Not for the Fade of Heart

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

Best Ball analysis (and by extension, Best Puck analysis), is filled to the brim with people pounding the table for their favorite plays. You’ll find these folks bragging about how much exposure to this player they’ve accumulated across some (always nauseating) number of drafts, and how they are certain this player will succeed, beat their drafted position, and become a league-winner, for sure.

I’m no stranger to this mindset. Just tune in to any of the livestreams DJ Mitchell and I have done recently covering the Best Puck Classic III NHL tournament on Underdog Fantasy (follow the link and use code MSP to sign up and get a 100% matched deposit bonus, up to $100!) and you’ll likely see me do this in the first ten minutes. This exact premise was even part of my hook to the very first edition of this newsletter (which you should totally check out if you haven’t yet) to introduce Primary Points. People love to know (and thus, creators love to talk about) who the “best plays” are in all forms of fantasy.

But just as interesting, and perhaps even more impactful to your results, are the players you don’t take. The unmentionables in any draft lobby. As in, the players who are available to you when you’re on the clock and you scroll past them to select another player. Hell, maybe even to select one you aren’t beating down the doors to get ten picks ahead of ADP (Average Draft Position).

No matter how much you want to draft a player, it only takes one of eleven other drafters to make a conscious choice before you to take that player. However, there are multiple players at every choice available to you, with the implicit decision made against that player’s fit on your team. Over time, these implicit decisions become a type of reverse flag plant, the Best Ball equivalent of the 2:30AM announcement on the police car-speaker that there is nothing to see here, and everyone should just go home. Something’s going on with these players, but what? Is there a fistfight? A famous person? Or did someone just get too drunk and yes, truly there is nothing that you want to see here and we should move along?

Today’s Primary Point: Player Fades as I Near the Halfway Mark

Through 69 drafts, that is what I want to find out. What is going on here with these underrepresented players in the squads I have been drafting? These are players who will be the opposition all season long, as my fellow competitors lambaste their own lack of foresight or mock my lack of imagination. Either way, these players will be just as influential to my Best Puck fortunes in 2023-24 as my highest exposure players, as any of these players being league winners greatly reduces my chances of finding the right combination to rise above the rest.

To define exactly what we are looking at, I have compared my current exposures to current ADP, and sourced a list of all players before pick 100 (sorry, Quinn Hughes) that I have less than 4% of in Best Puck III. For those playing along at home, out of 69 teams that means I have 0, 1, or 2 shares of the following players, as 3/69 is 4.3%. No particular reason other than to keep the list manageable, as in this case that gives us a tidy list of 25 players to review of the top 100 ADP picks on the board. _{(Editor’s Note: He just doesn’t want to admit he has 4.3% Jonathan Huberdeau. Three moments of weakness? Now that’s a trend.)}

This week, I will review my top ten highest drafted players, and next week I will review 11-25 on the below list. Beyond that, revelatory as it may be on its own, I will make the case in favor of my fade or devise a plan to increase my exposure to these players.

As a reminder, since all of these players go in the top 100 picks, then we should expect that these players are drafted in 100% of draft lobbies. Even the most center-heavy, Cam Talbot-in-round-2 draft out there will at least autodraft these players when after five rounds the drafter moves on to flushing their life savings down the toilet or whatever these odd creatures like to do for fun. Therefore, we would expect a player picking randomly to wind up with 8.25% (12 team league, 1/12 = 0.085) exposure to all players. It will take a concerted effort to reach equilibrium with the field on each of these players:

ADP Data per 9/7/23 Underdog Fantasy; All player stats from naturalstattrick.com unless otherwise noted.

Nathan MacKinnon C || 2.9% (2) || 3.6 ADP || 4.0 MyADP || +0.4 ADP Value

Using our first player up as an example, Nathan MacKinnon is on 2.9% of my rosters (2 total squads) and currently has an ADP of 3.6. In my two selections, I have drafted him at an ADP of 4.0 (likely pick 4 twice, though it could have also been pick 3 and pick 5, etc.) for an ADP Value of +0.4.

In other words, using this ADP Value metric, it is clear that I have drafted MacKinnon slightly after the field does. In a perfect world, you’d only get exposure to the players you are “fading” well after ADP, as paying a premium for that player, who your portfolio is taking at least a passive stance against, doesn’t make much sense. You’ll see this in action (and I’ll comment on some instances where this isn’t true, which bothers me greatly) later on down the list and in future newsletters, so make sure you subscribe and bookmark this page.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about MacKinnon himself. It’s rather clear that Mack is an outstanding fantasy player, and most nights has a comparable floor/median combination to the best players in the league, regardless of matchup. Over the course of a full season, however, there are a few issues with his profile that I see, and this has me drafting him after the other Big 3 at C.

