Wednesday night was marked by Erik Karlsson‘s lacerated achilles. Even by hockey standards, it’s a cringe worthy injury. Even saying “lacerated achilles” out loud doesn’t feel right. It sounds like a bad horror movie. If it is a bad horror movie, the villain in this one is Matt Cooke. Maybe he wasn’t an intentional villain when he rode Karlsson into the boards, but he’s still the villain none the less. In the simplest terms: Cooke’s skate came down on Karlsson’s achilles and he lacerated it.
Since Matt Cooke was involved in the play there has been talk of his intention—or lack of intention—on the play in question. I’m a Boston guy and my first instinct was that Cooke must have done it on purpose. It’s tough forget his hit on Marc Savard. But after watching the play over and over it simply seems like a freak accident. We can debate all we want on why Cooke’s skate was so high up in the first place, and that debate will probably rage on simply because he is Matt Cooke. This is the bed he’s made for himself.
In any case, it’s is a huge blow to Ottawa and fantasy owners. Karlsson may miss the rest of the season and fantasy owners just won’t find the kind of production from the blue line that Karlsson gave.
Back in the FanDuel world we won two out of the three head-to-head matchups last night to bring our season record to 15-9. Here are the picks:
LW: Jiri Tlusty $5,600—The guy is on fire. With five goals in his last three games he’s a great play at $5,600.
LW: James van Riemsdyk $6,900—I love him on the power play and I like his price today. He has four goals in his past four games.
RW: Pat Dwyer $4,200—He’s playing with Skinner and Staal and should see a few scoring chances tonight.
RW: Phil Kessel $8,500—He’s starting to heat up and has five points over his past three games.
C: John Tavares $9,700—Tavares has a goal in three straight games.
C: J.T. Miller $4,200—He’s a risky play but he did have two goals during the last NY-NY matchup.
D: Tom Gilbert $4,300—At $4,300 he’s a great value pick.
D: Raphael Diaz $4,100—He gets a ton of ice time (over 24 minutes on Feb. 12) and could get you a few shots on goal or an assist. He’s a safe play here.
G: Jean-Sebastien Giguere $8,300—He’s 1-0-0 with a .933 save percentage. I feel comfortable with him tonight.
