New York Rangers: Fantasy Hockey Goalie Outlooks
With Fantasy Football draft season inching towards an end, it is time to start looking into the next fantasy draft of the calendar year, fantasy hockey! Today, we will take a look at the New York Rangers goalie tandem as it pertains to fantasy hockey.
Well folks, I just finished my second and final fantasy football draft of the year. Just like the first draft I had this summer, this one went extremely well. Now it is time to shift our focus from fantasy football draft preparation to fantasy hockey draft preparation!
Over the next few weeks, I will be examining which New York Rangers players will be fantasy relevant this upcoming season. To begin this series of articles, I decided to start with the team’s two-headed monster in net, Henrik Lundqvist and Antti Raanta and figure out where they should be taken in drafts and how they would fit on your roster.
Let’s start with the star in net, Henrik Lundqvist. The King was ranked 25th overall in The Hockey News’ top 200 fantasy hockey rankings. I think, surprisingly, this was the perfect landing spot, err, throne, if you will, for Lundqvist to sit upon.
Lundqvist’s first half numbers last season were other-worldly. In the first two months of the season, Hank was 13-5-2 with a 2.08 goals against average and a .936 save percentage.
Then the Rangers defense fell apart.
Lundqvist’s December was a disaster, as he went 4-5-1 in 11 starts with a 3.27 GAA and a SV% under .900 (.892 to be exact). As shaky as Lundqvist was the rest of the season, the defense was much worse. At the end of the day, though, Lundqvist ranked 18th in the league in GAA and 11th in SV% among goalies who played 41 or more games. His rank in those two categories was never as low as that before in his career.
Of all the goalies ranked below Lundqvist in THN’s top 200, New Jersey Devils’ netminder Cory Schneider would be the only one I would rank above number 30 in blue. Schneider ranked 3rd in the league in GAA and 5th in SV% last year, despite playing for a mediocre Devils team. Since I think the Devils will be better this upcoming season than they were last year, I think Schneider will see his numbers improve as well, namely his wins and shutout totals.
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Flame for Thought
Drafting Lundqvist, though, should still remain a priority. In fantasy hockey, especially in a league that uses most categories as it’s scoring setting,, you need to have a stellar backbone in net to win. That is what Henrik Lundqvist will provide.
I have been saying all offseason that I think most of the players on the Rangers, if not all of them, will come into the season with a chip on their shoulders. Henrik Lundqvist is no exception, in fact, I think he will have the biggest “chip” on his shoulder.
The Swedish-born Lundqvist is a competitor like not many people who have covered the Rangers have seen before. He will be ready to go this year, and he will be much better than last year if he has anything to say about it.
In some areas (like puck possession and scoring more opportunistically) the team will be better this year. I don’t know if the team is done dealing yet, but if so, there are still so many questions to ask about the defense that Lundqvist is going to have to carry this team to wherever it is they want to go. I think he can do that for your fantasy team too.
As for Antti Raanta, the ever so solid backup goalie for the Blueshirts, I would probably only own him if I had Lundqvist. If I am in a deeper league, however, I wouldn’t mind having him as my 3rd goalie, one of the first backup netminders off the board.
Next: Hiring Chris Drury was a No Brainer
Draft season is fastly approaching, so make sure you have a plan set in stone. If you want a solid goaltending duo to lead you to the promised land many months later, you wouldn’t find a tandem more rock solid than that of Lundqvist and Raanta.