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. With the season around the corner, it’s time for some predictions and in the spirit of generating some discussion, we are going to skip the milquetoast selections and go with some spice. Here are some hot takes for 2022-23:

Patrice Bergeron Does Not Reach 60 Points:

This isn’t that extreme considering he reached just 65 points in 2021-22 but he is still being drafted highly in a lot of leagues. His ADP on Underdog Fantasy is a top-15 center, and ahead of names like Roope Hintz and Elias Pettersson. Especially now with Jason Robertson signed, Hintz could be one of the better multi-cat values to go inside the top-100 this season (more on that later).

But back to Bergeron, the reason this feels like a hot take to me is how highly I’m seeing Boston ranked in a lot of spots. The Athletic has them as a 104-point team, HockeyViz as likely a high-90-point squad, and Evolving Hockey has them at 108 points. There are range of outcomes to consider but a lot of smart people I often read all seem very high on them. If Boston is, say, a 105-point team, it would stand to reason that a big part of it is a stellar two-way performance from Bergeron. Combine that with his high-ish ADP in some spots, and it seems a lot of people are very bullish on Boston.

My personal view is the injuries make things way too uncertain. I have discussed it ad nauseum so there’s no reason to re-litigate it all, but my contention is that these severe injuries are going to impact this team much more than anticipated. It will only take a few months to see this unfold so buckle up. (oct7)

2. Neither Matt Boldy nor Marco Rossi Hit 50 Points:

One offseason change that I think is being kind of hand-waved is the loss of Kevin Fiala. Over the last three seasons, he had a higher goals impact at even strength (according to Evolving Hockey) than names like Sebastian Aho, Aleksander Barkov, and Alex Ovechkin. He was the engine of the Minnesota offense whenever Kirill Kaprizov wasn’t on the ice and they’re asking two guys with fewer than 50 total NHL games between them to fill the void. It is a lot to ask.

Reasons why this could work out is if Minnesota breaks up its top line and sends Kaprizov to skate opposite Boldy, or put Kaprizov on Rossi’s wing. The question then becomes whether it’s in the team’s best interest to do so, considering the explosiveness it would take away from Mats Zuccarello‘s line. But maybe they need to, in an attempt to have two balanced scoring lines, with neither being as productive as last year’s top line.

What will help at least one of them is one of the two youngsters should end up on the top power play. But what if Minnesota constantly changes its non-core pieces like they did last year? There is a lot of uncertainty for me and that’s the reason for the pessimism. As someone who enjoys watching this Minnesota team, though, I hope I’m wrong. (oct7)

3. Johnny Gaudreau Doesn’t Crack 80 Points:

In a season of great seasons, it really is hard to overstate just how unbelievable the top line for Calgary was. They scored 4.5 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 and skated nearly the entire season together. They were also just north of 10 goals per 60 minutes on the power play, again skating most of the season together. It really just all came together for all three forwards, and we saw the results.

Gaudreau has moved on to Columbus and that team has just one lineup combination that A) played at least 200 5-on-5 minutes together and B) scored north of 3.0 goals per 60 minutes. It was Laine-Jenner-Nyquist (according to Moneypuck) and they were at 3.2. The team was also in the bottom-10 of the league in power play scoring per minute and was tied for 25^th in power play opportunities. Gaudreau is going to have to do a lot of heavy lifting to produce anywhere near the level he reached last year.

The new Jackets winger should see an ice time increase and that’ll help mitigate the drop. How far the point total falls is the real question and if things start going sideways for a team that is still not a contender, things could go south quickly. Gaudreau is one of the top playmakers in hockey and he’ll have to show every ounce of it to be a monster point producer again. (oct7)

4. Montreal Does Not Produce A 60-Point Forward:

As the resident Habs fan, all told, I’m kind of looking forward to this season. It reminds me of Ottawa’s team last year: almost certainly going to finish poorly in the standings but could be a lot of fun to watch. Seeing the kids progress through the season, combined with good winger depth, should make for entertaining games. There are concerns when it comes to actual point production, though.

Nick Suzuki had a big turnaround after coach Martin St. Louis was hired. He posted 34 points in 38 games but did so while skating in excess of 21 minutes a night. Montreal was a deeply flawed and injured team in 2021-22. Since the end of the regular season, they added Kirby Dach and Sean Monahan, re-loading the center depth to go with Christian Dvorak. It seems very plausible more minutes are allocated to the second and third lines than what they did in March/April of 2022. To compound the issue, Montreal doesn’t really have much for puck-moving defensemen. This is an issue for both even strength and power play scoring.

We should see growth from the young stars on this roster but there could be issues out of their control that temper production. Should be entertaining nonetheless, however. (oct7)

5. Aleksander Barkov Does Not Reach 30 Goals:

Losing Jonathan Huberdeau‘s prowess on the power play is something to monitor in Florida. There is no one that can replace him and how it all works without him is an open question.

To that end, nearly one-third of Barkov’s goals over the last four years have come with the power play. He is also coming off a season where he shot a career-best 18.2%. If he shoots 14% last year instead, he ends up at exactly 30 goals. Now, that is in 67 games, but it’s not impossible that there are declines in scoring in all areas, especially if he’s split from Matthew Tkachuk.

My concerns about Barkov’s production aren’t really significant, but I do wonder if a new coach and being sans Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar changes the situation more than we think. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. (oct7)

6. Troy Terry Scores 50 Goals:

There have been numerous articles from both myself and the writers across the Dobber team about Terry’s breakout 2021-22 season. He scored 37 goals in 75 games, more than doubling his career output to that point (15) in 54 fewer contests. The trepidation is normal but I wrote back in June why I believe Terry’s explosion is, in a couple words, for real. He had excellent underlying stats before the 2021-22 season, and everything finally came together. However, getting to 37 goals ins one thing and cracking 50 is another entirely.

Terry shot nearly 20% last year and assuredly he won’t shoot that again. But how he got to 19.3% shooting is a story in itself. He shot a whopping 32% on the power play, scoring eight times on 25 shots. That was fourth in the NHL among regular PP forwards. That is our outline for how he can add a lot of goals: his 5-on-5 shooting percentage was high (15.4%) but in a higher-scoring NHL environment, that wasn’t even 90^th percentile. That is repeatable and if he can see another increase in shot rate, he can add a lot of even strength goals. The power play percentage will come down but with a (hopefully) more consistent top PP role on an improved roster, he could even add to his eight PPGs despite a decline in shooting percentage. This is the year he cements himself as a high-end goal scorer in the league. (oct6)

7. Igor Shesterkin Wins The Hart Trophy:

This might be a bit more muted as far as hot takes go, but I was looking at Hart Trophy winners going back decades, and goalies are a bit of a rarity. Since the expansion in 1967, three goalies have won the league’s MVP: Dominik Hasek (x2), José Theodore, and Carey Price. The latter two are the only ones to do it this millennium. We’ve been getting basically one goalie per decade win it but if there’s one guy who can do it, it surely is King Igor.

(And for anyone picking Cale Makar or Roman Josi to win the Hart, only one blue liner – Chris Pronger in 2000 – has won it in the last 50 years. It’s an uphill climb for rearguards.)

One big roadblock with Shesterkin winning this trophy is just the depth of elite talent in the NHL. If this was 6-7 years ago when guys like McDavid and Matthews were just starting their careers, it’d be one thing. But if they’re healthy, the Rangers goalie has to contend with 125-point and 60-goal forwards. It’s not the same league as when Taylor Hall won it posting 93 points.

With all that said, Igor is the best goalie on the planet, will get a lot of starts, and if he repeats his performance last year, he’ll be in the Hart mix again. Can we get a coronation at the awards show, please? (oct6)

8. Jack Eichel Reaches 100 Points:

How hot this take is might depend on the person. A lot of people believe in Eichel rebounding from last year, which makes sense given his limited games played and meagre (for him) production. On top of everything, his 82-game pace for PPPs was just 19, which is very off for him, considering he averaged 27 every 82 games in his five full Buffalo seasons. But rebounding from 0.74 points per game in 2021-22 to roughly 1.22 points per game in 2022-23 would represent a massive turnaround.

A lot depends on health, and not only his own. He likely needs Mark Stone to play 75 games, if not for even-strength scoring, but to add a necessary dimension on the power play. The addition of Phil Kessel is likely going overlooked, too. He’s not the player he was 4-5 years ago, but he’s still good in transition and finding teammates. That playmaking dimension is something this team, and Eichel, needs.

I am assuming Eichel is easily over 20 minutes a game this year with expected rebounds in a number of offensive categories. There is a lot of variance in how his season finishes but a bit of good fortune could see him set a career-high in points by a wide margin. (oct6)

9. Quinn Hughes Is A Top-5 Fantasy Defenseman:

Peripherals are what keep Hughes from ever being truly elite in multi-cat fantasy leagues. The blue liner has never managed two shots per game for a season, and he has a grand total of 136 hits+blocks in his last 132 games. In that regard, it’s just not enough to make him a truly top-end option. It is an open question whether his hits and blocks ever get up to snuff to make him an across-the-board fantasy performer.

