Hutch's Hockey: The Murky Middle

This week, it's all about the middle. Fittingly, we're just past the middle of the season, with most teams looking toward the second half. There's been a good amount of trades early in the campaign, but expect those to start in earnest in February. That still leaves about a month of time when players who have exceeded expectations on bad teams will stay in good roles. A fantasy manager's worst nightmare is a trade that destroys the value of a player because he ends up in a larger role. 

So, at the middle of the season, what do you do if your team is in the middle of the standings? In redraft, your option is simply to go for it. Make moves to address your weaknesses, and try to swing some trades. Just know that most front-runners won't be offloading talent. Some good players could be trapped on teams where the manager has already checked out. If you're in an active league, you've got more options available to you, but if you're in the middle, a blockbuster will be tough to pull. Add on the edges and ride hot hands to build some upward momentum. 

In dynasty, the decision-making process can be tougher. Dynasty better replicates the management experience of the NHL, especially if you're playing with a large prospect pool. You have to know when your time to go for it is without fully sacrificing the future. While evaluating your own team is important, you also have to consider what your fellow managers are doing, and how far ahead they are. Going all-in when there's one or two juggernaut teams probably won't pay off, but if first place is close or contested, maybe you get a little more aggressive. 

Smaller keeper leagues are more of a middle ground. More year-to-year flexibility offers the ability to trade for picks rather than players. I'm in a keeper league where my team is very middle-of-the-road. I've got useful pieces, and we keep three players from year to year. Right now, I could probably scrape together three players to keep for 2025-26, but the roster isn't going to win this year. I'm not a clear seller yet -- I could still place in the money. It makes more sense to offload talent in some form, whether that's to pick up a young star or to hoard picks before trying to swing a preseason deal. This league doesn't reward tanking, so I don't want to slip to the bottom, but it makes more sense to pivot to next year early. 

We've seen it plenty in the NHL. Some teams are always on the cusp of the playoffs, but never with enough talent to make a full run. It's a tough spot to be in. Fantasy isn't prone to as long of a competitive cycle -- you've got to draft well every year to compete. 

Where do you look for players to fill our your rosters? A lot of times, it's the middle-six forwards and second-pairing defensemen that will make or break a fantasy team. The top players won't be available often and the low end of NHL rosters won't be productive. 

Take the quintessential middle-six forward, Jordan Staal. He's not a full-time option for fantasy managers, especially in recent years. Still, there's the occasional run that grabs attention, and he's on one now with five goals and four assists over seven games since the start of January. Staal will help with hits and plus-minus rating as well, but he doesn't get power-play time and doesn't block as many shots as other defensive forwards. The key to his recent production has been Andrei Svechnikov playing on the third line, so Staal is an option until the lineup shuffles and he ends up with more checking-focused linemates again. 

I'm never particularly big on the Islanders' offense, but they've found something with a new-look top line. Anders Lee will get the highlight here, as he has racked up six goals, two assists, 25 shots on net and a plus-11 rating over his last seven contests. Mathew Barzal is on the right wing opposite Lee, and Brock Nelson is playing center for this line, and the results have been quite positive. Lee's on a career-best pace and looking at his third 30-goal campaign as well as an outside chance at 70 points. He can add shots, hits and a decent plus-minus as long as the offense lasts. 

It's time to pump up Jackson LaCombe again. He put up 10 points over 13 contests in December, which is already a level of scoring that makes a defenseman a must-have in fantasy. He's followed it up with six points over seven outings to begin January. Most importantly, he's separated himself enough from the pack to stay in the lineup regularly -- it's been Pavel Mintyukov and Olen Zellweger battling to stay out of the press box lately. LaCombe's pedigree is tantalizing; he played forward well into high school, then switched to defense when his team was short at the position. The scoring instincts are there. He's not afraid to pinch into the slot and clean up rebounds, and he's got playmaking sense, which has made him a natural as a power-play quarterback. For the season, he's also plus-3 on a Ducks team that is minus-13 at 5-on-5. There will be growing pains, but I'm optimistic about LaCombe's overall body of work so far. 

