At about the halfway point of the (fantasy) season, it seems an appropriate time to take stock of what we thought compared to where various players have landed. We have had enough games played for most teams that we should be able to draw some conclusions, or at least have some idea of where players are headed. There are a number of players who are doing something quite different than anticipated, so today we are going to take a look at a few of those players and see if we can pinpoint why.

This week on Frozen Tools: Unexpected Owns

For a bit of process here. To highlight players with big discrepancies we are going to be using some average draft position (ADP) numbers to get an idea of what managers were expecting from players and current owned percentages to get an idea of where managers are valuing players now. Essentially what we are looking for are players who weren't drafted or drafted late and are highly owned.

We are then heading over to Frozen Tool Player Profile to dig a little deeper into what is happening for that player. In this situation, we typically will be looking at the overall stats, the players' deployment info (time on ice, line mates etc.), and some of the 'advanced' stats.

One additional point to make here – we are going to be using ADPs, but all leagues have a slightly different size. We have a significant chunk of players who were not drafted – so they don't pose a comparison problem, but a ten-team league could have a few as 150 players used, and a 14-team league could have closer to 250.

To jump right in then, I wanted to start with the very high-owned players.

There are surprisingly few 100 percent owned players at this time – only nine. It is who you would generally expect (Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Nathan MacKinnon, Auston Matthews etc.) but the lowest drafted person on the list is Victor Hedman who has an ADP in the mid-20s, so end of the second round.

The more interesting list is when we drop the rostered percentage a bit. If we take it down to 90+ percent owned the list contains 83 players, but the latest drafted players are below.

Player Name	ADP	% Rostered
Joe Pavelski	209.5	91%
Marc-Andre Fleury	204.8	95%
Tyler Toffoli	180.2	91%
Semyon Varlamov	179.7	92%

Likely these are players that have popped up in your league. Joe Pavelski, Marc-Andre Fleury, and Tyler Toffoli are pretty surprising, but there was at least some expectation of Semyon Varlamov. Fleury was successfully pushing Robin Lehner for time (when it was thought to be Lehner's net) even before Lehner was injured, and has been running away with the opportunity. Pavelski has benefitted from a great bit of luck initially but has been a bit more what we expected recently. I did want to take a second and dive into Toffoli.

Tyler Toffoli:

As of this writing, Toffoli is on a 75-point pace, up from his 53-point pace in 2019-20 and from his career-high of 58. As of his last game, he was on a line with Brendan Gallagher and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. On the plus side, his total time on ice is up about 30 seconds from 19-20 and that is mostly on the power-play where he is a career-high two and a half minutes a game. All of that has led to a career-high shot-per-game rate. The issue for Toffoli is a high shooting percentage. His 18+ percent is quite a bit higher than his ten-to-eleven percent average. A return to historical shooting percentage would have lost him six of his 15 goals, which would lower his overall point pace to 55. That seems a pretty reasonable expectation going forward.

If we drop to 80-90 percent owned, we have 28 players and our lowest draft positions are listed below.

Player Name	ADP	% Rostered
James van Riemsdyk	ND	85%
Kevin Lankinen	ND	82%
Justin Faulk	217.2	80%
Vincent Trocheck	205.1	81%
Patric Hornqvist	178.6	80%
Jakob Chychrun	166.9	80%

ND – Not Drafted

Significant ink has already been spent on James Van Riemsdyk and Kevin Lankinen so we won't touch on them here. Jakob Chychrun may be slightly unexpected in the level of his success, but many projectors were excited about his potential coming into this season, so we won't dive into his performance either.

Justin Faulk:

Managers definitely had low expectations for Faulk coming into the season. He made a splash by getting time on the top power-play unit, but as of the Blues' last game, he was seeing second power-play time (which is averaging less than a minute a game). He is also seeing several more minutes a night of total time on ice. He had a great string of games at the beginning of February but now doesn't have a point in his last four games. He is on a 35-point pace but he and his teammates are scoring too often at five-on-five. He may finish better than his 19-point pace from 2019-20, but even a 35 point pace is currently seeming optimistic.

Vincent Trocheck:

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Trochek has returned to life here in 2021. He is showing and exceeding the flash that he presented in 2017-18 in Florida. His current 82 point pace is definitely exciting and aligned with increases in his total time on ice, and power-play time. Unfortunately, his personal shooting percentage is definitely too high. If he was shooting at about his average pace it would drop him down to closer to a 60 point pace. He is scoring a bunch of the power-play so we might expect his percentage to be slightly higher than average, but a 60 point pace the rest of the season seems like his floor at this point.

Patric Hornqvist:

Another player, another resurrected career. In his more to Florida, Hornqvist has seen a bump in time on ice, and in power-play time. He has spent most of the season with Jonathan Huberdeau and Alex Wennberg and on the top power-play. His career-high 69-point pace actually looks really good. His shooting percentage is a touch high, but everything else looks just about right.

And finally, I wanted to touch on players who were generally undrafted but are now owned in more than 50 percent of leagues.

Player Name	ADP	% Rostered
James van Riemsdyk	ND	85%
Kevin Lankinen	ND	82%
Vitek Vanecek	ND	66%
Nick Suzuki	ND	65%
Joel Farabee	ND	62%
Kaapo Kahkonen	ND	62%
Chris Driedger	ND	57%
Matt Dumba	ND	56%
Jordan Staal	ND	54%

We have seen Lankinen and Van Riemsdyk already, and Vitek Vanecek and Joel Farabee have made similar splashes so I wanted to touch on Nick Suzuki and Jordan Staal.

Nick Suzuki:

Suzuki currently has a 56-point pace and has looked like a legitimate threat. He has been seeing just short of 19 minutes a night and just about two and a half minutes of power-play time. Montreal has been balancing time generally, so he might be maxed out deployment for the moment. He has apparently developed some good chemistry with Josh Anderson, putting up 12 points in his first 12 games, but has dropped off a bit recently with only five points over his last 13 games. The average 56-point pace looks very sustainable though.

Jordan Staal:

Staal is currently riding a career-high 78-point pace. He is seeing over 18 minutes a night (with varying linemates) and is on the top power-play. His 24% shooting percentage is a concern, but even if that were to return to his average he would still be on a 60 point pace (which would be a career-high). He is getting a large portion of his goals on the power-play, where we could expect him to have a higher percentage, so there is some hope there. Much like Trocheck, the current performance is too high, but there are some signs that more active production than usual might be somewhat sustainable.

That is all for this week. Thanks for reading.

Stay safe out there.

Want more tool talk? Check out these recent Frozen Tool Forensics Posts.