As training camps open you'll hear a lot of talk about this guy or that guy being sleepers. I know that we've written about this in the past, but we'll write about it again. Many people misuse the term. In our mind a sleeper is a guy who could, given the right circumstances, perform BETTER than expected. It is different than a risk pick - which we would define as a guy who, because of potential injury, attitude or a trade, could perform BETTER or WORSE than expected. So, is it possible for a top 20 scorer to be a sleeper? Absolutely. Off the top of my head there is one guy that comes to mind - Michael Nylander. Here's a guy that performed very well last year, but this year, playing with Alex Ovechkin in Washington, he could be even better.
Some pundits get it. They mine the depth charts of teams and come up with some really interesting names. Here's an interesting article I found. Rather than use the same old tired names, Sean Allen dug a little deeper. Sure there are some "standards" in here - Dainius Zubrus, Petr Sykora and Scott Hartnell - but there are also some other guys who he thinks could go from the depths of obscurity to some decent playing time in the NHL. Props to Sean for an interesting and inspiring piece. Check out the article here: http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?id=3012943&sport=nhl&ft=ss
Oh, and by the way, subscribers to the Puckjunkie Predictor will get to see our own Sleeper Projections in an article to be released in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment