Cleverly Adding Peverley
By Darryl Dobbs
Had he slipped through waivers, there was a better than even chance that Rich Peverley would find himself to be a career minor leaguer, consistently in the Top 20 in AHL scoring. He would join the likes of Jason Krog, Darren Haydar, Keith Aucoin – the list goes on when speaking of AHL superstars who never really cracked the NHL.
Instead, the Nashville Predators failed to sneak him through waivers to their farm team in Milwaukee. The Atlanta Thrashers claimed him.
In the last few days, he could have picked up four points in three games for Milwaukee while centering the likes of Patric Hornqvist and Hugh Jessiman. Instead, he has six points in three games for Atlanta while centering the likes of Ilya Kovalchuk and Bryan Little.
Nice.
The 26-year-old former college star was never drafted. He went from Junior B’s Kitchener Dutchmen to Junior A’s Milton Merchants before joining St. Lawrence University in 2000. That hockey program boasts such notables as … John Zeiler (L.A.). Okay, not all that notable. Which makes his accomplishment all that more impressive.
Peverley’s calling card is his speed and opponents have difficulty keeping up with that. Even worse for them, they have to focus on Kovalchuk so they are stuck in a catch-22. If they focus any effort on keeping up with Peverley, then that’s all the room Kovalchuk needs to get open. Five of Peverley’s six Atlanta points are assists.
That kind of success buys him more opportunity to keep it up. With each game that he posts a point, Peverley is awarded two more on the big line. The odds are better than 50-50 that he’ll continued to produce at a 65-point pace. For him to fail now would require three consecutive pointless games in conjunction with an embarrassing plus/minus.
If that happens, then maybe he will join Haydar, Krog et al. after all.
But for now, Peverley makes a great No.3 center pickup in all roto-league formats for at least two weeks, with decent odds of posting another 25 to 30 points in the final 36 games and finish with 40 to 45 points in all.
For now, his keeper-league value should be kept conservative – like that of a 50-point player with upside. He will need to enter October on Kovalchuk’s line before warranting an upgrade in his fantasy value…
Meanwhile…
Todd White, now on the second line, has two points in the two games that Peverley has posted six points. White has 23 points in his last 19 games and has only missed the scoresheet twice in that span, but the situation bears watching, given the reduction in ice time (Peverley is seeing two more minutes per game)…
Phil Kessel has missed three games so far with mononucleosis, so you would think that Blake Wheeler would fill that void nicely as he moves up the depth chart. However, Wheeler has just one point in those contests – and one of those games he saw the second most ice time of his career. Meanwhile, the other scoring right winger Chuck Kobasew has a point in each of those three contests…
Robert Lang is sure benefiting from centering the two Kostitsyn brothers in Montreal. While Andrei and Sergei light the lamp, Lang has 11 points in his last seven contests…
Patrik Berglund – Calder Candidate
By Darryl Dobbs
After a sluggish start, rookie Patrik Berglund has shot up the rookie scoring charts and emerged as a legitimate contender for the Calder Trophy.
When St. Louis drafted him 25th overall in 2006, it was overshadowed by the fact that the team also drafted defenseman Erik Johnson with the top pick. Pundits agreed even then, though, that Berglund was one of the 15 best offensive forwards that were available and that potentially he could be remembered as the one of the top three.
Coming from a stacked draft that included Jonathan Toews, Jordan Staal, Nicklas Backstrom, Kyle Okposo, Peter Mueller, Phil Kessel and Bryan Little, Berglund is finally starting to get noticed. The attitude has always been there – the Swede spent the summer in North America and worked on his main weakness – strength.
After just three points in his first eight NHL contests, the Blues suddenly really needed him to step up. Injuries to Paul Kariya and fellow rookie T.J. Oshie pushed the 20-year-old Berglund up to the No.1 slot up the middle. And he delivered.
With the added ice time and responsibility, Berglund has posted 13 points in 12 contests to go with a plus-8 rating. He has moved up to fourth place in the rookie scoring race with 16 points and is playing hotter than any of the three guys ahead of him. With Oshie now back in the lineup, Berglund’s ice time has not taken a hit at all and it is also unlikely to change when Kariya returns. He has always reminded analysts of another tall and lanky Swede, but his play of late is really conjuring up Mats Sundin images.
All rookies go through their cold spells and Berglund will be no different, but don’t be shocked if he wins the rookie scoring title with 70 points or more…
Meanwhile…
After starting the season off with nine points in seven games, Vancouver’s Ryan Kesler has just four in his last 20…
My “healthy scratch” theory has come into play again, this time with Edmonton’s Dustin Penner. The 26-year-old was scratched for two games in mid-November, but has since tallied nine points in eight contests. He is also a plus-4 in that span with 12 penalty minutes, making him a multi-category fantasy asset. Twice in the last four games, Penner has seen more than 21-and-a-half minutes of ice time…
In four NHL games this season, rookie winger Matt D’Agostini has four points. The 22-year-old has 25 points in 20 AHL contests, but at this rate he may not get sent down again…
Calgary winger Curtis Glencross has points in eight of his last 10 games and 12 points overall in that span. A dark horse to be a 60-point player, this 25-year-old is clearly a Mike Keenan favorite…
