Every year the NHL sees players who step up to the plate big time and perform their hearts out to impress the hockey world and doubt the people who had predicted against them. For example in 2019-20, JT Miller joined the Vancouver Canucks and finally broke out of his shell to record 72 points in 69 games.

This season it was Carter Verhaeghe who went from being an average fourth liner on a winning team to having 36 points in 43 games and becoming one of Florida’s best players.

Although those comeback or uprising player stories are always fascinating and fun to watch, there are players who have downfalls and step-downs each year. Players age, and with age comes mediocrity and loss in skill. The game grows faster and stronger and these aging players don’t have the speed and skill to compete, therefore causing the aging stars to fall off production wise and lose their once beloved talent.

In this article, we will go over five players who might have a fantastic season next year, or better yet come back from a downfall. For example, the player might have had a bottom out season, however next year you can expect these players to do well. With that, we will also go over five players who are expected to have a step down next season and slow down performance wise due to their age or just previous seasons of regression.

Quick note: In this article I will be using advanced analytics from jfresh, and some of the terminology I use may be a tad unclear.

WAR: Wins above replacement. This is a stat to indicate the players’ value to his team.

EV Offence: Evaluated offence statistics.

EV Defence: Evaluated defence statistics.

The top right chart on the player cards show the players’ WAR percentile over the past three seasons, and the bottom right chart shows the past three seasons for defence, offence and finishing for the player. Red being defence, blue being offence and the light blue patterned line being the finishing.

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5- Downfall- Keith Yandle, Florida Panthers

(Photo Credit: NHL)

Keith Yandle has already laboriously slowed down in his production, practically forgetting how to play defense at all. Some may even say he was the anchor to the Florida Panthers’ ship. At 34 years of age, Yandle’s evaluated defence percentage is at a 9%, which is horrible considering he’s a defenceman. And, well, as a defenceman your job is pretty obviously to defend and not turn pucks over and cause your team to lose. Yandle has done that numerous times in the past couple years and shows no sign of stopping.

He had quite the step up from the 19-20 season to the 20-21 season as you can see in the top right of the chart posted above, but you can fully expect Yandle’s charts and ratings to drop this next season or two.

Every year Yandle has dropped slowly but surely point production wise and analytically, and this one second-rate season should not be his average from now on. Yandle isn’t getting any younger, and even though he was once great defensively who was able to put the puck into the net, he will never be the same. That doesn’t mean Yandle isn’t serviceable, he is. His offensive skill was there this season, he scored goals, got assists and broke the puck out of the zone. He very rarely took stupid penalites and he does have his good games from time to time.

Although this season saw him rapidly improve offensively and even slightly improve defensively going from a dead 0% in evaluated defence to just below 25. Yes, that isn’t good, but it was a step up from his previous two seasons. Even the slightest step up for a hockey player is better for the team and the player himself.

The season that the Panthers had helped him majorly, but I fully expect Yandle to have his worst season of his career in 2021-22. I do not think his defence stays at a 9, I think it drops to a sub-5 rating. His offence and point production will depreciate as well, most likely to a sub-50 rating. That would be a 30 point drop, but considering he will be 35 soon, I don’t see him getting any better. His WAR% is significantly high (60%) considering his defence is at a disquieting 9%, but I do expect that WAR percentile of his to fall to a 30-40 range. Yandle has shown signs of slowing down, and next season could be the time we all realize it. This might have been the last somewhat-profitable season we have ever seen from Keith Yandle.

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5- Comeback- Elias Pettersson, Vancouver Canucks

(Photo Credit: NHL)

Could this season actually have counted as a downfall season for Elias? I mean, honestly, he only played 26 games. Not to mention, in those 26 games he had 21 points and 10 goals. That’s not too bad.

While that may be true, Pettersson did have a very slow start to the season where he couldn’t score a single goal until later into the opening of the season where he tipped in a shot against Montreal. Elias had 66 points in 68 games the year before and in the image you see below, his advanced stats proved that he was a top 10 player in the National Hockey League.

Pettersson slowed down heavily this season, and we won’t really know what caused it. Who knows what he could have done in the full 56 game season, or even the full 82? Whatever it was, he is destined to improve next season, and come back in a very entertaining way. To envision, I think Pettersson could come back and record over a point per game in a full 82 game season and get around 80-85 points. Pettersson is a clear star who has virtually no minuses in his game. Even 21 points in 26 games is considered bad for his level when in reality, for 90% of players that would be considered above average.

The graph above shows us that Elias Pettersson is an unblemished player. His WAR is above 95%, his evaluated offence is at an 80 (which is reasonable considering his drop this season, yet it’s still very impressive), his evaluated defence better than his offence at an 81, and his power play at a low 54. The offensive and defensive is explainable due to his lack of power and chance generation this season, and the powerplay as well because of Vancouver’s power play coach, Newell Brown, being a subpar power play coach but now that he has been fired, the Canucks may look to improve the power play. Petey’s finishing is at a 96%, which happens to be the best on the Canucks, and his G/60 at a 90 and his A1/60 at a 96, also happening to be the best in Vancouver. Elias doesn’t take bad penalties at all as it’s listed at a 99, and if we look at the mini-graphs on the right side, you can see how dominant he is. He had a step up in 19-20 in his sophomore season, but a heavy step down this year. Again, totally reasonable.

Next year, Elias will be extensively healthy and I thoroughly expect (and so does the rest of the league) for Elias to return to his superhuman form and he will continue to be a top 10 player in the league, and maybe even a top 5 centerman. For this season being valued as underperformed for Elias, demonstrates how high his expectations are and shows just how good he is at the good old game of hockey.

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4- Downfall- Blake Wheeler, Winnipeg Jets

(Photo Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Fred Greenslade)

As if Blake Wheeler hasn’t already had his downfall defensively, we can expect Wheeler to suffer horrendously offensively next season too. Wheeler went from being one of the most underrated forwards in the NHL to being heavily overrated very quickly after his defensive skill started to fade, and it vanished quickly. His evaluated defence is at a 2%, which happens to be one of the worst in the NHL. Wheeler is god-awful in his own zone and cannot defend to save his life.

Wheeler already had a steep fall from the 2019-20 season, and I expect him to fall from sub-25, to a dead 0 next season in WAR percentile. His defence (bottom right graph, red line) has bounced around everywhere in the last three years, and I don’t expect it to go up ever again in his career. The guy is 34, he’s no longer his young self anymore. He isn’t the consistent 91 point self he once was. Although he got 45 points in 50 games played this season, that defence makes me want to gouge my eyes out. It’s uprightly hilarious how many times I’ve watched him defend this year and just been shocked at how a player doesn’t defend or backcheck. Winnipeg might not have been the best team in Canada this season, but it’s worrying how someone can be at -17 on a playoff team.

Bad defence could lead to bad offence. The Jets should be happy they have Hellyubuck in net, because the defensive core that they have is also horrendous. It’s good that they have a very offensively skilled team, but that leaves the team with virtually no defence and Wheeler causes defensive issues along with many other players. He’s fantastic when he’s got the puck; but not when it’s in his zone. He knows how to score goals and he knows what it takes to get his team to win games by netting in pucks, but the word “defence” isn’t a part of his vocabulary. With his rapid decrease, I do not see how Wheeler will ever be a top-notch player in the league anymore. He isn’t a lousy player or anything of that sort, don’t get me wrong, but he simply doesn’t have what it takes when it comes to defending rushes and breaking up opportunities. With that being said, I think we can see the Jets captain take another step back offensively, (not defensively because I don’t think you can go lower than rock bottom) and decrease analytically and also point production wise. We might see Wheeler’s evaluated offence drop to as low as 50 (28 point drop) and his defence staying in the 10-ish zone. His WAR percentile might drop to a 15 (probably 15-30 range) because of that step back in the O-zone. As a consequence of Wheeler not playing defence and his offence dropping, his WAR percentile will inevitably fall. That 8.3 million dollar contract he’s on for another two years might make it a bit worse for Winnipeg as well.

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4- Comeback- Miro Heiskanen, Dallas Stars

(Photo Credit: Laptrinhx)

Here’s another player who’s so dang good that even a season that could be considered fantastic for an average NHL player, is considered a fall-off for Heiskanen. This year Heiskanen slowed down on offence having his lowest career point season, recording 27 points in 55 games. In a full 82 game season Miro could possibly hit his 34 point average that he has a season, but we may never get to know that. Miro had 8 goals and 19 assists as well as a -9 in plus/minus. A defenceman that is in the minus column of the plus/minus is considered a poor player, but that isn’t the case with Heiskanen.

While being a -9, Heiskanen’s expected goals against per 60 was at 56%. Considering he played 1134 minutes of 5 on 5 hockey on one of the worst teams in the league this year shows that even a little hiccup in Miro’s game still means a fall-off and people expect better from this young, talented star.

Recently Eliotte Friedman publicly spoke out stating that players like Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar will seek a Thomas Chabot-like contract, that being an 8X8. One of the names that Friedman listed were Miro Heiskanen. The thing with Heiskanen is that consistency is key, and he does have issues with consistency. Heiskanen can have stretches of games where he plays some of his best hockey while playing some amazing defence and netting in goals, then a week later being one of the worst performing Dallas Stars players. If you give Heiskanen that 8X8, you need to make sure he’s ready to take that step up next season like he had from 2018-19 to 2019-20. You cannot give an 8X8 to the Heiskanen that fell from 80% WAR to 67% in a span of two years. If you can trust Heiskanen to constantly improve his game, you should be ready to give him that 8X8 he allegedly wants.

My way of thinking is that you shouldn’t be too quick on awarding Heiskanen with that contract. I conjecture a mid-term bridge deal will do the job perfectly for Heiskanen. As listed above, we can see that Heiskanen is mediocre at offence as he has a 58% in EV offence. If Heiskanen wants that 8X8 handed to him on a silver platter, he needs to be at least an 80-plus in either the offence or defence column. That’s not the case with the Finnish two-way defenceman albeit. His defensive skill is good as far as we can see it’s at a 70, but that isn’t worth a dime more than seven million quite yet. Giving Heiskanen an 8X8 right about now would be like giving a seven year old 20 dollars and telling him to pick anything he wants in a store; it can get real ugly. You don’t hand out money to a child in a store, concentrically you don’t give eight million to an unproven 21 year old defenceman who’s never fully reached that potential. For his next contract Dallas should be ready to give somewhere around 6 million, but they’ll need to realize Heiskanen won’t sign for any more than 4 years. 6.5X4? That’s always an option, worth the risk in my eyes. If it doesn’t work out in Dallas while on that bridge deal, his market value is over the roof and I’m sure teams would love to jump on that. It’s a low risk, high reward type of scenario.

Four years is more than enough time for Miro to develop and prove himself as a top defenceman in the NHL, and once those four years are up he can get offered up to as much as 10 million a year (but that’s only if things go as expected). Given his age and his potential, Heiskanen (like Pettersson) had a minor setback this season, and should have a huge step up next season. We are talking 50-plus points in a full 82 game season if he gets enough off-season icetime and enough development along with a solid defensive partner. That does make his contract negotiations more complicated, as it’s tough to predict how Heiskanen can perform next year. Heiskanen reasonably wants his 8X8, but rightfully so, the Stars could be hesitant on giving out that sort of contract. A bridge deal seems like the only right option for the team.

