It is hard to believe we're just a week away from the regular season but training camp is truly getting short on runway. There are a couple games in Europe this weekend before the rest of the league gets going, but I think most fans have October 11^th circled on the calendar.

It is a reminder to double-check your fantasy hockey schedule in your particular league. As Ian mentioned in a Ramblings on the weekend, it could be an opportunity to roster some depth Sharks/Predators players for their European vacation. Just be sure you're in a league whose schedule includes those Nashville-San Jose contests because it'd be a shame to cut players you drafted, even those at the end of a fantasy team, for guys that can't be used.

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On Sunday, the good fellas at the Keeping Karlsson podcast had me on to do commentary on their KKUPFL Tier 1 auction draft. I sat with Brian as he and I discussed the values of the players, team composition, guys going for cheap, and a whole lot more. Head on over to the Dobber Podcast section to hear what we had to say about dozens (hundreds?) of fantasy options for the season.

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Crunch time for fantasy drafts is here so let our 2022-23 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide light the way! It is updated all through training camp to include injuries or lineup changes, and has everything from line combinations, to projections, to long-term upside, to prospect talk, as well as a slew of articles. Help support what we do all year long by grabbing your copy today.

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On the good news front for Montreal:

Martin St. Louis says Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki will make his preseason debut tomorrow night at Bell Centre vs Ottawa Senators at Bell Centre after recovering from lower-body injury #HabsIO

— Stu Cowan (@StuCowan1) October 3, 2022

There had been some danger that Suzuki could miss the start of the season with a minor injury, but it looks like he should be just fine. If anything else comes to light we will pass it along.

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The opposite of good news for Ottawa:

Roster update: The #Sens have claimed goaltender Magnus Hellberg off waivers from @SeattleKraken. He is expected to join the team ahead of Wednesday's practice @CdnTireCtr.

G Cam Talbot will be out of the team's lineup for five to seven weeks with an upper body injury.

— Sens Communications (@Media_Sens) October 3, 2022

Talbot was brought in to be part of a 1-2 tandem for Ottawa’s revamped lineup. It appears he’ll be out until at least November, putting Anton Forsberg in line for a lot of starts early in the season.

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There are a lot of interesting training camp developments but one that sticks out to me immediately is Jake DeBrusk's situation. Brad Marchand is still recovering from his hip surgeries and Sunday morning we found out that Taylor Hall is now also out for Boston, designated as week-to-week. Up front, the Bruins are down their top two left wingers and given Hall's status, it may be a few weeks before either of them come back. That presents us with a double-edged sword.

The downside is that the team is now missing their top two playmakers from the wing. It shouldn't be downplayed just how much that can affect their line mates. We just need to look to last year or two with teams like Vegas (and Mark Stone), Tampa Bay (and Nikita Kucherov), or Washington (and Nicklas Backstrom) to see how just missing one playmaker can affect the scoring of some of the team's top players, whether at even strength or on the power play (or both). Boston is now missing two of them and while we hope both Hall and Marchand are 100% when they return, there's no guarantee of that, either.

The upside is that it presents new opportunities to players that hadn't had them before. If everyone is healthy, Jake DeBrusk is likely on the outside looking in with the man advantage. Now? He's almost certainly a lock, at least until Hall is back. For now, he's still lining up with Patrice Bergeron on the top line as well. Not that I have high hopes for this team offensively until all the major pieces return, but someone has to score the goals, right? DeBrusk was skating over 17 minutes a night to finish the season last year and it's hard to see him getting any less than that to start the season.

My projections on DeBrusk are fairly muted right now – just under both 25 goals and 25 assists – but a lot of that is because of a lack of top power play time. Even without Marchand, DeBrusk should see some meaningful PPTOI early in the season and DeBrusk is still going late in drafts. I see him regularly going outside the top-15 rounds, which feels about right for his season-long value, but I don't wonder if his overall value skews higher earlier in the year because of the opportunity in front of him. He might not be a bad late selection to use for a few weeks and then re-assess. Picks that late are generally replaceable on the waiver wire unless it's a deep league. Something to keep in mind for drafts over the next week.

Also to that end, it was mentioned in the Ramblings last week that Hampus Lindholm could have some good early-season value if (when) he ends up running the top Boston power-play unit. That is how they lined up in practice on Monday:

PP: Lindholm, Pastrnak, Krejci, Bergeron, DeBrusk

— Fluto Shinzawa (@FlutoShinzawa) October 3, 2022

In many leagues, he's likely droppable once McAvoy returns, but until then, there's value here.

It should also be noted that the team ran some power play practice replacing Krejci with Nick Foligno. That is a bit concerning for those of us hoping for some late Krejci value in drafts.

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On the topic of early-season value, Michael Bunting has been seen practicing on Toronto's top power play in camp since the John Tavares injury. While Tavares doesn't look like he'll be out for an extended period, Bunting looks like he could be an early beneficiary here. Using our Schedule Planner over on Frozen Tools, we see Toronto doesn't necessarily have a heavy early schedule, with six games over the first 13 days of the season. Of those six games, however, they have Montreal, Ottawa, Arizona, and Winnipeg. Ottawa is improved offensively, and Winnipeg has Connor Hellebuyck, but none of those are upper-echelon teams. Even the remaining two games are Washington and Dallas, each of whom have their own question marks. Bunting put up over 60 points last year as that Leafs top line proved itself one of the best in the NHL. If Bunting can add a couple weeks of top PP time to that? He could be an early season late-pick MVP. Another guy to keep in mind at the end of medium-sized 12-team leagues.

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While looking at those early schedules, one did stick out to me: the Islanders. For those unaware, they started last year on a brutal extended road trip because of arena delays. That has been somewhat rectified early in this season as the Islanders start with four straight home games before a back-to-back in Florida the weekend of October 21^st. It is only six games but four at home including San Jose, New Jersey, and Anaheim isn't a bad way to start the year. We have seen Kyle Palmieri skating on the top line with Mathew Barzal and he's a name to keep in mind. Provided he's not skating 13 minutes a night, Palmieri can bring value across the board in multi-cat formats.

One thing I have noticed about the Islanders in training camp is that both Anders Lee and Oliver Wahlstrom have been skating away from Barzal basically the entire time. We can wonder how Lee's age and his knee will hold up and whether Wahlstrom will fulfill his upside, but I would rather see either of them on Barzal's wing than Zach Parise (or Palmieri, for that matter). I have noticed Barzal's ADP sinking like a stone in some drafts, which feels so weird to say. Imagine telling someone 3-4 years ago that Barzal would comfortably not be taken among the top-30 centres in fantasy drafts. This is a guy who had 85 points (!) as a rookie and followed that up with back-to-back 60-point seasons, pacing 67 points/82 games in that span. Now, he's being grouped in with players like the one-dimensional Robert Thomas and the aging Tyler Seguin (at least in some drafts I've seen). That is a hefty decline and not unwarranted, I might add.

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We got a look at what the top three lines for Detroit will probably look like to start the year:

#RedWings skate before facing Penguins tonight at LCA (⁦@BallySportsDET⁩ extra at 7:30):
Bertuzzi-Larkin-Raymond
Perron-Suter-Vrana
Erne-Rasmussen-Zadina
Kubilak-Veleno-Berggren
Chiarot-Seider
Maatta-Hronek
Edvinsson-Lindstrom
Husso/Olkinuora pic.twitter.com/wRoG9dIzh0

— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) October 3, 2022

Andrew Copp will slide into that 2C role when he returns though whether that bumps Pius Suter into Michael Rasmussen's spot, or Suter straight to the fourth line, remains to be seen.

Now that Nikolaj Ehlers has seemingly locked down a top PP spot in Winnipeg after years of futility, I can turn to Jakub Vrana. This is a guy who, despite his injuries, has proven himself one of the top 5-on-5 scorers in the league. (That isn't hyperbole: he's second in the league behind Auston Matthews over the last four years at 5-on-5. Pretty good!) However, it looks like his problems have followed him from Washington, which is getting second line/second power play treatment. It is a reminder that while he initially saw a big TOI boost in Detroit following the Anthony Mantha swap, that cratered last year back to his Washington levels of around 15 minutes a night. Most fantasy options will have a tough time bringing much value skating the minutes he does.

Vrana is going into his age-26 season. This is no longer a young, developing prospect. He is in the prime of his career and it really looks like he won't reach his fantasy upside without a couple key injuries. As talented as he is, it just seems it's not going to happen for him anytime soon.

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There has been a lot of Dallas line movement in the preseason, but I was excited to see this top line on Monday:

Stars lines during morning skate ahead of home preseason finale (game group):
Marchment — Hintz — Gurianov 👀
Benn — Johnston — Olofsson
Kiviranta — Faksa — Pavelski
Peterson — Bourque — Glendening

Heiskanen — Hakanpaa
Lindell — Lundkvist
Suter — Miller

Oettinger
Khudobin

— Saad Yousuf (@SaadYousuf126) October 3, 2022

Whenever Jason Robertson signs, he should be on the top line with Roope Hintz. However, is it possible we see Robertson on the second line to try and give this team to legitimate scoring trios? It would be a great fantasy development for all the Mason Marchment truthers out there (present company included).

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One player it seems isn't getting much respect in drafts is Los Angeles's Adrian Kempe. He is coming off a career-best season in which he had 35 goals, 247 shots, and 111 hits. I haven't seen him go in the top-10 rounds of 12-team leagues thus far (I've done three such drafts and commentated on the above 14-teamer) and it feels odd. Allow me to explain.

Kempe shot a career-high 14.2% last year. It isn't as if that's an absurd number: he shot 11% in the COVID 2021 campaign and 11.8% across his first two full seasons. Other than the 2019-20 campaign that saw him in the single digits, he's been reliably in the double digits for conversion rate. That he shot 14.2% isn't extreme. Even if that comes down to 11%, with his shot volume, he still scores between 25-30 goals. Add in the triple-digit hits and there's a very useful player here.

Los Angeles saw a turnaround last year. They generated considerably more shots than they did in the COVID 2021 campaign and with the addition of Kevin Fiala, a hopefully-improving Arthur Kaliyev and Quinton Byfield, along with a healthy blue line, I'm not sure there's reason to assume a decline. As long as the team keeps generating shots, Kempe should keep scoring, even if he doesn't shoot 14.2% again.

Kempe's problem in fantasy last year was a lack of assists, posting just 19. With Fiala added to the top line, there's now a genuine scoring threat on his opposite wing that the team didn't have consistently last year. Even if his goals decline, a career-high in assists wouldn't surprise me in the least, and the peripherals remain very good. He seems to be a great value once the pillars of your fantasy team have been drafted.

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Dylan Holloway got some prime slotting for Edmonton's preseason game on Monday:

Oilers vs Vancouver:

Kane-McDavid-Yamamoto
Holloway-Draisaitl-Hyman
McLeod-RNH-Foegele
Benson-Shore-Virtanen

Nurse-Ceci
Kulak-Bouchard
Samorukov-Barrie

Campbell
Skinner

— Bob Stauffer (@Bob_Stauffer) October 3, 2022

The reports from Oilers camp have all been glowing about Holloway. Preseason is not the regular season so who knows where he is in three months' time, but all we can ask for is an opportunity. It's a wonder if he can stick there, allowing the team to really lengthen the lineup with more established talent on the third line.