This is the time of the year your poor phone takes a beating on the number of refreshes you do each night. If you’re anything like me, I have one game on the television and another on last channel. I’ll also have my phone in one hand and a cold beverage in the other.
In my head to head pool this week is semi-finals, and I had a buy first round. It’s always aggravating starting off the week with two players on my roster going day-to-day, but that’s how it goes, and you just have to do your research and pick up the best viable option(s) going forward that week. With a buy the week before I snagged Versteeg off the free agency; as he was red hot after being traded, and was playing on the top line with Kopitar and Lucic. Unfortunately he is banged up and sitting in my IR+ roster spot, I’m still hopeful he will return at some point this week.
Fortunately I was able to get John Klingberg back into my lineup and slot Versteeg in his IR+ spot, meaning I didn’t have to use a move, which was great as I only get four per week. My other injured player was Perron, he too was hot after being traded, and I picked him up when one of Nash or Klingberg was hurt. After looking at who had how many games this week and how my schedule laid out for the week, I had noticed there would be a number of forward games on Saturday; so many I would have to sit a player or two. So I decided to pick up a defenseman for the week as I only run with three right now while Carlson is still on the IR. With the Islanders having four games this week, I went with Boychuk even though they have been cold as of late. He had a useless first game going -2, but evened out the score last night as he finished +2 on the night. His last game of the week is Saturday, so I will likely use my final move of the week on Sunday and replace him, getting five games played out of the one slot. It’s a big week ahead; hopefully I’m at the table for the Championship round next week.
My rotisserie team has pretty much locked down first place with an absolutely dominant season. I was able to avoid the injury bug for most of the season, which always helps in any fantasy hockey pool. Of course a number of quality trades, bringing in Monahan, Pavelski and Couture (after he returned from his injury).
The HockeyBuzz SuperLeague (HBSL) is in the quarterfinals right now and we are down to the final eight players who will be battling for a shot at the title! Congratulations to those who have made it this far and best of luck going forward.
Keeper leagues are a whole other ball game right now. Most teams are content with their teams as the seasons dies down and participants just hope they can cash in with either victory or ending up with a high end pick if their team struggled this season. I’ve gone through the process this season of doing a full rebuild in a 45 man roster with 40 keepers. Taking over a team in a keeper where someone quit can be a tricky process, but I will share my trades and free agent pickups in a later blog.
It’s another busy night in the National Hockey League with eleven games lined up. There will be a number of backup goalies played in the next four nights, so be prepared to scoop one up if you need to fill a void and try and improve your stats between the pipes.
Starting Goalies:
(FLA) Luongo VS (BOS) Gustavsson (NJ) Wedgewood VS (PIT) Fleury (CAR) Lack VS (CBJ) Bobrovsky (ANA) Andersen VS (TOR) Sparks (MON) Scrivens VS (DET) Mrazek (LA) Quick VS (WPG) Pavelec (CLG) Backstrom VS (MIN) Dubnyk (VAN) Miller VS (NSH) Rinne (PHI) Mason VS (COL) Varlamov (DAL) Lehtonen VS (ARI) Domingue (EDM) Talbot VS (SJ) Reimer
*Bold is starting – Italics is probable*
Best of luck to everyone in their fantasy playoffs, I will update the starting goalies throughout the day.