Since a few people have been asking, I may as well tell: this article will also be the last that I post for fantasyhockey.com. For those wondering about the lack of content recently, I will no longer be serving as the content editor. The good news is that you can continue to check out my blog over at Kukla’s Korner. For more information about the management changes over at Fantasy Planet, which includes fantasyfootball.com, fantasybaseball.com, and fantasybasketball.com, you can read this final message from outgoing president Craig Davis, who includes an interesting history of the site. I will always be thankful to Craig for giving me the opportunity to take my fantasy hockey “hobby” to the next level. All in all, it has been a slice working for Craig, and I wish him well in whatever the future holds.

Here is your Pick Six for Tuesday, the last day in January:

Brendan Morrison, C, CHI – add/start
Even with Jonathan Toews set to return to the Blackhawks’ lineup for Tuesday’s showdown with Vancouver (ESPN), new acquisition Mo could see top-6 minutes against his former team. He recorded only 11 points in 28 games this season for Calgary, but trades more often than not increase a player’s short-term value. Morrison is expected to center the Hawks’ second line alongside returning All-Star Marian Hossa.

Paul Martin, D, PIT – add/start
Martin had an unspectacular start to the season, but he has posted points in five of his last six games. Despite the return of Kris Letang, Martin is still seeing power-play minutes along with 25 minutes in the Pens’ last game on Tuesday vs. St. Louis. I added him as an injury replacement on one deep league team, but I won’t hesitate to drop him if another long column of goose eggs appears underneath his point total.

David Desharnais, C, MON – add/start
Desharnais was mentioned in my Midterm Report as a recent pickup. He scored two goals and added one assist in a surprising 7-2 explosion over Detroit on Wednesday. Playing on a new top line with Max Pacioretty and Erik Cole, the 5’7” center has quietly accumulated 35 points at the All-Star break, which is tied for second on the team.

Lubomir Visnovsky, D, ANA – start
Visnovsky may have been dropped in a few leagues, but he is on the comeback trail in January (7 points a +5 in 11 games). Injury and poor play by Ducks led to Viz’s poor start (only four points at mid-December). The Ducks have only two regulation losses in January, so Visnovsky needs to be back in lineups and near universal ownership again.

Roberto Luongo/Cory Schneider, G, VAN – bench
Who can forget when a panicked Canucks team surprised everyone by turning to Schneider during Game 6 during their emotionally charged first-round series with the Hawks last season? Sure, Schneider didn’t fare so badly before leaving the game in the third period with cramps (allowed three goals), but he did not have an easy time against the Hawks on November 16, allowing five goals. The Canucks are giving Schneider another opportunity against the Hawks on Tuesday (TSN), so you’ll have a chance to use him. Based on those numbers and the history between the two teams, whether you’ll want to use him is another matter.

Ryan Whitney, D, EDM – drop
Although he has recently returned to the Oils’ lineup, Whitney has only three assists in 18 games. He has missed 17 games with a perpetually sore ankle that could affect his mobility for the rest of his career. Expect Whitney to be a plus/minus liability (-6 this season) as the young Oilers still struggle, so he is someone to pass on right now if you are looking for help on defense.

Goodbye, Godspeed, and best wishes. Drop me an email at gooding74@shaw.ca.  You can also follow me on Twitter. ~Ian

Okay, so it’s not first place. But it is a 16-team league. And a team that has rattled off ten consecutive wins in head-to-head league competition, following three consecutive losses to start the season.

There is probably no better time than the All-Star break to assess the situation of your fantasy team. That is what I intend to do while I provide my midterm report for the fantasyhockey.com/Kukla’s Korner League midterm results.

Here are the overall results:

What a Duchene*** is proving that last year’s championship wasn’t due to luck, as he is also this year’s current leader. He is also the league’s proud owner of Sidney Crosby, who he has carefully stashed on IR next to Chris Pronger, whom he must believe has a sliver of a chance of returning. If Crosby happens to return for the fantasy playoffs, WAD will be the without-a-doubt team to beat. No Crosby, however, and all bets are off. By the way, I won’t ask him to change his team name to something more PG-rated, since a name change may break his mojo.

Here’s my third-place team (Vancouver Giants, the team I watch live the most often), in all its glory:

My top-6 forwards – Henrik Sedin, John Tavares, Matt Moulson, Logan Couture, David Backes, and Alexander Semin – will probably rival that of any team in this league. Sedin, my top-scoring forward, has now gone four games without a point, his longest drought since before the 2010 Olympics, but in the meantime I have somehow managed. I have also been savvy (blessed) with solid waiver-wire pickups in Taylor Hall, Derek Stepan, Cody Hodgson, and most recently David Desharnais. These players have been important contributors to make up for the losses of Brian Gionta and Simon Gagne to IR.

However, like many NHL teams, I will probably be looking for blueline help at the trade deadline, as Erik Karlsson is my only defenseman ranked in the top 100, according to Yahoo. With a defensemen-leading 47 points and 168 shots on goal, Karlsson is the top-ranked defenseman in Yahoo leagues, a sound return on a sixth-round pick in this league. I added Tomas Kaberle from waivers when his trade to Montreal was announced, turning down a trade request from WAD shortly after that would have sent Mike Cammalleri my way for Kaberle.

