Welcome back! This week I present six more deep sleepers for your fantasy hockey league. Last week, I presented five deep sleepers from the Eastern Conference. This week we’ll cover deep sleepers from the Western Conference.
Once again, we’ll skip over rookies. There’s too much unpredictability and risk. I prefer to identify a player that most have forgotten about or given up on. After years of disappointment and failure to meet expectations. What else can you do? Every once in a while, one emerges from the woodwork and finally delivers.
Deep Sleepers For Your Fantasy Hockey Pool
Arturi Lehkonen, LW, Colorado Avalanche
Perhaps he’s not the type of deep sleeper I listed last week. Yet, Lehkonen is not getting the attention I feel he deserves. Injuries have a lot to do with that. He will miss most if not all, training camp recovering from shoulder surgery.
The last two seasons Lehkonen has been productive when healthy, producing at a .76 and .80 clips. The problem, last year he missed 37 games, and the year before, 18. Healthy, Lehkonen very well could have produced two 60-plus point seasons.
In 2022-23 and 2023-24, Lehkonen also played 55% and 66% of the Avalanche’s power plays. It’s rare
With Valeri Nichushkin, LW, Colorado Avalanche, suspended until November and Gabriel Landeskog’s health (knee) still a question mark, Lehkonen sits atop Colorado’s left-wing depth chart.
Health will once again be the big question Lehkonen will have to answer when the season begins. His shoulder injury will push him down or off many draft queues. He shouldn’t miss more than the first week or so of the season. There’s 60-point potential that just needs 82 games to prove it.
Philip Tomasino, C, Nashville Predators
After a solid rookie campaign in 2021-22, Tomasino has failed to improve. He’s struggled, bouncing between AHL and NHL for the past two seasons.
He’s been productive in the AHL averaging .84 and .82 points per game. However, he hasn’t been able to translate it to the NHL. When he did play, he often looked overwhelmed. There comes a point for young players when the game slows down in front of them. This hasn’t happened for Tomasino, yet.
There’s no question Tomasino has the toolkit to become a productive player in the NHL. Questions are looming about his ability to apply his toolkit successfully and become an NHL regular.
With the signing of Jonathan Marchesseault, RW, Tomasino now finds himself fourth on the depth chart at right wing. Luke Evangelista, RW, is establishing himself offensively. And Gustav Nyquist, RW, surprised everyone with his 75-point season
He’ll need a strong camp and then build on it throughout the season to grab ice time. Temper expectations, but we can’t rule out Tomasino hitting 40 points. There is 50-point potential but a lot has to go right.
Anthony Mantha, LW/RW, Calgary Flames
I swear Mantha finds his way onto someone’s sleeper list every season. Now in his tenth NHL season, Mantha has found his way onto mine.
There was a period when folks thought Mantha was going to explode into a dominating power forward. That was 2019-20 when he was producing at a .88 point per game pace over 67 games. Last season was just the second time Mantha played more than 70 games in his career.
Admittedly, I was apprehensive when Mantha was traded from the Washington Capitals to the Vegas Golden Knights. I wasn’t sure Mantha’s productive season would continue. It did. With 10 points in 18 games, playing on Vegas’ third line, Mantha maintained the same pace he was on with the Capitals.
Opportunity knocks for Mantha in Calgary. Beyond Nazem Kadri, C, and Jonathan Huberdeau, LW, nothing is set in stone with the Flames. That includes the first power play unit.
He should hit 50 points and drop double-digit power-play points. As much as I’d like to say he could hit 60 points, There’s always something that knocks Mantha off expectations. For fantasy hockey leagues, we’ll cap him as a deep sleeper with 55-point potential.
Jordan Spence, D, Los Angeles Kings
With Brandt Clarke, D, Los Angeles Kings, ripping up the AHL, a lot of fantasy owners are looking past Spence. You shouldn’t. There’s no question Clarke is a talented offensive defenseman. However, he’s not a strong defender. The holes in his defensive game have held him back.
Spence, while undersized (now listed at 5’11”, 180lbs), is a couple of years older and further along in his development. He’ll be in an open battle with Clarke to quarterback the second power-play unit. He needs to take a big step forward himself. A lot will need to go Spence’s way in camp, including Clarke being subpar.
If Clarke is ready for a full-time role, Spence’s value takes a big hit. It is for this reason Spence is on the list. A lot could go right for Spence and he could still see Clarke take over the second power-play unit.
Spence is easily the riskiest inclusion on my list of deep sleepers for your fantasy hockey league. He has a window of opportunity to put together a 40-plus point season. However, it’s a small window.
Alex Laferriere, LW/RW, Los Angeles Kings
We’ll stick with the Kings for a little longer. The Kings have several young players making the jump to the NHL, including, Arthur Kaliyev LW and Alex Turcotte, C.
Even though Laferriere played 81 games with the Kings last year, he doesn’t get quite the same attention as other Kings prospects.
It was a solid, if unspectacular rookie year for Laferriere, with 11 goals and 12 assists, for 23 points. Drafted in the 3rd round of the 2020 NHL draft, Laferriere spent his next two seasons in the NCAA with Harvard. In his second season, he scored 21 goals, and 21 assists for 42 points in 35 games. The kid has offensive chops.
The stat that pops out for me is the 147 shots on goal in just 13:13 of ice time. It isn’t quite two shots per game, which is my traditional cut-off point for forwards.
Remember though, it was his rookie year. I expect both his ice time at even strength and on the power play to increase. Ideally, he progresses to 15 minutes per game and doubles his power play ice time from 38 seconds to closer to one minute 20 seconds. I am also looking for his shots per game to improve from 1.8 per game to at least 2.2 per game. This would place Laferriere around the 180-shot mark over 82 games.
It’s likely, that Laferriere ends up right around 40 points, give or take, for the season. That said, he has a 50-plus point upside. I don’t expect Laferriere to meet the deep sleeper definition beyond this season. Everyone will know who he is soon enough.
Anton Silovs, G, Vancouver Canucks
After Thursday’s announcement from Thatcher Demko, G, Vancouver Canucks, Silov isn’t the sleeper he was three days ago. I wasn’t expecting Demko to be ready to start the year. This is why I chose him as one of my deep sleepers for your fantasy hockey league. The Demko news being announced early in camp raised Silovs’ profile quite a bit.
Mystery still surrounds Demko’s injury. This includes the severity and the long-term effects/complications that will come with it. That shrowd of uncertainty raises Silovs stock.
Even when Demko is cleared to return to game action there is no guarantee he will be able to reclaim the starting job right away. He may return as Silovs’ backup. They may platoon for the first two months or the rest of the season. So much is unknown.
There are also rumors the Canucks are interested in signing unrestricted free-agent goalie Kevin Lankinen. This seems more likely than not given the circumstances. Signing Lankinen or another veteran goalie would cut into Silovs’ current value. Lankinen could challenge Silovs for the starting job.
As it stands though, Silovs is the opening-night goalie, and the starter for the foreseeable future. Twenty or more goalies will be drafted before Silovs. He sits with the outside possibility of reaching 30 wins. Of course, this is with an expectation Demko will miss a chunk of time to start the season and the likelihood of load management once he does return.
You can’t ignore 30-win potential in the late stages of a draft.
There you have it. Six Western Conference deep sleepers for your fantasy hockey league. I don’t expect full agreement, not with deep sleepers. But isn’t that part of the fun of fantasy hockey?
That’s all for this week.
Thanks for reading.
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