Boston coach Bruce Cassidy did an interview at NHL.com yesterday and Amalie Benjamin had the salient points of his presser. The most important part was probably the update on Marchand and Pastrnak. Both are still on schedule for their returns – mid-January and mid-February, respectively. That there have been no setbacks (yet) is a good start. The league still has a January 1st start date in mind, but the more that’s delayed, the better it is for Boston. My money is on Marchand being in the lineup for Boston’s first game of the year.

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An interesting read about fans and franchises over at The Athletic. Basically, it's a survey of how much confidence fans have in their GMs and their teams. The top of the list isn't surprising: Colorado, Tampa Bay, and Carolina are 1-3. Fourth place? Detroit.

Seeing what Yzerman did in Tampa Bay and being excited about that coming to Detroit is obviously a big factor here. I also think that Raymond and Seider are big hits prospect-wise with the fanbase. Even though it's been a brutal few years in Hockeytown, things are turning around.

Last on the list is Arizona, and given what's happened over the last few months, that isn't a surprise. But in 30^th place? Chicago. Seeing the best team of the 2010s near the bottom of the league in GM confidence in 2020 is surreal to see.

Good work by Dom Luszczyszyn.

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I got a question about a points-only keeper question between Malkin or Scheifele. It's not really the spirit of Bubble Keeper Week as we're looking further down rosters but if someone takes the time to ask me a question, it's only right that I reply.

Malkin has played 70 games once since the 2013 lockout. We all know the injury history. We also know a couple years ago he said he re-dedicated himself to conditioning, and after a three-year span from 2014-17 where he averaged 1.06 points/game, he's averaged 1.22 per game over the last three years. The reason for that is his two highest IPP seasons since the lockout (Individual Points Percentage, or the percentage of goals scored with a certain player on the ice on which that player registers a point) were the last two years. Is that a result of his commitment to increased conditioning, or is it just randomness? Good luck figuring it out.

Scheifele, meanwhile, has been at least a point-per-game player for four years, he's seven years younger, has been healthy recently, has a great supporting cast of wingers, and is getting loads of TOI. He is my pick here.

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Another Bubble Keeper question:

Ok 14 team 10 player keeper league. I'm down to kakko, Arvidsson, Bjorkstrand and Hoffman. Keep two. G,A,+/-,PIM,PPP,SHP,GWG,FOW,HAT,SOG,HIT.

— Robert Olive 🇨🇦 (@RTolive13) November 9, 2020

Let's break a few things down. None are centres, so FOWs are irrelevant. None kill penalties, either, so SHP are not a consideration. Neither of Arvidsson or Hoffman are bangers and neither is Kakko, and he probably won't be. Bjorkstrand, meanwhile, had 43 hits in 49 games last year. If he can put up 75 in a full 82-game season, he may come out with as many hits as the other three combined. That gives him an immediate edge. Columbus is also good defensively so even with plus/minus being random, I feel better about Bjorkstrand's plus/minus than anyone else, depending where Hoffman lands. I am someone who is high on Bjorkstrand in general – I think 30 goals is within reach for an 82-game season – so with the added benefit of hits and plus/minus, I'm going with him.

Hoffman is on the wrong side of 30, turning 31 in a couple weeks. I have him basically on par with Arvidsson, so I'll just go with the younger player who actually has a team. That means Hoffman is out.

The last spot comes down to Arvidsson or Kakko.

At this point, I think it comes down to the preference of the owner. I'm a believer in Arvidsson's bounce back, but Kakko is still very highly-touted and the team just keeps improving. The problem is that they have so many good wingers it could be a year or two before he's featured.

It comes down to this: do you need help now (Arvidsson) or later (Kakko)? That answer will determine the final spot. I would take Bjorkstrand then one of Arvidsson/Kakko depending on my roster's timeline.

