First-Half Fantasy Busts
Hopefully you were able to avoid most of the guys on this list. There are various reasons why a player might be a bust: Underperformance of the whole team, injury, introduction of new systems/coaching staffs or a whole host of other factors. For the purposes of a true fantasy bust, I’m going to use the following criteria:
- A player has to have played at least 18 games. Every team except Los Angeles, Calgary and Boston has played at least 24 games (half the season). A total of 18 games would represent 75% of the season thus far or at least 60 games in a normal, full schedule. This is because if a coach decides to healthy scratch a player or the guy gets injured, they are circumstances beyond his control and thus isn’t a true bust. For the goalie, he must have appeared in 18 games as well.
- A forward must have been ranked in the top-50 in my draft guide, a defenceman must have been ranked in the top-30 and a goalie must have been ranked in my top-25. After you get past the top-100 of ranked players, there is a lot of guesswork involved. Also, a player ranked 11th that performs as the 37th overall player is much more detrimental to your team than a player ranked 99th who performs as the 125th player.
- I should note these are based on roto performances, using Goals, Assists, Plus/Minus, Power-Play Points, Penalty Minutes and Shots On Goal.
That’s pretty much it. So that being said, here is my first-team All-Bust squad (three forwards, two defencemen and a goalie).
ForwardsÂ
David Backes (C – STL) – A guy that has been a typical fantasy stud the last couple of years, I had Backes ranked as my 13th forward in my draft guide. As of today, he’s the 84th ranked forward on the ESPN player rater. This is for two reasons: Firstly, he’s on pace to set a career-low in goals/game. A lot of this has to do with his 5.6% shooting the puck that should turn around, but up until now it’s been a disappointment. Also, he’s a (-3) in his first 25 games after going (+47) the last two years total. When you’re scoring at a career-low rate and playing as a minus player, you’re going to underperform significantly in the fantasy game. While his power-play points and penalty minutes are about in line with what’s normal for him, he’s the type of fantasy player that needs to perform well in all categories to be a stud. He won’t fill the net enough to make up for a lack of peripherals and that is showing through in the first half of the season.
Jordan Eberle (RW-EDM) – While a regression was in order from a shooting percentage viewpoint – his 18.9% last year was excessively high – I didn’t expect it go get cut in more than half. He’s on pace, in a full 82 game season, to struggle to crack the 20 goal plateau, despite being on pace for over 240 shots. To put that into perspective, there were only two players last year with 240+ shots and less than 20 goals: Dan Boyle and Erik Karlsson. You’ll note that they are both defencemen. This was supposed to be the season of a turnaround for Edmonton, but they currently find themselves one point out of the basement in the West. What’s even worse is that Eberle is a (-8), which again over the course of a season, would set by far a career low in a regular schedule. While his advanced stats say that he should be seeing a turnaround (his 957 PDO is indicative of that), for right now, going from the 22nd ranked forward in my draft guide to the 97th ranked forward on the Player Rater is a significant dropoff. For reference, he’s only three spots ahead of Lee Stempniak at this point.
Alex Ovechkin (LW-WSH) – For me, this was a do-or-die year for Ovechkin. It was his last year to prove to me that he was still an elite talent in the NHL. Well, at this point, he’s on pace for the same point-per-game total as last year (0.83) and the lowest goal-per-game total of his career (0.39). To boot, he’s a (-6) on the year. After being ranked as the fourth forward in my draft guide (and I wasn’t kidding, I took him in the first round of two different drafts myself), he’s currently the 27th ranked forward on the ESPN Player Rater. This puts him slightly ahead of Nazem Kadri. While it probably hasn’t been a season-killer by any stretch, passing up on other first rounders who have have good seasons like John Tavares or James Neal means your season hasn’t been as good as it could have been to this point. While his PDO of 997 means this pace should hold steady, his shooting percentage of 8.9% means he should probably score at a higher clip than he has up to this point. There is still half a season left, but Ovechkin has been a disappointment to me.
