EV's Allstars
Ah yes, we
have to start somewhere, and unfortunately, the wheel of doom lands on Eddie
Vedder’s squad of misfits. EV had an alright draft, picking up a few nice
pieces but unfortunately nothing that really stands out to me as a method of
crawling out of the basement. We start of course, with his forwards!
Forwards:
The star of
Eddie Vedder’s bungling crew at forward is Columbus’ newest number one centre,
Jeff Carter. A former 40 goal scorer, Jeff Carter was exiled from Philadelphia
amidst rampant rumours of poor off-ice behaviour and separated from his good
friend Mike Richards. He hopes to make a more amicable relationship with power
forward Rick Nash, but questions still remain about whether there is enough
puck for both Nash and Carter (who are both shoot first kinda guys) to go
around.
After Jeff
Carter comes the only other thirty goal scorer on EV’s team (yikes!), left
winger Thomas Vanek. Vanek has two forty goal seasons to his name and with big
spender Terry Pegula now owning the team and spending like he’s bleeding money,
Vanek has a supporting cast that points to Buffalo being on the rise. It would
seem that Vanek’s forty goal season ways are behind him, but it’s not an
unthinkable possibility that this Austrian could ‘be back’ in a big way. (Queue
Ahnold accent)
Speaking of
Buffalo and Terry Pegula, hey look, EV also has Derek Roy! With a career high
of 80 points, Derek Roy can be a solid number two centre, but it requires him
being healthy. Last year’s season was a disaster for Roy as he only managed to
put in 35 games this season! According to CRDragon’s math, that rate would put
him at 82 points if he had played the entire season, beating his career high!
If Roy can stay healthy and Buffalo’s powerplay owns the world like many are
speculating it might, Roy and Vanek could become a potent one/two combo for EV.
For his
first pick of the draft this year (more on that later), EV selected The Moose
Johan Franzen (not Hedberg, Nucks fans). A solid winger who brings dual
eligibility at both wings, if Franzen can stay healthy (recognizing a theme
here?) he could be in line for a career season with Detroit. If only the
playoffs counted for fantasy, Johan would be a massive acquisition…
Speaking of
massive, Brian Gionta also joins EV’s squad for this year. The diminutive 5’7
American captain of the Montreal Canadians brings a ton of passion to the ice,
and on the plus side, people will get suspended if they try to hit him because
of the new headshot rule! It’s win win! Anyway, Gionta had 29 goals last season
to go with 17 assists, matching his total from the year before. The only
problem is, he played the full season last year, so it’s pretty clear that this
veteran is on the decline.
Gionta is
joined by his almost murdered on the ice teammate, Max Pacioretty! Don’t ask me
what inclined EV to pick Max over guys like Patrik Elias, Simon Gagne, Mikael
Samuelsson, Jason Pominville and Erik Cole, I’m assuming it has something to do
with his PPG last season before getting hurt. Maybe I’m silly for preferring
proven veterans over a guy coming off a broken neck, but I’d have to ask EV
about that myself. Or perhaps it’s merely a sympathy pick since no one else is
going to keep a guy like Pacioretty on their roster.
Ryan
Callahan though, that’s not a bad pick. A guy like him is useful in the long
days of summer, but I can’t help wonder why EV would pass on much needed
goaltending or even a strong rookie player like Adam Larsson and go for
Callahan who has 30 goal upside at best. A guy like James Neal has a higher
ceiling and was still available. It might seem like nitpicking, but these are
the moves that separate a bottom feeder from a contender.
Devin
Setoguchi and Mikhail Grabovski round out his veteran corp. Setoguchi seems to
be fitting in nicely with Minnesota thus far, and Grabo is a top player on the
Leafs. Both should help EV’s team, although it should be noted that both
Minnesota and Toronto are terrible so it is a bit of a ‘someone’s gotta score’
situation for these two.
Which brings
us to the youth, the rookies so to speak; EV made an intelligent decision
picking up Brayden Schenn before the season was over, thus guaranteeing the
ability to keep him and eliminating the need to keep his second overall pick.
