Behold the impossible – 2900+ words of Ramblings in August, with a look at nhl.com content, notable unsigned RFAs, dasveedanya to Blum, age vs. production, and reasons not to reach for goalies….

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Greetings everyone – Rick Roos (of weekly Cage Match) here giving Dobber a breather, as not only did he attend a wedding over the past several days, but he’s barely a week removed from the nearly simultaneous site relaunch and release of the Fantasy Guide.

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Speaking of the Fantasy Guide, I’d be remiss if I didn’t emphasize that it remains the best resource for winning your league. And I don’t mean the best resource on this site; I mean the best out there, period. What brought me – and I’m guessing many of you – to this site in the first place was the Guide; and unlike many other publishers who’ve come and gone or rested on their laurels, Dobber continues to do whatever it takes to ensure the Guide remains invaluable year after year. You pretty much have two choices – buy it now, or kick yourself later.

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First things first – different ramblers have taken different approaches to covering the Patrick Kane situation; and truth be told, they’ve all handled it well in their own ways. To me, until real world actions are taken I think the best place to discuss this is in the Forums, so I’ll leave it at that.

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I realize that many don’t consider nhl.com much of a go to site for fantasy news; but it’s worth your while to follow their 30 in 30 series. Not to be confused with ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentaries, 30 in 30 is the NHL’s way of focusing on one team in each of the first 30 days of August, in reverse order of their finish in 2014-15. That means the coverage thus far has focused on non-playoff teams.

Is it “can’t miss” content? No. But I’d say you should go ahead and spend the maybe five minutes it takes to read/watch each day’s coverage, especially since from what I’ve seen thus far it often includes some frank comments from management and coaches, from which you can gain insight on who might be poised to land in (un)favorable fantasy positions for 2015-16.

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What nhl.com nearly always does well are video features, and here are a few that might’ve been overlooked over the past several months yet are arguably still worth watching to get a better idea of what happens behind the scenes when it comes to execs (and draftees) on draft/deadline day:

Jack Eichel mic’d up at the 2015 NHL Draft

Noah Hanifin mic’d up at the 2015 NHL Draft

Columbus Blue Jackets live at the 2015 NHL Draft talking deals and drafting

Nashville Predators all-access to David Poile at the 2015 NHL draft

What it was like behind the scenes with Buffalo on the 2015 trade deadline

The actual NHL trade call from the Robin Lehner and David Legwand to Buffalo 2015 deadline deal

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In today’s edition of when first round picks go wrong, Jonathan Blum (selected 23rd overall in 2007) has signed to play in the KHL. While certainly Blum wasn’t helped by being part of a defensemen-rich Predators organization for the early part of his career, the reality is he simply didn’t seize opportunities when they arose.

By the time he made it to the Wild, he was regarded as a low risk, depth rearguard who maybe was still young enough to find a way to prove himself via a fresh start. But alas, it was more of the same (two points, -4, 14 SOG in 19 total games) in Minnesota, and now he’s out of the NHL, most likely for good.

Since I’m standing in for Dobber, I’ll say the obligatory “you should’ve gone to Switzerland Jonathan!”

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Let’s hit the rewind button and talk a bit more about the Matt Cullen signing with Pittsburgh from last week. Yes – Cullen turns 39 this year and is more than five years removed from posting even 40 points in a season, so don’t think I’m going to try and sell you on him getting 50+ points in 2015-16. But from where I sit, an argument could be made in favor of him finding a way to tally 35-40+ points with Pittsburgh, especially if the team loses forwards to injury during the course of the season, which, unfortunately, is to be expected since the Penguins stand first in the NHL since the 2009-10 season in total games lost to injury among skaters.

Cullen is adept on the PP, as although he only scored 64 points in 139 games for Nashville, 13 of those points (i.e., 20%, which was a higher percentage than, among others, Rick Nash and Max Pacioretty) were on the PP, with him getting four PPP last season in only 30:40 of total PP time for the entire campaign, which is the same number of PPPs as James Neal had with more than seven times as much PP duty. And given that Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and/or Kris Letang will sometimes be deployed on the full 2:00 of a Pens PP, Cullen could fall into PPP if he manages to get a regular shift on the Pens’ PP2 whether due to his own merits or an all too familiar key Pens injury.

Let’s also not forget that current Pens GM Jim Rutherford is quite familiar with Cullen, having held that same post in Carolina while Cullen was with the team in the 2005 to 2010 time frame, during which Cullen produced at a 56 points per 82 games scoring pace.

