Marco Rossi is heading to Switzerland with the blessing of the Minnesota Wild. He is expected to be in the lineup for the ZSC Lions, according to Mr. Russo, by this weekend.

At the risk of reading far too much into this, Rossi starting up his hockey season overseas at a point in time where we're probably six or so weeks out from training camps *assuming the league is still pushing for a January 1^st start date* is a bit curious to me. If the Wild were assuming a January 1^st start date, would they allow their recent first-round pick to go overseas for a month? I don't know. These are questions with unknowable answers. It is just, for me, intuitively speaking, I don't think a team would send their top teenage prospect overseas, even if it's a league he's familiar with, just for a month of training. But, again, maybe I'm reading too much into this.

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Further to that point, Jeff Marek of Sportsnet released the details of the latest OHL General Managers' meeting. Long story short, the hope is to have players arrive the week after New Year's Eve, quarantine, start training camps a couple weeks later, and then start the season the first week of February (the exact details are contained in the link). That kind of timeline – quarantine post-Christmas, start a month later – always made more sense to me for the NHL than their current plan, which would have players away from their families for the holidays. But that's just my personal opinion on things. We have seen how quickly all this can change.

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Finally on that note, the AHL announced it expects to restart on February 5th, one day after the OHL. Again, that seems like a more realistic timeline for the NHL.

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Alex Galchenyuk has signed a one-year deal with the Sens. For me, this ship has long sailed. Galchenyuk has been a terrible defensive player his entire career, and he's not really a play-driver, either. At best, he's a decent finisher who is good on the power play. That is where he'll derive his fantasy value: the power play. He should be a fixture of the top unit.

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Not fantasy-related, but the Dallas Stars released their… their… this is now in the ether:

Back in black 💪 pic.twitter.com/WNeqXHso1n

— Dallas Stars (@DallasStars) October 28, 2020

It is an interesting way for Dallas to let us know that the NHL will be playing in laser tag arenas for the foreseeable future. (Not slander, by the way. I am a big proponent of teams doing the most outlandish things possible with their jerseys and names.)

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With Halloween coming up over the weekend, let's take a look at some secure situations across the league that have turned into scary situations for fantasy owners. Is this a lame idea borne simply of being without a good idea myself? Absolutely. We have more months of offseason ahead of us. Get used to it. Data from Natural Stat Trick.

Boston PP1 QB

With Torey Krug gone, the ever-coveted top PP slot in Boston is up for grabs. The injuries to Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak could put a damper on the level of coveting done for the PP1 QB, but we still don't know when the 2020-21 regular season could be starting. Pastrnak could miss six weeks of regular season action or be back in time for training camp.

Anyway, because of the level of production up for grabs, it's important that we target the right person. There is undoubtedly going to be chatter about Charlie McAvoy getting the role, and intuitively, it makes sense. He is already an elite defenceman, their best on the team, and is a good puck-mover himself.

The thing is that we're not sure this is what the team wants to do, and we have evidence to the contrary. In the 2019-20 season, Pastrnak had over 46 minutes of PP time *without* Krug on the ice. In those 46+ minutes, Pasta skated 15 minutes with McAvoy and 36 minutes with Matt Grzelcyk (obviously there is some overlap with the two of them as Pasta often skated PP2 due to a late change). The year before, Pastrnak spent nearly 57 minutes on the power play without Krug. In those 56+ minutes, Pasta skated nearly 19 with McAvoy, and over 40 with Grzelcyk. That means that over the last two years, in non-Krug PP minutes, Pastrnak and McAvoy have 34 minutes together while Pastrnak and Grzelcyk have nearly 100. (McAvoy missed a lot of games in 2018-19, but even with McAvoy in the lineup and Krug out at the start of the year of that season, it was Grzelcyk over McAvoy.)

All this does not guarantee Grzelcyk on the top PP unit at the start of the year, on the top PP unit all year, and putting up 50 points. All those things happening isn't the overwhelming likelihood of scenarios. But the more important point here is that it also does not guarantee McAvoy on the top PP unit at the start of the year, all year, and putting up 50 points. And that's more important, because McAvoy will probably be going in the first five or six rounds (this is purely a guess on my part until we get ADP data) and it's probably not a good idea to draft him that high given the likelihood of Grzelcyk cutting into those PP minutes, particularly in non-banger leagues.

Calgary Top-Line Right Wing

The line of Gaudreau-Monahan-Lindholm has had very high highs in the past, particularly in 2018-19 when Gaudreau fell one point shy of 100, Monahan was over a point per game, and Lindholm was just three points shy of a point per game. They all fell off pretty hard in 2019-20, with none reaching 60 points and none reaching 30 goals. There is going to be a rebound in 2020-21, but I guess my question is whether Lindholm will be on the line with them or not?

For now, my presumption is they'll run Gaudreau-Monahan-Lindholm and Mangiapane-Backlund-Tkachuk. But we saw them move Lindholm down to play with Backlund when Tkachuk was hurt in the playoffs. This is also a team that believe they're in their Cup window, which means a full season of Gaudreau-Monaha-Lindholm struggling to score won't happen. If there isn't production out of the gate, I think we see lineup changes very quickly. There could be same fancy waiver wiring necessary in Calgary this winter.

Minnesota Top-Line Centre

Trading Eric Staal, in a nutshell, isn't a bad idea. The Wild are re-tooling for the future, Staal turns 36 years old today (happy birthday!), and he has one year left on his contract. Trading him for futures makes sense. What doesn't make sense is trading him for a 30-year old Marcus Johansson; a guy who is, at best, an average NHL winger. With Mikko Koivu also gone, their centres are now (presumably) Johansson, Joel Eriksson-Ek, Nick Bonino, and Victor Rask. Eriksson-Ek is very good defensively but poor offensively, at least to this point of his career, while Johansson doesn't do much of anything (from Evolving Hockey):

Rask is nothing special and Bonino is a good middle-six centre, but can he step in and be Kevin Fiala's centre? Not sure. It really does seem that it'll go to one of MJ90 or Eriksson-Ek, and that's a big problem for Fiala's fantasy potential.

Rangers' Top-6 Winger Mix

The addition of Alexis Lafrenière gives the Rangers himself, Artemi Panarin, Chris Kreider, Pavel Buchnevich, and Kaapo Kakko as wingers probably all worthy of a top-6 role. The last name on that list is probably the least deserving, but of the five players named, he's one of two right wingers. Now, Panarin shoots right but plays the left so I'm sure it wouldn't be a big thing for him to slide to the right side. As long as Kakko keeps developing, Buchnevich ends up as the odd-man out eventually, but I'm thinking of just the start of the 2020-21 season.

I still think there are a lot of good things coming for Kakko's game, but third-line slotting probably makes him an avoid for the year. At best, wait for a waiver wire pickup once the season gets going.

Anaheim PP1QB

Just as a little tease, I wrote about this situation specifically for the 2020-21 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide, due out tomorrow. Should I have given a better situation to tease than Anaheim's top PP defenceman? Probably! No one has ever accused me of being a successful advertiser.

Buffalo's Third and Fourth Power-Play Forwards

For years, the staples of Buffalo's top PP unit have been Eichel, Reinhart, and Ristolainen. With Rasmus Dahlin in the mix, Risto was moved to a secondary PP1 role, or pushed to PP2 entirely. The Sabres have also added Taylor Hall and Eric Staal in the offseason. Now, that gives them the following forward options for their top PP unit: Eichel, Hall, Staal, Skinner, Reinhart, Olofsson. Two of those guys will not be on the top power-play unit and will thus have much lower fantasy upsides. Eichel and Hall are automatics, so then it's the other four guys.

In my mind, this comes down to two pairs of players: Skinner/Olofsson and Reinhart/Staal. By the end of the season last year, the team was running a 3F/2D power play, with Olofsson on the top unit over Skinner. In my mind, that puts Olofsson on the inside track heading into 2020-21. Given that the team will probably want another centre on the second PP unit, I think that puts Reinhart PP1 and Staal PP2. It would also give them the appearance of 'chemistry' with Skinner/Staal playing PP2 together.

So, if I were to guess right now, Buffalo's PP1 is Eichel-Hall-Reinhart-Olofsson-Dahlin with PP2 being something like Staal-Skinner-Okposo-Thompson-Ristolainen. (I'm really unsure of Okposo/Thompson as we could see Dylan Cozens taking one of those spots easily.)

I am very concerned about the prospects of Skinner having a big rebound in 2020-21. His 82-game pace last year was 20 goals. Having Staal probably puts 25 in reach again? Forty goals are certainly out of the question.