The following are players you may not want to necessarily have on your fantasy hockey team for a variety of reasons. Some of these are obvious and some are not so much. If you draft one of these players it is not the end of the world but if you get stuck with several of them…there could be some serious trouble down the road for your fantasy team. Here they are.
2009-10 Turkey First Team
LW — Dany Heatley
C — Todd White
RW — Martin Erat
D1 — John Michael Liles
D2 — Wade Redden
G — Chris Mason
2009-10 Turkey Second Team
LW — Alex Tanguay
C — Tim Connolly
RW — Todd Bertuzzi
D1 — Paul Martin
D2 — Michal Rozsival
G — Carey Price
The questions become numerous here I know. So first off what factors did we use here? Well last year’s stats did have some bearing no question. Injury concerns also have some weight as well. Do you really want a guy on your fantasy team that only plays 50-55 games? That would drive almost every fantasy owner batty last I checked. Remember when Carey Price could not find his balls in the wilderness last year after rushing back from injury. Or the infamous Dany Heatley wants to be traded because his production slipped (his own doing). There are always so many things that go into a list like this.
Ray Emery, Patrick Kane, and Alex Burrows could be on this list but crime does not always mean TURKEY all the time. However they are being monitored for that very potential. Keep that in mind particularly with Ray Emery who has not met a trainer he could slug. Some guys are just very obvious for this list. No one knows how healthy Alex Tanguay’s shoulder is or if Tim Connolly can play a whole season (see Marty Havlat and Marian Gaborik). Wade Redden and Michal Rozsival may have been the worst top 2 pairing for d-men last year in the NHL. Do not expect much improvement this year.
Then there is one of my favorites….Paul Martin. People think I am nuts but this guy should be a perennial 50 point guy in the NHL. The reason he is not is simple. He just does not work hard enough. When you are your team’s top defenseman and you cannot even crack 40 points…there is no excuse. Add in he earns 3.833 million dollars a season and well really you are not getting any bang for your buck fantasy wise. Johnny Oduya would be a better choice at this point….who knew.
Chris Mason is also on this list because of the honest fact that his career numbers suggest a bust after a boom year. He never seems to be able to put two solid years together in a row and Ty Conklin will be breathing down his neck come the time the season starts. Conklin may be the 1A at some point anyway leaving Mason owners scrambling for the latest waiver wire pickup du jour.
Also we did not want to forget Colin White who would be on this list if he had any potential at all. But he is like a body who is just there at times. So he was not worthy of this list. We also thought about some of the big names like Evgeni Nabokov and Henrik Lundqvist but this list is for guys who could be worthy almost every week all year.
So is there anyone else you want to see on this list? The turkeys will take all inquiries via the twitter page or email….or even just comment. They will make additions as necessary I am sure. Gobble gobble!!!!!!
