Roto Exclusive : Guest Contributions and Featured Articles

Sharks – The San Jose Sharks history book will tell you a story of regular season success followed by
playoff disappointment. Last season, we saw disappointment on both fronts from a fantasy perspective.
Only one Shark reached the 70-point plateau and we saw a dramatic fall in Marleau, Clowe’s and
Pavelski’s point totals. This isn’t due to effort as San Jose finished second in the league in shots, but
thirteenth in goals scored. The one player of those three that I predict to return to his old numbers is
Ryan Clowe. This is simply due to a low shooting percentage and a healthy Martin Havlat on the
opposite wing.
Lightning – Which defender has been spending the offseason practicing putting the puck on a tee? That
would be Matt Carle, who will be making his second trip to Tampa Bay. Carle is coming off three straight
35+ point seasons with minimal powerplay time. This could be his coming out party as he will likely be
the one lucky enough to be feeding Stamkos all year long.
Leafs – Matt Frattin will be joining the party in Toronto next season once he recovers fully from a knee
operation. He’s expected to start skating in two weeks and regardless of when the season starts, he’ll be
on Randy Carlyle’s watch list. With the diminished play of the Leafs second line last season, perhaps a
healthy Frattin could force the Leafs brass into demoting Macarthur or Kulemin to the team’s third line.
Canucks – As long as the Sedin’s keep starting 80% of their
shifts in the offensive zone, Edler can blast a puck and Burrows
can grind, expect much of the same from the Canucks this
season. The Sedin’s point totals dropped off significantly in the
second half last year but I won’t bet against both of them
reaching eighty points next year.
Capitals – Adam Oates will be turning the Caps into a high
intensity run and gun tempo squad in his coaching debut. This
will probably be the most a coach has even leaned on Ovechkin
with this being the weakest depths the Capitals have seen since the days prior to Ovechkin’s arrival.
This will be the time for the great number eight to put up or shut up.
Brandon Landry, author of The Injury Ward, takes a look at any and all fantasy impacts on players
sidelined and the trickle effect onto their teammates. Landry, originally from St. Catharines, is currently a
fourth-year student at the University of Ottawa studying Economics and devotes the majority of his
senses daily to the game of hockey. Brandon can be found on Twitter @thelandshock and will be
tweeting injury updates and talking puck all year long.
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