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Sean Allen, Special to ESPN.com
It’s always dramatic when an NHL organization has to trade a top prospect, and the ripples of the Philadelphia Flyers and Anaheim Ducks trade on Monday make it into the fantasy realm.
The Flyers knew the No. 5 pick from the 2022 draft, Cutter Gauthier, wasn’t going to sign with them. So the club capitalized on Gauthier’s strong World Juniors showing for the champion Americans and shipped him to the Ducks for offensive-minded blue-liner Jamie Drysdale and a pick.
For keeper leagues, Gauthier is of interest. He is the only top-10 pick from the 2022 draft yet to play in an NHL game but is considered a building block for an NHL franchise on offense. Presumably, the Ducks confirmed he’ll sign with them before making the deal, but Gauthier still has some college eligibility years left. The Ducks aren’t competing this season, but they might hope to next season with more growth from their young core, so we could see Gauthier skip his final NCAA years and sign a late contract this season — as is often the NHL path.
But the real fantasy ripple here is Drysdale: A defender with elite playmaking ability on the blue line who has lost some shine in recent seasons due to extensive injury struggles. Twelve of his 28 assists as a 19-year-old rookie in 2021-22 came on the advantage, where only Trevor Zegras had more minutes for the Ducks that season. He missed almost all of last season and a good chunk of this campaign with varying ailments, but has been on the ice since Dec. 21.
Drysdale steps into a Flyers team with little to no success on the power play to date. The Flyers are second last in total power-play points, last in power-play points per 60 minutes of power-play ice time, second last in power-play goals and fifth last in power-play points from defenders. You can smell the opportunity for Drysdale from the comfort of your own home.
The Philadelphia quarterbacking duties to date have traded between Travis Sanheim, Cam York and even Egor Zamula. Sanheim’s four power-play points currently leads the field. Drysdale should have little trouble cementing himself on the top unit, which will also consist of Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny along with a rotation of other forwards.
So make sure you jump on Drysdale now, as he is available in 89% of ESPN leagues. Even if you just stash him on your bench to wait and see, this is one of those in-season moments where a value swing can bring you a quality player for minimal cost.
Who’s worse than the Flyers?
You’ll notice a couple of paragraphs prior to this I mentioned that the Flyers are “fifth last in power-play points from defenders.” That begs the question, which teams are getting fewer and what’s the situation there?
Interestingly, it’s similar in the sense that some defenders are getting opportunities and there is a chance one or more of them emerge as fantasy assets.
For the record, the Flyers have 10 power-play points from blue-liners this season for their fifth-last position. The team with the most is the Detroit Red Wings, who have 32 power-play points from their defense. But we are focusing on those bottom four teams with fewer than 10.
St. Louis Blues: If the Flyers don’t have the worst overall power play this season, it’s because the Blues do. You can probably pick either team depending on your favorite metric, but the Blues do have fewer power-play goals, so they likely take the cake. Only eight power-play points have been scored from the Blues blue line this campaign: Torey Krug is responsible for four of them, with Justin Faulk and Scott Perunovich each collecting a pair.
Overall, the Blues have 12 power-play goals in 38 games this season. They have experienced a slight uptick since the coaching change in mid-December, managing five of their 12 power-play goals in the 10 games since Craig Berube was fired. Interestingly, both of Faulk’s power-play points have come since that coaching change, despite the fact that he’s missed the last three games.
I like Faulk for an improved second half once he returns from his current injury. He’s available in 21% of leagues.
Chicago Blackhawks: The Hawks are tied with the Blues with only eight power-play points by their defense this season, but can you guess the distribution? Even knowing Seth Jones has missed 13 games entering Tuesday, he was definitely your top guess. But those eight points actually shake out as four to rookie Kevin Korchinski, two for Nikita Zaitsev, and one each for Alex Vlasic and Jones.
Even in missing all those games, Jones still has played almost 16 minutes more time on the power play than Korchinski (94:08 versus 78:16). The Hawks aren’t terribly interesting from a fantasy perspective with Connor Bedard sidelined, but it will be interesting to see who gets leaned on for the advantage as the season progresses between Jones and Korchinski, given the results to date.
Minnesota Wild: The Wild are also tied with the Blues and Hawks with only eight power-play points by current players on defense. It was supposed to be Calen Addison leading the charge as a blue-line specialist for the power play, but he was shipped to the San Jose Sharks earlier this season. He does have three power-play points for the Wild, which brings their overall total to 11, but let’s stick with who is on the current roster for the purposes of this exercise.
Oh wait, one more salient point to make with Addison: Despite being traded two months ago, his three power-play points still led the Wild for points from the blue line until this past Saturday.
The eight points divide as follows: Brock Faber has four, Jared Spurgeon has three and Alex Goligoski has provided one. Faber picked up two power-play points on Saturday to finally pass Addison.
Faber was already interesting for fantasy by playing big minutes, and earning fantasy points through decent accumulation of hits and blocked shots. But he’s been building more and more power-play time into his repertoire. We don’t know if he will continue to be relied on as heavily when everyone is healthy, as the Wild have had some injuries on the blue line of late, but coach Jon Hynes has leaned on him heavily.
In fact, Faber leads the Wild in ice time on the power play among blue-liners with 60:14, but key to that is that 56:11 of that total has come after Hynes took over on Nov. 27. Faber is still widely available (83%) and has room to improve on his totals.
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Los Angeles Kings: Finally we have the Kings, the fourth and final team with fewer power-play points from its blue line than the Flyers. The Kings have nine from defenders this season: Six from Drew Doughty, two from Jordan Spence and one from Matt Roy.
But this is not a power play that has struggled overall. The Kings are middle of the pack for total power-play goals and points. It is my opinion, however, that they have a chance to be better.
That chance was called up from the AHL last week in the form of Brandt Clarke, the blue-chip defense prospect that is Doughty’s heir apparent in the coming seasons. Maybe it can be this season. In his rookie pro season, Clarke leads all AHL defense with 32 points across 30 games.
Clarke anchored the second power-play unit in his season debut on Sunday, during a game in which Doughty might have bought himself some breathing room by picking up a power-play assist as the first unit scored twice. But Clarke is going to be on Doughty’s heels as long as he stays in the NHL, given the dearth of power-play points from the blue line.
In deeper leagues, Clarke is someone to consider stashing now in hopes of a potential breakout.
Source: www.espn.com