Ramblings: Wallstedt and the Rise of Young Goaltenders, Seider is Coming, Toews, Bertuzzi, & Ho-Sang (Oct. 28)

Cam Robinson

2020-10-28

We had a few signings take place on Tuesday. First up was Josh Ho-Sang settling with a two-way contract worth $750K in the bigs and $250K in the minors. It was a tumultuous 2019-20 season for the 24-year-old – more so than the rest of us. After failing to make the Isles out of camp, requesting a trade, being sent to another team's AHL affiliate to avoid disruption, suffering injuries and still not being traded, Ho-Sang appeared left for dead.

This deal breathes some life into his career.

For a player with an abundance of skill, he hasn't been able to put it together for long stretches over the past few seasons. I hope he does and I hope he's afforded another opportunity – something we see certain athletes get an abundance of while others fail to receive many.

Funny how that works. 

 

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The Red Wings settled up with Tyler Bertuzzi to the tune of a one-year deal worth 3.5M. Not bad for a player with back-to-back 20-plus goal seasons while pacing for over 50 points. Bertuzzi brings speed and sandpaper to the top of the lineup – something that every top-six needs.

His role on the power play jumped up in a major way last season as his PPTOI went up by 250 percent to over three minutes per night. The even-strength production took a hit, but let's be frank, pretty much no one scored for the Red Wings at 5v5 last year.

I like Bertuzzi to maintain a 25-goal, 55-point pace for next season with a 30-goal reachable ceiling in the mix. 

 

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The Avs signed recently acquired RFA defender Devon Toews to a four-year deal with 4.1M per. That's a heck of a contract for a VERY effective top-four defender. 

The 26-year-old took the long road to this spot. He was taken in the fourth round in his third and final year of draft-eligibility.  He then marinated through three years of NCAA action and three more in the AHL before becoming a full-timer last season. 

He won't likely push for much more than the 34-point pace he put up while seeing over two minutes a night on the Isles PP in Colorado, but his real-life value is going to help bolster an already formidable Avalanche backend.

The Avs keep it rolling and the rest of the league should be very afraid. 

 

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The Dobber Hockey Guide is almost upon us! Go and get that thing.

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The age of Moritz Seider running things on the Detroit blueline is quickly approaching. The 19-year-old has been excellent in his early showings with Rögle of the SHL. Through five games in the Swedish top tier, he's produced a goal and four helpers while seeing just over 19 minutes a game.

That TOI number has been creeping upwards as well. He saw over 21 minutes on Tuesday and was a force in all situations. 

 

Seider finds a way to absolutely smother any oncoming threat and then quickly and efficiently move the puck in the proper direction. While working the point on the second power-play unit, he's used his big shot when appropriate and moved the puck around deftly when not. As I said, he's been great.

 

This is all great news for all the Seider owners, but those who should be most concerned are Filip Hronek folks. Hronek is everything for Detroit at the moment. He eats all the difficult matchups and pried away from the top PP spot – as shitty a spot as that was last year. But with another righty in Seider coming, his position is not very secure in the fantasy landscape.

Sure, I expect Seider to see some tough matchups at even-strength as well, but I also see him stealing that top PP gig too. Detroit will be adding Seider and Lucas Raymond to Anthony Mantha, Filip Zadina, Dylan Larkin and Bertuzzi in the next 12 months. Their offense should begin to materialize in short order. Seider is likely to reap the defender point benefit.

I'd say sell high on Hronek but he didn't light it up enough to really be able to. If he could hold his position, I'd love his long term forecast, but them's the brakes! 

 

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Long has been the mandate in fantasy that you don't reach early on goaltending prospects. It's an effort in futility and would test the patience of even the most staunch supporter. Just ask my buddy Pat who sat on Thatcher Demko for the better part of a half-decade. 

But those days are quickly becoming a thing of the past. 

For readily apparent elite talents, Andrei Vasilevskiy put a dent in the theory when he became the top-dog on an elite team in his draft-plus five season. Carter Hart took an even quicker path to the starter's role in Philly when he grabbed the reins in his draft-plus three campaign. He was selected in the mid-second round though, so it was unlikely that anyone jumped on him too early in fantasy drafts.

Since then, we've had a two-year run of netminders going in the top half of the first round. First, it was Spencer Knight landing in Florida with the 13th overall selection. An organization that had a very clear hole in the short and long term spent a massive amount of draft capital to fill that position and many in the industry could see the writing on the wall that the American would be fast-tracked. The shine was almost immediately tarnished when a MASSIVE seven-year UFA deal was handed to Sergei Bobrovsky less than a week later.

This past month we saw the Predators go even further and take Russian Yaroslav Askarov 11th overall. Sure, they have Juuse Saros ready to go now. They have Connor Ingram putting up big numbers in the American League. But Askarov is special. He's posting serious numbers in the KHL at 18 and appears destined to follow a similar trajectory as Hart.

And wouldn't you know it, there's another kid coming in 2021. Allow me to formally introduce you all to Jesper Wallstedt. The Swedish netminder has been on the radar for some time. As a 16-year-old he was splendid at the World U18 Championships – posting equal or greater numbers than Knight and Askarov did at the same event despite being younger. He was nearly as good in the J20 during league play. As a 17-year-old, he saw a start in the SHL stopping 17/18 shots faced.

Now, he's up with Luleå full time in the top Swedish men's league. And boy, does he ever look good. Allow me to show you the list of draft-eligible goaltenders who have started more than seven games in the history of the SHL (45 years): 

 

That’s it.

Wallstedt has started four of his team's last seven contests and has stopped .929 percent of the shots faced with a 1.92 goals-against-average. He's on pace to obliterate the marks set by his predecessors.

Now, I'm not going to sit here today and tell you Wallstedt is better than Askarov – an exceptionally talented guy who is just five months older than the Swede. But I will say that both European kids appear set to best Knight and should in all likelihood have a clearer path to a quick ascension into the NHL based purely on their earned experience playing professional hockey at young ages.

If you had come to me and asked if it was prudent to take Askarov as high as third overall in your fantasy drafts this fall, I'd tell you that as long as netminders have real value and are hard to obtain, fly at it.

I'll say the same thing next year regarding Wallstedt.

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Quickly on Knight: Personally, I'm expected a rebound year from Bobrovsky. We don't often see Vezina-level talents fall off of a cliff so quickly at age-30. We do see players hiccup when they switch locales though – even for an entire season. However, if Bob is not up for the task again next year, my interest in Knight ratchets way up. 

Keep an eye out. 

 

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Another young goalie to keep an eye on is Anaheim’s third-rounder, Lukas Dostal. The kid is torching the Finnish Liiga this year (and really the past three years). He’s the heir apparent to John Gibson and his arrival will likely coincide with the new young core that will be coming soon.

Get him on your radar.

 

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@Hockey_Robinson

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