Rambling about Champions: both fantasy and reality. And – of course – much more…

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Congrats to the Pittsburgh Penguins, your 2016 Stanley Cup winners!

It’s not often I get the Ramblings after a Cup win. And in so doing, I also get our last piece of hockey results for three months…

Congrats to Phil and the rest of the #Penguins ! pic.twitter.com/fVEMv5ZOK4
— Dobber (@DobberHockey) June 13, 2016

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As you know, Sidney Crosby won the Conn Smythe Trophy but by no means was that a slam dunk. This was one year where it truly was a team win. For the last two weeks most hockey fans figured it could go to Crosby, Phil Kessel or even Matt Murray – and after Game 6 I’d probably add Kris Letang to the list. And frankly I would have given serious consideration to Martin Jones, had I a vote. Jones won me over with his final round performance. As for Murray, he got a little shaky in the final round and wasn’t superb in Round 3 either – he just gets consideration because he powered the team past the Capitals. And that's a feat that shouldn't be undervalued.

I was hard on the Penguins for their hiring of Jim Rutherford. Who got the last laugh? I softened considerably, however, as he made his moves. I liked his acquisition of Bonino and Kessel, but I didn’t like how long he stuck with his coach. I liked his acquisition of Trevor Daley, but was hard on him for his acquisition of Carl Hagelin. The Kessel move is what won me (and many others) over. In the end though, he made all the right moves. Amazing when you consider how horrible the Penguins were back in late November. Remember?

So who was handed the Cup first? My guess was Pascal Dupuis. But no, Sid passed the Cup to Daley (then Daley to Dupuis).

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Look at this. Here were the NHL standings at Christmas:

Rank	December 25 2015	GP	W	L	OT	GF	GA	P
1	Dallas Stars	35	26	7	2	124	88	54
2	Washington Capitals	33	25	6	2	105	71	52
3	St. Louis Blues	36	21	11	4	92	85	46
4	Boston Bruins	33	19	10	4	104	85	42
5	Minnesota Wild	33	18	9	6	91	80	42
6	Los Angeles Kings	33	20	11	2	84	76	42
7	New York Islanders	35	19	11	5	96	82	43
8	New York Rangers	36	20	12	4	104	93	44
9	Chicago Blackhawks	36	20	12	4	96	87	44
10	Montreal Canadiens	36	20	13	3	105	89	43
11	Florida Panthers	35	19	12	4	95	81	42
12	Detroit Red Wings	34	17	10	7	89	89	41
13	Nashville Predators	34	17	11	6	90	86	40
14	Ottawa Senators	35	17	12	6	105	104	40
15	New Jersey Devils	35	17	13	5	83	87	39
16	Philadelphia Flyers	34	15	12	7	74	92	37 📢 advertisement:
17	Tampa Bay Lightning	35	17	15	3	87	82	37
18	San Jose Sharks	34	17	15	2	93	94	36
19	Pittsburgh Penguins	33	16	14	3	76	84	35
20	Arizona Coyotes	33	16	15	2	90	104	34
21	Colorado Avalanche	35	17	17	1	99	97	35
22	Calgary Flames	34	16	16	2	91	113	34
23	Vancouver Canucks	36	13	14	9	91	103	35
24	Toronto Maple Leafs	33	12	14	7	86	93	31
25	Buffalo Sabres	34	14	16	4	79	89	32
26	Winnipeg Jets	34	15	17	2	92	104	32
27	Edmonton Oilers	35	15	18	2	91	106	32
28	Carolina Hurricanes	34	13	16	5	80	101	31
29	Anaheim Ducks	33	12	15	6	62	85	30
30	Columbus Blue Jackets	36	13	20	3	88	112	29

If your team is 29^th at Christmas, they can still make the playoffs.

If your team is 19^th at Christmas, they can win the Stanley Cup.

If your team is 18^th at Christmas, they can go to the Cup Final. Optimism!

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Congratulations to Dobbernomics team: Gyrfalcons! Your 887.65 points beat out the next team by 22 points (I’m assuming that second place didn’t suddenly gain those 22 points last night, as the standings are not final). Gyrfalcons also managed to boost the team value up to the high $98.37 (we start at $50).

I finished 28th in points and 38^th in value (738.17 and $60.42). I say I “finished”, but the reality is that the final points aren’t in until after the Ramblings are posted, so I may have gone up one spot, or down two spots.

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In my league I ended up second, as I figured I would. In the end, I needed Malkin and Hornqvist to get three more points than Letang/Burns/Pavelski/Thornton. And my guys actually fell one point further back, so I lost by four. Came down to that though. How many “Malkin to Hornqvist – great save!” did I see the last two games? They weren’t even linemates, yet they crossed paths a lot and I figure I heard those words about three times…

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Lake Eric Monsters swept the Hershey Bears to win the AHL’s Calder Cup. Of note, three of Columbus’ prospects impressed: Oliver Bjorkstrand, Zach Werenski, and Lukas Sedlak. Sedlak gets noticed because he had 16 points in 17 games clicking on a line with Bjorkstrand. Sedlak’s regular season high in three years in the AHL is 18 points (in 54 games). He practically did that in one-third of the time. Dubious – extremely dubious – fantasy upside, but if it turns out that he and Bjorkstrand go hand in hand at the next level as linemates, then perhaps something will come of it. Because it’s Bjorkstrand who is looking like a legitimate future star.

During his 12 NHL games last season, Bjorkstrand tallied eight points and impressed John Tortorella. To me, the latter is every bit as important as the playoff performance (which by the way won him the Calder Cup MVP). Get into Torts’ good books like that and you’re golden. I’m confident that he’ll make the Blue Jackets in the fall and spend just as much time in the top six as he will on the third line. Here was the OT winner with just under two seconds left in the period:

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The other story in the AHL was covered by Ian yesterday regarding the Anton Forsberg domination and the Joonas Korpisalo collapse. Korpisalo had the fantasy value wrapped up so tight that Forsberg shoved aside and stuck in my fantasy hockey drawer alongside Dustin Tokarski and Steve Penney, never to be seen again. But the only thing that could have happened to change all that – actually happened. And now I have no idea how this will go. Forsberg really made a huge impression on the franchise and there can only be one backup goalie. And a goalie who backs up Sergei Bobrovsky may as well be the starter (given Bob’s Band-Aid Boyness). Before I pick ‘my’ winner in this little battle, I would like to let things settle down. I’ll keep my ear to the ground over the next two months and try to get a feel for how the organization feels as camp approaches. Right now the ‘passion’ and the ‘last guy to do something’ are affecting my judgment.

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Well there you go – Connor Carrick, a defenseman for the Toronto Marlies/Maple Leafs, wins the AHL playoff scoring crown with 18 points in 15 games. Didn’t even play the final round.

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The Fantasy Prospects Report will be re-released on Tuesday. I’ve already added four more profiles and plan for about six more. Aynsley Scott has 10 more ‘draftee’ profiles in there, as well as the Mock Draft and a few error fixes.

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Scott Hartnell has reportedly waived his no-trade clause. Of course he did. Why would he want to stay? The Jackets could make a killing from trading him, even though he’s 34 years old. And they can simply replace him with the NHL-ready Kerby Rychel. If Hartnell goes to a good team and gets a bit of buzz in the fantasy world, I’ll classify him as a ‘sell’. Meanwhile Rychel, who is one of the add-on profiles in the aforementioned Prospects Report, is a candidate for 35 points/80 PIM this season. Josh Anderson is another prospect on the cusp who could also play a similar game – though Anderson is more for PIM and a little less for points potential.

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For what it’s worth, Pave Datsyuk’s journey home to Russia to finish off his hockey career is not yet official. GM Ken Holland, in what can only be interpreted as a Hail Mary pass, will meet with Datsyuk about his future. That meeting was put on hold until after Gordie Howe’s funeral. I think Datsyuk is gone, but we’ll see what magic Holland has left.

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And finally, the newsletter. We did some cleanup and adjustments to it last week and I hope you like it better now. Those of you who use Hotmail may not get to receive it because I think Hotmail blocks my site – and rather than send it to your junkmail they just take it upon themselves to ‘disappear’ it altogether. Anyway, you can subscribe or unsubscribe to the weekly newsletter easily via the ‘downloads’ link above or click here. Any suggestions on how to improve, let me know.

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The win…

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The Smythe…

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Stanley…

3 Comments

Jeremy Campbell 2016-06-13 at 08:58Log in to Reply

Congrats to the Pens!!! Maybe Mario can actually sell the team for $750M now, #SellHigh!
number54 2016-06-13 at 15:05Log in to Reply

Also noteworthy of Bjorkstrand — he had 6 GWGs in the Monsters’ postseason, tying the all-time record. And he did that in 17 games, so that’s him winning 1/3rd of his team’s games for them, and more than half of his goals when the game was on the line. The kid is clutch, if you buy that kind of thing.

The other guy who should have impressed more was Vrana. He wasn’t about to go quietly, as he just couldn’t beat Forsberg on a number of grade-A chances in that game. But generally, his 8 goals, 14 points in 21 games weren’t jumping off the page at me — especially when you consider that this is a p/g player from the AHL regular season we’re looking at.
Ryan Taylor 2016-06-14 at 13:39Log in to Reply

Dobbernomics I finished 30th in points and 6th in value. Clearly I’m better at one aspect than the other

UPCOMING GAMES

Nov 05 - 19:11	CAR	vs	PHI
Nov 05 - 19:11	MTL	vs	CGY
Nov 05 - 19:11	BUF	vs	OTT
Nov 05 - 19:11	TOR	vs	BOS
Nov 05 - 19:11	NYI	vs	PIT
Nov 05 - 20:11	MIN	vs	L.A
Nov 05 - 20:11	STL	vs	T.B
Nov 05 - 20:11	WPG	vs	UTA
Nov 05 - 21:11	COL	vs	SEA
Nov 05 - 22:11	ANA	vs	VAN
Nov 05 - 22:11	S.J	vs	CBJ