Monday Morning Ramblings featuring Juuse Saros, Anthony Stolarz, shooting percentages, and buy low / sell high players.

Nashville's goaltending has been night and day. By night I mean start of the season until November 25, and by day I mean starting on November 26.

If we looked at the stats on November 25, Juuse Saros, a 4th round pick in 2013, had posted a 6-9-3 record to go along with a 0.888% save percentage.

His backup, Justus Annunen, a 3rd round pick in 2018, was even worse. Winless at 0-3-1 and stopping a paltry 0.835% of shots faced.

On Monday November 24, the Predators suffered an embarrassing 8-3 loss to the Panthers. Saros started, giving up 5 goals in 2 periods of play (11/16, 0.688%). Annunen was equally porous allowing 3 goals in the 3rd period (7/10, 0.700%). But the night is darkest before dawn. 

You won't believe what happened next.....except if you followed goaliepost, where we predicted that Nashville was due for a bounceback! Nashville's 0.630 winning percentage since Nov.25 is good for 8th best in the league. 

This is led by the goaltender duo, each of which improved to a save percentage above 0.900%.

Saros (from November 26 to January 20) put up a 13-7-0 record, and a save percentage of 0.903%.

Justus Annunen, over the same time span, went 4-3-0, with a 0.902%.

This was reflected in the Jekyll and Hyde Predators record, which was 6-11-4 before November 25, and 17-11-0 since then. 

Let us also give some credit to the Predators offense. This turnaround also coincided with the revival of Steven Stamkos and Ryan O'Reilly.

On Nov.25, Stamkos had 5 points (4g ,1a) in 22 games (0.23 ppg)

From Nov.26 to Jan.20: 28 points (17g, 11a) in 27 games (1.04 ppg)

On Nov.25, O'Reilly had 13 pts (6g 7a) in 22 games (0.59 ppg)

From Nov.26 to Jan.20: 34 points (12g, 12a) in 27 games (1.26 ppg)

For the season, O'Reilly now sits at 0.94 ppg, something he hasn't done since the 2020-21 season when he was with St.Louis. His shooting percentage is quite high at 20.0% (career 12.2%) so he might be someone you want to sell high on.

Speaking of shooting percentage let's dig in to some buy low / sell high candidates:

Nazem Kadri 6.47% (career average 10.9%). He is receiving a good chunk of the Flames power play time (66%). This number varied between 56.3-61.7% during his Calgary tenure.

He only has 9 goals this season but would have 15.1 goals if he shot his career shooting percentage, meaning his points per game would be 0.818 and similar to last season's production (0.82 ppg).

His 5 on 5 shooting percentage is also low this year (6.9%) and was low last year (6.6%). Usually this number sits between 7.3% to 9.8% for Kadri.

For a player getting the highest power play TOI (3:24) of any season in his Calgary tenure, production should increase. While other fantasy GMs are souring on Kadri because of his age, you could probably acquire him for cheap.

Evander Kane has seen his points per game fall for four consecutive seasons (0.91, 0.68, 0.57, 0.44). His -18 is the worst of any season in his career, and his traditional value as a high SOG and high hits winger has also tailed off.

For the previous 3 seasons E.Kane hits per game ranged between 3.02 and 3.22. This year he is only providing 1.75 hits per game. Over a 12 year span going back to and including his time in Winnipeg, Evander Kane has put up 3.38 to 4.17 shots on goal per game. Last year it fell to 2.86 SOG/game, and this year even further to 2.42 SOG/game.

He is also suffering from bad luck as his shooting percentage (6.84%) is much lower than usual. Kane has been above 10.9% for the previous 6 seasons.

E. Kane is less than a year younger than Kadri but it is the former who I feel that age is catching up to. With the Canucks rebuilding, a change of scenery is possible for E.Kane before the trade deadline. Trade or not, he needs to increase his hits and shots totals to provide fantasy value.

Mark Stone on the other hand has seen his points per game rise for the last 5 seasons: 0.81, 0.88, 0.95, 1.02, and a shocking 1.50 this season. Over those same 5 seasons he has only played 234 games (62.2% of all Vegas games).

Mark Stone is picky with his shots, his career shooting percentage is 15.7%. This year he has taken that to new heights shooting at 23.7%!

He is a prime sell high candidate not just for his ballooned shooting percentage but also because of his injury risk.

