Getty Images

Dobber checks in every Monday to force-feed you the latest fantasy hockey trends. The founder of DobberHockey.com and a columnist for The Hockey News website, he long ago immersed himself into this rollercoaster world and is unable to escape.

It's been several weeks since I've taken a look at the Hits category, and giving the ol' Frozen Pool tools a look (the Report Generator), I see many of the usual names. But a couple of newcomers jump out at me. Such as Philadelphia rookie Brayden Schenn, who is seeing 13 or 14 minutes per game, but he has also been in the Top 5 in hits over the last two weeks — which beats brother Luke.

And how about San Jose's Jamie McGinn?

Here are the top hitters of the last 14 days through Saturday's games:

Studs...

These fellas are wielding a hot stick. Take that into consideration when you go after them in trade talks...

Logan Couture, San Jose Sharks (6-4-5-9, plus-3, 0 PIM, 19 SOG, 4 PPP) — Here's the one 2010-11 Calder nominee who is actually enjoying this campaign. While Jeff Skinner tries to overcome a crappy team coaching change Jussi Jokinen on his line injuries and Michael Grabner is realizing that you need hands as well as speed, Couture rolls along and could damn well lead the Sharks in scoring by the time it's over. Although Joe Thornton will have something to say about that I'm sure.

Ilya Kovalchuk, New Jersey Devils (13-10-10-20, plus-3, 0 PIM, 60 SOG, 8 PPP) — Just like last season, Kovalchuk feels that the regular season starts in January. Up until that point, he just gets someone like Petr Sykora to don his jersey and Kovalchuk mask and do the best he can. Remember this next year, folks:

Kovalchuk pre-New Year=dog.

Kovalchuk post-New Year=Kovalchuk.

Getty ImagesDobber checks in every Monday to force-feed you the latest fantasy hockey trends. The founder of DobberHockey.com and a columnist for The Hockey News website, he long ago immersed himself into this rollercoaster world and is unable to escape.

Evgeni Malkin may be the hottest player of the last 10 games, but his linemate James Neal has been racking up PIM like they're going out of style — 22 in that span. That's enough to make him the best rotisserie-player own of the last three weeks. The third member of the line, Chris Kunitz, has also performed well ranking 16th among skaters.

Let's take a look at the Frozen Pool Roto-Ranker snippet:

Studs...

These fellas are wielding a hot stick. Take that into consideration when you go after them in trade talks...

P.A. Parenteau, New York Islanders (18-6-13-19, minus-2, 18 PIM, 44 SOG) — Let's face it. Not one team in the NHL would have given this guy a chance, other than the Islanders. Parenteau could have scored five goals per game in exhibition and the best he could have hoped for was a fourth-line job that would be destined to cool him off enough for the organization to send him down without looking silly doing it. That's the uphill battle that ninth-round picks who have spent far too long in the AHL have to face. Full credit to the Isles for giving him a real shot on a scoring line. You have to wonder how many other potential point-per-game players we'll never see come out of the AHL.

Tyler Seguin, Boston Bruins (2-2-1-3, even, 2 PIM, 3 SOG) — Seguin is coming off of a three-game pointless skid, which marks the first time all season that he's done that. Call it throwing darts a hunch, but I think we're in for something pretty sustained in the coming weeks.

Drew Doughty, Los Angeles Kings (18-1-12-13, plus-9, 24 PIM, 48 SOG) —Doughty has nearly as many shots on goal in the last 18 games as he had in the prior 27. This is a great indication that the shoulder issues are fully behind him and that the Doughty of old is back.

"Sell High" pick of the week: Mike Fisher, Nashville Predators. He has 12 points in his last 10 games, but we've seen enough of these runs from Fisher to know that a cold streak is on the way. In the 20 games prior, he managed just six points.

Getty Images

Dobber checks in every Monday to force-feed you the latest fantasy hockey trends. The founder of DobberHockey.com and a columnist for The Hockey News website, he long ago immersed himself into this rollercoaster world and is unable to escape.

John Tavares may be outside of the Top 25 players under the age of 25 to those who use some abstract statistics and ignores the common ones, but us fantasy owners will stick to the main six statistical categories.

