Over the past three seasons, only eight other defensemen have scored more power-play points than Gostisbehere.
Pretty surprising, right?
After finishing second in Calder voting and 17th in Norris voting in his rookie season, Shayne Gostsibehere was on track to become one of the league's premier offensive defensemen.
But his play tailed off almost immediately afterward, and in his last two seasons with the Flyers scored just 32 points in 83 games. He went from a fantasy stud to a fantasy has-been in very short order, but the truth is he's rebuilt a lot of fantasy value over the past three seasons.
Going to the Coyotes was a great move, in retrospect. Gostisbehere averaged more ice time than at any point in his career and finished with 51 points while managing to stay healthy for all 82 games. He finished tied-15th in scoring among defensemen, one behind Shea Theodore and two behind Rasmus Dahlin.
To prove it was no fluke, Gostisbehere followed that up with 41 points, including 31 in 52 games with the Coyotes before getting traded to the Canes, and then 56 points in 81 games with the Red Wings last season.
According to naturalstattrick.com, only six defensemen were better than Gostisbehere at generating shots per 60 minutes on the power play (min. 500 TOI) when their unit was on the ice over the past three seasons. He also ranked 27th in expected goals per 60 minutes and ranked 10th in total PP TOI.
Though signing with the Canes puts Gostisbehere in a good position to score points — their power play is generally quite good — the caveat in his fantasy value is that he's not necessarily the first option.
Brent Burns has been their favored option, even dating back to the 2022-23 season when Burns and Gostisbehere played together. They profile very differently; Burns is one of the league's strongest and biggest players with an incredible shot, while Gostisbehere is smaller — he gives up six inches and close to 50 pounds against Burns — and often prefers to pass the puck than shoot it.
But there's no denying Burns is slowing down. He'll turn 40 next season and both his raw point totals and his individual expected goals on the power play, as per naturalstattrick.com, are on a long-term downward trend.
Gostisbehere is under contract for two more seasons than Burns, who will be UFA next summer. This is more reason to give Gostisbehere an extended look since the No. 1 job will fall to him if Burns is not re-signed beyond 2024-25.
After losing Teuvo Teravainen, Stefan Noesen and Jake Guentzel to free agency, and terminating Evgeny Kuznetsov's contract, the Canes don't have the personnel to put together two good power play units. (Not that they ever had a particularly strong second unit, but at least it was an option in the playoffs).
That means they'll have to stack the top unit, leaving Burns and Gostisbehere to jostle for minutes, assuming the four forwards are Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov, Martin Necas and Seth Jarvis.
The Canes might split the forwards into pairs, and with Gostisbehere quarterbacking the other unit, it will give him more minutes. The downside, of course, is that both units lose scoring talent for the sake of better balance. It just so happens that there are also three lefties (Gostisbehere, Aho and Svechnikov) and three righties (Burns, Necas and Jarvis).
But if Burns continues on his current path and Gotisbehere plays at this level, there may come a time where the Canes may have to consider playing Gostisbehere with the top unit. It may be even a change of pace if the power play goes through a bad stretch.
At that point, look for Gostisbehere to be a hot commodity on the waiver wire. I'd prefer to jump the gun; if Gostisbehere is available in the late rounds, he's been too good to ignore for too long. In last season's pre-season rankings on Yahoo, Gostisbehere was ranked 289th overall. He finished 14th in overall scoring and seventh in power-play points among defensemen last season, while Burns finished 31st and 13th, respectively.
Gostisbhere's going to keep getting overlooked and yet he might end up as being one of the best value picks in fantasy hockey for another season.
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