Each week, I will dive into the numbers and offer some insights that should help when it comes time to make fantasy hockey decisions.
In this week’s edition of 20 Fantasy Points, a look at players to consider in the middle and later rounds of drafts this season. Some sleeper candidates, rookies, potential breakthrough players, but all in the name of finding value on draft day. Evgeni Dadonov, Michael Bunting, Jonathan Dahlen, Viktor Arvidsson, and Chandler Stephenson are some value plays with potential.
#1 Before managing 13 goals in 55 games for Ottawa last season, Vegas Golden Knights winger Evgeni Dadonov had three straight seasons with at least 25 goals. His shot rate dropped from 8.2 shots/60 to 6.0 shots/60 during 5-on-5 play but a drop in power-play production sunk his season. In 2019-2020, Dadonov had 17 power play points, including 11 goals, for Florida. Last season, in more than 159 power play minutes, Dadonov had zero goals and one assist. Vegas might offer him better opportunities, and they need his offense with Alex Tuch out of the lineup while he recovers from shoulder surgery.
#2 Washington Capitals center Lars Eller has yet to score 40 points in an NHL season, topping out at 39 points in 2019-2020, but that was in 69 games of a shortened season. Last season, Eller had 23 points in 44 games, his second straight season with better than 0.50 points per game, and the reason this has some importance is that the Washington Capitals could be missing Nicklas Backstrom for a while at the start of the season and if that is the case, Eller could find a more significant role, at least early in the season.
#3 There were 10 players to score at least half a goal per game last season. All 10 might not have survived a full 82-game schedule but it was the lowest number of players with at least half a goal per game (minimum 20 games) since 2016-2017, when there were only three. It would appear, then, that finding goals at the higher end of the scale has generally been easier over the past four seasons.
#4 A player who just missed scoring 0.50 goals per game last season was new Toronto Maple Leafs winger Michael Bunting, who had 10 goals in 21 games for Arizona. It would be unreasonable to expect Bunting to score on 26.3% of his shots again, especially over a full season, but his brief success with Arizona was very much predicated on going to the dirty areas to score on tips and rebounds and that could conceivably secure him a valuable spot in Toronto’s top six.
#5 After two promising seasons to start his career, St. Louis Blues center and right winger Robert Thomas saw his production drop dramatically last season. Some of it was due to injury as he only played in 33 games but, in the games that he did play, Thomas saw his numbers decrease across the board. Most troubling was that his 5-on-5 rate of shots per 60 minutes dropped from 5.3 in 2019-2020 to 2.8 last season. Thomas is a decent pick for a bounce-back season but part of that will require him to generate more shots.
#6 It appears that the San Jose Sharks are going to give winger Jonathan Dahlen a prime opportunity to get his NHL career going. The 23-year-old was drafted by Ottawa and traded to Vancouver. After scoring 35 points in 59 AHL games, he returned to Sweden to play for Timra in the Allsvenskan league and Dahlen put up 61 goals and 148 points in 96 games over the past two seasons. It is a big jump from the Allsvenskan to the NHL but it also looks like the Sharks are prepared to give Dahlen a shot in a scoring role right away so he could be in a position to have some success.
#7 With the Pittsburgh Penguins missing both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin at the start of the season, there could be an opening for 6-foot-6 forward Radim Zohorna to have in a significant role with the Penguins. Zohorna had four points (2 G, 2 A) in eight games for Pittsburgh last season, but he also had 11 points (3 G, 8 A) in 12 AHL games and 22 points (12 G, 10 A) in 21 Czech league games. As a late-round flier, might be worth a look.
#8 The 2020 first overall pick by the New York Rangers, Alexis Lafreniere had an underwhelming rookie season with 21 points (12 G, 9 A) in 56 games, but he got off to a terrible start with seven points in his first 27 games, improving to 14 points in the next 29 games. A small sign of progress? Maybe, but he will need to generate more shots. Last season, Lafreniere had 2.53 shots/60, which ranked 213th out of 277 forwards to play at least 500 5-on-5 minutes, falling between Oskar Lindblom and Josh Archibald.
#9 The Nashville Predators are hoping to inject some life into former Vegas prospect Cody Glass, the sixth pick in the 2017 Draft. Glass has 22 points in 66 NHL games early in his career, but five of his nine goals have come on the power play. His even-strength production has been abysmal. Across the past two seasons, there are 415 forwards that have played at least 500 5-on-5 minutes, Glass ranks 406th in points/60 (0.80) and 362nd in shots/60 (5.19). There may be some potential lurking, but the early returns have been rough.
#10 The Minnesota Wild continue to move pieces around as they try to overcome a lack of production down the middle of the ice. One big hope would be for Marco Rossi, the 9th pick in the 2020 Draft, to step into a prominent role but that could be asking a lot since Rossi missed all of last season suffering after-effects of Covid-19. But really, they need someone to bump out Victor Rask who had 0.26 individual expected goals per 60 last season. That ranked 276th out of 277 forwards to play at least 500 5-on-5 minutes.
