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 Grant Campbell, filling in for Dobber

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1. Whether it is the first step in major player personnel changes or simply pressing the reset button, the Winnipeg Jets have decided not to have a team captain in 2022-23, removing the captaincy from Blake Wheeler. The 36-year-old Wheeler has two seasons left on a contract that pays just over $8 million per season, so he won’t be an easy player to trade despite the obvious trade rumors.

[Fantasy Take: Bowness Going to Winnipeg]

In an effort to market himself to other teams, could Wheeler potentially be motivated by this decision? Players like Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, and Dustin Brown weren’t negatively impacted after having to give up their C’s. Brown managed to rebound scoring-wise after some subpar seasons by his standards, while Thornton and Marleau were still able to be effective point producers. Wheeler has had a very consistent 0.92 PTS/GP page over each of the last three seasons, but at his age his production isn’t likely going to increase.

Back when I completed my first mock draft of the offseason, I observed Wheeler to be a potential draft-day bargain. As it stands, Wheeler is still being drafted outside of the top 50 right wings in Yahoo, behind the likes of Vasily Podkolzin, Filip Chytil, the injured Tom Wilson, Artturi Lehkonen, and Kirby Dach. Wheeler’s Fantrax ADP of 136 is more reasonable, but he’s still a potential value pick in that league provider, too. (sep17)

2. If you have Nils Lundkvist as a potential rookie sleeper for the coming season, you may want to change your plans. The 22-year-old defenseman has reportedly asked for a trade out of New York and will not report to training camp. Lundkvist has posted outstanding numbers in Sweden for an under-21 defenseman, but his path to the NHL seems to be blocked in the Rangers’ organization, particularly with Adam Fox likely running the first-unit power play for many years to come. A trade could be beneficial for Lundkvist’s fantasy value, although he could eventually rescind that request if the Rangers don’t treat the matter as urgent. Chris Drury did that with Vitali Kravtsov, who should be at camp. (sep17)

3. I drafted Jack Eichel in the fourth round for two consecutive drafts. On Yahoo his ADP is 43, but on Fantrax it’s 31. He should be healthy and finally settled in Vegas, so this could be a season where he bounces back and possibly even more. He was a 0.9+ PTS/GP scorer for four consecutive seasons before the past two injury-and-turmoil-filled seasons. There’s some risk in taking him this early, but he seems like a smart gamble in this spot. (sep17)

4. In case you missed it, I made my first-ever appearance on the Keeping Karlsson podcast on Sunday. Elan wanted to discuss the Fantasy Guide and a few particular projections, and I was more than happy to oblige. You can listen to an audio-only version of the podcast here, or you can watch it on video below.

When Elan asked me about sleepers, I brought up my Ramblings from the weekend before where I discussed players that I thought were being drafted too low in Yahoo leagues. Within that group were a few centers that I thought you should target in single-season drafts: Mark Scheifele, Brayden Point, and Roope Hintz in particular. These centers may be falling in drafts because they’re not getting the respect that they deserve, but that’s only part of it. They are also falling simply because center is believed to be the deepest forward position in fantasy leagues. Or is it? (sep16)

5. Have you checked out the new player news page on Frozen Tools yet? I used to frequent NBC Sports Edge (previously Rotoworld) when writing the Ramblings, particularly on busy nights when I don’t have an eye on all the games. You get the news highlight and a link to the source tweet. For analysis, you can subscribe to RotoWire, but you may also continue to find analysis here in the Ramblings. (sep16)

6. In the news was a Brad Marchand injury update this week. The Bruins winger was expected to skate Friday for the first time since his double hip surgery. His return is expected to be after US Thanksgiving (late November, for those of us who are non-American). That means Marchand should miss at least the first 20 games of the season, barring a faster-than-expected recovery. Marchand has a 113 ADP in Yahoo, which I’d actually consider great value if your team can stay afloat for two months. The shallower the league, the higher you should consider drafting him because of the gap between Marchand and the top waiver-wire options. (sep16)

7. Sean Durzi signed his RFA contract, a two-year contract extension worth $1.7 million. That brings the number of RFAs down to eight. I wrote about Durzi during Bubble Keeper Week, so I don’t feel the need to add any more than that. If you’re wondering whether I kept him, I decided not to, although I can attempt to reacquire him at a lower auction value than what I would have had to pay him had I decided to keep him. (sep16)

8. The Top 100 Roto Rankings have been updated for September. Use them in your fantasy drafts (at least for the first several picks, anyway). Let me know if you think anything should be changed within the rankings. This month’s changes are largely focused on adjusting players more toward their ADPs. Just because I dropped a player doesn’t mean that I don’t like the player – in fact, quite the opposite. For example, both Mark Scheifele and Brayden Point were fallers, but at the same time I also just told you to draft them above their Yahoo ADPs. The key is to draft them exactly at the right spot – low enough that you can grab enough high-ranked talent before them, but high enough that someone else sends the chat message “nice pick” or “hey, I was just about to draft him!” Remember that the draft is a value-building exercise.

