Shallow Frozen Water

Regina Pats

around a month ago the Saskatchewan Roughriders beat my hometown Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Grey Cup.  Dean Herback was one of several who was sure to rub it in (by the way Dean, do you know why you can’t find a pretty girl in Saskatchewan?  they hide behind the trees).  regardless of the outcome, that was a good night for me.  i painted my face and hung out with some buddies to watch the game at a Roughie friend’s house.  nobody took the evening quite as seriously as me though, let me show you.

ah good times.  well, congrats on the big win.  let’s see how things play out next time when our best player is actually able to sling like he can.

Dean plays in a 10 team H2H with a transaction limit of 30 moves for the season.  one of my fave strategies in H2H is to cycle or stream players, particularly in shallow leagues, but that is not feasible in the least here.  the league starts 2C, 2RW, 2LW, 4D and 2G so it’s pretty shallow.  the categories are: G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, SHP, GWG, W, GAA, SV%, and SHO.

there are going to be some good names on your waiver wire, and unfortunately you may not be able to pick many or any of them up because of your transaction limit and the fact that you only have 12 moves left.  one of the good things is that a trade doesn’t count as a transaction so you can always look to improve that way.

let’s take a look.

C Marc Savard BOS (A-) -4th in the league in assists at the time of this writing and a nice traditionally PIMy option too.

C Anze Kopitar LOS (B+) - i love this guy to break out in a lot of leagues but i lowered his grade because of his +/-.

LW Zach Parise NJ (A-) - the torch has been passed in Jersey to this kid.

LW Alexander Ovechkin WAS (A+) - first in the league in SOG and 2nd in goals.

RW Brad Boyes STL (B) - goals goals goals.  the McDonald trade will only help him and Paul Kariya too.

RW Dustin Penner EDM (B-) - the Oil paid too much for him but the potential for 40 goals is there too.  he should just plant in front of the net on the PP.

D Sergei Gonchar PIT (B) - he’s a machine on the power play.

D Lubomir Visnovsky LOS (C+) - this guy was supposed to be a lot better, and he is, he’s just not showing much.

D Dennis Wideman BOS (B-) - the Bruins got him in the Brad Boyes trade and i’m not sure they got the bad end of the deal.  he’s very much underrated as a defenseman.

D Dustin Byfuglien CHI (B) - if he stays up front his value is higher than it is as a defenseman.

G Evgeni Nabokov SJ (A) - plays virtually every minute and it was looking for a while there that only he and Joe were showing up on gameday.

G Pascal Leclaire CBS (A-) - he surprised me, plain and simple.  leading the league in shutties and is behind only Chris Osgood in GAA amongst regular starters.

BN Kari Lehtinen ATL (B) - very nice G3.

BN Shawn Horcoff EDM (B) - scores in bursts, like 13 pts in 8 games Nov 28-Dec 11 and 10 pts in 8 games Oct 25-Nov 10.

BN Paul Kariya STL (B) - i’m hoping that he shoots more now that McDonald is around to help.

IR Daniel Carcillo PHX (C+) - if you had this guy rostered when he went all apeshit on the league at the start of the season you’d be very pleased.  i actually was telling guys to pick him up before the season started, did you?  he’s worth keeping around even if you didn’t.

IR Bryan McCabe TOR (C+) - this guy has been sold up the river more often than … someone who gets sold up the river a lot.  i don’t know man, stop pressuring me.  how has the Leafs defensive play been without him over this injury time?  yeah, it’s been abysmal.  McCabe has some really good value as an offensive defenseman yet.

you sit in 3rd place and overall your team is very strong.  you don’t need to chase particular offensive stats although your +/- needs some help.  you’ve been hurt by the +/- of key guys like Kopitar and Visnovsky so far this season, it might be wise to shop them to see what is possible in terms of a trade.  it shouldn’t be all that hard to find a taker for Kopitar since he’s a star.  i’d take a little less offense in order to be assured of better +/-.  perhaps you can package them both together?  we’ll see.

Waiver Wire Options

let’s bear in mind that you only have 12 transactions left for the season shall we?  that’s 4 moves a month, less if you still want to have some should you get into the playoffs (and you should); that’s less than one move a week since you have 13 weeks left in your schedule, 10 weeks of regular season play.  actually, that doesn’t sound all that bad if you consider that you’ll play the bottom dwellers of your league (the bottom 5 are all below .500) during 6 of those weeks and theoretically you won’t need to make a transaction for any of those weeks.

i want you to start paying attention to the schedule during those weeks that you’re playing a team in the top half of the schedule.  find the best 4 or even 5 game team on the NHL sched and then cycle in a player on to your team for that week.  you can do that by going to Monday’s date on your team page, sorting your roster by Opposition and then noting who has a 4 game week coming up.  you may want to dig a little deeper than that but at least that’ll get you started.  got me?  your cycling option on your roster right now is the roster spot you just created by putting Daniel Carcillo on IR.

Scott Gomez - one the best passers in the world.  shouldn’t be on a wire even in a 10 team league i would think.

