It was 25 years ago yesterday that Patrick Roy was traded to the Colorado Avalanche, a trade that altered the next two decades of their respective franchises, for better (Colorado) or worse (Montreal).

I don't remember a lot about pro sports from my childhood, but I do remember my dad telling me my favourite player on my favourite team was traded. I think that's where my trust issues began.

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The Finnish men's league has suspended games for two weeks as the COVID-19 situation in the country deteriorates:

Liiga postponing games from Dec. 3-19 due to COVID-19. https://t.co/Nm742y26A5

— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) December 2, 2020

This doesn't have much bearing on us directly as we've seen jurisdictions in North America not come close to the same level of restrictions elsewhere in the world, but case levels are a concern for the league. What is true now may not be true in three weeks so between this and the contract talks, there are concerns about when the NHL will actually start.

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Yahoo opened their fantasy hockey lobby and I was going through some of the positional assignments and some of them were notable. Here’s a sampling:

• Leon Draisaitl has both centre and left-wing eligibility. My degrading memory often fails me but I do not remember Draisaitl having left-wing eligibility last year. I am pretty sure this is new because of the time spent with McDavid/Kassian?
• Johnny Gaudreau has dual winger eligibility. This must have come from the time he spent on a line with Backlund and Monahan because he played with Elias Lindholm, a right winger, for most of the season.
• Steven Stamkos also has dual eligibility but no centre slotting. That is probably fine because I think his centre days are over anyway, but he took nearly 700 face-offs in 57 games last year. Fantasy owners could be getting a lot of face-off wins from a goal-scoring fantasy winger.
• There are a ton of players with dual eligibility, actually. Just among the top-100 from their rankings, we have the two guys already named, Svechnikov, Laine, Teravainen, Tkachuk, Miller, Fiala, Kubalik, DeBrincat, Olofsson, Hoffman, and Nylander. Looking further, Alex Radulov has is as well and I don't think I've ever seen him line up at left wing in my life. Fantasy owners will find themselves hard-pressed to not have one or two dual-wingers on their roster.
• Yes, Mark Pysyk has both defence and right-wing eligibility.

We should have some time to familiarize ourselves with new positions so head on over to Yahoo! to see what they have going on.

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As I have often mentioned, I am not a prospect guy. I don't spend hundreds of hours a year watching the European/Junior leagues like Cam Robinson or Peter Harling do. I watch what I can – Frozen Four, Memorial Cup, World Juniors – and go to people I trust for their impressions. So, that is a caveat that needs to be said whenever I talk about a prospect.

With that out of the way, I can't stop thinking about one prospect in particular: Moritz Seider.

The Red Wings took him sixth overall in 2019 and that was a bit of a surprise. Bob McKenzie had him 16^th on his board, Cam had him 13^th, while McKeen's Hockey had him 15^th. Not that those three sources are the be-all, end-all, but those are among the sources I trust for prospects. When he was taken by Detroit, guys like Dylan Cozens and Trevor Zegras, all ranked higher in our sources, were still available. Victor Soderstrom, ranked higher in two of those three sources mentioned, was a defenceman still on the board. Ostensibly 'better' options were available, yet they went with Seider.

Since then, the guy has just been on a tear. In his first pro season in the AHL, he posted 22 points in 49 games. That was as an 18-year old rookie. So far this year in the Swedish league, he has eight points in nine games. As a 19-year old sophomore (I guess he'd be a rookie in that league). Max Bultman at The Athletic wrote a piece on him recently, mostly covering how his coaches, whether in the AHL or SweHL, all rave about him. Now, that's nothing new for a young prospect, as coaches aren't known to trash their young stars unless their name is Josh Ho-Sang. But that raving comes coupled with the excellent production as a teenager. All this in combination with the fact that Steve Yzerman, a guy who played with Nicklas Lidstrom for years, was the one who drafted him. I know that's an appeal to authority argument, but I believe Yzerman has earned his credibility through his various tenures as GM.

I am as big a fan as Filip Hronek as anyone else, but I think we need to realize that there is a potential superstar on the way, and probably very soon. There is one guy here worth the price of acquiring in a dynasty trade, and it's the guy who hasn't stepped foot on an NHL ice surface yet.

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I was having an offline conversation with Steve Laidlaw – go check out his podcast that has been added to the Dobber Network – and he brought up Florida's power play. My most recent Ramblings talked about big changes to PP units around the league and he brought up Mike Hoffman leaving Florida. He raised a good point to me that their best PP seasons of Barkov years have been the two seasons with Hoffman in the lineup. I mean, the guy did score 28 PP goals across two years.

My running theory on power plays, and offence in general, is that talented shooters matter but not as much as playmakers. But here was an instance where there was one big change to a lineup and it led to wildly improved results. Correlation does not equal causation and all that but beginning with the guy that actually puts the puck in the net is probably a good start.

Anyway, how does Florida fare this year? It is a fair question to ask because they do have Barkov, Huberdeau, and Yandle still, but they had those three guys before Hoffman showed up and the power play was bad. Owen Tippett may be ready to step into the NHL this year, but I wouldn't rely on him being locked for PP1 minutes on a team coached by Joel Quenneville. They added Patric Hornqvist and I think he takes some heat off. He has a higher goal rate on the PP over the last three years than stalwarts like Bo Horvat, Vladimir Tarasenko, and Joe Pavelski. If he were going to a team like Ottawa or Anaheim, or even Los Angeles or Montreal, I would be concerned with his PP output. Going to play with Barkov and Huberdeau on a heavily-used top unit quells those concerns.

Hornqvist has averaged 11 PP goals per 82 games over his last four years. Mike Hoffman averaged 14 PP goals a season over the last two years. If Hornqvist can just maintain his pace, I think there's good reason to believe Florida's power play stays consistent. However, adding two new pieces to it will require time, so I would expect a lot of changes on Florida's PP1 through the year.