Rambling Fleury vs. Murray, Domi vs. Reinhart, and plenty of tidbits from around the NHL …

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Back from camping at Algonquin Park, the last of my three little mini-vacations. That’s all I get for 2016, but I’m eyeballing the spring of 2017 for a real vacation. Anyway, I took the wife and kids to Algonquin for the first time, just for a couple of days as kind of a test. They really enjoyed it so I’ll add a couple of days next year. Next week the kids go back to school and I’ll be back in my fantasy-hockey zone, gearing up for another great season.

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Anaheim signed their top draft pick from the summer, Max Jones, to a three-year ELC. In the Fantasy Prospects Report we had compared him to a Dustin Brown-type. Great for multi-category leagues and potentially a 55-point player. But as you’ve seen over and over again with Anaheim – he won’t be in the NHL as a teenager or 20-year-old. So zero points for the next three seasons.

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Here’s a very in-depth update on how Marc Savard is doing (i.e. life after hockey). As we all know, his concussion issues have been quite severe. But he’s coping and is doing well to continue living his life the best he can.

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Here is an interesting piece over at TSN in which Donald Fehr gives his take on what is likely needed in order to avoid a lockout next time (hint: there will be a lockout).

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Add Robin Lehner’s name to the growing list of players who are pulling out of the World Cup. Jhonas Enroth replaces him. I update all of these changes in my Fantasy Guide, so you’ll find each team’s list of players participating. Generally speaking, I think being in this tournament helps a player hit the ground running when the NHL season starts. They hit the ground running. But for players in their mid-30s or late-30s I think tournament participation will act as a drag on their production.

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I really like this scouting report on Oliver Bjorkstrand by beatwriter Aaron Portzline. Well worth the read and definitely a must-own prospect in keeper leagues. Our own scouting report on him can be found here.

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Did we have the Bouwmeester-over-Subban-to-replace-Keith discussion here yet? I’ve been away. At this point, I’m just numb to the decisions made by Team Canada. They’ll win, or if they don’t win it won’t be because of one player decision but likely just luck mixed with facing a hot team. So life’s too short to dwell on it. Bouwmeester shoots left and Keith shoots left. If Team Canada wants to over-emphasize such things, good for them.

But Mark Giordano shoots left. I’ll just leave that right here.

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No, I’m sorry. I can’t. Giordano or Bouwmeester? I didn’t have the opportunity to ask 30 general managers which player they would rather have on their team at the same salary. But if I did, here is what the result would be: 30 out 30 GM’s would prefer Giordano. So color me confused…

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Those of you who had Alex Ovechkin in their getting-married pool cashed in big on the weekend. The big guy married his girlfriend Nastya Shubskaya.

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Will Jake Virtanen start the season in the AHL? Canucks Army explores the answer to that question here. For what it’s worth, I have him as a midseason call-up in the Fantasy Guide, good for half a season of NHL games.

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Follow me on Twitter. Besides having a link to articles that get posted (three per day, usually), I jump in with some interesting trends I pick up while writing an article (or the Guide). But I’ll also try to answer your questions (if I’m around, I’ll get to all of them, if I’m out – then I’ll probably miss most of them. Not my fault!). I had a couple of good questions yesterday on there and I thought I’d explore them here. So here goes…

Marc-Andre Fleury vs. Matt Murray – Murray is obviously the long-term answer here. And Fleury is a possible trade target in-season and almost certainly by next summer (or they’ll lose him to expansion). But for this year, unless and until things change, Fleury will get at least 50 starts and Murray will see something in the mid-30s for games.

Max Domi vs. Sam Reinhart – Domi for me. I think he’s a better player with higher upside and he’s the go-to guy for the Coyotes. Reinhart is a quality prospect, but is going to be the third or fourth player on the Sabres when it comes to putting up points. I like Domi for both the short and the long term.

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It’s funny that shortly after I question why the Rangers would sign Jimmy Vesey (well…’question’ is a strong word for signing a free talent, but you know what I mean) when they are quite deep on the wing…they go and sign Brandon Pirri. Well, I guess I just know nothing. Throw logic out the window, folks, because NHL teams so rarely make sense. Put the Rangers down for signing Alex Tanguay, Tomas Fleischmann and Jiri Tlusty. Because they don’t need those players at all, which seems to mean that they’ll sign them. The Ducks don’t need any defensemen so I guess that means they’ll sign Kris Russell and Kyle Quincey. There’s a logjam in net for the Jets, so I guess that’s where Joni Ortio and Karri Ramo will sign…

At this point it looks as though the Rangers intend to bury Tanner Glass (and most of his contract) in the minors, as well as keep Nicklas Jensen and Josh Jooris in the minors as depth re-calls. It also means that Nate Gerbe, Michael Grabner and Pavel Buchnevich will battle it out for two spots. On one hand, it’s easy to say that Buchnevich will be the odd man out. And actually, it really does look as though he is. But I believe he’s coming to North America with some expectations. That if he’s not guaranteed an NHL spot, that he’ll at least get several long looks with the big club. And it’s also worth noting that Grabner is a player who tends to get scratched by his teams (mainly the Islanders) and that Gerbe is making the NHL minimum (i.e. easy to bury).

Regardless, Pirri strikes me as pretty useless on the third or fourth line. If he’s not scoring goals, then just have him in the stands selling popcorn. And if the Rangers weren’t planning on using him, then they would have signed him to a two-way deal or a cheap contract like Gerbe’s. But $1.1 million tells me they’ll give him some time in the top six. Rick Nash, Mats Zuccarello, Derek Stepan, Mika Zibanejad are the four guarantees in that top six. Chris Kreider and J.T. Miller should be the other two. They are the next best two. Could Vesey, Pirri and Kevin Hayes simply form a third scoring line?

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If you’re interested in DobberHockey swag, I changed back to my former suppliers. I just found them to be cheaper. You can check out some of the shirts here. There are some funny ones, mostly trash talk because that’s what I do best…

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The Devils are excited to see more of this from Taylor Hall: