Season Preview: My Fellow Contenders

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.