How Important is TPA Really?

[Devise 4,475]

When I first joined the league some seasons ago, there wasn't anything called TPA. Overall TPE as well as what the potential earning capabilities were generally what people favored in terms of who was going to be the better player. As the league evolved we eventually found ourselves in a situation (thanks to the great @Tagger) where we added TPA. It turns out with depreciation being a thing determining what TPE a player had spent into them at any given time was a more useful metric than just TPE.

 

Now many seasons later, I have to ask the question, how important is TPA really? Obviously we are in the midst of one of the more defensive era's in league history, and a season in which the top player in terms of points may not even hit 90. While this season in particular has seen some better goalie performances it's still on the whole also been lower. When you factor in how much offensive struggles everyone seems to have at different points, it really makes you wonder; is TPA the end all be all? Should a team be expected to perform better simply because a player has 100 or 200 TPA more than another comparable on their roster? It really does feel like player build and team chemistry are playing a much larger factor into what STHS decides is succesful. Plenty of teams are icing a player more minutes with less TPA maybe because they have a higher scoring, so they fit into a line combo better. This has also allowed more defensive specialist who also may be lower on the TPA totem pole to take up PK slots and the like, things that almost never happened in the old days. 

 

While TPA is still a super relevant piece of information, when it comes to drafting GM's are much more likely to pay attention to member loyalty and positional need over just TPA. This probably applies even more so for free agents and trades, as simply upgrading on TPA alone isn't the only value factor at play. Based on what I'm seeing the important of TPA is starting to become less about an overall higher number, and more about a likelyhood that said player has hit, or will hit the tiers expected of them given their season and earning potential.