SMC 11/17/2019 My apologies for the lack of a SMC last weekend but I had family events that took precedent. The NHL standings are starting to take proper form except that Edmonton and Arizona are holding onto the top spots in the wide-open Pacific. Vancouver right up there with them but they were projected to be in the hunt this season. At least for a playoff spot. I had mentioned in previous SMC’s that the Chicago Blackhawks & Tampa Bay Lightning were good ‘buy-low’ candidates.  The Dallas Stars & San Jose Sharks are turning it around as well now. New Jersey Devils are your next ‘buy-low’ team. Anaheim will stick around but only based on the heels of John Gibson’s goaltending. In the 2019-2020 PP Draft Guide, I had Jack Eichel and David Pastrnak for 100+ points.  Looking good for the moment especially with Eichel 4-goal night against Ottawa. Two players I thought for sure would be lighting the lamp more than they have are Patrik Laine and Taylor Hall. But they are contributing with a boatload of assists so I’m not complaining too much.  The goals will come in bunches. Washington’s D John Carlson isn’t stopping, is he? NHL top goalie so far: Arizona Coyote Darcy Kuemper.  Who would’ve thought? Another shutout last night against the Calgary Flames giving him 2 on the young season. Sidney Crosby out six-weeks….Bummer.  But Geno Malkin has come to the rescue. Malkin always plays and produces much more when Sid is out. Minnesota D Matt Dumba is starting to get top PP time I’ve noticed.  About time. Winnipeg Jets Kyle Connor is starting to heat up with 3 points in last 2 games and 10 points in 8 November games. Dallas Star Jamie Benn had a goal and an assist last night in Edmonton. 3 points in 2 games is a third of his total points this season.  Is Benn waking up? Benn team mate Tyler Seguin has 10 points in last 8 games. Patience has been rewarded. Are the Los Angeles Kings trying to become relevant after winning three in a row? 5 Washington players had more SOG than Alex Ovechkin in Saturday’s game versus the big bad Bruins. OV had 7 hits though. NY Rangers got shellacked by the Bolts 9-3 on Friday.  Better effort versus Florida but still lost.  Tampa Bay game was revenge for the Lightning after looking horrendous against the Blueshirts the week before losing 4-1. NY Islanders came back from a 3-0 deficit to beat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-3 in a shootout to keep close to Washington atop the Metropolitan Division.  9-0-1 in last 10 and 13 of last 14. Wow! ...

Jamie Benn has been hot, and the Dallas Stars have a nice matchup against the Winnipeg Jets. Which other players are worth checking out for NHL DFS?

SMC 11/13/16 IT’S JACKET SEASON! It’s the resurrection of Nick Foligno and the Columbus Blue Jackets as they scored 8 or more goals for the second time this month, beating the St. Louis Blues 8-4 with 7 unanswered goals.  7 different goal-scorers for the Jackets.  Price blanked the Red Wings.  No surprise now, is there? Whenever I look at a Montreal box score I see Paul Byron’s name pop up.  I can’t help but think his name is Paul Bunyon by the way he’s been playing this season.  BIG. The Shea Weber Extravaganza has quieted down just a little but Alex Galchenyuk is certainly putting up some point. This Detroit team is in transition so it may take a few weeks to get everyone on the same page. The Sharks are becoming road warriors again winning 3 in a row after starting out 2-4-0. I was telling my buddy Jim the other day that he should try and get Jamie Benn because he is definitely ‘buy-low’ and he goes and scores 2 goals that night followed by 2 assists on Friday. That whole Dallas team will start to put up points as they start to get players back from injury.  Same with Florida. Tampa Bay is another that I don’t think have all their wheels aligned correctly.  But when they do, watch out! Are the Islanders disappointing or what? The Devils will be hanging around for a playoff spot all season long.  You just have to love Brayden Schenn’s game right now. Marian Hossa is proving critics wrong that he doesn’t have much left in the tank. I’m not a Crosby lover but I hope he stays healthy all season because I want to see what he can do if he doesn’t miss any time. A mini-breakout of sorts for the Carolina Duo of Sebastian Aho (2G, A) and Teuvo Teravainen (G, 3A) last night against the Capitals. With all the minuses on the Blues stat sheet from last night, Shattenkirk & Gunnarsson were EVEN. Pekka RInne is rounding into form as he blanked the Anaheim Ducks for his third straight victory after losing 5 of his previous 6 starts.  Two of those losses in a shootout. The Rangers keep on rolling.  62 goals in 15 games played.  Impressive start to the season. Scheifele, McDavid and Laine in top 10 in NHL Scoring.  And Artem Anisimov too. Ehlers scores whenever and wherever he can. LOL.  Tough break scoring into his own net. Brian Elliott is having a rough time in Calgary so far.  Hold onto him if you can because he is the type to have a tremendous 2nd half. Buy –low candidates: Mark Stone, Jamie Benn (might be too late), Sean Monahan, Alex Barkov, Dustin Byfuglien, ...

