Another week of fantasy hockey and some food for thought ...
21:00
That's how many minutes Habs rookie Nick Suzuki averaged per game last week, tied with Connor McDavid for eighth highest among forwards. With so many injuries to key scorers, the Habs have been forced to rely on the young Suzuki for offense, who rocked a 51.3 SAT% last week, fifth highest among Habs forwards. Along with his production — 24 points in 42 games — Suzuki has been an underrated piece of a Habs offense that hasn't been this good in a long time, and also gets to play with arguably their best offensive player in Max Domi. Suzuki has some value in deep leagues, perhaps even as a keeper, and he's certainly been far better than Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who had an ADP of 164.3 on Yahoo and also is rostered on more teams than Suzuki on ESPN (6.6 to 5.9 percent).
15:56
That's how much ice time Drake Batherson got in his first game since the beginning of the season, replacing Anthony Duclair, who did not play Saturday after taking a shot off his foot. A speedy winger who exploded on to the scene after starring for Canada at the 2018 World Juniors with seven goals in seven games, the 2017 fourth-round pick was leading the AHL in scoring at the time of his call up with 41 points in 33 games. He notched a power-play assist for his first point of the season
Another week of fantasy hockey and some food for thought ...
21:00
That's how many minutes Habs rookie Nick Suzuki averaged per game last week, tied with Connor McDavid for eighth highest among forwards. With so many injuries to key scorers, the Habs have been forced to rely on the young Suzuki for offense, who rocked a 51.3 SAT% last week, fifth highest among Habs forwards. Along with his production — 24 points in 42 games — Suzuki has been an underrated piece of a Habs offense that hasn't been this good in a long time, and also gets to play with arguably their best offensive player in Max Domi. Suzuki has some value in deep leagues, perhaps even as a keeper, and he's certainly been far better than Jesperi Kotkaniemi, who had an ADP of 164.3 on Yahoo and also is rostered on more teams than Suzuki on ESPN (6.6 to 5.9 percent).
15:56
That's how much ice time Drake Batherson got in his first game since the beginning of the season, replacing Anthony Duclair, who did not play Saturday after taking a shot off his foot. A speedy winger who exploded on to the scene after starring for Canada at the 2018 World Juniors with seven goals in seven games, the 2017 fourth-round pick was leading the AHL in scoring at the time of his call up with 41 points in 33 games. He notched a power-play assist for his first point of the season and showed huge improvement over his minus-4 performance in just 11 minutes in the season opener. Batherson took Duclair's spot on the power play, and given his strong performance should stay in that spot until Duclair's return, which is still TBD. Head coach DJ Smith and GM Pierre Dorion have been very cognizant about how they've developed their young players this season, sending most to the AHL for bigger roles and more minutes rather than playing limited roles on a losing team. Keep an eye on Batherson, especially if Duclair misses more time, but don't expect him to stay with the Sens all season.
8
That's how many assists Samuel Girard had last week, the highest total in the league and tied with Mark Scheifele and Nathan MacKinnon for most points. He is now just five points shy of tying his career high, which was set last season, and seems to be worth every penny of his $35 million contract. He is first on the team in TOI/GP at 5-on-5 and his 51.1 SAT% ranks second on the team. He's proving that it's no fluke, and if anybody on the Colorado blue line is due for a regression, the odds of it being Cale Makar are significantly higher. Makar is just barely positive with 50.1 SAT% with a On-ice S%+Sv% (ie. PDO) of 103.3. However, be wary that Girard is not a supremely gifted offensive player, and that you're more likely looking at an undersized yet uber-effective rearguard who can get you 40 points a season. Think Ryan Ellis without the beard.
-5
Is the little engine that could running out of steam? Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored just one goal in three games last week, posting a minus-5 rating and dropping him out of the lead in the plus-minus race. More concerning? He generated 30 shot attempts, which is slightly lower than the 13 SAT he was averaging this season. If the Sens (and fantasy owners) were thinking about trading Pageau, it seems like his peak value is already in the rear-view mirror. Among Sens forwards who have played at least 30 games, his minus-58 SAT differential is only sixth best on the team, and only Brady Tkachuk has a positive differential. His 19.2 S% also needs to come back to earth at some point, and while I'm not really a Sens hater or a Pageau basher, let's keep in mind that this is still a team that's not very good. The silver lining? The Sens have an easy schedule coming up, facing Detroit, Montreal and Chicago in three of their next four games.
1
This is the number of times a team has lost a game after scoring an empty-net goal and holding onto a multi-goal lead, which just happened last night. After Logan Couture scored an ENG to put the Sharks up 4-2, Jakub Vrana and T.J. Oshie scored in the final minute to force overtime, and after Brent Burns missed a breakaway, Lars Eller went down the other end to secure an OTW for the Caps. If the Sharks hadn't hit a low point this season, this historic and embarrassing loss must surely be it. While it's easy to put it on all Martin Jones — to be fair, a lot of it is on him — the defensive zone breakdowns have just been horrific, and this was after Bob Boughner was hired to replace Peter DeBoer because they didn't defend well enough in front of the net. Vrana and Oshie's goals both came within 10 feet of the goal. That second-half Sharks turnaround? Yeah, it ain't happening.
