Well, I figured it was time to start projections, seeing as there is a lot of chatter the NHL season will begin in about five weeks' time. It was a wild, wild trip just briefly going back over stats from 2019-20. Remember that it'll be at least 10 months between the end of last season and the start of this one. I saw a tweet yesterday that said 'Parasite' won the Oscar for movie of the year in 2020. That feels like five years ago.

Anyway, I was going over some team defensive numbers yesterday and something really stuck out to me: the Ottawa Senators weren't bad defensively in 2019-20. That phrase may surprise some people, seeing as the Sens were a lottery team that allowed the second-most goals against, but believe me, I haven't gone off the deep end. Not yet. Probably.

Corey Sznajder is a hockey tracker that not only tracks things like player zone entries and exits, but also a lot of team-level stuff as well. (Readers can subscribe to his Patreon here for access to the data.) Here are some of the defensive categories covered: carry-against%, or the rate at which teams give up the blue line with possession; break-up%, or the rate at which possession entries are stopped at the blue line; pass-against%, or zone entries via passes allowed. In order, the Sens allowed the lowest percentage of carry-ins, were fifth by break-ups at the blue line, and mid-pack by passes allowed. While that last part doesn't stand out, the fact they were great-to-elite at denying the blue line or allowing possession entries is a great thing for them moving forward. Limiting possession entries goes a long way at limiting not only shots, but high-quality ones.

The Sens played a high pace, which in itself isn’t a bad idea, but with a young group, that frenzy means more turnovers, more mistakes. The team from 2019-20, which had J-G Pageau, Anthony Duclair, Dylan DeMelo, and Vladislav Namestnikov is not the team of 2020-21 with none of them. Those guys were or will be replaced by young guys, which means even more mistakes. In other words, I don’t think it would be fair to assume Ottawa will be much better defensively as a whole this season. It will take some time.

When D.J. Smith was hired, the prevailing thought was that he was a great defensive mind. It seems he has certainly lived up to that billing. The team still needs more improvements offensively, and maybe that'll come this year with their prospects. Regardless, I am not writing off Matt Murray this season in goal. He had a bad 2019-20, and the Sens had a bad 2019-20, and that's probably going to make him real cheap at the draft table. I like drafting cheap goalies, so he's a guy that will be circled on my draft list as a 3/4 guy.

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Speaking of carrying the puck in, what about the power play? Luckily, Sznajder covers 5v4 as well as 5v5, so we do have data on that as well.

When we look at the leaders by carry-in% on the power play, we get an interesting trend as well. Here are the top-10 teams by carry-in% at 5-on-4:

What do those 10 teams have in common? None of them finished outside the top-16 teams by 5v4 PP goals/60 in 2019-20. The only team to finish top-5 in 5v4 scoring but outside the top-10 by carry-in% were the Bruins, and they were 11^th by carry-in%.

What can this be used for in the fantasy game? Well, it could indicate that Colorado's power play, which was middle-of-the-road last year, should be a lot better this year. But that doesn't do much for us because every fantasy owner is targeting Avs players.

What about the Flames, though? They finished fifth in carry-in% but finished 15^th in goals/60 at 5v4. I have spent some time this offseason talking about rebounding Flames, and I think the power play is one area that is going to be a strength. (They need to draw more penalties, though. They finished bottom-10 in the league last year in power-play opportunities.)  I think there is going to be a good buying opportunity on guys like Gaudreau and Lindholm.

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In keeping the theme here, I was going to write about Nikita Gusev because I was going over his 2019-20 micro stats and thinking, "hey he could have a pretty good 2020-21." Then I read Cam's Wednesday morning Ramblings and saw he beat me to the punch.

