The first month of 2023 is in the books, and with that we’re almost at the All-Star break, just one more light night tonight after an exciting trio of one-goal-games last night. At this point the 15th annual Midseason Guide (2023) is only two weeks old now. Pick it up here! Second-half projections, prospects, free agents, trade block, advanced statistical analysis and more! This is probably the last week or so where this maintains relevance, so be sure to get it while it can still help.
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We have had some takes on the immediate fallout of the Bo Horvat deal from Dobber, and Cliffy promised his full thoughts tomorrow – he usually takes a big dive into the underlying numbers, and I’m very curious what he finds on both ends of that. deal. In the meantime, I’m going to look into a couple of ripple effects from the deal, and maybe speculate a little further on next steps.
The Vancouver lines look thinner without Horvat, especially down the middle. All their injuries at wing certainly aren’t helping things either. What this means is there is going to be room for the middle-six to step up. There’s space for Anthony Beauvillier to get back to being a 50-point player, for Jack Studnicka and Vasili Podkolzin to take a step towards their breakout threshold campaigns in 2024-25, and for Nils Hoglander to get called back up and play for a coach. that may actually… well, play him.
Further than that though, we might expect that the Canucks aren’t done moving pieces out. Luke Schenn needs to be traded, Thatcher Demko is rumored to be on the block, and Brock Boeser certainly isn’t tied down either. In another month, the forward lines could look like this:
Beauvillier – Pettersson – Kuzmenko
Hoglander – Miller – Raty
Podkolzin – Lazar – Studnicka
Joshua – Aman – Di Giussepe
This would also mean trading away Garland and Boeser, which should net the Canucks another first round pick, and at least one defenseman that they so desperately need.
This team is one that has an excellent schedule during the fantasy head-to-head playoff weeks, so don’t sleep on players like Beauvillier, Kuzmenko, or Podkolzin as players that could have an impact in the right scenario.
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Jake Allen saw his second game action since returning from an upper-body injury. Over the last month Sam Montembeault has carried a heavy load while Allen was injured, starting eight-straight games, and seeing at least 38 shots in five of them. Over the second half of the season, we may see the two split starts, as there is no need to run with the hot hand, or try anything fancy between them. As a result, those of you holding onto Allen or Montembeault for the volume should look to jump ship, or acquire both to lock down every start.
Keep in mind that the Habs don’t play again until Feb 11thbut then they have a stretch of five games in eight days.
Allen still has some quick reflexes though.
Further to that, the Habs have already shut down a few players for the year, and may be losing even more by the trade deadline. Sean Monahan, Jonathan Drouin, Mike Hoffman, Joel Edmundson, David Savard, and others may be gone by the time March 4th rolls around. The team could be even worse than it is now, although there is possibly also something to be said for subtracting below-replacement-level players in the defensive zone such as Mike Hoffman.
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On the other side of the coin is the LA Kings. One way or another they will sort out who is going to be their starting goalie for game one of the playoffs, and the rest of the team is already pretty solid. Between their two-way center duo, their scoring wingers, their versatile depth forwards, and their defense core that can play any kind of game asked of them. They also have the prospect cupboard to make at least one big move, without adversely affecting the length of their next contention window.
On a related note, Carolina got steamrolled in the first two periods last night against the Kings, and rolled out some new forward lines in the third period (the defense pairs remained intact):
Noesen – Aho – Necas
Jarvis – Svechnikov – Teravainen
Martinook – Staal – Fast
Stastny – Kotkaniemi – Stepan
No guarantee that we see these at all moving forward, but it would be a cushy landing spot for Noesen, and likely some focused offensive deployment for the second line. This grouping did outscore the Kings 3-0 in the third period – leading to the Canes winning in OT – so maybe there is something to it.
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The regulation goal-scorers for Washington were not the usual culprits, with a pair from Trevor van Riemsdyk, and the opener from Garnet Hathaway (Evgeny Kuznetsov scored the OT-winner). Hathaway is actually just passing his breakout threshold, but is unfortunately being pushed down the lineup due to the forward depth of the Capitals. Over his last 30 games though, he has notched 12 points, which may not sound like a lot, but it would represent the 20% jump in production pace expected when crossing a breakout threshold.
If he can keep up scoring in the mid-30s over the course of a season, then he becomes a lot more palatable in a league where you want to roster him for what he brings in the hits column. His hit rate has climbed every year since 2016-17, and is just a hair below 3.5 per game despite the reduced ice time this year. In another year or two as we see some turnover in Washington due to the aging of the team, we could be seeing a 35- to 40-point player who puts up 160+ shots and 300+ hits in a year.
He’s also due a new contract at the end of the year as a UFA, so there’s also the chance of moving into a lineup that is a better fit for him, and where he won’t see a miniscule offensive-zone-start percentage of under 20 percent.
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I like to participate in at least one dynasty league every year, which comes with needing to prepare for a rookie draft in the summer. As part of the preparation for that, I track a lot of public scouts during the season to crowdsource prospect reports, opinions, and data. We all know that this year’s big prize is Connor Bedard, and there also seems to be a consensus forming with the next three players in the draft making up the next tier. Those three forwards are Adam Fantilli, Leo Carlsson, and Matvei Mitchkov. Currently for my rankings they are in that order, in part due to the risks with Mitchkov’s arrival time due to his five-year KHL contract.
Zach Benson and his high-upside as well as his projectability seems to be the general consensus for the number-five pick, although there are a lot of others who have various other opinions. After Benson, things start to diverge, but generally the tier seems to coalesce around the pick-12 mark, with another list of skaters forming the next tier. Again, in order of my current ranking: Andrew Cristall, Will Smith, Brayden Yager, Oliver Moore, Edward Sale, Ryan Leonard, and Riley Heidt.
Now, by this point everyone on the list has been a forward, and that is because I skew my fantasy prospect rankings towards forwards due to the trade value, the shorter development time, and the stronger correlation between their scoring levels pre-draft and at the NHL level.
The top few defensemen on the board are Axel Sandin-Pellikka, Mikhail Gulyayev, David Reinbacher, Lukas Dragicevic, and the big Dmitry Simashev – who in my head is viewed as Lian Bischel 2.0.
My list gets a little messier after pick #12, and that’s why at this point I have the forwards still separated from the defensemen. A few other forwards that are catching my eye with reports on them at this point relative to where they have shown up on the more general scale of Bob McKenzie’s rankings (crowdsourced from NHL scouts), are Gavin Brindley, Nate Danielson, Luca Pinelli, Jayden Perron, and Alex Ciernik.
Now, lots of things will change between now and the draft, but I do find it useful to take stock every once in a while, and have these things written down so that as my list changes over the next number of months, there is a Work from baseline so that the upcoming small sample sizes don’t play too much of a role in a prospect rising or dropping in the rankings.
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Don’t forget about Jakub Vrana, as he’s now up to four goals in his past five AHL games. It may not be long before he’s called back up to the NHL level.
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See you next Wednesday!
In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.