Speaker 1: Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life, presented by fan Tracks. Here's
your source of information and analysis to help you win
your fantasy hockey league. Block off hats a step hit on,
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Speaker 2: Here's your hosts, Jesse Sovier and Victor Nuno.
Speaker 3: Fantasy Hockey Live back once again. Jenni fan Tracks, Victor
Nuno u et leite Prospects. Victor. How you doing today?
Speaker 2: I'm doing awesome, Jesse. Yeah, I'm really excited to be
recording again with you. And how you doing?
Speaker 3: My friend doing great? Doing great, Victor. I've been on
the road this week. I'm I'm dazed, I'm confused. I'm
trying to get back into the routine of everything we
got going on here. But it's Victor. There's a place
that you can be every day of the week if
you care too. It doesn't matter if you're home, if
you're on the road. You can be on your phone,
be watching hockey. You could be I won't go into
all that, but Victory, you could be on our discord
is the bottom line here and all you have to
do to get onto that for absolute free is Messages
at Fantasy Hockey Life at gmail dot com is the
most typical way people do it, and we give youell
link and we get yourself in there. Victor. There are
other cool sundry things that we offer through Fantasy Hockey Life.
Why don't you tell people about those?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's all kinds of bonus content through the Patreon.
You can join our tier Dynasty, which got a couple
of people in recently, so join us. Join that if
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end lists, So check that out all over at patreon
dot com slash Fantasy Hockey Life.
Speaker 3: Victor, did you say we still have openings for the tidy?
Is that what you just said?
Speaker 2: We just filled a couple currently. I don't think there
are any in need of being filled, but the waiting
list is low right now. So yeah, you get on there,
you might get in soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Man, you've got nothing to lose by doing that.
If you're out there, if you want to participate, because
we are definitely some people tune out at this time
of year. You just if you've got one hundred people,
there's just going to be a certain rate of attrition.
But they are very fun leagues, and just imagine the
way you could jump in, Victor, I think we should
get to the meet. It's just you and me today,
just you and me next week. But we'll let you
know what we're doing right after this. It is time
for a little check in that we're going to call
the buyer self on the Western Conference in this year episode,
and what Victor and I are doing, we're going to
go back and forth, just like the Ketchup and Mustard days,
and we're going to give one player we would buy
on each particular team, and one player we might sell
and defend our decisions and then mock one another for
our decisions. So you can mock me. I won't mock you, Victor,
because you know you're a pretty smart guy. But we're
going to do the West Coast first, because West coast
bias on this show always, and we're going to start
with the Anaheim Docks of the Pacific Division. Victor, you
are on the clock.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, So I got a couple of interesting
ones here, and I will say that some of these
in this exercise, some of these teams I might want
to sell more than one person or buy more than
one person, but the way we set it up is
to buy one and sell one. So that is what
we are going to stick with. Some of these work
really well. Some of these might not, but I think
for Anaheim it actually does work out pretty well. There's
a clear buyer that I would suggest, and that is
Jackson Lacombe. Jackson Lacombe, who was drafted back in twenty
nineteen a second rounder. He's a defenseman, left shot D
six two two oh five and he has been playing
in the league just for the last couple of seasons.
He got a couple of coffee in twenty two to
twenty three. He played seventy one games. Last season. You
probably didn't notice him too much because he didn't really
do too much in terms of scoring. Before that, he
was at the University of Minnesota and he was great.
And this season he has a forty three point pace
in his thirty eight games played. He's just north of
that one hundred games played mark. And I think the
biggest thing for me is that he's absolutely just killing it.
In terms of all around play, he has the best
coursing on the team, the best expected goal differential, only
the second most time on ice behind Jacob Truba. Jacob
Truba is not doing very well in terms of driving play,
but he does other things and he has a big contract,
so maybe that's why they're giving him time. And in
terms of power play usage, you might think mac lacomb
isn't getting much, but he is. He's got the second
most behind Olin Zelweger, He's ahead of Minchikov. He was
right in there, similar with Fowler before he was traded.
And even without the power play pacing for the most
points on the blue line by far, it's not even close.
So he's way out producing Zellweger and everyone else on
that blue line. And when you look at his underlying metrics,
you might think he's more of just a defensive specialist,
but his expected goals is really high. He's just getting
a bit unlucky. He's not converting as much as teammates
aren't committing as much, so he's generating a lot of offenses.
Jackson McComb, he's just not it's just not all resulting
in points, and so his forty three point page should
be much higher. So that's going to be my bi candidate.
I'll pose both of the US to U Jesse and
then you can make a comment. My cell candidate is
going to be Mason McTavish. And McTavish we just finished
the World Junior Talk, and he was a hero from
a couple of years ago. Everyone had these really high expectations,
if you remember people. I was always telling everyone to
lower their expectations and to calm down a bit on
Mason McTavish, despite some people urging me to get more
hyped on him. I just always thought he'd be more
in this forty to fifty point range, maybe fifty forty
five to fifty five point ish guy, and that's who
he's been through his first two hundred NHL games played.
He's right around that mark right now. And could there
be more? Could this be the two hundred games played breakout?
Sure totally, But he's at a forty point pace and
it really doesn't deserve it seemed like he deserves any better.
Quite frankly, I know that Anaheim has been up or
down this season, but there are many players who have
much better analytics than Mason McTavish, and they're doing their
best to drive the bus and drive these plays. He's
got the third worst expected goal differential of any Duck forward.
He's in the Brett Lesa and Robbie fabric territory really bad.
And at this point, this is where I've projected him
to be. I think this is where he's going to live.
And if anyone wants to buy into that, he still
has that potential and he's at the two hundred games played,
he's he's nearing his breakout, then I would absolutely sell
to that person, quite frankly. So that's my Seale candidate.
Jesse Bysel Lacombe McTavish. You want to either of those.
Speaker 3: I like them both. Lacombe is a guy I have
picked up I believe in some leagues, and with so
many defensive prospects, it's hard to see him ever becoming
the dominant one on this team. It would certainly be
an upset, but I like him relative to the value
he probably has. McTavish, you're break in my heart. I
hope that it will just take him a few years
to do this, but the statistics don't lie, Victor. I
think you've got a good case there. We will move
on at the Calgary Flames are my first team, and
for my buy on this team, I'm gonna do Martin Paspacil.
And it's always hard to say what the perceived value
of some of these guys is actually. His points per
game has dropped in tidy from last year, but there
are so many good things going on underneath the hood here.
He's been getting excellent deployment for half a season. Nazem
Kadre John Huberto, the two leading scorers on the team,
points have been minimal. He's a late bloomer for fans purposes,
I know he's already in his mid twenties and he's
only in his second year. The hits are through the roof,
so you've got the peripheral floor there. He's getting a
touch of power play Tom and ice as the season
has gone on, but the goals of red replacement victor
are through the roof. When I go to Evolving Hockey,
one of the things I did for each one of
the teams that we're going to talk about this week
and next is look at the goals of replacement charts
for the individual team, and his are through the roof.
He's a close second to the top on the team,
way ahead of all the other forwards, be just behind
McKenzie Wiger. So the upshot is he's a pretty good
player going forward, He's going to be perceived as mostly
a banger. Will he ever be a first line superstar score? Yeah,
maybe not, But he is a guy who I think
might not be valued as or seen quite to the
level of value I think I would have him have.
There are so many different ways to interpret buy and
sell Victor. The guy I'm going to have for sell
here is going to be a guy who's maybe I
would try to move if I was in a rebuilt
type of situation, and it is pretty obvious Nazem Kadri
is a guy who would fit to that mold. He's
thirty four years old. He's still getting great deployment, but
his advanced stats are way down. They're trickling down as
his career has gone along. He's second to last actually
in advanced stats. At five on five. He makes both
the offense and the defense worse for the Calgary Flames
out there, which is surprising for a guy who has
as many points as he does. But it's certainly not
as much an offensive line, perhaps as defensive. So what
accounts for his box stats one third of his points
around the power play. He's still doing very well on
the power play. If you look at his career impact
on again evolving hockey, most of his stuff is dropping.
