The Oilers finally reached an agreement with RFA Kailer Yamamoto, re-signing him to a one-year contract worth $1.175 million. This is essentially a one-year, "prove it" contract for Yamamoto, whose production fell to 0.40 PTS/GP (21 PTS in 52 GP) after he produced at a near point-per-game (26 PTS in 27 GP) following a 2019-20 midseason callup.

Yamamoto's success that season had much to do with his spot on a line with Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, but that unit was broken up last season. Given the potential to play alongside one or both of the league's top two scorers last season, Yamamoto has solid sleeper potential, as well as the motivation of another contract year. Currently he is rostered in only 10 percent of Yahoo leagues.

One downside might be lack of power-play time, of which Yamamoto averaged just 37 seconds of per game last season while scoring just two power-play points. This is an extremely low number considering that both McDavid and Draisaitl each scored over 30 PPP, which like the overall point totals were the two best in the league.

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Zdeno Chara is back for another season, joining the team that traded him away 20 years ago! The Islanders have signed the over-40 defenseman to a one-year contract (amount not disclosed). Entering his 24^th NHL season, Chara is currently 13^th in all-time games played (1,608 GP). For the Isles, Chara fills a void on the left side, although he's probably a third-pairing defenseman at this point in his career. It is worth mentioning that he only missed one game for the Capitals last season. Chara's presence might bump Thomas Hickey to the press box and keep Robin Salo in the AHL. Remember that the Isles are also bringing in Erik Gustafsson on a PTO (discussed yesterday).

Most NHL seasons by a defenceman

Chris Chelios 26
Zdeno Chara 24 (includes 2021-22)
Tim Horton 24
Scott Stevens 22
Ray Bourque 22 pic.twitter.com/9MXpRBgGFG

— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) September 18, 2021

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DobberHockey’s 16th annual Fantasy Hockey Guide is out now and fully updated, even with the Chara signing and the PTO players. Pick it up here! Or download it again for the updates.

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As I look for potential breakouts for next season, I thought I'd take a look at Frozen Tools. Sure enough, there's a Next Year Breakout button which shows players going into their fourth NHL season, which is the season where many players take that big leap forward.

I filtered the list to show players with at least 100 games played (understood that an NHL season has not been 82 games for the past two seasons). Then I sorted by points per game played. It would only let me take last season's data.

Name	Pos	Age	Team	Years	Career GP	GP	G	A	PTS	PTS/GP
ROOPE HINTZ	L	24	DAL	3	159	41	15	28	43	1.05
ELIAS PETTERSSON	C	22	VAN	3	165	26	10	11	21	0.81
CONOR GARLAND	R	25	VAN	3	164	49	12	27	39	0.80
ANDREI SVECHNIKOV	R	21	CAR	3	205	55	15	27	42	0.76
QUINN HUGHES	D	21	VAN	3	129	56	3	38	41	0.73
BRADY TKACHUK	L	22	OTT	3	198	56	17	19	36	0.64
DEVON TOEWS	D	27	COL	3	169	53	9	22	31	0.58
VICTOR OLOFSSON	R	26	BUF	3	116	56	13	19	32	0.57
TEDDY BLUEGER	L	27	PIT	3	140	43	7	15	22	0.51
MIRO HEISKANEN	D	22	DAL	3	205	55	8	19	27	0.49
FILIP HRONEK	D	23	DET	3	167	56	2	24	26	0.46
MASON APPLETON	C	25	SEA	3	138	56	12	13	25	0.45
DILLON DUBE	L	23	CGY	3	121	51	11	11	22	0.43
TREVOR MOORE	C	26	L.A	3	123	56	10	13	23	0.41
RASMUS DAHLIN	D	21	BUF	3	197	56	5	18	23	0.41
ERIK CERNAK	D	24	T.B	3	171	46	5	13	18	0.39
SEAN WALKER	D	26	L.A	3	156	47	5	13	18	0.38
ROBERT THOMAS	C	22	STL	3	169	33	3	9	12	0.36
JESPERI KOTKANIEMI	C	21	CAR	3	171	56	5	15	20	0.36
CARSON SOUCY	D	27	SEA	3	108	50	1	16	17	0.34

I'm not going to get into some of the obvious names, such as Elias Pettersson or Quinn Hughes or Andrei Svechnikov. Instead, I'll take a look at a few players that you might not be quite sure where to rank in the coming season. Maybe there are reasons that the following players could break out, so let’s find out.

You may have seen/may see the first two players in other articles this week, but keep in mind that this is strictly my take and will be different in some way.

Roope Hintz

Hintz shocked the fantasy world by scoring at over a point per game last season, but I'll probably remember him more as the "perpetual game-time decision." You’re truly dedicated to fantasy hockey if you had the patience to check your lineup 30 minutes before gametime each time he played just to confirm. Now that he's had his offseason surgery and is 100 percent, even bigger and better things should be in store, right?