To that end, he needs to pick up the shooting. A lot. And there have been offseason reports about both he and the team wanting him to add that dimension. It is something the top-end blue line producers like Roman Josi and Cale Makar do. Even Victor Hedman, who shoots less than those two, has averaged over 2.5 shots per game spanning his last three seasons. If Hughes can post 200 shots, his goal scoring will climb, his point totals should increase, and that will push him to another level in the fantasy game.

Quinn Hughes has zero PP goals in the last two seasons. He also has never scored more than eight goals. If these things climb, we could see an 80-point season for him, and have him among the next-to-elite of fantasy defensemen. (oct6)

10. Dylan Larkin Goes 40-50:

Even in a higher-scoring league, there were just six players to reach the 40-goal, 50-assist marks last season. There were the two ex-Calgary wingers, Edmonton’s dynamic center duo, Kirill Kaprizov, and Steven Stamkos. That’s it. It is a lot to expect of anyone but I think Larkin finally has the team around him to do it.  

It isn’t as if it’s an outlandish idea as far as assists go. He posted 47 assists back in 2017-18, followed that up with 41 assists in 2018-19, and his 82-game pace last year for 44 assists. That is with never posting a season with at least 10 PP helpers. With Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond a year older and a deeper offensive team, there is more help and less pressure on Larkin to be a superstar. That seems like a great condition for him to be a superstar.

Last year his 82-game goal pace was for 36 tallies. That was with rookies being relied upon heavily and Tyler Bertuzzi missing 14 games of his own. With a full roster and growth from the kids, this could be the year Larkin explodes offensively. (oct6)

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11. Andrei Svechnikov Is A Top-10 Multi-Cat Fantasy Skater:

This has been the hope of a lot of us for a while, right? Once he posted a 24-37 season in 68 games, posting 116 hits, many of us had fantasy superstardom pegged for Svechnikov. While he’s certainly been a very good option, he hasn’t yet hit that next level we hope he can reach.

One big problem is ice time. Carolina likes to spread things out: no Carolina forward played 19 minutes a game in 2021-22 while Sebastian Aho was the only player over 18 minutes. This is just my feeling – based on maybe just a lot of hope – but I think that changes this year. The team lost very good depth in Vincent Trocheck and Nino Niederreiter while the guy brought in to replace some scoring (Max Pacioretty) is out until 2023. My thinking is this team will have to rely on its stars more this year, and that means more ice time for guys like Svechnikov.

For the young Russian to be a top-10 fantasy skater, he needs something like a 40-40 season with 25 PPPs, 275 shots, and 180 hits. I think it’s doable if he does get that TOI increase. We will find out. (oct6)

12. Adam Fox Reaches 90 Points:

This could depend on what people think of Fox, especially where he’s coming off a 74-point season. Adding 16 points might not seem like a huge jump, but Roman Josi‘s 2021-22 season is the only time since the 2005 lockout that a defenseman has posted at least 90 points. Fox reaching that level would be, more or less, historic.

Where my belief comes from is the emergence of the Kid Line. When Fox was on the ice last year at 5-on-5 without one of Mika Zibanejad or Artemi Panarin (i.e. the top two lines), the team scored 2.0 goals per 60 minutes. It’s not awful, but it can be better, and I believe it will be this year. Filip Chytil is burgeoning offensively while Alexis Lafreniere seems to have found his scoring touch. The Rangers having another good scoring line should mean more points for Fox at even strength.

On top of that, the Norris contender did not score on the power play in 2021-22. Adding a few man-advantage goals, on top of a productive Kid Line, could give him the boost he needs to get to 90 points. (oct6)

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For more prognostications, be sure to check our Dobber Panel predictions from our writers/editors going over division winners, award winners, and more.

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13. I put in my annual votes for the DobberHockey writers’ season preview and I want to talk about a couple thoughts I had while submitting the names.

One of the predictions we make is our Norris winner. Cale Makar is the easy answer, and both Roman Josi and Victor Hedman are worthy votes as well. However, the awards do tend to have a bit of a cyclical feel to them, and they get passed around a little based on who hasn’t won one yet (or at least that’s how it seems). As a result, we peak a little further down last year’s Norris ballot, and right away we land on Adam Fox. On a Rangers team that’s primed to contend for the division title, Fox would stand out even if he only scored 60-points in a season. However, over the last season-and-a-half, he has a stretch of 82 games where he scored at over a point-per-game pace. Oh, and he just hit his breakout threshold…

Letting that sink in for a second, a 20% increase or so on an 80-point pace would be around 96 points, which was the exact number that Josi scored last year to lead all defensemen in points. It will still be a tough contest with Makar, but I think Fox leads all defensemen in scoring this year, and in neck-and-neck for the Norris.

