Dose: Raising the Mercury
One of the biggest goals of the Hockey Daily Dose - particularly early in a season - is to ponder whether hot or cold streaks should be taken seriously. After all, beginners can get roped into “The Flavor of the Month” while cynical, grizzled veterans may miss out on genuine rising talents simply because they’ve been run over by the hype train before.
Hockey can be a weird and almost cruelly random sport, yet arming yourself with information and outside opinions can mean the difference between avoiding a winning opponent at the water cooler and clicking “reply all” to that gloating e-mail about your latest victories.
(Note: This is how I assume office fantasy sports rivalries still work.)
Anyway, I expect future columns to sprinkle in such studies, but let’s go all-in with a full column pondering hot streaks today. There’s a solid chance that we’ll glance at the cold end of the spectrum soon, too.
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ICING THE HOT
Note: Let’s stick with players who could at least conceivably be grabbed at the moment of this writing, as another column revolving around my praise of Wayne Simmonds (96 percent owned in Yahoo) probably wouldn’t do you much good.
The Dose will almost certainly discuss some truly “deep cuts” as the season goes along and the waiver cupboard becomes bare, but Corey Abbott provides some other hidden gems that could be especially useful in deeper leagues.
-- Darcy Kuemper won’t enjoy the luxury of facing the Colorado Avalanche all 82 games of this season. The Minnesota Wild only have three more games against the Avs this season, and the next one won’t come until after 2015 rolls around (Feb. 7). Beyond that, one would assume that Patrick Roy & Co. might sort things out a bit more by then … or maybe he’ll whisper in Joe Sakic’s ear about never coaching the team again and expect a trade.
(Hey, Roy does things his own way.)
That said, opening 2014-15 with two consecutive shutouts is gleeful stuff whether it inspires unrealistic expectations or not. Maybe a slight sense of doubt isn’t so bad, either; with just a 56-percent ownership rate in Yahoo as I type these words, not everyone seems to be onto Kuemper.
Get this: I thought Kuemper was a strong option even before his double-embarrassment of the Avs.
For one thing, he’s probably the No. 1 guy on the improved version of a team that gave the Chicago Blackhawks a run for their money. The 24-year-old did fine in his previous Wild opportunities (including going 12-8-4 with a solid .915 save percentage in 2013-14) and compiled multiple seasons of success at other levels, so it’s not as if there haven’t been flashes of brilliance before. Small sample size? Sure, yet this isn’t a top-50 pick we’re pondering here. Kuemper is simply a potential gem who would only cost owners a mere add/drop in the near-half of the Yahoo leagues in which he’s available.
While the Wild have 3,416,667 reasons to give Niklas Backstrom a few stabs at the starting job and Josh Harding deserves some sort of chance if his health luck ever rebounds, Kuemper’s a strong short-term pickup at worst.
If nothing else, imagine what kind of trade value he could carry if you snatch him up and a goalie-weak manager gets antsy?
HOT ON LONG ISLAND
-- Brock Nelson is tied with Sidney Crosby for the NHL lead in scoring, as both have enjoyed identical three-goal, three-assist starts. Nelson scored his three tallies on just four SOG compared to Crosby's nine SOG, so that should set off some red flags. That’s not to say he’s not at least worth monitoring, though. Let me give you a little bit of background so you can make a more educated choice.
The 22-year-old managed 14 goals and 26 points in 72 games (with a decent 74 hits) with the Islanders in 2013-14, and was good but not necessarily a juggernaut in the AHL in 2012-13 (25 goals and 52 points in 66 games). A plum gig on the PP can only take him so far.
On the other hand, here’s the number that makes him intriguing: three power-play points (or PPP). He’s been getting plenty of reps with the Islanders’ top power-play unit and is obviously taking advantage of it. He’s also a first-round pick, so there’s some pedigree to add an extra dash of excitement.
Nelson’s intriguing in deeper leagues (25 percent owned), but I’d lean toward putting him on your “watch list” in most formats.
-- Johnny Boychuk is the attainable (56 percent owned) red-hot Islander I’d more heartily recommend, even if his offensive output is bound to cool (at least to an extent). It’s tough to say how much potential he has with last season's 23-point output representing his career high, as he's never produced more than 16 points in any other season.
Past experiences only mean so much when it comes to this situation. Boychuk has only played 75+ games twice in his career and he’s never really been used like this. Through two games, he's averaging 3:40 PP TOI. Compare that to just 18 seconds (!) per contest with Boston in 2013-14. At this pace, he could surpass his power play time from last season in about three or four games ... and the Islanders could have a really explosive special teams unit.
There are potential impediments like Lubomir Visnovsky and the laws of statistical gravity standing in Boychuk's way, but a better scoring season seems reasonable to expect (and it’s also quite timely, as he's in a contract year).
The most important thing to note is that Boychuk can bring some all-around strengths even if his offense goes south. The 30-year-old was good for about two hits and two blocked shots per contest with Boston while generating a fairly useful 200 PIM in 323 career games. He hasn't been shy to shoot, either, with just under two SOG (644) per career contest.
That's a long way of saying that Boychuk is worth rolling the dice, even if he ends up being merely your fourth-best fantasy D guy.
PLEKANEC IN CONTEXT AND A USEFUL PIM RESOURCE
-- Tomas Plekanec is on fire (four goals on nine shots in three games), which isn’t that shocking since he’s an excellent player. The big thing to watch, for me, is deployment. Plekanec carried a pretty crazy defensive workload in 2013-14, starting just 38 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone and absurdly averaging almost three minutes of PK time per game.
The 31-year-old is still averaging pretty big shorthanded numbers through three contests, but he’s at least getting slightly cushier zone starts.
He’s already a low-in-the-draft consideration in many formats (44 percent), yet the big factor is if Michel Therrien sends the offensive opportunities his way more often in reaction to this nice beginning. Plekanec seems like a shining example of “better in reality than fantasy,” but there are certainly worse options out there.
-- It’s heartwarming to see hard-workers like Paul Gaustad and Eric Nystrom storm off to nice starts, but … no. That said, feel free to be excited about how Peter Laviolette may impact the Nashville Predators’ best pieces. I certainly was at the moment of his hire. It’s also less-than-wise to jump on the bandwagon when a guy gets an out-of-character hat trick, so consider this a dismissive shoulder shrug to Jiri Tlusty.
-- If you’re PIM-hunting, check out NHL.com’s penalty stats to see how they’re coming and maybe cross-reference a lot of majors with Hockey Fights to see if said pugilists are basically a shoo-in for a fight if they’re in the lineup.
Personally, I’d rather go after PIM with guys who can do other things when they’re not trotting to the box rather than go through the tedium of jumping on Goon Watch for quick add/drops, but if you want to try to steal the category on an off day, there are ways to research such things. (Hockey Fights even has a “Rivals” page, so you can find out if a guy has a vendetta.)
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Quick parting note: I noticed some comments about Cory Schneider and Kari Lehtonen in Friday’s goalie breakdown. Both are nice options that I’d probably rank in the “Wait to see drop” category (Lehtonen’s injury risks/shabby defense and some lingering questions about the support in front of Schneider - even after a stunning opening salvo by New Jersey’s scorers - bumps a talented goalie below the absolute elite options in my mind. Neither is a bad choice by any means.)
Speaking of those columns, feel free to thumb through these bits if you’re drafting a week into the season or just want a taste of my theories and strategies
Some general theories and philosophies
