The Rangers avoided arbitration with Ryan Strome, signing him to a two-year contract with a cap hit of $4.5 million. After failing to meet expectations in Long Island and Edmonton, Strome has found a home in Manhattan, scoring a career-high 59 points while slotting in as Artemi Panarin's most frequent center and playing over 19 minutes per game. His chemistry with Panarin allows the Rangers to spread their scoring onto at least two lines, with Mika Zibanejad centering the other top line.

With the kind of scoring depth that they possess, the Rangers have no reason to rush youngsters Alexis Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko, Vitali Kravtsov, or Filip Chytil. The 27-year-old Strome may not be the long-term answer as a top-6 center with Chytil developing, and the short-term nature of the contract shows this. If Strome moves on (and there's a very real possibility that he's left unprotected in the Seattle draft), don't count on him holding the same level of value with another team that he has with the Rangers.

Gritty forward Brendan Lemieux is the only RFA that the Rangers have left to sign.

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The Columbus Blue Jackets have signed defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov to a three-year contract with a cap hit of $2.8 million per season. In his first NHL season, Gavrikov recorded 18 points (5g-13a) in 69 games for the Jackets, fitting in on the second pair with David Savard. Now that Ryan Murray has moved on to New Jersey, Gavrikov should be a mainstay as a top-4 defenseman for the Blue Jackets. He doesn't appear to be an offensive force at the moment, but he should pick up plenty of hits and blocked shots along the way.

With Gavrikov now signed, the Jackets only have one RFA left to sign, and it's a big one: Pierre-Luc Dubois.

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Also related to the Blue Jackets: In case you missed it on Wednesday, Gustav Nyquist will need 5-6 months to recover from shoulder surgery. With no start date announced for the 2020-21 season, more players may decide to opt for surgery that they have been postponing for a while. Ben Bishop and Tyler Seguin are two more examples of players undergoing surgery with a similar recovery timeline to Nyquist's.

If Nyquist misses 3-4 months because of the surgery, it's possible that the Blue Jackets take a run at one of the remaining free agents on a short-term deal. Mike Hoffman tops the list here, although there are a host of lesser names that have been left out in the cold as teams are financially constrained at the moment. With Nyquist out of the lineup, Alexandre Texier seems certain to take on major minutes. Texier was already on a line with Dubois and Oliver Bjorkstrand during the postseason, so he could be one to watch when the season finally starts.  

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The 15^th annual Fantasy Hockey Guide is now available! Tons of articles as well as projections, both team-by-team and on a spreadsheet, all aimed toward making your upcoming fantasy season a successful one. To get yours, order it here.

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Just call it Dobber Hockey's version of a garage sale. Yes, Bubble Keeper Week is back next week! Writers will discuss players that aren't necessarily must-owns, but instead players that they are sitting on the fence on. Will we be able to unearth any hidden gems with bargain players that might otherwise head to the waiver wire? Find out Sunday, when I kick things off in the Ramblings. The other writers will list their own bubble keepers and bring their own unique perspective to Bubble Keeper Week. If you're struggling with your own keeper decisions, you won't want to miss out!

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I plan to have a November update of the Top 100 Roto Rankings at around the middle of the month. I honestly didn't think I'd be making a ton of updates for November after a lot in October. However, after crunching some numbers based on the Fantasy Guide projections for both skaters and goalies, there's going to be some more significant changes for November.  

The bulk of these updates have to do with allowing more goalies into the top 100. To give you an idea of what to expect in upcoming single-season drafts, I don't think goalies will be as highly ranked as they have been in previous seasons. I've discussed this before, where I believe that a shortened season combined with a more condensed schedule will likely result in goaltending splits leaning closer to 50/50. However, this trend will allow a higher volume of goalies to enter into the top 100.

With that in mind, here are three goalies that are strong candidates to enter the next Top 100 Roto Rankings.

Anton Khudobin

I was already considering Khudobin here, based on his strong 2019-20 regular season (2.22 GAA, .930 SV%) and of course his postseason showing. Then the Stars announced that Ben Bishop's knee surgery would result in a possible five-month recovery. We don't know when the season will start, but Bishop will miss the first two months if the season starts in February. In a shortened season, two months is even more meaningful. As much as Bishop is a potential top-5 goalie when totally healthy, I'll likely be removing him from the top 100 with this much uncertainty.

It's also worth bringing up the fact that Khudobin is rehabilitating from his own surgery (arm) from early October. His recovery is only expected to be 4-5 weeks, which will easily put him on track to be ready for the start of the season. Something else to watch for: Jake Oettinger (Dobber Prospects profile) will likely back up Khudobin to start the season. The number three goalie for the Stars during their postseason run, Oettinger posted a 2.57 GAA and .917 SV% in his first full AHL season. Since Oettinger's NHL experience has totalled just 36 minutes, don't expect him to play a ton, at least to begin the season.

Philipp Grubauer

Goaltending might be the one area where the Avalanche are not truly dominant. Yet it's insane that the starting goalie on one of the league's true Stanley Cup favorites is not in the top 100.

The Avalanche don't need dominant goaltending the way other teams do in order to win, and Grubauer hasn't been a Vezina candidate. But if nothing else, Grubauer has been consistent in his two seasons with the Avalanche.

	GP	W	GAA	SV%
2019-18	36	18	2.63	.916
2018-17	37	18	2.64	.917

I wrote about Grubauer's backup Pavel Francouz in the Ramblings last week, specifically mentioning him as one of the better backups to own. However, Francouz could not grab the starting job during the postseason when Grubauer went down (suffering an injury of his own). Grubauer is back in the driver's seat here, although he still hasn't played 40 games in a season and may not be able to in what could be a shortened season. Regardless, if you're looking for strong win totals with good-but-not-great ratios, then you might be happy with Grubauer.  

Elvis Merzlikins

It could be risky picking Merzlikins in the top 100. It has nothing to do with the goaltending environment, which John Tortorella has made as user-friendly as possible with his vocal preference for defense first and shot blocking. It has to do with the competition and who the coach considers to be the starter at the moment. So it may take some time and you may need to be patient, but Elvis will eventually be the starter.

You may remember Merzlikins going on an absolute tear when he took over as the starting goalie from an injured Joonas Korpisalo in early January. In spite of that, Tortorella stuck with the old axiom that a starter shouldn't lose his job to injury, choosing to go with Korpisalo for most of the postseason. It's likely that Torts turns back to Korpisalo to start the season. Yet Merzlikins is the better goalie, and proved it last season with his 2.35 GAA and .923 SV% compared to Korpisalo's 2.60 GAA and .911 SV%. Elvis also earns more money ($4 million to $2.8 million), which means management likely considers him to be the guy over the two-year period of both contracts.

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For more fantasy hockey discussion, or to reach out to me, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding.