Who is the better fantasy hockey own, Jakub Voracek or Phil Kessel?

This week’s focus is on two players rebounding from poor 2015-16 seasons –Jakub Voracek and Phil Kessel. Are their strong starts sustainable, or at this point in their careers are they more like what we saw last season? Cage Match is here to give you the answers, and pick a winner.

Career Path and Contract Status

Voracek was drafted 7th overall by Columbus in 2007 and in the NHL to stay for 2009-10 following a 101 point QMJHL season. Voracek disappointed in Columbus and in his first season with Philadelphia, never topping 50 points. However, he emerged from the 2012-13 lockout with 46 points in 48 games and jumped to 62 points in 2013-14, ending with 44 in his final 45 games, which, combined with 81 points in 2014-15, meant he played nearly point per game hockey for a stretch of a season and a half. Last season he dipped to 55 points, albeit in only 73 games (62 point pace); and for 2016-17 he was above the point per game mark before a recent cold stretch and still stood at 19 points in 23 games.

Kessel was selected 5th overall by Boston in 2006, and played the bulk of that season with the Bs. It took less time for Kessel to break out (60 points in 70 games at age 22); but like Voracek he had a new home after that (his third) campaign, with Boston sending him to Toronto to get several picks, including first rounders that would ultimately net them Tyler Seguin and Dougie Hamilton.

With Toronto, Kessel played decent at first (119 points in 152 games) then exploded for 214 points in his next 212 contests, making him one of four players (Taylor Hall, John Tavares, Claude Giroux) to average a point per game in 180+ games during these three seasons. Kessel’s output dropped to 61 points in 2014-15, then he disappointed yet again (59 points) last season despite being dealt to Pittsburgh and being given repeated chances to play alongside Sidney Crosby or Evgeni Malkin. However, Kessel’s 22 points in 24 playoff games helped restore some fantasy faith in him, as has his fast start to 2016-17 (21 points in 22 games).

Voracek’s contract runs through 2022-23 and dings the cap at $8.25M per season, while Kessel’s ends a year earlier and has a nearly 20% lower annual cap hit ($6.8M per season).

Ice Time

SH Time isn’t charted because neither player exceeded 0:03 per game in any of these campaigns.

Kessel has gone from Ice Time monster to being far more selectively deployed. Where concern arises is although his start to 2016-17 puts him on a scoring pace similar to what he posted during his 20:00+ per game heyday, it’s coming with Ice Time that’s less than 2014-15 and the same as 2015-16, when his outputs were far worse. And all the while his PP Ice Time and deployment have been fairly constant. We’ll need to look carefully at the rest of this data.

Most surprising about Voracek’s numbers are how similar they were for 2014-15 (when he was a top scorer) and 2015-16 (when his scoring slowed significantly). Looking at 2013-14 reveals he produced at a similar pace to 2015-16 despite receiving 1:20 less Ice Time per game, suggesting perhaps 2015-16 represents more of a production aberration than 2014-15. Also, this might be at least somewhat moot if Voracek is able to maintain his current Ice Times for 2016-17, which have him skating considerably more overall as well as with extra time on the PP as compared to 2014-15 or 2015-16.

Secondary Categories

Kessel was never going to win poolies their Hits and Blocks categories; but over the past two seasons he was especially terrible. Interestingly, as his points have rebounded this season thus far, he’s also hit slightly more and seen his blocked shots rate inch back upward, both to levels approaching 2013-14, i.e., his most recent elite season. Perhaps this is a coincidence; or maybe it’s a sign he’s more engaged and, with that, motivated to play better overall?

Cutting against that theory, however, is Kessel’s SOG volume having plummeted for 2016-17 thus far, while at the same time his PPPts rate has skyrocketed. Even without looking at luck metrics, both of those suggest that Kessel is unsustainably overachieving, although perhaps not to such an extent that his production will fall completely back to 2014-15 and 2015-16 levels.

Instead, maybe Kessel’s new normal might be a middle ground of 65-75 points. Why so low? Consider that among the 63 total instances of “wingers” (according to hockey-reference.com) scoring 75+ points since 2007-08, only six corresponded to ones who, in that same season, averaged fewer than 2.67 SOG per game, with none of the six tallying more than 78 points.

