Some of these big busts and pleasant surprises are warping owners' minds. Do you drop players who aren't producing but should be? And do you hold on to the guys who you never thought would produce?
Let's take a big breath and think things through. Scott Gomez has been stinking it up and driving you nuts. You want to drop him because he's doing nothing but taking up space but you can't because he should be so much better. If you have him tough it out because he'll get you your 70 points. The Rangers may already be well on their way to getting back on track within the next week or so. There's a whole bunch of these guys to consider: Marian Hossa, Jonathan Cheechoo, Maxim Afinogenov, Patrick Marleau, Derek Roy, Brendan Shanahan, John-Michael Liles, Zdeno Chara and Marek Zidlicky are the most notable. They haven't been living up to expectations but they WILL come around. I want to put Patrik Elias on this list but I think this guy is broken and the Devils are going to keep playing poor offense. Tough it out or, if you're feeling hopeful try trading for one of these guys — owners will be forced to trade low. If you have no patience you'll regret it when Cheechoo goes on a scoring binge.
Now, on the other side of the coin are the pleasant surprises. You should keeping guys like Brad Boyes, Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Vaclav Prospal, and Mike Comrie because they are either great talents in great situations (Boyes, Prospal) or are the only offense of thier respective team (Toews and Kane). The Comrie pick is a tentative one — the only thing keeping him up here for me is that he is playing under Ted Nolan's system and so he'll be playing for keeps every game, giving fantasy owners a chance. But there's always a possibility for him to drop into obscurity. Paul Ranger is another option to keep right now simply because Dan Boyle keeps getting injured.
Some of these surprises should be traded soon while their value is surprisingly high. Milk them for all they're giving you! Nik Antropov has been the surprise that the Maple Leafs have been waiting for. He's finally arrived and I still don't trust him! Only once has he played as high as 72 games and averages out to 49 games a season over his eight-year career. History is there for us to learn from and it shows us that Antropov has the injury bug and he's got it bad. Trade him off while he's healthy and producing! Mike Richards, Tomas Plekanec, Chuck Kobasew, John Madden and Chris Campoli are all doing surprisingly well but I don't know how long you want to ride them. These guys are great band-aid guys in themselves but I don't see them keeping up their pace. Madden is only scoring for the Devils because no one else seems to be.
Goaltending is a similar problem. There are some real studs out there, sleeping giants and pretenders. Who's who? The best and most secure of the bunch are obvious right now: Martin Gerber, Martin Biron, Henrik Lundqvist, Niklas Backstrom, Cam Ward, and Rick DiPietro. These are the guys who will get you your points and will do it all season, safely from their No. 1 position. Gerber, Ward and Backstrom because of the teams they're on and the rest because of their skill and the fact that there's no one to replace them. Something is keeping me from grouping Pascal Leclaire with those guys. I'm not 100% sold on his health. For some reason I'm just waiting for him to get injured and have Patrick Norrena take over but if he's healthy I fully expect him to still be among the best by the halfway point of the season.
It gets a bit muddled after that. There are those who have their job security but aren't playing up to snuff yet (Ryan Miller, Miikka Kiprusoff, Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo) and those who are going to get pelted with a barrage shots because of their team's shoddy defensive play (Nikolai Khabibulin, Tomas Vokoun). These guys are fine — they'll all get you to where you need to be, just have patience.
Guys like Cristobal Huet, Manny Legace, Tim Thomas, and Evgeni Nabokov are all playing relatively well but have the potential to slide and lose their positions. Thomas is not a full-season force and will eventually lose his starts. Trading him off during a warm period would be the best bet. Nabokov is the least likely to lose the starting role but he isn't playing up to his standards, either. Huet should be okay but he's one to watch out for. Montreal is hungry for a new, young goaltender and backup Carey Price is talented and will be given the chance to take over as soon as Huet starts to lose. Legace is in a similar situation with young Hannu Toivonen waiting for his chance.
Then there are those question marks: Chris Osgood was incredible while Dominik Hasek was out but will they share the starts? Vesa Toskala is going to struggle all year in Toronto and eventually might either lose the starting job or even split more starts with equally questionable Andrew Raycroft. Dan Ellis is NOT the solution in Nashville but Chris Mason will have trouble keeping that starting job all season. Ray Emery won't be getting a solid workload in Ottawa and there is a lot of trade talk about him and Gerber. Don't just hold out on Emery and hope for that trade, though. I don't see it happening until the last minute. And then again, aside from monetary concerns, I don't see why Coach John Paddock wouldn't want to go into the playoffs with two capable netminders.
J.P. Del Monte is UPDATE! National Hockey League Editor.
