The 2022-23 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide was released last week! A big shout out to the editors, developers, and writing team that helped put this all together, as well as to Dobber himself. We have projections, upside, line combinations, individual articles, and a whole lot more to help fantasy owners get ready for the 2022-23 season. Just go check out the Dobber Shop to grab your copy!

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We have started posting our offseason fantasy grades, going team by team in alphabetical order. Go check out the first few teams here.

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Patrice Bergeron has finally signed a one-year deal with the Boston Bruins:

Patrice Bergeron signed a one-year, $2.5 million contract with the Boston Bruins to return for his 19th season in the NHL. https://t.co/vLhlrCSH2s

— NHL.com (@NHLdotcom) August 8, 2022

Per Cap Friendly, this leaves the Bruins with a little over $2.2M in cap space with Pavel Zacha left to sign. There are also the rumours that David Krejci might be signing with the team so there is money that may need to be moved out eventually. Remember that both Brad Marchand and Charlie McAvoy are expected to miss significant time at the start of the season, so the Bruins shouldn't have problems getting under the cap when factoring long-term injured reserve. The problems would come later in the season once (if?) everyone is back in the lineup. That is a problem for December Boston, though, not August Boston.

In talking with a few friends from around fantasy hockey, there seems to be a wide gulf on what to expect from Bergeron, fantasy-wise. Remember that David Pastrnak spent large chunks of the second half in 2021-22 on the second line with Taylor Hall, while Marchand stayed on the top line, often with Jake DeBrusk. If Pastrnak starts the year on the second line, and Marchand misses 2-3 months, what can we expect from Bergeron for production? According to Natural Stat Trick, when Bergeron is skating without both Marchand and Pastrnak, Boston's offensive numbers are cut anywhere from 40-50%. That is… a lot. And if Marchand is back after the first couple months of the season, what kind of game shape is he going to be in after double hip surgery?

If Pastrnak starts the year on the top line with Bergeron, what does that mean for Hall? Maybe Hall starts on the top line with Pastrnak on the second line? It really is tough to say what the Bruins might do here, and we haven't even gotten to the impact of not having McAvoy in the lineup. He's one of the 10 best blue liners in hockey, in my opinion, and there's no replacing him. There are a lot of questions about the Bruins lineup so we'll have to see where their ADP lands because this seems like a situation loaded with downside.

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UPDATE: not long after signing Bergeron, the Bruins made the Krejci signing official:

David Krejci: one year, $1M, plus $2M in bonuses.

— matt porter (@mattyports) August 8, 2022

The team will be without McAvoy and Marchand for a while but having Krejci back in the lineup should help a lot. It makes me wonder if this doesn't solidify Pastrnak on the second line, as he and Krejci would make a formidable second scoring line, whereas I'm not sure the same would be said of Krejci and Taylor Hall. How this works out in line combinations remains to be seen but the Bruins are getting much-needed reinforcements to keep them in the playoff picture waiting for their injured stars to return.

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SECOND UPDATE: Zacha signed his deal with Boston:

Pavel Zacha: one year, $3.5 million. Avoids arbitration.

— matt porter (@mattyports) August 8, 2022

That is roughly a 50% raise for you cap leaguers. He gets a chance to establish himself with the Bruins and earn a long-term deal next offseason.

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Lawson Crouse signed a five-year extension with the Arizona Coyotes:

The AAV is $4.3M

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) August 8, 2022

The 11^th overall pick from 2015 is coming off a career year of 20 goals and 34 points in 65 games. He was a restricted free agent and this will carry him to unrestricted free agency.

There are some things Crouse does well, namely work in his own defensive zone. He saw a big TOI jump in 2021-22, skating nearly 17:30 a night, having never cracked 14:20 a game before. He also shot a career-high of 15.3%, averaging 8.8% over his first five seasons. There were a lot of things that came together in the same season to help Crouse get to a career-best and he should be thankful that it did.

