Tampa Bay Lightning: Fantasy Hockey Rankings For August

The fantasy hockey rankings for the month of August were released recently and three Tampa Bay Lightning players landed in the top 30 on the list of 200 overall players.

For many fans, fantasy hockey is a way to put their knowledge of the game and the players to the test and battle against friends and other passionate fans for bragging rights and other honors. Over the years, this virtual competition during the NHL season has become increasingly popular, especially with various writers and fantasy experts publishing daily and weekly content on what players to pick up and drop and how to win your league.

Before the season starts, most users begin constructing their rosters from the pool of NHL players and slot them where needed until the team is full. Fantasy insiders, like NHL.com’s Pete Jensen, release a list of the top overall players in fantasy hockey during the off-season and usually update the list leading up to the regular season.

Pete recently published a list of the top-200 overall rankings for the month of August, which can be found here. As we all know, any hockey action in general begins next month with the start of the preseason and the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, so hang in there for now.

On this list are some of the best players in the world and three players from the Tampa Bay Lightning landed in the top-30 for the month of August. A similar list was released for July, but not much has changed.

Tampa Bay Lightning

Having three players in the top-30 is a respectable number considering the amount of talent out there and compared to last year’s final rankings, the Lightning have one additional player that high on the list this go around. Prior to the start of the 2015-16 season, only forwards Steven Stamkos and Tyler Johnson could be found in the top-30, though the team finished with five in the top 50.

This time, forwards Nikita Kucherov and Stamkos and goaltender Ben Bishop were ranked 17th, 19th, and 23rd, respectively. Compared to last October’s final rankings, Stamkos fell 14 spots, Kucherov moved up 20 spots, and Bishop rose seven spots to his current position. I think those are fair assessments, but I don’t think Stamkos should’ve dropped that much.

Nonetheless, the 26-year-old sniper is in the top-20 and is poised to have a better season after a dip in production last year.

As for Kucherov and Bishop, their placement on this list is fair considering Kucherov had a breakout season in 2014-15 and he matched that production last season (65 points in 2014-15 and 66 points in 2015-16).

Meanwhile, Bishop had one of the best seasons of his career, statistically speaking, in 2015-16, when he posted 35 wins, a league-high .926 save percentage, and an NHL-best 2.06 goals against average. Many fans around the league figured he should’ve won the Vezina Trophy, but it wasn’t meant to be.

For the pre-2016-17 rankings, Kucherov moved from 37th to 17th and Bishop moved from 35th to 23rd.

Other Tampa Bay Lightning players that landed in the top-200 include Victor Hedman (63), Tyler Johnson (71), Jonathan Drouin (86), Andrei Vasilevskiy (141), Anton Stralman (147), Ondrej Palat (155), and Alex Killorn (193). Altogether, 10 players from the Lightning cracked this list for the August rankings.

Related Story: Ben Bishop Proves To Be One Of The NHL's Best

Though I do think those are fair assessments, I also believe Hedman should be a bit higher on this list because of his production, mainly in the assists category, as that is what actually counts in fantasy.

The top five players in the top-200 are as you would expect and includes Patrick Kane, Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Jamie Benn, and Erik Karlsson, in that order. I thought Ovechkin would’ve been placed at number one or two potentially, but he should definitely be in the top three purely because of the amount of goals and shots on goal he puts on the board.

If you do end up trying fantasy hockey, there are several websites that you can play it on, including ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, Draft Kings, and FanDuel, and most of those leagues will use goals, assists, plus/minus, penalty minutes, power-play points and shots on goal as scoring for skaters, and wins, goals against average, and shutouts as scoring for goaltenders.

Next: NHL 17 Preview: Tampa Bay Lightning Team and Player Ratings

Fantasy hockey is a great way to compete against friends and other fans while closely following the game and players around the league. With that said, there will always be those top players that you should draft and hold onto for most of the season. The Tampa Bay Lightning have several players that are placed highly in the top-200 and would be great additions to your fantasy team that could potentially help win your league. May the best team win!