Martin St. Louis is as dynamic a forward as you’ll find. Well, except in multi-cat leagues…

It was a big week of news in the NHL, with many notable names changing teams and many others rumored to be moving, but staying put. Today I am going to take a look at the one who (outside of Vancouver) made the biggest splash: Marin St. Louis.

Did the Tampa Bay Lightning under appreciate this guy? Is Marty still fuming from his omission from his original Team Canada Olympic Team? Maybe his displeasure goes all the way back to the team buying out Lecavalier? Or, maybe St. Louis is just a whiner. It could be any one or combination of those things, but honestly, I don't care. All that matters to me is what this guy can do for my fantasy hockey team and as it turns out, he does a whole lot less than you might think:

MSL currently sits 14^th in NHL scoring, with just under a point per game and he spreads his points out nicely as he is tied for 6^th in goals with 29. Coming into this season, his average draft position was 14^th in Yahoo! leagues which, considering his point total, may lead you to believe that the general public nailed it. Fantasy Hockey Geek shows us though, that they may not have:

(12 team Yahoo! H2H league: G, A, +/-, PPP, Shots, Hits)

You can see that despite his great point totals, MSL is only the 77th most valuable player in a league of this format. Fantasy nobody turned stud, Andrej Sekera is providing almost as much value as the reigning Art Ross winner! How can it be that MSL can puts up so many points and dominates so well, but be worth so little? Let's take a look:

Shots: St. Louis' shots have dropped off significantly and it turns out that we should not be surprised by this. Since his 99 point season in 2010-11, St Louis has averaged under 2.5 shots per game for an average pace of just over 200 shots per season. The fact that he has scored 29 goals on only 167 shots this season is borderline miraculous (read: unsustainable) so I would argue that his high goal total is artificially inflated, meaning that his value of 77 is actually slightly high as well.

PPP: MSL's bread and butter has always been his powerplay production and with 18 so far this season, he is on a reasonable 24 PPP pace. I would ordinarily say that this is decent, but when you consider that this is the one area where Marty is supposed to be "elite" the total leaves a lot to be desired. A lot of folks wouldn't even know about MSL's drop off in powerplay production off the top of their head, but it is significant and is the largest factor contributing to his overall value decline.

Hits: St.Louis contributes virtually nothing to some of the other depth categories. With 15 hits in 62 games, St Louis is a virtual non-factor in this category. I don't necessarily always need hits from my top end scorers, but when my non-hitting top end forwards ceases providing elite points and elite PPPs, their value takes a huge hit. MSL is a perfect example of this as evidenced by his value in the same league last season:

(2013 Season)

You can see that when MSL was over a point per game and his PPP pace was 34, his overall value was still was 40 spots higher than it is this season. His elite scoring and PPP production at the time was enough to overcome his shortcomings in the peripheral stats. Now that he is just a "good" scorer however, his overall value is hurt significantly. Even when he was an elite scorer last season, his value of 37^th is probably much lower than you may have expected. It just shows how much guys can hurt you if they don't contribute across the board.

Other: I haven't outlined it here, but St. Louis is also a poor contributor to other common categories like PIMs and blocked shots. If your league includes these as well, then his value is even worse. It's very interesting to me that the guy he was traded for is pretty much a stark contrast to MSL at least in fantasy hockey. Ryan Callahan is an average point producer with great peripheral numbers across the board. I would actually prefer to own Callahan in almost all league formats that aren't points only.

As a hockey fan watching MSL and looking quickly at his numbers from year to year, you could very easily underestimate the decline of his fantasy hockey value; I hear people say all the time "Oh Marty is still a point per game guy – he's a machine, he hasn't lost a step." Thanks to a couple of quick reports in FHG though, we can see that he has indeed lost a step – if not on the ice, then certainly in terms of his fantasy hockey value. 250 shot, 99 point Marty is a far cry from 200 shot, 76 point Marty. Even the seemingly ageless eventually decline: see Whitney, Ray.

The window to sell on MSL in a keeper league may still be slightly ajar and if you are the St. Louis owner, I would encourage you to do so as soon as possible. He is a high profile player right now whose perceived value far exceeds his actual value and you should capitalize on that while you still can. To find other players who may not be providing the high end value that you think they are, sign up for Fantasy Hockey Geek and enter in your league today!