There was a movie about 25 years ago called 'White Squall' and though I can't remember quite what it's about – something about teenagers sailing; maybe some sort of navy camp? – I do remember one particularly harrowing sequence.

Earlier in the movie, one of the teenagers has a nightmare he can't wake from. When he does eventually come to, he tells a fellow sailor about it, and the sailor gives him a piece of advice: when having a nightmare, try to say out loud in your dream, "1-2-3 WAKE UP" and repeat it over and over. The harrowing sequence comes later in the movie when a massive storm hits, threatening to kill all the crewmen on their boat, and the sailor, hoping it's a nightmare and not real life, starts yelling, "1-2-3 WAKE UP." Of course, it's real life, and not a nightmare, and the teenager drowns in his cabin. It is so, so sad. To this day, I don't remember most of the movie, but I remember those parts, because of how gut-wrenching it was.

At the risk of spoiling a 25-year-old movie, I do have a point here. Monday morning, with my normal routine out of the way, I hopped on Twitter. The first thing I see?

The #Sens are set to introduce former NBC broadcaster Pierre McGuire as senior VP of player development today. Postmedia has an exclusive interview with McGuire and owner Eugene Melnyk that will be posted by @ottawasuncom and @OttawaCitizen any minute. Pick up a copy.

— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) July 12, 2021

Now, believe me, as a non-Sens fan, this isn't a nightmare. It is an absolute dream come true. But one of my close friends from home is a big Sens fan, as is fellow Dobber writer Adam Daly-Frey, and I thought of them immediately. I wondered, "are they yelling '1-2-3 WAKE UP' right now?". Is this their White Squall?

At this point, we need to outline why this is a bad hire.

First, he is fiercely anti-analytics. And it isn't that everyone involved in hockey needs to learn how to code in Python. What someone in his position certainly needs to do is consider all relevant information and decide what is important and what isn't. If he's dismissing analytics out of hand without considering what might be helpful and what might not be, which he has done time and time and time again, this franchise is absolutely cooked. There is not a single person in hockey smart enough to hold all the data and information in their head and be able to readily access it. These people aren't Paul Allen.  

(I am well aware he said something contrary in his opening press conference. I will rely on years and years of his own words and actions rather than one clip from a press conference.)

Secondly, even when he was in the NHL back with Hartford, he was universally disliked as he was not anywhere close to a people person. And, if you're in charge of player development, NOT being a people-person feels like a dereliction of duty. Excited to see how this goes!

The Sens just hired a guy who hasn't even bothered to learn about analytics while trashing them, and he didn't get along with anyone at his last NHL job. We usually don't spill much digital ink on player development hires, but this is obviously a very special case. He deserves the benefit of the doubt to show if he's grown, but on the other hand, this is the greatest day of my life.  

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Everyone has their opinion of the Duncan Keith trade, and mine won't differ much from most anyone else. It is the fantasy value this could bring that's important, though.

Tyson Barrie is likely done as an Oiler, and he's coming off a season where he had 48 points in 56 games playing under 21:30 a night. Last season, Keith was playing 23:25 a night in Chicago. Even if that TOI gets cut by a couple minutes, we have a baseline for what is possible for an offensive defenceman playing PP1 minutes. The question is if it's Keith that gets those minutes, or Darnell Nurse. That is a question for another day.

It is worth noting that Keith put up over two shots per game last year and was about 1.8 hits per game. Even a 40-point season with two shots and 1.8 hits per game is a good fantasy season. As bad a real-world trade this is for the Oilers, this is about as good as it could possibly get for Keith fantasy-wise. I still think he's a decent puck-mover, he's just not very good defensively. Being a decent puck-mover on this Oilers team, with PP1 minutes, is enough to threaten 40 points.

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Have you picked up your copy?

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DobberHockey's 15th Annual Fantasy Prospects Report.

The lowdown, from a #FantasyHockey standpoint, on over 500 prospects. Upsides! Certainty! Progress! Wait time! Including #2021NHLDraft https://t.co/yNKHG0raOb pic.twitter.com/TbkJCZxvjy

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) July 10, 2021

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Keeping in theme with my Ramblings for the last couple weeks, I'm going to talk about one major question, from a fantasy slant, from every team. Today we're getting to the end, and we're going to be quicker about these because I have something else I want to write about on Thursday.

Chances of a big Patrik Laine turnaround?

Out of the gate, I feel more confident about this than I did a couple months ago when John Tortorella was still the head coach of Columbus. To be clear, I think Torts is fine as a coach, but he's certainly not a fantasy-friendly coach, and that's all we care about.

New coach Brad Larsen already said he's going to play to Laine's strengths and surround him with good players. That, alone, is a step in the right direction.

There are still concerns, of course. This team really doesn't have a bone fide number-1 centre, and if Max Domi doesn't right the ship soon, Jack Roslovic is really their only contender to be a number-2 centre. It is possible that Roslovic and Laine develop some chemistry, but that duo was awful together this year. Just as a side note: Columbus has two regular forwards signed past 2022. There could be a lot of turnover coming soon, which may mean trading Laine again.

The chances of a big turnaround here feel remote. His 40-goal seasons feel like a thing of the past until the team reloads or until he gets traded. We will have to see where his ADP lands.

What do we do about Vegas's goaltending situation?

