Speaker 1: Welcome to Fantasy Hockey Life, presented by fan Tracks. Here's
your source of information and analysis to help you win
your fantasy hockey league.
Speaker 2: Block off, hop a step hit on, Stay lock.
Speaker 1: Here's your hosts, Jesse Severe and Victor Nuno leads.
Speaker 2: Hockey Live back once again to talk fantasy hockey. Jesse
Severe fantracks. Victor Nounyo is the man from EP ringside.
How you doing, Victor?
Speaker 3: I'm stretching over here, Jesse. I'm being very careful in
my podcasting chair. I don't want to get injured in
the preseason.
Speaker 4: That yeah problem.
Speaker 2: That's a bad thing. You don't want to be injured
in the preseason. It's just it's just not the way
to go. Pictor. There've already been injuries in the preseason.
I understand.
Speaker 4: I saw.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen the hit yet, but somebody in one
of our discords went nuclear last night with Patrick Leone,
so I don't know what's going on over there. Who
what happened there? Victor? Did you see it?
Speaker 4: I did? Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't remember the guy's name, but it was some
no name guy trying to make the leafs and he
stepped up with the blue line, which could have been okay,
but he stuck his knee out. In my opinion, there
are varying opinions out there, but it sure looked like
he stuck his knee out and Lione's knee went the
wrong direction and.
Speaker 4: It looks really bad. It looks like a blowout. We'll
see what happens.
Speaker 3: Hoping he's okay, but to me, it looks like he
probably tore some ligaments and it's going to be out
most if not the whole season.
Speaker 2: If he tore ligaments in his leg went the wrong way,
he's a hockey player. He'll be out two weeks, spray
some icy hot on it, and be back. That's fine, Victor,
We've got it's basically very close to the regular season.
We suspect that people are in draft mode, so we
are going to give you just a little bit of
draft content in the next couple of episodes.
Speaker 4: Victor.
Speaker 2: Today's episode is something that people can be discussed on
our discord. It's the place to be if you're looking
to talk fantasy hockey. Maybe you're coming into those last
minute drafts. Maybe you are thinking, how am I gonna
be picking? I know, every once in a while, I
get a panicked email or message not email, usually like
a usually an X message from somebody who's on the
clock saying ooh, who do I take? Here? Who do
I take? And I'm like, I hope you're in a
slow draft because I don't have an answer for you
that quick. But Victor, people could be talking about on
our discord, which is free. All you have to do
is hit us up on X. Maybe when people hit
me up on X with their draft picks, I'll say,
here's the link to the discord. Dude, just get in
there or do that and try to figure out your
draft strategy with a hive mind of like minded people.
But Victor, the discord, which Fantasy HOCKEYLFE at gmail dot
com or one of our exo's at Fanhockey Life at
Victor Nunio twelve can get you into for free, is
not the only thing we have to offer. We also
have some other goodness. Tell the people about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Usually when people DM me like that, I say
that kind of advice is reserved for patrons only, So
I will give them the link to the discord and
they can ask around. But if they want, if you
want personalized advice, like that's one of the benefits of
being a Fantasy Hockey Life patron, so I don't do
that for just anyone. Unfortunately, it would not be fair
to the patrons. But as I'm alluding to, that is
one of the big patron perks. There's all kinds of
great stuff at patreon dot com slash Fantasy Hockey Life,
including personalized messaging, attention and getting help with your decisions drafts,
things like that. You can have a roster doctor one
on one session where we can look at the whole
team in context. There's patron casts, there's Patreon Priority Channel.
There's ability to play in the Tidy the Tier Dynasty,
which you can get on the waiting list.
Speaker 4: For, which would be great.
Speaker 3: I'm sure right now we're looking great, but you never know,
someone might have to step aside. And yeah, there's lots
of great content. If you want to support the show,
that would be the way to do it. Patron com
Last Fantasy Hockey Life.
Speaker 2: It's okay, Victor, It's okay. That's a patron perk. And
I sometimes answered those excees because you know me, I
usually am slow to get the exes, and I give
really bad advice to people who reached out for free.
Now that's not true, but but it's limited and you
definitely should get in there and talk to Victor. And yeah,
the Roster Doctor, I've done one of those. That's really cool.
Just to really stop and talk hockey and break down
somebody's roster with them is actually fun for me and
cool for you and Victor. We're gonna take a break,
come back. It's just do me today. Victor, you did
some great writing for the EP Ringside Draft Guide this year.
You participated in that, and we're gonna talk about a
couple of the areas that you analyze some of the
players that you touted today and you're gonna talk about
while you picked them out. I'm gonna give a couple
of reactions, a little more content and we'll see how
it goes. We're gonna start out with some bangers, the
bangers and did they call them bangers in mash actually
or just bangers? Leaks in in the EP ring Side
I don't know. That might be copyright Peter Harlane. But
we're gonna start out with the first banger on the list,
and that is Jeremy Lazan of the Nashville Predators. What
makes him one of your picks picker, Yeah, Lazan. Just
so everyone knows.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I did to prepare for
this is they have some great tools over at Dauber
Prospects Dauber Tools, I'm sorry, Frozen tools, and you can
look by all sorts of things. So I was looking
at multi category guys, looking at just hits, just blocks,
just shots, shots to hits and blocks, pims, hits and blocks, like,
there's different combinations you can organize, which I thought was
super helpful. And basically, any way you cut it, Jeremy
Laizan is amazing. He basically does everything and he's an
incredible player. And if you've ever had him this, if
you haven't, this might be news to you. I have
not ever rostered him, and so I was, huh, I
hadn't really quite realized how amazing he is.
Speaker 4: But he is.
Speaker 3: He stands alone. But no matter which way you cut it,
except his shots are not amazing, but the hits are ridiculous.
The blocks are pretty outstanding as well. The shots are
just over close to one and a half per game,
and the guy only gets you know, sixteen to seventeen
to eighteen minutes a night. It's not like he's playing
a ton of minutes and he plays for Nashville. In
case you're not sure, but he's a bash master. The
only thing that makes him not Brady Kichuk on defense
is that he doesn't really score that much. His career
high is fourteen points, which he hit this year. He
also played the one of the most time on ice
he's ever played, so maybe there's a possibility that he
could get a little bit more. Nashville is looking a
little bit better, and that would be cool if he
could get close to close to twenty eight minutes. He
might even increase these numbers. But Lazan is the bash
Master because he does it all. And you know this,
He's simply incredible for any league that counts these things.
Speaker 2: Jesse Victory, You, I don't know why I had this
blind spot, but despite my bashed loving ways, I had
not appreciated how much of anutler this guy was. You're
not kidding when you says the mash Master. He led
the NHL in hits last year by fifty nine hits.
That was the most that was tied for the most
hits in the NHL by anyone in the evolving hockey era.
I ran Evolving Hockey from two thousand and seven eight
to present. That's the most hits anybody has had in
a season three hundred and eighty two. That came with
over one hundred blocks, over one hundred shots, and his
hits for sixty has more than doubled since his days
in Boston, which is where I remember him from, back
when he was a Boston Bruin coming up. Was he
exactly good as a player, not necessarily. Nearly everybody who's
paired with had lower expected goals or rate when with
him than with others, and so the team's defense didn't
improve with them either. But the man has a role.
Victor ep Ringside does not rank him in their top
fifty six. I think that's why he was a particularly
a good one to call out. I thoroughly approve of
this recommendation. If you were playing in a banger's cat
league every week and you pick Lawson in the fifth round,
I'd say you got a strategy, And while that would
be insanity in a points league, I'd also have to
nod and say I get it. This is the Tom
Wilson theory that in a bangers league where categories are
all weighted equally. This is a category killer for hits.
So Victor, I love the las On talk.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's move Tom Wilson to shame Jesse shame. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a defenseman. He's supposed to but yeah, Tom
Wilson wishes that he was aggressive as Jeremy Lazan Victor.
The second of our bangers, who we're going to talk about,
second of our bash masters is Mackenzie Weaker. What makes
him your man?
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's really good too, and no matter which way
you look at it, he's pretty much top five hits,
block shots, if you add shots, if you take it out,
if you put pims in, he's pretty much great no
matter which way you want to slice it. And the
thing that's amazing about Wiger that is totally different from
Lasagn is he scores a lot of points for defenseman too.
And the other thing that I think is particularly good,
and some people use this as a negative, but Mackenzie
Wiger does not need power play time to score points.
He had fifteen power play points last season, which was
his career high by more than double So he actually
did get some power play time last year and he
made the most of it, but quite Frankly, I'm not
really sure that he needs it because remember those years
in Florida.
Speaker 4: I'm sure a lot of people do.
