There wasn't a lot for significant signings made over the last few days but there were a handful that are worth noting for those in deeper types of fantasy leagues. Let's go through some of those signings to see what we can glean from them. We will still be using CapFriendly for their cap information as well as data from Natural Stat Trick.

Jack Roslovic

Teuvo Teravainen made his way back to Chicago and it seemed like the Carolina Hurricanes were in need of replacing his playmaking, even if his play(making) had fallen off over the last couple of seasons. In that context, it makes sense to bring in Roslovic, who finished last season with 31 points in 59 games between Columbus and the New York Rangers.

Roslovic is heading into his age-28 season, so we have a pretty good idea of who he is by now. Even if he's played centre a fair bit in his career, he has had four straight seasons with a 45% faceoff rate or lower. Faceoff percentage can sometimes be misleading as to the effectiveness of a centre, but few teams will consistently give faceoffs to a centre with a rate that low, especially a team with Sebastian Aho and Jordan Staal who have three-year FO% averages of 52.6% and 57%, respectively. It makes a lot more sense for Roslovic to come in as a winger, then.

As for Roslovic, it is his playmaking where he thrives: over the last three seasons, Roslovic's 60-minute 5-on-5 assist rate is tied with Jack Hughes for an 84^th percentile mark across the league's forwards (min. 1750 minutes). It is higher than names like Dylan Larkin, Evgeni Malkin, and William Nylander. HockeyViz has Roslovic with above-average finishing and playmaking skills:

The defensive play has fallen off in recent seasons for Roslovic, but he's going to one of the top defensive teams in the league. He doesn't need to help them in their own zone; he needs to help them create goals, and he can do that.

As for the likely role, this is much more of an open question. Seth Jarvis is almost assuredly locked into the top-line role and there still hasn't been a deal made for Martin Necas. Roslovic will presumably be the second-line right winger once (if?) that trade happens, but there are still bridges to cross.

There will be some secondary power play time for Roslovic but he'll also likely be in the 15- to 16-minute range overall. Perhaps he can help get Jesperi Kotkaniemi's offence going, which might be the biggest impact he'll have, fantasy-wise. A 20-goal, 50-point season would be a great year from Roslovic, but that should be viewed as a realistic ceiling and not his probable output.  

Eeli Tolvanen

They are different players, but it's not hard to see Tolvanen and Roslovic managing similar offensive outputs in 2024-25 – somewhere around the 15- to 20-goal marks with 40-or-so points. Of course, the big difference is that Tolvanen managed over 200 hits last season and has averaged well over two hits per game across the last three seasons. That is what makes him perennially valuable in banger fantasy hockey formats.

It will be very interesting to see how Seattle's offence will change under new head coach Dan Bylsma. Since their inception, two things that really limited the fantasy upside of some of the Kraken's key forwards – outside of not having any bona fide superstars – was their usage. In 2023-24, Alex Wennberg was the only forward to average over 18 minutes a game, just as he was the only to do so in 2022-23. Players can have solid fantasy value skating 17-18 minutes a night, but to really ascend to the next level, they need elite top-line forwards (which they don't) or heavy amounts of ice time (which is TBD).

The second issue was the power play. They often split across two units as they did not have a single forward reach at least 55% of the team's power play time in either of the last two seasons, per Frozen Tools. This is a team that doesn't draw a lot of penalties to begin with, and that kind of usage puts an upper limit of about 2:45 per game in PPTOI on the table. There were over 90 forwards across the league to skate more than that on a per-game basis in 2023-24.

So, can Tolvanen get more usage under Bylsma? It will depend on how the new coach views the winger. Chandler Stephenson was signed, Tye Kartye seems to be a full-time player now, and there are still a bevy of veterans like Andre Burakovsky, Jaden Schwartz, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Jared McCann, and Jordan Eberle. Unless Tolvanen takes a big step forward, even if the team uses the top of its lineup more than in recent years, it seems unlikely it'll be Tolvanen.