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3- Downfall- Alex Ovechkin, Washington Capitals

(Photo Credit: SportingNews)

We’ve been saying how Alex Ovechkin would start to fall off a tad for years now, but he’s been proving us advanced stat nerds wrong each and every year. Ovechkin has been consistently the best shooter in the National Hockey League since he played his first game. His bullet-like shot always seems to find a way to go past the goalie and help Ovechkin get closer to breaking Wayne Gretzky’s goal record.

In the past three seasons Ovi has averaged 0.64 goals per game, or better yet one goal every 1.57 games, rounded up to a goal every two games. The Russian sniper is without a hitch the greatest goal scorer of all time and is a first ballot hall of famer when his career comes to a close. Despite the saying “Russians don’t age”, hockey players do and so does Ovechkin’s hair colour.

Ovechkin has been merely under a PPG (point per game) average these last two seasons slowing down a tad bit every year, but he’s always stayed a good player offensively. Even though his offensive dexterity is unequivocally there, his defensive abilities are non-existent, possibly some of the worst from a forward in the league.

Ovechkin is a one dimensional player who scores goals like his life depends on it, but suffers in his own zone and he doesn’t know how to defend. Ovechkin stands in his own zone doing nothing like a toddler waiting for it’s mother while shopping at a grocery store.

He’s been like this his whole career, but the offensive play has always made up for it. The issue is that Ovechkin will be 36 when the next season starts, and around this age and time players start to fall off production wise very quickly. Ovechkin’s WAR percentile fell off a few points in the 20-21 season compared to his 19-20 season, and that may be the trend we start to see from him from now on to his last game in the league.

This doesn’t mean the great eight will stop scoring goals though, that one timer shot is going nowhere. His speed and stick handling is principally gone though. Ovechkin fails to be as fast of a player he once was and he isn’t as competent as he once was five years ago. We can possibly witness Ovechkin’s EV offence drop from a 68% to a 55% next year and every year it will continue to regress. Ovechkin isn’t the player he once was and he might never be that type of player again.

Signing this next contract will cause Ovechkin to become more lazy and less motivated because he’ll know he’s made his money and now he can lay back and just watch the games while scoring from his spot. Ovechkin is expected to sign a 4-5 year contract in between 10.5 million dollars up to as much as 13 million. It simply isn’t worth it, but for what he’s done for the organization and what he’s brought to Washington DC, he’s deserved his money.

Age will cause him to slow down and that contract extension will too, so from now on we can surely expect Ovechkin to start scoring less, acquiring less points, and his WAR percentage will also start to slow down. He straightforwardly isn’t the player he once was.

Since that contract will take him into his early 40s, he could have a chance at beating Wayne Gretzky’s goal record, on the other hand possible injury issues and uncertainty regarding Ovi going back home to Russia, that record may not be broken after all.

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3- Comeback- Taylor Hall, Boston Bruins

(Photo Credit: PHR)

Okay let’s be real: Taylor Hall has basically made his comeback already ever since he was traded from the train wreck, inside a dumpster fire, in a forest fire of an NHL team called the Buffalo Sabres to the Bruins of Boston. Taylor Hall surrounded himself with a captivating team and virtuous players inescapably causing Hall to come back slightly and record 14 points in 16 games there. Taylor Hall had two less points in 21 less games in Boston than he did in Buffalo. It’s prominent that Hall found himself a new home, but is it a permanent or rental home?

Taylor Hall has shown his love for Boston and he has made it known that he wants to continue his career there and possibly even finish it there. He remarked that he felt comfortable and felt confident with himself there, so he wanted to sign a long term deal with the B’s. The Boston Bruins haven’t entirely shown their stance on Hall and an extension quite yet, except for saying that they would look at the possibility of handing out an extension. In all likelihood, Hall feasibly doesn’t want to test the open market of free agency again this year considering last year it took him a while to sign a deal, and obviously that didn’t turn out great for him as he was traded to his 5th team in the NHL.

