Welcome back to The Journey, where we track the development of prospects as they excel in junior, make the NHL, and push towards stardom.

This week is the flip side of last week's scan for young players who overachieved in 2022-23: we will use Evolving Hockey's Fantasy Points Value Adjusted (FPV Adj) stat again, which runs every player’s actual stats against their preseason projections, but this time examine the bottom of the rankings. Who were the biggest disappointments this year? What happened? If an injury was involved, what is the timeline and likelihood of them bouncing back strong?

Once again, for this exercise I am using EH’s standard category weighting—although you can adjust them to perfectly match your league settings if you do this yourself: Goals (3), Assists (2), Shots (0.15), Hits (0.1), Blocks (0.1), PPP (1), SHP (1). I am leaving goalies out of it for now and using the FPV Adj score (vs. straight FPV) that adjusts slightly to allow comparison between forwards and defenders. I have divided out this list into groups of roughly five at a time.

Josh Norris -168.1

Jamie Drysdale -86.7

Filip Zadina -71.8

Nils Hoglander -70.1

Connor McMichael -61.6

At the top of the bottom of the standings are two promising young players, Josh Norris (OTT) and Jamie Drysdale (ANA), who both went down with season-ending shoulder injuries early in the year.

Norris, 23, played the first five games, injured his shoulder, and then attempted to rehab it for several months. He then returned for three games in mid-January and ended up reinjuring himself, this time opting for season-ending surgery. Senators coach DJ Smith said back in January, "He tried. Did his best to join the boys, but reinjured it in the third period just reaching. He didn’t want to leave the bench to make a big deal of it, but he was done halfway through. He wanted to do it because he didn’t want to have surgery and thought maybe he could rehab this. Unfortunately, the timeline isn’t great because he’ll be fully recovered by maybe the summer."

It has been a while since we have seen Norris play, so let me just remind you that this is a young player who scored 90 points in his first 122 NHL games (61-point pace), including a 68-point pace in 2021-22. His faceoff prowess (52% career) all but ensures he will pencil in as the Senators' top center when the 2023-24 season kicks off next October. That means he will be stapled to an exciting stable of stars, including Brady Tkachuk, Alex DeBrincat, Drake Batherson, Tim Stutzle, and Claude Giroux.

Josh Norris (OTT9) had a great performace against the Coyotes last night in a losing effort. He scored two goals on five shots with an absurd 84% 5v5 xGF%.

Here are his most notable plays and puck touches from last night. #GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/yqFTYrTQXr

— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) March 15, 2022

I am still taken aback somewhat by the speed of his ascent—reminiscent of Dallas superstar Jason Robertson—but Norris absolutely has the look of a strong number one center. In 2021-22, he was regularly sent out in all situations (including a ton of top power play time) and drove play effectively against other team's top players. There may be a buy-low opportunity over the off-season if his owner in your league has a short memory—a common affliction among fantasy managers—and if there is, do whatever you can to take advantage of it. Assuming he returns fully recovered, Norris has clear potential to exceed a point per game moving forward on a loaded Ottawa squad.

Drysdale is a fitting complement for Norris on the back end in that he has clear number one defenceman potential for the rebuilding Ducks. I won't dig into him much here because I covered his bounceback potential in a previous article, which also assuaged potential concerns about the impact of star prospects Olen Zellweger and Pavel Mintyukov on his production and deployment: "It might be exciting right now watching Mintyukov (39 points in 30 OHL games) and Zellweger (28 in 23 WHL) dominate against teenagers, but just remember that Drysdale put up 32 points playing 20 minutes a night in the NHL at the same age."

The Ducks currently have the highest odds in the draft lottery to snag Connor Bedard. If Drysdale can stick on the top power play unit alongside Bedard, Trevor Zegras, Mason McTavish, and Troy Terry, his owners will be reaping serious fantasy gold.

The next three names on the list—Zadina (DET), Hoglander (VAN), and McMichael (WAS)—have all drifted into potential bust territory of late.

Zadina is now ten games away from reaching his 200-game Breakout Threshold, but I increasingly have serious doubts about him becoming a meaningful fantasy asset. His ice time and power play share have both declined steadily for the last few years and he is not seeing regular shifts with Detroit's top players. If these trends don't reverse themselves, he is likely looking at another long, disappointing campaign in 2023-24.

That said, he did drive play well in a sheltered role on top of having very poor puck luck (978 PDO) and being heavily involved in the scoring that happened while he was on the ice (88 IPP). And although his icetime dropped, his Expected Goals/60 (xG/60) continued to climb slightly, suggesting that he is at least not getting worse at producing scoring chances, regardless of what the scoresheet says.

This certainly feels like a make-or-break campaign for the 23-year-old Czech. The fact that he still has three years left on his current contract ($1.825 per) suggests that Yzerman and company want to squeeze every bit of potential they can out of their former 6th overall pick from 2018. Still an intriguing buy-low candidate if he is sitting on your waiver wire and you have a spot on your bench, but don't hold your breath.

Yeah, you just knew @zadina_filip was going to finish that. pic.twitter.com/7edBPmzzTH

— NHL (@NHL) December 1, 2021

Hoglander and McMichael were both sent back down to the AHL in 2022-23 despite having 141 and 75 NHL games respectively under their belts. I covered McMichael back in January, concluding that his stocks seemed to be moving sideways for now even though his high AHL shot volume (2.7 per) was promising, so I'll focus on Hoglander here.

