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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Available NOW: The 15^th annual Midseason Guide!

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It's included in the Platinum/Gold subscriptions only, or the Ultimate Fantasy Pack (not the Keeper League Pack). 

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1. The first batch of NHL all stars were announced last week, with one player from each team being named (full list here). Leaving aside some personal feelings about the selections (Kevin Hayes over Travis Konecny, for example), I wanted to do something similar for the fantasy game.

To that end, let’s create a starting fantasy all-star lineup, with five skaters and a goalie from each Conference. In an effort to mix things up a bit, these are going to be based off ADPs in drafts, creating value-based selections. In other words, we won’t have Connor McDavid as the center in the West, as the first overall selection has performed as the first overall pick.

But what about Zach Hyman, who was often taken outside the top-100 players, but is currently a top-25 player in most formats? That is the type of selection we’ll be making. We also won’t discern between left/right wing. It will simply be two wingers (same goes for the blue line).

Let’s start out West and we’ll use Yahoo! ADP/scoring:

Center – Roope Hintz (DAL): A lot of the press is going to Jason Robertson and, considering he’s on pace for over 55 goals and 110 points, it seems appropriate. With that said, Hintz is having a marvelous season to date. He is on pace to threaten 40 goals and 90 points, which would give him easily the best season of his career. Hintz had a Yahoo! ADP outside the first 10 rounds and his currently ranked as a top-10 center and a top-25 player. Fantasy owners continue to rejoice. Please follow the link for the rest… (jan10)

2. This isn’t a complaint because the All-Star Game is not geared towards people like me. The All-Star Game is geared towards kids under the age of 15 and basically no one else. Us Olds should just accept that.

With that said, the format of having one player per team both makes sense but is very frustrating to see. As it stands on Thursday afternoon, the guy who is second in the league in goals (David Pastrnak) is not an All-Star. The guy who is fifth in goals (Bo Horvat) is also not an All-Star. Another guy who isn’t an All-Star? Leon Draisaitl and the highest point total outside of teammate Connor McDavid. To round out the non-All-Star list, we have Rasmus Dahlin, second among defencemen in points. Each of those guys has a chance to get voted in, which means they also have a chance to miss the ASG completely (not that some of them might mind).

I get that the league wants fans from every single franchise to have a vested interest in the game, and I have no issue with that. I have to think, though, that there’s a better way to do this. What if the fan vote is for one skater and one goalie from each Conference with the rest of the lineup announced? Or half the roster voted by coaches, 40% from players, and the other 10% from the fans? There has to be a better idea than the potential of Pastrnak, Draisaitl, Horvat, and Dahlin just straight-up not being All-Stars this season. (jan13)

3. Alexander Barabanov is continuing to chug along just below a 60-point pace. In recent weeks, he has seen his shot rate jump, from 1.5 to over two per game, and he’s also seeing a minute more over power-play ice time than he did through the first 20 games. He’s a minus-16 though, and plays for the Sharks, so it’s not all rosy at the moment, but there are some things that point to him putting up over a 60-point pace in the second half. (jan14)

4. Nashville’s top goalie prospect Yaroslav Askarov made his NHL debut in Thursday night’s game, starting against the Montreal Canadiens. Now the Habs haven’t exactly been the strongest offensive team this year, but they have had their moments. This was one of them, putting four pucks into the net behind Askarov in the 4-3 win for the Habs. Two of the goals against Askarov were power play markers, and the defence really was doing him no favours all game.

In 22 games at the AHL level this year, Askarov has a 13-6 record, with a GAA of 2.66 and a save percentage of .905 to go along with two shutouts. He is adjusting well to the North American ice, and should be in the NHL soon enough, though it’s unlikely to be this year or next – especially with Juuse Saros blocking the crease. (jan14)

5. Some fun thoughts on Erik Karlsson. He may or may not get traded, but if he does, then there aren’t a lot of teams that could fit him and that mega contract in. A team would either need to accrue enough space by the deadline (WPG/BUF/NYI/DET – as fits) or send back a some big-money payers to even out the cap (WSH with T.J Oshie & Anthony Mantha or CGY with Milan Lucic & Nikita Zadorov). Of the set, my money is on Washington having the incentive (window closing and John Carlson on LTIR), the manageable cap situation (moveable return pieces) and a disregard for the price (barren prospect system already anyways) that they find a way to get it done. (jan14)

6. NHL Central Scouting released their mid-season rankings, and while it’s always interesting to peruse, take things with a grain of salt. Over the last few years, comparing their lists with some of the more visible public scouts, the NHL lists leave a lot to be desired. Again, they continue to drop players under six-foot-tall down the rankings. Players like Andrew Cristall, Riley Heidt, and Jayden Perron will be drafted higher than their rankings on that list. (jan14)

