21 Fantasy Hockey Rambles

Dobber Sports

2021-08-08

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. Jack Hughes is absolutely one of the most fascinating players in the fantasy game, and real world, this season. Some of his non-boxcar stats were phenomenal this past year:

– His offensive and defensive impacts were roughly one standard deviation above average or better, putting him in the 80th percentile at both ends; he was above-average in high-danger passes as a 19-year-old on a non-playoff team;

– His primary shot assist and shot rates were both well above average, comparable to Kevin Fiala and Mikko Rantanen;

– His carry-in percentage on zone entries was 78 percent, just a shade behind Connor McDavid‘s and Brayden Point‘s 79 percent (Corey Sznajder Patreon here for all this data).

He had just a tremendous season doing everything but racking up massive point totals. I think the problem just boils down to his linemates. Not that they’re terrible, but McDavid plays with Draisaitl, Rantanen plays with MacKinnon, and Point plays with Kucherov (Fiala… has to do a lot of heavy lifting for Minnesota). Those guys are all playing with other elite offensive players. If Hughes is playing with Andreas Johnsson? Or Jesper Bratt? Not quite the same.

Hughes certainly looks to be a superstar on the rise, but I don’t think that the team around him is quite there yet. He will have a good season, I just don’t think in eight months we’re looking back at a 90-point season and wondering how we all missed it. He is capable of that, but he doesn’t have the line mates to make it a reality just yet. (aug5)

2. Perhaps the best free agent of the rest, Tomas Tatar signed with the Devils for two years at $4.5 million per season. Mike took care of the Fantasy Take on this one.

It seemed strange that Tatar, the Habs’ leading scorer in 2019-20, was a healthy scratch for much of the playoffs. But when you get on a roll like Montreal did during the playoffs, you don’t mess with a winning lineup.

Whether Tatar will bounce back to some extent is up for debate. Either way, the Devils might have checked more boxes than any other team with their offseason improvements. Not one, but two top-four defensemen? Dougie Hamilton and Ryan Graves. Another goalie to support the overworked Mackenzie Blackwood? Jonathan Bernier. High first-round pick? Luke Hughes. And now a potential top-6 forward in Tatar. If Jack Hughes takes another step forward, this team could make some noise for a playoff spot. They are at least hoping these upgrades will work out better than the ones from 2019 (P.K. Subban, Nikita Gusev, Wayne Simmonds). (aug7)

3. Darnell Nurse landed the big one on Friday, signing an eight-year contract worth $74 million ($9.25 million cap hit), to start in 2022-23. Nurse is now 26, so this contract will expire when he is 35. Like many long-term deals, it may not look pretty at the end. But Nurse is a critical part of the Oilers defense, leading all of their blueliners with 25:38 of ice time in 2020-21. Only Drew Doughty, Thomas Chabot, and Brent Burns averaged more ice time overall than Nurse.

I’m not sure how much this factored into his new contract, but Nurse’s goal total certainly helped his fantasy stock in 2020-21. Only Jakob Chychrun scored more goals than Nurse’s 16, a career high for the career Oiler. Nurse finished fourth in shots among defensemen, which factored into that total. Shooting percentage also helped boost that total, as Jonas Brodin, Aaron Ekblad, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Alec Martinez were the only defensemen with a shooting percentage higher than Nurse’s 10.4% (minimum 35 games). Don’t bet on an improvement in this category, at least not on a goals-per-game basis.

Even if the goal total declines, Nurse is still a must-own in multicategory league. I mentioned the shots on goal earlier. He finished with a plus-27, second on the team and a number that you can also debate. Nurse is especially valuable in leagues that count hits, as no defenseman who had a higher hits total than Nurse (117) scored more points. As well, his 100 blocked shots was within the top 20. As long as he’s receiving the ice time, Nurse should continue to pile up the counting stats. (aug7)

4. Nurse wasn’t the only defenseman to sign an eight-year contract on Friday. As you might expect from Lou Lamoriello, the Islanders have been secretive about their offseason plans, but they did announce that Adam Pelech has agreed to an eight-year extension worth $5.75 million per season. Pelech isn’t really an option in fantasy leagues, either by scoring numbers (14 points in 56 games) or by peripherals (under 100 hits and 100 blocked shots). However, his ability as a shutdown defenseman earns him this contract in real-life.

