10 NHL players likely to bounce back in 2023-24

Luck plays a big role in the game of hockey, mostly because of the chaotic nature of the game. I mean, it’s a game where people shoot rubber disks with sticks at a guy with pillows all over him, while they all wear shoes with knives so that they can walk on ice. Bounces are bound to happen, both good and bad, because everything can’t go exactly as planned in this sport.

And that can happen in more than just isolated events as well. Sometimes a player or even a team can see their fortunes change for better or worse throughout a full season and result in a year no one saw coming, whether that be them putting up career highs well above their usual performance or struggling in frustration as they just can’t seem to get the bounces to go their way.

Today I’ll be looking at some of the players who saw bad luck result in underperforming seasons and how they’ll likely bounce back next season. Some are just regression candidates, and some might rebound because a change of scenery gives them a chance to start fresh. Not all these players are household names, but based on the underlying numbers, their luck saw them underperform well off their usual marks, and that most likely shouldn’t be the case for next season. You never know when trying to predict how luck will work out, but these feel like safer bets to not be nearly as bad as they were in 2022-23.

All stats are from Evolving Hockey. Each player’s 2022-23 stats are listed along with their career averages in parentheses. Not every stat will be a massive outlier from their career average, but each one is enough that there’s evidence for a rebound. For defensemen, I excluded goal-related luck stats, and for goalies, I only included save percentage.

Alex DeBrincat, Detroit Red Wings

82 GP – 27 G – 39 A – 66 P (34 G – 34 A – 68 P career 82 game pace)
-0.12 goals scored above expected per 60 (+0.3 career per 60 rate)
10.3% shooting percentage (14.4% career rate)
6.83% 5v5 on-ice shooting percentage (9.09% career rate)

DeBrincat’s brief tenure with the Ottawa Senators is one that both parties will want to forget. The Sens gave up a high price to get the winger, only to have him underperform and want out one season later, resulting in them losing him for not quite the same return and finding themselves down a top-six forward. And then for DeBrincat, he had an opportunity to prove he didn’t need Patrick Kane to put up 40 goals and now still finds himself needing to prove that to the world.

A change of scenery should certainly help in Detroit, and if he plays alongside Dylan Larkin, that’s a much better option than Drake Batherson or Shane Pinto, who he ended up playing with in Ottawa on the second line. Combine that with his underlying numbers showing that he had some bad luck which aligns with how much he underperformed, and we’ll likely see a better season from DeBrincat. That concern of playing away from Patrick Kane is certainly there, but it’s not like DeBrincat is useless, especially since he had his best season in terms of expected goals output last year.

Thatcher Demko, Vancouver Canucks

.901 save percentage (.910 career save percentage)

Going into last season, Demko seemed to be one of those goalies that came to mind when you thought of the few in the league that were capable of being consistently really good, or at the very least on the cusp of that. Back-to-back .915 seasons while on a poor Canucks team certainly helped that case, but come 2022-23, everything fell apart for the netminder. The Canucks struggled out of the gate, and you could argue that a big part of what made them lose every game for so long was bad goaltending.

That said, Demko is only 27 and still has plenty of runway to turn it around and become the high-end goaltender that he was projected to be. He doesn’t exactly have a lengthy resume to prove that should be the case, but he’s also never had a season as bad as last year. Goaltending is always a shot in the dark to predict, and I’d certainly have more confidence in this pick if he got traded to a team like Los Angeles or Seattle, but I’d imagine he won’t be nearly as bad as he was last season.

Matt Dumba, Free Agent

79 GP – 4 G – 10 A – 14 P (11 G – 22 A – 33 P career 82 game pace)
6.56% 5v5 on-ice shooting percentage (8.9% career rate)

Dumba picked the worst time to have a down season. While he hasn’t been a 50-point defenseman in a while, he’s usually been good for around half a point per game, which is still great production for a defenseman. Last season saw him have his least productive season since his first season in the NHL where he played all of 13 games, and it all comes as he enters free agency, but it feels like he still has a bit left in his game.

