It’s been an incredible start for the Jets, and a big part of it is that the Jets coaching staff is finally playing their elite winger on the top unit. Nikolaj Ehlers had a hat trick and an assist with five shots in the 6-2 win over Columbus, before a goal and an assist with three shots in the 7-4 win over the Lightning. Ehlers has a whopping 8-9 in 12 games, dominating at even strength with solid PPP. This is while playing with a second line center who is clearly below average. What is Winnipeg makes an upgrade on Namesnikov eventually? I don’t think Ehlers needs it, but it couldn’t hurt. Regardless, career highs across the board are a near-certainty, and he could even beat the paces from his 28+27 in 62 games from three seasons ago. Let’s take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
Friday’s Games
Aleksander Barkov – Goal and three assists with two shots. It was great to see Barkov score back in Finland.
Sam Reinhart – Two goals and an assist with four shots. Reinhart says you can take your shooting regression and put it you know where.
Evan Rodrigues – Goal and an assist with two shots. Borderline elite streamer while on the first line with these two.
Aaron Ekblad – Three assists with three shots. First good game for Ekblad, who is on the fringe of 12’ers. The shot rate completely crumbling really hurts his value.
Matt Duchene – Two assists with three shots. Duchene is a clear hold as he continues to play fantastically.
Esa Lindell – Goal and an assist with three shots. That was not the Finn that I expected to have a big game. Nothing to really see for fantasy anymore.
Bo Horvat – Goal and an assist with eight shots. Not the best start to the season, but the shot rate is excellent. Horvat is on the fringe depending on team needs.
Maxim Tsyplakov – Goal and an assist with two shots and two PIM. Tsyplakov really stood out the entire game. He’s a middling streamer with upside.
Anders Lee – Two assists with five shots. Somehow Lee is taking four shots per game despite only sniffing three per game once six seasons ago. Truly bizarre. That alone makes him a middling to solid streamer.
Jason Zucker – Gordie Howe hat trick. Zucker has been one of the few bright spots for the Sabres. He’s a solid streamer as long as he stays on PP1.
Bowen Byram – Two assists with three shots and two PIM. Byram has done very little. He’s just outside owning in 12’ers because the shots are dreadful.
Alexis Lafreniere – Goal and an assist. Despite the lack of PP time, Lafreniere is worth owning.
Igor Shesterkin – 40 saves on 41 shots in the 2-1 win over the Senators. It’s been a typical Igor performance so far, i.e. one of the best goalies in the league.
Josh Morrissey – Goal and an assist with five shots. Morrissey is piling up the assists so far with 13 already, so it was nice to see the goal and five shots.
Victor Hedman – Two assists with three shots. Hedman has provided everything we could have hoped for so far. He’s at a point per game and over three shots per game.
Kirill Kaprizov – Two goals and an assist with two PIM. Kaprizov is playing at a level we haven’t seen from him before. He’s a top five player right now.
Mats Zuccarello – Two assists with a shot and two PIM. Clear hold again everywhere.
Dan Vladar – 22 save shutout in the 3-0 win over the Devils. Vladar has been above average so far and has a case to be held everywhere. He appears to have the 1A job for now, bare minimum.
Blake Coleman – Two goals on four shots. The shot rate is still there, but Coleman is more in the middling streamer range.
Saturday’s Games
Matt Duchene – Goal and an assist with two shots. See Duchene, Matt above.
Sam Reinhart – Goal and an assist with four shots. Can’t stop, won’t stop!
Brad Marchand – Goal and an assist with four shots. After a slow start, Marchand has six points in his last five games. There’s no doubt that he needs to be held everywhere still.
Joonas Korpisalo – 20 save shutout in the 3-0 win over the Flyers. After a rough start, Korpisalo has allowed one goal in his last two games combined. Granted, both were against the Flyers, but I feel good about streaming Korpisalo again, outside of the worst of matchups.
Phillip Danault – Goal and an assist with five shots. It’s been a rough offensive start to the season for Danault, who is stuck in the bottom end streamer range now.
Kevin Fiala – Two assists with four shots. Nice to see Fiala bounce back from the scratch.
Alex Laferriere – Two goals on three shots. That brings Laferriere to a shocking eight goals already. He’s an elite streamer while he sticks on PP1.
Connor McMichael – Two goals on four shots with two PIM. An incredible start to the season for the former first round pick, with 7+5 in eleven games. The more encouraging game came Sunday, where he played over 21 minutes in the loss to Carolina. McMichael is on the fringe with a lean towards holding now.
Alex Ovechkin – Goal and two assists with four shots. Just an incredible start to the season for Ovechkin, who has 7+7 in eleven games. Love to see it.
Aliaksei Protas – Goal and an assist. Solid streamer through and through.
Dylan Strome – Goal and two assists with four shots and two PIM. Strome is finally delivering on his top three pick pedigree. Easy hold everywhere.
Tim Stutzle – Goal and an assist with two shots. The shot rate isn’t there, but it’s hard to complain when Stutzle has 16 points in eleven games so far.
Anton Forsberg – 22 save shutout in the 3-0 win over the Kraken. It’s been up and down, but the overall numbers of Forsberg are solid. He’s streamable in most matchups.
