Offensive zone start percentages may not be a category in your fantasy league, but it might go a long way to determining who might be the next big breakout candidate.

Usually, players with high offensive zone starts are broken into two categories: Elite scorers and those who are awful on defense. However, starting in the offensive zone can lead to more scoring opportunities. After all, a player starting in the offensive zone 65 percent of the time should be getting more scoring opportunities as it should be easier starting 15 feet from the other team’s net instead of 200 feet.

Here are 10 players who had high offensive zone starts this past season (minimum 20 games). Let’s not include the obvious players such as Patrick Kane and Alex Ovechkin. Instead, let’s focus on some of the players you might not realize were as high as they were. For context, remember that even most of the top elite players hover around 60 percent: Auston Matthews was at 61.4 percent this past season, Cale Makar had 60.1 percent, Nikita Kucherov at 58.7 percent, Sidney Crosby with 63.2 percent and Connor McDavid at 57.4 percent.

For the curious, the all-time highest offensive zone starts since the NHL began keeping track in 2009-10 was 84.8 percent by Mike Ribeiro in 2015-16 (minimum 15 games played) and he was routinely around 70 percent or higher in the last four years of his career.

10. Thomas Harley

The 20-year-old Harley had a forgettable rookie season, with four points in 34 games (and two of those points came in the last three games). He had zero power-play time and averaged fewer than 14 minutes a night. However, he started in the offensive zone 65.5 percent of the time, the second highest among all rookies last season and tops for rookie defensemen. With John Klingberg now in Anaheim, there will be even more offensive zone starts available. Harley may be able to poach some of those and hopefully start getting more offense.

9. Owen Tippett

Tippett will be an interesting case this season. Last year, he started in the offensive zone for 63.8 percent of his shifts while with the Panthers. Then he was dealt to Philly, where that number dropped to 51.5 percent. Both numbers make a lot of sense. Florida is a great team and always on the offense, so they would get a lot more draws in the offensive zone. Philly is the opposite and therefore doesn’t get as many offensive zone faceoffs draws. Now there’s a new coach in Philly in John Tortorella, so it’s tough to say if the 51.5 percent last year will be the new normal for Tippett or if he can expect a lot more offensive zone starts.

8. Dylan Strome

Strome’s offensive zone starts are generally in the 53-59 percent range, but this season was more extreme as he started in the offensive zone 70.7 percent of the time. That’s easily the highest of his career (if you exclude 2016-17 when he played only seven games), and the third highest among all forwards this year. A big reason for that 70.7 percent is that he spent much of the season with Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat, two offensive players who always have high offensive zone start percentages. Strome is now in Washington, and with Alex Ovechkin taking the majority of those offensive zone starts, don’t be surprised to see Strome’s numbers taking a nosedive. If he was still in Chicago, he’d be much higher on this list.

7. Sonny Milano

Although much of his production came in the first half of the season, Milano just finished the best campaign of his time in the NHL. He reached career highs in games (66), goals (14), assists (20), points (34), power-play goals (5), power-play points (10), power-play time on ice (2:09 per game) and overall ice time (15:17). It helped that he played regularly on the top line with Trevor Zegras, and that line received plenty of offensive zone starts. In fact, Milano started 70.7 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone. Milano is an unrestricted free agent, so his odds of continuing his great season will depend greatly on where he re-signs. If he does wind up back in Anaheim, he could be a sneaky breakout player for this season.

6. Rickard Rakell

Rakell has been an overrated player in fantasy hockey the past couple of years, thanks to a couple of great seasons when he had back-to-back 30-plus goal campaigns and a 73-point pace in 2017-18. However, since then, he’s topped out at 20 goals once and an 82-game pace of 53 points. Now in Pittsburgh, he should be able to live up to expectations. Last season, he started in the offensive zone for 62.6 percent with Anaheim, and 63.4 percent in Pittsburgh. He didn’t exactly wow in Pittsburgh (13 points in 19 games, with 12 of those points coming in five games), but high offensive zone starts and more time to form chemistry with Sidney Crosby will help Rakell.

5. Seth Jarvis

It’s not unusual to see rookies get plenty of offensive zone starts, even if they are not averaging as much ice time per game as many of us would hope for. The 20-year-old Jarvis was a bit of a surprise in his rookie season, finishing with a 48-point pace and averaging a hit per game. He started in the offensive zone 60.2 percent of the time, the highest among any Carolina Hurricane and tied for sixth-highest among rookie forwards.

4. Jesse Puljujarvi

As mentioned in the intro, it’s common for elite players to have high offensive zone percentages. After all, you want them on the ice in an offensive role as often as possible. But Puljujarvi is not elite, and still led the Oilers last season in offensive zone starting percentage at 60.6 percent. By comparison, Connor McDavid was at 57.4 percent while Leon Draisaitl was at 51.8 percent. In case you were wondering if the signing of Evander Kane changed anything, it didn’t. Before Kane, Puljujarvi was tops on the team at 63.9 percent. After Kane signed, Puljujarvi was second on the team at 56 percent.

3. Jack Roslovic

I’ve started seeing some love for Roslovic having a big breakthrough season this year, mostly on the assumption he will be lining up alongside Johnny Gaudreau. Roslovic had 34 points in 48 games two years ago, and a career-high 22 goals and 45 points in 81 games this season. Roslovic has always been a high offensive zone starter (in his last four years, he’s been at 59.4 percent, 56.9 percent, 66.4 percent and 66.1 percent this year), but it’s not even close on the Blue Jackets. The next closest forward this year was Cole Sillinger at 58.8 percent.

2. Alex DeBrincat

This is going to be a fun one to follow. In Chicago, lined up with Patrick Kane, DeBrincat started in the offensive zone for almost two-thirds of all of his shifts (64.4 percent, to be exact). That was a career high, although he is normally in the 50s percentile. Now he’s going to Ottawa, where Josh Norris, Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle and Drake Batherson were all at a minimum of 59.4 percent. Ottawa is going to lean heavily on these players, so expect plenty more offensive zone starts for DeBrincat.

1. Trevor Zegras

We already mentioned Zegras briefly when talking about Milano, but the team put Zegras in a position to succeed that not many rookies get. This past season, Zegras started in the offensive zone on 72.4 percent of his shifts. The only rookie forwards (minimum 15 games) who had a higher percentage since the NHL began keeping track of the stat in 2009-10 were Leon Draisaitl and Artemi Panarin. That’s pretty good company. That 72.4 percent was also the fourth highest among all forwards this season. If he continues that usage next season, with the talent that Zegras possesses, he could flirt with a point-per-game mark next season.