I'm always looking to improve and one of the ways I feel I can do that is look back periodically at some of the statements I've written and in this case a list of sleepers. There are always reasons for a player not quite getting to where we would like them to get. Was it an incorrect assumption? Or was it something I convinced myself of that wasn't really there? Other times, it just comes down to back luck with injuries or opportunities wasted. The purpose of this article for me, is to learn from those mistakes and not make them again.

In this year's guide I listed the following players as sleeper picks, so we will look at each and see how they are doing and whether they are on the right path or not.

in Alphabetical order:

Noel Acciari – St. Louis

I included Acciari, mostly for his multi-category potential, but he does come with medium risk having not played more than 66 games in a season since 2018-19. The good news is that he has played all 24 games this season and has six goals and four assists with an impressive 75 hits, 24 blocked shots and 105 faceoff wins. He's on pace for (72 GP) 18 goals and 12 assists, 225 hits, 72 blocked shots and 315 faceoff wins, which are pretty good numbers for a waiver add in a multi-category pool.

Andreas Athanasiou – Chicago

The risk with Athanasiou is two-fold, with injury and playing on a potentially awful team in Chicago this season. It is easy to look back at his 2018-19 season with Detroit where he had 30 goals and 24 assists in 76 games and think he might get 20 goals every year. Unfortunately, he hasn't played more than 55 games since then in a season. This year he has six goals, three assists and 43 SOG in 24 games played. Conservatively at a 72-game pace he might see 18 goals and nine assists. Even healthy, he hasn't lived up to my expectations and has only three points in his past 13 games.

Blake Coleman – Calgary

I was hoping for an increase in ice time for Coleman who is in his second season with Calgary, but that hasn't come to be as he is just below last year's 14:49 per game. Last year he had 16 goals and 17 assists in 81 games, while this year he has four goals and six assists in 24 games, which is almost identical production. His shots on goal are down from 2.6/g to 1.9 and his hits are slightly down as well. Being a sleeper is unlikely at this point.

J. T. Compher – Colorado

I thought that Compher might benefit the most from the departure of Nazem Kadri, but with injuries to Gabriel Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin the winger depth on the Avalanche has been depleted early this year.  Currently he is playing as the second line center with Andrew Cogliano and Logan O'Conner, who are hardly prolific point producers. Compher had 18 goals and 15 assists in 70 games last year (0.47 pts/g) and has three goals and nine assists in 22 games (0.55) so far this season. He has seen his ice time increase from 16:19 to 18:00, so he might be on the right path.

Maxime Comtois – Anaheim

I prefaced picking up Comtois as a risky pick as he hadn't played more than 55 games in a season in his four previous years. This year he's already missed 10 games and has only four goals in 15 games to show for it. No sleeper here. It is hard to believe he led the Ducks in scoring in 2020-21, albeit with only 33 points in 55 games.

Frederick Gaudreau – Minnesota

All the ingredients are there for Gaudreau to improve his production from his 44 points in 76 games last season. His ice time has increased from 16:19 to 16:53 and he's had a chance to play with one or all of Kirill Kaprizov, Mats Zuccarello and/or Matt Boldy for most of the year at even-strength, but has only four goals and five assists in 24 games to show for it, which puts him on pace for 30-35 points this year. He has disappointed so far but will get a few more chances to improve.

Cody Glass – Nashville

I labelled him as a boom or bust pickup for this season and the latter is becoming more the likely scenario. If he didn't require waivers to be sent to the minors, I'm not sure he would still be in the Predators lineup. He has played 14 games and put up one goal and two assists, while averaging 11:30 per game. He's definitely not getting top-six minutes any time soon as he has seen the likes of Juuso Parssinen pass him for opportunities to play with Filip Forsberg and Mikael Granlund.

Barrett Hayton – Arizona

After returning from an injury last season, Hayton finished the last 34 games of the season with eight goals and nine assists, which gave me optimism for this year. After 22 games this year he has yet to score a goal and has three assists, while playing 15:08 per night compared to 16:07 last year. He is perhaps fortunate that he wasn't sent down earlier in the year, as he was struggling in most aspects of his game, except in the face off circle where he leads the team with a 51.7 winning percentage. I watched him play on Saturday night and he still exhibits above average skills and skating but production might take another year or two.

Phil Kessel – Vegas

When I included Kessel on my list, he was still unsigned but I figured he might go to a team with a pretty good shot to get into the playoffs and when he signed with Vegas, I thought it was a good match for him. Last season he had eight goals and 44 assists in 82 games with Arizona and the only thing I might have been correct about is that he would probably increase his goal total no matter where he ended up. With five goals in 26 games, he's on pace for 15-18 goals and perhaps 40 points, but not what I had in mind. His ice time has gone from 16:41 last year to 12:32 this season and he has only seen PP time on the second unit.

Luke Kunin – San Jose

After a disappointing season in Nashville last year where he had 13 goals and nine assists, I was hoping that Kunin could get back to around 0.5 pts/game in San Jose this year. He is close, after 28 games where he has five goals and eight assists (0.46) to go along with 60 hits, which pro-rates to quite less than the 223 hits he had last year. His ice time has increased from 13:50 to 15:49 this season.

