A favourite pastime of many fantasy hockey owners (present company included) is always to dissect the rankings of others. The FantasyPros site makes it easy to access the rankings of several people simultaneously while the bigger sites have theirs. Which reminds me, don’t forget to check out the Dobber Shop to grab your copy of Dobber’s Draft Guide and List!

This exercise isn’t only to gauge your personal rankings against another, but to get a handle on where the public might be heading. Don’t forget that the people who create and utilize their own projections are the minority, so getting a peek at where the herd is going is an advantage.

Yesterday I looked through Yahoo’s centre rankings and some names that stood out to me as too high or too low. Today, I will do the same for the left-wing position. Remember that these are Yahoo positions, standard roto categories (goals, assists, shots, plus/minus, penalty minutes, and power-play points), and assuming 12-team leagues.

Johnny Gaudreau – 34^th overall

It was undoubtedly a down year last year for the uber-talented left winger, but even a “down” year where he missed 10 games and was likely injured for another good portion still brought 61 points. In fact, he is 1 of 14 players with at least 200 points over the last three seasons, and he’s the youngest player on that list.

The concerns are about his goal-scoring and shot-taking. As for the latter, he actually had a higher shot-per-minute rate in 2016-17 than 2015-16, so the decline in shots per game is a function of lost ice time rather than individual performance.  Also, after shooting over 14 percent through his first 160 NHL games, that fell under 10 percent last year (remember that finger fracture, too). In sum, maybe he won’t reach the goal-scoring heights of Max Pacioretty or Brad Marchand, but I don’t see him being Jonathan Huberdeau, either.

A year ago, Gaudreau was often going somewhere in the second round. His performance last year dropped him a round, but I would argue that’s where he should probably slot anyway even if he is a 75-point player again. He won’t be a huge volume shooter and won’t take many penalties so as a (largely) four-category player, he shouldn’t be a second-round pick. Those wanting to take him somewhere around the top-30, though, are probably going to get their value back.

Jonathan Huberdeau – 77^th overall

It’s a shame that Huberdeau wasn’t able to get a full season in last year. Returning in February, he posted 26 points in 31 games, and that was after back-to-back seasons with at least 50 points. It would have been nice to see if he could have maintained progression in a full year when he was hitting his real stride as a 23-year-old.

That doesn’t mean there hasn’t been progression for his career. He has seen four consecutive 82-game seasons of improving shot- and point-per-game marks (including the injury-shortened season last year). While never really being known as a shooter, he was third among Florida’s forwards in shots per minute at five-on-five last year, and is at least a middle-of-the-road volume shooter league-wide. That’s fine; he can probably reach 200 shots and 20 goals. For a guy not known for his goal-scoring, that’s more than enough.

I think that’s something important to note – his shooting. This isn’t a player that will have significant holes in roto fantasy leagues. You can rely on him for (in the neighbourhood of) 200 shots, 40 penalty minutes and, if all goes well with the Panthers power play, nearly 20 power-play points. Where his plus/minus lands is anyone’s guess – I think Florida has a wide range of outcomes this year – but at a glance, in a full year, I don’t think there’s a glaring weakness to his fantasy game.

That’s what makes me kind of like where Yahoo has him ranked. If he can get 75-80 games in, this shouldn’t be a draft choice that fantasy owners regret come April. Maybe he doesn’t of other players that are ranked lower like Jeff Skinner or Taylor Hall, but if he’s healthy, there isn’t a lot of downside here. He’s just a solid contributor that can be slotted in a fantasy roster and forgotten about (in a good way).

Brayden Schenn – 85^th overall

Last month I wrote about how dependent the Flyers skaters, or their pertinent fantasy performers, were on the power play for their value. It really is amazing how if that team has a middling PP, or if the ice time is a bit more spread out over two units, how useless most of those players would have been. I don’t remember anything like that in recent memory.