By the way, I list all forwards as F in the Roto Rankings and don’t differentiate between C, LW, and RW. That is because some forwards hold multiple positions, and also because some fantasy providers have the same player listed at different positions. For example, Roope Hintz is listed as a both a C and LW in Fantrax but only a C in Yahoo. If you want to break down the Top 100 forwards by position, here’s what I have:

C: 27
LW: 24
RW: 16

Note that these are Frozen Tools positional designations and may not exactly reflect your fantasy provider. (sep16)

9. With the offseason additions of David Perron, Andrew Copp, and Dominik Kubalik, plus a healthy Jakub Vrana, a top-6 role for Filip Zadina looks more distant than ever. That, in and of itself, is a big issue for his fantasy relevance in most formats. He didn’t produce well last year in terms of raw points, with 24 in 74 games playing 14:11 a game, but he may have been a bit unlucky. His IPP at 5-on-5 was 42.4%, good for 303^rd out of 306 forwards with at least 700 minutes. His first two full-ish seasons saw him post a mark of 65.6%. Had he managed that mark, he would have added roughly eight points to his total, and that would have made his season look considerably better.

Having good line mates helps a lot, and Zadina’s three most-common line mates in 2021-22 were Pius Suter, Adam Erne, and Michael Rasmussen. He has largely been kept away from the team’s top stars and that’s going to continue in 2022-23 barring injury or a huge jump in his game. But he has shown some good offensive flashes and likes to shoot the puck. He is definitely a player to monitor as the season wears on because some improve line mate quality could lead to a much better season, at least in spurts. (sep15)

10. There were 47 players with at least 50 shots on goal with the man advantage in 2021-22 and Tyler Seguin was the only player to score fewer than five PP goals (he had three). For Seguin, that was the lowest PP goal total for him in any season where he’s played at least 70 games since his rookie 2010-11 campaign. That will happen when a player shoots 6% on the power play.

In the 84 regular season games Seguin has played since his hip surgery in late 2020, Seguin has shot 5.8% on the power play. That is 207^th out of 223 forwards with at least 150 minutes of PP time in that span. In the three seasons prior to that, he shot 10.6%. In other words, we could see his PPSH% basically double and it would be close to in line with what he’s done recently. If he can do that and stay healthy, he has potential for a 30-goal season.

The health and production of Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn is likely the difference between Dallas making noise in the playoffs or potentially missing them altogether. Seguin spoke about the issues he had returning from his multiple recent surgeries and having to change his game a bit. Now that he’s nearly two years removed from those operations, I think we see an improved Seguin. If Mason Marchment can repeat his performance from Florida in Dallas, that will go a long way to giving Seguin a talented line. Though he didn’t have a great 2021-22, Seguin was still 1 of 16 players with at least 20 goals, 25 assists, 200 shots, and 90 hits. Every other player to do that was a reliable fantasy option, with the bottom of the list being Pierre-Luc Dubois and Tomas Hertl. Seguin should be a veteran with a star next to his name later in multi-cat drafts. A bit of better fortune on the power play, with a better line, could see a return to significant fantasy success.(sep15)

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11. In the last bit of the NHL offseason before we start to get real news, real lines and actual games, I figured I would do a preliminary run-through of all of the top-100 players and how I’m feeling about drafting them to begin sorting out my rankings for the year.

I’m going to run by Fantrax ADP to organize players off the start, as it’s a much better base than Yahoo. All of my leagues include hits, shots, and power play points to some variation of value, among a few other stats. I’ll take those base stats into consideration along with a main focus on points. [Below are some of those thoughts]

Leon Draisaitl: Potentially listed as a winger depending on your provider, the second-highest points upside behind McDavid, and maybe some faceoffs on the wing too. Him talking about adding a new element to his game as a result of the ankle injury last spring should also be moderately terrifying for the rest of the league. (sep14)

12. Nikita Kucherov: Sixth is probably my least-favourite spot to be drafting this year, as the second tier ends at five. Kucherov is one of the top options in the third tier, and his upside may be as high as those above him. However, there is some variability in his production has dipped in a few of the recent years. Check out Rick Roos’ column later today for a much more in-depth break dow.

