Mark Stone vs. Nikita Kucherov, plus Summer 2015 Tournament winner revealed

Winner of the Summer 2015 Cage Match Tournament

Before we get started with this week’s return to regular Cage Match format, it’s time to let everyone know who won the summer 2015 Cage Match Tournament to determine which NHLer would see his 2015-16 average draft position on Yahoo rise or fall the most as compared to 2014-15. The finalists were Vladimir Tarasenko (from the “risers” bracket) and Alexander Semin (from the “fallers” brackets).

In the end, Tarasenko was the runaway winner. My only disappointment is Semin signed with Montreal at the 11th hour of the tournament; and had that not occurred, I believe the final match might’ve been much closer. After all, in the semi-finals Tarasenko’s momentum appeared to be slowing, while Semin was seemingly gaining steam. Oh well……

Thanks again to everyone who voted, commented in the forum polls, and read the columns while the tourney was running. As of now I’m targeting the end of the year for another exciting tournament, so be sure to stay tuned! One final note – the answers to last week’s bonus quiz were 1E, 2A, 3F, 4H, 5C, 6B, 7D and 8G.

Now Back to Regularly Scheduled Cage Match Programming

This week the focus is on two younger players that figure to be among the most buzzed about wingers leading up to the 2015-16 season – Mark Stone and Nikita Kucherov, who finished within just one point of each other for 2014-15. Now the magic question is whether we should expect them to improve, hold their ground, or even take a step backwards in 2015-16. Time to find out – Cage Match starts now.

Career Path and Contract Status

If Kucherov’s teammate Tyler Johnson was the biggest fantasy surprise among skaters for 2014-15, a case could be made for Stone placing second. After all, he was drafted 178th back in 2010; and although he posted 229 points in his final two WHL seasons, he still had to prove himself in the AHL. But prove himself he did, to the tune of 79 points in 91 games.

That earned Stone stints in Ottawa during 2012-13 (four games) and 2013-14 (19 games), totaling only eight points. Based on that, no one expected him to explode for 64 points in 2014-15 (tied for tops among rookies), including 48 points in his final 47 contests, which is quite impressive considering only six players finished last season with better than a point per game average.

As the 58th overall pick in 2011, Kucherov also wasn’t tabbed for surefire success. But after he lit up the Russian juniors and QMJHL, his arrival in Tampa for 2013-14 was accompanied by sky high expectations. Unfortunately for poolies, he disappointed (18 points in 52 games), although the fact that he’d posted 24 points in a 17 game AHL tenure that same campaign all but ensured he’d get a full season NHL look in 2014-15. The rest is history, as Kucherov tallied 65 points in 82 regular season games, followed by 22 in 26 playoff contests.

Stone inked a three year RFA deal this summer for $3.5M per season, while Kucherov has one more bargain basement priced season of $0.711M in 2015-16 before becoming an RFA.

Ice Time

I was surprised how similar their 2013-14 data was, despite their differences in games played (19 for Stone, 52 for Kucherov). But what shocked me more was the 2:04 extra Total Ice Time Stone received in 2014-15, as even with Stone’s 1:22 more SH Ice Time, that’s a huge gap.

What it boils down to is Kucherov’s 14:57 of Total Ice Time was glaringly low for someone who produced as much as he did (finishing tied for 26th in scoring). In fact, it was more than two minutes less than anyone else among the top 30 scorers for 2014-15 (actually top 34, since five were tied for 30th), with the second lowest Total Ice Time among the top 34 being – believe it or not – Stone’s 17:01, and with only four others receiving less than 18:00 per game (Tyler Johnson, Rick Nash, Vladimir Tarasenko, Johnny Gaudreau).

Given this data, it wouldn’t surprise me if both players benefitted from good luck in 2014-15 (we’ll check below). In that case we’d want to know just how good, as that in turn would give us insight on whether their production can be sustained, let alone improved upon if their Ice Time doesn’t markedly increase.

Let’s actually turn to that question – should we expect either or both to receive more Ice Time? Logic would suggest yes for both, as Kucherov averaged 16:59 per game in 26 playoff contests while Stone took the ice for 19:10 per game in six playoff tilts after having averaged no less than 18:25 in any of the final three months of the 2014-15 season. But on the other hand, even as he was posting double digits in points in November (11 in 13 games), December (17 in 15 games), and February (10 in 12 games), Kucherov’s average Ice Times per game were 14:54, 15:06, and 15:07 respectively, while for Stone, no Ottawa winger in either of the past two seasons cracked the 17:38 per game mark.

All things considered, it’s probably safest to project each for about 1:00 of added Ice Time per game in 2015-16, but with a greater chance of more than one minute gained as opposed to less.

Secondary Categories

Those who labeled Kucherov as a bad multi-cat option after his rookie season were likely surprised when he went on to more than double his Hits per game output and nearly double his PIM per game. He also saw his PP Points predictably increase (his PP Ice Time per game essentially doubled) and his Shots per game improve by roughly 20%. And this all occurred with a 14% increase in Total Ice Time. As for Stone, although he had nice gains in PP Points and Blocked Shots, his PIM actually went down and his SOG per game increased by less than 5% (1.96 SOG per game was fifth worst among the top 34 scorers) despite him gaining 17% in Total Ice Time.

Given that Kucherov made more/better gains despite less of a percentagewise Ice Time increase than Stone, it’s easier to envision Kucherov’s secondary category output either further increasing or, at worst, staying roughly the same even if he was to gain only another 1:00 or so in total Ice time, whereas Stone’s output seemingly would be less likely to be positively affected by similar Ice Time gains.

