Recapping Friday's games, Shipachyov in Vegas, Darling signs, Monahan's production, and more. 

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Nashville-St. Louis

St. Louis lives to fight another day, as they won Game 5 by a 2-1 score over Nashville. It was a game that the Blues controlled pretty much from start to finish, with the lone Predators goal coming with a two-man advantage, and the visiting team managing just 22 shots on goal. Game 6 is Sunday afternoon.

The big news heading into the game was that Alex Steen would not be dressing, with Dmitrij Jaskin taking his spot. Coincidentally, Jaskin scored the first goal for the Blues. He is not a goal scorer, but it’s odd he hasn’t been able to stay in the Blues lineup. He is a very good defensive forward, and it seems the coaching staff finds reasons to scratch him, rather than finding reasons to dress him.

I know it was a five-on-three, but this pass from PK Subban to James Neal that resulted Nashville's only goal was some kind of pretty:

Subban to Neal…what a look pic.twitter.com/OhLYDVC8OJ

— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) May 6, 2017

Interesting to note here, too, that Subban stayed on the ice after the goal, and played the second-half of the power play with Ryan Ellis. Remember early in the year when it seemed like Mattias Ekholm was always on the power play? I know part of it was injuries, but that hasn’t been the case of late. Something to keep in mind for drafts next year because if Subban is heavily focused as a power-play option, he could be in line for a very good offensive season.

Edmonton-Anaheim

After weathering the storm through 20 minutes, the Oilers would score two goals in the first three minutes of the second period, one from each of Draisaitl and McDavid, the latter on a five-on-three. Things finally got interesting when, with Edmonton up 3-0 and four minutes left, Randy Carlyle pulled the goalie. Unbelievably, the Ducks would score three goals in the final four minutes to tie the game 3-3, and give us overtime. 

In an effort to deal with matchups, and Ryan Getzlaf, Leon Draisaitl was moved to centre between Milan Lucic and Anton Slepyshev. It is just a one-game adjustment, for now, but it’s something that should concern fantasy owners going into drafts in a few months. Draisaitl not playing with Connor McDavid would obviously be a hit to his value, no matter how talented he is. Taking the German’s spot on the top line, by the way, was Drake Caggiula.

A couple of big hits and a blocked shot had a few of the Oilers defencemen ailing after the first period. Oscar Klefbom and Andrej Sekera left half-way through the first period, and that had Benoit Pouliot playing a bit of defence on the penalty kill with Matt Benning in the penalty box. Klefbom would eventually return, but Sekera would not.

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Vadim Shipachyov signed late Thursday night with the Las Vegas Golden Knights. If you want to read Neil Parker’s slant on this, click through here.

Just briefly, I agree with what Neil wrote. There should be a solid floor here, if only because of the bevy of minutes he should receive. If he doesn’t, well, that’s another question. But if he gets 19-20 minutes that we’re expecting, that should mean a 50-point season.

One thing I would like to note is that this signing made it clear this team doesn’t expect to come into the league as a doormat as so many expansion franchise before. If they pick their players right, they should be able to field a competitive team, maybe something along the lines of what we saw from Carolina this past season. We will have a better idea once free agent signings and the actual expansion draft are over, but I would be hesitant to outright discount this team.

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One tool that was developed over the last year by Petbugs over at Hockey Graphs is one I think could have very useful implications for daily fantasy. For those that want to check it out, just follow this link to the Dropbox.

In short, it classifies players by their type – shooter, playmaker, dependent, and so on – and gives us their expected goals percentage based on the composition of a given line. It helps hockey fans, and fantasy players, identify which lines might not be a great mix, or ones that may be better than they appear on the surface.

Expected goals percentage doesn’t necessarily translate to a high rate of goals scored, which is the point of DFS. However, we do know which teams are high scoring, particularly once we get a couple of months into the season. Once we know which teams are high scoring, and which lines can drive goals given the lineups coaches give us, we can start to make more informed decisions.

This is clearly something that isn’t to be used as an end-all by any means. It is, however, an interesting tool that is available for everyone, and it gives us an idea of the next step of daily fantasy analysis.

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The names of players selected in the WHL Bantam Draft get more creative every year.  

Okay let's try this again. The corrected list of first names of players selected in today's 2017 Western Hockey League Bantam Draft. pic.twitter.com/5Fo7ZHgQvs

— Adam Herman (@AdamZHerman) May 4, 2017

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Throughout the summer, I’ll be writing about the fantasy season that was for each team. Continuing in alphabetical order, today it’s the Calgary Flames. I’m going to write more on them next week, so just a couple players for now.

Sean Monahan

Starting with the team’s top centre seems like a natural spot.

Like some of his teammates, Monahan wasn’t very productive to start the year. Through 26 games, he had just six goals and 10 points. He finished the season with 27 goals and 58 points, which is perfectly in line with what he accomplished over the previous two seasons. Of note, also, is that he’s the youngest player in the NHL to score at least 100 goals since the start of the 2013-14 campaign (Nikita Kucherov is the next-youngest). Not bad.

We now have three years of data of Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau playing with and without each other. Something for fantasy owners to keep in mind that should those two ever be split up – and I’m not saying they will be, just saying if – that Monahan is going to suffer greatly from an offensive standpoint.

I think we’re past the point, however, of wondering whether Monahan is “for real.” I know we had three years of data coming into 2016-17, but with a player that young relying on a talented winger, the questions remain. There is nothing wrong with being a passenger when you can finish, and have chemistry with a supremely talented winger. Just be mindful of who he is, and who he could be if his situation changes.

Mark Giordano

Unlike Monahan, Giordano never really could quite recover from a slow start to the season. One-third of the way through the year, the top defenceman had just one goal and nine points. Those that bought low on him in December were likely very happy with the production they got the rest of the year, but anyone that hung on for the whole season certainly didn’t get what they paid for.

Gio’s goals cratered, but that should have been expected; he wasn’t repeating 20-plus goals. What really hurt was the assist total falling from an average of 35 per season from 2013-16, to 27 last year. The reason for that is his individual assist percentage – the rate at which he assisted on goals at five-on-five – was 20.3 percent. His three-year average going in 2016-17 was 34 percent. That drop kept him from a 45-ish point season that we likely had expected.

It is also worth noting his shots cratered, including while on the man advantage. Playing on the top power-play unit, and at five-on-five, mostly with Dougie Hamilton was likely a large reason why. If shots were coming in from the point, it was from him, and not Giordano.

The slowdown will come with age, but as long as Calgary’s number-1 defenceman keeps logging heavy minutes, including the PP, there’s no reason not to rely on him as a double-digit goal, 40-point defenceman. He should come at a discount compared to last year as well.

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Scott Darling was indeed signed by the Hurricanes after acquiring him in a trade. The details:

The #Canes and Scott Darling have agreed upon a four-year, $16.6 million contract. https://t.co/fxCqPTw6sa

— Michael Smith (@MSmithCanes) May 6, 2017

I wrote about Darling in Carolina when the trade occurred a week ago.

This should be seen as a good thing. Of course, goaltenders can be fickle and we don’t know for sure whether this will work out. However, it appears to be a big upgrade in net, which was the one glaring weakness of this team.