Underlying Stats: Breakouts, Breakthroughs or Breakdowns

October is coming to a close. The average games played for a team rests just under 10 GP at 9.93 before the games on Halloween. I’m getting ready to go out on a catamaran—and I doubt I’ll be able to update all of these stats with the Halloween games—so consider these stats all reflective of the games up to 10/30/2024.

Fantasy hockey is where most of my interests lie, so sustainability is often a topic of conversation around my water cooler. Sustainability is not black or white; it’s often gray and very much dependent on the player in question. Certain statistics will paint a picture for us, but think of the picture like an autostereogram—you have to stare at it for a long time, and the picture looks different depending on who is staring.

Tossing my picture into the gallery, I want to dive into a handful of players that have been popping up often in the Fantasy Hockey Discord or online. Without stretching myself too thin, I would like to offer two players for each category in a Goldilocks-type fashion: Too Hot, Too Cold, Just Right. “Too Hot” would suggest that sustainability is a larger worry—and my bet would be on that “porridge” cooling off. “Too Cold” would mean the player’s underlying stats indicate they should improve in performance, and there is reason for optimism. “Just Right” will be players who have improved this year and have underlying metrics that lead me to believe their performance is sustainable.

Too Cold

Zach Hyman - 10 GP, 0 G, 1 A, 28 SOG

By game 10 of last year, Hyman had 4 G/6 A and 2 PPP. Edmonton was in largely the same place in the standings: 2-7-1, 2.7 GF/gm, the power play at 25% efficacy, but the deathblow was that the defense and goaltending were allowing 4.1 GA/gm. This year, however, GF/gm has dropped 18.5% to 2.2 GF/gm. The GA/gm has improved from 4.1 GA/gm to 3.5 GA/gm. The PP is almost half as efficient this year at 13.8% after 10 games—and all the while, their record shows out better than last year’s at 4-5-1.

You’ll notice I’ve talked a lot about Edmonton and not a lot about Hyman himself. I do believe there is a team issue that is plaguing everyone. Evan Bouchard could very well be in place of Hyman here; just about every EDM player could be. EDM is shooting 6.4%, 41% below the league average shooting percentage of 11%. Perhaps they’ve dug in a bit too far?

For Hyman specifically, his 22.75% drop in SOG/60 from last year to this year is worrisome. The hits and blocks have dried up a bit as well for fantasy hockey GMs counting on those. Otherwise, the underlying metrics all root for a bounce-back. Hyman’s IPP, or the percentage of on-ice goals for which Hyman factors into, is 9.09%—down almost 82% from last year’s 49% involvement rate. Not only is EDM scoring fewer goals per game than expected, but Hyman is getting in on less action. His PPTOI is up 19%. He’s being utilized 5.5% more offensively by the coach—starting in the offensive zone more. The most damning stat of all is that on-ice shooting percentage is down 38% this year. That’s kind of meta and paradoxical, though; if he and his linemates were scoring more, this part of the article wouldn’t exist, and I wouldn’t be using low oiSH% to suggest a bounce-back.

On any other team I would worry about Zach Hyman, but this is largely the same Edmonton Oilers team that was a goal or two away from winning the Stanley Cup last year. Though not quantifiable, I believe there is something psychological at play that is affecting the Oilers. I truly believe that the respective ships of Bouchard, Nugent-Hopkins, and Hyman alike will be righted as soon as Edmonton figures out whatever is plaguing them.

The market is there to buy low on Zach Hyman or Evan Bouchard if you can—Edmonton is not a team you’d expect to be 31st in the league in GF/gm. Connor McDavid’s injury won’t be helping the cause at all, but that’s also 25–30 minutes of ice time per game that has to go somewhere. I have full confidence that EDM, and subsequently Hyman, will bounce back.

Steven Stamkos - 9 GP, 1 G, 2 A, 30 SOG

Another player with whom I will chicken out on and blame most of the underperformance on the team—the Nashville Predators—as a whole. Much like Hyman with Edmonton, Stamkos is part of the reason Nashville is struggling. Let’s dive into it.

Stat // Last Year // This Year // % Difference

SOG/60: 10.92 // 10.35 // -5.22%

ATOI: 18:14 // 19:20 // +6.04%

PPTOI: 3:45 // 4:31 // +20.1%

IPP: 67.50 // 42.86 // -36.5%

S%: 15.27% // 3.33% // -78.17%

oiSH%: 5.19% // 13.67% // -62.03%

PP S%: 16.96% // 7/69% // -54.66%

The biggest detriments here are IPP and personal S% metrics. the oiSH% will only come up once NSH starts scoring as a whole.