Egor Zamula

In all honesty, this is one of the more interesting defencemen in fantasy to me, at least from a depth perspective. In 2023-24, Zamula finished second behind Cam York in share of the team's power play time, but he finished with more power play points (9) in 101:07 in PPTOI than York and Jamie Drysdale had combined (8) in over 230 minutes of PPTOI. The Flyers also scored more often with Zamula on the ice at 5-on-4 than each of York and Travis Sanheim. There is a non-zero chance that Zamula is the team's best option on defence for the power play.

Philadelphia had an awful power play in 2023-24 and they didn't do much to change the team in the offseason save for the signing of Matvei Michkov. This is a player with the talent to legitimately help drive the top power play unit to much more success, like what Connor Bedard in Chicago. Consider that Chicago scored 7.8 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 with Bedard and Philipp Kurashev on the ice at 5-on-4, while they scored 2.2 when Kurashev was on the ice without Bedard, and we have an idea of what Michkov could do if he has a similar impact.

The over-arching issue, of course, is head coach John Tortorella. This is not a debate about his effectiveness as a coach, but more a statement that he will not sit idly by if the team goes two or three games in a row looking poor on the power play. Zamula could very well be on the top PP unit for Game 1 of the regular season and be off the top power play a week later. If things roll along swimmingly, he can hold onto the role, but it's a long season and this is not a Tampa Bay/Colorado-type of man advantage. There are a bunch of different parts that can be used, but if I were to put money on which of their defencemen will end up with the most power play points by the end of the 2024-25 campaign, it's Zamula.

Henri Jokiharju, Ryan McLeod, and Buffalo

Lastly, we have to talk about what's going on in Buffalo. The team bought out Jeff Skinner, traded Matt Savoie for Ryan McLeod, and still has $13.7-million in cap space with Peyton Krebs, Beck Malenstyn, and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to sign. Using Evolving Hockey's contract projections, those three signing to their expected contracts would leave Buffalo with about $4.5-million in cap space left. If they do nothing else after that, they would have had room to keep Skinner if they don't sign Jason Zucker, but I digress.

Buffalo bringing in guys like McLeod, Sam Lafferty, Nicolas Aube-Kubel, and Malenstyn indicates that this team wants to be harder to play against, whatever that means. It is a curious shift as they bring in Lindy Ruff because despite Ruff's reputation in some circles, he is a coach that wants his teams to play fast, counter-attacking hockey. Whether the team has the players to do that on the roster, especially in the bottom-6, is a fair question. Either way, this does keep a lot of their prospects stuck in Rochester for now. Injuries do happen, but I also wonder if there's not another trade waiting to be made (the aforementioned Necas, perhaps?).

Things are definitely getting interesting in Buffalo, if not necessarily for the right reasons. I have often said that 2023-24 might be viewed as a step back for the team but younger players like JJ Peterka, Owen Power, and Luukkonen all took big steps forward. The young guys are the real core of this team, and the roster will only go as far as they will take them. Ruff being brought in should be good news for Peterka, specifically, who will likely be one of my top targets for a huge breakout effort in 2024-25.

Artyom Levshunov

A few of the top 2024 picks have signed their entry-level deals, and Levshunov is one of them. I won't go long here because I don't think that he has much fantasy relevance for 2024-25, but it's worth noting that Tyler Bertuzzi, Seth Jones, and Alex Vlasic are the only players the team has signed for 2027-28 or beyond. That season would be the first year of RFA status for Levshunov, should he get enough NHL games in during the 2024-25 season. In other words, there really isn't much for cap implications that would prevent the team from giving Levshunov a real run in the NHL this coming campaign, though he'll have to prove himself, of course, before that happens.

Might we see the same in Anaheim with guys like Beckett Sennecke and Stian Solberg? They only have Troy Terry with a commitment in the 2027-28 season. I suppose we'll find out soon enough.