Speaker 3: When he was scoring lots of points and he had
a higher point pace in Florida than he did in
Calgary even though he had more total points Calgary this
past season, but he was getting no power play time.
And those high point years in Florida he was getting
three power play points. One year he had zero and
he had thirty three even strength points. That kind of
production is incredible. So we don't know what's gonna happen
in Calgary this year and if he loses all that
power play time, and in some ways, I'm not even
worried about it because his bash is still going to
be incredible, and I think that he can still easily
score forty points without any power play time, or even
if he regresses all the way down to zero power
play points, which he's not going to do. But that's
what makes weger so interesting. And you got this super
high floor and then you got you know, the cherry
on top, which is how many points he gets, which
is he's definitely he gives away a lot of hits
and blocks to Lazan, but man, those points are going
to be so much better. So in one of those
categories leagues, he just stuffs absolutely every category and he
shoots more than twice what Lazan does, So you get
more shots. You get definitely fewer hits, but but almost
a little bit more in the blocks area, and the
pims are decent too. Yeah, he's just an absolute gem.
Jesse and I, of course you want defenseman the good
power play time, but guys like this who aren't going
to fall off a cliff if they don't have it,
are also super valuable, don't you think.
Speaker 2: Absolutely? And you know what you generally don't do on
the power play victor, you don't hit and block. So
if you want those categories, the power play is not
the place to get it. The power play is the
place to juice those points. Absolutely. But it's interesting. I
ran his career stats and his points per sixty were
at the second highest of his career last year. He
played a ton of minutes. Last year was a career
high in minutes by a few over his last year
in Florida. His rates in the bash categories were all
peak levels for him last year. He's crazy, durable, he's
gonna get the special team's time on it, He's going
to get some short handed time on ice. That's good
to get those things. He's not a sleeper, but he
feels like he could give me what I hope to
get from Darnell Nurse every year, which is he looks
amazing because he can get just enough points and then
put up the peripherals like Gangbusters. In last year that didn't,
that kind of started to fell off. E p. Ringside
rates him as D thirty four. That's way too low
in my opinion. If and maybe that's because it's points
and not categories or doesn't reward hits and blocks. But
with no handefin the stats crending up for Wiger across
the board, I consider him a value for this year.
I approved this message, Victor, you have recommended well with
Mackenzie Wiger. Moving on, we got Radco Gudash, Victor, what
makes him the defenseman for the Anaheim Ducks one of
your picks.
Speaker 3: The new captain of the Anaheim Ducks.
Speaker 4: That was fine.
Speaker 3: We found that out this week as we're recording. That's
a good time. I guess I didn't really know. I'm
not sure who else they would have picked it certainly
wasn't going to be Travor d. Yeah, Gouddas another one
of these guys who you know. He absolutely is a
monster for the hits, blocks and not so much the shots.
But the penalty minutes are also really up there for Goudas,
so it gives you just that super high floor. I'm
looking around too, I was trying to find who's on
a team that might score a little bit more or
or who might get a little bit of boost in
their scoring, and that's what I was trying to figure
out with Goudas. I'm not sure that it's going to happen,
but they certainly have a lot of faith in him,
and it could right now his current he did have
some decent point totals back in his early Tampa and
Philly days, nearly thirty point pace. This past season he
was at twenty two. That's not the biggest factor. But
unlike the other two guys we talked about, the pims
for Goudas is massive. He's definitely a guy who will fight.
He will take a fair amount of penalties. I'm not
usually one who likes that, but I know I just
agreed to play this content League, Jesse. This Joe's versus pros,
which is gonna be fun.
Speaker 4: I hope.
Speaker 3: I'm embarrassed myself and they have penalty minutes and I
was like, oh God, here we go. I haven't played
in one of these leagues in a very long time.
But it's fine. It's one of those things that it
is reproducible and it is somewhat predictable, so you can
see what you need to do here. The other thing
about Goddess that is different from the first three we
talked about is he is actually a really incredible two
way player.
Speaker 4: You may not have thought this.
Speaker 3: I didn't always think this, but and I'm not sure
that this was always true, but in the past several
years he has really been an effective two way player.
