Posted by Tim Kavanagh, special to ESPN.com
My colleague Tristan Cockcroft wrote that Thursday night was "Night of the Backup Goaltender". Well, in the spirit of continuity -- not unlike the spirit of the radio, for you Rush fans -- I'm dubbing Friday night the "Night of the "No. 1?" Fantasy Goaltender".
Grammatical intrigue aside, in two of four games played, there were goaltenders who refused to let us consider them any less than No. 1's for fantasy purposes, and in another we had a guy who doesn't seem interested in providing No. 1 value for his owners, the level at which he was surely drafted. The fourth game featured a cat named Dany Sabourin as the winning goalie, so that's worth something too, especially to Dany Heatley, who now has a partner in crime when it comes to misspelling the short version of the name Daniel.
Let's start, then, with the last game mentioned, where Pittsburgh backup Dany Sabourin took the win after making the only save of the six shootout attempts. For all of you who paid attention to Sean Allen's "Offseason Notebook" in gearing up for your draft, your Petr Sykora dreams came true in spades on Friday night, as he notched two goals in regulation (including one on the power play), and also scored a shootout goal. Speaking of shootout goals, Sidney Crosby made Cam Ward look downright ludicrous on his effort, which also resulted in a goal. Unfortunately for both men, shootout goals tend to not count in the vast, vast majority of fantasy leagues, so their effort was for naught in that regard.
Someone whose efforts have assuredly been for not naught (say that 10 times fast) is Michael Cammalleri, your NHL leader in goals after his eighth on Friday night. Cammalleri has been making steady improvements for the past two years, and so this fast start is not very surprising. The Los Angeles power play has him skating alongside Anze Kopitar and Alexander Frolov, and all three gents will be fantasy goldmines all season, provided they stay healthy. The man tasked with preventing the aforementioned trio from placing the puck in the net was Roberto Luongo, who takes another loss after stopping only 13-of-16 shots. It cannot be said any more plainly than this: Roberto Luongo is not a No. 1 fantasy goaltender right now.
In years past, Luongo's garish ratio stats -- in spite of so-so win totals -- made him a stud goalie in fantasy, and he was always a threat to toss in a shutout from time to time. This year? His goals-against average stands at 3.17, which is comparable only to his rookie season when he was getting his feet wet as a New York Islander, and is about a half-goal above his career average. His save percentage is also out of whack, currently at .897, which is 21 points below his career average. What does this mean to you, John Q. Fantasy Owner? Well, Luongo is not injured, so much as we know, at least not physically. His value could get lower, but not by much, and it's pretty likely that whoever owns him in your league is freaking out right now, considering where they probably drafted him. If you've come this far, you know that that means it's time to try and grab him from said freaked-out owner, and on the cheap. The saying is "buy low, sell high", after all. And if you think you really hosed the other guy, send all the gruesome details to Sean Allen and maybe you'll make next week's "Grand Theft Roto".
Someone whose value won't get much higher this season is Pascal Leclaire, after his third shutout of the season on Friday night. Interesting factoid on Leclaire, he has a home shutout streak that goes back to last season. I think any reasonably smart fantasy manager would have to be strongly coerced to take Leclaire in a trade, but you can always try. I wouldn't be too confident going forward with him playing a major role on my team, but this opening streak has been impressive (aside from the five goals-against dump versus Colorado). Michael Peca and Nik Zherdev grabbed their first goals of the season, and Rick Nash added his fourth, to account for the Columbus offense. These three were the members of the top line for the Blue Jackets on Friday, and this is a big boost to Michael Peca's value if it continues. Keep a close eye on the situation and make a move for Peca accordingly.
It's a little bit surprising how good it feels to see the Blackhawks finally achieving some manner of success again. One reason for the turnaround has been the play of their spectacular youngsters, Patrick Kane (who scored his first NHL goal on Friday night) and Jonathan Toews (who put on a stickhandling clinic in the Colorado zone before scoring his second NHL goal), but a team is nothing without a steady backstop, and Nikolai Khabibulin has been dynamite this year. The 'Bulin Wall has yet to give up more than three goals in a game so far, with his ratios after six games at 2.32 for goals-against average and .924 for save percentage. He's only flirted with a shutout once this year, but his other stats put him up in the top 10 amongst fantasy goalies. His ratios will likely come back down to Earth before all is said and done, but since we have some good background data on him, I would feel comfortable going forward with him as a borderline No. 1 goalie and a solid-as-steel No.2. Although the Avalanche took the loss, Paul Stastny added an assist, and now has two goals and nine assists(!) in the past five games.
Tim Kavanagh is a fantasy hockey analyst for ESPN.com