His problem is that if Clayton Keller is healthy, Crouse will be stuck on the second line. Not sure if anyone's looked at the Arizona depth chart lately, but there is not much good NHL talent among their forwards, certainly not past the top line. This team is building for 2025 and beyond and that doesn't leave Crouse with much to play with. He will still give plenty of hits and with reasonable production – say, 20 goals and 40 points – that is a very valuable multi-cat fantasy option. I'm just not sure he has another level of production in him without better line mates.

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Vegas also locked up one of their RFAs:

The Golden Knights have signed Nic Roy to a 5-year contract with an AAV of $3M. https://t.co/UcxR3sd1w3

— Jesse Granger (@JesseGranger_) August 8, 2022

Roy had 39 points last season, by far a career-best for him. He looks to be slotting in as the 3C at the moment, though how Vegas will utilize their centres remains to be seen.

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I took some time to go through the Draft Guide and more specifically, went through some line combinations. There are a number of situations that had piqued my interest, such as Seth Jarvis's role in Carolina. Which line he ends up on will have a big impact on his fantasy upside, so seeing Dobber's thoughts on this is another perspective to consider.

I'm not going to give a whole mess of line combinations, but I thought it would be worth going through some of Dobber's ideas for line combos, where I stood, and what all this could mean for fantasy production. Again, I encourage everyone to go buy the 2022-23 fantasy guide so you can get all the line combinations for your own perusal. There is a lot of information to digest, so getting a head start on fantasy drafts now is a very good idea.

Seth Jarvis

This feels like the fifth or sixth time I've talked about Jarvis in the offseason but there's good reason for that: I'm of the opinion that he was one of the top rookies in 2021-22. His problem is that Carolina is a much deeper team than Detroit or Anaheim, so he skated under 14 minutes a night. Had this been Carolina three years ago and he was stuck on the top line with Sebastian Aho for most of the season, I wonder where his production would have ended up.

Our fantasy guide has Jarvis starting the year on the top line with Aho and Teuvo Teravainen. As Dobber points out, this was a common line combination, or at the least Jarvis skated a lot with Aho. Over the final couple months, in 125 minutes at 5-on-5, this trio controlled nearly 54% of expected goals, generating 3.3 expected goals per 60 minutes, and scoring 4.3 actual goals per 60. They were dynamite, which is a big reason Jarvis had 21 points in his final 26 games (skating over 15 minutes a night in the month of April). Even if he starts the year on the second PP unit, that top-line billing will do wonders for his fantasy value.

Again, as Dobber points out, this could be a fluid situation. We probably see the wingers move around a lot, particularly as Jesperi Kotkaniemi gets used to his new pseudo 2C situation. Jarvis has 60 points in his sights and with a healthy amount of hits, he'll bring good value regardless of fantasy format. Just don't expect 80 games of Teuvo-Aho-Jarvis, as they'll be moved around.  

Mason McTavish

When writing my Anaheim offseason review, it kind of stuck out that there was nowhere to play McTavish at centre. They have Trevor Zegras, they signed Ryan Strome, and Isac Lundestrom looks to be the 3C of the future. That would mean either fourth-line duties or, more likely, a move to the wing where he played in his brief NHL stint. Like Dobber, I think McTavish starts on the wing, and we have him on the second line with Strome.

I'm really curious how this is going to work out. Strome is good on the power play but isn't elite at 5-on-5 or anything. He could do well in secondary minutes, as he did in New York, but how much that translates to boosting McTavish's offensive profile is an open question. Is there a chance the team eventually moves McTavish to the top line, leaving Frank Vatrano with Strome? Maybe, eventually, but probably not out of the gate. I am excited about the rookie's future but if he's on the second line, away from Zegras and Troy Terry, and off the top PP unit, I'm not sure how much immediate fantasy value he carries.

