There are always some players that every person in the fantasy game has trouble giving up on. They are players that, for one reason or another, capture our attention and it's tough to let it slip. It has surely happened to me, for better and worse. I had a lot of faith in both Tage Thompson and Valeri Nichushkin and, at different points, it appeared those guys may both be out of the league by age-25. (I guess Nichushkin technically was.) My faith was rewarded in those instances. There are also guys like Pavel Zacha and Kailer Yamamoto where I thought they would be scoring stars early in their careers, and while each is a solid NHLer, neither has reached anywhere close to the heights I had envisioned.

So, let's talk about Ryan Donato.

Going back to his days in Boston, his offensive upside was what drew us to him. He had 99 shots on goal in 46 games played, skating just over 13 minutes a night. Landing 9.9 shots per 60 minutes is a lot; back in 2017-18, his first year in the league, that would have put him inside the 90^th percentile of shot rates. Those high shot rates have, more or less, persisted his entire career, aside from a small dip in his second year with Minnesota.

What hasn't persisted is anything close to a consistent shooting percentage. Starting with his first year, when he played just 12 games, they are as follows:

• 20.8%
• 7.2%
• 14.7%
• 5.8%
• 10.4%

Three seasons in double digits and two seasons under 7.5%. Not a lot of consistency, but it's a wonder what playing largely in a team's bottom-6 does here.

Nevertheless, this season has been very good from him, of sorts. He is scoring 1.13 goals/60 at 5-on-5, just behind names like Jason Robertson, Tyler Bertuzzi, and Troy Terry, and just ahead of names like Patrik Laine, Matt Duchene and Clayton Keller. This has been on a team that is 28^th in 5-on-5 scoring in the league. What crushed him is shooting 3.2% on the power play. Not a typo: three-point-two percent on the power play. Even a reasonable 10% would have him on the cusp of a 20-goal season. And his high scoring rate at 5-on-5 isn't driven by percentages, as he's roughly around the 75^th percentile in that regard. Any decent PP production has him with a 20-goal campaign and I wonder how we'd be talking about him then.

From Hockey Viz, we get a good idea of why he's converting at a reasonable rate at even strength, given where he's shooting from:

Donato's problem is that he still hasn't developed the rest of his game. He isn't good in transition or playmaking, and his defence is fine but far from great. In other words, there's a reason he's not regularly played top-6 minutes throughout his career, only in spurts. His goal-scoring prowess is obvious, the rest is not, and coaches want a complete game. This is evident when looking at his micro stats for this season, as compiled by Corey Sznajder:

Before people scream "small sample," it looked about the same last season. Again, it's who he is, and why staying at the top of any lineup has been a challenge.

All the same, the goal scoring ability is what's kept him in the league, and the defence is passable. If he can add another genuine offensive dimension, of any sort, he could become a dangerous player. We'll see where he ends up in the offseason, but let's chalk up Donato as another Don't Give Up On Him Yet player. If things start going right and he can play 17 minutes a night with top PP time, 25 goals is very realistic.  

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Interesting line combinations for the Flames at practice on Wednesday:

#Flames at practice today:

Gaudreau-Lindholm-Mangiapane
Dube-Backlund-Tkachuk
Coleman-Jarnkrok-Toffoli
Lucic-Carpenter-Lewis
Valimaki-Ruzicka-Ritchie
 
Hanifin-Andersson
Kylington-Tanev
Zadorov-Gudbranson
Mackey-Stone

Markstrom
Vladar

— Pat Steinberg (@Fan960Steinberg) April 13, 2022

Andrew Mangiapane has seen his production fall off a cliff these last six weeks. It could be just what he needs to find his scoring touch heading into the postseason, and he's suddenly a very interesting fantasy option. Calgary has four games next week including a tilt on a light-ish Monday schedule.  

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In my previous Ramblings, I wrote about Buffalo rookie Owen Power and his fantasy future with the team. My one concern was the roadblock of Rasmus Dahlin getting top PP minutes for at least the next couple years. The next concern was the upside of this team scoring-wise. Going from a bottom-10 team in scoring to even a middle-of-the-pack team is a big improvement in a short time frame. Let's talk about that second point a bit.

The Sabres have put together an excellent top line – a genuinely excellent top line – and that is worth its weight in gold. Not only because 'hey it's nice to have a great top line' but it also lowers the expectations on the younger players. Let's be honest here: five years into Casey Mittelstadt's career and he's still not shown much at the NHL level. He doesn't shoot a lot, hasn't been shown to be a good playmaker, and isn't particularly solid defensively. He hasn't been Oh My God How Is He Still In The League-quality, but when looking at some of the forwards drafted after him in the 2017 draft's first round (Martin Necas, Nick Suzuki, Josh Norris, Robert Thomas), he hasn't had anywhere near the impact the team has hoped. He is young enough, and has had injuries impact him in recent seasons, that he deserves some leash, but next year is his age-24 season. A step forward in 2022-23 would be nice to see.