He drives play the other direction, which is something that
the Ducks are going to really need for him. So
he gives you just a really high perferal floor. In particular,
it's a little bit more even, I would say, compared
to the other guys, where a couple of them are
just super big with hits with blocks, his blocks are
actually all of them are. All of the stats are incredible,
except for the shots for Udas and I'm thinking maybe
he can get up to thirty points this year if
the duck starts going more and he's out there for
twenty minutes, because I'm pretty sure they're going to give
him even more ice time as the captain. So that's
my thought process on Gouddas Jesse. What do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love this one too. Gudash spent a year
in Washington, so I watched him a little bit more
up close there and Victor. I also when I went
to Prague in the Czech Republic a few years ago
or a couple of years ago on vacation, I said, I
need to know who the players are from Prague, Czech Republic,
And would you know the leader in career games played
from Prague is Radko Gudash and next to him Tomas S. Hurtle.
So I love Raiko Gudash. He's long been one of
my favorite Bangerties. I definitely have among some teams. His
hit totals not as Gotdy as Lasan, but keep in
mind he missed eighteen games. I admit I'm not the
encyclopedia of NHL history the way some are, but I
wonder how many players get named captain after one year
on their fifth NHL club. I don't think that happens much,
but that might speak to the Ducks as much as
it does to Gudash. He's not just a thug. He
kind as a roughlican dude. People may results may vary,
but he is a good player. Second on the team
and goals above replacement. I mentioned on our Anaheim Ducks
episode and our guest Derek Lee called him the team's
best right handed option on defense when he was on
with us. He actually I don't even know. I think
I was gonna not talk about Gudash and he brought
him up. I'm pretty sure that's what happened on that one.
That's how I choose to remember it. And if I
were to predict one player in the NHL gets two
hundred blocks and three hundred hits next year, it would
be Ridko Gudash. His paces should get him close to
that if he has a full eighty two games. Victor,
this is definitely the banger to end all bangers, Victor.
Charlie McAvoy is the next one. I don't always think
of him as at and maybe some others don't, So
what is putting him on your Banger's list.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was definitely one of these things. Is not
like the other kind of an idea, But I was
really wanting someone who I thought could who had a
strong Perferle floor but could take a big step forward.
We talked about Wiger, of all the ones we talked about,
clearly has the most points up side of those, But
McAvoy is on another level because if any of these
guys are going to hit seventy points, it's definitely going
to be McAvoy. It's not going to be Lasn, It's
not going to be I don't even know that Weiger
could get that high. But yeah, McAvoy has a good
Perferle floor. I wouldn't say it's amazing. He definitely hits
a fair amount, he blocks a fairmount. He shoots actually
a little bit less than Weiger. Just get into that
two shots per game, and his pims are pretty good.
He'll get like around a pim per game is his pace.
But the thing that really stuck out to me with
McAvoy is we had flutitionians out on the pie and
he was basically like, they need more from that.
Speaker 4: He's he needs to be the man. He needs to
They're paying him a lot.
Speaker 3: They're going to lean on him, and he's had a
sixty four point pace. He's also had fairly recently forty
eight point paces, and he's had the in the fifties.
I think he can get, you know, above seventy and
he's gonna get all the power play time. I don't
really think it's going to go to Hampus Linholm. Did
you realize that we have two Linholmes on Boston? Now
this is going to be confusing Hampus and alias.
Speaker 4: Why do you do that? Gus?
Speaker 3: So that's gonna be I don't think it's going to
be Hampus though. I think it's gonna be Macavoy. They're
going to lean on him, and I think that his
points could make the big difference here if you're wanting
someone who has a pretty high bash floor, which a
lot of these top power play defensemen don't, because, as
you said, if you're more of an offensive guy, you're
not necessarily hitting in blocking a lot, you have the puck,
you're in the offensive zone.
Speaker 4: So that could be a bit different.
Speaker 3: Looking at the guide, the cam hasn't projected for fifty
seven points in eighty one games.
Speaker 4: I think you can go well over that. That's my thought.
Speaker 2: What do you think, Jessie, Yeah, I he is a
sneaky basher. It's a good catch with this stat set
victor because he's not. I don't think of him that way.
But hundred shots, one hundred and fifty hits, one hundred
and fifty blocks, and forty points. Only four players got
that stat set last year. So again, hundred shots, one
hundred and fifty hits, one hundred and fifty blocks and
forty points. Meritz Cider, Mackenzie Wiger, Charlie McAvoy, and Rasmus
Dollin only four players in the league who did that.
