NCAA Football Week 10 Video Picks
I’m digging 7 football picks this week, that is if you count going against the Washington schools – a couple goodies, Minnesota, Iowa, and Oregon to name a few.
The NFL’s Free Picks for Week 9
I’m betting against Dallas again, even though they were my only video pick loss last week. I also like the Houston Texans to continue their winning ways, or at least cover at Minnesota.
Why Dallas is Still a Powerhouse
By Darryl Dobbs
The Stars are 1-3-1 this season, which is good for 27th in a league with 30 teams. The time to act is now – but not in the way we are seeing.
Poolies are jumping off the wagon in droves, pushing goalie Marty Turco off their team in trade talks, bailing on Mike Ribeiro, and dropping Sergei Zubov. These are the owners you need to talk to.
In 2007, Dallas started out 5-6-2 and by the time November 22nd rolled around they were still just 10-7-2. At that point, Turco had just five wins and Mike Smith had peeled off three wins in a row and the fantasy world was buzzing about how he had stolen the starting job. That didn’t happen.
In fact, 34 days later Turco had 15 wins and was back on track.
Now is the time to go after this guy. Especially in one-year leagues. Granted, there is still another six weeks or so before this little funk will end, but start your trade discussions now. Turco has given up three or more goals in each of his last five starts and has clearly been off. Two or three more losses – or even just weak games, and his fantasy owner will start to fold and give you the deal you are looking for.
Offensively, things haven’t been too bad, although Ribeiro is still without a goal and boasts a minus-6. He’ll be fine, though. How can he not? With wingers such as Brenden Morrow, Jere Lehtinen (who will be back soon), Sean Avery, Fabian Brunnstrom, Loui Eriksson and James Neal, he’ll always be playing with talent. He’s another one to go after.
As for Zubov, he has another three weeks or so of recovery from hip surgery. Given his injury-riddled campaign last year, as well as his age (38), his price will be rock bottom. But for the final 60 games of this season he should still reach the 40-point mark, which makes him well worth the small price.
We’re five games into the season folks! Don’t panic – and take advantage of those who do!
Meanwhile…
Some of the prospects who were late cuts in training camp have not let the demotion to the AHL get them down in the least. In Iowa, the Chops (yes, that’s their team nickname) have been led by Bobby Ryan’s seven points in five contests…Petri Kontiola is second on the Rockford Ice Hogs with six in five games…Chris Bourque’s six in four games for Hershey has already earned him a call up to Washington…Michel Ouellet has six points in four games for the Manitoba Moose, as he tries to impress his new organization…Janne Pesonen was the final scratch for the Penguins, but he has five in three games for Wilkes/Barre in his quest to get called back up…The other big Euro import from the offseason – Ville Leino – has four points in four games for Grand Rapids…
It hasn’t been rosy for all the top prospects, however. Philadelphia’s Claude Giroux has just a pair of points in five games…Another Flyer farmhand, Patrick Maroon, is pointless…The Rangers Hugh Jessiman is pointless in four for Hartford…Atlanta’s Riley Holzapfel is also pointless in four for Chicago…Leaf fans would be interested to know that Mark Bell and Boyd Devereaux have combined for one point in eight games with a minus-5 for the Marlies…Marek Zagrapan is pointless in three games for Portland…
Line Combos – How Important Are They?
By Darryl Dobbs
Line combinations are interesting. To me, if I see a player who I think has some offensive potential moved up to play on the top line, it justifies my thinking and I see a glimmer of hope.
Rarely does it shape how I feel a player will perform over the course of this season.
In the fickle universe of fantasy hockey, many poolies change their opinions on players as often as coaches change their line combinations. With some coaches, that could mean desperately trying to acquire a player and then desperately trying to unload him – before the end of the first period!
