Fantasy Hockey Scouts: Daily Dosage - Oct 27th, 2009

Dosage Express
Prospal riding Gaborik's fragile tails... the Leafs are on fire... Halak will be challenged... Tavares slowing down... hockey players smashing stuff 

Daily Diarrhea  

Vaclav Prospal's ride on Marian Gaborik's coattails continues to be a nice one...  his 1+2=3 last night gives him 16 points in 12 games.  As long as Gabby (who has 18 points himself) stays healthy (see below), Prospal should top 70 points like he did in 2007-08.  If you're still not convinced of the power of the Gabby, just check out Enver Lisin's numbers (3 points) in two games with Gaborik.

Niklas Hagman picked up three power play goals as the Leafs won (is that right?... sounds weird) last night against the Ducks.  Hagman now has a surprising eight points in eight games.  He's getting around 15 minutes per game and 2+ on the PP, so he should easily beat his career high 42 points, if he can stay healthy this year.

Tomas Kaberle one upped Hags with a 1+4=5 night.  His big night gives him an inflated 10 points in nine games... hopefully you enjoyed the offensive explosion.

This is a hunch & a longshot but Lee Stempniak looked very good for the Leafs last night and he had a nice night with 1+3=4 while seeing 22:30 of ice-time.  Not really going to recommend him since he only had one point heading into last night's game but we'll be watching him as he's shooting the puck a lot (on pace for 273 this year) and if he can get his shooting% up to his career average of 11% then he could be looking at around 25 to 30 goals this year... again, this is a longshot.

Still with the Buds, Jonas Gustavsson returned from his groin injury and stopped 25 of 28 shots to pick up his first NHL win.  It's not official yet but we expect The Monster to be the #1 guy in T.O. very soon.

Just when we were enjoying Cristobal Huet's impersonation of a sieve, he goes and picks up a shutout on Oct. 24th and then stopped 20 of 21 last night.  He's a streaky goalie and he looks pretty hot right now... roll him out there and hope that bubble doesn't burst soon.

Another start and another win for Jaroslav Halak and that's four straight of both (all at home).  Now comes the true test as the Habs have two tough road challenges, in Pittsburgh and Chicago... if he can survive this stretch then the #1 job could officially be his as 10 of 15 after that are at home, where Halak is a crazy 23-6-1 during his career.

Two more assists for Mike Del Zotto last night as he's up to 12 points in 12 games so far and leads all rookies and shares the lead amongst dmen in scoring.  He's shown no signs of slowing down yet as he has 2+5=7 in his last six games. 

A rookie who is slowing down is John Tavares, with 1+1=2 & minus-7 in his last seven games, you had to know that the lack of talent surrounding him would catch up with him eventually.

The Panthers have called up Michal Repik from the AHL to fill in for David Booth.  He's a young prospect that we really thought would crack the NHL roster out of training camp but he was one of their last cuts.  He's off to a good start in the AHL with 6+5=11 in nine games so we'll see if he can continue that in the show.

Nashville's Ryan Jones is heading the other way, down to the AHL, after starting off the year with no points in his first eight games. 

Injury Updates (see our Injury Updates page for a consolidated list of injuries):

Its been a nice run so far for Marian Gaborik owners but you knew this was coming... he left last night's game with a LBI in the 3rd period.  Now he says that it's not related to any of his (many) lingering injuries and that its not serious but with Maid Marian, you can never be sure. 

Ilya Kovalchuk is the next superstar to go down with an injury... the doctors say that he has a broken bone in his foot and should be out of action for 4 weeks.  He's impossible to replace so do your best for the next month.

Paul Martin's arm injury has been diagnosed as a fracture, so he'll be out for 4-6 weeks.

The Lightning have given Paul Ranger an indefinite leave to deal with personal issues... so not an injury but he'll be out of the lineup for a while.

Dan Hamhuis practiced with the team yesterday and felt good.  He's hoping to be back in the lineup on Wednesday.  He scored a very quiet 38 points last year and with his early season injury issues he might be on your waiver wire... have a look.

Matt Niskanen is also expected to return from concussion problems on Wednesday. 

Daily Distraction 

What's distracting us today?  Saw this video over on Puck Daddy and it's a whole lot of awesome:

According to PD some are complaining that Kesler is showing poor sportsmanship but we think we can let it slide this time.