Top 10 Biggest Fantasy Disappointments of 2020-21

Tom Collins

2021-05-17

Now that the regular season is mostly over, it's time for fantasy general managers to take stock of the season and ask themselves: "Where did I go wrong?"

In one-year pools, it most likely fell apart at the draft before the season even began. For those in keeper pools, maybe you overpaid for a few players in a trade or two. Maybe you stubbornly held on to players for too long that weren't performing. Regardless of the reason, most of you are licking your wounds and waiting for next year.

Below are 10 players that frustrated fantasy owners this season. Injuries will not be the main factor for a disappointing season, so don't expect to see names such as Robin Lehner, Evgeni Malkin and Jack Eichel on this list.

10. Tony DeAngelo

This may seem like a cop-out, but DeAngelo's year deserves a mention. DeAngelo was taken as a top-20 defenseman in most drafts before the season began. In one of my one-year Yahoo leagues, DeAngelo was selected in the eighth round and was the 17th defenseman off the board. In another one, he was drafted in the seventh round, the 18th defenseman taken. It's reasonable to see why he was selected so high, considering last year he was running the Rangers' top power-play unit and finished with 15 goals, 53 points and 19 power-play points in 68 games. This year, he had one point in six games before he was kicked off the team. Since he finished with a minus-six in those six games, you could argue you would have been better off taking a player who spent the season in the KHL over DeAngelo.

9. Ryan Johansen

Johansen might be someone you need to stay away from next season as well. Last season, he put up an 82-game pace of 43 points. This year, that dropped to 38. That's two seasons in a row where he's been fantasy awful. His ice time is 2:30 per game less than what it was two seasons ago. His power-play production has dropped from 16 two years ago to nine to seven this year. He's taking only 1.4 shots per game. He's not a big hitter, doesn't get PIM or finish with a positive plus/minus. Stay away.

8. Kailer Yamamoto

Even though he played limited games last year, Yamamoto was one of the biggest surprises. He had 26 points in 27 games. A lot of that had to do with his chemistry with Leon Draisaitl, as Draisaitl played with Yamamoto on 94 per cent of Yamamoto's five-on-five shifts. This season, Yamamoto had 21 points in 52 games even though Draisaitl was still on the ice for 77 per cent of Yamamoto's five-on-five shifts. Sure, that's a drop, but it's still a lot of minutes with an elite player with little production to show for it.

7. Dylan Strome

Initially, it appeared as if Strome would be the top centre for the Blackhawks. After all, Jonathan Toews was out for an indeterminate amount of time with an undisclosed injury, and Kirby Dach was out due to a broken wrist. At the start of the season, Strome averaged 17:10 per game and was on the top power-play unit. By the end of the season, Strome averaged 14:01 a night and was a healthy scratch at times. Despite having eight points in his first 13 games, he had nine points in the next 27. Those 17 points in 40 games is an 82-game pace of 35. Considering he doesn't hit, shoot, block shots or win faceoffs, if he's not getting points, he's useless in fantasy.

6. Dylan Larkin

Even though he missed 12 games due to injuries, he still needs to be considered a disappointment. In 44 games, Larkin finished with nine goals and 14 points. That's a 43-point pace over 82 games, an enormous drop from an 82-game pace of 61 last year and 79 the previous year. He still averaged three shots per game and had 34 PIM, 38 hits and 361 faceoff wins, so it wasn't a complete disaster. However, the lack of production, power-play production and a minus-14 isn't enough for a player routinely selected in the top 80.

5. Pierre-Luc Dubois

📢 advertisement:

Dubois was terrible in his first season with the Jets. There was forgiveness at first, as he had to quarantine for two weeks, so he may have had some rust. Then there was getting used to new linemates and a new system, but he simply never got into a rhythm. He finished the season pointless in his last nine games (which would have hurt anyone vying for a championship). In 46 games, he finished with 21 points, 76 shots and six power-play points.