The only goalie I have kept the entire season is Carey Price, who has maintained decent ratios in spite of suffering the effects from a down season in Montreal. However, my turnaround started shortly after adding fantasy draft afterthought Brian Elliott, who is heading to the All-Star Game with a sparkling 1.69 GAA and 5 SO, numbers that no one in their right minds would have predicted. After finishing a dismal 10th last season, maybe that luck factor is finally kicking in for me.

Are you a member of this league? State your team and the good/bad about it so far. Or, make a suggestion below for my team.

On a side note, one single tweet about the lack of discipline that P.K. Subban has shown this season seemed to open the floodgates of contrary rebuttal, particularly from Canadiens fans. Maybe I was a bit hasty with the tweet in criticizing his character, since he is only 22 (I can remember my level of maturity, or lack thereof, back then). However, I believe it’s time to put P.K. in the “overrated” category, given what he has accomplished in his career thus far. During Wednesday’s unexpected 7-2 rout of the Red Wings, Subban was benched during the second period after taking a penalty. He was held without a point in the goal onslaught, leaving him with 19 points (3g-16a) and five power-play points in 48 games. P.K.’s career high is 38 points, which he earned last season. He is owned in 92 percent of Yahoo leagues, which to me is too high given the numbers listed.

One respondent suggested that it was unfair of me to critique Subban if Drew Doughty has only three more assists with the same number of goals this season. I will say this: Doughty is also overrated, as he has had only one elite-level season (59 points in 2009-10) over his four-year NHL career. Doughty has played two more full seasons than Subban, but his career high is still 21 points higher than Subban’s. Doughty is highly regarded because of his draft status (second overall in 2008) and his play for Team Canada at the 2010 Olympics. However, the numbers suggest that Doughty does not have the proven track record that those in fantasy often assume. But the career numbers still suggest that he is a better option than Subban at this point.

Disagree? Follow me on Twitter anyway.

Once Eastern All-Star teammates, Alfredsson and Chara are now opposing All-Star captains. Image by Getty Images

Hey everyone.  This will officially be my last post on fantasyhockey.com.  I am now going to be writing for “The Program” at www.thehockeyprogram.net.  You can find all of my latest stuff over there.  I wanna thank Ian for giving me the opportunity to write here.  It was my first experience writing published articles and I really enjoyed it.  I hope you guys come check out my work over at The Program.  A good fantasy hockey friend of mine Chris Wassel runs the site and does a marvelous job at it.  Also be sure to check out all of Ian’s stuff over at Kukla’s Korner, one of the premier hockey blog websites on the Internet.  Thanks you guys!

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All-Star week is approaching, which means that some weird scheduling is ahead of us.  Yahoo Fantasy Hockey has it so that Week 16 actually takes place over the following two weeks combined, so for the purpose of this article this how I will treat it as well.  I’ll discuss this more in the Weekly Breakdown below.

WEEKLY BREAKDOWN

Here is the weekly breakdown for this upcoming “week,” Jan. 23 – Feb 5:

6 GAMES: WPG

5 GAMES: BOS, CBJ, DET, EDM, MON, NAS, NJD, NYI, OTT, PHI, PIT, SJS, TOR, WAS

4 GAMES:  ANA, BUF, CAR, CHI, COL, DAL, FLA, LAK, MIN, NYR, STL, TBL, VAN

3 GAMES: CGY, PHX

Because of the All-Star break, we have an unusual schedule as mentioned above.  Games will be played on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of next week before there is a five-day break that will last until Tuesday of the following week, Jan. 31^st.  That means there are nine games that will be played during Week 16.  There will be six games on Monday, thirteen games on Tuesday, and then only one game on Wednesday before the break.  Then, after the break there will be thirteen games on Tuesday, five on Wednesday, eight on Thursday, five again on Friday, twelve on Saturday, and then four on Sunday to cap it off.  Winnipeg is the only team during this period that will play five games with most teams playing either five games or four games.  Calgary and Phoenix are the two odd teams out during this period with only three games each.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

These teams are playing all of their games on the road so be aware that fatigue may play a factor in their play:

CBJ, WPG

HOME COOKING

These teams are playing all of their games at home this week so they should be rested and practicing:

CGY, FLA, PHX, TBL

Note that Winnipeg is playing all six of their games on the road with two back-to-backs scheduled, one before the break and one after.  Being the only team to play six games definitely sounds enticing, but also be aware that travel may affect their play.  And as luck would have it, the only two teams to play three games during Week 16 are playing all of their games at home, reducing the benefit of their home stays.

B2B: BACKUPS TO SEE ACTION?

All of these teams are schedule to play in back-to-back games this upcoming week, so there are good chances that these teams’ respective backup goaltenders could see some action:

ANA, BUF, CBJ (x2), CHI, DAL, EDM, FLA, LAK, MON, NAS, NJD, NYI (x2), NYR, OTT (x2), PHI, PIT, SJS, STL, TOR (x2), WAS, WPG (x2)

No guarantees, but If you are desperate for some goalie starts, make sure to monitor these teams to try to determine if/when their backups are playing so you can snag them off of the waiver-wire if available.

