Finally, I always like to check the minutes a player is getting before getting too excited about his output. A quick glance at Frozen Pool shows me that Bjugstad is firmly entrenched on the top line and top powerplay for the Panthers, getting upwards of 20 minutes a night. I like what I see here.

Ok, so now I have convinced myself that Bjugstad is legit and I may be onto something. So what will he be worth going forward? I personally see three possible scenarios for Bjugstad. 1: He maintains his current season pace with some ups and downs along the way as we have seen. 2: He maintains his last 4 week pace of 55 points which Dobber had as his upside for this year. 3: He maintains around his last 20 games pace and Dobber's three year peak of 65 points. Let's see how each of those scenarios looks using FHG's What-if tool (my favorite tool since the sawzall):

ou can see from the above that Bjugstad's current pace (which includes his cold start of one point in ten games) has him ending the year as the 88^th most valuable player in my league. This is not bad at all considering this guy is widely available and I believe his current pace to be very achievable. If this is his worst case scenario, then he needs to be owned in far more leagues.

In scenario two, I bumped him up to 55 points. I didn't add any shots because his shot rate has been fairly steady but I added some PPP because obviously he will be getting some of the extra points with the man advantage. I smoothed out his G and A somewhat and the result is Bjugstad being the 79^th most valuable in the league. I expected a bigger jump from adding 13 points and three powerplay points but the reason the jump wasn't so noticeable is that I reduced his goal total to a more reasonable level and what the FHG math is telling us is that goals are very valuable so removing just three of them reduced the value gained from the other categories by a significant amount. This is why using FHG is so key: I have no idea how to value three goals vs. 12 assists (or whatever the case may be), do you? Probably not but FHG does the math work for us. Despite the only modest jump in value, 79^th overall is still quite good and I personally think that this scenario is the most realistic.

In the third scenario, I took his three year peak of 65 points. If Bjugstad pulls this off, he will end the season as the 53^rd most valuable player in my league, ahead of dozens of other players who are owned in far more than 32% of the leagues out there.

Running these scenarios, I have a high degree of confidence that Bjugstad will end the season with a value in my league between 50^th and 90^th most valuable. That isn't a stud, but it is the type of shrewd depth addition that can help a solid team become a championship contender. Running the last four week values in FHG took me under five minutes and I was able to identify my target. Checking the scenarios using the what-if tool took another five and just like that I have a solid target to help me win my league. Players like this are everywhere and they pop up all season long in fantasy hockey. Make sure you check your league in FHG periodically so that you can find some more players like Nick Bjugstad who can help you bring home the hardware.