On not getting overexcited about the preseason, tempering your John Gibson expectations, going all-in on Neal/Ribeiro and more…

*

Preseason games have started, which is exciting news but one of the best things you could do right now is just ignore these games. Beyond the injuries, there just isn't much to glean from pre-season hockey. The wide gap in skill level between some of the competitors is huge and the sample sizes are far too small. Pay too much attention and you might get sucked in. You're better off sticking with your preconceived notions going into your fantasy draft than reacting to a couple of weeks' worth of action.

I'll give a similar reminder a couple of weeks into the regular season. Sure, those games will mean more but can still lead to heavy overreactions due to small sample sizes.

If you can't help but dive into the pre-season action head long, I'll warn you to tread lightly before coming to any conclusions.

*

I was on TSN Winnipeg's Illegal Curve Hockey Show this past weekend talking fantasy defensemen. You can check out that podcast here. Also featured included our old friend Justin Goldman from The Goalie Guild (talking goalies of course) and NHL.com's Pete Jensen talking forwards. Definitely worth a listen.

*

James Neal and Mike Ribeiro are excited to be playing together once again.

It’s definitely a familiar face and a guy that you know his tendencies and you know what he does and how he plays,” Neal said. “That helps a lot. We’ve had a good chance to get together in the skates and I think we’ll be fine come camp.

I'm excited as well. I think this could be the first year in a long time that we see Predators forwards be hot commodities in fantasy pools. Shea Weber led this team in scoring each of the past two seasons and hasn't had a player score 60 or more in a season since JP Dumont (remember him?) in 2008-09. I think that the Predators have two candidates to do just that in Neal and Ribeiro.

I think that a power play with those two along with Weber and Roman Josi can be a really lethal unit, which will help Neal retain some of his value coming from the Penguins and help Ribeiro bounce back.

*

There were some concerns that Bobby Ryan was concussed over the weekend but he's yet to experience any symptoms. So consider a bullet dodged there.

Ryan should have a bounce back season after being derailed by a hernia. I'm not sure that means he'll get back to the 60-point level. He certainly has the talent but I'm skeptical that the Senators have enough talent as a team to help elevate him to that level. I'm looking for 55 points myself, which might be splitting hairs but that's the projection I'm going with.

*