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Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful! Well, fantasy baseball drafts are in full swing (pun relatively unintended), and I’m knee deep in preparations and writing for those. And I’ve been sick for three days. But…HOCKEY IS BACK! And I’m pretty excited to have an 11-game schedule of matchups to run down for y’all on the last Tuesday night of games before the Friday afternoon trade deadline. As for more names on the trade block? Well, I can guarantee this guy isn't going anywhere.
After missing the playoffs for fourteen straight seasons, I keep waiting for the Sabres to slump, but instead, they keep getting better.  On Friday, they had a big 3-2 regulation win in Florida.  If that wasn't enough, on the second of a back to back, they absolutely destroyed Tampa 6-2, including a 5-0 lead less than two minutes into the second period.  Only the Colorado Avalanche have more regulation wins this season than the Sabres.  What's been different this week is that Josh Norris has actually been in the lineup.  Norris had an assist with three shots against the Panthers, before scoring two goals against the Lightning.  As has been the case for Norris for four straight seasons, he's been hampered with injuries.  The good news is that he's dominated when he's played this season, sitting with 8+12 in 22 games.  The shot rate is poor so I wouldn't necessarily hold, but he's an elite streamer who probably belongs on the fringe.  Ride the production while you can.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the weekend:
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful! It was a night to remember for the Sabres and their franchise defenseman on Tuesday night. Rasmus Dahlin scored one in the first, one in the second, and then finished off the hat trick with an empty-netter in the third. The 3 goals and 2 assists were a career high single-game output for the 25-year-old Swede, and brought his point total up to a robust 42 PTS in 48 GP.  It wasn’t all Dahlin, though, as the rest of the Sabres brought their scoring sticks with them on their trip North of the border. Tage Thompson (1G, 1 A), Alex Tuch, Jack Quinn, and newly extended Josh Doan all tickled the twine for the Sabres, and helped to extend their newest win streak to 4 games. 
As a Buffalo fan, I experienced plenty of pain in my sports fandom.  For the first time this millennium, the Sabres and Bills are doing well at the same time, and while it might only last a few more days (I feel good about the Bills Saturday though!), I'm certainly going to enjoy it while it lasts.  I'm a hockey fan first, having gone to games 3, 4, 5 (in Philly), and 6 the last time that the Sabres were in the playoffs.  I was in college and wasn't even able to buy a beer at the games!  Here we are, almost fifteen years later, and the Sabres are finally looking like a real time.  Their best forward led the charge the last two days.  Tage Thompson dished two assists and added two shots in the 5-2 win over the Flyers on Wednesday.  He followed it up with one of the games of the season on Thursday, scoring a hat trick with two assists in the 5-3 win over the Canadiens.  Tage is up to 25 goals and 24 assists in 46 games with a 3.5 shots per game pace.  He's now tied for fifth in the league in goals, and second in even strength goals behind MacKinnon.  This is after leading the league in even strength goals last season.  Now, if only the Sabres power play can ever sustasin some success, and Tage could push for a Rocket Richard.  As is, we're looking at a premier goal scorer and a top 20 fantasy forward, which makes him a top 25 player.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last two nights:
There's not much that a slam dunk Hall of Famer can do to surprise you, but with how poorly the last two seasons have gone for Steven Stamkos, last night qualified.  Stammer scored four goals by the end of the second period on Thursday, finishing with nine shots on goal in the 7-2 win over the Blues.  Look, it couldn't be going worse in Smashville overall.  That said, he's getting some trade buzz, and a game like yesterday is going to do wonders for the chances of someone taking on his contract.  He did have six points (4+2) in the seven games before Thursday, so it didn't come completely out of the blue.  For now, he's in elite streamer range while he's hot.  Let's take a look at what else happened on Thursday night:
Happy Wednesday, Razzball faithful! We had some red-hot NHL action last night with 10 games on the schedule! But no one was hotter than that little devil, Arseny Gritsyuk: 1 G (7), 2 A (9), +3, 3 SOG. The New Jersey rookie is still getting bottom-six minutes (14:33 TOI) and PP2 time (2:19), but he’s making the most of his limited action. The three-point night pushes his first-year total to 16 PTS in 30 GP and puts him on pace to record a respectable 50 points by the time April rolls around. Arseny was certainly on fire last night, but with a deep forward group ahead of him on the depth chart, Gritsyuk is going to have to add another couple of points on that 9.7 shooting percentage to get an increase in playing time.  If he can consistently put up more nights like this one, and one of New Jersey’s Top 6 forwards has a setback, get ready to pounce on the 24-year-old Russian in those deeper leagues if you need some scoring help. Was that the only Devil to bring the heat last night? Did we have any other players setting the fantasy hockey world on fire?
