Now that most NHL teams have played about 10% of their regular season, it’s time to start making improvements for your fantasy team.  One of the best ways to do this is to visit an advanced analytics website and search for somebody who has been underperforming as far as PDO.  PDO is a measure of how “lucky” a player or team has been by combining shooting and save percentages.  A PDO of 100.0 is average and over the course of a long season, most players who log regular minutes will see their PDO approach 100.0.  Over the short term, however, PDO is an effective way to see if somebody is primed for a return to their average performance.  Here are 3 players whose PDO is below 95% and somebody I would consider buying low in your fantasy hockey league.

Gabriel Landeskog – LW – Colorado Avalanche – 91.8 PDO

Landeskog has been off to an okay start goal-wise with 3 G in 8 games, however, he is suffering from a lack of scoring by his linemates.  Based on his previous full seasons (30 A, 39 A) you would expect him to have at least 2-3 assists so far, but he has zero.  Landeskog has an unsustainable 16.7% shooting percentage but I expect his production to hit what you would expect, approximately 25 G and 35 A.  It also helps that Landeskog gets PIMs which can be hard to find in fantasy hockey leagues that count them since you’re often focusing on offensive stats.

Jonathan Toews – C – Chicago Blackhawks – 93.1 PDO

Despite being 4-2 as of Sunday, the Blackhawks have not had much production from their captain, Jonathan Toews.  Toews does have 4 A so far, which puts him on pace to beat his career best of 44, but just 1 G.  Through 7 games, Toews shooting percentage is at just 5.3% which pales in comparison to his career average of 14.9%.  The Blackhawks will continue to be a force in the Western Conference and as their top-line center Toews will bounce back.  It would help, however, if the sniper lining up next to him could find the back of the net…

Marian Hossa – RW – Chicago Blackhawks – 93.5 PDO

I’m not sure I would buy low on both Toews and Marian Hossa, but I bet that you could trade for one of them in your league.  Since he is an aging star (currently 35 years old) and producing worse than Landeskog or Toews, I bet you can get Hossa for cents on the dollar.  Through 7 games, Hossa has just 1 G and 1 A.  Hossa has 465 career goals scored so you know he has the ability and I would bet he does all he can to hit 500 goals in what could be his last season before retirement.  Like Toews, Hossa’s palty shooting percentage (4.8%) has to regress to the mean which means there may be a lot of goals and assists in the future for these two linemates.
 

PDO statistics courtesy of www.puckalytics.com

Traditional statistics courtesy of www.espn.com