As fantasy sports evolve, NHL pool scoring systems are getting more advanced as well. Fantasy league managers are fine tuning scoring settings over the years to create the fairest and most engaging experience among contestants.
Whether rotisserie, head-to-head matchups, or other various styles, it is safe to say that the best overall leagues are the ones that involve multiple categories. It might have been more about goals, assists, and goalie wins in the early days. Today, other popular categories include but are not limited to plus/minus. penalty minutes, hits, shots on goal, short-handed points, powerplay goals, game-winning goals, faceoff wins, blocked shots, save percentage, saves count, goals against average, shutouts, and more.
Selecting players for your fantasy team is not as simple as picking the Mcdavids, Makars, Shesterskins, of the NHL. These will likely be easy candidates for best players in their respective categories in the real world year to year. In most fantasy leagues, it’s no longer about who is the best in real life. Instead, it is about who the best players are, within the criteria of your league’s scoring.
When discussing fantasy hockey, I normally exclude players from the past; where fantasy sports did not exist. With limited statistical recordings in the 80s and 90s, I don’t think there would be accurate data from those days.
This leads me to today’s observation and question.
Is Brady Tkachuk the best overall NHL Fantasy player that we have seen so far?
Of course, I understand that every fantasy league’s situation is unique and that players rank differently in different scoring systems. However, there is not a skater who excels in more categories than Ottawa Senators Forward and Captain Brady Tkachuk.
Last year in the Regular Season, Brady Tkachuk ranked top five in hits, shots on goal, and penalty minutes. He was also top 15 in blocked shots and powerplay goals, as well as top 20 in goals. He finished last year with 74 points which may be seen to be a little below expected by many from him, but that still ranked top 50 in overall points. Based on what was just mentioned, it is safe to say that Brady Tkachuk would have likely made a significant impact in almost every popular scoring category in most fantasy leagues, and an extremely difference-making impact in at least three popular categories. On top of all that, Brady Tkachuk can also win a decent amount of faceoffs. While his faceoff-taking frequency might not be anywhere near that of a pure Center, he is also usually listed as a Winger, meaning that he can be dressed as a rare winger who wins faceoffs without having to take up a center position on a fantasy team.
The three Hart Trophy finalists from last year excelled in pure offensive categories involving point production, but rarely provided much versatility in the physical categories. Brady Tkachuk can offer full versatility plus significant value in scoring-related categories.
This 2024-25 season has been no different for the 25-year-old so far. Through the first quarter of the campaign, Tkachuk is par for the course in terms of Powerplay Goals, Goals, and Points. However, he is even more impressive in the categories he excelled at last year. The Senators Captain is top three in terms of hits and shots on goal, and first place in penalty minutes.
Furthermore, in head-to-head leagues, Brady Tkachuk is the kind of player who can singled-handedly steal a category for a day or week. While many players can have outrageous single-game performances in their typically expected category of dominance, Brady is the only one who can do this in multiple departments. So far this season, he has had eight games where he recorded at least seven hits or more, and five games where he has had four or more penalty minutes. The Ottawa Senators are only 20 games into the season. While these are categories that most may not be surprised to see him have abnormally high single performances in, Brady Tkachuk is also the only player to record 12 shots on goal in a single game so far this season.
Groundbreaking performances like the one just mentioned are the type that could win a fantasy contestant an entire category for the week, especially when late in the week. When a player can provide a single-game statistic that is four to five times that of an average player, it can either completely erase a large deficit or bury the competition in a matchup.
The most recent example of another one of Tkachuk’s power is something that happened just two days ago. It was a Saturday Night, and as usual, things were not looking good for the Ottawa Senators in the third period. Brady has a meltdown, as we have often seen in the past, and is somehow able to accumulate a 10-minute misconduct on top of a fighting major in a matter of seconds in his altercation with Vancouver Canucks forward Dakota Joshua. A fantasy player looked at his weekly head-to-head matchup before the game and saw that he was losing to his opponent 20-4 in Penalty minutes. He is tied 5-5 in the overall matchup and figures that he would need to try to win in other categories to break the tie. He checks back later that night to see that Tkachuk recorded 21 Penalty Minutes in the game, and his opponent no longer has any physical players playing in the week. The next day only has one NHL game, and everything else stays the same. He ends up winning the week 6-4.
That’s what Brady Tkachuk can do for a fantasy team.
Is he the best Fantasy player ever?
Perhaps this could be a study ten years from now. Either way, he is one of a kind.
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