Crashing the Net: McDonald to Boost Blues

Welcome to this week’s edition of Crashing the Net. For this 19th week of the season we’re going to take a look at the top five players that you might want to add to your roster this week. We hope you will be able to utilize this article in order to gain a competitive advantage over your opponents throughout the season. Feel free to add omissions and critique our current choices in comments section as we welcome an open discussion at DailyFaceoff.com.

Andy McDonald, Left Wing, St. Louis Blues

After missing the last 51 games with a concussion, Blues winger Andy McDonald finally returned to the lineup on Sunday against the San Jose Sharks. McDonald does have a history of concussions; however, he appears to be over his latest setback and join the surprising yet offensively challenged Blues. On his first game back McDonald was playing alongside Patrick Berglund and Chris Stewart, he also saw a decent amount of time on the Blues second unit power-play. Before going down with a concussion, McDonald had 2 points in 3 games and last season had scored 50 points in 58 games. McDonald is currently owned in only 16% of all Yahoo! leagues; however, that number will surely shoot up this week so it’s highly recommended that you add him to your lineup if you can.

Devin Setoguchi, Right Wing, Minnesota Wild

There’s a good chance that Devin Setoguchi was a mid-round draft pick in your original in the fall. There’s an even better chance that those who drafted him got frustrated by his lack of production and dropped him based on the fact that he’s currently owned in only 18% of all Yahoo! leagues. It might be time to take a look at the 25 year old again because he’s going to be playing on the Wild’s top line. With the return of Wild captain Mikko Koivu, Devin Setoguchi has earned himself a role on that top line along with former Sharks teammate Dany Heatley. After a brutal start to the season which saw him score only 5 points in the first month of the season, Setoguchi has played himself out of Mike Yeo’s doghouse by scoring 6 points in his last 10 games. Setoguchi currently has 21 points on the season and should be able to match the 41 points that he scored last season if he can stay on that top line with Koivu and Heatley.

Joey MacDonald, Goaltender, Detroit Red-Wings

Do you want to get 3 guaranteed goaltending wins for your team this week? There’s nothing more guaranteed than a Red-Wings victory on home ice. Heading into Sunday night’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers, the Red-Wings had won 19 straight games at home. This week will see the Red-Wings play another 3 games at home and it’s safe to say that Joey MacDonald will get those starts. Since Jimmy Howard went down with a broken index finger, MacDonald has played great for the Wings going 2-1-1 with an impressive 1.57 GAA and a .935 save percentage. Howard will be back in the next two weeks so if you can add another goalie in that time you can’t go wrong with MacDonald. When Howard comes back you’ll probably see MacDonald sent back down to the AHL so just be aware that this will be a short term fix for your team.

David Jones, Right Wing, Colorado Avalanche

Even though David Jones scored 27 goals last season it doesn’t look like he’s going to hit that mark again. The good news for Jones is that Joe Sacco has reunited Jones with Paul Stastny and Milan Hejduk who he played most of last season with. This year has been a bit of a disappointment for Jones since he was coming off of a 27 goal season which saw him finish with an impressive 45 points in his first full NHL season. So far this season he has 22 points in 47 games, but what you should be interested in is his play of late. In 4 games in February he has 6 points and a plus 3 rating. The month of January was a disaster for him as he only scored 2 points in 11 games. Jones is owned in only 6% of all Yahoo! leagues; however, now that he’s found his game again alongside Stastny and Hejduk you’ll want to keep your eye on him over the next few games.

Gabriel Landeskog, Left Wing, Colorado Avalanche

Another Avalanche forward you need to keep your eye on is Gabriel Landeskog. Not only is Landeskog currently 6th in rookie scoring with only 4 points behind leaders Adam Henrique and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins but he’s also 4th in Avalanche scoring. Landeskog has been seeing top line minutes along side Ryan O’Reilly and Peter Mueller. He’s been averaging just over 18 minutes of ice time which also includes over 2 minutes on the Avs power-play. One of the most impressive things about Landeskog might be his plus/minus rating. Not only is he tied with the Rangers Carl Hagelin with the rookie lead of +15, but he also leads all his Avalanche teammates. The Avalanche player ranked second in plus/minus is Ryan Wilson with a +4 rating. Not too shabby for a rookie playing on a tenth place team.