This should be the night Jamie Benn breaks out of a slump. Who else should be on your roster?

SMC 3-13-2016 Counting down!  Grab a cup of coffee and chillax! A nice race heating up for the wild card spots in the Eastern Conference.  I thought Philly didn’t have a chance a few weeks back. What a great game to watch as both Florida and Philadelphia are fighting for every single point available. Watch out for Tampa Bay as they are lining up all their ducks in a row of late. Will the Bruins make some noise come playoff time?  Well, they might because they have surprised me this season. Boston’s David Pastrnak seems to have found his touch. I think Buffalo just put the finish in Carolina’s playoff hopes with the win on Saturday. Sometimes I think the NY Rangers are just playing enough to make the playoffs and then they are going to let it rip.  Then again, they could be one and done, who knows? What a remarkable recovery by the Anaheim Ducks after that horrific start to the season! No Canadian teams in the playoffs this year…sad time for hockey. Very weird that Ottawa would win 4-0 over Toronto and Erik Karlsson wouldn’t have a single point. This Shayne Gostisbehere has made quite an impact.  His last name will be on many spelling bee contests in the near future.  LOL Now you see why the Winnipeg Jets traded away Andrew Ladd?  Mark Scheifele is all I’m going to say. Blues-Stars had a regular barn burner last night in Big D.  5-4 OT winner for St. Louis.  Both tied atop the Central. New Jersey beat LA 2-1 on Saturday.  Where was that a few years ago?  LOL San Jose rolling along.  Nashville too.  The Playoffs are going to be a lot of fun to watch this year.  But they always are. Everyone expected Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin to have another amazing season, but who would’ve thought that Patrick Kane would have this monster one especially with the off-season spectacle just before the season started. Sorry for the truncated session, something came up. Have a great week and may all your fantasies come true!

SMC 11-22-2015 Good morning everyone!  The cold, crisp air of autumn has finally arrived making a hot cup of coffee taste even better. Lots of non-scoring on Saturday night with 5 shutouts in 11 games. Rangers’ Rick Nash with a hat trick!  You just knew he was due to break out sooner or later. Flyers are playing for the top pick in the June 2016 NHL Entry Draft it seems. I can see Big Z being traded from the Boston Bruins by the trade deadline.  Loui Eriksson before that. Maybe all that Ben Bishop needed was to play the NY Rangers to get his season on track. Tampa has had a lot of injuries and everyone will tend to forget about them this year and they will get healthy, make the playoffs and be a threat with all the talent they possess. That Jaromir Jagr never seems to get old.  5 shots on goal last night against the Rangers and he even scored a goal. Aleksander Barkov is back from injury and has 2 goals and an assist in 3 games back. The Pittsburgh Penguins have problems and if they don’t shore up their defense, they may miss the playoffs.  I don’t think Sidney Crosby will like that very much. San Jose’s D-man Brent Burns had 7 SOG last night against the Pens.  Who does he think he is, Alex Ovechkin? Kessel, Hornqvist, and Letang had 5 SOG or more and Sid the Kid and Malkin only had one apiece.  That’s not gonna cut it. Washington scored 7 goals last night against Colorado in only 32 SOG.  The Avalanche’s goaltending is not as good as previously thought. Columbus and Anaheim slowly but surely creeping back up the standings. The race for the President’s Cup will be very interesting this year. I think everyone can forget about St. Louis defenseman Colton Parayko now that Kevin Shattenkirk is back from injury and in mid-season form already. I am thinking that Detroit Red Wing Teemu Pulkkinen can start to put up some decent numbers now that the team is sorta back to full staff.  Plus he is playing with Tomas Tatar and Brad Richards. What is going on with Jonathan Drouin? This goaltending sharing policy on Dallas is killing fantasy players but doing wonders for the actual team. Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin are an insane scoring duo!  I didn’t need to tell you that, did I? One would’ve thought that the way the Minnesota Wild were playing of late that they would’ve been the team that was shutout on Saturday and not Nashville. Ryan Suter is having himself a year, isn’t he? It’s nice to see the Sedin twins have a game like they did against Chicago every once in a...

