Does Nathan MacKinnon possess enough upside to pick over Aleksander Barkov?

In fantasy hockey, a big dilemma is how to value players with obvious skill but equally obvious flaws. With that in mind, our battle is between two forwards (Nathan MacKinnon and Aleksander Barkov) oozing with talent but also each saddled with a significant drawback. In MacKinnon’s case, he’s on a team which has struggled mightily for several seasons and likely will continue to perform poorly in the near future, while with Barkov it’s that he can’t stay healthy enough to be counted upon by poolies. Which player has fewer warts, and thus is more worthy of being owned in your league? Cage Match is here to find out!
 

Career Path and Contract Status

MacKinnon, 22, was selected first overall in 2013 after standout QMJHL campaigns and an eye-opening showing at the U-18 World Cup in 2012. He excelled as an NHL freshman in posting 63 points, tying the highest rookie total since Patrick Kane’s 72 points in 2007-08. From there it’s been downhill for him and his team, with his cumulative scoring rate being only 54 points and Colorado a perennial NHL doormat. On the plus side, he showed flashes of brilliance at the 2017 World Championships, posting 15 points in ten games to tie for second in tournament scoring.

Barkov, also 22, was picked directly after MacKinnon in the same draft on the heels of a stellar season in Liiga. Whereas MacKinnon’s career started with a splash, Barkov barely made a first-year ripple, posting only 24 points in 54 games. As a sophomore, things improved to 36 points in 71 contests. The last two seasons have seen Barkov break out, with a cumulative scoring rate of 71 points per 82 games. The problem has been staying healthy, as he missed 16 and 21 contests in those two campaigns; and after four years in the NHL, he’s yet to miss fewer than 11 games in a season.

MacKinnon is signed through 2022-23 with a $6.3M yearly cap hit. Barkov’s deal ends a season earlier and dings the cap a tad less ($5.9M per season).
 

Ice Time
 

Barkov’s scoring leap in 2015-16 makes sense because, simply put, he became a top-line player. Yes, his Ice Time also rose by 1:56, but 1:20 was in the form of added SH duty. So the key was being promoted to a true top line role alongside Florida’s highest caliber players. That brought out from Barkov the talent which was apparently always there.

There is concern as to whether, without Jaromir Jagr, Barkov can maintain (let alone build upon) success he experienced in the past two seasons. Because the two played so extensively together, there’s isn’t a lot of data representing their time apart. But on the rare occasions Barkov played at 5×5 without Jagr last season Florida managed higher goals per 60 minutes than when the two were paired. Moreover, Florida’s G/60 when Barkov shared the ice at 5×5 with Jonathan Huberdeau in 2016-17, whom he projects to line up alongside again this season, was higher than with Jagr and Barkov sharing the ice. Thus, concerns as to Barkov’s offensive output being tied to the presence of Jagr may be overblown.

The picture for MacKinnon is a bit of a head scratcher at first, in that he produced his finest season with his second worst Total Ice Time average and worst PP Time. A deeper dive shows the problem is likely MacKinnon being dragged down by the Avs as a team. In 2013-14, they scored 243 goals, meaning he had points on 26% of those goals. In 2015-16, their output dropped to 212 goals while MacKinnon fell to 52 points, meaning he still tallied a point on 24.5% of the team’s markers. In 2016-17, they managed only 165 goals yet MacKinnon’s point total increased to 53, so he nabbed a point on 32% of team tallies. To put that in perspective, if his rate had been 32% as a rookie, he'd have produced 77 points.

Overall, this – plus his showing at the 2017 World Championships – signifies MacKinnon is still a special talent. The issue is a player’s fantasy value is all about the stat sheet. So does that mean MacKinnon is doomed by the failings of the team around him? Maybe not so much as it seems, as let’s say Colorado simply manages to get back to its 2015-16 level of 212 goals and MacKinnon is able to maintain his 32% rate from last season. That would translate to 68 points, meaning it might not take much in terms of a Colorado recovery for MacKinnon to see his production boosted considerably.
 