I even agree with Cam on the hopeful choice of centre. I think we see Hischier get close to 20 minutes a night for the reason of having a new coach. As I've often pointed out, Jon Hynes (now in Nashville, which sucks for them fantasy-wise) spreads out ice time. Under Hynes in New Jersey in 2019-20, Hischier played 17:16 a game, spanning 25 games. Under not-Hynes in New Jersey in 2019-20, he played 18:40 a game. He will be 22 years old for the season. I bet we see him close to 20 minutes, and that means his wingers get a lot of ice time as well. That is, hopefully Gusev gets loads of TOI.

I am not alone in this. Beyond Cam gushing about him yesterday, the Dobber guide is very high on him, as we have him projected to lead the team in scoring, pushing for 70 points/82 games. The guide, however, has him playing with Hughes, and I do think that's where he ends up. Hischier will take the hard minutes, and Kyle Palmieri usually takes those minutes with him. I think we see Gusev/Hughes on the second line, with Gusev in the 17- to 18-minute range, rather than 19-20.

Just by the way: Lindy Ruff is not shy of playing his good players a lot. During his Stars tenure, Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn were regularly playing 19-20 minutes a game. I am betting that the New Jersey top-6 gets more ice time this season than they did under Hynes, and that's great news for fantasy.

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Last month I wrote about what divisional realignment might look like for 2020-21. Pierre LeBrun tweeted about what they might look like:

Not finalized yet, and still subject to change, but the 2020-21 four-division re-alignment currently looks like this according to sources:

Bos-Buf-NJ-NYI-NYR-Pha-Pgh-Was

Car-CBJ-Det-Chi-Fla-Min-Nas-TB

Ana-Ari-Col-Dal-LA-SJ-STL-VGK

All-Canadian teams

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) December 9, 2020

That is close to what I had. The Pacific Division with the California teams and the Canadian Division were as I wrote. The other two are not, and one thing pointed out was how easy Tampa Bay’s division seems. I had the divisions aligned as such: NSH-MIN-CHI-DET-CAR-WSH-FLA-TB in the ‘Central’ and BOS-BUF-NYR-NYI-NJD-CBJ-PIT-PHI in the ‘East’. I think those are more balanced but honestly, this is going to be such a wild year that I wouldn’t worry about differences between, say, the Islanders and Predators right now. We could be six weeks away from a tweet saying the Preds top line is in quarantine for 10 days.

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In my latest Ramblings, I wrote about Martin Necas and how I think he can improve in the fantasy game. It was pointed out that he's good in transition and has other solid playmaking skills, which hopefully turn him into a guy who can setup his teammates consistently.

The problem with that is playmakers usually aren't super valuable in fantasy. Think of even the elite guys in recent memory like Joe Thornton and Nicklas Backstrom and how many elite fantasy seasons – in multi-cat leagues – that they had. But they can make their wingers super valuable in fantasy, so that's where we should focus.

The Dobber Guide has Necas on the second line with Vincent Trocheck as his centre. Up until 2019-20, Trocheck had paced for at least 230 shots/82 games for three straight seasons. He has three seasons of at least 23 goals and one 30-goal season. The guy can score.

Trocheck faces a two-pronged issue. When he was having great seasons in Florida, he was the lock number-2 centre and they played their top-6 a lot. Carolina, meanwhile, has both Sebastian Aho and Jordan Staal down the middle. At best, Trocheck is splitting middle-6 duties. That means we are very unlikely to see him in the 19- to 20-minute range again. Less ice time hurts.

If he's splitting middle-six duties, he needs PP time to flourish. There are a lot of good forwards on the roster so he's far from a lock for top PP duties.

With all that said, they need to replace Justin Williams on the top PP unit, and Trocheck is a right shot like Williams. While Williams played the slot and Trocheck has typically played the half-wall, it's not a big deal moving him 12 feet to the left. Our guide has him on PP1 and I concur.

So, if we have Trocheck playing with a good playmaker at even strength, albeit in middle-six minutes, with top PP time, what can we expect? I suspect we'll see Trocheck's best per-game output since 2017-18. I will report back with my actual projections when they're done (hopefully before Christmas).