For Voracek, what’s most relevant to our analysis is his PPPt rate spiking in 2014-15. Had it been 0.30 instead (i.e., his normal rate from these other seasons), he’d have scored nine fewer points. Thus, like Kessel, rather than wonder whether he’s an 80 or 60 point player, perhaps he’s also more of a 70 point guy? Then again, Voracek is one of just nine forwards who’ve totaled 85+ PPPs since 2013-14; and the others all had at least two seasons of 73+ points out of the last three, suggesting either that Voracek is an aberration, or he’s due for a big 2016-17 to meet that 73+ point criteria for the second time too.

Voracek is feisty for a scorer, with 0.75+ PIM per game in each of the past two seasons and – thanks to a 22 PIM game in October – has a strong start for 2016-17. His other numbers for 2016-17, however, appear atypical when considering his past two seasons. His SOG rate is way up – much higher than even his 2014-15 season when he tallied 81 points, so that might be short term variance. Also, his Hits and Blocks are down considerably; yet unlike SOG there is precedent in that he had poor output in 2013-14 and in prior seasons. Thus, it could end up being a double whammy in that his SOG rate is likely to drop while his Hits and Blocks rate could stay lower.

Luck-Based Metrics

Voracek’s 2015-16 struggles are easier to justify as being due to a bad luck trifecta comprised of a personal shooting % of 5.2% (14th lowest among all forwards who played in 60+ games last season, with no other forward who scored above 50 points being less than 7.3%), a team shooting % of 7.07% (98th among 125 forwards who played 1000+ minutes), and an OZ% nearly ten points lower than in either of the two prior seasons. Seeing this, it’s a wonder his scoring didn’t crater even more, and it seemingly confirms that Voracek is more like the player of 2014-15 than the disappointment of 2015-16. Also, he’s doing well this season despite atypically low IPPs, which still could realistically improve.

As for Kessel, although both his slumping seasons saw him victimized by some bad luck (notably his shooting %s in 2014-15 and his IPPs in 2015-16) and some other factors working against his production (namely Toronto being in full tank mode in 2014-15 and apparently dealing with a hand injury all last season), the truth is they pale in comparison to what Voracek contended with last season. Plus, it’s one thing to do poorly in a single season, and something else entirely to do so for two straight seasons, the second of which while on a team with a hugely potent offense and two world class centers.

Turning to this season, Kessel’s numbers are in line with 2013-14, except for OZ%, where, by virtue of playing with a superior team and being looked upon for offense, he’s in a much better position. It’s also worth noting that Kessel had similar Team Shooting % and 5×5 IPP numbers in 2012-13 and 2011-12, so he’s capable of sustainably “running high.” But let’s also not lose sight of the fact that his data from the 2011-2014 time frame was with Toronto, where he was the star around whom offense was built. In Pittsburgh, he’s at best the third banana behind Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby; and although they help create offense that he benefits from, they also siphon away points, especially on the PP, where, as we saw above, Kessel has been unsustainably excelling thus far.

Who Wins?

This is a tough one. In the end, it boils down to whether to put more trust in Kessel, at age 29, being able to bounce back from two seasons worth of subpar production, or Voracek, who’s only 27, being more than a 60-65 point player when his only full season of production above that level happened to feature him with a PP scoring rate that was significantly higher than any past season.

I’m going with Voracek for the remainder of 2016-17. The extent to which he had unsustainable bad luck in 2015-16 surprised me, and likely brought down his scoring nearly as much as, if not more than, his added PPPt output from that season jacked it up. On the other hand, Kessel’s return to high scoring ways for 2016-17 thus far has been accompanied by an outrageously high PPPt production along with the lowest Ice Time and SOG rate of his career.

Voracek is also my pick in keepers. Kessel is older and still commands a value that’s arguably too high, in part because of his name but also due to his team. Of course the Flyers are nearly as much of a focal point in fantasy as are the Pens; however, there are still plenty of Voracek skeptics out there, which in turn helps keep his value artificially low. Look no further than the fact that Kessel was selected, on average, 35th in Yahoo leagues this season, whereas Voracek went 50 picks later, all despite Kessel having scored a mere two more points than Voracek over the past three seasons and Voracek having dual wing eligibility. Also, the Flyers are starting to become more than a one line team, which should only help Voracek at even strength going forward.