We have spent the last few weeks reviewing eliminated playoff teams, but given the timeline here there is an opportunity to return to our MVP series. At the beginning of the month, we were looking at individual players by roster position and identifying players who provided the most value.

As a reminder, here is some context for the data below this series:

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 Multi-Category and Big Board Reports for the full season, and doing a bit of rearranging so I can have only the pertinent fields.

The table below contains the top five total fantasy producers at the left-wing position for the 2023-24 season. We start with basic player information on the left (name, position, team) then get into some production stats (total points, and then total fantasy points), and finally a couple of contextual stats (percent of total power play, average time on ice, and average draft position).

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS	Fantasy Points	%PP	TOI	Average ADP
ARTEMI PANARIN	L	NYR	82	120	471.8	76.7	20:07	37.5
FILIP FORSBERG	L	NSH	82	94	422.8	66.9	18:54	102.3
KIRILL KAPRIZOV	L	MIN	75	96	400.8	73	21:35	14.7
BRADY TKACHUK	L	OTT	81	74	350.8	59.7	19:09	12.2
CHRIS KREIDER	L	NYR	82	75	335.4	75.4	18:47	91.7

For the most part not a lot of surprising names on this list. Kirill Kaprizov and Brady Tkachuk were expected to be here by their draft position. Artemi Panarin is also expected to some extent although he certainly out performed expectations as we will get to in a bit. I wanted to take a brief moment to talk about Filip Forsberg though.

Forsberg finished the season with a 94-point pace, six shy of his career high 100-point pace. That 100-point pace though was in a partial season where he only played 50 games. These 94 points was over the full 82-game season. The other major difference between the two seasons is that this one looks really good. It comes with an increase in almost a minute of total time on ice, almost 30 seconds of power-play time, and over four shots per game (an increase by almost a full shot on goal per game). All three of these are career highs.

The concerns with that 100-point pace season were unsustainably high personal and team shooting percentages. Neither are the case in 2023-24. His team five-on-five shooting percentage is actually the lowest of the past three seasons, and while his personal shooting percentage (13.8 percent) is on the high end of his average it is still very much in that range. Since 2014-15 (his first full season), he has had six seasons of 13 percent or higher. Long story short, this surprisingly great season appears to be very much for real.

Something similar can be said of Chris Kreider. He broke out in a big way in 2021-22 on the strength of an inflated shooting percentage and power-play scoring. He fell back to earth in 2022-23, but in 2023-24 he saw a rebound back to a 75-point pace. It also came with a nice swing in power-play goals. Unlike Forsberg, Kreider's shot rates and power-play time didn't really change much. He did however rebound from eight power-play goals to 18. His personal and team shooting percentages look a lot better this time around and make it appear that this time his 75-point pace is much more likely to be sustainable than it was in 2021-22.

Moving on to the value part of the equation:

In addition to total fantasy points I have also pulled average draft position data (ADP). These ADPs are based on preseason drafts, so don't take into account leagues and drafts that started partway through the season. The idea here 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. The ADP data below is compiled (averaged) from ESPN, Yahoo, and Fantrax ADPs for the 2023-24 season.

Our next table contains the players who provided the most value once we account for where they were drafted. I have included their ADP data, the fantasy points that were expected given that ADP and then the difference between those numbers.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS	Fantasy Points	%PP	HTOI	Average ADP	Expected Value	Difference
ARTEMI PANARIN	L	NYR	82	120	471.8	76.7	20:07	37.5	295.06	176.74
FILIP FORSBERG	L	NSH	82	94	422.8	66.9	18:54	102.3	257.15	165.65
TREVOR MOORE	L	L.A	82	57	260.6	37.3	17:59	346.16	114.50	146.10
JOEL FARABEE	L	PHI	82	50	188.8	42.7	16:11	417.5	72.76	116.04
QUINTON BYFIELD	L	L.A	80	55	226.4	46.4	16:29	325.68	126.48	99.92

We have already touched on Forsberg, but now I want to go back to Artemi Panarin. Panarin was drafted inside the top 40 (compared to Forsberg's 100+), so clearly managers had some expectations, but I don't think anyone was expecting 120 points. The thing that stands out the most though is the shots. Panarin has long been an assist heavy, shoots less than three times per game kind of player, which limits his value in a lot of formats. In 2023-24 though, he blew his career shot numbers out of the water. He topped 300 for the first time (his previous career high was 228) and was shooting 3.7 times per night on average, which is about a full shot per game higher than his previous averages.

Panarin saw a little bit of more time (breaking 20 minutes on average for the first time in four years), but that certainly doesn't account for the difference. Basically, he changed the way he was playing and saw career high stats across the board because of it. He saw a little bit of shooting luck as his 16.2 percent shooting percentage was the highest of his career but it is only a little bit higher than his recent average of 14.6 percent. There are basically no other red flags. Everything else is well within his expected ranges and sometimes low if anything. So far it has been a banner day for these valuable left wings.

