January 24, 2015

steve laidlaw

2015-01-24

Creating the All-Surprise and All-Disappointment Fantasy teams and more…

Tis the weekend of All-Star related gimmicks and we won't be any different here. Today, much like last night's All-Star draft, we draft two All-Star teams of our own: the Fantasy Surprises and Fantasy Disappointments.

Flip a coin for first pick, and heads it is. Team Surprise has the first pick!

With the first pick Team Surprise selects Jakub Voracek, Flyers right wing.

You know, for Team Surprise that's not exactly an outside the box pick. You're right, but Voracek was draft on average as the 28^th RW in Yahoo! pools (all average draft position data from here on out will be based on Yahoo! pools) and is currently leading the league in scoring. Had you told me before the season that Voracek would rank in the top-10 in scoring this season I wouldn't have been shocked. #1 on the other hand? It remains a shocker.

With their first pick Team Disappointment selects Jonathan Quick, Kings goaltender.

We really felt that it was important to solidify our goaltending position early and who better than defending Cup Champion Quick, said every fantasy owner currently cursing their use of a first round selection on Quick.

With their second pick Team Disappointment selects Taylor Hall, Oilers left wing.

Back-to-back seasons at over a point-per-game rate on that dreadful Oilers team? He was about as strong a lock as there was to boast good numbers and there was upside if the Oilers could get their act together… they did not get their act together.

With back-to-back picks Team Surprise is happy to select Mark Giordano and TJ Brodie, Flames defensemen.

Giordano has been lauded as an underrated fantasy producer and NHL defenseman for the past few years now but now he's grabbed the league-lead in defenseman scoring so that no one can underrate him any further. Give Brodie some credit for that as he emerged seemingly out of nowhere to turn this into the single most productive pairing in fantasy hockey.

Oh, you're going to do the whole tandem thing are you? Well then, Team Disappointment sees your Flames and raises you two Stars, center Jason Spezza and right wing Ales Hemsky.

Everyone assumed after the flashes these two showed together at the end of last season that it would be a whole year of excellent production skating for the high-octane Stars. Not so. The Spezza-Hemsky duo has been a flop and what's most terrifying is that these two Band-Aid Boys haven't even missed much time yet.

Truth be told, Spezza hasn't been that big of a flop. He's on pace for about 60 points but he was drafted with expectations for much more. More importantly he's needed extended time with Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin to buoy his fantasy production rather than carrying a line of his own as was expected of him.

Well if you want Stars, Team Surprise will happily comply select center, Tyler Seguin.

Not overly shocking that he's among the league-leaders in scoring for the second straight season but the fact that he has leap-frogged Steven Stamkos and Alexander Ovechkin as the most prolific goal-scorer in the league is something else.

Oh, and how about this piece from The Players' Tribune penned by Seguin himself about how the Bruins gave up on him too early and how he has used that as motivation?

While we are on goal-scorers, Team Surprise selects Rick Nash, Rangers left wing.

He might become the first player in a few generations to lead the league in goals 10 years apart, certainly a quirky stat.

There will be no goal-scorers on Team Disappointment! In fact, we only want players criticized for their inability to score goals. To wit, we select Sidney Crosby, Penguins center.

Sure, you probably shouldn't be disappointed with having a guy tied for third in league scoring but he was drafted #1 in most pools with the expectation that he'd be running away with the scoring race by now. It hasn't been the case. He's still the Art Ross favourite though.

Team Disappointment will also select Anze Kopitar, Kings center.

Sure, he's picked it up of late but Kopitar has still largely been a disappointment, especially in multi-category pools. He's holding a minus-rating for the first time in years and is on pace for the worst full-season shot total of his career. He may yet salvage a 70-point season but he hasn't been the rotisserie gold he was drafted for.

Team Surprise has decided that we are not done with the tandem game and select Lightning forwards Tyler Johnson and Nikita Kucherov.

We won't include the third member of the Triplets here because Ondrej Palat was actually expected to team up with Steven Stamkos on the Lightning top line but his presence alongside Johnson and Kucherov has people forgetting all about Stamkos.

Team Disappointment can play that tandem game too! Give us Avalanche forwards Nathan MacKinnon and Matt Duchene.

This is cheating a bit since Duchene and MacKinnon are both centers for the Avalanche but we will draft them on left wing and right wing respectively because they have multi-positional eligibility in many pools.

For MacKinnon, his move to center and the responsibilities that go with such a move have slowed his offensive progress. Add in possibly too much off-season weight gain and some natural regression by the Avalanche as a whole and you get the dreaded sophomore slump.

Duchene is less explicable but can be cast under the same team-wide regression as MacKinnon is. He was supposed to get you 70 points this season but you'll be lucky to get 60.

Team Surprise has another tandem to select: Predators forwards Mike Ribeiro and Filip Forsberg.

Ribeiro's redemption hasn't been a surprise to everyone but how he's done it recovering from off-ice issues has been impressive nonetheless. Forsberg's emergence as a Calder trophy threat has a good deal to do with Ribeiro's recovered scoring prowess and the Predators in general are one of the league's most pleasant surprises.

Damn, those are some impressive tandems you keep trotting out. I bet you can't beat this singular positional sadness though! Team Disappointment selects Oilers right wingers, Jordan Eberle and Nail Yakupov.

There might be some teams with worse right wingers but those truly are a strong pair of disappointing ones.

Team Surprise has gotten some good mileage out of the Predators, how about one more? We select Predators goaltender, Pekka Rinne.

Before last season's wonky hip issue Rinne was considered a top-five goalie. He's gotten back to that and then some.

Team Surprise would like to select another Calder Trophy candidate, Panthers defenseman, Aaron Ekblad.

Did anyone see this coming? Anyone?

Oh crap, we need to take defensemen?!?! Team Disappointment selects Capitals defenseman, Matt Niskanen. He was good last year right?

Indeed he was. Not so much this year.

You took a goalie too, eh? Give Team Disappointment Stars goaltender, Kari Lehtonen. The Stars are going to be awesome this year!

No, no they have not been.

What's been super confounding about the Stars has been their continued reliance on defenseman, Trevor Daley, Team Surprise will gladly take him.

Somehow this guy is on pace for almost 20 goals and 40 points, if you can believe it.

Team Surprise is also pleased to take the Blues' new superstar right wing, Vladimir Tarasenko.

We all thought he had it in him. What we did not know was that Ken Hitchcock could bring it out of him.

Oh we've got Blues too! Team Disappointment selects the Blues defense pairing of Alex Pietrangelo and Jay Bouwmeester.

Pietrangelo hasn't actually been that disappointing but he's been playing all the tough minutes to make way for this guy…

Thanks for the setup! Team Surprise selects Blues defenseman, Kevin Shattenkirk.

No one is actually that surprised that he's been productive but he still slipped way too far in a lot of drafts. He probably will finish as the highest scoring defenseman in the league once Giordano fades, which is higher than most projected him for even if it wasn't outside the realm of possibility.

Okay, so you want a real surprise then? Give Team Surprise Nick Foligno, Blue Jackets left wing.

Talk about a career year! Half way in and he's already hit a career hit for goals and just five back for points. And it was a contract year? And then he got paid big time? You know what, good for him. Try reading this story and not rooting for Foligno.

How exactly are we supposed to top that? Team Disappointment selects Duncan Keith, Blackhawks defenseman.

Because Olympic-year Keith raises the bar for every other year and leaves us wanting more.

Team Disappointment also selects Christian Ehrhoff, Penguins defenseman.

Supposed to come in and put up big numbers after escaping Buffalo. That hasn't been the case. At least he's a contender for the Jeff Schultz Memorial Trophy!

You know who hasn't been disappointing for the Penguins? Team Surprise's next pick, goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.

Maybe not a total surprise but Fleury has been the second best goalie in fantasy hockey through the first half of the season. That won't mean much to the average hockey fan unless he can continue that performance in the playoffs but for fantasy hockey owners this has been an excellent reminder that Fleury is annually one of the best goalies in the regular season. A new contract extension ensures his fantasy value for years to come.

We may as well secure our defense in front of Fleury as well so Team Surprise selects Johnny Boychuk, Islanders defenseman.

That steal of a trade right before the season began created a huge opportunity for Boychuk and that fat slap shot of his. He's had some injuries but on a per-game basis he's been wildly productive.

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Team Disappointment closes out their goalies with Mike Smith of the Coyotes, perhaps the single worst starting goalie of the season.

How disappointing has Smith been? Put it this way, the Coyotes recently traded away Devan Dubnyk and have since been accused of tanking with that move. Yeah, that's a legitimate storyline.

In other tanking news, Jeff Skinner, third line left winger for the Hurricanes, you're the next draft choice of Team Disappointment!

Does this require further explanation?

Team Surprise can do third-liners too! We select Penguins right wing, Steve Downie.

In a year that has seen the disappearance of the enforcer, Downie has emerged as the top PIM producer in the league by far and because he is able to skate a regular shift on a scoring line we won't see him vanish any time soon.

Team Surprise also snaps up Brock Nelson, Islanders center.

He has cooled off of late but still is a vital member of a resurgent Islanders team. So long as he can keep getting shifts on the top power play unit, he can remain a productive fantasy asset.

Still clinging to productive breakout players are you? How about someone who should have been a breakout star this season? Team Disappointment selects Wild center, Mikael Granlund.

Between injuries and the trainwreck that has been the Wild's season we'll have to wait yet another year for Granlund's emergence. It might take a coaching change if we're being honest.

Team Disappointment will also take Granlund's teammate, Thomas Vanek.

What's this the third team in the past eight months that Vanek was supposed to provide a scoring boost to but has failed to live up to expectations? Actually, Vanek was a hit for the Islanders but considering how well they are playing now it's not hard to see why. He's been buried on the Wild third line and isn't providing a boost of any kind.

A couple of picks to close it out here for Team Surprise. We'll take Tomas Tatar, Red Wings left wing and Michael Hutchinson, Jets goaltender.

Tatar excelling despite second unit power play time and arriving before suspected has been on par with the early emergence of the Triplets in Tampa Bay but no one is talking about it because there's only one of him.

Meanwhile, Ondrej Pavelec playing even average goalie for the Jets might be as big a story as Hutchinson putting up otherworldly stats to steal the starting gig but we'll keep it positive and stick with Hutch.

Last pick goes to Team Disappointment, it's only fitting. We'll take Slava Voynov.

One of the worst stories of the season. Let's just move on.

To recap:

Team Surprise

Rick Nash – Tyler Seguin – Jakub Voracek

Nick Foligno – Tyler Johnson – Nikita Kucherov

Filip Forsberg – Mike Ribeiro – Vladimir Tarasenko

Tomas Tatar – Brock Nelson – Steve Downie

Mark Giordano – TJ Brodie

Aaron Ekblad – Kevin Shattenkirk

Trevor Daley – Johnny Boychuk

Pekka Rinne

Marc-Andre Fleury

Michael Hutchinson

Team Disappointment

Taylor Hall – Sidney Crosby – Jordan Eberle

Jeff Skinner – Jason Spezza – Ales Hemsky

Matt Duchene – Anze Kopitar – Nathan MacKinnon

Thomas Vanek – Mikael Granlund – Nail Yakupov

Jay Bouwmeester – Alex Pietrangelo

Duncan Keith – Matt Niskanen

Christian Ehrhoff – Slava Voynov

Jonathan Quick

Kari Lehtonen

Mike Smith

I hope you enjoyed this but if you didn't at least it'll be no different than anything else All-Star related this weekend! Actually, last night's televised draft had some good moments. Certainly the players enjoyed themselves.

You can follow me @SteveLaidlaw.