Kevin Labanc – San Jose

Labanc had 17 goals and 39 assists in 82 games back in 2018-19 but has floundered a little since then around the 0.47 to 0.51 points per game pace. Last year he only played 21 games and had three goals and three assists so the hope this year was that he would be healthy and get back to around 0.5 again. After 27 games he has five goals and 10 assists (0.56) so he has rebounded quite nicely so far and is on pace for 15 goals and 30 assists. In his past 10 games he has three goals and five assists.

Artturi Lehkonen – Colorado

The injury to Landeskog and then to Nichushkin has certainly benefited Lehkonen this season, but I was convinced that this lineup would rely on him in the top-six regardless and that he could improve upon his career-highs of 19 goals and 19 assists. After 22 games he has seven goals and 11 assists and is averaging 21:00 minutes compared to 15:06 last year. He is out with an injury currently (day-to-day), so health will be the only thing that derails him putting up a career-year.

Alec Martinez – Vegas

I was selling the offensive component to Martinez's game by citing his 89 games played in Vegas before this season where he had 14 goals and 34 assists (0.54). While healthy so far this season, the offense has failed him completely as he has only four assists in 26 games but he has an incredible 110 blocked shots which leads the NHL by a large margin. I hope if you listened to me, that you have him in a multi-category pool as that is the only pool where he has value now.

Jaycob Megna – San Jose

My inclusion of the 29-year-old Megna who had only 87 NHL games to show after last season was a bit of a stretch for anyone outside of a multi-category need. While he has surprised me this year by playing in all 26 games so far (mostly with Erik Karlsson), he has chipped in with seven assists, but has disappointed with only 33 hits and 35 blocked shots so far. I was hoping that he would have double what he has in those two categories to date, as his offense is not what he brings to the table. He's a better inclusion than a few others above though.

Adam Ruzicka – Calgary

Sometimes you only need one player from your list to break through to make you look good. I figured that if Ruzicka was able to get playing time between 12-14 minutes per game he might be able to produce. His early season didn't go according to plan as he was healthy scratched, sent to the minors and then brought back up November 8th to stay. Since then he has 13 points in 13 games and is averaging 13:50 per game which was on the high-end of what I was hoping for him. If he plays in 72 games this season, I would be ecstatic if he was able to finish with 20 goals and 20 assists.

Justin Schultz – Seattle

I thought that if Schultz was to have any success in Seattle this season it would need to come at the expense of Vince Dunn through either injury or lack of production. After 24 games, Shultz has three goals and 13 assists (0.67) which is a better pace than his career-high year in 2016-17 when he had 12 goals and 39 assists (0.65) in Pittsburgh. Dunn has matched Schultz with 16 points as well and both have seven PPPs. Schultz has averaged 60.2 games per season in his 10 years in the NHL but even playing that many games would still be worth 35-40 points this year for him.

Jakob Silfverberg – Anaheim

I wrote an article a few weeks back on the importance of zone starts and Silfverberg is one of the players who is adversely affected by them. His 21 points in 53 games last season is probably unreachable for Silfverberg who had 29.2 OZ starts last year and is at 26.2 so far after 25 games this year. He has four goals and one assist and is on pace for 15-25 points in 75 games. He is not fantasy relevant at this point.

Eeli Tolvanen – Nashville

Tolvanen is in a similar situation as Cody Glass albeit with more NHL games under his belt. Tolvanen teased us with his 11 goals and 11 assists in 40 games in 2020-21 and followed it up with a disappointing 11 goals and 12 assists in 75 games last year. After starting the first seven games of this season he has been a healthy scratch in 10 of the last 16 games that Nashville has played. On the season he has two goals and two assists in 13 games and has been passed on the roster by Parssinen, Cole Smith and Michael McCarron for the time being.

Frank Vatrano – Anaheim

It's frustrating when a player gets an opportunity to shine and doesn't produce and Vatrano is living proof of that this season. He has four goals and five assists in 26 games while averaging 3.0 shots/game and playing 17:20 per night with the likes of Troy Terry, Ryan Strome and/or Trevor Zegras. Currently he is on pace for 13 goals and 15 assists in 82 games, but he has all the elements of improving those numbers at some point if the Ducks are patient with him. Last season he had 18 goals and 14 assists in 71 games and even getting to that level would be a good year for him now.

Kailer Yamamoto – Edmonton

In hindsight it was a stretch to expect improvement from Yamamoto after putting up 20 goals and 20 assists in 81 games last year. The lure of playing with Leon Draisaitl and Evander Kane blinded me to the point of imagining him with 30 and 30 this year. Unfortunately for Yamamoto he was nursing an injury during the pre-season, missed the first regular season game and then played in 13 games before going down with an injury again. He has no goals and three assists and is still listed on the LTIR. No sleeper here.

Before writing this, I was vaguely aware of who I had listed down in the Guide, but thought I had blown it on most of them. I'm encouraged by Acciari, Compher, Kunin, Labanc, Lehkonen, Megna, Ruzicka and Schultz and some of these guys are why it is worth taking a chance. Sleepers are mostly dark horses, so it's nice to see some of them come to light.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions or players you'd like me to look at please message or follow me on Twitter @gampbler15.