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After his big breakout last season, Martin Necas has had a rough go of it this season.  Much like his team, he’s started to turn his game around over the last month.  Since coming back from a two week injury on January 19th, when Necas had 9 goals on the season, he has seven goals in seven games, culminating with a natural hat trick in the first period against the Avalanche on Thursday.  On top of the goals, Necas has been taking a ton of shots.  He’s averaging five shots on goal per game in the past seven, with 4+ in six of the last seven games.  If you’re lucky enough to be in the 20% of leagues that Necas is available in, grab him immediately.  If you’ve held onto him, here’s to hoping he keeps up this form to make up for the poor first half.  Let’s take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:

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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:

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Mason McTavish had an ADP of 250 this season.  I had him ranked at 176th overall.  While I wasn’t fully convinced he would make a huge leap in his sophomore season, his upside is so high that I thought he was a worthwhile gamble towards the end of your drafts.  It’s paid massive dividends in the early going, and McTavish had his best game to date on Monday.  He scored two goals and an assist with five shots and two PIM, including the shorthanded winner with 13 seconds left in the game.  McTavish now has 5+6 in 11 games with a good shot rate, plus-minus and PIM.  McTavish is still available in almost 70% of leagues, which is blasphemous.  I’ve been holding onto him since the draft in a ten man league, and think it’s become clear that he needs to be held everywhere.  In dynasties, he’s a top 50 keeper.  Let’s take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:

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The trade deadline has come and gone with teams making their final moves, either to set up their playoff push, or to sell for the future.  I covered all of the trades on this very site over the last week, so if you want to get my previous analysis, go back and take a look.  Today, I’m going to take a look at early returns on all of the trades.  What role are these players getting, how are they doing, etc.  Let’s get to it!

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With so many major trades happening over the weekend, I feel like the only choice was to write about them tonight.  I’ll have some quick hits about what happened on the ice over the weekend at the end, but this post is going to be focused on trades.  The #1 player on the market, Timo Meier, was traded to the Devils on Sunday night, uniting him with his Swiss teammates Hischier and Siegenthaler.  In totality, the trade looks like this:

 New Jersey Devils acquire forwards Timo Meier and Timur Ibragimov, defensemen Scott Harrington and Santeri Hatakka, goalie Zachary Emond, and a 5th-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft from the San Jose Sharks in exchange for forwards Fabian Zetterlund and Andreas Johnsson, defensemen Shakir Mukhamadullin and Nikita Okhotiuk, and a conditional 1st-round pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, a conditional 2nd-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, and a 7th-round pick in the 2024 NHL Draft. 

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While the NFL steals the spotlight during Championship Week, the Rangers started the weekend blowing out two top teams in Seattle and Carolina.  They scored six goals in both games to bring their winning streak up to five.  While it was a group effort on Friday, Artemi Panarin stole the show on Saturday.  The Breadman scored four goals and an assist with five shots and two PIM against Carolina, after dishing an assist against the Kraken.  Gallant shuffled the lines after Tarasenko’s arrival, with Vincent Trocheck and Jimmy Vesey playing with Panarin again, setting up two of his goals.  It was Panarin’s third three-point game in his last eight, as he starts to heat up.  While he hasn’t approached his point production of his first three seasons in New York, Panarin is still on pace for 90+ points.  That shows what kind of floor he has and why he’s worthy of an early draft pick every year.  Despite lower shots and PIM/hits, even his below average year (by his standards) is a top 50 player.  Who knows, Panarin could finish the season on a massive heater and finally get to 100 points.  Let’s take a look at what else happened over the weekend:

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As good as the Jets have been, Friday was a huge boost for their team.  Not only did they get Wheeler, Schmidt and Perfetti back, Nikolaj Ehlers returned for his first game since the second game of the season.  He immediately went onto a line with Pierre-Luc Dubois and Kyle Connor, and it worked out as well as it has in the past.  In the 4-2 win over the Lightning, Dubois scored two goals with four shots and four PIM, with Connor having a goal and an assist plus four PIM of his own.  Sunday was even better with Connor scoring a hat trick, Dubois dishing four assists, and Ehlers scoring a goal and two assists.  This line has the potential to be one of the best in hockey yet again, and with Dubois playing the best hockey of his career right now, it can be even better than last season.  All of them are easily top 50 players with Connor in the top 20, and the other two with the potential to push towards that, but probably a step behind that.  Let’s take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:

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I hope all you loyal Razzballers are doing well!  We’re just over a month away from the NHL season starting, and with football starting tonight (Go Bills!), it’s time for people to transition to fantasy hockey drafts.  I’m going to start my rankings next week, but for today, I’m going to look at every team’s offseason.  Some teams made massive changes and will have a longer write up e.g. Calgary, and others who did minimal will have a short blurb e.g. the Islanders.  Let’s get to it!

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We’ve reached the final week of the season with every team having 2-3 games left.  Hopefully you’re all still in contention in your leagues so these games matter to you.  In this post, I’m going to take a look at each day to see how you can plan accordingly to maximize starts and stream the best players possible.  Let’s get to it!

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It wasn’t that long ago that Vladimir Tarasenko requested a trade from the Blues. It wasn’t that long ago that Tarasenko could have went to Seattle in the expansion draft.  Now, St. Louis has to be thanking their lucky stars that he’s still on the roster.  Tarasenko had his biggest game of the season on Thursday, scoring a hat trick on four shots and adding two more assists in the 6-2 win over the Sabres.  Tarasenko now has 31+41 in 67 games, with a great chance of setting a career high in points.  It’s a remarkable turnaround for the Russian who is certainly a top 100 player for drafts next season.  I don’t see him cracking the top 50, but it’s great to see Tarasenko playing great hockey again.  Let’s take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:

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I’m going to do the second half of the Playoff Manifesto today.  If you missed Part One, you can check it out here.  Let’s get right to it!

NASHVILLE PREDATORS (4,4,3,3)

This schedule is right up there for best in the league.  Fourteen games is as good as it gets.  They close each week with a back-to-back.  The only nitpick is that there are no games on light days, but few things are perfect.  Josi and Forsberg can both push for best player in the fantasy playoffs if things break right.  Ryan Johansen and Tanner Jeannot are both elite streamers in the stretches where Nashville has three games in four nights.

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We’ve seen every team since the Trade Deadline occurred, which means we have information on what has changed for each team.  Today, I’m going to the players whose value has changed, either by being traded, or by replacing somebody who was traded.  Let’s get to it!

Claude Giroux stepped right on the first line and first power play unit for Florida.  Giroux had two assists and four shots on goal playing 17 minutes in the 4-3 win over Montreal.  Giroux is obviously a hold, but there’s top 50 upside getting to play with Barkov.

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