As such, he moved it for a downgrade to the 12th overall pick and
added a third rounder and in the process got lambasted for making the worst
trade since Luc Bourdon’s last trade (whatever that was, I can’t keep track of
the kid). In all actuality, it wasn’t a horrible trade by any stretch, Jamie
Benn looks to get top minutes since everyone with any skill seems to have moved
on from Dallas and with Brayden Schenn he had little to no use for picking up a
guy like Gabriel Landeskog or whoever other young gun was kicking around. Of
course, he could’ve used that second overall to pick up a goaltender or
something, but hey, hindsight is twenty twenty. According to Vegas odds, Schenn
is the runaway favourite to win the Calder and probably the Hart and Art Ross
to some rabid HF Board fans. We do tend to overrate the younger players,
especially good ones. The only thing that might happen is Schenn might struggle
to make the transition from junior to NHL as a young man, so we could see some
growing pains, which fits right in with EV’s MO. Oh, he also picked up Ryan
Johansen, who is supposed to be…pretty good. Playing on Columbus, he could end
up on Rick Nash’s line if Carter and Nash can’t share the puck, so if anything
it’s a nice insurance policy and you can never have too much talent, especially
when you desperately need it as EV does.
As you can
see, EV really needs a stud on forward. I am assuming he is hoping for one of
his young players to develop, which seems to me like a pretty sound strategy.
If he shows patience, he could end up with a contending team once more, but for
now, it’s going to be ugly.
Defense:
On defense,
EV has an awesome group…if this was 2007. Chris Pronger is the leaders because
he’s a dick and wouldn’t let anyone else even try to stand out on this team. He
could have a solid bounce back year after missing a lot of time with an injury,
but he is getting up there in age and his PIMs are in decline.
The true
stud of this d corps is Alex Pietrangelo. In his first full season as a pro, he
put up 43 points on a very bad St. Louis team. St. Louis has improved a bit and
Pietrangelo will look to avoid any sort of sophomore slump and improve on his
totals. He is a big talent and could end up being a keeper for years on EV’s
squad. Out of his defensemen, he is definitely the best one around.
Dion Phaneuf
takes his second tour of duty on the Maple Leafs blue line. Again, this is a
team that has made some improvements (even though there’s no way they are
making the playoffs) so Phaneuf’s numbers could see improvement if EV has a bit
of luck on his side. He’s still a good source of penalty minutes though, even
if the numbers aren’t there. But man, this guy has fallen in a big way.
Niklas
Kronwall is the star of one of the best marketing campaigns in the NHL, with
his KRONWALLED schtick, but he’s not a big time fantasy producer and should put
up his regular 35ish point spread with minimal PIM. He could see a bit of a
bigger role with Rafalski retiring, but I don’t see his totals improving much.
Finally,
Brian Campbell takes his talents to South Beach to the peninsula of Dale
Tallon. When you’re playing in front of Jose Theodore, I don’t suppose you’re
expected to play much defense, so I guess that’s the only good news for Brian
Campbell as he can spin-o-rama his way to a big year with a horrible
plus/minus. Of course, with the way EV has his team setup, I don’t think he’ll
be worrying too much about winning the +/- category, so I think Campbell is a
perfect fit.
Again, this
is a good defensive corps…five years ago. Aside from Pietrangelo there are no
real bright spots, and the fact that Phaneuf and Pronger were keepers for EV speaks
volumes to the fall his team has taken from the inaugural year where he
actually made the playoffs!
Goaltenders:
Carey Price
had a breakout season last year, showing everyone why he was the 5th
overall pick in his draft year. The problem is Montreal is so crazy that who
knows what Carey Price we will see. If Price can put together two consistent
years, he’s easily EV’s best player and most marketable trade chip if he
decides he wants to improve his team in a big way.
Ondrej
Pavelec moves from Hotlanta to Winnipeg, where he’ll be the starting tender. He
is incredibly inconsistent though and with veteran Chris Mason waiting in the
wings (coming off an off year no less) you have to think that the leash will be
short if Pavelec struggles again with consistency.
Finally, we
have Rick DiPietro, a sort of hail mary pick at the end of the draft. Granted,
there are worse people to pick then a guy with draft pedigree and a huge
contract, but Rick DiPietro got injured after he heard EV picked him in his
fantasy league. The Isles seemed to be in better shape with Al Montoya in net
instead of DiPietro, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out. But
if there’s still such thing as a goalie premium, as of now, Ricky Deep has
negative value.
Closing
Thoughts:
Honestly,
the only chance I can see for EV contending this season is if Brayden Schenn
wins the Calder, Buffalo wins the President’s Trophy, Rick Nash wins the Art
Ross and Ondrej Pavelec wins the Vezina. In other words, I think it’s going to
be another long season for Eddie Vedder. I would hold onto his lottery ticket
this season and not trade down for any other young players, you’re going to
want this year’s 1st overall.
FINAL PREDICTION : 12TH PLACE
This Web Page Created with PageBreeze Free HTML Editor / Web Hosting