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The Los Angeles Kings followed up their cap-space dumping by signing Vladislav Gavrikov to a two-year deal worth a little under $6M a season. The defenceman was traded to Los Angeles for their playoff push last season and will be around for a couple more years, presumably alongside Matt Roy for at least one of them. They were fantastic together after the trade, both in the regular season and the playoffs. If they can carry that over to next season, the team now has a legitimately great shutdown pair, freeing up their puck-movers for less stressful roles. It’s not a certainty, but that’s the bet Los Angeles is making.

I’m not expecting much change in his peripherals, but going to a better team immediately helps his upside for points and plus/minus.

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Chicago is bringing back one of their free agents:

The #Blackhawks have resigned pending UFA F Andreas Anthansiou to 2 year $4.25M Cap Hit Deal.

20G 40P in 81 GP

Rep'd by Darren Ferris @QuartexxHockey https://t.co/q6kGEfigsp

— PuckPedia (@PuckPedia) June 7, 2023

We talk about him a bit later in these Ramblings. This is an intriguing name for fantasy draft tables if he can somehow skate beside Connor Bedard for most of the season.

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Anyone that reads my Ramblings knows I use a wide range of sources. There is our Frozen Tools, which has an array of functions that are very useful for fantasy owners, as well as Natural Stat Trick, with whom we have a data arrangement.

One outside source I use is Corey Sznajder's tracking data. It is the only reliable source for any workable sample size in stats that aren't kept by the NHL like zone entries, standing up the blue line, defensive zone retrievals, assists on teammate scoring chances, and so on. That last part, assists on teammate scoring chances (SCA), is our focus for today.

The reason for the focus is that these guys can help drive goals for their teams. Players that can drive goals can drive fantasy value for their teammates, as well as themselves. To highlight this, here are the top-15 forwards by SCA/60 at 5-on-5 in 2022-23 (minimum 300 minutes tracked):

It is easy to see why this might be valuable to dig into.

There should be caveats here. For example, we know Johnny Gaudreau is a tremendous playmaker. He also saw a 44% decline in SCA/60 after coming over from Calgary. At the same time, he was among the leaders for the Columbus forwards, and really only had Jack Roslovic as a comparable in terms of SCA/60 and tracked ice time. He saw a huge drop overall, but was clearly in a much worse offensive environment, and that matters.

To that end, I want to highlight a player's SCA/60 rate, and what their team did. For example, Anaheim's Mason McTavish's SCA/60 was 2.05, which was worse than Carolina's Stefan Noesen's mark of 2.25. However, Anaheim's average SCA/60 was 1.69 whereas Carolina's was 2.82. In the context of their teams, Noesen's was well below average, whereas McTavish's was well above average, even though McTavish's was lower overall. It might seem complicated but just know we're looking at team-specific context rather than comparing players across the league. We are lowering the minutes-tracked threshold to 150 for an expanded sample.

Jack Roslovic

One of the teams that needs context is Columbus. Their forwards averaged 2.28 SCA/60 minutes, which is a rate 30% lower than Boston's. In other words, the average Columbus forward assisted on 30% fewer scoring chances than the average Boston forward per minute of every single game. That adds up to a lot over the course of 82 games, which sounds very obvious now that I type it out.

Anyway, it was Jack Roslovic that led the CBJ forwards at 3.89 SCA/60, edging out Johnny Gaudreau's 3.72 SCA/60. If there is one skill Roslovic has genuinely developed and turned into a strength over the last five years, it's his playmaking. He has genuine 50-point upside but without much for peripherals, that won't bring a lot in the fantasy game.

Trevor Zegras

Setting aside the hiring of Greg Cronin for now, it feels like a miracle that Zegras posted as many goals (23) as he did in his rookie season, and four more assists, on what was an awful 2022-23 Ducks roster. Though I'm of the opinion that Troy Terry is still the team's best offensive player, that mantle may belong with Zegras come November or December, if it doesn't already. His SCA/60 of 3.53 led the team, and was nearly 29% higher than Terry, the next-closest player. Terry may have finished the season with slightly per-game higher assist rates, but that won't last for much longer.

Including the hiring of Cronin, I hope he helps their offence flourish rather than going all-in on team defence. We will find out soon enough.

Andrei Svechnikov

I wonder how many people would guess that Svechnikov (4.54) led the Carolina forwards in SCA/60 during the regular season, and not Sebastian Aho (3.80) or Martin Necas (3.23)? I surely wouldn't have, and not by a rate nearly 20% higher than Aho's. Funny enough, Svech's 5-on-5 assist rate was a four-year-low. One reason was the team landed only 48.7% of their shot attempts on goal with him on the ice at 5-on-5. No other season had seen that number below 53.7%. It cost the team 55 shots on goal, or about five goals, just by missing the net too much. It wasn't the only reason for Svechnikov's assist decline but, I mean, HIT THE NET.

