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. I’ve had a weird relationship with Trevor Zegras (don’t tell him, though, it might crush him). I wasn’t as high on him as a prospect as others were but it’s clear he has great offensive upside and is Anaheim’s top offensive prospect.

My big concern about Zegras this year would be ice time; the team re-signed Ryan Getzlaf, they still have Adam Henrique, Sam Steel has showed flashes, etc. And if he wasn’t going to be the team’s top centre, they didn’t have enough talent on the wings to help Zegras flourish. Well, so far this preseason, he’s been playing with Max Comtois and Rickard Rakell on the top line. That is about as good as it could possibly get, really, for all three players. Zegras, specifically, is getting two of the team’s three best goal scorers on his wing. This really is as good as we could hope for.

How high the ladder goes here, who knows. The West is wide open after the top handful of teams and Anaheim’s division sucks. If that line can really gel, maybe we get 60 points out of Zegras. That probably is the max for this year, though. This is still a bad offensive environment. (oct5)

2. Regarding Carter Hart, I am buying the rebound on the young netminder. The team should be better as a whole and the addition of Ryan Ellis can’t be overstated. This should be a season where the Flyers surprise some people and Hart is being drafted late enough that he should give us a decent value. He is also another guy that should be locked into the starter’s role. (oct8)

3. We have seen monster seasons from Seth Jones in recent memory and he’s now going to be in a great role on a high-scoring team. Jones brings value across the board and could break 60 points if things really go well for him. He can genuinely be the top defenceman in fantasy this year. (oct8)

4. Charlie McAvoy's problem in recent seasons was two-fold: no PP role and no shots. He should push two shots per game this year and looks locked on the top PP unit. It would not surprise me to see a 55-point, 160-shot, 125-hit season this year. (oct8)

5. One of the arguments against Zach Hyman is that he played with elite players in Toronto and still put up good – not great – numbers. To that I say: he has 11 career power-play points. Like, ever. If he’s a lock on the top PP unit last season, he probably paces for over 70 points. He’s a lock on the top PP unit this year, and maybe the best one in hockey. With his hit totals, he has genuine top-25 upside. I really don’t know why he’s going so late. I will take him over Nylander, Hall, Robertson, and Palat, to name a few. (oct8)

6. Montreal was in tough to begin the season, knowing they’d be without Shea Weber and Carey Price. News got worse recently as Joel Edmundson revealed an injury and he’ll be out for a few weeks. The news kept rolling on Thursday as there was a surprise announcement from the team and Price that he would be participating in the NHLPA assistance program and would be stepping away from the team. This can mean a variety of things and I will not be speculating on what it is. All we can say is all the best to Price and his family. (oct8)

7. I have to say I’m lower on the Devils than a lot of people this year. Yes, Dougie Hamilton, Ryan Graves and Tomas Tatar will help a lot, and I also think Jack Hughes will take a big step forward.

With all that said, look at the East. There are the elite like Boston, Toronto, Florida, and Tampa. Then there are the hopeful playoff teams like New York (x2), Carolina, Washington, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. Is New Jersey any better than 10^th in the Conference?

That isn’t meant to be a dig here, either. This team isn’t Buffalo or Detroit. They won’t be in the basement, and if the goaltending holds up, maybe they’re in the mix for a wild card playoff spot come April.

All I see, though, is a potential wild card team if things go very well for them. If things don’t go well, this isn’t a playoff roster. There are a lot of nice pieces here for fantasy, I’m just not sure it’s enough to get them over the hump this year. (oct7)

8. Not that I think that Jordan Binnington is a great goalie, but I do think the Blues are being undervalued considering just how injured nearly the whole roster was last year. With a healthy lineup and a locked starter’s role, he’s a target. Good defence and 60 starts is enough for a good fantasy season. (oct8)

9. When talking about St. Louis and last season, we need to start and end with their injuries. A small taste of games missed (out of 56):

• Jaden Schwartz – 16
• Vince Dunn – 13
• Tyler Bozak – 25
• Sammy Blais – 20
• Vladimir Tarasenko – 32
• Robert Thomas – 23
• Colton Parayko – 24
• Oskar Sundqvist – 28

Their top-line left and right wing missed 48 games while their #1 and #2 defencemen missed 37. They also had a slew of depth players miss significant chunks. Sure, guys like David Perron and ROR stayed healthy, but you can’t lose a third of your roster for half the season and expect to succeed.