Taylor Hall’s advanced analytics show him having some of the worst stats of his entire career, but it did majorly improve once he joined boston. Hall’s EV offence this season was a 98, which is very impressive. He could thank his transfer to Boston for that 98. His defence though, not so good. At 28%, he needs to work on defensive play and he really needs to be more comfortable when it comes to own zone play. He’s beneficial on the powerplay and he doesn’t kill penalties. Hall is a decently disciplined player with a 71% on the penalties which could be better, but still decent nevertheless. Taylor Hall is a very talented player and if I were Boston I would definitely want to bring him back.

Hall played some of his best hockey in years with the Bruins, and his camp could be asking for about 6 million dollars. I don’t see his agency and himself asking for the same amount of dough as they did last year, but they would want some cash. For a once Hart winning player that has always been above average, that’s a contract you want to take. If Boston doesn’t keep him, other NHL teams will want to give up a ton of assets for him and will be strongly targeting and pushing for him in free agency.

Given his age of 29, a long term contract might not work. A three or four deal will fit both sides well. Fact of the matter is Taylor Hall will only have a comeback season next year if he’s surrounded by a winning atmosphere and solid players. That did not work in Buffalo and he obviously struggled. Boston is the unmitigated fit for Hall, and if he does stay in Boston we can see Hall’s defence rise up to as high as 70% and his WAR percentile can grow from a 43, to a whopping 90. Taylor Hall will have a comeback season if he plays with a good team and he could once again become a top notch player in the NHL. If I were Don Sweeney, my first step to a successful off-season would be extending Taylor Hall to a reasonable contract that doesn’t go over seven million dollars and doesn’t last for longer than six years.

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2- Downfall- Philipp Grubauer, Colorado Avalanche

(Photo Credit: Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

After the season that Philipp Grubauer just had, it’ll practically be impossible to top that performance for many goalies. Grubauer emerged from the depths of mediocrity like a sea monster from the ocean, and went 30-9-1 while staying on the basis of a .922 save percentage and a fascinating 1.95 goals allowed average. That astonishing performance earned Grub a nomination for the Vezina trophy, although some may beg to differ and would rather have Juuse Saros for the nomination.

Although that season was outstanding, the playoffs were a different story. Grubauer played his heart out in the first round against the St. Louis Blues, but round 2 against the Golden Knights went a little different. Grubauer executed poorly and let in some tough goals and arguably cost the Colorado Avalanche some games.

Analytically, Grubauer proved to have a flukey season, and that his team did a lot of the heavy lifting. It does help when you have Cale Makar, Sam Girard, Devon Toews and Ryan Graves as your top four defensemen. Is that even allowed?

Grubauer was like a slice of cheese when it came to shots that went low. Coming in at 37% on his low areas, this is definitely an issue especially for goalies. Those are types of shots you want to be saving, especially when it comes to defencemen like, I don’t know, let’s say Nick Holden, shooting from the blue line?

https://youtu.be/go0QNdVAR-M

Grubauer is prone to having poor starts and letting in a goal within the start of a game causing the momentum being shifted to the opposing team. You would also want a goalie to be more consistent than 72% because a starting goaltender in the National Hockey League needs to be consistent because you do not want a goalie messing up a perfect game. It's The basics of hockey, and in all honesty a 72% in the consistency is something a backup goalie should have and not a starting goalie.

Grubauer needs to improve in many ways because he’s got so many holes in his game (and in his bottom areas) but luckily for him he is going into free agency after having a Vezina candidate season, so you know Grub’s gonna get paid. Good for him, but since it’s been proven that Grubauer is overvalued, the contract will most likely not work out for whoever ends up with him. From my perspective, I believe that Colorado extends him and Grubauer keeps playing at an above 900, but he will never have the season he had in 2020-21. I’d argue this season was a fluke for him, but he does deserve to be a starter in this league. Iif Colorado wants to contend for the cup and not be the Maple Leafs of the second round, they need a new starting goalie who can solidify the crease in Denver.

