The wait is almost over as the 2020 Dobber Hockey Prospects Guide is set to release tomorrow! Readers are able to pre-order their copy at the Dobber Shop right now, and it will be available for download on Friday, June 12^th.

Our Prospect Guide has everything people need when looking ahead in the fantasy game. We have fantasy profiles, three-year projections, their upside, and more. While we may have playoff hockey in a couple months, we won't have regular season hockey for a while. This is the perfect opportunity to get familiar with the lesser-known prospects who can be league-winners 4-5 years down the road.

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One thing I always tell people about rookies: they almost never perform to expectations. This was the case in 2018-19 with Rasmus Dahlin, for example. He was a top-12 defenceman by ADP before the season on Yahoo! and finished 30^th overall. (Even if we discount his ADP because of keeper leagues, he was ranked as a top-75 player before the season at NHL.com. Some other spots, like ESPN, were much lower. All that is meant is that there was clearly a contingent who was very high on him). It was the case with Jack Hughes and Kaapo Kakko this year, both of whom I was also much lower on than most people.

Of course, this isn't always the case. Connor McDavid, Patrik Laine, and Auston Matthews have all had wonderful rookie seasons over the last half-decade. On the other hand, we've had two rookies reach 25 goals these last two years (Elias Pettersson and Dominik Kubalik). We had a shortened season, but even if we pro-rate, the only two rookies we can add to the list of potential 25-goal scorers in 2019-20 were Victor Olofsson and Denis Gurianov, who both finished the season with 20.

Drafting in keeper/dynasty leagues and drafting in one-year leagues is considerably different for this reason. If I'm drafting a first-year keeper league this summer, Alexis Lafrenière is a top-50 pick. If I'm drafting a redraft league before the next regular season, he probably shouldn't be a top-100 pick.

The last thing I'll mention about drafting rookies is that it's not often they're true multi-cat performers. Yes, if you had Auston Matthews in his rookie season, you probably didn't care that he only had 14 penalty minutes and 21 hits because he scored 40 goals. If you had Elias Pettersson in his rookie season, you probably didn't care that he only had 12 penalty minutes and 42 hits because he scored 28 goals and 66 points, 22 of those points coming on the power play. Like I said, those are rare instances of rookie success, and if a guy doesn't score a pile of goals or points, he needs to do other stuff to stand out. Consider this: the last rookie to manage 20 goals, 30 assists, 40 PIMs, and 200 shots in a season was Gabriel Landeskog in 2011-12. Very few guys step into this league as Brady Tkachuk.

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One small note: Jeff Carter underwent core muscle surgery but is expected to be ready for the start of the 2020-21 season. I know that the start of the season is ambiguous, but with this type of surgery, Carter may have been ready for the play-ins had the team actually reached them.

I wonder if this wasn't some lingering issue. My personal view on Carter is that he still has something to give in the fantasy game and the Kings looked like a much better team this year than last, even if they weren't winning many games. They need an influx of talent, so hopefully guys like Turcotte, Kaliyev, Kupari, and Vilardi can be that influx of talent they need.

While I'll wait for our prospects team to kick in their opinions but as I list the Kings' prospects that could make an impact in the next couple years, there is a lot of talent coming. I guess the real question is whether all those guys develop into impact players, and quickly enough to still make use of their aging superstars? It's a race against the clock, and Father Time waits for no one.

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On the flipside of that, all the warm and fuzzy feelings I have about the Los Angeles Kings' prospect depth was about the same feeling I had for the Anaheim Ducks before the 2019-20 seasons started: a few aging superstar vets surrounded by unproven, yet highly-coveted prospects. In particular, guys like Troy Terry and Max Comtois were higher on my draft list than most. That didn't quite work out, obviously. Will the Kings fall to the same fate? I sure hope not, because that'd be a large waste of talent.

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Here's something I've wondered about the playoffs: what will the officiating look like?

We already know that officiating is biased based on the score or how penalties have already been called. We also know the refs tend to put their whistles away in the playoffs. My question is this: will the quality of play dictate officiating?

What I mean is that I'm assuming we're going to have some sloppy hockey when we return. Let's assume everything goes smoothly and play-ins start by mid-August. That would mean five months off for everyone, outside of whatever training camp the players get. A lot of players haven't even returned to the ice yet, and that is a long, long layoff. Many players who don't reach the playoffs are usually back to on-ice training in some capacity a month later. What does the quality of hockey look like with everyone having at least three months off, some more, and none playing games for five (at least).

To that end, do the referees let a bit more slide? Do they give guys the benefit of the doubt, at least early on, because of the surrounding circumstances? I don't have an answer, but it's certainly something worth discussing. Maybe a media member reading this can ask one of the retired referees?

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What do we do about Kaapo Kakko?

It was a bad year for the second overall pick from 2019. Like I mentioned earlier, it's not unusual for rookies to not live up to our expectations of them, but this was spectacularly bad: from Evolving Wild, Kakko's 2019-20 season was the fifth-worst season for a forward since 2007 by WAR/60. We're talking Much Worse Than Anything Justin Abdelkader Has Ever Done-bad. Even if we cut it down to just teenagers, Kakko has the worst season since 2007 (-1.7 WAR), and the next-worst season (-0.7 WAR by Jesper Bratt in 2017-18) wasn't even in the same neighbourhood. Kakko's season was beyond abysmal.

But if we look at the rest of the list of teenagers with bad seasons, there is hope. We see Filip Chytil's name, and though he wasn't great in 2019-20, he was at least roughly NHL-calibre. But three names with negative WAR values in teenage seasons really stick out: Jordan Staal, Andrei Svechnikov, and Tyler Seguin. Staal ended up being more a two-way player, but both Svechnikov and Seguin turned into top-tier fantasy assets.

I guess this is just a reminder that development isn't a straight line for everyone, and even future all-star players struggle early in their careers. I don't have a crystal ball so I can't say one way or another whether Kakko is the next Yakupov or the next Seguin. What I do know is that if anyone is looking to sell him for cheap in keeper/dynasty leagues, it's probably worth extending an offer.

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By the way, the same applies for Jack Hughes. He had a bad season by WAR as well but there were signs of goodness along the way, particularly his play around the net. What was just said about Kakko applies to Hughes as well.