Back-to-back Ramblings for me, and no back-up goalie in sight. Unfortunately, Mr. Clifford was unable to cover his usual day as he was working out too much and is currently listed as day-to-day with a hand injury. Hopefully he'll be back on the ice soon!  

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The big news that you want to hear about is Quinton Byfield's debut. The line rushes from Tuesday morning hinted he may be getting into the lineup, but it was finally confirmed yesterday. I stayed up waaaay past my usual bed time in the Eastern time zone to watch him, and I have a couple quick thoughts (i.e. my extremely primitive scouting report):

Byfield looked very confident with and without the puck. He made solid plays, and didn't seem too overwhelmed by the pace or the defenders around him. He was very aware of where he should be defensively and made several good reads to break up plays. He had one reverse pass in the first period that is the kind of play that will become all too normal for his line mates. Those line mates didn’t seem to be expecting to receive the puck half of the time though, so once they’re a little more used to playing with Byfield, he’s going to be a whole new level of dangerous.

Additionally, and maybe even more noteworthy, Byfield was strong at the faceoff dot winning 8 of 12, and playing a full 18 minutes. He added four shots in that timespan, and his line controlled the shot-share at even strength, but they were outscored 0-1 in the game.

In all I think with these couple of games to give him a taste, Byfield can really hit the ground running next year as a dominant force at both ends of the ice.

Another note from that game: John Gibson is elite. Someone please save him from wasting his best years on a basement team though.

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Adam Erne was added to the NHL Covid list. He played 17 minutes in Tuesday's loss to Columbus, so that's something to keep an eye on. Erne has been a pleasant surprise for the Red Wings this year with a career high scoring pace that has him one point back of his career-high, despite playing 22 less games this season. His powerplay production has been especially noteworthy, with one-third of his points (six) coming with the man-advantage. He has only seen 34.2% of the available powerplay time for a unit that has the second-worst powerplay in the league, clicking at a dismal 10.9%.

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The San Jose lines were put in the blender, and they came out as mixed up as your morning smoothie. It's been a tough year owning any of them, and it doesn't look to be getting better as the season (or the years) wear on. This team needs a bit of a shakeup. I'll buy back in on some of their players like Timo Meier and Kevin Labanc once that happens, but if they keep plowing ahead like this, I'm out on them in fantasy leagues for the foreseeable future.

In his second game on the top line, Alexander Barabanov potted a goal early. Did the Leafs ever try him on the top line? Maybe they should have… If he sticks here for any length of time he may have some streamer value over the last couple of fantasy weeks. More importantly for him though, it may earn him a better contract for next season, meaning he would get more opportunities to play up in the lineup. It's a vicious circle and it has to start somewhere.

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More fun things to play with and look at over at FrozenTools:

ICYMI – Addition to our #fantasyhockey player/goalie profile pages:

Go to Info/Analysis tab and click GO! under Player/Goalie vs Opponent to see 2020-21 stats vs selected opponent. Default option is next opponent.

Mike Smith #LetsGoOilers vs #gojetsgo 👇https://t.co/eJp8gemkaf pic.twitter.com/BTcNuzaoYe

— Frozen Tools (@FrozenTools) April 28, 2021

It would be a good bet that we'll see Kaapo Kahkonen tonight in the second game of a back-to-back set, so I took a look at his profile. That was a bit of a shock to the system. I had forgotten about the one game where Kahkonen was shelled and left in for the entire game for NINE goals against. That match happened to be against the St. Louis Blues as well. It might be wise to look at other options on your team tonight if you're considering whether to start Kahkonen as one of your goalies.

With Cam Talbot in net last night, the Wild collapsed late and fell to the Blues. Smooth Robert Thomas scored the winner, and has looked a lot better of late. On the other side of the game the Marcus Foligno, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Jordan Greenway line took over at both ends of the ice. As the team around them improves over the next year or two and the team can control the play and possessions more overall, this line should be able to provide some actual numbers to match their exceptional expected goal totals. Jordan Greenway is especially coming into his own as a real offensive threat. He just passed the 200-game threshold, so a small jump in production may be here, but at six-foot-six the real breakout may not even come for another 200 games or so.  

Let's circle back to one more goalie-stat example, Tuukka Rask has played four games against the Sabres over the last two years, and one would think that with the discrepancy between Boston and Buffalo over that timeframe, Rask's ratios would be a lot better. His save percentage is slightly higher against the Sabres than the rest of the league, but the GAA is almost identical. What that means is that Rask was seeing more shots from Buffalo than from the average game, and having to make more saves just to get the same results. I don't have an easy answer for why that would be.

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As Brennan Des noted yesterday in his Injury Ward column, Evgeni Malkin was cleared for contact and looks to be ready to return to the Pittsburgh lineup in short order. If you own Malkin in your fantasy league, shame on you for expecting anything different than for him to miss the first few weeks of your H2H playoffs. Along with death and taxes it's about as sure of a thing as you're going to find in life.

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Waiver claim Victor Mete scored his first point with the Senators on a partial break early in the game. His mobility on the back-end is an addition that will really help the Ottawa offence. He brings some agility and crisp passing that is in short supply for the Senators because for some reason DJ Smith refuses to give Erik Brannstrom more than 17 minutes per game.