Hopefully Svech's knee surgery doesn't affect his 2023-24. It feels like he's starting to really hit his upside.

Andreas Athanasiou

In the Ramblings on Tuesday, I wrote about how Athanasiou had one of the largest market shares of team shots in the league. On top of that, Athanasiou's SCA/60 was 3.27, nearly one full SCA/60 higher than the average Blackhawks forward (2.30), and third on the team behind Patrick Kane and Max Domi. Low bars all over the place, but Athanasiou certainly performed well when looking at the roster around him, and it makes him interesting as a free agent. The problem in the fantasy game is getting the ice time he needs to be valuable if/when he signs elsewhere, and consistent performance wherever he lands.

Kirill Kaprizov

This isn't to surprise anyone with a stat – hey, Kaprizov is really good offensively! What I want to highlight here is just how crucial Kaprizov is to the team's offence: his SCA/60 is 4.79, which is 83% higher than the team's average. Kap's mark was also 28% higher than the next-closest player, which was actually Marcus Foligno, and not someone like Mats Zuccarello or Matt Boldy. CapFriendly has Minnesota with two more years of those brutal buyout penalties to endure, but only three years of Kaprizov with his current contract. If the Wild want to take their next step in playoff success, the pressure is on Marco Rossi's shoulders as he's their best chance of adding an impact player they can fit under the cap. It's unfair but that's the bed the team made.  

Kirby Dach

The Montreal forwards averaged 3.09 SCA/60, which is a lot higher than we've seen from some dregs like Chicago and Columbus. The second quirky part of this is that Dach, and not Nick Suzuki, led the team in SCA/60 at 5.13. Comparing across the league, it's not far off from names like Jesper Bratt (5.29) and Roope Hintz (5.08). His assist rate at 5-on-5 wasn't very good, but he also spent a lot of time away from Suzuki/Caufield, and there just wasn't much scoring depth on the roster beyond them. Add the playmaking to some improving shot metrics and Dach is rounding into offensive form.  

Travis Konecny

Putting up 4.84 SCA/60 on a team where the average forward sat at 2.29, and no regular forward was over 4.0, tells us just how good Konecny was this past season for the Flyers. We have discussed Konecny already this offseason, and will again this summer, so we won't dig further here, but it would be really nice to see this version of Konecny alongside a healthy Sean Couturier.

Daniel Sprong

Another player mentioned in the Ramblings on Tuesday for taking a huge share of his team's shots was Sprong. On top of that thirst for shots on goal, Sprong led the team's forwards in SCA rate at 5.13. Yanni Gourde wasn't far behind at 5.02, but those two were far ahead of everyone else on the roster, and played on different lines. I will reiterate: maybe Sprong is starting to reach the offensive upside fantasy owners have been waiting on for several years now.  

Mark Scheifele

I mention a big name here because of Scheifele's season: his 26 assists were, by far, a low for him since his rookie season, having no other campaign lower than 32. That is despite the fact that Scheifele's SCA/60 was 4.65, being the only Winnipeg forward over 4.0. In the three seasons from 2019-22, Scheifele averaged 1.39 assists/60 minutes at 5-on-5, a number that fell to roughly half that at 0.67. A normal assist rate at 5-on-5 and Scheifele is a point-per-game player. It's worth remembering that positive regression potential if the Jets do decide to trade him this summer as he goes into the final year of his contract at the age of 30.

Dylan Strome

Lastly, we get to a guy who was dumped for nothing by the Chicago Blackhawks and went on to produce a 62-point season while posting a 5-on-5 primary points rate (1.62) equal to names like Jake Guentzel, Michael Bunting, and Troy Terry. Part of the reason he did that was posting the second highest SCA/60 rate on the team (4.25, trailing Evgeny Kuznetsov's 4.87, and that's a guy to remember for September as well). The question is what his role will be in 2023-24 if Kuznetsov returns to form and Nicklas Backstrom is healthy and close enough to his old self. Strome benefitted a lot from underperformance/injury across the Capitals lineup this past season, and there's no guarantee that'll happen again.

As a quick aside, I just want to mention JT Miller. His 5-on-5 assist rate fell 30% from his three-year average and his scoring chance assist rate (1.51) was slightly lower than Milan Lucic's (1.52). Just found that interesting.