Better health might mean better results, but you might want to take a look at a few of his advanced stats before you use that high pick on him (ADP 65.7 in Yahoo). The major outliers were a 11.2 5-on-5 SH% and a 3.5 PTS/60, which were drastically higher than that of his previous two seasons. In addition, a 1039 PDO was also rather high. A minor bit of good news in the advanced stats department showed a lower-than-normal 32.1 secondary assist percentage.

Another positive on Hintz is a potential increase in power-play points, as Chris Kane pointed out in the latest Frozen Tools Forensics. So the conclusion that I might draw from Hintz overall is that I don't think he will be a point-per-game player again. However, he will still be a highly effective player anyway, and one that you should expect to be in your lineup more often. I think he is being drafted a little too high in Yahoo leagues, but since I have him in the Top 100 Roto Rankings, I wouldn't wait for him to drop too far below his ADP before drafting him. He probably won’t slip under the radar.

Conor Garland

If I had to pick one player I'm most interested in seeing on the Canucks this season, it's Garland. From what I've seen from the Coyotes in watching Garland, he's a small player who's a giant pain in the butt to play against. And he was on a 65-point pace for the Coyotes.

Fantasy Take: Canucks Acquire Garland, OEL for Picks and Bad Contracts

Building a case for Garland even further, some of his advanced stats in 2020-21 were a bit low. Specifically, his secondary assist percentage, which was at 18.5%. This is indicative of a player who is getting involved in the play often, which is what Garland does. As well, Garland's 8.9 SH% was lower than the 11-14% that he has shot over his first two seasons. His 9.6 5-on-5 shooting percentage was higher than it had been over his first two seasons, however.

Fun fact: The Coyotes scored 2.68 GF/GP last season, while the Canucks scored 2.64 GP/GP. Obviously there are two teams that are heading in opposite directions offensively, and I don't think anyone would expect the Coyotes to outscore the Canucks this season. So a massive breakout might not be in the cards for Garland, but a 174 ADP at Yahoo is still far, far too low for him.

If Elias Pettersson happens to be a holdout for any part of training camp, Garland's chances of being used on the first-unit power play improve. If Garland can stay there all season, with someone like Bo Horvat or Brock Boeser moving to the second unit, he could be in for a really big year. Garland scored 10 power-play points in each of his previous two seasons, so there's room for growth in that category as well.

Overall, I do like Garland's chances of being a breakout threat that could move into the Top 100 Roto Rankings at some point.

Rasmus Dahlin

I remember several fantasy experts predicting that Dahlin was in for a big season in 2020-21, one in which he would enter the elite circle of defensemen in fantasy. Unfortunately, the tire fire that was Buffalo got in the way, and Dahlin had easily his worst season of his three NHL seasons (0.41 PTS/GP, minus-36).

As a result of that season, and probably due to the lack of talent currently surrounding him, Dahlin has fallen to a Yahoo ADP of 151. On top of that, Dahlin is currently an unsigned RFA with training camp starting in several days. This all adds up to a ton of reasons to ignore Dahlin.

However, a few advanced stats indicate he was the victim of some bad luck. Dahlin scored a low 1.1 PTS/60 last season, compared to 2.1 PTS/60 in 2019-20. His PDO also was a career-low 964. This was a player who was on a 56-point pace in 2019-20 who cooled off to just a 34-point pace in 2020-21. Surely some of that regression has to go the other way.

Overall, Dahlin should bounce back in some way in 2021-22. The Sabres couldn't be any worse, so maybe a bit of an improvement in the team will help Dahlin's numbers. However, this simply might be a case of Dahlin not producing to his full potential until the team around him improves significantly.

Filip Hronek

Hronek had an interesting 2020-21 season stats-wise. He led the Red Wings in scoring with 26 points, but only two of those points were goals. And both were empty-netters. As well, he also led the Wings in points in spite of scoring at less than half a point per game. Only the Anaheim Ducks scored fewer goals than the Red Wings (125 G in 56 GP) last season, which would have had a trickle-down effect. Hronek may have recorded more points on a higher-scoring team, but would he have had the first-unit power-play opportunity?

Hronek scored nine goals the season before, so it's not as if he doesn't have any kind of scoring ability. Not surprisingly, his shooting percentage was a super-low 1.8%. Of course, that's not the lowest in the league, because there were several players who did not score a goal all season in spite of playing nearly a full season (Alex Edler and Mike Reilly are two examples). Hronek's 5-on-5 SH% was also quite low at 4.7%.

Hronek recorded a career-high 24 assists, which was 75% comprised of secondary assists. No player recorded that many assists with such a high percentage of secondary assists. As much as the goals will likely increase, the assists will likely decrease. So we could be looking at a player that will score at a similar pace from last season or throughout his career, which is about a half point per game. That being said, if the Wings' offense improves, that could also result in an increase of a few more points.

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For more fantasy hockey discussion, or to reach out to me, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding