It turns out we saw the last Tuesday night game of the 2020-21 season without knowing it, so I have to wait until the fall before commenting on live hockey again. That being said, it's going to be a busy summer, and there will be no shortage of news.

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"Tarasenko has a full no-trade clause but has reportedly told St. Louis of several teams for which he'd be willing to waive it"

Wow. This might actually be happening https://t.co/6vfGdph4ne

— Thomas Welch (@twelcher15) June 29, 2021

How's that for a rumour? Whether Vladimir Tarasenko gets moved or not, his stock likely doesn't change. However, if he was to get traded to a team such as Detroit, Edmonton, or LA, then I could see some of the players around him getting a boost based on the added dynamic on the wing. If he does get traded, don't get sucked into the new team hype, he's a 35-goal, 70-point winger.

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Buffalo removed the "interim" tag from Don Granato as head coach, which adds a bit of intrigue to some Buffalo skaters. Granato took over almost exactly at the midway point of the season for Buffalo, so we have some excellent splits to see whether players thrived or sputtered under his tutelage. Let's do some quick hits on players that saw ice-time, production, or something else change:

Sam Reinhart – Strong second half, and his last quarter was a point-per-game. Could be looking at a career-high in points this coming year if he does stay in Buffalo.

Victor Olofsson – Saw his ice time dip a little under Granato, and the season overall was a step back. I'm not betting on a strong bounce-back.

Casey Mittelstadt – Received a bump of five (!) minutes of ice time per game, and paced for 50 points in the second half. Forget Nolan Patrick, this is the post-hype sleeper pick you want to buy in on.

Tage Thompson – Got dropped down the lineup, but somehow put up better numbers. I'm not convinced it's sustainable for Thompson unless the ice time and opportunity is there too.

Jeff Skinner – There were at least signs of life while playing for Granato with 12 points in 30 games as opposed to the two points in 23 games beforehand.

Dylan Cozens – His shot totals by quarter are: nine, nine, nine… 35. I think Cozens was going to figure things out regardless of the coach, but seeing his ice time rise slowly, and the offensive inclinations start to shine through is a positive sign for his production moving forward.

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The Simmonds deal for 2 years and $1.8 million is one of those where I wasn't sure if that was the total amount or the AAV when I first saw it. Turns out it was the total, so the #Leafs got a good deal getting Simmonds at $900k per season.
My projection had him at $1.06 million.

— Alex MacLean (@alexdmaclean) June 29, 2021

Almost any time you can come in under my projected AAV I'll think it's a worthwhile signing. Simmonds will help fill out the bottom-six for the Leafs, and taking a pay-cut of $600k will definitely make a difference next year, especially if there is no taxi squad.

Speaking of the taxi squad, I don't think having one impacted player values much at all, nor did it play much of a role in who was in the lineup. It's still the cap that dictates who a team can squeeze onto their roster, so I don't think it's something to look too hard at for next season when trying to find an edge or a pattern.

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Ryan Nugent-Hopkins re-upped with the Oilers, signing an eight-year deal with a $5.125 million cap hit. This was also below my projection number, and it sounds like the former first overall pick didn't want to test free-agency. It appears that the term was the larger factor than the dollars, and in the short term that's a hughe win for Edmonton. In the long term, a $5 million cap hit for a smart offensive player who likely won't see his offensive tools fall off the proverbial cliff, is an extremely reasonable number. He'll be 36 by the time the deal expires, and the cap should be going up again in those last few years. Even in spite of his down year, Nuge jumps into the top-100 of the cap league skater rankings with this contract.

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On the Colorado goalie watch, Jonas Johansson signed a one-year, two-way deal for $750K at the NHL level. That likely puts him in line for one of the spots at the AHL level though, so the other NHL spot could still be Philipp Grubauer, it could be a new acquisition, or there is also room for the highly-touted Justus Annunen to push for a full-time gig. He's good enough, and would be insulated enough to be able to thrive as a rookie.

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A whole bunch of NHL awards dropped last night, and I have a couple of somewhat fantasy related thoughts to go along with them:

Hart

Connor McDavid winning a unanimous Hart trophy makes a lot of sense. He's the best player in the league on a team that maybe (probably?) isn't in the playoffs without him. He's also the consensus #1 overall pick in fantasy drafts next season, but really, just how much should you be paying to get him on your team next season? Is David Pastrnak and Aleksander Barkov too much in a one-year league? It might not be.

Lindsay

Mcdavid also won the Ted Lindasy, which is voted on by the players. He's 100% deserving here as well, and this is his award to lose for the next handful of years at least. Not too much else to add here.

Vezina

The Vezina results were a little more debatable, but Marc-Andre Fleury was someone that I basically passed on taking for free in a 12-team league at the beginning of the season, and he flew past all expectations in his age-37 season to put up an incredible year. Andrei Vasilevskiy may have had the better year by the numbers (both standard and the team-independent ones) but it's sometimes tough to separate the name out from the numbers, and if anyone is deserving of a few extra votes to steal a Vezina trophy, it's Fleury. I expect him to split starts with Robin Lehner again next year (assuming they're both back) while Vasilevskiy is once again the only goalie worth selecting in the first round of fantasy drafts.

Norris

A lot of outside observers expected Victor Hedman to come away with the award, and though he may be the best defenceman in the league overall, he wasn't the best this year. Both Cale Makar and the eventual winner Adam Fox deserved to be voted ahead of Hedman, as they were unstoppable at both ends of the ice this year. The two of them (with one of Rasmus Dahlin and Miro Heiskanen) are likely going to be finalists for years to come. It really is a golden age of young defencemen. It's nice to see it being recognized not just as a lifetime service award, but actually going to the most deserving players. Sometimes this award can feel like the "best fantasy defenceman" award, but the best man one this time. Makar may be the first defenceman off draft boards next season, but Fox is the guy to own in cap leagues as he still has a year left on his ELC!

Calder

The Calder was a fun race, as the gap did close at the end of the season between Kirill Kaprizov and Jason Robertson, but Kaprizov ran away with it, taking 99 of 100 first-place votes. He brought some excitement to the Minnesota lineup that they had been missing for years. It will be interesting to see if he can take another step forward and score at above a point-per-game pace. I'm not betting against him on it. That being said, there have been a couple of rumours that Kaprizov is back over in Russia and far apart on talks with the team. It sounds like he's asking for a shorter term, and the team has started with (and is rightly pushing for) a long-term extension. This will get done, and it may take a four or five-year deal to do so, but they will find common ground here. Kaprizov is one of the types of players that if he wants to play hardball, you have to cave eventually. Minnesota is set up to compete, and they won't do half as well without him.

Robertson and his amazing run in the second half of the season gave Kaprizov a run for his money, but ultimately it was too-little too-late. Robertson should still be a focal point of the Dallas offence next season though, and he's looking like the kind of player that can be a reason that Tyler Seguin is able to put up points after returning from his injury, as opposed to it being the other way around. Like Fox, Robertson has another year on his entry-level deal, and he's worth overpaying for the one year of high level of production vs cost in cap leagues.

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The NWHL draft was last night as well, and despite Gary Bettman not caring at all about women's hockey, I'm excited about the upcoming season for them. Expansion to Montreal in 2022 is also going to be a huge step. We know how crazy of a hockey city they can be… bring on game two!

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Feel free to either drop a comment, or find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions.

In the meantime, stay safe!