Fantasy Hockey articles - Sports Grumblings.com

NHL Grumblings: Wales Watching - Jan 17, 2008
By Pete Colaninno \| Published 01/16/2008 \| Wales Watching \| Unrated

Pete Colaninno Pete "Hat Trick" Colaninno has more than 20 years of fantasy hockey experience. He was the fantasy hockey expert for NHL Extreme! and has written for a number of national magazines such as Pro Hockey Preview and has appeared on several radio sports talk shows around the country. View all articles by Pete Colaninno Alfredsson's hot... THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL If your fantasy league uses plus/minus as a stat, then you know the frustration of having a 20-goal scorer who is –20. This situation is tantamount to one step forward, two steps back; for all of the gains you accrue for goal scoring, you fall back in plus/minus points. If you were to look at the 20 worst plus/minus ratings in the Eastern Conference, you would notice that the 20 consisted of the following: Three from Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Florida and the New York Rangers Two each from Washington and the New York Islanders One each from Carolina, Philadelphia, Toronto and Buffalo It is interesting to note that all of those teams listed, with the exception of the New York Rangers, are in the bottom half of the NHL in goals against. In fact, Washington, Atlanta, Carolina, Toronto and Tampa Bay are in the bottom six in the NHL. You must keep this in mind going into your draft. It will be interesting to see if these players stay at the bottom or if they can make some strides in improving their plus/minus. We will continue to monitor. WHO’S HOT/WHO’S NOT (For games played January 7-12) BURNING IT UP Goals, assists Scott Hartnell-PHI: 5 goals, 3 assists Jeff Carter-PHI: 3 goals, 3 assists Daniel Alfredsson-OTT: 4 goals Sydney Crosby-PIT: 3 goals, 1 assist Petr Sykora-PIT: 1 goal, 3 assists Mike Richards-PHI: 1 goal, 3 assists Kimmo Timonen-PHI: 1 goal, 3 assists Plus/minus Scott Hartnell-PHI: +6 Shots on goal Scott Gomez-NYR: 22 SOG David Booth-FLA: 21 SOG Marian Hossa-ATL: 21 SOG Mike Comrie-NYI: 18 SOG Mats Sundin-TOR: 17 SOG PPGs Daniel Alfredsson-OTT: 3 PPGs Scott Hartnell-PHI: 2 PPGs Marc-Andre Bergeron-NYI: 2 PPGs Mike Knuble-PHI: 2 PPGs Jeff Carter-PHI: 2 PPGs SHGs Scott Hartnell-PHI: 1 SHG Daniel Alfredsson-OTT: 1 SHG Goaltending Martin Brodeur-NJ: 3 wins, 1.26 GAA, .941 SP Ty Conklin-PIT: 2 wins, 1.30 GAA, .961 SP Antero Nittymaki-PHI: 2 wins, 2.32 GAA, .931 SP COLD AS ICE Martin Biron-PHI: 1 loss, 4.00 GAA, .875 SP Henrik Lundqvist-NYR: 2 losses, 3.69 GAA, .851 SP Vesa Toskala-TOR: 2 losses, 3.44 GAA, .875 SP Tobias Enstrom-ATL: 3 games, 1 assist, minus-5 Niclas Havelid-ATL: 3 games, 0 points, minus-4 Todd Gill-TOR: 3 games, 0 points, minus-4 Brendan Shanahan-NYR: 2 games, 0 points, minus-3 Tom Poti-WSH: 1 game, 0 points, minus-3