I've been pumping Ondrej Kase's tires for a while now. The former 7th round pick scored his first career hat trick on Wednesday, putting five shots on goal against the Stars with a +4 rating. That brings the 23 year old Dane to 8+6 in 15 games with well over three shots per game. He's eliminated any doubt as to whether or not he's a hold; Kase needs to be owned in all formats. Sure, he's bounced around the first line and other spots, but it doesn't really matter at this point. There's no penalty minutes, but everything else looks great. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
I certainly didn't think I'd be writing about Peter Budaj at any point this year. After all, he played in a whopping one game over the past two seasons combined. Alas, we're here in December with Budaj being a major talking point of the NHL season. After Jonathan Quick went down, the expectation was that offseason signing Jeff Zatkoff would get the majority of the starts but when he went down as well, Budaj stepped in and has kept the job. He had arguably his best two performances over the weekend. Budaj posted a 39 save shutout in the 1-0 OT win over the Penguins before making 29 saves on 30 shots in the 1-0 loss in Boston. Budaj is currently #12 in the ESPN player rater among goalies making him a bottom end #1 or elite #2. With the news that Quick is going to be out until at least March, it's Budaj's job going forward. Despite that, Budaj is still available in over 40% of leagues. Can I explain it? No, not one bit. If you don't already own him and he's available in your league, grab Budaj. Let's take a look at everything that happened around the league the last three nights:
