Ramblings – Why Huberdeau’s a Better Dynasty Own than Marner or Kaprizov (for now)… (Aug 08)

Dobber

2022-08-08

OUT NOW!

I released the Fantasy Guide on Thursday, that's right – a day early. Fixed two or three typos Friday, updated some RFA signings and a couple more typos on Sunday. So already updated twice. I don't like having a single thing wrong in this Guide. The best person to have putting together and updating a Guide is someone as obsessive as I am. You've seen it for 17 years. Pick up the Fantasy Guide here and immediately download both the PDF and the spreadsheet.

Also added Sunday – an update to the schedule article, adding a chart comparing teams that play on light days. Fantasy owners have found that one invaluable and we now have that in this year's Guide.

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Fantasy Hockey Geek also has this year's projections in the system, so have at it!

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One player that caught my eye while doing the Fantasy Guide was Damon Severson. Yes, I knew he had a good year. And yes, I knew he picked it up after Hamilton was sidelined. But after Hamilton returned, Severson was still seeing 2:50 in PPTOI per game (from February 24 onward) and had 19 points in 32 games overall – that's a 49-point pace. That's a great number while Hamilton is in the lineup. In all, Severson picked up 42 points in the last 60 games (a 63-point pace) after starting off slowly. He played primarily with Ty Smith during that first quarter of the season and that dragged his point totals down. Sometimes playing with a young player who isn't great in his own end will drag the veteran's totals down, as it did here.

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I was always a fan of the underdog Mason Appleton. Not as a potential star first-liner being held back, but as a potential mid-60s second liner. Drafted 168th overall, he was a high-scoring college player although never quite a point-per-game guy. He took quickly to pro hockey though, posting 66 points in 76 games as an AHL rookie for Manitoba. And that is what caught my eye. I also liked how he – a former sixth-round pick, mind you – would get called up to the Jets and make it so difficult to be sent down. However, he's 26 now and couldn't earn himself top-six ice time with Seattle of all teams. He's being used almost strictly defensively in Winnipeg, playing the difficult own-zone minutes and doing quite well with them. That tells me that he has found his niche as a third-line checker who can chip in depth offense, but likely not much more. I won't 100% pigeonhole him/rule him out until he has played his BT season (and that's this one coming up), but it doesn't look promising. He has played 206 career NHL games, meaning this will be his theoretical breakout if he were to have one. The Jets just signed him to a three-year-deal, buying two of his UFA seasons, at a cap hit of $2.167M. I have him projected in the Guide for 29 points and have not given him sleeper status for much more.

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And as Ian touched upon over the weekend, Vegas also came to terms with an RFA – Keegan Kolesar. This guy has been a Hits machine since coming into the league a year and a half ago. In fact, his Hits rate continues to increase. Since January 2 he was credited with 161 Hits in 43 games, which is an 82-game pace of 307! That would put him third in the NHL behind Radko Gudas and Tanner Jeannot, had he done the same rate in the first half. As it was, he still finished 10th with 246. But the 25-year-old also had 24 points and his shot volume was up to 1.2 per game. He's a sleeper in the Hits department to do even more than most projections will show, and he's also a sleeper for 10 goals and 30 points (I have him for seven and 21). Kolesar signed for three years at $1.4M AAV.

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On Saturday I posted my Top 300 keeper league players and I love getting comments on them. Sometimes I use them to make adjustments, especially on the prospect rankings, because hey – we're all a community so the more opinions on those guys the better. It's called "groupthink" and it helps. I will either adjust, or I'll explain myself. Since we're hurting for topics, I thought I'd explain myself on a great comment by user Steve.

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He asked me how Jonathan Huberdeau can be moved to a worse offensive team with worse linemates, get ranked ahead of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and Kirill Kaprizov, when they are each at least three to five years younger.

It's a good question, one I'm sure many of you have wondered similar over the years. I answered the comment briefly, but I can expand on it here. There are thousands of different leagues out there with slight rule variations. The rankings are geared towards points-only dynasty leagues (keep all players each year) and no injured reserve. You get what you get.

First of all, in the intro to these rankings I note that players within +/- 5.0 rating points of each other should be considered equal value, so I'm not going to discuss Matthews because the two are equal in this type of league. It comes down to your team needs or personal bias.

Secondly, this Calgary roster is the same roster – less Matthew Tkachuk – that Johnny Gaudreau just got 115 points on. Instead of playing with Elias Lindholm and Tkachuk, Huberdeau will have Lindholm and Toffoli. That's a big step down. But Huberdeau just got 115 points with Sam Bennett and either Owen Tippett or Anthony Duclair. So Lindholm and Toffoli are rather big steps up. On the power play he loses Aleksander Barkov, who was on the ice for 33 of his PPPts. Barkov's PP IPP was just 57.8%, meaning he probably assisted on or scored a Huberdeau-related power-play goal about 17 or 18 times. How much will Huberdeau miss that? Some, but they're a man up and it's Huberdeau. I can't see him losing more than two or three points on the power play, more than made up for with his improved linemates.

Third, he doesn't get hurt. We've established that his production will be safe. And now we can say that it's as risk-free as it gets. This pretty much rules out Marner from the discussion. And Nathan MacKinnon too, as he has missed at least eight games in each of the last two seasons.

Fourth and final, let's address the question of youth. Kaprizov should do just as well as Huberdeau, give or take five points. His production surged last season, what if it surges again? Well…Huberdeau's production surged as well. Huberdeau has missed three games in the last five seasons. His points-per-game has been 1.12, 1.13. 1.11 and 1.44. Money! As close to a (at the low end) 90-point guarantee as a player gets. Kaprizov is 25 and Huberdeau is 29. In a typical dynasty or deep keeper, a player stays on one fantasy team's roster for about two years. For an elite player, this average is probably closer to three. Will Huberdeau decline this year? No. Next year? No. What about in 2024-25? I'm fairly confident that this is again – no. So if he's still going to produce these big points for the length of time that you own him, and he never gets hurt so you have that security, is age an issue here? It would be one thing if he was 31. Then, okay, I would wonder about his age 33 season. But I'm not there at 29. Sure, all things being equal I'd rather swap 29 for 24. But when you're looking to contend, owning Huberdeau is a tad better than owning Kaprizov for the reliability.

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See you next Monday.

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