Michael Kesselring
Points by season
Career NHL points, ending with the 84-game projection (violet).
Pool value
Projected full-season fantasy worth.
why 33?
Each row is one fantasy category turned into points over a full 84-game season. Add the rows up and that is his total fantasy worth.
- proj goals2 × 3+6
- proj assists19 × 1+19
- PP points0 × 0.5+0
- game-winning goals0 × 0.5+0
- OT goals0 × 0.25+0
- shots116 × 0.1+11.6
- PIM52 × 0.05+2.6
- ice time (min)1598 × 0.01+16
- total55 pool points · an elite defenseman season scores 16655 = 33/100
Weights follow what the average fantasy league actually counts: goals at 3× assists (the universal core), power-play points and game-winners at half weight (common extra categories), OT goals, shots and PIM small (many leagues skip them), and ice time as a quiet availability bonus. The scale: add up a whole season of those categories and compare against the best defensemen in the NHL — an elite season scores about 166 points, and that is what 100 means. So 55 points is 33 out of a perfect fantasy season at his position. Defensemen and forwards are graded on separate scales because the D slot can only be filled by a defenseman. Goals and assists come from the backtested season model; the rest ride your own season-to-date pace over 84 games (21 games so far). Hits/blocks are excluded: the free NHL feeds don't publish full-season totals, and we don't invent them.
The Situation
- Every night: in the lineup for all of the team's last 10 games.
- Availability: every game this season — 17 of 17 for SJS.
Every line is measured from our own boxscore ledger; absence reasons from the NHL Status Report and our transaction wire only — no insider guessing.
Finishing check underperforming O/U ▼ −1.9
- TRADE VALUE: BELOW PACE — mildly. Cheap production relative to the underlying play.
- 0.0% shooting on 29 shots against HIS OWN career baseline of 5.1% (280 shots before this season) — that's 1.5 goals below what his shot volume normally buys for him (1.5 expected goals). under pace. His shrunk talent rate is 3.4%, worth PD −1.9 goals per 84 over/under his own standard.
Model: goals vs shot volume vs live league position baselines; talent SH% is an empirical-Bayes shrinkage of the season…
His shooting talent is estimated by shrinking his season shooting percentage toward his league position mean in proportion to sample size (kappa pseudo-shots prior), then projecting the gap over 84 games at his current shot volume. Small samples stay near zero — the number only moves when the evidence does.
The method follows published hockey-analytics research: a shooter is judged against his own career shooting percentage, because a player's own career rate predicts his next goals better than any league average (“Expected by Whom? A Skill-Adjusted Expected Goals Model for NHL Shooters and Goaltenders,” arXiv:2511.07703). Thin careers (rookies) shrink toward the league mean for the position, and the season number is shrunk toward the player's own anchor with empirical-Bayes weights — Nandakumar & Jensen (2019), Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application, doi:10.1146/annurev-statistics-030718-105202. This section is about the gap between luck and his pace, not talent.
Season stats
NHL regular-season totals, season by season. The 84-G proj line extends the current season with our public model — methodology in the caption below the table.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | P | +/- | PIM | PPG | PPP | SHG | TOI/GP | GWG | OTG | S | S% | FOW% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | Coyotes | 9 | 0 | 3 | 3 | -1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17:06 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2023-24 | Coyotes | 65 | 5 | 16 | 21 | 11 | 66 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15:48 | 2 | 0 | 76 | 6.6% | 0.0% |
| 2024-25 | Utah Hockey Club | 82 | 7 | 22 | 29 | 4 | 89 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 17:41 | 1 | 1 | 150 | 4.7% | 0.0% |
| 2025-26 | Sabres | 34 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 50 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13:24 | 0 | 0 | 46 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 2026-27 | Sharks | 21 | 0 | 4 | 4 | -9 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 19:01 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 0.0% | 0.0% |
| 84-G proj | Sharks | 84 | 2 | 19 | 22 | — | 51 | — | 0 | — | 19:03 | — | — | 111 | — | — |
84-G proj — current pace blended with the player's own history (recent seasons weighted heaviest), mixed with a similarity projection from historical players with comparable profiles, then adjusted for the aging curve (league-average peak at 27; decline after) — at age 26 that is 0%. Dashes mark stats the model doesn't project.
Comparable player-seasons: Ryan Murray (2021-21) · Victor Mete (2021-21) · Haydn Fleury (2025-25) · Spencer Stastney (2025-25) · Johnathan Kovacevic (2025-25).
Goals — with the line
| Time | ST | Type | Goal | His line | Opp ice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 11 · vs PIT | |||||
| P3 11:32 | EV | Assist | Celebrini (Kesselring, Smith) → 1-2 | Wennberg · Marchment · Sherwood · Smith · Celebrini · Stenberg Orlov · Nurse · Kesselring · Pohlkamp | Malkin · Crosby · Novak · Robertson · Chinakhov · Kindel Karlsson · Girard · Stastney · Korczak Murashov (G) |
| Oct 29 · vs VAN | |||||
| P3 10:39 | EV | Assist | Smith (Celebrini, Kesselring) → 2-2 | Marchment · Sherwood · Smith · Celebrini · Graf · Misa Orlov · Nurse · Kesselring · Allan | DeBrusk · Pettersson · Karlsson · Rossi · Ohgren Oleksiak · Hronek · Pettersson · Willander Merilainen (G) |
Line mates
Teammates sharing the most ice time with Michael over the last 10 games — reconstructed shift-by-shift from the NHL's official timing feed (goalies excluded).
| Player | Shared min | GP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Darnell Nurse SJS | 150 | 10 | |
| Macklin Celebrini SJS | 66 | 10 | |
| Will Smith SJS | 59 | 10 | |
| Kiefer Sherwood SJS | 57 | 10 | |
| Collin Graf SJS | 54 | 10 |
Data via the public NHL API · 2026 Pro Hockey Stats