SMC 11-1-2015 Typical cloudy, cool November day as the hockey season shifts into the second month.  Nice to be inside with a hot cup of joe while thousands of people are running all through the 5 boroughs of NYC. It looks like Detroit’s Gustav Nyquist is coming to life after a somewhat disappointing second season.  It’s November and that means that Pavel Datsyuk is close to returning for the struggling Red Wings.  I looked and saw that the Dallas Stars are atop the Western Conference.  Getting Antti Niemi might be the most underrated off-season move. The Sharks started off hot and now are just floundering.  Didn’t mean to use the bad pun there. NY Islanders Frans Nielsen is a beast so far this season.  Let’s see if the change from October to November affects him much. If Alain Vigneault breaks up the Nash-Brassard-Zuccarello line ever again, he should be interrogated intensely. Happy to see Zuccs fully recovered from that scary incident that happened during practice in last year’s playoffs. The Devils are serving notice that they will be competitive.  Well, that’s until the injuries start taking hold. Los Angeles is for real after that extremely slow start.  And they are doing it without Anze Kopitar being involved much. Devils’ Lee Stempniak is usually a streaky scorer but he seems to be more aware of his surroundings with 6 of his 8 points assists. Stars D John Klingberg is not having any effects of the sophomore jinx as he leads all NHL defenseman in points with 11.  Well, actually tied with those two guys in Montreal and Erik Karlsson.  Some pretty decent company, no? I expected Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin to be atop the league leaders in scoring but a bit surprised to see Boston’s David Krejci up there at number 3. I didn’t realize that Nashville is 7-1-2 on the season.  They certainly have been quiet about it. Toffoli, Carter and Lucic oh my! Jake Muzzin should see his production increase with Christian Ehrhoff now sidelined for a bit. Pittsburgh’s offense has finally erupted with two straight 4 goal games.  Oh wait!  They played Buffalo and Toronto back to back. This is not the Tampa team everyone was expecting to see this season at 5-5-2.  Will Andrej Vasilevskiy cut into Ben Bishop’s playing time this season?  Brad Marchand is having himself a season with 5-4-9 in 8 games. Everyone, well mostly everyone, is expecting the Montreal Canadiens will win the President’s Trophy but the Washington Capitals will give them a good run along with the NY ...

SMC-10/18/2015   We are just over a week into the NHL season and there are already some interesting developments.  News at 11.  Eleven a.m. that is. What is going on with the Columbus Blue Jackets?  At 0-5-0 there may be no leash left of Head Coach Todd Richards. With Captain Pacioretty at the helm, this Montreal team may never lose a game this season by the looks of them. Is it true?  David Krejci is leading the league in scoring? The team doesn’t look that good otherwise Henrik Zetterberg is right there with Krejci.  Some old salts keeping pace with youngsters like Jamie Benn, last year’s scoring champ. Good starts by Winnipeg will go a long way towards the end of the season when they are fighting for the last few playoff spots. At the bottom of the league, and I know it’s early, but Anaheim doesn’t belong in the group with Edmonton, New Jersey, Boston and Buffalo. The Pittsburgh Penguins offense will be awesome once it gets going, but they need to shore up their defense or it will just be a good show to watch with no substance. Looking at that Jaromir Jagr go!  He doesn’t have far to go now playing in Florida when he indeed decides to retire. Funny how the Sharks got stranded by a team called the Islanders who gave them their first loss. The Capitals, now with Nicklas Backstrom back, should be firing on all cylinders in no time. If the Blue Jackets ever get this, whatever ‘this” is, straightened out, they will be tough to play against. Tyler Ennis had 7 SOG last night against Tampa Bay.  He’s going to be a good fantasy forward this season now that he has some talent surrounding him. I really thought Florida was going to beat Dallas last night but they faltered in the third period.  This young Panthers team still has a bit to learn about winning. Sorry for the short post this weekend.  Not feeling so well today.  May all your fantasies come true this week!

