I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a statline before like Antti Raanta posted on Friday night.
Raanta allowed eight goals on only 14 shots to the Tampa Bay Lightning, for a .429 save percentage. If you’re scoring at home, the Lightning had a 57.1 per cent shooting percentage and Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point had six and five points respectively.
There’s a couple of things that stand out here. First, it’s incredible that Rod Brind’Amour left Raanta in for all eight goals. If you started him, you were probably praying for Raanta to get yanked because there’s no coming back in the goalie categories from an outing like that. Your numbers are sunk. Secondly, we continue to see Carolina not lean on Pyotr Kochetkov. For whatever reason, the Canes just seem hesitant to give him any sort of run this season. Raanta had left the previous game for precautionary reasons and still got the start Friday, with Carolina not turning to Kochetkov in relief during the blowout.
Lastly, the normally stingy Hurricanes rank 23rd in goals against this season. Carolina is typically one of the most goalie-friendly teams in the NHL, but they haven’t been helping their netminders as much recently. In fact, the Hurricanes have allowed at least five goals on six occasions already this season. Starting a Carolina goalie in almost any situation used to be a no-brainer. Not so much anymore.
1. Owen Tippett appears to be back in business. After a slow start to the season, Tippett has rebounded with eight points in his past eight games to go along with 26 shots. He became a trendy multi-cat pickup last season during a breakout campaign, so there was certainly some disappointment when he didn’t pick up right where he left off in 2022-23.
Part of the reason for that is Tippett is playing a lot less than he did last year, thanks to the returns of Cam Atkinson and Sean Couturier, as well as Travis Konecny being healthy. There just isn’t as much ice to go around. Tippett’s hits and blocks numbers aren’t near what they were last year either, but at least the offence and shot volume are coming.
2. After starting strong out of the gates, Martin Necas has gone quiet. He only has four points in his past 11 games and he’s only had two contests over this stretch with more than two shots. He’s also a career-worst minus-10 at the moment. Necas was one of the more frustrating players in fantasy two years ago with just 40 points, but rebounded last year with an impressive 71. It’s starting to feel like Necas has some major consistency issues.
3. Pavel Mintyukov is starting to cool off. Only one point in his past six games and stretches like these aren’t unexpected for a 20-year-old. I worry about his minutes and power play time when Jamie Drysdale returns, too.
4. The Anaheim Ducks in general are starting to regress. They’ve now lost five straight and seven of their past nine. Lukas Dostal has seen his value plunge, as John Gibson has now started four in a row and six of the last seven contests. Plus, Dostal has an .852 save percentage this month. This isn’t that surprising, but still disappointing if you were hoping for some staying power from the Ducks.
5. It’s been a mostly disappointing season for the Buffalo Sabres, but JJ Peterka is coming into his own. He’s up to 14 points in his past 14 games and is starting to find a home with Casey Mittelstadt in the Sabres top six. Peterka is also occupying a spot on Buffalo’s top power-play unit with Tage Thompson sidelined. I’d try to take advantage of this stretch from Peterka and add him as a streamer.
6. It sounds like Zach Benson will be staying with Buffalo for the whole season. He scored a beautiful goal the other night and recently had a three-game point streak, but I’d temper my expectations a bit. I’m curious to see what the Sabres do when Thompson returns, as I have a feeling Benson will be the one dropped from the top six. I think Benson has great long-term value, we just may not see as much of it this year.
7. Goalies with fantasy relevance can sometimes come from the most obscure places and I don’t think anyone had Charlie Lindgren having value on their Bingo Card this season. After a dreadful start, very quietly, the Washington Capitals are now 9-2-1 in their past 12 games and that resurgence is in part thanks to Lindgren. Even with a tough outing Friday, he’s still 4-2-0 with a .926 save percentage. It seems shocking to say, but Lindgren has more value than the likes of Akira Schmid, Devon Levi and Pytor Kochetkov right now and it’s not close.
8. You couldn’t have been too pleased this week if you were rostering Jason Robertson. The Dallas Stars juggled their lines, moving Jamie Benn up to the top group and dropping Robertson all the way down to the third unit for a stretch. The switch was a little puzzling because Robertson, Joe Pavelski and Roope Hintz typically make up one of the more potent lines in hockey and Robertson was just coming off a run where he had five points in three games. On Monday after the change, though, Robertson was held off the scoresheet, without a shot and barely played over 16 minutes. He bounced back later in the week with a couple of good outings, but needless to say, it’s not going to be good for Robertson’s value if the Stars continue to experiment with playing him down the lineup.
9. I mentioned in last week’s column that Jacob Markstrom was playing well and still had value for the Calgary Flames, but their upcoming schedule is significantly challenging, to say the least.