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2- Comeback- Brady Tkachuk, Ottawa Senators

(Photo Credit: Icon Sportswire / Getty)

It’s time for this 21 year old power forward to get paid. Brady Tkachuk is about to become one rich man this summer when the Senators sign him to his expected 7.5 million dollar contract. Brady Tkachuk has always been a good player, but advanced analytics haven’t been quite favourable to him. In his rookie season Tkachuk’s WAR percentile was just under 75%, although now he sits at 38%. This could be caused because of Tkachuk’s horrid defence.

Tkachuk rests at a 1% on the EV defence, which happens to be predominantly rock bottom. His defensive play is ghastly, but in all fairness who in Ottawa is good defensively?

Sorry?

Josh Norris? Oh yea, Norris sits at an 85% on the defensive side and a total of 93% on the WAR percentile. Man that guy was robbed of a Calder nomination.

Sorry, anyways.

For Tkachuk to be comprehensively elite and take over as Ottawa’s first line left wing and their game changer, he needs to work on his defensive play. His offensive work is completely fine, in fact fine is an understatement. His EV offence is at 100%, so you can’t really fix that. Coming back to his defence though, that needs some serious help. Ottawa craves to hire a defensively minded coach that can help these young stars understand the game better when it comes to the D-zone play. Tkachuk, Chabot and Stützle are all considered to be the key parts to Ottawa’s future, but none of them are beneficial defensively. They all struggle to play a huge aspect of the game: backchecking. It isn’t exactly laziness, but more as if they don’t have that toolset.

That being said, I do think Tkachuk will use the excitement that he will get when he signs his first big contract, and he will use that as a way to get better. Think of it as a motivation to be the better Tkachuk brother. In my view, the Senators will take a big step next season, and will become a substantially better team than the last couple years and perhaps make a push for the playoffs at some point in the near future. The goaltending is an issue that may not be fixed anytime soon, but that’s why these young players need to learn how to play defence. It;s possible that they’ll understand that, especially Brady, and he will take a massive step up and I am setting expectations for his WAR percentile to rise up from 38% to at least 60%. Brady Tkachuk has all the tools to be an offensive power star, but the defence needs some help and once he gets that much needed help, he can become a dominant player which I suppose happens next year.

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1- Downfall- Brandon Saad, Colorado Avalanche

(Photo Credit: Dilip Vishwanat/Getty Images)

The last two downfall players have a bit of a pattern, I’ll give you a second to guess it…

Get it yet?

The last two downfall players are both upcoming Colorado Avalanche UFAs. It may seem a bit wild, but the reason they’re possible downfalls is because players sported so well because of the team that they played with. Saad was always a decent 35-45 point player, but never the player he was this season. Brandon Saad was an absolute machine on the ice this season, even if the points fail to show it. Saad had only 24 points in 44 games but take a look at the chart below.

Saad’s expected goals for was at 62% and his defence came at a smaller extent. Here’s what catches my attention: why does this stat line look painfully average? That’s because next year, Brandon Saad will not be a member of the Colorado Avalanche.

The Avs won’t have enough money to sign him because they still need a starting goalie, depth defence as well as money to re-sign Cale Makar and Gabe Landeskog. The Avs don’t have that much money to spend, therefore they will need to let go of either Landeskog or Saad, and I’m confident that the Avs would much rather keep their current captain rather than a player who just had a mediocre season.

Brandon Saad is currently 28 years of age, and his WAR percentile is at a 79. His last three seasons have seen his statistics increase, but that is not what's expected to happen next season. This truly feels like a Loui Eriksson/Kyle Okposo situation where a player with an average past and one good season is entering free agency looking to make big bucks. I am 99% sure that there will be a general manager who will look at Saad and say “well this guy just had a good season and his offence is undeniably there, let’s give him lots of money and a long term so we can get him locked up here” and before you know it, Saad is signing a 5X5 contract with, let's say a team similar to Buffalo or Vancouver.

