With regards to regular season fantasy pools, we are now in the review period, where we look back on the 2018-2019 season, and try to make sense of it all. Let’s quickly run through the list of all 62 players I featured last summer, and then we can try to draw a few conclusions once we complete the review. We’ll cover half this week, and half next week.

I’m going to try to group the recommendations into a hit, a miss, or a pass (generally neutral outcome).

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Winnipeg Jets

Dustin Byfuglien (Buy): Byfuglien may have been a solid buy if he hadn’t been injured for half of the season. Tough to really evaluate as a result. He has looked good in the last two playoff games I have seen though, so maybe there’s a discount to be found this summer. Pass.

Adam Lowry (Sell): Lowry scored only two points more than he did last season, while playing 33 more games. His power play time and overall minutes were both down. He’s being passed by all the young talent. Hit.

Washington Capitals

Braden Holtby (Buy): Holtby had a bit of a bounce back over last year, especially if you take out his first quarter. That should have been expected and should be accounted for next year. Late hit.

John Carlson (Sell): Carlson managed to outpoint last year’s career high by four points, in two less games. His plus 21 offsets the drop of 50 shots. He lived up to the $8 million price tag. Miss.

Vegas Golden Knights

Alex Tuch (Buy): Despite being shifted down the lineup after the trade deadline, we saw continued growth from Tuch, as he looks to prove his scoring touch is real. He also signed a team-friendly deal during the season. Hit.

Paul Stastny (Sell): Based on points per game, this was Stastny’s third-best season of his career. A 69-point pace for a $6.5 million AAV is fair value. Pass.

Vancouver Canucks

Bo Horvat (Buy): Dude is a stud. Continue to buy. Hit.

Alex Edler (Sell): Edler matched his 34 points from last season, playing in 14 fewer games. Had there been anyone else on the back-end in Vancouver that could have taken over the power play, Edler would not have had the season he did. As they say, someone has to score on a bad team. Next year he may even be making less. Miss.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Zach Hyman (Buy): Put up career highs in goals, points, penalty minutes, faceoff wins, and would have added shots and hits too had he not missed 11 games. Riding shotgun with Mitch Marner and John Tavares has its upsides. Hit.

Nazem Kadri (Sell): Goals, points, plus/minus, shots, hits, powerplay points, blocks, faceoff wins, and ice time were all down. The John Tavares addition really did not help everyone. Hit.

Tampa Bay Lightning

J.T. Miller (Buy): Miller did not end up riding shotgun with Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos all season. Had he, we would be singing a different tune. Miller took a step backwards in most areas. Miss.

Yanni Gourde (Sell): Recommending a soft-sell on Yanni Gourde, hopefully means you either got a good deal, or just soaked up the slightly reduced (but still awesome production) of 48 points on a $1 million deal. We’ll call that a hit.  

St. Louis Blues

Jake Allen (Buy): Well, this one flopped. Allen could not hold it together behind what is a very solid group of skaters. He was absolutely shown up by a rookie. Swing and a miss for the big strikeout.

Alex Pietrangelo (Sell): We make up for the Allen gaff here, as Pietrangelo was definitely a guy to be selling last offseason. Those kids (Pietrangelo had triplets last summer) really do affect NHL players more than we as fantasy GMs expect. Hit.

San Jose Sharks

Tim Heed (Buy): This was posted before Erik Karlsson was acquired, which really took away what could have been a large chunk of Heed’s ice time. Maybe next year when Karlsson leaves in free-agency. Pass.

Logan Couture (Sell): Couture put up a slightly better season, but his value goes down due to his new contract, and hitting the age of 30. We’ll call this a pass since it was a good sell, but keeping him for a championship run also could have been a good move.

Pittsburgh Penguins

Daniel Sprong (Buy): This is a miss, even though he finally did manage to play over half of a season. The trade to Anaheim was not good for his fantasy value. Miss.

Matt Murray (Sell): I stand by that Murray is a solid sell, and his injury history continues to provide weight to that argument. Murray did however put up good numbers in the second half of the season, so we’ll chalk this one up as a pass.

Philadelphia Flyers

Nolan Patrick (Buy): Patrick put up an extremely similar campaign to his 2017-2018 season, and again finished with an excellent second half. Better to get in a year too early than a year too late. He’s going to be a buy again this summer, but we’ll grade it a pass for now.

Claude Giroux (Sell): If you sold him for Mark Stone as was offered up in the article, you’re doing well. If not, you missed out on an 85-point season. Really depends how high you were able to sell. Pass.

Ottawa Senators

Mark Stone (Buy): Stone is showing everyone that he is better than they gave him credit for. Hit.

Almost Everyone Else (Sell): Not too far off of predicting what actually happened with everyone being traded away. There were a few bright spots in Ottawa, but generally a hit.  

New York Rangers

Mika Zibanejad (Buy): Zibanejad had an excellent season. He hit all of the benchmarks we were hoping for in last summer’s article. Near point-per-game, three shots per game, over 100 hits, over 800 faceoff wins. That’s a home-run.

Kevin Shattenkirk (Sell): Only 28 points in 73 games, going minus 15, and having only seven powerplay points, is a far cry from the production needed to justify an AAV over $6.5 million. The only value remaining here is in his name. Hit.

New York Islanders

Josh Ho-Sang (Buy): This is a miss since Ho-Sang only got into 10 games, recording two points. All of the depth forwards the Islanders signed really put a damper on any possible growth this year by the young winger.  

Anders Lee (Sell): Lee went from 40 goals last year to 28 this season, and that can mostly be explained by a drop in shooting percentage from 19.3% down to a more normal 13.7%. Hit.

New Jersey Devils

Miles Wood (Buy): Wood failed to take the next step this season, however he still provided solid multi-cat coverage. An injury slowed him down in the second half, and a poor shooting percentage didn’t help the stat line either. Miss.

Sami Vatanen (Sell): Seventeen points in 50 games, with a minus-17 rating? That’s a hit.

Nashville Predators

Kevin Fiala (Buy): We were a year early for the fourth-year breakout, which should be right on cue next season. Fiala actually took a step backwards this year, had his plus/minus rating drop 43 points from the season before, and then was traded to Minnesota. Miss.

Kyle Turris (Sell): Turris managed a meager 23 points and was even a healthy scratch on a couple of occasions. Ouch. Hit.

Montreal Canadiens

Max Pacioretty (Buy): Pacioretty was traded to Vegas soon after the original article was published, and he after a slow first quarter, he put up 35 points in 49 games to close out the year. It wasn’t a full bounce back, but it was still a small step up after falling flat the year before. Pass.  

Jeff Petry (Sell – In November): I managed to take my own advice, moving Petry (and Kyle Palmieri) for Sidney Crosby in a one-year league at the beginning of November. Perfect timing. Petry put up 29 points in the first half of the season, and only 17 in the second half. That is the difference a healthy Weber has, pushing the rest of the defence core down a rung. Hit.

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For those counting, that was 16 hits, eight passes, and eight misses.

Tune in next week for the second half.

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All salary cap information courtesy of capfriendly, all stats pulled from FrozenTools.

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Previous Capped articles:

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Playoff Bound Players Needing New Contracts

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That caps off this week’s article, thanks for reading. As always, you can find me on twitter @alexdmaclean.