It’s an odd week in the National Hockey League as there will be no games played on Thursday for American Thanksgiving. Which of course means all of the games will be crammed into the other days of the week; yet there is only one game on Sunday when Florida and Detroit square off. Keep that in mind if you are planning on saving any of your weekly transactions for Sunday.
Another thing to note is Friday’s games will start in the early afternoon as the Rangers and Bruins faceoff at 1pm Eastern. Make sure you have your lineups set ahead of time as you don’t want to miss any potential fantasy points. There will be a number of games in the afternoon Friday so be sure you are prepared or you will surely be kicking yourself for dropping the ball.
There are just a couple games this evening as Ottawa visits Dallas and the Ducks host the Flames. These should both be good games as the Sens have been good at keeping the puck out of the net lately and the Stars have been extremely productive with Benn and Seguin leading the way. Both Calgary and Anaheim are hungry for a win as they have both been playing sub-par hockey this season. Hudler will be back in the lineup for the Flames tonight, I have a feeling this could be a high scoring game for both teams.
Anderson will be in net for Ottawa and is coming off back to back shutouts making 61 saves in his last two games. Expect that streak to end as he faces a offensively hungry team in Dallas who averages 3.5 goals a game. Anderson is 8-4-1 and holds a .921 save percent with 2.61 goals against average; obviously the last two outings have helped pad his stats.
Niemi who has been splitting time with Lehtonen gets the nod tonight and is also coming off a shutout victory from Saturday night when Dallas defeated the Sabres. Niemi holds an 8-3 record with a .917 save percent and 2.41 goals against average. This game should be a dandy as the Sens have been good in November posting a 5-1-3 record.
Ramo will be between the pipes for Calgary tonight and has had quite the ride in the early going of this season between Hiller getting hurt and him being put on waivers only to pop back up shortly after to take back over the starting job. He’s been better lately but still only has a .901 save percent with a 3.04 goals against average and a 6-7-0 record.
The goaltending situation in Anaheim is certainly concerning as Khudobin will start tonight after he replaced Andersen last Tuesday after he was yanked. Perhaps John Gibson will get a call-up at some point this season if troubles continue in net. Khudobin is 3-3-0 with 2.44 goals against average and a .917 save percent; which isn’t bad considering how poorly the Ducks have been this season.
My predictions for tonight would be Dallas winning 4-2 and Calgary winning 5-3.
This is the time of the year that people will start to panic, so keep an eye out on the activity in your pool and see if people start to drop players they shouldn’t. Make sure you are the one to jump on that player or players and improve your team.
Later this week:
Be sure to keep an eye out for a free agent and trades blog coming up this week.
I hope everyone is doing well in their fantasy, any questions or thoughts feel free to ask in the comments section or private message me.
Thanks for reading and enjoy tonight’s games!