7. Vancouver provided some bad news as winger Tanner Pearson is out for the season because of a second hand injury. Pearson had just five points in 14 games prior to his initial injury but was part of the winger depth they had accumulated to give them three potential scoring lines. With Pearson injured and JT Miller playing on Bo Horvat‘s wing, they’re going to be rolling with two scoring lines for now. (jan13)

8. When doing a bit of research for my parts of the Dobber Midseason Guide, I was looking through recent performances. This is something that stuck out like someone wearing purple on St. Patrick’s Day: the top-5 players in per-minute shot attempt rate since American Thanksgiving (minimum of 200 minutes) are David Pastrnak, Alex Ovechkin, Nathan MacKinnon, Jason Robertson, and Timo Meier. Nothing shocking or special about that, I agree. The shock was seeing Daniel Sprong‘s name in sixth place. His 23 shot attempts per 60 minutes rated higher than Brady Tkachuk, Kirill Kaprizov, Jack Hughes, and a whole slew of high-volume shooters. It was not something I expected to see.

Sprong stands out here not only because of his shot volume but also his ice time. The 21-game stretch mentioned – leading into Thursday night’s game – saw him skate under 12 minutes a night. Despite playing fourth-line minutes, Sprong has 10 goals in that span, averaging roughly 2.5 shots per game. That is absolutely absurd production for those minutes.

The seven-year veteran has already set a career-best with 25 points and he needs one goal to tie – two to break – his career-best in goals. He has done it by playing the fewest minutes per game since his age-18 season. It really is mind-bending what he’s done lately.  

There have been hockey/fantasy analysts that have been partial to Sprong’s offensive upside since he was drafted in 2015. Development isn’t linear and we could be seeing the breakout many have been hoping for for years. We need to see a lot more out of him than an excellent quarter of a season, but he had to start somewhere and just the shot rate alone is a very promising first step. (jan13)

9. Mark Stone is now week-to-week, as he left last ursday night’s game after playing only four minutes. For the rest of the game, Jonathan Marchessault was up playing with Jack Eichel and Chandler Stephenson, while the second line consisted of Phil Kessel, William Karlsson, and Reilly Smith. That was a good bump for Marchessault and a small bump for Kessel jumping back into the top-six. Alec Martinez took Stone’s spot as the fifth man on the power play, which is definitely something to watch – if the league leader in blocks suddenly starts adding some power play production, his fantasy value hits a whole new level. (jan14)

10. Montreal provided an injury update on Brendan Gallagher, who has been in and out of the lineup for at least a month now: Six more weeks with a lower body injury. Going back to 2021-22, Gallagher has 11 goals and 33 points in 81 regular season games. Over the last four seasons, he has played in just 70% of the team’s regular season games, or 57 appearances every 82 contests.

Injuries can be fickle but he is a guy who plays a very hard game and has for over a decade now, including a couple deep playoff runs. A person’s body can only take so much punishment. As a Habs fan, my hope is he just heals up everything he needs to and can get in a good 15-20 games to finish the year, coming back as close to 100% as he can in September.

For fantasy owners, this probably ends Gallagher’s fantasy campaign, for whatever meagre value he had. He will return close to the trade deadline, some players will be dealt, and he’s not going to earn top-line minutes (or he’s unlikely to, anyway). For now, it is his long-term value with which we should be concerned, and he turns 31 years old in May. (jan12)

11. Kyle Palmieri is still not ready to return to the lineup. Palmieri has played one game over the last seven-plus weeks thanks to an upper-body injury. It sure seems like he’s been skating and practicing for a couple weeks, though, so this is starting to confound a little bit. Players shouldn’t rush back from injury and Palmieri should take the time he feels he needs, but this feels more like it was a serious injury that they’re disguising as upper-body. That is just me guessing, but it’ll be nice to see him back on the ice when he returns. He has six goals, 39 shots, and 34 hits in 21 games this year.

12. Chris Kreider (upper body) was not at Rangers practice last Wednesday and Alexis Lafrenière took his spot not only on the top line but the top power-play unit. It has not been a good year, points-wise, for the 1^st overall pick from 2020, but there could just be some bad luck going on. At time of writing, there was data – like Corey Sznajder’s tracking data – showing Lafrenière with excellent scoring chance contribution numbers (SCC) at 5-on-5 (SCC are simply individual scoring chances and assists on teammate scoring chances). Despite good per-minute scoring rates at 5-on-5 in 2021-22, the winger wasn’t really the engine of the offence when he was on the ice.

