Fantasy NHL: Under-owned waiver wire players for week of March 26

Defensemen

Jaccob Slavin (Carolina Hurricanes – 16.8 percent owned)

The deep Carolina blue line sometimes splits up ice too evenly for any one player to jump out and get the opportunity to pile up points. With the team fighting for a spot in the NHL playoffs though, they can’t afford to let a hot player sit on the bench, and this mindset has led to an increased workload for Jaccob Slavin as he works his way through one of the hottest stretches of his NHL career.

Slavin logged three assists, a +5 rating and nine shots on goal in three games last week after logging four points in three games the week before. Locked into the top pairing with Justin Faulk, Slavin has the makings of a future stud, working in just his third NHL season.

The No. 2 ranked defenseman last week in the entire league, you might already be too late to the party on grabbing him off the wire, but if the other owners in your league have missed this gem than be sure to grab him up before they can catch their mistake.

Darnell Nurse (Edmonton Oilers – 28.2 percent owned)

The Oilers seem to be finding their touch at the worst possible time. After a terrible season where nothing seemed to go right, they are on a bit of a hot run with a modest three-game winning streak going. The wins won’t do anything but salvage some pride and drop their draft lottery odds at this point, but they can help out fantasy owners looking to find a few overlooked players.

When Darnell Nurse broke into the NHL after a dominant junior career it was expected that he would take a little while to get himself up to speed as it was thought that he was so overwhelming for other lesser junior players that he developed bad habits that would need to be broken before he could flourish at the NHL level.

This year, the 23-year old Nurse has begun to find himself and take those next steps toward the bright future he has coming.

A three-assist night against Ottawa last week showed what might be and with four points in his last four games, a +3 rating, six shots on goal and eight hits over that span, this could represent the starting point for Nurse. This year might be a write off for the Oilers, but don’t sleep on Nurse in next year’s draft.