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Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful! Well, yesterday was my final Top 100 Starting Pitchers article and Year in Review. (Click on that link if you want to check it out!). Now, I can officially, and undistractedly, present to you a fully focused MarmosDad who has shifted entirely into hockey gear! Does that mean I’m fully invested in tracking the ins and outs of the preseason rankings that I ran through in September?  You betcha! Will I be ready to answer any questions you throw at me here each week with nothing but my day job, fatherhood, mentoring, planning, coaching in school and winter workouts for our baseball team, and the general ridiculousness of life getting in the way? Absolutely!
It was a very difficult start to open the season for the Ducks, opening at Vegas before hosting the Panthers.  Here we are on Sunday night with the Ducks winning both games.  They stormed out to a 4-0 lead against Vegas, holding on to win 4-3, before beatong the Panthers 3-2 in overtime.  Leading the charge?  The man who broke the NHL pay scale this offseason, Leo Carlsson.  Carlsson had a goal and an assist against the Golden Knights before dishing three assists against Florida.  Last season, Carlsson started the year with 34 points in his first 25 games before injury derailed him.  If he can stay healthy and play to his potential, the 21 year old has a chance to reach 100 points.  I had him ranked just outside the top 50 overall because we saw that he could be a fringe top 100 guy for an extended period, but I'd bet on him being inside the top 50 come the end of the season.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
My thoughts over the years on goaltending haven't changed, so I'm going to use a similar introduction that I've used in the past. We’re onto the last position in my rankings, the netminders.  Goalies make a huge difference in fantasy hockey, but they also have the most variability from year to year.  There’s only a handful of goalies that we can consistently count on every season to finish in the top ten, and that floor is why they are ranked as high as they are.  Because of their unpredictability, I’m very unlikely to take a goalie in the first four rounds, especially in head to head leagues.  Even if your league reaches for goalies early, don’t panic.  Last season, I was extremely high on Greaves and was able to get him as my G3 everywhere.  He finished as the #7 goalie overall.  I had Blackwood as G5 and with his early injury, suggested partnering him with Wedgewood, who hilariously ended up as the #1 goalie.  Meanwhile, top ranked goalies such as Hellebuyck and Bobrovsky massively disappointed, and they were far from the only ones.  Patience is key for drafting goalies.  I’m going to separate all of the goalies into tiers, so let’s get to it!
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful! It’s your guy, MarmosDad, back for another preseason rundown of aggregate rankings and additional information for 2026-2027 Fantasy Hockey. Two weeks ago, I shared that the tentative plan was running an aggregate of rankings from various sources around the internet, and giving some input as to which ones made sense to me or, more likely, which players were going to be underdrafted in your fantasy drafts this year. 
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful! As Viz said on Sunday, we’re officially 1.5 weeks from the end of the regular season!  Hopefully, you finished up your head-to-head playoffs on a strong note, or you have enough of a lead in your roto-points leagues that you can enjoy the final 3-4 games without feverishly refreshing your league app. If you have the luxury of being able to relax, enjoy it! More than a few NHL teams are facing a tough road ahead for the next 9 days. Why? Well, it's time for the playoff push! We've got three teams tied for first place in the Atlantic division. One point separates three teams at the top of the Pacific Division. And our wild card spots could be filled by any of a half dozen teams in either conference. Quite a few teams were jockeying for playoff position Tues
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful! Apparently, all we needed to do to wake up the sleeping Panther kitties was to reunite the Tkachuk brothers in the Sunshine state (even if one was only visiting) and to tell Linus Ullmark that he was back with the 2020 Buffalo Sabres. Our favorite Swedish goalie, whose name rhymes with a giggle-worthy body part, had one of the roughest starts of his career in Florida on Tuesday night.  Florida struck with pointed claws just 63 seconds into the game, and Mr. Ullmark was yanked after allowing 5 goals on just 16 shots. Oh, Linus.  It was a kick in the stomach for a surging Sens squad, who found themselves out of a wild-card spot by just two points when they started the day. By the end of the night, Ullmark and the rest of his Senators brethren were on the wrong side of a 6-3 loss to the back-to-back Stanley Cup champs.
