This week on Frozen Tool Forensics we are going to have a little fun looking at rookies. In redraft leagues, rookies aren't always worth rostering, and all of these players are going to be rostered in dynasty formats, but it is worth taking a quick look at who is being productive so far and whether or not we can hope for more in the future.

Luckily Frozen Tools makes this really easy. On the Reports Page there is a handy dropdown for Rookies, meaning you can run any of the reports specifically for them. In this case we are looking at the Big Board report as it has a number of useful columns. For the purposes of the article though I have exported and rearranged a little bit so that we can have the most useful pieces of information in front of us. Data is current as of Thursday, October 23^rd.

James Hagens has been consistently on the third line/second power play and that status is certainly reflected in his ice time. Fewer than 13 minutes a night is less than ideal, but a 60-point pace to start a rookie season has to be counted as a success. There are warning signs under the hood though with his personal and team shooting percentages currently quite high as are his point participation rates. These aren't huge red flags overall though as we have to anticipate that his time on ice will only grow through the season. It just means that if he continues with fewer than 13 minutes and two shots per game, his scoring pace will definitely drop off.

Ivar Stenberg has been coming along well. He put up two points over his first five games, but suddenly with a bit more power-play time with Macklin Celebrini, Stenberg had five points in his next five games. Discounting that first week his time on ice has jumped to 16.5 minutes a night on average, he has two shots per game, and 73 percent of the team's power play. Unlike Hagens, most of Stenberg's underlying numbers look really low indicating he actually seems to deserve quite a bit better than his production has been thus far. He has mostly been playing with Michael Misa, but if he can keep that top power-play spot, we could likely be seeing some increased production in the future.

Trevor Connelly wasn't on a lot of people's radar coming into the season, but with Pavel Dorofeyev out of Vegas and Victor Olofsson on the shelf, Connelly has found a significant opportunity for himself. Since October 8th he has seen over 75 percent of the team's power-play time and has three power-play points. His overall ice time is not as high as Stenberg's and it looks like he is running a little hot at the moment, but it certainly has been a good start for the rookie.

Michael Brandsegg-Nygard has really bounced around to start the season. He has games with less than 10 minutes of total ice time, but also games with as many as 19 minutes. Overall, the trend in ice time is up. Interestingly though, while he started off the year strong shooting 14 times over the first four games, he only had three shots in the games from October 15th to October 20th. He does hit a lot though so if you are in a multi-cat league he is definitely worth taking note of.

Gavin McKenna has been on the top power play unit with John Tavares out of the lineup and after a slow start, zero points in his first three games, he was a bit more productive with six points over his next eight games. Even then there was a slow stretch in there with only one point in four games from October 15th to October 20th. Like with Hagens he needs to see a little more time on ice to up his production, but he seems to be settling in fine.

Anton Frondell has had a bit of a disaster around him while Connor Bedard was out. In those first few games Chicago certainly did not seem to be able muster much of anything on offense. His ice time has also been a bit all over the place, from over 20 minutes to about 12 and a half minutes. Unfortunately, there has been a bit of a trend down recently with October 17th totalling only 12:40. Overall his 56-point pace seems about fine. He deserves a little better in some areas, worse in others, but really, we are just waiting to see how all the pieces settle in Chicago.

We are going to jump ahead to another one of those pieces on Roman Kantserov. He has by far been given the best deployment of the group to start the season. He has been on the top line and top power play with Connor Bedard (for as long as Bedard has been in the lineup) and is averaging 18.5 minutes a night. He doesn’t have a ton to show for it, but a big part of that is a very low team five on five shooting percentage while he is on the ice. There are still some kinks to be worked out in Chicago, so hopefully he can be there to take advantage when the bounces start going the other way.

Cole Hutson has had a good start to his NHL career. He is on a strong power play unit and getting a good amount of ice time. He is shooting well and slowly increasing his share of the power play time. He hasn't entirely eclipsed the 50 percent mark yet but has pretty consistently hit 45 or above in recent games. The Capitals have been essentially running two units, though the Hutson unit has been getting slightly less time. That may change at some point, but for now we couldn't ask for much more from a rookie defenseman only a few games in.

That is all for this week.

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