Monday, December 15, 2008

Monday Market Movers

I have to be honest, there weren't a lot of names that jumped out at me for this edition of MMM. But a good GM should always have trades on the mind, so I put my thinking cap on and came up with these names. Let's see what you think about them.

BUY

Brad Boyes / Rick Nash - I'm going to do the write up for these two together because they might as well be the same player. Let's be clear about something: these guys probably aren't going to get you a PPG. I'm guessing both will be in the minus by the end of the season on +/- (well let's be frank, there's no guess work to be done for Boyes). What they will give you is 35+ goals, 20+ PPP, and 200+ SOG (over 300 most likely for Nash). These are the hardest stats to pick up good players for late in the season. Yes they're both very streaky, as natural goal scorers tend to be. But if they get hot while you're in the playoffs, they can single handedly win you a championship. That's the type of player you want on your team.

Paul Stastny - On the flip side you have Paul Stastny. Doesn't shoot as much as you'd like, isn't scoring goals, and still isn't doing well on +/-. There's no doubt that Stastny is underacheiving so far this season. But the upside with him is 30+ PPP. On top of that, with 28 goals in his rookie season, and 24 in 66 games last season, Paul's too talented of a player to continue at this pace scoring goals.

Dion Phaneuf - I think the Flames are a team that will continue to slowly but surely build momentum all season long. And as the Flames play better, it goes without saying Dion Phaneuf plays better. There's no doubt the guy is a beast. How many other defensemen can up 23 points through 30 games and have it be considered a disappointing start to the season? The complaint is obviously that Phaneuf's goal scoring is way down, but with no less than 17 goals in his past three seasons, I'll be shocked if he doesn't start putting pucks in the net soon.

SELL

Marty Turco - He's finally starting to put together some impressive wins, so now is the time to buy, right? Well if you're a team hurting at goalie, that's certainly a likely train of thought. If you're a Turco owner however, and you have another solid goalie or two, now would be the time to take advantage of GMs thinking that way and sell him while he's worth something. Dallas is going to end this season as one of the worst teams in the NHL, bottom 5 I reckon. If you could take Turco, trade him for one of the forwards mentioned above, and then drop someone for Erik Ersberg? I'd do that in a heartbeat.

Tomas Vokoun + Craig Anderson - I wouldn't sell either one individually, because you're unlikely to get value back for them on their own. But as a package these two could turn a pretty penny right now. I know, I know, Craig Anderson is the second coming of Jesus and Vokoun is better than a lot of goalies that get more attention than him. Guess what, they still play for the FLORIDA PANTHERS. Anderson is going to end up in the backup role again eventually and Vokoun is going to continue to play well but face 40+ shots on a regular basis.

Filip Kuba - Now that Kuba has slowed down a bit I don't know how much you can get for him, but I'm willing to bet it's better than what he'll give you for the rest of the season. His 20 points through 30 games already has him halfway towards a career year. That says to me that his next 20 or so points are going to be spread a lot more thin over the next 50 or so games. And as a career -27 on a mediocre Sens team I also see his current +8 going down. Shop him around.

Johan Franzen - If there was ever a poster child for "sell high," his name was Johan Franzen. In three full seasons previously his highest point total was 38, and this season he already has 21. I'm sure he's clicking on some great line in Detroit (I honestly pay no attention to the Red Wings) and he has a goal scorer's touch and yada yada yada, none of that changes the fact that I foresee the big stat correcting eraser on the ass end of the pencil of the Hockey Gods descending towards Detroit, MI in the near future.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Franzen was a beast in the cup run last season. To say that he can't score 70 points this year is just flat out ridiculous.

Also, calling Boyes a natural goal scorer is a mighty big leap. The guy has hands like a frying pan.

Clayton Jones said...

Well like I said, the Red Wings are maybe the team I follow the least in the NHL, so I could be totally wrong on Franzen. I'm mostly going off stats and where he was drafted. But I do watch as much of the Blues as possible and to say Boyes has hands like a frying pan is ridiculous. He is one of maybe 10 players in the NHL I would confidently call a natural goal scorer. And just to make sure I'm not crazy, I did a quick search of scouting reports on Boyes and these were three of the first things that came up.

"Has excellent hockey sense and a developing sniper's mentality. Also owns playmaking qualities and a deft touch around the net."
http://www2.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/players/Brad_Boyes/

"A natural goal scorer with a quick accurate shot."
http://www.cbc.ca/sports/story/2000/06/25/leafs_draft000625.html

"News: Boyes scored his 15th goal of the season Wednesday and his 58th since the beginning of last season.
Spin: His 58 goals since the beginning of last season tie him Evgeni Malkin for fourth most in the NHL over that time period. Boyes is on a steady point streak lately with 11 points (5G, 6A) in his last seven games. He can be streaky so beware should he cool down later."
http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/players/profile?playerId=2017