Vanek's points down...
Wales Watching
The Career Year….
A player that is coming off of a career year the previous season poses a dilemma for the fantasy player at the draft table. Will the player continue on an upward trend and equal or better last season's output or will he regress back to prior form. Certainly, when one looks at a player's stats, like Brad Richards 91 points in 2005-2006, the expectation is that the player will reach that career year or exceed it the following year. But caveat emptor my friends. Statistics show that a player that is coming off of a career year hardly puts up points that are equal to or better than the previous season. Richards slipped to 70 last season and Brian Gionta went from 89 points down to 45 this last season. Here’s a look at Eastern Conference players that were coming off of a career year and how they have done thus far.
|
PLAYER
|
CAREER POINTS
06-07
|
POINTS
07-08
|
UP OR DOWN
|
|
Thomas
Vanek- BUF
|
84
|
57
|
DOWN
|
|
Jason
Pominville- BUF
|
68
|
75
|
UP
|
|
Derek
Roy- BUF
|
63
|
70
|
UP
|
|
Ray
Whitney- CAR
|
83
|
59
|
DOWN
|
|
Olli Jokinen-
FLA
|
91
|
70
|
DOWN
|
|
Nathan
Horton- FLA
|
62
|
58
|
UP
|
|
Zach
Parise- NJ
|
62
|
62
|
UP
|
|
Dany
Heatley- OTT
|
105
|
79
|
DOWN
|
|
Daniel
Briere- PHI
|
95
|
68
|
DOWN
|
|
Sydney
Crosby- PIT
|
120
|
67
|
DOWN
|
|
Ryan
Whitney- PIT
|
59
|
38
|
DOWN
|
|
Vincent
Lecavalier- TB
|
108
|
89
|
DOWN
|
|
Martin
St-Louis-TB
|
102
|
80
|
DOWN
|
|
Dan
Boyle- TB
|
63
|
21
|
DOWN
|
|
Jason
Blake- TOR
|
69
|
48
|
DOWN
|
|
Michael
Nylander- WSH
|
83
|
37
|
DOWN
|
|
Alexander
Semin- WSH
|
73
|
37
|
DOWN
|
|
Chris
Clark- WSH
|
54
|
9
|
DOWN
|
Out of the 18 players that were coming off of a career year, 14 of them (78%) will not reach the point margin of last season. Be it due to injury, trade, different linemates-it doesn’t matter. Players coming off of a career year will be hard pressed to duplicate the totals the following season. File it away for next season.
WHO’S HOT/WHO’S NOT (For games played March 17-March
23)
Burning it up
Goals
Thomas Vanek-BUF: 4 goals
Vinny Lecavalier-TB: 3 goals
Evgeni Malkin-PIT: 3 goals
Daniel Briere-PHI:
3 goals
Nicklas Backstrom-WSH: 3 goals
Assists
Marian Hossa-PIT: 4 assists
Derek Roy-BUF: 4 assists
Alex Ovechkin-WSH: 4 assists
Alexei Ponikarovsky-TOR: 4 assists
Plus/minus
Sergei Gonchar-PIT: +5
Viktor Kozlov-WSH: +5
Alex Ovechkin-WSH: +5
Shots on goal
Jeff Carter-PHI:
18 SOG
Alex Ovechkin-Wsh: 15 SOG
Ilya Kovalchuk-ATL: 14 SOG
Mike Green-WSH: 14 SOG
SHGs
Ryan Malone-PIT: 1 SHG
Jochen Hecht-BUF: 1 SHG
Brian Gionta-NJ: 1 SHG
Goaltending
Vesa Toskala-TOR: 3 wins; 2.00 GAA;
.940 SP
Cam Ward-CAR:
2 wins; 1.92 GAA; .944 SP
Marc-Andre Fleury-PIT: 2 wins; 1.50
GAA; .935 SP
Carey Price-MTL: 2 wins; 1.92 GAA; .944
SP
Henrik Lundqvist-NYR: 2 wins; 1.44 GAA;
.929 SP
Martin Biron-PHI:
2 wins; 1.92 GAA; .932 SP
Cold as Ice
Zach Parise-NJ: 3 games; 1 assist;
minus-6
Dan Boyle-TB: 3 games; 1 assist;
minus-5
Jaime Langenbrunner-NJ: 3 games; 0
points; minus-5
Mike Smith-TB: 2 losses; 3.56 GAA; .854
SP
Ty Conklin-PIT: 1 loss; 5.00 GAA; .833
SP
Olaf Kolzig-WSH: 1 loss; 5.00 GAA; .881
SP
