Summer is gone, fall is here, and with it comes NHL training camps. It sure seems like the summer flew by, right? I guess that's what happens when free agency beings four days from August. Either way, rookie camps have finished and regular camps are set to start later this week. If you want a leg up before the festivities begin, might I recommend our Dobber Guide?

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Travis Zajac has retired. He finishes his career with over 1000 games played, almost all of them with New Jersey. While never a huge point producer, he was a top-10 Selke finisher a couple times, and was a very good defensive centre for a long time:

All the best to Zajac in the future. My guess is he lands a coaching/development role in the Devils organization.

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I'm going to talk about Morgan Rielly briefly later, but I am stunned by his current Yahoo ADP. As I wrote about last week, he's going inside the top-10, and ahead of guys like Charlie McAvoy and Roman Josi. A brief tweet about why that's a big problem:

Guess what? I did go to check, and according to Corey Sznajder's data, this is where the Leafs rank in shot rate:

The Leafs, as a team, got fewer shots in 2021 from their defence than any team not named Columbus. It is obviously a team philosophy, and it's why Rielly has gone from 2.7 shots per game three years ago to 1.8 last year. If he's not good for more than 150 shots or so, and lacks hits (which he always does), he's completely reliant on production. And, we should note, he's averaged 50 points/82 games over the last two years. Is 50 points with weak peripherals a top-10 fantasy defenceman? I will let the readers decide.

That is something to keep in mind with all Leafs d-men, by the way. They didn't have a single defenceman reach two shots per game last year. It is a team thing, so even if someone else gets the top PP minutes, there'll be some peripherals missing. Just something to keep in mind when drafting their blue line.

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Last week I started going team by team, picking one player from each roster I'm high on this year. It is an attempt to get through all the teams before training camps start, and I only have so much time to do it. Let's finish up the list. Remember, these could be players taken inside the first few rounds or late sleepers. We are trying to cover a variety of players in this section.

Pittsburgh – Bryan Rust: With both Crosby and Malkin missing to start the season, there could be a balance here between "don't want players without these centres" and "maybe their ADP gets depressed too far". My hope is for the latter on Bryan Rust, who is going outside the top-100 picks on Yahoo. He is going in the Burakovsky/Pavelski/Necas tier and while they're all good players, Rust brings it all across the board. Two weeks without Crosby? No problem.

San Jose – Timo Meier: There is basically no market for Timo Meier right now. He has roughly the same ADP and draft rate as Evgenii Dadonov, who is a miles-worse fantasy option (in hits leagues) this season than Meier. Having written about Meier extensively a month ago, there's no need to go much further here. At this point, along with Jacob Markstrom, Meier is one of my favourite draft values thus far.

Seattle – With all the hubbub around Seattle, it seems one player that is constantly overlooked is Vince Dunn. He was a guy we were waiting to break out in St. Louis but he was never given the PP role he needed to succeed in fantasy. Now, I get that Mark Giordano is around and he could soak up PP time, but Dunn is 24 years old while Giordano is 37 and has one year left on his deal. I would like to see Seattle give Dunn the opportunity to run away with this, and it may be worth taking Dunn as a bench pick to find out if they do.

St. Louis – Now is the time to be buying Vladimir Tarasenko shares. I get that the shoulder injuries are a big concern and that he could be traded basically any day. But if he is traded, it's not as if he's going somewhere that'll stick him on the third line? He's a bona fide star in the league, the only questions are about his health, not his talent. As for his health, he apparently looks just fine heading into camp. He is going well outside the top-100 picks and clearly is a top-50 fantasy option if he's healthy and produces. It seems a gamble worth taking to me.  

Tampa Bay – It's hard to be higher on many Tampa players because, well, all the helium in the world is in their ADPs. For that reason, we're going with Ross Colton here. Ostensibly, there's an entire third line to fill and if they can perform, they could get 15-16 minutes a night. That is not nothing, and Colton showed an ability to be decent for bangers leagues last year. If he can get to 15 minutes a night, he has 40 points and 125 hits well within reach. Not a monster season, but just fine for depth in deeper leagues.

Toronto – The forward group just feels like a headache. There is the Big Four, of course, but then the there's Kerfoot, Ritchie, Kase, Engvall, Bunting, Gusev, Spezza, Kampf, Mikheyev, and so on. There are like 10 guys fighting for, basically, two fantasy-relevant roster spots. I'll pass on that carousel and focus on Rasmus Sandin. The team turned to him at times as a PP1 quarterback last year, including the playoffs. It's doubtful Morgan Rielly is extended or traded, and thus his role isn't a concern for the coaching staff. Rielly's shot rate has plummeted and he's not a huge peripherals guy. I'd rather take Sandin at the end of my draft than Rielly as a top-10 defenceman.

Vancouver – Listen, I get why Elias Pettersson's ADP is around 50^th off the board. He's coming off injury, the team still has some gigantic holes, and there are some issues with his game – he doesn't provide a ton of peripherals, for example. For me, however, Pettersson represents a mark of delineation this year. When we look at the centres being drafted after him, we see names like Barzal, O'Reilly, and Kuznetsov. In other words, other players that don't provide peripherals, and I'd argue players that won't be point-per-game players. I believe that, if healthy, Pettersson is a point-per-game player, and we'll see it this year. If he's there in the fifth round, he's on my roster.

Vegas – There are usually "backup" goalies that I target every year, usually because I think they'll get more starts than they're being given credit for. There is no exception here, as Laurent Brossoit is set to backup Robin Lehner, though I don't think it'll be a 60/20 split or anything. I genuinely think that if he gets on a run, Brossoit can push 35+ starts. He has been a favourite topic of mine this summer, but now that I see his ADP, he's firmly on my draft list. He is going in the same range as Braden Holtby and Mikko Koskinen. Brossoit has much more value than either of those guys.

Washington – Folks, we love Anthony Mantha, don't we? By his ADP, he's going around players like Voracek and Buchnevich. That feels about right for comparison's sake, and also for his uncertainty. We don't know for sure that Mantha will get top PP minutes, and that is a concern. It could be the difference between a 50-point season and a 65-point season. That uncertainty is part of why his ADP is so low, and why I think it's worth taking the gamble. Evgeny Kuznetsov has certainly fallen out of favour at times, so it's not impossible that Mantha takes some of his minutes. He can also provide 2.5 shots and a hit per game, so there's more there than just goals.

Winnipeg – Kyle Connor finds himself at an ADP similar to Elias Pettersson's: he's sort of the delineating point between the early-round, elite wingers and the mid-tier guys. Players like M. Tkachuk and Landeskog are going a round ahead of him while Ehlers and Hintz are going a round later. All the same, over the last three years, Connor has averaged 38 goals, 74 points, and nearly 250 shots every 82 games. His lack of hits will hurt, but the same could be said of many guys around his range like Kaprizov, Gaudreau, and Ehlers. Connor is about as consistent as they come goals-wise, and if he's there in the fifth round, I'll take him every time. Or Pettersson. That is actually a good question.

Alright, that's the end of our list. I'm sure there are some players here that people disagree with. I will say that just because they're on this list doesn't mean I'll have them on every fantasy team. Maybe some players go earlier than I want, maybe other players I want more slide down the board. But I think this is a good gauge of some players that are of great interest.