Alexander Radulov - comparisons have been made to Ilya Kovalchuk should they ever take the restrictions off of him.

Maxim Afinogenov - he’s had himself a tough year but he also shows some flashes of speed and talent that can bring you out of your chair.  i think all he needs is a slick center who can keep up with him.

Nathan Horton - 2nd best forward in FLA.  30 goal type guy.

Chris Neil - probably my fave PIM/pt combination in the game.  he hasn’t quite shown that as much this season but it’s in there and it will be seen.

Ales Kotalik - nearly 80% of his total pts this season have come on the PP.  good if held for that category alone.

Jiri Hudler - streaky for the last couple months.  PPP.

Radim Vrbata - ditto Jiri Hudler.

Aaron Voros - PIMs/pts.  eventually he could be a nice power forward option (more than just goonish).

Brent Burns - good young D.  won’t hurt you at either end of the ice.

Mark Streit - playing forward more now.  always take forward’s stats if you can keep a guy rostered at D.  +/- may be his biggest problem.

Mike Green - goals.  goals.  goals from a D.  he’s run with the PP job in Washington and loads of his points are going to be more than him scoring, his easiest way to get a point is just to pass it to Ovechkin.

Brent Seabrook - good, young, tough, all ’round D.

Trading Options

ok, the good news is that everyone in your league has checked on their team at some time in December 2007.  you wouldn’t believe the number of leagues i see where half the guys have already phoned it in. 

you need to improve your +/- without hurting your offense and that can be a bit tricky sometimes.  let me sell you on this for a second, better +/- will translate results from better two way play, it’ll result in more offense and better stats for you.  you main trade bait is your 2 worst offenders in +/-, your Kings, Kopitar and Visnovsky.

i also want to add another concept to the mix.  there are 3 NHL teams that play 14 games during your H2H playoffs, the rest of the league plays less.  you should target the best Blues, Canucks, or Flames if you possibly can and get the extra game’s credit for doing so. 

trade Anze Kopitar and Lubomir Visnovsky to Crazy Dogs for Rod Brind’amour and Zdeno Chara - if dog looks at the numbers he’ll see that you’re actually giving up more stats over the course of the season but if he relies on Yahoo rankings, which i think are horrible by the way, then he’ll decline this deal.

trade Anze Kopitar and Lubomir Visnovsky to Dead Cat in a Ditch for Olli Jokinen and Mathieu Schneider - this one might not work and you’re facing off against Ditch this week anyway so you might want to wait a week to offer it.  Jokinen is incredibly underrated and you can sell Ditch on how the return of Niedermayer is going to hurt Schneider’s ice time.  it has a little but not enough to hurt his value much.

trade Anze Kopitar and Lubomir Visnovsky to Austin Hitmen for Eric Staal and Ed Jovanovski - the D have the same stats over the course of the season so far but Jovo’s +/- has been helped by having a real goalie backing him up of late.  Staal had a slow period earlier this season but he’s streaking now.

trade Anze Kopitar and Lubomir Visnovsky to the Whiskey Robbers for Henrik Sedin and Ron Hainsey - the stats are quite similar again but you look to be giving up more stats historically, the reason you’re doing that is to change your status in +/-, you’re also targeting a Canuck.  it should also be noted that Robber has Jarome Iginla on his team and were you to try and work him into a deal it would cost your Alexander Ovechkin (and he’d have to fork over more).

trade Anze Kopitar, Lubomir Visnovsky, Zach Parise and Dennis Wideman to the Olli Jokinen’s for Paul Stastny, Kristian Huselius, John-Michael Liles, and Joe Corvo - again the stats are very similar but the +/- isn’t.  i’d be ecstatic for you if you got this deal.  Liles is a candidate of mine to explode for some PP stats in Colorado, Stastny is a special player plain and simple and Corvo is a +/- monster.  notice also that you’re targeting a Flame.  you could also consider asking for Daniel Sedin instead of Stastny if you prefer but that’s projected for less offense back.

Conclusions

ok, you’re in 3rd and you’re going to make the playoffs.  with the rationing of transactions and using them only in weeks where you’re playing a team in the top half of your league you should take a couple steps closer to the playoffs.  your offense is really solid but your achilles heel is your +/-.  i realize it’s only one category but +/- affects ice time and in turn it affects your overall offense.  it also can’t hurt to strengthen up the one area of your team that needs it.

your team is in very good shape and i’ve always maintained that anything can happen in H2H playoffs.  so, to hedge your bets a tiny bit then i’d just keep in mind that it’s good to get Blues, Canucks and Flames for your playoffs.  i looked at the NHL schedule during your H2H playoffs and most teams play 12 or 13 games from March 10 to the end of the season.  the exception to that is St Louis, Calgary, and Vancouver who each play 14 games over that period.  an extra game from your guys would always be welcomed.  with that in mind i’d certainly also start targeting the best offensive players off those teams (you already have a couple Blues that you should hold on to then).

well, you should be fine.  good luck.