Fantasy Hockey Forecaster: January 6th – 12th

Welcome to the 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 1/2/2020
• 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. Auston Matthews (100% owned). Auston has four goals and eight points in his last five games including a +3 and three power play points. It’s gotta be the stache’ in a delayed effect.
2. Patrice Bergeron (100% owned). Six goals and two assists over the last two weeks with 76 faceoffs won and four power play points.
3. Robin Lehner (66% owned). Five games started. Four games won. 3.8 goals allowed across that time and 189 saves.

3 players who are cooling off

1. Joe Pavelski (72% owned). I hate to say this but his ownership being in the 70’s is the smart move. He continues to struggle and now has just 1 assist across the last two weeks with no goals on his last 15 shots.
2. Leon Draisaitl (100% owned). This will not last but he has just five points and a MINUS 12 across the last two weeks of play.
3. Thomas Greiss (65% owned). He is 0 for 2 across last two starts despite receiving just an average of 22 shots per start.

3 free agent pickups (under 50%)

1. Noel Acciari (23% owned) – He’s currently playing on the Panthers 2nd line with Brett Connolly and Vincent Trocheck. He has nine goals in his last eight games across 18 shots. He will regress but there are some promising things to see here.
2. Nick Cousins (0% owned). He got the bump to the top line with Gallagher out to a concussion.
3. Linus Ullmark (32% owned). Call me crazy but I think the Sabres will bounce back and with Linus getting the onus of starts, I think he pays dividends soon.