At the Break

My favorite player..Dave Keon

There were no games Thursday night because of the All-Star break and the same will be true on Friday.  So while we wait, I thought it’d be fun to use this opportunity to reflect a little on the season thus far.  A lot of writers do that and they tend to focus on who they think is leading in the major award categories.  That’s interesting, but to be a little different, I wanted to focus instead on the biggest surprises, positive and negative, so far this season.

Forwards

Most Pleasant Surprise: Elias Lindholm (CAL).  He was taken with the fifth overall pick in 2013, so his breakout this season didn’t come out of nowhere, but it took long enough that people were starting to lose faith in him.  I think it’s fair to say that the Carolina Hurricanes had their doubts, otherwise he wouldn’t have been bundled with Noah Hanifin in the Dougie Hamilton trade, but perhaps the Calgary Flames foresaw this as they had the sense to not only acquire him, but then lock him up for six years over the summer with a cap hit of just $4.85 million.  Lindholm has blossomed on a line with Sean Monahan and Johnny Gaudreau, scoring 21 goals and 58 points in 51 games.  Before this season, Lindholm’s career-highs were 17 goals and 45 points.  In Yahoo leagues, Lindholm was typically the 151st draft pick and he was only drafted in 7% of leagues.

Honorable Mentions: Anders Lee (NYI), Alex Tuch (VGK), Zach Parise (MIN), Timo Meier (SJS).




Biggest Disappointment: Patrik Laine (WPG).  This one I feel requires some justification, because it seems rather harsh and maybe it is.  Certainly there have been notable players that have done far worse, often due to injury or other circumstances, as is the case in William Nylander.  In fact, Nylander was the player I heavily leaned towards putting here and I don’t think anyone would have batted an eye at that given that he has just seven points thus far.  However, Nylander was a risk going into the season and had an average draft position of 93rd overall.  Laine’s average draft position was 8th and for a player that was taken so high, he hasn’t done enough.  He has 25 goals and 34 points in 48 games this season, which puts him on a sub-60 point pace for the first time in his career.  That comes despite league-wide scoring being up this season.  His 25 goals is amazing, but his pace has been steadily declining.  He had 18 goals in the span of 12 games from Nov. 1-29.  Outside of that one amazing hot streak, this has been a really unproductive season for him.  Hopefully he’ll turn around in the second half, but right now I have serious concerns about him, at least as far as 2018-19 goes.

Dishonorable Mentions: William Nylander (TOR), Ilya Kovalchuk (LAK), William Karlsson (VGK), Rickard Rakell (ANA).

Defensemen

Most Pleasant Surprise: Thomas Chabot (OTT).  With Erik Karlsson gone, the Ottawa Senators needed Chabot to step up and boy did he ever.  Chabot went from averaging 17:31 minutes, including 1:53 with the man advantage last season to 23:54 minutes, including 3:01 power-play minutes in 2018-19.  Big minutes would help any player, but they don’t guarantee the level of success that Chabot has enjoyed.  He has 10 goals and 39 points in 42 games, already shattering his rookie totals of nine goals and 25 points in 63 contests.  He’s been a pretty consistent factor too, never going more than three games without a point, with the obvious exception of when he missed eight games in late December/early January due to an upper-body injury.  Chabot average draft position in Yahoo leagues was 161st and he was only drafted 16% of the time, so you can’t say that most fans saw this coming.

Honorable Mentions: Mark Giordano (CAL), Morgan Rielly (TOR), Mattias Ekholm (NAS), Jeff Petry (MON).

Biggest Disappointment: Shayne Gostisbehere (PHI).  Going through the list of defensemen, there aren’t any top-tier blueliners that are having absolutely devastating seasons and the fact that Gostisbehere could be terms as the biggest disappointment is a reflection of that.  The reality is that his season hasn’t really been that disappointing, though it is certainly less than what people were hoping for, especially when weighted against this season’s increased scoring.  Going into the campaign, Gostisbehere was regarded as one of the league’s top offensive defenseman after scoring 13 goals and 65 points in 78 games last season to rank fourth in the blueliner scoring race, just three points shy of the leader, John Carlsson.  That success at a relatively young age led to Gostisbehere being drafted an average of 66th overall, or eighth among blueliners.  However, with five goals and 20 points in 48 games, he’s not only well below last season’s pace, but he’s in a five-way tie for 45th place in the defensemen scoring race.  Meanwhile, the likes of Brent Burns, Mark Giordano, Morgan Rielly, John Carlsson, Erik Karlsson, and Kris Letang all have at least doubled Gostisbehere’s point total.

Dishonorable Mentions: John Klingberg (DAL), P.K. Subban (NAS), Charlie McAvoy (BOS), Alex Pietrangelo (STL).

Goalies

Most Pleasant Surprise: Robin Lehner (NYI).  This one’s easy.  Lehner had a 3.01 GAA and .908 save percentage in 53 games with Buffalo last season.  He was offered a fresh start with the Islanders this season, though it was expected to be a relatively tough task given how mightily the Islanders struggled defensively in 2017-18.  This season’s edition of the Islanders have proven to be much different though and Lehner has been one of the driving forces of that, posting a 15-7-4 record, 2.02 GAA, and .931 save percentage in 27 games.  Also, while I’m putting him here because of his results alone, I do think it’s worth mentioning that Lehner battled his own personal demons and on March 29th, 2018, he had to leave the game due to a panic attack.  Back in September, he opened up about his drug addiction and bipolar diagnosis.  He’s an inspiring story as well as one the league’s top goaltenders this season simply on the merits of his play.

Honorable Mentions: Curtis McElhinney (CAR), Jaroslav Halak (BOS), David Rittich (CAL), Jack Campbell (LAK).

Biggest Disappointment: Sergei Bobrovsky (CLM).  This has been a really rocky campaign for Bobrovsky.  He has two shutouts and he’s held the competition to just one goal on seven other starts, but he’s also allowed four or more goals eight other times, including two games where he surrendered eight goals each.  The result of that inconsistent play is a 19-14-1 record, 2.91 GAA, and .904 save percentage in 34 games.  Further complicating things is the recent team-issued, one-game suspension he served.  His future was Columbus was already in doubt given that he can walk as an unrestricted free agent this summer, but lately it’s looked like the Blue Jackets are already moving on.  Joonas Korpisalo started in four of Columbus’ final six games going into the break and he was solid.  That’s not to say Korpisalo will be the starter going forward – it’s too early to say and Korpisalo has had some low points of his own – but for a two-time Vezina Trophy winner, Bobrovsky is looking distinctly unremarkable this season.  In Yahoo leagues, Bobrovsky averaged as the 24th pick taken overall and the fourth highest goaltender.

Dishonorable Mentions: Braden Holtby (WAS), Jonathan Quick (LAK), Connor Hellebuyck (WPG), Martin Jones (SJS).