Midseason Guide will be out January 14. In my Ramblings I had been saying "15" but that's wrong. It's the Friday, not the Saturday, that this will be out. So January 14 – 18 days! This Guide comes with your Ultimate Fantasy Pack or Gold/Platinum subscriptions. It does not come with the Keeper League Fantasy Pack nor the Silver subs. You can pre-order it here.

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The World Juniors have now kicked off and we have full coverage over at DobberProspects. Keep that bookmarked to follow along with our thoughts there.

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I took a look at line combos and defense pairings and compiled a list of players who are benefitting the most from the situation. I arrived at 11 good ones. Not a nice, neat Top 10, but I'm crazy that way. I'm going really wild here and presenting my Top 11.

1. Ryan Hartman

0.41, 0.40, 0.31, 0.29, 0.43… and 0.87?

These are the points-per-game averages each season during Hartman's career. Can you pick out the one in which he plays alongside Kirill Kaprizov? For this season, there is no current threat to his spot. He's not the greatest centerman – a career 44.9% FOW will tell you that. But he's the only current option until next year. Marco Rossi will make the jump at that point. But if Hartman gets 65 or 70 points this year in that role, then Rossi will give Kevin Fiala that much-needed skill on the second line. And Hartman's job will be safe in 2022-23. Remember – this is a player who was acquired by Dallas for Tyler Pitlick back in 2019, and then Dallas didn't tender a qualifying offer, letting him go for free. In sense, he was a cast-off.

2. Sonny Milano

Cha-ching. Milano, one of the most inconsistent prospects with talent that the NHL has seen in a decade, has found chemistry with Trevor Zegras. He just bought a lottery ticket and his numbers were called! Zegras is going to be a consistent Top 10 scorer in the NHL, and just when he's getting started…Milano latches on as his winger. Milano's contract is up this summer and his agent needs to lock in him with the Ducks now. Forget huge money to match the 21 points in 27 games production. Get him locked in for three years at a cap hit that is just over $2.5M. That's too much to scratch or send to the minors, but not enough to scare the team away from signing him. Then he can use those three years to establish a pattern of huge numbers playing with Zegras, allowing for his next contract to be massive.

3. Joe Pavelski

No, he's not ageless. We saw what Pavelski would do if Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz aren't around to boost him up. He had two points in the first seven games and 10 in his first 17. After that, with his linemates around and healthy? He has 17 points in his last 12 contests. Robertson is a future Mark Scheifele-like superstar and 85-point player. Hintz is a future Gabriel Landeskog-type of 70-point forward who will pop for 80 points if healthy, or dip to 55 points on a differently line fighting injuries. Pavelski is a 45- or 50-point player without either of them. But alongside those up-and-comers he could very well reach 70 or even 75 points this year. This is the final year of his contract, so what a way to earn one more big payday.

4. Carter Verhaeghe

This guy was a huge producer in the AHL, but could never catch a break in the NHL. Even in Tampa, when he was producing well with what limited ice time he got, he couldn't impress enough to have them qualify him. So Florida did and then they played with with some guy named Aleksander Barkov. Since then, we're into a second season of productivity for Verhaeghe. In all, he had 58 points in 71 games since joining Florida and he has parlayed that into a rather large three-year contract (this is what I hinted above at what Sonny Milano's agent should swing).

5. Andreas Johnsson

How good was Johnsson doing alongside Jesper Bratt and Dawson Mercer? Well, he's had one point in his last 10 games and is still second on the team in scoring. The recent slump is a direct result of Jack Hughes returning to the lineup and disrupting the line combinations and power-play time. So we're seeing first hand the impact of his playing with different mates – and it's not good. He had 18 points in 20 games prior to this slump.

6. Jonathan Dahlen

I think Dahlen is going to be a very good player. I think he's destined to be a 30-goal, 60-point player. But he needs time to adapt to the league and work his way up, as with most prospects. However, Dahlen is getting the red-carpet treatment, immediately being placed with captain Logan Couture and Timo Meier and the result is a pace nearing 25 goals and 40 points as a rookie.

7. Boone Jenner

With a career high of 49 points and a range that's well established over eight seasons at around 34 to 45 points, Jenner is suddenly on pace for 53. And that's because he lines up with Oliver Bjorkstrand. On a related note – poor Bjorkstrand. He's on pace for 67 points, but I can't imagine what his pace would be were he to line up with a couple of stars. But a third-liner in Jenner and Gustav Nyquist? Ouch. And no disrespect to Nyquist, whom I've always liked – but when a player returns after missing an entire season, my rule of thumb is that he is pretty unproductive for at least the first 25 games. So Nyquist has been just half-Nyquist so far.

8. Mackenzie Weegar

As with Verhaeghe, Weegar is on Year 2 of playing with a stud. Alongside Aaron Ekblad, Weegar has posted 51 points in 83 games. Or, since he didn't get a point in his first game of 2020-21, he has 51 in his last 82 games (to put it in terms of a full regular season). Just four of those points were on the power play. He doesn't get a lot of time with the man advantage, so his production has been impressive.

9. Mats Zuccarello

A talented player who was never drafted, Zuccarello has forged himself a fine career. He could generally be relied on for around 60 points. But his first season with the Wild was weak as he managed just 37 points in 65 games. As a 32-year-old at the time, it seemed as if his career had peaked. Enter Kaprizov. The two of them have been joined at the hip since Kaprizov came over from the KHL, and Zuccarello has 59 points in just 66 games. To see career highs at the age of 34 is quite uncommon, but Zuccarello will absolutely do it.

10. Chandler Stephenson

Stephenson would have been first on this list, but did you see those games early this year with both Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone sidelined? Without either of his star linemates, Stephenson was still posting more than a point per game! But then again, Stephenson was productive with them last season and it was that proven production that gave him the ice time and opportunity this season when they were both out. It was those linemates who made him into the player he is today – without them, he would still be a third-line player. So for that reason, he's still on the list.

11. Tom Wilson

A talented power forward, Wilson is probably still a 50-point guy on his own. But he's not on his own. He's playing with Alex Ovechkin and Evgeni Kuznetsov. He's on pace for 73 points and as long as he stays healthy (and doesn't get suspended, which is always a risk with this guy), he should at least top 65.

An honorable mention goes to Drake Batherson. I couldn't in good conscience put him on this list because, as with Stephenson, Batherson leads his linemates in points by a wide, wide (wide!) margin. Batherson has 28 points in just 23 games while Brady Tkachuk has 22 in 25 and Josh Norris has 22 in 28. Batherson seems to be driving the line. I can't see him being Ottawa's top scorer in the coming years… but I also can't 'not' see it. Despite initial projections that he tops out on the second line, he's done nothing but show that he can be a first-line scorer at the pro level.

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So Frozen Tools is starting to put out awesome new tools that focus on DFS – just in time to not have any games! But FWIW, here is a page you can to and filter out players based on your needs as you fill your DraftKings or FanDuel roster. We are also working on a roster optimizer, which is very awesome – running simulations of 3000 potential rosters before spitting out three optimal ones: 1) based on hot/cold players, 2) based on weighted average and 3) based on DraftKings default. We are running it in test leagues for now…but of course there are no leagues! So we're a bit stuck, otherwise you'd see this right now. But stay tuned for that.

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See you next Monday.