There are players every year who underperform for a myriad of reasons. It could be bad luck, injury problems, off-ice issues, age-related decline, a change in role, or any combination of these things. Regardless, when a player underperforms, they tend to come at a depressed average draft position the following fantasy season, and value ensues.

Below are a few defencemen who underperformed in the 2016-17 season and I’ll be targeting in fantasy drafts this year (assuming a favourable ADP, of course). 

Oliver Ekman-Larsson

This was probably the biggest miss of them all. After averaging nearly 20 goals and over 47 points each year from 2013-16, OEL managed just 12 goals and 39 points last year. There were off-ice issues related to the health of his mother, as well as injuries suffered throughout the year. There was also the fact that the Coyotes were very poor offensively.

Few teams likely improved as much in the off-season as Arizona did, and with the younger players improving, things are looking up for the superstar blue liner. He should be drafted outside the top-10 defencemen, and we’ve already seen his upside for years now. Don’t let him slide too far, though, as someone else at the draft table is likely to have the same thought.

Jake Muzzin

Back-to-back 40-point seasons had fantasy owners drafting him for such a position, and Muzzin failed to crack 30 this past campaign. The use of Alec Martinez as a viable offensive defenceman didn’t really mean much here, as the year-over-year power-play usage didn’t change much for the 28-year-old rearguard. The power play did score less often, however, and the Kings went from mid-pack at scoring five-on-five in 2015-16 to bottom-5 in 16-17.

The question is whether the Kings can improve their scoring this year. A healthy (eventually) Marian Gaborik should help, as well as a healthy Tyler Toffoli, the newly-acquired Michael Cammalleri, and a new coaching staff as well. Considering that Muzzin should easily fall outside the top-25 defencemen drafted, he is worth taking a chance on. If around 30 points is his downside, drafting him as a third defenceman is fine.

Shayne Gostisbehere

After an outstanding rookie season, the hype for Ghost going into the 2016-17 campaign in the fantasy game was always going to result in him being over-drafted. He probably went somewhere in the top-10, which is asking a lot of any second-year defenceman.

It’s kind of funny how expectations work – despite falling short of what fantasy owners were hoping from the man named Swayze, he finished with as many points as OEL, Cam Fowler, and Mark Giordano, and more points than Justin Faulk, Tyson Barrie, and John Carlson. With Michael Del Zotto gone this year, the only defenceman who can really supplant him on the power play is Ivan Provorov. Expect a rebound from Gostisbehere, and good value on draft day.

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Continuing with my theme of reviewing the fantasy performances on a team-by-team basis, the next up is the Montreal Canadiens.

One thing to keep in mind here is that in looking ahead to the 2017-18 season, Andrei Markov has not re-signed yet (or signed anywhere else). Should he not return, the Habs would be lacking in quality puck-moving defencemen. It’s something that could hurt this team, so Markov coming back would be an improvement, though it’s not any sort of guarantee he’ll be back in a Habs uniform.

Max Pacioretty

Pacioretty did what Pacioretty does, and that’s amass 30 goals and 60 points like clockwork – since the start of the 2011-12 season, the only two players in the league to manage those two marks in five straight seasons are he and Alex Ovechkin. Joe Pavelski, Jamie Benn, Sidney Crosby, and Evgeni Malkin have all fallen short in at least one season if not two or more. For all the negative comments that the team’s captain receives in a seasonal basis, he is, quite frankly, one of the most consistently elite wingers in the league.

There is a concern here, however, in that he posted his lowest shots per game mark, and lowest shots per 60 minutes mark at five-on-five, since becoming a full-time NHLer six years ago. A grain of salt here: he was always among the top of the NHL – non-Ovechkin division – in shots on goal, so his fall saw him still finish inside the top-10 in shots per minute among heavily-used forwards. So long as he can manage over 250 shots, 30 goals are still well within reach. It is a concern that he shot less, however, given his most-common line mates (Radulov and Danault) aren’t really shooters.

Regardless of line mates though, the track record Patches has managed over the last half-decade speaks for itself. He should still be drafted as a top-50 player in almost any format.

Brendan Gallagher

Sometimes, a guy just can’t catch a break. After finishing as runner-up for the Calder Trophy in the lockout-shortened season, and posting 24 goals in 2014-15, the future looked very bright for this talented winger. He has missed 47 games over the last two years, though, and managed just 10 goals in his 64 games last year.

Let’s get the obvious caveat out of the way: he needs to stay on the ice to be productive in the fantasy game. That could be said about most players, but especially with a guy who has missed significant time recently.

It sure didn’t help his production that when he was on the ice, he was given just over 15 minutes of ice time per game. At five-on-five, he was given less ice time per game than Andrew Shaw. I must note that most of those games came under Michel Therrien, and not Claude Julien, though the rest of the regular season under Julien produced similar minutes (until the playoffs, when that skyrocketed to well over 17 minutes a game). If that doesn’t improve next year, he will be hard-pressed to have much fantasy relevance. With Alexander Radulov gone from the team, though, Gallagher should be the team’s top option at right wing. Should be.

Gallagher shot 5.3 percent in 2016-17, nearly half his rate (10.2 percent) from his first four seasons. At five-on-five, he shot 5.56 percent, and two years ago he shot 9.18 percent. From HockeyViz, here are the heat maps of his shot locations:

Virtually nothing changed. His shooting percentage in all situations pre- and post-hand injury were virtually identical as well, so it wasn’t just a big nosedive once he returned in February that could have been injury-related. It seems he was just a bit unlucky.

I am still a firm believer in his talent. Injuries are a problem, but had he not blocked a shot with his hand, we might not even be talking about his injury history. He shoots a lot – among the league leaders over the last three years – and should be seeing a bigger role than in 2016-17. He should have very good peripheral stats and a productive year, so he’s someone that should be targeted in drafts given an ADP that is likely to be bargain-priced.  

Alex Galchenyuk

I wrote about Galchenyuk just a few days ago in these Ramblings, so there’s no need to go over everything again. Let’s see what he can do if given a consistent top-six role with talented line mates and a healthy season. Fantasy owners should be pleasantly surprised.

Shea Weber

Weber did what Weber does offensively: score goals. The 2016-17 season was his eighth straight 82-game season with at least 10 goals, and he’s averaged 17.5 goals over the last four years. He was also incredibly productive on the power play, with 12 goals and 22 points. As far as fantasy goes, he did his job.

The concern could be his 25 assists, his lowest mark in an 82-game season since 2007-08, and the first time finishing with fewer than 30 since 2009-10. This is just a guess, but I think the team wants Weber to become an offensive catalyst on the blue line, rather than just a booming shot from the point (aside from what they ask him to do defensively). They’ll need him to be an offensive catalyst, given Andrei Markov’s apparent departure.

With the abundant ice time, both at five-on-five and on the power play, and his track record, there shouldn’t be much concern with Weber being dissimilar from what he managed last year. I do have concerns that the Habs won’t be a high-scoring team, though, so hoping for 50 points from Weber is probably a stretch. If he can get his 15 goals and 20-plus power-play points, however, he’ll be just fine in the fantasy game.