And even though he's still on that borderline between first
and second line, because of the points that he is performing,
so many different areas of his performance have then slipping
that I think if you can convince somebody that Nazi
Kadri is somebody who will help him get over the
top for the next couple of years, maybe you can
still do it. Victor. I don't know, but what do
you thought, Paspacil Kadri.
Speaker 2: You're making me a little sad too, because I actually
just bought an Asim Kadri in one of my lenks.
I guess I was convinced enough. But this is a
cap league where there aren't a lot of options for centers,
and he still does a lot of the things, even
if he's not driving as much play and doing as
much scoring. Calgary is a confusing team. They're on that
mushy middle and they're hanging around a little bit, and yeah,
some of his scoring isn't as much as it should be,
but he still covers a fair number of boxes. He
still hits in blocks to some extent, and face off
wins are good, those are counted in that league, and
the shots are decent. So I that's what I was thinking.
There were limited options and I needed to bolster my
center depth. But in general, I don't disagree with what
you're saying. I think and there's a trend, and if
you don't, if you're not limited in terms of options,
I think that's that's probably reasonable. He is getting a
bit older and there might be there might be better options,
but for a win now team or a team that's
trying to be competitive, I think that makes a lot
of sense. It's not going to last too much longer,
probably for Kudrey, but that's where he is right now.
Pasposl is someone who's really confused me because we know
he hits a lot, But I think you hit on
the issue is what else is he going to do
and how much more is he going to do that?
And at first I was really on the train of
I think he's just a hitter. I don't think there's
much else there, But he has shown that there is
and that there's a little bit more, and so that's
that's fun. And so I think that I think that
I like that a lot. I think in terms of
the let's go ahead and buy him, I think that
he's probably not going to do as much scoring still
it is going to be his thing. But in terms
of what he's been able to do with his play driving,
it's been It's opened my eyes a little bit, I
guess what I'm trying to say. So I like those
two and let's move on to my next two and
that Edmonton Oilers, And so I'm gonna buy Ryan Nugett
Hopsen Ryan Nugent Hopkins. And he's been a really interesting
guy over the years, obviously being that number one pick
in a sort of weak draft quote unquote, and his
scoring has been up and down. Had that one hundred
and four point season and never broke point per game
other than that, and so I think we know that
wasn't who he is. But he's on a forty eight
point pace this season. That would be his second worst
point pace since the twenty sixteen to seventeen season, where
he played all eighty two games and had forty three points.
And so that's pretty bad. But when you look at
some of his numbers, all of the main indicators of
positive aggression are there. So his PDO is high, his
IPP is sorry, his PDO is low, his IPP is low,
is powerplay IPP is low. His shooting percentage is a
touch high. Maybe that doesn't indicate anything better, but a
lot of these indicate that he should be getting a
little bit more points. But I think the biggest thing
you can point to is that he's playing most of
his time on ice with Connor McDavid, and that just
does not lend itself to a sub fifty point pace
for a talented player like him. Certainly, we've seen many
third wheels rotate around with Connor McDavid and not do anything.
But Ryan June Hopkins is not a third wheel. He's
a very good player. He's talented player. Maybe he's not
the most offensively dynamic player and settled in more to
a two way role, but he is still much better
than what he's doing getting the opportunity that he's doing
being on the power play. So all of those things
to me mean that he's going to deserve a lot
more if you just regress his power play individual points
participation to where he was a couple of seasons ago,
he'd be near sixty point pace. So I think that
there's some pretty good opportunity there. So I'm buying Ryan
Nwton Hopkins if I can. Guy I'm going to sell
is going to be Matthew Savoy. And we've talked about
Savoy a bit on this show. He was people were
going crazy for him when he was lighting it up
in Junior and we were all really excited about him.
But this season his P and H league finally crashed
back to the range that I've realistically thought that he
would be as a probe, and that fifty five to
sixty point range before that, when he was in the
dub he was scoring his his projection made him look
like he was going to be this ninety eighty to
ninety point guy. And he is a smaller guy. He's
still five 'ot nine, one hundred and eighty pounds and
he's even in the WHL you'd see him struggle with
some of the physicality. And we saw him at the
World Junior when he was expected to be a big
time contributor, and it was just it wasn't. It was
a little less than you would have hoped. Now he's
twenty one and he's got twenty seven points in thirty
three games for Bakersfield. That I think is a good opportunity,
a good selling point where I think you can sell
someone on that strong HL production because I think that
means that he will he's still pretty likely to be
in NHL or but how much scoring is he going
to do in this top league? I don't think much,
so I would take what I can get from Savoy.
I have him in my Fantacy Hockey Life player card
as a six point twenty five. That means he's just
above average if five is average, and he doesn't have
a huge percent to get there. Interesting enough, he has
been blocking a lot in the AHL, but he hasn't
been hitting or shooting, so his bash is probably going
to be pretty low, and I think that I would
still try to capitalize on that whatever hype is left,
including his HL hype and the fact that anyone could
get that slot next to Connor McDavid and be a superstar.
At least, that's what you should sell him as. What
do you think?
Speaker 3: It's some good points and you've got me excited because
I think I'm looking at a trade off for mean
into me that involved Ryan Nugent Hopkins. So now you've
got me hyped up a little bit that they're maybe
an opportunity for me to buy rather than just add
Do I really want him and Savoy? Yeah, this is
one of those guys that's been in between for a while.
We try to decide is this a guy who we
would really want to acquire or is he a little
bit over hyped? So yeah, but it seems like he
might still have some price, take some value on him.
A lot of people had put value on him before,
so yeah, why not? I like them both. Victor the
La Kings are next up my buye. It's hard with
this team. I went with Drew Dowdy. Victor the Krusty
Vett has not yet played this year. It looks like
he's on the end. He's coming back soon. You never
know about buying guys who have been injured former stars
who've been injured, because sometimes people will stubb hang on.
Sometimes people will be less willing to trade them as
they get closer to healthy. Sometimes very savvy managers will
wait till the guy is right right at a debut
and then might be able to get a premium off them.
It just depends on the psychology of the league. It's
also going to be hard for somebody who's seen what
Brent Clark has been doing very well, and maybe they
have doubts that Dowdy is going to come back and
just Dowdy away like he used to. So it needs
to be a by low and definitely not in a
salary league. But I think there may be an opportunity
to get a guy who when he's rolling along, he
could be an excellent asset for your playoff run. And
for my cell, I'm going Kevin Fiallo Victor. He has
been on the down low. He's been a dumpster fire
at five on five this year, he's the second leading
goal scorer on the team. He's going to have sell value. Obviously,
he's a reputation of a star and near the top
of the charts, and boys, I notice I have him
in multiple leagues, so that's not great. But he still
takes a whole lot of shots and that helps lead
to the goals. But if you look at some of
his advanced stats over time, they are not necessarily getting better,
and even at the power play he's moving down. So
I think that Fiala is a guy who balances the
you could probably sell them fairly high with You need
to be worried about the fact that he has the
absolute worst goals about replacement on the entire LA Kings
team this year, and to think about, now's the time
to make that move if you can. What do you think, Victor?
Speaker 2: My various shares of Kevin Fiala don't like and I
am reminded that he is always a second half player,
So maybe there's this fire that will happen towards the
end of the season. We have seen him down the
stretch in the last twenty thirty games. Just absolutely go bananas.
There's only so many times you can do that. He
has hit that over point per game. He's exiting a
statistical prime'. He trended a little bit back down last year.
He doesn't get the elite time on ice that some
of those top forwards do. In fact, he has more
time on ice he his past two seasons when he's
had lower point pass So that's interesting. Maybe he needs
to play less, maybe that's the answer. But yeah, I
don't mind that. You might in a one year league
might regret it after he goes on his typical end
of season two. But I think that's reasonable, And yeah,
with Dowdy, actually have Dowdy stash in a couple leagues
on IR, so I like that. And I do think
that he's so competitive and so fiery and such a
leader on this team that I think he's going to
come back and have a significant role regardless of what
Brent Clark is doing. Even though he has been great,
Brent Clark is not Drew Dowdy no matter how good
he is offensively, Dowdy just does so much more and
is going to be relied upon in more situations, even
though he's getting up there in age. So yeah, if
you forgot about him or someone dropped him because their
IR is full, I would grab it doesn't cost you much.
I think that's a good speculative ad. All Right, I'm
going to move on to my next team, and that's
the San Jose Sharks, And so my buye is going
to be none other than William Eckland. I was gonna say,
go buy a Celebrini obviously, duh, Right, he's really good,
But William Eckland is finally becoming the player that we
thought he could be. He struggled a bit on his
first season last year on that just awful team that
won the lottery and got Celebrini and Eckland, there was
a lot of concernation about, oh, look what he's doing.
He ended up with a forty six point pace and
people were disappointed with that to some extent. But he
was literally dragging non NHLers around the ice all the time,
and he was asked to do a lot and he
did it really well, but it just didn't end up
in a lot of points. Now that he's got some
more competent NHLers to play with, surprise, surprise, his point
pays increase. I don't think anyone should be really surprised
with that. And in case you're wondering, I made a
reference to Celebrini, but Eckln has been doing this pretty
much entirely away from Mackland Celebrini, he has not really
been relying on at even strength, only twenty percent of
his shifts are with Macklin, and actually fewer on the
power play. I was thinking that at least they'd have
quite a bit more together on the power play, but
that hasn't really been the case. So what the Sharks
really want is to have two of their best players,
clearly Celebrini and Eckland drive their own line. And that's happening.
And it's not like he's getting lucky. He's actually got
a shooting percentage around his career average. His PDO is
a touch high, but his IPP and powerplay IPP are
actually pretty low for players of his caliber. I think
Eckln actually might even deserve a little bit more than
his mid sixty ish point pace, And they have some
more competent NHLers around him, but I think they need
to surround him with even more and once they do,
you can expect even higher point totals. He could be
a seventy ish point player plus with the point per
game upside in the right situation. And he's finally trending
that way in his and he's still only one hundred
and forty ish NHL games played, So you look at
that and you realize that he's still got a ways
till that two hundred game potential breakout. And so yeah,
I would definitely be buying William Ecklund. I don't think
this is a mirage. I don't think it's just because
he's playing with Celebrini or any of those things. He's
this is who he should be, and so yeah, go
get him if you can. The cell for me. Maybe
we didn't mention this, but we are going to be
I mentioned Savoy already, We're going to be talking some
prospects as we like to do, and Thomas Bortolo is
going to be my cell. And yeah, he was a
second round pick back in twenty twenty. He's still five
to ten hundred and seventy four pounds, and I think
I was excited about him at one point there there
was some good seasons over in Michigan. But since he's
turned pro, oh, it's been meh, and I've lost confidence
that he can be an impact NHL and certainly in fantasy.
This is his third HL season, the third season where
the expectation was he would make the team. Remember those
past couple teams were actually pretty bad, and it was
pretty surprising that he couldn't do more on the NHL
team when there was tons of opportunity, and I think
the management really wanted him to make the team and
make an impact, and he didn't do himself any favors.
And then this season he's really not doing well in
the AHL. The Bearcudo is much better now, but so
they have more roles to go around for other people,
and he's just trending downward. I think that's the key point.
Most of his comps now are guys that just didn't
make it, and I have him on my Fantasy Hockey
Life Player KRD as just a twenty four percent of
being an average roster player, and so that's really not good.
He's still good at face offs, but that's not really
enough to get you super excited about it. And his
hockey prospecting is just really trended down to being basically
an anomaly if he makes to a star, so unfortunately,
but if someone can still be excited. I actually did
sell my final share of Thomas Portolo the other day
for just an average roster player in a cap league
because I just needed a warm body. And that's basically
where I'm at with Portilo is I don't really expect
much and so I'll just take whatever I can get,
and that's what I would suggest you do.
Speaker 3: What do you think, Jesse, Oh, Victor, what happened to Bordelicious?
That those were the days when he was the border
lots and not so bored a little as he's become.
Now those were happy days. So yeah it's sad, but
yeah it doesn't It doesn't look like it's going to
happen with Thomas Bordilo now William Eckland. He is in
that range that I have found where I just can't
but I can't get away with buying guys because if
you have that draft status and you were hot at
the time you're draft and now you're starting to break out,
those guys I just find nobody wants to give up
in Dynasty. Maybe in redraft he could prime away, but
in Dynasty, boy, I've tried making some offers on Eklund
and they've gone nowhere for me. But again, could be
a by High type guy in Dynasty, I think you'd
have to You got to pay a serious price, but
perhaps it could be done. Seattle Kraken is I think,
oh no, not the last team of the Pacific, but
one of the last teams. And that is the one
I have here my buye. Shane Wright is having a
sneaky breakout in some ways. Maybe I just keep wanting
to make Shane Wright happen. But he's had a very
nice five on five impact. He's second on the team
in goals above replacement, Believe it or not, Shane Wright
in the Year of Our Lord twenty twenty five is
the second on the entire Seattle Kraken in goals above
replacement two thens done. He's made a good impact on
He's made a positive impact on the offense for the
team when he's out there. He's made a good impact
for the defense. He's made a good impact for the
defense too. But Seattle, of course, is a little bit
of a dumpster fire right now. Now he needs to
What would be nice is if he started getting power
play time, because that's what would maybe help this set fire.
Because right now, obviously Cheen is not lighting it up
on the scoreboard. He's probably disappointing people because he's only
got twenty one points in his forty three games, so
it doesn't look like it's happening with him. But I
think underneath the surface, even though he's barely shooting, that's
another one of his problems, just over a shot a game,
but he's close to a hit and a block per
game too. Those are nice peripherals. To beginning, I didn't
know if we were going to get those with Bright
and cel I noticed in our fourth part league victor
he got drafted or he got dropped today with a
full cap hit and its Chandler Stevenson. The question is
can you still get something out of him for his
rep from his Vegas days, for the fact that he
was highly paid when he came to Seattle, and maybe can't.
He's bringing down the team at five on five offense
a little, but he's a complete collapse on defense. He's
not able to do anything on defense for this team.
Thirty points in forty five games. That might be enough
to sell someone. Obviously didn't sell one of our league
mates for sport that they dropped him and took the
cap hit for nothing for probably years to come. But
there's still a reputation there for Chandler Stevenson. Perhaps you
could still get something. It's not going to be something amazing,
but again, if you can can convince somebody else that
maybe they're buying low on a guy who used to
be a juggernaut with Vegas, perhaps you could get something.
What do you think of those two.
