Week Three of the NHL season is upon us and so it’s time to once again update our Fantasy Hockey rankings. These rankings reflect a standard ESPN.com league that uses “Goals, Assists, Plus/Minus, Average Time on Ice, Penalty Minutes, Power-play points, Shots on Goal, Wins, Save Percentage, and Goals Against Average.

Forwards:

Moving Up:

Jeff Skinner- Carolina Hurricanes: The 21-year-old center is currently leading the Hurricanes in points with seven. Additionally, the former 2010 first-round pick centers a line with wingers Radek Dvorak and Riley Nash in tow. Skinner and Nash both have plus/minus ratings of plus-4 and Dvorak has a plus-3. The trio is the only forward line for the Hurricanes that has any players with a positive plus/minus rating. In fact, other than those three players, only one other Hurricane has a positive rating, and that’s defenseman Jay Harrison at plus-2. In addition to all of this, Skinner has two power-play goals and he receives the fourth most time-on-ice for forwards in that category. Finally, he is one behind Nathan Gerbe for the team lead in shots. If Skinner can maintain a positive plus/minus, in addition to what is likely going to be a 60 to 65 point season, Skinner is going to be a huge sleeper. He bursts onto the scene into our Top-100, vaulting right up to number 89 on our list.

Alex Killorn- Tampa Bay Lightning: The 24-year-old Halifax native has been a revelation for the Lightning so far this season. Killorn is tied with Teddy Purcell with six points; good for fourth behind St. Louis and Stamkos, who have seven points each. The 6’2 winger, Killorn, benefits from incredible vision and from a knack for knowing exactly where to be on the ice. Finally, Killorn is second on the Bolts in shots with 12. His strong week has been rewarded by us with his first appearance in our Top-100 forward rankings this season.

Jussi Jokinen- Pittsburgh Penguins: The 30-year-old Jokinen is a well-traveled sniper that looks to have found a home in Pittsburgh. Jokinen has five points in five games so far this season and following a trade from the Hurricanes to the Penguins last year, Jokinen put up 11 points in 10 games, giving him 16 points in 15 games in his career with Pittsburgh. While Jokinen does not skate top minutes in general, he has been seeing top power-play line minutes. Jokinen is incredibly streaky and comes in at #82 in our rankings this week after being un-ranked last week. His hot streak could continue, or he could fall off the map for a while. One thing is certain though, when Jokinen is hot, he lights the lamp in bunches. The native of Kalajoki, Finland has a hat-trick on his resume already this year.

Moving Down:

Rick Nash- New York Rangers: Nash was injured in the New York Rangers brutal 9-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks. The injury for Nash was to his head, which Sharks defenseman Brad Stuart targeted as the principle point of contact in this hit.  The targeting by Stuart came after he unnecessarily thrusts his shoulder upward into Nash after making principle contact. Nash has missed the last two games in addition to not returning to the game when Stuart hit him in the first period. We have moved Nash down from #21 to #25.

Jiri Tlusty- Carolina Hurricanes: After a breakout season during which he racked up 38 points in 48 games, the 25-year-old Tlusty has yet to record a point through six games and is a paltry minus-3. Tlusty’s playing time will see a serious dip if he doesn’t pick up the production. Currently he is skating with the Hurricanes captain Eric Staal and Alexander Semin. Tlusty has been removed from our Top-100 completely, though he can easily earn his way back in by showing some signs of life this week.

Just Missed the Cut:

Sean Monahan- Calgary Flames: The 19-year-old stud center from Brampton, Ontario was taken in the first-round with the sixth overall pick in this year’s draft. Monahan currently leads the hot-starting Flames (pun not intended) with four goals on the young season. Added to that is two assists, placing Monahan second on the Flames in points behind former Detroit Red Wing Jiri Hudler. Monahan undoubtedly has loads of talent, as his prospect pedigree would suggest, as would his hot start, but Monahan is only averaging 14 minutes of ice-time per game. The 6’2 forward will break our Top-100 if one of two things happens this week. First, he needs to increase his average ice time to at least 15 minutes a game, or second, he can continue this torrid pace in points. We highly expect the Flames to “flame-out” soon and realize their place as the worst team in the Western Conference, bringing down Monahan’s plus/minus, giving us yet another reason to pump the brakes on the Monahan hype at the moment.

