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: Michael Clifford, Alexander MacLean, Michael Amato, and Dobber

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1. It has been a remarkable start to the season for Anaheim’s Troy Terry, perhaps one of their forgotten prospects. While not a true prospect anymore, really, he has fewer than two seasons of games played and just turned 24 in September. If he could find his trajectory as a prospect again, there could be something here for Anaheim for the long-term.

Well, he has 19 points in 14 games, a surreal feat considering his career-high is 20 points, which he should top any day now. Of course, whenever a player has an unbelievable start like this, we need to dig under the hood to see what’s going on, and what we can expect moving forward.

What stands out immediately is Terry is shooting 33.3%. There is obviously a lot of pullback coming for Terry, but most of it is through goals. The bonus here is he’s earning a lot more ice time of late, skating over 20 minutes a night over his last six games. Any pullback in rates can be somewhat offset by the raw increase in ice time.

All this is to say no, he most likely won’t be a point-per-game player this year. A 60-point player is within reach with his ice time though, so as long as they keep skating him as a first liner, there’s no real reason to trade him unless the offer is excessive. (nov11)

2. Oliver Kylington was on the Frozen Tools popular profiles list last week thanks to a six-game point streak. I can’t put my finger on what is specifically driving these numbers, as Kylington is receiving under 20 minutes of ice time per game and virtually no power-play time. It could be pure talent, as Kylington has demonstrated some offensive upside at the AHL level and seems to be impressing with his two-way play this season. (nov7)

3. Nick Suzuki recorded just one point in his first five games, but things have certainly changed of late. The Canadiens' forward has been on an incredible tear recently, posting nine points in the month of November alone. This run includes four multi-point games in his past five and Suzuki is averaging more than four shots per game over this stretch.

These are all great signs for a player on a team that looks to be in for a rough year. Sometimes when a team is heading for a bad season the offensive numbers of a player like Suzuki can drop as well, but that doesn’t appear to be the case where the young center is concerned. (nov13)

4. Alex Ovechkin moved into fourth on the all-time scoring list Friday, but this year he’s piling up the assists too. The Washington Capitals forward currently has 12 assists in 14 games and his ratio of goals and assists is 50/50, which is much closer than it’s been in recent years.

Ovechkin hasn’t even recorded 20 assists in a season since 2018-19 and he’s already more than halfway there after the first month of the season. Most people obviously draft Ovechkin for his scoring prowess, but if he can get his point totals up thanks to an abundance of assists this season that’s only going to make him all the more valuable. (nov13)

5. Calgary changed up the second line for the game on Thursday night, with Sean Monahan flanked by Blake Coleman and Andrew Mangiapane. That is an interesting combination and because I love talking player chemistry, let’s talk about the potential of that trio.

First, the wingers are both very good. I thought Coleman was underrated but after two Stanley Cups, that’s not the case anymore. Everyone knows he’s a good two-way winger who has a nose for the net, averaging 24 goals/82 games over the previous three seasons. But what does he do specifically on offence, besides shoot, that helps his linemates?

Coleman prefers shooting off the rush, as he’s above average by both controlled entries and entries that lead to scoring chances. While his zone-entry rate isn’t high, in particular, when he does get the chance, he can help create a scoring chance, something his linemate Yanni Gourde had in common. Honestly, though, that’s about it. He is largely a defensive winger who loves to shoot.

6. What about Mangiapane? Well, a different story. From 2017-2020, from Corey Sznajder’s data, he was nearly in the 90^th percentile for zone entries, with shot rate and shot assists (passes leading to shots) coming in above average but not great. It is worth noting last year, he was the team’s best dual threat from both scoring chances and high-danger passes. League-wide, his rates compared to names like Bergeron and Aho. While he won’t keep shooting 29% like he is this year, he shot nearly 16% over his first 178 regular season games. At some point, a guy just is who he’s been, and he’s at 17.1% over 190 games, or nearly 2 ½ seasons. If he can create high-danger passes and shots, who’s to say he can’t support a good shot percentage, while also helping his teammates? That is why his offensive impacts are so good. (nov12)

7. That brings us to Monahan. Undoubtedly, not a good few years for him. In my opinion, I always thought he was overrated and was carried by players like Gaudreau, Lindholm, and Hudler. Overrated doesn’t mean bad, though, and this team needs a player with his cap hit to perform. When he was at his best a few years ago, he was driving a lot of shots from the middle/slot area of the ice. From HockeyViz, that has clearly dried up over the last couple years, significantly:

Looks like Monahan needs a defensively-responsible winger to help cover some of those deficiencies who can chip in scoring-wise, but could also use a winger who has a history of being elite in transition and driving high-danger scoring chances. Where could Calgary get a pair of wingers like that?

