Fantasy Hockey Forecaster: December 17th – 23rd

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. Mark Scheifele (97% owned) 11 points in the last two weeks including four power play points and 1 shorthanded point.
2. Sean Monahan (90% owned). I’m a big Sean fan and he does this around this time each year, he will have a great month and have me all on board and then slowly diminish back to above average. 12 points including seven goals in his last two weeks.
3. Carey Price (95% owned). Just when you forget about him he goes and does something like this (5 wins in his last six starts, 15 total GA) AND TOTALLY REDEEMS HIMSELF.

3 players who are cooling off

1. Mathew Barzal (82% owned). He finally got a few assists lately (four in his last three games) but he has now gone 10 games without a goal, he has 1 power play point in his last 12 games and he’s not offering much in the plus/minus area.
2. Vladimir Tarasenko (97% owned). Man, the Blues are not having a great season. Vladimir has 0 points in his last five games across 16 shots and a -9.
3. Semyon Varlamov (86% owned). He’s tough to get a firm grasp on (as are the Aves). He has gone 1-2 in his last five starts (getting yanked twice for Phillip Grubauer).

3 free agent pickups (under 50%)

1. Ondrej Kase (25% owned) with injuries and shuffling of lines, he sits on the top line with Ryan Getzlaf and Pontus Aberg. He wasted no time in amassing five goals and four assists over his last five games including a plus 1 and nine hits.
2. Colton Sissons (15% owned) this is a short term blip, he’s on their third line who has been syncing well lately (Austin Watson and Nick Bonino). Three goals and three assists in the last four games.
3. Zach Aston-Reese ( ). IF YOU CAN PICK HIM UP NOW. One of Pittsburgh’s top prospects was getting acclimated and now the team has blessed him on Malkin and Kessel’s line.