Here are our consensus rankings:

1. Sidney Crosby	26. Patrick Sharp	51. Patrick Marleau	76. P.A. Parenteau
2. Steven Stamkos	27. Matt Duchene	52. Joe Pavelski	77. Alex Galchenyuk
3. Alex Ovechkin	28. Taylor Hall	53. Jeff Carter	78. Brendan Gallagher
4. Evgeni Malkin	29. Patrice Bergeron	54. Jason Pominville	79. Brandon Saad
5. John Tavares	30. Matt Moulson	55. Teddy Purcell	80. Alex Steen
6. Corey Perry	31. Mikko Koivu	56. Max Pacioretty	81. Scott Hartnell
7. Patrick Kane	32. Ryan Getzlaf	57. Brent Burns	82. Jussi Jokinen
8. Claude Giroux	33. Evander Kane	58. Loui Eriksson	83. Pascal Dupuis
9. Daniel Sedin	34. Andrew Ladd	59. Milan Lucic	84. Jarome Iginla
10. Phil Kessel	35. Joffrey Lupul	60. Nathan MacKinnon	85. Ryan Callahan
11. Eric Staal	36. Jordan Eberle	61. Nail Yakupov	86. Valtteri Filppula
12. Martin St. Louis	37. James van Riemsdyk	62. Mike Ribeiro	87. Alex Chiasson
13. Henrik Sedin	38. David Krejci	63. Mikhail Grabovski	88. Vladimir Tarasenko
14. Chris Kunitz	39. Marian Hossa	64. Ryan O’Reilly	89. Jeff Skinner
15. Henrik Zetterberg	40. Marian Gaborik	65. Vincent Lecavalier	90. Cody Hodgson
16. Pavel Datsyuk	41. Alexander Semin	66. Brad Marchand	91. Michael Grabner
17. Jonathan Toews	42. Bobby Ryan	67. Johan Franzen	92. Frans Nielsen
18. Jason Spezza	43. Jakub Voracek	68. Blake Wheeler	93. Patrick Elias
19. Anze Kopitar	44. Nazem Kadri	69. Ryan Kesler	94. Gabriel Landeskog
20. Tyler Seguin	45. David Backes	70. Dustin Brown	95. Jiri Hudler
21. Nicklas Backstrom	46. Derek Stepan	71. Steve Downie	96. Michael Ryder
22. Jamie Benn	47. Joe Thornton	72. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	97. Tyler Bozak
23. Zach Parise	48. Thomas Vanek	73. Radim Vrbata	98. Jonathan Huberdeau
24. Logan Couture	49. James Neal	74. Brad Richards	99. Jakub Silfverberg
25. Rick Nash	50. Wayne Simmonds	75. Lars Eller	100. Alex Killorn

 

Alternate Stats for Forwards:

Not all leagues use these categories for judging players, therefore, in order to provide you with the most comprehensive analysis possible, we will be tracking other offensive category leaders and some possible sleepers for those categories.

First number listed is the rank of that player for the particular category, second number (in parenthesis is the number accumulated for that stat). *Note*, we are not going to cover the same player twice in a span of at least three weeks.

In order to view the leaders of certain stats for last week that we recommended, you must read our rankings article from last week. 

Hits:

(3) Zac Rinaldo- (26) – Philadelphia- 0.1% owned

(4) Steve Ott- (26 – Buffalo- 68.2% owned

(6) Matt Martin-(20) – New York Islanders- 0.0% owned

(7) Chris Neil – (20) – Ottawa- 21.2% owned

(8) Troy Brouwer- (19) – Washington- 72.4% owned

Blocks:

(3) Nick Bonino- (8) – Anaheim- 0.2% owned

(4) T.J. Galiardi- (8) – Calgary- 0.5% owned

(8) Patrick Dwyer- (7) – Carolina- 0.2% owned

(9) Tyler Ennis- (7) – Buffalo – 40.9% owned

(13) Brian Boyle- (6)- New York Rangers- 0.1% owned

Face-off Percentage: (Note player must have >17% of team face-offs taken)

(2) Joe Vitale- (32-for-50, 64%) – Pittsburgh- 0.0% owned

(5) David Legwand- (42-for-68, 61.8%) – Nashville- 0.7% owned

(8) Mark Acrobello- (45-for-74, 60.8%) – Edmonton- 0.5% owned

(10) Mathieu Perreault- (46-for-78, 59.0%) – Anaheim- 2.0% owned

(12) Chris Kelly- (34-for-58, 58.6%) – Boston- 0.2% owned

Defense

Moving Up:

Sami Salo- Tampa Bay Lightning: The 39-year-old offensive-minded defenseman has battled with injuries throughout his career. However over the past two seasons, he has missed just 15 games (believe us that’s a big improvement). Salo is currently playing “power-play quarterback” for the Tampa Bay Lightning, as he leads the Lightning in power-play time-on-ice per game. Additionally, Salo leads the Lightning in penalty-kill ice time, yielding him 21 minutes per game total. This an extremely beneficial way for Salo to get his ice-time because if the Lightning struggle once again with team defense, Salo’s plus/minus hit will be mitigated by the fact that he’s only seeing 14 minutes of 5-on-5 ice-time. When he is healthy, he is very good, just don’t expect him to be healthy for long. He vaults into our rankings for the first time this year, landing at #69.

