My Ramblings on Tuesday discussed four player that had breakout seasons in 2021-22 and whether the breakout was a one-off, is repeatable, or if there is decline in the offing. This is the last week before training camps start so let's do one last Ramblings covering exclusively offseason stuff. Today, we'll look at players that had good underlying numbers in 2021-22 but did not breakout in the fantasy game.

A lot of things can go right, but if very specific things do not, the results won't follow. In hockey, there could be any number of reasons like lack of ice time, lack of power-play role, inability of teammates to finish, personal shooting percentage crash, or some combination of issues. Sometimes, players do the right things but do not get rewarded for it. So, let's look at some players that did some things right but didn't explode offensively. We will see a few young players but there are some veterans who seem to be turning a corner and require our attention as well. As always, data is from either Natural Stat Trick or our own Frozen Tools, unless otherwise noted.

Arthur Kaliyev

In sum, it was a fine rookie season for the now-21-year-old Kaliyev. He had 14 goals and 27 points in 80 games, managing 2.4 shots per game, while skating well under 13 minutes a night. Having written about his season extensively back in May means not having to repeat myself here, but there were a lot of good things that happened with him on the ice. Two things went wrong: his shooting percentage (which was discussed in that article) and his individual points percentage (IPP). A player's IPP is simply the rate at which they garner a point when their team scores a goal with them on the ice. Kaliyev finished at an even 50% at 5-on-5, which was a distant last among all Kings forwards, and tied him for 357^th out of 387 forwards that played at least 500 minutes. The league median is about 66%, which would have added roughly five points to his total. That, with a better shooting percentage, would have probably seen him threaten 20 goals.

I can have rose-coloured glasses at times. Kaliyev was a prospect I hoped Montreal (my home team) would take in the middle of the first round if Cole Caufield was taken, and a guy I wanted them to trade up for once he fell to the second round But he was solid defensively in a minimal role, showed off his shot at times, and looks primed for a rebound in some key production metrics. He will be in tough to be a reliable fantasy asset until he earns a permanent top-6 role, but that day may not be far off.  

William Carrier

One guess as to which Vegas forward led the team in 5-on-5 individual expected goals (ixG) rate?

With an ixG/60 of 1.18, Carrier was 28% higher than the next-closest teammate in Max Pacioretty. League-wide, among 306 forwards with at least 700 5-on-5 minutes, Carrier finished second, behind only Auston Matthews. It was a career-best for him, but over the prior three seasons, he managed a mark of 0.86, which tied him with names like Jonathan Marchessault, David Pastrnak, and Cam Atkinson. He has generally shown a penchant for shooting often, and from good areas, but limited ice time and an inconsistent role has kept him from fantasy relevance outside of deep banger leagues.

Carrier has played in parts of six seasons and has not had a shooting percentage above 10% in any single year. His career mark is 7.6% in 318 games and HockeyViz, unsurprisingly, has him as well below average in finishing ability:

While Vegas has Cup aspirations, they aren't really deep at left wing. If they leave Jack Eichel at centre, they're looking at Marchessault, maybe Chandler Stephenson, and that's it. If Carrier can even get third-line minutes, he has 15-goal, 150-shot, and 200-hit upside. That would play very well in multi-cat leagues. Until he earns a larger role, though, the waiting game continues.

Filip Zadina

With the offseason additions of David Perron, Andrew Copp, and Dominik Kubalik, plus a healthy Jakub Vrana, a top-6 role for Zadina looks more distant than ever. That, in and of itself, is a big issue for his fantasy relevance in most formats. He didn't produce well last year in terms of raw points, with 24 in 74 games playing 14:11 a game, but he may have been a bit unlucky. His IPP at 5-on-5 was 42.4%, good for 303^rd out of 306 forwards with at least 700 minutes. His first two full-ish seasons saw him post a mark of 65.6%. Had he managed that mark, he would have added roughly eight points to his total, and that would have made his season look considerably better.

Having good line mates helps a lot, and Zadina's three most-common line mates in 2021-22 were Pius Suter, Adam Erne, and Michael Rasmussen. He has largely been kept away from the team's top stars and that's going to continue in 2022-23 barring injury or a huge jump in his game. But he has shown some good offensive flashes and likes to shoot the puck. He is definitely a player to monitor as the season wears on because some improve line mate quality could lead to a much better season, at least in spurts.

Kirby Dach

There has been a lot written about Dach over the summer given his trade to Montreal. I wrote about the trade when it happened and what's gone wrong with Dach early in his career. I also wrote a bit about him when he signed his extension recently. Go read those for a more in-depth look at Dach's successes and failures thus far.  

Like others on this list, he also had a very low IPP, sitting at 48.7% at 5-on-5. That was 296^th out of 306 forwards with at least 700 minutes of 5-on-5 time. We know about all the injuries, so they likely played some sort of factor here, but the only guys worse than him were either injured players, depth checkers, or the aforementioned Zadina. Over Dach's first two seasons in Chicago, though his IPP was still low, it was over 58%. Even without him flourishing offensively yet, his 2021-22 IPP was much lower than we should expect. He could have been shortchanged a good 4-5 points last year through IPP alone. Not that 31 points instead of 26 changes a lot, but it does portend better production moving forward if he's A) healthy and B) sees the likely IPP rebound.

Dach looks like a key piece of the Montreal rebuild moving forward. Developing his offensive game should be a top priority and having Martin St. Louis should help a lot in this regard. The Albertan may never be a monster producer, but he should be a reliable two-way centre sooner rather than later, and a rebounding IPP will help in the short-term.

Tyler Seguin

There were 47 players with at least 50 shots on goal with the man advantage in 2021-22 and Tyler Seguin was the only player to score fewer than five PP goals (he had three). For Seguin, that was the lowest PP goal total for him in any season where he's played at least 70 games since his rookie 2010-11 campaign. That will happen when a player shoots 6% on the power play.

In the 84 regular season games Seguin has played since his hip surgery in late 2020, Seguin has shot 5.8% on the power play. That is 207^th out of 223 forwards with at least 150 minutes of PP time in that span. In the three seasons prior to that, he shot 10.6%. In other words, we could see his PPSH% basically double and it would be close to in line with what he's done recently. If he can do that and stay healthy, he has potential for a 30-goal season.

The health and production of Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn is likely the difference between Dallas making noise in the playoffs or potentially missing them altogether. Seguin spoke about the issues he had returning from his multiple recent surgeries and having to change his game a bit. Now that he's nearly two years removed from those operations, I think we see an improved Seguin. If Mason Marchment can repeat his performance from Florida in Dallas, that will go a long way to giving Seguin a talented line. Though he didn't have a great 2021-22, Seguin was still 1 of 16 players with at least 20 goals, 25 assists, 200 shots, and 90 hits. Every other player to do that was a reliable fantasy option, with the bottom of the list being Pierre-Luc Dubois and Tomas Hertl. Seguin should be a veteran with a star next to his name later in multi-cat drafts. A bit of better fortune on the power play, with a better line, could see a return to significant fantasy success.

Ryan Merkley

Going through some of Corey Sznajder's tracking data showed some very impressive numbers for Merkley. In a limited sample – about 10 games' worth of ice time – he had an exceptional scoring chance assist rate and very strong zone entry/exit numbers:

He has 30 points in his last 61 AHL games which isn't a monster total but his assist numbers were strong. Our own Dobber Prospects pegged him as a dynamic puck-mover and it seems his brief NHL stint showed the same.

He had just six points in 39 games but there were reasons for that. First, the team really struggled to score with him on the ice: San Jose shot just 5.1% with Merkley patrolling the rink at 5-on-5. A lot of that has to do with how poor the San Jose depth was, as his on-ice goal rate when he had Tomas Hertl with him was 2.9 per 60 minutes (just fine) and 0.95 per 60 without Hertl (absolutely awful). The San Jose depth hasn't really improved but it's hard to believe a mark of 0.95 without Hertl will be replicated.

Beyond that, should Erik Karlsson suffer an injury, with Brent Burns out of the picture, Merkley could be in the running for some PP1 time. He likely still has some defensive work to do but a natural rebound from depth scoring in addition to a bit of significant PP time should see a huge increase in his production. Now might be the time to buy low on him in dynasty leagues, though it's hard to see the Sharks improving greatly in the short-term.

Martin Fehervary

There were 143 defencemen that played at least 1000 minutes at 5-on-5 last year and Fehervary finished tied for 138^th in secondary assist (2A) rate. One reason for that is easy to figure out: he played almost exclusively with John Carlson. The all-star blue liner is going to get way more touches with the puck than the young Caps rearguard will, and that will naturally lead to fewer second assists.

Fehervary has more to give offensively. His scoring chance assist rate was above average, and he had excellent zone entry percentages. A rebound in secondary assists, which would include a rise in a very poor IPP number, should lead to more points in 2022-23. If he were to double his secondary assist rate, he could easily add 3-4 points, and would still be in the bottom-quartile of the league in 2A/60. For a guy that had nearly 280 hits+blocks in 2021-22, adding a few points is a big deal. Multi-cat players should absolutely keep tabs on him in drafts. Even a 25-point season, with his peripherals, would be enormous at the draft table.

Nicolas Hague

The obvious problem for Hague's fantasy value is that Shea Theodore and Alex Pietrangelo will be ahead of him on the depth chart in all the offensive situations. In that sense, I wouldn't expect him to break out for 40 points or anything like that in 2021-22.

With that said, Hague finished 141^st out of 173 defencemen in IPP last year at all strengths with a mark of 26.4%. The aggregate of his first two seasons was 37.3%. Had he managed that in 2021-22, he would have had an additional six points to his name. I think if he posts 20 points in 52 games last year, we're having a different conversation about his upside. In fact, he showed very strong in a lot of shooting metrics as well as zone entry percentages as it was:

With a full, healthy season, Hague can absolutely put up 30 points, 150 shots, 125 blocks, and 100 hits. That is a very solid multi-cat season and he doesn't turn 24 years old until December. Better luck should see a rebound for him and with it, much more fantasy relevance.

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For more players that could break out this year, be sure to grab our 2022 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide! It has articles for breakouts and slowdowns and medium-term projections, which fit this idea to a tee. It has a lot more, obviously, and is constantly updated throughout training camps so get a leg up on your fantasy competition and help support what we do!

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The Sens continued their offseason spending by adding depth forward Tyler Motte on a one-year deal:

#Sens sign Tyler Motte: 1 year x $1.35 million.

— Frank Seravalli (@frank_seravalli) September 14, 2022

If he can manage a full season as the third-line centre, Motte can post 20-25 points with huge hit totals. He isn't relevant outside banger leagues but we'll have to see how they line up in exhibition games. Being relegated to fourth-line duties immediately would not be a good sign.