On New Year's Eve, I watched the Leafs - Islanders game in entirety. In the midst of a rough stretch, Matthew Knies stood out. Despite staying off the scoresheet, he was buzzing throughout the game, putting five shots on net in over 20 minutes of ice time. After being a passive shooter for almost two months, Knies was gunning regularly, which was encouraging. It felt like a big game was on the horizon, but we didn't get a big game. We got a massive game. Knies had one of the games of the season so far, scoring a hat trick against the Bruins. That's not all though. Knies also had two assists, six shots on goal, two penalty minutes, and had a +6 rating in the 6-4 win. Wow. He followed that up with another goal against the Flyers on Sunday. The return of Matthews can only help Knies. He's locked into a large role at even strength, and while he's not on PP1, Knies has played his way onto the fringe of 12'ers. Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
Frustratingly, I'm still a bit under the weather after ten days, but today, we persevere. I'm going to look at ten different players that I'm buying for the second half of the season. Later in the week, I'm going to look at players that I'm selling. I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas and had some time off to relax with your families. Let's get to it!
1) MacKenzie Blackwood - How is he still available in over 50% of leagues? In five starts with the Avalanche, Blackwood has four wins with a 1.82/.940. He's already been rewarded with a five year contract extension. We've seen Georgiev go on long tears with the Avalanche, and Blackwood has more talent than Georgiev does. The Avalanche are finally getting healthy, giving them the core of a good defensive team to go with all of their offense. Blackwood is a slam dunk top ten goalie for me the rest of the season. If you didn't grab him right away as I suggested, hopefully you're in a league where he's still on the waiver wire. Blackwood is must own everywhere.
It's been a disastrous season for the Wild, and it's hard to imagine them digging out of this hole. Monday was a lone bright spot, both for the team and their oldest player. The Wild beat the Islanders 5-0, with Marc-Andre Fleury posting a 21 save shutout. The win gave Fleury the second most wins in NHL history, passing Patrick Roy. It's been a very up and down career for Fleury. He was incredible in the 2008 playoffs getting Pittsburgh to the finals. His most iconic moment clinched the Cup the year after. There were a handful of years right after that where his poor play was the reason the Penguins were eliminated early in the playoffs. They won a Stanley Cup with him as the backup. He also saved them the next year when Murray struggled early in the playoffs to lead Pittsburgh to back-to-back cups. He carried Vegas to the Cup finals in their inaugural season. That's how I'm going to remember MAF. There were too many down years for him to be in that inner circle of all-time goalies, and his best generally wasn't among the current elite, as evidenced by him being a Vezina finalist once in 20 seasons. However, when he was at his best, it was incredible to watch, and that will put him in the Hockey Hall of Fame sooner than later. For this season, Gustavsson is back, so I expect them to split the games fairly evenly. He's a streamer in good matchups for now, but like most goalies, MAF can turn into a hold sooner than later, or be complete unusable. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
Fantasy Hockey Weekly Newsletter: Week 11
Hello everyone. Welcome to the eleventh edition of JOT This Down!
Keep the questions, comments, and concerns coming. I’ll be here all week to answer any and everything you may have.
I’ll be honest, I don’t have a good open for the weekend post. But “The Wire’ is indisputably the best TV show of all-time. I can watch it every time through and see something I didn’t before. Please, blog, may I have some more?