The only other fantasy-relevant statement I can make is that Pelech’s signing should continue to benefit whoever is between the pipes for the Islanders, whether that be Semyon Varlamov or Ilya Sorokin. (aug7)

5. We have a guy who was traded to Arizona in the Darcy Kuemper deal and it probably came as a surprise to many, myself included. Conor Timmins has a concussion history that delayed his development, but the team stuck with the 32nd overall pick from 2017 for four years before he became a quasi-regular in 2021. It seemed he was going to be a part of the core on the blue line for years to come. It was not to be.

Here’s something I bet the readers didn’t know: in the 2021 season, Timmins had virtually identical shot (11.48) and primary assist (7.55) rates per 60 minutes as teammate Devon Toews (11.57, 7.59). I am not saying he is Devon Toews, but Toews is coming off a season where he had 31 points in 53 games. If Timmins had that production this year, how excited are people in Arizona about him? My guess is: very.

What if I also told the readers that Timmins had the second-highest high-danger pass rate of any Colorado d-man, behind Makar? Because he did, even more than Girard or Toews. Being decent in transition, while having good shot and pass rates, will lead to good impacts, and that’s what happened. He was inside the 90th percentile for defensemen in offensive impact and was above average defensively. Remember that this was his first full-ish season and he has had a long injury history. If he’s this good after all those roadblocks, what can he do if he’s fully healthy?

While going from Colorado to Arizona might not seem like a step up for fantasy, there is more opportunity in the Desert. At even strength, he’d be behind at least Cale Makar, if not also Erik Johnson, if not also Ryan Murray. There is no guarantee he’d play 82 games with the Avs, and when he’d be in the lineup, his ice time would be in the teens.

On the flipside, OEL and Oesterle are gone from Arizona, and those are two guys who ate up some PP time last year. Jakob Chychrun will get top PP duties, but Timmins has a real shot at PP2 duties. On top of that, he could easily stay in the top-4 all year at even strength. He may have played like 65 games with sparse ice time on the better team, but I’ll take a full season with 20 minutes a night on a worse team for a defenseman.

Just watch peripherals here. They weren’t high last year, and we’ll see what happens this year. I do think Timmins is on his way to being a very good top-4 defenseman, and we’ll see that bubble to the surface this season. (aug6)

6. Here at Dobber Hockey, we love our fourth-year breakouts. One of the guys that fits this bill – though he doesn’t have quite enough games played – is Anaheim’s Max Comtois. I talked about him briefly at the end of the season but a little bit more is required.

Want a few fun facts about Comtois’s 2021 season? Of course you do:

Comtois probably needs to shoot more, but the Ducks were a low-event team as it was. It isn’t entirely on him; even the team leader in shot rate (Rickard Rakell) shot less than guys like Kyle Palmieri and Denis Gurianov.

He is not a transition player that is charged with a lot of zone entries. This team didn’t do much right offensively but they are still growing, and all this fails to mention that Comtois was in the 85th percentile for hit rate as well.

I truly believe that 20 goals, 40 points, 150 shots, and 150 hits is in order for Comtois this year. He has upside beyond that, depending on Anaheim, but this isn’t a guy to overlook just because of his line mates. He can do enough on his own to be worthwhile in fantasy. (aug5)

7. Goalies are fickle so there isn’t a huge need to go too deep here. But I talk about the Kings a lot and should probably talk about their goalie for once.

Among 56 goalies with at least 2500 minutes played at 5-on-5 the last three years, Cal Petersen is top-5 by high-danger save percentage. That is a very good indicator of his skill, even if it’s a small sample (50 starts). He was also top-10 by goals saved above expected, and that’s a cumulative stat. That means the more minutes a goalie plays, the higher (or lower) his number can get. In this sample, Petersen has 3100 minutes of TOI; no other goalie in the top-12 has fewer than 4000 minutes played. He has been sterling.

Again, these are all small samples and the bulk of his games came in the shortened 2021 season where half the division was pretty bad. Of course, the will play every team in the league next year, but they’re also still in a pretty bad Pacific Division. With some good fortune, they can be a playoff team in that division.

With Petersen the presumptive starter, a bad division, and an improved roster with only more high-end prospects coming, the future is bright for Petersen, who doesn’t turn 27 until October. More seasons like the ones he’s just had, and he’ll be a top-12 goalie in fantasy. I will be a buyer this fall, presuming his ADP doesn’t get out of control.  (aug5)

8. The West is a little more open and the return of Jonathan Toews alone could push the Blackhawks across the line. (It was great to see him out and about at Alex DeBrincat's wedding this weekend.)

