The ever frustrated GM of the Patrik Stefans,
yours truly, had fears last season that his window to hoist the elusive Krusell
Cup was sliding shut. And after a review of the teams that also finished in the
money, those fears are better cast as one big frightening realization. Rather
than go full rebuild or, worse, quit the league, I’ve chosen fight over flight
and plan to double down on my aging core. No, I don’t mean yoga classes at KFC,
but I am arguably engaging in a game of chicken against myself, deciding how
long to ride out these 30 somethings. Ok, enough about me. Let’s take a look at
the trouble I face in the henhouse.
Mackhawks
The Mackhawks are truly ahead by a century.
Jones (23), Drouin (23), Ehlers (22), Barzal (21), Rantanen (21), and Laine
(20) form a core that wasn’t supposed to be competitive in our format until
next decade. But having 2015 NHL draftees Barzal (16th overall) and Rantanen
(10th overall) put up 85 and 84 points respectively last season--totals that
would have placed 2nd and 3rd in the entire NHL in the season before that draft
(!)--has fast-forwarded this rebuild and given the other GMs in our league a
blueprint for how to do this. Put a feather in your cap, Matthew.
Bizarrely, GMMM may not have a player from his
protected roster aged 24-30 on opening night. Locked in keepers on this bimodal
group are Phil Kessel (31), Kris Letang (32), Alexander Radulov (32) and Devan
Dubnyk (32). At the time of writing, the only real decision to me is whether to
replace Drouin with Kadri, Marleau, or defensemen Sami Vatanen, but I believe
that ultimately MattMack’s escalation of commitment issues with JD will keep
him apart of the Mackhawks. With that said, let’s take a look at how this PR
shakes down:
Player
|
NHL.com points
projection
|
GMSW points projection
|
Devan Dubnyk
|
81*
|
76
|
Phil Kessel
|
79
|
88
|
Mathew Barzal
|
76
|
65
|
Mikko Rantanen
|
75
|
82
|
Patrick Laine
|
73
|
84
|
Alexander Radulov
|
70
|
67
|
Nikolai Ehlers
|
63
|
65
|
Jonathan Drouin
|
47
|
61
|
Kris Letang
|
58
|
71
|
Seth Jones
|
56
|
54
|
TOTAL
|
678
|
711
|
*I just multiplied projected wins by 2 and
arbitrarily added 20% for SOs and OTL/SOLs.
The points of departure in my projections from
NHL.com are more pronounced on this team than the other two below. Among my
audacious auguries, I see Pittsburgh being super motivated again and both
Kessel and Letang to have banner seasons. Barzal will inevitably take a step
back without Tavares and will grow frustrated as the year goes on. Rantanen
will solidify himself among the league’s elite. Laine will score 55 goals.
Drouin will find some chemistry with Domi.
Prospects: Anthony Beauvillier should be “called
up” to the big club at the beginning of the season. He had some unbelievable
stretches during the second half of last year’s campaign, and should add
important depth for the Mackhawks as they make another bid for a championship.
Draft: There will be a lot of pressure on his
first pick at 12th as he doesn’t pick again until 42nd.
Prediction: 5th. I should be careful not to
contradict myself, but it will be hard for the young Mackhawks, after the leap
they made last season, to take another step significant enough to put them over
the top. Below average goaltending and below average draft position will
ultimately keep him out of the money this season, but he should not be
discouraged. Proper management of his aging but still quality assets should
make his (near) future even brighter.
Valeri Nickrooshkins
Don’t wake Daddy, the GM of the Valeri
Nickrooshkins (and newest KL daddy), or he may just realize that he’s the front
runner headed into the 2018-19 season and prepare more for this draft than any
draft before. Our best hope is that he ODs on cacio e pepe and sleeps through
his first few picks.
Seriously through, this team is ready to win
now, and here’s why. First, Columbus will win the Metropolitan. Despite the
number of young guys with the BJs, there’s lots of talk that Panarin and
Bobrovsky will walk at the end of the year, and so they will be going for
broke. And for whatever crazy reason, there’s buy in from the kids with Torts.
Anyway, Bob will clear 100 pts and lead all goalies in our format.
Next, the Nickrooshkins have what I’ll call 3.5
elite forwards, which is certainly good for top-tier status in our league.
Little needs to be said about Tavares and Stamkos, and I think Voracek is
secure as a 75-80 point guy, especially with Philly still on the ascendence. My
0.5 goes to Jaden Schwartz, whose career-high point total is 63, but he was a
point-per-game guy last season before he went down on what many regarded as the
most dangerous line in hockey. Huberdeau is the 5th best forward on this team,
and an obvious keeper, even though I see I slight downtick for him with a
likely bump off the top line. And finally, here’s where things might get
interesting and where Roos might give 10-15 pts back to the field. In the long
term, Galchenyuk is arguably still the better player to protect, but if Michael
Ferland can put up 21 goals on the Flames top line, what can James Neal do, who
happened to put up 25 goals on a line with Eric Haula and David Perron?
Finally, the linchpin of this team will be its
defense core. In the boldest prediction I have to offer, the Nickrooshkins top
3 in Hedman, Krug, and Gardiner will best every other KL team’s top 4
defensemen point totals. Here’s how the PR should look, if he hangs onto James
Neal:
Player
|
NHL.com points
projection
|
GMSW points projection
|
Sergei Bobrovsky
|
91
|
101
|
John Tavares
|
91
|
90
|
Steven Stamkos
|
84
|
85
|
Jakub Voracek
|
73
|
77
|
Jaden Schwartz
|
65
|
80
|
Jonathan Huberdeau
|
69
|
61
|
James Neal
|
50
|
70
|
Victor Hedman
|
68
|
70
|
Torey Krug
|
55
|
70
|
Jake Gardiner
|
52
|
60
|
TOTAL
|
698
|
764
|
I have some pretty wild forecasting going on
above, much of which I’ve already explained. The top guns should do what
they’re supposed to do up front, but the real surge will come from the the
triumvirat of Hedman, Krug, and Gardiner, and then Schwartz and Neal will push
this team over the top.
Prospects: only this blog post will save the
Nickrooshkins for protecting Evgeny Svechnikov, thinking he is Andrei. And
while you’re at it, drop Anthony DeAngelo as well to give yourself a couple
fresh cracks at the draft.
Draft: speaking of which, despite his big moves
last season and second place finish, GMNR has the Powder Rangers’ second round
pick, so two picks in the top 20 of the deepest draft we’ve ever had.
Prediction: 1st, with little else to say. But
they don’t top Micah’s 2017-18 mark of 942. No team ever will.
Milan Micahleks
Everything went right for the Milan Micahleks
last season, but this year I’m hoping calling for a jolting decline and
putting a 700 ft. pt. ceiling on their protected roster. The following
analysis basically follows the same yawning approach as the two above, namely,
making wild predictions about various NHL team successes and invoking the
golden rule of regression, with a bit of nursery rhyming for Avielle.
Three by three, this team’s going down, to the
ground, to get out of the reign, boom boom boom, so let’s start with a look at
Anze, Benn, and Marchand. Kopitar’s regression is just too obvious. His 17.5%
shooting percentage was up nearly 10 points from the previous season. He’s
remarkably durable, and the addition of Kovalchuk is intriguing, but there’s
just no way he betters his career high 92 of last year. I have him returning to
more of his career average total. OK, I actually don’t actually see Benn
deviating much from recent seasons, with Dallas having a lot to prove still and
Seguin in a contract year. I also can’t see the Little Ball of Hate dipping
below 80 either, given his production last season was actually 1.25 points per
game, but I have faith in the rest of league deciding that they’ve had enough
of Bradley’s success to keep him from having the type of season that he is
seriously trending toward, and that would make all of us stop watching.
Kucherov and Hall are still elite players and in
their primes, but their point totals last season are just so tough to repeat.
Like most, I also believe Jersey will struggle a bit more this season. And
here’s a fun fact from a way-deeper-than-I’d-like-to-admit rabbit hole I just
went down: every player in our lifetime over the age of 23 who has won the Hart
trophy other than Gretzky has had their point totals drop by at least 11 pts
the next season. Rounding out the forwards, Keller will be fine, but Arizona is
still so bad that I can’t see him putting up frightening totals that will catch
serious attention.
Lastly, the Micahlek’s defense core just isn’t
as good as GMMC thinks. The three reasons for that are Ivan Provorov, PK
Subban, and Seth Jones.
Player
|
NHL.com points
projection
|
GMSW points projection
|
Marc-Andre Fleury
|
78
|
85
|
Nikita Kucherov
|
95
|
89
|
Brad Marchand
|
85
|
83
|
Jamie Benn
|
85
|
85
|
Taylor Hall
|
86
|
79
|
Anze Kopitar
|
87
|
72
|
Clayton Keller
|
70
|
61
|
Shayne Gostisbehere
|
57
|
54
|
Roman Josi
|
53
|
45
|
Zach Werenski
|
45
|
47
|
TOTAL
|
741
|
700
|
With Landeskog gone (how on earth did the
Micahleks not get more in return?), the only possible indecision around their
PR might be whether to go into the draft with a naked crease and hang on to one
of Dustin Brown, Brendan Gallagher, or Nino Niederreiter (kept last season).
Ultimately, I don’t see that happening, and while VGK is bound to fall short of
their maiden voyage point total, MAF is still a good bet to put up 35 wins.
Prospects: Nick Suzuki is a grade A prospect,
but won’t factor into the Micahleks scoring roster, and he’d be wise to leave
him on the farm as a... sidekick. I have intel that Lehkonen and Fischer are
gonzo, and I can’t disagree.
Draft: Like me, GMMC has a big positional
setback to overcome and will miss out on the best that this crop has to offer.
Between the 30th and 63rd overall, however, he should be able to round out his
SR, with the remaining picks to be used on “shots in the dark”, the
now-18-year-olds he’s been photographing at night through bedroom windows over
the past 7 years.
Prediction: 3rd. Let me be clear. This team is
still really good, and you’ll notice that NHL.com projections have their PR at
41 points above the Nickrooshkins. It’s only through my machinations, which
have created a 105 point flip between the two teams, that I have them falling
out of co-favourite status, and the chance at being the first team with a third
Krusell Cup title, their third in four years. Gross.
