The 15^th annual Fantasy Hockey Guide is out and ready for download! Draft List too! Updated up to today.

Thank you everyone for your support. It's been a tough year with sales of course being down. Tremendous, tremendous support from the community over the past week – sales in such a short window have been making a dent in the overall decline, eating away at the deficit. Lots of people getting pumped up for their drafts and picking up the Guide. Thank you!

*

Training camps have opened and teams have announced the players who have been invited. A few notable players have been left off, but this does not meant hat they will not join the team later on. For example, Denis Malgin is tearing up the Swiss League right now with 22 points in 19 games, which is good for third. The Leafs are so deep that there is no way he will make the team (which is unfortunate because I think there is some hidden value here). So he will remain in the Swiss League and I suspect the team will call him back in April and he'll get into a few games. An unrestricted free agent, undrafted 23-year-old who dominates the Swiss League like this would have 20 NHL teams begging to sign him. The Leafs already have him. And he has NHL experience. As long as depth and/or hockey politics don't get in the way, I think Malgin is a future fantasy option. Color me a fan.

Another name off the invite list – Josh Ho-Sang. This caught Ho-Sang and his agent off guard. And me, to be honest. The Isles signed him again. Why? Just to punish him? To make a statement? Seems like a petty move, Lou Lamoriello.

*

I have two drafts in the coming weekend. The big one, for my 15-team, 20-year, 34-player roster dynasty league, I have been preparing for months. Jotting down notes, reviewing teams. Can't wait to see if the added work pays off. The other one, a 14-team, 12-player keeper I am using Fantasy Hockey Geek to prepare. Last year I was winning this league on the Monday, but Tuesday fell to second and Wednesday was third – barely. I had a lot of games that weekend and wasn't worried because I would catch up and get back on top. It was a light week. But then – pandemic! Shutdown! And I finished third. Robbed! As always, Geek will put me on top. It will customize our somewhat complicated points system and rank the players accordingly.

Geek has a Draft Guru that feeds you your next best player live in-draft. BUT, because it's such a busy draft season, the guru can freeze and get glitchy. So I never use it since my draft is always around the same time. But I've used it before for earlier drafts (in non-busy times). What I do instead is run the customized rankings. Then I manually add them to the Fantrax player list so it is ready in my Draft Room on Draft Day. Anyway, if your league is not a full keeper and has more than just points, I recommend using the Fantasy Hockey Geek Draft Kit. Coupon is on page 12 of the Fantasy Guide to get it to you at half price.

*

The Taxi Squad rule will make things very interesting this year in terms of player movement. First of all, you will see far more junior-age players hanging around until February. They can practice with the NHL team for three weeks – why not? This could also lead to opportunities, if a veteran gets injured.

For example, in a normal training camp, Philip Tomasino would probably be sent to junior. His NHL games played this year would be zero. But this year, he stays on the Taxi Squad. Let's say on January 23 Matt Duchene gets injured for four-to-six weeks. Now Tomasino gets into the lineup. He wouldn't normally get into the lineup because normally he would be playing for Oshawa. But in this situation, he gets into the lineup. And let's say Erik Haula goes down with an injury two games later. Suddenly, the Predators give Tomasino even more ice time and he responds with some points. By the time Duchene is ready to get back, Tomasino, in my hypothetical scenario, has nine points in 13 games and the team wants him to stay. So Tomasino would (hypothetically) play almost an entire NHL season because of the pandemic schedule when normally he would have played zero games.

Imagine this possibility for any one of 20 or more junior players across the league.

*

You will also see a ton of player movement and this could cost you if you're in a daily transaction league. As teams try to maximize cap space, they will be shuffling players back and forth to and from the Taxi Squad and they can do this up until 5pm EST which is often two hours before game time. And because the Taxi Squad players are right there, teams don't need to have an extra player or two around as a precaution in case they are needed. So they will keep the roster lean and trim at 20 players. If an injury happens (or a positive COVID test), then they'll just pull a guy from the Taxi Squad who is already in the building.

