Yahoo Fantasy Hockey: Those final decisions to help win your league

(Ed. Note: We’re once again pleased to partner with Dobber Hockey to provide fantasy hockey insight throughout the NHL season. Here’s Steve Laidlaw, the Managing Editor of Dobber Hockey, as your new fantasy hockey smarty-pants!)

By Steve Laidlaw

Congratulations, on making it with us this far. You are in the finals, or perhaps are battling it out for some sort of consolation prize. Whatever you are playing for, a win to close out your fantasy hockey season would be a great way to tie a bow on it. As we have done for the past two weeks, we’ll be running down our five keys to success in the fantasy playoffs:

1. Patience is no longer a virtue

There are but two weeks left in the regular season and for most leagues only one of those will count towards the standings. As you have no doubt discovered, a seven-day stretch is a sprint. Winning in the head-to-head playoffs isn’t necessarily about having the best team, but just about having the best performance for that week. Any deadweight must get pitched overboard at this point because there is no tomorrow to play for. Anyone and everyone should be considered potential cannon fodder. Let’s run down some widely-owned players not pulling their weight:

Jamie Benn – C/LW – Dallas Stars – 100% owned: Literally no one is giving up on Benn and for good reason, he’s been an Art Ross contender for several seasons. But Benn has gone quiet with no points in the last five games. You’d have to be pretty desperate to drop Benn considering his track record but leave no stone unturned in your pursuit of a championship.

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Devan Dubnyk – G – Minnesota Wild – 97% owned: You could likely get more from this roster slot with one start from a backup considering Dubnyk’s poor play these past few weeks. Goaltenders are tough to come by so if he hasn’t sunk you yet, at least be judicious about your deployment of Dubnyk.

Jakub Voracek – LW/RW – Philadelphia Flyers – 93% owned: The Flyers lines have been a mess for months as they have attempted to solve their 5-on-5 scoring woes, which means there is no telling if Voracek will have good linemates on any given night. Things have gotten worse with Voracek frequently getting bumped off the top power play unit in favour of a two-defenseman look. Voracek hasn’t scored a goal in the month of March and has just four points in 10 games, none on the power play.

Ryan Suter – D – Minnesota Wild – 93% owned: The Wild have been a mess for weeks. No player has seen a more drastic decline in production than Suter who has just three points in his last 14 games.

Ryan Kesler – C/RW – Anaheim Ducks – 89% owned: Kesler does so many good things for fantasy squads outside of scoring that you might excuse his quiet run but he has scored in just four of the past 15 games for six points, which is production you normally find on the waiver wire. You need to have a plethora of peripheral categories to justify keeping Kesler around.

Cory Schneider – G – New Jersey Devils – 89% owned: Schneider’s generally been an excellent goalie on a team that can’t win games. A win against the Rangers on Tuesday was intriguing but his play has fallen enough to lose starts to Keith Kinkaid. When even the Devils are looking at other options, it’s time to give up.

Nathan MacKinnon – C/RW – Colorado Avalanche – 87% owned: A repeat appearance for MacKinnon, which suggests that most teams with him on their roster have already been eliminated but if you are still holding one, what are you waiting for? He has just six points in the last 20 games.

Nick Foligno – LW/RW – Columbus Blue Jackets – 83% owned: Since the All-Star break Foligno has scored just nine points in 21 games. There are better options on the waiver wire.

Cam Fowler – D – Anaheim Ducks – 78% owned
Matt Niskanen – D – Washington Capitals – 74% owned
Rick Nash – LW/RW – New York Rangers – 71% owned
Thomas Greiss – G – New York Islanders – 70% owned
Jordan Eberle – RW – Edmonton Oilers – 70% owned
Matt Duchene – C/RW – Colorado Avalanche – 65% owned
Gabriel Landeskog – LW – Colorado Avalanche – 61% owned
Nino Niederreiter – LW/RW – Minnesota Wild – 60% owned
Jason Spezza – C/RW – Dallas Stars – 59% owned
Tyler Toffoli – C/RW – Los Angeles Kings – 59% owned
Alexander Wennberg – C – Columbus Blue Jackets – 53% owned
Marc-Edouard Vlasic – D – San Jose Sharks – 53% owned

2. Game the schedule

This means picking up players off teams with an optimal schedule. The fantasy finals have some interesting quirks with two teams boasting five games: Carolina and Nashville. If you followed the advice in this column a couple of weeks back, you loaded up on Hurricane players for the first round of the playoffs and were rewarded. Get ready to do so again!

On top of Carolina and Nashville, there are several teams boasting tremendous schedules for this coming week, including five with the coveted Monday/Wednesday/Friday/Sunday slate.

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Be aware that Sunday isn’t as favourable as normal with 11 games on the schedule, which is tied with Tuesday for the most next week. Saturday, on the other hand, is relatively thin eight games but in case you are wondering, there is only one team that plays Friday/Saturday back-to-back and that’s New Jersey who has become a stay-away with just three games and an inability to produce offense outside of Taylor Hall and Kyle Palmieri.

Like we did last week, here’s a handy chart outlining the schedules for each team next week:

3. Pick players who actually fit into your nightly lineup

You should build your lineup around your superstars. Those guys get started no matter their schedule. Build the rest of your lineup around maximizing games played when your stars aren’t active. Apply the chart above to best maximize those deployments.

