I'm starting to wonder if it's better to just swing for the fences with every draft pick. To always go for that Golden Boy, even if it means waiting two to four years. Take the sure prospect and ignore the hunch prospect. Or leave the "hunch prospect" for the final pick, if you really need to take one. At least, if your hunches are too good. Mine seem to be. When you take a boom-or-bust stud, you can trade him if he takes too long. When you take a "hunch", he's untradeable. He's only tradeable to you. Nobody else has that hunch. So you're stuck with him. Waiting. If you're terrible at hunch picks, then this isn't a problem. One year later, you drop him. It's obvious that the pick was bad. But if it was a decent pick, then he has either paid off for you (that's good) or he just teases you with enough at the end of the season to sucker you into keeping him yet again.

Last year I had a great draft. I took Cole Perfetti seventh, Josh Norris 13^th, Jakob Pelletier 30^th, Ian Mitchell 33^rd, Jonatan Berggren 67^th and only used one hunch pick and it was at 69 with Brogan Rafferty. My one hunch pick is going to be dropped this summer. But if the above paragraph holds true, the Canucks will suddenly play Rafferty for the last 10 games and he'll get seven points – forcing me to hold him. And then next year he'll be scratched for half the games and I'll have wasted a spot.

How often does this happen to you?

Vinnie Hinostroza has long been an issue with me. I thought he was a good hunch pick – and he was. Finally getting on the Hawks for good, he had 25 points in 49 games in his first year on my team. He was then traded to Arizona so I was encouraged. His first year with Arizona was great – and I liked how it got better with each quarter. He ended up with 39 points in 72 games. As a small, skilled guy with a solid two-way game I knew there was another gear there. But then the Coyotes got Phil Kessel, plus Conor Garland emerged. That pushed Vinnie back. And adding Taylor Hall two months later pushed Vinnie to the press box. So Hinostroza had a terrible year. A guaranteed drop. But then he was released and signed with Florida, who just dumped a ton of top wingers. So again…I kept him. Naturally, the Panthers then signed Anthony Duclair, and Carter Verhaeghe became the next Jonathan Marchessault (when I had hoped it would be Hinostroza – since he was back with his old coach). Hinostroza was soon stuck in the press box because he couldn't put up points with Tommy Stonehands and Jimmy Lunchpail.

So once again – a dropsy. A guaranteed drop! For sure, now that he's 27 with a career high of 39 points, he has to go. Right? Even deep leagues of 35 players (12 active forwards, deep bench) can't use him.

But of course, the "hunch pick" being just a bit too good, it's biting me in the ass once more. With Chicago he now has 10 points in 12 games. What if he ends up with 14 in 17? Drop a small player when he's 27 when he produces those numbers in a new environment? That's the age when Cam Atkinson went from a high of 40 points to 53. That's the age when Martin St. Louis went from a career high of 40 points to 70. Steve Sullivan was 26 when he went from a high of 40 points up to 64 with his new team (funny enough – Chicago). Ray Whitney was 26 when he went from a high of 41 to 61 (funny enough – with Florida). Whitney is now listed at 5-10, but I know he was listed at 5-9 through the early part of his career.

I'm usually pretty cutthroat with my drops, but these smaller skill guys are always worming their way into the soft spot of my heart. You may remember my history with Simon Gamache. Ryan Shannon. Brett Sterling. But I'm talking about a player in Hinostroza who has actually stuck in the league for 266 games. None of those three guys were able to do that. The smaller players who can stick that long – I can't help but feel like they stand a higher chance of finding another gear at age 27. But Hinostroza is an unrestricted free agent this summer and he's going to again sign a cheap contract – and that makes him expendable. Press box fodder. I recommend dropping him if you have him.

But I won't be taking my own advice. Damn hunch pick. I'm so through with those.

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The ground has been broken on this year's (15^th!) Fantasy Prospects Report. The team has been put together, the players have been assigned, the Report itself is open and the first words have been typed. This is not yet available for pre-sale. Not yet.

