The NHL returned in 2005-06 weighed down by a whole slew of question marks: Would the league clampdown on obstruction be sustained? Would the fans return? Would the salary cap make small-market teams competitive? And would Keith Tkachuk order the single or the family pack of Krispy Kremes? Here are some of the interesting answers we found in the hockey season just past.
1) Scoring Is Up
Well...duh! Here’s hoping that the rest of our observations won’t be so obvious. It’s hard to overlook
the fact that scoring drastically increased between the 2003-04 and 2005-06 seasons. But let’s be careful
before we declare that the dog days of the 1990s are behind us. Check out these stats: Even-strength
(ES) scoring only increased about 5% while Power Play (PP) scoring was up almost 28% and Shorthanded Goals (SHGs) were up about 22%. What does this mean to you? Put a huge premium on guys
who play the special teams. As long as the league continues its “no tolerance policy” and the players fail
to catch on, special teams players will get a lot more ice time, and, therefore, more opportunity to score.
2) The Death of the Pugilist
Teams will not pay big bucks for a guy who strictly fights. Instead, teams want bang for their buck.
Fighters have to have “hands” and not just fists (e.g. Chris Neil, Matthew Barnaby, Todd Fedoruk) or
be able to play a defensive/checking role. The time of the heavyweight is done; the cruiserweight now
rules the roost. If you are looking for Penalty Minutes (PIMs), look to the superpests (Sean Avery is the
poster boy) and tough talented guys first.
3) Rookies Rule the Day
There were over 100 rookies who played more than 25 games in the NHL last season compared with
only 70 in 2003-04. Some will argue that the lock-out year off created a pent-up demand/opportunity for
rookies. That may be true at the top skill levels (think Ovechkin), but for lesser rookies that really
doesn’t appear to be the case. After all, the same numbers of on-ice positions were available throughout
the league. More likely, this increasing level of rookies can be chalked up to the fact that in the “New”
NHL it makes more sense to bring up a rookie on a two-way contract than commit to a marginal vet on
a one-way deal. Watch for the trend to continue in 2006-07, as more teams find themselves up against the cap limit with roster spots to fill. Taking a flyer on a rookie will still be a fantasy hockey risk, but the
chance of reward is enticingly higher (assuming you pick the right guy).
4) Goal Scoring is More Distributed
Accounting for the 15% scoring “inflation” between 2003-04 and 2005-06, 80 players had 25 goals or more
last season. Only 65 reached an equivalent level in 03-04. Now that may not seem like a lot on the
surface, but that means that an average of nearly 3 players per team scored at least 25 goals, compared to
just over 2 per team in the previous season. So look a little deeper in the late rounds of the draft: the
second line guys may surprise you.
5) The Goalie Gap Is Expanding The range of Save Percentage (SV%) among the top 20 goalies (.929 to .902) was enormous in 2005-06 compared to the previous season. In 2003-04 the range was a much more compressed (.933 to .913) for the top 20. So what does this all mean? Note how much the low end changed (as opposed to the high end). Good goalies stayed good; the also-rans didn’t. You can’t just wait to pick your goalies at the end of the draft anymore. There really is a difference between the good and the average ones.
So there we have the first five lessons from the “New” NHL for fantasy hockey players. In Part II we examine the role of penalty-killers, mourn the death of the shutout, debate penalty minutes as a fantasy category, discuss the negatives of plus players, and discuss the impact of the unbalanced schedule.
Copyright © Puckjunkie Inc. August 2006
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