Tangled up in Blue: Replacing Andrei Markov

Andrei Markov's(notes) knee injury is a gigantic hit to fantasy puckheads, not to mention the Canadiens, but there are always intriguing shopping options to be had on the blue line. Let's help out the poor and unfortunate souls who lost Markov over the weekend, doing four routine searches for value.

Follow the Power-Play Points: It's always the shortest line between you and a scorer; go to someone who's getting it done on the man advantage. Focusing on players owned in less than half of Yahoo! leagues, we find Michal Rozsival(notes) (five power-play points, 15 percent owned), Brett Clark(notes) (5 PPP, 3 percent), Joe Corvo(notes) (4 PPP, 15 percent), Marek Zidlicky(notes) (4 PPP, 36 percent) and Dennis Wideman(notes) (4 PPP, 48 percent).

Follow the Shots: Finding an active shooter is more important for the men up front, but it's also a good predictor of potential offensive success at the blue line. Perhaps we can interest you in Kurtis Foster(notes) (47 shots, 7 percent owned), Anton Babchuk(notes) (45 SOG, 15 percent), Steve Montador(notes) (38 shots, 54 percent owned – should be a lot higher) or Dan Girardi(notes) (31 shots, 13 percent owned).

Ride a Hot Hand: If you query the blue-line leaders from the past 14 days, here are some of the available names that pop up: Toni Lydman(notes) (0-4-4 over last two weeks, 13 percent owned), Andrej Meszaros(notes) (0-3-3 and plus-11, 3 percent), Jordan Leopold(notes) (1-5-6, 45 percent), Brad Stuart(notes) (0-3-3, plus-6, 13 PIMs, 22 percent) and Jason Demers(notes) (just two points but at least they came on the PP, 19 percent).

Head to Montreal: It's surely too late to grab P.K. Subban(notes) (1-6-7, 48 SOG) in any competitive league, but the Habs have some other intriguing men on the blue line. If you don't mind some tread on the tires, give a shot to Roman Hamrlik(notes) (1-7-8, five PPP, 12 percent) or Jaroslav Spacek(notes) (1-6-7, 21 SOG, 3 percent). Josh Gorges(notes) is also giving Montreal some production (1-6-7), though he's not a part of the main power-play.

Did I miss your favorite blue-line sleeper? Got a name for us that's available more than half of Yahoo! leagues? Let's talk about it in the comments.