1. Health - compared to the absolute freakshows in this tier, MacKinnon has dealt with more injury issues than McDavid (218 GP), Draisaitl (216), and Matthews (199), with 184 games played over this span. It’s not a critical difference, and not something I would advocate for projecting into his outlook, but when the margins are as tight as they are, it’s at least worth considering as he does have more mileage than the others as well, given his age.

2. Goalscoring - despite shooting the puck as much as any player in the NHL on a per-minute basis, piling up shots over the course of any season, MacKinnon doesn’t have the elite goal-scoring upside of the others. He’ll get his, but even if absolutely everything breaks right for him (which is the vision I think you want to at least keep in perspective when drafting), it seems very far-fetched to think he’ll challenge Matthews, McDavid, or Draisaitl at the top of the league in goalscoring, as he simply doesn’t have the sort of release to beat goalies clean all that often.

3. Teammates - No, I’m not here to tell you Cale Makar or Mikko Rantanen suck. They are awesome. In fact, they are so awesome that it’s ever so clear that MacKinnon in an ideal world isn’t the #1 option on the PP (that’s Mikko, checking in with a 17% SH% on PP L3Y) or even the #2, as even Cale Makar shoots 14%. MacKinnon, despite shooting a lot, does so largely for rebounds, and has a measly 10% SH% on the PP over three years.

A guy who racks up points and shots the way he does is great; he is accurately grouped in with this beyond-elite tier of fantasy centers. But I’m not taking him ahead of the other three, and he’s almost always gone by the fifth pick. It’s a fine needle to thread, and the draft-order gods have not stuck me with much MacKinnon to this point.

Jason Robertson W || 2.9% (2) || 9.5 ADP || 10.0 MyADP || +0.5 ADP Value

It goes without saying that early in drafts, there’s so much more to like about the players than there is to shy away from. Coming off of a monstrous 22-23 season, Robertson belongs in the first round of the draft. You can even get his linemates, who are as rock-solid of correlations as it gets in this space, plus Miro a good bit later in the draft. I have far more hesitation about Hintz and Heiskanen, who I will cover in next week’s newsletter, but that hesitation to go all in on a DAL stack also rears its head when it comes to Robertson. I simply prefer Rantanen, Kaprizov, and Kucherov when push comes to shove, and thus Robertson is often the odd-man out when I make a selection in the back-half of the first round.

Cale Makar D || 2.9% (2) || 14.8 ADP || 17.5 MyADP || +2.7 ADP Value

Makar certainly has the upside to bury us if he stays healthy for a full 82 games and can carry a week or two come playoff time. However, it’s incredibly hard to separate at the D position, as upside is much harder to come by (Makar isn’t scoring 60-70 goals) and the drop-off isn’t nearly as severe late in the draft given D scoring is the most connected to the “floor” stats of shots, hits, and blocks.

Expending an early selection on the best player at the position (with apologies to Roman Josi) means you face two challenges: you are not spending an early selection on a player who can be the best at a different position where the reward is greater for being right, and you are unable to use a later selection to get a well-projected defender while maintaining proper roster construction.

Mitch Marner W || 2.9% (2) || 18.0 ADP || 18.0 MyADP || 0 ADP Value

Timo Meier W || 0% (0) || 18.6 ADP || NONE MyADP || NONE ADP Value

Grouped together at similar ADPs, the main reason I am light on these two Ws is that I am highly invested in Nylander and Kyle Connor in this range, and also because I prefer having my pick of the G litter that go right around this selection over these two fellas.

Mitch Marner is a classic example of a great player who isn’t great for fantasy, as he doesn’t shoot a ton and he won’t give you blocks/hits either despite being an outstanding defensive player. You’re reliant on point-production, and while stacking him with Matthews is perfectly fine, I prefer Nylander to that effect (since Nylander has stand-alone shot floor considerations as a W1 on most builds). Besides, correlation is likely overrated in this contest.

Timo is a matter of there being far too many cooks in the NJ kitchen for me to be comfortable with. There is far more uncertainty on this roster than the field gives credit for, as several players are worthy of PP1 consideration and the coaching staff has been inconsistent in the past, going so far as to give Nathan Bastian a regular shift net-front last season.

