The Montreal Canadiens live to fight another day, and that means we aren't in full offseason mode quite yet. However, game four already covered in yesterday's Ramblings, and there really isn't a huge amount of fantasy relevant discussion points to suck out of a Stanley Cup Final series. Josh Anderson is good for now, especially when he's fired up. Anthony Cirelli is a clutch player, Patrick Maroon wins cups, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Carey Price have been absolutely lights-out in stretches, and Alexander Romanov is going to be an excellent offensive defenceman for the Canadiens. Did I miss anything? Oh yeah, Matthew Joseph needs more ice time:

You watch this play the first time:
"Easy tap-in, all day."

You watch this play a second time:
"How in the world did TBL7 saucer that pass over the MTL stick? Impossible." https://t.co/6djDfyzfGR

— Jack Han (@JhanHky) July 6, 2021

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With the Seattle selections only two weeks away now, and everyone looking at the selection lists and trying to figure out who will thrive in a new Seattle lineup, it is also necessary to consider the other half of that equation. Every team is losing some kind of player, and that means there will be NHL roster spots, and in some cases even top power play spots that open up. Back in 2017-18 we saw career highs from Brayden Schenn, Vincent Trocheck, Jason Zucker, and Matt Murray, plus a huge rebound year from Eric Staal. Those teams lost David Perron, Reilly Smith, Jonathan Marchessault, Erik Haula, and Marc-Andre Fleury.

Easier said than done to try and pick these guys out after the expansion draft, let alone before, but I'm going to try. There's a necessary recipe here that all of these teams had. All were competitive teams that had a bit of an issue protecting everyone that they wanted to, in addition to having skilled players down in the lineup that were ready to step up but wouldn't have gotten the same opportunity without their team losing a player or two in the expansion draft. There are a few obvious parallels to teams this time around, so let's go through a few:

Tampa Bay Lightning

To get the obvious one out of the way, the best thing Tampa could do for both themselves and Seattle would be to offer up Tyler Johnson as the selection, with a pick and one of Yanni Gourde or Alex Killorn as a sweetener. This would allow for the Lightning to fit everyone under the salary cap next year, possibly also including pending UFAs Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman. It would also free up two spots up the lineup for Alex Barre-Boulet, and the aforementioned Joseph. Both of those players are probably worth stashing now in deeper leagues if you can.

Philadelphia Flyers

The Flyers have such a deep forward core to go along with an enviably stocked cupboard of prospects, that it is tough to get a read on who will be proteted after the obvious first few names. The Flyers could be losing one of Jakub Voracek, James van Reimsdyk, Nolan Patrick, or Oskar Lindblom. The latter two are the ones to look out for if not selected, as they might finally be able to soak up a little more time with the man-advantage. They're worth keeping an eye on over the next few weeks, though it's possible they may get beat out by the internal growth of Morgan Frost, Joel Farabee (yes I know he was in the top-six already but he deserves more than 16 minutes per game), and others.

Carolina Hurricanes

The current home of 2017-18 standout Trocheck may see another name that breaks out due to a surge in power play opportunities, though this one isn't just a Seattle ripple. The Hurricanes appear to be ready to let Dougie Hamilton test free agency, and they could also lose one of their defencemen in the Seattle draft (Brady Skjei was on my list back in April). This would set up Jake Bean to be the primary beneficiary, taking over point duties on a very skilled power play.

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The oddsmakers still be-Leaf. pic.twitter.com/wYEUbpspBf

— James Mirtle (@mirtle) July 6, 2021

If I was going to place a bet on anyone here, it would be in order:

Seattle – The Pacific division is awful, so they're a better bet to make the playoffs than not even without knowing a single name yet of their opening night lineup.

Philadelphia – Get in before they acquire Seth Jones or Mattias Ekholm.

Dallas – In the Cup Final only a season ago, and they will have a healthy Tyler Seguin & Ben Bishop.

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There were a few minor signings over the last day or so. Dominic Toninato (F – WPG), Scott Wedgewood (G – NJ), and Cristian Wolanin (D – LA) all took two-way deals to put pen to paper and guarantee that they're under contract next season. The two-way deal means that they make less in the AHL than they do in the NHL (it has nothing to do with waiver status) and is usually a good sign of whether a player is expected to make, or at least fight for a spot in the opening night lineup. Keep an eye on those types of signings, and when you see the one-way deals (like in year two of Toninato's deal) then you might want to dive a little deeper and see if there's anything there. This is one way that you can dig up the Yanni Gourdes and Daniel Sprongs before anyone else does.

