Fantasy Advice Fridays

The Pilot Episode

Courtesy crack-tv.net

By Josh Duncan

Fantasy sports grow in popularity seemingly every year. The hit FX show The League has brought fantasy sports to mainstream television and even if you don't take your fantasy hockey that seriously, deep down everyone wants to win their league. Who doesn't want a year of bragging rights over their friends or coworkers? Over the next six and a half months I'm going to do everything in my power to help you win that league your in, whether it's an eight-person Yahoo! league or a 20 person office pool. I have yet to decide if there's going to be a set format or what that format might be for this series of articles so for this first week I'm just going to take a look at some of the early season fantasy stories.

Overachiever of the week

If I were to tell you a month ago that a guy named Alexander would be leading the league in goals, not too many people would have given it a second thought. If I said that Alexander's last name was Steen I would have been laughed out of the room. However, as we turn the the calendar to November its St. Louis' Alex Steen leading the NHL in goals with 11 tallies in 10 games.

He's joined forces with T.J. Oshie and David Backes to form one of the most dangerous two-way lines in the NHL. If the Blues continue to rely on the trio there is no reason to believe Steen shouldn't put up career high number this year. At the same time not many think Steen will find himself accepting the Rocket Richard trophy in June. He's never been better than 0.7 goals per game, so if you're the lucky one who has had Steen on your roster for this early season success now might be the perfect time sell high on him. If you can find a person who's big on the Blues and wants to deal an underachieving player like Patrick Kane or Bobby Ryan for Steen, do not hesitate for a second. You might even want to throw a couple of feeler offers out there to perk some interest!

Underachiever of the week

"Mike Smith has more goals than Claude Giroux." If you're a fan of hockey or have friends that are fans there's a good chance you've heard this joke over the last couple of weeks. It's no secret that the Flyers' captain has had a disappointing start with only six assists to his name, along with a -7 rating, but is Giroux alone to blame for his abysmal start? The Flyers as a whole are not a very good team right now. They've already fired coach Peter Laviolette and are relying on two goalies that would be backups on most teams in the NHL. However the biggest reason Giroux has yet to score a goal is the fact that he's a player who works largely in space (on the ice) and confidence (in the head).

When Giroux put up 93 points in 77 games two years ago, Scott Hartnell and Jaromir Jagr were wingers and the three were almost the perfect line. Hartnell crashed and banged to open up space, allowing Giroux and Jagr to create chances. If they didn't score off those chances Hartnell was usually there to pot a rebound. Now Hartnell is a shadow of his former self (he's played just 39 games since June 2012. Jagr isn't much help to Giroux playing for the Devils and Giroux is stuck playing with borderline NHLers like Tye McGinn and Michael Raffi.

Look for things to start improving to Giroux though as the Flyers made an important deal today which saw them send Maxime Talbot off to the Colorado Avalanche with Steve Downie coming back to Philadelphia, the team that drafted him. Downie is a carbon copy of Hartnell, but 10 years younger, with a lot to prove to the organization that gave up on him five years ago. If Jakub Voracek can return to his point per game form from last year the Flyers could have a deadly line in in Voracek, Downie and Giroux, definitely look into picking up the Flyers' captain while his value is at an all time low especially if you're in a keeper league.

Goalie Watch

Courtesy coloradonewsday.com

Of course TV news finds the scariest possible picture of him. 

With Semyon Varlamov arrested on Wednesday on kidnapping and domestic violence charges, the biggest story in the fantasy world is directly connected to that. Jean-Sebastien Giguere is now the man for the 10-1 Colorado Avalanche. Giguere jumped from a possible depth goalie in deeper leagues to one of the most valuable netminders in fantasy hockey.  While there's a good chance Giguere has already been scooped up in your league (congratulations if you were the one to do so) all hope may not be lost if you are still looking for a goalie in your pool. 

Giguere has been a perfect backup since joining the Avalanche, boasting a 3-0 record with 2 shutouts and a .981 save percentage this season, but he is no longer a bonafide starter in this league. The Avalanche are fully expecting to make the postseason this year and if Giguere starts to struggle GM Greg Sherman could look for a trade to fill Varlamov's void in net. Potential trade candidates could include one of Minnesota or St. Louis' backups. If Sherman wants a safer option for this year he might look at Brian Elliott or Josh Harding, but if he wants a guy that might be the goalie of the future for his team as well the better option could be a guy like Jake Allen or Darcy Kuemper. If Giguere starts to struggle, jumping on one of these goalies might be a gamble worth taking.

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Josh Duncan just shaved his whole face for Movember. You should too. You should also follow him on Twitter at @josh10duncan