At the top this week, for those who haven’t read the statement released from Dobber yesterday, please do so here.

Dobber is a fighter, and someone who does not take any challenge passively. This will be no exception.

On a personal level, I am extremely appreciative of the opportunity afforded me here at Dobber Hockey by the man himself. It’s not easy to find a place to write about fantasy hockey during the playoffs, and particularly the offseason. Being able to do so with thousands of people reading is a rarity, and I can’t thank him enough. He is both a great boss and a great mentor, and I have little doubt that he’ll be back in no time wondering aloud why we’re all still believing in Carl Hagelin’s fantasy value.

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After a Ramblings on Monday I wrote about the Dallas Stars, it occurred to me there are a couple of fantasy options that may come at a discount at the draft table due to injury. This isn’t always the case – Jamie Benn was still a first-round pick in September of 2016 despite offseason surgery, while Alex Steen likely still went inside the top-75 players despite offseason surgery of his own. We are also still a long way out from drafts, and predicting what human beings will do in three months can be a fruitless exercise.

Nonetheless, a big part of fantasy sports is finding value in drafts where others have overlooked. Being able to snag a player in the 11^th round when you have him valued as a ninth-round pick is a small win, and a series of small wins can lead to a big one. Let’s go over two players, then, who are either injured now, or were injured during the season, and could come at a draft-day discount.

Robby Fabbri

He has just 123 regular season games under his belt over the last two years, but in those games, Fabbri’s points per 60 minutes (1.81) is nearly identical to that of Jaden Schwartz (1.82). Fabbri’s shots per 60 minutes (6.97) is a bit higher than that of Schwartz’s (6.57) as well. Schwartz is coming off a 55-point season, while Fabbri managed just 29 points in an injury-shortened campaign. Including Fabbri’s injury into the equation, it’s easy to figure out which one will be significantly cheaper when draft season starts.

It is worth noting that there really wasn’t much separating the two going into the 2016-17 season, at least by FantasyPros, which aggregates the ADP of different sources. Both were outside the 10^th round of 12-team leagues, and within 20 picks of each other. Individuals might have had it differently, I’m just noting the aggregate here. Regardless, there will be a lot more separating the two going into the 2017-18 season, and that’s where the value comes in for Fabbri.

The general concern here is where the 21-year-old will be slotted in the lineup. His most-common line mate last year was Vladimir Tarasenko, and that’s a very good sign. Schwartz also had Tarasenko as his own most-common line mate. The reasons for this are Fabbri’s injury, and his slotting up and down the lineup. Fabbri also only played two games before his season-ending knee surgery (for which he should be ready at training camp) under Mike Yeo. Where he fits on the roster is certainly an open-ended question.

Both the knee surgery and the lineup slotting are concerns, but those concerns will be built into his cost for drafts. Given that he was sometimes going around the 150^th pick before the last season, he should come at a steeper discount coming into this season. If all breaks right, he has 20-goal and 60-point potential. If not, the pick is late enough in drafts that it won’t hurt a fantasy roster that much. It’s the perfect type of player to target.

Kevin Fiala

Depending on the depth of the league, there’s a good chance Fiala wasn’t even drafted for 2016-17 fantasy rosters. Looking at his raw point production from the regular season, there isn’t much impressive here with 11 goals and 17 points in 16 games. However, all 11 goals were scored at five-on-five. That number tied such players as Jonathan Toews, Patrice Bergeron, Jamie Benn, Ryan O’Reilly, and Matt Duchene for goal scoring at five-on-five. He did so in about 400 fewer five-on-five minutes than those players as well. Looking at it from that angle, it’s a bit more impressive. He also had two goals in five postseason games before fracturing his femur in the second round. That injury should be a concern, but it’s not as bad as it could have been:

Kevin Fiala will fly home with team tonight and is actually up and walking as encouraged by doctors… 4-6 months recovery @Sportsnet

— Cassie Campbell (@CassieCampbell) April 28, 2017

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As a 19-year-old in the AHL, he led the team in points with 50 in just 66 games, a team that included current NHL players like Pontus Aberg and Frederick Gaudreau. He also had about 2.6 shots per game, again, a very solid number. That shot rate translated to the NHL as well, as he finished with more shots per minute than players like Brandon Saad, Blake Wheeler, and teammate James Neal.

We have all summer to wait and hear about his progress rehabbing his injury, and he’ll probably be eased into things. It’s hard to think he’ll be drafted highly come September almost regardless of the news, and that makes him a target.

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Some of you may or may not have noticed that Corsica Hockey was taken offline earlier this week. It had been the most comprehensive online statistical database for hockey. If I’m reading Emmanuel Perry’s intentions correctly on Twitter, an updated version should be released before the season starts.

Besides the Frozen Pool Tools here at Dobber, of which the hot/cold tool and roto ranker I’m fond of, there are other sites that can serve statistical needs. Here are a few I use (there are often linked in my Ramblings):

• Natural Stattrick: Goes back three seasons, but includes score/venue adjusted five-on-five numbers, both at the team and individual level.
• Hockey Analysis: Probably the most comprehensive statistical database available right now, going all the way back to 2007-2008. Also includes without-with you (WOWY) numbers. The sister site, Puckalytics, is also helpful for WOWY stats, as well as breaking it down for a specific time period.
• First Line Stats: A new (and still being tested) site that is similar to Hockey Analysis.
• HockeyStats: It tracks events of a game nearly in real-time, compiling stats along the way. It’s my go-to for following stats of individual games.

For those that want an introduction to the next level of stats beyond box scores, bookmark those sites and start reading.

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There was an interesting discussion in Wednesday’s Ramblings from Ian that revolved around the power play of the Lightning. Specifically, it was their productivity with and without Steven Stamkos, and with and without Victor Hedman.

This is a situation that I think is unique to Tampa Bay, where they have two very viable triggermen in Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov, both of whom shoot with a different handedness (right and left, respectively). This is also true for their defencemen in Anton Stralman and Hedman (right and left again). On an umbrella power play like the Lightning run, you want the same-handed triggerman as your defenceman at the top. That means running Stralman with Stamkos, and Hedman with Kucherov because a right-handed defenceman can’t slide a one-time pass a left-handed triggerman on the right side without telegraphing it. Pittsburgh doesn’t really have this problem as Phil Kessel isn’t a true triggerman given his lack of one-timers; Dallas often runs Jason Spezza on the right side, his strong side, with Tyler Seguin as his opposite; Washington focuses on Alex Ovechkin. The closest comparable would probably be Philadelphia splitting Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek as triggermen, and those two have combined for as many power-play goals over the last two seasons (17) as teammate Brayden Schenn had himself in 2016-17.  

Relating this to fantasy hockey isn’t difficult. Looking over the elite power-play point producers over the last three years on a single-season basis (Patrick Kane, Claude Giroux, Nicklas Backstrom, Alex Ovechkin, Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, John Tavares, Joe Pavelski, Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, and so on), they all share two characteristics: they are highly-skilled players, and play on a heavily-used top power-play unit.

Having the righty-righty lefty-lefty problem in Tampa might seem like a good problem to have – too many skilled players for one unit – but it’s a big problem for fantasy owners. With a healthy Stamkos, there are only so many spots on the top PP unit, and it’s conceivable everything is split into two even units, as the forum poster at the beginning of Ian's Ramblings insinuated. That would cut into fantasy upside, as the hopes of a 30-plus power-play point season from any singular player would seem to be unlikely.