Paul Stastny (2 G, 2 A, 4 SOG, +2) had his best game since, well, as long as I can remember last night with four points on four shots. Not since he last spent time centering the RPM line with Milan Hejduk and Ryan Smyth has he looked so good. When Stas burst onto the scene back in ’06 he convinced the fantasy hockey world that he’d be as good as gold posting 78 and 71 points in his first two seasons, respectively. He was rolling on into his third year when he broke his forearm, had surgery, recovered, and then returned only to break his foot and need to get that surgically repaired too. Showing real grit and a heaping load o’ talent, he came right back the next year with 79 points in 81 games and made you think injuries? What injuries? He’s good to go! Sadly since then, not so much. Despite staying healthy he wasn’t able to breach the 60 point mark in each of his last two seasons, finishing with 57 and 53 points, respectively. And then came last season, the lockout shortened season. It’s hard to use last year as any sort of metric because of the wild amount of variables you can’t account for like how hard a guy worked out in the offseason, who he trained with, if he played overseas, the list goes on. Still, when you take Stas’ 40 GP last year and project out over 80 games he was on pace to score just 48 points, a career low. Effin’ eh, what happened?! Nothing much between this season and last considering this four point explosion comes on the heels of a nine game scoreless skid. He’s on pace to break that seemingly elusive 60 point mark this season and normally at this point I’d say don’t count on it, but with as good as the Avs are this season and as good as Stas once was, he might well make it. If not, he could always get Hejduk out of retirement and get the Avs to trade for Smyth, right? Anyway, here’s what else I saw in fantasy hockey yesterday:
Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne stopped all 19 Phoenix shots to pick up his second straight shutout as the Predators knocked off the Coyotes 3-0 Thursday night. Rinne had to be at his best as the game was scoreless heading into the the third period. Please, blog, may I have some more?
It always fascinates me when a player and a Head Coach get into an altercation (verbal or otherwise). When I try and parallel the situation with my own job it just doesn’t make any sense. Please, blog, may I have some more?
So it was the ultimate Ticker Tease in Washington last night. 10 Goals were scored, and yet not a single point from Ovechkin, Stamkos, St. Louis, Backstrom, Lecavalier, Semin or Green. Please, blog, may I have some more?
Foozeball was in full force today and I have to give it up to Peyton Manning. Indy is absolutely lost without him and it makes me wonder why he didn’t win MVP every year since 2000. Please, blog, may I have some more?