And lookie here — JT holds down top spot in rotisserie hockey over the last three weeks. I used Frozen Pool's Roto Rater this time, which lends weight to each stat based on the player's position and the distance of the stat from the average (so a negative number is below average). And if I may shamelessly plug — DobberHockey has now made FREE some of the Frozen Pool tools — including line combo quick reports, player profiles and a new fantasy player newsfeed that registers pretty high on the awesome-meter.

Here is a snippet of the aforementioned three-week Roto Rater report:

Studs...

These fellas are wielding a hot stick. Take that into consideration when you go after them in trade talks...

David Backes, St. Louis Blues (9-5-7-12, plus-8, 23 PIM, 31 SOG) — The only thing lower than the Blues' goals-for number since Ken Hitchcock took over … is their goals-against number. This team plays it tight and will probably have just one 60-point player. But his name is David Backes and he's someone you can count on for consistent points down the stretch.

Justin Williams, Los Angeles Kings (7-3-6-9, plus-4, 4 PIM, 25 SOG) — Prior to his seven-game points streak, Williams was way — way — off the pace. Somewhere between Scott-Gomez off, and Bobby-Ryan off. But now the numbers have undergone the market correction needed and Williams should be good for 60 points. If he's healthy. Which is another fantasy hockey column altogether.

Getty Images

Dobber checks in every Monday to force-feed you the latest fantasy hockey trends. The founder of DobberHockey.com and a columnist for The Hockey News website, he long ago immersed himself into this rollercoaster world and is unable to escape.

Roster alert — from Monday through Sunday, Boston plays five times. And just like Boston is the only team to line up five times over the next week, the Canucks are the only team to line up just twice. There. That tough 'Benoit Pouliot or Jannik Hansen?' question was just answered for you.

Over the last couple of weeks I've noticed Matt Moulson and John Tavares going nutty. I mean Matt Moulson, who was all but left for dead in the AHL, is suddenly looking like he'll push for 40 goals and 70 points at the NHL level. How many other gems are rotting in the AHL right now? I gotta wonder.

Anyway, I was curious to see how this line ranks league-wide. Using Frozen Pool, I selected a tool that gives me the top line production and set it for the last three weeks. Here are the results:

Studs...

These fellas are wielding a hot stick. Take that into consideration when you go after them in trade talks...

John Tavares, New York Islanders (8-4-11-15, plus-7, 0 PIM, 32 SOG) — Your time to trade for him would have been around the 22-game mark, in which he had just 16 points. After seasons of 54 and 67 points, to hit the quarter pole on pace for about 60 wasn't exactly impressing. But Tavares has now emerged as a point-per-game player and next year he'll take that one step further.

Dobber checks in every Monday to force-feed you the latest fantasy hockey trends. The founder of DobberHockey.com and a columnist for The Hockey News website, he long ago immersed himself into this rollercoaster world and is unable to escape.

Well look who's back. It's Ovie!

Again I defer to Frozen Pool for this one. This time I ran the "Roto Rater" tool, which looks at the stats representative of a combination of average and standard deviation to that average over the last two weeks.

It gives more of a weighted look at how each player has done against his peers both in his position, and across the NHL.

On top — Alex Ovechkin. A spot that he usually hogged for much of his first few years in the league. Here is a look at some of the rated stat rankings (a negative number indicates that he is below average in that category over the last two weeks):

Studs...

These fellas are wielding a hot stick. Take that into consideration when you go after them in trade talks...

Erik Karlsson, Ottawa Senators (11-4-11-15, plus-14, 2 PIM, 48 SOG) — Everyone knew Karlsson would be a star. And most poolies figured that he would give them at least 50 points this season. The fact that he's on pace for 77 just past the midpoint of the season - nobody saw. He was plus-5 on Sunday. Plus-5. It would take Ilya Kovalchuk years to do that.

136275694 copy

Dobber checks in every Monday to force-feed you the latest fantasy hockey trends. The founder of DobberHockey.com and a columnist for The Hockey News website, he long ago immersed himself into this rollercoaster world and is unable to escape.

Happy New Year! As the turn of the calendar signals upcoming midseason fantasy drafts, decisions on rebuilding or a balls-to-the-walls, all-or-nothing charge for the title, we'll take a look at the hottest fantasy players of the past month. December rankings again courtesy of Frozen Pool:

YAHKKStuds...

These fellas are wielding a hot stick. Take that into consideration when you go after them in trade talks...