But yeah, I agree. Fluto really caught my attention with this,
saying sixty plus points is the expectation for him. The
only question for me is every year me and several
others predict that the Bruins are finally going to decline,
and if that ever were to happen, maybe there's something
come out. But I'm sick of predicting against him to
this point. EP Preview ranks him D sixteen in a
cats league. I think you push him up just to
touch above that. In the points league. That floor of
periffs would be an awfully tempting thing. Victory. I approve
of this selection. I approve Victor. I approve of you.
I approve of you as a human. I approve of
you as a prognosticator. You're just a pretty smart dude,
if you ask.
Speaker 3: Me, I appreciate that. Just one more thing on McAvoy.
He's the kind of guy I think that if you
have him as your number one d you're not so
happy about that, But if you have him as your
number two d, oh man, things are good. Right, Like,
you got a pretty good secondary defenseman, and if you
pair him with one of those really elite scores and
then things could be pretty good for you.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, we're gonna take a break. We're gonna
come back and talk a few regression guys. Victor. We
got a we just had a couple of bashers. We
got some more regression guys. First of all, Sam Ryan Hart, Victor,
Why Sam Reinhart.
Speaker 3: Twenty four point five? That's why, end of discussion. I'm kidding.
That was his shooting percentage this year. It doesn't take
a genius to realize that he's And Kolbe guy said
it on the Everyone you talk to knows, and Sam
knows that he cooked hot this year. He shot almost
a quarter of his shots went in. That's incredible. That
has never happened for anyone's career. But these kind of
things can sustain first season. So fifty seven goals when
he had never cracked forty is pretty pretty outrageous. We
were having the discussion of can can he even crack
forty again? That would be a good season. And he's
clearly talented, He clearly can score a lot, and Florida's
gonna be good again. They didn't completely lose their whole team,
So that's the big rub here is how much. And
I wrote and the guy that if you regressed a
bunch of his numbers, he would have lost twenty goals,
thirty seven goals, not fifty seven. And that's where I
think he can end up next year. So he'll be
closer to that seventy to seventy and eighty point player,
and I think that's totally reasonable. So I think regression
is coming. It doesn't mean he's going to be terrible,
but if you're expecting one hundred point Ryan Hart, you're
going to be disappointed. If you think he can be
seventy five eighty point. Ryan Hart, Yeah, I think we
can get on board with that. So you just need
to set your expectations correctly. I think, what do you think, Jesse.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you speak sense Victory, you speak. Since he led
the team in power play goals shooting percentage, his goals jumped,
just spiked. Like you said that shooting percentage meant he
went from thirty one goals to fifty seven, almost doubling.
That's just nuts. He did get Selke votes last year,
so that's good. Before we completely right off this improvement, though,
let's remember I went back and looked at who was
playing with fun evolving hockey. He went from a whole
lot of Anton Lindell to a whole lot of Sasha
Barkoff as his center, and his numbers have spiked every
time he's gone with Sasha Barkoff over the years. He
had Tarashenko at the end of last year. He loses
him this year. But if he continues to get Carter
for Hanky on the other wing, that's a darn good line.
It's not unreasonable to say that the truth is somewhere
in between last year and career. Sam Reinhart, I think
that like forty eight goals could be possible. Because Barkoff
ep Ringside has him forward twenty nine. I really don't
see him. There might be some guys who just show
up to the draft, look at last year's staffed and
stats and say, yeah, we're going to take Reinhart this
hive twenty nine or higher. I don't think that happens.
The sharps, I think, are going to underrate him. The
maybe the more casual are going to overrate him. I
can't see him really going forward twenty nine. If he does,
I agree, that would be a mistake. Victor. Next up,
we have a young man who just got paid in
the Motor City, Lucas Raymond tell us why he is
one of your regression candidates.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there were a couple of things. His shooting percentage
being six percent points over his career average. There was
a big difference there, and I think one of the
problems with when you have a high shooting percentage, the
one of the best biggest things you can do to
mitigate that risk is to shoot more. And Raymond doesn't
shoot a whole lot. We will find out if he
shoots more, because this year he shot point two shots
per game more, which wasn't really a whole lot, and
that so that shooting percentage, if he continues to shoot
around two per game, he's gonna regress and he's going
to lose a handful of goals, maybe even up to ten,
and so that's going to bring him back down to
a sixty point player, which is his career. I think,
and I've said in my Ketchup and Mustard episode, that
he can do better than that. He does seem like
he's turning the quarter and breaking out, but he's going
to have to shoot I think of a lot more
than that to make to mitigate some of this risks.
