Centers That Are Not Really Centers, Vrbata in Florida, plus more…

First, some quick news items for the day.

Hobey Baker award winner Will Butcher is expected to make his decision in a week about which team he will sign with. The University of Denver defenseman has decided not to sign with the Colorado Avalanche, the team that drafted him in the fifth round in 2013. Butcher has some offensive upside (37 points in 43 games), so you can expect us to mention what his signing will mean fantasy-wise.

Bruins GM Don Sweeney says that David Pastrnak will not be traded, even though he remains unsigned. In the meantime, we will continue to watch when notable RFAs such as Pastrnak, Leon Draisaitl, and Bo Horvat will finally put pen to paper.

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I might be arriving later to this party than some of you. But after discovering that Max Domi was listed as a left wing in the draft guide and a center on CBS, I sent this tweet out to CBS Fantasy:
 

Hi @CBSFantasy, will you be updating player positions in fantasy hockey? Max Domi is still listed as C but he took 5 faceoffs all last year.

— Ian Gooding (@Ian_Gooding) August 13, 2017

Correcting myself before you correct me, Domi actually won 5 faceoffs last season (he took 10). But my point still stands.

So in case CBS pulls a fast one and changes positions on teams that have already planned their rosters for the upcoming year, I decided to look up centers who are due for a positional change to wing on their system. Apologies to those who use another platform, although this information could be relevant to you as well.

So here is a list of players with at least 40 games played last season and fewer than 100 faceoffs taken that are listed as centers on the CBS fantasy game. It may not be a complete list because the CBS fantasy platform doesn’t keep track of the faceoff stat, so I had to look up players listed as centers on NHL.com (besides Domi, who I found because he is on my team).
 

Domi is listed as a left wing on NHL.com, so I couldn’t include all center-eligible players. Domi took only 55 faceoffs in 2015-16, so don’t count on CBS actually making this change. But it’s also worth mentioning that they did make some positional changes last season. Moving David Pastrnak from LW to RW and vice-versa for Patrick Sharp are two that I specifically remember.

In summary, I don’t know what the bar is in terms of the number of faceoffs per game that a forward has to take to remain a center. But if it is less than one per game, then I would question whether that player is really a center. So the players in the above table should not be centers.

Conversely, if Joe Thornton and Joe Pavelski were practically joined at the hip last season (over 80 percent of both their even-strength and power-play minutes in 2016-17 were with each other), they can both be listed as centers. Both took over 700 faceoffs, although they both finished outside of the top 50 in that category. Ideally, this is where dual eligibility should be used. Although Yahoo used multiple forward positions considerably last season, unfortunately CBS does not do this.

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As you probably know by now, this time of year is slow for fantasy news. So I’ll take the opportunity to respond to a couple of comments from my last Ramblings. Nothing mean, I promise.

Speaking about the guide and Vrbata. Why if he is going to a better team with better linemates would he drop 14 points?

To expand, Radim Vrbata posted 55 points (20g-35a) last season. The Fantasy Guide has Vrbata projected to reach just 41 points (18g-23a) in his first season in Florida. I didn’t complete the projections myself, but I’ll try to provide some insight as to why he could be in for a significant downturn in 2017-18 in spite of the fact that he never seems to slow down.

A few NHL players (Jaromir Jagr and Teemu Selanne, to name a couple) were still solid contributors at the age of 40. Vrbata is now 36 though, and it’s fair to say that players that are still in the NHL at that age experience some sort of age-related decline. It doesn’t happen at exactly the same time for all players, but like death itself and taxes it does happen. You have to bet the under when projecting just about any 35-and-over player’s point-per-game total from the previous season, unless he had an uncharacteristically bad season.

Another reason that the point total will slide: His assist total from last season. Vrbata recorded 35 assists, which was surprisingly a career high. He has never been a huge assists guy, as his career goal and assist totals are almost the same. Vrbata seemed to click particularly well with Martin Hanzal, who scored 16 goals in just 51 games with the Coyotes before his trade to Minnesota. Without Hanzal, Vrbata scored just eight points (including just three assists) in 19 games over March and April. He will need to find another Hanzal (or the Sedins from 2014-15) if he is going to make it work in Florida.

Vrbata’s career high of 63 points happened fairly recently (2014-15), but he also followed that one up with a stinker (27 points in 2015-16). When projecting point totals, we need to go back further than one season. I’d say at least two seasons, while others that I’ve discussed the topic with say you need three for an adequate sample size. Without the age-related decline, the average over the past two seasons is… you guessed it, 41 points. But over three seasons, it is 48 points. Either way, I’d expect fewer than 50 points, even if 41 points is a bit too low.

Yes, the Panthers have two top-6 level centers (Aleksander Barkov and Vincent Trocheck) while the Coyotes didn’t seem to have any once Hanzal was traded. So his production in Florida should be better than what his production in Arizona would have been had the Coyotes kept the exact same team from the end of last season. But there are too many other immediate factors that could drive his point total down. I’d let someone else take a chance on him unless you can get him on the cheap.

A bit surprised that Suzuki wasn't picked in the top 12 (of my fantasy entry draft)…

This begs the question: Which later-round first round picks are potential sleepers in keeper formats? You can see my fantasy league’s entry draft results from my most recent Ramblings.

Nick Suzuki was very highly regarded in both the Fantasy Guide and the Prospects Report. With 96 points (45g-51a) in 65 OHL games, he has a significant fantasy hockey upside. And because he plays an effective two-way game, his chances of making the NHL are very good. I know a few guys from my league are reading this, so I’m sure someone will bid on him now. Of the players remaining, Suzuki is arguably the best.

One draft expert that I follow thought that Martin Necas should be drafted in the top 10. He is a dynamic player who like Canucks’ pick Elias Pettersen needs to fill out (6’0”, 167 lbs.) But he had a strong development camp, which should further his stock.

Even though he was the last pick in the first round, Klim Kostin could make his NHL debut before most of the other first-round picks. That is because he will play in North America this season, which narrows his options to either the NHL or AHL. There are some risks in adding Kostin, but there’s enough potential for fantasy teams to take a flier on him.

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For more fantasy hockey information, follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding.