LOGIN
In a game that was overshadowed by Provorov's refusal to wear the Pride jersey in warmups, Kevin Hayes continued his All-Star season with a hat trick against the Ducks.  With his six shots, Hayes is approaching three shots per game, and playing at a 75 point pace, easily the best of his career.  The Flyers have been much better over the last month, with Hayes being one of the focal points.  He's erased his horrible plus-minus which is enough to make him a bottom end hold in all format.  Let's take a look at what else happened on Tuesday night:
As fun as it is to make fun of Toronto's Stanley Cup drought, it's very impressive when somebody breaks one of their major records.  On Saturday, Mitch Marner did just that, getting a point in his 19th consecutive game, scoring twice on five shots.  Toronto fans love to make Marner their whipping boy, but this should give him a respite until the playoffs come along.  The shot rate is slowly creeping back up for Marner, which is a necessity if he's going to approach last season's point total.  He's a bit behind at even strength, but he's managed to be even better on the power play.  Marner is as safe as it gets in fantasy at this point and remains in the top 20.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
The Canucks have been showing signs of life lately, especially offensively.  Right now, there's no better cure for early season woes than going against the Ducks.  On Thursday, Vancouver scored eight goals, and their big offseason acquisition led the way.  Andrei Kuzmenko had a hat trick and an assist, giving him eight points in his last four games.  He's found great chemistry with Pettersson (more on him later) and Kuzmenko has kept his spot on the first power play unit.  He's on the fringe, but for now, I would definitely hold while he's this hot.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
We're finally at opening night for the NHL season after two day games in Europe at the end of last week.  I'll be back on Thursday doing my usual daily notes for the first two nights, but today, I want to hit on a few topics quickly.  I want to discuss both games in Europe and what I took away from the Predators and Sharks.  Then, I want to do a quick preview of Tuesday's and Wednesday's games highlighting some stuff that I'll hit on in Thursday's post.  Then, I want to mention a few teams I'm higher and lower on than consensus when it comes to this season's expectations.  Let's get to it!
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!
For those that didn't see part one of my recap of the trade deadline, you can read it here.  I'm going to get right into Part Two below.  And away, we go! Arizona acquires the right to Jack McBain from Minnesota for a second round pick.  All indications were that McBain wasn't going to sign in Minnesota so the Wild tried to get something for his rights.  I assume Arizona will do him the favor of burning a year off his ELC for him to sign.  There's some upside here long term, but nothing for now.
For my last scheduled post outside of the bracket challenge for the next few months, I'm going to review my bold predictions from before the season.  My goal was to get three or more, did that happen?  Let's find out!  For those that want to read the entire post, click here.  1) Evgeni Malkin leads the league in points.  And a massive whiff to start!  Malkin was injured a lot (what else is new) and wasn't as good as usual when he played.  Even if he was, he was never catching McJesus.
Injuries have robbed us of an amazing Cale Makar season.  The good news is that he's back now and dominating games on a consistent basis.  Makar had three assists with four shots in Colorado's 5-2 win over the Ducks on Monday.  That brings Makar up to a point per game on the season with a +12 rating in 22 games that isn't a fluke at all.  We've seen a slight uptick in his shot rate this season, but a big jump there is what it will take for Makar to move into being a top five defenseman instead of being a middling to bottom end #1.  With how well he plays in his age 22 season, I have no doubt that it's coming.  For dynasties, I think he has to be the top defenseman.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
Mika Zibanejad was looking like the biggest bust of this season near the halfway point.  Well, it's changing pretty quickly and amazingly, it wasn't the Sabres that turned it around.  Last week, Zibanejad had three goals and three assists against the Flyers.  It was so fun that he did it again eight days later!  On Thursday, Zibanejad doubled down with his second natural hat trick and six point game in rapid succession against Philadelphia in the 8-3 win.  That brings him up to 10+16 in 32 games, not exactly lighting the world on fire, but within reason.  He's still over three shots per game, so while a repeat top 20 season is out of play, a top 50 season is still within reason.  As I said at the time, Zibanejad is prone to huge hot streaks, and I think 17 points in 7 games qualifies.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights: