And here we are. Finally back. We have actual game data to look at and it feels great. I am sure many of you (like me) have been following along with the multitudes of fantasy advice out there, panic dropped at least one person, picked up someone only to drop them two days later, and generally have just over-reacted to everything. There has been a ton of advice floating around on whether or not to add the newest flash in the pan (looking at you Joel Farabee) and who you should still be hanging on to despite a cold start.

Today we are going to dispense with some of that advice for a moment and take a look at what you the wise manager populace have been up to. We are going to take a look at the most added and dropped players and try and examine the reasons for their movement and whether or not the group think is on to something.This week on Frozen Tool Forensics: Three Up, Three DownTo get started we are going to take a look at Yahoo's adds and drops (sorry, other platforms, we will move on from Yahoo very soon). These change on a daily basis as managers add and drop more players so it is important to note that this is pulled from Thursday morning, so by the time the article drops on Friday we will have another set of games and potentially some new shiny toys to consider.

First up we are going to look at the players who have been added the most. To really examine the situation our focus is going to be on three questions.

1. Why was this player added so much?
2. I added him. Should I regret it?
3. I missed out. Should I be disappointed?

The following table shows the top ten adds (all positions). We are going to be focusing on the players in bold.

Bobby Ryan:

The first question here is pretty obvious. People are adding Bobby Ryan because he is scoring. In fact he has four games in his first three games. That is as exciting as it is unexpected. The last time Ryan scored in three straight games was in 2017-18. 1382 of you found that (and his current 109 goal pace) a compelling reason to add him.

I suppose the real question here is should you 1382 be proud and excited by your decision or will you be dropping Ryan by the end of the weekend? I suppose it depends on exactly your expectations, but my guess is the latter. Sorry to say Ryan won't end on a 109-goal pace much less a helpful pace for most teams. The last time Ryan averaged more than .25 goals a game (essentially a 20-goal full season pace) was in 2015-16. That season he was getting just over 17 minutes of ice time and about three minutes on the power-play. More recently he has been on about a 15-goal pace over a full season (or about 11 goals over a shortened season like this one). The worse news is that in order to get that 15-goal pace he scored seven times on the power-play with two and a half minutes of power-play time. This season he has been averaging a minute and a half on the man advantage and less than 13.5 total minutes on ice. His line mates have been shifting a bit too, and without consistent exposure to Dylan Larkin it seems unlikely Ryan will continue to thrive. Oh, and he has scored four goals on seven shots. Not exactly a recipe for success. Long story short I am not seeing a lot here that makes me think this will be a long-term hold for anyone. I anticipate Ryan hitting the waiver wire again very soon in most leagues.

Miles Wood:

Wood has four points in his first three games, though in the form of three goals and one assist. He also has eleven shots to Ryan's seven. This is clearly the reason for all of the adds. The kid is on fire. The question then is should managers be upset that they missed out on the opportunity?

There are definitely more positive signs for Wood than with Ryan. His three goals on eleven shots is too many, but still better than Ryan's. His time on ice looks better too with an average of 15.5 minutes of time (up two minutes from 19-20), and over 17 minutes in his most recent game. He has also averaged over two minutes of power-play time over the first three games, about a minute more than at any other point in his career.

A 109-point pace isn't going to happen, but we do have a recipe here for a career best. Given that he only needs to break a 35 point pace for that to be true I will leave the decision on whether to regret your add to you, but it might be worth hanging on for a little bit to find out.

Tyler Toffoli:

Toffoli's season is mirroring Wood's in a lot of ways. He has three goals, one assist, and 12 shots over four games. He is averaging about 16 minutes of ice time over those games, and about two and a half minutes on the power play. Clearly managers have been adding him because of the goal production – which consists of a hattrick in his most recent game. His goal pace won't continue (shocking I know), but there are some reasonable signs here.

Toffoli is a player with a bit of a checkered past with point paces ranging from about 40 to the mid 50s. The question then seems to be: is he aiming to be a mid to high 50s player or not? There are a couple of trends that can help us here. In his recent career Toffoli has had the most success when he is getting over 16 minutes of time on ice, with more than two minutes of that on the power-play. In addition to that he also needs a shooting percentage above 10% (or slightly higher than his career average). We are essentially hoping for a repeat of 19-20 or (or maybe 18-19 but with a better shooting percentage). The good news is that he is hitting his time on ice needs and is seeing the most power-play time of his career. The bad news is the ceiling is still likely 55 points (both because he plays for the Canadiens who spread the offense around, and because of his personal history). He is one of many Canadien players who might be worth owning for stretches of time, but a full season hold does not seem likely in most leagues.

And now on to the top drops. Who should we regret having dropped in a fit of panic?

We should briefly mention Joe Thornton. It looks like he may be out for a while so this one is pretty logical. He had some value if points/assists are the only thing you need, but who knows when he will return and what the lineup will be like at that point.

Conor Garland:

Garland has no points in his last two games and as such has now been dropped in 303 leagues. I will be honest this one is a bit confusing to me. I suppose two pointless games against Vegas and two more against Vegas coming up has people down on Garland figuring this isn't the week to stream him, but big picture three points in four games and 15 shots looks pretty good.

Looking a little deeper, he has averaged almost 17 minutes a night (a three minute improvement from 19-20, has over three and a half minutes of power-play time (up a minute and a half), and a shooting percentage that unlike all of the above adds is really low (6.7% vs his 12% average). He is not playing wil Phil Kessel or Clayton Keller, and does not appear to be on the top power-play. He also plays for Arizona, which like Montreal tends to lower a player's ceiling. If he is available in your league please go at least add him to your watchlist. If this playing time continues, we could be seeing a career best from Garland (he was just shy of a 50-point pace with 14 minutes of total time and two minutes of power-play time)

Robert Thomas:

Ownership was reasonably high for Thomas to start the season as he was getting some excellent deployment and managers were hoping for a next step in his career. After a good start with two assists in his first game, he has now gone three straight with nothing. His most recent game was below twelve minutes of total time on ice as well. He is currently lining up with Mike Hoffman and Tyler Bozak on what seems to be a third line and seeing a minimal increase in power-play time.

Dropping him seems relatively reasonable if his 2019-20 season wasn't worth owning in your league. The opportunity increase doesn't seem to be materializing at the moment, though playing with Hoffman and Bozak is certainly an improvement.

Justin Faulk:

Faulk is an interesting one as he is on both of these lists. Either he was picked up by a lot of folks and is now being dropped or we have a lot of people looking at the same data and making very different conclusions. We have quite a few more managers who are picking him up though so maybe we assume managers actually like what they are seeing.

For Faulk himself, he has two goals in one game, but his other three have been pretty uneventful. He is playing more minutes than in his last St. Louis season, which is good, but essentially getting no power-play time (behind both Torey Krug and Vince Dunn at the moment) which is not. He took eight shots in the one game where he had two goals (though outside of that game he hasn't shot much) and has been hitting. If those levels of peripherals are valuable, sure keep him – but there isn't too much that is exciting about Faulk at the moment.

That is all for this week. Thanks for reading.

Stay safe out there.

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