Penguins and Ducks, Tanner Pearson signs in Los Angeles, and Ben Bishop is traded to Dallas.

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Pittsburgh-Washington

Despite an early flurry from the Caps, the first period was probably Pittsburgh’s best since going up 3-1 in the series. That isn’t saying much, but they had Evgeni Malkin in alone once, Carter Rowney had a decent chance, as did Sidney Crosby. Washington hit the post on the power play, and had a breakaway of their own, but considering the flow of play for most of this series, Pittsburgh looked good.

An even second period saw the tie broken by Bryan Rust as he finished off a pretty passing play after a turnover by Washington at their own blue line. It was a nice shot by Rust, too:

Big game Bryan Rust gives the Penguins a 1-0 lead in Game 7 pic.twitter.com/ojGBessqex

— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) May 11, 2017

Patric Hornqvist doubled the lead just past the four-minute mark of the third period on a beautiful backhand past Braden Holtby. The netminder got a piece, but not enough:

Hornqvist backhands one past Holtby and it’s 2-0 pic.twitter.com/SiAcJGV3t2

— Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) May 11, 2017

That would be all Pittsburgh would need to advance to the Eastern Conference Final. Not to go unmentioned, but Marc-André Fleury was incredible in this game, finishing with the shutout on 29 shots. He was great for most of the series as well. Their series with Ottawa begins on Saturday.

There will be lots to write about with regards to Washington in the coming days, weeks, and months. One small note, and it is stating the obvious, but this was a coming-out party of sorts for Andre Burakovsky. He should be in the team’s top-six consistently next year, and is primed for a breakout season.

As an aside fantasy-wise, I know the injuries and health problems have been plentiful for Olli Maatta, but that is someone that needs to find another level for the Penguins next year. They are going to have a lot of turnover on the blue line this summer, and he would presumably be the heir-apparent to Kris Letang when the star defenceman inevitably gets injured (not that I would ever wish it on someone, it’s just a factor when looking at his career). He will likely be undervalued in drafts, and will be worth a gamble as a bench spot in the later rounds. He needs to show better than he has so far in 2016-17, however.

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Not sure if Malkin was trolling or not, but posting this about 20 minutes after the game ended was hilarious nonetheless:

pic.twitter.com/vxrfcJjUDC

— Евгений Малкин (@malkin71_) May 11, 2017

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Edmonton-Anaheim

Just over 3:30 into the game, Shea Theodore tried to cut in front of his net with the puck. Unfortunately for him, Drake Caggiula was right then, and push the puck into the net, and Theodore into John Gibson. It gave the road team a much-needed early goal in this deciding Game Seven.

Anaheim tied the game roughly nine minutes into the second period on a jam play by Mr. Ironman, Andrew Cogliano. Not for nothing, but his streak of consecutive games played is incredible in the modern era – he hasn’t missed a game in his career, a full 10 seasons – and something that should be celebrated a bit more. Anaheim was rolling for most of this period against Edmonton, and the Oilers were fortunate to escape with a tie.

Nick Ritchie would give the Ducks the lead early in the third period, and the team never looked back, winning the game 2-1, and the series. Despite a quick start and a late push, this game was mostly in Anaheim's control. Their series with Nashville starts on Friday. 

The future is bright in Edmonton, obviously. Oscar Klefbom should have impressed everyone these playoffs. He won't get the headlines like some other players will, but he should be high-ish on fantasy draft boards next year. The blue liner appears locked in to the top PP quarterback role, and is underratedly excellent at both ends of the ice. 

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For Neil Parker’s slant on the Stars acquiring Ben Bishop, just click here.

The Dallas Stars traded for Bishop on Tuesday night in an attempt to solidify their goaltending. Oddly enough, it wasn’t necessarily their goaltending that sank their 2016-17 season. Their team five-on-five save percentage was .919, just below Calgary’s .920, and ahead of Boston’s .913 (both playoff teams, you’ll note). That isn’t to say it can’t, or shouldn’t, be improved, just that other factors like injuries and poor team defence were significant reasons why the team failed.