Speaker 2: Victor Probably wishful thinking on Stevenson. I don't understand, but
it seems like when people go to Vegas they sprinkle
this fairy dust on them and then when they leave,
it just it wears off and it come back crashing
back to earth. Yeah, he's been the moment he signed
that contract, I think a lot of us were like, wow,
that is a massive overpay, and they probably thought that
it was a bit of an overpay and they just
wanted some stability and good play down the middle. But
it has been anything but that. And yeah, that's been
a bit disappointing for them, I'm sure. And yeah, the
problem is he just doesn't really do much. One of
the positives about all Seattle players is that just about
any of them are as likely as the next to
get points. So in a non cap league, that's a
team you can go to, like whenever it's a good
stream week for Seattle. It's actually nice, but also annoying
because you just take your pick, like just close your
eyes and throw darts, because it could be any one
of them. And I guess that could be Stevenson. I
wouldn't want to buy him. And he's just he's so
frustrating in the ways that he doesn't he doesn't do
anything else. Shane Wright is a good call. I've liked
what I've seen from him. He's really got some stability
there with his We knew that he was a strong
two way player, but the question was how much more offense?
And I think he's been showing. He's been showing more
and more. It's been coming along. The whole team looks
just lost at times. Sometimes they show signs. But yeah,
I think I would buy low on Shane if you
count he's only fifty nine games in his career. I
think there's a lot more untapped potential there. If someone wants,
someone's frustrated, wants to give up on him, I would
do them that favor. Jesse for sure. All right, let's
move on to the Vancouver Canucks, who have absolutely nothing
going on. There's no storylines, there's no drama or anything
like that. Sometimes I wonder how much of it is
just drama and how much of it is just that
they that so much has blown out of proportion in
those big markets. But it certainly seems like there's a
lot going on off the ice. But we're going to
keep this on the ice. And the guy that I'm
gonna buy is Tom Vilander, the prospect, and he was
Vancouver's eleventh overall pick back in twenty twenty three. Some
people maybe thought that was a little bit early, that
was not a super deep draft for defense, but he's
a right shot. He's got good size at six to one,
and when his draft season, he played a little bit
in the SHL, mostly in the J twenty and that
if you remember, he elected this sort of strange at
the time path. He was one of the first actually
that wanted to come over from Europe and be in
the NCAA and that's worked out really well for him,
and he's got some pretty decent point scoring at be.
Some people might point to the fact that he doesn't
run the power play at BU, but he's had a
Hudson problem this whole time lane and then Cole and
you're not going to take the power play away from
those guys. But he has been an absolute stud all around.
And at the World Juniors we talked about him with
Mitch Brown and Villander was the one really running the
power play with asp kind of in the OV spot
ready for the one timer. So Velander really does have
that capability. We settled on he might be more of
a second pair, second power play kind of, but he's
got strong priffs. He's gonna get pretty good time on ice.
This pinancially has him in like a mid fifties, and
remember that Mason gives a little boost to defenseman scoring,
but that's still a pretty good projection in this metric.
He's got comparables of John Michael Lyles, and Mike Matheson.
I think those would be reasonable guys. Matt Ridgeloick. I
think he's better than a Matt Gridgelick type in terms
of his role on the team. So I think for me,
the stock up is on Tom Velander. I don't like
to send big offers after the World Juniors, but he's
a guy I'd be willing to buy quote unquote high
on because I think he's still on the rise. And
as you alluded to previously, in terms of where you're
buying a player, if you're buying high but you're still
on the upper trajectory, then that's okay. Then you're still
you can still expect more. So I am buying high
on Tom Velander if I can. The guy I'm selling
on is Jake DeBusk, which probably wouldn't surprise a lot
of people if you listen this podcast. I've never been
a huge fan of Debrasque and mainly because he's been
his whole career, it seems like he's been has great opportunity,
great deployment. In Boston, he had lots of opportunities with Marshawn,
with Pasternak, with bergeron at different times, and he never
could get over that forty fifty point pace except for
that one season in twenty twenty two twenty three where
he only played sixty four games, but he had fifty points,
and so that gave him a sixty four point pace.
But if you look at his games to play, they're
always pretty low, except for the one season he did
play seventy seven games, he had a forty five point pace,
and so I just don't think that he's gonna be
able to do more than that. You're seeing him get
good deployment in Vancouver, playing with mainly JT. Miller, Brockbester,
Elis Patterson. He's playing very much playing all the time
with one of those three, and that's just he's just
not getting it done. Also, his shooting percentage at nineteen percent,
he's almost double what he should be doing. He has
a high pdo. He's getting lucky. He's getting lucky in
all these situations and he only has a fifty four
point pace as we're recording this, he's on a bit
of a cold streak, So maybe wait until he scores
a little bit and then maybe you can ship him
out for something. But I wrote my notes here from
Jake Debrusk just run.
Speaker 3: I am on record as never having been a huge
Jack Debrusk fan, And I guess you could take a
potential just saale from Vancouver one of two different ways.
You could say maybe there's more opportunity for him if
he sticks around, or you could say that his linemates
will get worse if you can get worse than just
not being there, as he's dealing with right now. But yeah,
I've got no particular desire to acquire Jake Debrusk. I
won't be selling him because he won't be on any
of my teams. And then Tom Vlander, Yeah, it's hard
to find a good buye on this team. So I
do like the idea of getting somebody who is in
the minors here, and yeah, he could have a big
And that's a good shout that with Hudson's on your team,
you're just not going to get the opportunities that you
might otherwise. Amazing to see that, what not even the
top defenseman of his own team went and led a
team in the World Juniors. That's how good that Boston
team is. Right now, on to the Vegas Golden Knights,
the bye going with Victor Olifson. Victor, this is what
happens when guys leave Buffalo, and the question really is
it too late to get on the ground floor of
Victor Olifsen. He's already got seventeen points in twenty four games.
He's he missed a lot of time, but he's been
on fire his career. All all season lines are hilarious.
If you look at the chart on evolving hockey that
are hockey Viz. That shows the guy he started as
a first line player in his rookie season and then
gradually it declined and declined and declined, and it bottomed
out all the way the fourth line. And then now
in Vegas it's popped off the chart. It popped back
up to his career high from a first line. So
it goes all the way down, all the way down,
and then boom, it's way up at the top again.
So when we talk about Vegas making fools of us,
all this is yet another guy who is doing it
right now, so I would like to acquire him for
the season. He's still on the right side of thirty.
I believe he's right in that vicinity. I will take him,
And on the sales side, I will take Noah Hannafin.
If we thought he'd be the power play quarterback this year,
we were wrong.
Speaker 2: He is not the main.
Speaker 3: Power play quarterback of this team. He has some positive
impact on the defensive side of the buck and he
takes a lot of block shots, which are nice in tidy.
His value is a little bit suppressed by the fact
that he's poor in fenwick and takeaway giveaway relative to
his teammates, and that actually costs points in our format.
He's a black sheep on Vegas because that is unusual
for guys not to have that going for them on
the team. Half point per game might come in somebody
else that they are fine low with Hannafin and that
he's going to take a big jump because of his
past with Calgary, the fact that he was such a
big story last year as a deadline deal, and I
just think I would rather cash out right now, Victor
and reactions to those.
Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, I definitely when people were saying, oh, he's
gonna no Hannifin's going to run the power play in Vegas,
I just I never believed it. Quite frankly, that's not
really ever been him. I know when he was coming
up through the ranks and as a prospect, there were
discussions of, yeah, maybe he did have some offensive document
but as he rose that he kept getting so many
opportunities in Carolina and Calgary, and he just he wasn't
that guy. He never was think he ever will be.
He's a strong, even strength defender. He fits into their system.
He's a good all around player, but he's not that.
He's not that scoring profile that runs a power play.
So it never really made sense that he was going
to be that guy, and so I never really believed it.
But maybe somebody still does. If they do, then you
gotta slightly use Noah Hannafin to sell them. But yeah,
I don't. I would. I would be moving away from
him if I could. Victor Olifson has been such an
interesting guy. I remember seeing him in Buffalo and just
the scoring when he first started was just like getting
all his goals. He's got twenty goals three times and
it looks like he was on pace to get that
again this season. It just seems like he needs to
play with Jack Eigel though. It seems like most of
his stop scoring seasons have been with him, and that
makes sense. He's obviously good player. This seems like there's
some extra chemistry there between those two. But yeah, he's
he is getting a little bit older now, he's gonna
turn thirty this summer, and so it's not too old.
