In an article from Montreal Canadiens writer Arpon Basu regard Cole Caufield and the shoulder surgery he had, it was mentioned that not having normal use from the shoulder for at least the first year post-surgery was normal. Considering he shot 8.9% on the season after averaging 14.1% across his first three seasons, that makes sense. That he still scored 28 goals should give fantasy managers an indication of what's to come once he's fully healthy.

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Toronto evened their series against Boston at one game apiece thanks to a 3-2 win on Monday night. Boston took a 2-1 lead in the waning seconds of the first period thanks to David Pastrnak's first goal of the postseason, but a power play goal from John Tavares in the second period and a breakaway goal from Auston Matthews in the third period pushed the Leafs over the top. It was a pretty sweet move from the 69-goal scorer, too:

Auston Matthews scores the go-ahead goal.

It's the Maple Leafs first lead vs the Bruins in 372:56 of game-time pic.twitter.com/7gOMpEPDMi

— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) April 23, 2024

Matthews finished the game with that goal, assists on the other two, eight shots, six hits, and a block. That is what we call a stat-stuffing night.

Max Domi also had a goal and an assist with two shots.

Morgan Geekie scored a power play goal for Boston, their third PP goal in two games. Despite the 1-1 series, the penalties have been the story (to me). Both Jake McCabe and Ilya Lyubushkin took absolutely idiotic penalties at different times in the game, and though the Leafs didn't get burned on those, specifically, there has been a handful of those penalties in the two games. More dumb plays like that will eventually cost them, even if they manage to advance to the second round.

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In one of the wildest finishes we'll see in these playoffs, the New York Islanders had a 3-1 lead over Carolina with 10 minutes left in the third period, and then hell broke loose.

Seth Jarvis scored on a snipe to make it 3-2 and then Sebastian Aho and Jordan Martinook scored just 10 seconds apart to push Carolina in front. Jake Guentzel sealed the game with an empty-netter. Carolina had a multi-goal deficit and turned it into a multi-goal win with less than 9:20 left on the clock. Just surreal scenes at PNC arena.

Jarvis finished with a goal and two assists while Guentzel and Aho had one of each. Teuvo Teravainen scored earlier in the game and Andrei Svechnikov had a pair of helpers. Martinook finished with five shots and three hits in a good multi-cat effort.

Kyle Palmieri, Bo Horvat, and Anders Lee (PP) got the goals for New York. The Islanders were outshot 17-1 in the third period and managed just 12 shots all game.

Frederik Andersen got the win but made just nine saves, which distills Carolina to its very essence.

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In what looked like a Colorado/Winnipeg Game 1 redux initially, Game 1 between Vegas and Dallas eventually settled down after a six-goal first period. The Stars escaped with a 4-3 win thanks to goals from Mark Stone (PP), Jonathan Marchessault, Tomas Hertl (PP), and Brayden McNabb. Noah Hanifin assisted on both power play goals and put up two blocks with a hit.

Jamie Benn, Mason Marchment, and Jason Robertson replied for Dallas. Jake Oettinger faced just 15 shots, allowing all four goals. He can't turn in more performances like that, or the Stars are going to find themselves watching the rest of the postseason very soon.

Stone returned to the lineup, as did Alex Pietrangelo. Let the jokes commence.

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What looked to be the lopsided first-round matchup in the West ended up being exactly that in Game 1 as Edmonton took a 7-4 win over Los Angeles. Don't let the final score fool anyone, this was a blowout all game long as the Oilers had a 4-0 lead halfway through the second period and a 6-2 lead with 3:30 left before the Kings scored a couple of late goals.

Zach Hyman kept his surreal season going with a hat trick (one on the PP) and adding an assist, totaling nine shots, a block, two PIMs, and five hits. Like Matthews earlier in the night, this was a true stat-stuffer of a performance.

Connor McDavid had five (!) assists (three on the power play), both Leon Draisaitl and Adam Henrique had a goal and an assist, and Evan Bouchard had four helpers with three shots, three blocks, and a hit. McDavid was on the ice for 22 Oilers shot attempts at 5-on-5, which works out to around 98 in a 60-minute span. That is a power play-type number, and the Kings are legitimately a good defensive team. This Edmonton roster is a monster.

Adrian Kempe had a goal and an assist with five shots and four hits in a very good fantasy night. Mikey Anderson, Pierre-Luc Dubois, and Trevor Moore scored the others.

Stuart Skinner stopped 33 of 37 shots in the win.   

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The fantasy offseason has arrived. Playoffs are in full flight but as far as fantasy hockey news, projections, or stats go, this is the slow period.

