smash-mouth and finesse hockey

the Sens strongarmed their way to a win last night. gotta love PIMs contributions by Neil and Wade Redden is looking like he wants to carry this team down the road himself. the big 3 bear no introduction as fantasy gods in hockey, if you have one or more on your fantasy team then don't move them, period, exclamation mark times 3. Martin Gerber is looking very good and i'm starting to have concerns about how many starts Ray Emery is going to get when he's ready, Gerber's looking that good.

Olie the goalie backstopped the Caps to a decisive win yesterday too. their offense was a bit suspect but a goalie has to win some games for his team just by himself sometimes. some pundits are down on Kolzig since his team hasn't been able to succeed much in the years he's been there but the Caps are going to succeed this year. they're 3-0 so far and Alexander Semin still hasn't played a game yet. i've blogged it before and will do so again but Tom Poti is a very nice addition to that blueline and Nicklas Backstrom has himself a very nice mentor in Michael Nylander. the captain Chris Clark will be heard from also. traditionally he's been a PIM guy but that has tapered off in recent seasons while his goalscoring prowess has increased. ideally i'd love to see him maintain the goal level but throw around some more head noogies too.

i watched a chunk of the Oilers/Red Wings game last night and couldn't help thinking that Joni Pitkanen could be a nice assist complement to Sheldon Souray's trigger. what the Oil need most in my opinion is a big tree to plant up front in front of whatever goalie du jour. i don't think that Dustin Penner has the hands for that job just yet but will probably be that guy in a couple seasons. ideally i think that job is best held by a center but given all the Oilers attempts to tweak their roster this summer the i think the Penner investment will pay off, down the road. it's still too much money to pay up front though.
y'know who doesn't get enough print and is doing an excellent if unsung job? Tomas Holmstrom. the man is a 30 goal guy who complements the superstars in Hockeytown really well. it's not like Pavol Datsyuk can hang out in front of the net and you don't want Henrik Zetterberg and his wonky back camping out there so go ahead and send Holmstrom there. he'll do what others can't or won't do. of the 30 goals i'm expecting out of him this year i expect that 20 of them will be garbage goals, rebounds with the goalie down and a D-man having lost position to him. that takes skill.
Chris Chelios is old and slow but he still finds ways to contribute. he won't help a fantasy team much anymore except in really deep leagues but in terms of hockey contributions he's still got value to a team.
i expect a decent year out of Michael Samuelsson and i think that Brian Rafalski is a brilliant complement to Nik Lidstrom, a lot better than Mathieu Schneider ever was. it'll be a lot cheaper to acquire Rafalski and he'll pay out in spades to your fantasy team.