It was more or less confirmed by Arpon Basu of The Athletic that teams will be able to send their CHL prospects to the AHL to start the year. That means guys on the bubble like Dylan Cozens or Bowen Byram have a place to play when the season starts and teams aren't forced to leave them on the taxi squad. I think we are going to see a lot of 18- and 19-year-olds head to the AHL and that's probably a good thing for some of them. A player like Byram is probably ready for the NHL but is blocked while guys like Cozens have a legitimate shot at their NHL rosters but the Sabres aren't forced to play them there for lack of other options.

This may force some lesser pro players out of a job and overseas. It will be worth following how different teams handle this.

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Canada handled Russia 5-0 in the semis at the WJHC. They looked dominant for the first two periods before sitting back a bit. You never hold your breath when Canada has a big lead at the World Juniors over Russia, but this one worked out. The team hasn’t allowed a 5-on-5 goal yet this tournament. And Dylan Cozens looks NHL-ready.

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Interesting groupings at Rangers camp. We had Chris Kreider and Pavel Buchnevich in a group with Brett Howden, while Artemi Panarin, Alexis Lafrenière, and Kaapo Kakko were in the second group with Ryan Strome. With Mika Zibanejad not skating right now, Howden is taking his spot. We also saw Laffy skating with Filip Chytil, so the lines to start the year may be something like this:

Kreider-Ziba-Buch

Panarin-Strome-Kaako

Laffy-Chytil-Gauthier

A few things to note.

First, this isn't a death-knell for Zibanejad. He didn't play a lot with Panarin at evens last year, and in fact, when Ziba potted 22 goals in 21 games to finish the year, he did so while skating with Panarin only about 25 percent of the time.

What it does do is bring value to a lot of other players. Buch now seems to have a top-6 role locked, while Kakko is skating with Panarin at even strength. Guys that would typically be drafted outside the top-15 rounds in fantasy leagues have more fantasy value than they did a week ago.

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Your everyday reminder that Oliver Bjorkstrand is still being drafted far too low in almost every league.

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I had really been hoping that Ondrej Kase would get the first crack at Boston's top line without David Pastrnak in the lineup but it appears as that will go to Jack Studnicka:

Group A lines:

Marchand-Bergeron-Studnicka
Bjork-Kuraly-Wagner
Frederic-Lindholm-Senyshyn
Carey

Lauzon-McAvoy
Zboril
Kampfer-Miller
Ahcan

Rask
Vladar
Booth

— Matt Porter (@mattyports) January 4, 2021

Whether that goes the same for the power play remains to be seen, but if Kase is L2 and PP2, it's a wild change in projection from L1 and PP1 for a month with Bergeron/Marchand. Not saying he can't have a breakout, it'll just be a lot harder now.

For posterity, it appears the second line was DeBruck-Krejci-Kase with Smith and Coyle on the third line. The balanced approach is probably better for the team but I'm a selfish fantasy owner so what gives here?

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It looks as if Cody Glass is going to start the year on the third line. Not a terrible thing, necessarily, but I was really hoping he’d start the year on the second line. I hope he still gets those PP minutes, at least.

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The Wings have been skating a line of Zadina-Fabbri-Ryan, which certainly looks like their second line this year. What is interesting to me is that they had Evgeny Svechnikov skating with Frans Nielsen. Is the elder Svech ready for a jump? It appears the team wants to at least give him a shot.

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Steven Stamkos is taking Kuch's spot on Brayden Point's line and that's great news for us. Stamkos playing with Anthony Cirelli would have been a downgrade for his upside. Now, it certainly looks like a healthy Stamkos is ready for point-per-game production again.

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Filed under the 'Good News' column: it appears Nolan Patrick is ready to rock and is looking good in his first day of camp. He missed the entire 2019-20 season with a migraine problem so it's great to just see him skating, let alone doing well at training camp.

As far as fantasy value goes, I don't think there's much. With Couturier/Hayes, they have the top-6 locked up and there is a lot of good forward depth in general here. We should take some time to see what he can do before getting too excited about fantasy value.

