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Sean Allen, Special to ESPN.comDec 3, 2024, 03:52 PM ET
CloseSean Allen is a fantasy analyst for ESPN.com. He was the 2008 and 2009 Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hockey Writer of the Year. You can tweet him @seanard.
With the first quarter of the NHL season in the books, it’s time to take stock of the blue-liners making waves early on. But here’s the real question: Are these strong starts sustainable, or are we looking at players who might fade into the background as the grind of the season kicks in?
In 2023-24, only 10 defenders who appeared among the top 24 in fantasy points for the first quarter of the season were also among the top 24 performers for the final quarter. That’s it. Just 10 of the best 24 managed to sustain their relative rate for both bookends of the season. And it’s not a fluke. Across the past six seasons the number of defenders to be great at the start and great at the end are: 10, 12, 12, 12, 10 and six.
The blue-liners don’t get much more consistent when you tighten the focus. If we look at top-12 starts and top-12 finishes, we get the same player in both groups six times last season, seven the year prior and six the season before that.
Jump ahead: Goalies | Power Play | Droppables
That’s a lot of fluctuation and it makes it hard to trust some of these players, but many who shift across these arbitrary lines in the sand only do so by a matter of inches. So what if Noah Dobson finished last season like a lamb, ranking outside the top 40 defenders for the final quarter; he was fifth overall and got you to the end to be competitive.
What you actually want to avoid are the extreme swings the other way, and there are some every season.
Filip Hronek was ninth among defenders after the first quarter last season, but closed the season ranked 122nd among his peers down the stretch.
In 2022-23, it was Ivan Provorov putting up top-12 stats at the start, but limping toward the finish line (Dobson did the same that season, which is a concerning…
Source link : https://www.espn.com/fantasy/hockey/story/_/id/42756862/nhl-fantasy-hockey-adds-drops-goalies-power-play-streaky-defensemen
Author : Sean Allen
Publish date : 2024-12-03 20:52:00
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