SMC 4-12-2015 Alas, the regular season has ended, but we still have three more months of playoff hockey to come.  Now that calls for a pot of espresso! Happy Easter to all the Greek Orthodox followers! The final day of the season saw all 30 teams in action with games scheduled throughout the day to satisfy all your hockey needs.  Jamie Benn stole the scoring crown from the grasps of NY Islander John Tavares.  It’s okay John, you’ll grab it for the first season in Brooklyn.  Good to see a team like Ottawa who fought tooth-and-nail make the playoffs.  Boston just didn’t seem to get a good foothold on their season from the start. Pittsburgh, for all their talent up front, look like a one-and-done team, especially without their best rear guard in Kris Letang out for the season.  Don’t let Fleury’s career high 10th shutout of the season fool you.  Even though they were twice as many as his former high, it was against the Buffalo Sabres. I keep saying this but the Columbus Blue Jackets will be the best team next season.  They have something to prove after this disappointing season. The Shark tank was more like the goldfish bowl this year.  Some changes are coming out by the Bay. No Kings.  No Bruins.  Changing of the guard it seems for playoff runs.  Are you as happy as I am that the Winnipeg Jets will be playing some playoff games for their devoted faithful? Another team that deserved a playoff spot was the Calgary Flames who just played hockey from Day 1. I love a lot of these matchups.  Islanders versus Washington should be a doozy.  Minny-St. Louis is another.    Will Dubnyk magical season continue into the playoffs?  He’s got a tough opponent in St. Louis in a best of 7 coming up. Will Nashville wake up and realize they have the playoffs coming up?  I mean, they haven’t been the same since Rinne returned from his injury. Got to love that the Sedin wins put on a show last night against Edmonton. Does Tyler Seguin become the first overall pick in next year’s non-Dynasty fantasy leagues? Carey Price should lead the Montreal Canadiens to a Conference Finals rematch against the NY Rangers.  I can see St. Louis against Chicago for the Western Conference Finals.  Rangers versus Blues would be a good match but a Rangers-Blackhawks Cup Finals would be awesome. SMC will continue throughout the playoffs so look for us every Sunday while you’re having your coffee.  Ciao for now!

SMC 4-12-2015 Alas, the regular season has ended, but we still have three more months of playoff hockey to come.  Now that calls for a pot of espresso! Happy Easter to all the Greek Orthodox followers! The final day of the season saw all 30 teams in action with games scheduled throughout the day to satisfy all your hockey needs.  Jamie Benn stole the scoring crown from the grasps of NY Islander John Tavares.  It’s okay John, you’ll grab it for the first season in Brooklyn.  Good to see a team like Ottawa who fought tooth-and-nail make the playoffs.  Boston just didn’t seem to get a good foothold on their season from the start. Pittsburgh, for all their talent up front, look like a one-and-done team, especially without their best rear guard in Kris Letang out for the season.  Don’t let Fleury’s career high 10th shutout of the season fool you.  Even though they were twice as many as his former high, it was against the Buffalo Sabres. I keep saying this but the Columbus Blue Jackets will be the best team next season.  They have something to prove after this disappointing season. The Shark tank was more like the goldfish bowl this year.  Some changes are coming out by the Bay. No Kings.  No Bruins.  Changing of the guard it seems for playoff runs.  Are you as happy as I am that the Winnipeg Jets will be playing some playoff games for their devoted faithful? Another team that deserved a playoff spot was the Calgary Flames who just played hockey from Day 1. I love a lot of these matchups.  Islanders versus Washington should be a doozy.  Minny-St. Louis is another.    Will Dubnyk magical season continue into the playoffs?  He’s got a tough opponent in St. Louis in a best of 7 coming up. Will Nashville wake up and realize they have the playoffs coming up?  I mean, they haven’t been the same since Rinne returned from his injury. Got to love that the Sedin wins put on a show last night against Edmonton. Does Tyler Seguin become the first overall pick in next year’s non-Dynasty fantasy leagues? Carey Price should lead the Montreal Canadiens to a Conference Finals rematch against the NY Rangers.  I can see St. Louis against Chicago for the Western Conference Finals.  Rangers versus Blues would be a good match but a Rangers-Blackhawks Cup Finals would be awesome. SMC will continue throughout the playoffs so look for us every Sunday while you’re having your coffee.  Ciao for now!