The Athletic’s Shayna Goldman penned an article discussing players whose advanced stats belie their low fantasy hockey draft positions–at least as far as advanced stats (see “Goals Above Replacement,” or GAR) are concerned–and she included Dylan Larkin as one of the players who fantasy hockey poolies may be overlooking because he’s on the Red Wings:
In Larkin we have another case of managers overlooking players from bad teams. While there may be concerns about the Red Wings’ potential this season, there shouldn’t be as much of a question of whether or not to draft Larkin.
He may not be Detroit’s captain this season, but Larkin is still one of their best players. On a disappointing team last year, he still managed 73 points — and they were fairly balanced between goals (32) and assists (41). Plus, the Red Wings took about 54 percent of the shots with him on the ice.
Few players fire the puck as often as Larkin. The center’s 494 shot attempts ranked 10th in the league in all situations last year. Of the 494 attempts, 287 reached net, which put him a slot higher on the league’s rankings. Shots on goal are an important category to cover, and Larkin does that while still contributing to other offensive categories. The risk with any player on a bad team is +/-, but that shouldn’t stop owners from adding the shoot-first center.
