Fantasy Focus: Mining the waiver wire on January 31

We're back again to unearth some of the waiver wire gems that are likely sitting around waiting to help you in the short term and maybe even turn into long-term assets.

If you’ve read any of my weekly Waiver Wire articles, or realistically, have much experience with fantasy hockey, you already know the importance of working the waiver wire, especially in a season like this one where we’re faced with constant roster upheaval by positive COVID diagnoses and COVID-related travel issues.

Every year we see players who were unheralded, underappreciate, underrepresented on draft day come out of the shoot hot and pay dividends for those who were fast enough to scoop them up. Some of those players fall back down to earth and end up back in the heap for anyone to take a stab at. Others continue to defy preseason expectations and turn into tangible pieces capable of helping your team charge toward the fantasy playoffs.

As we do every week, I'll explore some candidates that are owned in fewer than half of Fantrax leagues at the time of writing but suddenly find themselves in better situations, with a hot hand, or facing an overly generous schedule.

This is a particularly challenging week to find streaming options. With the NHL All-Star game set to go on February 5, most teams are only going to hit the ice once this week. There is a handful of teams with two games and just the Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, and New York Islanders fortunate enough to play home games. 

Now, some sites, like ESPN, are rolling up the next two weeks into one extra-large matchup. Fantrax has doubled up this week with last week. There are a lot of balls in the air. We’ll consider all of it.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t mine for talent. So let’s get the pick-axes and shovels out and get to work!