Compounding this concern for Markstrom could be if the Flames start selling off key defencemen via trades in the near future as well. I don’t think you necessarily have to panic and drop Markstrom, you just may have to bench him in certain situations and use him more selectively going forward.
10. It’s that time of year when people are starting to get really frustrated with certain players, which opens the door for buy-low candidates. Matt Boldy is one I would inquire about. Only one goal so far after a 31-goal season in 2022-23. He’s going to start finding the back of the net at some point and Boldy is a good keeper.
11. Andrei Vasilevskiy is back. That means if you’ve been utilizing Jonas Johansson you need to start looking into other options. What little value Johansson had is going to plummet. It’s a scary thought, but we might be getting the best Vasilevskiy we’ve seen in a long time. An early playoff exit and nearly two months off should make him very fresh and rested.
12. There were a lot of folks excited about Kevin Korchinski’s promotion to the top power-play unit for the Chicago Blackhawks this week, but I’m tempering my expectations. For one, Korchinski is still a young player that hasn’t done much offensively this season and second, the Blackhawks have the 30th-ranked power play in the NHL. Not everyone on every top power play in the league has value.
13. It’s a shame Jonathan Quick probably isn’t going to play very much this season. The 37-year-old is 6-0-1 with a .930 save percentage and two shutouts. Quick has taken advantage of an injury to Igor Shesterkin for a little extra playing time early in the season but with Shesterkin healthy, Quick probably won’t see much action. With many fantasy teams starved for goaltending help, Quick would be a nice option if he had more of a timeshare than just a backup role.
14. If you were trying to pick the most underrated player in fantasy hockey, Brock Nelson should probably be right near the top of the list. Nelson already has 10 goals and is on pace for a new career high of 43, while sitting in the top 20 in the NHL in shots. Even after back-to-back seasons of more than 35 goals, Nelson was still on average the 142nd pick in fantasy drafts for 2023-24.
15. Could Alex Lyon possibly be grabbing a piece of the Detroit Red Wings net? He recently received back-to-back starts, delivering a shutout in the second one against a talented offensive squad in the New Jersey Devils. Lyon’s only competition in Detroit is Ville Husso, who hasn’t been great since joining the team, and James Reimer, a veteran backup. I wouldn’t grab Lyon just yet, but keep a close eye if he can parlay this stretch into more playing time. Stranger things have happened.
16. We return to a more normal schedule next week, with a respectable number of games every day. This past week was a bit of a nightmare for fantasy with nothing on Tuesday or Thursday. Only the Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings play twice next week, with every other team playing three or four times, including the Nashville Predators. The Preds have four games and amazingly Ryan O’Reilly is still under 50% rostered. He has 18 points in 19 games this season and one of the opponents for Nashville next week is the Wild, who are one of the worst teams in the league for conceding goals. I wouldn’t hesitate to grab O’Reilly if he’s available.
17. What a turnaround for Pavel Buchnevich. He started with just two points in his first seven games and now has 10 in his past eight contests. Buchnevich was probably a nice find for a lot of folks on the waiver wire early in the season.
18. Vancouver Canucks forward Andrei Kuzmenko is the latest prominent fantasy player to find himself scratched after a trip to the press box both Friday and Saturday. Nine straight games without a goal and three without a point hasn’t done Kuzmenko any favours.
I think a lot of people thought Kuzmenko would regress this season, but I’m not sure many predicted his goal scoring would fall this far. After finding the back of the net 39 times in 2022-23, Kuzmenko only has three goals this year and his 27.3 per cent shooting percentage from a season ago is sitting at just 10.7 per cent at the moment.
If Kuzmenko hoped to avoid regression in his sophomore campaign, he had to get his shot volume up. He only had 143 shots a year ago, so if he can get that up to around 200 or so in 2023-24, maybe Kuzmenko could survive a dip in shooting percentage and still at least be a 30-goal scorer. Instead, Kuzmenko is amazingly shooting less frequently than he did a year ago, currently pacing for just 121 shots.
He’s also been put in a good position to succeed. You can’t ask for much more than playing with Elias Pettersson on the top line and getting significant power play minutes. That’s what makes this stretch from Kuzmenko so frustrating. The Canucks have had an incredible start to the year and he should be taking advantage of it. There’s still time for Kuzmenko to get back on track, but those rostering him must be running out of patience.
19. After a stellar start, the Vegas Golden Knights have now been shut out in three of their past six games. To put that in perspective, they were only shut out twice all of last season. Not ideal.
20. Jonathan Drouin was a deep sleeper this summer because of the chance he might stick with Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, but he quickly fell off the radar. Drouin, though, is suddenly back in the Colorado Avalanche top six and on the first power play, leading to a pair of goals and three points in his past three contests. I’m not sure how long this is going to last, but the Avs do play four times next week. Maybe you can catch lightning in a bottle where Drouin is concerned.
