Every Sunday, we 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. Nikita Kucherov is running away with the playoff scoring lead with 32 points in 21 games, a full nine points ahead of second-place Brayden Point. Many of the Dobber writers (myself included) were drawn into Point’s goal streak when making our Conn Smythe picks, but Dobber himself was the only one to buck the trend and go with Kucherov. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is Kucherov. In fact, he’s put together a two-year run that has been matched by only Gretzky and Lemieux. (july3)

2. Carey Price‘s save percentage by series:

Round 1 vs. Toronto: .932 SV%
Round 2 vs. Winnipeg: .942 SV%
Semifinal vs. Vegas: .933 SV%
Final vs. Tampa Bay: .835 SV%

Overall, Price does not match up well vs. Tampa Bay. He obviously did not play the Lightning during the regular season since they were not in the same division. So I’ll have to give you his stats against Tampa Bay from the 2019-20 season, using the Goalie VS Opponent feature on Frozen Tools.

4 GP, 0-4-0, 3.59 GAA, .857 SV% (more here)

He earned a quality start in one of those four games with a .913 SV%. But his highest save percentage in any of the other three games was .864. Remember that the Habs and Bolts are back in the same division next season (Fun fact: Next season will be the second consecutive season where the Cup finalists from the previous season will play in the same division.) Price is going to have to face the likes of the Lightning, Maple Leafs, Bruins, and Panthers numerous times. Something to consider if you believe that Price’s playoff performance will spur a bounce-back 2021-22 season. That’s going to be one nasty division.

Conversely, Andrei Vasilevskiy matches up very well against the Canadiens. He has now won 11 consecutive games against the Habs, spanning into both the regular season and the playoffs. With a 1.94 GAA and .938 SV% and 15 quality starts out of 21 games, Vasilevskiy will probably also receive some Conn Smythe consideration. (july3)

3. The Wild have signed Joel Eriksson Ek to an eight-year extension with an AAV of $5.25 million. Eriksson Ek established himself in 2020-21, finishing fourth in Selke Trophy voting. This is quite the long-term investment in Eriksson Ek, although the Wild are not shy about signing players to lengthy term.

Eriksson Ek scored a career-high 19 goals in 56 games, which would have worked out to a 27-goal pace over a full season. In particular, he started the season strong with five goals and nine points in his first 10 games. After a weak midseason (11 PTS in 29 GP), he finished on a high note with six goals and 10 points over his last 16 games. That strong start made him noticeable in fantasy leagues, as he was a hot waiver-wire pickup early when a lot of fantasy owners are paying extra-close attention to their rosters.   

A 16.0 SH% for a player that shot below 10% throughout his career might suggest a possible regression in the goal department. In addition, Eriksson Ek recorded only two power-play points all season, a result indicative of a player who spends more time on the penalty kill (1:40 SHTOI) than on the power play (1:11 PPTOI). He appears to be an ideal Selke candidate going forward, even though his scoring upside might be somewhat limited. (july3)

4. The Blackhawks are continuing to pay the price for keeping the band together. Rumors have surfaced that they are now trying to shop Duncan Keith to a team in either Western Canada or the Pacific Northwest so that he can be closer to his family. This isn’t the Norris Trophy version of Keith but rather a soon-to-be 38-year-old version complete with a cap hit of $5.5 million for two more seasons. I’m not sure that the Blackhawks will be able to trade him, but if so, they will likely need to retain salary and may also need to add a sweetener.

In hindsight it’s easy to say that the Hawks shouldn’t have given Keith that contract knowing that age eventually catches up to everyone. But this is the price that the Hawks are paying for winning three Stanley Cups. Any team that adds Keith should target him for a more reduced role that he received in Chicago, where he led the team in icetime in 2020-21 (23:25 TOI).

On a related note, Kraken ownership have given GM Ron Francis the authority to spend to the cap. So they can go after Keith if they so desire, or many other options that teams are trying to dump or even willing to part with. (july3)

5. The Stanley Cup Final might not be over, but that doesn’t have to stop teams from making trades. The first one happened on Friday, as the Kings acquired Viktor Arvidsson from the Predators for a 2021 second-round pick and a 2022 third-round pick. Mike has taken care of the Fantasy Take for this one. The Seattle expansion draft was reportedly a major factor in the trade, as Arvidsson and his $4.25 million cap hit appeared to be on the bubble as far as protection goes.

Arvidsson should easily slot in on the top 6 for the Kings. That being said, the shine for many Arvidsson owners has worn off, as he has been simply a 40-point player for the past two seasons on a Nashville team that has been in the lower half of the league offensively. Injuries have slowed him, as he dealt with an upper-body injury late in the season as well as 12 games missed with a lower-body injury in 2019-20. A fresh start in LA might help, but I’m not drafting him as the 30-goal scorer that he was from 2016-17 to 2018-19. Aside from Anze Kopitar, the Kings don’t possess much in the way of current scoring threats (although they have a great prospect pool).