Seeing as we have five months until training camps roll around, I want to take time to review each of the 16 non-playoff teams. What went right for each team, what went wrong, where they go from here, and putting all of it through a fantasy hockey lens. We will go from the bottom up so today it's the San Jose Sharks.

All data will be from Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, HockeyViz, Frozen Tools, or CapFriendly. Tracking data is from AllThreeZones.

What Went Wrong

Heading into the season, my big thought was this: how many Sharks defencemen are sure-fire NHLers? It is hard to say that without it sounding like an insult, so let's put it this way: how many Sharks defencemen would be able to make positive contributions on a playoff team, even as a bottom-pair option? Matt Benning would qualify, but he missed 68 games and had hip surgery. Kyle Burroughs is fine enough, and maybe there is an argument for Jan Rutta. None of those guys are good puck-movers, though. That blue line had Benning and A Bunch Of Guys, and with Erik Karlsson traded and Benning out for most of the year, there wasn't much left.

Looking at tracking data, this lack of talent sure played out: the league-wide per-team average for zone exits with possession per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 was 6.31. There were two teams below 5.0 per 60 minutes, both missed the playoffs, and you'll never guess who was dead last (you'll guess very easily):

This is an era of the NHL where teams need to be able to start their offence from the defensive zone, and San Jose just didn't have the options to do that – every single one of their defencemen who played at least 20 games was below average by zone exits with possession. Guys like Burroughs and Mario Ferraro would have been passable on a better team, and rookie Ty Emberson showed a lot of promise, but there was nothing to help this team this year.   

The forwards couldn't really do a whole lot, either. The league-average forward carried the puck into the zone on 52.1% of their zone entries and passed the puck into the zone on 13.6% of their entries. San Jose had three forwards exceeding both those marks and they traded one of them (Anthony Duclair). The other two were Mikael Granlund (which makes sense) and Mike Hoffman (which does not). It should also be noted that Hoffman's passing entries percentage was 13.9%, so a few more games tracked might push him below the league average.

The average NHL forward assisted on 2.85 teammate scoring chances every 60 minutes at 5-on-5 this season. Of the 12 forwards with at least 125 tracked minutes, four were above that average and only William Eklund (4.03) truly excelled. Half those forwards were at 1.44 per 60 minutes or lower, so half their forwards were half the league average (or worse). That is truly awful.

Put together a defensive group that can't move the puck, which then handcuffs the forward group's ability to get up the ice with control, and a slew of bad playmakers on the second, third, and fourth lines, and this is what the offence looked like with Granlund off the ice at 5-on-5:

Well, at least Vlasic and Ferraro were firing the puck from the left side of the blue line.

What Went Right

For all of San Jose's issues on the blue line, Emberson's exit rate with possession was only 15% worse than Brock Faber and 13% worse than Simon Nemec. It is faint praise, but considering how bad the entire team was, things could have gone much worse than they actually did.  

Though Henry Thrun had difficulty getting out of his zone cleanly, he did contribute to the offence when the team got into the offensive zone. His 1.73 scoring chance assists per 60 minutes led the team's blue line by a whopping 66.3% and wasn't far off names like Alex Pietrangelo (1.84) and Morgan Rielly (1.81) while Jake Sanderson (1.60). There isn't a huge sample to his name, but anywhere close to that level as a rookie shows very good playmaking ability. The assists were lacking, even for this roster, but he spent under 30% of his 5-on-5 time with Granlund, and there wasn't much scoring elsewhere in the lineup. It is a step in the right direction so if he can do this again in 2024-25, it'd bode very well for his point-production long-term.

Granlund had a productive season, all things considered. Even with just 69 games played, his 12 goals were a three-year high, his 60 points were a 19-point increase from the year prior, and his 23 power play points was the second-highest mark of his career. (In fact, he had as many power play points as Sidney Crosby.) Playing nearly 21 minutes a game helps, but he was good on zone entries, was above average by scoring chance assists, had a five-year high in shot attempts per minute, and even chipped in 55 blocks and 62 hits. In fantasy leagues without plus/minus, he was serviceable.

William Eklund also looked good, even without much production. As mentioned earlier, he led the team in scoring chance assist rate and when looking across the league, he was in the 84^th percentile of regular forwards. It put him in this kind of company:

He finished third among regular Sharks forwards by assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, and second if we exclude now-Golden Knight Tomas Hertl.

Eklund also ended up carrying or passing the puck into the offensive zone 66.6% of the time at 5-on-5. The team average was 60.7% and the league average was 65.7%. Being above league average by possession entries, as a rookie on one of the worst teams since the 2013 lockout, is an excellent effort.