The remaining three – Trevor Moore, Joel Farabee, and Quinton Byfield – are all surprisingly similar stories. All saw bigger roles (increases in time on ice and power-play time), increased their shots per game accordingly, and ended with career high point totals. All of them also saw increases in their shooting percentages, though for the most part they are in the 12 percent range, which is not necessarily out of line for a lot of top six forwards. Given the small sample sizes for most of their careers, it is hard to say exactly that any of them performed unsustainably there.

Digging a little deeper, these three all also had fairly low team even strength shooting percentages, which implies things could have gone even a bit better at even strength. On the flip side they all had fairly high point participation numbers on the power play without great ice time implying maybe things went a little bit better than expected there. On the whole, assuming they can maintain some of these increases in deployment their 50–60-point ranges seem reasonably solid.

Now we move on to the least valuable. These guys all underperformed their draft slot by significant margins. I tried to eliminate the most dramatic injury impacts with a games-played threshold.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS	Fantasy Points	%PP	TOI	Average ADP	Expected Value	Difference
LUKAS REICHEL	L	CHI	65	16	43.6	33.8	14:07	196.2	202.22	-158.62
TANNER JEANNOT	L	T.B	55	14	50.6	17.6	12:01	215.9	190.70	-140.10
MAX PACIORETTY	L	WSH	47	23	85	45.8	14:26	161.7	222.41	-137.41
ANDRE BURAKOVSKY	L	SEA	49	16	69.8	44.9	14:34	197.1	201.70	-131.90
TOMAS TATAR	L	SEA	70	24	94.8	13.4	12:27	164.2	220.94	-126.14

To continue a little fun game from the first two articles, we are now three for three with the disappointing list including at least one prominent Seattle Kraken. It starts to make sense why the team took a step back in 2023-24.

There are a couple of big names who are sort of on this list in Patrik Laine, and Taylor Hall, but they played so few games that it was hard to include them in the discussion. As for the rest of the list, I put in a games-played threshold, but still we can see that playing 47 or 49 games instead of 82 is going to be a pretty big detriment to an overall score. In large part that can account for chunks of the gap for Max Pacioretty, Andre Burakovsky, and Tanner Jeannot. Lukas Reichel was probably a swing for the fences as a young prospect with a decent first 20 games who might get to play with Bedard. It didn't pan out, yet. I am not sure what the deal was with Tomas Tatar. There were probably better options as a late-round flier than a 50-point Tatar, though maybe folks were hoping for third wheel deployment next to Nathan MacKinnon.

Andre Burakovsky is the most interesting name to me here. Yes, he missed a bunch of time and that accounts for some of his disappointment. But he did play 49 games and only managed 16 points. That is… not good. Particularly for someone who had averaged more than a 60-point pace the previous four seasons.

I think there is some good news here though. The biggest red flag was time on ice. He clearly was impacted by the "spread the ice time" vibes in Seattle, playing less than 15 minutes a night on average, but he also was having a difficult time returning from injuries so that might be part of it too. With a full off season to ensure health, and a new coach there is plenty of reason to believe that number will change next year.

The rest of his numbers tell the story of a player who was significantly unlucky. His shot rates stayed the same (even with two minutes less time on ice), and while his expected goal numbers were low, they weren't that far off his previous career numbers. His shooting percentage numbers were almost criminally low. His personal shooting percentage was half of his recent career average, while his team number was 5.1 percent. Again, about half of what he has experienced in the past several years. He also had the lowest point participation number in nine seasons and by a lot.

Basically, here was a player who kept getting injured, was seeing low ice time, who couldn’t buy a goal, whose linemates weren't scoring, and even if they did, he wasn't getting in on it. He could easily have been a 45–50-point player even with the injuries and ice time if he saw some more reasonable bounces.The question is simply will he be used in a top-six role next season, and will he be healthy enough to take advantage of it?

Finally, I will wrap the column with a few names. These are the guys who weren't drafted but provided the most fantasy points.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS	Fantasy Points	%PP	TOI
JJ PETERKA	L	BUF	82	50	235.4	42.4	16:24
MASON MARCHMENT	L	DAL	81	53	221	31.1	15:04
BRANDON SAAD	L	STL	82	42	168.6	32.7	15:30

Brandon Saad and Mason Marchment are a little bit of old news at this point. Marchment had some good streaks with Matt Duchene and Tyler Seguin, but he has been eclipsed by the young guns already as depth pieces you might consider. Saad is just, well, kind of boring.

JJ Peterka, on the other hand, is young and exciting so let's talk about him. A 50-point pace, almost three shots per game, over 16 minutes a night and significant stretches on a top line or top power play are all very exciting for Peterka. There really isn't a red flag here. His deployment is a bit of a question mark, so he will only go as far as his opportunity allows, but it is great to see him shooting. Even when he isn't in an ideal situation, he is usually still doing a little something.

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