This year Stamkos has had more trouble getting to the slot, and generating shots from the circle where a lot of his contributions come from. 1 Goal on 17 PP SOG so far this year. Above are his 5v5 results, Below are Stamkos’ 23-24 PP Goal Locations and 5v5 Goal Locations:

Stamkos is not getting to any of these areas 9 games in. Plenty of time to get to the areas he’s used to. Coming into the season I, like many others, had Nashville pegged as the most improved team given their off-season moves. Ranked by 5v5 team shooting percentage, Edmonton is dead last with 4.9% and Nashville is right behind them with 5.1%. Nashville has the 5th highest Shot Attempt % and the highest Shots For/gm. The combined save percentage of goalies NSH has faced is .928, they have the 8th highest xGF/60 as a team — They’re running into hot goaltenders and getting unlucky as a whole.

Most of us knew that expectations should be tempered on Stamkos’ performance this year, assuming he was going to put up a Tampa Bay Lightning-esque season in Nashville was ultimately unwise. Not many were expecting that — 3 points in 9 games, or a 27 point pace is far below even those tempered expectations. I would say that buying Stamkos low would be a good move, and hopefully recouping some ADP value along the way is possible. By that I mean “moving up in the draft” four weeks into the season by paying a 7th or 8th (or even later) round over-performer for this 2nd/3rd round under-performer - Evgeni Malkin comes to mind, Jared McCann, Claude Giroux. Be smart with it though, there are some over-performers fitting this list of ingredients that I believe in (to varying degrees of sustainability) who I’d rather have at this point: Nico Hischier, Josh Norris, Jake Sanderson, Neal Pionk, just to name a few. I’d consider Sam Bennett and Mikael Granlund as potential ROI candidates here, but I feel like I’d rather hold those two given the numbers at this point.

Too Hot

Lukáš Dostál - 7 GP ( 78% Volume ), 4-2-1, .943sv%

I feel like the sentence: “An Anaheim Ducks goaltender leads the league in Sv%, saves, and Goals Saved Above Expected (GSAA)… c’mon.” should suffice here as the “deep dive.” There are some stats worth bringing into the conversation to back this up, however.

First is that John Gibson’s return is nearing; we are four weeks into his 3–6 week timeline. Dostál has earned the starter's role—I want to shut that one down before anyone runs to the comments. Gibson is not returning as the starter or even to create a 1A:1B situation—I simply believe that a 78% ratio of starts for Dostál makes more sense with Clang as the backup than it does with Gibson as the backup. Gibson is going to eat a bigger slice of the starts pie than Clang. Trade rumors swirl around John Gibson for the 3rd? 4th? 5th? year in a row? Regardless—the starts will taper.

The biggest worry I have for Dostál is the fact that he is over-performing on Anaheim. This is not a team conducive to generating or sustaining goalie performances. xGA/gm is down 13% from an already high benchmark of 3.5 xGA/gm from last year, so signs of improvement are there, but still not to a good level. The GSAA is actually down on a per-game level from where it was last year, and Dostál finished the year last year with a .902.

Consider also the demographic of opponents a starting goalie sees vs. the demographic of opponents a backup goalie sees—if Dostál is thrust into a starting role, the days of games against CBJ, MTL, SJS, and PHI are over. Dostál's opponents so far this season have been: SJS, COL, LAK, SJS, NYR, and NYI. The only real test he’s seen has been NYR. The average GF/gm rank of Dostál’s opponents is 19.7 out of 32 teams. The average GA/gm rank of Dostál’s opponents is 20.4/32—the offense has had plenty of room for goal support. According to Power Rankings Guru, the Ducks have had the 7th easiest schedule so far this season. Their remaining schedule is the 4th hardest. The honeymoon may be coming to a close on a few fronts.

The Ducks are 7th worst in CF/GP, 6th worst in FF/GP, have the 2nd worst SF%, have the 6th lowest xGF/GP, and the 3rd lowest actual GF/GP, have the 2nd highest xGA/GP, and the 6th best actual GA/GP. They have the league’s worst Scoring Chance %, give up the 2nd most High Danger Chances per game, for which Dostál ranks 11th in HDSV%. Nothing about this is sustainable short of an inhuman superhero performance from Dostál night in and night out. ANA sees PIT, CHI, VAN, MIN, CBJ, and VGK over the next two weeks—so selling now might not be the right time. Keep in mind here that CBJ is sneaky good offensively and should not be taken lightly. The Blue Jackets lead the league in S% at the moment and are 6th in GF/gm; that might not be the layup we expect.

