Grit Primer: Sandpaper All Stars

As fighting trickles out of the NHL and plummets to its lowest levels ever, penalty minutes too are going by the wayside in fantasy leagues and being replaced with an equally-truculent metric: hits.

Sweet, wholesome, delicious hits.

With the latter fantasy stat category replacing the former in all Yahoo leagues, It’s time to let go of the joy drafting those loveable scrappers and meatheads brings and switch your focus to shot-blockers, hitters and, well, meatheads.

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There’s actually some good value to be gained from high grit stats like hits and blocks, especially with guys who combine their love of smashing people and taking pucks off the kneecaps with a somewhat-what respectable scoring output. When the point producers an special-teams specialists are scarce later in your draft, look to fill out your roster with some of these machismo machines.

Alexander Edler (Vancouver Canucks)

2017-18 Season: Pts – 34 / Hits – 157 / Blks – 203 / minus-18

‘Belligerence’ isn’t the terms that first come to mind when you hear Alex Edler’s name, but the 32-year-old put up some sneaky good grit stats from the blue line last season and complimented his 200-plus blocks and 150-plus hits with a tidy 34 points., too.

Alec Martinez (LA Kings)

2017-18 Season: Pts – 25 / Hits – 100 / Blks – 206 / plus-3

He has the potential to put up a respectable amount of points and takes a ton of rubber to the melon, what else do you want from a sandpaper blue-liner, really?

Ivan Provorov (Philadelphia Flyers)

2017-18 Season: Pts – 41 / Hits – 148 / Blks – 169 / plus-17

Ivan, first off, ranks maybe just behind Boone (whom you’ll read about shortly) as one of the grittiest names available to give your newborn child. Secondly, the dude’s a stud in many aspects of the game, including his point production and powerplay prowess. The Flyers rearguard also contributes a boatload of hits and blocks and finished last season with a plus-17 rating. Value all around, and his name is Ivan.

Brooks Orpik (Washington Capitals)

2017-18 Season: Pts – 10 / Hits – 218 / Blks – 168 / minus-9

The Capitals defenseman, with exactly 16 goals compared to 2,425 hits over his 16 year career, is the definition of a tough customer — a real hockey player’s hockey player, ya know? He certainly wont yield you much in the way of points, but his love of crunching dudes into the glass and blocking pucks with his abdomen can really bring some late-round grind value to your team.

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Milan Lucic (Edmonton Oilers)

2017-18 Season: Pts – 34 / Hits – 254 / Blks – 25 / minus-12

Big Loochie led all forwards in hits last season — living in Edmonton from November to March will surely do that to a man — and has laid out 240-plus opponents in four of his last five campaigns. He’s also a good bounce-back candidate as his obscenely large mitts have historically had some points in them. Lucic posted 50-point campaigns in the of the four seasons prior to last, and has twice notched 60 or more points.

Tom Wilson (Washington Capitals)

2017-18 Season: Pts – 35 / Hits – 250 / Blks – 51 / plus-10

Just like his buddy Orpik, it’s reasonable to expect Willy to be a little sluggish coming into the season as a 95-day Stanley Cup bender is not an easy rip to bounce back from. When the booze dust settles at some point during the early part of the season, however, expect the 24-year-old, who is good for 240-250 hits every year, to keep that pace up. He can put up points, too, and spends a lot of his ice time playing alongside Alex Ovechkin, meaning he won’t gut you in the plus/minus department either. He may be the captain of the Sandpaper All Stars.

Ryan Reaves (Vegas Golden Knights)

2017-18 Season: Pts – 10 / Hits – 236 / Blks – 27 / minus-7

This loose train could finish the season with 250 hits or more next season after averaging over 230 his past five campaigns. He’ll straight up only get you fantasy points with hits, as he doesn’t have much to offer across any of the other categories, but who cares about those nerdy fantasy stats anyways, this is war. There are no calculators in the trenches.

Boone Jenner (Columbus Blue Jackets)

2017-18 Season: Pts – 32 / Hits – 205 / Blks – 83 / plus-1

You would expect any human Boone to be a gritty, rough and tumble kind of dude, and Jenner is no exception to this appropriate stereo type. He thoroughly enjoys cracking skills, finishing top 20 in hits last year, and also doesn’t mind taking the odd biscuit to the shins — finishing second among forwards in blocked shots. He added 13 goals and 32 points to his sandpaper stats, too.