The Oilers are peaking at the right time, as they've gone from battling for a playoff spot to battling for the Pacific Division. It started with a 5-4 win over the Coyotes on Monday, before a dominating 7-4 win over the Golden Knights on Tuesday. The man leading the way was Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who continued his career season. RNH had a goal and an assist on Monday, before following that up with a goal and four assists with two shots against Vegas. That brings RNH up to a whopping 96 points (35+61), blowing away his previous career high of 69 points. 96, much nicer than 69. McDavid and Draisaitl justifiably get most of the attention surrounding the Oilers, but the impact that RNH has made this season can't be understated. Adding a third 100+ point player to the mix is insane, and Edmonton has as good of a set of forwards as there is in the league. They're a bit light on games the rest of the way, but their schedule is among the softest in the league, so look for the studs to continue to crush. As for where RNH will rank next season, that's an extremely difficult question to answer. I have to expect some regression, but how much? Given the mediocre shot rate, I assume I'll have RNH towards the bottom of the top 50? If he's only a PPG guy, there's plenty of value but it would be a bit underwhelming compared to other guys in his range i.e. his floor is lower. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
We found a new level of ridiculousness on Thursday night. The Canadiens were in Florida and they managed to tie the record for the most goals in a first period in modern NHL history, and they did it in barely over 13 minutes! Both Montreal goalies allowed 3+ goals in the first 13 minutes, and Sergei Bobrovsky allowed goals on the first three shots he faced. My god. The Panthers ended up winning 9-5 to keep pace in the Eastern playoff race. The only player who made more than two points was Matthew Tkachuk, who had a goal and three assists to keep up his torrid pace. Thanks Aleksander Barkov for not getting three points when I pick him in the three point challenge! Anyways, Florida is battling hard for a Wild Card spot, so expect their studs to get all of the minutes they can handle. For playing all games against Eastern teams the rest of the way, Florida's schedule is fairly soft, so expect it to come down to the wire. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
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!
It's one of my favorite posts of the year! Sure, a lot of trades have been done in advance of the deadline, but there's sure to be more action today. Starting around noon eastern, I'll be updating this post with instant analysis on every trade that takes place. All of the moves from Wednesday and Thursday are below as well, with all previous moves in other posts.
With Tyler Bertuzzi injured and Jakub Vrana in the league's assistance program (best wishes to him), the Red Wings needed somebody to step up on left winger. Dominik Kubalik, come on down! Kubalik wasn't given a qualifying offer by the Blackhawks after last season, leaving him to sign in Detroit as a free agent. The first two weeks couldn't have gone better, especially the last weekend. Kubalik had a goal and an assist with 4 shots against the Blackhawks on Friday, before having a goal and two assists with six shots against the Ducks on Sunday. With eight points in his last four games, Kubalik is in must-own territory right now. There's no guarantee it lasts, but he's shown he can thrive next to Larkin and Kubalik has been a 30 goal scorer before, so we know he has the upside. Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
Kevin Fiala's first two games for the Kings left a lot to be desired. He didn't generate much in terms of chances, he took a stupid penalty in their opener against Vegas, and his ice time suffered as a result. His old team, the Wild, were coming off giving up seven goals against the Rangers and were big favorites to get their first win of the season. Instead, the Wild gave up seven goals again, with the Los Angeles top line leading the way. Fiala scored a goal and two assists with six shots in the 7-6 win, while Anze Kopitar dished three assists and Adrian Kempe scored two goals and an assist with three shots and four PIM. My biggest takeaway from this trio in the early going is that I was too low on Kempe this season. While he's not the focal point of the power play anymore, he's still vital to its success, and the addition of Fiala strengthened the top line. All of them are easy holds at the moment and I don't expect that to change. Let's take a look at what else happened on Friday and Saturday:
In the last few rounds of my draft, the best strategy is to take players with high ceilings. Odds are, even if you take the "safe" guy, you end up cutting that player to stream somebody else at some point, so you might as well target somebody who could turn into a hold. Today, I'm going to tell you the ten guys that I like the most as dart throws at the end of your draft. Last season, among the notable late hits I highlighted were Rasmus Andersson and Noah Dobson, with Victor Olofsson's rookie breakout a big win from the past. I'm going to use players whose ADP is after 180, which is 15 rounds in a 12 man league. Let's get to it!
The Panthers have won 11 in a row, and 14 of their past 15 games. There's been plenty of crazy games in this stretch that has them tied for the league lead in points. On Tuesday, they tied the game with less than four minutes left before they won it 20 seconds into overtime, and it was the usual suspects. Aleksander Barkov scored all three goals in the 3-2 OT win, with Jonathan Huberdeau assisting on all three goals. Barkov has a new career high in goals, 37, despite playing in only 63 games to this point. Additionally, Huberdeau now leads the league in points. Yes, that's correct, he leads the league in points. Both of them will be in the discussion to be first round picks in drafts next season. It's going to be great to see them in the playoffs, hopefully for longer than last time around. Let's see what else happened on Tuesday:
There's been plenty of bounce back players this season across the NHL. One of them who hasn't received the attention of others is Ryan Johansen. Johansen's career was strongly trending in the wrong direction the previous two seasons, including only 22 points in 48 games last season. He has been decent most of the season, but really took once he moved to the top line. His best game of the season was on Tuesday night, scoring his first career hat trick on seven shots in the 6-2 win over the Wild. Johansen now has 20+34 on the season with 51 PIM. Yes, Johansen's career has turned out to be a big disappointment with the way it was trending early on in Columbus, but it's nice to see him score 20 goals for the first time since 2014. Remarkably, he's still 29 years old, so this level of play can be repeated next season. For the rest of this one, Johansen is an elite streamer in standard leagues and a hold if your league doesn't include SOG as a category. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
It's that time of the year again. For those of you who haven't seen this post in the past, I will break down every team's schedule for fantasy hockey playoffs i.e. starting on this coming Monday, 4/4. I will note when a team has a back to back or a light day. A light day is a day where there are four or less games on the schedule, with the exception of Wednesday, 4/27. I am including that day where there are five games because it's the last day of the season where you'll need streaming, as the last two days both have a lot of games. I will do the teams in alphabetical order so it's easy to find everyone, and next to each team, there will be (A,B,C,D). Those numbers will be how many games the team has in each of the four weeks left in the season. For example, (4,2,3,3) means they have four games from 4/4 - 4/10, two games from 4/11 -4/17, etc. This post is going to be extremely long, so it will be broken into two parts, with part two coming on Monday. If you have a specific question about a team next week that will be in part two and you need it answered immediately, please let it be known in the comments section and I'll answer it for you. And away we go!
This will be the last hold/stream list of the season as we're about a month away from the end of the regular season. My plan is to start working on the Playoff Manifesto on Tuesday with the hopes of having it ready on Friday for everybody. Per usual, there will be notes in the list where necessary. Assume a 12 team league and I'm holding the starting goalie only unless noted. Let's get to it!
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.
