Some food for thought…
.913
That's Jonathan Quick's even-strength save percentage since his injury-shortened 2016-17 season, 35th of 38 goalies with at least 100 appearances, behind former backup Jonathan Bernier (.916), tied with Craig Anderson and slightly better than Cam Ward (.911). The Kings' demise has been a long time coming after a series of mediocre drafts failed to add impact rookies and keep its Stanley Cup window open for an aging core.
Already 33 with a ton of mileage, Quick has been bad to mediocre the last few seasons. Backup Jack Campbell is 2-0-0 and owned in just 5 percent of Yahoo leagues. That number needs to be much higher with the Kings entering a timeshare in net without officially declaring one.
501
That's Kris Letang's career point total after a two-point effort last night, the first Penguins defenseman to do so and the second defenseman after Keith Yandle to reach that milestone from a loaded 2005 draft class. He's averaged 0.665 points per game in his career, fourth among active defensemen who have scored at least 100 points since the 2006-07 season.
There are two minor surprises in the top 5: John Klingberg (0.697, 2nd) and Tyson Barrie (0.635, 5th). Relative to where they've been drafted, Klingberg (67.3 ADP on Yahoo) and Barrie (79.2 ADP) seem to be underrated keeper league assets, especially when it comes to scoring. Victor Hedman (0.602 ppg, 30.2 ADP on Yahoo) and Roman Josi (0.622, 43.6) are held in higher regard
Some food for thought…
.913
That's Jonathan Quick's even-strength save percentage since his injury-shortened 2016-17 season, 35th of 38 goalies with at least 100 appearances, behind former backup Jonathan Bernier (.916), tied with Craig Anderson and slightly better than Cam Ward (.911). The Kings' demise has been a long time coming after a series of mediocre drafts failed to add impact rookies and keep its Stanley Cup window open for an aging core.
Already 33 with a ton of mileage, Quick has been bad to mediocre the last few seasons. Backup Jack Campbell is 2-0-0 and owned in just 5 percent of Yahoo leagues. That number needs to be much higher with the Kings entering a timeshare in net without officially declaring one.
501
That's Kris Letang's career point total after a two-point effort last night, the first Penguins defenseman to do so and the second defenseman after Keith Yandle to reach that milestone from a loaded 2005 draft class. He's averaged 0.665 points per game in his career, fourth among active defensemen who have scored at least 100 points since the 2006-07 season.
There are two minor surprises in the top 5: John Klingberg (0.697, 2nd) and Tyson Barrie (0.635, 5th). Relative to where they've been drafted, Klingberg (67.3 ADP on Yahoo) and Barrie (79.2 ADP) seem to be underrated keeper league assets, especially when it comes to scoring. Victor Hedman (0.602 ppg, 30.2 ADP on Yahoo) and Roman Josi (0.622, 43.6) are held in higher regard yet they've historically scored at lower rates.
69.14
That's rookie defenseman Sean Walker's Corsi For %, first in the league among defensemen with at least 20 minutes played, according to Natural Stat Trick. The undrafted Bowling Green alum split last season between the Kings and AHL Ontario, and through five games has four points and a plus-4 rating on a team with a minus-6 goal differential. He's accomplished this playing with Ben Hutton, who had signed after training camp had started, and Alec Martinez, as the shutdown pair and gone head-to-head against Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau, and Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone … a seriously impressive list even with the small sample size.
Walker is an undersized defenseman but clearly has some offense to give with 15 shots, which means he's worth keeping an eye on in deep leagues. He's owned in just four percent of Yahoo leagues after being at zero to start the season and averaging 19 minutes per game. Other Kings to keep an eye include third-year center Michael Amadio (3 pts, 15 SOG, 20 FW, 0% owned) and Ilya Kovalchuk (6 pts, 2 PPP, 13% owned), who both have good underlying metrics.
8
That's the number of goals the Sharks have scored in two games since Patrick Marleau returned to team teal, and his two goals account for 15 percent of the team's season total. He's slow and old, but the Sharks need his offense; Evander Kane's always suspended, Kevin Labanc has two goals with a minus-9 rating, Timo Meier's just realized the season started and rookies Danil Yurtaikin and Lean Bergmann have combined for zero goals. At 2-4-0 with a minus-9 goal differential, the Sharks look like a bottom feeder in what's shaping up to be a pretty competitive Pacific. (I can't believe it, either). Marleau's addition should be a net positive, but that means Yurtaykin, Bergmann, Labanc and Lukas Radil's fantasy values all take a hit.
8
That's the number of goals James Neal has scored more than Milan Lucic this season. In eight seasons with Boston, Lucic averaged 20 goals a season, but that dipped to 14 goals per season in the five years since and he's at zero in five games this year. Lucic is a near non-factor in fantasy, but is Neal worth the trouble? The four-goal outburst is nice, but some of the goals have come at weirder angles than the Warren Commission's magic bullet, his 36.8 shooting percentage is clearly unsustainable, and five of his goals have come on the power play, where the strategy is to give the puck to Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and stand by the net. He hasn't scored 30 since 2016 and seems like a great sell-high candidate.
0
That's the number of power-play goals scored by the Devils in 11 opportunities entering Monday. They were shut out twice, had the second-lowest faceoff winning percentage (46.2 percent) and earned just one out of six possible points. Offense was not supposed to be one of their problems this season, but Taylor Hall, Nico Hischier, Jack Hughes and P.K. Subban have combined for one goal. It feels too early to start dumping Hischier and Hughes onto the waiver wire, which a lot of fantasy owners are already doing (especially Hughes), but perhaps the pre-season analytics were right; the Devils' shiny new additions really aren't that shiny. Stick with the Devils for now but the outlook is definitely trending downward. Blake Coleman (2 goals, 12 shots, 18 hits, 43 percent owned in Yahoo), however, seems like a very useful all-round player.
