Every Sunday, we’ll share 21 Fantasy Rambles from our writers at DobberHockey. These thoughts are curated from the past week’s 'Daily Ramblings'.

Writers/Editors: Ian Gooding, Michael Clifford, Alexander MacLean, and Dobber

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1. Ok, Kirill Kaprizov has been great and Jason Robertson has been on fire over the last month or so, but I don’t think any rookie has impressed me more than Yegor Sharangovich.

I am always impressed by players thriving in suboptimal situations, and Sharangovich isn’t playing with a winger with four 50-point seasons, or on a team that went to the Cup Final last year. He is playing on a lottery team, sometimes with Jack Hughes, sometimes not.

Sharangovich is an older rookie at 22 years old and doesn’t have a pedigree as a fifth-round pick, but we cannot deny the results. He also has decent offensive play-driving numbers, so he’s not just an empty shot rate. He still has work to do on his 200-foot game, but the offence is there, and that’s a big boost for this team moving forward. I very much recommend taking some time to watch Hughes/Sharangovich work, especially post-deadline with the latter getting so much TOI. They are fun to watch, and I bet Sharangovich is real cheap at the draft table next year. (apr22)

2. It seems that in the last few days everyone has caught on to just how amazing of a season Roope Hintz is having. He is scoring over a 90-point pace despite drawing in and out of the lineup due to injuries. He’s still about 50 games away from his breakout threshold, so this may not just be a blip. Him and Jason Robertson are going to be a duo to own for the next number of years. (apr21)

3. Erik Brannstrom, the key return in the Mark Stone trade has been off to a bit of a slow start to his career, with just 12 points in 55 career games before entering Saturday. We need to be patient here, though. All those games have been on bad Ottawa teams and it’s hard for a defenceman to stand out (shouts to Artem Zub‘s season, though).

But this year isn’t a bad year, in particular. He has eight points in 22 games, working out to about 30-32 points in a full year. Not a monster season, but pretty good considering he’s playing 15 minutes a night. At all strengths, he’s a top-25 among defenceman league-wide in point production per 60 minutes, ahead of names like Reilly, Sergachev, and Grzelcyk, and just behind names like Yandle, Doughty, and Ekman-Larsson. He has also been very good on the power play. Still some work to be done, but he's starting to drive the play and his natural abilities are showing through at 5v4.

The team needs Brannstrom to become A Thing, and it looks like he’s on his way. Might be worth watching a few Ottawa games down the stretch to see for yourself what he could be next season. (apr22)

4. I’m ready to bring up my worst drop of the season. It is Juuse Saros, who I let go of in one league on February 21. Not only that, but what are the chances – I’m facing the owner that picked him up this week in the fantasy playoffs.

– Jan 14 to Feb 18: 3-5-0, 3.47 GAA, .882 SV%
– Since Feb 19: 14-4-1, 1.75 GAA, .945 SV

Saros didn’t embarrass me completely, as the Blackhawks broke his shutout bid with just under four minutes to play. Still, we all have those “what if” drops. Saros has posted quality starts in 16 of those 20 games, with 14 of them coming in mid-March or after, which is around the time that the Predators season took a sharp turn for the better.

So although Saros didn’t pay immediate dividends for the new owner, he’s been money in the goaltending bank for over a month. Those 14 quality starts are the most among any goalie since March 15. (apr24)

5. Sabres' goalie prospect Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made his NHL debut on Friday. The rookie goalie made 36 saves in posting a win, a result that you probably thought was unlikely given the matchup (versus the Bruins). One of Luukkonen’s goals against was a perfect deflection off the stick of Rasmus Ristolainen.

The Sabres might be playing out the string with a Luukkonen/Dustin Tokarski tandem. Buffalo is 7-5-2 since breaking the 18-game winless streak, so they might have a better chance of winning games down the stretch than you think. For more on Luukkonen, see his Dobber Prospects profile. (apr24)

6. In what has been a forgettable season in Buffalo, Sam Reinhart is far and away the team’s goal leader, reaching 20 goals for the fifth time in the last six seasons. To put it in context, only one other Sabre (Victor Olofsson) has a double-digit goal total (12 G).

