It is time to kick off our summer series. Like last season, this series is intended to take a look at the teams in the Western Conference one by one. We will do a short recap of what took place, but the deep dive here will be into the players that helped make it so, for better or worse. We will be taking a look at a few players who out or underperformed their expectations and be considering whether this performance might just be the new normal.

And now for the technical details. We will be using the Fantasy Hockey Geek tool to get a ranking that combines all of a player’s stats for the searched categories. These ranks are based on a 12 team, head-to-head league, using the categories of goals, assists, power play points, shots, hits and blocks for forwards/defensemen and wins, saves, save percentage and goals against average for goalies. The idea is to compare this ranking with an expected ranking based on the average draft positions from the start of the year. This process does not necessarily identify who was the most important player to each team but gives us not only an idea of who was a steal/bust on draft day, but where each player was valued going into this season. Player eligibility for this series is based on Yahoo, and draft ranks are based on average draft positions compiled from Yahoo, ESPN and CBS by FantasyPros.

First up: Anaheim

Recap:

Anaheim finished the season with 80 points – good for 13th in the Western Conference. As seems to be multi-year theme, they suffered a number of injuries to key players and then forgot how to score goals. They are the only team in the NHL not to break the 200 goals for mark. It seems pretty likely then that a lot of Anaheim players disappointed.

Undervalued

Jakob Silfverberg

Believe it or not (and you should), there was not a lot of good draft value in Anaheim  2018-19. Their season was a disaster. Jakob Silfverberg was, if not a bright spot, at least a bit more shiny than the rest. He was not drafted in most leagues, but ended the season with a FHG value of 295. Yes that does mean he likely was not owned if you played in a standard league, but this is the depths we are forced to use when searching for the silver lining in Anaheim.

When we take a look at right wingers with comparable value it really looks more like the who’s who of guys who disappointed. Just think, instead of wasting a pick on any one of these guys you could have had Silfverberg for free.

Before we give Silfverberg too many more backhanded compliments let’s take a look at what he actually did accomplish.

So 43 points in 73 games isn’t exactly killing it, but it is the second highest pace of his career so that isn’t nothing. Also if you managed to grab him over the last quarter he put up 19 points in 20 games, which is definitely something. It should surprise no one  that point pace came with 18+ minutes of time on ice a night, skating with Rickard Rakell, and what looks like some top power play time. 

Full season, he ended 2018-19 with the highest goal total, power play point total, and power play time on ice total of his career. The power play points look fairly reasonable, but the goals definitely don’t. His career high of 24, comes with a career high shooting percentage and a career low shot pace. We can’t even really say that the increased power play time helped there as he only had three tallies on the power play. A more reasonable shooting percentage would have been around 9.5%, and that would have dropped him down to 15ish goals – not great.

2019-20? Obviously getting more time on ice running with Rakell would be great. More time on the power play would also be great. If those things happen maybe we are talking about a 50+ point pace, but as that would be a career high and a number of things need to break right, I am not holding my breath.

Overvalued

Corey Perry

So a number of you clearly didn’t heed last year’s advice to not touch Corey Perry with a 10 foot pole. He had an average draft position of 168. A lot of folks seemed to think he was worth taking a chance on even though he was injured. With a FHG score of 704 he yet again leads the list of Anaheim disappointments – and that is saying something.

Here is a list of right wingers that were drafted right around Perry. Now we can all agree that James Neal was also a bust, but the rest of that list? Maybe they aren’t the elite of the NHL, but Corey Perry’s end of year rank compares very well to Markus Hannikainen and Andreas Martinsen (Haven’t heard of them? Hannikainen had seven points in 44 games for the Blue Jackets and Martinsen had four in 24 for Chicago). .

So how did Perry actually do? The answer is not good. Ten points in 31 games, less than two shots per game and less than two minutes on the power play for the first time in his career.

To quote last summer’s review, “to me this one is fairly simple. Perry is [34], and is seeing declines across the board.” Those declines have been happening for years, and even were he to be healthy enough to play more than 31 games there are so many better options out there. Draft him as you would draft Martinsen, or better yet, not even then.

Ondrej Kase

Kase finished the 17-18 season reasonably well he was trending toward a 50 point season pace and seeing decent deployment. Many writers (this one included) liked what they saw and recommended him as a sleeper candidate going into 2018-19. An ADP of 218 shows that some listened, though luckily for them (and those who didn’t listen) they didn’t take him too highly. With a final ranking of 631 Kase’s season was definitely a dissapointment.

He was drafted around guys like Nino Niederreiter, Alex Tuch, Pavel Buchnevich, and Alex Steen. But ended in rather less illustrious company.

So what happened? Well in this case the answer is quite simple.

He only played 30 games. All of his per game numbers actually look great. He saw increases in power play time, total time on once, point pace, and shot pace. His 70ish point pace actually looked fairly reasonable and he seemed to be one of the only actual bright spots for Anaheim in 2018-19. His second quarter (the only quarter he suited up for all of Anaheim’s games) he had 18 points in 21 games.

So what about 2019-20? Anaheim is going to need some new guys to step up and Kase certainly fits the bill. If he can stay healthy that 70 point potential is definitely possible, though a 65 point pace might be a bit more reasonable.

Thanks for reading

Next week: Arizona