The first round of playoff matchups have wrapped, and we will return to them in a couple of weeks for some takeaways, but for now we are going to continue our review of the most valuable player at each position. Thus far we have covered centers and right wings. This week we are moving on to left wings.

Quick notes on data from first article:

For the purposes of this article, we are going to use standard Yahoo point scoring to come up with a value for each player. That (unfortunately) includes plus/minus, and categories like hits and penalty minutes in addition to goals, assists, and power-play points…The draft position data was pulled from Yahoo at the start of the season, and only for the top 200 players. 200 was picked as it is a round number that is a reasonable (if slightly low) approximation for a lot of leagues and it is a pain to export data from Yahoo. It also will not completely match Yahoo's current ADPs as those will take into account drafts that took place once the year began….Oh and we are pulling all of the season data from Frozen Tool's Multi-Cat report to ensure we get those hits, blocks, PIMs, and plus/minus.

Who were 2021-22's highest scoring left wings?

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS/G	Fantasy Pts	Fantasy Rank
BRADY TKACHUK	L	OTT	79	0.85	832.2	3
JONATHAN HUBERDEAU	L	FLA	80	1.44	831.2	4
JOHNNY GAUDREAU	L	CGY	82	1.40	752.5	8
KIRILL KAPRIZOV	L	MIN	81	1.33	748.9	10
ANDREI SVECHNIKOV	L	CAR	78	0.88	742.8	11

Overall our top five left wings are ranked much higher than our right wings. Our 5th ranked right wing was 45th, and honorable mentions went to Joe Pavelski (50), Sam Reinhart (53), and David Pastrnak (59). For left wings we honorable mention goes to Brad Marchand (16), Alex Ovechkin (17), Chris Kreider (20), Filip Forsberg (30), Kevin Fiala (32), Jake Guentzel (33), and Gabriel Landeskog (36)  all in the top 36 (so ranked higher than our fifth ranked right winger) and Artemi Panarin (47) and Pavel Buchnevich (48) just after. Some of this is position eligibility, and depends where you draw from. Yahoo has several of these players as multi-wing eligible so for the purposes of your fantasy league you may have been able to slot them in at either position.

In this league construct, it is clearly good to be a Tkachuk. Matthew Tkachuk led the right wings (and the league) and here is Brady Tkachuk leading the left wings. Jonathan Huberdeau, Johnny Gaudreau, and Kirill Kaprizov sort of break the previous mold here though. We have typically seen our top ranks littered with players who are contributing much stronger in the peripheral categories. The honorable mentions list clearly has them, with Marchand, Ovechkin, Forsberg, and Landeskog filling out the categories well.

Andrei Svechnikov vs Marchand is a really interesting comparison. They had fairly similar goal, PIM, plus/minus, shot, and block numbers. Marchand had higher assists and power-play points, but Svechnikov had much higher hits. Turns out that 100 extra hits are quite a bit more valuable in this format than 10 assists and five power-play points.

Our next list is the attempt to take expectations and draft position into effect. We take all of our players' fantasy output compared to their ADP and get the trend line equation. Then by knowing a player's ADP we can estimate the amount of points the average player drafted in that position would have gotten and compare that to the points each player actually put up.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS/G	Fantasy Pts	Fantasy Rank	Expected Points	Point Difference
CHRIS KREIDER	L	NYR	81	0.95	672.5	20	317.42	355.08
PAVEL BUCHNEVICH	L	STL	73	1.04	560.1	48	273.41	286.69
BRADY TKACHUK	L	OTT	79	0.85	832.2	3	547.25	284.95
JONATHAN HUBERDEAU	L	FLA	80	1.44	831.2	4	563.55	267.65
KEVIN FIALA	L	MIN	82	1.04	623.3	32	367.95	255.35
JOHNNY GAUDREAU	L	CGY	82	1.40	752.5	8	506.5	246.00
FILIP FORSBERG	L	NSH	69	1.22	624.3	30	390.77	233.53
KIRILL KAPRIZOV	L	MIN	81	1.33	748.9	10	542.36	206.54
ANDREI SVECHNIKOV	L	CAR	78	0.88	742.8	11	543.99	198.81
TYLER BERTUZZI	L	DET	68	0.91	457.6	105	292.97	164.63

Again here we are looking at a lot of value on draft day. Our tenth ranked right winger outperformed his rank by only about 70 points. At center, that value was still around 120, but at left wing we are up at 165-ish.