That team will subsequently see Saad have the worst season of his career followed by multiple seasons of paying a fourth liner five million bucks. Brandon Saad isn’t necessarily a bad player, but that offence is too high for my liking when compared to his point production which causes me to get skeptical around Saad’s future fabrication. That offence is going down the ranks in the graph below which could be another case of a player decreasing at a young age. But another thing you notice is his finishing increases and that’s because of his teammates. Saad played with the best of the best this year, and that’s why he performed so well and generated a bunch of chances.

With his defence being at 22%, that makes me think what it could be on a bad team. A bad defensive player on a bad team could cause the offensive skill to drop. We saw it with Taylor Hall in Buffalo when his point production fell off so hard, and he just turned into nothing. The difference is that Saad will look for a permanent home this season, and surely teams will be willing to award Saad that term given his young age of 28.

Saad’s consistency and poor defensive play does make me feel like next year he can fall off so hard, and may as well turn into a 15 point player in a full 82 game season. His next contract will look something like a “same money as term” contract, and unless it’s a 2X2 or 1X1, there might not be anything to worry about. But until then, I do not think Saad will ever be the 50 point player he once was.

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1- Comeback- Dylan Larkin, Detroit Red Wings

(Photo Credit: NHL)

If you haven’t noticed it yet, the bar is quite high for these comeback players. That’s because these players are sensations that play the best hockey you can imagine. However this year for Dylan Larkin AKA D-Boss, was a very very vile one. Larkin suffered another injury, on top of him being at a -14 and having the least amount of points in his career with only 23 in 44 games played. Larkin’s basic point stats were not very good, but the fact that the Detroit Red Wings weren’t a very good team doesn’t help the fact that Larkin has been looking for a bounce back season for the last two seasons.

In the graph above we see that Larkin has all the tools to be an elite hockey player, but it just hasn’t come to him lately. Larkin has fallen off quite a bit in the WAR percentiles as since the 2018-19 season, he’s fallen off from around an 85 mark to a 35 mark. Even though that's the case for the recent years, his WAR percentile sits at a 73% and his offence at a 91% and his defence at a whopping 87%. Those types of players are hard to find, and once you do have a well rounded player like Larkin, you must be compelled to latch on to him and keep him around.

Larkin needs to stay healthy and have a good team behind him and then we can vision prime Larkin. He isn’t getting younger, as Larkin is now 24 and has only seen 5 career playoff games.

Larkin must be getting a bit tired of losing, so I fully expect Steve Yzerman to emerge from his rebuild stage and surround the Michigan native captain with players that can help HockeyTown become a ton notch team again.

It’s expected that Yzerman brings in star players, and with the arrival of help, Larkin is destined to return to his 70 point self and also bring his WAR ratings up to a 90-plus. His finishing has fallen off quite a bit, but once again, with a better supporting crew that can be fixed.

Larkin’s a talented player who’s prime is being wasted in Detroit with some of the worst hockey we’ve seen played. Yzerman should try and speed the rebuild up, because Larkin’s contract ends in two years and he wants to win. This off-season will be the perfect opportunity for Dylan to recruit some players while recovering from his injuries and developing into an even better player. Brighter days are coming for the Detroit Red Wings but more importantly Dylan Larkin. Next year will be the grand return of prime Larkin, and if not it will be in the next two years. He’s too good of a hockey player not to bounce back and dominate the league with his speed and elite level talent.

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With Larkin and Saad closing out our last two players, our list of 5 players who are expecting a bounce back season and a fall-off season comes to an end. The choices that I made were a split rational of luck, previous season trends, and also unpretentiously my theoretical ideas. In a perfect world, a player stays consistent and it doesn’t make hockey a guessing game, but that’s not how sports work. That is why sports are interesting (and infuriating) when it comes to new players and finding out a players’ skills and weaknesses. You always hope for the best, but sometimes it fails to work, and sometimes you get pleasantly surprised with what you end up with. The world of sports management is 40% skill, 25% luck, 25% guessing and 10% negotiation. It’s all just one big guessing game, but that’s what makes it so idiosyncratic.