Is Islanders forward Anders Lee this season’s Radko Gudas? 

It's the most wonderful time of the year: draft time. Not coincidentally it is the most important time of year to be taking advantage of tools like Fantasy Hockey Geek to secure yourself an April payday. I just finished up the first of my four (or maybe five) fantasy hockey drafts with my first crack at a salary-cap dynasty league. It was in this draft that I found today's Geek of the Week: Anders Lee.

At GoTW, we always like to use Fantasy Hockey Geek to help us identify players who provide better value to their fantasy hockey GMs than what is perceived by the general public. All 60 point players are not created equal and knowing the difference from player to player is what wins you leagues. What can be even more fun though, is identifying the up and comer prior to your competition. We did exactly that by bringing you Radko Gudas last September and he hit it out of the park for us. Anders Lee might not be quite as under-the-radar as Gudas was but it does look like there is still an opportunity to get ahead of the curve on him.

Where Lee really caught my eye, was on Fantasy Hockey Geek when I ran the numbers for the new Salary Cap dynasty league I am in. I'll be honest, Anders Lee wasn't really on my radar before going through this exercise, I was thinking more along the lines of Strome and Nelson for Islanders youth. I was admittedly behind the curve when it came to Lee but the FHG results speak for themselves:

(10 team Fantrax league 4xC, 4xRW, 4xLW, 7xD, 3xG. Cats: G, A, ESP, PPP, SOG, Hits. Numbers are Dobber's 2014-15 predictions from the guide)

You can see above that Lee is predicted to be the 151^st most valuable player in that league and at a cap hit under $2million bucks that's quite a steal! I'm not going to overstate Lee as a world beater but considering he is 1% owned currently, he is a very serviceable depth player (especially in cap leagues) who you can get late and who has some upside. FHG calculates him as providing more value than other higher ticket players such as Teddy Purcell, Paul Stastny and Ales Hemsky. How can Anders Lee potentially have more value than these big names?

He shoots: The numbers on FHG have Lee coming in at 219 shots, which is much better than all of the names above.

He Hits: 165 predicted hits for Lee is also a huge number which blows the other three comparables out of the water. His higher level shots and hits more than make up for the few extra assists that the likes of Stastny or Hemsky will get.

ESP: Keep in mind that my league counts Even Strength Points in addition to G, A and PPP. This is a big help to the value of someone like Lee who may not be producing on the PP yet. Make sure you run your own league settings in FHG to determine what Lee is worth to you.

After seeing these solid numbers in FHG, I went back to last season to see if I think the predictions are reasonable. The first thing to jump out about Lee, is his 14 points in 22 games last season (a 52 point pace) but lots of players come up at the end of the season and see some success only to have it translate into nothing the following season – I'm looking at you, Lonny Bohonos. Lee looks like the real deal to me though; his 6'3" 215 pound frame passes the eye test and the fact that he put up those points while firing over three shots on goal per game tells me that it was no fluke. His points, shots and hits pace were all higher last season than what is being predicted this season so I am comfortable with the projected numbers and the fact that FHG calculates a player with those numbers being ranked as 151^st most valuable, makes him a very viable player in my league especially considering his price tag.

There is a lot going on with the Islanders and it is possible that Lee doesn't even make the team, due to the fact that he has a two way contract. Make no mistake though, this guy is ready for the big time as long as the Isles decide to give him a spot. If he gets put on one of the top two lines and sees some action on the power-play then watch out. We could have a poor-man's Evander Kane on our hands who can be drafted 10 rounds later than Kane with a price tag that is $3.5M cheaper. In the guide, Dobber identifies Lee as a potential 53 point player this season and I personally think all he needs to make that happen is the ice time. Take a stab on Lee towards the end of your draft and you might just have found yourself some great value by years end. Lee could be a valuable find this year not only in cap leagues, but deeper standard leagues as well (depending on the categories of your league). It should be noted too that Lee is a decent PIM producer

Anders Lee is another great example of why you need to be running all of your leagues in Fantasy Hockey Geek. I only had to do the most basic exercise to find him: it took me about 3 minutes to run my league and then the values were spit out to Excel for me and Lee was right there for me to see in and amongst some of the bigger names I mentioned above. To find more players like Lee who may not be on your radar just yet, but who could provide you with some hidden value at the draft table – sign up for Fantasy Hockey Geek today and enter in your league settings.