4. Patrik Laine

Sometimes I wonder if Laine regrets demanding a trade out of Winnipeg. It looked good for a while, as there was a great honeymoon period where Laine had six goals and 10 points in his first 10 games and it looked like Columbus fleeced the Jets. The rest of the season, he had four goals and 11 points in his final 35 games, during which time he was also a minus-26 with only 61 shots. We know Laine can be a 40-goal scorer, but he's not going to reach that if he's averaging 1.8 shots per game.

3. Taylor Hall

The Taylor Hall we saw in Boston was the Taylor Hall we thought we were going to see in Buffalo. With the Bruins, he had eight goals and 14 points in 16 games while playing on the second line. With the Sabres, he had two goals and 19 points in 37 games while playing on the top line and the top power-play unit. In those games in Buffalo, he was also a minus-21 with only six power-play points and 48 shots. He was pretty much fantasy irrelevant until he switched to Boston.

2. Brent Burns

While many may focus on Erik Karlsson's mediocre season (I dropped Karlsson in one league in February and never regretted it), Burns has also been inadequate. Last year was slightly terrible for him, but he was still taking more than two shots per game, averaging a hit per game, and was on pace for 53 points and 20 power-play points over 82 games. This year, all those numbers dropped. He had 29 points in 56 games, which would be an 82-game pace of 42 points. His 138 shots equal only 2.5 shots per game, which is still good but way below what he normally averages. His six power-play points were awful, and he only averaged about a hit every two games.

1. Carter Hart

Truthfully, there's plenty of goalies that could be on this list. On average, the top 10 goalies drafted in Yahoo pools were Andrei Vasilevskiy, Connor Hellebuyck, Carter Hart, Tuukka Rask, Robin Lehner, Jordan Binnington, Ilya Samsonov, Carey Price, Frederik Andersen and Igor Shesterkin. Only Vasilevskiy and Hellebuyck finished in the top 10 for goalies. Hart was easily the most disappointing of the bunch. Forty-six netminders played at least 20 games this season. Of that group, Hart was dead last in save percentage (0.877 SV%), last in goals against average (3.67) and tied for 43rd in wins. He finished the season with a losing record (9-11-5). He cost many fantasy general managers any chance of a successful season.

Leave A Comment

UPCOMING GAMES

Mar 19 - 19:03 DET vs CBJ
Mar 19 - 19:03 N.J vs PIT
Mar 19 - 19:03 PHI vs TOR
Mar 19 - 19:03 NYR vs WPG
Mar 19 - 19:03 BOS vs OTT
Mar 19 - 19:03 NYI vs CAR
Mar 19 - 20:03 NSH vs S.J
Mar 19 - 20:03 STL vs COL
Mar 19 - 21:03 EDM vs MTL
Mar 19 - 22:03 VGK vs T.B
Mar 19 - 22:03 L.A vs CHI
Mar 19 - 22:03 VAN vs BUF
Mar 19 - 22:03 ANA vs MIN

Starting Goalies

Top Skater Views

  Players Team
DANIIL MIROMANOV CGY
CONNOR MCMICHAEL WSH
CONNOR BEDARD CHI
EVGENY KUZNETSOV CAR
YEGOR SHARANGOVICH CGY

Top Goalie Profile Views

  Players Team
DUSTIN WOLF CGY
CHARLIE LINDGREN WSH
DANIIL TARASOV CBJ
DEVIN COOLEY S.J
JOEY DACCORD SEA

LINE COMBOS

  Frequency WPG Players
22.3 NINO NIEDERREITER ADAM LOWRY MASON APPLETON
22.2 MARK SCHEIFELE ALEX IAFALLO KYLE CONNOR
20.8 TYLER TOFFOLI SEAN MONAHAN NIKOLAJ EHLERS

DobberHockey Podcasts

FIND US ON FACEBOOK

📢 advertisement: