Today we are going for a deep dive and looking at player production through a slightly different lens. As any fantasy manager can attest there is quite a bit of variation from game to game, and even from week to week. Players can go from matchup defining games to cardio sessions with negligible fantasy impact. The goal for this week is to review the season to date and identify which players are the most consistent and which players are driving their managers (and opponents) crazy with their boom or bust point production.

For the purposes of this article, we are digging into data pulled on January 18. Frozen Tools has a great report to get us started titled Most Consistent. I pulled that report for the season to date and exported the data so that we can dig a bit more into the numbers.

At its most basic level we can get the number and percent of games in which a player has put up a point. The table below shows that data, and the top five most consistent producers in the league.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS	GP w/ Pt	PTS/GP	Consistency %
CONNOR MCDAVID	C	EDM	46	84	41	1.83	89.13
MITCHELL MARNER	R	TOR	45	54	39	1.2	86.67
LEON DRAISAITL	C	EDM	44	70	37	1.59	84.09
DAVID PASTRNAK	R	BOS	43	62	36	1.44	83.72
NIKITA KUCHEROV	R	T.B	42	62	34	1.48	80.95

Going from left to right we have player name, their position and team, the number of games played, their total points, the number of games they have with a point, their overall points per game and then the percent of games where they score a point. So for Connor McDavid, he has scored a point in 89.13 percent (41 of 46) games he has played.

It isn't surprising that the league's top scorers are all represented on this top five list. Those players have the most points so it makes sense that they have points in the most games. What I am more interested in is which players are putting up points in more games than we would expect.

To make that comparison we find the relationship between points per game and consistency (and not surprisingly there is a pretty strong relationship there) and use that to generate an expected consistency number based on a player's points per game. The idea being that two 70-point players should be expected to put up points in a similar number of games, but we might find that one tends to cluster points in multi-point games (but also has more zero-point games), while the other gets single points in more games.

The following chart adds the expected consistency number, and then the difference between actual and expected. It is sorted in this case by the most consistent players.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS	GP w/ Pt	PTS/GP	Consistency %	Expected Consistency %	Δ
MITCHELL MARNER	R	TOR	45	54	39	1.2	86.67	72.49	14.18
JONATAN BERGGREN	R	DET	30	16	16	0.53	53.33	42.00	11.33
CONNOR MCDAVID	C	EDM	46	84	41	1.83	89.13	79.29	9.84
SEAN MONAHAN	C	MTL	25	17	15	0.68	60.00	50.91	9.09
BROCK BOESER	R	VAN	35	26	22	0.74	62.86	54.13	8.73

Mitch Marner leads this list and for good reason. He has six games without a point this season. McDavid, though he has 30 more points, has been held off of the score sheet five times.

Jonatan Berggren is an interesting name here. Not the most fantasy relevant player here (with a 44-point pace), but he doesn't have a single multi-point game to his credit. Certainly not the best bet to win you a week, but has been pointing more often than we would expect someone of his point pace to point.

On the flip side, here are the least consistent scorers: the boom or bust type if you will.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS	GP w/ Pt	PTS/GP	Consistency %	Expected Consistency %	Δ
MASON APPLETON	L	WPG	14	6	3	0.43	21.43	35.39	-13.96
ANDREI KUZMENKO	L	VAN	42	37	21	0.88	50.00	60.92	-10.92
PATRIK LAINE	R	CBJ	29	22	13	0.76	44.83	55.17	-10.34
KEVIN FIALA	L	L.A	46	47	26	1.02	56.52	66.65	-10.13
SAM BENNETT	C	FLA	46	28	17	0.61	36.96	46.90	-9.94

We will return to Andrei Kuzmenko is just a moment, but for now let's focus in on Patrik Laine, and Brock Boeser from our earlier list.

Both Boeser and Laine are on similar point paces leading to an expectation that they would point in about 55 percent of their games. Boeser is pointing in almost 63 percent of his games, while Laine is down at 45. They have both missed time and played a different number of games, but we can take their game logs and pro-rate their numbers to 41 games played (since we are about halfway through the season) to make it easier to compare.