On top of that though, Marc-Andre Fleury, last year's Vezina winner was brought in without subtracting anything off the roster, the defense was upgraded, and the Tyler Johnson trade lengthens the forward group to the point that it actually looks like a top-half team in the West.

I’m hoping the acquisitions on defense don’t push Riley Stillman out of the lineup, as I own him in one league and he’s steadily growing into a peripherals monster. Stillman is more likely to make the opening night lineup than puck-movers Nicolas Beaudin or Ian Mitchell though, and that may end up helping Jones’ value even more.  (aug4)

9. The defense landscape in Arizona changed quite a bit. Bringing in Shayne Gostisbehere, Anton Stralman, and Conor Timmins revamps things on both the offensive and the defensive end. However, with both Timmins and Gostisbehere more suited to offensive roles, we could see Chychrun's deployment, and as a result his production, tail off a bit. Something to keep in mind, especially for a team that doesn't have a lot of fire-power up front to begin with. 

Also with the Coyotes, as Kuemper is now gone, look for the Coyotes to follow in the Blackhawks' footsteps and roll with whatever goalies happen to be in the system for this coming season. Carter Hutton should have zero value. Ivan Prosvetov is third in line, and is close to NHL ready. Getting the first crack will be Josef Korenar. He brings some big potential for those seeking cheap volume.  (aug4)

10. Robin Lehner's value shoots up with the Marc-Andre Fleury trade. Expect 60 starts and Vezina-like numbers (perhaps even better than Fleury's from last season). The team and him are both that good. 

The depth in Vegas is ridiculous now:

F

Pacioretty-Stephenson-Stone
Marchessault-Karlsson-Krebs
Dadonov-Patrick-Smith
Carrier-Roy-Janmark
(Tuch – injured)

D

Martinez-Pietrangelo
McNabb-Theodore
Hague-Whitecloud

G

Lehner
Brossoit

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This team might just make a run for scoring the most goals for, and allowing the fewest against in a season. That's even before you factor in their weak division. If there was ever a lock for the President's Trophy, this may be the year. There’s also another name to consider who likely won’t crack the opening night lineup, and that’s goaltending prospect Logan Thompson. Here's a sample write-up I have for him in the "goalies to watch" section of the 2021 DobberHockey Fantasy Guide

“With Marc-Andre Fleury traded to Chicago, Thompson’s time could be upon us sooner than many realize. He is the top goaltending prospect in the system, and someone that is very nearly NHL ready. Lehner will still control the majority of the starts, but he has had his share on injuries, and he won’t be starting every game for what will likely be the top team in the Pacific. Brossoit, despite the overpay, is not much of a hurdle to clear.”

The Guide is due out August 14th, and you can pre-order it here.  (aug4)

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IN THE SHOP:

Training camps start in about six weeks’ time, so if you want a head start on the year, we have our Prospects Guide available in the Dobber Shop. There is a ton of information in there.

And, as there is every year, the Dobber Fantasy Guide is on the way. That's right, look for it this upcoming Saturday, August 14. That, too, you can purchase via the Dobber Shop.

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11. The biggest deal to this point looks to be Seth Jones to Chicago. I think this trade obviously helps Jones more than Adam Boqvist who went the other way, giving him some dynamic weapons up front. Something in the 60-point range while maintaining his solid peripherals should be the norm for jones over the next number of years. 

With Werenski locked in for the foreseeable future in Columbus, as well as the presence of Jake Bean, Boqvist is going to be in tough to get a fair sniff at the power play. He might slide under the radar for a year or two until enough players move around to get him the top gig. Something to keep in the back pocket anyways. 

Back to Werenski though, that is an insanely tough contract to swallow. Still better than the deals Shea Weber, Erik Karlsson, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, and Drew Doughty are signed to, but he's a tough cap league own at the moment despite the possibility of putting up 20+ goals every year.  (aug4)

12. I think that Antti Raanta is one of the best goalies in hockey and there are stats to back that up:

  • Just outside the top-5 goalies by goals saved above expected since getting to Arizona. That is a cumulative stat, so his rate of goals saved is higher than the sixth he sits cumulatively.
  • Same high-danger save percentage as Robin Lehner from 2017-20, and just slightly worse than Connor Hellebuyck.
  • Three seasons of at least a .920 save percentage overall in the last five years.