San Jose's power play wasn't bad, either. Overall, they finished 19^th by goals per minute with the man advantage and were higher than teams like Vegas, Winnipeg, Ottawa, and Buffalo. Granlund was on the ice for 8.8 power play goals per 60 minutes, higher than Jonathan Huberdeau, Mathew Barzal, Clayton Keller, and Brad Marchand. Just beware that the team shot 17.5% with Granlund on the ice for the power play, or about the same rate as the New York Rangers' top PP unit. Only one team exceeded that mark (Tampa Bay), so without more shot volume in 2024-25, there's going to be goal regression.

Finally, there was the goaltending, and specifically MacKenzie Blackwood. Think of it this way: San Jose's 3.98 goals against per 60 minutes was the third-worst mark for any season since 2007 but they weren't even last in the league this season by save percentage (they were 29^th). Blackwood had an .899 save percentage, which was lower than the league average of .903, but he was higher than both Alexandar Georgiev and Ilya Samsonov, who are currently in the playoffs. Blackwood finished the season with 0.27 goals saved above expected (GSAx) per 60 minutes, which put him in this company:

If Blackwood's GSAx is 0.0 for the season, San Jose becomes the team to allow the most goals against per minute since 2007. It was a great year from him as he rebounded from some tough seasons in New Jersey.

Moving Forward

As bleak as things seem for San Jose right now, it's not hard to imagine a path to where they're very relevant, very soon. It won't be in 2024-25, and we'll talk about next season's roster once we get deeper into the offseason because they have five UFA forwards and three RFA forwards (excluding Thomas Bordeleau). The top guys like Granlund, Eklund, Bordeleau, and Fabian Zetterlund will all return, but the depth could look a lot different this coming October. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Further down the road, there's a lot to like about this team. Ferraro and Benning (if he's healthy) are stellar defensively and have two years left on their contracts. Both Emberson and Thrun showed what could make them reliable puck-movers very soon, which is something the team desperately needs. Eklund is a personal favourite and is on track to be a top-line point-producing winger while Bordeleau looks to have found the scoring touch he needs (though he's still very much unproven). Blackwood also buys them another year to figure out what to do in net long-term, if it's not just Blackwood himself.  

Then there are the true prospects that didn't make their way to the roster. Will Smith hasn't made a decision about returning to college or turning pro, but even if he takes another year, that isn't a big deal. He looks every bit the future top-line forward they need to go with Eklund, and if that's this October or the one after, as long as he fulfills that potential, it's a very big deal for the team's offensive outlook in years to come.

There are others like Quentin Musty, who had a great Draft+1 season in the OHL by leading the league in points per game, Shakir Mukhamadullin, and Filip Bystedt. Musty is the most promising of the three, but time will tell. If he can turn into a top-of-the-roster player and either of the other two ends up a reliable NHLer, that is a win.

Of course, the big one is the 2024 Draft. San Jose will go into the draft with the best odds of picking first overall, and that puts them in the best position for Macklin Celebrini. The consensus first overall pick looks every bit the future superstar that changes a franchise's fortunes, and if they can win the Lottery and take Celebrini, adding him to Smith and Musty, then it's the type of prospect pool that helps turn an awful team into a playoff contender within three years.

That is why I say that as bleak as things are for San Jose right now, it really may not be that long until this ship turns around. Eklund could very well be a future All-Star, Smith is one of the top prospects that hasn't reached the NHL yet, Musty has top-6 scorer talent, and they could add Celebrini to that mix. If Thrun and Emberson can add genuine puck-moving ability to go with Ferraro's good defensive play, there is the core of a good blue line to go with the core of a good top forward group.

There are a lot of 'ifs' there, though. Bordeleau is unproven, the triumvirate of Eklund/Thrun/Emberson showed good ability but it's just one season, Smith hasn't even reached the NHL yet, and they aren't guaranteed the first overall pick. As bright as the future could be if it pans out as the team hopes, it can go sideways very fast. If Emberson and Thrun never take the steps to become reliable top-4 defencemen, for example, then what? Free agents and trades would be the biggest hope. What if they don't win the Lottery? There is a drop from Celebrini to everyone else, even if there is still a lot talent at the top of the 2024 draft group.

The 2024-25 season could be another tough one, especially if Smith decides to stay in college. They can fill out some roster spots with free agents, but assuming they don't shell out big dollars for top names like Jake Guentzel or Sam Reinhart, they're giving short-term deals to middle-of-the-roster players. It would mean the 2024-25 roster wouldn't functionally be a whole lot different than the 2023-24 roster. But we'll worry about that once the offseason is truly underway, and for now, there's still lots of hope for 2025 and beyond.