Granlund, Pesce Signings, Fantasy Hockey Mailbag

Dobber’s 2017-18 Draft Guide is now available! I’ve only had a chance to have a quick look through, but I can already say that the top-notch content that you’ve come to expect is in there yet again.

It’s amazing how we were all able to bring this together in spite of Dobber’s health situation. But I can tell you without reservation that you will find the usual rich fantasy goodness that you’ve become accustomed to in years past. This draft guide was not thrown together or watered down or missing key content. Sleeper picks, team-by-team player projections, keepers, and even a schedule breakdown are included, plus much more. All of which have been included to help you win your league.

If you have already purchased yours, you can open it from the Downloads page on the site (top right-hand corner of the home page). Then click on the link for the 2017-18 Fantasy Hockey Guide to open the PDF file in another window, or the 2017-18 Fantasy Hockey Draft List as an Excel spreadsheet. And of course, keep coming back to the Downloads page for the updates.

Of course, if you have yet to purchase yours, you can order it here.

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On Tuesday it was Mikael Granlund’s turn to get paid. He signed a three-year, $17.25 million contract with the Wild, avoiding arbitration. The cap hit works out to be $5.75 million per season, nearly doubling his $3 million cap hit from the past two seasons. This is the second major signing of the week for the Wild, who also signed Nino Niederreiter to a five-year, $5.25 million contract on Sunday.

You may recall that Granlund had his breakout season in 2016-17, which was his magical fourth full season in the NHL. After hovering between 39 and 44 points in his first three seasons, Granlund became a must-own in all leagues with 26 goals, 69 points, a plus-23, and 20 power-play points. At the heart of Granlund’s point total was a 12-game point streak during January and February when he scored 17 points (5g-12a).

Should we expect this kind of scoring from Granlund going forward? Some owners (like me) attempted to sell high during or following the point streak, as Granlund’s nearly 15 percent shooting was noticeably higher than his sub-10 percent career average. Should the shooting percentage fall to career norms with about the same number of shots, Granlund could be looking at just under 20 goals going forward. So I’ll say this much: Don’t bet on Granlund increasing his goal total again.

A move to the wing alongside fellow Finn Mikko Koivu seemed to make all the difference in the world, so Granlund should continue to experience success for the most part as long as Bruce Boudreau doesn’t mess with that line. The move to the wing also helped Granlund’s fantasy value, as he became eligible at all three forward positions in Yahoo at one point last season. This can make daily league planning a little easier if you have a positional imbalance on your team (although Yahoo went a little crazy awarding multiple positions to forwards last year).

Granlund just got a little more expensive in cap leagues, but that shouldn’t tremendously affect his status on your cap league team. He finished just outside the top 20 in overall scoring last season, so a case could be made about him being a top-50 pick in single-season fantasy drafts.

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Another notable signing on Tuesday (although less so for fantasy purposes) was Brett Pesce receiving a six-year, $24.15 million contract from the Hurricanes. What jumped out at me (and probably many of you as well) was the six years. Pesce is only 22 years old, yet he scored 20 points and was a plus-23 while averaging just over 21 minutes of icetime per game. Pesce was paired with Jaccob Slavin, who himself received a seven-year contract worth $5.3 million per season. Pesce (148) and Slavin (161) both finished in the top 30 in blocked shot totals last season.   

I have to admit that living in Western Canada, I don’t get to see the Hurricanes play a whole lot. So I’ll ask any Hurricanes fans that are reading: is Pesce worth the money? My assumption is that he might be a Chris Tanev type of defender – one who doesn’t play a high-offense or overly physical game, yet you don’t notice him that much because he doesn’t make many glaring mistakes. Unfortunately that doesn’t translate well to fantasy. So unless your deep league places heavy value on blocked shots, it’s probably not worth your while to add Pesce.

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For this Ramblings and the next two I am covering over the weekend, I will take as many of your questions as I can answer. If you submitted a question on Sunday via Twitter and I didn’t answer it below, I will likely get to it over the weekend. I will be covering both the Saturday and Sunday Ramblings this weekend, so there will be lots of space to get it in.
 

