Geek of the Week looks at Nick Foligno’s hot start.

With draft season well behind us and all of the chaos of trying to schedule about 400 drafts into two weekends long forgotten, I did what any reasonable human being would do this week: I picked up another keeper team. A buddy of mine reached out to me because somebody bailed on their team in his league and I couldn't resist. The team is in second last but the season is still very early. It is a limited 10 team keeper (keep 3) measuring G, A, +/-, PIM, Hits, PPP, SOG. The three keeps were Subban, Kessel and Rask. He didn't have to tell me anymore – he had me at Subban. I knew with those keeps that I would at least be able to draft a good team next season even if this current team was terrible. When I got the roster I was pleasantly surprised with some more players (Simmonds, Hartnell) but there was definitely some dead weight that needed to be shed immediately. First matter of business for me was to run the Fantasy Hockey Geek numbers to look for some good adds and the first one to jump right out at me is this week's GotW: Nick Foligno.

Nick Foligno is the epitome of a Fantasy Hockey Geek kind of guy in that he's not necessarily a household name among casual fans. Even serious hockey fans – if they aren't well versed in fantasy – will not give Foligno the credit he is due. Foligno is a mid-40s point guy which means he can easily be found on many waiver wires. Foligno has a ton of hidden value though, thanks to his strong output in peripheral categories he can be a great add in a league that counts hits or PIMs; or in the case of my new keeper, both. So how did I choose Foligno? To be honest, I probably could have found Foligno without the help of FHG by combing through the waiver wire but I am a bit busy and a lot lazy these days, so why would I bother doing all that work when I can just run a 2 minute report on FHG? That's exactly what I did when I took over the team and here is what came up (data set is 2014-15 season YTD as of Friday Oct 24):

Foligno is currently ranked as the 19th most valuable player in my new league and there he was, just sitting on the waiver wire. Now, I know that Foligno’s value is benefitting from an unsustainable hot start so he won’t be at 19 by the year’s end but I do know that he has some value. I should also point out that in leagues that count PIMs, you can get some real wonky things in the early going because it is very possible to get a huge number in a small sample size (ie if you get 20min of PIM in two games). So I ran the report again using last season as my data set:

Last year, Foligno 154^th most valuable – although that value is being hurt by the fact that he only played 70 games. Ok, so now I see why he is available in my league. 154 isn't terrible and the league does roster 180 players so Foligno does deserve to be owned regardless but I was surprised to see that his value was so low last season when he had 96PIMs and a whopping 210 hits. I know his production isn't huge but it's workable if the peripherals are good. So what gives? Looking at the data from last season you can see that Foligno is seriously lacking in PPP and SOG. Average point production can be overcome by average peripherals with one or two elite peripherals….but average point production cannot be overcome if you have two peripheral categories where your output is decidedly poor as well. So let's take a look at the two "issue" categories for Foligno from last season.

PPP: Last season, Foligno only had 6PPP. There are very few forwards out there who can provide good value with that low of a PPP number (I can think of Pascal Dupuis and maybe that's about it). But look at Foligno this season he has FIVE powerplay points already! Sure his early season production spike may be a bit of an aberration but the fact that it's on the peeper says something. He is getting 3:28 second of powerplay time per game so far this season compared to the 1:44 he saw last season. This is a huge jump and he is on at the same time as all the right players.

SOG: This was another huge issue for Foligno last season. I never want to roster a forward on my team who has less than 200 SOG and Foligno fell well short of that. Look at him this season though: with 20 shots in 6 games Foligno is averaging over three shots per game, a 270 shot pace! Will he keep up that pace? No. But can he get over 200 for the season? Maybe. Foligno's surging shot rate is directly related to the time he is being given on the top line and top powerplay. If his utilization keeps up, there is no reason to believe that his shot rate won't keep up along with it. It seems that Nathan Horton is a long shot to return anytime soon so only Brandon Dubinsky can unseat Foligno now. I would guess that Dubinsky will do exactly that but in the meantime I'll take the great production from Foligno. When Dubinsky does return, Foligno may have earned himself a spot in the top 6 anyway. Even on PP2 he will provide me with some good value later in the season and in the meantime I am making some serious hay with Foligno getting top minutes.

What we are seeing here is a multi-cat player of average value getting helped significantly by the opportunity being given to him. His value isn't going to stay in the teens even if he remains on the top line, but so long as he is the LW1 in Columbus I do believe he will continue to contribute as a top 50 player in leagues of this nature (hits and PIMs). Sure, he may end up losing the opportunity but he cost me nothing and I am more than happy to take what I can get while the getting is good. I suggest you do the same!

For what it's worth, my other pickups were Jake Allen and Sami Vatanen. I have a number of other moves planned for next week but the weekly limit is three. I also have a problem where I have some players like Jason Spezza who aren't the type I would usually target in a league like this but who definitely aren't drops either. I am going to have to look to make some trades and rest assured, I will have my FHG numbers handy to ensure that I am doing what's best for my team the whole way.

In many ways, this league is going to be one of my more fun leagues this season. It is a "project" team to a large degree and it's going to be very fun to see how high up I can pull a team that was left for dead. Fantasy Hockey Geek is going to be a crucial tool along the way to help me find guys like Nick Foligno to bring my team up to respectability. With the help of FHG, I have very little doubt that I can turn this puppy into a playoff team and an outside shot of even challenging for a championship this season. To get some help for a similar makeover for your team, sign up for Fantasy Hockey Geek today.