Each of our overall top five is included on the above list, which isn't too surprising, but it does show that even though they were drafted reasonably high, they were worth the investment. Some other interesting names here are Chris Kreider and Kevin Fiala.

Chris Kreider isn't really a surprise at this point. He had just an absolutely massive season, increasing his previous high point pace by 20 points. It essentially all came by way of power-play goals. Where his 26 eclipsed last year's career high of 11.

Kevin Fiala is also worth mentioning as he finished the season with 85 points in 82 games. The real reason why that is noteworthy though is that as of December 16 he was on a 50-point pace and had lost much of his power-play time and strong even strength linemates. There was nothing in his numbers indicating he would be a big presence going forward, let alone the fifth most valuable left wing by the end of the season (ahead of guys like Filip Forsberg and Johnny Gaudreau). He proceeded to put up 68 points in his final 58 games including a 12-game point streak starting on Jan 1st. Completely unrelated additional fact. Matt Boldy started his career skating with Fiala on January 6. Coincidence? You be the judge.

Our most valuable list wouldn't be complete without looking at players who weren't drafted at all (at least according to our data set – ADP over 200).

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS/G	Fantasy Pts	Fantasy Rank
IVAN BARBASHEV	L	STL	81	0.74	548.1	52
NICOLAS DESLAURIERS	L	MIN	81	0.16	535	57
ALEX KILLORN	L	T.B	82	0.72	518.6	67
LUKE KUNIN	L	NSH	82	0.27	514.8	71
MASON MARCHMENT	L	FLA	54	0.87	503.8	74

We have got to love the seasons the Ivan Barbashev and Mason Marchment put together. They both played for teams with very strong top nines, so while their deployment wasn't always the best (and while they certainly had ups and downs) they both always had someone good to play with.

Surprisingly Marchment's hit numbers are among the lowest of this group, but they were certainly enough to make him a value add through most of this season. He was a bit boom or bust with his 70-point pace broken up by three or more games without a point three times. That certainly isn't too remarkable for a third line player, but it is a bit more surprising for a guy who was on a 70-point pace. His three, three-point games, and a six-point game certainly boosted that overall pace.

Now I won't leave it entirely at that as there are a number of players who absolutely tanked their fantasy managers this season.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS/G	Fantasy Pts	Fantasy Rank	Expected Points	Point Difference
MAX PACIORETTY	L	VGK	39	0.95	308.8	297	530.95	-222.15
COLE CAUFIELD	L	MTL	67	0.64	219.7	453	423.37	-203.67
ANTHONY MANTHA	L	WSH	37	0.62	193.8	495	314.16	-120.36
NIKOLAJ EHLERS	L	WPG	62	0.89	394.1	164	499.98	-105.88
DOMINIK KUBALIK	L	CHI	78	0.40	255.1	382	343.5	-88.40

If Mark Stone was represented on our right wing list, it is no surprise that Max Pacioretty is on this list as well. He missed significant time and like Stone, Pacioretty returned once or twice when he maybe wasn't quite ready and did not produce like himself.

I am a little surprised by how much Cole Caufield disappointed here. Clearly the beginning of his season was a disaster with only one point in his first 12 games and then sent down to the minors for a few weeks. He continued to struggle after that with only eight points in 31 games through February 8. A lot was made of his success though once Martin St. Louis became the coach (on February 9) and in fact he was essentially a point-per-game player from that point on.

Overall, Caufield had a 53-point pace, which sure is a bit of a disappointment, but compare it to Pacioretty for a moment. Pacioretty only played 39 games, pointed at a slower pace than his 2020-21 season, and was drafted much higher than Caufield at 35th overall. Taken all together I would have expected Pacioretty to have been a much worse draft selection than Caufield, but they are essentially identical. Sure, he missed some games so that is some of it, but it would have taken over a point-per-game pace, plus corresponding increases in shots and power-play points for Caufield to have balanced his sheet here. While that certainly could have happened, it seems like drafters were even higher on him than I had remembered. Players drafted after Caufield include Tyler Bertuzzi, Pavel Buchnevich, Chris Kreider, Kevin Fiala, and Filip Forsberg.  

Nikolaj Ehlers is also on this sheet as a disappointment, but he still put up a 73-point pace, the second highest of his career. That gap is likely due to his 20 missed games (and incidentally is more where I expected Caufield to be).

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