Fantasy Hockey: Sell High Candidates 📉 (02/11/22)
Fantasy Hockey is all about timing. When do you draft a player, when to sit a goalie, and when to trade players.
Trading players when their value is at its highest and maximizing your return is vital to fantasy success. Recognizing when a player’s value has reached its peak is difficult but here are a few players who appear to be bound for regression.
Filip Forsberg – NSH – LW (86% Owned)
Forsberg has scored 14.6 goals above expected this season, more than anyone else in the NHL, while scoring on 24% of his shots. Both of these numbers are very high and pose immediate cause for concern. It wouldn’t be the first time a player in a contract season had a career-best performance (see Nazem Kadri), but he is nearly doubling his career average shooting percentage of 12.8%.
Forsberg is an extremely gifted player but has never finished a season with more than 64 points and currently has an 82-game pace of 94 points, all without seeing any notable increase in his ice time this season. He’s been on a tear since the middle of December, ranking t-7th in the NHL in goals (13) and t-19th in points (23) over that span. Forsberg will continue to be a productive player this season but his trade value has reached an all-time high and it’s a good time to cash in for a more reliable point-per-game player.
Chris Kreider – NYR – LW/RW (93% Owned)
Kreider’s average time on ice is more than 2:30 above his career average, which would be reason enough for any player to set career highs in goals and shots. That said, his shooting percentage this season is 22.5%, astronomically better than his career shooting percentage of 14.8%. Even with serious regression, it stands to reason that Kreider could score 45 goals on the season but his current 58-goal pace is largely unsustainable. Kreider is tied for the league lead in goals and if Fantasy owners can trade him for a certified point-per-game player, it should be highly considered.
It’s worth noting that Kreider holds significantly higher value in leagues that count hits. There are only three other players in the league with over 20 goals and 65 hits; Sam Bennett (21G / 71H), Timo Meier (21G / 79H), and Alex Ovechkin (29G / 79H). Kreider leads them all with his 33 goals and 95 hits.
The main concern for Kreider is the lack of assists. He’s never been a player to rack up a lot of helpers, and when the unsustainable goal production starts to fall off, he doesn’t have a lot to fall back on other than the hits. Don’t be afraid to shoot for the moon in trade offers, he’s tied for the league-lead in goals after all.
Troy Terry – ANH – RW (83% Owned)
Terry has already slowed down significantly from his 22 points (12G / 10A) in his first 17 games. In his 26 games since, he has only scored 19 points (13G / 6A). Before this season, Terry had a 9% shooting percentage in his young career, yet is currently scoring on 25.3% of his shots this season. His 99 shots this season are also the lowest for any player that has scored 20 goals. In fact, since 1960 (when they started tracking shots), only six players have ever finished a season with 25-plus goals and less than 100 shots. Recently, Mike Ribeiro in 2008 and Curtis Glencross in 2012 scored 25-plus with less than 110 shots. They combined for one more 20-plus goal season in 13 seasons after that.
All of this is to say that this level of goal production is largely unsustainable when only averaging 2.3 shots per game. Terry could settle in as a consistent 30-goal threat, but his current pace of 45 goals is unrealistic.
You likely acquired Terry on the waiver wire at the beginning of the season and reaped the benefits of his torrid early-season pace, but if you haven’t traded him yet, now is the time to do so.