But is there more or is there more of decline?
I think he's more headed towards potentially a decline, but
then you see this great opportunity he's getting, and I
think that you can expect that to continue for a
little bit longer. I definitely like to buy on Victor Olifson.
I've been surprised in a few leagues that I'm in.
I go and look and he's available, and I'm like,
why is he available? He's doing really well. I don't
really understand why people are shying away from him. He
is a UFA after this season, so I think it'll
be interesting on a kap lee to see what he's
going to do. But I wouldn't be too worried about it.
I think even if he gets a raise, I don't
think I don't think it's going to break the bank.
Plus with the cap going up even a KAPLI I
would say, go buy Victor Olifson.
Speaker 3: No, don't leave Victor. Don't leave, not our Victor. Our
Victor can't leave either, but Victor oliveson particularly. Don't leave Vegas. Man.
This is what you need to be the man. Let's
take a brief break. We're going to come back and
move on to the Central Division. Victor is the Central Division.
And while we may regret this entirely alphabetically, we must
start with the Chicago Blackhawks. Bye, do we have to do?
We have to buy somebody on this team, Victor. I
don't know. Maybe you will convince me otherwise, but I'm
going to go back to the well. Like we did
with Wilander.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go to.
Speaker 3: Kevin Korchinski because we've talked about him a lot this year,
and even with the performance, I have found him difficult
to pry away in trades. I'm not quite sure why
he had zero points in nine games when he came up.
I thought that would help suppress his price a little bit,
but I think people are just savvy to know that
there's an excellent chance this guy is going to continue
to grow and mature into a very good NHL defenseman.
Seventeen points to twenty eight AHL games is pretty nice.
He's still not particularly old. He's still just not that
far out from his draft year. And actually, if you
pro rated his advanced stats, even though he had no
points in his nine games, the guard chart that I
look at for the team is accumulative of all of
his time out there. But he was to the positive
basically on every phase of the game, probably in some
protected time, but in every phase of the game nearly
while he was out there. So I think he actually
showed a little bit when he was up in the
NHL US here. I would like to acquire him, just
because I'm reluctant with a lot of these guys. Don't
even tell me about Tyler Bertuzzie. I don't want to
hear about that guy. And on the cell, does anybody
still want Taylor Hall? Please take my Taylor Hall? Please.
He might just be in the team context of the situation,
but I know in the preseason we're talking about Taylor
Hall is maybe a guy who would be a little
bit of a bounce back, because we've seen it before.
He won a dang Heart trophy. He was a number
one overall pick, but look cooked on the spreadsheets these days.
Half a point per game this year. Maybe you could
commit somebody. He's still a by low. He's still got
it in him for the second half, but his play
has deteriorated according to the overall charts to from superstar
levels to in the last couple of years, like second
line levels. Now it's borderline third line levels in here,
and even his powerplay performance is spotted out. So I
just don't if I could still get something out of
Tillor Hall. Victor, he's a guy I would want to move.
Thoughts on Koortchinsky Hall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting. I think the athletic guys were talking
about Kortinski and whether the Blackhawks would take Matthew Schaeffer
if they've got the number one pick, and I think
the ideas that they would, and then maybe they would
move Kortchinsky, which might actually be good for him because
he's behind liftsoonoff. Now he's got Alex Vlassek who's swored
past him, and the development path the White Kaiser is there,
so it's been a little bit of a struggle for him.
Some of his some things are still really good about Korchynski,
but he still struggles with some of his pivots and
some of his footwork, and so that's making it a
little bit difficult to have a huge impact in the NHL.
I do agree that. I if people have lower their
expectations enough, I like him as a bye But if
some people still view him like they did in his
Seattle Thunderbird's day, then no, then that's not going to
work so well. I agree with Taylor Hall. I have
him in our Diesel league, and I wish I didn't
because he just just sits around and does nothing most
of the time. But yeah, he did also talk about
maybe moving on to a different team. He thought that
he'd stay there, but it sounds like he's open to
moving and maybe a change of scenery. I can't imagine
how hard it is to play on a team like
that where you're just getting caved in night after night.
So I agree with you. He looks cooked. He doesn't
look there's much more there. But if he did change teams,
then I think that would be the great, the best
thing for your trademarket. Because you might be able to
move him and get something for him. My next guy
is the is from the Colorado Avalanche, and so I'm
gonna I'm gonna be buying on archery Leacanon. Actually, I
just got a trade offer in the couple out of
the Blue Jesse and it was Lecanon and Bob for
Barzil and Nadelkovich, which confused me a little bit because
I like both of the guys coming to me better
than the ones going away. And I know that Barzil
has been in a minute heater, but I just really
trust Colorado and I trust Leacanon to stay in that
really good deployment area. And even though he's a little
bit down this year, he had sixty point paces the
last two season, and I do agree that Barzil has
more upside, but also he's a bit of a frustrating
player sometimes. Anyways, this isn't about my trade offer, but
I think Lecanon he's continued to be getting that power
play roles to some extent. He hasn't had as many
power play points this season, but he's still getting good
time on ice and I don't see that going anywhere.
There have been some there have been some rumor when
Natrushka has come back. At times he has bumped him
a little bit there, but he continues to play with
McKinnon and Rounton and a lot of the time, and
if he's not playing with him, he's usually got some
Muchushkin or Drew in, so he's getting good deployment. His
shooting percentage is a little bit high lacanon is, but
his ipp and powerplay app are insanely low. There's no
way when you have stars, superstars on your team that
you should be not getting in on that much of
the action, and he gets big minutes. I don't know
what else you could ask for Terry Lecinon. He's such
a strong defensive player. I guess that's maybe the only
thing is that sometimes they put him on a different
line just to help drive that line and to not
get caved in so much. So that's maybe part of it.
But I think Arterry Lecinon is going to get more
points than he currently has. The guy I want to
sell is Ivan Ivan. He is a prospect who has
one of the best names in hockey. As we all know,
there was some discussion that he had a mental name.
There was also Ivan, but apparently it's not. It's just
Ivan Ivan, which is unfortunate because I thought there was
three names. Anyways, not important. He's been playing some time
with the Avalanche this season. He isn't scoring too much.
He made that jump last season from the Colorad Eagles
and it's been really solid in terms of his all
around play. But I just don't think that he's going
to be more than like a thirty to forty point guy,
maybe forty to fifty if everything breaks right. So in
your league, after he's not minors eligible, which he's at
thirty seven right now as we're recording this, it might
be good to move on from him. If someone thinks
that maybe he can push for a little bit more,
I don't think so, so i'd be selling Ivan Ivan Jesse.
What do you think about those two?
Speaker 3: Yeah, those are two good opportunities. I just I've never
been able to quite buy into liking in. I don't
know who it is I think is going to displace him.
I don't think that Landeskog is going to come back
from the vall of wingers with physical wingers and captains
that just can't get back in there. But he's getting
the job done. I don't know, I don't know if
I could buy him, because I feel like he's in
some ways he's at peak. But you do make a
good point that his IPP and powerplay IPP could help
him out a little bit more. And even yeah, he's
not really a guy I've considered in leaks recently, so
that is not something that I don't know how he
could have gotten one of my rosters to sell. But
he would be a guy who perhaps if you still
couldn'net some value, people are like, he's a prospect, he
got some good opportunity right away. Maybe he's in the
long term plans of Colorado, then sure, why not the
Dallas Stars. My bye is going to be Thomas Harley. Boy,
he's a bye high. I'm set my sides high with
this one, victor. I would have to pry him away
from somebody's grizzled hands to get.
