Hello again, Razzball faithful!
I’m very excited to be back on the hockey side of things for the 2025 season! When Viz sent out the ‘puck-beacon’ into the night sky, asking if anyone was down to help write some words about our beloved frozen fandom, I got that Flame in the belly again.
After I realized it was not indigestion, or Jarome Iginla, all it took was a quick message from Grey asking if I’d be interested in jumping back in on the word-Zamboni, and I was in.
Some of you might remember me from a few years ago when I wrote up some DFS for Viz here. Since then, I’ve been hammering out words on the baseball side most recently as our Top 100 Starting Pitchers writer for the last two years. You can check that stuff out here if you have a lot of time on your hands and/or have read through the divisional preview 25 times already.
As for me, I told Viz that I would be happy to preview the divisions and bring you names and some notes to help you get your squad up to snuff for the 2025-2026 season. After that, I’ll be coming back each Wednesday to do the Tuesday night recaps.
Tuesday was a rare day in the NHL where every team plays Thankfully, they stagger all of the game times, marketing it as "Frozen Frenzy." Arguably the marquee matchup of the night was Tampa Bay at New Jersey, and it certainly was the craziest game. The Lightning fell behind 2-1 before scoring five goals within ten minutes in the second period. In that stretch, Brandon Hagel had a natural hat trick, finishing the game with an assist as well. And yet, that still hasn't put him on the first power play unit . Regardless, Hagel is off to a fantastic start. I wasn't as far ahead of ADP on him as Guenther, but I was very bullish on Hagel. I'm not sure he'll get to the 90 points I attempted to wish into existence with my bold predictions post, but it's in play if he gets that top power play time eventually. Come on Cooper, do it already! Let's take a look at what else happened in the one Monday game and Tuesday night.
It was great to see Aleksander Barkov back in the lineup on Thursday, and if you didn't get him back into your lineup off injured reserve, well, that one is going to hurt for a while. Barkov scored a hat trick in the first period against the Canadiens and added two assists in the 7-2 win over the Canadiens. It hasn't been Barkov's best season to this point, but I'm buying Barkov going forward to get back to being well over a point per game. Florida has dug itself quite a hole in the playoff race and I expect Maurice to really ride their top six even more. Barkov's shooting percentage is also much lower than his career sh% (10.3 vs 14.0) so look for some positive regression in the New Year for the Panthers captain. Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
If I was going to pick a team to back up an eight goal game with a nine goal game, it would obviously be The Desert Dogs! The last few weeks have been very strange as a whole in the NHL, but this takes the cake. Arizona scored eight on Ottawa before scoring a nine ball, corner pocket on Detroit Tuesday. They were led by the one, the only, Nick Schmaltz, who had two goals and two assists in this game. That's 11 points and a +11 in two games! He's the best thing since Gretzky! While I like to joke, Schmaltz was on fire a week ago and then decided to get 11 points in two games. He clearly needs to be held for the time being. Let's see what else happened over the last two nights:
It’s that time again. Friday/Sunday stream targets to finish out the week. Get those claims in today so you don’t miss out! Unless you’re in one of them fancy same-day adds leagues. Another big weekend of streamable teams! Seven this time. Seven!
Note: For the sake of uniformity and convenience on my part, only players rostered in less than 50% of Yahoo leagues will be included. Also, a “***” denotes a priority stream, in my humble opinion.