I hope this line sticks together for a handful of games. Being able to get 25-30 goals out of Monahan again would be a huge win for this team. That is also the signal for fantasy owners to pay close attention. With six points in 14 games skating 15 minutes a night to start the year, Monahan may be on the waiver wire. He is getting two very good wingers and is still getting top PP minutes. He probably should be added in 12-teamers for depth at the very least.

Last note: he has 123 hits in his last 134 games. If he can maintain that hit rate and find his scoring, he’s no longer a dud in the Hits category he was five years ago. (nov12)

8. Hendrix Lapierre, unsurprisingly, was sent back to the QMJHL. He did get in a half-dozen games and looked fine, but he’s still a young rookie while this team is getting healthy and a Cup contender. There just isn’t room, but that is good news for Connor McMichael, who looks to be in for the long haul. This infusion of young talent is what this team needs at this time in their franchise’s history. (nov11)

9. There has been a lot made of the Rangers’ early struggles. Despite the record, it’s clear to anyone watching their games that the team is riding a hot start from Igor Shesterkin. A lot has been made about what’s going wrong, but I present one explanation for part of the problems: the loss of Pavel Buchnevich.

The obvious problem is the young wingers haven’t progressed as anticipated. Kaapo Kakko doesn’t seem to have rebounded from his early injury, I couldn’t even tell you what line Alexis Lafrenière has been playing on because he’s been that invisible, and only slightly more visible than Vitali Kravtsov, who is now in Russia. Those guys were all supposed to be, at bare minimum, top-9 players by now, and Kakko/Laffy should be pushing top-line status. The truth is they look ready for another stint in Hartford, and after losing Buch, there just isn’t enough winger depth left to support three centres. Losing Buch wasn’t supposed to hurt this much, but it has. (nov11)

10. Having played in only two games this season, we have to keep in mind this is a very small sample size. However, Max Pacioretty does have a history of high shot volumes, so his 13 shots in two games before he was injured is something he has done before, but won’t keep up for an entire season. What it does show, though, is that he’s not slowing down anytime soon. On top of that, he should play the last few months of the season on one of the best lines in the league, alongside Jack Eichel and Mark Stone.

With fantasy owners holding him on the IR and possibly just trying not to sink until his return, he may be ripe for the plucking if you can offer them someone in return that will give them some extra production in the short term. (nov10)

11. Kirill Kaprizov is putting bucket-loads of shots toward the net, but he had scored on less than 7% of his shots entering Saturday action. Last year, that number was 17%, and he was close to a goal every second game. This year, he has added an extra 0.5 shots per game, but the goal total isn’t quite keeping up. The dam is going to burst very soon and this may be a player that could really swing your fantasy fortunes the rest of the way. (nov10)

12. An under-the-radar option that might be worth a look in deeper leagues or as a short-term streamer is Andreas Athanasiou. The winger has played four games so far this season after missing the first few weeks with an injury. He looks fully healthy now with five points, 10 shots, and a healthy amount of power play time. He has mainly been up on the second line with Phillip Danault and Alex Iafallo – all three are running hot right now. (nov10)

13. This is the double-edged sword of drafting a defenceman who will play a lot of minutes on a bad team. That title might actually go to Jakob Chychrun but we’ve already fed that horse and honestly, a minus-22 rating in 15 games is impressive in its own way.

No, this is about a player who is producing but still having their fantasy value suffer. Seth Jones has 13 points in 15 games, and that’s really good! Two problems though: he’s minus-8 in those 15 games and he has just 12 hits. This was a guy who averaged about 1.8 hits per game last year, and over a hit per game the year before. Being on pace for 50 hits and a minus-50 rating is, uh, not great for Jones. 

There is, of course, upside here. Presuming he doesn’t end up the season minus-50, then the last month was as bad as it’s going to get here. He also has scored just once on 50 shots on goal. He could legitimately be a point-per-game defenceman, or close to it, this year. It is just a matter of those peripherals lining up for an elite season. It isn’t hard to see the pieces coming together, we just need to get there. (nov9)

14. Two goals, three assists, minus-5 in 13 games played. It has been an awful start to the season for Roope Hintz, and for almost all Dallas' skaters, really: Miro Heiskanen and Ryan Suter have 19 points while Seguin/Pavelski/Radulov combine for 23. Anyone not drafting a Dallas defenceman is probably disappointed with their Dallas skaters this year.

