Center Stage: Carter among C's to eye on deadline day

With the actual NHL trade deadline less than a week away, fantasy owners are probably trying to prepare themselves for an active day on Monday. We'll all be sitting at our computers waiting for a trade to happen that immediately increases a player's fantasy value -- then we'll quickly attempt to add that player to our roster before anyone else does. That's the goal, right?

Over the next three days, we're going to try to provide you a list of forwards to keep your eye on with the trade deadline nearing. These are the players we believe have the potential to be traded and could end up seeing a change in fantasy value. There aren't a ton of big names linked to any rumors right now (other than Rick Nash and Jeff Carter), but these players could still help in most fantasy leagues. Some of them may be long shots to get dealt and might not even end up being moved, but here are our thoughts (today we'll cover the center position):



JEFF CARTER
CENTER - CBJ
GOALS: 15 | ASST: 10 | PTS: 25
SOG: 130 | +/-: -11
Jeff Carter (owned in 83 percent of Yahoo! Leagues) -- Like his teammate Rick Nash, Carter has been mentioned among trade discussions quite often over the last few weeks. He obviously has that big contract, which makes trading him a bit more difficult for Columbus, but Carter could still find himself on a new team by Monday. This would likely benefit Carter's fantasy value more than any other player on the market. Despite a hat trick against the Sharks on Tuesday, Carter has had an extremely rough first season with the Blue Jackets (between injuries and his underachieving stats -- 15 G, 10 A in 39 games) and a trade to a potential contender could motivate him to play the way we're used to -- he averaged 38.33 goals over the last three season with the Flyers.