Dylan Larkin – Two power play goals on four shots. The one assist in eleven games is pretty rough, although it’s nice to see the seven goals. It’s also good to see Larkin averaging over 20 minutes per game.
Cam Talbot – 31 saves on 32 shots in the 2-1 win over the Sabres. It talks to the incompetency of these teams that this game ended 2-1. This should have been a 6-5 game. Talbot has been fantastic and is a clear hold everywhere, despite being in a split with Lyon.
Sidney Crosby – Two goals on three shots. Malkin moving onto Crosby’s wing has really brought the best out of Crosby offensively.
Alex Nedeljkovic – 25 saves on 26 shots in the 3-1 win over the Canadiens. Nedeljkovic is the #1 in Pittsburgh right now, putting him in play for anyone that needs goaltending help. There is a low floor though.
Colton Parayko – Two goals and an assist. Parayko has played his way onto the fringe. He’s receiving a massive workload and has eight even strength points already. Slam dunk hold in blocks leagues.
Nathan MacKinnon – Goal an an assist with six shots. Cale Makar also had a goal and an assist. Both of them are desperately trying to get Colorado to tread water until the wingers start to return (Lehkonen is back tomorrow as mentioned last Friday). They’re the #1 forward and #1 defenseman so far, no surprise.
Gustav Nyquist – Goal and an assist. Middling streamer without the PP time.
Steven Stamkos – Goal and an assist. Rough start from Stammer in Smashville, but I’m certainly not dropping him. I have faith that he’ll figure things out.
Roman Josi – Goal and an assist with four shots. Josi is pushing 4.5 shots per game, which is unheard of from a defenseman. With one goal on 49 shots, it’s safe to say some positive regression is on the horizon.
Nick Bjugstad – Two assists with a shot. The minutes aren’t there right now to have him on the fantasy radar.
Logan Cooley – Goal and an assist with two shots. Very good start to the season from Cooley, who is a bottom end hold.
Brett Howden – Goal and an assist with four shots. Still have no interest.
Noah Hanifin – Goal and two assists with six shots. This game doubled Hanifin’s point total on the season. Now that he correctly lost PP1 to Theodore, Hanifin is on the fringe.
Conor Garland – Two assists. Garland has been very good, although he’s stapled to Pettersson, who has been dreadful. He’s a solid streamer who can be on the fringe with quality PP1 time.
Pius Suter – Two goals on three shots. He’s on the fourth line with no power play time. No thanks.
Sunday’s Games
Artemi Panarin – Two goals on five shots. Absurd start to the season for Panarin, sitting at 9+9 in eleven games.
Mika Zibanejad – Three assists with three shots. Based on the eye test, Zibanejad has looked awful, so the Rangers put him with Panarin and Lafreniere, and boom, three assists right now. We could see a big revival if this sticks, with a downtick in value for Trocheck.
Nikita Kucherov – Goal and an assist with four shots. 10+10 in twelve games with almost four shots per game. Seems good.
Vladislav Namestnikov – Goal and an assist, as did Cole Perfetti. The second line is really rolling, although most of that is from Ehlers. Perfetti is a solid stremaer while Names is a middling one.
Mark Scheifele – Goal and an assist with three shots. Scheifele has this performance in his locker, but admittedly, I didn’t see this amazing start coming. That said, none of it looks particularly fluky, so I’m not looking to sell high.
Jeremy Swayman – 23 save shutout in the 2-0 win over the Kraken. Safe to say that the Bruins are back to going all out defensively. Definitely great to see for both goalies.
Martin Necas – Goal and two assists with three shots and two PIM. What a ridiculous run from Necas, who has twelve points in his last five games.
Dmitry Orlov – Two goals on three shots. Orlov has played his way back onto the fringe in 12’ers despite the lack of PP time.
Jared Spurgeon – Two assists with two shots. It will be interesting to see how Spurgeon looks after ramping up, but for now, I’m not particularly interested in 12’ers.
Filip Gustavsson – 27 saves on 28 shots in the 2-1 OT win over the Maple Leafs. It’s sure looking that last season was the outlier for Gustavsson.
Leon Draisaitl – Goal and two assists with three shots. Really elevating his game with McDavid down.
Zach Hyman – Goal and an assist with three shots. Naturally, Hyman gets his first two goals without McDavid. Yay, regression. I’m still not worried about Hyman, assuming you realized he was never repeating last season.
Connor Bedard – Three assists with five shots. I was extremely aggressive ranking Bedard and I feel good about that right now. The assists are very good and the shot rate is fantastic.
Taylor Hall – Two assists with four shots and two PIM. Hall is only a bottom end streamer with his current workload.
Three Point Challenge: We will bring back the Three Point Challenge with this Tuesday’s games. For those of you that are new here, you pick a player to get three points in one of the games on Tuesday. You can’t pick somebody who is Top 10 in the league in points. For the first 4-6 weeks, we will use last season’s top ten, so you can’t pick Kucherov, MacKinnon, McDavid, Panarin, Pastrnak, Matthews, Draisaitl, Rantanen, Miller, or Nylander. Saints and I have two correct picks. Since I’m going to the game, give me Tage for three points.
That’s all for now guys. I’ll be back on Wednesday recapping the action from the next two nights. As always, feel free to ask any questions, leave any comments, or give any suggestions below. Thanks for reading, take care!
