Bang for the Buck
Written by Darryl Dobbs from www.dobberhockey.com
There are a more than a few measuring sticks for fantasy hockey team owners to evaluate their players, but this is a real solid indicator – minutes per point. This statistic gives you some quick insight with regards to whether or not a player is taking advantage of the ice time he is given. It is fair to say that a player who is counted upon for offense and given lots of ice time to do so, had better have a low minutes per point ratio or said ice time can be expected to decrease. By the same token, a player who is being underused, but is picking up the points when he plays, will likely see an increase in their ice time. This is a very general indicator, as some players bring more than just offense to the table, some players are used a lot on the penalty kill, etc.
The current leader, Joe Thornton, plays just 14.1 minutes before notching another point. Jason Spezza is second (14.2) and Jaromir Jagr is third (14.3). In fact, here are the top 20 for this statistic:
1 JOE THORNTON 14.1
2 JASON SPEZZA 14.2
3 JAROMIR JAGR 14.3
4 PETER FORSBERG 14.4
5 PAVEL DATSYUK 14.9
6 ERIC STAAL 15.1
7 PIERRE TURGEON 15.4
8 DANIEL ALFREDSSON 15.9
9 ALEXANDER OVECHKIN 16.2
10 TEEMU SELANNE 16.2
11 ALEX TANGUAY 16.6
12 HENRIK ZETTERBERG 16.8
13 DANIEL BRIERE 16.9
14 DANY HEATLEY 17.0
15 ANDY MCDONALD 17.0
16 MARC SAVARD 17.1
17 LADISLAV NAGY 17.2
18 HENRIK SEDIN 17.3
19 MARTIN RUCINSKY 17.4
20 BRENDAN SHANAHAN 17.5
None of this information is going to help you too much in your keeper league, I stuck the chart in there for the sake of interest. What WILL help your rollover pool is a list of the younger players – the ones that do not get more than 10 or 12 minutes of ice time per game. How are they doing in limited duty? That player that has only 15 points for you this year may not be so bad after all, when you see it only takes him 25 minutes for each point! I filtered the chart down to just the players that have played less than 1000 minutes this season. This works out to about 14 minutes per game or less. This would also include players that had missed significant time due to injury.
Player Team min/pt
1 PIERRE TURGEON COL 15.4
2 DANIEL BRIERE BUF 16.9
3 LADISLAV NAGY PHX 17.2
4 MARTIN RUCINSKY NYR 17.4
5 MARIAN GABORIK MIN 17.5
6 PETR PRUCHA NYR 17.8
7 ROBERT LANG DET 18.2
8 KEITH TKACHUK STL 18.3
9 JUSSI JOKINEN DAL 18.4
10 RICK NASH CBJ 19.1
11 RAY WHITNEY CAR 19.4
12 MIKAEL SAMUELSSON DET 20.4
13 JOE NIEUWENDYK FLA 21.1
14 TIM CONNOLLY BUF 21.3
15 GEOFF SANDERSON PHX 21.4
16 PETER BONDRA ATL 22.2
17 JEAN-PIERRE DUMONT BUF 22.6
18 JOHN LECLAIR PIT 23.0
19 DEREK ARMSTRONG LAK 23.2
20 JEFF CARTER PHI 23.6
21 DEREK ROY BUF 23.6
22 KRISTIAN HUSELIUS CGY 23.8
23 GARY ROBERTS FLA 24.2
24 MARTIN ERAT NSH 24.3
25 NATHAN HORTON FLA 24.5
Naturally this does not illustrate other factors such as linemates, power play time, etc, but if I’m a Jeff Carter owner for example, then I am a lot happier with his progress looking at this chart. Players such as Pierre Turgeon, Peter Bondra, Robert Lang, John Leclair, and Joe Nieuwendyk, have had their share of injuries this season, and are winding down their career. They likely will not see more minutes next season. Daniel Briere, Ladislav Nagy, Petr Prucha, Jussi Jokinen, Rick Nash…these guys will see even more minutes next season, and if they can avoid the injury bug you will find their production will spike.
More fantasy hockey tips from Dobber at www.dobberhockey.com