While I don’t think for one second Bastian is relevant to this conversation, the fact is there are three players competing, in my eyes, for one spot on the top unit. Jack Hughes and Nico Hischier (with Hischier taking draws) are mortal locks. The Dougie/Luke Hughes rotating door at the top (with Dougie almost certainly winning 85%+ of the PP1 time) takes away the 5F possibility, and these three (with Dougie) played 221 5v4 minutes last year, 199 of which came with Jesper Bratt operating primarily on the right half-wall and slot (courtesy of HockeyViz.com PP Shot Locations tool). With Bratt’s new contract as well, it’s hard to imagine he’s getting phased out of the NJ attack. So, in addition to Timo, the acquisition of Tyler Toffoli gives the Devils yet another legitimate offensive force to go along with continued growth from Dawson Mercer, who has showed out already at a young age and has decent pedigree. All of this is not considering Ondrej Palat, who the last time we saw the Devils in the postseason was manning the PP1, although Timo was seriously banged up at the time and another year on Palat’s aging curve doesn’t portend a ton of competitiveness for a PP1 gig on the current roster.

No one is going to dispute Timo’s amazing rate stats at 5v5, even if he doesn’t quite stack up to Brady Tkachuk, a stat-stuffer who stands head and shoulders above the rest despite a similar lack of finishing touch.

At the end of the day, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to project Timo Meier for less than 50% of the NJ PP ice time this season, even if he remains healthy. When he was on the ice for the NJ PP, he had a shot rate 50% lower than his SJ rate. No matter how you slice it, it was clear that Timo’s role was changed when he got to Newark. It’s a fundamentally different situation than the one he experienced in San Jose, where he was the primary trigger man with Erik F***ing Karlsson setting him up in the midst of an absolute mind-boggling season.

Timo has never established an ability to beat goaltenders - with a SH% between 8-9% at 5v5 for each of the past four seasons - and has PP role questions that remain unanswered. I’m incredibly skeptical that this is a player with upside beyond his current price tag, as I don’t see him jumping the likes of Brady Tkachuk (who goes only ~5-6 spots ahead of him currently in drafts) in 2024 drafts. When the ceiling is beating ADP by a few spots, and the floor is getting Viktor Arvidsson in the 2nd round, with stats buoyed by 5v5 shot rates on a good team, I’m going to let the field take it and push my edge at G and take Ws I feel more certain can be contributors without the role uncertainty that Timo possesses in my book.

Roman Josi D || 1.4% (1) || 20.6 ADP || 26.0 MyADP || +5.4 ADP Value

Roman Josi is another player who simply falls victim to going right in the range of the superstar #1 netminders, and I don’t feel nearly as confident backfilling the G position as I do D. When you layer on the continuing Makar discount, if I want to grab a D in the second round, I don’t know that there’s a path to boosting my exposure to Josi. Gone are the days of round 4/5 Josi, as he was one of the fastest early risers that I was looking the other way on. Oh well. My bed is made, time to sleep in it.

Zach Hyman W || 2.9% (2) || 27.4 ADP || 30.5 MyADP || +3.1 ADP Value

Hyman’s downside is the easiest story to tell of this bunch, in my estimation. There’s absolutely nothing in Hyman’s profile that says top-15 fantasy forward except the role he played last year in the Oilers top six and PP1. While I don’t want to play coach (as the point of fantasy sports is to predict what the coach will do, not what they should do), they got dealt a rough hand with Evander Kane missing a significant chunk of the season to a terrifying fluke injury and the young-ish wings on the roster not being ready to take the next step.

However, with Evander back in the fold, Holloway progressing another year, Foegele’s late season breakout, and yet another playoff defeat at the hands of a team who exploited their lack of depth, it is time to ask why Zach Hyman was given the 5.5Mx7yr UFA contract that he signed in 2021. Was it to make Connor McDavid, an absolute alien, the best player in the NHL? If so, he’s done that, but I don’t think he deserves the credit for an inevitability. In fact, when you look through Hyman’s WOWY data from last year, we get a stunningly sufficient amount of 5v5 TOI in all sorts of combinations.

Yes, the Oilers were fantastic with McDavid, Draisaitl, and Hyman on the ice together. They were great with McDavid/Hyman and terrible with Draisaitl/Hyman (again.. not sure I blame Hyman for that!). But what about when Zach Hyman was playing without either of the McDrai duo, ostensibly with Ryan McLeod on the 3rd line? In 164 minutes played, the Oilers earned 52% of the Corsi and Goals, and a staggering 59% of the xGs.