You may be even more surprised to learn that entering Saturday, only 12 players have more goals than Reinhart this season. And he’s rostered in less than half of Yahoo leagues. I have a feeling that will change, although Reinhart’s comparatively low assist total (13) and minus-25 cut into his value. (apr24)

7. Dylan Larkin will miss the rest of the regular season with an upper-body injury. It’s possible that the Red Wings are shutting him down because they are out of the playoff race, although that’s not meant to minimize what could be more than a day-to-day injury.

Larkin finishes the season with a disappointing 0.52 PTS/GP (23 PTS in 44 GP), his lowest output over the past four seasons. The Red Wings used a revolving door of linemates with Larkin all season, so it was difficult for him to generate any traction. Larkin is a potential rebound candidate who could provide strong ADP value in next season’s drafts. (apr24)

8. He doesn’t have the résumé for the Hall of Fame, but I just want to give a shout out to Jeff Carter. In an era where it seems players fall apart after the age of 30, Carter is still getting it done.

Even as his point totals have fallen off the last few years, he’s still finding ways to score: since the start of the 2019-20 season, he’s top-50 in the league in goals/60 at 5-on-5, sandwiched between Logan Couture and Evgeni Malkin. He has even seen an improvement defensively this year, a year where he’s still scoring at a rate of a low-end first liner. The guy turned 36 years old in January and he found a way to improve this year. Just incredible, really.

All I want is a 5000-word article on what Carter did, in specifics, to get ready for the season. Whatever he did, it seems to have worked, and a lot of players could probably benefit from something similar. (apr23)

9. Max Comtois was a guy I had pegged for a 2019-20 breakout. That didn’t quite happen, as he was eventually sent back to the AHL. I was a year early on his breakout, as Comtois has 13 goals and 28 points in 47 games, playing 15:12 per night. He also has 82 hits and 32 blocks. He leads the team in both goals and points, by the way, coming in second in assists. He really has been their engine all year, which is a weird thing for a non-elite prospect in his first full season.

With that said, Anaheim is still a very bad team with scant high-end offensive pieces. We will probably need a couple years of the Ducks rounding into form before Comtois really takes off, but we have a good idea now of what he can do. (apr22)

10. The Rangers have signed 2019 second-rounder Karl Henriksson: With Ziba/Strome/Chytil, this team is locked down the middle for at least another year, which may not be a bad thing. That gives Henriksson a year in the AHL to prep, and a fourth-line role if he can show out. If not, they may need him in 2022-23, which seems like a more realistic target for him having fantasy value, if he ever has any. (Henriksson's DobberProspect profile here) (apr22)

11. With the Seattle Kraken Expansion Draft now exactly three months away, and the trade deadline done and gone, Alex MacLean did a team-by-team review to see if there are any surefire situations where fantasy managers can get a jump on opportunities. Check it out here… (apr21)

12. The day after his 20^th birthday this past week, Spencer Knight skated out for his first NHL start and looked excellent doing so. He earned the win and only allowed one goal. He may not see another start this season as the Panthers battle for home ice advantage and only have one back-to-back remaining with none of their matchups being easy ones. He’s the goalie of the future, but not the goalie of the present. At best Chris Driedger walks in the offseason and Knight sees 40% of the starts next year behind Sergei Bobrovsky. It’s a similar situation to the Islanders duo, just a year behind. (apr21)

13. Sam Bennett is thriving in Florida. My projections currently have him at a $3.7 million cap hit for next year, but if he can finish off the season on hot, then don’t be surprised to see him with a multi-year deal around a $5 million cap hit. There’s no reason for the Panthers to separate him and Jonathan Huberdeau, which is good news for both. (apr21)

14. At this point in the season, you’re trying to squeeze every last drop of juice out of the lemons you were given this year. An unbalanced schedule can be a great place to get an edge. For those of you in Roto leagues looking to max out your GP limits, or in H2H/Points leagues trying to get a volume edge, check out the new Schedule Planner layout at FrozenTools. The new layout shows you who is playing on which days, so if you need four games in a week but want to avoid a busy Thursday or Saturday, then it takes one quick look. The tools just keep getting better and better over there! On top of all that, you can also join the FrozenTools community on Discord! Sign-up link “here“. (apr21)

15. How about the season Clayton Keller is having? Entering Saturday, he was on pace for over 59 points in a full year, which is fairly remarkable considering Arizona is scoring less than Ottawa and Los Angeles this year. His offensive play-driving is nearly off the charts, as well.

When looking at his impact on teammates over at HockeyViz, every single player has been better offensively when playing with Keller than without him. It really has been a remarkable year. This is a big development for Arizona as Keller finally looks like the $7M player they think he is. Now, they just need to develop more players. Give it a couple years.  (apr20)

16. I want to say that I still think there’s something with Tage Thompson. Believe me, I’ve heard and read all Sabres fans complaints about him this year. I also don’t watch every single Buffalo game. But in games I have caught, Thompson usually finds a way to do something impressive.

Whether it’s a drive wide, protecting the puck down low, or getting to the net through some defencemen, there is something he does every game that most players can’t do. There is a reason why he’s still highly thought of by some people.

Whether he puts it all together is another story. We need to remember he’s still just 23, he’s 6’5″, and won’t even have two full seasons in the NHL by the end of this year. I had hopes that he could turn into Anthony Mantha but Mantha had proven himself in the NHL by this age. At this point, if he can be an Ilya Mikheyev-type, I think that would be a win. There is still something there, I truly believe that. Again, as mentioned, it’s whether he puts it all together. Next year should be a much better gauge.  (apr20)

17. I had no interest in Casey Mittelstadt in my dynasty league, every time his name came up in trade talks. Now? I’m suddenly interested. He has 11 points in his last 14 games. But, the question is – where does he fit in? Jack Eichel is the top center and Dylan Cozens will be No.2. Cozens has been pretty good at the faceoff circle. Especially considering he’s a rookie. How many points can Mittelstadt garner as a third-line center? (apr19)

18. Anthony Mantha absolutely has the talent to post a point-per-game. But does he have the health? Here is Mantha’s track record:

– Broken leg (2014)
– Broken finger (2017)
– Groin injury, hand injury (2018)
– Knee injury (2019)
– Lung injury (2020)

Several people – Mantha owners all – were trying to argue with me that not only was he not a Band-Aid Boy, but that it would be unwise to project his games next year based on his injury track record. Like, if I were to project 67 games for him next season I would be wrong. Their reasoning? The injuries were all flukes. They didn't happen to the same area of the body, there was nothing chronic to worry about. Uh – that’s even worse! The fluke-injury players are the ones to worry about. They may not have the body mechanics, or they have developed habits such as angling their head a certain way, or they just play that style of game that lends to injury.

Anyway, I digress. Mantha certainly has the ability to have a 80-point season, he just needs to stay healthy to do it. And the smart move is to assume he plays about 67 or 68 games, with each game thereafter a blessing. (apr19)

19. Don’t look now, but the Golden Knights have a productive third line. And Cody Glass wasn’t the answer. It was… Tomas Nosek? Never drafted, he was a big scorer in the Czech Republic and caught my attention when the Red Wings signed him. He spent several years on my Fantasy Prospects List, at one point sitting around 100^th in 2015. Entering Saturday, he had 17 points in his last 22 games and despite the slow start he was on a 42-point full-season pace. (apr19)

20. Mike Smith has three shutouts this season to go with solid ratios (2.37 GAA, .921 SV%) and has taken over the starting goalie job. I’ve criticized Dave Tippett for sticking with Smith this long, but maybe that’s why he’s the Oilers coach and I’m not. (apr18)

21. Finally, congratulations to Patrick Marleau for playing in his 1,768^th career NHL game, surpassing the great Gordie Howe. Marleau certainly wasn’t as old as Howe when he played his final NHL game for the old Hartford Whalers, as Howe also had some WHA games in his career. The fact that Marleau has played this many games is amazing, if you consider the accolades that a player receives when he reaches 1,000 games. (apr18)

Have a good week, folks – be safe!!

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