Kirill Kaprizov: Maybe the one I would take at sixth, Kaprizov could have an actual center this year if Marco Rossi shows he’s NHL-ready. Lots to like in the peripherals from the winger as well.

Mitch Marner: After narrowly missing 100-points last year due to his cold start, Marner is a solid bet to hit it this year, though he doesn’t bring the same peripherals that a Kaprizov or a Jonathan Huberdeau might, depending on your league setup. (sep14)

13. Jonathan Huberdeau: Finished with 115 points last season playing mostly with Sam Bennett and Anthony Duclair, he should now see steady ice-time alongside Elias Lindholm and Tyler Toffoli. I would call that an upgrade. Don’t worry about him falling off too far.

Matthew Tkachuk: Another player who might not quite keep up his exceptional pace from last season Tkachuk got traded to the right season if he is going to make a push for it. His PIMs and Hits have dropped off a little in recent seasons, though he remains one of the better multi-category assets.

Igor Shesterkin: The first goalie on the board, and about as early (21-30) as I would be comfortable reaching for one, though I think it unlikely I will draft any goalie inside the top 75 this year, there’s just always more value to be had later, and too much value to be lost early. The early part of the draft can’t win you your league, but it can lose it for you. That’s a lot more likely to happen by drafting goalies early.

14. Ilya Sorokin: We’re into our first timeshare goalie, but if anyone aside from Vas or Shesterkin is going to win the Vezina, Sorokin has to be the favourite. Depending on what categories your league counts, this could be a bargain spot for Sorokin (league that leans towards averages) or still a “wait” (more volume based league).

 Jake Oettinger: If Sorokin was the outside favourite to dethrone one of the top-two goalies, then Oettinger is the not-so-dark-horse. He put up one of the most outstanding seven-game-series we have even seen last spring, and if he can play that way over the course of a full season, he’s a shoe-in Vezina finalist.

Tage Thompson: The Sabres’ center exploded for 38 goals last season. Though he likely won’t keep up his 15% shooting percentage (over double his previous career number), he should still be reasonable productive as a focal point of Buffalo’s emerging offense.

[Follow the link for the full list] (sep14)

15. Colorado signed forward Evan Rodrigues to a one-year deal with a $2M cap hit. Rodrigues had a career-high 19 goals and 43 points in 2021-22. I did a deep dive on Rodrigues back in May so go read that for more on his season, his improvements, and how he could help a Colorado team that doesn’t have their 2C role locked down. I am not sure he is the guy for a 2C role on a Cup contender, but it gives the team options, along with J.T. Compher and Alex Newhook. (My guess is Mikko Rantanen ends up the 2C eventually but that’s just a guess.) If nothing else, he brings good two-way depth to a team that doesn’t have a lot of it after losing a couple key forwards in the offseason. (sep13)

16. One guy whose role is not in question is Timo Meier. He is the top left winger on the Sharks’ roster and will be on the top power play all season long. Having that kind of role certainty is a big deal when we talk about a player coming off a 35-goal season. While his breakout technically came in 2018-19 when he popped 30, he followed that up by scoring 34 goals in his next 124 games. Concerns were starting to mount a little bit about whether Meier could flourish offensively on a declining team.

Like Hartman, Meier saw an explosion of ice time in 2021-22. He had never skated more than 17:17 a game over the course of a single season, averaging under 17 minutes a game for the three seasons heading into 2021-22. That shot up over 19 minutes a game in a thinned-out Sharks lineup and the raw totals with it. All that extra ice time is what got him to 326 shots on goal, by far the highest total of his career. At 5-on-5, his shot attempt rate per 60 minutes (21.6) wasn’t even the highest of his career (22.6 in his rookie season) and was in line with the year before (20.2). Betting on him to get over 300 shots again seems like a reasonable one to make, and that provides some safety in his goal scoring rates.

The other part of it is his power-play role. He added nearly a full minute of PPTOI per game compared to the COVID 2021 season. This guy had 13 career power play goals in his first 317 regular season games and scored 12 in 77 contests last year. The additional ice time with a high PP shot rate helps here, as does him shooting 19.4% with the man advantage. That seems high, but that’s not even 75^th percentile of PP finishing. It’s kind of high but certainly not excessive.