@Ian_Gooding who do you think will be the top 5 fantasy d men this coming season?

— Jimmy S. 🇨🇦 (@doublejspencer) July 31, 2017

Who should be the top three at least should be an easy question. Three defensemen topped 70 points last season (Brent Burns, Erik Karlsson, Victor Hedman). That doesn’t necessarily mean those three will be the top three scorers or even the top three fantasy d-men, but right now they have to be ranked in a class of their own. This grouping as the top tier becomes even more apparent if you consider that no defenseman scored between 60 and 70 points last season.

After that, there are a group of defensemen that could be considered for the numbers four and five slots. That group includes (and may not be restricted to) Kevin Shattenkirk, Duncan Keith, Roman Josi, and Dustin Byfuglien. All four of these blueliners scored between 0.6 and 0.7 points per game last season. On a points-per-game level, Kris Letang was fourth in the NHL with 0.83 points per game, but many fantasy owners won’t feel comfortable picking him as the fourth defenseman off the board because of his injury history.

It really depends on whether you’re talking about multicategory leagues or pure points league. In a multicategory format, I might choose someone like Byfuglien for his shots on goal and hits and penalty minutes (although there are many better options for power-play points). In a pure points league, it might be someone like Shattenkirk for his pure offensive ability (while his power-play points don’t hurt in multicategory leagues either). A consistent option for both types of formats would be Josi, who is fifth among blueliners over the past two seasons with 0.72 points per game.

The top tier should be the top three no matter what. After that, the decision should be based on your scoring system.
 

Will Seguin and Benn both go over 80?

— Jonny Miazyk (@MiazyK) July 31, 2017

Tyler Seguin hasn’t reached 80 points over his last three seasons, although injuries have gotten in the way. Meanwhile, Jamie Benn hasn’t reached 80 points in his past two seasons since winning the Art Ross Trophy in 2014-15. In spite of that, both players have hovered around the point-per-game mark when averaged over the past three seasons (Benn 1.02 P/GP, Seguin 0.99 P/GP).

With the mess of last season in the rearview mirror, the outlook is very bright in Dallas in the short term. Additions like Alexander Radulov and Martin Hanzal should help the Stars spread the scoring around more. So there are signs that both Seguin and Benn could experience a minor bounce-back in the coming campaign.  

But with overall league scoring still relatively low and with the usual defensive effect of a Ken Hitchcock system, it’s hard to bet the over on this. The Stars were a dysfunctional defensive unit last season (29^th in NHL with 3.17 GAA), so expect Hitchcock to be defense first morning noon and night as he tries to make the Stars a playoff team again. 

For what it’s worth, not many who voted in the recent Cage Match Tournament thought Seguin would ever exceed his career high of 84 points again. Benn may be more likely, although anyone drafting both players could safely project something in the 75-80 point range for each.  
 

No brainer to take Shipachyov over Dadonov in points only even if I need a RW? Cap league dynasty.

— Treblekoop (@treblekoop) July 31, 2017

Here’s a possible answer to your question:
 

Yes. Dadonov may have more tread on the tire but short term Shipachoyv

— Peter Harling🏒 (@pharling) July 31, 2017

I’d have to agree with this answer, although I believe Peter means that 30-year-old Vadim Shipachyov has more tread on his tires than 28-year-old Evgeny Dadonov. Playing for the same KHL team over the past three seasons, Shipachyov was the stronger offensive force with 1.24 points per game compared to Dadonov’s 0.96 points per game.

The one advantage that Dadonov may have is better linemates (or at least more linemates to choose from) in Florida. We saw the effect that Patrick Kane had on recent KHL graduate Artemi Panarin. It’s unlikely Panarin would have put up the same point totals had he played for a team with limited scoring options. That’s why some are doubting that he’ll be the same player in Columbus as he was in Chicago.

Could the lack of true scoring options be one disadvantage of drafting Shipachyov? If you’re in any way curious about how players on first-year expansion teams fare in the scoring department, I covered this topic in a Ramblings earlier this year (before the expansion draft, mind you, though Shipachyov had been signed at that point).

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