Another Duck drawing some attention is Ryan Strome, who has eight points over 10 games since the holiday break. He's mostly been off the radar for fantasy since signing with the Ducks in the summer of 2022, in part because of the team's rebuilding process leaving little offense to go around. Strome had 41 points in each of his first two seasons with the team, but he's tracking to a finish just shy of 50 points this year, and he sees power-play time. He's not a standout in any area, though he tends to rack up a few extra PIM and has elevated his shot volume slightly this year. Strome's more of a deep-league option, though he does have center and left-wing eligibility in fantasy after beginning the year on the wing. 

I don't often give a lot of time to one-category wonders, but it's a bit unfair to classify Kiefer Sherwood that way. He has a serviceable seven points over his last 13 games, though just two points over six outings in January. The bigger thing here is hits -- Sherwood has 68 of them over that 13-game sample. Yes, that's more than five hits per contest, and that's actually a slight slowdown from earlier in the year. He's at 249 hits through 42 appearances, 82 more than the next closest player. That is nearly 50 percent more than second place. This is a historic pace, though the league didn't officially track the stat until 2005-06. A 400-hit season is a lock if he stays healthy, and 500 is not out of the question if the Canucks are playing in intense, playoff-like battles late in the season. Sherwood has added 21 points this season, so he's far from being one-dimensional, but even if the offense cools, he has that one dimension down pat. 

Getting top-six minutes in Edmonton is key for success, and it's paying off a little bit for Vasily Podkolzin. He earned two points in Saturday's 4-3 comeback win over the Blackhawks and has five points over his last eight outings. Podkolzin lacks a power-play role, so don't expect significant offense, but he has spent the majority of the campaign on the second line with Leon Draisaitl. Podkolzin can give you depth offense and plenty of hits. 

A wrist injury has Sean Monahan sidelined for an indefinite time, but that has yet to take the wind out of the sails of the Blue Jackets top line. Instead, it's time to see what Adam Fantilli can do with a larger role. So far, so good -- he's played about two and a half games between Dmitri Voronkov and Kirill Marchenko. Fantilli is on a five-game point streak (three goals, three assists). While his 21 points in 43 contests overall doesn't look like much, he's done most of that from the third line. The No. 3 pick from 2023 still has to refine his play in his own zone, but he's moderately physical and has a chance to prove himself early in the second half of the campaign. 

If Samuel Girard (upper body) misses much time, Josh Manson figures to benefit from a little extra playing time. The Avalanche have a top-heavy offense, and Manson typically doesn't get involved much -- his only contributions in the past eight contests are a pair of two-assist efforts. Still, he has enough ice time with the big-name scorers that he could contribute more. At a minimum, Manson will pile up hits and blocked shots, which has value in deeper formats. 

Marc-Andre Fleury is off to a good start in January, winning three appearances while allowing just four goals on 83 shots. It's tough to trust him outright -- he's been in a backup role all season, and the Wild's blue line is in tatters with three of the team's top-four defensemen injured. Still, Fleury will be facing more shots in the short term, and he's done well with that recently. Filip Gustavsson is also slumping a bit, so Fleury could work his way into something closer to a 50-50 split at least until the 4 Nations Face-Off. 

Until Linus Ullmark (back) can work his way back, the Senators seem to be intent on giving Leevi Merilainen a look. Merilainen started both games this weekend, earning a 29-save shutout over the Penguins on Saturday for his third win in five outings. He followed it up with a win over the Stars on Sunday, stopping 24 of 26 shots. This is a workload consideration -- he who gets the starts should be rostered, and Anton Forsberg hasn't done enough to justify being the interim No. 1. Merilainen is also younger, and this is good experience for him to get before potentially being an NHL regular within the next couple of years. 

The toughest part of being a middle-of-the-pack fantasy manager is moving up. It's tough to watch a team look great one week and bad the next. Sometimes it's a battle just to get to the middle in the first place if you're having a bad season. As always, it's worth trying nonetheless. When I have a struggling team, my goal from December onward is to do enough to make the playoffs. It doesn't happen every time but don't give up. Just keep swimming. Check back next week for more.