Aging curves are a fickle thing. They’re better-used to describe clusters of players rather than individuals – Dany Heatley fell off the map in his early 30s, while Joe Thornton and Jaromir Jagr are still very effective at an advanced age, yet the former is more likely than the latter. All the same, I recommend reading through this tweet thread from Nick Mercadente, a writer for Hockey Graphs, and his thoughts on Bishop moving forward:

Yes. He played through his goalie peak performance. Which is historically 26-29 give or take. He's beyond that. Like most, steep decline. https://t.co/z13SVga87m

— Nick Mercadante (@NMercad) May 9, 2017

This is similar in nature to what Claire Austin wrote about for In goal a couple of years ago with regards to goaltenders and aging. I recommend that article as well.

Simply put, by and large, goaltenders, with a few exceptions, don’t age well past their Age 30 season. Bishop will be 31 in November.

Over the last four campaigns, Bishop’s five-on-five save percentage, according to Corsica, is basically mid-pack (18^th out of 39 goalies with 5000+ minutes played). His rate (.927) is the same as Brian Elliott, and slightly above Frederik Andersen. He is also 18^th out of those 39 goalies in high-danger save percentage, which is a good indicator of a goalie’s future performance.

This is where we run into a problem. Dallas’s team defence, at least as traditionally described, is awful. Again, per Corsica, they gave up the fifth-most scoring chances per minute last year. Even if we figure a lot of that was injuries, they were third-worst the year before. Teams can get by with league-average goaltending, which is probably all Dallas is looking for here. But if Bishop is league-average, and on a poor defensive team, there isn’t much hope of a stellar fantasy season here. Allowing a lot of shots on a league-average goalie will lead to an inflated goals against average. That also necessarily includes a save percentage somewhere between .915-.919.

Perhaps the Dallas defence improves considerably next year. They do have Julius Honka and Esa Lindell likely playing larger roles. John Klingberg and Dan Hamhuis should still be stellar enough. They can improve. Will they? I wouldn’t bank on it

If we have a league-average goalie, or even slightly above, on a poor defensive team, the ratios won’t be enough to support a great fantasy season. It all depends on league settings, but relying on Bishop to be more than a top-20 goalie in standard roto leagues next year, assuming he signs with Dallas, is misguided.

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Los Angeles locked up Tanner Pearson for four years with a contract totalling $15-million. He is coming off a season that saw a career-high 24 goals and 44 points, and will be turning 25 in August.

Going into the 2016-17 season, Pearson was a career 12.7 percent shooter, and he shot 12.8 percent over his 80 games. Any notion that the 24 goals was some sort of aberration due to lucky shooting is immediately incorrect. The question then becomes: what is his upside for fantasy?

Additional ice time helped Pearson a lot as he went from under 14:30 per game in 2015-16 to 16:29 this past campaign. What is even more encouraging is that he greatly increased his shots per 60 minutes at five-on-five, from a three-year average of 7.16 to a career-high 8.87. That moved him from just inside the top 45 percent of forwards in that regard, to just outside the top 15 percent. That is an important, and marked, improvement.

I wrote about how Los Angeles had a problem shooting a lot, but not necessarily generating a lot of scoring chances. That wasn’t the problem for Pearson, as his individual scoring chances per 60 minutes at five-on-five last year (3.23) was in line with what he did the year before (3.22), and for his career (3.17). While Pearson did generate more shots, they weren’t wasted shots, as the rate of scoring chances remained consistent. The graphic below, taken from Corsica, shows that he’s in good company league-wide in generating scoring chances (far-right column):

Working under the assumption that we have a player we should be able to rely upon for about 25 goals and 200 shots, the question is if he can fill the other side of the fantasy production equation: assists. Given the team he’s playing on, it’s a concern.

There is evidence that Pearson is an above-average passer, at least in terms of being able to find teammates in good shooting positions from good passing positions. There is this work from NHL Numbers using Ryan Stimson’s (and his team’s) passing data at Hockey Graphs for Dangerous Shot Contributions (I very much recommend reading that article if you haven’t for further discussion), and also shot assist rates from 2015-16 from Sean Tierney, again using the same set of data. The article explaining the data is here. Please read both.

To get to the point, Pearson has shown abilities to not only find teammates in dangerous shooting positions, but to be able to do it often. That should lead to a higher rate of assists than the 20 he had last year moving forward, especially if the expectation is bounce-back seasons from both Anze Kopitar and Tyler Toffoli.

Can Pearson be an elite fantasy producer? Almost certainly not. Jeff Carter is one of the most consistent goal scorers of this generation and he’s capped at around 60-65 points. Can Pearson improve on last year? Absolutely, and if the team around him rebounds in their shot conversion rates, a 55-point season is not out of the question.