Speaker 2: Him, I think.
Speaker 3: But he leads the team by a mile and goals
above replacement. He's a couple of minutes per game behind
Miro Haskin. That's the whole thing. When you talk about Harley,
you have to talk about Hayskin because Hayskinin continues to
dominate the lead role for defenceman on this team, and
that might help you with Harley because he'll be perceived
maybe as the second best defenseman on the team. But
he is only two years younger than Hayskin and Haskin
signed for a very long time, so it's tough in
a salary league. He's only half the price of Hayskin,
it which that helps, and I would say, yeah, I
would say, if you can convince anybody that Thomas Harley
is not all that right now, it's worth a bye
high in my mind because I think he's going to
be a very good defenseman for a long time in
the NHL, and the cell maybe one of the most
obvious sales in the league. Jamie Benn. Look, I get
Ben's return is going to be limited. He's a win
now player only, but he's having that renaissance that I
only had to predict for six straight years before it happened.
Here's a play, Here's a ploy I would suggest for
somebody in like our league where we co manage the
degenerate dynasty dudes. He's been on the waiver wire forever
there because he's getting nine point five million in salary.
Ain't nobody going to do that? For a Jamie Ben.
But if you were a free agent Tya, if you
were a tanking team with salary broom, why not pick
up Ben, retain fifty percent of his salary and flip him.
Because for both the acquiring and the departing team, he's
only got one year left of that crazy nine point
five million a year contract, and so you potentially would
get that retention spot back after this year. The team
that acquired him, if they could actually take that hit,
is getting a five million dollar player instead of a
ten million dollar player. Who knows, you could maybe create
value for nothing with the maneuver like that in a
salary league, if indeed everybody agrees that five million is
a decent price on Jamie Ben, which you might still
not quite do. But he's spent on the first page
of waivers in that league forever, and yeah, I just
think but through the end of this year at least
he is going to continue to have value on Dallas.
But obviously it's a very limited time, so I'm looking
to move him if I can. Victor, what you think,
Harley and Ben? Can you give me Harley? Are we
in a league where you have Harley? Would you trade him?
To me for cheap. Maybe I could sell you Jamie
ben for Thomas Harley. How would that go?
Speaker 2: I do have Thomas Harley in a couple of leagues,
and no, I would not be selling him. I love
that guy. He's really talented, and yeah, if me or
Heigskinning wasn't on this team, he would be. We'd be
talking about him as one of the best defensive fantasy
options out there. His even strength metrics are are good
to really good, and his offensive creation is just insane.
I think that we might actually get to a point
at someday where Dallas really really leans into that a
little bit more, because I think that they should Hei
Skinen is. He's a fine power play quarterback, but he's
just he's not really as good as Harley, and he's
just saved him for all the other situations. I think
that would be better overall for them, and I'll serve
fantasy gams would love that. But yeah, Thomas Harley's awesome.
I would buy him anytime I can, and he is
a little bit cold, but that this is a good
time to get him. And Jamie Benn is funny you
mentioned that because I actually did buy him in the
sister league to the one that you and I are
and the one I managed on my own, And that's
exactly what happened. One of our gms, Blair, who's a
rebuilding team, he added Ben and he retained him, sent
him to me, and I'm very happy to have fifty
percent Jamie Benn plus when a cap league. As you mentioned,
this is only just one more season after this, He's
probably gonna get re signed with Dallas, and I don't
think he's going anywhere. He still offers a lot, even
if it's not as much as it once was. He's
still a productive player, and he's probably gonna get paid
a lot less, probably with some like incentives and whatnot
as a older player, and still be similarly effective. So
I would definitely try to acquire Jamie Benn in one
of those setups if I could, and I already have.
Let's move on to the next play the next team,
and that's the Minnesota Wild and oh boy, my buye
is going to be. Charlie Straml and I have been
a little out on streamer for a while. I think
most people have. He was drafted back in twenty twenty three,
twenty first overall when he was first drafted, people were
really excited about him. He's six three two twenty three.
He can play the middle of the ice. He was
at the USNTDP doing doing well, and then he went
and those were his d minus one season. Then he
spent his draft season in Wisconsin and it was a
total disaster, and he stayed for one more season and
it got worse, essentially, and there were a lot of
documented problems with that Wisconsin programs. A lot of people
struggled and left and transferred, and there was this idea
of maybe it was just the environment, maybe it was
just a situation for him. And so far this season
at Michigan State, he has been really good, one of
their best players, eighteen points in twenty three games, looking
pretty good. One of the best college teams in the country. Well,
the stock is up on Charlie Streaml. I don't think
that it's all the way back to where it was
in his pre draft season, but he is regaining some
of his mojo and some of his potential, and so
that's good and you could probably buy really low on
Charlie Stramold. I would do that as a speculative ad.
I think it might be worth it. He might still
only be like a forty to fifty point guy in
the NHL, but he's looking more and more like he
could be where there was a while there where he
was absolutely looking like he wasn't ever going to play
in the NHL, so stuck up a little bit. Some
of his equivalent season percentages still look pretty low because
he had two awful seasons mixed in there, and most
of his parables and these models do not look good.
Although there's a Mike mchel backland there which would be
in the deep enough league would be an interesting asset,
maybe not for some of the more shallow leagues. And
the other thing that kind of helps him is that
he does tend to shoot and hit a fair amount,
so there is some potential there for some peripheral floor.
But again I'm not saying go crazy with Charlie Shanmwin,
just that there there might be a little bit more
interest there than there was not too long ago. The
cell for me is going to be Aaron Kivy.
Speaker 3: Har you.
Speaker 2: He did nearly, just nearly captain the Fins to gold
medal at the World Junior Championships, and he had a
great tournament. He's improving his NHLer stock. He's playing professionally,
he has played professionally for the last couple of seasons.
He's still undersize. He's five ten now one hundred and
eighty pounds. I thought he did well handling the pressure
in some of the physicality, but I just don't think
that high octane offense is there or going to be
there at the next level. As the games speeds up,
you don't see him doing as much with that. You
see him making solid plays and getting out of pressure,
but not dictating the play and generating as much. So
I think if it all breaks right, kiv Harry is
more of a third pair, second power play kind of guy,
which isn't super exciting, and you look at some of
his comparables in the PNHLEI model and it's pretty sad
someone like Karl as Elsner who was not super exciting,
and in the hockey prospecting model it's also been pretty low.
So I have him in my prospect cards as just
a five point five one to five, which is basically
a low percentage to even be an average roster guy.
So that's not super exciting, but maybe you can sell
on some of that world junior hype and some of
that potential rising, which I think he is rising a
little bit after quite a depressed I thought you should
there for a while. But I still don't think it's
going to rise enough to be super interesting, so I
would sell him Jesse.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a little bit of meh, I would say
there on the old Minnesota Wild. I'm not expecting a
huge return for Strammel. I don't know how fired up
I am about kiv harre you, but yeah, it is
a good point that he really showed us something to
the World Juniors. That is, That is what it is.
That's I don't know anything, of course about the Minnesota
Wild because ESPN won't let me watch them because it's
decided that Milwaukee is actually located in Minnesota and therefore
Blacks at all the games. But you're talking about prospects,
so that's not relevant anyway. Let's go to the Nashville Predators.
Talk about a season. We have a season that makes
Vancouver fans feel optimistic after winning the off season. It's
always the team that wins the off season. Man, it
never goes well. I am going with a buye of
Zach LaRue. We've talked about him multiple times this year,
and it's all coming together for Zachary la Harue. The
hits are there, after all. That was something I worried about.
