No matter how great or miserable your start to the fantasy season was, it’s always a good idea to search the disclaimer for potential help.
After all, you never know when a player will get cold, have to go to the bench or get injured. And even the strongest fantasy teams will have some weak spots. It’s better to have a potential list of replacements ready to fill in any gaps rather than getting bogged down at the last minute.
Below are 10 potential waiver wire pickups early this season. Browsing through the waiver, you’ll find numerous players in a top 6 situation who are still available, as well as plenty of defenders who can help you win some of your peripheral categories.
For this list, we’re focusing on players who are available in at least 70% of Yahoo’s leagues on Sunday night. One of these is available in 99% of the leagues! The deeper your fantasy league, the less likely these names are still available, but hopefully even those of you in deep leagues can find a player or two who might be of help.
One thing to keep in mind is that you may need to act quickly. When I started researching for this column on Friday night, Max Domi was owned in less than 10% of Yahoo’s leagues. By Sunday night, that had exploded, earning him 39% of the list. Most fantasy general managers are smart and jump at the hot hand.
10. Brandon Hagel, owned 8% of Yahoo Leagues
Last season, Hagel had a career-high 44 points in 77 games between Chicago and Tampa Bay. Now the 24-year-old seems poised to break that number as he has three goals and six points in nine games with Tampa. All six of those points have come in their last four games. The reason for the optimism? He gets to play five-on-five with Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point. Hagel is in the second unit of powerplay and doesn’t produce enough in other categories to be considered a must-have, but it can be a useful player when you’re looking for a potentially fast attack.
9. Taylor Raddysh, owned 4% of Yahoo Leagues
Last week I wrote about Raddysh’s surprising amount of powerplay time. Despite being pointless on the power play in five games since last Monday, the team didn’t seem concerned about his lack of production with the man advantage. Since then, Raddysh has had two power play points in four games. In the season, he plays in a top-six role and has six points in nine games, plus two, 12 shots and 16 hits.
8. Alexander Barabanov, owned 1% of Yahoo leagues
Barabanov missed the first few games with a lower body injury and was brought back into the lineup in his first three games. Therefore, his totals might not look that impressive. However, in his last four games, he has three points, one power play point, three shots, three hits and four blocked shots while being deployed on the top power play unit (on the ice for about 70% of San Jose’s man-advantage minutes ). He also made a name for himself in the top line with Tomas Hertl and Timo Meier, who finally started producing.
7. Jason Zucker, owned 8% of Yahoo leagues
Zucker is finally producing in the way the Penguins’ management had hoped since they ditched Alex Galchenyuk, Calen Addison and a first-round pick to win him in 2020. Zucker was day-to-day last week but was back in the lineup on Saturday night. He doesn’t get much powerplay time since he’s in the second session, but he’s playing five-on-five with Evgeni Malkin. In seven games, Zucker has six points for a 70-point pace, the highest point pace he’s ever achieved. He also has 15 shots plus two, 20 hits and two power play points.
6. Rasmus Ristolainen, owned 10% of Yahoo leagues
He missed the first few weeks of the campaign with a lower body injury, so he’s only seen two action games. He’s being brought back into the lineup so his time on the ice isn’t back to normal just yet. However, if your league counts hits and blocks, Ristolainen is a must. Last year he had 230 goals and 125 blocks in 66 games. He’s always an injury risk, but if he’s in the line-up and you need to win some of the peripheral categories, he should be in your line-up rather than someone else’s.
5. Kevin Hayes, owned 24% of Yahoo leagues
Everyone has been shocked by the Flyers this season. They were expected to be so bad that many fantasy general managers chose to stay away from anyone from Philly. However, many of them have had crazy starts to their seasons. Hayes is used on the top power play line and averages more than 19 minutes a night, usage he’s never seen before in his career. It has helped Hayes get to 10 points in eight games. He also averages more than two shots per game. The only thing stopping Hayes from moving up this list is that he can only be listed in the middle position. If he ever gets double credit, his value should go even higher.
4. Jared McCann, owned 21% of Yahoo leagues
Honestly, there are plenty of octopuses that could make this list as there are only two Seattle players (Andre Burakovsky and Matty Beniers) who were in more than 33% of Yahoo’s leagues as of Sunday night. We’ll focus on two of them in the next two tips. McCann does normal McCann stuff out here, but he’s still unobsessed in most fantasy leagues. The third line center for the Kraken is on the top powerplay unit, which helps increase its production. In 10 games, McCann has five goals, eight points, 23 shots and four power play points.
3. Jaden Schwartz, owned 21% of Yahoo leagues
Schwartz has always been a great fantasy producer, although his health has been an issue for many fantasy general managers. In the seven seasons from 2013-14 to 2019-20, Schwartz had an 82-game tempo of 55 points six times, with his highest level being a 78-point tempo in 2017-18. Although his last season with the Blues and his first season with the Kraken were disappointing, he seems to be back on track this year. Aside from his weak plus/minus (he’s a minus-6 in 10 games), Schwartz produces in many fantasy categories as he has five goals (four on the power play), five assists, 32 shots, 12 hits and four power points .
2. Filip Hronek, owned 24% of Yahoo leagues
It’s early days, but Hronek has been a better fantasy option than teammate Moritz Seider so far. Just compare the numbers between the two to eight games:
Hronek: zero goals, five assists, plus four, six PIM, 14 shots, 14 hits, three power play points, four blocked shots, 3:18 PP TOI, 21:50 TOI
Seider: zero goals, one assist, minus one, two PIM, 16 shots, 18 hits, one power play point, 20 blocked shots, 2:51 PP TOI, 21:59 TOI
I’m not suggesting you drop Seider for Hronek, but grabbing Hronek would also be a smart move at the moment.
1. David Krejci, owned 29% of Yahoo leagues
After taking a high stick in last Thursday’s game, Krejci suffers from an upper body injury every day, but that’s why your league should have IR spots. They don’t dump him, which some fantasy general managers have done. Krejci was just great for the Bruins, which is phenomenal considering he didn’t play in the NHL last season. Even factoring in last Thursday’s game, when he played less than seven minutes through injury, Krejci has eight points in eight games. He also has four PIM, 11 shots, four power play points, five hits, five blocked shots and 47 faceoff wins. He plays level with David Pastrnak and is in the top power play unit. While we don’t have a more definitive answer to questions about his current injury, he still deserves to be number one on this list.
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