Sidney Crosby’s points per game for the last 4 seasons are remarkably consistent: 1.13, 1.15, 1.14, and 1.15. However, we come across an anomaly if we scan the shooting percentage over these same 4 seasons (12.9, 15.1, 14.5, and 22.6).

This year his 1.15 ppg is artificially high due to the elevated shooting percentage. His actual (shooting percentage adjusted) points per game this season is 0.958 ppg. So while everyone else is in awe of his consistently elite production into his late thirties, you might want to take a peek under the hood and realize that it could be the start of his decline at age 38.

It might be time to flip him for an equally productive younger talent to a GM who is under the impression that Crosby will deny father time. 

Josh Doan has 11 points in his last 11 games and leads the league in takeaways (35). He is actually outscoring the player he was traded for in JJ Peterka: 35 to 32 (both have played 49 games). Michael Kesselring, who just returned from reaggravating his ankle injury, also accompanied Doan to Buffalo in the trade. 

Josh Doan is 10th in the league in high danger shots on goal (65). Yet 93rd in total shots on goal (109). That 59.6% is one of the highest marks in the league, surpassed only by Zach Hyman (higher percentage of his total shots coming from the high danger area.) As long as Doan can stay on the top PP unit, he should be a solid source of production.

As for teams that selectively shoot from the high danger zone? That would be the Dallas Stars at 33.75% (429 high danger shots amongst 1271 total shots). They are 3rd in the league in high danger shooting percentage (22.8%) and first in the league in long range shooting percentage (6.0%), both those numbers should regress rest of season, meaning J. Oettinger and C. DeSmith should be prepared to win with less run support than they are accustomed to.

The same goes for Atlantic division goalies because after Dallas in top spot, 6 of the 9 highest team shooting percentages league wide come from the Atlantic division:

2. Montreal (13.0%)

3. Tampa Bay (12.8%)

4. Toronto (12.4%)

5. Boston (12.1%)

6. Buffalo (11.8%)

7. Ottawa (11.5%)

Since we examined high danger shots, let us also peek at the opposite end of the spectrum (% of long range shots). Here we have the Kings (24.7%), Rangers (23.6%), and Jets (23.7%) that take the highest proportion of their shots from long range. These teams take more low value shots on goal that are easier to stop for opposing goalies.

Other forwards to be wary of, that are scoring on a unusually high number of shots:

M. Geekie 22.81%

M. Scheifele 24.27%

B. Nelson 22.43%

T. Bertuzzi 22.43%

T. Wilson 22.68%

W. Nylander 22.67%

Defensemen to target because their on ice linemates have been unlucky at 5 on 5? That would be M.Weegar (5.59%) and D.Hamilton (5.83%), both with depressed 5v5 on ice shooting percentages that should improve.

With Luke Hughes out long term, and the Devils trying to showcase D.Hamilton, he might get more looks on PP1. M. Weegar got first crack at PP1 after R. Andersson's departure but GM Conroy has stated that he is expecting to see Parekh and Brzustewicz 'on the power play moving forward here at the NHL level'.

Parekh had a pair of assists Saturday night against the Laval Rocket.

The four most rostered (non-goalie) Jets are included in the players that are expected to cool down because of an elevated 5v5 on ice shooting %:

I. Demidov 17.51%

W. Nylander 16.74%

M. Scheifele 15.25%M.

Celebrini 15.21%

B. Point 14.95%

K. Connor 14.93%

G. Vilardi 14.65%

J. Morrissey 14.39%

A. Stolarz finally made his return to the ice after a 73 day hiatus. All eyes were on this game as it marked Marner's return to Toronto. Stolarz was shaky allowing 5 goals on 30 shots (0.833%).

Coach Berube defended Stolarz: "He was fine. He probably wants the third one back. It was a tough rebound. But I don’t think there was much he could’ve done on any of the goals. I thought he looked more comfortable and better as the game went along. That is normal. He has been out a long time."

Stolarz's GSAx/60 this season is an uncharacteristic -0.869, amongst the league's worst. However, amongst goalies that played more than 25 games, Stolarz had the best GSAx/60 in all situations for the last 2 seasons (+0.779 on the Leafs, and +0.801 with the Panthers).

Berube gave a hint at future usage in his comments to the media: "With Stolarz, we still have to get him going. He hasn’t had a lot of work yet, right? Again, it is hard because we don’t practice a whole lot, but it is great to have the combination of the two guys back playing together again. It does [lend itself to splitting starts], but we have to see where Anthony is. It was one game."

D. Hildeby was demoted to the AHL.