I don’t have specific concerns that he can reach 30 goals and 40 assists again now that he’s playing 19 minutes a night. I do have concerns that he can take another step in production and be a Stamkos-type player who can post 40-goal, 50-assist seasons. Both Tomas Hertl and Logan Couture are very good players, but they’re not necessarily great playmakers. Couture has never reached 45 helpers in any single season and has averaged 32 per 82 games the last three years. Meanwhile, Hertl has never reached 40 assists in a single season, averaging 36 per 82 games in his last three seasons. The team also lost Brent Burns in the offseason with Erik Karlsson, though still very good offensively, an injury risk. Long story short, his environment worries me.

With his massive hit and shot rates, Meier can do a lot more than just rack up points. He should still have very good goal/assist totals, I’m just worried that his upside is capped until the team gets better (which could take a few years) or he’s traded. (sep13)

17. Jack Roslovic is a wild card, as it obviously depends on whether he gets Johnny Hockey as his linemate. The other options are Boone Jenner and Cole Sillinger. Any of those three have a chance at that spot, and the winner gets a boost. If Roslovic gets the spot, I think he pushes for 70 points. If he doesn’t, I still think he will have a strong year and exceed 50. Even if Roslovic misses out on the Gaudreau spot full-time, he’ll still at least get a look there. As with all line combinations, there is some mixing and matching throughout the season. Roslovic is a fellow American who actually finished last season with 25 points in 32 games. He’s entering his prime and, frankly, he has a higher upside than Jenner. I don’t think Sillinger is quite ready yet. So that’s why I’m leaning on the higher side with Roslo. (sep12)

18. Pavel Zacha is a guy who produced at a 57-point pace in 2020-21. As a bigger forward, I felt (and still feel) he has another gear. He has played 386 career games and this is his BT season. With Brad Marchand out to start the campaign, he should get some early PP time to get himself established. Gaining a foothold early will set the tone for the rest of his season. I projected him for 51 points, which to me is a fairly conservative number. To analyze this deeper by looking at ‘pace’ is not the way to go about this one, as he is almost certainly going to miss time and my 74-game projection is a pretty solid guess. (sep12)

19. Nazem Kadri: Another career year for a player in his 30s, this time it’s Kadri who is also 31. His career high full-season pace was 75 in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 – otherwise, his best was never higher than 61. Last year he finished with 87. And while that’s nuts, his 5on5 S% doesn’t scream regression and his hefty contract will ensure that he sees more ice time and PP time than he’s ever seen in his pro career. The added ice time and PP time will help buoy his stats to pretty good heights – just not the 100-point-pace heights he just enjoyed. Even though I still have him posting more than a point per game, I dialed back his projection quite a bit. (sep12)

20. This is the last Sunday before big-league training camps start, though there were rookie camps happening all last week across the league. For anyone that even pays cursory attention to social media for hockey clips and information, it is probably worth taking a bit of time about what we should look for in these practices and games.

First, we are looking for injuries occurring or players returning from one. That is one of the most important pieces to search out when this time of year hits. Every player is expected to be in the best shape of their lives, but are guys who had offseason surgery/rehab like, say, Patrice Bergeron and Joel Farabee, ready to go? It’s an obvious move but checking in on team reporters to see what they have to say about returning players is one important aspect of camp.

The other is line combinations. With the caveat that lines will change through camp and all season long, how a coach views a player during practice and exhibition can tell us a lot. Teams are usually split into two squads which means we could have a couple dozen forwards in uniform. If someone slots on the third or fourth lines of a split squad, it’s pretty obvious the coaches don’t think much of their ability to make/impact the main roster. Players can and do impress during exhibition games so fortunes will change, but if Nick Robertson, or Philip Tomasino, or Marco Rossi, or any number of names aren’t at least in the top-6 of a split squad, we should be concerned. (sep13)

21. Things to avoid include “Player X is in great shape” or “Player Y looks hungry” or anything of the sort. Players are supposed to be in great shape; they’re in the NHL. They are also supposed to be driven/determined as, again, they’re in the NHL. If a writer makes a specific note about a player looking out of shape, that might be worth something, but it could also be a top-of-roster player not wanting to push themselves too hard too fast.

A lot of information coming from camps will be useless. Players from every team (except maybe Chicago) will expect to be playoff contenders but they’re not all going to make it. Coaches will expect to get the best out of their roster but they all won’t do that. Be sure to filter out what is useful and what is not because just absorbing all this information as if it’s all useful is one way to absorb very little useful information. (sep13)

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Have you checked out the new Goalie Post yet? We are still taking suggestions, notes and errors from users as we get the new site ready for the season. Coming up: DOBBERNOMICS. Yes, another re-launch/upgrade is on the way. Stay tuned to my Twitter account for the announcement on this. – Dobber

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Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

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