Schenn was no exception. Over half of his points last year came with the man advantage, and nearly half his points (50/114) over the last two years. He isn’t really a guy that stuffs peripherals, either, having never cracked 180 shots on goal, and managing at least 40 penalty minutes once. For him to have fantasy value, he has needed those PPPs.

That is what makes the move to St. Louis so intriguing. Schenn was never going to centre the top line in Philadelphia so long as Claude Giroux was still around, but he at least has an opportunity to centre the top line in St. Louis, and that means dishing the puck to Vladimir Tarasenko.

Schenn hasn’t often been a big five-on-five point producer, finishing under 1.4 points per 60 in two of the last three seasons, and the one year he did well in this regard (2015-16) was the result of a shooting percentage binge.

So he’s not a shooter, he’s not a point-producer outside of the power play, and he’s not a peripheral stat-stuffer. If he can’t get at least 20 power-play points, he’ll have a very hard time living up to this draft position. It seems those drafting him inside the top-100 are hoping that he spends the majority of the season beside Tarasenko, and his power-play prowess will translate to the Blues. Keep in mind that the Blues had a top-10 PP last year by goals per minute, and the only players with at least 20 PPPs were Tarasenko (22) and Kevin Shattenkirk (20, and he’s gone). I am not expecting him to produce half his points on the PP again, and that makes him an easy pass anywhere near this 85^th overall ranking.

Andre Burakovsky – 125^th overall

I skipped over Burakovsky when doing my Capitals review earlier this month but it was simply a function of that team having so many fantasy-relevant players last year. Quite simply, this year, Burakovsky may be the most intriguing name on the roster from a fantasy perspective.

Of course, you have the studs like Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Braden Holtby. There’s also the strong support pieces like John Carlson, TJ Oshie, and Evgeny Kuznetsov. Burakovsky, however, could see the biggest change in role in a hugely positive way.

The off-season saw Marcus Johansson find a new home in New Jersey. That opens up the second line left wing slot next to Kuznetsov, and Burakovsky is the heir apparent. Coming into his fourth season, the Austrian has increased his points per 60 minutes, shots per 60 minutes, and shot attempts per 60 minutes at five-on-five in each season. He was third on the team in points/60 last year, and fourth the year before. His only problem has been minimal minutes, having played frequently in the bottom-six, and never cracking 14 minutes a game in full season before. That should change this year.

One concern for his fantasy upside is what happens with the top PP unit. Johansson was heavily-used on the top quintet, and presumably that spot would go to Kuznetsov. Without those consistent top-line minutes, Burakovsky won’t be able to reach his full fantasy potential. I do think he sees a big increase in ice time, though, and with his shot rate, he can crack two shots on goal per game and push for 20 goals. A 50-point season would be his upside without that PP time, but if something happens that he does get those minutes, there could be a lot of profit in taking him outside the first 10 rounds of a 12-team league.

Anders Lee – 164^th

There aren’t a lot of rankings that leave me stunned but this is definitely one of them. I get it, people are going to see that 17.8 percent shooting and just scream “REGRESSION.” That’s fair. Let’s not forget, though, that he was over an 11 percent shooter over his first 180 career games, and over his last four seasons, is tied for 37^th among all forwards in goals per game (0.32). That mark is higher than names like Patric Hornqvist, Taylor Hall, Johnny Gaudreau, and Jaden Schwartz. That mark of 0.32 works out to over 25 goals per 82 games, and he’s done that while playing, on average, under 15 minutes a game.

That 26-goal pace isn’t an empty pace, either. He has averaged 49 PIMs per 82 games over the last four years and 202 shots on goal per 82 games. Even as a 25-goal, 45-point guy, he can help in the peripheral categories.

I suppose part of the hesitation here is that he’s not necessarily a lock to continue skating alongside John Tavares, but I presume it’s Josh Bailey that moves down the lineup to make room for Jordan Eberle, and not Lee. I think he’s a steal, and he will find his way onto a lot of my rosters if I can get him anywhere outside the 10^th round.