Fantasy Hockey Sleepers: Atlantic Division – Canadiens And Senators

With the calendars flipping to September and training camp just a few weeks away, fantasy hockey leagues have started to schedule their drafts. Hopefully, you have been keeping up with the off-season moves, rookies added and players looking to take a step forward, while in other cases, some may be regressing. As a way to help you plan, this series of columns will focus on fantasy hockey sleepers, one per team in each division.

Fantasy hockey sleepers mean different things to each person. For some, it’s the hot rookie. For others, it’s those who will take a step forward. Some view them as prior year players or acquisitions in new situations enabling that individual to exceed projections or their initial role. For purposes of this series of columns, the focus will mainly be on the latter – those who have a chance to surpass expectations or prior production. I welcome feedback, criticism, thoughts, etc., as one man’s meat is another man’s poison, and your view may differ vastly from mine.

We kicked off this series looking at the Atlantic Division, which will be followed by the Central, Metro and Pacific. As noted, in each column, two teams will be covered. To simplify it, we are going alphabetically by first team name rather than by nickname. In this column, the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators. As the bottom of the column is a link to all the prior articles posted.

Montreal Canadiens:

The third overall pick in the 2019 draft, Kirby Dach basically given up on by Chicago. A fractured wrist suffered in a World Junior exhibition game before Xmas cost Dach most of his second year in the pros after an okay first campaign as an 18-year-old. Dach did little to support his case to stay, posting just nine goals and 17 assists in 70 games before getting dealt to Montreal.

One man’s poison is another man’s meat. Dach started to show last season why he was selected at number three. He fit in well with Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, benefitting from skating on a line with two highly-skilled players while also aided by lining up at wing and not center. He posted career-highs in goals (14), helpers (24), and points (38), despite suiting up for only 58 games, as injury problems cut short the second half of his season.

Dach is not a “sleeper” per se, but is a player I expect to take another leap forward this season, health permitting. If Dach keeps his spot on the top line and first-unit power play grouping, a rise of another 10 or so points is most certainly feasible. Fantasy owners, at times, have long memories, and the sour taste of Dach’s 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons could slightly push down his value.

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Ottawa Senators:

A team on the rise, Ottawa has many possible options for this selection. Josh Norris, healthy after being limited to just eight games last season, is one. Shane Pinto, who just scratched the surface of how good he should be, is in the mix. Jake Sanderson might have been an option, but the eight-year, $64.4 million deal he signed takes away a big portion of him being a “sleeper.”

My selection may be the player who drives the Senators’ fortunes this season, Joonas Korpisalo. Ottawa made a disastrous trade prior to last season of Filip Gustavsson for Cam Talbot, only to watch Gustavsson morph into the possible top dog between the pipes for the Wild and Talbot struggle. As a team with playoff aspirations, filling the hole in net was a major requirement for this offseason. management was aggressive, inking Korpisalo to a five-year, $20 million contract on Day 1 of free agency.

You can most certainly argue that that decision was a wise one. Korpisalo was 11-11-3 with a 3.17 goals-against average (GAA) and .911 save percentage in front of a Columbus team that ranked 31st – next to last in the league – in expected GAA. His move to LA saw him in front of a squad that was third in the league in expected GAA, which resulted – in no surprise – in Korpisalo going 7-3-1 with a 2.13 GAA and .921 save percentage. The Senators, who improved their blue line with the in-season acquisition of Jakob Chychrun and added Tyler Kleven last March, should be somewhere in the middle of the pack in terms of expected GAA. If Korpisalo can mask some defensive deficiencies and outproduce expectations, 25 or so wins with solid enough numbers should be reachable.

Atlantic Division:

Boston Bruins and Buffalo Sabres

Detroit Red Wings and Florida Panthers