First off, I just wanted to apologize to everyone for not having the usual Monday morning post this week, but after traveling this weekend, I wasn't able to carve out the time to do a proper summary of things around the NHL.  The good news is I'm here now, and it's time to heap some more praise on the #1 goalie in fantasy right now, Logan Thompson.  Thompson recorded his 100th win on Sunday, getting a 39 save shutout in the 2-0 win over Columbus.  Thompson is sitting with an outrageous 1.96/.925 on the season, proving last season wasn't a fluke.  There's just no way Hockey Canada keeps him off the Olympic team now, right?  No matter how much politicking kept him off the Four Nations team because McPhee was butthurt about Thompson being mad he had to backup for Hill, he's clearly one of the three best Canadian goalies.  Do I think he'll finish as the #1 overall goalie?  Probably not, but I'd be stunned if he's not in the top 5.  He's in elite form and the team in front of him is playing very well.  Let's take a look at what else happened over the last couple of nights:
It's not too often that we see 23 year old goalies in the NHL.  It happens more often now than in the past, but letting them develop in the minors after junior hockey is a must.  Jesper Wallstedt just turned 23 on Friday so he's been in while he was even younger, but this season he has cemented himself as an NHL'er.  He is an elite prospect, and the time might already be now.  Wallstedt had his second consecutive shutout on Saturday, stopping all 28 shots from the high powered Ducks.  Wallstedt has started six games and is 4-0-2 with a 2.10/.924.  There are a couple major things working in Wallstedt's favor.  One, the Wild are playing much better hockey as they get healthier.  Two, despite a win on Sunday, Gustavsson has really struggled.  It's far from a guarantee that Wallstedt turns into something this season, but if you're hurting in goaltending like a lot of people are, a speculation add of Wallstedt could pay dividends. 
Opening night is here!  MarmosDad will be back tomorrow with a division preview, while my next post is going to be on Friday recapping how teams look over the next few nights.  For now, I'm going to give you my ten bold predictions for the season.  Last season, I correctly called Hagel for 90 points and Ovechkin setting the goal record despite a rough 23-24.  Again, these calls are meant to be bold, so my goal is to his 3 of these, maybe 4.  If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, leave them below.  Let's get to it! 1) Matvei Michkov scores 90 points.   Look, I made Michkov 20th overall in my rankings just to show how much I like him this season.  His betting line for the season is around 66.5 depending on the sportsbook, so we're predicting Michkov to go way over.  If you want to read why I'm so bullish on Michkov, you can check out my Top 20 here.  As a secondary predicition, I'll say Zegras sets a new career high in points, which means he gets 66+.  A new start should be exactly what Zegras needed.
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. 
We're through the Top 100 forwards now, so it's time to mvoe to the blue line.  The plan for the rest of the week is to go through the Top 20 defensemen today, and then 21-40 tomorrow.  Then, MarmosDad is going to be back in the fold and will have his first post on Wednesday.  I'll move onto goalies on Thursday, before what I post on Friday.  It will either be the Top 200 list, or players that I like the most out of the players I've already ranked that you can target in the later rounds.  Let's get to those defensemen!