This is why in the Fantasy Guide I have bloated rosters in a few cases. I have quite a few players getting into games. Daily league fantasy owners will have to be on full alert. And weekly transaction owners will need to keep their fingers crossed that they don't lose their guy early – because that will probably happen more often than usual. This will probably reduce the games played for fourth liners and possibly a few third liners and the depth points will get spread out. It makes the top two lines a little more valuable in fantasy leagues.

Teams who keep the roster lean and trim like this could save upwards of $5 million to $6 million in salary cap space by the trade deadline (which, by the way, is April 12).

*

Also note that players who require waivers to be sent down to the minors still have to clear waivers to be 'sent' to the Taxi Squad. Expect a ton of players on waivers at the end of training camp, even if they make the team, because they don't have to go on waivers again for another 30 days. Teams will want to bury their guys in an avalanche of waivers in mid-January since it will be easier to sneak them through. Then they won't have to worry about it until mid-February.

*

Gustav Nyquist is a part of the Columbus training camp (41 players) but he is listed as injured. His shoulder surgery has him out until April, so I am curious why he's there at this point. Are things coming along quicker than anticipated?

Pierre-Luc Dubois recently signed a two-year deal, but there are multiple articles out about how the team is dealing with his request (present tense) to be traded. So he is still wanting a change of scenery, but will play with the team until he gets one.

*

The Chicago Blackhawks got a pretty good deal from Dylan Strome, locking him in for two years at $3M AAV. To get good deals from your players, all you need to do is sign other players to stupid outlandish contracts so that all future players have no choice but to take the discount.

*

The Mathew Barzal camp holdout has begun. He awaits a contract with the Islanders.

Remaining unsigned RFA's besides Barzal: Jack Roslovic, Luke Kunin, Henrik Borgstrom, Aleksi Saarela, Jesper Bratt, Dmytro Timashov. In the case of Borgstrom, Saarela and Timashov they are probably looking for some guarantees of staying in the NHL in some way.

*

WJC has reached the semi-final stage, with Canada playing Russia Monday and USA versus Finland.

The most impressive player to me so far has been Tim Stuetzle. In points-only keeper leagues, he has moved into No.2 to draft as I think he gets his points before Quinton Byfield does. That being said, Byfield has also impressed. But what Stuetzle has done playing with those teammates has exceeded anything I've seen in a long time. And Buffalo prospect John-Jason Peterka has actually kept up with him! He's on my radar too, now.

Trevor Zegras I had making the Ducks this year and making an impact. At the WJC you are seeing why. Ditto for Dylan Cozens. In fact, I'm happy to say that the three prospects at the WJC who are leading it in scoring are the three I have making their teams and getting regular duty. I have Byfield being sent back after six games and of course Alexis Lafreniere isn't participating.

I also liked Peyton Krebs, Rodion Amirov, Anton Lundell and Cam York.

I was hoping to see a little more from Connor Zary (Calgary prospect), Jack Quinn (BUF), Brendan Brisson (VGK) and Thomas Harley (Dallas prospect). In the case of Harley, I think Team Canada's forwards are so high-end that they're not using their defensemen as much as they would normally need to. And the opposition, to date, hasn't been very challenging. Against a tougher Russian team I suspect we'll see more out of the likes of Harley or Jamie Drysdale as the forwards realize they need to use all five players out there, and scoring on the rush won't be as common. But Zary and Quinn I was hoping would be in on the highlight festivities a little more to date.

But, look at it this way – some excellent prospects were cut from the team to begin with, and we would still love to own them: Seth Jarvis, Mavrik Bourque, Samuel Poulin, Jamieson Rees, etc. So I wouldn't bump Zary, Quinn, Brisson, Harley or Drysdale down your list any as a result of this either.

*

See you next Monday.