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Sean Allen, Special to ESPN.com
It’s one of the extended weeks in the fantasy hockey world thanks to the NHL All-Star Weekend scheduled for this coming weekend. Week 17 of the fantasy season is technically two weeks, extending from Jan. 29 to Feb. 11. But, because of the break for all-star festivities, teams are still limited to between two and four games.
Eleven teams have only two games on the docket, so there are some light slates for key players. The Colorado Avalanche, Washington Capitals and Vancouver Canucks have four games across the extended week, so they could be leaned on for additional stats.
Now might be a good time for a reminder about your game limits in some rotisserie and points leagues. If you are playing a season-long format, there is an option to limit how many starts each of your roster positions is allowed called your “games played limits (maximums)” in the ESPN settings. If you go to your team, there is a link in the bottom-left corner of the page that says “view game maximums” and it should give you a hint next to it as to how you are trending.
Whether you set your lineups daily or weekly in these season-long formats, if your league has a games-played maximum for each position, it will cut you off from accruing additional points once it is reached. While it is more of a late-season problem, you don’t want to be trending way ahead when you get to April. If you are too far ahead and lock up one of your positions before the season is done, it could reduce your team’s overall potential.
For example, if you reach your games-played limit for defense on April 10, you would not get to count the final three games of the season played by Noah Dobson or the final five games played by Evan Bouchard. No matter how you used those starts prior to April 10, there is zero chance it would give you a better outcome than getting those eight games from Dobson and Bouchard.
So it’s worth taking a peek at your limits and making sure you aren’t trending too far ahead for any one position. It’s probably OK to be ahead of pace by three or four games per roster spot for each position. There will be some fluctuation, especially in weekly lineup leagues, thanks to injuries or unexpected missed games. You can worry more about min-maxing the actual starts in late March or April.
Along the same logical line, if you are behind your games-played maximum for any of the positions, now wouldn’t be a terrible time to start packing in some extra starts where you can. This week, for example, you could add T.J. Oshie, Dylan Strome, Pius Suter or maybe even Zach Parise to buff your games played through the extra games for the Avs, Canucks and Caps.
Parise, for what it’s worth, is at least interesting as a fantasy prospect given the situation in Colorado. The Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin connection has, after a slow start, been realized enough that it locks them in on the top line. But with Valeri Nichushkin currently away from the team in the player assistance program, there is a need to find a second scoring line for the Avs. Specifically, if Parise can still be effective on offense there is a spot in the top six available with Ryan Johansen and the recently returned Artturi Lehkonen or, perhaps, Mikko Rantanen can play there to balance the attack so Parise could play with MacKinnon.
It’s not a terrible moment to gamble on Parise, as the Avs are now off until Feb. 5, giving Parise plenty of time to ramp up and play all four games in this fantasy scoring period. On a pretty weak offensive New York Islanders team last season, the 39-year-old Parise still managed to eek out 21 goals with 1.55 fantasy points per game (FPPG). He’s certainly enticing enough for a speculative pickup in deeper formats.
All this wider outlook aside, if you are concentrating on your lineup for just the next three days before the all-star break, there are very few games to focus on. With only one game on Monday, two on Tuesday and three on Wednesday before the break, you only have six games of action to worry about. Interestingly, there are three teams that still manage to play twice in this window, with the Ottawa Senators, Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks all squeezing in extra action.
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Stock up
Adam Henrique, C, Anaheim Ducks (77.0% available): I’ll keep hammering on it until he’s rostered in more spots. Henrique is among the top 60 forwards in fantasy points since Dec. 1 (56.3). The only other player even remotely as available as a fantasy free agent that has done better is Yegor Sharangovich (71.7% available, 58.6 fantasy points).
Olen Zellweger, D, Anaheim Ducks (98.4% available): Speaking of the Ducks, with Jamie Drysdale traded away and Pavel Mintyukov injured, the team is giving Zellweger a shot at establishing his worth on the power play. Cam Fowler had more minutes on the advantage in Zellweger’s NHL debut last Tuesday, the team didn’t get any power-play time on Thursday, but Zellweger easily led for PP time in Saturday’s game.
JJ Peterka, W, Buffalo Sabres (88.1% available): A mini offensive explosion from Peterka has him collecting four goals in the past two games. But don’t get too excited as the line he’s been grooving with is possibly getting busted apart for the next game. Jack Quinn was injured in the third period on Saturday and will miss some time, so Peterka and Dylan Cozens will have to find a new linemate if he’s not back by Feb. 6 after the break.
Thomas Harley, D, Dallas Stars (63.8% available): The fact that Harley keeps contributing offensively in such a bold way even after the return of Miro Heiskanen bolds well for him moving forward. Like Henrique, this is a very sustained run by Harley, who also started busting out near the start of December. In fact, he is tied for 24th in total fantasy points among skaters since then (64.2), which places him eighth among defense in that span.
Sean Monahan, C, Montreal Canadiens (83.6% available): Don’t look now, but the Habs power play has remembered that they get an extra skater on the ice when the opposition has a penalty, thus suggesting they should have a better time scoring. Sarcasm aside, the advantage has been the driver in a spike for fantasy production for the five players on the unit. Monahan is chief among them, sharing the ice with Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky and Mike Matheson. Since Jan. 15, Monahan has 18.4 fantasy points across seven games (2.63 FPPG).
Stock down
Tage Thompson, C, Buffalo Sabres (4.2% available): I don’t know if we’ll get a proper explanation why this season has been so rotten for Thompson, especially if it turns out he’s had some underlying injury that he’s played through. But it sure has that kind of vibe to it as we watch him struggle to put up 1.69 FPPG since he returned from a wrist injury on Dec. 5. That’s not even on the radar for fantasy value across the NHL; Heck, he only ranks fourth among skaters on his own team for fantasy points since then, only 0.8 ahead of fifth-place Casey Mittelstadt. Bench him? For sure. Trade him? If you aren’t near the top of your standings, it’s a good idea at this stage. Take a chance on another fantasy manager in your league willing to forgive his lack of production and get someone serviceable onto your roster.
Streamer specials
Shakir Mukhamadullin, D, San Jose Sharks (100% available):The key return in the trade for Timo Meier made his NHL debut on Saturday and led the Sharks defense in power-play ice time. The Sharks take on the Seattle Kraken and Ducks before the break — and Anaheim has given up the most power-play points to opposing defense this season (36).
Jeremy Lauzon, D, Nashville Predators (93.5% available): Another blue-liner for the Predators who is getting it done with a counting stat. Alexandre Carrier was one of the early-season leaders in blocked shots and remains in the fantasy mix thanks to them (though he has slowed the pace somewhat). Lauzon is doing it with hits. He now leads the NHL in throwing body checks — and it’s not that close. His 197 lead second-place Dakota Joshua by more than 50 hits. The result has been a sustainable fantasy pace of 1.94 FPPG during his past 10 games. Note again that the Preds still play twice before the break.
Colton Sissons, C, Nashville Predators (90.3% available): Following that same logic of getting some games in before the all-star break, Sissons should offer some value as the fourth-forward on the Preds top power-play unit where he takes the ice with the three members of the top line (Filip Forsberg, Ryan O’Reilly and Gustav Nyquist).
Kaapo Kahkonen and Mackenzie Blackwood, G, San Jose Sharks (99.5% and 97.9% available): They have been trading back and forth for starts of late, so it should be Blackwood against the Kraken and Kahkonen against the Ducks. Both players have been having positive results of late for fantasy points, with Blackwood doing better of the two. These are great opponents as the Kraken rank 10th in points awarded to opposing goaltenders and the Ducks are third.
Source: www.espn.com