Welcome to part four of our four part skater series. We have already reviewed centermen, left wings, and right wings. Our goal is to figure out which players gave the most value to their fantasy teams. To do this we are essentially comparing player draft data to their end of year stats to get an idea of how well they have lived up to their average draft ranking (ADP). To be a valuable player in this context then a player needs to outperform their ADP. 

Frozen Tool Forensics: Most Valuable Defenseman. Previous iterations of this series can be found here.

The ADPs are based off draft rankings across several sites and averaged. Please find our top five defensemen below.

	ADP Rank
John Carlson	16
Cale Makar	22
Roman Josi	25
Victor Hedman	29
Dougie Hamilton	42

As we noticed with right wings, defensemen were clearly targeted later in the draft. The reason is rather obvious, given that defensemen tend to put up fewer points. If we remember though Mitch Marner was drafted 12th and John Carlson is here at 16th. I think I know who I would have preferred. The fall off is pretty sharp though here with Dougie Hamilton ranked 42nd.

Next we have the same process as last week: we compare that draft rank to the player's year-long performance. We are taking Yahoo's standard calculation for points (six for a goal, four for an assist, etc) and apply that to Frozen Tool's Big Board Report. In order to do this we export the report, then add a little equation adding all of the values for each scoring category. That gives us a total-points produced for all players, which we can then rank. We will use both rank and actuals in this column – but we will get to actuals in a minute.

	ADP Rank	PTS Rank	Δ
Jakob Chychrun	258	10	248
Shayne Gostisbehere	284	166	118
Rasmus Andersson	261	167	94
Mattias Ekholm	253	161	92
Vince Dunn	275	186	89

This metric highlights those deeper players who are dramatically outperforming their rank (we will get to another way to look at it in a minute) so it helps to have been ranked poorly to start.

Jakob Chychrun destroys the competition here. We will actually get to him in a little bit though. For now I want to touch on Rasmus Andersson.

Andersson splashed at the start of the season as he was seeing relatively huge deployment on the top power-play in Calgary. He put up five points in his first six games, with three on the power-play. His ownership spiked and managers were drooling over the potential. It took him 25 games to get three more power-play points. He did have another nice stretch of nine points in 13 games through February and March, but mostly at even strength. He was benefitting from some nice percentages and when they dried up so did his scoring. He then lost his power-play time and ended the season without a power-play point in his last 25 games and only seven points since his run ended in March. Moral of the story here is that while he did outperform expectations, he was really only worth it if managers grabbed him early in the season and cut bait after March.

And now the flip side – who was not worth the price?

	ADP Rank	PTS Rank	Δ
Zach Werenski	79	184	-105
Alex Pietrangelo	49	146	-97
Ryan Graves	107	204	-97
Erik Karlsson	63	152	-89
Rasmus Dahlin	65	145	-80

One side note here. With this scoring metric defensemen were very much not worth the early draft. Of the top 20 drafted defensemen, only two, Dougie Hamilton and Shea Theodore, ended with a points rank higher than their ADP rank.

On to the list:

Zach Werenski and Alex Pietrangelo were definitely hampered by injuries, and Erik Karlsson appears to be a bit of a shell of his former – but what happened to Rasmus Dahlin?

Dahlin was primed for a huge season. He had a great rookie year, a 56-point sophomore season, and then the team had added Taylor Hall. Instead of another step forward he put up a 34-point full season pace. At first glance the news isn't all bad. He saw about the same percentage of his team's power-play, his overall ice time increased by almost two minutes, and his shot rates increased from 19-20. The real issue was that Buffalo just couldn't score – and especially at five on five. His team shooting percentage and expected goal numbers at five on five indicate that the problem wasn't as much as a Dahlin problem as a Sabres problem. Things should have been a bit better for him, though with Hall gone and Jack Eichel dissatisfied the prognosis for a Buffalo resurgence doesn't feel high. On the slightly plus side Dahlin's second half was definitely better than his first and was capped off with eleven points in 16 April games.

Now we move to a review of the data based on actual production vs ranked production. With the full season data we can compare all players' draft position to their end of year points and produce a trend line. With this line we can take any draft position and get an 'expected' number of points. A player's true points then will give us an idea of how much they performed above or below expected. This helps us look at those players who were drafted highly as well.

Here is our top five:

	Expected Pts	PTS	PTS Δ
Jakob Chychrun	179.3	475.4	296.1
Darnell Nurse	259.5	428.6	169.1
Adam Fox	283.5	437.8	154.3
Tyson Barrie	291.1	444.4	153.3
Devon Toews	225.3	348.9	123.6

So, let's talk about Jakob Chychrun. The guy was a monster this season. Even with the shortened season he saw career highs in goals, assists, shots, and power-play points. He increased his shots per game, his power-play time, and his total ice time. Obviously that second list is a big reason why he saw improvements in the first. Off season, Chychrun was a hot sleeper pick, with many projecting him to see an increased role in the desert and man did he deliver. He was the most valuable fantasy defenseman in this scoring metric after being ranked 258th overall and the 65th ranked defenseman on draft day. Unfortunately there are a couple of question marks. His personal shooting percentage, as well as those of his teammates when he was on the ice, were higher than average. He also saw a decreasing amount of power-play time throughout the season. He started with well over three minutes per game on average, but by the end of season he was down below two. It does imply that a 60 point Chychrun might not make a return next season, though his nice peripheral floor still makes him pretty hard to pass up.

And now on to the disappointments.

	Expected Pts	PTS	PTS Δ
Zach Werenski	311.8	214.1	-97.7
Colton Parayko	245.4	170	-75.4
Hampus Lindholm	146.8	75.1	-71.7
Adam Boqvist	213.8	148.1	-65.7
John Marino	220.0	166.4	-53.6

Again I think we can let Werenski slide a bit here as he was injured. Certainly not what managers were hoping for, but understandable. Let's take a quick look at Colton Parayko.

Parayko has long been a recommendation a la Chychrun this year. He provides a solid floor and has always hinted at more if he could just get the opportunity. With Alex Pietrangelo departing for Vegas there was briefly a roll to fill on the power-play. The addition of Tory Krug made it less likely though. Even though Krug was only ok, Parayko didn't even get a whiff of time. Vince Dunn continued his role as disappointing heir apparent. Parayko's point totals were still in the realm of his past performances, but a 30 point defenseman who is dropping ice time and peripherals isn't the goal here. We are unfortunately settling into a place where Parayko is a steady 30-35 point player. There is a question as to whether that is his skill or his deployment, but given that his deployment has only gotten worse over the last couple of seasons it is not very encouraging.

That is all for this week. Thanks for reading.

Stay safe out there.

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