He was very physical in terms of taking pims when
he was in the minors. But I'm very encouraged to
see that he's getting over three hits a game. That's
what you would expect from a guy with his pedigree
or his style. Especially one of the big things about
him is he's only getting eleven minutes a game and
he's doing quite well in that limited defensive role. If
you would have had odds this year on the rookie
most likely to get suspended, you probably would have picked
zach LaRue and you would have been right, because he
got some suspension this year. He's only got nine points
in thirty six games, so I'm not sure that he's
high on people's interest charts at this point. But if
you look at individual expected goals per sixty so I'm
trying to look at a rate stat from his style
of play. He was fourth out of fifteen players on
the PREDS for guys who had at least four hundred minutes.
He's ahead of Stamkosen Yosi in individual expected goals per
sixty again nine points in thirty six games, but playing
roughly sixty percent of the minutes of the top forwards.
He is a guy in a defensive role. Obviously he's
sparied on a lower line right now, but I wonder
if Hill Tom Wilson is way up the lineup in
time under the surface. I'm pretty happy here. If the
Predators start to sell, who knows where this guy could
go in the pecking order. And again, he's just a rookie.
He's got a physical reputation, It'll probably take a while
before he is respected in that way. And in the
cell side, I don't know where to go. Here's the deal.
I'm gonna sell Roman Yosi, and here's why, because I
still think I can get a king's ransom for Roman Yosi.
Don't I'm not saying sell him cheap, and I'm not
really saying what he's doing is unsustainable. These cells can
mean a lot of things, and I'm going to make
every single one of the cases for one of these guys.
I think you can sell him extremely high because his
value is there. His value is there. He really hasn't
lost underline value, especially if you are in my league,
the original Dynasty League of FHL, where I'm trying to
sell him for parts, there are not many win now
pieces here what I did there, Victor See, I'm always
thinking there are not many win now better win now
pieces among defensemen because he still racks up points and
his overall value line is somehow still rising. So the
point I'm trying to get at here is at in
his mid thirties, this is a cell, but this is
a cell where I feel like I can get a
whole lot in return. What do you think Ala LaRue
and Yosi?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like them both. I definitely would like buying Laru.
I've liked him for since he's turned pro. He's really
turned things around, turned my impression, and yeah, he's actually,
as you mentioned, been really good and a lot of
offensive metrics that I really didn't think was gonna be
there quite frankly, and he's got that peripheral floor as
long as he keeps the pins and suspensions down, which
hopefully he's learning to toe that line. Yeah, and Rosie
Yosi is someone that I I've actually been encouraging people
to buy because yeah, what he's been doing, people are
of course used to all the amazing things that he
has been doing, and it has been really tough in Nashville,
and what he's doing looks a lot worse. But he's
still Romanosi and I think he's still good enough to
get his points and everything. So I would want to
buy him if you were selling, but as you said,
it would have to be at value, not or at
what he at his potential, not what he's doing now.
So maybe having to pay a little bit more. Let's
move on to the Blues, and so my cell is
going to be Dylan all the way. He's really proving
that he is an excellent player that cannot only survive
with more time on ice, but he can thrive. And
it's often true that death players can look good in
sheltered roles, and you look at some of the expected
goals and some of the goal differentials and you say, oh,
this is you know, third liner is amazing. Just give
him first five minutes and he'd be superstar. That generally
doesn't work out, I would say, but for Holloway, I
think it has. You look at what he's done. His
time on ice went from eleven twenty two in Edmonton,
and he was a pretty important player in that Stanley
Cup run, and then it's jumped up over five around
five minutes. He's getting more responsibilities playing against tougher players,
and he's absolutely killing it. His expected goal differential and
his offense and defensive impacts are some of the best
in the league, and certainly some of the best on
the Blues. And he looks awesome. He's rocking a sixty
ish point pace right now, looks Legit actually looks like
he can do more. None of his percentages are wildly high.
His shooting percentage is maybe a little bit above his
career average, but and his PDO is maybe a little
bit high. But he's actually it's not unreasonable to where
you would expect. I guess the question is whether you
expect that he is this good of a player or
whether he never was and will regress back to being
a third liner, which I don't think is really the case.
So I would be buying on Dylan Holloway. You know,
you like to see the commitment that was made to him,
and you know, maybe that looked like, you know, a
bit of an overpay. I think some people thought it did.
But two point two nine is not a terribly high
amount for a player that's doing what he's doing. And
so in a cap league, he's also looking pretty good
and they've committed to him, the Blues have for a
couple of seasons, so you like that. The guy I'm
gonna sell is Cam Fowler. And as we're recording this,
he's a point per game in his last eleven games
and his shooting percentage and PDO are high. For Cam Fowler,
all of that high variance is amounting to a forty
point pace, which this is all for me. It's always
been the same with Cam Fowler. He gets all this
great time on ice power play, and he gets goes
on streaks and then you look at the season pace
or whatever, and he's pretty much always in this forty
ish thirty five to forty five ish point range. That's
where he's lived almost his entire career, and so that's
what I think he's going to regress to. Although to
be fair, he does have a sixty two point piece
in a Blues uniform, so he has been rocking a
little bit higher potential there. Justin Falk is still getting
more power play time and Prunevinch got a decent amount.
Broberg as well, So this is often the case with
Fowler as well, is that there always seems to be
a better option to run the power play, and when
he does it, he's fine. He's not super impressive or
great or anything, and only has two power play points
this season combined in Anaheim and Saint Louis. So I
just don't buy this from Fowler. I never have, and
never sustains at all. He always regresses back to that
player he was. Plus he's a bit older, so I
think there's even less reason to believe that he can
sustain it. What do you think, Jesse?
Speaker 3: I do Holloway, and he was a guy who got
some attention in the off season because of the offer sheets.
It was probably little higher profile move for a fellow
who was maybe in a little more depth roll in Edmonton.
But I like you already ran down one Wisconsin Badger
earlier victory. Let's celebrate Dylan Holloway, a former Wisconsin Badger
back when that program was working. Yeah, I do like him.
I definitely would buy Dylan Holloway. In fact, I think
I've tried to buy him for several years, and I
don't know that I've actually acquired him anywhere. But I
still like the guy and Fowler. Yeah, it's like I
keep under rating Fowler. I feel like he is a
player who I thought when he was moving in out
of Anaheim this is That's about it for Cam Fowler.
But he really does. Even in that team of Saint Louis,
where it seems like they have fifty million defensemen of
a slightly above average type level, he is getting a
fair shot. It seems like there if you can convince
somebody that he has value now than great. I don't
know how he would be to convince me of that
in terms of his trajectories.
Speaker 2: But I like it.
Speaker 3: Victor, and onto the Winnipeg Jets. Let's talk about them, Victor.
I'm gonna mess with you this time. I'm going to
buy and sell Gabriel Valardi. Let's have chaos. Let's rock this, yolo, Victor,
Gabriel Valarde. Here is the thing with Vollardi. He's tops
on the team in offensive goals above replacement. He's nearly
at a point per game. He finally is doing this
after all those years where we kept waiting on him.
Now he's forty one points in forty six games. I
think it's forty six maybe that says forty eight. I
don't know, but maybe you can find somebody on the
one hand. On the one hand, victor if you are
trying to buy him, maybe the other team doesn't trust
it yet. Maybe they think they're selling high. Maybe they
think he's riding the wave of a Jets team that
can't do this forever. And they could be right. On
the other hand, Mark Scheifley and Kyle Connor are pretty
awesome linemates, so there's some reason to keep him on
the flip side if you're going to say something more
negative and try to sell him. And again, it's all
about value. It's where you can get value. At this point,
his peripherals floor is awful this time, and as Fenwick
and give away takeaway ratios kill him in tidies, he's
more of a sell, I would say in our tidy
format if people aren't just looking at the row score
and thinking this is a guy who's getting all these
goals and assists and he's hitting restrict a free agency.