Whether you think Filip Forsberg‘s production will be negatively affected by the trade (I don’t really think it is), Forsberg wasn’t happy with the deal, weighing in on Instagram with his take. Forsberg was the strongest offensive option on the Predators last season (39 GP, 32 PTS, 0.82 PTS/GP), so he should be fine without frequent linemate and fellow Swede Arvidsson. (july2)

6. Does Steven Stamkos have elite seasons left in the tank?

A litany of serious injuries for a guy turning 31 this winter is always concerning. Then again, Stamkos had posted four straight seasons with over a point per game up until this shortened campaign, one in which he was injured again.

The concerns start with the age and injuries, but don’t end there.

First, it seems his days playing with Point or Kucherov are over. He had played with either of them at times over the last few seasons, but Point/Kuch have been the duo the team has stuck with when everyone is healthy. Not that players like Anthony Cirelli or Alex Killorn are bad players – far from it – but they aren’t Point/Kucherov. We know Kucherov can help drive double-digit shooting percentages for line mates. We are not sure anyone else on the team can.

Next is his shot rate. At one point, this guy put up six straight seasons of at least 3.2 shots per game. His last four seasons have seen him fail to reach that mark in any of them, and crack 3.0 shots per game just once. His shot rate is declining, and though he’s still a remarkable shooter, his ability to score 40-50 goals predicates on two things: being able to put up well over 200 shots and being able to score on 15-20 percent of shots. If he’s putting up 190 shots instead of 240, well, that is a big problem.

Are his elite seasons over? I am not ready to say that yet. I still think he may have one or two 40-goal campaigns under his belt. But he also probably has 6-7 years of hockey left, and I don’t want to draft a guy in the top-30 if I can’t rely on elite performance. I am just not sure we’re there with Stamkos anymore. (july1)

7. Is Timo Meier capable of reaching his ceiling with the Sharks?

This question comes up because following a 30-goal, 66-point season, Meier posted 22/49 in a 70-game 2019-20 campaign, and a 12/31 year in 54 games this year. His goals and assists per game have declined for two years in a row, which isn’t great for a guy turning 25 in October.

In the 19-20 campaign, the Sharks finished 27^th in scoring across the league. This past year, it was 25^th. Their entire core, save Meier and Hertl, are over 30 years old and a couple of them are broken-down defencemen. While there are some nice young players coming, or already there, like Mario Ferraro and Ryan Merkley, that isn’t enough. This franchise is basically dying on the vine and we’re throwing some water on it hoping it’ll grow again.

A funny thing, when looking under the hood for Meier: his shot rate this past year was very much in line with his career, at least at 5-on-5. It was his expected goals rate that tanked, which indicates to me that his teammates are having a harder time finding him. He is not a guy that is elite at creating his own shots; something he shares with Jeff Carter above. He is a volume shooter that needs good linemates to help him really hit his ceiling. The question is whether he’ll have those line mates, or whether that environment can even exist in San Jose with the declining talent on the blue line. I am not sure it can.

The good thing about Meier is that in a full season, we should get 200 shots and 100 hits from him. Even if he only scores 20 goals and 40 points, he’ll have value in multi-cat leagues. But we have seen his upside; we know there is a lot more there. It may just take some time to regain that form, as it did with teammate Tomas Hertl. (july1)

8. A lot of outside observers expected Victor Hedman to come away with the Norris Trophy, 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! (june30)

9. The Vezina Trophy results were a little 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. (june30)

10. 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 huge 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. (june30)

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COMING THIS WEEK:

On July 10, it's time for the 15^th annual DobberHockey Fantasy Prospects Report. Over 400 players with the lowdown on their upside, their likelihood of making it, how long we have to wait for them to help our fantasy squads and so much more. Plus 100 draftee profiles with Mock Draft. It’s ‘the’ bible for anyone in a dynasty league. You’ll refer to it all season long. And if you buy it as part of the Keeper League Pack, it’s just an extra five bucks on top of the Fantasy Guide

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11. 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. (june30)

12. 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. (june30)

13. Will Robert Thomas be a fourth-year breakout?

This will not be the first nor the last time readers see or hear something to the effect of “this season was a weird year.” There are not many teams that had a weirder season that St. Louis. The injury list was extensive, for one:

• Jaden Schwartz missed 16 games
• Vince Dunn missed 13 games
• Tyler Bozak missed 26 games
• Vladimir Tarasenko missed 32 games
• Colton Parayko missed 24 games
• Sammy Blais missed 20 games
• Oskar Sundqvist missed 28 games

Every one of those players is either on the first, second, or third line, or top two defence pairs. Almost every player listed missed more than a quarter of the season and – you know where this is going – Robert Thomas fell into that group as well, missing 23 games.