If the Oilers can get that sort of production from a third line, they are probably runaway favorites to win the Cup. Am I saying the Oilers should shackle anyone with skates to McDavid (hello, Holloway and Xavier Bourgault) and let him dominate the league as only he can, banish Draisaitl to the shadow realm until 97 earns a PP opportunity, and play Hyman/McLeod as the second line? I am saying that, thank you for noticing.

While all of that specifically is very unlikely to happen, the confluence of events that led Hyman to be an absolute fixture for EDM offensively (Evander’s injury and the complete lack of breakout Ws - at least until late in the year) is also highly unlikely to repeat.

For a player who shattered all of his career highs in his age-30 season, I’m not paying this luxury tax on someone I can’t rely on for production in early round 3 if he’s not glued at the hip to a generational talent.

Connor Hellebuyck G || 0.0% (0) || 30.4 ADP || NONE MyADP || NONE ADP Value

A Hellebuyck fade is more of an acknowledgement that I want to tip the scales when I’m drafting, at least slightly - in net in particular. With ~32 viable fantasy goalies (about six teams of which we don’t know who that will be at this point in the offseason) in the league and ~three per fantasy team x 12 teams = 36 total drafted goalies, options are rather limited for differentiation, so I am trying to get an edge through team/edge case uncertainty.

Of this elite tier of G, which neatly clumps around picks 20-35, I personally feel highly confident in both the level of performance and certainty of starts for Shesterkin, Sorokin, Vasilevskiy, Oettinger, Saros, and Georgiev. Sorokin and Saros play for poor teams, but I see very little reason to believe there’s the possibility for total collapses in value. If I want a goalie around here, all of these players tend to be available.

That means Hellebuyck has to clear a very high bar, and to me he simply doesn’t. Hellebuyck has spent years bailing out a poor possession team in WPG, and now that their talent has slowly been siphoned away (although I do love getting Vilardi in the PLD deal!), it’s not hard to see the downside for this team and how they may leave their goalie out to dry. Given an uncertain contract situation (UFA at season’s end), I also could see Hellebuyck getting moved mid-year.

While I’m not assuming Hellebuyck gets moved to a team to be a backup, I do think there’s a far greater chance that Hellebuyck winds up in a situation where he’s either saddled by 1) tons of losses or 2) limited start upside (in the Very Good 50-55 range rather than the elite 60 range), and I frankly don’t know if Hellebuyck can beat all of the goalies I listed (that I am overweight on) and really make this fade costly.

I don’t think this is a high-stakes fade, as goalies ostensibly don’t matter on an individual level and are relatively unpredictable. Given some personal preferences for more stable situations and similar talents, I believe I will be happy to pass on Helle unless he drops out of the range of the Georgiev alternative, at which point I will consider sprinkling him in.

Artemi Panarin W || 1.4% (1) || 42.4 ADP || 51.0 MyADP || +8.6 ADP Value

Adam Fox W || 1.4% (1) || 49.9 ADP || 39.0 MyADP || -10.9 ADP Value

Despite Mika Zibanejad being my highest exposure center, I much prefer stacking him with Chris Kreider or a later teammate, as Fox and Panarin are weak rate-shooters and don’t offer a ton in the way of peripherals.

Adam Fox’s ADP has slid dramatically over time, as highlighted by my singular Fox selection coming 11 spots ahead of his current ADP (but likely drafted after ADP at the time). Even so, he’s simply a far better real-life player than fantasy, and pick 50 does not reflect his range of outcomes. His PP1 role is certain, but while if all breaks right he could challenge ~point per game status, his peripherals leave a lot to be desired and goals will always be worth more than assists. Evan Bouchard sits at a similar ADP and is connected to the EDM PP1, amassing 4 PPG in 12 playoff games this past spring. Adam Fox, on the other hand, has 4 PPG in his NHL career… a grand total of 280 games.

Panarin is comparable to the range he currently goes in, in my opinion. Given my focus on W depth in the mid-rounds I will happily take him in the 5th round, as I did when I selected him at 51 overall. I am just going to select the likes of Gaudreau, Fiala, and Caufield before him. A Mika/Artemi stack would be the only thing to challenge that rank-order, and for now those three all go after Panarin.

There’s ~3.7k words on ten NHL players. I could keep this going, but I will split this analysis into two parts. Up next will come part 2 where I detail the rest of the listed players, please subscribe to this newsletter to ensure to get everything I share sent directly to your inbox!

If you want to keep the discussion going, please tune into the LIVE Underdog Fantasy Best Puck Classic show, every week on Tuesdays at 9PM EST. Lastly, join the Morning Skate Podcast Discord, where hockey chatter and Best Puck discussion dominates the channel most days.