As such, I think the Blues are being kind of overlooked this year. They seem ready to run three good scoring lines, something very few teams have. The blue line isn’t elite, but it isn’t terrible, either. And as mentioned in the Seattle section, this isn’t a deep conference.

If this team stays healthy and Tarasenko returns to Tarasenko form, why isn’t this one of the four or five best teams in the West? Goaltending may be an issue but it’s an issue for about 27 teams in the league. That doesn’t illuminate much here.

Keep an eye on St. Louis. I think they'll surprise this year. Again. (oct7)

10. After Andrei Vasilevskiy, is there anyone else worthy of a first-round selection in your standard 12-team league? If you really want a goalie, then the next pick should be one of Darcy Kuemper, Connor Hellebuyck, or Robin Lehner. Lehner is my personal pick, but all three should provide solid value this season. Your league would have to be very goalie friendly to warrant picking one of those guys in the first round over the available forwards though. (oct6)

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LAST-MINUTE FANTASY DRAFTS?

Updates to our Fantasy Guide have been fast and frequent – often to the tune of three times per day. So, be sure to re-download the Guide for the latest changes as you head toward fantasy draft day.

For my francophone readers who prefer to read their gold in their native tongue, we have a translated version of the Guide. You can order your French version here (and please share with any of your francophone pals).

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11. Looking for potential rebound guys? Ryan Johansen and Matt Duchene may be guys to target. They are two thirds of the top-line in Nashville alongside Filip Forsberg, and after being tossed together in the playoffs last season, the trio looked dominant. They outscored the Hurricanes 4-2 in their 54 minutes together during the first round loss, making them the only line that showed well during the series. In the preseason the trio has also looked good, and gets loaded with all of the offensive zone time they can handle.

I think all three should pace for over 60 points this year, which would make the two $8 million men bargains at the draft table this year. It is going to be a trio that I will be targeting in my drafts, and I'm hoping my league-mates don't read this far this week. Alas, those are the perils of sharing these fantasy thoughts. (oct6)

12. We don’t have any numbers for Nikita Kucherov last season as he missed the entire regular season recovering from surgery, but he looked back to his old self in the playoffs. Over his prior 150 games in the regular season, he has scored at a 1.42 point per game pace, which is nearly identical to Leon Draisaitl since 2018-19. Nathan MacKinnon comes in a little behind with a 1.29 mark, but he blows them both out of the water in the shots category. (oct6)

13. It sure seems there’s a lot of discrepancy on Sam Bennett. I have seen him ranked inside the top-100, and outside the top-200; drafted inside the top-80, and drafted in the 14^th round of a 12-team league. It really depends on your league as to whether he’ll need to be drafted with an eighth-round pick or a 15^th-round pick.

I am in the camp for the “he’ll be a top-100 player.” He had very good transition numbers in Calgary and average-to-great shot rates in his Flames career. That is aside from his very high hit rate. Put all that alongside Jonathan Huberdeau – one of the best distributors in hockey – in a system that is designed for offence? It is not the same as playing on the third line in Calgary with Derek Ryan. In multi-cat leagues he has legitimate top-25 upside and at worst, even if he drops to the third line, he brings a ton of peripherals. I have no concerns here. (oct5)

14. We’re all waiting for the same thing, right? We’re waiting for the day Paul Maurice puts Nikolaj Ehlers on the top line and top PP unit, right? Because when that happens, Ehlers is immediately a 90-point threat.

That isn’t conjecture, either. He’s averaged 72 points/82 games over the last two seasons. That is largely with second-line, second PP minutes. He could absolutely add 18 points playing with Scheifele and Connor all the time.