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There was a question in our Forums that intrigued me from user 'flagellum' (!) mostly because it comes down to a matter of roster construction. This is the full question:

Teams keep 16 players each. The team's owner tells us that they are already keeping a dozen forwards plus Cale Makar and Carter Hart. To me, that indicates immediately that we're going to be keeping defenceman/goalie or a double-up with the last two picks. At the same time, I would be looking to shop some of these players. With 160 players being kept, I would hate to throw back Olofsson or Yamamoto for nothing. Recouping a couple draft picks should be a side quest here. The author says trading isn't an option, but I would encourage some work be done on that front.

Anyway, if we eschew all forwards, we're left with Drew Doughty, Adam Fox, Rasmus Ristolainen, Alex Edler, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Tristan Jarry.

One of the best predictors we have of future goalie performance is high-danger save percentage. Basically, how frequently a goalie makes the toughest saves gives us an idea of how good we can expect them to be in the future. Over the last three seasons, out of 62 goalies with at least 2000 minutes played at 5-on-5, Jarry comes in at 58^th by high-danger save percentage. There are goalies ahead of him that are no longer in the NHL. It is real bad, and a real cause for concern (to be fair to Jarry, it's still not a big sample). Basically, the only starting goalie outside 45^th place, or the mid-range backups, is Carey Price (for real). Yes, Jarry is only 25 years old so hopefully there is some growth to come, but there are very real and reasonable concerns as to not only how good he is, but if he's any good at all. I'm similarly out on Bobrovsky, only because of his team instead of him.

The idea of keeping just one goalie when 160 players will be kept is scary so in this instance, keeping Jarry is fine. I wouldn't do it personally, but I understand anyone who would choose to go that route. But, I am out on both goalies, so we're down to four defencemen.

I am immediately throwing out Alex Edler. He can't stay healthy, he's now 34 years old, he saw a big ice-time loss in 2019-20, and he has a minimal PP role.

Risto's value is a concern. With all the forwards the Sabres added, he's lost his PP1 role. He has also lost four minutes per game of TOI over the last couple of seasons. At the same time, even with four minutes of lost TOI and just 69 games played in 2019-20, Risto still put up over 200 hits. Even with a big hit to his PPTOI, he still put up 33 total points. If Risto can do something like 35 points, 150 shots, 100 blocks, and 200 hits, with somewhere close to an even rating, I think he could be a very fine option in this league.

Adam Fox is a bit of a quandary. In all honesty, I think he could end up the best real-life defenceman of anyone in this group but real hockey and fantasy hockey don't always overlap. He didn't get top PP minutes last year and still put up 42 points in 70 games. He also had 128 hits+blocks and double-digit PPPs, all this while skating fewer than 19 minutes a game. He is the team's best defenceman. I say there is little chance he plays under 20 minutes a game in 2020-21. Even a modest increase to somewhere between 20-21 minutes probably means two SOG/game with two hits+blocks per game. Just a modest TOI increase for Fox makes him a very well-rounded fantasy option.

As great as Drew Doughty was, there are significant concerns about his immediate fantasy hockey future. He has seen his ice time decline for five straight years and he turns 31 years old in a month. This is a player with a lot of wear on his hockey frame: he came into the NHL his draft year of 2008 and immediately played 23:50 a game! By 2014-17, he was playing anywhere from 27-30 minutes a game and from his rookie year through 2018-19, he never missed more than six games in a season. In that span, he became just one of three players since 1998 to amass at least 24 000 minutes of ice time through their age-30 season. There is also an extra season's worth of games (84) via the postseason. There are a lot of miles here, and though the Kings are on the rise, they're still a couple years away from putting anything together. I'm not keeping a guy for two years to see if he's still good in his mid-30s while hoping the team improves around him. Too many moving parts for a decaying player. I'm out.

So, we're left with Ristolainen and Fox. I think that is the direction I would go in with this keeper question, though it does feel kind of bad to be keeping Risto over guys like Yamamoto and Bjorkstrand.