Mike Green- Washington Capitals: Green, a 28-year-old defenseman from Alberta, has been excellent in the role that his skill-set has devised for him. The 6’1 oft-injured defenseman, is the power-play quarterback for the best unit in the league. Both he and Nicklas Backstrom play the point on Washington’s lethal power-play, during which Green sees 6 minutes of ice-time per game. When healthy, the former first-round pick has point-per-game upside, albeit with the downside of a weak plus/minus given his defensive shortcomings. Green moves up to #12 in our rankings (up from #17 last week), however, we recommend that teams, already littered with injury risk, look to trade the hot-starting defenseman because he will inevitably go down with an injury.

Christian Ehrhoff- Buffalo Sabres: The 31-year-old defenseman has yet to make his mark on the scoreboard, going without a point in the first six games, but he is skating valuable minutes (25:41 per game) for a terrible Sabres squad. Ehrhoff has managed to keep a +2 plus/minus rating despite the Sabres having a minus-10 goal differential. The native of Moers, Germany moved up five spots in our rankings to #19 from #24.

1 Erik Karlsson	26 Jason Garrison	51 Patrick Wiercioch
2 Dustin Byfuglien	27 Kimmo Timonen	52 Dan Hamhuis
3 P.K. Subban	28 Brian Campbell	53 Dennis Seidenberg
4 Ryan Suter	29 Justin Schultz	54 Roman Josi
5 Drew Doughty	30 Cody Franson	55 Dmitry Kulikov
6 Shea Weber	31 Ryan McDonagh	56 Victor Hedman
7 Tobias Enstrom	32 Paul Martin	57 Jacob Trouba
8 Alex Pietrangelo	33 Matt Carle	58 Jared Spurgeon
9 Dion Phaneuf	34 Justin Faulk	59 Kevin Bieksa
10 Dan Boyle	35 Cam Fowler	60 Danny DeKeyser
11 Niklas Kronwall	36 Brent Seabrook	61 Marc Methot
12 Mike Green	37 Zach Bogosian	62 John Carlson
13 Duncan Keith	38 Jay Bouwmeester	63 Niklas Hjalmarsson
14 Andrei Markov	39 Alex Goligoski	64 Torey Krug
15 Kevin Shattenkirk	40 Sergei Gonchar	65 James Wisniewski
16 Keith Yandle	41 Fedor Tyutin	66 Jake Gardiner
17 Oliver Ekman-Larsson	42 Travis Hamonic	67 Jonathan Ericsson
18 Jack Johnson	43 Mark Giordano	68 Johnny Oduya
19 Christian Ehrhoff	44 Dennis Wideman	69 Sami Salo
20 Alex Edler	45 Dan Girardi	70 Jake Muzzin
21 Slava Voynov	46 Marc Staal	71 Ladislav Smid
22 Lubomir Visnovsky	47 Michael Del Zotto	72 Matt Niskanen
23 Jonas Brodin	48 Kris Letang	73 Derek Morris
24 Zdeno Chara	49 Marc-Edouard Vlasic	74 Matt Irwin
25 Mark Streit	50 Francois Beauchemin	75 Radko Gudas

Alternate Stats for Defenseman:

Not all leagues use these categories for judging players, therefore, in order to provide you with the most comprehensive analysis possible, we will be tracking other offensive category leaders and some possible sleepers for those categories.

First number listed is the rank of that player for the particular category, second number (in parenthesis is the number accumulated for that stat

In order to view the leaders of certain stats for last week that we recommended, you must read our rankings article from last week. 

Hits:

(2) Matt Greene- (21)- New Jersey- 0.0% owned

(4) Brooks Orpik- (20) – Pittsburgh- 7.6% owned

(5) Brett Bellemore- (19 – Carolina- 0.0% owned

(10) Jared Cowen – (15) – Ottawa- 2.2% owned

(12) Erik Gudbranson- (15) – Florida- 7.9% owned

Blocked Shots:

(2) Zbynek Michalek- (17) – Phoenix- 0.6% owned

(3) Andrej Sekera- (17) – Carolina- 8.1% owned

(4) Mike Weaver- (17) – Florida- 0.0% owned

(5) Nate Guenin- (16) – Colorado- 0.0% owned

(6) Brooks Orpik- (16) – Pittsburgh- 7.6% owned