With subscriptions being sold, and with the pandemic messing up the timeline, I don't want any confusion as to what a new subscription will buy. Currently, if you were to buy it, you'd be buying the 2020-21 stuff (including the Playoff Draft List that is out in a week or two). The plan is to make the 2021-22 stuff available on May 30, and the Fantasy Prospects Report will be released on July 10. Check in with me on Mondays for updates on our documents. Or on Twitter.

An exciting new product we are offering this year is the DobberProspects Draft Issue. Our team over there is huge – upwards of 40 people. And they all live and breathe prospects. And the draftee information that I carry in the FPR is substantial… but the team still has so much more to tell us. So the coverage gets expanded in the Draft Issue – more draftees profiled, with more information about them. That will go up for presale on May 30. It will sell for $9.99, but with a purchase of the FPR it can be had for $2.99. Not yet – but available for presale soon. It's a great way to reward the people at DobberProspects for all the free work they've been giving you year in and year out.

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A rare day off on Sunday for 29 of the 31 teams. I mean – really rare. One game? During such a condensed schedule? Yes, Tampa Bay and Detroit played the second of two weekend games. Combined, they scored zero regulation goals on Saturday and just three goals Sunday. So only seven players picked up a point from either team over two games. Andrej Vasilevskiy was the big news of the day – he had it off. Tampa took this game so seriously that they started career minor leaguer Chris Gibson and had Curtis McElhinney backing up. On Saturday? It was McElhinney starting. So those in H2H league playoffs that owned Vasilevskiy were shit outta luck. In fact, that's probably many of you – because chances are it was Vasilevskiy who got you there in the first place. This year obviously has a higher luck aspect than most, for fantasy hockey. To have Vasilevskiy missing two games? I can see him missing two more (out of the final five).

Jakub Vrana followed up his first career four-goal game by getting just one point in five. He and Filip Hronek led all Red Wings in PP ice time though – which is a nice change from his Washington treatment.

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Vancouver has the most games left (11) followed by Edmonton/Colorado/St. Louis/Los Angeles (7).

Florida/Detroit have the fewest games left (3).

This means that Nikita Gusev has just three more games to show general managers around the league that he deserves a contract. He signed with Florida on the cheap for just that very reason. So far, he's not showing it. Lots of pressure. I have to think that his biggest mistake was taking so long to come over. Had he crossed the pond at 24 or 25, he'd be given more time to adapt to the league and make an impact. Scoring from the fourth line, as he did Saturday, is a great first step. But he pretty much needs to run the table now. Five points in three games (would give him nine points in 12 with Florida), or at minimum four points, to be taken seriously. Even if it means doing it with Ryan Lomberg and Noah Acciari, and playing 10 minutes per game.

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Semyon Varlamov has three straight shutouts. If he gets another one tonight he'll be the first to do that in 17 years (Brian Boucher) and the fourth goalie to do it in nearly 80 years. And just like that, he's showing the young upstart (Ilya Sorokin) who's boss. A goalie in the Barry Trotz system has always been pure gold, and Varlamov picked the right year to be healthy.

Anthony Beauvillier has quietly picked up his game and suddenly his points-per-game average is on the cusp of topping last year's career high. One or two more productive games will do it. He has 17 points in his last 20 games despite being used mostly in a defensive role at even strength. He suffered an injury early – just halfway into his fifth game. Returning from that, the production took a bit to arrive (just six points in his first 22 games, or five in the 17 after returning from injury). Sometimes injuries take a dozen games or so to fully come back from. I still believe in him – he's just 23 – and if he's healthy next year I'm giving him one more shot. This is a tough team to produce on, but he'll make it happen anyway.

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Connor McDavid needs 13 points in seven games to actually be a 100-point player in this abbreviated season.

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If Marc-Andre Fleury wins tonight, he will pass Roberto Luongo for third on the all-time NHL wins list.

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Alex Nedeljkovic can do offense too…

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See you next Monday.