Brady Tkachuk had a Gordie Howe hat-trick before the end of the second period, but would you believe that this was the first one of his career? His dad Keith had 10 in his career, though the smart money is probably on Brady to finish his career with more.

The Dobber Forums tiered roto leagues are a 12-team, one-year setup with four at each forward position, six defencemen, two goalies, and the standard skater stats counted: G, A, +/-, PPP, SOG, Hits (goalie categories are: W, GAA, SVs). I was in the Stanley Division this year, where Brady Tkachuk was selected 11^th overall. I thought it was a little bit of a reach at the time, but he has more than lived up to that billing. In order, the first round of picks went:

1. Nathan MacKinnon
2. Connor McDavid
3. Leon Draisaitl
4. Alex Ovechkin
5. Andrei Vasilevskiy
6. Auston Matthews
7. Jack Eichel
8. Andrei Svechnikov
9. Mitchell Marner
10. Artemi Panarin
11. Brady Tkachuk
12. Steven Stamkos

(Sidney Crosby went 13^th with the second pick on the turn.)

Looking at how those players turned out, I probably should have waited a little longer on Svechnikov. He may have been there in round two. Tkachuk has been elite to this point, and is currently the 12^th rated player in our setup, definitely worth the 11^th overall selection. He would be up in the top few names if it wasn't for his minus-14 rating. I was thinking it was wild that he was the only name in the top-25 with a double-digit minus rating, that is until I kept scrolling and realized that the next best player with double-digit minuses is Tkachuk's linemate Drake Batherson… at 95^th overall.

The stats he provides are ridiculously unique and elite. He has likely jumped Alex Ovechkin in my pre-draft rankings for next year, and I'm wondering just how high he may go. I think he might be fourth on my list. If Ottawa improves enough that Brady can be an even player, there aren't many options better. What say you?

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The Gagarin Cup (KHL champion) was awarded yesterday as Avangard Omsk clinched the final game with a 1-0 victory over CSKA Moscow. Former NHLer Ilya Kovalchuk (he of 443 career NHL goals) captained the team, and shared the award ceremony with the injured Alexei Emelin (another former NHLer). Other roster players of note are Klim Kostin (Blues 2017 first round pick) and Yegor Chinakhov (Blue Jackets 2020 first round pick) who managed to outpace a former first overall pick in Nail Yakopov. This could mean that we see Chinakhov signing his ELC and crossing the pond to play in a game or two with the Blue Jackets before the end of the season. Remember, Chinakhov was drafted as an "overager", and has been playing against men in the KHL this year. That means he may be able to make a bit more of an immediate impact than other 2020 draftees, but his upside may not be quite as high.

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Auston Matthews is unstoppable. Whoever it was that questioned and mocked our Dobber Panel pre-season picks where Matthews was the unanimous pick to win the Rocket Richard, I hope you lost all of your fantasy leagues this year. Don't bet against talent like this.

Auston Matthews is good at hockey pic.twitter.com/JPcjTSSQSh

— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) April 29, 2021

Rasmus Sandin also stood out with a positive performance. He is seeing secondary power play time, and has been adding some peripherals that weren't there in previous cups of coffee with the big club. The Leafs defencemen are ripe to have one of them chosen by Seattle, so Sandin's continued growth would be greatly appreciated by the team, and could make this summer's expansion a lot less worrisome.

The Cole Caufield watch continues, but it likely won't take long for him to break the goose egg.

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Heads up, after notching three points last night, Connor McDavid is going to score at least 16 points in his remaining nine games. That's exactly how many points he would need to hit 100, and there's just no way he's not going to hit it at this point. Like Matthews above, don't bet against this kind of talent.

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William Karlsson scored the fastest goal in Vegas Golden Knights history 10 seconds into the game. What is it that everyone was missing with him but Vegas saw? As a 2011 second round pick, Karlsson was held back in Anaheim by a numbers game with a contending team that just couldn't fit him into the lineup. Former DobberProspects writer Kevin Won noted in January of 2015 that "his vision and skill package will be worth the wait", boy was he right. As a smart player that sees the ice well and had the talent to put it all together, Karlsson just needed to learn the NHL game and then be given an opportunity to thrive. It makes you think about how many other fringe players just need an opportunity on a scoring line to really put things together.

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The National Women's Hockey League today announced a substantial salary cap increase for its seventh season in 2021-22, doubling it from $150,000 to $300,000 per team.

Details 💵: https://t.co/jd5qMiFuGb pic.twitter.com/IN7UqNHSXc

— NWHL (@NWHL) April 28, 2021

I know a lot of you probably don't follow women's hockey, but in the last year I have gotten a lot more into it, and this is a huge step for the NWHL. Props to them for growing the game like they did during a pandemic, there's a lot more good things in store. Someday, when NWHL salaries are a little more published, I'll start the first ever NWHL salary cap fantasy league.

They also hosted their awards show last night for the 2020-2021 season. If you're going to pay attention to anyone next year, Kaleigh Fratkin is one to tune in for. Last night she won her second consecutive defender of the year award, and tied for the league lead in regular-season scoring last season.

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If you have any fantasy questions, comments, or thoughts, you can find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean. In the meantime, stay safe!