This week the Eastern Edge ranks his top 15 fantasy winners

What a season! I hope you fared well in your various pools. The following list will be made up of players who exceeded expectations. They were most likely drafted later than they should have or free agent fodder that you hopefully were quick to snap up in the early going.  I was initially going to go with a top 10, but there were simply too many. We’ll start at 15 and work our way up to number one.

15. Chris Kreider, New York Rangers (66-17-20-37)

Only 22-years-old, Kreider delivered on some of the promise that we saw after he scored 45 points in 44 games in his final season of college hockey. He went on to play 18 playoff games with the Rangers, recording seven points. He had a disappointing season last year in both the NHL (three points in 23 games) and AHL (23 points in 48 games).  This season, he was a healthy plus-14, recorded 146 hits, 12 power play points and 72 penalty minutes.

14. Tyler Johnson, Tampa Bay Lightning (82-24-26-50)

Finished third in NHL rookie scoring while averaging 18:47 minutes per contest. Only the Panthers Vincent Trocheck logged more (18:53) ice time amongst rookie forwards.  In his last year of junior hockey, Johnson recorded 53 goals and 115 points in 71 games. In his two AHL seasons, he has 133 points in 137 games and was the league’s leading goal scorer and MVP last season. He had six points in 14 NHL games last year.

13. Andrej Sekera, Carolina Hurricanes (74-11-33-44)

The 27-year-old Slovak obliterated his previous career highs of four goals and 29 points. In his best AHL campaign, he recorded 19 points in 54 games and in his final year of junior hockey, he scored 21 goals and 55 points in 51 games for Owen Sound of the OHL.

12. Jaromir Jagr, New Jersey Devils (82-24-43-67)

One of the most decorated players in hockey, very few expected more than 50 points this season from the 42-year-old Czech native. For fantasy purposes, he was a much better player in points-only leagues due to his single digit hits (four!) and blocked shots (nine).

11. James Wisniewski, Columbus Blue Jackets (75-7-44-51)

The master of the 48 game campaign, long before the lockout made it a “full” season. The Wiz matched his career high in games played at 75 and points with 51. He also logged 61 penalty minutes this season. This year was virtually identical to the 2010-11 campaign:

10. Gustav Nyquist, Detroit Red Wings (57-28-20-48)

I may have not paid much attention when I was learning Swedish (it was actually Norwegian), but I’m pretty sure the name Nyquist translates to “new star” or “next one” in English (not really). I saw some predictions out there for the high forties, but that was assuming 75-plus games. From 20 January until the end of March, Nyquist recorded a staggering 22 goals and 34 points in only 27 games. That pro-rates to 67 goals and 103 points over a full schedule. While he’s not going to score at that pace over the course of an entire season, those numbers are tantalizing.

9. Ben Bishop, Tampa Bay Lightning (37-14-7)

Some had Bishop pegged for 30 wins, but no one saw the league’s sixth best goals-against average (2.23) and save percentage (0.924) coming. He finished the year with 37 victories, the fourth most in the NHL. All the more impressive, is that he was not a lock for the number one slot and didn’t start in the season opener. He did start eight of the next 10 games, allowing more than two goals against in only two contests.

8. Jussi Jokinen, Pittsburgh Penguins (81-21-36-57)

Savvy trade to get the 30-year-old (at the time) veteran late in the 2012-13 season from Carolina for a conditional pick. The Hurricanes were even nice enough to pick up part of Jokinen’s salary. At the time of the deal, the Juice had 11 points in 33 games. He matched those 11 points in only 10 games to close out the regular season with the Pens. Jokinen finished this year with a plus-12 rating and a substantial 21 power play points. He has a career high of 30 goals and 65 points (2009-10), yet I couldn’t find anyone who predicted more than 40 points this season.

7. Carl Soderberg, Boston Bruins (73-16-32-48)

It took a while, but Soderberg is finally an NHL player. Drafted in the second round, way back in 2004 by St. Louis. Boston traded for his rights in 2007. Last year, he recorded 31 goals and 60 points in 54 Swedish Hockey League games, then scored two points in six NHL games. This season, the 28-year-old has played well above expectations, scoring at a 54 point pace and registering 16 point play points.

