Hi, everyone, it’s LackeyDrinksOnMe!
It’s been a crazy application season with a ton of great kids deciding to apply early decision. Unfortunately this means I’ve been busy even on weekends, but things are finally slowing down a little bit and I can get back to a weekly long-run streamer column. These pickups are meant for filling more than just a single spot start, looking at days that have fewer games being played so you can gain an additional three or four starts a week from a single skater.
Not a lot of truly slow games this week, but Monday, Wednesday, and Friday all have only ten games, so there’s a few teams we can take advantage of.
It seems like forever and a day since Matt Duchene requested a trade from the Colorado Avalanche. His wish finally came true on Sunday in a massive three-way trade between the Avs, Senators, and Predators. The Sens acquired Duchene, the Predators received Reid's favorite Kyle Turris and the Avs get a ton of future assets. For the Senators, I'm not a big fan. Is Duchene better than Turris? I would say so and Duchene had one more year on his contract than Turris. However, adding a ton here, including a first round pick and Shane Bowers, their first round pick from the 2017 draft, is a lot to add. For Smashville, adding Turris without losing anyone from the current roster besides Samuel Girard is a nice move for a team positioned to go for it. It may be more futures heavy than Colorado originally wanted but boy, did they get a ton in this move. They effectively received 2 1sts, 3 2nds, a third and Andrew Hammond for goaltender depth in the organization. I love this move for Colorado long term, like the aggressiveness of Nashville using futures to push (and like signing Turris immediately to a 6/36 deal), and question Ottawa's decision here.
For fantasy, Duchene probably gets a small boost because he should slide onto a line with Hoffman and Stone right away. Assuming Turris plays with Forsberg, I think this move could help him as well (at the least it's neutral). I'm very interested to see if Girard plays for the Avs right away. He looked great in his brief stint for Nashville and the former second round pick could becomes fantasy relevant immediately if he's in Denver. I'll be sure to talk more about this trade with Reid on Tuesday's podcast. Let's take a look at what else happened this weekend around the league:
On the most recent podcast, I talked about how the Stars were going to start riding Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn for big minutes with their depleted depth. I stated that it was only a matter of time until they broke out and despite the tough matchup against St. Louis, they were elite options in the Three Point Challenge. Well, I wish I went with my first thought because Seguin got there and then some while Benn reached it with an empty net point. Seguin finished with 4 assists, 4 SOG and +3 while Benn had 3 assists, 6 PIM, +4 and a shot. Obviously this doesn't come as a shock, both were top 10 players with ease the last two seasons and should continue to say so barring health issues. Look for them to carry the Stars in the next week or so as they have 6 games in 9 nights starting Saturday. Next week, they get Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver. As someone who has both of those guys in multiple leagues, I'm licking my lips thinking about what they can do. Let's take a look at what else happened the last two nights around the league.
Hey everyone! Reid and I are back and after a quick review of something being thrown on the field at the Bills game, we start looking at a bunch of different things around the league that happened over the past five days. Please, blog, may I have some more?
I said on Friday that I don't like leading off with the same person back to back, let alone the same month. Well, Devan Dubnyk deserves to be the lede again with his third consecutive shutout on Saturday stopping all 29 shots against the Stars. For those of you who own Dubnyk in weekly head to head leagues, congrats on winning the goaltending categories this week! Three starts, three shutouts for my most frequently owned goaltender, go me! In the big picture, this doesn't really change things for me; Dubnyk is a #1 goalie and will continue to be so. While it matters less in fantasy hockey (it still has an impact for streaming and matchups), this shows me that the Wild are for real this season. I harped on it in the preseason and on the podcasts (mostly the over-under) but Bruce Boudreau does amazing things for hockey teams. I'm sure we'll be talking about it on Tuesday's podcast. Anyways, let's take a look at everything that happened around the league this weekend.
Coming off an ugly loss to the Predators, it was a near certainty that the Kings would come out firing on Tuesday night. They certainly did but it wasn't enough because of Devan Dubnyk. Dubnyk had arguably his best start of the season stopping 38 of 39 shots, including a few massive point blank saves, in the 2-1 win over the Kings. After laying a huge egg against the Devils, Dubnyk has had three excellent starts in a row with this one being the best. The win puts the Wild one point ahead of the Avs for the last playoff spot in a battle that should come down to the wire. This is perfect for Dubnyk owners because he should start at least 7 of the Wild's final 8 games, if not all of them. Keep him in your lineup every time he starts. Here's what else I saw around the league on a busy Tuesday night:
If you've been following along with me all year, or at least the last month, you know how much I like Mark Scheifele. The 22 year old was having an excellent start to the year until an injury sidelined him for 11 games. He came back and started well only to take off when he moved up to the first line in the wake of Bryan Little's injury. Scheifele is in the midst of his best stretch to date. After his two goal performance on Thursday, Scheifele topped it with his first career hat trick on four shots in the 4-2 win over Montreal on Saturday. He then scored a goal on five shots in the 2-1 defeat against the Oilers. Scheifele now has 21 goals and 20 assists in 54 games with an excellent plus-minus, solid PIM and a near-elite shot rate. Scheifele is conservatively a top 50 player for the rest of this season and going forward. As I've said before, I want him on all of my teams next year. Here's what else I saw around the league this weekend:
Today is the NHL trade deadline (more on that later!) but there’s a good chance that the biggest name that moves went yesterday. After being with Carolina since they drafted him in 2003, Eric Staal was traded away from his brother Jordan to join up with his brother Marc for the New York Rangers. Please, blog, may I have some more?
To start the year, John Gibson was stuck in the AHL because the Ducks wanted to get him playing time. It took an injury to Fredrik Anderson for Gibson to start getting playing time and now Bruce Boudreau has realized that Gibson, their goalie of the future, is their present as well. On Thursday, Gibson had his second consecutive 1-0 win stopping all 21 shots against the Oilers. On Sunday, Gibson stopped 19 of 20 shots in the 4-1 win over the Jets. In 15 starts, Gibson has an absurd 1.63 GAA and a .932 save percentage. After an absolutely dreadful start, the Ducks are in a playoff spot thanks mostly to Gibson. Here's what else has happened around the league going back to the 31st of last year:
