Hey guys! Sven here with a look at the New York Islanders for 31 in 31! Over the next month, I will be taking a look at each team’s players to watch out for going into the 2018-19 fantasy hockey season: The 31 in 31 daily segment. This analysis features everything from surefire studs, to sleepers, to prospects that may make an appearance at some point this season. Please let me know if you guys enjoy this type of material! Reminder that the stat totals are from last season.
If you follow my writing at all, you know how much I love Brent Burns. I mean, how can you not love this face?
He's been among the most disappointing players in fantasy hockey to this point, mostly because he's found a way to have a horrible shooting percentage. Well, since my last set of daily notes, Burns is finally back on track! In his past three games, Burns has three goals and three assists with a whopping 22 shots on goal. There's still plenty of time for Burns to deliver an elite fantasy season with a monster second half. I certainly won't put it past the reigning Norris Trophy winner. I'm going to change things up a bit with this post. Since I'm a bit behind, mainly because of the site going down last Thursday night, I'm going to list every player, by NHL team, that I think is a hold or streamer in standard leagues, guys who become in play with hits, blocks and faceoffs added, and then add some information where necessary. Let's get to it!
The Razzball ranking committee of one (yours truly) has long been a fan of Brayden Schenn. Mid 20's in goals, about 30 assists, solid PIM, and elite special teams points made Schenn a main stay around the 100 overall mark in his time in Philadelphia. With the move to St. Louis in the offseason, I wrote the following about Schenn in my preseason rankings: "Schenn’s success will come down to two things: can he improve his even strength play in St. Louis while sustaining his power play prowess?" Well, the power play points are slightly behind the past, but my god is Schenn crushing at even strength. Schenn scored a hat trick on Tuesday night leading the Blues to a 4-3 win over Montreal. That gives Schenn 13+20 in 28 games this season, along with a mind-blowing +22 rating and elite penalty minutes. Schenn's career high in a season is 37 even strength points; he already has 25 this year! Even the biggest of Schenn optimists couldn't have seen this coming as he's pushing for the #1 forward spot in all of fantasy hockey. Kudos to everyone who drafted Schenn in the early to middle rounds and here's to continued success for the top six in St. Louis. Here's what else happened the last two nights around the league:
Minnesota played an excellent game on Thursday booking an impressive 5-2 win over the Blackhawks. Sadly for them, it came at a brutal cost. Charlie Coyle and Nino Niederreiter both left the game injured and were already ruled out for Saturday's game. Coyle was hit in the back of the leg with a shot while Nino looked to suffer an ankle injury that could cost him multiple weeks. Hopefully you have an injured reserve spot for both of these guys but Nino definitely should be held through the injury. With Mikael Granlund out as well, the Wild are getting extremely thin. So who gets a boost? Jason Zucker (1+1, 5 SOG) becomes must-own in 12'ers while Chris Stewart (2G, 5 SOG) moves back on to the streaming radar. We'll have a clearer picture tomorrow but this is a big blow to the Wild and fantasy teams in the short term. Here's what else happened the last two nights around the league:
Once you get outside of the top 200 overall, you're looking at the last 2-3 picks in a standard 12 man league. There are a few different ways you can go about making your last few picks. You can shoot for upside, get a couple safe players if you already have plenty of upside, fill out your last couple defensemen, grab a goalie out of desperation. I'm going to list a bunch of players in different categories that fall outside of my top 200 that you can target depending on what you're looking for. I'm not going to go into detail on these guys but I will put them in my order of preference. Here is my list:
For a team that missed the playoffs last season, there is so much on the line for the Islanders this year. The team caught a massive heater towards the end once Doug Weight took over behind the bench but it wasn’t enough. Please, blog, may I have some more?
The season is rapidly approaching the end so every development is increasing important! Reid joins me once again to look at a wide array of topics. We start off with an injury recap focusing on Steven Stamkos' imminent return, whether Zach Parise or Patrick Sharp are worth drafting next season and if Reto Berra is worth streaming. From there, we hit on the developing rivalry between the Flames and Kings (thanks Matthew Tkachuk!), where Nathan MacKinnon should be ranked next season and the bevy of college signings. What do we make of Clayton Keller, Brock Boeser, Tyson Jost and Charlie McAvoy now and in the future? What can we expect from undrafted college signings? All of the above is discussed before we preview Thursday's slate and make our Three Point Challenge picks. Be sure to make your pick in the comments section below. All of that and more on the latest edition of the Razzball Hockey Podcast brought to you by Seatgeek and Draft!
