Shallow Frozen Water

Quick out of the gates

Every season there are several players who surprise fantasy owners during the first week of the NHL season. This year we have seen the PP combination of Kariya, Boyes, McDonald and Tkachuk go 7 for 14 in their first 3 games, Mr.Assist Marc Savard pot in 3 goals and the Canucks lead the league in GF/game. Before you start dropping proven players who have started off slow for one week wonders lets take a look at some of the scoring leaders and determine if the current pace can be maintained.

stats are based on current pts as of 2PM October 13, 2008

Alone at the top of the league with 2.5 PPG is Daniel Sedin who along with his brother Henrik Sedin have found chemistry with their new line mate Steve Bernier and have proven the critics wrong for now with two solid outings against Kipper and the Flames. After a disappointing season in which D.Sedin finished with 74 pts he looks to be on track to break the 80 pt barrier and potentially flirt with 90. The Canucks seem to have found some secondary scoring with their 2nd and 3rd lines finding the back of the net.
In deep pools players such as Demitra, Bernier and Raymond become fantasy options.

With 6 points in 3 games Paul Kariya and Andy McDonald look like the players that were on a PPG pace when McDonald first arrived in Stl last season. After leading the pre-season in scoring McDonald has not slowed down due in large part to the success of the Stl PP. Keith Tkachuk leads the league in scoring with 4 goals, all on the PP and Brad Boyes with a goal in each of his first 3 games is making a statement that his 43 goals last season was no fluke. After finishing 26th in GF last season St.Louis may not win a lot of games but they will help your fantasy pools as long as you can afford to take the hit on the +/- side.
The team also has two calder candidates in T.J Oshie and Patrik Berglund who have both seem top 6 mins. Berglund has been seeing time on the 2nd PP unit and looked like a veteran in today’s game versus the Leafs with his ability to control the puck in tight areas and his ability to drive the net. He was rewarded with his first NHL goal and leads all rookies with 3 pts.

The New York Rangers have 6 players in the top 30. While Gomez and Redden should maintain their current pace players such as Dubinsky and Voros are playing over their heads. Keep in mind the Rangers have already played 4 games while teams like Edmonton have only played 1. One strategy fantasy owners may want to try is picking up players on the Rangers who play the most games during the first half of the season and then trading them for players with more games in hand during mid December. Voros has earned a spot on the 2nd line playing with Dubinsky and Zherdev and his value shoots up in multi category leagues as Voros is more known for his PIM but has a shot at 20-30 pts playing on the 2nd line.

David Booth has 4 pts in 2 games playing on the 2nd line with Weiss and Zednik. If your looking for a guy who will score between 45-50 pts he’s your guy but don’t expect him to keep up this pace with the talent in Fla. Similar to the situation in Long Island the only player who will break the 60 pts barrier will be Nathan Horton.

With the departure of Radulov in Nashville many people have forgotten about Jason Arnott and J.P Dumont. While Radulov looked to be the superstar and future leader of this team he spent most of the second half of last season the 2nd line and it was Arnott and Dumont who carried this team. Barry Trotz has shown early on that he is gonna play his veteran with Arnott, Dumont, and Legwand getting over 35 mins of ice-time.