So I think also in salary he could be a
less valuable player here in a couple of years. But man,
he has been racking up the points, especially in this
middle section. Of the year, and he's pretty much been
locked together with Shifley and Connor all year. This has
been highly unorthodox, but value is always relative. What do
you think about Gabriel Ballardi.
Speaker 2: I think you're trying to cheat on the assignment, Jesse,
That's what I think.
Speaker 3: I swear you would think that this meant I ran
out of time on Winnipeg, but I didn't. Winnipeg was
in the middle of my prime session.
Speaker 2: Baker, mm hmm, all right, I'll allow it. I've always
been confused with Villardi, you know, back when he had
those in the back injuries and the not playing in
fn LA, and it was just you know, you knew
that he had the offensive talent, but was he going
to get there? And those three guys in Winnipeg are
all similar. They're all like straight offense guys. They don't
really play defensively, but they do score a lot and
he's part of that, and he's doing well and the
team is rocking it, so our to not like what
he's doing. Yeah, the question is how long is this
going to continue? Is it going to is he gonna
be there long term and still have this plush assignment
and position we got Shiflee and Connor locked in there
for O'Connor at least for a couple more years, Shifely
for four more. So if he continues, then then I
think that he's probably going to get paid a decent amount.
And if he stays with them, then you're gonna be
pretty happy about it. And a capolague though you have
to imagine he's going to get probably six or six
or something. He probably is going to get double or
so what he's paying getting paid now, and maybe a
little less, and so that might hurt a little bit.
But I've never been a huge fan, just because a
lot of the other priffs are light and he's never
been a big shooter. And so it's one of those
points only plays that if you're good with that, then
it can be good. But yeah, I probably am not
buying or selling Jesse, So there you go. Does that
mean you disagree? I don't know what it means. I
don't have any shares of him, so I can't sell him.
But I also am not interested in buying him.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to do both and you're trying to do neither.
I'm calling that a disagreement.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, all right, that's fair. Maybe this one will
we'll have some more agreement. So for Utah that's the
next team. I'm going to make this an all goalie version,
and that is because right now, if you look at
the numbers, Corell vill Melka has been having a great season,
There's no question about that. He has looked really good.
And Connor Ingram, who had a pretty good time last
season or two, he hasn't looked as good. There's been
some reasons for that though, twenty eight games played for
vill Melka, fourteen for Ingram, who's just recently come back.
He missed a lot of the first part of the season.
But basically, what I would say is what's happening right
now with Ingram and ville Milka is the opposite of
their career trend and what it would suggest if you
look just at this season the vill Mecca has been
better with the Delta Fenwick and gave some game goal
save above expected. But for the past several seasons it's
very clearly Ingram and I'm not sure that you need
to look too much farther past the personal issues that
Connor Ingram has had with lose tragically losing his mother
and then it seems like it really affected him hard.
I think it affects most people hard, but it seemed
like a he really struggled with it, and I'm banking
on that bounced back from Ingram to get back to
where he was. If you look at the expected numbers,
it's really dramatically in favor of vell Melka. Obviously, the
team has been much better this year too, and so
I think you have to take that a little bit
into account that they have it bolstered some of their team,
it has improved, They've They've made some pretty key additions
and I think that's all been really good and that's
probably helped him a little bit. They are paying will
Melka a little bit more, but they have one year
more commitment to Ingram, so I'm not sure if that
really clarifies anything. But if you look at the past
several years, the goals save above expected for Ingram is
seven point six five and negative eight point two to
one for val Melka, and that's including vill Melka has
positive eleven point one six this season, so that's how
bad negative he has been in the past. The Delta
Fenwick is also dramatically better, with zo point twenty four
for Ingram and negative point one four for vill Melka.
There is a Jackson Stauber in here in case you're wondering.
He's had ten games over this several year span, and
when he has played, he's looked really good. But I
don't really think that he's a clear challenge in terms
of being a volume starter. So for me, I would
and I think that Utah, depending on how the rest
of the season goes, they might consider trading will Melka
for a contender and riding with Ingram. Maybe if they're
in the mix, they don't do that, which they're hanging around.
For me, I'm saying I'm buying Connor Ingram and I'm
selling Corelvillmelka based on this, I think that what's happening
this season will revert back to what has been happening previously,
and I have more faith in Connor Ingram being a
long term better goalie. Jesse, what do you think?
Speaker 3: Huh, yeah, Victor, you're shaking me up. I will admit
I don't think I have any goalies as a part
of this process. But the yeah, Connor Ingram does seem
to be Yeah, he seems to be the man on
the rise with this team and the guy that I
would rather invest in. So I think I agree with
you in terms of that, even though the Milka has
had the dominant share of the starts, I do think
I trust him more long term than I do Vameilka,
or I trust Ingram more long term than I do Vameilka.
So I like that. That's a good call, Victor, and
it's sneaky. There's a lot of people who'd probably look
at that and see it differently given some of the stats, Victor,
I think that is going to do it for us
for the Western Conference. Any other comments to make on
this West Coast Bias conference before we wrap up the show.
Speaker 2: And obviously we try to take a longer term, longer
view here, not just what's the rest of the season,
but you can certainly think about it that way. You
can certainly think about it Dynasty two three years in advance.
But if you're thinking about buying or selling any of
these guys, then pop in the discord ask us about it.
I think that's a great place to chat about it.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, we'll be back to close up the show.
A couple of more things to mention before I get
out of here today, you can play fantasy sports on
fan Tracks ten different sports there. They've got all kinds
of different settings. It's where we're playing our fantasy hockey
leagues right now, because you can do all the rookie
stuff you'd want to do. For one thing, there is
also a fantasy content at fan tracks HQ articles on
all the different sports that you would want to see.
We've got a whole team helping out FHL. You hear
some of them on the show. You see their work
over there in the discords Craftzer, Ryan, Shimon and Tim
they are the commission team with the Tidy leagues. Jeremy
V and Tony are doing yeoman's work getting our scouting
reports together as our lead scouts. Brandon is a website guru.
He's a scout. He helps with prospect ranks and visualizations.
If you think there'd be cool things that you could
help us do over here at Fantasy Hockey Life, Victor
is all ears. He's willing to talk to you over
there in the discord email or x or Blue Sky.
We're also brought to you by Dauber Hockey Daber Prospects.
Victor is an editor there follow us work there as
well as this other podcast, Daber Prospects Report with Peter Harlan.
Victor's articles are at Elite Elite Prospects. He's part of
the fantasy team Cam Robinson, Mike Clifford, other notables in
that area, and he's put out a lot of good
content there you should definitely catch up with. And I
do a solo show called Dynasty Sports Life. I talk
all the different Dynasty sports. This week is going to
be a football episode, the first of several episodes to
preview the upcoming NFL Draft class. So if you're in
Dynasty Football and you want to look at your rookies,
got a friend of mine who's going to be popping
on and recording with me later on today. Follow us
on x at Hockey Life at Victor Nunno. Twelve or
Blue Sky V one Victor or Jesse Severe, or you
can just subscribe rate review on all your podcast aggregators
podcast applications. We'd appreciate five stars. Not everybody's listening to
a fantasy hockey podcast in late January, but you are,
and you even listened to the outros, which just shows
me the level of your dedication. So I would think
it's really a small leap to go the next level
and leave five stars if you haven't done so so far,
or just say hey, Victor and Jesse are cool. Just
say that doesn't have to be true. Just say it
see Internet, nobody will know. Thanks everybody for listening. Hope
you enjoyed this edition of Western Conference by Cells, and
until next time, keep living that fantasy hockey life.