Here's what I said about Jonathan Marchessault in my season preview of the Florida Panthers: "Jared McCann and Jonathan Marchessault are the two Panthers I can see taking a late flier on in deep leagues... Marchessault scored 18 points in 45 games for Tampa Bay last season despite averaging only 12 minutes of ice time per game. When Tampa was hit with injuries, Marchessault filled in admirably. If Florida was hit by the injury bug, I could see both of these guys becoming relevant in 12’ers; for now they are potential waiting for their chance." And that's me quoting me! Well, Florida did get struck by the injury bug and while McCann didn't provide much value this season, Marchessault certainly did. The return of their two best players hasn't hurt Marchessault at all. In fact, it's helped him on the power play. He recorded his first career hat trick in the 7-0 win over the Blackhawk, which also included four shots and four PIM. That brings Marchessault's totals to 28+20 with 34 PIM and 2.5 shots per game in 67 GP. Not bad for a guy the Panthers signed for $750k for this season and next. The Panthers have an interesting offseason ahead to determine how their forward core is going to look next season. Regardless, I think Marchessault is worry of a late round pick next season. I don't think there's more upside than what he's doing this season but there's no complaints with a 34+25 per 82 games when he's not hurting you elsewhere. I expect the Panthers to be back in the playoffs next season with Marchessault providing some nice depth behind the big guns. Let's take a look at what else happened this weekend around the league:
I know evisceration seems like I'm going too far but the Panthers had control of their game against Toronto from the first shift of the game. Florida scored 18 seconds in and led the rest of the way winning the game 7-2. Their leading scorer was Thomas Vanek who notched four assists, a career high, with four shots on goal finishing +3. Vanek was struggling since arriving in Florida with only one point in five games while being -7. Now, his overall stat line seems pretty good after this explosion. The Panthers schedule is very fantasy-friendly down the stretch making Vanek as good of a streamer as there is. Is he worth holding? Well, that's to be determined. While the matchups are tough, the Panthers have three games in four nights starting on Thursday morning. I'm probably going to grab Vanek, ride him through the weekend and then proceed from there. Here's what else happened around the league on Tuesday night:
We've been talking up Jaccob Slavin over the past couple of weeks on the podcast as someone who can help your team if you're in need of assists. The increased workload as the season has progressed has push Slavin onto the fringe but his playoff schedule was enough to justify grabbing him. Well, if you were fortunate enough to do so, he just started off the fantasy playoffs with the game of his career. Slavin scored more goals than he had in the first 65 games of the season, registering his first career hat trick and added an assist in the 8-4(!) win over the Islanders. Look, despite this game, it's not going to be anything incredible down the stretch, but Slavin just had a five game assist streak. Add in that he's +18 and as mentioned above, the Hurricanes have more games left than anyone else the rest of the way, and I'd grab Slavin if you need defenseman help. Here's what else happened on a randomly busy Monday night around the NHL:
Antti Raanta has been very good when called upon this season for the Rangers. After recent developments, he's going to have a massive impact in the fantasy playoffs. Henrik Lundqvist is out for the next 2-3 weeks due to a hip injury allowing Raanta to be the guy for the Rangers. His strong play continued on Sunday stopping 23 of 24 shots in the 4-1 win over the Red Wings. Even after the recent rush of people going to grab Raanta, he's still available in two-thirds of leagues. If you're fortunate enough to be in your fantasy playoffs, stop reading right now, add Raanta and then come back and see what else happened over the weekend:
Reid and I are back and we are fired up about a bunch of stuff! We run down some injuries to start, notably in Pittsburgh, before we hit on the latest developments over the last few days. Among the notables are big games from Evgeni Malkin, Jack Eichel and Ryan Getzlaf, an under-the-radar hot streak from Henrik Zetterberg, three straight shutouts from Sergei Bobrovsky and Josh Ho-Sang's first career goal. Then we each let out some anger about Tom Sestito, the league hiding the expansion protection lists and NBC's simulcasting. From there, we close things with a preview of Thursday's games and make our Three Point Challenge picks. Be sure to make your picks in the comments section below. All of that and more in the latest edition of the Razzball Hockey Podcast brought to you by Harry's Razors, SeatGeek and Draft!