Funny how goaltending works, right? One good postseason and Carey Price was a top-10 goalie off the board this past draft season. That was despite years of mediocre-to-bad regular season play. The key to remember here for Vegas is they brought in Robin Lehner because Marc-André Fleury had been so bad in the regular season the previous two years. Sure, Fleury probably gets the net out of camp, but does he have the net in November?

Also, what is the split going to be here? Fleury would have started ~52 games in a full season this year, leaving 30 for Lehner. Is that going to be the split this year? What if Fleury has a bad October? What if Lehner has a bad October? If this stays the split, where does that leave each player for getting drafted?

The one thing worth thinking about here is what Lehner's possible value is, not Fleury's. The hope of a 37-year-old goalie replicating his best season in nearly 15 years is unlikely. The hope of a goalie who has long been good with one bad season? Yeah, I'd rather take that chance at a much cheaper ADP.

What is Nick Suzuki's upside for 2021?

Suzuki will probably be one of the more contentious players in the draft pool. His 82-game paces for the 2021 season were as follows: 22 goals, 38 assists, 161 shots, 103 hits, 56 blocks, 19 PPPs, 513 face-off wins. If I were to put a value on him right now as a centre in multi-cat leagues, he's probably about as valuable as Elias Lindholm was in recent seasons. While that may not seem like an amazing comp, Lindholm was a top-40 mutli-cat player in 2018-19 and a top-80 multi-cat player in 2019-20 before falling off this year. At worst, Lindholm was a 3C in 12-team leagues, or a starter in most fantasy formats.

The note to slide in here is Montreal spreads out their ice time, something I brought up in a piece on Cole Caufield. That precludes 20 minutes a night from Suzuki, but 18-19 is still within reach. We probably have to wait a couple years for Suzuki/Caufield to really hit their stride together, but I think Suzuki can easily be a top-100 player in multi-cat leagues this year. We will have to see how much the Playoff Performer Bump raises his ADP, though.

Can Nashville's two centres every find their form again?

Personally, and I can't quite put my finger on it, but I think there's something wrong with Nashville's system. It seems like they almost rely too much on their defencemen for offence, and that is putting their actual forwards in awkward situations. I don't watch Nashville closely enough to say what it is, but it just feels like something is going on.

At the least, Matt Duchene should have had a good year. His offensive play-driving was elite and he even often found himself in good shooting situations (from HockeyViz):

Despite the elite play-driving, and the great shot locations, he had his worst fantasy season ever. When something like that happens, I generally think an injury is holding them back, and Duchene was injured a fair bit this year. I think he can be a useful fantasy asset again, assuming he's healthy.

There is less certainty with Ryan Johansen. None of his stats were any good this year and this has been a couple years in a row of very pedestrian play from Johansen. Unless something changes for him soon, it looks like he's pretty much cooked as a fantasy asset.

Who are we drafting as Boston's PP1QB?

Last offseason, I was adamant that it would be Matt Grzelcyk as Boston's PP1QB, and he was. At least, he was until the end of the season, at which point Charlie McAvoy took over. The thing is, they were right to do that because the power play was much, much better with McAvoy than with Grzelcyk. The team also traded for Mike Reilly, who could be re-signed if they want, and can run a PP.

So, if we were to guess, who is the PP1QB next year?

I really do think it's going to be McAvoy. The fact that he took over the role in the playoffs and held onto it tells the story here. When the chips were down and they needed to win games, they relied on McAvoy. Now, they won't necessarily do that for all 82 games in the regular season, but I think it's a good bet that McAvoy is the guy for a big chunk of it. This drastically alters his fantasy outlook.

Does Dominik Kubalik ever get a bigger role?

One of the bigger questions in the NHL is why Dominik Kubalik doesn't get more ice time. Two seasons ago, he posted 1.7 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, far-and-away tops on the Blackhawks and actually the highest mark in the league as well. That fell this season to 0.96 goals per 60 minutes, but that was still top-60 league-wide, or a top-line rate. Over the last two years, in aggregate, Kubalik is tied for seventh in goal scoring per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 and 10^th in scoring at all strengths. Over the last two years, at all strengths, he has a higher goal-scoring rate than Connor McDavid and Brad Marchand. Over the last two years, at all strengths, he has also played less per game than Luke Kunin, Luke Glendening, and Scott Laughton.

Does that change? If a healthy Jonathan Toews and Kirby Dach are back, the Chicago top-6 could be absolutely lethal. But will that include Dominik Kubalik? We will see. I sure hope so.

Which Los Angeles rookie should we be most excited about this year?

I suppose this is a pretty open question for now. We have seen the rumours linking Jack Eichel to the Kings, and that would presumably unload a couple of these rookies. But, for now, let's assume everyone they have will have a crack at the lineup. Who are we most excited about?

Quinton Byfield is obviously the big one, but I question whether he gets a top-6 role this year. He can certainly work his way up there, but I think it'll be a battle between him and Rasmus Kupari, and Kupari is two years older.  

Alex Turcotte is another one a lot of people are excited about, and he had a solid season as a 19-year-old in the AHL with 21 points in 32 games. He is a distributor more than anything, so maybe he can play up the lineup with a good showing in camp?

Arthur Kaliyev is the guy that excites me, though. He led their AHL affiliate in goals and points while landing about 2.75 shots on goal per game. He just turned 20 years old last month so there is still some growth to come but with a good offseason of training, I think he's ready for a second-line role immediately. The guy is a menace offensively, and I can't wait to see him wreak havoc on the West.