No Barkov, no Tkachuk, no problem for Florida on Monday and Tuesday. They posted two consecutive 4-3 wins over Boston and Columbus respectively, with Sam Reinhart leading the way. Reinhart scored two goals on Monday against the Bruins before scoring a goal and two assists against the Blue Jackets. It's an excellent start to the season for Reino despite missing his most common linemate. I was still aggressive in my Reinhart ranking despite the regression that was coming because I've always believed in his ability. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a career high in assists to counter the drop off in goals. He played over 21 minutes on Tuesday and as long as the other two are out, I expect Maurice to lean on Reinhart heavily. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
As good as the Jets have been, Friday was a huge boost for their team. Not only did they get Wheeler, Schmidt and Perfetti back, Nikolaj Ehlers returned for his first game since the second game of the season. He immediately went onto a line with Pierre-Luc Dubois and Kyle Connor, and it worked out as well as it has in the past. In the 4-2 win over the Lightning, Dubois scored two goals with four shots and four PIM, with Connor having a goal and an assist plus four PIM of his own. Sunday was even better with Connor scoring a hat trick, Dubois dishing four assists, and Ehlers scoring a goal and two assists. This line has the potential to be one of the best in hockey yet again, and with Dubois playing the best hockey of his career right now, it can be even better than last season. All of them are easily top 50 players with Connor in the top 20, and the other two with the potential to push towards that, but probably a step behind that. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
It's been the longest break without playing hockey in Evgeni Malkin's career. He sure didn't show any rust in his return. Malkin was outstanding on Tuesday, scoring two goals and an assist with four shots playing 17:21 in the 4-1 win over the Ducks. Everything we wanted to see from Malkin in his season debut was there. Top power play unit? Check. Centering the second line? Check. Quality minutes? Check. He'll even have better linemates once Rust returns. I'm not expecting Malkin to be a top 20 player, but top 50 certainly seems within reach given how well the Penguins power play is clicking. If you stashed him, then you're going to make out extremely well if he can stay healthy. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
We're keeping it moving here at Razzball with the Top 40 defensemen. If you didn't see the top 20, you can read that here. I have some good news as well! JKJ, who writes on the baseball side of things, is going to be helping me out with hockey this year. He's going to have a weekly post during the season to focus on streaming. As of now, the plan is for that to come out on Thursdays to cover the weekend since streaming is prevalent on Friday and Saturday. Additionally, he's going to do quick team previews for the entire league. Look out for those starting next week! Now let's get to the top 40:
It's time to look back at both of my posts about undervalued and overvalued players from preseason. I did ten players for both, and I'll break down each player and what went right or what went wrong. I have to say that there were quite a lot of correct predictions, especially in the overvalued. Eight of the ten predictions were clearly correct, but oh boy was there one big miss! I will not hide that prediction in shame because that would serve no purpose. If you want to look back at this posts, you can find them here and here, but it won't be necessary. Let's get to it!
While he's not getting the attention that he received in Vegas' inaugural season, Jonathan Marchessault has quietly had a terrific campaign. His best game came on Wednesday, where Marchessault had two goals, two assists, and five shots leading Vegas to a 5-2 victory over the Sharks. This let Vegas become the first team to clinch the playoffs this season, something that has been a formality for months already. Marchessault now had 13 goals and 22 assists in 46 games, along with a +12 rating, 37 PIM, and 147 shots. In other words, he's a plus across the board with elite PIM and a strong shot rate. At 30 years old, Marchessault has shown no signs of slowing down. He's getting easier matchups now which is helping him thrive on the second line. He looks every bit of a top 100 player going forward, with the upside of being top 50 if he has some shooting luck in a season like he did in his one season in Florida. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
Your early leader in goals two weeks through the season is Max Pacioretty. Patches had a hat trick on Tuesday putting eight shots on goal in the process while adding two penalty minutes. That gives Patches six goals in seven games, along with a whopping 32 shots in 7 games. His linemate, Mark Stone, has arguably been the best player in the league to this point, so the opportunities are going to be there for Patches to have a monster season. After a disappointing first year in Vegas, Patches has really found his game again. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
The title says it all. Today, I'm going to hit on the ten guys that I like most to break out this season. With the season a week away, I won't have to time to do a ton of sleeper posts, so I decided it would be best to highlight these players and then follow it up with players I expect to disappoint this season in tomorrow's post. Let's get to it!
We’re going to keep the rankings rolling today with my defensemen tiers. As a reminder from the goaltending rankings, I will be ranking the guys in order, but I am putting more focus on tiers than the exact rankings of players. Please, blog, may I have some more?
We've seen this story before. Last year, upper management called out Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin for poor play. This year, it was Jim Montgomery. Benn had one goal through 20 games, but he now has three over the last two games. Benn scored two goals and an assist with five shots and two PIM in the 6-1 win over the Canucks. This came after a goal and an assist on four shots against the Oilers. He wasn't going to shoot 2% forever, but Benn did not look good over the first six weeks of the season. That said, we've seen a big hot streak from him before so there is hope he can do it again. The schedule looks fairly good over the short term so I'm expecting Benn to turn this nice stretch into a hot streak. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
We're six weeks into the season now which seems like a good point to update my hold/stream list. Obviously things can change fairly quickly for some players, but it's still good to address what has drastically changed since the opening of the season. Let's get to it!
Hey guys! Sven here back with another Buy/Sell/Hold. I will simply be looking at what these particular players have done performance-wise so far this season, and what I anticipate. Let me know if you guys like this type of content!
