Top 3 breakout players early in 2021-22
The first few weeks of the NHL season have produced some interesting and unexpected storylines.
The Florida Panthers look like they might never lose again, the Chicago Blackhawks look like they might never win again and the Buffalo Sabres already have more wins than most people expected them to have all season.
Also, the NHL’s scoring leaderboard is littered with a handful of names you would expect to see towards the top of the chart in terms of goals and points. Let’s go through some unexpected players putting together what appears to be breakout seasons early on.
Chandler Stephenson
The Vegas Golden Knights are surviving their injury troubles thanks largely to a completely unexpected name.
They’re currently without Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone, as two-thirds of their top line got injured in the same game a couple of weeks ago. The guy stepping up and filling the void? Chandler Stephenson.
The Golden Knights acquired Stephenson, a guy who largely played as the Washington Capitals’ fourth-line center, back in 2019 in exchange for a fifth-round pick.
He became Vegas’ de facto top center in 2021, serving as the pivot between Stone and Pacioretty because William Karlsson has chemistry playing with Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith. While the Golden Knights have always been searching for a legitimate top-line center, Stephenson quietly produced 14 goals and 35 points over 51 games last year.
This year, he’s been Vegas’ MVP.
Through eight games, Stephenson has nine points, which is nearly as many as he had in 64 games for the Capitals in 2018-19. Meanwhile, the next-highest scorer on the Golden Knights (it’s a three-way tie between Marchessault, Smith, and defenseman Nic Hague) has four points.
Many have laughed at Top Line Center Chandler Stephenson in the past, maybe it’s time to give him some credit.
Andrew Mangiapane
Alex Ovechkin is hot on the pursuit of yet another Rocket Richard Trophy with nine goals through eight games.
The players chasing him are last year’s Hart Trophy winner, Connor McDavid, former No. 2 overall pick, Andrei Svechnikov, and… Andrew Mangiapane?
Through seven games this season, Mangiapane has seven goals and he’s a key reason why the Calgary Flames just swept a five-game road trip without trailing at any points during those games.
Everyone has been focused on what’s going to happen with Johnny Gaudreau, one of the top names in next summer’s free-agent market, and Matthew Tkachuk, who’s a restricted free agent at the end of the season, but Mangiapane is looking like a player the Flames should invest in long-term.
He was scooped up in the fifth round of the 2015 draft after being passed over the year before and put up impressive numbers for the Flames’ AHL club before finally breaking into the NHL full-time in 2019-20. He scored 32 points in 68 games that season and then followed it up with another 32-point showing in 56 games in 2021.
This year, it looks like Mangiapane is going to blow those totals out of the water. 32 points is his career-high? Expect that to be his goal total when it’s all said and done.
Andrew Copp
Despite Blake Wheeler and Mark Scheifele only having two games played each at this point, the Winnipeg Jets’ offense is flying high.
They’re 4-2-1 early in the season and they rank fifth in the league with 27 goals scored. Kyle Connor is leading the way with 13 points and Pierre-Luc Dubois has settled into Winnipeg with nine points. The team’s second line is being driven by an unexpected source, as Andrew Copp has nine points in seven games.
Copp, who the taken by the Jets in the fourth round of the 2013 draft, has slowly worked his way up the depth chart in Winnipeg. In his rookie season in 2015-16, he logged just 8:00 per night in 77 games. He largely played on the third and fourth line for four seasons after that before getting a crack in Winnipeg’s top-six in 2021.
Last season, Copp posted a career-high in both goals with 15 and points with 39. This year, he’s on pace to shatter that and he’s playing in all situations. Copp logs an average of 21:14 per game and sees time on Winnipeg power-play and penalty-kill.
He’s picked a great time to have a breakout season as he’s an unrestricted free agent next summer.
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