Fantasy Hockey Analysis

Fantasy Hockey Scouts: The Fantasy Five - Week 17

#1 Give 'em a Look

This won’t apply to a lot of you as Dwayne Roloson is likely snatched up in your league but the fact that he’s still available in a lot of leagues (more than 40%) right now while guys like Craig Anderson and Antero Niittymaki have higher ownership is just bizarre... time to wake up people! Roloson has now won five games in a row (including back-to-back shutouts) and is 8-3-0, 2.02, .932 with four shutouts for Tampa so I’m not sure what people are waiting for.

Others worth a look: Kyle Okposo (NYI – RW), Brian Rolston (NJ - W), Max Pacioretty (Mtl – LW) and Cam Fowler (Ana – D)

Last season saw Jay Bouwmeester’s production tank across the board as his points, PIMs and shots totals all dropped significantly during his first year in Calgary but there were those that hoped it was just an adjustment period and he would return to form this season. I think it’s safe to conclude that will not be the case as he’s only on pace for 24 points this season (down from 29 last year) and despite a recent surge from the Flames, he’s 1+5=6 & a minus-6 over his last 25 games.

Others worth a boot: David Booth (Fla – LW), Wayne Simmonds (LA – RW), Erik Johnson (StL - D) and Marc Staal (NYR – D)

Well the two big concerns these days are the lingering injuries incurred by the Penguins big stars as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin remain out of the lineup. They say that Crosby is progressing from his concussion and he has been doing some light workouts but it sounds like he’s still a ways off from returning and while Malkin should return shortly from his knee injury/sinus infection, it’s really starting to sound like this knee injury isn’t going away and could bother him for the whole season.

Going into the All-Star break, Corey Crawford had started 10 of the previous 11 games for the Blackhawks and had gone 5-4-1 with a 1.99 gaa & .925 sv% but sometime during the break Coach Joel Quenneville decided that Marty Turco had to start playing more and he was going to start their first post-break game. Turco won that game (despite giving up four goals) and now there is talk about whether they should give him a string of games to help him find his game, which has been missing for a while (3.06 gaa & .897 sv% this season).

This week we point you to The Goalie Guild where Justin Goldman discusses and breaks down a few goalies that he thinks could really help out fantasy GMs down the stretch... have to say that I agree with all of them except Ryan Miller, as historically his play tends to drop off after the All-Star break.