Team: 2020-21 Custom Team

Initial Creation Date: Nov. 11, 2020

Published: Nov. 11, 2020

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

Because why not? Everyone else is doing it. Here are the stats:

Top-15 by points over the past 2 years (and all situations IPP):
1. Draisaitl: 215 (77.62)
2. McDavid: 213 (80.38)
3. MacKinnon: 192 (73.85)
4. Stamkos: 164 (74.55)
5. Eichel: 160 (72.40)
6. Barkov: 158 (65.83)
7. Scheifele: 157 (63.31)
8. Point: 156 (62.15)
9. Matthews: 153 (74.63)
T10. Zibanejad: 149 (78.01)
T10. Aho: 149 (70.62)
12. Tavares: 148 (64.63)
13. Crosby: 147 (75.38)
14. Malkin: 146 (81.56)
15. Toews: 141 (63.23)
17. O'Reilly: 138 (66.67)
19. Couterier: 135 (63.68)

Top-15 by points/GP over the past 2 years:
1. McDavid: 1.50
2. Draisaitl: 1.41
3. MacKinnon: 1.27
4. Crosby: 1.23
5. Malkin: 1.19
6. Stamkos: 1.18
7. Matthews: 1.11
8. Eichel: 1.10
9. Point: 1.08
10. Zibanejad: 1.07
11. Bergeron: 1.07
12. Barkov: 1.07
13. Scheifele: 1.03
14. Tavares: 1.02
15. Aho: 0.99
20. Couterier: 0.91
21. O'Reilly: 0.90

Here are all the players listed above and their 5v5 GF% rel from the past 2 years:
Crosby: +11.03
O'Reilly: +10.99
Aho: +9.95
Point: +9.69
Draisaitl: +9.58
MacKinnon: +9.07
McDavid: +8.88
Bergeron: +8.74
Couterier: +7.81
Eichel: +7.64
Barkov: +6.76
Zibanejad: +5.96
Matthews: +2.56
Scheifele: +1.70
Tavares: +1.66
Toews: +1.45
Malkin: -0.75
Stamkos: -1.30


Some observations:
- Draisaitl and McDavid are so far above the others offensively they're in a different class completely. MacKinnon is the only one within the same hemisphere. All 3 guys have among the best positive impact on goal differential in the league (GF% rel), these guys should rank in the top-3 on any reasonable list.
- I thought hard about putting MacKinnon above Draisaitl due to the McDavid effect, but ultimately decided against it for several reasons: he isn't ahead of Draisaitl in any of the metrics listed above, Draisaitl actually scored MORE away from McDavid than with him last year, there are 5 guys on the ice at any time and MacKinnon plays on a much better team leading to better QoT (as seen in the lower IPP number), and the differences in P/GP are not insignificant. Draisaitl had a greater positive impact on his team over the 2-year span, too.
- An argument can be made for Crosby in the top-3, but injuries are stunting his overall production, which slowed year-over-year. Still, best in class GF% rel and 4th best P/GP should have him easily in 4th place.
- Let the Matthews v Eichel controversy continue. They're pretty even offensively but Eichel's much better GF% impact swayed me.
- Malkin came back with a VERY strong campaign in 19-20, proving he absolutely belongs in the top-10 still. His GF% rel numbers look weak, but that was largely due to a poor (by these standards) 2018-19 season. His offense (P/GP, IPP) put him above Matthews for me, but wasn't enough to overcome the lead in GF% rel that Eichel has.
- Zibanejad makes a case for himself. I didn't think he'd be anywhere close to a top-10 spot, but with greater offensive impact than Aho and Barkov and with a competitive overall impact, he belongs. He drives play better than those two also.
- Aho has better numbers than a bunch of these guys, putting him in a bottom-5 spot shouldn't be controversial. Same with Barkov.
- Stamkos plays wing a bunch so I'm not sure he should be considered here. You can see the positive affects of playing a lot of minutes with Point and Kucherov in the first 2 charts above. Weak GF% rel though.
- Speaking of Point, offensively he benefits from playing with Kucherov (his really low IPP in chart #1 speaks to this), but he also adds a lot to the line defensively and he has the 10th most goals of all NHL centers. Just misses the list, I think all ten of these guys would do better in his situation.
- I'm not seeing any justification for having Couterier on this list. He's decent defensively but doesn't provide near enough offense to be in the running IMO.
- O'Reilly is in the same position as Couterier, but his defensive impact is better. I really wanted to include him for his outstanding GF% rel number, but I just couldn't justify putting him ahead of either Barkov or Aho. He needs more offense.
- These numbers don't show Scheifele as deserving of a top-10 spot. He's decent offensively but isn't driving play like most of these guys, and isn't great defensively.