Posted by John Pereira, special to ESPN.com
Six games on the NHL schedule on Monday night, and likely one storyline stood head and shoulders above the rest for fantasy enthusiasts. Little-used backup Curtis Sanford was forced into action when Roberto Luongo pulled himself out of the game during the warm-up due to an injury. It doesn't look like too serious as it appears to be just a sore rib at this point.
The Los Angeles Kings, meanwhile, were able to take advantage of the Canucks situation in net, scoring four goals in the win. Derek Armstrong, Dustin Brown, Anze Kopitar and Brad Stuart all scored for the Kings. If Rob Blake keeps up this kind of pace he'll find himself on more fantasy rosters quite soon. He picked up an assist, 14 penalty minutes and was a plus-2 by the end of the night. That makes a whopping 38 penalty minutes in his last two games.
Vincent Lecavalier's four-game point streak came to an end as the Maple Leafs surprised the Tampa Bay Lightning 6-1. The Leafs are 5-1-1 in their past seven games since rumors began to swirl in Toronto that GM John Ferguson Jr. and Coach Paul Maurice would soon be out of a job. A lot of the Leafs recent success meanwhile can be linked to the play of Nik Antropov. The oft-criticized forward is finally living up to his lofty career projections and has 12 points in those seven games. He had another two points in the win. Jason Blake is also back on track for the Leafs, he scored his third goal in his past five games.
Brenden Morrow and Sergei Zubov led the way for the Dallas Stars as they connected in overtime for the winning goal in a 5-4 victory over Edmonton. Zubov had four points on the night.
Oilers forward Dustin Penner has been disappointing this year, but his ownership percentage in ESPN leagues should be much higher than 39 percent. He had two points on the night and has been playing some good hockey in December. Could be a good pickup.
Chris Pronger capped off his 900th career game in style. He scored the winner on the power play in overtime as the Ducks beat out Columbus 4-3. Pronger is having a fantastic season with 24 points and 83 penalty minutes. I would imagine his value will only increase some more once Scott Niedermayer returns to the team and they can play off each other with the man advantage. Corey Perry scored twice for the Ducks in the game, giving him 17 goals already this season. That ties his career high set last season.
Little news of note out of Nashville as the Red Wings beat the Predators 2-1. The real item of note on the night would be the play of Dan Ellis. Ellis made 33 saves to keep the Predators in the game. Ellis will be seeing more action in the coming weeks with the disappointing play of Chris Mason continuing. Mason has quite easily been one of the worst goalies in the NHL of late.
Alex Auld has been making himself comfortable in net for the Boston Bruins already. Auld made 44 stops on the night in the Bruins 4-1 win over Buffalo. It was Auld's second impressive game in a row after shutting down Toronto on Saturday night. Auld is owned in only 7.9 percent of ESPN leagues and should be owned in all formats so long as he's starting in Boston. At this point I only have one word to describe Boston centre Marc Savard. Ridiculous. Savard is on pace to break the 100-point plateau for the first time in his career despite the fact that he's a playmaker without an all-star caliber linemate. He had another two-point night.
On paper it looked like a mismatch. The New Jersey Devils hadn't lost in regulation in 11 games and the Washington Capitals sit in the NHL's basement. Then again, games aren't played on paper. The Capitals were led by Jeff Schultz and Quintin Laing who both scored in the Capitals 3-2 win. Rookie Nicklas Backstrom also looked good, scoring a goal for his fifth point in his past three games.
John Pereira is a fantasy hockey analyst for ESPN.com.