Alex Pietrangelo - 11 GP, 1 G, 11 A, 23 SOG

Pietrangelo currently is tied for 22nd in Pts/gm amongst players with five or more games played—tied with Sam Bennett, Ivan Barbashev, Anze Kopitar, and Anton Lundell. Petro also ranks 315th in PPTOI/gm, 9th in 5v5 A2/60, 34th in oiSH% (16.7%). His TOI is down 9.3% from last year, SOG pace down 5%, iCF down 23%, IPP is almost double what it was—up 67.3%—and his PPTOI is down 58%. Pietrangelo has scored half of his 12 points in the last four games against OTT, SJS, CGY, and LAK. The Knights scored an average of 6 GF/gm in that span—almost twice their average from last year.

A decided lack of primary points scoring and cashing in on an absolute VGK heater has thrust Pietrangelo up the forums as a player of interest “rest of season”—and I agree. I think he is someone worth rostering, don’t get me wrong! An 89-point pace with only 23% of VGK’s PP time is as close to impossible as you can get. He’s an excellent sell-high candidate. If you are able to leverage the VGK offense, Petro’s involvement in that offense, and his current production into any sort of defenseman with more stability, I would back you 100%. You may be able to turn him into a true 60–65+ point defenseman—anything short of that and I would hold.

Petro is really on one right now, and I don’t want to seem like he’s going to “cold turkey” the rest of the season. I really believe there is 50–55 point potential here, considering Petro is already 20% of the way there with 86% of the season to go.

Just Right

Yegor Chinakov - 9 GP, 3 G, 5 A, 24 SOG

Currently on pace for around 70–75 points, the top line in CBJ is firing on all cylinders. Yegor Chinakhov, Sean Kuraly, and Kirill Marchenko are currently the 2nd best xG% line in hockey—just below Hyman-Draisaitl-McDavid. This CBJ trio also controls the shot share by a +13.2% margin with a 63.2% CF%.

Chinakhov in particular is a favorite of mine; I still remember how out of left field he was as a first-round draft pick—they didn’t even have a headshot queued in for him. In terms of his season-to-date vs. last year metrics, he’s +19.8% ATOI, +35.62 Pts/60, SOG/60 is up 7.3%, and on top of the extra TOI his SOG 82 GP pace is up 28.5%. His shooting percentage has gone down to a reasonable 12.5% from 14.5% last year, has a healthy IPP, oiSH% relative to his linemates and play-driving metrics, PPTOI is up 34%, oZS% is up 19%—the coach obviously views him as an offensive stalwart. He’s on pace for 118 hits, 78% more than last year, and even hanging around a half block per game. Of his 8 points, 7 are primary points.

Amongst players who have more than 40 minutes of TOI, Chinakhov’s SOG/60 ranks inside the top 100, with Cole Perfetti and Jason Robertson on either side. Where he excels is rush attempts/60, where he is inside the top 20. He’s currently on pace for 73 points, and I believe every bit of that—if he can stay healthy, I am two feet in on Chinakhov.

Neal Pionk - 10 GP, 3 G, 9 A, 24 SOG

Now, I need to be upfront about this one: I would definitely take the under on Neal Pionk’s 98-point pace so far through 10 games. I had to fit him in here because he doesn’t get enough credit in a typical world; now that he’s one of the top D-men out there he’s getting some good buzz—but I think there is a good reason to hold and to be optimistic about the rest of the season.

Firstly, Winnipeg is an absolute wagon so far this year—they’re top of the league in GF/gm, PP%, top-five best GA/gm, and all around just clicking. That said, there is reason to believe the Jets as a whole should regress down to their mean at some point, but until then, Pionk is going to be cashing checks.

Despite a second power-play role, Pionk has increased his SOG/60 from last year by 40%, his iCF pace is up 15%, A2’s are down 58%, 9 of his 12 points are primary points, his hits are substantially down, but he’s spending a lot more time in the offensive zone—and while you have the puck, you aren’t headhunting for hits.

Some red-lining stats that should deflate anyone from believing an almost 100-point season from Pionk is a real possibility: the oiSH% is around 19%, which is an outlier amongst even the best players in the league; PPTOI/gm is down 24% from last year, and he’s currently on pace for 33 PPP—which coincidentally is how many points he had all last season. Eight of his 12 points are even-strength points, which are coming in in droves this year, and even removing all of his PPP, Pionk is still on a 56-point pace.

That’s about where I have him—55 points. I could definitely see 60+ happening, but this insane heater needs to continue for about 7–10 more games before it levels out for that to happen, which is a real possibility. Over his last 7 GP, his oiSH% is just above 23%, and he’s got 11 points in these 7 games. Unsustainable does not mean impossible; Pionk is just doing his best January/February Nick Schmaltz impression.

This one does feel like a bit of a cop-out, as I am clearly betting the under. I really did just want to give Pionk his roses a little bit. He and Morrissey are neck and neck right now, and I am here for it—even as a Morrissey owner.

Well, that’s it for my first Substack thing. Throw some feedback down in the comment section, if there is one. I have no idea how these things work, and this is more a trial run than anything. Love you guys <3