FantasyPuck Update: After a lot of discussion and consideration, we have decided not to continue with FantasyPuck this season. FP has been a fun and exciting project for us. What started six years ago with nothing more than a love for hockey and fantasy sports grew into an incredible community of thousands of passionate hockey fans. We’ll always be grateful for everything we were able to build together. I (FP Mike) began FP during the Covid-19 pandemic. Eventually recruiting long-time friends FP Don, FP Chris and FP Sven, we had plenty of free time to curate and develop a fantasy hockey brand. Over the years, continuing to push FP toward growth and becoming a leader in the fantasy hockey space came with a significant commitment. Today, the FP team balances full-time careers, relationships, family & friends and activities that take time away from fantasy hockey. The work that goes into a season felt more and more like a chore than a passion. We feel like the time is right to step back and prioritize other commitments. The Discord will remain open. We’ve built a great community here, and there’s no reason to shut it down. We’ll still be around and hope the friendships and conversations within the community continue. FPPL, although we have seen the excitement for another season, will also not be continuing. The organization, scheduling, administrative work and livestreams still require a significant amount of time and effort that we do not feel we can adequately provide to the community. Similar to our other content, we do not feel like it would be fair to the community to continue without being able to give the level of effort and commitment you deserve. A huge thank you to FP Don, FP Chris, and FP Sven for being incredible friends and teammates throughout this journey. Thank you to all of our moderators, especially Wick3d, who has been with us since the early days, as well as Barzy, Dip, Chadilac, Salty, Soaring Ostrich, Aladoma, Ham and DDH Jake. Thank you to everyone who watched, supported and followed FantasyPuck over these past six years. YOU are what made FantasyPuck special and what kept us coming back each year. We’ll still be around in the Discord, so this isn’t necessarily goodbye forever. Maybe one day we’ll miss it enough to come back. Love you all, and thank you for everything.

Jack Hughes fantasy owners need to be real with themselves over the next 2 months. Our advice would go as follows: If you are comfortably in a playoff spot and have not been hit with the injury bug - HOLD If you are outside of a playoff spot and underperforming, consider selling Hughes for some assets to win 5-6 of the next 8 weeks. Look for a 2nd or 3rd round ADP and some extra pieces.

Since Rick Bowness took over in #CBJ they have gone 5-1-0. The D has undergone some changes (Mateychuk -> IR, Gudbranson activated, so it’s not quite fair to evaluate the D ATOI changes. On fwd, Kent Johnson is seeing +3 mins ATOI, Fantilli is ~ +1.5 mins. Voronkov has seen the biggest drop (-4.5 mins) since the new coach.

Have not verified this but I believe Boldy put together the best fantasy week of the season this past week. 4 GP 6 G 6 A 5 PPP 25 SOG 2 H 4 BLKS

Sean Walker (#CarolinaCulture) has quietly turned himself into a great bangers D. Only 11% owned on Yahoo, he is one of four D this season with 75+ blocks, 75+ hits and 75+ sog. He ranks 10th amongst all D this season in SOG with 111. Consider him for your D4 or D5 spot in bangers leagues.

Weegar has been tough to own in #fantasyhockey, particularly in +/- leagues. Despite his drop in production, he is the only skater this year with 50+ shots, hits and blocks.

5 Players we were right on this year. #fantasyhockey 1. Cutter Gauthier, ANA - we had been a fan of his SOG rates since last year. He broke out finally and started putting more of them in. We nailed his Assist total but even he impressed us with his Goals (41). 2. Will Cuylle, NYR - his undervalued bangers stats were too much to not promote in preseason. He put up a respectable 20g and had 300+ hits and 60+ blocks. We were bang on with out Pts projection and SOG projection of him. 3. Leo Carlsson, ANA - ducks had plenty of ADP value and Carlsson was called out as a breakout candidate. He outdid our projection by less than 10 pts and set career-highs in most cats. 4. Gabe Vilardi, WPG - not much to be happy about in Winnipeg, but Vilardi finally had a healthy season and notched 30 goals for the 1st time. We were off by less than 10 in goals, assists, points and SOG. 5. Karel Vejmelka, UTA - was called out as a sleeper goalie and finished 2nd in Wins (38) and had amazing volume stats. UTA surprised a lot of folks but we had Vej in our top 10 for Wins, Svs, fpts.

Crazy stat about Zach Hyman. Despite only playing 37 games this season, he is 2nd in the league in xGF. Ahead of names like Mackinnon, Kaprizov, Robertson, DeBrincat and every other name except for teammate Connor McDavid who has 19 more games.

@BlakeCreamerAG carries the torch from Josh and takes home his 1st FP Content Creators Championship and 2nd for A&G. 🏆 Congrats Blake and thanks everyone for playing. Make sure you give these fantasy hockey savants a follow ahead of next year! @ApplesGinos @VictorNuno12 @FantasyTipped @TJStats @data_draft @Ian_Gooding @FHFHockey @ChrisWasselDFS

Artturi Lehkonen (78% rostered on yahoo) is a must-add. We suspect he will get PP1 in Nichushkin’s absence.

After starting the season with 13 pts 24 games, Slaf has followed it up with 22 pts in his last 20. He may not be a 100pt 1OA pick, but he doesn’t need to be for fantasy managers. He is on pace for a career-high in pts and may just be a few blocks short of a 100+ blocks and hits season.

5 Players we were Wrong on this year: Tried to avoid unforeseen breakouts and play time increases due to injuries (ex. Raddysh, TB, Malinski, COL) #fantasyhockey 1. Macklin Celebrini, SJ - safe to say most projection sites did not have him even hitting 90 pts. We had him around a point per game. 2. Anthony Mantha, PIT - brought himself back into fantasy relevancy with career highs in almost every category. He doubled out point projection. 3. Kent Johnson, CBJ - we expected him to take a step forward and crack the 50 point mark similar to last year. Had his mins cut and couldn’t find a spark despite being healthy. 4. Shea Theodore, VGK - we nailed the GP total (70) and G total (10) but his overall offensive output lacked. We had him around 60 pts and expected him on PP1 all year. Add in the addition of Andersson and the 5-fwd PP1. 5. Marco Kasper, DET - similar to KJ we expected a step forward but he was outshone by other DET fwds. Was not fantasy relevant at all and we had his projected pts more than double what he finished with.

Worth noting with this new coaching change for #cbj. We will see some fluctuations in TOI. Would like to see Fantilli be prioritized similarly to KJ here.

With the news about Hughes potentially dislocating his shoulder, Dougie Hamilton goes from drop candidate to likely PP1 QB. Add him if available or continue holding.

Managers who have had goalie issues this season should consider stashing 1 of Adin Hill or Anthony Stolarz. Both are skating and getting back to game speed. They will enter their respective 50/50 splits with an expectation they can reclaim their #1 role.

FP Chris can finally sleep easy knowing Fantilli is getting the usage and attention he deserves. He’s been FantFan for a while. Only up from here. 10 pts in his last 10 games averaging 18-19 mins with PP1 (finally).

A nice article here about former NHLer Tucker Poolman. 👇 Great storytelling by Tucker and Brad.

FP Don’s FPPL team is in shambles right now. Teammates attacking and injuring each other. 😢