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No surprise but a lot of Buffalo media in on the Eklund interview. There's a better than zero chance he could be selected first. #NHLDraft

📢 advertisement:

— Mark Scheig (@markscheig) July 6, 2021

If you're looking for a hint at who Buffalo goes with at first overall, I have heard a lot of little rumblings that William Eklund is a very real possibility. It also sounds like most of the 2021 class is expecting to play at least one more season wherever they are (Europe, NCAA, etc). Something to keep in mind if you’re hoping for any kind of immediate impact from this class. There might not be much at all to pick from.

If you want the best hints at who those players might be though, you need to get yourself the 15^th edition of the Fantasy Prospects Report. It is available for pre-order now, and will be available for download in three days (July 10th)!

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I was looking into a few powerplay metrics, and ended up over on the FrozenTools report generator (surprise!). Specifically, I was looking at power play points per-60 minutes, which should be detailing the most efficient players with the powerplay, and not just the top powerplay producers. I wanted to go over a few of the names that I found to be intriguing on that list. There is a tie for first with 1.8 points/60 with the man-advantage, and no surprise that one of those names is Connor McDavid. The other one might take you a few more guesses to get, which is fair since he only played 11 games for a non-playoff team:

Alexander Radulov

The 35-year-old Russian put up six power play points and twelve points overall last season in a campaign cut short due to a core muscle injury, for which he has already had surgery. He should be ready to go for the start of the 2021-22 campaign but what can we really expect out of him at this point? Dallas' power play ran extremely hot to start the season, and Radulov rode that coupled with a high shooting-percentage to his highest point-pace over any season. If we combine his 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, we get a 70-game sample size which is a lot easier to work with. In that sample, he put up 46 points, shot 12 percent, and saw 17 minutes of ice time per game.

Radulov put up 23 points on the power play in both 2017-18 and 2018-19, so he has shown sustained production with the man advantage in the past. By the end of last season only Roope Hintz and Joe Pavelski were above 1.0 power play points among Stars skaters, and it likely shows that Radulov's production wouldn't have been sustainable over the course of a full slate, despite Radulov being a large part of the reason the top unit in Dallas was so successful to begin with. It's tough to say if on draft day he will be overvalued because of the production, or undervalued because of the injury and age. If you're treating him as a 45-50 point player who can produce 15 powerplay points then you should be okay.

Tyler Bertuzzi

Michael Clifford touched on Bertuzzi not long ago, and he mentioned how much the power-forward can contribute across the board while likely being undervalued in drafts this fall due to only playing 11 games. On top of that, Bertuzzi was the best powerplay producer by a mile in Detroit, putting up 1.4 points per 60 minutes with the man advantage. The only other player above 0.6 was Joe Veleno, who only played five games.

Bertuzzi is an excellent net-front and down-low presence for the Wings, giving them a very different skillset to pair up with the likes of Jakub Vrana, Dylan Larkin, and the rest. He is going to be a key to the production for the entire unit, which went on a historically bad run without him in the lineup last season.

Eeli Tolvanen

There are two tales here. I'll get to the numbers in a minute, but as someone who watched a lot of Nashville games this season, Tolvanen was the key to the power play. The Predators' powerplay has had issues for multiple seasons now, and borders on anemic for long stretches. However, when Tolvanen was out with the man advantage, the Predators all looked dangerous. He has the kind of dynamic skill that the predators have lacked since Paul Kariya left. Filip Forsberg is a great player, and especially dangerous on the rush, but his skills aren't optimized in a static power play environment. Tolvanen is going to be the key to the Predators' offence moving forward, and their powerplay should to start to run through him. His numbers are only going to go up from here.

The numbers bear out that Tolvanen was the most dangerous player at 5on4 for the Predators last season, with a team-high 1.2 power play points per 60 minutes. Unfortunately, John Hynes took a little while to get comfortable with him, and it wasn't until the middle-half of the season that Tolvanen really started lighting it up. A top-six role and more minutes overall will be important to keep the numbers up, but the powerplay production is going to be where Tolvanen really shines in fantasy (the hit rates don't hurt his case either). Forsberg saw 40 seconds more of power play ice time per game than Tolvanen. If that gets bumped up for the young winger, then hits overall numbers are going to skyrocket.

No Predators forward has notched 25 power play points since Kariya in 2006-07, but I think Tolvanen tops that with ease and hits 30 powerplay points next season (assuming a full 82 games).

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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!