Stat corrections can be a painful experience in the fantasy realm. But I haven't seen one like this before.
On Monday, Feb. 7, the NHL added 6,826 hits to the statistics generated by players this season (and, for the record, they removed two hits) as part of a sweeping "hits audit" that is now reflected as the new official record.
For fantasy leagues, these hits aren't going to count. The ESPN game has a grace period for stat corrections that runs for seven days after a game, but some of the hits doled out by the audit go all the way back to the first game of the season.
While 6,826 hits works out to 682.6 missed fantasy points this season, it's not as much as it appears at first blush. Only 2,684 of the hits were attributed to skaters among the top 250 for total fantasy points this season, which works out to 1.1 point per player, which works out to 0.06 fantasy points per player per scoring period. That's not going to make you feel better if you lost Week 14 by just 0.1 points to a team that started Matt Roy -- but the odds are it would have worked out in your favor somewhere along the line, too.
It's unfortunate that the stats weren't just counted right the first time. And most of us are playing fantasy for fun/low stakes, so it's not as rough as being someone playing prop bets on hits this season.
Still, this is not a fun exercise and it skews a few things for the remainder of the season for us, too. Projections are, after all, based on stats previously generated, so this changes things up a bit.
We are going to have a look at some of the players most impacted on by the hits audit and whether it vastly changes their fantasy outlook or not.
But before we do, here's some other tidbits from the hits audit:
Garnet Hathaway had the most to gain, credited with an additional 44 hits or 4.4 fantasy points.
Thirteen players gained 30 or more hits, but among them only Eeli Tolvanen (35 hits) and Vincent Trocheck (32 hits) are surefire fantasy assets. Dakota Joshua (32 hits) and Jean-Gabriel Pageau (31 hits) could also be considered fringe fantasy plays.
TD Garden, the home of the Boston Bruins, is the biggest under-counter revealed in the audit, with 332 additional hits credited; 166 of them (exactly 50%) went to the visiting team.
The next highest missed hits by home venue went to the Florida Panthers (325 hits), San Jose Sharks (305 hits) and Seattle Kraken (278 hits).
The home team with the fewest missed body checks are the Edmonton Oilers, with only (127 additional hits credited at Rogers Place. Winnipeg is next with 132, followed by Pittsburgh with 140.
The scorekeepers for the Dallas Stars were the most punishing for visitors, not crediting them with more than 61% of the 218 missed hits.
The Sharks scorekeepers punished the home squad the most, failing to credit the Sharks players with more than 39% of the 305 hits found in the audit.
Overall, the balance was 50-50 though, with 50.06 of the uncredited hits being awarded to visiting teams.
The most uncredited hits in a single game was five, which were retroactively applied to games by Hathway, Michael Pezzetta, Hudson Fasching, Brady Tkachuk, Cal Clutterbuck and... Elias Pettersson. Yep. Pettersson.
Hathaway once again leads the way when it comes to most games with hits added, as his 44 additional hits came across 27 games.
Next for most games with hits added is Yakov Trenin (26) and then three players tied at 25 (Ty Kartye, Curtis Lazar and Craig Smith).
The audit did not change the single-game hit champion from the season, as Jeremy Lauzon's 12 on Jan. 15 stood as originally recorded. Evander Kane used to be alone in second with his 10-hit outing on Nov. 26, but the audit tied seven other players up at 10 in a game (including Lauzon).
Only Adrian Kempe and Tyler Myers, each with one, lost a hit from the hits audit.
Here are some of the players who experienced the most gain and have been at least close to fantasy relevant. Most of these players will be for deeper leagues, or for rosters that are just trying to pump the hits category with a specialist. But the audit is a good chance to check in on a few of them. Again, for context, we are talking about minimal gains. Hathaway gained 0.09 fantasy points per game (FPPG) to push his total from 0.98 FPPG to 1.07 FPPG -- also known as "irrelevant to fantasy" to "still irrelevant to fantasy" (unless, again, he's a category specialist in a deeper league).
Eeli Tolvanen, W, Seattle Kraken (35 hits, 1.88 FPPG): Boosted from 1.81 FPPG without his bonus hits, Tolvanen has settled into a role that, while decent for fantasy leagues, leaves you with the taste that it could be better if he was leaned on more. He is still under 16 minutes per game, which is not going to make him a fantasy star. That said, Tolvanen is still just 24 and is building himself a nicely rounded profile with scoring and physical play.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau, C, New York Islanders (31 hits, 1.53 FPPG): This hits boost certainly doesn't get Pageau to roster-lock status, as 1.53 FPPG still isn't enough to get it done in most leagues. New coach Patrick Roy has Pageau holding down the third line with Simon Holmstrom and Oliver Wahlstrom, but it's working for him in a way. His FPPG is up to 1.91 in seven games since the change of bench boss.
Radko Gudas, D, Anaheim Ducks (28 hits, 2.08 FPPG): In a standard ESPN league, Gudas is having the type of season that you can easily overlook unless you've used him on your team. Managing to get more than 2.0 fantasy points per game while earning minimal points takes a lot of ice time and work. This little boost to his fantasy game is just a feather in the cap for what's already been a great campaign. He's available in 45 percent of leagues and has actually averaged 2.45 FPPG in January.
Dakota Joshua, W, Vancouver Canucks (32 hits, 1.50 FPPG): We were teased a bit by Joshua in the month of December. But on the whole he hasn't done enough to warrant a roster spot. Outside of the month of December, Joshua has played 39 games with 48.8 fantasy points (1.25 FPPG). During his hot stretch in December, Joshua played 12 games, earning 27.7 fantasy points (2.31 FPPG). The additional 32 hits are nice, but not enough to push him into starting territory without a slight boost to his output on the score sheet.
Sam Bennett, C/W, Florida Panthers (28 hits, 1.68 FPPG): Without the additional hits, Bennett was down at 1.61 FPPG. Since the rough threshold for fantasy relevance tends to be 1.7 FPPG, this is an important addition to his statistics. Again, while we won't get them added retroactively, it's good to know Bennett has been trending much closer to being a starter than it appeared prior to the audit. With Matthew Tkachuk coming on strong, Bennett will be next to him to benefit down the stretch.
Shakir Mukhamadullin, D, San Jose Sharks (two hits, 2.67 FPPG): While this is normally the type of small sample I'd filter out, I'm taking any excuse to highlight Mukhamadullin. The Sharks haven't played since Jan. 31 (what a break!) and will finally get back on the ice on Wednesday. Mukhamadullin went back to the AHL after his three-game debut before the all-star break, but the presumption is that the demotion was simply to keep him playing during the layoff. I hope we see Mukhamadullin back on the Sharks blue line on Wednesday. The rookie played almost 22 minutes in the final game before the break, getting plenty of power-play time and a power-play assist. The fact that he picked up two hits in this audit despite playing in just three games is just gravy.
Jeremy Lauzon, D, Nashville Predators (29 hits, 1.55 FPPG): The NHL hits leader easily retained his crown following the audit by picking up an additional 29 slams in the process. On the whole, this still doesn't get him beyond category specialist in roto or head-to-head formats, but if you break his season down you can see Lauzon heating up. Take out his October stats and his FPPG jumps to 1.71 in 43 games; take out October and November and he is up to 1.76 FPPG in 30 games. He's been doing enough lately to warrant a spot.