Hello everyone and welcome in for another article. This is the third installment of a weekly article I’ll be writing all season long in which I’ll deep dive some hot and cold players and determine if they’re worth trying to acquire or sell off. Before we dive in, be sure to check out the Apples & Ginos community on Discord and the Apples & Ginos Patreon for even more content. I’m in there every day and would be more than happy to answer any questions you have about Alex Killorn, Pete Davidson, or anyone else that’s more attractive to others than they should be. Let’s get it!
Too Hot to Touch
Alex Killorn, LW – TBL
Killorn has been one of the hottest players in hockey over the last little bit, notching eight points in his last five games. Unfortunately for Killorn owners, this hot streak bears all the markers of a player playing beyond his capabilities and set to fall back. Killorn is rocking an 80% individual points percentage (IPP), 42% shooting percentage (S%), and 18.5% on-ice shooting percentage (oiSH%) over his past five games, all far higher than his norms and all statistics that tend to regress to career averages. I could excuse some of Killorn’s production if he was generating more chances or getting more opportunity than normal, but as a normal fixture on PP1 and sporting an uninspiring 7.5 shots/game rate neither of those aspects of his game are trending upward.
Rasmus Andersson, D – CGY
Andersson has four assists in his last five games and has once again for the moment taken over PP1 quarterback duties. But Andersson sports a 15.2% oiSH% and a horrendous 1.1 shots/game mark in those same five games that physically hurt me to write down. Given that he doesn’t hit and his blocks are just OK, Andersson is a power-play-assist-or-bust option that I won’t be investing in. The fact that teammates Noah Hanifin and Oliver Kylington are actually generating offense of their own volition makes me all the more ready to declare that Andersson is at best a desperation PPP stream.
Jonathan Huberdeau, LW – FLA // Tony DeAngelo, D – CAR // Kevin Shattenkirk, D – ANA // Rasmus Asplund, RW – BUF // Brayden Point, C – TBL // Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, LW – EDM // Mike Hoffman, RW – MTL
The Right Amount of Hot
Blake Coleman, LW – CGY
Connor McDavid. Vladimir Tarasenko. Blake Coleman. Those are your top three shots/60 leaders over the last five games, and the great part about it with Coleman is that it all looks sustainable as long as he can keep firing pucks. The IPP in that stretch is reasonable at 75%, the S% and oiSH% are both 9.5% which is frankly on the low side. You need hits? Coleman does that too, averaging over two hits per game. It’s frankly ridiculous how much box score stuffing Coleman does on a regular basis from anywhere in the lineup. He’s a long term hold in bangers cats and probably in bangers points as well.
Josh Anderson, RW – MTL
Anderson has probably been Montreal’s best forward this season, and the results are starting to come (five points in his last five games). Anderson is 21st in the league in shots/60 and has seen a substantial bump to 19+ minutes of ice time in each of his last two games. Hopefully Nick Suzuki’s big game inspires more production from here on out and Anderson can get some support from the rest of the Canadiens in his solo mission to shoot every puck and hit every opponent. A 50+ point pace with terrific hit production is very easily within Anderson’s range of outcomes, making his 32% rostership on Yahoo puzzlingly low.
Vladimir Tarasenko, RW – STL // Drake Batherson, RW – OTT // Adam Henrique, LW – ANA // Dylan Larkin, C – DET // Alex Iafallo, LW – LAK // Jason Robertson, LW – DAL // Matt Duchene, RW – NSH // Mark Giordano, D – SEA // Torey Krug, D – STL
Colder than Ice
Jakob Chychrun, D – ARI
I’ve been avoiding this one for a while based on Chychrun still putting up shots, but it’s probably time to face the music. While Chychrun will continue to shoot a fair bit, skate a bunch of minutes, and help out in hits and blocks, he’s not a strong fantasy asset on an Arizona team that is actively trying to avoid winning hockey games and by extension, scoring goals. I don’t think it’ll be this bad for Chychrun all year long and he’ll probably even have a little hot streak here or there, but it feels like a 35-point pace might be the most we can expect out of him given the absolute barrenness of Arizona’s roster. I have Chychrun on a bangers cats team and I’m probably going to give him this weekend (Friday/Saturday back to back for Arizona) before cutting him if there are still no signs of life.
Alexis Lafreniere, LW – NYR
It’s wildly concerning to me that Barclay Goodrow is playing on the Rangers’ top line while Lafreniere, the 2020 #1 overall “can’t miss” prospect languishes on the third line. It would be one thing if it was a coach decision holding back an obviously talented player, like Oliver Wahlstrom over on Long Island. But Lafreniere simply doesn’t deserve more ice time with the way he is playing currently. He’s gone back to back games without so much as a shot on goal and his ice time has dipped below 14 minutes in each of the last three games. Lafreniere needs to pull his game together before he’s going to get anywhere close to one of my lineups.
Charlie McAvoy, D – BOS // Rasmus Dahlin, D – BUF // Kailer Yamamoto, RW – EDM // Kaapo Kakko, RW – NYR // Clayton Keller, LW – ARI // Pavel Buchnevich, RW – STL
Frozen but Thawing
Jeff Skinner, LW – BUF
Let me preface this pick by saying yes, I know he just scored two goals:
I don’t know what Skinner does exactly that makes coaches push him as far down the lineup as humanly possible, but the man is eighth in the NHL in shots/60 over his last five games and 14th in individual scoring chances for/60 (iSCF/60). He is an elite-level chance generator, and clearly he doesn’t need talent around him to accomplish that. Now, I don’t know where coach Don Granato and Skinner go from here after his huge game in 20:11 of ice time Tuesday. I do know that I’ll be watching closely because if Skinner gets 20 minutes a night for a full season, he’ll score 30 goals.
Dustin Brown, RW – LAK
Brown has fallen on some scoreless times after factoring heavily into Los Angeles’s hot start to the season, with zero points in his last four games. But Brown has averaged over four shots per game during that stretch to go with 18+ minutes a game and I am confident enough in Brown’s ability to turn things around that I picked him up in a 10-team bangers cats league today to catch LA’s Wednesday/Friday schedule here midweek. Brown may not be a 30+ goal scorer any more, but when he’s firing shots at this rate, some will eventually go in and I plan to be here for it.
Brady Tkachuk, LW – OTT // Cole Sillinger, C – CBJ // David Pastrnak, RW – BOS // Roope Hintz, C – DAL // Kevin Fiala, RW – MIN // Oliver Ekman-Larsson, D – VAN // Brent Burns, D – SJS // Noah Hanifin, D – CGY
That’s all for this one folks, I hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it! Make sure you follow Apples & Ginos on Twitter, on TikTok, and join the Apples & Ginos Discord server for more content and to ask any fantasy hockey questions you may have.
Thanks for reading, you are appreciated!
Nate
Apples and Ginos 