W.W.O.R.D.  The Dog Paddle  11/26/2016 So the NNHL season is past the 1uarter mark and your fantasy team seems to be treading water with most of your top selections not carrying their own weight, the weight that you expected would carry you to victory from Day 1.  But what happens along the way can always be frustrating especially so early in the season.  Events like injuries, rookie sensations, line chemistry (both good & bad), and players just having off seasons.  In the case of my 3 fantasy teams, I am mired in last place in one, 3-3 in another and 2-4 with my last team with all three dealing with any combination of the aforementioned events. So what am I doing about it?  I am trying to hold faith in my core players and wait for them to gravitate to their normal averages, while the others are fill-ins unless something better comes along on the waiver wire.  In the case of your core players, sometimes they are battling an injury that has not been made public.  You are frustrated by their lack of production and for the life of you, you don’t understand why.  It could very well be they are hiding an injury, but since it is an unknown, you just have to keep your faith and hope that they will turn their season around and get close to career averages. If you have a key player lost to an injury for an elongated period of time, say 3-4 weeks or more, then there isn’t much you can do unless you can predict who will pick up for the lost production on the NHL team, but sometimes it is better to just take a chance on a top forward on a lesser NHL team.  In most fantasy leagues, teams shy away from certain teams because of their lack of production and their poor plus/minus numbers.  If their upcoming schedule looks favorable, then you just might want to take a chance on some of those players.  Those lost for practically the remainder of the season, i.e., Steven Stamkos, then you just have to hope that your bench can give you good results on a weekly basis depending on who you fill in the spot with. It’s a long fantasy season and it doesn’t feel good to be chasing the teams above from the start, but if you drafted well, you just have to let the players play and for the most part they will get you close to the production that you were expecting.  For those talented players who are not producing so far this season, perhaps the approaching New Year will give them the change they need to spark them. So if you see some players who aren’t living up to standards, perhaps a shrewd trade a week or two before the end of 2016 will reaps rewards come April 2017. SELL HIGH CANDIDATES: Kevin Hayes, Michael Grabner, J.T. Miller, Marian Hossa, Sam Gagner, Patrick Eaves, Antoine Roussel, Michael Cammalleri, Cam Fowler.  Most of these players are playing above career averages and should see a reduction down in stats as they level off to career averages. BUY LOW CANDIDATES: Mikkel Boedker (is not this bad, 2 G in 21 gms), Evander Kane (2 A in 10 gms + Eichel is back soon), Anthony Duclair (3 pts. in 19 gms.  He just needs a confidence boost), T.J. Brodie (5A and -12 in 23 gms, not typical stats), Mattias Ekholm (5A in 20 gms and a -3, better than this), Torey Krug (1G, 5A in 20 gms and a -9, should turn around soon), Patrice Bergeron (5 pts. in 18 gms, the turnaround is around the corner), Sean Monahan (8 pts in 23 games and -10, tsk tsk, no way he doesn’t produce better the rest of the way).