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Speaking of interesting line combos:

#FlaPanthers lines in Group 1:

Huberdeau – Barkov – Duclair
Denisenko – Acciari – Hinostroza
Bowlby – Schwindt – Wilson

Stillman – Stralman
Connauton – Gudas
Gildon – Massie

Driedger

— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) January 4, 2021

Just even-strength minutes alone for Duclair with Barkov is a big upgrade over anything he's had in his career. If he can get PP1 minutes with those, we could be looking at a career year. All of a sudden, a top-100 player could emerge.

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New Jersey's power play:

First #NJDevils power-play unit at practice:

Zacha-Hughes-Palmieri-Gusev
Subban

— Amanda Stein (@amandacstein) January 4, 2021

I mentioned a couple days ago on Twitter that I think Damon Severson backers were going to get their heart broken, and here we are. Now, it's not to say Subban is going to stay there, but he's had one bad year amid an all-star career; he deserves another season to prove his worth.

By the way, Subban has been going pick-200 or later in some drafts I've seen, regardless of format. This is a guy who is just 31 years old, has one Norris Trophy, two other top-3 Norris finishes, and averaged 51 points/82 games in Nashville. If that power play can be good – and once Hischier is there, I think it will be – I don't see why Subban can't be a top-20 fantasy defenceman this year. This is the kind of buying opportunity that wins fantasy leagues when it works out.

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Montreal has their lineup looking like this for now:

#Habs practice:
Tatar* – Danault – Gallagher
Drouin – Suzuki – Anderson
Toffoli – Kotkaniemi – Armia
Lehkonen – Evans – Byron
Poehling – Weal – Frolik

Chiarot – Weber
Edmundson – Petry
Romanov – Kulak
Ouellet – Mete

Price
Allen
Primeau

— John Lu (@JohnLuTSNMtl) January 4, 2021

I wouldn't get super hung up on this right now. The Habs tend to spread out their ice time and I don't think it's long before the middle-6 sees a shake-up.

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Blake Lizotte was centering Jeff Carter and not the other way around, which is something to note.

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It looks like John Klingberg is going to hang onto his PP1 slotting for now, which is probably for the best. At the same time, this is not a good offensive environment and Tyler Seguin is out for months, if not the season. On a per-minute basis, if Dallas's PP2 outscored their PP1 this year, I would not be the least bit surprised. Heiskanen is a true engine and can carry a PP unit.

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The fourth forward for the Pens' top PP unit looks to be, for now, Bryan Rust and not Jason Zucker. If that persists, it changes the outlook of those two players dramatically.

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I saw some glowing reports early in camp for Jordan Kyrou but I've been down this road too many times before. They brought in Mike Hoffman, I'm assuming, because they don't think they have enough internally to replace Tarasenko, which isn't a ringing endorsement. Just keep an eye on how his season starts.

Maybe the most fun development in camp so far is Robert Thomas skating on the second line between Mike Hoffman and Jaden Schwartz. I have long been a big fan of Thomas and he's showed very well in lesser roles the last couple years. I think he's ready for the jump. Get excited, dynasty owners.

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A little over a week ago, my Christmas wish list included a bounce back season for Nino Niederreiter. Well, he may get that chance as Niederreiter was skating on the top line in Carolina camp with Aho and Teravainen. He has the opportunity to bounce back, it's a matter of whether he can do it. Personally, I think we see him regain the magic we saw from a couple years ago. At the least, it'll be very cheap in fantasy drafts to find out what he can do.

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Early in camp, the Canucks are loading up the top line with Miller-Pettersson-Boeser. That is wonderful news for those guys and terrible news for Bo Horvat. Not long ago I wrote about how Horvat could have another good year even with some pieces from the team gone. If he's skating with third-line wingers the entire year, we might see nearly half his production come from the power play, and that's not a good thing.

I will say this: Travis Green said specifically that a young RW is going to play with Horvat and that certainly looks like it will be Nils Höglander. If that ends up being him, well, that changes the equation over someone like Loui Eriksson. Just keep in mind that a line of Pearson-Horvat-Höglander is all left shots.