This prorated Laine has pointed in only 18 games, while being shut out 23 times. Boeser, on the other hand, has pointed 26 times while only being shut out 14. This is essentially another way of saying the same thing. Boeser gets points more consistently, while Laine is shut out more often. The thing with Laine though is that if he points, it will probably be a multi-point game. Ten of those 18 games with a point were multi-point. For Boeser it was only three. Over a long enough sample these two styles of production even out, but in any given week Laine is the much more frustrating hold. He has streaks of three and five games without a point, so he could literally go a week or two without putting up anything and then put up six points in three games (which he has done twice). Boeser typically doesn't go more than one game without a point, but the most he has ever done in a two-game stretch is three.

We can now move on to officially measuring multi-point games. The principle is the same, as we take the number of games a player has put up multiple points, turn that into a percentage, find the relationship between the percent of multiple point games, and their overall points per game number, and then the difference.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS	GP w/ 2+Pts	PTS/GP	2+Pts %	Expected 2+Pts %	Δ
ANDREI KUZMENKO	L	VAN	42	37	13	0.88	31.00	21.49	9.51
TRAVIS KONECNY	R	PHI	39	48	16	1.23	41.00	31.88	9.12
BRAYDEN POINT	C	T.B	42	45	15	1.07	35.70	27.13	8.57
VINCENT TROCHECK	C	NYR	45	31	11	0.69	24.40	15.84	8.56
JACK HUGHES	C	N.J	44	55	18	1.25	40.90	32.48	8.43

Everything that applied to Laine above applies to Kuzmenko here, but just a bit worse. The man just does not do things halfway. He has a higher point pace than Laine so should have more games with points, but is basically exactly on pace with our prorated Laine from above. He is getting multi-point games at a higher rate too. He has eight total single-point games and 13 multi-point games.

Basically if you need a hail mary in a given matchup these are your adds (assuming anyone on this list is available).

For our final section we are going to take a quick look at goal scoring specifically. Like the other sections we are taking a player's goal pace and comparing that to the number of games in which they score a goal. Again the higher percents mean likely lower goal counts in more games, whereas the negatives in the second table mean likely higher goal counts in fewer games.

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS	G	GP w/ G	G/GP	G Consistency %	Expected	Δ
AUSTON MATTHEWS	C	TOR	43	49	22	21	0.51	48.84	42.55	6.29
MARTIN NECAS	R	CAR	44	39	17	17	0.39	38.64	32.86	5.78
ALEX KILLORN	R	T.B	42	30	14	14	0.33	33.33	28.02	5.31
RICKARD RAKELL	R	PIT	43	29	15	15	0.35	34.88	29.64	5.25
NICO HISCHIER	C	N.J	43	43	20	19	0.47	44.19	39.32	4.87

Name	Pos	Team	GP	PTS	G	GP w/ G	G/GP	G Consistency %	Expected	Δ
TAGE THOMPSON	C	BUF	43	59	32	21	0.74	48.84	61.11	-12.27
MARK SCHEIFELE	C	WPG	45	39	26	17	0.58	37.78	48.20	-10.42
ROOPE HINTZ	C	DAL	40	44	19	12	0.48	30.00	40.13	-10.13
BO HORVAT	C	VAN	43	48	30	21	0.7	48.84	57.88	-9.04
ALEX OVECHKIN	L	WSH	47	52	30	21	0.64	44.68	53.04	-8.36

We won't dive into these too much, as the implications for these numbers are the same as outlined above, but we do of course have to mention Tage Thompson. He is expected to have goals in a bunch more goals theoretically, but doesn't because he has a five-goal game, two hat tricks, and three two-goal games – definitely way more multi-goal games than average. If your league prioritizes goals, he has been the definition of a game breaker in some weeks, and pretty absent in others. Condolences to those of you who faced him during those boom weeks.

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