Hello everybody, hopefully everyone has enjoyed the holiday season, albeit without much NHL hockey to speak of lately. Since the season is on pause, I figured it would be a decent time to look back and reflect on some good and bad things from this fantasy hockey season. What players have exceeded our expectations or had breakthrough seasons? On the flip side, what players look to be busts heading into the new year? Go slap together a turkey sandwich then come back and enjoy my season in review!

Surprises

Nazem Kadri

The Colorado Avalanche are currently right in the midst of their window to contend for a Stanley Cup. After a devastating exit from last year's playoffs, the Avs have started off this season with mostly positive results. They find themselves in a very competitive Central Division, and a major reason they find themselves in the top half of their division has been the surprising resurgence of Kadri.

Throughout the course of the season, the Avs have dealt with injuries to some of their key players including Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon. With these top guys out of the lineup, Kadri picked up the slack in a major way. Through 24 contests, Kadri has scored 11 goals and added 27 assists for a total of 38 points. He has already surpassed his point totals in both of his last two seasons with Colorado, and he still has over half a season of hockey left to play. Kadri has found his most success playing in between Valeri Nichushkin and Andre Burakovsky.

Kadri has shown in the past during his time in Toronto that he definitely is capable of putting up 50-60 points. He's always been a high-volume shooter and he is a reliable hand on draws to boot. In Kadri's normal role as a middle-to-bottom six player, he's a solid streaming option on a week-to-week basis. But when he's going strong the way he has been this season, he's a real game-changer for your team. Obviously, he is somewhat infamous for his playoff suspension history. He definitely plays the game with an edge, somewhat to a fault at times, but there's no denying he's in a groove right now and he's been a huge asset to the Avs and fantasy owners alike.

Chris Kreider

The New York Rangers have been a curious case this season. While they have had a decent amount of success overall, offensively they have been a very middling team. They are ranked 18th in the league in goals scored, but despite that they still hold a 19-7-4 record, which is currently good enough for third in a very tough Metro Division. I find it very odd that they haven't lit the lamp a whole lot more this year. They have no shortage of players who can find the back of the net, so it's a bit of an anomaly.

One of the Rangers' key contributors has been Kreider. If I would have told you that Kreider would have more goals than Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin combined, you probably would have called me a lunatic, and rightfully so. Yet here we are, in the last week of the calendar year and Kreider has buried 18 goals already this season. Along with his eight assists, he has 26 points on the year already, and he is on pace to break his career bests in goals and points. 

A total of 11 of his 18 goals come on the man advantage, where Kreider has been absolutely lethal. His career best is 14 power-play points and he is already two off that mark not even halfway through the season. His high goal total can partially be attributed to his higher shot rate. He currently is averaging just under three shots per game, which is averaging out to be a career high. Another thing to note is Kreider's deployment has all been the best he's ever had. He's averaging 18:26 minutes per game, and he's been on the ice for 72.4 percent of the team's total power play time this season.  Clearly head coach Gerard Gallant trusts Kreider a ton to be using him so frequently.

Aside from the hot start Kreider has had offensively, he also is a great source of hits. He currently averages two hits per game, so he gives you some extra added versatility as well. It's too bad the NHL was forced to pull its players out of the Olympics, because I feel Kreider had played well enough to get him a spot on Team USA's roster. The 30-year-old winger has been red hot so far this season and has been a major catalyst for the New York Rangers' success. Hopefully he can keep things going when play resumes.

Disappointments

Tyler Seguin

I thought I was being so sneaky when I "sniped" Seguin off the draft board this year in my draft. In my mind, I thought Seguin could have major bounce-back potential after missing the majority of last season thanks to a major hip surgery. The Dallas Stars have a lot of solid players, and didn't seem to be a team on the decline. However, after 29 games played, I've gotta say I've been pretty let down with Seguin's results to this point.

The 29-year-old only has eight goals and four assists for 12 total points up to this point. Seguin, along with veterans Jamie Benn and Alexander Radulov have really lagged behind offensively this season. I had envisioned a season where Seguin would complement sophomore Jason Robertson and the two would thrive off each other. Robertson has definitely done his part (25 points in 23 games), but the same cannot be said for Seguin. I'm not sure whether he just has lost a step since his injury or perhaps it's something else that's holding him back. He used to be a lock for 70 points for quite some time, so to see his production dip this dramatically is obviously disappointing. 

The Stars are currently 15-12-2 and are in a very competitive Central Division. They will definitely need Seguin and the other veterans on the team to step up their play if they want to have a chance to make the playoffs this year. If Seguin's offense can stabilize, he can be a very useful player in fantasy as well. He shoots a decent volume and he can earn you supplemental faceoff wins from the right wing too since he is dual-eligible at center and right wing.

Philipp Grubauer

This one is kind of a hard one to analyze and maybe it's even a little unfair. Grubauer went from playing for one of the league's top clubs in the Colorado Avalanche to being the number one goalie for the expansion Seattle Kraken. There's probably a lot of recency bias when measuring expectations for both Grubauer, and the Kraken as a whole. Grubauer had sparkling numbers last season with the Avs, and this season, well… it hasn't gone as well to say the least. 

A lot of hockey fans will look at what the Vegas Golden Knights have accomplished in their infancy years and assume that's the status quo for all expansion teams going forward. It really isn't as easy as Vegas has made it seem. The Kraken are at the bottom of the Pacific Division with a record of 10-17-3. While they clearly aren't a top-tier team in their first season, I do think they are a pretty solid team all things considered. 

The team has averaged 3.57 goals against per game, which is in the bottom three of the entire league. While you may be quick to point fingers at the blueline, Grubauer definitely deserves part of the blame. There's a statistic that is called Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAx), which accounts for either letting in stoppable goals or taking away goals that should have been scored. Grubauer ranks dead last in that category at -20.5. 

Of his 23 starts this season, only five of them have qualified as quality starts. With a sub .900 save percentage, Grubauer simply has not been good enough. Some of this should be expected, but I certainly didn't imagine the drop-off to be this dramatic. Hopefully he can find his game in the second half of the season!

Well folks, that's the last article for me in 2021. It's been another crazy year but hopefully we can fight through this latest wave of COVID and get the NHL season back on track as quickly as possible. Hopefully all of you guys stay healthy and safe over the holidays. I'll be back on January 2 for my first Geek of the Week of 2022! Cheers!