I’m @baseballguys on Twitter so people think I only know baseball.

Folks missed that I’ve been a full-time fantasy football analyst for 15 years.

Folks missed that I’ve talked football six days a week on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio for six years.

Even the folks who know I have some knowledge about baseball and football may not know that I started my fantasy career in… hockey.

Working on my Master’s degree, I started writing part time fantasy for free. Baseball was pretty much my focus, but I certainly was dabbling a bit in hockey as well. Eventually I was paid a pittance and loving the heck out of it eating my Top Ramen. Less than two months before I was set to pick up that M.A., I was offered a full time gig at FantasyHockey.com (they were impressed by my part time work there). Yep, I’ve been writing hockey since 2001, even if I’ve moved on from the puck the last few years to focus on baseball/football. By the way I did my parents proud and picked up that M.A. before I took the full-time gig.

Every Friday I will write up a waiver-wire piece spotlighting some of the folks that you might consider picking up to boost your fantasy squad. Obviously talking waiver-wire adds at this point is very difficult since, barring an injury like the one the Kings are dealing with in net, it’s hard to discern any real trends or changes to player’s value based off a single game (there are still teams that haven’t played yet this season). I’ll toss out a few names just for the heck of it knowing that we will have much more data to delve through next week.

I’m back.

PLAYERS TO ADD

LEFT WING

Artturi Lehkonen took five shots on net in his first game with the Canadiens. That’s an impressive number. He was also on the ice for more than 16 minutes. Most exciting might be the fact that he’s lining up with Alexander Radulov and Tomas Plekanec. The 21 year old spent the last couple years in the Swedish League including scoring 11 goals and 19 points in 16 games in the playoffs as his performance took off (the goals broke Daniel Alfredsson’s club record). Eleven goals in the playoffs is an immense total in the Swedish League. He still is working on his comfort level on the smaller ice surfaces in North America, but his first outing was an extremely positive one, and you have to like the linemates he’s working with.

CENTER

Jonathan Marchessault has 21 points in 50 career games, nine goals, with 86 shots on net. The 25 year old saw more than 19 minutes of action in his first outing as he took two shots on goal, scoring once. He won 3-of-7 faceoffs in the first game and owns a .472 win percentage in his young career, so he’s not helping out there. He’s smallish at 5’9”, 175 lbs, but with Jonathan Huberdeau out for months after undergoing Achilles surgery, Marchessault has a chance to carve out a legit spot in the top-6 (he was skating with Jaromir Jagr and Aleksander Barkov).

RIGHT WING

I’ll just say – Alexander Radulov, in case your league mates missed on the returning scorer. Can’t see that they did though, so how about a real name to hit the wire for.

Cal Clutterbuck is a name you likely know, but maybe you have never looked his way because of the game he plays. Cal scored 15 goals last season, his third in six years at that level. The last two seasons he’s been a +8 skater so he’s not hurting anyone there, but he just doesn’t do anything… unless you’re in a league that counts hits in which case he’s a star as he’s produced at least 270 of those bad boys each of his last six seasons of 45 games. It may not matter here. If you’re in a hits league he was drafted. If you aren’t, there’s really not much to see here, though he did score in his first game.

DEFENSE

Collin Miller produced 16 points last season over the course of 42 games with the Bruins. He was a moderate producer as a rookie with 39 PIMs, 45 hits, 36 blocked shots and 59 shots on goal. Moderate pretty much everywhere. Still, in the Bruins’ opener he was on the ice for nearly 21 minutes and even saw 1:08 time on the power play. Miller owns a strong shots and has nice skating ability, he scored 19 goals in 70 AHL games in 2014-15, and if he continues to play a third of the game with the Bruins he won’t be on waivers long.

GOALTENDER

The Kings suffered a tough loss on opening night against the Sharks as their keeper, Jonathan Quick, played just one period before being removed with a lower body injury. As a result, Quick has been placed on the I.R. with a lower body injury and is being listed as week-to-week. That really helps Kings, thanks. We just don’t know how much time he will miss.

In the meantime, the team will turn to Jeff Zatkoff and Peter Budaj. A 34 year old vet of 297 games, Budaj was called up to support Zatkoff who appears to be the likely starter in Quick’s absence. Since we have no real understanding of how long Quick will be sidelined, Zatkoff is an excellent add. Jeff holds a .915 save percentage in 36 career outings and backed by the impressive Kings defense he has the look of a nice short-term option in net (the Kings were 3rd in the NHL last season with a 2.31 GAA).

 

Ray Flowers can be heard Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday, 8 PM EDT, Wednesday 7 PM EDT on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio (Sirius 210, XM 87). You can also hear Ray Sunday nights at 9 PM EDT PM on the channel talking fantasy sports. Follow Ray’s work at Fantasy Alarm and on Twitter (@baseballguys).