Reminder, in those last four years, Raanta has been stuck behind a mostly-bad Arizona team. He has also suffered some injuries, which both makes his upside higher and brings concern.

The question for Raanta in Carolina is staying healthy. Frederik Andersen is a starting goalie but not of the same calibre, and it’s not hard to see Raanta keeping the net later in the year. Neither will start 60 games, but if both are healthy, I’m betting on Raanta having a good year.  (aug3)

13. Dmitrij Jaskin, here is a player I thought would be a breakout star years ago. The problem is his offensive game just didn’t develop along with his defensive game. He was a marvelous player defensively but didn’t bring anything offensively.

Even with the offensive struggles, it was weird to me a guy with those defensive skills couldn’t last in the NHL. Regardless, he took off for the KHL and posted 69 goals in 117 games, which was outstanding. His 38 goals led the KHL this year by 10 (!), and he finished second in the KHL the year before, finishing two goals behind Kirill Kaprizov.

Jaskin did two things well in his first NHL stint, from a fantasy perspective: high shot rates at even strength and lots of hits. He averaged two shots per game in 2014-15 despite playing under 14 minutes a night, and posted over 200 hits in 2017-18 despite playing under 13 minutes a game. Production aside, what do his shots/hits look like in a full season with 17 minutes a night?

This is one of the more interesting players in the NHL this year. If he has a genuinely good offensive game and a comparable defensive game to 2-3 years ago, he’s a first liner, or at least a top-6 guy. That could be a very valuable trade chip later in the year for Arizona, who is undoubtedly looking to rehab his image and then flip him as the rebuild continues.  (aug3)

14. Don’t forget, in fantasy leagues, when you draft a goalie you usually have to wait until he is 25 before he significantly helps your pro team. And that’s on the high end. The elite goalies may be a couple of years earlier. Carey Price was 21 and ‘kind of’ helped. But he didn’t start really helping until he was 23. Carter Hart was ‘kind of’ helping us at 21 with 43 mostly good games (24 wins). But then last year happened. So assuming he turns it around this year, he’ll be 23. These are exceptions.

Most goalies follow the Thatcher Demko path. Kaapo Kahkonen was 24 last year and he ‘kind of’ helped. He’s two years away from ‘really’ helping, making him 26. This is all normal for goalies. So, don’t go out and draft Jesper Wallstedt expecting him to help in two or three years. And he’s one of the best goalies to come out of the draft in a decade. So at 23 (i.e. ‘early’) I’d expect him to help fantasy leagues. By then, Kahkonen will be 29 and either in the midst of a big contract, or he never got going.

Same idea with Yaroslav Askarov and Spencer Knight. With Knight – he was awesome last year. But there’s 10,000,000 reasons why Sergei Bobrovsky gets all the starts this season. And on this Florida team, Bobrovsky can have a terrible year again and still pile up the wins.

The point is – be patient and understand your timelines. Rule of thumb: goalies need to be 25. So in my dynasty league I look at drafting them when they are 21-23, and pick based on organizational needs two or three years into the future. (aug2)

15. The Hurricanes have signed Derek Stepan to a one-year, $1.35 million contract. Stepan’s only season with the Senators ended with just a goal and six points in 20 games before season-ending shoulder surgery. Stepan reached the 50-point mark for five consecutive seasons with the Rangers and Coyotes, but he has trailed off in the last few years. This signing is low risk, although Stepan will likely have to start on the fourth line behind Sebastian Aho, Vincent Trocheck, and Jordan Staal at center. (aug1)

16. The Wings have signed Tyler Bertuzzi to a two-year contract, reportedly with a cap hit of $4.75 million. I recently wrote about Bertuzzi in a previous Ramblings, so I won’t repeat myself here. If you don’t feel like reading, just keep him in mind as a potential injury bounceback candidate. He scored five goals and seven points in nine games before missing the remainder of the season because of a back injury. (aug1)

17. Recently traded Warren Foegele has agreed to a three-year contract with the Oilers, with a cap hit of $2.75 million. Foegele was acquired by the Oilers from Carolina earlier this offseason for Ethan Bear. He will likely fit in on the Oilers’ third line, although a move to a line with either Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl for some length of time could generate a major in his value. (aug1)

