Four players providing tremendous value in salary cap leagues.

We are just over a month into the NHL season and we have seen some surprise bargains pop up in a lot of salary cap leagues early on. If you are one of the lucky ones to own one of these gems, kudos to you! 

Generally speaking, the higher priced players normally lead your team. If your high priced talent is doing their thing, and these surprises are on your team as well, you are probably doing pretty well so far in your league.

In this week’s Capped, we take a look at some early season players who have been extremely productive for the salary they are costing your fantasy team.

Torrey Mitchell – Montreal – $1.2M cap hit

When Torrey Mitchell was brought into Montreal, he was thought of as a guy who could offer some secondary scoring down the middle from the bottom six. So far this year, he has offered that in spades.

Mitchell played well enough last year down the stretch and into the playoffs that he pushed face-off specialist Manny Malholtra into the press box and eventually off the roster altogether. Mitchell signed a new three-year deal and Malholtra is still floating in the wind somewhere. 

This season, Mitchell has scored five goals and chipped in with four assists in 16 games. Last season, in 65 games, he only scored six times and offered up eight assists.  He’s also skating about two minutes less per game on average compared to last season; impressive to say the least.

The past few games, since Devante Smith-Pelly was moved off his line, he’s not having the same success, going pointless. Not to mention, his shooting percentage this year currently sits at an insane 25% so it’s only a matter of time before reality hits home and he comes back down to earth.

If you own Mitchell in a league these days, sell high NOW! There’s no way he keeps up this pace, but it sure is fun watching it.

Colton Parayko – St. Louis Blues – $925,000 cap hit

Heading into this season, most fantasy GMs hadn’t even heard of Parayko, let alone expected him to be in the running for the Calder Trophy for the leagues best rookie but here we are, and there he is. Taken 86^th overall in the 2012 NHL Entry Draft, this beast of a man stands a towering 6-foot-5 and weighs in around 225 pounds. 

So far this year, he’s seeing a healthy amount of offensive zone starts 5-on-5 (61.2% to be exact), which is a big reason for his offensive spurt. Compared to other defensemen in the league so far this year, and I mean all defensemen, he’s the seventh highest defenseman when we look at shots on-goal and so far has outperformed some of the league’s best offensive defensemen.

Parayko isn’t an unknown anymore and is one of the bigger surprises this year. He’s really taken big steps in showing he is capable in the absence of Kevin Shattenkirk. Now that Shattenkirk is back, it will be interesting to how Parayko makes out going forward.

Kyle Palmieri – New Jersey Devils – $1.467M cap hit

The former first-round pick of the Anaheim Ducks was struggling to find his place on the West Coast and when the trade to New Jersey came along in the summer, so did a fresh start to prove his worth.

The Devils needed scoring help and Palmieri was more than willing to step up and relish in the role of a top six scorer for them, and so far he has paid off in spades.

He has 12 points (5G, 7A) in 15 games so far and is tied for the third most power-play points in the NHL to date with seven. He’s a huge reason why the New Jersey Devils are turning heads this year. 

Considering the Devils have little in the pipeline for scoring wingers, one can expect this 24-year-old to be a huge part of this team going forward for the long term.

Vincent Trocheck – Florida Panthers – $894,167 cap hit

To start the season, few expected someone like Trocheck to be second on the team in scoring at this point of the season. In fact, he’s one point behind Jaromir Jagr for the team lead in scoring so it’s not crazy to see him overtaking the team lead before long.

The past couple of seasons, the 22-year-old has been up and down between the NHL and AHL, never really finding his spot on the roster as he battled other young up-and-coming stars like Jonathan Huberdeau, Aleksander Barkov and Nick Bjugstad for prime ice time.

He has shown that he can put up points, scoring at nearly a point-per-game rate in the AHL the past couple seasons, but this year he is finally putting it together in the NHL.  So far he has six goals and eleven points on the young season, with six of those points coming on the power play. 

During the pre-season, all the talk was about the play of rookie Connor Brickley and no one seemed to notice Trocheck. Fifteen games later, Trocheck is still burning opposing NHL goalies and Brickley is back doing his thing in the AHL after getting demoted ten games into his young NHL career.

Trocheck’s shooting percentage of 26.1% is unsustainable but is finally turning heads and has entrenched himself on the roster long term.  Enjoy the ride!

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Thanks for taking the time to read. As always, feel free to leave a comment or remarks.

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