Welcome to our third installment of the Most Valuable series. We have completed reviews for centers and right wingers already, and today we will move to the left wing. As a reminder here is a brief description from the first article on the process:

'Most Valuable' is a tricky term that is going to be completely dependent on the league specific context. For the purposes of this article, we are going to use standard Yahoo! point scoring to calculate the total fantasy points for each player. This year the stats include goals, assists, power-play points, shots, blocks and (unfortunately) plus/minus. Obviously, this means there might be some general deviations to your league, based on your settings, but it is at least a good starting point. In order to grab all of this data I am exporting the Multicat and Big Board Reports for the full season, and doing a bit of rearranging so I can have only the pertinent fields.

In addition to total fantasy points I have also pulled Yahoo average draft position data (ADP). These ADPs are based on preseason drafts so don't take into account leagues and drafts that started part way through the season. The idea is that if we compare the draft position to the end of year fantasy points for all players, we can get an equation that lets us say, 'on average a player with X draft position would be expected to get Y fantasy points'. Once we have that we can compare that expected number to the player's actual number and see who performed the best based on their draft position. 

First up, who were the top five left wingers this year?

Right off the bat I am noticing that the drop off for left wings happens much more quickly than for the other two positions we have covered thus far. Fifth-ranked Kirill Kaprizov put up 715 total points, but our fifth-ranked center had 898 and our right wing 839. Clearly, at least at the top of the league left wing was a bit more shallow than the other forward positions.

What a year for Jason Robertson and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Both at different points in their career arcs, but both with career seasons. They had career high goals, assists, points, and power-play points to go along with career highs in time on ice, including time on the power-play, and expected goal numbers at five on five. Things deviate a little bit after that though. Jason Roberston also increased his shot rates, and kept pretty reasonable personal and team shooting percentages. RNH on the other hand didn't really increase his shot rates despite seeing career high time on ice and his increase in goal scoring was mostly due to a career high 18.4 percent shooting percentage. He also more than doubled his career high power-play points at 53. Between the two Robertson seems much more likely to continue to reach the 100-point plateau again. RNH looks to be a bit more in the 85–90-point pace if he can keep similar deployment at even strength and a role on that potent power-play.

Which wingers provided the most value if we take into account their draft position?

Clearly between the two we would have preferred RNH, but Clayton Keller, drafted just behind RNH, certainly provided good value. Like Robertson, Keller saw career highs essentially across the board and all in reasonably sustainable ways. Keller clearly rewarded managers who took a shot on him after a hot second half to 21-22 and looks to be a solid bet for point per game going forward.

Brad Marchand is also worth a mention here. His draft stock fell considerably because of his injury situation and his age, but for the most part managers who took a gamble got rewarded. He put up a 75-point pace overall though unfortunately it was a bit front loaded, and he kind of disappeared for the fantasy playoffs – both literally as he was benched in preparation for the playoffs and was far less productive when on the ice. There are a lot of questions for Boston and Marchand's age and effectiveness will certainly be one that we need to address before next season's draft.

And because we can't look at the most valuable without thinking about the flip side – now on to the disappointments.

As per usual we have some injuries to address here. Max Pacioretty being the most obvious. The injury outlook for him was pretty clear preseason though which makes this ADP a little surprising. He was drafted ahead of Marchand on average when Marchand's prognosis was better.

After that we have a lot of missed time from Evander Kane and Nikolaj Ehlers. A lot more can definitely be said about their seasons, but by far the most dramatic turn on this list is Jonathan Huberdeau. I don't know that there has been a more dramatic fall off in point pace between two seasons than Huberdeau's. In 21-22 his 82-game pace was 118 points. In 22-23 it was 55. Clearly there was a problem in Calgary. He played two and a half minutes less per night, lost almost a minute on the power-play, was shooting under two shots per game (down more than a shot a night on average) the list just goes on and on. Huberdeau also had some comments when Darryl Sutter left town which certainly fuels the notion that there was a conflict that probably impacted performance. The pluses going forward for Huberdeau are that his shooting percentage, and his point participation numbers were low compared to his recent seasons, and he is getting a new coach. The big question marks are going to be around his usage. We saw pretty clearly what can happen to him in a system that doesn't value his skill set so it is hard to believe that all of his underlying numbers will just rebound to his run and gun Florida days. Ultimately if things had broken just a little more his way, he could have been a 60-65 point player in 22-23, but will likely need some big changes to reach those 90+ point days again.

And finally, who were the best players left undrafted in most leagues?

Just another very solid season from Carter Verhaeghe. Essentially his third in a row, and his best. Like with most of the players we have mentioned, career highs in ice time, shot rates, and expected goal numbers. Nothing outlandish under the hood either indicating he can't repeat this, which is a little wild to say about a first time 40 goal scorer who has never broken 25 before. Dramatic increases in shot rates will do that though.

Like with Alex Tuch last week, Jeff Skinner was a bit of a revelation on that top line in Buffalo. This is the kind of performance we used to dream about in Carolina that just never materialized. He saw career highs in various ice time and shot rate measures, but there were definitely too many goals scored while he was on the ice. If that line can stick together and stay productive, I think we will see something between his two recent 85- and 65-point seasons.

And finally, our second first-time 40-goal scorer on this list, Jared McCann, saw his best season to date. His time on ice numbers and shot rates were very consistent to his 21-22 season with Seattle where he put up 27 goals. He was more dangerous, with increases in his personal expected goal rates, but his shooting percentage also jumped quite a bit to 19 percent. My guess is that another 40-goal season is going to be hard to repeat and would put him more in 30-35 goal range for 23-24.

That is all for this week.

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