BOSTON — It’s never too early to start thinking about fantasy hockey.
Flip Livingstone and Steele Rodin of Locked on Fantasy Hockey recently spoke to fantasy hockey expert Michael Amato of Sportsnet to discuss some players that you might want to fade on draft day.
The key takeaway? Always beware of players coming off outlier seasons.
“I’m always cautious of anybody that just had a crazy, historical, unreplicable season,” Amato says. “To me, the odds of Erik Karlsson getting 100 points again are pretty slim. And the odds of [Linus] Ullmark duplicating his season after the players the Bruins have lost are pretty slim.”
Karlsson, of course, has a track record of producing, but his best years are behind him and he’s very unlikely to find the lightning in a bottle captured this past season.
It’s similar to Vezina Trophy winner Ullmark in Boston, who played behind the best regular season team in history on the way to that hardware. Don’t count on another .938 save percentage.
Amato also mentions Andre Kuzmenko of the Vancouver Canucks. He scored a bunch of goals on a high shooting percentage as someone to bump down your draft order.
Livingstone adds Ryan Nugent-Hopkins of the Edmonton Oilers to the list. He recorded his first 100-point season, which included 38 power play assists, and that goes along with Amato’s “out of nowhere” philosophy.
That power play, fueled by Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, should continue to cook, but triple digits might be a stretch.
John Tavares of the Toronto Maple Leafs is also a player with a lot of miles on his engine, but he doesn’t usually rely on foot speed to produce, and he should remain his consistent self if healthy, which is the caveat for all players.