18. Continuing with Top 100 Roto Rankings players affected by changing teams: I’ve seen a lot of discussion regarding Darcy Kuemper. Since the now-former Coyote will be moving into Philipp Grubauer‘s starting job for Colorado, he’s due for a major increase in value. So I’ll cut right to the chase here: Kuemper will be in the top 100, although I don’t know where yet. [Fantasy Impact: Darcy Kuemper Shipped to the Avalanche]

Yes, Kuemper deserves to be bumped way up your rankings. Throw out the pandemic 2020-21 season and Kuemper has ranged between a .920 and .928 save percentage over his previous three seasons. In fact, over the past four seasons, only Ben Bishop has a better save percentage than Kuemper (.921 SV%) among goalies that have played at least 100 games. That’s the sign of a strong goalie, and a reason I ranked him fairly high and targeted him even when he was with Arizona. Grubauer checks in with a .919 SV% over that same span.

So should we simply move Kuemper into the ranking that Grubauer previous occupied, since I already mentioned that Grubauer loses value with a move to Seattle? Not so fast. Kuemper’s NHL career has spanned nine seasons. Guess how many times has he played at least 35 games in a season? Just once, in 2018-19, when he played 55 games. I will acknowledge that he hasn’t been a starting goalie for much of that time, but the now 31-year-old goalie would have to remain injury-free in 2021-22 to completely fill Grubauer’s shoes fantasy-wise. His track record hasn’t demonstrated that he’s been able to do that. (aug1)

19. If you draft Kuemper, you should probably keep an eye on the status of Pavel Francouz. He may have completely fallen off your radar in 2020-21 because he missed the entire season following surgery for a lower-body injury. The now-29-year-old played 34 games compared to Grubauer’s 36 games in 2019-20, so he could factor into the goaltending equation if he is fully healthy. Over that season, he also posted better numbers (2.41 GAA, .923 SV%) than Grubauer (2.63 GAA, .916 SV%). I remember him looking awful in that season’s playoffs, but that may have been injury-related.

In the end, Kuemper’s value increase and Grubauer’s value decrease emphasize how much of a role the strength of a team plays in a goalie’s value. It might seem easy to determine a goalie’s value from there, but remember that we’ve also learned that goalie values are unpredictable, especially over the past few seasons. (aug1)

20. I want to put in my two cents – the Evander Kane situation. He was accused by an Instagram account that is apparently from his wife accusing him of betting on NHL games that he played in, among other things (like abandoning her and her child). The NHL is investigating and if this turns out to be true, I don’t see how Kane plays this season (or possibly not at all – if MLB’s treatment of Pete Rose is any indication). Once again, for the second straight offseason, Kane owners in keeper leagues get to worry about if they simply lose a good asset for nothing.

Whatever happens, I hope it is resolved quickly in the best interests of the children. They come first. We don’t want to screw them up before life even truly begins for them. (aug2)

21. Non-fantasy relevant mostly, but some thoughts on the Jack Eichel situation. For those of you who didn’t know, Eichel’s agents put out a statement saying they felt Eichel should have been traded by now and using some strong words pretty much said Buffalo needs to get moving ASAP.

The Buffalo Sabres have a reputation, or are quickly gaining one, of being a “garbage team” is a direct quote tweeted to me by a couple of my followers. So what can a new GM do in such a situation to try to fix that reputation? Well, for starters he can do his best to make an Eichel trade a home run. Next, give Eichel his blessing to have the damn surgery. You’re trading him anyway, let it happen. If the surgery screws it up that’s the next team’s problem. This should have been immediately – Adams dropped the ball there big time.

But – the agents were out of line. Adams can’t bring down his asking price too much, other than negotiating the finer points of it. And now, with that statement, every team with an offer on the table just tweaked it downwards. Every team. Now Adams is even further away from a trade. If I’m Adams, I am absolutely enraged. I still hold the line. I want a Joe Sakic/Matt Duchene-type of patience and end result. And if the agents just made that process worse and take longer, then so be it. That’s on them. If I’m Eichel, I fire the agents. Incredibly unprofessional. And if that statement was Eichel’s brilliant idea, then the agents need to control their client. I could go on about this ridiculousness probably forever…but I’ll save that for when I’m having a few beers with my friends and I’m speaking, not typing! (aug2)

Have a good week, folks be safe!!

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