Now that we have a decent sample size behind us, I want to take a look at our expectations for players going into the season. Well, to be a bit more specific we are going to review which players are doing unexpected things so far this season. The idea is to take a look at some preseason projections and compare that to players' current performance and see how things are shaping up.

This week on Frozen Tools Forensics: Early Season Surprises.

As is a theme for this column we are going to export the Big Board report as today the focus is going to be on point pace. We have, and will again, return to looking at comparisons like time on ice or other metrics that can help us predict points, but for today let's keep it simple and focus on the most important fantasy categories of goals and assists. The tables below will show some of the basics of the Big Board report like goals, assists, and 82 game pace, but I have inserted a couple of columns that display a preseason projection for each player and the difference between the two paces.

The data source for the preseason projection is an early Dobber Guide reference. The guide, as those who purchase will be aware is updated as we learn more so as to be as accurate and helpful as possible going forward. For the purposes of this column though, I was interested in what have been the biggest changes since we were preparing for our drafts, and not necessarily how closely do players’ current paces reflect the most up-to-date guide, so I selected a guide from early September when folks were prepping for and just starting to draft.

Just as an aside, given an unusual schedule week because of American Thanksgiving (mostly for myself, and a little bit because of the hockey schedule) the reporting of paces, streaks etc. is as of Tuesday 11/23. Many teams will have played an additional game since then so some numbers may look slightly different.

To start, we are going to look at the boring players. The ones who are doing exactly what we thought they would be doing preseason.

Now with 500 some odd projections clearly a lot will likely be close. Quite a few of the players are not very exciting as they are likely not owned in most leagues. I separated it out by defense and forwards so I could apply a points per game threshold and still give reasonable results.

It is a really interesting mix of players. Some young, some on new teams, and one or two consistent situations.

For skaters I applied a half point per game cutoff as there were quite a few players scoring at or below that rate who were right on the money, but are less interesting for our purposes..

Love to see those strong starts for Anze Kopitar and J.T. Miller were exactly what we should have expected.

Now let's turn our attention to the surprises thus far. First up; slow starts.

We have a few new guys who haven't worked out yet in Cole Caufield and Dmitrij Jaskin, but some real surprises on the list too.

Elias Pettersson's 43-point pace is a far cry even from his 66-point pace from 20-21, let alone the expectations for him. On the surface things seem to be ok (other than the miserable point pace). His shot rate and total time on ice have increased from 20-21 and his power-play time is holding pretty steady north of 70 percent of his team's total. He is still also spending most of his playing time with J.T. Miller (who is doing well), and Brock Boeser (not so much), which is as good as it gets in Vancouver. His expected goal numbers are a bit lower than previous seasons, but other than that everything else screams rebound. His personal and teammates' shooting percentages are really low, so quite a few more points should be coming with him on the ice. Vancouver is a bit of a mess right now so we might not be looking at a full rebound, but we should not expect this to be the new normal for Pettersson.

Blake Wheeler is getting up there in age, but he was still projected for a reasonable season in a lot of preseason rankings, Dobber's included. His 32-point pace at age 35 though has managers wondering if he is just plain done. Wheeler's overall time on ice is up over 19 minutes a night, his power-play time remains strong, his shot rate consistent, his expected goal rate is actually higher than last season and though Winnipeg has shuffled lines a bit he is still in the top six and lining up with Mark Schiefle on the power-play (though unfortunately Schiefele is also on this list). These are all really positive signs. The main culprit here is that he has zero goals on 28 shots, his teammates' shooting is criminally low while he is on the ice, and even when there have been goals he is less likely to have gotten in on them. Either he and all of his teammates fell off a cliff over the summer or things are going to get better for Wheeler. While it is certainly possible he won't get back to the 75-point pace (aging is real after all), the only things wrong with his game at the moment appear to be a string of really bad luck.

There are a lot of players we could touch on here. A lot has already been written about Troy Terry and Alex Ovechkin's starts, and what else is there left to say about Leon Draisaitl? So I would like to start with Nazem Kadri.

Kadri is currently on a 126-point pace and has points in nine straight games including six multipoint games. It amounts to 19 points during that span, eight of which are coming on the power-play. He has been skating most of his shifts with Andre Burakovsky and Valeri Nichuksin, but seeing most of Colorado's power-play time with 100 percent of Colorado's five minutes against Seattle on 11/19.

Last season Kadri put up a 47-point pace. It should be pretty clear that Kadri is not a 126-point player and that this streak is likely not sustainable. His own personal shooting percentage is actually not all that high, but his teammates are shooting way too high while he is on the ice, he is getting in on way too many of the goals (both at even strength, and on the power-play), and he has been seeing increased minutes with all of the injuries that Colorado has been dealing with. All of that is likely going to come crashing down at some point, but Kadri is still seeing almost two minutes more a night on average (the highest of his career). I am definitely willing to upgrade his future point pace from last season's 50, but as he has not eclipsed a 55-point pace when playing more than 50 games, I definitely want to see how things are shaking out once everyone is healthy.

Matt Duchene (and much of this applies to Mikael Granund too) is currently putting up a career-high point pace. He is seeing over 19 minutes a night of total ice time (up almost three and a half minutes from 20-21), plus an increase in power-play time as well. His shooting percentage is too high up over 20 – same for his teammates while he is on the ice, and he is getting in on a much higher percentage of points than in recent seasons, but he has had seasons that look like this before, and the last time it happened he ended up with about 80 points. The point is some of this looks unsustainable, but some of it only looks remarkable because the last two seasons were so disappointing.. So, sure, point-per-game plus might be a little much but 70? 75? Definitely in the realm of possible with the increased minutes.

That is all for this week

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