As we enter the final week of October, everyone is settling in with their fantasy teams and most players have kicked off the summer rust. It’s always amazing how hockey changes from October to February. Right now many games are high scoring, with more pucks being coughed up in the neutral zone in a period than your average game. Without any hard evidence facts to dazzle you with, I could only imagine the overall goals per game numbers are up right now from last season. I could be wrong, but it seems they are a lot of high scoring games so far this season. Last year being the lowest goal scoring season in decades; it would only make sense that this year is a high scoring affair.
There are already some heavy rebounds taking place this season. Players such as Krejci (12 points) who was hurt and missed a number of games, Cammalleri (11 points) has surprising in the early going and may be worth scooping up if he is available. Kuznetsov (11 points) is off to a booming start for the Capitals playing just seven games. Domi and Hanzal have been chipping in consistently for the Coyotes with 9 points each; so there are some new faces in the top 15 in the early part of the season.
The phenom Connor McDavid has 5 goals and 4 assists in 9 games, an excellent start for the young stud…I only predicted McDavid to score 67 points, so far he is on pace for 82, let’s hope the kid can keep it up.
Number of games played this week:
1 game: New York Rangers
2 games: Los Angeles
3 games: Arizona – Boston – Chicago – Columbus – Dallas – Detroit – Edmonton – Florida – Minnesota – Nashville – New Jersey – Ottawa – Philadelphia – Pittsburgh – San Jose – St Louis – Toronto – Vancouver – Washington
4 games: Anaheim – Buffalo – Calgary – Carolina – Colorado – Montreal – New York Islanders – Tampa Bay – Winnipeg
Starting Goalies:
(CLG) Ortio VS (NYI) Halak (ARI) Smith VS (TOR) Reimer (ANA) Andersen VS (CHI) Crawford
Something to note is Ortio starting for the Flames. They have had a slow start out of the gates and need better goaltending to get back to where they want to be. With Ramo being waived and Hiller struggling, Ortio has a good chance to finally steal the job between the pipes in Calgary. Perhaps worth a shot if you are in need of a goalie in your fantasy.
Another player to look at on forward if you want some punch is from New Jersey; Adam Henrique. New Jersey hasn’t had an impactful forward in fantasy in quite some time, but they are off to a decent start.
Something that really helps me throughout the season is to make sure you pay attention to who is being dropped and picked up in your pool(s). Quite often people will be impatient or jump the gun and drop a player they shouldn’t have. Your job is to notice this and snag this player as quickly as you can. Almost every season I will scoop up a player or two off the wire because someone dropped a player I feel they shouldn’t have. This season alone I’ve got Huberdeau, Streit and Klingberg. Just recently someone scooped up Vatanen and Kunitz is still on the wire. Slow starts and strong finishes do happen, and of course it can go the other way too.
Trade high-Buy low. - go fishing for some players.
HBSL:
We are three weeks deep in the HockeyBuzz SuperLeague and as always it’s a tight race at the top. Be sure you submit your rosters before the first game tonight and look for some quality players with cheap contracts. There are always the favorites; but sometimes a gem will come through for you in a big way that nobody else got; one that cost 800,000 instead of 7 million.
Any questions or thoughts about fantasy, feel free to ask.
Thanks for reading.