His current free agency status could also play a role in a bounce-back year, as he’ll likely only get a one-year show-me contract and have something to prove. That combined with a bit of a regression could see him go back to his more productive days, and even though you likely aren’t getting much else with his game, that could still be great value on a cheap, short-term deal. There’s a chance that this could end up like a John Klingberg situation this past season, but it’s worth a gamble for a team in need of a defenseman with nothing to lose.

Jonathan Huberdeau & Andrew Mangiapane, Calgary Flames

Huberdeau:
79 GP – 15 G – 40 A – 55 P (23 G – 50 A – 73 P career 82 game pace)
-0.17 goals scored above expected per 60 (+0.06 career per 60 rate)
11.9% shooting percentage (12.5% career rate)
8.82% 5v5 on-ice shooting percentage (9.08% career rate)

Mangiapane:
82 GP – 17 G – 26 A – 43 P (23 G – 19 A – 42 P career 82 game pace)
-0.41 goals scored above expected per 60 (+0.07 career per 60 rate)
9.3% shooting percentage (14.9% career rate)
8.59% 5v5 on-ice shooting percentage (8.4% career rate)

I could probably include the entirety of the Calgary Flames roster for this list, but I feel like the biggest victims of the 2022-23 Flames season in terms of skaters were Huberdeau and Mangiapane. Huberdeau saw his point production drop from 115 to 55 from 2021-22, while Mangiapane saw a similar 50% drop in his goal production from 35 to 17. Mangiapane’s underlying numbers are a bit more indicative of some bad luck, but you didn’t need to be in the locker room to know that Huberdeau was struggling to adjust in Calgary last year, especially with Darryl Sutter behind the bench.

The good news is that nightmare season is behind them, and things should hopefully return to normal for the team. The bad news is that normal probably doesn’t look like another 115-point season for Huberdeau and another 35-goal season for Mangiapane. Much like how last season was an outlier of bad luck for both players, 2021-22 was an outlier the other way for them, so they’ll probably find themselves somewhere in the middle. Huberdeau will likely return to around a point-per-game, while Mangiapane will likely find himself in the high 20s for goals, and possibly challenge for 30.

Tanner Jeannot, Tampa Bay Lightning

76 GP – 6 G – 12 A – 18 P (17 G – 15 A – 32 P career 82 game pace)
-0.42 goals scored above expected per 60 (+0.05 career per 60 rate)
5.6% shooting percentage (13.8% career rate)
6.59% 5v5 on-ice shooting percentage (7.88% career rate)

I love dunking on the amount that the Lightning gave up for Jeannot at the trade deadline as much as the next guy, but you can tell that they brought him in as a development project, cashing in on a down season to get a low cap hit and see if you can extract that 24-goal scorer again. Last season certainly seemed like a regression from his 2021-22 season, but the problem is that with such a small sample to pull from, we don’t know for sure if this is a regression or his true form.

The most likely scenario is that it is just luck. Jeannot scores a lot of his goals in front of the net, and when you live and die by that kind of offense, you’re going to have lucky and unlucky years. The good news is that he’ll have a full season with the Lightning, and he might even get some time in the top six and the top power-play unit, and there are few better ways to get net-front goals than playing with the creative talent of Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, and Steven Stamkos. We’ll see if that gets Jeannot to 25 goals again, but I’d be surprised if he only scores six again next season.

Mason Marchment, Dallas Stars

69 GP – 12 G – 19 A – 31 P (17 G – 29 A – 46 P career 82 game pace)
-0.46 goals scored above expected per 60 (-0.29 career per 60 rate)
8.1% shooting percentage (9.9% career rate)
6.63% 5v5 on-ice shooting percentage (8.8% career rate)

Marchment went from being one of the most surprising breakouts with the Florida Panthers to one of the more disappointing free-agent signings after joining the Dallas Stars, falling short of his 2021-22 totals despite playing in more games. Part of that was just struggling to find a spot for himself in the lineup, as the second line with Jamie Benn and Wyatt Johnston did fine without him, and otherwise, he was strapped with a past-his-prime Tyler Seguin and whoever else they could find to center on the third line.

