The 2022–23 season has just started, but this is a crucial time for fantasy hockey players. The first few weeks of the season is the most important time to add high-value waiver wire players, tune into trends happening across the league, and set yourself up for long-term success.
Here’s what we’ve noticed over the first two weeks of the season.
Home and away splits
So far this season, home teams hold a fairly significant edge on road teams. Of the 73 games played so far, home teams have won 44 games (60%) and road teams have won 29 games (40%).
It’s still early so this trend will likely balance out, but right now there is a very clear tilt towards home teams. Something to keep an eye on for goalie starts, spot starts, and even betting.
Fancy stats bears and bulls
The Win Column’s weekly stats-based power rankings are back and better than ever, and they give a pretty good view on which teams are the most dominant so far. One of the stats taken into account in that model is points percentage, but if we remove that stat and just look at which teams are dominating the advanced stats, we can see which teams are due to have success long term. Stats considered are Corsi, scoring chances, high danger chances, and team save percentage. They are weighted and a TWCScore is created to provide an overall metric.
The top five and bottom five teams are:
| Rank | Team | Record | TWCScore |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pittsburgh Penguins | 3–0–1 | 904.0 |
| 2 | St Louis Blues | 2–0–0 | 870.6 |
| 3 | Boston Bruins | 4–1–0 | 843.9 |
| 4 | Dallas Stars | 3–0–1 | 837.4 |
| 5 | Carolina Hurricanes | 3–1–0 | 835.1 |
| 28 | Minnesota Wild | 1–3–0 | 496.2 |
| 29 | Vancouver Canucks | 0–3–2 | 483.3 |
| 30 | Anaheim Ducks | 1–3–1 | 460.3 |
| 31 | San Jose Sharks | 1–5–0 | 448.7 |
| 32 | Arizona Coyotes | 1–3–0 | 417.7 |
The top of the list has some usual suspects, like the Bruins and Hurricanes. Other strong teams like the Penguins, Blues, and Stars make sense at the top, and their inclusion in the top five indicates that their play has been extremely strong and repeatable. These are teams to invest in going forward.
On the other side of the ledger are, again, some usual suspects, including the Sharks and Coyotes. The Canucks and Ducks find themselves there as well after extremely poor starts, but the one team that stands out the most is the Wild.
The Wild were almost unanimously considered to be a playoff team again this year, but their play has been even worse than their record suggests. They are underwater in scoring chances and high-danger chances, and have an absolutely atrocious team save percentage of 0.837 at 5v5. They are a very low PDO team right now so there is room to regress positively, but I would not recommend buying stock in the Wild right now.
High value waiver wire adds
Matt Roy – Los Angeles Kings – D
- Matt Roy has been a revelation for the Kings so far. Despite not playing on the power play, Roy has put up three goals, four points, 14 shots, 11 hits, and 16 blocks.
Calen Addison – Minnesota Wild – D
- The Wild have been horrible, but Calen Addison is shining on the blueline. The rookie has amassed six assists in four games so far, and has added six shots, one hit, and three blocks. He’s quarterbacking the first power play unit, too.
Dillon Dube – Calgary Flames – LW/RW
- Dillon Dube is part of one of the strongest lines in the NHL right now alongside Nazem Kadri and Andrew Mangiapane. With three points in four games, Dube has had multiple chances to score in each game he’s played this season, and chips in on peripherals with 10 shots, five hits, and two blocks so far.
Finger on the pulse for fantasy
There’s never a shortage of fantasy plays to make and at any time during the season, keeping tabs of the bigger picture can give that extra edge to win week-to-week, or even propel you deep into the playoffs later in the year.
Stay tuned for more fantasy hockey tips every Saturday throughout the season!
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