Secondary Categories
 

By firing 929 SOG and averaging 3.1 SOG per game over his first four NHL seasons, MacKinnon joined an elite group of just 14 other forwards who, dating back to 1990-91, cumulatively fired 900+ SOG while averaging 3.0+ SOG per game in their first four NHL seasons. All 14 managed at least one season of 82 points or more, with 11 of the 14 surpassing 95 points at least once and only two (Jeff Carter, Marian Gaborik) failing to tally 80+ points at least twice.

Barkov is in his own group of fine company, as one of only 20 NHLers since 1990-91 to have at least two seasons of averaging 0.85 points and 2.2 SOG per game by age 21. In this case, 11 of the other 19 have at least one 90+ point season, and only one (Patrice Bergeron) failed to record 80 points at least once.

What’s also encouraging for both is their realistic room to grow in PPPts, with each having averaged more than one PPPt per every five games just once. This also goes to the fact that they’ve done well despite – as opposed to because of – the team around them. Both should be able to eventually improve in PPPts simply due to their team getting better. One could argue that since Florida is, on paper, a better team now and likely to remain as good if not better than Colorado in the immediate future, the edge in this area should go to Barkov. On the other hand, one could as easily say that since Florida is somewhat better now already, that means MacKinnon has done more despite being surrounded by less, and has even more room to improve.
 

Luck-Based Metrics
 

MacKinnon had his best season when his shot distance was lowest, and the good news is he might be trending back down again on the basis of last season. For 2016-17, his secondary assists rate was his lowest, which is a sign of talent. In fact, his 12 secondary assists compared to 25 primary assists at 5×5 were identical to Patrick Kane. What that reinforces is, if he’s going to get a point these days it pretty much has to be directly via his stick, whether on a goal he scored or a set-up he made. Fortunately, there’s room for his secondary assists number to grow; but again the concern is how that will happen given his supporting cast.

Barkov’s consistently low ASD shows he’s not just firing pucks at the net willy-nilly. Interestingly his lowest ASD came in the year of his highest SOG rate, suggesting if he was to return to that shot volume his quality of shooting likely wouldn’t suffer and might even improve. His low secondary assist rates in his breakout years are nice to see; however, I wondered if the fact that he had a similarly low rate in two separate seasons might signify he’s focusing too much on making “the perfect pass.” But rates for many 80+ point players are comparable, so this is likely a red herring.

MacKinnon’s three seasons of sub-70% IPP raises concerns he might not be the same caliber of player as those stars who had similarly high shot rates in their first four seasons. Then again, the fact that he scored 53 points in 2016-17 despite only a 64.6% IPP means he was on the ice for 82 of Colorado’s 165 goals, or essentially half of all goals they scored as a team! To put it another way, he skated for a third of every game yet managed to be on the ice when half his team’s goals were scored. That’s an impressive accomplishment on any team, let alone Colorado.

As for Barkov, if this was a year ago I’d worry about his breakout being unsustainable. But he was able to maintain production despite more reasonable personal and team shooting percentages and improved his IPP. To some extent he was helped by a higher OZ%, but it wasn’t much higher and it could stay that high. Overall, his breakout is legitimate and his luck metrics leave room for further improvement.
 

Who Wins?

We’ve confirmed these are indeed two excellent players. After much thought, I decided to give the match to MacKinnon.

Barkov’s inability to stay healthy is a major issue for poolies at present. But beyond that, if he continues to keep getting injured, it could begin to affect his skill and on-ice abilities even when he’s technically healthy, and perhaps could also cause the Panthers to deemphasize his role.

Meanwhile, although the Avs might struggle for several more years to come, it’s likely they have (or soon will) hit bottom. And based on what we’ve seen MacKinnon do of late (second in scoring at the World Championships, being on the ice for essentially half the total goals scored by the Avs last season), even a modest recovery by the team would springboard him into far better fantasy territory in view of his SOG rate and ability to get involved in what little offense the team has managed to generate.

Also, with the well-publicized struggles for Colorado and MacKinnon’s downward points trajectory, his cost will likely never be lower. In fact, he’s being selected roughly 40 picks after Barkov in Yahoo leagues (roughly 45 later in ESPN leagues) thus far – all the more reason to give the match to MacKinnon.