#11 Who ranked 277th? None other than Columbus’ Patrik Laine, just in case you weren’t sure if last season was enough of a disaster for a player who was an elite goal-scorer not so long ago but it is hard to become an elite goal scorer without generating legitimate scoring chances.
#12 In the past five seasons, the best goal per game rates for an individual season naturally have a lot of familiar names. Tops on the list is Auston Matthews, who scored 41 goals in 52 games last season (0.79 gpg), followed by the Rangers Mika Zibanejad in 2019-2020 (41 goals in 57 games) and then it became a gathering of premier scorers: Alex Ovechkin, Alex DeBrincat, David Pastrnak, Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, 13 Sidney Crosby and then, with the 13th-best goals per game rate for a season in the past five years, it is Viktor Arvidsson. In 2018-2019, Arvidsson scored 34 goals in 58 games for Nashville. That might seem like a long way away after he scored 10 goals in 50 games last season but that high-end scoring potential is part of the reason that Los Angeles acquired him.
#13 Florida’s Sam Reinhart tied a career high with 25 goals in 54 games for Buffalo last season while scoring on a career-high 19.2% of his shots. While that percentage may regress, an opportunity to play alongside Aleksander Barkov with the Panthers may help him get even more opportunities. With Barkov on the ice last season, the Panthers had 65.2 shot attempts per 60 minutes. In Buffalo, the Sabres had 50.6 shot attempts per 60 during 5-on-5 play with Reinhart on the ice.
#14 In the past five seasons, Florida right winger Patric Hornqvist has scored 42 power play goals, tied for 21st in the league with Toronto’s John Tavares. Hornqvist also had more than 100 hits for five straight seasons before finishing with 80 hits in 44 games last season. Power play production and consistent hit totals make Hornqvist a value play in the later rounds.
#15 On the quest for defensive depth, consider Florida blueliner Gustav Forsling, who has 6.99 shots per 60 minutes across the past two seasons, ranking fifth among all defensemen that played at least 500 5-on-5 minutes. His 1.04 points/60 in that time ranks 43rd among 237 defensemen to meet that ice time qualification.
#16 Among defensemen to play at least 100 5-on-4 minutes last season, Shayne Gostisbehere ranked first in shot attempts per 60 minutes (31.67) and shots on goal per 60 minutes (16.12). Now in Arizona, can he be a factor on the Coyotes power play? It would presumably have to be on the second unit since Jakob Chychrun is set on PP1.
#17 Since scoring 40 goals for the Sabres in 2018-2019, and landing a monster contract as a result, Jeff Skinner has scored a total of 21 goals in 112 games. Only one of those goals has been on the power play, so maybe that is area to address in order to get him back on track. During 5-on-5 play, Skinner still creates chances. In the past two years, he has 10.1 shots per 60 minutes which ranks 15th among forwards that have skated in at least 1000 5-on-5 minutes. His three most common linemate in the past two seasons has been Curtis Lazar so it is possible that the Sabres could try to give Skinner a better chance to succeed by actually trying to achieve that objective.
#18 Coming off a season in which he scored on a career-low 7.6% of his shots, on the way to 16 points (6 G, 10 A) in 51 games, Boston’s Charlie Coyle does have an opportunity to see a big offensive increase this season if he can win the Bruins’ second-line center job in the wake of David Krejci’s departure. Coyle is facing competition from Jack Studnicka and possibly Erik Haula but skating between Taylor Hall and Craig Smith could be a plum spot for whomever wins the job. When Hall and Smith were on the ice together last season, the Bruins earned 66.9% of the shot attempts and outscored opponents 13-1 during 5-on 5-on-5 play.
#19 Hockey life has changed rather dramatically for Vegas Golden Knights center Chandler Stephenson, who was a checker early in his career with Washington before he joined Vegas and landed on the top line, skating with Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone. When Stephenson is on the ice with Stone, during the past two seasons, Vegas has outscored opponents 65-29 (69.2 GF%) and in the past two years, Stephenson has scored 1.84 points per 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play, the same rate as Claude Giroux and more than Nicklas Backstrom. The upshot here is that the Golden Knights are probably not in a major rush to find someone else for that role because it is already working really well with Stephenson there.
#20 A name to keep in mind among defensemen, and one who does not get a power play boost, is Tampa Bay’s Erik Cernak. In the past two seasons, there have been 174 defensemen to have played at least 1000 5-on-5 minutes and Cernak ranks 10th with 6.57 shots per 60 minutes. Mix that in with more than 2.7 hits per game during his career and Cernak does offer some deep league value.
*Advanced stats via Natural Stat Trick