14. I have Calgary as my pick to come out of the Western Conference. I think that despite not owning Makar, the Flames have the best defense core in the entire league. They also have a better coach, a better goalie, and they still have some skilled forwards. This is also the kind of team that has size, and money that they could more easily move out at the trade deadline to make a big splash with. They have drafted well, and their cupboard is nowhere near bare.

All in all, I think Jacob Markstrom is a very real possibility to unseat Igor Shesterkin for the Vezina Trophy, and that the Flames will again be one of the better sources of plus-minus ratios in the league.

15. My bounce-back player for the year is Dougie Hamilton. I think he puts up 60 points and 300 shots, to make himself a top-five fantasy defenseman. Between him, Jack Hughes, and Vitek Vanecek, among a few others, I’m big on a lot of Devils players this year and I think they really surprise as a top-six team in the East.

Rick Roos agrees with me on Dougie having a big year. His annual Fearless Forecasts column also dropped this week, so check that out here.

16. In a late Wednesday night news drop, the Dallas Stars announced that they had finally signed restricted free agent Jason Robertson. Player and team have agreed to a four-year contract with a cap hit of $7.75 million.

Given Robertson’s trajectory as an impact player (41 goals in his second NHL season), this seems like a fair deal for the Stars, especially when the $9+ million contracts of the declining Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn are on the books for another three seasons. Robertson will still be an RFA at the end of the four years. Maybe the Stars were hesitant to commit long-term, and that could be related to how the Seguin and Benn deals are aging.

Since we’re less than a week away from the start of the regular season, Robertson won’t have much time to get up to speed. That’s why a slow start might be anticipated. An example of that last season was Elias Pettersson, who signed on October 1 and stumbled out of the gate with just 10 points in his first 22 games (a coaching change also helped Pettersson). Brady Tkachuk signed even closer to the start of the season (October 14), but he didn’t seem quite as affected with 11 points in his first 16 games. Either way, temper your expectations on Robertson initially. (oct8)

17. On Friday, the Flames signed Mackenzie Weegar to an eight-year extension worth $50 million. Weegar stands to earn a $3 million raise on his current $3.25 million contract, which expires at the end of the season. After a potentially disastrous offseason in which the Flames initially lost both Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk, they have rebounded to lock up all of Jonathan Huberdeau, Nazem Kadri, and now Weegar to long-term extensions. The potential net gain could be a major reason why the Flames were a popular pick to go to the Stanley Cup Final in our writers’ 2022-23 Season Predictions.

Weegar is coming off his first 40-point season, but it’s his peripherals that make him a universally-rostered defenseman in fantasy leagues. Over his past two seasons in Florida, Weegar has been a combined plus-69. In addition, he reached 200 shots for the first time in his career last season – one of 13 defensemen to reach that number. He also has plenty to offer in bangers leagues with 81 PIM, 179 HITS, and 156 BKS last season. One potential downside is power-play points, as he’s never recorded more than 3 PPP in a season, but he could receive at least second-unit power-play minutes now that he’ll be the highest-paid defenseman on the Flames (starting next season). (oct8)

18. 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. (oct4)

19. 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. (oct4)

20. 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. (oct4)

21. The more I think about Skinner, the safer I think he is as a draft pick. I know we all (myself included) wrote him off a year ago. And now? He has genuine chemistry with Tage Thompson. But didn’t he also have that in 2018-19 (the last time he had 63 points) with Jack Eichel? Skinner shot at the same clip (3.3 SOG per game) between the two seasons. His 5on5 S% of 9.40 is similar to what it was in 2018-19 (9.42), and isn’t Eichel better than Thompson?

Well, yes.

But there are a few things going for Jeff Skinner. First of all, the chemistry with Thompson is much, much stronger. In 2018-19 Skinner played over 64% of his shifts with Eichel (and mostly Sam Reinhart), and yet Eichel was in on just 34 of his ES points. Last season Skinner was with Thompson (and mostly Alex Tuch) for 62% of his shifts. But Thompson was in on 41 of his ES points with slightly fewer shifts. I also like how Skinner leaned on the power play less, with just 11 PPPts last season versus 16 in 2018-19. His ES production was better and he did it with less ice time too – over a full minute per game less. And finally, his secondary assists were just 23.3% of his points, which is quite low. In 2018-19 it was 34.8%. He’s earning his production. If he can stay healthy, don’t be shocked if he sets a career high. (oct3)

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Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

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