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There was a Sports Illustrated piece which opined that Cullen signing for so little money and for only one year could set off a fire sale for the UFAs forwards still left on the market (singling out Brad Boyes and Curtis Glencross), to which my reaction was pretty much this.

I’m glad the author didn’t go so far as to say the fire sale will apply equally to d-men, as although the likes of Cody Franson and Christian Ehrhoff might indeed have to settle for somewhat less than they’d envisioned there’s little doubt both should still do plenty well for themselves once their agents have come to grips that it’s no longer July and things have shifted somewhat to a buyer’s market.

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As shown by the SI article, much of the focus at this point in the summer is on still unsigned UFAs, or, to some degree, on post mortems regarding players who inked deals before, during, or after arbitration. But I figure it’s worth taking a moment to note the most fantasy-relevant unsigned RFAs, namely those who could – at least conceivably – post 50+ points in 2015-16.

The good news for poolies is that with Jacob Silfverberg coming to terms with Anaheim, that list has arguably dwindled to just Jonathan Huberdeau (Florida), Brock Nelson (NYI) and Carl Hagelin (Anaheim). Here are my thoughts on each, with advanced warning that I’m no cap/contract expert.

Huberdeau – The lack of a deal thus far is probably a result of him and the team still deciding the number of years to cover, as the Panthers are likely eager to lock up Huberdeau for longer whereas he might be unwilling to forego prime earning years even if it’s in exchange for a bit more money now. When the dust settles, I wouldn’t be surprised to see something in the five years, $23M ballpark.

Nelson – He’s somewhat older than most players coming off an ELC (turning 24 in October), and I actually know more about him than I normally would since, spoiler alert, he’s one of the two players I’m profiling in this week’s Cage Match (any guesses as to his opponent?). The reality is Nelson is a natural center on a team with John Tavares, so the best he can realistically hope for isn’t even to be a 1B guy, let alone a true #1 pivot. And I’d assume the team is waving that in his face during negotiations, while Nelson’s camp is countering with the fact that he nevertheless was able to post nearly a point per game in the first third of the 2014-15 season. In the end, I think Nelson will settle for a shorter term and somewhat “prove yourself” money (maybe two years, $5.5M?), which will ensure he remains on this up-and-coming team while also allowing him to convince them he’s worthy of bigger money next time.

Hagelin –His 82 game scoring pace has decreased each season (48 as a rookie, then 41, 37, and 35), which is not great from a negotiation standpoint. But the Ducks wanted him despite knowing they’d have to open their pocketbooks this summer to sign him as an RFA. Although Hagelin is emerging from a $2.25 AAV deal that spanned the past two seasons, his role with Anaheim isn’t set in stone (top six, or top nine?), which means both sides probably will come to terms on a “let’s see what happens” two year deal in the vicinity of $3M per season.

What’s interesting is if we look at what unfolded in 2014, as of this date there were double the number of unsigned RFAs arguably in a comparable fantasy ballpark as these three (Silfverberg, Justin Schultz, Tyson Barrie, Nino Niederreiter, Jaden Schwartz, Ryan Johansen). And it was a similar story in 2013 (Marcus Johansson, Mikkel Boedker, Nazem Kadri, Cody Franson, Derek Stepan and Alex Pietrangelo). If I had to guess the reason for the lower number of still unsigned RFAs in 2015, I’d say it has to do with the somewhat worse UFA crop that was out there this summer.

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I find it interesting every offseason to examine the correlation between age and production in order to see where things are trending. It’s useful food for thought in non-keeper leagues when it comes to deciding (e.g., on draft day or for waiver wire grabs during the season) between two players who otherwise look comparable on paper but are different in age. And for keepers, it provides another piece of data relating to when to consider selling high or buying low on a player. Here’s how things stand over the past three full seasons.

Forwards who posted 50+ points:

Defensemen who posted 25+ points:

Before looking at age-related observations, it’s worth noting that forward scoring does indeed look to be down, with 20% fewer 50+ point scorers in 2014-15 compared to a mere three seasons ago. What that underscores, among other things, is in multi-cat leagues where perhaps as few as 75+ forwards are owned, ones who might only score 35-40 points but contribute in key categories (Shots, Hits, PIM, and/or Blocked Shots) are valuable, so make sure you’re familiar with them.

On the other hand, the total number of 25+ point defensemen in each of the three seasons was within 10% of the total number from the others. In other words, pretty flat.

As for the age issue, some patterns do appear to be present. First and foremost, the number of forwards aged 18-30 (and even 35+) who posted 50+ points has been remarkably consistent year to year. But a fairly seismic shift in scoring patterns for players aged 31-34 occurred between the pre- and post-lockout eras, with last season not even seeing 45% as many players aged 31-34 scoring 50+ as compared to 2011-12.

Beyond that, we can see it’s apparently unwise to bank on good production from teenaged NHLers, as a total of only three forwards and five defensemen met the scoring criteria in these three seasons combined. On the other end of the age spectrum, while each year a generally consistent – yet fairly select – number of older forwards have been able to remain productive past 3age 5, fewer defensemen age 35 or older have been achieving the 25+ point milestone with each passing season.

Also, if you’re in a non-keeper and choosing between drafting two players who seem otherwise equal but where one falls within the 20-23 age group and the other within the 28-30 group, it might be better to opt for the latter, as that age group had more 50+ point guys than its younger counterpart in every one of these three seasons for forwards and in both of the last two seasons for defensemen.

One last point – since I just examined 50+ points, this data doesn’t factor in the ages of players who were posting more elite production. In other words, this list doesn’t break down the age groups into those who posted 60+, 70+, or 80+ points. That certainly could tilt the scales, but would entail a deeper dive than I’d be able to do (and, likely, that you’d want to read) as part of a morning Ramblings. But hopefully what I did cover here gave you some helpful perspective.

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For those who don’t know, I’m exclusively a fantasy hockey player. I’ve never even done a single other league in any sport. I’ve also never had coffee in my life (which might be a mistake – see #1 on this list). But I digress…..

Last week I noticed an article about something apparently known as the zero RB strategy for fantasy football; and when I scanned the article, I was reminded of the issue of goalie drafting strategies in fantasy hockey, and, in particular, of GMs drafting goalies too early.

Look – we all know goalies are a limited resource, which in turn puts them under sharper draft focus by poolies. That can lead to a tendency to focus on certain favorites, which can prompt a GM – despite his/her better judgment – to rush into drafting that goalie at the expense of the “best player available.”

To combat this, most “experts” – myself included, to the extent I qualify – advocate the idea of thinking of goalies in terms of tiers. In other words, rather than ranking goalies in a top to bottom fixed order like you might do with skaters, you should think of them objectively in tiered groups based on league settings (such as how many goalies will be owned, whether your league favors accumulated stats – wins and saves – or other stats like GAA and SV%), where your goal is to own at least netminder (but not any one specific netminder) from each tier, or, if you’re lucky enough, more than one from the top tier(s).

According to most, the only “rule” is not to draft a goalie from a lower tier until all the goalies from the immediately higher tier already have been drafted. And although I agree with that, I also advocate slightly more extreme advice on top of it – never be the first GM to draft a goalie from a specific tier. The only exceptions that immediately come to mind would be in leagues where goalie stats are weighted disproportionately high (maybe 40% or more) or where somehow an inordinate number of goalies (like 50+) end up being rostered in the league.

I’m guessing some of you read that advice and wondered “can’t it leave you at risk of being without a goalie from a tier?” The answer is possibly yes in non-auction leagues, although only in an extreme case. But guess what – if it happens, that means one or more teams are likely imbalanced in a way that favors goalies, while you, on the other hand, should’ve fared better than average with respect to skaters. And chances are that can be rectified later via trade.

And while some could argue that fantasy teams who have an excess of goalies are in a better trading position than those who aren’t, the reality is both teams are often in a spot where if they do nothing they won’t win, in which case a deal will be there to make. Plus, if you’re trading a great skater for a great goalie, normally it’ll be pretty easy for you to then grab a waiver wire skater who’ll give you probably 60-70%+ of what your traded skater produced, whereas the team that traded the goalie might have a lot slimmer pickings to choose from when replacing its departed netminder.

And that raises another point. Although goalies are indeed a more limited commodity, every year there are a handful of “come from nowhere” netminders who get hot during the early, middle, or latter part of the season. And guess who can be first in line to grab those guys? The team who didn’t land a goalie in one of the tiers, as in that case it’s a lot easier to convince yourself to grab the flavor of the moment. Using last year as an example, a team could’ve done quite well for itself by using early season Michael Hutchinson, then switching to Devan Dubnyk, Andrew Hammond, or Eddie Lack in the second half of the campaign.

Long story short, in most drafts this won’t be an issue, as chances are another team will break the seal on drafting a goalie from each previously untouched tier before you even get a chance (or would be tempted) to do so. But I think it’s still good specific advice, not to mention a good general reminder to draft objectively, making sure to avoid falling victim to reflexive panic.

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That wraps things up for today. Thanks for reading, and have a great week!