Why was the 22-year-old Swede sent down to the minors? Patrick Johnson at The Province suggests that "sending him to the American Hockey League after more than two seasons in the NHL was about rebuilding his confidence and fine-tuning his game away from the puck." Johnson's article paints a glowing image of Hoglander as a determined, hardworking player who is a feisty forechecker and skilled playmaker. He scored six points in the final ten NHL games (averaging 12 minutes a night) before his demotion, so there might still be something here for fantasy.

That said, his skill set and trajectory increasingly suggests he will top out as a middle-six energy forward at the NHL level. He does not hit or shoot a lot, and while that is linked to his low time on ice, I am not confident in him ever being an asset in those areas. He should likely be left on the waiver wire in most leagues.

Philip Tomasino -60.4

Kailer Yamamoto -60

Jesse Puljujarvi -57.2

Joel Farabee -53

Oliver Wahlstrom -52.8

This next group contains another promising forward who was surprisingly demoted to the AHL after having seemingly established himself as a full-time NHLer (Tomasino), another player who was injured for most of 2022-23 (Wahlstrom), and three players who just continue to underwhelm (Yamamoto, Puljujarvi, Farabee).

Alex Wyatt dug into Tomasino (NAS) for a recent Century Mark article, urging patience and concluding that he is probably a hold for now in fantasy.

Wahlstrom was held out of action from December on with a knee injury. He scored at below a 40-point pace prior to the injury, so it's not like he was lighting it up or anything. Watch his return closely next year to see if he has lost a step on his already average skating ability. If he can't create separation, he may struggle to unleash his high-end shot. He sits at 160 career games played, so he should hit his BT halfway through 2023-24 if healthy, though sometimes injuries mess with that (ie. Nico Hischier).

Yamomoto, Puljujarvi, and Farabee are a frustrating bunch for fantasy purposes. To me, Farabee is the one to own here.

It may feel like Yamomoto has been around forever, and he has played 271 games since 2017-18, but at 5-8 and 153 lbs, he qualifies for a 400-game breakout. That's at least a couple more seasons until we potentially see his true upside. Pretty tough to roster a sub-40-point player who offers 1.5 shots and 1.5 hits per game—and that's when he's playing primarily with Leon Draisaitl, Evander Kane, and Connor McDavid. If he slides out of the top six, those numbers fall even lower. Leave him on the wire for now, but be ready to pounce if he looks to be heating up.

Puljujarvi, 24, had an absolutely brutal season (17-point pace) and could easily head back to his native Finland over the summer to play in the Liiga. His contract is up, and he has hinted that maybe the NHL just isn't for him. Even if he stays, his fantasy value is completely in the toilet right now. That stretch of 16 points in 20 games to kick off the 2021-22 season sure feels like a distant memory now.

Farabee, 23, hit his BT halfway through 2022-23 and technically posted a career-high 39 points—technically because this is the first time he played more than 63 games in a year. Right around the point that he hit his BT, however, his production completely stalled out for some reason:

If he had maintained the ~0.60 points per game he managed at the first and final quarters, that would have been a 53-point season, more in line with what poolies expected from him this year, albeit still on the lower side. He basically stopped shooting the puck entirely in Q3 on top of receiving much less ice time and scoring almost not at all. Q4 saw him playing beside Owen Tippett a lot, which would be an excellent trend if it continued into 2023-24 because Tippett has a ton of momentum and seems headed into 60+-point territory.

Joel Farabee with four points last night to open the season! @FarabeeJoel | #NHLFaceOff pic.twitter.com/IXQKqvjuu7

— NHL (@NHL) January 14, 2021

Farabee has the chops to hit those levels as well but needs to show something soon to maintain his status as a promising member of Philly's core moving forward—particularly with the emergence of fellow youngsters Tippet, Noah Cates, and Morgan Frost.

Vasily Podkolzin -52.5

Kieffer Bellows -50.8

Ty Smith -50.8

Cole Sillinger -48.2

Isac Lundestrom -44.8

Jake Bean -43.3

Jordan Spence -42.4

Evan Bouchard -40.7

Max Comtois -39.5

Lastly, some quick hits from this final group of underachievers. Bouchard (EDM) is the major outlier here. After Tyson Barrie was traded, Bouchard scored 19 points in 19 regular-season games. He has taken his game to another level in the postseason so far too with eight points in Edmonton's first five games. This is potentially a 70-point defender moving forward who will consistently post insane power play totals.

Spence (LAK), 22, is the other main player who probably doesn't deserve to be on this list. He has now scored 87 points across 102 AHL games and has nothing left to prove at that level. The main question about him is whether or not he will ever have the opportunity to translate that offence to the highest level. Sean Durzi has excelled with the man advantage for the Kings over the last couple years and Brandt Clarke is looking so incredible in the OHL this year that he might very well skip the AHL entirely. Either way, bet on talent, and Spence has that in spades.

After those two, I'm most interested in Smith (PIT) and Sillinger (CBJ) for fantasy purposes. Both have excellent pedigree and quite a lot of pro experience but just have not yet put it all together yet in the NHL. They are solid low-risk, high-reward stashes for now. Podkolzin (VAN) likely belongs in this group as well. Here is another Century Mark article digging into the feisty Canuck.

Leave Isac Lundestrom (ANA), Bellows (PHI), Max Comtois (ANA), and even Jake Bean (CBJ) on the wire. Bean might still surprise, but the others feel like known commodities at this point.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @beegare for more prospect content and fantasy hockey analysis.