E Staal vs Spezza vs Stepan

[JMoney]

Important Edit: I meant to put Bergeron in instead of Spezza. The last names starting with S' really got to me

It's looking like Hornqvist is gonna hit IR once again, so I'm looking into who I should pick up for the meantime. This has the potential to be a longer term pickup as well, if Duchene and MacKinnon finally disappoint me enough to drop them.


Franson is also available for an off the board pick.

[Maaaasquito]

Staal I think has the edge...

The points don't look really great at the moment, but I think it's going to pick up soon with their 2nd half schedule (home favoured), plus he is the number 1 guy in Carolina, everything essentially runs through him so it's just a matter of time before he picks up. On-ice SH% of just 5.42 which is very low (PDO: 946). 9.01, 12.78, 8.35 during the last 3 years... His real edge is in SOG, where he averages 3 per game...

Spez is probably right where he should be. At the end of the day he'll always play 3rd fiddle to Benn and Seguin, those guys are clearly running the offensive ship in Dallas. You might get a few more points with Spez over Staal, but I think the lack of SOG (2.15) probably hurts him a bit.

I own Stepan in my league, but other than points, he's not really a great across-the-board option. He does get a lot of time on a pretty high octane PP unit of Nash/MSL/Brassard/Boyle, which should continue to see him near the point-per-game pace. Once again 2.10 SOG/game is nothing special.

I think all of them are all pretty decent choices, you're essentially going to get a player around the 0.8 to point-per-game type of player, decent PPP production, +/- is always a toss up, and hits are going to be roughly the same... Staal gives you a bit more of an edge in SOG, but probably a little bit more of a risk in points too.

Staal for me, but very close between the three.

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Franson is more valuable if HITs and BS were involved... give your set of D, I wouldn't take Franson over any of them.

[Maaaasquito]

Another interesting stat that I'm starting to take more interest in is % of team TOI vs. % of team goals for.

Staal: %TOI 31.27 vs. %TGF 27.50
Spezza: %TOI 27.88 vs. %TGF 30.00
Stepan: %TOI 26.98 vs. %TGF 24.39

Don't know if it really makes a difference, but I'll keep an eye on it.

[JMoney]

Thanks for the help. I dropped Spezza about a month and a half ago, I wasn't a fan of how streaky he was while putting up nothing for peripherals. I made a mistake in my post title, it was meant to be between Bergeron, Staal and Stepan. Do you think Bergeron has more of an advantage? Or is it a similar situation (0.8 ppg, lower peripheral numbers).

The favorable thing with Franson is that I wouldn't have to drop any of my D, I would run 5. From my experience there have been very few days when all 5 of my defensemen would play.

[Maaaasquito]

Thanks for the help. I dropped Spezza about a month and a half ago, I wasn't a fan of how streaky he was while putting up nothing for peripherals. I made a mistake in my post title, it was meant to be between Bergeron, Staal and Stepan. Do you think Bergeron has more of an advantage? Or is it a similar situation (0.8 ppg, lower peripheral numbers).

The favorable thing with Franson is that I wouldn't have to drop any of my D, I would run 5. From my experience there have been very few days when all 5 of my defensemen would play.

Hmmm I don't think it makes much of a difference, Bergeron has never been a big point-getter he's always been that 60-65 point guy... his value is in FW leagues, I would think he's clearly a level below Staal and Stepan to be honest with you... I'd go Staal.

I don't know if your would gain much from running 5 D... In my league which has similar settings plus BS, I utilize a 5 D system, but without BS, I don't know if you're sacrificing too much running an extra D, but you'll have to check your schedule and see if you're running into scheduling issue with another C in Staal...

[JMoney]

Hmmm I don't think it makes much of a difference, Bergeron has never been a big point-getter he's always been that 60-65 point guy... his value is in FW leagues, I would think he's clearly a level below Staal and Stepan to be honest with you... I'd go Staal.

Perfect. Once again, I really appreciate the help. My friend expressed interest in stealing Staal on January 1st, hopefully the Penguins throw Hornqvist on IR soon, but if not I feel confident rolling with Stepan as a close second choice.

Thanks!

[Maaaasquito]

Another option that you might not have considered might be Hanzal... If you can afford the hit in points, Hanzal has a pretty high SOG rate (2.4) and usually HITs quite a bit (4 HIT/game over the last 2 weeks). Points have been on and off, but he'll probably put up somewhere around a 0.6-0.75 point-per-game rate, which might equate to maybe 1 point less than a Staal/Stepan over the course of a week, but you're getting probably 12-15 more HITs. So if you're finding that HITs are a bit tighter than points, might be a another option to consider.