Here are a bunch of undervalued talents ready to be scooped off the waiver wire:

Sebastian Aho – LW/RW – Carolina Hurricanes – 35% owned: Has found his game in the second half of his rookie season with 15 points in 22 games since the All-Star break.

Elias Lindholm – C/RW – Carolina Hurricanes – 17% owned: Lindholm continues to be underappreciated despite his second-half dominance. He is up to 31 points in his last 34 games, including points in eight straight.

Victor Rask – C – Carolina Hurricanes – 16% owned: If Lindholm isn’t available you may opt to use Rask who gets you exposure to Jeff Skinner at even strength and on the power play. He has scored a modest 10 points in his last 15 games.

Mike Fisher – C – Nashville Predators – 21% owned: Fisher offers value in leagues scoring peripherals, while providing a modest scoring rate of about a point every other game.

Calle Jarnkrok – C/LW – Nashville Predators – 18% owned: Jarnkrok has cooled off a bit in the past week but has 14 points in 23 games since the All-Star break, while firing over two shots per game.

Ryan Ellis – D – Nashville Predators – 43% owned: Ellis has already hit career highs in goals (14) and points (34) and has an outside shot at reaching 40 points on the season. Ellis has been particularly lethal of late with 14 points in 21 games since the All-Star break. That sort of production should have value in every league, especially with five games to be played.

Jaccob Slavin – D – Carolina Hurricanes – 19% owned: Slavin’s calling card is blocked shots but a hat-trick against the Islanders last week put him on everyone’s radar. Don’t expect quite the same fireworks but if you have a need on defense, you could do worse.

Richard Panik – LW/RW – Chicago Blackhawks – 45% owned: Riding shotgun alongside Jonathan Toews and seeing top unit power play time, Panik has scored 18 points in 22 games since the All-Star break. With that opportunity and production, Panik is a better fantasy own than teammate Marian Hossa.

Nick Schmaltz – C/LW – Chicago Blackhawks – 10% owned: With Artem Anisimov out Schmaltz has been centering Artemi Panarin and Patrick Kane. That’s excellent superstar exposure.

Michael Frolik – C/RW – Calgary Flames – 27% owned: The third member of the Flames’ stout 3M Line has cooled off a bit. But these guys are so good that you should always consider them. With four games on the favourable Monday/Wednesday/Friday/Sunday slate this could be the streaming option you need to push you over the top.

Radim Vrbata – RW – Arizona Coyotes – 21% owned: The only other player with at least 50 points owned in less than half of all Yahoo leagues is Mikael Backlund (48%). No other player with at least 200 SOG is owned in less than half of all Yahoo leagues. Vrbata has gone underappreciated all season. Every fantasy owner who fell short this season needs to be asking why they didn’t jump on Vrbata and move to correct whatever process led them to those faulty processes.

Jakob Chychrun – D – Arizona Coyotes – 7% owned: There isn’t much to like on this Arizona squad but Chychrun has seen his role increase since Michael Stone was dealt. He has also just been more comfortable getting involved offensively in the second half of his rookie season. With five points in the last seven games, Chychrun has flashed some intriguing potential.

4. Know who to avoid

The rescheduled Devils-Jets game is the only thing standing between those teams and becoming absolute waiver fodder. Coming into the year, fantasy owners were looking at only two games for those teams in the fantasy finals. Many owners sold players off those teams in advance to avoid this. Now those teams offer just enough to keep you on the hook but even with the added game you may still find that your Jets/Devils don’t fit this week.

There have been plenty of Rangers who have provided fantasy value this season but some slumping options like Rick Nash, Kevin Hayes, Derek Stepan and Mika Zibanejad might find their way onto the scrap heap because of their unfavourable schedule ahead.

Bo Horvat has offered plenty of fantasy value but the Canucks share the Rangers’ inopportune schedule next week.

Nazem Kadri has been fantastic but with a loaded center position and the Leafs playing on common nights, you may have no room to actual get Kadri into your lineup. Other productive players like Patrick Maroon, Alex Galchenyuk, Alexander Radulov, Kyle Turris, Derick Brassard, Jake Gardiner and Oscar Klefbom might also found themselves without utility this week.

The Sabres offer a unique situation with a back-to-back Monday/Tuesday. You can keep guys like Jack Eichel, Ryan O’Reilly, Evander Kane or Rasmus Ristolainen for those first two games before pivoting to other options. You could get five games out of that roster spot dropping a Sabre on Wednesday, scooping someone off a team with three games remaining. The options are endless.

5. Plan ahead

Start mapping this out now. If you get off to an early lead in your semi-final matchup you can use your moves for that week to start lining up players to grab in advance of the finals. That will give you added flexibility.

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You can go even deeper by looking at specific matchups for teams, which might help you make decisions with goaltending. For instance, with the pair of back-to-backs that Nashville has next week, you can bank on Juuse Saros seeing a pair of games. He has been one of the top backups in the league and is owned in just 6% of Yahoo leagues. Moving to grab him early could pay dividends.

Steve Laidlaw is the Managing Editor of Dobberhockey. You can follow him on Twitter @SteveLaidlaw

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