Fantasy Hockey Trade Targets Based on Play During Four Nations Face-Off: Mikael Granlund, Joel Eriksson Ek, Thomas Harley and More

The NHL trade deadline is fast approaching, so right now our focus should be on trade targets to bolster our fantasy league teams for the playoffs.

We are on the heels of the Four Nations Face-Off tournament, and we saw some players really come out and have a great tournament that will be giving them a confidence boost. Look for these players to continue this post tournament momentum back with their NHL teams and really push hard down the stretch.

I've chosen five players who I believe had an outstanding tournament that were sneaky good and could benefit your fantasy team.

No, We are not going with the obvious here so I have left out the likes of Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, and Zach Werenski. We scratch a bit deeper than the surface here at FantasySP, don't we? Let's continue that trend and dive in.

Also, likely all of those players you are going to have to pay a hefty premium for (or be unsuccessful in trying to obtain - I wouldn't part with any of them. Would you?), so they aren't real trade targets anyways.

Up Front

Here I've selected two forwards. First up, representing Team Finland is Mikael Granlund of the Dallas Stars.

Granlund had an impressive three goals and one assist for four points throughout the tournament. With somewhat limited ice time, he proved to be an offensive weapon for Team Finland, and really proved his worth on this team.

He has 15 goals, 34 assists, 15 powerplay points in 57 games played this season. He also has 132 shots on goal, 42 hits, and 42 blocked shots. 

You may be able to pick him up on a slight discount, as he is a second line player, who is getting second powerplay unit time. 

Next up representing Team Sweden is Joel Eriksson Ek of the Minnesota Wild. If you read my Team Sweden article from my Four Nations team spotlights then you know I had JEEK as my tournament dark horse, and boy did he come through.

While JEEK had one goal and one assist for two points through his three games played, he tied MacKinnon for a tournament-high +4 +/- rating. That is shared with some pretty elite company, that only the two of them obtained. What an absolute stud.

This season he has nine goals, 15 assists, and eight powerplay points in 42 games played. He also has 123 shots on goal, 69 hits, and 31 blocked shots.

JEEK you may be able to get fairly cheap for what he offers too, as like Granlund, he is a second liner but he is on the top powerplay unit, and even gets some penalty kill time. He has elite deployment for a depth player.

Blueliners

My first pick for defensemen is honestly my pick of the tournament who I was most impressed with. Representing Team Canada is Thomas Harley of the Dallas Stars. While he was a call up in his two games, scoring one assist, he was a difference maker on the ice.

A great example of the ‘eye-test' doing more justice than actual statistics, look out for Harley to be the future of the blueline for the Stars, replacing Miro Heiskanen. This is especially true since Heiskanen is injured - this is really Harley's opportunity to “start the engine!”

Harley has 10 goals, 20 assists, five powerplay points in 53 games played. He also has 112 shots on goal, 24 hits and 77 blocked shots. He genuinely held his own and did not look out of place at all. If you are in a keeper league, he should be a target to bolster your future!

Second up for the blueline representing Team USA is Jaccob Slavin of the Carolina Hurricanes. Here is the beauty about Slavin; with only about a ~40% roster rate - he might be available on your waiver wire! Go grab him, then come back to finish reading.

Did you grab him? You did? Great!

While Slavin didn't score any points, he ate monster minutes for Team USA. He was also a tournament second in +/- with +3. He was super dependable and an asset to Team USA's success.

This year, he has five goals, 16 assists, and a +11 +/- rating in 57 games played. He also has 75 shots on goal, 16 hits, and a massive 98 hits.

With all the injuries that happened through the Four Nations Face-Off, it's likely you have a hole to fill and with Slavin likely being a free agent, he is the perfect pickup that you don't need to give anything up for.

In the Crease

I picked one tendy for this list, and admittedly I threw some shade his way prior to the tournament starting. I wasn't the only one, but I will be the first one to put my hands up and admit that I was wrong.

Representing Team Canada, and arguably being the reason Canada won the Four Nations Face-Off is goaltender Jordan Binnington of the St. Louis Blues.

Me, along with just about every media outlet and hockey analyst in the space was sure that goaltending was the achilles heel of Team Canada. I do stand by that you never know what Binner you are going to get. Is it a Stanley Cup winner, or is it swiss cheese? Well luckily for Team Canada, they got Stanley Cup winning Binner, who saw them through every game.

Binner played all four games, had three wins, a .907 save percentage, 2.37 goals against average, and made 107 saves with 10 goals against.

This season, he has 38 starts, 15 wins, with a .897 save percentage, 2.89 goals against average and three shutouts. Did you notice the vast difference in NHL season vs. Four Nations statistics? So did I, neither of us are crazy.

Good for Team Canada, good for Binnington, and maybe good for you. I think he is worth a gamble at trying to roster as we all know goaltending is a mental game as much as a skill game, and this championship win will have done nothing but good for Binner's mental outlook on his game right now. 

Look for him to explode back into contender performance. He's also only rostered in about half of the leagues out there, so you could probably get him at a discount to a casual owner who didn't watch him put Team Canada on his back.