While there are some duos who will play the bulk of the season together – Anze Kopitar/Dustin Brown, Ryan Getzlaf/Cory Perry, Derek Roy/Thomas Vanek, Jarome Iginla/Daymond Langkow, Pavel Datsyuk/Tomas Holmstrom, Shawn Horcoff/Ales Hemsky, Patrick Elias/Brian Gionta, Doug Weight/Bill Guerin, Jason Spezza/Dany Heatley, Daniel Briere/Simon Gagne, Vincent Lecavalier/Martin St. Louis, Daniel and Henrik Sedin, Alex Ovechkin/Nicklas Backstrom all come to mind – the third member of the troika is often bounced around. The second line and one member of the third line are also bounced around quite a bit. What you have are five players that take turns moving around the top three lines and two players remaining on that first line.
Is reacting to those changes any way to run a fantasy squad?
Off the top of your head, can you think of more than a few line combo changes that impacted the final numbers of a player’s season? Look at last season’s top 30 scorers. Who shouldn’t have been there? Mike Ribeiro, Jason Pominville and Alexei Kovalev were surprises. Were any of them pulled up because of their linemates? Or did they pull up their linemates? If you swapped Brenden Morrow for Loui Eriksson, would Ribeiro have dropped more than 10 points? I submit – no. Would Eriksson have added more than 10 points to his final total? Again – no.
However, if I discover that such a move was made midway through a game, it raises my opinion of Eriksson. It reinforces my belief that there is some potential there. But that’s all it does.
Are you going to suddenly draft Tyler Kennedy if he is moved to the wing on Sidney Crosby’s line? If so – why? If all Petr Sykora can do playing on Evgeni Malkin’s line is tally 63 points, why would Tyler Kennedy playing one game on Crosby’s line get you excited?
In a rotisserie league he may be worth a one-game flyer, but beyond that the news shouldn’t make any long-term decisions for you. If you predict 35 points for Kennedy this season and he somehow ends up playing all of it with Crosby (impossible, because coach Michel Therrien changes his lines far too often, but stay with me here) would you really bump him up to more than 45?
The point here is that line combinations do not matter in fantasy hockey, generally speaking, other than for one- or two-game spurts. Yes, Jonathan Cheechoo had 25 more points than he would have several years ago when he was plunked onto Joe Thornton’s line. Ditto two seasons ago with Chris Clark and Alexander Ovechkin. But how many cases like that can you name?
So how come the most common email that I received in the last month was regarding the line combinations in my Fantasy Guide? How come reader demand saw to it that a line combo section was created in DobberHockey?
Here are some ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ with respect to NHL line combinations.
DON’T
- Let a line combination dictate the direction of your team.
- Add more than 10 points to any player’s final season projection no matter what line you saw him practice on. Even if he had three points in the previous contest.
- Go after a player because he practiced on the top line yesterday.
- Get upset or frustrated over a line combination
- Criticize another for reporting one line combination, when you saw that there was another line combination in the third period of last night’s contest. Just wait a day or two – you’ll both be wrong when the line combos change yet again.
- Get sour on a proven star because the coach put a bum on his left wing and another bum on his right wing. Stars put up points regardless.
- Drop a player’s value if he is on the third line if that player is proven to produce within a certain range. If he gets 50 to 60 points for three years in a row, then he will get 50 to 60 points this year. The best example of this is Jeff Carter. Many lowered his value in trade talks because he was a “third-line center”. Meanwhile, he played over 20 minutes per game in the playoffs and sees similar ice time this year. Don’t categorize by line number, categorize by ice time.
DO
- Slightly raise your opinion of a prospect if the coach gives him some time on the top line with the superstar. Regardless of success or failure during the audition, you can now be assured that the coach feels the way you do – that the kid has a future as a producer.
- Pay attention to ice time over linemates. If a prospect plays on the fourth line, but sees time on the power play and ends up with over 15 minutes, he should rise a little in your eyes in the short term.
- File it in the back of your mind if a centerman is moved to the wing on another line if you are in a rotisserie league.
- Pay attention if your young player is stuck on the fourth line getting nine minutes per game. If he gets 20 points that season, don’t drop his value any. However, if he gets 20 points and played 15 minutes per game – then you can drop his value.
- Pay attention if a player plays 15 minutes on the top line one game and is scratched the next. He had his chance and he may not get another. However, if he played eight minutes and then is scratched – he never really had that chance yet and it still may come.
Putting too much emphasis on line combinations is micro managing and that is not always good. Sometimes the smart thing to do is to step back and look at the big picture – that is: macro instead of micro.
Week 6’s NFL vLog Picks
2.5 is the special number this week, as I’m taking two 2.5 dogs (Green Bay and Carolina) to go along with my 2.5 favorite, the Chicago Bears
Week 7’s NCAA College Football Picks vLog
For Week 7 I have 4 games, 3 huge ones amongst top ranked teams. I’m taking LSU, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma during a week of huge match-ups in College Football. Throwing in an easy win in a lesser match-up I like the Wildcats of Arizona to dominate Stanford.
How Good is Nikita Filatov?
By Darryl Dobbs
Lost in the fact that the 2008 Entry Draft was filled with a group of high-end defensemen rarely seen in an NHL draft, a very good non-Steven Stamkos forward was available. How good? That remains to be seen.
We all remember the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. Alexander Ovechkin was by far the top player available. By far. That was known years in advance. But in hindsight, how much better is he than Evgeni Malkin, taken second overall? Four years later, we are quite clear on the fact that Ovechkin is one of the three best forwards in the game today. So is Malkin.
Nikita Filatov, an 18-year-old Russian, was drafted sixth overall by the Columbus Blue Jackets this summer. Given that Filatov was drafted sixth in the NHL draft, the effort that is being put into drafting him in fantasy leagues is not even half of what is being put into drafting Stamkos. If you are in a one-year league, Stamkos was drafted in the middle rounds and Filatov was either not drafted at all – or he was drafted late. If you are in a keeper league, owners were offering up 80-point players in their package to get the first overall pick. What was being offered to get Filatov?
Stamkos is certainly no Ovechkin – and never will be. But the gap between he and Filatov is about as wide as the gap between Ovechkin and Malkin. It is early to pinpoint where Stamkos will peak, but it is likely he will fall into that 80- to 100-point range. Our exposure to Filatov is significantly less. His peak could be anywhere between 65 and 105 points…or more.
Let’s review what is known for sure.
1) He has a great attitude. He speaks English fluently and his dream has always been the NHL. He has his eyes on that prize and that prize only. There will be no fleeing to the KHL in three years.
2) He is defensively responsible. This is quite possibly the number one reason why a coach will choose not to keep an 18-year-old in the NHL. He needs to be familiar with his own end and Filatov is just that.
3) If any team that drafted second, third, fourth or fifth desperately needed a forward instead of a defenseman, he would have been seriously considered as a selection.
4) His talent is potentially at that rare elite level. He has great speed and he thinks the game well.
At the very least, as I wrote in the Fantasy Guide, you’re going to have a Milan Hejduk if you draft Filatov. That is – a forward who will be good for 70 points per year, with a couple of 80- or 85-point campaigns. In the very best-case scenario, you should not put a limit on him. There are not a lot of players out there who could get 110 points in this league. Until we see three seasons of what this youngster can do, I don’t think you can rule out a big number like that.
Do not make the mistake of treating Filatov like you would treat a Mikkel Boedker (PHO) or a Cody Hodgson (VAN). As far as the 2008 draft is concerned, from a fantasy (forwards) standpoint, there is Stamkos, Filatov, a big gap…and then the rest.
Meanwhile…
Andy McDonald leads all NHL players in preseason scoring with 13 points. He has really clicked on a line with Lee Stempniak and Brad Boyes. McDonald apparently played much of last season with several nagging injuries. He was coming off a short summer (when Anaheim won the Cup) and when he got off to a slow start he paid with his power-play time. This year, the summer was quite long, as his new team in St. Louis failed to make the postseason. He is one hundred percent and should return to his old ways. He averaged 81 points in his two seasons prior to last year.
Week Five’s Top NFL Picks
I am 3-3 on the season, but last time I found three games to dig I went 3-0 (Week 2). This week I’m enamored with the Titans and the Panthers as favorites and the Cardinals as a pick-em at home. Check it out.
College Football’s Week 6 Picks of the Week
I’m taking a few big dogs this week, and anybody playing a team from Washington. That’s right, Western Kentucky, Kentucky, Arizona, and UCLA are just a couple of my best. Also, check out the fanyard.com to see my predictions for every single game this week.
