Jack Johnson was bought out by the Penguins. It's notable because there's a logjam on the left side of the Penguins blue line and that was before acquiring Mike Matheson. They could line up Dumoulin-Matheson-Pettersson and that leaves Riikola and Pierre-Olivier Joseph on the outside looking in. For those looking at P-O Joseph to get in the lineup for 2020-21, there's a better chance it happens now than it did two days ago.

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Sticking with the Penguins, they did give a qualifying offer to Dominik Simon, making him an unrestricted free agent.

This is a very curious name to have on the UFA market. His defensive impacts over the last three years, as measured by Evolving Hockey, are near or past the first standard deviation, which puts him in the 80^th percentile defensively. His offensive skills aren't up to the same level but for a guy who probably won't cost much more than the league minimum, he doesn't need to put up 60 points. Even 25 points with good defence in the bottom-6 is a great season for a min-salary player.

When looking up those defensive impacts, I thought the profile looked similar to a guy I looked up recently on Evolving Hockey. I wasn't far off:

I'm not saying they're the same player. All I'm saying is it won't cost a first-round pick to find out what Simon can do.

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Things don't sound good for Oscar Klefbom as he's back in Sweden undergoing treatments for his ongoing shoulder problem. Oilers GM Ken Holland intimates that in quote linked above that this could be a very lengthy, very serious recovery.

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Matt Niskanen is forgoing his last year of his contract and is retiring from the NHL. He’s well over 1000 games played including the playoffs, has made tens of millions, and has won a Stanley Cup. He really doesn’t have much left to prove.

I don’t think Niskanen will be the last to do this. There’ll be players in their 30s who’ve already made enough money to set up their families for generations and decide they don’t want to be in some sort of modified bubble and away from their own families for extended periods of time.

All the best to Niskanen and his family in their future. He was a hell of a defenceman at his peak, and was a big part of the Caps finally winning their Cup.

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Today is the start of the NHL Draft so I wanted to take the Ramblings to highlight everything Draft related. Our Dobber Prospects team works all year leading up to this event, but their work on each player goes back far longer than a single season. Because of our robust prospect team, I leave evaluations up to them and go searching for solid information and opinions.

Let's try to summarize what we can.

To start, there's the Dobber Prospects Report. It's updated often and is the best place to start. It goes deep on players yet to be drafted as well as a progress report on guys already in various NHL pipelines. We have projections and depth charts as well. Everything fantasy owners need to know about how their dynasty players are doing, as well as the players they're going to welcome to the fold this offseason. I can't talk enough about the amount of work that goes into this. Not only just the guide itself, but the content inside requires thousands of combined hours of game-watching and note-taking. Support our Prospects team by grabbing the Report in the Dobber Shop.

Cam Robinson released his final rankings recently and his top-93 players (three rounds) can be viewed here. Cam is very thorough and always backs up what he says with solid reasoning. The thing with prospects is there are wide arrays of views on almost every player and Cam does a good job internalizing those but coming out with his own opinion. That's the hallmark of someone who considers all relevant arguments, takes in their own observations, and comes up with their answer. Whether we agree with the answer or not – or whether they ultimately end up right or not – is irrelevant. All we can ask is transparency and thoroughness, and Cam brings both.

Jokke Nevalainen, Tony Ferrari, and other members of our Dobber Prospects team dropped their top-100 players. This is a consensus ranking but each player has a blurb written by a member of the Dobber team to catch people up on why a player is ranked where they are. For those looking for more of a variety of opinion than just looking up Cam's rankings, this is the place.

Tony and Jokke also do the Dobber Draftcast, a pod that is released every week with updates on prospects, discussion of prospects, and, well, you get the idea. Anyone looking to get their fill on prospects through their ears rather than their eyes would do well to check it out. It's available on iTunes, Google Play, Podbean, and others.

For those with a subscription to The Athletic, Scott Wheeler posted his final notes yesterday. Included are links to his rankings – and how those ranks have changed – as well as player profiles and quotes from around the league. It's just another source for people to retrieve information and inform their own opinion.