For that reason, it’s hard for me to look at this campaign for most Blues players and think it was anything close to business as usual. There was a stretch in late February/early March where Jordan Kyrou, a guy who couldn’t crack the lineup for years – was regularly playing 18+ minutes a night. That is how short-staffed they were at times.

When looking to next year, we can’t just ignore last season, but we can’t assume that’ll be anywhere close to the norm moving forward. This team was eliminated a month ago, meaning they’ll have more time to recuperate than many other potential contenders.

But what about Thomas? Can he rebound? The concern would be that he stays on the third line, away from the top offensive stars like Tarasenko and Perron, while doing the same on the power play. He could very easily rebound from last year but still not take a huge step forward, if only because of a lack of opportunity and ice time. He probably comes in as a nice, cheap option in drafts, but he has little value in multi-cat leagues. When looking to points-only leagues, barring injuries, he may not get a big enough role to rack up more than 50 points. (june29)

14. Who is Carolina’s new PPQB1?

This is based on the assumption that Dougie Hamilton is not re-signed. If he is, we probably have the answer to this question already. If he is not re-signed, well, we have some digging to do.

Initially, it seems like Jake Bean would be the guy that would take Hamilton’s role. While both he and Brett Pesce were PP2 mainstays this year, Pesce was more in a shooter’s role with Bean playing distributor at the top. It isn’t to say Pesce can’t do it, but it seems like they were grooming Bean for this exact potential outcome. For that reason, Bean probably has the inside track to top PP minutes.

I don’t think it’ll be Pesce, so if it’s not Bean, maybe Brady Skjei will take the reigns. He has PP experience from both New York and last year in Carolina. He also has been generally great at moving the puck through the neutral zone, an indication he could do it on the power play as well.

All that being said, this is probably the easiest question we have today. I think Bean is the PP1QB come October, though that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll play 20-21 minutes a night, too. (june29)

15. Can Clayton Keller be an upper-tier producer?

It has been quite the up-and-down career for Keller to begin. He had a monster rookie season with 65 points in 82 games, playing on a terrible offensive team. He followed that up with back-to-back season with fewer than 50 points, again on bad offensive teams. This year wasn’t much better with 35 points in 56 games, virtually an identical production pace to 2019-20. Whether or not Keller is going to be an elite producer is very much in question. Can he do it?

I am not sure it happens in Arizona with this team and roster. They were outside the top-20 teams in scoring this year and there just aren’t a bevy of prospects coming that can help. There is no real reason to believe that this team is on the verge of being not even a juggernaut offensively, but consistently average. Just a consistently average team could mean regular 60- or 70-point seasons for Keller. But this team hasn’t been that for basically a decade now, and again, there is not a litany of great prospects coming. The roster is, more or less, what it’s going to be next year again.  

The bright side is that Keller will continue to be cheap in fantasy drafts as long as he keeps performing the way he does. There have been times when he’s been roughly a top-50 pick. It is hard to envision him being even a top-100 pick at this point. Anyone out there who believes in both Keller’s abilities and the team’s scoring environment should be able to get him at a discount. It is just a matter of whether he’s worth that pick, even with the expected discount. In multi-cat leagues, he’s not far from being a Do Not Draft in shallow-ish formats. (june29)

16. This topic may be done to death over the next couple of months, but since this is the first time I’m personally delving into this – it’s allowed. Breakout players. Generally to dig these out we should be honing our focus on those players approaching (or recently hitting) the 200-game mark for their careers. They also cannot have already broken out. For smaller players or big power guys, the threshold shifts to 400 games.

Who are the candidates in 2021-22 to become the next Alex DeBrincat, Martin Necas and Samuel Girard? I take a look at a few hovering around the 200-game mark (will save the 400 gamers for another time, as that one requires more analysis).

Conor Garland, Arizona – One could argue that Garland already had his breakout just this past year, as he finished with an 82-game pace of 65 points. But I think there’s another gear yet. He’s 36 games away from the 200-point threshold. Last year he had 22 points in his first 23 games, and he finished with seven in his last four.

Andrew Mangiapane, Calgary – His 82-game pace over his three NHL seasons run as follows: 24, 39 and 47. Now 22 games shy of 200, all he needs is another shot with Matt Tkachuk on his line. He had Tkachuk there a few times in the first half but didn’t really get a look with him in the second half when Mangiapane really hit his stride. (june28)

17. Andrei Svechnikov, Carolina – He’s already had a 74-point pace, although since he was slowing that year (2019-20) I suspect he would have finished with around 69 or 70. But this guy obviously has the next gear. And 205 games into his NHL career, what better time to hit it?

