At this point in the season, we've seen a ton of players bounce back from poor years in 2015-16. There are a couple guys in the forefront and one of them is Jakub Voracek. He went from 81 points to 55 (only 11 goals) in part to a dreadful first 20 games. Well, the people that bet on a return to his previous status are reaping massive dividends in the early going. In the 6-5 win over the Oilers Tuesday night, Voracek scored a goal and three assists with five shots. He's now sitting on 28 points in 29 games; add in a 90 PIM and ~300 shot pace and Voracek looks like he's on the verge of being a top 25 player again. Given the quality of the Flyers power play unit and his linemates, I don't see Voracek slowing down. Shoutout to Veritas for picking him to get 3 points! Here's what else happened over the last two nights:
Even by his lofty standards, Alex Ovechkin had quite the weekend. He went into the weekend with 497 career goals and managed to score two goals in both games he played to get 501. On Saturday, he scored the opening goal and then a coast to coast overtime winner to beat the Rangers 4-3 on his fifth shot of the game. On Sunday, he scored number 500 from his patented spot by the left hashmark and added 501 late to put the Capitals up 7-1. Here are the players who got to 500 goals faster than Ovechkin: Gretzky, Lemieux, Bossy, Hull. That's it. And those guys did it in an era where the game was wide open, not the dead era Ovechkin plays in now. I've said it before and people didn't agree in the comments but I still believe it; Ovechkin is the greatest goal scorer in NHL history. Here's to hoping he sticks around because he has a decent shot to break Gretzky's record which would be incredible given the low goal scoring in this era plus he missed time for two lockouts. Here's what else happened around the league this weekend:
I talked about Leo Komarov at length in two places yesterday here. In the stream section of my article, I said the following: "He’s much more highly owned than my normal stream calls but I don’t understand why he’s available in over 60% of leagues. The Leafs should control the game against the Avs (everyone does against the Avs) so Uncle Leo should get some chances." Then he went out and had his best game of the season, scoring two goals on five shots while adding an assist and two PIM. I love it when I'm right! If you didn't do so, grab Komarov immediately because he has another prime matchup tonight against the Coyotes. Here's what else I saw on a busy Monday night:
So Ryan Johansen finally decided to accept a reasonable offer from John Davidson and agreed to ink a 3-year deal worth 12 million. The deal is back loaded and he gets 3 million for each of the first two seasons and then 6 million in the final year of the deal. The AAV settles in at 4 million per, which is a pretty decent price tag for a guy that has point-per-game production written all over him. Word has it that he'll be in the lineup for the Jackets' season opener this Thursday, so if you took the risk and drafted him you should get him in your lineups right away. I've heard stories of foolish fools dropping Joey in various leagues giving up on him signing, and if that happened in your league, you know what to do.