But, to be honest, that is the only real significant, immediate concern among their young kids. Dylan Cozens is pacing for 40 points this year, which doesn't seem great, but his micro stats are looking strong in a number of areas from scoring chance generation to transition work:  

There are still a number of things he needs to work on, namely finishing, but I think surrounding him with more offensive talent will help a lot. To wit: his three most-common line combinations have left wingers of Peyton Krebs, Brett Murray, and Drake Caggiula. Those three guys have combined for 13 goals in 102 total games this year. His most common right winger is Vinnie Hinostroza, who is a Dobber favourite 'round these parts, but he has 49 goals in 327 career games. It would be nice to see what Cozens could do with two legitimate second-line scorers, and maybe we'll find out next year.

Jack Quinn has had an absolutely monster season in the AHL with 25 goals, 54 points, and 122 shots in 37 games as a 20-year-old. He should be in the lineup next year and if this skill progression keeps up, he could be a big-time scorer in very short order. Maybe I'm being too lofty with expectations here, but he's turned into a very legitimate super-prospect, and he could add immediate scoring depth in 2022-23.

J.J. Peterka is a bit of a longer shot as a producer, but I've been very high on him since before his draft. No, I'm not a prospect guy, but I can't shake that World Junior performance in 2020. He just looked like his skill was on par with the elite in the tournament and first impressions go a long way. His 2021 performance was excellent, too. Maybe that's why I'm not a prospect guy. He is a point-per-game player north of three shots per game in the AHL so far this year as a 20-year-old, and that is showing the offensive promise he's flashed in the past.

Buffalo has $40M in cap space next year (literally) and could add both Quinn and Peterka to the lineup. If they want, they could make a splash in free agency to help with short-term scoring issues (Filip Forsberg, Phil Kessel, Johnny Gaudreau) while giving a bit of insulation to the young wingers coming up. That is to say, if this team adds Quinn, Peterka, Power, and Forsberg to the lineup full-time next year, I can see this team getting to the middle of the league in scoring. This team could go out and sign Forsberg and Vincent Trocheck, add Quinn to the lineup, and they've suddenly added an entire second scoring line that they didn't have before.

What's more is they have loads of draft picks (three first rounders this year and three second rounders next year) so the trade market is wide open to them. So is the offer-sheet market, and there are a lot of players that would be very worth of an offer-sheet this summer.

My final point is that, for a couple years, I did the Friday night Ramblings here at Dobber, which were posted Saturday morning. Buffalo plays a lot of home game on Friday nights, so I watched a lot – a lot – of very bad Sabres hockey over the last 6-7 years. This team, this 2021-22 edition, is not those teams. This team doesn't give up on a game and even when they were knocked out of the playoffs, they played every game as if it were do-or-die for the postseason. Coach Don Granato deserves a ton of credit here, and don't be surprised if he's in the running for Coach of the Year next season.

Buffalo, I think, is finally a team on the rise. They have a handful of exciting young stars already on the roster, they have a great top line, they have prospects tearing up the AHL, they have lots of draft picks, they have lots of cap space, and they have a great coach who has them playing to their ability every night. There are a lot of things going right, and a couple key free agent signings could really turbo-charge this rebuild. Playoffs might be a reach in 2023 just because of how good their division and conference are, but it would not surprise me, honestly.

All this is why I'm a believer in Buffalo as a good offensive environment for fantasy moving forward. Before, it was Jack Eichel, whoever was playing with Eichel, maybe the power-play defenceman, and then move along. I think next year this team gets to a point where we're rostering second liners, maybe a couple defencemen, and even the goalies (I didn't even touch on net-minders but with Devon Levi on the way eventually, they could have that position locked up for years).

When doing dynasty/keeper leagues, it's important to get in on the ground floor before prices go up. Buying into Florida in the offseason paid big dividends this year, as did anyone who believed in the Sutter turnaround in Calgary from last year playing a bigger role this year. This could be the last summer where prices on the non-elite Sabres players (i.e. not Thompson or Tuch or Dahlin) are reasonable either in draft or in trade. Fantasy owners would be wise to start poking around because I think this team might need one more year to really put it all together before becoming perennial playoff threats. At that point, it'll be too late.

It is an exciting time to be a Sabres fan. It is also an exciting time to be a dynasty owner with names like Quinn, Power, Peterka, and Levi sitting on the minor league roster. For anyone without some of the Sabres prospects, it might be worth inquiring to the prices now. They are only going to go up.