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Nashville had a pile of guys missing from camp including Duchene and Ekholm. Because the NHL is still allowing teams to offer the ubiquitous "unfit to practice," all I can tell you is that Matt Duchene and Mattias Ekholm are not dead. They are alive. What their state of aliveness is, well, I'm unfit to tell you.

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Have you picked up your copy of the constantly-updated 2021 Dobber Fantasy Hockey Guide yet?

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I did a Best Ball draft on Sunday night over on Fantrax. It was with seven other NHL DFS/NHL bettors because we just wanted something to do and the $400 pot is going to the winner's charity of choice.

For anyone unfamiliar, a best ball is when you draft a full roster and then leave it. No trades, no waivers, no nothing. You just draft your team and then a certain amount of players count towards your final total. In our league, we drafted five centres, eight wingers, five defencemen, and three goalies. Of those players, the top scores at each position are counted (we're doing three centres, four wings, three-dmen, and one goalie). So if two of your wingers are injured, well, you have six others that can be used to make your top-4. It's a good way to prep for the season without having to worry about managing it all year.

We just did a standard snake draft and the scoring is DraftKings settings: goals are 8.5 points, assists are five, shots are 1.5, blocks are 1.3, and PPPs are one. Here is my skater roster:

I wanted shooters. Those familiar with DraftKings scoring knows it favours shooters. The problem I ran into is that I ripped a few wingers off the board early, and there wasn't much left for shooting centres, which is why I have the guys I have. That probably left me weak down the middle and it's a concern. I do think it's made up with great wingers, though. I was going for a Carolina/New Jersey stack but when Jake Guentzel was still on the board in the second round, I chose him over Aho, who went next. That I see Aho and Svech broken up at training camp so far makes me think this was a fortuitous turn of events for me.

In this league, we had eight teams and three goalies per team which we hold all year. That means 24 goalies drafted. Even a 10-team best ball league with three goalies won't draft every starting goalie. That presents a dilemma:

1. There is an oversupply which would normally tell us that goalies should be cheaper to acquire, meaning draft them later.
2. Best ball leagues don't allow transactions, so if I punt at goalie and they all fall through, I'm toast. There is no recovering from it.

I basically split the difference by waiting a few rounds, grabbing one goalie, waiting a half-dozen rounds, grabbing another, and then picking Tristan Jarry in round 16. I was more or less just grabbing one goalie per tier along the way. I had no better plan and if someone has one, leave a note in the comments.

One thing I did notice, and maybe it's just the way the draft fell, but I found centre ran thin real quick. I took Mark Scheifele at pick 42 and he's not a great fantasy player in this format. Ditto goes for players like Barkov and Couturier. Guys that may usually be a good 1C in fantasy may not be in this format. Always check the rules.

There were interesting pairs of players drafted. Mini-stacks, if we will. They are as follows:

• Barrie/Draisaitl
• Connor/Wheeler
• Guentzel/Letang
• MacKinnon/Rantanen
• Larkin/Mantha
• Miller/Boeser
• Forsberg/Arvidsson

Personally, now that we see some line combinations at camp, the Miller/Boeser combo looks like a great one. If the Canucks actually run a line of Miller-Pettersson-Boeser for the whole year, they could go ham on a defensively-light Canadian division, especially when including their power play correlation. Depending on the format – this doesn’t include hits so Miller isn’t as valuable – they are all drafted in different rounds, so the stack is very possible to acquire. I might try that in another best ball.

Also, Larkin/Mantha/Bertuzzi, if they stay together for the season, are going to be a wrecking ball. They are all going late-ish, too.

Anyway, this was all done at Fantrax and it was easy to setup and run. I cannot recommend these types of leagues enough, if only to prepare for other drafts. If anyone wants to hop in one sometime in the next week with me, hit me up on Twitter @SlimCliffy. Maybe a bunch of us could do a low buy-in for charity. Let me know.

Just for the record, this is not an ad for Fantrax and we are not sponsored by them. It is just a platform in which to play this particular format.

The news out of camps is going to be in abundance every day. Be sure to check back the Ramblings every morning.