He's going to have to get over that two hundred
shot hump, which he was closer to in his first season,
and he's been far away from in his last two seasons,
so ideally closer to two fifty. That seems a little
unreasonable for him at this point.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I think that.
Speaker 3: There's just a little bit of worry there. That the
team around him, I think has gotten a little bit better.
There is a little bit more scoring depth, which is
good than not going to necessarily rely on him. But
I'm a little worried that he regresses a little bit.
I don't think it's going to be a whole lot,
But it's up to him. If he decides that he
can really turn things around and turn up his shot volume,
get a little bit more time on ice, then I
think he could mitigate that and he could be fine.
But these are things that we don't know. So if
all stays the same, he's definite regression candidate.
Speaker 2: Jesse, Yeah, fair enough. I like this though. It's spicy
because I think so many people are talking about Raymond
as a breakout candidate as the Detroit Red Wings get better.
But you're right in nineteen percent shooting that is going
to lead you to a career high in goals. Depending
on whether you think of players' stats going up or
down after they get along contract, that's in play. I
did a Dynasty Sports Life as my other podcast. I
always mentioned it at the end of the show. Last
week I did the first of my city episodes, and
what I did was I combined all four major sports
teams from Detroit. I'm doing it city by city and
combined the players over four sports and did rankings for prospects,
did rankings for pros, old men who might contribute and
just men of Mystery, and both Dylan Larkin and Lucas
Raymond played high in those highly in those ranks, and
I definitely like Larkin more than Raymond, but the EP
ringside guy does not. If his price is truly forward
thirty four and left wing ten in the NHL, I
think we're off the mark here. I even if Larkin
is center only, I definitely like him more. Raymond doesn't
have to necessarily, it's not about him versus Larkin. But
I do think you're absolutely right in the regression monster
is coming for a man here.
Speaker 3: Interesting though, is that Cam, who did all the number
of projections projects him to be point per game.
Speaker 4: Cam was just like, I don't care what you think.
Speaker 3: I love Lucas Raymond and stampo approval.
Speaker 2: All right, Cam gets the final word at EP Ringside
and wisely, But next Victor, we're gonna go to the
Vegas Golden Knights, Shay Theodore defenceman. Victor. What makes him
a regression candidate.
Speaker 3: There's this little thing called individual points participation, which we've
talked a lot IPP, and that IPP is what describes
your participation in the points that are scored when you're
out there and Shay.
Speaker 4: Theodore had an elite AIPP and power Play IPP.
Speaker 3: Basically everything was happening when he was out there, and
he is a good player, and top players, elite players
have elite IPPs. His is just in the generational category.
He's in like the McDavid prosby category, and I don't
know that he's that type of player. He never has been.
So his numbers were just way higher than they ever
had his. Both of his numbers upon the power Play
at and even strength were career highs by massive numbers,
which unless he has become a completely different player at
twenty nine, I don't know that it's fair to assume
that's going to continue. I'm pretty sure that it's going
to come back down to a more reasonable number, and
if it does, he will be shedding quite a few
number of points. And if that's the case for Theodore,
then you can expect fewer. The other thing that really
worries me about Theodore that no one seems to be
talking about, and I know that we're just immune to
just Vegas being able to throw whoever they want out
there and be good. At some point that's not going
to happen anymore. And I think that they have gotten
significantly worse in the past year with losing some of
their key players like march Usso being gone. And I
know that they brought in Hannafin and know they have
some different goalie options, but I just don't know that
they're as good as that they once were. And I'm
a little worried that's going to affect his point pace.
He had a career high by far seventy three point
pace was a twelve point pace higher than he ever has.
And I still think that Shay Theatre is going to
be good, but I don't know that he's going to
be career high. I think this might have been his
apex and he might come down a little bit. So
that's my concern with Theodore. I still would want him.
And the other reason is there's there he has Alex
Petangelo problem. But Petrangelo is a good all around d
that sometimes eats into his opportunity, So that's another concern
for me.
Speaker 2: Jesse, Yeah, completely fair. I talked about on the Catchup
and Mustard show for the Western Conference. I wanted to
pump up Theodore. More to the point, I wanted to
pump down Noah Hannafin on a hot take of some sort.
But Hannafin's stats are honestly just better than his new
teammates in terms of what I think he's going to
accomplish there. E P. Ringside actually ranks three Vegas defensemen
within their top fifty. Shae Theodore comes out as their highest,
which is surprising to me and I think is probably
a mistake. I agree with you about being careful per
rating last year's accomplishments, and the peripher floor is just
never great for Shape Theodore, So there is plenty of
reason to worry about Shape Theodore being one of your
top defensemen on your club. Next up, Victor, we're going
to go to Carolina and talk about Sane Gostisper what
makes him one of your picks.
Speaker 3: So there are a few things to be concerned about
with Shane gostis Bear. He did have the best statistical
season he's had since twenty seventeen eighteen when he was
in Philly. That was his peak season with a sixty
seven point pace. So last season in Detroit is his
first and only season so far there. He did have
a ton of power play opportunity. He had twenty nine
power play points, which was again that high since the
seventeen eighteen season. He made good on all that opportunity
and it was great, and he had a fifty seven
point pace. He's going to a new team, and the
Caroline Hurricanes they tend to not prioritize certain players like that.
They tend to not give people tons of opportunity. Brent
Burns is the one who had the most power play
time by a wide margin. He's going to be forty,
so that could be good, And a lot of people
are just assuming that Gostis Bear is going to step
into that role, but I don't know if that's so certain,
and he might share that they might tag team it
and that would be obviously bad for gosta S Bear.
So I just think that his role is nowhere near
as certain as it has been in the past. It
was pretty clear that he had that role in Detroit,
and his power play IPP was also really high, and
so I don't know that it's going to be quite
as high in Carolina. They don't have the finishers that
Vegas does, so that I'm comparing that because of Shay
Theodore's high powerplay IPP. So anyways, there's just a lot
of reasons. I know in theory, you look at it
and you say, Okay, he was great in Detroit.
Speaker 4: He's going to Carolina.
Speaker 3: They need someone to run that power play because Burns
is really slowing down. And I don't disagree with all
of that, but some of these things aren't always so clear,
and they could share that role, and they could play
with his time on ice a little bit. He is
not the best even strength defender, so there could be
several reasons why he doesn't end up getting as much
opportunity as we all think. So just would make me
a little bit nervous. Jesse, I would be happy to
have Shank gostas Bear as my third or fourth fenceman.
I don't know that I want him much higher than that.
And Cam has them projected for a thirty nine point base,
which would be a huge drop off from what he
previously had, and I think that's reasonable. I think there's
going to be some struggle that. I don't think Rod
Brnnemore is gonna much appreciate his even strength play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that is a worry. I mean that the
power play. It's hard to see the power play getting
pried away except for the except for the possibility Brimper
the other guys they have, they're just not power play types.
I've spent years waiting for Demitri or Loft to break
out on the power play and it's just never happened.
And Jacob Slaven that's not his strong suit. And if
he's D fifty four, like E. P. Ringside says, sandwich
between Brady Shy and Damon Severson, Now I'd say that's
fine in already accounting for some regression in terms of
where their ranks fall. But overall, I do agree he
maybe picked more highly in some of your leagus, So
you want to stay away from that. JT. Miller one
of the elite Vancouver Canucks victor and yet a regression candidate.
Speaker 3: Yes, sir, Career high shooting percentage, career high PDO, career
high powerplay ipp. Basically, you can look at his season
a few different ways, and there's no question it was
his best statistical season, but there are also a few
outliers in the luck metrics that indicate he might be
cooking a little bit hot. And I think this is
what you need to have your best statistical season. Ry.
You need a few bounces to go your way and
that's why. That's how you index for some players anyways,
over one hundred point pace, and that's what he did,
one hundred and four point pace. He had one hundred
and one point pace a couple of years ago. And
it's interesting. I looked at his season this past season
twenty three, twenty four, and I looked at twenty one
to twenty two, and he went over one hundred point pace.
And then I looked at the seasons in between where
he didn't, and guess what he cooked hot? On the
seasons that he went over one hundred, his luck metrics
were way over and they were under the other seasons.
So that to me just seems pretty clearly like that's
what happened. And that doesn't mean he can't do it again.
He certainly could. He certainly could shoot closer to twenty
percent again. He could have a career high power a pedo, which,
if you're not familiar, is a combination of shooting percentage
and save percentage. But that's a really high number. Ten
fifty five is an insanely high pdo and what's very
unlikely that is going to repeat. So many things would
have to go right for that to happen. So I
don't think that's going to happen. There's no question that
Miller is a great player, and he's great in multi
category leagues, and I think that he can be, you know,
around ninety Again, that's I'm not saying that he's going
to fall back completely. He might be closer to eighty
to eighty five. That's where I think the safe zone is.
