When the waiver wire doesn’t have much to offer then it’s time to seek value via trade. As always, the return in the trade is what is paramount, and not making the trade for the sake of making a trade.
Here are a few players for fantasy hockey owners to buy low and sell high on.
Buy Low
Jeff Skinner (Carolina – Left Wing)
The Carolina Hurricanes had an awful start to the season, going the whole month of October without a win (0-6-2). The team has at least been somewhat respectable since then, going 8-10-1 since November 1st.
A part of this turnaround has been getting healthy, which has bumped the team’s possession numbers to just outside the top-5 in the NHL. That’s important in fantasy hockey because it should assuage fears about plus/minus, which had been a big concern for Carolina players in recent years.
Coming into this season, Skinner was a career 11.3 per cent shooter. So far this year, though, Skinner is shooting just 7.1 per cent. When this happens, there are a couple things to check:
• Is he shooting the puck from further away? Via Behind The Net, Skinner is actually taking shots at 5 on 5 closer to the net this year than either of the previous two years. So that’s not the problem.
• How are the smaller samples? Skinner has yet to score this year with the man advantage. For reference, he had 11 power play goals last year, and five in the lockout-shortened season.
Skinner won’t keep going with a bagel in the power play goal column. Buy low on Skinner now, and he could be a top 50 forward the rest of the season.
Looking ahead to next week on Sportsnet’s Fantasy Hockey Pool, Carolina goes to Montreal, then has home games against Toronto and the New York Rangers. None of those teams are higher than 15th in unblocked shot attempts allowed per minute at 5 on 5, which would give Carolina good matchups. Skinner is just 2 of a possible 4 points in cost, so it might be a good week to start betting on his turnaround.
Patrick Sharp (Chicago – Left Wing)
It was a slow start to the season for the Chicago Blackhawks, at least in the goal scoring department. The team has come on – another way of looking at it is their shooting percentage has regressed – and has averaged 3.28 goals per game since November 1st. It’s safe to say the Blackhawks are who we thought they were.
Sharp has had a rough start to the season, mostly because he missed a month due to injury. Sharp returned last night, though. While coming back on Chicago’s third line isn’t ideal, he still played over 17 minutes in total. That mark is just fine for fantasy purposes.
Sharp is shooting 4.9 per cent to start the season, despite being an 11.9 per cent shooter for his career. Like Skinner, Sharp is getting shots off at 5 on 5 closer to the net this year than he has in either of the previous two seasons. That’s a good indicator that things will turn around. It’ll be more expensive to acquire Sharp than Skinner, in all likelihood, but Sharp should easily be a top-50 forward for the rest of the season.
Sell High
Evgeni Malkin (Pittsburgh – Centre)
I will preface this by saying personally, I’m very much a fan of Evgeni Malkin in fantasy hockey. At the outset of the season, I had him ranked fourth overall in rotisserie leagues. It’s not often I would recommend trading away top fantasy assets.
So far this year, Malkin is shooting an even 20 per cent. For his career, coming into this season, Malkin was a 12.7 per cent shooter. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that he stays around 20 per cent; Jordan Eberle and Joe Pavelski have both had seasons over 18 per cent over the last couple of 82-game seasons. It is not something to rely on, though. Malkin is taking more than a shot and a half less per game (2.78) than he did in his 50 goal season (4.52), he’s playing fewer minutes per game than at any point of his career, and does not have regular line mates.
The last point is that Malkin has been healthy this year, something he hasn’t been lately: Over his last four seasons, Malkin has missed about 29 per cent of his team’s games. He has had a problem staying healthy, is shooting less, and relying on percentages. These are all red flags.
Jonathan Quick (Los Angeles – Goalie)
This is kind of like trading Malkin, in that this is one of the top fantasy players so far on the season, so the return should be commensurate with what’s being given up. Quick needs to be traded as a top-5 goalie, not merely a number-1 goalie for a fantasy owner in a 12-team league.
Quick has a .939 save percentage at 5 on 5 so far this season. That’s pretty high, considering from 2011-2014, Quick was a .926 goalie. For reference, the best 5 on 5 mark last year from a goalie was Tuukka Rask at .943, and he was the only goalie at .939 (Quick’s current mark) or better.
Los Angeles also isn’t the team from recent years. As of today, the Kings are 14th in the league in puck possession, and are giving up more unblocked shot attempts per 60 minutes at 5 on 5 than Calgary or Arizona. Quick’s save percentage should go down, and his goals against average should go up. That’s reason enough to trade him now for fantasy owners that might have goaltending depth.
The next set of players was released today on Sportsnet’s Pick ‘n Play – a game that pits players who are playing this upcoming Saturday against each other. Pavel Datsyuk is taking on Phil Kessel as part of today’s matchups, and with Kessel seemingly hampered by injuries, it appears to be a good spot to pick Datsyuk.
*Stats courtesy of Hockey Reference, Hockey Analysis, Behind The Net, and NHL.com