Of course, Blake Wheeler started camp on Scheifele’s wing. However, they gave Wheeler a night off on the weekend and had Ehlers on the top line. The line scored two of the team’s three goals in that game.

I think Maurice has used Ehlers in a second-line role because he needs him to carry that line. But it does seem they’re at least thinking of moving Ehlers up which would be phenomenal for fantasy. We’ll see if it sticks. (oct5)

15. Remember what a tremendous waiver wire pickup Martin Necas was last year? The Carolina Hurricanes youngster finished with 41 points last season, which included a 17-point output in 14 games in March. Necas won’t be flying under the radar as much heading into drafts this year, as demonstrated by his ADP inside the top 100 on Yahoo. (oct4)

16. I had a little Twitter debate this week on whether it makes sense to draft two goalies from the same team. It does in certain cases in my opinion when two goalies from the same team are going to get close to a 50/50 split and the team in front of them is very strong. There’s not many that fit the bill this year but the New York Islanders with Semyon Varlamov and Ilya Sorokin as well as the Leafs with Jack Campbell and Petr Mrazek could work out well. It can be an especially effective strategy if your league has the majority of its goalie categories that don’t rely on volume (i.e. save percentage and GAA) and a low minimum start requirement. If your league has wins, shutouts, and total saves for instance, then the strategy doesn’t work as well and you’ll probably want to grab a couple of quality starters from different squads. (oct4)

17. The group of players who you could draft and stash is very impressive this year. Jack Eichel, Evgeni Malkin and Tuukka Rask are all obviously big-time talents that could pay major dividends down the road this season. If I had to rank them in order from most to least valuable in one-year leagues, I’d go Malkin, Rask and then Eichel. There’s too much uncertainty around Eichel’s injury and I’m not sure the Bruins are going to rush Rask back, so Malkin possibly returning at some point December is definitely worth stashing if you have a free IR spot. (oct4)

18. Kevin Lankinen was getting a lot of love in drafts last week and I’m not sure why. The Chicago netminder sat ahead of the likes of Sergei Bobrovsky and Tristan Jarry when it comes to ADP and it makes little sense. Chicago will likely play Fleury a ton and few goalies are more durable, meaning Lankinen shouldn’t have a ton of value. There’s also the issue of how much improved the Blackhawks will be even with all their offseason additions. (oct4)

19. It’s been that time of year where line combinations and power play units should be taken with a grain of salt, but it’s impossible not to get excited about the prospect of some of them. One such intriguing combo was in Montreal, where Christian Dvorak, Josh Anderson and Jonathan Drouin were paired together earlier this week. Drouin has the possibility of being a great bounce-back candidate this season if he sticks with that group and will likely be off the radar in many drafts after taking a leave of absence late last season. (oct4)

20. After being buried on the Lightning, could Tyler Johnson possibly be a first liner with first-unit power play time this season? It’s possible that Tampa’s trade of Johnson to Chicago to clear cap space will help Johnson turn around his career, as there could be a real opportunity for him in Chicago. Keep him on your watch list. [Fantasy Take: Tyler Johnson Finally Moved… To Chicago] (oct3)

21. Of all the players selected in the 2021 draft, none might have a higher ceiling than William Eklund – even at the 7^th overall pick. Even with a wide variety of linemates, Eklund has managed to produce points in preseason games. He’s even being auditioned on the power play. Very few 18-year-olds make NHL rosters, so I’d take a wait-and-see approach in terms of making the roster, but also clearing the nine-game trial period. Of course, keeper leagues should be all over him.   

Another under-the-radar prospect for the Sharks that could make the team is Jonathan Dahlen. The Canucks inexplicably traded him back in 2019, possibly because he didn’t thrive in the AHL. He went back to Sweden and recorded back-to-back 70+ point seasons in roughly 50 games per season for HockeyAllsvenskan. (oct3)

Have a good week, folks – be safe!!

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