminent return will help Arvy even more.
Miles Wood – Goal and an assist with four shots. It was encouraging for Wood to get PP time and get both points there, but he’s a bottom end streamer right now mostly for PIM / hits and SOG.
Sami Vatanen – Goal and an assist. He’s an easy fade at this point.
Jack Eichel – Left the game due to an upper body injury. Housley said it’s not serious, but the Sabres need him back ASAP or they’re screwed.
Robin Lehner – 39 saves on 40 shots in the 3-1 win over the Sabres. Big revenge game from Lehner, who is still widely available in leagues but needs to be owned everywhere.
Curtis McElhinney – 22 saves on 23 shots in the 3-1 win over the Flyers. He’s easily been Carolina’s best goalie this season so hopefully he sees more volume going forward. He’s a quality streamer outside of the worst matchups.
Phil Kessel – Goal and two assists with four shots. He’s on a massive tear lately to be on pace to top last season’s 92 points. The shot rate has taken a big drop down which is unfortunate. Hopefully he gets back to shooting at that elite level.
Sidney Crosby – Goal and an assist with two shots. Crosby has been his usual dominant-self, especially lately with three consecutive multi-point games.
Mikko Koivu – Goal and an assist with four shots. Koivu was pointless in the previous eight games so he’s back to middling streamer status.
Henrik Lundqvist – 39 saves on 40 shots in the 2-1 win over the Blues. The reports of the King’s demise appear to have been premature. He’s still only a middling #2 goalie because of the poor wins and high GAA, but the save percentage is still solid to better.
Ryan Dzingel – Two goals on four shots. It all comes down to whether or not you can stomach his plus-minus. I would lean towards elite streamer but it’s close.
Bobby Ryan – Goal and an assist with two shots. Bottom end streamer at best.
Pierre-Luc Dubois – Two goals and two assists with three shots. Dubois is having his breakout this season as he approaches being a top 50 player already. The 20 year old is filling in the 1C role admirably in Columbus. It’s just a shame that as he continues to get better, Panarin will probably be leaving.
Cam Atkinson – Goal and two assists with two shots, +5. What a year for Atkinson who is up to 24+18 with almost four shots per game. This first line is entering the conversation with a few others to be the best in the league.
Artemi Panarin – Two assists with three shots and two PIM, +5. Panarin is right in line with last season’s totals except with 5-10 more assists. Pretty damn good. Unless you’re in a hits league, because 4 hits in 37 games is somewhat comical.
Zach Werenski – Two goals on six shots. Solid, yet unspectacular season from Werenski. It’s crazy to think that he’s still only 21 years old, so even though he’s fallen off since his rookie campaign, there’s still tons of upside.
Dustin Brown – Goal and an assist with three shots. I would consider Brown an elite streamer at this point. It’s close to a hold, but with only 6 PIM instead of last season’s 58, I have a little bit tougher time keeping him. I don’t mind if you do though.
Anze Kopitar – Two assists with three shots. The reason I don’t mind keeping Brown is that he still plays with the wizard known as Kopitar. He’s finally starting to pick things up, at least in the assists department.
Brayden Point – Goal and an assist with five shots. He’s playing in a shutdown role and has 23+29 in 40 games. It’s simply bonkers. We have to expect some regression since he’s shooting 21.7%, but even still we’re looking at a borderline top 20 guy.
Nikita Kucherov – Goal and an assist with four shots and two PIM. Speaking of bonkers, Kucherov has stormed into the league lead in points. His seemingly slow start in October has been more than erased as Kucherov averaged close to two points per game over November and December.
Andrei Vasilevskiy – 35 saves on 36 shots in the 2-1 OT win over the Ducks. He’s had a couple rough outings mixed in but he’s easily been the #1 goalie this season when healthy.
Phillip Danault – Two goals on six shots. He’s quite the hot schmotato right now with 9 points in his last 5 games. You can boost him to top end streamer for now, but don’t expect Danault to have turned into a holdable player all of a sudden.
Brent Burns – Goal and an assist with eight shots. Brent Burns doing Brent Burns things! Although the -4 rating is pretty rough.
Erik Karlsson – Two assists with four shots and two PIM. Karlsson has been the best Corsi player in the league this season and the results are starting to show. He’s positioned for a massive second half.
Evander Kane – Two assists with five shots and twelve PIM. That’s the Evander that we know and love!
Joonas Donskoi – Two goals. Bottom end streamer.
Sean Monahan – Five assists with three shots. I won’t go over everyone for the Flames as they scored an eight ball on the Sharks, but they were carried by the studs once again. Johnny Gaudreau scored two goals and two assists while Elias Lindholm had a goal and two assists. This line is putting a bigger claim seemingly every night for the best line in the league.
Matthew Tkachuk – Two goals and two assists with five shots and ten PIM. That’s the line of the year right there. I’ve been a massive Tkachuk fan since before his draft, but I didn’t think he had this type of offensive upside. If he can get his shot rate up, he could be a borderline first round pick in the future. Think Corey Perry in his prime.
Andrew Copp – Two assists with five shots. Nothing to see here.
Brendan Lemieux – Two goals and two PIM. Lemieux is a high upside, low floor prospect. He’s nowhere near fantasy relevant yet, but it’s worth monitoring how he develops.
Leon Draisaitl – Two goals on four shots. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had 1+1 while Connor McDavid dished two assists. Same old for the Oilers.
Tuesday’s Games
David Pastrnak – Goal and an assist with six shots. Patrice Bergeron also had a goal and an assist. Now that the Bruins have Bergeron back, look for them to cement themselves in third place in the Atlantic.
Juuse Saros – 32 save shutout in the 4-0 win over the Flyers. It’s been a tough season for Saros but I expect improvement going forward. I’d stream him in almost all matchups.
Viktor Arvidsson – Two goals on six shots. See Arvidsson, Viktor above. I promise I wrote it before tonight’s game!
Brandon Pirri – Goal and an assist with four shots. Hotter than a pistol! Keep streaming him while he’s on fire.
Marc-Andre Fleury – 17 save shutout in the 2-0 win over the Kings. Doesn’t get much easier than that for Flower. Boy, do the Kings suck.
Wednesday Streamers
Sam Bennett (0.0%) – To be blunt, Detroit is terrible, and Bennett is adding a ton of PIM to decent enough scoring lately.
J.T. Compher (1.2%) – Compher remains on PP1 and L2 for the Avs which is all he really needs to make an impact.
Nikolay Goldobin (0.6%) – He’s still with Pettersson and Boeser and the Senators are a mess to put it politely.
That’s all for now guys. Depending on the amount of action in tonight’s games, I’ll either be back Thursday or Friday morning. As always, feel free to ask any questions, leave any comments, or give any suggestions below. Thanks for reading, take care!