Carter Verhaeghe

One of my big hopes for this season is that Verhaeghe starts in Florida's top-6 – which he will – but also gets top PP minutes. Florida lost Claude Giroux and Jonathan Huberdeau, while Anthony Duclair is injured to start the year. They brought in Matthew Tkachuk, but there is one spot left on the top PP unit. My hope is that it would go to Verhaeghe, a guy who's proven himself as one of the top even strength wingers in hockey. However, Dobber thinks that Sam Bennett could be the guy to take the fourth forward spot, which would be huge for Bennett's fantasy value. He only had 9 PPPs in 71 games last year. If he can get closer to 15 or so, he should cruise past 25 goals and 50 points, which makes for a multi-cat fantasy monster when considering his shots, hits, and PIMs.

Should Verhaeghe not earn those top PP minutes, it would be unfortunate for his fantasy value. I believe that he can be a 70-point winger in the right circumstances, and push for 80 points with a bit of luck. Without that top PPTOI, he won't reach those levels. It would give the team a decent second PP unit along with the likes of Anton Lundell and Patric Hornqvist, though, and that's something the team might covet. Lundell would benefit a lot from playing with Verhaeghe at all strengths, too.

Jonathan Drouin

Drouin had wrist surgery last year which ended his season early, playing just two games after January. Last week, I wrote why Evgenii Dadonov would probably take the top-line left wing role alongside Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield. Basically, he's a good two-way winger who would help stabilize the defensive side of that line a bit. Dobber doesn't see it that way as he has Drouin starting the year on the top line following his return from surgery.

This is one where I can see the argument – Drouin is a good playmaker – but I'm not sure it works out that way. He never really got to play much under Martin St. Louis and his defensive issues have long been a big problem. The duo of Suzuki and Caufield, for all their good offensive work, had significant defensive deficiencies of their own. Adding someone like Drouin won't help in this regard. It makes me wonder if we don't see Drouin start the year there but get moved off the line after the first 10 games or so. He would probably work well lower down the lineup, helping setup guys like Brendan Gallagher or Josh Anderson, leaving him with more defensively responsible players like Gallagher or Christian Dvorak.

It is important to get this one right because there is a lot of upside to being the third wheel on that top line. If Drouin can stay there all season, with top PP slotting, setting a career-high in points (previous high of 53) seems very possible. On the flipside, if the line is constantly getting hemmed in their own end, a coach can only let that go on for so long.

Oliver Wahlstrom

It was a tough season for Wahlstrom, who saw his goals, assists, and TOI per game all decline from his rookie 2021 COVID campaign. He did spend a decent chunk of his 5-on-5 ice time, nearly 30%, alongside Mat Barzal. When they were on the ice together, they generated 3.4 expected goals per 60 minutes, just a monster number. That is why I got very excited when I saw Dobber project Wahlstrom to start the season on the top line with Barzal and Anders Lee. It is a great spot to be at 5-on-5 and should organically lead to a lot more ice time, too. The only quasi-regular Islanders forward that saw less ice time per game at 5-on-5 was Ross Johnston. That needs to improve a lot for Wahlstrom to become fantasy viable.

It was an improved season for Wahlstrom. He has always been a great shooter but to stay at the top of any lineup, players need to bring more. From Corey Sznajder's tracking data, Wahlstrom improved his playmaking (like shot assists) and his transition work (like controlled entries). He was still below league average, but he went from awful to below average, which in itself is a big deal:

Saying he's a shooter improve his other offensive areas does a bit of disservice, too. He was active in the defensive zone and on the forecheck. That he's rounding out his entire game should ingratiate him to the coaching staff, which is another reason for him starting on the top line.

Wahlstrom shot just 7.3% at 5-on-5 last year. If that improves, along with the ice time that comes with being a first liner, we could see a genuine breakout here. He has 168 hits in 126 career games skating 12 minutes a night. He could soar past 100 hits in a full season and has 20 goals in his sights. This could be a sneaky late-round pick in most leagues this September.