The Hockey News’s Jake Tye offers several Red Wings fantasy hockey picks as potential keys to winning your fantasy hockey league, including a surging Marco Kasper as a “breakout” candidate, goaltender John Gibson as a “sleeper” pick, and winger James van Riemsdyk as a possible first-line contributor by default:
Kasper’s Added Minutes and Role Make Breakout Possible
Detroit‘s second line heading into next season is expected to be Alex DeBrincat and Patrick Kane centered by the young Marco Kasper. The 21-year-old Austrian forward enters his sophomore season and excelled during his time with the two veteran wingers as a rookie, posting a solid +4 net rating after playing 192.2 minutes together over 30 games. With a full season in the top six and more time with the line and on the second power play unit, he should blow past his 37 total points from last season and could also outperform his 50 point total projected by Yahoo for this season.
His minutes per game last season finished at 15:27 and this should change as he will be in a more secure role in the top six with the potential of even hoping up to the team’s first line at left wing. If they can’t find a suitor for the line of Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond, Kasper will have to be the answer but even without landing that job he should see his minutes jump to around 17-18, typical for a second line centre.
This should lead to more chances to land more hits in which he’s projected to finish with the second-most on the team after Moritz Seider and fire off more shots as he’s projected to finish with only 151 which is just six more than his total last season at 145 despite his playing time likely seeing a sizeable spike. If you also play in a league that counts face-off wins, his added time will likely see him jump from fourth on the team in wins last season to hopefully second or third.
