Some food for thought entering another week of hockey ...
445
That's the number of career wins Marc-Andre Fleury has after defeating his former team on Saturday, which ties him with Terry Sawchuk for seventh place on the all-time list. Henrik Lundqvist is the only active goalie with more wins, but the King's just five wins ahead and there's a better-than-good chance Fleury will usurp him by the end of the season. In his age-35 season, Fleury leads the league in games played (9), wins (6), shots against (287), saves (268) and goals saved above average (7.27). In the cap era, only five goalies aged 35 and older who appeared in at least 60 games finished with a winning record: Martin Brodeur (twice), Roberto Luongo (twice), Miikka Kiprusoff, Dwayne Roloson and Curtis Joseph. Fleury is a historical outlier and a future Hall of Famer, so normal age vs. regression curves might not apply to him. He easily remains a top-10 fantasy goalie despite his age.
55.05
That's the Kings' Corsi For% this season, according to Natural Stat Trick, and the second-best rate behind the Flyers' 56.23 percent. The season is just three weeks old, but traditionally CF% has been a strong indicator of good teams. Last season, the Habs were the only top-10 team in CF% that missed the playoffs, and they missed by just two points. The Kings are one of four teams that rank in the top 10 in CF% and are out of playoff position, which
Some food for thought entering another week of hockey ...
445
That's the number of career wins Marc-Andre Fleury has after defeating his former team on Saturday, which ties him with Terry Sawchuk for seventh place on the all-time list. Henrik Lundqvist is the only active goalie with more wins, but the King's just five wins ahead and there's a better-than-good chance Fleury will usurp him by the end of the season. In his age-35 season, Fleury leads the league in games played (9), wins (6), shots against (287), saves (268) and goals saved above average (7.27). In the cap era, only five goalies aged 35 and older who appeared in at least 60 games finished with a winning record: Martin Brodeur (twice), Roberto Luongo (twice), Miikka Kiprusoff, Dwayne Roloson and Curtis Joseph. Fleury is a historical outlier and a future Hall of Famer, so normal age vs. regression curves might not apply to him. He easily remains a top-10 fantasy goalie despite his age.
55.05
That's the Kings' Corsi For% this season, according to Natural Stat Trick, and the second-best rate behind the Flyers' 56.23 percent. The season is just three weeks old, but traditionally CF% has been a strong indicator of good teams. Last season, the Habs were the only top-10 team in CF% that missed the playoffs, and they missed by just two points. The Kings are one of four teams that rank in the top 10 in CF% and are out of playoff position, which means either their CF% is going to drop or they're going to start racking up the points.
Sean Walker's 67.77 CF% is the third highest in the league (min. 5 GP), and through eight games he has registered four points with a plus-4 rating. Other than poor goaltending, if Walker and the Kings sustain this pace for another week, is it time we start taking them a little more seriously? Walker, Michael Amadio (4 points and 21 shots in 8 games), Tyler Toffoli (3 goals, 24 shots), Ilya Kovalchuk (3 goals) and Jeff Carter (31 shots) are owned in less than 50 percent of Yahoo leagues and worth keeping an eye on.
27:15
That's Thomas Chabot's average ice time in three games this past week, the highest average and nearly one minute more than Brent Burns (26:25) and Jacob Trouba (26:06). In the past five seasons, Ryan Suter and Drew Doughty have usually finished in the top three in average ice time, but through the first three weeks of the season, Suter ranks 13th (24:33) and Doughty ranks 23rd (23:55), well behind Chabot (26:34), who trails only Burns (26:37) for the lead. In fact, this is Suter's lowest average in a decade and Doughty's lowest since his rookie season.
Maybe the Kings and Wild are conserving their top defensemen, but neither team is in a position to sit back. Suter, at 34, cannot be counted on to anchor a defense, and through seven games is minus-6. He used to score 40 points every season like clockwork, but Father Time has never been defeated and Suter might find it difficult to reach that milestone. Doughty is only 29, but his Corsi metrics fell off a table last season and he's continued to struggle this season. The last five seasons, Doughty ranks 12th among defensemen with 251 points, but these are signs indicating he's no longer a bona fide top-20 defenseman. Based on Yahoo's ADP, Doughty was the 19th defensemen off the board at an average pick of 101.
-17
That's Mark Scheifele, Blake Wheeler and Patrik Laine's combined plus-minus this week, even though Schiefele and Laine led the team in scoring. Living and dying with their big guns will be the story of the 2019-20 Jets. Until Dustin Byfuglien comes back, their defense is paper thin, and with all three forwards averaging 19-22 minutes per game, fantasy owners will just have to take the bad along with the good. Of course, plus-minus is a deeply flawed individual stat, but it's still a staple in most fantasy leagues and something to consider. This isn't foreign territory for Laine, who was minus-24 last season.
10
That's the number of shots Blackhawks winger Dominik Kubalik recorded Sunday vs. the Caps, the second-highest total this season and just the second time a player has reached double digits. The 2013 seventh-round pick took six years to make his NHL debut, signing with the Blackhawks after being named the Swiss National League's MVP with 57 points in 50 games. The Czech winger is known for his shot and is clearly not shy about showing it off. He has 15 shots on goal in five games, making him one of five Blackhawks on pace to register at least 200 shots, a total only three of them reached last season.
His line with Brandon Saad and David Kampf have been very good all season, but more shots for Kubalik and Kampf also means potentially fewer shots for Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat, which will hurt their fantasy value. DeBrincat, in particular, scored 41 goals last season on very efficient shooting, and it'll be difficult for him to replicate that performance at his current pace.
6.5
That's the Blue Jackets' shooting percentage this season, the lowest in the league and the lowest mark in the cap era. According to HockeyViz, the Jackets also generate 11 percent fewer unblocked shots than the average team. Last year, they were three percent better than the league average. We knew the Jackets offense would stink without Artemi Panarin, but it's been historically bad and inefficient. Cam Atkinson, who scored 41 goals on 13.9 percent shooting last season, has just two goals on 36 shots (5.6 percent) and is the biggest candidate to go on a tear soon when his numbers inevitably move closer toward his career averages, but if he doesn't …
The worst team shooting percentage in the cap era belongs to the 2014-15 Coyotes at 6.9 percent, in which Oliver Ekman-Larsson's 43 points led the team, Sam Gagner and Keith Yandle had 41 each for second place, eight players finished with minus-20 or worse, and only Rob Klinkhammer (19 games, plus-3) finished with a positive rating. That's the worst-case scenario for the Jackets.
2
That's the total number of power-play opportunities the Isles got in three games this week, bringing their season total to 12 in eight games. That pro rates to just 123 opportunities over the entire season, which would be slightly over half of the previous lowest total of 210 in the cap era, a dubious record set by the 2017-18 Oilers. Mathew Barzal led all Islanders with 18 penalties drawn last season, according to Natural Stat Trick, with Anders Lee and Matt Martin tied for second with 13 apiece, yet Barzal and Lee have yet to draw a single penalty this season and Martin has been sitting as a healthy scratch.
The silver lining is that the four teams they've beaten on their winning streak rank second, sixth, seventh and eighth in fewest penalties taken. It explains why the Isles power play ranks third in efficiency at 33 percent (4-for-12) but doesn't have a single player in the top-20 in power-play points. It's unlikely the Isles continue to be this poor in drawing penalties, so this might be a good time to buy low on the Islanders, who are still 5-3-0 with a positive goal differential entering Monday.
