Anatomy of an undervalued hockey player

 

 

Niclas Bergfors. Tyler Kennedy. Torrey Mitchell. Scott Gomez. Martin Hanzal. Scottie Upshall. Nikolay Zherdev. Peter Regin. Michael Frolik.

What do all nine of these players have in common?

They all had unlucky seasons, with low production numbers despite strong performance and underlying numbers, and are, hopefully, on the track to turn it around this season and benefit hockey pool players worldwide, or less importantly, their new hockey teams, as is the case with two and potentially three of them. Over the course of the NHL season, we will do routine check-ups with these players.

2010-2011: After coming off an impressive 21-goal rookie season with New Jersey and Atlanta, Bergfors floundered after a deadline day trade that saw him go from 11 goals in 52 games to just 1 out of the next 20 in Florida. He put up just a 1.9% shooting percentage with the Panthers, was not tendered a qualifying offer, and was promptly scooped up by the Nashville Predators on a one-year deal worth $575K.

He shot 10.4% before the Florida trade. I have oft talked about the value of Bergfors and the inability of the Panthers to use him properly. With the lack of scoring depth in Nashville, it’s likely Bergfors may play his way onto some powerplay time and inflate his goal total, and earn a fairer contract next summer.

I was very surprised that neither Florida or Colorado made a trade for Scott Gomez this summer, but I suspect that those teams don’t get to be regular playoff outsiders based on shrewd management decisions. Gomez is expensive, but this is the last year where his salary ($8M) is worth more than his salary cap hit ($7.357M) and thus penny-pinching teams could save a few bucks and not give up a whole hell of a lot useful to Montreal to get him, who might have been looking to open up space.

Gomez had strong underlying numbers last season, but his on-ice shooting percentage was just 4.73%, which was one of the lowest on-ice totals among forwards (non-goons) this season. His teammate, Tom Pyatt, landed in Tampa Bay, and Gomez will look to improve upon his 38 point total this upcoming season and turn that career-low 4.5% shooting percentage around.

Hanzal’s bad luck came in the form of his teammates, not necessarily his own shooting talent. He scored 16 goals in 61 games but recorded just 10 assists. If he had moderately competent teammates, his assist total would be much higher. That low shooting percentage of 6.87% among his teammates is unsustainable and pucks are bound to go in.

Initially, the Penguins did not qualify Tyler Kennedy and it looked like he might explore free agent waters, but General Manager Fred Shero smartened up and gave him a 2-year deal worth $2M per season. With 45 points last season and a case similar to Hanzal’s, Kennedy might really be the late round steal in any hockey pool draft as there’s always going to be wingers needing to play with Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Jordan Staal, who all spend significant time on the shelf this season.

Two things may happen with Mitchell this year, who played at the end of the season on the Sharks third line with Kyle Wellwood. Wellwood will not play next season with the Sharks, hence there is a chance that Mitchell could get some better linemates: Michael Handzus, Joe Pavelski or even Martin Havlat are all candidates to end up on San Jose’s third line. This team has terrific scoring depth and even with the second highest Corsi rating in the entire NHL, Mitchell’s team shot just over 6% around him and he registered just 23 points. That could spike up to 30 next year accounting just for variance. On a balanced three-line unit with easy minutes, it could be 35.

I hoped to go a full offseason without mentioning the Senators, and we will continue this here. Regin had a similar luck to his teammate Nick Foligno this past season, but Foligno got the good minutes and 34 points to Regin’s 17, despite Regin being the much better forward in terms of underlying numbers. Powerplay minutes appears to be an issue here, and there may be a chance Regin could sneak in as a regular this season and hit 25 points.

Every now and then, a blind squirrel finds a nut and signs it to a 4-year/$14M deal. After a career high in goals with 24, Upshall takes his +10.93 Corsi/60 rating and his 985 PDO to Florida where he will likely be a pretty good player on a pretty mediocre team, which may have been what Dale Tallon was looking for.

Still without a team, Zherdev is presumably in NHL limbo due to perceptions of his work ethic and off-ice issues. On the ice, Zherdev can still score goals. I will have a post further evaluating Zherdev earlier this week and the term ‘Czar of Corsi’ may come up. Zherdev scored 16 goals in 56 games this season without all that much powerplay time and without his shooting percentage deviating far from his career average.