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Fantasy owners who drafted Quinton Byfield back in 2020 are still waiting for his tantalizing potential to be realized. He is a larger-framed player, sitting at 339 career games played, meaning he's due to hit his breakout threshold right around the time of the NHL and fantasy trade deadlines. If you haven't traded for him by then, I urge you to make a big push at the deadline.  

Byfield played the first half of this past season mostly stapled to Kevin Fiala prior to Fiala's season-ending injury at the Olympics. His next two-most frequent linemates this season were Alex Laferriere and… Joel Armia? Despite the lack of help, Byfield still had portions of the season where he played at almost a point-per-game pace with these linemates. Looking ahead to this coming season, with Fiala returning, Adrian Kempe, Artemi Panarin, and Mats Zuccarello all possible wingers for Byfield as the top-line centre, the outlook is quite favourable for an offensive breakout. 

Not only does the departure of Anze Kopitar free up the top wingers for Byfield, but it also opens up the minutes running the top power play unit with those very same high-end wingers. Byfield producing 20 PPPs instead of the 11 he has averaged the last three seasons would immediately bump him up into the 65-point territory. 

Now, you might be expecting the retirement of two-time Selke winner (and multi-time finalist) Kopitar would mean that Byfield would have to shoulder some additional defensive load and see tougher matchups… well, it's actually the opposite. Last season Byfield was carrying the defensive load against all the top lines, and his possession numbers continued to thrive in spite of it. All the while, Kopitar was seeing heavy offensive zone deployment with the talented wingers. All that offensive time is free now, and it's not going to be filled by Erik Haula and Scott Laughton. 

Byfield is in line to see better line mates, more power play time, more offensive zone starts, and hit his breakout threshold all in the same season. On top of that, his team's on-ice shooting percentage at even strength last season was low, meaning he should have perhaps paced for closer to 60 points last year if he had average luck. The breakout train is coming and it's going to hit fast. 

I was also asked about Tyson Foerster, who is set to hit his breakout threshold in five games. Foerster has had some nice progression so far, but his spot in Philadelphia does raise some flags as I noted with Travis Konecny's write up on Monday, where the centers are lacking and the wingers are now plentiful. It can make for a tenuous fantasy landscape for a few of those winger options where they might not be prioritized as much as their talent might suggest they should be. With both Matvei Michkov and Porter Martone coming on strong, there is some worry that Foerster may be stuck on the third line which would cap his production and delay any coming breakout. 

A breakout season for Foerster would be something along the lines of 35 goals and 60 points, which should be within reach assuming he can stay healthy and remain in the top six. The new contract extension should ensure that he doesn't get deemphasized too much. His luck metrics from last season are a little wacky, with his personal and team shooting percentages finishing quite high, but his IPP both at even strength and on the power play were much too low. He seems like a case with fewer layers than Byfield, he was just held back by an injury that broke up last season and caused a bit more of a smaller sample size with the numbers across the board. 

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I was also asked more broadly about the state of the forward core (wingers more specifically) for the Washington Capitals, and how they are going to be deployed this coming season. 

Let's break it down into groups. First off, we have the top-six forward core in no particular order: 

Ryan Leonard, Jordan Kyrou, Dylan Strome, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Tom Wilson, Alex Tuch

These six players should make up the top six for overall ice time on the team, and includes most of their top scoring weapons. There's a lot of size, and scoring potential here, though no one is a shoe-in for more than a point-per-game season. If all six finished with nearly identical scoring totals between 65 and 70 points next season, it wouldn't be surprising in the slightest. 

Next up we have a group that makes up the roster locks who won't have any top-line exposure next season, a group we'll call the non-top-line forwards: 

Aliaksei Protas, Justin Sourdif, Ethen Frank, Boone Jenner

Protas is a high-level even strength scorer, but never gets any power play time for him to be considered among the first group. He might hit 60 even strength points next season, but without the power play time he's not a key cog in the offence, and ends up slotted on a third-line that can do just about everything. The other three here make up your bottom-six core, and unless you're also looking for peripherals of some sort, you're unlikely to have on your fantasy roster outside of the deepest of leagues. Frank could be slipped to the next group below, but his new contract puts him more in this range than the next. 

Then, we have the fringe roster players, who could battle to slot in anywhere from the second line if they happen to click well and win over the coaches, all the way down to bottom-six in the AHL, because the Capitals' team depth chart is so packed at the moment: 

Jonny Brodzinski, Anthony Beauvillier, Ilya Protas, Josh Dunne, Ivan Miroshnichenko, Andrew Cristall, Terik Parascak

As you can tell by the numbers game, there are only two spots left after those ten names listed above, which means most of this group is going to form the top-six in Hershey this coming year. Beauvillier, Miroschnichenko, Dunne, and Brodzinski all require waivers to be sent down, so the odds are that at least two of them will make the roster, and the former two on that list would likely be claimed if waived prior to the season. That leaves no room at the start for Ilya Protas, Cristall, Parascak or any of the other young players to make the roster. Good for competition, bad for fantasy. 

Hold on, there's still one more category… the 40-year-old power play specialist: 

Alex Ovechkin

At even strength, Ovechkin is not keeping up or providing the value quite like he used to, which makes it much more likely that he is fed only offensive zone starts and all the power play time he can handle, maybe up to 12 or 14 minutes a night, and possibly not on any specific line (with A. Protas taking all the defensive zone starts as his alternating LW option). Ovechkin can still be relevant in fantasy this way, but it likely puts his point totals below those of the top-six linemates that are now above him on the depth chart. The Hit and SOG totals will still be there, but those might also take a hit due to the lower ice time too. 

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When looking at the remaining UFAs, it seems like the stragglers who last into August haven't really had a great track record in previous years. A couple of notable UFAs from recent seasons who lasted past the end of July include Victor Olofsson, Jeff Skinner, Jakub Vrana, Max Pacioretty, Tanner Pearson, and James van Reimsdyk. 

This year, Eeli Tolvanen, Vladimir Tarasenko, Evander Kane, and Michael Bunting are your cream of the crop from the stragglers. Anthony Mantha and Patty Kane were also part of that group until their recent deals. Mantha signed a deal (two years x $4.75M) with New Jersey that was both shorter and had a lower cap hit than the $5-6 Million that most sources had him projected for. Mantha was probably the top target remaining at the time, which likely puts a cap on the amount any of those remaining FAs can ask for. Kane meanwhile signed a monster short term deal to return to the Blackhawks, with the Hawks likely bumping up the contract a ton in order to entice Kane to join them and miss out on his last chances to win a Cup. Kane's situation with that new AAV isn't really applicable for any of those remaining UFAs though.  

If any of the remaining are hoping to sign for $4 Million or more per season on a deal with more than two years of term, the ship on that has probably sailed after the Mantha contract, and with the calendar about to flip to August. The likelihood is that these players are probably going to have to sign for third-line money, which right now is around the range of $3 Million per season, and hopefully they can build their value back up on a one-year deal. 

The one thing that differs between this summer and previous years, is that teams now have a lot more cap space still available. Only about 10 teams are currently capped out to the point of being unlikely to be able to fit in one of these UFAs, and still half of those could probably make a deal work anyways with some creative accounting. 

All of them still have something left in the tank, with Tolvanen getting out of the black hole that is Seattle, Tarasenko posting a hot Q4 with 14 points in 19 games, Bunting still puts up 40 points with solid underlying possession numbers, and as for Evander Kane… well his luck metrics really held him back last year, though he is slowing down alongside that. At this point though, it might be closer to training camp that the possible landing spots cristalize.

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See you next Wednesday, and if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments you can find me on BlueSky @alexdmaclean.