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 Dobber

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1. Nathan MacKinnon signed an extension that makes him the highest paid player (based on cap hit) in the league next season. His new cap hit will be $12.6 million, and that’s still going to be a very fair number for him in fantasy leagues. My projections had an extension coming in for him above $13 million per year, and with the cap expected to rise quickly, this deal may not even age poorly as it hits the last few years. In the meantime, Colorado’s depth may take a bit of a hit in the short term, but then again they have never really overpaid their depth players, and they have some young players ready to step into larger roles.

Accepting a cap hit just $100,000 more than the current highest paid player in Connor McDavid is also the kind of one-upmanship that we get with uber competitive players like MacKinnon. (sep21)

[BTW: Alex MacLean published his Top 200 skater rankings for salary cap leagues just today. Goalies will be out tomorrow]

2. At Leafs camp on Friday, Adam Gaudette was skating on the second line with John Tavares and Mitch Marner, and he is expected to receive power-play reps during camp as well. Gaudette is a former Hobey Baker winner who at one time was pegged to be the Canucks’ third-line center of the future (33 PTS in 59 GP in 2019-20). Yet he fell out of favor in Vancouver and was traded to Chicago for Matthew Highmore during the COVID-shortened season and the next season was claimed off waivers by Ottawa.

In spite of two relatively subpar seasons, Gaudette is a strong skater who has averaged second-unit power-play time throughout his career. At 25 years of age, Gaudette is at least being handed a golden opportunity, although I’m not rushing to add him in any league yet based on this recent development. If he’s still there on opening night, then I might be more easily persuaded. (sep24)

3. The Canucks appear to be spreading out their scoring to create a top 9. Offseason additions Andrei Kuzmenko and Ilya Mikheyev have been skating on a line with Elias Pettersson. Those two might not be the most ideal linemates for Pettersson himself, but the two Russians haven’t been brought in to get pushed down the lineup either.

If you have been concerned about Bo Horvat as a possible third-liner, he was on a half-decent unit with Conor Garland and Vasily Podkolzin. J.T. Miller, Brock Boeser, and Tanner Pearson formed the other scoring line, which seems to leave Nils Hoglander as the odd man out. Although Hoglander is only 21 and still possesses considerable upside, I wouldn’t be surprised if some time in the AHL is in his future in order to provide him with more ice time and scoring opportunities. (sep24)

4. Vincent Trocheck is expected to receive first-unit power-play minutes for the Rangers, replacing the departed Ryan Strome. Even though I’ve removed Trocheck from the Top 100 Roto Rankings, I still like him as a potential late-round option in fantasy drafts. His ADP in Yahoo is 158 and in Fantrax is 127. Although his shot total has dipped in recent seasons, Trocheck still provides double-digit hits and a high faceoff win total. He had also been on the first-unit power play in Carolina, although he could very well build on his 12 power-play points from last season because he had recorded 18 power-play points in just 47 games the season before. (sep24)

5. Earlier this week, Rangers coach Gerard Gallant stated that Sammy Blais would start the season on the top line with Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad. Although this may not last, given his lack of overall career scoring (0.29 career PTS/GP), Blais is an obvious waiver-wire pickup in deeper leagues if you’re looking for deep sleepers. The proposed future line deployment may not be the only reason to add Blais to your lineup, though.

Because of a torn ACL, Blais played in just 14 games last season. He didn’t help his cause in the games he did appear in, failing to score a goal while chipping in four assists. However, Blais is a hit machine, averaging over 2.5 hits per game in 2021-22 while reaching double-digit hits the previous two seasons in spite of playing no more than 40 games over each of those two seasons. I added Blais in my 20-team salary cap league for the reasons listed above and because of his affordable cap hit ($1.525 million). But deep leagues are probably as far as I would go with Blais at the moment. (sep24)

6. Also news from a couple days ago but worth reiterating, Jakob Chychrun has publicly requested a trade from the Arizona Coyotes. Given the long rebuilding state of the Coyotes, a move to just about anywhere will probably help his fantasy value, even with even-strength and power-play ice time considerations. Plus/minus is one stat that will for sure improve, as he had already dipped to a minus-29 over the first two months of the season. Chychrun has also battled injuries that held him to just 47 games last season.

