Clayton Keller is likely to be a polarizing player this draft season. While he's not a sure thing to be drafted in all settings, the rookie projects to be a popular late-round target. The undersized pivot is coming off a dominant season with 45-point campaign as a freshman with Boston University, which also included excellent showings for Team USA in the World Junior Championship, World Championship, and Keller even got his feet wet at the highest level with a three-game stint with Arizona.

Overall, he played 49 games. This season, in a best-case scenario, he dresses for 82. That's a huge jump.

It's difficult to correlate NCAA products first NHL seasons because typically the players are entering the league at different ages and often times after some AHL seasoning. It's highly unlikely Keller spends time with the Roadrunners, and he'll be 19 years old this fall for his rookie season.

Dylan Larkin is the obvious candidate to compare Keller to. They're both skilled players that spent just a single season in the NCAA and even represented USA in the World Junior and World Championships before their rookie seasons in the NHL.

Their NHL teams aren't significantly different, either. In both cases, neither rookie will be saddled with huge offensive expectations immediately because of a veteran presence up front. Arizona's has a much different look than the 2015-16 Red Wings, but the Coyotes are probably a similar club overall.

Of course, the reason for the comparison is that Larkin had an excellent fantasy campaign in 2015-16. He finished with 23 goals, 45 points, 221 shots and even posted a 52.5 Corsi For percentage. Unfortunately, the workload took its toll in the second half of the season, and Larkin scored just five goals and seven points through his final 28 games.

Should fantasy owners expect much more from Keller than what Larkin posted in his rookie season? Is it worth factoring in a second-half slide for Keller?

Without winger eligibility, it'll be difficult for Keller to make a consistent fantasy impact next year. Center is deep, and as much as there is warranted optimism for the Coyotes, Arizona isn't likely to make that sizeable of a step forward just yet.

Obviously, there are going to be plenty of leagues where Keller is a serviceable asset, but the shiny-new-toy syndrome is likely to zap all profit from his fantasy stock before he even plays a game.

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A couple other quick notes about the Coyotes.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson had a miserable 2016-17 campaign, but a closer look reveals that he really just took a major dip in power-play production. It was going to be extremely difficult to repeat his 29 points with the man advantage from '15-16, so offensively, there aren't many concerns moving forward. The dip in shot volume is worrisome, but it could be a one-year outlier, and with Arizona's offseason improvements, Ekman-Larsson should be able to avoid another crippling plus-minus rating this year.

Max Domi posted an identical points-per-game mark (0.64) in his first two seasons in the league, but he dropped to an 8.3 shooting percentage (7.4 at five-on-five) last year and scored just nine times. His 29 assists through 59 games salvaged his point total. Looking ahead, he's a clear candidate for career-best numbers across the board and is probably a strong target in the middle rounds.

Alex Goligoski is just one of three defensemen to record 35 points with at least 100 shots, hits and blocked shots in each of the past three seasons. Shea Weber and Drew Doughty are the other two, which is obviously, impressive company. Goligoski could see softer in-game matchups in 2017-18 with Niklas Hjalmarsson in the fold, so Goligoski doesn't project to have his fantasy stock impacted significantly this year.

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New Jersey beat writer Andrew Gross projected the Devils' lineup for next season. To start, I've written player notes for USA TODAY and Rotowire for a number of years, and leaning on beat writers is critical. They're not always right, and in this case, Gross has even noted that he's done some interesting mixing and matching.

However, he's consistently with the team and communicates with the brass. In the case of his projected lineup, the depth names are more curious than where he has Marcus Johansson pluged in, for example.

Yaroslav Dyblenko was a player off my fnatasy radar. Stefan Noesen was a guy I've been considering as a potential late bloomer, and both Michael McLeod and Blake Speers should have our attention.

Additionally, it's definitely interesting to see Gross toss McLeod, Speers and Nico Hischier together as a "kid line."

Dyblenko projects as a project defenseman with limited offensive fantasy value. But he's aggressive and could provide serviceable peripheral coverage once acclimatized to North America and playing regularly. That might not be in the cards this season, though.

There's a lot to be said about fine-tuning your game in the AHL, and both Speers and McLeod would likely benefit from the experience. It would also seem more likely that John Quenneville is going to crack the roster after a respectable 12-game stint with the Devils last season.

All said, this might prove to be a buy-low time for some young Devils. The team is a defense corps away from taking a step forward, and there are a number of promising forwards moving through the system. At 31, Cory Schneider still has a handful of years left before a replacement is needed, too.

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Kyle Okposo took the ice in a summer-league game Wednesday, which is obviously encouraging after his worrisome illness that cost him the end of last season. After posting an underwhelming 45 points through 65 games, the winger could be a prime value in the middle rounds of drafts. He's entering his age-29 campaign, and the Sabres should be an improved club across the board.

However, at this stage of his career, expecting a full 82-game season is probably ill-advised.

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Colton Parayko inked a five-year, $27.5 million contract with the Blues on Thursday. His emergence softened the blow of Kevin Shattenkirk's relocation last year, and Parayko stands to remain in a significant role moving forward.

The fantasy question is whether it will be Parayko or Alex Pietrangelo that eats up the majority of Shattenkirk's abandoned value. Including the playoffs, here is how to two Blues fared without Shattenkirk lasr year.

Pietrangelo

Parayko

There's obviously no guarantee that Parayko won't leapfrog Pietrangelo at some point, but it was without question a bigger fantasy boon to Pietrangelo than Parayko when Shattenkirk was dealt. In fact, Pietrangelo could easily flirt with top-10 numbers among all defensemen next year quarterbacking the No. 1 power-play unit.

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Until next time, be well, Dobberheads.