Fantasy Hockey Analysis

Fantasy Hockey Scouts: The Fantasy Five - Week #22

#1 Give 'em a Look

Most people suspected that Jake Voracek, like a lot of the CBJ's younger players, was being held back by Ken Hitchcock and his performance since Hitchcock was fired is certainly supporting that theory... he has 2+9=11 in nine games since the dismissal and has seen his even strength and PP ice-time increase under interim coach Claude Noel. He could help you out a little bit down the stretch this season but next year is when you should expect the young Czech to really emerge.

Others worth a look: Mikael Samuelsson (Van – W), Niclas Bergfors (Atl - W), Teddy Purcell (TB – W) and Marty Turco (Dal – G)

Ryan Malone... where do we start?... he's 2+7=9 and a minus-16 in 24 games in 2010, hasn't scored in his last 14 games and has been bumped off the top line and #1 PP unit by Steve Downie. If that wasn't enough, then he's prone to picking up injuries and is currently listed as day-to-day with an upper body injury... time for you to move on.

Others worth a boot: Dustin Brown (LA – W), Tomas Fleischmann (Wsh – W), Victor Hedman (TB – D) and Pascal Leclaire (Ott – G)

Marc Savard took a nasty elbow/shoulder/humerus to the head from Matt Cooke on Sunday and he's out with a concussion. He could be done for the season, you never know with concussions, David Booth's kept him out of action for 3 months. It's unfortunate for Savard as he's had a rough season with foot and knee injuries that sidelined him for a total of 23 games already this season.

We touched on Chicago's sticky goalie situation last week and with all due respect to the Philadelphia Flyers, the Washington Capitals are the other major cup contender that has an interesting conflict in the crease. Recall that the Caps went with Jose Theodore to start the playoffs last year but quickly yanked him in favour of rookie Semyon Varlamov. The same thing happened early on this season as it looked like Varlamov was ready to take over the #1 job full-time (until he was hurt). So you can't blame everyone for assuming that Varlamov would reclaim the #1 job upon his return... but Theodore won't have it. He's been playing fantastic lately, with a 13-0-2 record and 2.42 & .928 averages over his last 15 games and he's showing the kind of consistency that could make it hard for Bruce Boudreau to replace him... until, of course, he implodes in the opening game of the playoffs.

Speaking of consistency among goaltenders (from #4)... Jonathan Willis over at the Hockey or Die blog had some interesting analysis of the top 5 most consistent goalies of the season and also the 5 most inconsistent goalies... definitely worth a read as consistency is so important for your goalies in fantasy hockey, when one poor showing can cost you an entire week (in head-to-head leagues).