I will be honest and say I have no idea what is going on in Dallas. Hintz started the season playing 13 minutes a night as the team started the year on the road. His ice time has jumped considerably since then, particularly with Jason Robertson back. Why his ice time was nuked early in the season, who knows. There has to have been something going on behind the scenes we don’t know about. I am still buying Hintz for the season, by the way. He should be very cheap in a trade right now. (nov9)

15. By now you probably picked up on Nicolas Roy‘s sudden surge in value since William Karlsson was sidelined long-term. Roy was close to becoming a Dobber Darling at one point early on in his Vegas career, except it was Vegas. Such a deep team that his odds of getting a fair shake were too slim so I had to reluctantly bail on the idea of making him one. But four of Vegas’ best players are now out – Max Pacioretty, Mark Stone, Jack Eichel (yep, I can count him) and Karlsson. 

And just like that, Roy gets a shot at centering Reilly Smith and Jonathan Marchessault. The line is really clicking too, completely dominating the possession metrics. Roy has five points in his last six games, with 11 SOG and a plus-7 rating in that span. If he can stay healthy he’ll be a strong producer – and if he can hold onto that production for another 12 or 15 games, then he will help his case for better implementation when Karlsson does return. He’s 24 and this is his big chance to show the coach that he has potential as a possible top-sixer and not the bottom six where he’s been stuck for the past one-plus seasons. Much is riding on this. And yes, he’s a great waiver add right now. (nov8)

16. In Detroit, both Moritz Seider and Filip Hronek are seeing well north of 22 minutes in ice time per game, with Seider seeing PP1 time (five PPPts) and Hronek PP2 time (two PPPts), a difference of about 50 seconds per game. We all knew that Seider was hopefully the "second coming of Nicklas Lidstrom" as some called him, but I don’t think anyone saw it coming immediately like this. Especially with Hronek, an elite defenseman in his own right, already with NHL experience. Hronek led the team in ice time the last two seasons running, but the rookie is seemingly inspiring him to push harder.

So, Seider is the real deal. We knew he’d be in the NHL this year, but I figured the numbers would take two to three seasons to reach star-caliber. But nope, the numbers are there right now. An immediate impact similar to Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes. I don’t think it hurts Hronek and likely helps a bit. But Hronek’s ceiling is capped with Seider’s presence. I’m thinking one will be a 50-point guy while the other pushes 65 or even 70. (nov8)

17. Speaking of real deals, the Red Wings obviously hit another home run with Lucas Raymond. In the summer, I figured the Wings would be looking to tank one more year, but that Raymond would be too good to keep in the minors for long. In training camp, it was clear that Raymond was so good that he would make the team look pretty dumb if they cut him. By the end of camp, he was my No.2 Calder pick behind Trevor Zegras. With 15 points in 16 games it appears that the only rookie with a prayer of beating him is his teammate Seider. Drafting two elite players like that is a nice way to end the rebuild process in a hurry. (nov8)

18. Shayne Gostisbehere has 12 points in 15 games. The inconsistency is still there, but he’s outscoring Jakob Chychrun by a wide margin and has also averaged a little more power-play time. If you had to pick an Arizona defenseman to roster, Ghost might actually be the one at this moment. (nov7)

19. Kasperi Kapanen had to wait until his 10th game to score his first goal of the season, but then he scored two more for his first-ever NHL hat trick last week. Given the Pens’ injury situation, it should come as no surprise that Kapanen’s 17:53 in average time on ice is the highest of his career. He’s also receiving first-unit power-play time, which seems to be a first for him. Keep in mind that this usage may decline once the Penguins are fully healthy, though. (nov7)

20. Maybe you’ll find some hidden fantasy value in Buffalo this season. Rasmus Asplund has 10 points in 14 games and that total leads the Sabres. Keep in mind that he’s eligible at all three forward positions in Yahoo and two of three (C, RW) in Fantrax. A bare cupboard in Buffalo has led to a near five-minute-per-game increase in ice time over last season, as well as first-unit power-play time from nothing last season. The advanced stats suggest a regression, but he’s worth at least taking a flier on because of the heavier usage. (nov7)

21. Jeff Petry has just two points (both assists) in 16 games. This isn’t what I expected, considering that the Habs need to lean on him even more with Shea Weber out. Petry’s last regular-season goal was on May 1, so his goal drought has extended to 21 games. This is a surprisingly low number for a blueliner who hit double-digits in goals over his previous four seasons. Petry is not helping his cause in the shot department, as he is averaging just over a shot per game when he would average just over two shots per game in his previous few seasons. If you’re waiting for improvement, look for an increase in shots. (nov7)

Have a good week, folks – be safe!!
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