This year has been a whole different scene for him, as his SCC/60 has skyrocketed among some of the top-end forwards in the league. It is not a huge sample in 2022-23 – just 180 minutes tracked, or about 14 games’ worth – but something has changed in his offensive profile. The advanced metrics don’t look strong so there’s something else at play here, but it would seem there’s still development going on and shooting 7% after clearing 17% in his first two seasons doesn’t make it look too rosy. It’ll be interesting to watch him skate in his new role with Kreider out of the lineup. (jan12)

13. From earlier Tuesday, David Poile did a radio segment to discuss waiving Eeli Tolvanen and it came as a surprise to everyone. The Predators brass appears to be the only ones that thought Tolvanen would clear waivers, and they still seem to be surprised by that fact. All he has done since then is continue his strong defensive play in Seattle, while also scoring at a point-per-game despite only playing third-line minutes for six of his first eight games with the Kraken. If he can hold onto his regular lineup spot, he might be able to put up some reasonable numbers in the middle-six. (jan11)

14. Thatcher Demko can’t get back fast enough, but even he won’t be able to drag the Canucks back even to the playoff bubble. It’s a shame because they’re wasting Elias Pettersson‘s arrival, Bo Horvat‘s scoring surge, and the wonderful “rookie” season of Andre Kuzmenko.

This team just has a stink about them that’s hard to ignore, and despite the fact that they have an excellent schedule come fantasy playoffs, they’re not a team I’m going to be targeting because A) they stink, and B) if I trade for a player because of their H2H schedule, I want to know for certain they aren’t suddenly going to be traded to a team that plays four times through the main two weeks of playoff schedule.

For those of you looking into that kind of thing at this point, the top teams this year to be targeting for extra volume in those key H2H playoff weeks are BOS, CAR, COL, NSH, TOR, and VAN. The other five are unlikely to really be sellers, so they’re definitely worth targeting if you have an even player to swap out. (jan11)

15. Anders Lee has been having an excellent resurgence now that he has his legs (and a new ACL) back under him. He’s on pace to approach his career highs in goals, points, shots, and hits, while passing them in PIMs, assists, and blocks. His ice time is also up a full minute from Q1 to Q2, and even there it’s still not as high as it was before his ACL injury, so there’s room to add even a bit more volume in the second half. (jan11)

16. Last year we had Noah Dobson go off in the second half, and this year I think we see something similar from K’Andre Miller. Part of it is really just building upon the strong Q2 he had, with 14 points in 19 games. He’s doing that with hardly any power play time though, and that is the key difference between him and Dobson. Dobson was the big offensive weapon, useable on every power play, and eating up all the offensive minutes. Miller on the other hand is scoring despite playing a key shutdown role for the Rangers, alongside Jacob Trouba. (jan11)

17. Neal Pionk, 27, has two years playing at a 50-point pace under his belt, but the last season and a half hasn’t been as kind to him (coincidentally coinciding with when I acquired him in one fantasy league). His underlying numbers don’t scream “it’s time to buy” but with Winnipeg under Rick Bowness making a systemic change to mobilize and use their defencemen more, it’s a surprise that Pionk’s numbers have remained stagnant. Josh Morrissey has gone from a 40-point defenceman to a 90-point defenceman, while number three man Dylan DeMelo has jumped from a 15-point pace to 30. The bottom-three defencemen have seen minor fluctuations, but to have Pionk eating up major minutes and not seeing his scoring jump does feel a little strange. (jan11)

18. Nick Schmaltz put up an excellent second half last year, and he’s looking like he’s starting to ramp back up again. It took him a little time to get his feet back under him after the injury that stole his first quarter of the year. Now that Barrett Hayton has been lined up with him and Clayton Keller, which is a much better option than Travis Boyd who they started the year with. We can’t expect another seven-point game, but over a point-per-game in the second half wouldn’t be surprising at all. (jan11)

19. While Eetu Luostarinen has earned some looks on the Panthers' second line with a bit of a surprising season, to me it’s only a matter of time before Anton Lundell gets a look there. Lundell has played with Sam Reinhart before. You can’t bury talent like Lundell on the third line with those players. Last year it was different – the Panthers had better scoring depth. But this year not so much, and Lundell is stuck playing with Colin White and Nick Cousins. (jan9)

20. Rasmus Dahlin has not cooled down at all from the first quarter, as he has scored at over a point per game in both Quarter 1 and 2. Only Erik Karlsson (13-43-56) has more points among defensemen and only Karlsson (1.27) has a higher point-per-game pace among d-men than Dahlin (1.20). Another stat that stands out is his average ice time, which is among the league leaders at over 26 minutes per game. Dahlin should definitely be included in the Norris Trophy conversation and has also made his way into one of the top defensemen in fantasy.

By the way, those days of double-digit negative plus/minus (-36 and -22 the previous two seasons) for the sad sack Sabres seem like a distant memory. Dahlin is a plus-17 this season, and the Sabres currently lead the league in goals per game (4.0 GF/GP).

21. You might not be sold on the Kraken as a potential playoff team because they don’t have an elite scorer, although Matty Beniers and Shane Wright could be those players one day. No one on the Kraken is a point-per-game scorer, but they have 11 players with at least 0.5 PTS/GP (minimum 30 games). 

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