Also with The Athletic, Corey Pronman did a write-up on some 100-plus players that should be going in the 2020 Entry Draft. Pronman is someone I've followed basically since I started getting into fantasy hockey and I consider him a very reliable resource. Another data point for our readers.

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I just wanted to give some of my thoughts on the Draft.

First, just know I don't spend anywhere close to the amount of time on prospects as anyone from our Prospects team. I'm not watching the KHL at 11 AM every day of the week. Some guys on our team do that. For that reason, I trust their opinion on these players more than I trust my own. I just wanted to make that clear before anyone starts basing their opinions on what I have to say. It's just my feeling on a handful of players.

I want to start at the very top with Quinton Byfield and Alexis Lafrenière.

The first thing I'll say is this: if it's anywhere close, go with the centre. They just have a bigger impact on the game than wingers do. It's not conjecture, either: since 2007, the top-6 players by cumulative WAR (according to Evolving Hockey) are all centres. The only true winger in the top-11 is Alex Ovechkin. Now, as we approach the top-20, we get names like Kane, Oshie, Marchand, and Benn. What I mean to say is that I don't want to make it seem like you have to draft a centre or you won't get an elite player. That's by no means the case. What I do mean is that when you take the totality of what a player does on the ice, the centre is more involved than any winger, so they have a bigger chance to impact the game. It's why we have all centres at the very top of the WAR leaderboard, but still have a handful of wingers in the top-20.

When I look at Byfield and Lafrenière, I think it's important to keep in mind the centre/winger discrepancy. I say it because Cam has Byfield at the top of his board where most have Laffy up there. And when I read about Byfield, all I read is that he's probably the best centre to come along in the last few years. And when I read anything to the effect of 'he's the best centre to come along since Auston Matthews,' my mind immediately goes to the centre/winger discrepancy. Let's say Lafrenière ends up as good as Patrick Kane. If Byfield were to be the next Anze Kopitar, I would take the next Kopitar 100 times out of 100.

Is Lafrenière the next Kane? Is Byfield the next Kopitar? We'll know in 10 years. But if those are roughly the comparables we're using for these guys, I will take the next Kopitar, thank you.

The same can be said to a lesser degree about Marco Rossi. Now, I think once we get past Byfield, we have more of a discussion i.e. I wouldn't compare Holtz to Byfield, but I would compare Holtz to Rossi, or Raymond to Rossi, etc. Though teams at the top of the draft shouldn't draft for need – or at any time, really – but once Byfield is gone, there's an argument that Rossi is the only other elite centre available (depending on your personal view on Stutzle and Perfetti as centres or wingers). Teams at the top of the draft typically aren't deep down the middle (else they'd be in the playoffs). I know a lot of people are high on Raymond, Perfetti, and Stutzle, but Rossi shouldn't leave the top five.

The Czech Republic typically doesn't pull together strong junior teams, but I was impressed with Jan Mysak at the World Juniors. He had no problem generating offence, and it seemed there were times his own team couldn't keep up with him. Someone that stands out so clearly on his own team at such a high level always intrigues me. I think there is a gem waiting for a playoff team in the bottom-third of the first round.

Jake Sanderson is an interesting name to me. I haven't watched much of him, but it's the chatter around him that fascinates me. There seems to be some agreement on his offence: he doesn't have a lot of offensive upside. He does, however, possess good defensive skills already and is a great skater. It makes me nervous for teams that might draft him in the top-half of the draft. He could be the next Charlie McAvoy – good in transition and elite defensively, but not great in the offensive zone. If that's the case, he's a steal basically anywhere outside the top-2. If he's not the next Charlie McAvoy, then the list isn't long of young defencemen stepping into the league with limited offensive skills and making a big impact. There are guys like Slavin and Pesce, but it took them to 21 to even get to the NHL. Hampus Lindholm is another name, but he didn't get to the NHL until he was 20 and he hasn't really improved, either. He's still very good defensively, and good in transition, but limited in the offensive zone and it's capped his upside. I don't think any team would be upset if Sanderson were the next Slavin or Lindholm, but just be wary of true upside.

That's it for now. Enjoy Cam's Ramblings tomorrow. I'm sure he'll have a word or two about the Draft.