(dis)Honorable Mentions
Marian Gaborik (NYR)
Brad Richards (NYR)
Henrik Sedin (VAN)
Defencemen
Drew Doughty (LAK) – Well, this one sucked. After a fantastic performance in the playoffs last year and enough time off because of the lockout to recuperate, I expected a big season out of Drew Doughty. Boy was I wrong. After ranking him as the #8 defenceman in my draft guide, he’s sitting at #36 on the Player Rater. He has yet to score a goal this year on 52 shots and is a (-2). He’s not even racking the penalty minutes this year (0.7/game) that he has in the last couple years (both greater than 0.89). Because he hasn’t scored and the peripherals aren’t great, he’s found his way behind guys like Mark Streit and Sergei Gonchar, ranked 26th and 31st in my draft guide, respectively. Now, Doughty has to start scoring at the rate he’s shooting and he’s been a (+8) in his last eight games as the Kings start to play better so you assume he’ll have a big second half and thus be a good buy-low candidate. But he has been very subpar to this point and is even losing power-play time because of it.
Dan Boyle (SJS) – Well, I was sort of right here. I mentioned in my draft guide that I would rather draft Brent Burns in lieu of Dan Boyle this season. As such, I avoided Boyle in every one of my drafts. The flip side of that is that Burns has been hurt most of the season and hasn’t done much even when he was in the lineup. But this is sort of what I expected from Boyle but not necessarily for the reasons I expected it. With Burns, Marc-Edouard Vlasic and the emergence of Justin Braun, I expected Boyle’s role to be minimized a bit. Well he’s averaging the lowest amount of ice-time per game since 2005-2006 at 23:39 and it’s reflective in his stats. It should be noted that San Jose has been one of the worst teams in the NHL since their 7-0 start, so that has a lot to do with it. But he’s getting more power-play time that he has in the last couple seasons which has been his saving grace. Unless the Sharks turn their season around (and they have the talent to do it), Boyle will continue to be a disappointment. After ranking him as the #11 defenceman in my draft guide, he’s sitting at #43 on the Player Rater, tied with Jake Muzzin. Yep, Jake Muzzin.
(dis)Honorable Mentions
Ryan Suter (MIN)
Cam Fowler (ANA) – He hasn’t played enough games, but he’s well on his way to being a bust this year.
GoalieÂ
Ryan Miller (BUF) – I thought Buffalo would challenge for a playoff spot this year. Also, with Tyler Myers a year older, the typically-reliable Robyn Regehr and talented Christian Ehrhoff on the point, I thought Miller would be a top-10 goalie this year (I had him ranked #8). Well, as of right now he’s the 25th ranked goalie on the ESPN Player Rater, four spots behind Chad Johnson (who’s played two games). This is not good. The most surprising thing about this is that Miller is T-14th in the NHL among qualified goalies with a .914 SV% but T-26th in goals against at 2.83. A lot of this has to do with the fact that Buffalo is third-worst in the NHL in shots against per game at 33.0. After being so poor in this regard last year – fourth-worst in ’11-’12 – I thought they would focus on team defence. Boy was I wrong. This is where the guesswork comes into fantasy projections. You can be one of the top goalies on the planet but if you can’t get help from your team, there is only so much you can do. Even worse is the single-digit win total of nine. Of the 12 goalies to make at least 20 starts this year, only he, Semyon Varlamov, Devan Dubnyk, Ondrej Pavelec and Pekka Rinne have less than 10 wins. Outside of Rinne, this isn’t good company to be in. There’s not a lot of hope for a turnaround for the Sabres in the second-half and Miller owners are probably just going to have to bite the bullet on this one (and it hurts).
(dis)Honorable Mentions
Mike Smith (PHX)
Jonathan Quick (LAK)
Well that’s the first-team All-Bust so far this year in fantasy hockey. Is there someone I missed you think should be included? Someone you don’t agree with? Feel free to drop me a line on Twitter. I’m always up for discussing anything fantasy hockey related!