There’s probably a good chance that Marchment isn’t “47 points in 54 games” good, but he’s probably not as bad as he was last season either, which was most likely just a regression from that really good 2021-22 season. The true Mason Marchment probably lies somewhere in the middle, and a deeper Stars team with the addition of Matt Duchene, Craig Smith, and possibly prospect Logan Stankoven should certainly help him out there. There’s a chance that Marchment just thrived in Florida’s development system and he might not be the player we think he is, but until we get a bit more of a sample size, I’m going to bet that we’ll see some semblance of a bounce-back next season.

Jacob Markstrom, Calgary Flames

.892 save percentage (.909 career save percentage)

I talked about a couple of Flames earlier in the list, but no one disappointed more on that team than Markstrom. Heck, he might have had the biggest underperformance out of any NHL goaltender last season, and as a result, it probably had the biggest impact on the Flames missing the playoffs. Considering how often the Flames lost games where they outshot their opponents, even league-average goaltending would have given them some more wins.

There is a bit of caution with this pick, not just because it’s a goalie, but because Markstrom is 33 entering the season. Coming off a career year that made him a Vezina Trophy finalist in 2021-22, a lot of 2022-23 was likely just a regression from that season, but there’s also a solid chance that it could also be age kicking in and we are starting to witness his decline. I still doubt he’ll be this bad in 2023-24, but we might not see that strong quality starting goaltending from him. That said, I’m going to go off what I know about Markstrom in predicting his future, so I think he’ll rebound, especially with a new coach, and the Flames probably make the playoffs because of it.

Trevor Moore, Los Angeles Kings

59 GP – 10 G – 19 A – 29 P (14 G – 23 A – 37 P career 82 game pace)
-0.42 goals scored above expected per 60 (-0.3 career per 60 rate)
6.1% shooting percentage (8.3% career rate)
5.74% 5v5 on-ice shooting percentage (7.33% career rate)

Nothing causes anxiety for a team quite like taking a gamble on a big extension with a player only to watch them underperform next season. That happened with the Kings and Moore, as they locked up Moore to a five-year extension with a $4.2M AAV, only to watch him drop in productivity to under half a point per game after almost hitting 50 points in 2021-22.

Thankfully, that shouldn’t be the case next season. Unlike a lot of players on this list, Moore’s 2021-22 season wasn’t even a massive anomaly (his shooting percentages that season was actually at his career averages), which means that we’ll either see him return to normal next season, or even regress the other way and have his best season yet. Add in the fact that the Kings just shored up their center depth and he’ll be playing with one of Anze Kopitar, Pierre-Luc Dubois, or Phillip Danault, and he’ll have a quality linemate to help his production. All this means that it could not only be a bounce-back season for Moore, but a career one.

Bryan Rust, Pittsburgh Penguins

81 GP – 20 G – 26 A – 46 P (23 G – 28 A – 51 P career 82 game pace)
-0.39 goals scored above expected per 60 (-0.08 career per 60 rate)
9.5% shooting percentage (12.3% career rate)
7.63% 5v5 on-ice shooting percentage (8.4% career rate)

Rust has been an ever-growing surprise on the Penguins, going from a player who looked to thrive on the wings of Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin but not quite drives play without them to becoming a player that could hold his own, which in turn increased his production to around a point-per-game. However, 2022-23 saw a bit of a drop-off for the forward, going from a point-per-game to barely surpassing a point every other game. The Penguins as a whole were quite underwhelming, but I’m sure they could have used his production, especially when they missed out on the playoffs by only a point.

At 31, there are always going to be concerns about whether Rust just hit his peak from 2019 to 2022, and he’s declining into more of a middle-six winger role like he did when the Penguins were winning Cups, but I’d imagine with a lot of the underlying numbers pointing to some bad luck, we’ll see a bit of a bounce-back from Rust. Something in the 60-point range would probably be reasonable, especially as they load up for another season to get back into the playoffs. The best hope that happens in Pittsburgh, or else that five-year, $5.125M AAV contract is going to get ugly quickly and hamper any last chance at a Cup they may have.