Fantasy NHL Trade Impact: Rieder, Wedgewood traded to Kings by Coyotes for Kuemper
By Matt Rogers
Fantasy NHL Trade Impact: Kuemper heads to the Coyotes / Wedgewood to the Kings
Welcome to an action packed NHL Trade Deadline as we should continue to see a flurry of activity leading up to the 3PM EST deadline on Monday, February 26. We have already seen a handful of trades heading into today and we will break down the fantasy hockey impact of each of those deals as they break throughout the day and impact Fantasy NHL!
After Mike Smith went to the Calgary Flames last off-season, the Arizona Coyotes were down to Antti Raanta and Scott Wedgewood. In the first half of this season, the goalie pair and Coyotes defense had looked terrible. However, since January they’re playing better hockey lately, and Raanta is making a case as a full-time starting net-minder for the Yotes now.
The Coyotes seem unimpressed with their backup 25-year-old goaltender Scott Wedgewood, however. With 17 starts, Scott was 5-9-4 with a .893 save percentage and was giving up 3.45 goals per game. In short, those are terrible stats, and for Fantasy NHL Wedgewood was likely low-owned even in deep leagues.
Meanwhile, the Kings were enjoying the benefits of having 27-year-old Darcy Kuemper back up Jonathan Quick. After a fairly mediocre career, Darcy started 15 games for the Kings this season with a 10-1-3 record, .932 save percentage, and was only giving up 2.10 goals per game. Kuemper’s save percentage and GAA are some of the best stats in the NHL, even for a starter.
Immediate Fantasy NHL Impact
While it might seem like Kuemper was an immediate upgrade to back up Raanta, we do expect Darcy’s win rate to plummet. The Kings have better goal-scoring, more experience, and better defense than the Coyotes. However, Kuemper is clearly a longer-term option for the Coyotes, as they immediately extended his contract, after the trade.
Darcy Kuemper is getting a two-year extension from ARI as part of this trade from LAK. AAV on Kuemper extension is $1.85M. Tobias Rieder and Scott Wedgewood going to LA, as @FriedgeHNIC and @craigsmorgan reported.
— Bob McKenzie (@TSNBobMcKenzie) February 21, 2018
Meanwhile, Wedgewood’s win rate likely will increase, for the same reason Kuemper’s win rate will decrease. But, we still like Darcy’s fantasy NHL value more than Scott’s. With Quick locked into the Kings top goalie spot, and the Kings pressing for a playoff spot, they’re likely to play Jonathan as often as possible.
Meanwhile, Raanta is still a fringe starter in Arizona, and the Coyotes are only playing to build for a franchise of the future. So we could see Kuemper on the ice quite often. Darcy started his first game for the Yotes on Friday, February 25th and gave up three goals in a 1-3 loss for the Coyotes. However, the Canucks have had some inconsistently awesome road games lately, and we need a bigger set of data to see if there’s a problem.
But we know right now, Kuemper’s career stats are better than Wedgewood’s, and with the young Coyotes playing better hockey in calendar year 2018, we could see his stats climb back toward his awesome start. So, for DFS we love Darcy’s value and expect to see him in play often. For season-long leagues, we’re picking up Kuemper as a hand-cuff for Raanta. Wedgewood won’t see enough time to get excited for fantasy NHL purposes, but he could be a sneaky great DFS pick when filling in for Quick, sparingly.
Stay tuned for the breakdowns of the rest of the NHL trade deadline deals and for all of your DFS needs!