Jake DeBrusk signed with the Bruins for two years with an AAV a little under $3.7M per season. His fantasy value in the upcoming season will depend on when the season actually begins. With both Marchand and Pastrnak out of the lineup on a January 1st start, DeBrusk could see a lot of top minutes. Even a later start could see him keep a lock on the top PP role with Pastrnak out until February. Any later than that, though, and his value just keeps going down.

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One thing I have been thinking about as we wait for the players and owners to hammer out a deal is what the divisional alignments would look like. Despite it becoming public knowledge that some owners want players traveling across the country to every venue, or that some don't want to play without fans, it feels like we're heading to a four-division hybrid bubble with one in Canada and three in America. It seems the only way to allow players to continue seeing their families during the season while also keeping the ability to have a season in place. When MLB was traveling across America for games – and they had huge difficulties early in the season – Covid cases per day were roughly 75 percent lower than they are now.  The environment for the NHL and NBA in winter will not be the same as MLB in summer.

Anyway, that's besides the point. What should divisions look like? Well, we can eliminate the seven Canadian teams as they get their own division. We're left with three divisions for 24 teams, or eight teams per. They should be grouped by geographic location to cut down on travel distances (makes back-to-back games easier). Given we don't care about East/West for Canada, we'll be agnostic for the same in America, though we won't be putting teams in Florida and California in the same division.

Finally, there's not much we can do about the California teams. They're all varying degrees of bad right now and won't be great in 2020-21. But, we have to put them all in the same division for geographic reasons. At least they're in a buzzsaw division so they'll have to really earn a playoff spot if they get there. To that end, with Ottawa in the CND, I want to separate what I see as the three next-weakest teams: Detroit, New Jersey, and Arizona.

Southwest Division

We have five teams in California, Nevada, and Arizona, all within about 500 miles of each other. Colorado and Dallas are the nearest teams to those five, so now we're up to seven. After that, we have a group of four teams that could fit our final spot: Chicago, Nashville, Minnesota, and St. Louis. For balance's sake, we're going to take St. Louis. There are a lot of bad teams in this division, as all three California teams were in the lottery last year – and may not be considerably better in 2020-21 – and that doesn't include an Arizona team that over-performed and lost their best player. I had considered Chicago but that probably just makes the division far too weak.

Mid-Atlantic Division

Maybe naming these divisions by geographic locations is dumb because we're going to get teams from Florida and Minnesota in the Mid-Atlantic Division. Whatever.

We will include the three teams that didn't get into the SWD: Nashville Minnesota, St. Louis. We are going to add the two Florida teams beyond that. Carolina and Washington are automatics as rivals, so we're down to one spot to fill.

I am going to throw Detroit in here. This is a fairly tough division, and we've already put Arizona in the SWD and Ottawa in in the CND. There needs to be a weak team included here and while we could put in New Jersey, it makes more sense to leave them with their geographic rivals. So, we're left with Detroit, and in they go.

Northeast Division

Here we have the rest of the teams, including all the teams from the New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania area. Add in the Sabres, Bruins, and Blue Jackets, and we're all set.

There we are, our four divisions, setup in this manner:

There are some balance issues, still. The SWD is very top-heavy, as there is a clear delineation between the top-four and the bottom-four. The NED – if Buffalo is as improved as they seem – seems like a very tough division. We could see a situation where a weaker team like Vancouver or Winnipeg gets in the playoffs over a stronger team like the Columbus or Philadelphia. But, that's the case every year with the NHL playoffs so it's pretty much status quo.

I think this could be close to what we end up with if we have four divisions with hybrid bubbles. Any changes you would make? Let us know in the comments.

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When thinking about this realignment, I got to thinking about Anaheim, and specifically Adam Henrique.

Last year, the Ducks were bad, but Henrique had a good year. His 82-game paces were 30 goals, 50 points, 195 shots, 591 face-off wins, and 87 hits. Those aren't eye-popping, but for depth in deeper leagues, that is pretty good for a player on a real bad team.

The Ducks have some prospects but I don't think there is a centre ready for 17 minutes a night. The closest is Sam Steel but I think he still has a lot of offensive growth necessary before getting throw out against the likes of William Karlsson, Nazem Kadri, or Tomas Hertl every night. At the least, I think Henrique has one more year of being a top-6 centre in Anaheim, and he's averaged 24 goals/82 games for five years, missing just three games in that span. Put a star beside his name for a depth centre option in your multi-cat leagues.

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Just spit-balling: now is probably the time to acquire Henri Jokiharju in your leagues, if you have interest. I think he'll be a superlative defenceman, it's just a matter of being stuck behind Rasmus Dahlin on the PPTOI depth chart.

The reason for acquiring him now is that both Matt Irwin and Brandon Montour have one year on their deals, and Rasmus Ristolainen and Colin Miller both have two. Joki seems like he's a year away from being guaranteed a role on the team and two years away from potentially being a top-pair guy. Trying to trade for him after these contracts start running out will only lead to a higher acquisition cost.

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An interesting read from Helene St. James about the 2017 Red Wings draft. She brings up that they made 11 selections in that draft and there's a chance no one becomes a regular for the team. (The closest is probably Michael Rasmussen and he's no sure thing.) It is just a reminder that a lot of kicks at the can aren't a guarantee (granted, many of their extra picks were third rounders and not first rounders). Teams still need to develop their players or else all that draft capital is a waste.

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Don't forget to pick up your copy of the 2020-21 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide!

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The NHL Network released a list of their top-10 goalies:

The wait is over! Here are our Top 10 Goalies Right Now. #NHLTopPlayers pic.twitter.com/mFk9HkTaFb

— NHL Network (@NHLNetwork) November 23, 2020

These are fun for creating debate and not much else. The wording of "right now" would exclude someone like John Gibson, who had a .904 save percentage in 2019-20, which was his worst season in the NHL. Never mind that over the previous five seasons, he was first in the NHL in WAR/60 among all regular goalies, and over the previous three seasons, was fifth in high-danger save percentage. He is still one of the best goalies in the league, if not the best, but he had a bad year, so he's not a top-10 goalie.

Anyway, I quibble with the order but not most of the goalies on the list. Who is in your top-10? Mine would start with Gibson, Hellebuyck, Corey Crawford, and the Arizona guys in some order. What say you?