First things first – I released the Fantasy Prospects Report yesterday afternoon at around 2:30pm ET. My eighth one. My best one. Pick it up here.

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Morning update – fixed a couple things below, just minor points but interesting.

For those of you who are not following the AHL’s Calder Cup, Texas is up on Toronto 3-2 and St.John’s is up on Wilkes-Barre 3-2. At this point it looks like the farm teams for Winnipeg and Dallas will square off in the Final, barring a comeback.

Of interest, Toronto’s Jerry D’Amigo has 14 points in 12 games – a potential third liner who is in the zone, but it bodes well for his making the team next year.

Curtis McKenzie – after his huge season (65 points) that put him on so many fantasy radars, his playoff numbers aren’t the greatest. Just eight points in 14 games for the Dallas farmhand.

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Next things next – the game. The battle of the juggernauts. The best Game 7 team that I’ve ever seen, up against the defending Stanley Cup Champions who are something like 22-4 in the last three years in Games 5, 6, and 7. I mean…how do you pick that?

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All I had the courage to do in the forum, when predictions were asked for, was to say that Chicago would be up 3-1 in the third, Los Angeles would tie it and the game would be 3-3 with five minutes left. Reasonably close – the Kings did come back from 2-0 and 4-3 and it was a tie game with five minutes left. Okay, I’m reaching.

Justin Williams, Mr. Game 7, with another two points including an assist in overtime. For some reason, I struggled to dig up his point total in Game 7s, but I believe it’s something like 17 points in eight Game 7s. Anyone know? Just ridiculous, whatever it is. Update: thanks to CC in the comments below – Williams has 7 goals, 7 assists in 7 Game 7s. !!!!

Impressed the most: Jeff Carter in the postseason, Dustin Brown in the series. I also liked how Tyler Toffoli performed. Just another element of attack. And sticking Carter on his line was genius.

As for Brown – he had eight shots on goal last night and he’s riding a four game points streak. You know the last time he went four straight with a point? March of 2013. Can we say with confidence that he’ll be better than a 30-point guy next year? Uh, still going with no. This year scarred me. But I’ll keep him in my keeper league because he’s winning me the playoff trophy.

Alec Martinez has 24 points in his last 43 regular season and playoff games. And he made a fantastic play breaking up a three on one when he hit the ice. For some reason, I feel a little more confident in Martinez getting 40 points next season than I did about Jake Muzzin (who finished last year hot) doing it this season.

Here is the Martinez OT winner in case you want to see it again:

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Los Angeles versus NY Rangers. Any big names you know, off the top of your head, who played for each of those teams? And is now retired? With over 2500 career points?

I wonder who he’s rooting for.

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I’m so tempted to say Kings in four. There were five teams in the West who would spank any team in the East other than maybe Boston. The East just doesn’t measure up, Rangers included. But I’ll say Kings in six because a) Lundqvist will steal one and b) the Kings just like to make it hard on themselves.

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The deadline to sign your 2012 draft picks came and went Saturday, and here are the prospects who go back into the draft:

Mike Winther (Dallas did not sign)

Brady Vail (Montreal did not sign)

Coda Gordon (Calgary did not sign)

Gianluca Curcuruto (Columbus did not sign)

Tomas Hyka (Los Angeles did not sign)

Christoph Bertschy (Minnesota did not sign) – Update: Mike Russo reports that Bertschy is considered ‘defected’ and therefore his rights are retained beyond the two years.

Jarrod Maidens (Ottawa did not sign)

Lukas Sutter (Winnipeg did not sign)

Christophe Lalancette (San Jose did not sign)

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And now back to the Prospects Report. There is nothing I love more than release days. June 1 for the Prospects Report. August 1 for the Fantasy Guide. I love the satisfaction of getting it done, but also this is weeks of work that gets completed – and the final 48 hours or so are generally sleep deprived and little in the way of family/social time. So getting through that crunch time adds to the satisfaction. So I’m on top of the world when it gets released. A great bunch of writer/scouts put their heads together to help me out, making for a more thorough product.

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A proper mock draft cannot be done until the final draft order is set, meaning that the Stanley Cup must be won. So 48 hours after the Cup is won, the FPR will be updated and you can re-download it. That update will have:
1. The mock draft, by Brendan Ross

2. Ross’s Top 50 chart (I didn’t get it in on time for this release)

3. About 10 more profiles, based on your requests that I see in the forum over the next couple of weeks.

4. You’ll notice that I started linking each player to their profile in DobberProspects. I ran out of time to finish that, but I will have that done for the update. I thought it would make your research even easier.

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Those who follow Dobber Sports on Facebook know that there are three prospects who really caught my eye and surged up the chart of my fantasy-hockey opinion…thanks to the very research and analysis put into the FPR.

1. Tristan Jarry – he had a rough first eight or 10 games of the season for the Edmonton Oil Kings, but then he went on a crazy run – 63-15-4 – regular season, playoffs and Memorial Cup. I know that much of that is team driven. But he’s a winner, he was drafted high, and the Golden Boy in Pittsburgh’s net has an expiring contract. I just really like the situation here for Jarry. Nothing against Matt Murray, who I also see potential in. But the ducks are lining up in a row for Jarry.

2. Chris Tierney – this one follows my San Jose theory. I’ve been doing this for a long time, and really focusing on prospects for a decade or more. And the Sharks have had a terrible prospect pipeline for nine years. But every time I look at their list of forward prospects, I see five or six forwards who are real long long long long shots…and then I see one who I think: maybe. This “one” is a good prospect and would be a good prospect in most organizations with a reasonable chance of perhaps becoming an NHLer. But with San Jose, they make it work. The player is set up to succeed and he always seems to thrive, to various degrees. Over the years:

Devin Setoguchi, Joe Pavelski, Ryane Clowe, Steve Bernier, Logan Couture, Jamie McGinn…it seems like every year they take that one gem from their pile of terrible, and either short term (Bernier, McGinn) or long term, the player becomes a fantasy asset. That. Is why I like Tierney so much more than the usual junior hockey 40-goal scorer on a stacked team. His being team captain (for London) speaks to his character, mindset and attitude

3. Anthony Duclair – The Rangers went fairly high on him in the third round last year but he exploded for 50 goals. Granted, it was the QMJHL, but that was still third behind the much-balleyhooed Anthony Mantha and an undrafted overager. So that got my interest. But what sold me is that he was a 17-year-old when he was drafted. He was a couple of weeks away from being a 2014 draftee! Two months from now, he’ll still be 18! If he was born a couple of weeks later, I’d have to believe that he’d be a Top 5 ranked prospect for the draft this year. Bennett, Reinhart, Draisaitl…Duclair? He’s going to lead the QMJHL in scoring in 2014-15 if he’s healthy. Take it to the bank.

All this stuff, and another 500 or so prospects, can be found in the Prospects Report. If you’re in a keeper league, you won’t win without this report – because your opponents have it.

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I assure you that I’m working on the keeper league rankings today and you can expect to see them later.

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Here are the Top 10 players of Montreal – Rangers series:

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The Kings’ Dustin Brown does not touch the Clarence Campbell Bowl: