Ryan Pulock was re-signed by the Islanders to a two-year deal, carrying an average annual value of $5M. As mentioned in that linked tweet by Arthur Staple, this opens a second buyout window for the Islanders. Whether they use it or not is another matter, but they have about $4M in cap space with which to sign Mathew Barzal, so they definitely need to free up more money one way or another. And, as pointed out by Shayna Goldman at The Athletic, this is the second bridge deal that Pulock has taken from the Islanders. That last point I just wanted to make to parlay it into this: I don't ever want to hear about a player being 'selfish' in contract negotiations. Every team will screw over any and every player if they feel it is warranted. I will never begrudge a player for taking a team to the cleaners.

For fantasy, this keeps him with the Islanders – barring a weird trade, I guess – for the foreseeable future. Devon Toews being shipped to Colorado obviously means good things for Pulock's power-play minutes, but if the team still splits into two power-play units, then there may not be a huge amount of PPTOI upside. Nick Leddy is still around for mop-up duties and Noah Dobson looks ready to (hopefully) step into Toews's role. It could be a situation where Dobson just takes Toews's PP minutes and not much changes.

In the fantasy game, there are not a lot of players who can produce across the board than Pulock: double-digit goals in two of the last three years, triple-digit hits and blocks in two of the last three years, while averaging about 10 PPPs a year. We should remember that he has never hit 30 assists, 40 points, 200 shots, or 15 PPPs in a single season. Not saying he can't, and I'm nowhere close to making projections yet. I would just say hold off on his extension coupled with a Toews trade meaning big things for his fantasy value.

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The more interesting signing for me was Anthony Mantha in Detroit. He was re-upped on Tuesday for four years at $5.7M per season. He was hurt for a good portion of last year but still managed 38 points in 43 games.

When looking through his stats, one thing popped out: his big jump in point rate in 2019-20 was largely driven by primary assists. His goals/60 minutes at 5-on-5 was actually a career-low and his secondary assists were only the second-highest of his career. Conversely, his primary assist rate per 60 (1.22) was the same as his previous two seasons' rates combined (0.73 and 0.49). Now, we don't combine rates here, but it was just to illustrate how absurd his jump in primary assists was.

Mantha, I believe, is going to be a fantasy star. (He already may be, depending on your personal definition of 'star'.) His ice time, along with his shots per game, have climbed every year he's been in the league, peaking at 3.2 in 2019-20. In the meantime, he's averaged over a hit per game over the last three years. My assumption (before I make my projections) is that he'll be good for 25 goals and should push past 30 if he's healthy and on the top line. If we have a 30-goal winger who can put up 260 shots and push 100 hits, that's a very valuable player.

But it's the assists that will push him over the top or not, and he's traditionally not been a good playmaker. However, he has been improving. Starting in the 2016-17 season, Mantha was in the 59^th percentile for shot assists (passes leading to teammate shots), which is nothing special. The following year, that rose to 65^th percentile. In 2018-19, that rose to a nice 69^th percentile. Much better than earlier in his career, but still not great. But the 2019-20 season? Well (from CJ Turtoro's viz):

Notice that we don't have a lot of minutes tracked, but the fact that he had a huge jump in shot assists in a small sample coupled with a huge jump in primary assists at 5-on-5 all tracks. While I don't want to say he would stay in the 88^th percentile if every game were tracked in the database, but that we have such a huge primary assist rate tells me that it wouldn't be far off.

The question is whether he can sustain close to that level, and I think he can. At 6-foot-5, Mantha has needed a bit more time to grow into his body, and though he's 26 years old now, he has basically just three seasons' worth of games (260) under his belt. He was always a highly touted offensive prospect and he has matured into his promise over the last few years. That he potentially added another tool to his kit isn't surprising.

If Mantha has indeed added that playmaking dimension, it puts 70-point seasons firmly within reach. But he needs to stay on Dylan Larkin's line (they were split at times last year) and he needs to stay healthy (a point saliently touched upon by Cam in his Ramblings yesterday). There are still some big 'ifs' here, but I think he's closer to fantasy stardom than he gets credit for due to where he plays.

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My last Ramblings discussed New Jersey's cap situation and the likelihood of acquiring one of Tampa's players due to their cap crunch. Another team that comes to mind here? Los Angeles.

The Kings are the envy of the league as far as prospects are concerned. But they have a ton of cap space and the lack of moves this off season indicates to me that they're going to wait to run out the contracts of Jeff Carter and Dustin Brown (after the 2021-22 season) before really making a push with the kids. When looking at the contracts the Bolts could move, Ondrej Palat has a contract that would run out at the same time as Carter/Brown, and Killorn has one that would run out the year after. Even if they bring up a couple of the kids in 2020-21, their ELCs would run out after the Brown/Carter/Palat contracts finish, or at the same time as Killorn. Either way, they can take on money for the next 2-3 years without it hurting their long-term financial picture, while filling the cupboard even more with the picks/prospects necessary for taking on such a contract in this revenue environment.

There may be an internal cap that makes all of this pointless but there are so few teams in a position to trade with Tampa Bay that options are limited, and Los Angeles is one of them.

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Also in a recent Ramblings, I talked about Minnesota's centre situation. That got me thinking about what their power-play situation might be.

Last year, the team had five forwards basically garner top PP minutes: Parise, Staal, Fiala, Zuccarello, and Zucker. Now, Zucker and Staal have both been traded. My assumption is that Zuccarello is on the bubble but both Parise, Kaprizov, and Fiala are locks for the top power-play unit. Who else?

There needs to be someone who can take face-offs. Whether that player stays on the ice is another matter, but someone has to take the actual face-off. My initial lean was Marcus Johansson because he may go into the season as the top-line centre. It could be Joel Eriksson-Ek but he has an atrocious face-off percentage for his career at 44.9 percent, never cracking 47 percent in a season. It is hard to fathom a coaching staff looking at a 45 percent face-off guy and pigeon-holing him as the top PP's centre. Instead, I submit that it could be Nick Bonino.

Eriksson-Ek is bad at face-offs and Johansson is probably worse (no season with 100 face-offs taken and a face-off win percentage surpassing 46 percent). That is why I think it won't be either of those guys. The Dobber Hockey guide has Marco Rossi, and that's something I don't agree with. We just don't often see non-elite red-shirt rookies on the top PP unit. We have seen guys like Laine, Matthews, and McDavid, sure. But then we have: Elias Pettersson being 20 years old before breaking into the league and on the top PP unit; Brady Tkachuk getting secondary PP minutes until Duchene/Dzingel were traded and that team was terrible; Pierre-Luc Dubois also getting secondary PP minutes. Bonino, on the other hand, is 52.8 percent on face-offs over the last three years after struggling earlier in his career. That kind of face-off percentage is something the team will look at when designing their power-play units. Again, it could be a situation where he takes the face-off and then changes (which, if Rossi makes the team, is possible), but I think there's a good chance that Bonino is Minnesota's PP1 centre when the 2020-21 season begins.

If I were to venture a guess, I think we see Fiala-Parise-Kaprizov-Bonino-Suter (or Dumba) as the top PP unit.