We are back at it this week, and going to dive into the fun topic of fourth year breakouts. The mythical fourth year is often pegged as a perfect breakout opportunity, with reason. We have a ton of examples of players who broke out in their fourth year. It might be that it takes most young players a few years to adjust and grow into the NHL. It might be that GMs and coaches take a few years to put these players into positions of prominence, or it could just be some preconceived bias we have as fantasy managers.

Any way you slice it, there will be some players who break out in their fourth year, and we have some reports that can help us take a look at candidates. Specifically, there are two reports on the Frozen Tools Reports page, 4th Yr Breakout, and Next Yr Breakout. We will be looking at both today: One to check on who were 2020's breakouts, and who might be up next.

Process description this week: I ran the reports for the 2020 season, exported them, added a PTS/G column and ranked by that metric. I also added a cutoff of 15 games to eliminate any player who just played a few games. For this week we are going to focus on forwards so any defensemen were also removed.

Oh, and all point pace references are projecting out over a full 82-game season.

2020 Fourth Year Breakouts

I was going to list the top ten, but it didn't really seem fair to list Filip Chytil and not Nico Hischier, so what we have here is all players who performed above a half point per game.

Our definition of breakout is important here. There are really only two players who provided reasonably consistent fantasy relevant production: Alex Debrincat and Martin Necas (maybe three if you want to include Jesper Bratt). It is a little bit hard to call Debrincat a breakout as he put up a 76-point pace in 18-19, and Bratt's 53-point pace was exactly his pace in 2018-19 – so definitely not a breakout.

Other players on this list had spurts of relevance – folks like Jordan Greenway, Alex Iafallo, Denis Gurianov, and Casey Mittelstadt. Iafallo actually had a bit of a down year, but Guiranov, Greenway, and Mittelstadt gave flashes of performance that makes me more interested in what they can do next season. They all saw improvements for sure, but it is hard to call it a breakout when they failed to break the 50-point pace barrier. 

That basically leaves us with Martin Necas. The Hurricanes forward definitely fit the bill putting up a 63-point pace, up from a 2019-20 season at a 46-point pace. The best part is it looks real. His personal and team five on five shooting percentages look just about right – and basically all of his other metrics are perfectly in line with his prior year. He just got almost three more minutes a night of icetime. Some of that was on the penalty kill, which isn't ideal for his scoring metrics, but he did get a good turn on the top power-play as well when Vincent Trocheck was out. That is a bit of a double-edged sword as he was pretty productive during that opportunity, which he might not get in the future, but he did still put up nine power-play points in 2019-20, only two fewer than in 2020-21. Overall Necas looked good in 2020 and the 63-point pace was very likely sustainable. His next big jump will need to be consistent time on the top power-play.

2021 Fourth Year Breakouts

The above list were the most productive players in 2020-21. Honestly this group was generally more productive than the fourth-year players. I see Roope Hintz, Elias Pettersson, Conor Garland, Andrei Svechnikov, and Brady Tkachuk as already having broken out so to speak and are well known in fantasy circles. That leaves us with Jordan Kyrou, Drake Batherson, Maxime Comtois, and Eeli Tolvanen as sort of in the same boat as Greenway et al from above, except this group was generally already more productive and we could make an argument that for some of them that they have already reached that breakout status.

I wanted to cut out the players who were already getting a chunk of ice time. As we saw with Necas that is a huge factor in a player putting up unexpected scoring. The following players fit a cut off of less than 15 minutes total time on ice.

We can see that our bigger-name players have disappeared, leaving us with a pretty reasonable list of players who performed pretty well in smaller chunks of time.

Jordan Kyrou

Kyrou was tied for fifth in points per game with Brady Tkachuk, and with a 52-point pace in his third season (up from 26), so we could argue he has already broken out. What is great about Kyrou though is that his 52-point pace was while he was averaging 14.5 minutes a night and only about a minute on the power-play. Some of his percentages were a little high (personal shooting, five-on-five shooting, and secondary assist), but not alarmingly so and he only has room to grow. His prospect report has had him vacillating a bit between first- and second-line potential. Opportunity remains the only question. The Blues lost Jaden Schwartz, but gained Pavel Buchnevich, while Vladimir Tarasenko's future is a bit in question. Kyrou would need consistent top six and/or strong power-play deployment to add to his game, but the potential is definitely there.

Eeli Tolvanen

I (and many others) have been eyeing Tolvanen for years. In his short career he already feels like he has had too many chances and failed to perform. And then the 2020-21 season happened. From the end of February to the beginning of April he played 22 games and put up 18 points (a 67-point pace). He also seemed to be the final missing piece for Nashville's perennially broken power-play. This is definitely enough to get him back on the radar for next season though he definitely slowed and was inconsistent to finish the season. I am watching to see if he can hang on to that top power-play spot for more of the season, and see a bit more time at even strength.

Colin Blackwell and Mason Appleton

Two different players, with slightly different roles on their previous teams, but what they share is a move to Seattle. Neither were particularly offensive during the season, though both had short spurts where they were worth rostering in some leagues. The big question is where will they line up in Seattle and can they see more than a minute of power-play time, and 14 or so minutes of total ice time. Most current lineup projections have them out of the top six, but we will have to wait a little longer and see what shakes out in training camp before jumping to any conclusions.

That's all for now. Stay safe out there.

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