Warren Foegele, Carolina – Foegele has had a steady increase in ice time and although his production didn’t jump this past season, he’s champing at the bit for more responsibility. With his contract up, there are rumors that the team may move him. Perhaps they use him in a deal with Seattle, for a mix and match of favors and assets. On an expansion team, hell this could be your next William Karlsson. Foegele has played exactly 200 career NHL games.

Miro Heiskanen, Dallas – In three years in the NHL he’s only been a 40-point player. But last year in the playoffs we saw the “real” Heiskanen. He had 26 points in 27 games when the games mattered most, and fantasy owners are waiting for that to emerge in the regular season. John Klingberg has been holding him back a little, but soon that won’t matter. There’s room for two 60-point defenseman. Heiskanen has played 205 career games. (june28)

18. Filip Hronek, Detroit – The lack of any progress from this highly-talented defenseman is simple – the rest of the team has sucked. But a healthy Tyler Bertuzzi, the arrival of Jakub Vrana, and the hopeful arrival of either Lucas Raymond or Jonatan Berggren (not to mention fellow rearguard Moritz Seider), significantly upgrades the team around him. His offense will improve along with the team. And no, Seider shouldn’t hurt his production down the road.

Jesse Puljujarvi, Edmonton – Puljujarvi is going to be a great power forward. Fans and fantasy owners just need/needed to be patient. He’s coming off his best NHL season (37-point pace) and each quarter was better than the one prior. He is showing signs of clicking with Connor McDavid and that chemistry will only get better. He has played 194 career NHL games, and recently turned just 23.

Jesper Bratt, New Jersey – I don’t think Bratt has huge upside, but I still think he can get to 65. The time of acquire him is now. The only thing that can dethrone him is injuries, and that has been a problem for him since turning pro. Twice he has given us a 53-point full-season pace. Now 231 games into his career, I think this is the year he gives us 60 if he can stay healthy (big if). (june28)

19. Nico Hischier, New Jersey – This times itself really well because Bratt and Hischier often play together. If one breaks out, it certainly helps the other. Hischier had last year wiped out with injury, but last year was supposed to be his breakout. Now 230 games in, he’s ready. His career-high pace is 56 points, and he can definitely hit 70.

Brady Tkachuk, Ottawa – Tkachuk has been hovering around the 0.63 points-per-game mark for all three of his NHL campaigns. Now we enter the fourth. And he’s played 198 NHL games. If you believe in this stuff, and you should, then this will be the year. It doesn’t hurt that the team around him is growing along with him, getting better alongside him.

Robert Thomas, St. Louis – Thomas is starting to become a Band-Aid Boy and I’m not sure if I trust him to give us 75 games next year. But he’s worth a gamble if he could be had in dynasty leagues for cheap. He’s played 169 games, so his breakout may not hit until the second half, but he has the upside to post first-line numbers and if it happens it will happen without the next two years. (june28)

20. During the offseason, I like to walk through Frozen Tools for some interesting stats that might be in some way meaningful to fantasy owners. This past week, I featured one that is very important to fantasy owners: Draisaitl Hat Tricks.

Okay, maybe it’s not that critical, but every time I bring it up, someone asks what exactly a Draisaitl Hat Trick (DHT) is. Very simple: it’s a game where a player scores a goal (or more), adds an assist (or more), and finishes with a minus-1 (or less). Think Gordie Howe hat trick with one modification. I’ll give Eric Daoust credit for coining the term, which was not meant to disparage Draisaitl, who we all know is an elite-level scorer. Instead, it’s a stat used to recognize players who could post potentially big numbers (goals/assists) for defensively deficient teams (hence, the minus ranking).

BTW: You may be wondering by now where Draisaitl himself ranked on this year's list. As weird as this is to say, he did not record a Draisaitl Hat Trick in 2020-21. We’ll have to keep the name for at least one more season, though. Draisaitl himself led the league in this category in 2019-20 with five. No other player recorded more than three. (june27)

21. ICYMI: One occupational risk of blocking shots is breaking a bone. That’s what happened with Vegas' Alec Martinez, who played with a broken foot during the playoffs. Martinez was the runaway leader in blocked shots during the regular season with 165, which was 37 ahead of the next-highest total (Adam Larsson). Entering the Final, his 72 blocked shots during the playoffs was 20 ahead of the next-highest total from teammate Alex Pietrangelo, so it’s safe to assume he will be the blocked shots leader of the playoffs, as well. We’ll have to wait and see where the UFA d-man signs before determining his overall multicategory league value, but it’s obvious that he’s a must-own in leagues that count blocked shots. 

Have a good week, folks – be safe!!

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