Anything above that is gravy. But if you're drafting him
as a hundred point player, then you might be a
little bit disappointed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I suspect some people are. I think he's
getting to be in that top couple round conversation, and
if that's the case, yeah, you definitely need to look
at those luck metrics. He and Besser had that shooting
spike when they're on the ice, pretty much like you're saying,
and JT. Miller, like literally every human on the planet Earth,
is not as young as he used to be, and
that's relevant. I think this is a pretty direct reason
for regression on this one. I agree with you Canucks fans.
The plexiglass principle could be coming for you this year,
and if it does, it's going to take JT. Miller
down from insanity to mere incredulity in his points total
and because Victor hates the Vancouver Canucks. Next he picks
Philipperonic as a regression candidate. Victor, defend yourself.
Speaker 3: He I don't know that there's much to defend. It
was pretty clear what happened with Thronik. He cooked really
hot in the first half of the year. He had
most people realized they picked him up early on, and
he had nearly a point per game in the first
half of the season twenty nine points in thirty two games,
and then over the past forty nine games he was
under a half point per game, just nineteen.
Speaker 4: So it was a tale of two seasons.
Speaker 3: He if you look at the pdo for the first
versus the second half, it was insanely high and then
it was low. Overall, he finished at ten forty one,
which is a really high number for a defenseman in particular,
So there there were definite reasons to see that he
was probably not going to continue that. Overall, his points
participation was relatively even.
Speaker 4: And so that part is good.
Speaker 3: And there's still a high floor here in the sense
that he's going to play with Quinn Hughes and he's
gonna get points and maybe in bunches when he it
plays with Quinn. I don't think that's going to change,
and I think that he's still has a high floor
to be a forty point guy. It's just if you're
thinking that he's going to be what he was in
the first half of that season, where he was like
seventy point guy, I don't think that's so realistic. And
he did have a forty nine point pace, so if
he averaged that out, but it was more like a
thirty and a seventy point pace, put that in the
middle and you get fifty, but it wasn't really a
fifty point pace. I think he's more realistically closer to
forty thirty to forty. That's who he's been, and he
has had a decent number of power Play points and
so if that can continue from the second power Play
and using him more as a shooter, then possibly. But
I just think you're going to get You should be
expecting more of a forty point pace from Frontic, and
if you get more than you should be happy about it.
But you certainly shouldn't be drafting him as a fifty
or more point guy or anything.
Speaker 2: Jesse, Yeah, He definitely had good offense last year, more
than I'd expected. He had that nice breakout in Detroit,
he got traded, he pretty much was out shortly after
he was traded, and then last year he definitely is
not contributing greatly at the defensive end for the Canucks,
so they're going to have to use him in offensive
situations where he's going to be competing with Quinn Hughes.
Almost everything gets more exciting with Ronic on the ice.
I don't know if you remember those evolving hockey charts
where it says fun at one corner. That's the corner
that Heronic drags everything to fund more shots for, more
shots against. And of course we talked about the Canuck
general fears that said, if you wanted any optimism for
his point total being higher, remember what Patrick Johnston told
us on the team preview for the Canucks. He was
badly hampered by an elbow injury mid last year and
that kind of hobbled him. And if that truly is
what threw him off at that early pace, he may
not be as steep of a fall as we feared.
At D thirty seven, where ep ringside has him, I
think I could buy on him, but let's not gow
Pronic is not going to be a star defenseman by
any means. Victor, I think we've been through some regressions,
We've been through some bashers. Any general thoughts on regressions
for this season.
Speaker 3: I obviously did everyone's did some homework for you, but
I would encourage people that you could do this kind
of stuff yourself. I think it's really helpful to look
at this. You don't have to be an expert at it,
but I think getting used to looking at these numbers
when I first started playing, the first thing that I
would always do, like a lot of people, is get
excited when guys are cooking hot. Now what I do
when I'm cooking hot is I look into their numbers
and think about how long is this going to last?
Speaker 4: What is an.
Speaker 3: Outlier, what is their career average, what is the average
for that position, that number in the league, and start
really thinking about maybe you want to sell this player,
Maybe you need to think about how long this is
going to continue, because it's not just going to keep
going forever. So just to be more aware of some
of these numbers, hopefully that's that's part of it as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, indeed, Victor will be right back after this
to close off the show. Yes, sir, back to talk
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