6. Mats Zuccarello, New York Rangers (77-19-40-59)

The pint-sized Norwegian has produced offensively at every level except the NHL, until now. His previous best in the NHL was 23 points in 42 games back in the 2010-11 season. Obviously, a new coach was significant in helping Zuccarello become a key offensive contributor with the Rangers.

5. Matt Niskanen, Pittsburgh Penguins (81-10-36-46)

The beneficiary of several injuries on the Pens blue line, Niskanen took full advantage, recording 46 points, including 15 with the man advantage. His 31 even-strength points were good for fifth amongst NHL defensemen and proves that he can be productive even without significant power play time. His plus-33 rating was sixth best in the entire NHL and he chipped in with 51 penalty minutes and 124 hits.

4. Reilly Smith, Boston Bruins (82-20-31-51)

Smith came over in the Tyler Seguin deal, along with Loui Eriksson. Eriksson was supposed to be the key player coming to Boston in that deal, but surprisingly Smith had a better points-per game ratio of 0.622 against Eriksson’s 0.607, while the latter sat out 20 games with concussions. Smith was a prolific point producer in college, recording 58 goals and 102 points in 77 games over his last two years of amateur hockey. Last season was his first as a professional. He recorded 35 points in 45 AHL games and nine points in 37 NHL contests with Dallas. His plus-28 and 14 power play points were a sweet bonus this season.

3. Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay Lightning (75-13-42-55)

It seems like it took forever for the former second overall pick from 2009 to breakout. The team broke him in slowly and yet he’s still only 23-years-old. His points total this year were a bit surprising because his previous career high was 26 points, although he did record 20 points in 44 games last season, a 37 point pace over 82 games.

2. Ondrej Palat, Tampa Bay Lightning  (81-23-36-59)

Palat will receive some love for the Calder trophy, but Nathan MacKinnon will probably have his name etched on the hardware. Palat would most certainly be deserving of that title though. Many thought that Martin St. Louis was mainly responsible for padding Palat’s point totals, but even after St. Louis was dealt, Palat showed that he could hold his own. His plus-32 and 146 hits were a nice bonus for leagues counting those statistics.

1. Ryan Johansen, Columbus Blue Jackets (82-33-30-63)

Former fourth overall selection in the 2010 entry draft, Johansen made the jump to the NHL directly from junior. He recorded nine goals and 21 points in 67 games in his rookie campaign. Last season, thanks to the lockout, he scored 17 goals and 33 points in 40 AHL games and five goals and 12 points in 40 NHL contests. There was nothing to suggest that the 21-year-old was going to record in excess of 30 goals and 60 points this year. In rotisserie leagues, he contributed 114 hits, 237 shots on goal and 20 power play points.

Honourable Mentions:

Kyle Turris, Ottawa Senators (82-26-31-57)

Turris’ previous high was 29 points, which he accomplished in each of the two previous campaigns. Most predictions had him pegged for between 45-50 points. If it wasn’t for four-time 30 goal scorer Bobby Ryan’s disappointing 23 goal effort, Turris surely would have hit for 65-plus points this season. His plus-22 was 10 points better than the next Senator on a team of mostly minus players.

Both Frans Nielsen of the New York Islanders and Valtteri Filppula from the Tampa Bay Lightning, ended the season with the exact same goals (25), assists (33), points (58, duh!) and power play points (20). The only difference was that Nielsen played 80 games to Filppula’s 75. Both were expected to top out at around 48 points.

With the sheer volume of big name goalies going down, this seemed to be the year of the back-up. Two of the best were the Carolina Hurricanes Anton Khudobin and Chad Johnson from the Boston Bruins. Both provided far better numbers than anticipated.

Kyle Okposo, New York Islanders (71-27-42-69)

While I did see at least one prediction for 70 points, I don’t believe many thought Okposo would go off for nearly a point-per game pace without John Tavares in the line-up for a significant period of time.

Two Washington Capitals make the honour roll; Joel Ward (82-24-25-49) and Jason Chimera (82-15-27-42) earn full marks for surpassing expectations.

Next week, the Wild West will give you his top 10 (or so) fantasy winners and I’ll submit my list of top 10-ish fantasy losers.

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