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful! Matthew Knies (2 G, +1, 2 PIM, 4 SOG, 2 H) is one of the only bright spots shining on the sinking ship that is the Toronto Maple Leafs’ season. His second-period shorthanded goal was a thing of beauty. Knies intercepted a weak Bruins pass, pushed aside Mason Lohrei, who looked a lot less powerful than his 6’5” frame would suggest, like an empty paper plate, and threw a nifty head fake on Jeremy Swayman before roofing a nice lickety-split wrister over the netminder’s glove. As much as this was a nice opportunity for the Bruins to pad their lead over Columbus, Montreal, and Detroit in the extremely tight playoff race, this tiny snapshot in time was an equally important reminder for Leaf fans that the team needs to do a lot of other “retooling or rebuilding” that DOES NOT involve trading their 23-year-old sniper.
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful! I can say that I’m glad I didn’t take a sick day last Friday to watch the “excitement-challenged” trade deadline unfold the way that it did. I suppose for something to unfold, it would have needed to be packaged up neatly to begin with. All that means is the asking prices were far too high on the “sellers” pieces, and the buyers were not willing to pay them. Nicolas Roy for a conditional first-round pick? No thanks. Corey Perry for a second-rounder? Wow.  Is there ANY Perry worth that kind of premium?
After missing the playoffs for fourteen straight seasons, I keep waiting for the Sabres to slump, but instead, they keep getting better.  On Friday, they had a big 3-2 regulation win in Florida.  If that wasn't enough, on the second of a back to back, they absolutely destroyed Tampa 6-2, including a 5-0 lead less than two minutes into the second period.  Only the Colorado Avalanche have more regulation wins this season than the Sabres.  What's been different this week is that Josh Norris has actually been in the lineup.  Norris had an assist with three shots against the Panthers, before scoring two goals against the Lightning.  As has been the case for Norris for four straight seasons, he's been hampered with injuries.  The good news is that he's dominated when he's played this season, sitting with 8+12 in 22 games.  The shot rate is poor so I wouldn't necessarily hold, but he's an elite streamer who probably belongs on the fringe.  Ride the production while you can.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful! What did the Buffalo say to his boy before dropping him off at college? I don’t know for sure. I mean, I’m not a creeper or an obsessive stalker of bison, but I do know one thing. Despite the frosty January nights in Western New York, there’s one group of hockey players that is about as hot as the surface of the sun and is certainly not saying, “Brrr.” The Columbus Blue Jackets spoiled Buffalo’s win streak on Saturday (5-1 CLM), but the Sabres were BACK Tuesday night at home vs Vancouver. Early on, I had things written up looking like we'd get a blowout from Buffalo, but the Canucks made it interesting with a late push and three straight unanswered goals after the 10-minute mark of the third period.  In the end, it was the Sabres’ 11th win in their last 12 games, and a leapfrog over the Panthers into the top four spots of the Atlantic division. Was that the only exciting bit from last night’s schedule?
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful! I know you’re all getting things ready for the holiday, so let’s keep this brief and focused. There’s one group of NHL players who are certainly NOT on Santa’s naughty list this year. They'd also be perfectly happy to find just one thing underneath the tree tomorrow morning. A written guarantee from Santa that they’ll break the team’s 14-year playoff drought this April. I swear. I’m not lyin’. Buffalo is actually good. Sabres fans can thank Alex Lyon - 24 saves on 26 shots, and the 3-2 OT win at OTT.  Don’t look now, but the Sabres have won 7 straight games!
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful! It’s been a bit of a wild ride for Morgan Geekie (2 G, +1, 3 SOG, 1 PPG, GWG). The Geekie Squad was the 67th overall pick in the 2017 draft and wasn’t considered much of a prospect after a 25-point season (in 66 games) for the 2015-2016 Tri-City Americans of the WHL. It was the following year’s breakout that put Geekie on the map (72 GP, 35 G, 90 PTS), and convinced the Carolina Hurricanes that he was worth a gamble in the third round of the NHL Entry Draft.