Kevin Bieksa, Vancouver Canucks (26-4-16-20, plus-16, 21 PIM, 54 SOG) —Take a second look at those numbers from the last 25 games. If only I had the inclination to go through my Twitter feed from early November and search for keywords "Bieksa" and "sucks". If that doesn't show how fickle fantasy hockey is, nothing will.

Scott Hartnell, Philadelphia Flyers (14-8-8-16, plus-11, 35 PIM, 39 SOG) — Hartnell has had such a great year that he actually ranks second behind Daniel Sedin in roto-ranking for 2011-12. Season to date, he's sixth in plus/minus, 11th in goals, 14th in power-play points, 32nd in penalty minutes and first in hair awesomeness.

Time to hand out some pretend midseason awards. Why? Because everyone else is doing it and we're unoriginal. Here they are, fantasy hockey style…

Best single game statistical performance

These were the games that caused owners to distract the rest of the office the next morning with their furious fist-pumping after noting that their fantasy squad just moved up to first place. All on the basis of one player's performance.

Nominated — Evgeni Malkin, Pittsburgh Penguins, Dec. 17
3-2-5, plus-1, 0 PIM, 2 PPPts, 1 GWG and 4 shots

That's in the middle of what is currently a run of 29 points in 16 games. Remember when Bodog had him at 30-1 preseason odds for the scoring title?

Nominated — Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins, Nov. 21
2-2-4, plus-3, 0 PIM, 8 shots and the game winner

Sid returns with a bang. And with just one day of advanced warning about his return, many of his owners in weekly leagues were in panic city.

Nominated — Joffrey Lupul, Toronto Maple Leafs, Oct. 8
1-2-3, plus-2, 1 PPG, 4 PIM, 3 shots

Phil Kessel had four points in that game, but in Lupul we have the luxury of a player who scores and knows what a hit is. Actually, Kessel is on pace for a whopping 16 hits, which would bury his previous high of 13 set in 2009-10.

Nominated — Claude Giroux, Philadelphia Flyers Oct. 29
1-3-4, plus-4, 4 shots

This was back when his dream season looked like a "hot start".

Nominated — Tim Thomas, Boston Bruins, Dec. 5
46 shots faced, one goal allowed against Pittsburgh with Sidney Crosby in the lineup

This game put the exclamation mark on the statement "Boston's Cup hangover is history".

Winner — Brad Marchand, Boston Bruins, Dec. 23
3-2-5, plus-5, 0 PIM, 3 shots, 1 SHG and the game winner

What's been great about Marchand this season is that when he's not putting up any points, he's posting big PIM numbers. Cool stat: In 130 career games he's a plus-47.

Dobber checks in every Monday to force-feed you the latest fantasy hockey trends. The founder of DobberHockey.com and a columnist for The Hockey News website, he long ago immersed himself into this rollercoaster world and is unable to escape.

If I had a dollar for every email or Tweet that I got from someone upset with me at the 10-game mark over slow starts from either Evgeni Malkin or Zach Parise, I'd have made at least 20 bucks. Yesterday's McDonald's would have been on me, Mom.

But what is often the case when an athlete misses much of the prior season due to injury, he is either going to stumble out of the gate or there may be a flare-up of the injury. Sometimes both.

Parise finished tops in roto rankings over the past two weeks, while Malkin came in at No.6 (but he was first in shots and tied for first in goals). Let's take a look at the top roto players of the past two weeks, courtesy of Frozen Pool:

Y!H!H!H!Studs...

These fellas are wielding a hot stick. Take that into consideration when you go after them in trade talks...

Patrick Sharp, Chicago Blackhawks (11-10-6-16, plus-8, 2 PIM, 45 SOG) — Sharp gets better every year. In all aspects of the game. But Philadelphia fans, who watched their team trade Sharp to Chicago for Matt Ellison and a third rounder, can take solace in the fact that the Flyers parlayed Ellison into "future considerations" and Jonathan Matsumoto (that third rounder) into Ricard Blidstrand.

Michael Del Zotto, New York Rangers (11-1-9-10, plus-8, 4 PIM, 19 SOG) — A future star, then a bust, and now a future star again. It's great being a fantasy owner where we can label a player and change our mind as often as we like. All before the guy turns 22.