Ramblings: Arvidsson to LA, Coyotes Hire Tourigny, Shorthanded Contributors Worth Targeting (July 2)

Ian Gooding

2021-07-02

The Stanley Cup Final might not be over, but that doesn't have to stop teams from making trades. The first one happened on Friday, as the Kings acquired Viktor Arvidsson from the Predators for a 2021 second-round pick and a 2022 third-round pick. Mike has taken care of the Fantasy Take for this one. The Seattle expansion draft was reportedly a major factor in the trade, as Arvidsson and his $4.25 million cap hit appeared to be on the bubble as far as protection goes.

Arvidsson should easily slot in on the top 6 for the Kings. That being said, the shine for many Arvidsson owners has worn off, as he has been simply a 40-point player for the past two seasons on a Nashville team that has been in the lower half of the league offensively. Injuries have slowed him, as he dealt with an upper-body injury late in the season as well as 12 games missed with a lower-body injury in 2019-20. A fresh start in LA might help, but I'm not drafting him as the 30-goal scorer that he was from 2016-17 to 2018-19. Aside from Anze Kopitar, the Kings don't possess much in the way of current scoring threats (although they have a great prospect pool).

Whether you think Filip Forsberg's production will be negatively affected by the trade (I don't really think it is), Forsberg wasn't happy with the deal, weighing in on Instagram with his take.

Forsberg was the strongest offensive option on the Predators last season (39 GP, 32 PTS, 0.82 PTS/GP), so he should be fine without frequent linemate and fellow Swede Arvidsson.

The Coyotes have found a replacement for Rick Tocchet, hiring Andre Tourigny as their new head coach. Tourigny is an accomplished junior coach, not only recently coaching the Ottawa 67s of the OHL but also in leading Canada to a gold medal at the 2020 World Junior Championships. With the Coyotes under a tight budget cap-wise and possibly headed toward major changes (and no first-round pick), Tourigny will likely face an uphill battle in icing a team that will push for a playoff spot in the Central. (Yes, they are in the Central next season with the Seattle Kraken joining the Pacific.)

Tocchet was often able to get the most out of the Coyotes roster with a defense-first system. I wouldn't be surprised if Tourigny uses a similar approach, as he was the primary defensive coach for Patrick Roy when he coached the Avalanche. Because he has also worked primarily with junior-age players, Tourigny also seems like a good fit for a Coyotes roster that should feature more younger players than veterans.

I am not a big fan of the shorthanded points category in fantasy leagues because I think they are too infrequent to be taken seriously compared to other stats. Receive only one, and you might win that category that week. If you like a little bit of randomness and luck in your league, fine. You might also believe that shorthanded points should be included if your league counts power-play points.

I'm not trying to downplay the accomplishment of a shorthanded point. In fact, it might be more worthy of recognition than a power-play point because it was earned when the player's team was a man down and not a man up. So instead of making shorthanded points stand out, maybe it's a good idea to combine them with power-play points to create a special teams category. This is something I will consider when setting up one of my leagues next season.

Here are the shorthanded points leaders from the last three seasons, along with their power-play point totals.

NamePPPSHPPP+SH
BRAD MARCHAND801797
SEBASTIAN AHO591372
PATRICE BERGERON601272
VLADISLAV NAMESTNIKOV71118
MIKA ZIBANEJAD641175

Rather than discuss pure shorthanded contributors, I'll focus on special teams contributors for both power-play points and shorthanded points. From a points composition standpoint, these will be heavily weighted on PPP. Think of this difference as being similar to the career point breakdown of the Gretzky brothers. Okay, maybe not that disproportionately balanced one way, but you get the idea.

It would be easy to say that a player like Vladislav Namestnikov would be worth targeting in a league that counts shorthanded points. That depends whether the league is deep enough to roster the type of player that averages just over two power-play points per season. The one shorthanded point that he would earn every few weeks wouldn't be worth all the power-play points that you would likely miss out on. So he is clearly not in the same category as the others on the list when it comes to shorthanded points.

Brad Marchand/Patrice Bergeron

I'll pair these two long-time Bruins together, since they have been a major part of a highly effective Boston penalty kill. Over those three seasons, the Bruins are third with a 83.1 PK% and in the top 10 with 21 shorthanded goals. Although Marchand and Bergeron have been used more as second-unit penalty killers, they have combined for 29 shorthanded points over the past three seasons.

Marchand in particular has been the special teams category killer. Only Oilers teammates Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl earned more combined special teams points this past season than Marchand (25), who also led the league with seven shorthanded points. Bergeron finished in a tie for third with six other players with four shorthanded points.

In terms of power play points only, Marchand is sixth over the past three seasons with 80 PPP. Add in shorthanded points and he moves up to third over that span, also behind the two Oilers. Note how much he contributes in shorthanded points compared to the top power-play point producers over the past three seasons.

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NamePPPSHPPP+SH
CONNOR MCDAVID1132115
LEON DRAISAITL1054109
BRAD MARCHAND801797
NATHAN MACKINNON93093
JONATHAN HUBERDEAU87087
DAVID PASTRNAK85085

Bergeron has been considered arguably the top two-way forward of his generation, having won the Selke Trophy four times. However, Marchand is deserving of some credit for his abilities in this area. This didn't go completely unnoticed by the NHL voters, as he finished ninth in Selke Trophy voting this past season.

Sebastian Aho

Aho is well-known as a shorthanded points contributor, having chipped in five shorthanded points in both 2018-19 and 2019-20 before finishing with three in 2020-21. Over the past two seasons, he has been used in a similar capacity compared to Marchand in penalty killing, receiving around 30% of his team's shorthanded minutes on what would amount to second-unit minutes.

If it's shorthanded goals that you need, Aho is your guy. Over the past three seasons, Aho leads the league with 11 shorthanded goals. No player has more than eight shorthanded goals during that span. Since 11 of Aho's 13 shorthanded points are in fact goals, he would receive a further uptick in value in terms of point composition. In terms of raw shorthanded points, Aho is a clear second on this list behind Marchand.

The Hurricanes tied for fourth in the league with seven shorthanded goals. Part of the reason for their success in this category is that Rod Brind'Amour is not afraid to use more aggressive tactics on the PK, such as deploying offensive-minded players such as Aho, Martin Necas (2 SHG) and Dougie Hamilton (1 SHG).

Mika Zibanejad

The Rangers center actually finished with more shorthanded points (4) than Aho in 2020-21, which included two shorthanded goals. Only defensemen Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren finished with a higher percentage of shorthanded minutes than Zibanejad (47.0 SH%), so he's even more of a key penalty killer than the forwards listed above. No forward with a higher percentage of shorthanded minutes finished with more points than Zibanejad (50 points).

After finishing with 20+ PPP over his previous three seasons, Zibanejad dipped to just 14 power-play points in 2020-21. This had to do with an ice-cold start and of course a shortened season (56 GP). His 2019-20 total of 27 PPP was over only 57 games, so there's tremendous room for growth in both the power-play and shorthanded categories.   

On a side note, this shorthanded icetime total builds the argument for Fox as a deserving Norris Trophy winner – a top-scoring blueliner who is not compromised defensively. There are lots of analytics to back up Fox's cause as well, although I won't get into them here.

The Tim Hortons app isn't letting me make my picks in the morning, but good luck if you are making any picks. Generally speaking, I'm tempted to go with Montreal players here. After having a much better Game 2 than Game 1, I think the Habs will win Game 3 to make it into a series. I'll have a recap of the game and more in tomorrow's Ramblings.

Happy Canada Day to those of you north of the border. Hopefully you took the time to enjoy the day as well as take a moment of self-reflection regarding the recent news events there.  

For more fantasy hockey discussion, or to reach out to me, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding

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