Fantasy Hockey Forecaster: October 15 – 21

Welcome to the new and improved Fantasy Hockey Forecaster! Given some self-reflection coupled with some feedback last year I’m hoping this new format will help you win each week of your fantasy season and ultimately the championship. Below are three separate sections:

1. (NEW) Each team’s ranking for goalies, forwards, PK and PP against the other teams in the league. As of now it’s so early in the year that we are using last year’s total stats to run this off. Once we get around 3 weeks in we will switch to this season
2. (NEW) The Three. I will provide, three players who are on fire (this might not even be points wise, it might be an uptick in play that signals to me they are on the cusp of some point production), three players who are cooling off (this will also include players that aren’t materializing the way we expect) and finally three free agent pickups (among all players under 50% owned, preferably some in the single digits and some that are close to 50 to feed all different sizes of leagues).
3. (OLD) The schedule which will show each team they play and what the individual rankings are for each matchup, this is more useful in the daily leagues where you are looking at individual matchups

3 players who are on fire

1. Patrice Bergeron (96% owned). Goals in three straight as well as power play points.
2. Elias Pettersson (74% owned). Points in every game so far this season including four goals in four games.
3. Alex DeBrincat (82% owned). Points in every game so far this season including four goals in four games. Why does this sentence sound real familiar?

3 players who are cooling off

1. Steven Stamkos (100% owned). Still pointless through 2 games amidst four SOG and ATOI of 19:50. It will come but a rough two game start for Stamkos.
2. Vladimir Tarasenko (99% owned). He has two goals through three games BUT he also has a -5 including a minus overall score in each game so far. That is the fourth worst in the NHL.
3. Jonathan Quick (96% owned). He plays in one game against in-state rival San Jose, they lose 3-2 (he allows all three) and he suffers an injury putting him on the IR just one game into the season.

3 free agent pickups (under 50%)

1. Brady Tkachuk (19% owned). He got three points in his second game and Ottawa should be looking to play him as much as possible as he will be one of their best assets this season. He will be in the Calder discussion down the stretch this year.
2. Elias Lindholm (43% owned). He’s on the top line with Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Moynihan. He’s firing a lot of shots on net and has 5 points through his first four games.
3. Craig Anderson (28% owned). Ottawa is starting as we expected losing three of their first four games but it looks like Craig will be playing a lot of games this year and he hasn’t been terrible considering these games are approaching 40 shots against for him. No wins here but a lot of saves.