Timo Meier's fantasy hockey value trends up after the New Jersey Devils acquired him. Jason Chen explains the effect in depth before New Jersey plays Wednesday.
Timo Meier's fantasy hockey value trends up after the New Jersey Devils acquired him. Jason Chen explains the effect in depth before New Jersey plays Wednesday.
After weeks and days of speculation, the Sharks dealt Timo Meier to the Devils for a whole lot of other stuff.
It overshadowed other quality moves over the weekend, including the Jets trading for Nino Niederreiter and the Lightning trading for Tanner Jeannot. I will cover those moves Saturday, along with the rest of the deadline deals, from a fantasy hockey lens. That includes the myriad of moves on Tuesday, with Patrick Kane headed to the New York Rangers, Mattias Ekholm and Tyson Barrie involved in a Nashville and Edmonton trade and a trio of Toronto transactions.
But despite Tuesday's trades, there’s no denying that Meier moving to New Jersey represents a pretty seismic shift in the balance of power between the two conferences and an exciting arms race that is shaping the Eastern Conference. Meier is one of the league’s best wingers and an excellent play driver and should see an uptick in his own individual offensive production and those around him.
Here’s your trade breakdown for my fellow poolies.
On Meier:
The first thing everyone knows about Meier is that he’s an extremely high-volume shooter. Last season, only six players managed to eclipse 300 shots, with Meier finishing third with 326, even though he had missed five games. He’s on track to eclipse that total again, a feat that only four other players have accomplished multiple times over the previous five seasons: Brent Burns, Alex Ovechkin, Nathan MacKinnon and Tyler Seguin.
Meier’s a unicorn in that sense, especially in leagues that count shots. His finishing ability has never been elite – his career shooting percentage is a pedestrian 10.4 percent – but he still generates a ton of offense. That’s good news for the Devils because their up-tempo, creative offensive style should suit him wonderfully.
The question is how the Devils will deploy Meier, either with Nico Hischier or Jack Hughes. Yegor Sharangovich is the most obvious candidate to drop out of the top six, leaving the Devils something like:
Tatar – Hischier – Mercer
Meier – Hughes – Bratt
Those are two excellent scoring lines that only teams with a very strong top four on defense can defend against. Most teams don’t have the depth or talent to cover both. The Devils already rank fifth in goals per game (3.51) heading into Tuesday night's games, and it would not be surprising to see them overtake the Lightning (3.56) and eventually move into the top three.
The drawback for Meier with his new team is potentially less ice time. But less is more in certain cases, and the lack of quantity could be made up for with better quality. Better linemates, better scoring chances and better puck possession could all help Meier reach new heights.
It might take Lindy Ruff a few games to figure out what works best, but note Ondrej Palat can also move up the lineup, Mercer can play some center, and Meier can also switch to the right wing. As of Tuesday, Meier practiced in a non-contact jersey, so we must wait and see where he fits.
Adding Meier will likely bump Palat from the top power-play unit, strengthening both units because Palat will bump Miles Wood from the second unit. Dougie Hamilton, already on a pace for a career-best season, now quarterbacks arguably the most talented unit in the league.
In any case, Meier’s impact should be profound. He’s not a great player in transition, but that’s the beauty of this move – Hischier and Hughes can do that for him. The slight wrinkle with playing Meier with Hughes is that both players like to shoot the puck, so they might need to figure out a pecking order and (at times) delegate the primary shooting duties.
On Zetterlund:
Along with Fabian Zetterlund, Andreas Johnsson and Nikita Okhotiuk went the other way to San Jose, but Zetterlund is the one whose fantasy value gets impacted the most. The talented third-round pick from 2017 is a sniper in the making, with a bit of shiftiness and an excellent shot. He had trouble cracking the top six in New Jersey with regularity because of the amount of depth ahead of him, but he won’t have that problem with the Sharks.
Johnsson can regain some lost value since he’s a UFA this summer playing in a top-six role, and frankly, there’s little depth standing in his way. Okhotiuk is exempt from waivers and scored a goal in 10 appearances with the Devils this season, and he should get a look as well. He’ll have competition, though, with Radim Simek and Jacob MacDonald. Neither player should make much of an impact and do not have any fantasy value. Simek might have been a good banger league addition once upon a time, but he plays so infrequently that he’s not worth considering.
Zetterlund’s a good candidate to get into the top six right away, and there’s no question he has more upside than Mikey Eyssimont, Alexander Barabanov, Martin Kaut, or whoever the Sharks dig up to play in those four spots. The Sharks still have two solid centers in Logan Couture and Tomas Hertl, whose production will surely dip without Meier in the lineup, but they will stem some of that loss with Zetterlund.
TL;DR, give me the spark notes for fantasy:
Timo Meier: Trending up with a chance to play on an up-tempo team with either Nico Hischier or Jack Hughes, both of whom are excellent and will also benefit from having Meier on their wing.
Dawson Mercer, Tomas Tatar and Jesper Bratt: Trending up as the top candidates to play on the opposite wing of Meier. Mercer was highlighted in the Week 20 head-to-head fantasy primer.
Dougie Hamilton: Trending up with another top-tier weapon to boost their 19th-ranked power play.
Yegor Sharangovich, Ondrej Palat: Trending slightly down with potentially reduced roles on offense.
Fabian Zetterlund, Andreas Johnsson: Trending way up, with both wingers expected to skate on the top line with Tomas Hertl and get regular top-six minutes.
Tomas Hertl, Logan Couture, Erik Karlsson: Trending down for Hertl and Couture, and just slightly down for Karlsson since he’s been excellent all season without much help, given the loss of one of the league’s best shot-generating wingers.