Fantasy Hockey Forecaster: December 10th – 16th

Welcome to this week’s Fantasy Hockey Forecaster! In here, you’ll find:

• Each team’s ranking for goalies, forwards, PK and PP against the other teams in the league. These stats are as of 10/23.
• 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)
• 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)
• 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

Let’s begin!

3 players who are on fire

1. Alex Ovechkin (100% owned) It took a few weeks for him to hit peak mode but Ovy is there. Over his last eight game he has six goals, four assists, a plus seven and 24 hits.
2. Nathan MacKinnon (100% owned) He’s not slowing down, after being on this list last week he had another seven days with a goal, two assists, a plus 3, 1 power play point and 15 faceoffs won across 3 games.
3. Louis Domingue (60% owned). I made a plea to pick him up as he sits on one of the best teams in the league. He now has six wins in his last seven games.

3 players who are cooling off

1. Dustin Byfuglien (98% owned). No goals, 1 assist and -2 over the last two weeks. He also has just six hits and three blocked shots over that time.
2. Sebastian Aho (97% owned). No goals (across his last 18 shots), 2 assists and a -6 over the last two weeks.
3. Corey Crawford (65% owned). No wins, six loses over his last six starts.

3 free agent pickups (under 50%)

1. JT Compher (6% owned). Recently bumped up to the second line alongside Colin Wilson and Tyson Jost, JT has four goals and one assist over the last two weeks. His playing time has increased about 1-2 minutes per game over the last 3 games INCLUDING time on Colorado’s 2^nd PP unit.
2. Mikael Backlund (17% owned). A hit by Matt Dumba has him out for the weekend but he has six points in his last six games, a plus five and he’s heading up Calgary’s 2^nd line with young up and coming Sam Bennett and Matthew Tkachuk.
3. Anton Khudobin (12% owned). He’s stepped in well in Dallas with three wins in the last five starts allowing less than 2.5 goals per game.