GOING STREAKING

Teams that have the best win streaks currently in the NHL as of Saturday afternoon:

PIT – 5 wins

DET – 5 wins

CHI – 3 wins

STL – 3 wins

After starting to fade a bit, the Pens are on a five-game win streak thanks to Evgeni Malkin’s same five-game goal scoring streak.  He is looking MVP caliber this year.  The Red Wings are also right back in the top of the Western Conference mix with five straight wins thanks to Jimmy Howard and him having allowed only 6 goals with a shutout over his past four games, all wins.  St. Louis Cinderella story continues in the Ken Hitchcock era while Chicago has just played itself into a tie for the NHL league lead.  Los Angeles has also been playing very well lately, going 5-1-4 over their past 10 games while Anaheim seems to have gotten out of its season long funk by gathering three straight wins and are now 6-3-1 over their past 10 games thanks to a goal scoring surge that has produced 15 goals during their three-game win streak.  Jason Blake (4g-2a-6pts, +5, 2 PPP, 2 GWG, 15 SOG past 3 games), Francois Beauchemin (2g-5a-7pts, +10, 23 PIM past 7 games), and Saku Koivu (4g-4a-8pts, +7 in January) have all been on fire lately and widely available in Yahoo leagues.

SPIRALING

Teams that have the longest current streaks in the NHL without collecting a point:

BUF – 4 losses

MIN – 2 losses

EDM – 2 losses

DAL – 0-3-1 past four games

Buffalo and Minnesota are both in tailspins as each have lost their past 11 road games.  It seems that ever since the Wild touched the NHL league lead in points, they have been losing ever since, severely hurting goalie Nik Backstrom’s fantasy value, who has only 1 win in his past 10 starts while allowing at least 3 goals in eight of those and the past 7 straight.  While Dallas hasn’t been allowing a lot of goals, they can’t seem to score any as they are finding it hard to cope with their number one and two centers Jamie Benn and Mike Ribiero, both not expected back until after the All-Star break.  They have only mustered four goals in their past four games and aren’t providing fantasy owners with much to be happy about aside from the goaltending.

STRONG SCHEDULES

Now let’s take a look at what should be the most favorable matchups of the week:

Anaheim Ducks – Opponents: @DAL, @PHX+DAL, CBJ – Anaheim has been on fire lately, now winning four in a row (as of Saturday) while scoring 17 goals in those games.  Three solid games against divisional opponents and then cap off Week 16 with a game against the league’s worst team could get them on the right track to join the playoff hunt.  They are 1-2 so far this year against Dallas but with Dallas’ troubles to find the net as of late and the Ducks suddenly scoring goals in bunches, this should give Anaheim the favor in these two matchups.  The Ducks have scored more goals against the Coyotes this year than any other team, averaging 4 goals per game while they are averaging the same four goals a game against the Jackets in their two matches so far this year.  Make sure to get your Ducks out there next week despite them having only four games.

San Jose Sharks – Opponents: @EDM+@CGY, CBJ, DAL, @PHX – The Sharks have some good matchups against a handful of Western Conference opponents that they are higher in the rankings than, and they are a combined 7-1-0 against them this year as well.  They have a 24/14 goal differential in those eight games as well.  The Stats say the Sharks are a must play, and so do I.  Oh and by the way, Antti Niemi started four of those games winning all four and allowed only six goals.

WEAK SCHEDULES

…And the least favorable matchups of the week:

Calgary Flames – Opponents: SJS, DET, CHI –Not only are the Flames one of only two teams to play only three games during Week 16, but they are also playing three Western Conference foes that are much higher than them in the standings.  They have bested Detroit so far this year, going 2-1 against them with a 10-8 goal differential, but the Red Wings have been on fire lately and won’t be as fun to play as they were previously.  They are then a combined 1-2-1 against the Sharks and the Hawks, and it won’t help that both of those teams have been playing strong lately as well, with San Jose going 7-2-1 over their past 10 and the Hawks playing themselves to a tie for the Western Conference lead.  The Flames have been playing some better hockey lately, going 4-1-1 over their past 6 games, but I wouldn’t expect them to continue that trend during Week 16.  Play your Flames if you must, but if you have better options then look to them.

Columbus Blue Jackets – Opponents: @NAS+@TBL, @SJS+@LAK, @ANA – The lowly Blue Jackets are in for a tough week ahead.  Not only are they playing five tough opponents, they are playing every game on the road and that’s with two back-to-backs scheduled as well.  They are a combined 3-8-1 against these teams so far this season.  Some of these teams have been picking it up lately as well, with Pekka Rinne being completely unstoppable over his past six games, Anaheim finding their scoring touch, and LA picking up at least a point over their past five games.  As has been the case this season, keep your BJs on the bench.

That wraps it up.  Thanks for reading everyone and again I’d love for you to come check out my stuff at The Program.  Good luck out there!

NHL.com

TSN

TSN

NHL.com

Montreal Canadiens

NHL.com

TSN