How Adam Larsson has stepped up his play in 2015 and what it means for the future.

The young career of Adam Larsson has been a frustrating one both for Devils' fans and for fantasy owners. From a fantasy perspective, the results after four NHL campaigns have been poor to say the least. The former fourth-overall selection has frequently been a healthy scratch and as recently as last year played more games in the minors than he did with his NHL club.

Larsson is a classic case that shows the risk of over-committing to prospects in fantasy circles. Even in the top five there is a lot of risk in assessing their value. Not only are you trying to assess the player's true potential, but also the development time. Some shallower leagues require immediate production from all players while other leagues give you a limited window to stash rookies on a farm roster. In both instances, a prospect that develops slower than expected can turn into a disastrous investment.

Comparables at the Draft

While there is risk that comes with any investment into prospects are not proven at the NHL level, there is a track record of success from other rearguards coming out of the draft. By comparing Larsson to other players drafted in his class (2011) as well as younger players selected in 2012 and 2013, we can see why fantasy owners are clearly frustrated if they invested heavily into an 18-year-old Larsson.

In keeper leagues, there are teams that give up every year and decide to embark on a multi-year rebuild. Their team will sink to the bottom of the league for a while in hopes of cultivating many of the next rising stars. Unfortunately, many of the rebuilders from 2011 ended up with Larsson as one of their prized draft picks. It has clearly been a slow, painful process waiting to get a proper return out of that investment. But as we are going to see, Larsson has started to turn the corner of late and is finally playing like the high draft pick that he was.

2014-15

This season started out like the previous two for Larsson with a lot of time being spent in the press box. When he did play, his ice time was limited and the production across the board was very underwhelming. However, as soon as 2015 arrived something changed with Larsson. Almost overnight his ice time skyrocketed and he responded immediately. The chart below shows Larsson's production breakdown in before and after January 1^st:

In 2014, Larsson was totally irrelevant for fantasy owners. He was a non-producer at the offensive end and his strongest stats – shots, hits and blocks – were not eye-popping either making him ineffective in all formats. In 2015, the improvement is universal. Most noticeably, his point total puts him close to a 40-point pace. This is helped by his ice time which is up about 40% and his shooting rate, which has gone from 1.05 shots per game in 2014 all the way to 1.55 in 2015. Beyond that, his other categories have shown significant improvement as well with his plus-seven rating, 20 PIM, 59 hits and 72 blocks offering an impressive total package of across-the-board contributions.

To take this to the next level, let's take a look at how Larsson ranks among defensemen in various formats according to Fantasy Hockey Geek using just games from 2015. We will use four formats: points-only, Yahoo standard (G, A, +/-, PIM, GWG, PPP), the Dobber Hockey Experts League (G, A, +/-, SOG, PPP, HIT) and the UHL league (G, A, +/-, PIM, SOG, GWG, PPP, SHP, HITS, BKS, FOW) that features many prominent Dobber Hockey personalities.

These four leagues give an idea of the significance of Larsson's recent play. In the vast majority of leagues that are not incredibly small in size, Larsson has become a valuable contributor. The sample size of improved play is large enough that we can feel a lot better about owning Larsson for a larger stretch of games. He has been greater than the usual waiver wire pickup riding a hot streak.

Fantasy outlook

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