In this week’s Eastern Edge, we take a look at who has been struggling and who has been thriving over the past month (October 18^th – November 18^th). When you’re looking at a player’s performance, his overall numbers for the season are the easiest to access as they’re the first thing you see on every website. In many cases, it’s useful to break down that production into weekly or monthly intervals so you see if a player has been hot or cold in recent games. While it takes a little more work, it gives you the information you need to sell high on players who are riding unsustainable hot streaks or buy low on those in the middle of cold streaks. To supplement the lists below, I shared some thoughts on players whose current cold streaks are a cause for long-term concern.

Struggling

After couple of solid seasons in Vegas, Colin Miller showed he was capable of being a 40-point defenseman in the NHL. Unfortunately, he has a lot more competition in Buffalo than he did in Sin City, so his production has understandably suffered. Rasmus Dahlin headlines Buffalo’s defensive corps, but even he has struggled to produce over the past month. While I’d like to see Dahlin shoot the puck more as the season progresses, I’m certainly not concerned about his long-term production. The Sabres have been one of the worst teams in the league over the past 30 days and have also tallied the fewest goals in that span. Their power play – which was red hot to start the season – has scored on just 8.8% of their opportunities in the team’s last 12 games (only Pittsburgh’s PP unit has been worse). Overall, Dahlin has an impressive 13 points in 20 games this season, but the team’s recent struggles might allow you to acquire him for less than market value.

I was one of the clowns that predicted New Jersey to be a serious cup contender this year. While the Devils have won three of their last four games and most of the roster is getting into a groove, P.K. Subban’s offensive struggles continue. He began the season on the team’s top power-play unit but has since conceded that role to Sami Vatanen and Will Butcher. In recent games, Subban has been seeing around 30% of his team’s power-play time – which is a legitimate cause for concern. In Subban’s best offensive seasons, he was seeing the majority of his team’s power-play time and his production was boosted by 20-25 power-play points. He hasn’t registered a single point on the PP through 19 games this year. New Jersey has been good with the man advantage over the past month, clicking on 20% of their opportunities so they don’t really have a reason to put Subban back on that top unit. Without a prominent role on the power play, I don’t have high hopes for his fantasy value.

Every autumn, the leaves fall. Every autumn, the Leafs fall short of expectations. Toronto has won just nine of their first 22 games. To give you some perspective, the Ottawa Senators have eight wins through 20 games. For the most part, the team’s struggles have been attributed to coach Mike Babcock and his inability to play to the strengths of his roster. A prime example of that mismanagement can be found in the deployment of Tyson Barrie. Last season, Barrie tallied 59 points in 78 games with Colorado. The season before that, he put up 57 points in 68 games. Barrie’s high offensive output in those two years with the Avalanche was supported by strong power-play production. We all knew that Morgan Rielly would eat into Barrie’s production this year – but it really shouldn’t be this bad. Over the past month, the Leafs have scored on just 10.9% of their power-play opportunities, which is ridiculous considering the amount offensive talent that team possesses. Even as a secondary option, Barrie should have more than one power-play point through 22 games. From what I’ve heard, Barrie hasn’t been given the same offensive freedom in Toronto that he had in Colorado. He’s starting 53 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone this year, a number which was above 60 percent in his past couple of seasons with the Avalanche. It’s important to note that he’s registering a point on just 31.6 percent of goals scored while he’s on the ice. He factored into a lot more of the offense in Colorado, where he registered a point on nearly 60 percent of goals scored while he was skating. Considering Barrie is in the final year of his current deal and playing for a new contract, he might ask for a trade in an attempt to raise his value. Unless Babcock changes his ways, I don’t have high hopes for Barrie in fantasy hockey leagues.

The theme of this week’s article has unintentionally become ‘defensemen struggling to produce with their new teams. Now that we’ve covered Subban and Barrie, it’s time to talk about Jacob Trouba. The 25-year old defenseman registered his first 50-point campaign last year, thanks to a strong second-half performance that saw him tally 32 points in 41 games. Half of those points came on the power-play as Trouba took over Winnipeg’s top unit while Dustin Byfuglien was sidelined with injury. In the offseason, Trouba parted ways with the Jets and signed a seven-year, $56 million contract with the Rangers. Considering New York was willing to pay him so much, I expected Trouba to be ‘the guy’ on the team’s blueline. Unfortunately, I underestimated the offensive abilities of Tony DeAngelo and Adam Fox – who now prevent Trouba from seeing the lion’s share of New York’s power-play time. DeAngelo has 13 points in his last 14 games and Fox has played well on the team’s top PP unit as the Rangers have scored on 20.8% of their chances over the past month. While Trouba puts up a lot of shots, hits and blocks, he has just one point in his last 12 games and isn’t very valuable in fantasy leagues that favour offensive production.

Thriving