Season Preview: The Mushy Middle

I am previewing the Quebec Rordiques, Fylanders and Hartford Thalers, three teams that finished last season 6th, 7th and 9th, respectively. These previews use projections from Scott Cullen, I think, except for goalies where I took win projections from NHL.com and used Stefan’s lazy shortcut of adding 20% for bonus points.

Quebec Rordiques

Rordiques fans have to feel good about the direction this team is headed. Last year it finished 6th, its best performance ever, and made the playoffs for the first time.

The Rordiques made no trades last season, so I have them keeping pretty much the same roster. Can they count on internal improvement and a great draft to get them over the hump and into a money spot? It seems unlikely unless everything breaks their way.

Aleksander Barkov	70
Mitch Marner	70
Ryan O'Reilly	64
Brayden Schenn	64
Eric Staal	61
Jonathan Toews	59
James van Riemsdyk	57
Matthew Tkachuk	55
Rasmus Ristolainen	41
Jonathan Quick	82
	623

The core of the team is young - its best players are Barkov (23) and Marner (21) (and I note the 55-point projection for Thachuk (20) seems a touch low given he scored at a 59-point pace last season, just his second). Schenn, O’Reilly and van Riemsdyk all moved to new teams this year, which leaves a lot of uncertainty in the projection. I also have Rordiques keeping Toews, who promises to be better, and Staal, who has found a miracle aging cure, over William Karlsson, but keeping the younger Golden Knight would certainly be a defensible choice. In sum, the Rordique’s window of contention is open and should remain open for a number of years.

The forwards are very good but these projections suggest the team lacks an elite, point-per-game fantasy player - although Barkov was essentially that last season, and Marner’s upside is about that. Elias Pettersson, drafted sixth overall last year, may prove to be that elite player but is not expected to do so this year (or is he? [insert links to those preseason dekes and through-the-legs-backhand passes that irrefutably prove he will score 100 here]).  The other prospect, Cody Glass not expected to play in the NHL this year but is the 12th-best prospect according to Corey Pronman - without looking, I’d wager this is the best 1-2 prospect punch in the KL.

The weakness is on the back-end (a recurring theme in this post), where I have the Rordiques keeping only one defender, and not a great one: Ristolainen. Justin Faulk is also a consideration but neither of them really moves the needle. Ryan Pulock is another young potential stud but would represent a gamble as he doesn’t have the history of solid production. The five KL teams that finished above the Rordiques last season each had at least two better defencemen, and four of them boasted an elite 60-point defenceman (Gostisbehere, Doughty, Hedman, Burns). Those are essentially forwards in a defence slot, which is a huge advantage. Has anybody won the KL without a 60-point Dman? A question I would try to answer if I were being paid to write this.

GMRJ’s prediction: 8th place. He says a number of his players overperformed last season and he lacks star power.

My prediction: 5th place. I’m more bullish than GMJR on this team and to be honest I made this prediction and write-up before hearing from him, and he has a point about overperformance. I’d be more confident about my prediction if he were able to acquire a marquee defenceman, either by moving a forward or by getting one early in the draft. I can see the Rordiques holding steady this year before making a big push in the next year or two when Pettersson and Glass are contributing - acquiring a stud defenceman should be a priority this season. The five teams above will be tough to catch, but odds are one of them will have a bunch of things go wrong, allowing the Rordiques to move up one spot.

Fylanders

Last year I wrote this:

If I know GMFV, he will not go full-tank. He'll draft well enough and he'll be able to wheel and deal this team into a playoff spot. But I think that's giving short-term interests priority over long-term goals. I know how badly GMFV wants to win the Krussel Cup, and I don't see this roster getting him anywhere close before Backstrom starts to decline with age.

I was right about the first half - the Fylanders scratched and clawed their way into 7th place. The second half remains to be seen. At last year’s draft GMFV tried to balance restocking the cupboards with remaining competitive, and to some extent he achieved both ends - he made the playoffs and added a legit keeper in Dadonov and a good prospect in Timo Meier. Was it enough to expect improvement?

Nicklas Backstrom	75
Joe Pavelski	69
Rickard Rakell	66
Sean Monahan	62
Dylan Larkin	60
Evgeni Dadonov	58
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins	56
Nick Leddy	43
Alex Goligoski	36
Andrei Vasilevskiy	98
	623

Although this projection is based on keeping seven forwards, two defencemen and one goalie, the optimum strategy may actually be to keep both Vasilevskiy and Gibson and only one defenceman, unless Gibson could fetch a decent return on the trade market. He is projected at just 79 points, about average, although Scott Cullen has him as the seventh best fantasy goalie. I don't know, goalies are voodoo. Keeping both would of course require GMFV to draft three useful defencemen in the draft, which is easier said than done and is a good segue into this team’s biggest flaw - again - the lack of an elite blueliner.

Last year the Milan Micahleks got 197 points from their top four Dmen. The Nickrooshkins got 210. The Patrik Stefans only got 148 (Doughty’s 60, Butcher’s 48, and two bags of miscellaneous smashed assholes that combined for 44) - that sewered a team with the greatest collection of forwards ever assembled in the KL. How can the Fylanders expect to win with Nick Leddy leading the charge? Rasmus Dahlin is not falling to ninth.

Up front, there are some good pieces here that should improve, including Larkin and Monahan, but the stars, Backstrom and Pavelski, are likely fading. Vasilevskiy is a top-three goaltender in the KL but having most of your team’s worth tied up in its netminder is a risky strategy, just ask the Habs. Vasilevskiy’s 117 points last year (co-leading, with Hellebuyck) vaulted the Fylanders into the playoffs. Swap him for either of the starters on the two teams that finished 8th and 9th (the WBS Parkers’ Cam Talbot (69) and the Hartford Taylor’s Ben Bishop (73), and the playoff picture looks very different. Keeping both goalies attenuates some of that risk, so I’m very curious to see what GMFV does.  

GMFV’s prediction: 8th place. [After seeing everyone's keepers he upgraded this to 6th. Interesting.]

My prediction: 10th place. I think this team is fine, but improvement from one of the teams below, or anything less than stellar goaltending from Vasilevskiy, will spell trouble. My more specific prediction is that GMFV goes “all in” at the deadline and acquires a Patrice Bergeron-type who gets injured the following week, causing the team to fall just outside the playoff picture.

Hartford Taylors

The Taylors finished 9th last season, also known as "worst place" because you don’t make the playoffs and you usually don’t get a high draft pack, unless you win the lottery, which the Taylors did not. They only missed the playoffs by ten points though, which is pretty good for a feeling-out year with a new GM at the helm.

Evgeny Kuznetsov	84
David Pastrnak	74
Filip Forsberg	64
Viktor Arvidsson	61
Mats Zuccarello	56
Mika Zibanejad	52
David Krejci	48
Oliver Ekman-Larsson	45
Brandon Montour or	31
Oskar Klefbom
Ben Bishop	74
	589

Three young stars form a respectable nucleus: Pastrnak (22), Kuznetsov (26 - really?) and Forsberg (24). I think Forsberg's projection of 64 is too low, considering he had 64 in 67 last year. Arvidsson had 61 each of the last two years so that projection is probably safe. Krejci is probably good for more than 48 unless he’s seriously banged up. The scandinavian MZs from NYR are borderline keepers.

Those of you who have been paying attention will be able to guess my main criticism of this team: it lacks... an elite defenceman. OEL seemed like he could be that, at one time, but he’s 27 now and his best season of 55 points was three years ago. After OEL, these projections have Montour and Klefbom at 31 points. Both are young and have upside so that’s a tough decision there. Maybe you keep both instead of a goalie, and target ‘tenders early in the draft?

Bishop only registered 73 points last year. Does a new had coach in Jim Montgomery and a new system change things? My model doesn’t think so (kidding, I have no model). Perhaps the Taylors will talk to the Fylanders (or the Patrik Stefans?) about a goalie.

The Taylors started last season with Claude Giroux and moved the 30-year-old amidst a career season (can we pause for a sec - what the hell Claude Giroux! You put up 58 points in 82 games for me, continuing a three-year decline, and then I trade you and you put up a career-best 102?!). Pastrnak was the return, signalling GMTB’s intention to steer the team in a younger direction. I'm a huge believer in Pastrnak but his upside is probably not quite what Giroux managed last year. It would have been a pretty good one for one trade; I’m not sure why the Taylors had to throw in a 6th round pick and an add/drop, but that’s nitpicking.

GMTB acquitted himself well in his first draft. His first three picks were Arvidsson, Josh Ho-Sang (I’m not super high on him but he’s probably worth retaining as a prospect), and Montour. I have him keeping all, with Montour, as mentioned above, on the bubble. Can he continue to build? He'll need to be aggressive at the draft and keep an eye out for trade targets throughout the season, something he definitely has time for with only one child and one job at the moment.

GMTB’s prediction: [could not be reached for comment]

My prediction: 8th place. This team has some really nice pieces and I can see a lot of them exceeding their projections here, which could mask its greatest weakness, the goaltending position. If that need is addressed in the pre-season, I’ll feel a lot safer calling the Taylors a playoff team.