For more news, check out the new Player Newsfeed on Frozen Tools. (sep24)

7. In the span of two calendar years, the Flyers have nosedived from popular Stanley Cup contender to possible Connor Bedard winner. The latest dose of bad news in Philadelphia has to do with Sean Couturier, who seems doubtful to start the season and could miss substantial time due to a possible back injury. Couturier’s injury means that Kevin Hayes and Scott Laughton could start the season as Philly’s top two centers. That seems okay for an expansion team, but not for a team like the Flyers that expects to compete every season.

I was curious to find out how Dobber would handle the projections of several Flyers after the Couturier injury, particularly the centers. Sure enough, only Couturier was downgraded, with some fringe players inching their way into more games. If Couturier isn’t out for the majority of the season, those Flyers shouldn’t be affected much. Yet are you expecting a big bump in value for Hayes or Laughton anyway? Maybe a little bit, but the Flyers don’t have a ton of scoring depth to begin with.

I would normally try to break down the Ryan Ellis injury as well and how it might affect the Flyers, but he’s only played four games for them and they were at the start of last season. Although many of Philadelphia’s problems are self-inflicted, it’s hard to find another team that’s been as snakebitten with key injuries as they have. Hopefully Ellis can resume his career at some point. (sep24)

8. Have you seen the Canadiens defense this coming season? Not exactly the big 3 of Larry Robinson, Serge Savard, and Guy Lapointe. To complicate matters, recently appointed alternate captain Joel Edmundson will be sidelined indefinitely with a lower-body injury. That’s why I’m intrigued with Mike Matheson there, as he might become a Mr. Everything defenseman there – high minutes, power-play time, you name it.

Matheson has been a second-unit power-play option at best throughout his career. Yet the only player that might stand in his way from the first-unit power-play initially is Chris Wideman, who profiles similar to Erik Gustafsson in that he can bring the power-play numbers but is a healthy scratch risk because of his defensive play. The more I think about this, the more I like it for Matheson. Enough so that I’ve added him in one of my leagues. Fantasy Take: Petry to Pittsburgh for Matheson (sep24)

9. Do you want to compete against your fellow DobberHockey readers for a chance to become ultimate champion? Spots are now available for the 2022-23 DobberHockey Tiered Invitational! The league comes complete with three tiers of roto leagues with promotion and relegation. For more, go to this Forum thread.

10. In case you haven’t noticed this on either Frozen Tools or the Forum, user rjfisher83 has created the Same Night Tool spreadsheet again this season. I find this particularly helpful for a partially created team of some kind – think a team in the middle of a draft or even a keeper. As you venture further down the rankings, the options become more and more similar, so number of available games could be one deciding factor for you. Of course, later-round picks are more likely to be replaced during the season anyway, but finding that right schedule fit could maximize the usefulness of that player on your roster. (sep24)

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11. An important update on Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog, as he's dealing with an injury sustained last year. It is a vague timeline, but that he's not even skating with whatever injury it is surely can't be a good sign. There will be more news posted as we get it, but this could be good news for the upside of guys like Artturi Lehkonen, Alex Newhook, and Evan Rodrigues. They could all end up in the top-6 forward mix to start the year with at least one of them getting top power play time. How the lines shake out as we progress through camp will be a story to follow. (sep23)

12. Alexander Holtz is a guy I have pegged as a potential Calder Trophy winner as the league’s top rookie. He scored a half-goal per game in the AHL as a rookie last season and it certainly seems the team will try to make it work in a top role for him. His fantasy value may be a bit iffy because of the concern over top power-play minutes but skating next to Jack Hughes at even strength would be a nice start to our Holtz 4 Calder campaign. (sep23)

13. Sonny Milano is on a professional tryout with the Flames. He had a good year in Anaheim last season and has some strong playmaking/transition numbers (and has for a few seasons now). Sometimes, on-ice value doesn’t align with underlying stats, but it looks he’ll at least be given a real good chance at prime roster spot. It’s something to monitor anyway. (sep23)

14. As we know, training camps have opened and there are always injury updates. We got one from Toronto, which includes the timeline for Timothy Liljegren‘s (hernia, six weeks) injury. Liljegren played very well in a small sample last year and a full season of that performance level would be a difference-maker for the Leafs blue line. It also puts a bigger spotlight on Rasmus Sandin, who still needs an RFA contract. Liljegren could have been a good fantasy option this year but this throws a Sandin-sized wrench into things. (sep22)

15. The Red Wings made a lot of upgrades over the summer but still aren’t in a position to afford losing key depth pieces if they hope to push for a playoff spot. Andrew Copp had abdominal surgery in the offseason, he’s expected back the first week of the regular season but not expected to play in preseason. If Copp can be back in less than a month and be 100%, it’s likely no big deal. (sep22)

16. With the caveat that things can (always) change quickly in camp, it looks like Chicago is going to split up Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, with Max Domi (and his speed) possibly coming in to complement the latter. If the top line include Lukas Reichel, that would interest me a lot from a fantasy perspective. My guess, though, is we see a lot of varied lineup combinations from what should be a bottom-3 team in the league. (sep22)

17. Within the span of an hour on Tuesday, we had retirement announcements from three excellent defensemen over the last two decades, with Zdeno Chara, P.K. Subban, and Keith Yandle all hanging up their skates.

Chara leaves as the all-time games played leader among defensemen, a cup winner in 2011, and a virtual lock for the Hall of Fame. Yandle leaves as the NHL’s Iron-man record holder, and having led an extremely successful career as a points-producer from the blueline. Meanwhile, Subban retires at only 33, with back injuries having taken away the explosiveness that defined his game in the early years, culminating in a Norris Trophy.

In all, a big piece of recent hockey history was finalized yesterday, and as both fans and fantasy GMs we can all appreciate how much these three brought to the game through their excellent careers. (sep21)

18. Last week, I did 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. At the end I promised to cover some of my key guys that I will be looking at outside of the top-100, so let’s jump right into that. 

Again, 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. [Follow the link for those players that I have in my 101-200 range.] (sep21)

19. Training camps started this week, so I thought it’d be worth taking some time to point out important positional battles that we need to keep an eye on. Back in July, I talked about some tenuous power play situations for defensemen, like in Montreal and St. Louis, with blueliners that could eventually take over the top PP role. We are going to look at a lot of forward situations, both at even strength and on the power play, that have significant fantasy implications. Many of these battles have been discussed in passing all through the offseason, so last Tuesday, I put them all in one spot. Check them out by following the link… (sep20)

20. We’re in the heart of fantasy hockey draft season so I figured it was a great time to take your questions. So off to Twitter I went!

Reader @SJHabs asked: Who are the top 5 forwards long term fantasy-wise from the 2022 draft?

I have my Top 25 forwards already presented in the Fantasy Prospects Report. And after the draft placed these players onto their teams, the only changes I would make to this list are as follows: I would move Logan Cooley up one spot to second, which knocks Shane Wright down to third. Other small tweaks I would do is probably move Conor Geekie up a little higher and the aforementioned Miroshnichenko down a bit. But that’s just nitpicking. So, to summarize, here are my Top 5: Juraj Slafkovsky, Logan Cooley, Shane Wright, Matthew Savoie, Frank Nazar – with the understanding that Slafkovsky is probably going to take a Kakko length of time to get going.

Reader @HockeyKeeperist asked: Who are the D that may become PP1 this year that we might not expect?

Great question. I think Samuel Girard gets traded midseason at some point and then the top unit is likely his on the new team. I wouldn’t be shocked if Erik Brannstrom starts to come into his own, and is one to watch. If Kris Letang gets hurt (which happens at times), then Ty Smith will get a good look. Rookie Scott Perunovich has such great upside that it wouldn’t surprise me if he actually usurps Torey Krug later in the campaign.

Reader @barrymiles asked: Is there any kind of path where morgan frost becomes fantasy relevant?

I think the path he’s on is still fine. Two seasons of tough-luck injuries really hammered down his fantasy value. But now it’s time to put up or shut up. He’s 23 now, so he needs to show us something – even on such a terrible team. He produced at a 24-point pace last season and I would like to see this exceed 40 this year. I have him projected for 36, but he’s my favorite sleeper on his team to do better than I project. If he can clear 40, then I think he’ll get to 60-plus down the road.

[Please follow the link for the rest of the Q&A] (sep19)

21. And finally! If you used Rotoworld for all your player news blurbs, you’ve noticed that they’ve stopped (they’re now called NBC Edge, but same diff). Well, DobberHockey’s Frozen Tools now provides the same feed! Bookmark it here: https://frozenpool.dobbersports.com/frozenpool_news.php

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Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

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