Luck-Based Metrics

Since Stone only played 19 games in 2013-14, he didn’t meet the 50 minute 5×4 IPP threshold.

Their Offensive Zone Starting percentages for 2014-15 were very reasonable, which is always good to see among young players who made big jumps in production. But each also had a very high Personal Shooting Percentage, with Stone’s being fourth highest among the top 34 scorers and Kucherov seventh. Those are likely to fall, not just based on general logic (league-wide shooting percentage was 9.1% last season) but also in looking at their 2013-14 totals, which, admittedly, were in smaller sample sizes.

The concerns don’t end there, as each had a better than average IPP, with Stone’s being 18th among the 121 forwards who skated for 1000+ minutes at 5×5 in 2014-15 and Kucherov’s being 53rd among the 195 forwards who took the ice for 100+ minutes at 5×4. Of the two, Stone’s is far more worrisome, not just because of how high he ranked but also, of course, due to 5×5 scoring comprising a greater portion of a player’s production.

To give this some better perspective, if Stone’s 5×5 IPP had been middle of the pack instead (i.e., 70.9%, which is what the players ranked 60th and 61st out of the 121 who skated 1000+ minutes at 5×5 had), then he’d have lost seven points in total, whereas if Kucherov had finished 97th in 5×4 IPP (equating to 58.3%) instead of 53rd (i.e., 66.7%), then his 2014-15 scoring output would’ve only shrank by two.

As for PDO, although each player’s was very high (top ten among 307 forwards who played 60+ games in 2014-15), some solace can be taken that Stone also had a high PDO in 2013-14, and Kucherov’s linemates are PDO machines, with Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat finishing at 1043 in 2014-15 and 1029 and 1040 respectively in 2013-14. While of course there’s still rightful concern that both Stone and Kucherov might see their production slip if their PDOs drop, there isn’t the same level of worry that would accompany players who’d never previously posted a very high PDO. In other words, their high PDO might just be sustainable (or at least mostly sustainable) based on their track records.

Looking to Past History for Future Predictions

Of course past results aren’t necessarily future predictors; but they’re often useful as part of forming an overall big picture comparison between two young players who don’t have several years of their own data to analyze. Thus, I think it’s worthwhile to examine other players who posted similar outputs at similar ages and points in time in their young careers.

If we look at NHLers since 2005-06 who – like Kucherov- posted 65+ points in either their first or second season while age 21 or younger, we see a list that includes many stars (Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Steven Stamkos, Patrick Kane, John Tavares, Tyler Seguin), some very solid players (Nicklas Backstrom, Eric Staal, Anze Kopitar), plus several who, thus far, have never posted 80 points in a season (Jonathan Toews, Matt Duchene, Patrice Bergeron, Jordan Eberle, Paul Stastny).

But when we shift focus to players who, as a rookie age 22 or older, posted 64 or more points ala Stone, we get just one other player – Brad Boyes. And poolies know all too well that Boyes went on to have a mostly lackluster fantasy career. In fact, even if we widen the point criteria to 50+ among rookies aged 22+, we get only six other players, namely Kucherov’s current “triplets” linemates (Johnson and Palat), and four others who’ve gone on to have fantasy careers arguably even worse than Boyes – Jussi Jokinen, Kris Versteeg, Michael Grabner, and Marek Svatos.

Thus, while Kucherov’s age in relation to his points total doesn’t guarantee him future stardom, it puts him in a lot finer company than Stone.

Who Wins?

As great a story as Stone’s “out of nowhere” 2014-15 campaign was, we saw from past comparisons that he might just end being one of those guys who can’t improve upon his early career success. Plus, his best production came when receiving a level of Ice Time that might not fall into his lap for 2015-16 and while benefitting from very high 5×5 IPP and personal shooting percentage. In contrast, it’s still more realistic to expect Kucherov to improve or at least maintain similar output going forward given past player comparisons, his level of production during the regular season despite such low Ice Times, and him apparently not having benefitted by as much unsustainable good luck (particularly 5×5 IPP) as Stone in 2014-15. Kucherov wins this Cage Match.

Despite him “losing” the match, it bears mentioning that we shouldn’t automatically expect Stone’s production to drop like……pardon the pun…..a Stone. If we look at Boyes for example, he went on to exceed his 69 point rookie output once (72 points in 2008-09) and post 65 points during 2007-08, although for what it’s worth neither of those outputs were good enough to put him among the top 30 NHL scorers for the particular season.

If you own Stone in a keeper, you owe it to yourselves to at least explore trading him, especially since you can talk up his 48 points in his final 47 regular season games and likely get great value in return. Plus, if he was to falter at all during 2015-16, poolies could quickly turn into non-believers, making it very difficult for you to get good value in return for him down the road. Long story short – he’s a definite “sell high” candidate right now.

As for Kucherov, I can see how it would be hard to swallow trading him in a keeper, not just because his breakout seemed more legitimate and sustainable, but also because he actually improved his scoring output (69 point pace) on the NHL’s biggest stage during the Stanley Cup playoffs. Even still, it couldn’t hurt to see if someone blows you away with an offer, since you can always opt to decline once you hear what they have to say.

In one year leagues, I’m inclined to advise you not to draft either player, as I suspect they’ll both be targeted far too early by poolies who have visions of both improving significantly upon their production from last season (i.e., posting perhaps 70 or even 75 points). And although that could happen, it’s unwise to pay a high cost for imputed high value that’s unlikely to actually materialize.