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. The Maple Leafs are loading up for their Stanley Cup run (or just for getting past the first round), acquiring Ryan O’Reilly and Noel Acciari from the St. Louis Blues for Mikhail Abramov, Adam Gaudette, a first-round pick in 2023, a third-round pick in 2023 (from Ottawa) and a second-round pick in 2024. St. Louis is retaining 50% of O’Reilly’s salary, while Minnesota is taking another 25% of O’Reilly’s salary and receiving a 2025 fourth-round pick for their trouble. Right-wing prospect Josh Pillar also moves from Minnesota to Toronto.

[Check out the Fantasy Take] (feb18)

2. I can’t help but think that Brock Nelson is one of the most underrated players in fantasy. If you thought the Bo Horvat trade would cut into Nelson’s value, it has actually had no effect or has even done the opposite. If anything, the trade has spread out the scoring for an offensively-challenged team with both Nelson and Horvat appearing on the first-unit power play.

Returning to being underrated, Nelson and not Mathew Barzal was the Islanders’ leader in points (55), as well as goals (25), as he entered Saturday action . The two tied for the team lead in points (59) last season, with Nelson’s points much more highly concentrated in goals (37 for Nelson compared to 15 for Barzal). Barzal has been widely regarded as the Islanders’ top scoring option, but maybe it’s time to think of Nelson that way instead. (feb18)

3. It’s time to give Filip Gustavsson his due. Among goalies with at least 20 games, only Linus Ullmark had a better goals-against average and save percentage than Gustavsson (2.12 GAA, .928 SV%) at time of writing on Saturday morning.

Although Gustavsson wasn’t expected to be a major factor in the Wild crease because of the presence of Marc-Andre Fleury, Gustavsson has outplayed the veteran netminder by a fairly significant margin and might even be in the process of wrestling the starting job away from MAF. In fact, the pedigreed Fleury has a 2.90 GAA and .906 SV% over the past two seasons – fairly pedestrian numbers. Gustavsson has started four of the past six games for the Wild while replacing Fleury in another after the latter allowed five goals over two periods. Yes, this is a goaltending controversy, and it’s probably time to downgrade Fleury. (feb18)

4. Sergei Bobrovsky seems to be at a point where he can be relied upon again. If not for a late third-period power-play goal on Thursday, Bob would have had his fifth consecutive quality start, as the Panthers moved into a tie in points with the Capitals for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. Entering Saturday action, the last time Bobrovsky had a really bad start was on January 1, posting eight quality starts since then. (feb17)

5. Anton Lundell, who snapped a nine-game goal drought with a goal in Florida’s win on Thursday, is no longer stuck on the third line, having been elevated to a scoring line with Aleksander Barkov and Sam Reinhart. Being moved to left wing also gives him additional positional eligibility, which helps his value even more. (feb17)

6. The out-of-nowhere Rafael Harvey-Pinard is scoring so often that the injury-riddled Habs have been left with no choice but to elevate him to the first power-play unit, as well as the de facto top line with Nick Suzuki. There’s no doubt that Harvey-Pinard will cool off, as a 35.0 SH% entering Saturday should be an obvious sign. The thing is, will he stick around after that? If you haven’t already, read Dobber’s take from his most recent Ramblings.

You could add Harvey-Pinard if you feel tempted, but I’d need to see a larger NHL sample size from a player whose AHL numbers were good, but not great. In other words, I’ve let others grab him in my various leagues. (feb17)

7. Still with the Habs, Jonathan Drouin was trending as a popular profile on Frozen Tools late this week. Maybe because he had played 32 games, but still didn’t have a goal? Okay, it’s more likely because he posted five assists in two games leading up to Thursday’s game. (feb17)

8. Jeremy Swayman‘s 28-save shutout in Nashville on Thursday was his second of the season. Among goalies with at least 20 games played, only two had a better goals-against average than Swayman (2.21 GAA) at time of writing. One of them is teammate Linus Ullmark (1.90 GAA), which should be an indication of how strong the Bruins’ defense has been in front of them. The two B’s goalies have generally split starts since November and they are both must-starts every time they play. (feb17)

9. I’ve watched a few games involving Dylan Larkin recently and it seems like he is scoring at will. Larkin recently terrorized the Canucks with back-to-back two-goal games and he added to that with two more multipoint games as the Wings toured through western Canada: Ten (10) points, including three assists in Calgary on Thursday. I mentioned last week that Larkin might be a player to trade for because the Wings have a strong schedule in terms of total games during the fantasy playoffs in many leagues. If you quickly pulled the trigger on a trade, you were instantly rewarded. If the Wings continue their recent hot play, then I don’t see how they trade Larkin by the deadline. (feb17)

10. At time of writing on Friday, Brayden Schenn had three consecutive two-point games since Vladimir Tarasenko was traded. In addition, he had power-play points in back-to-back games. Schenn has recently been moved up to a better line with Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas, so he could be instantly benefitting from the Tarasenko trade. 

Fantasy Take: Rangers Acquire Tarasenko; Blues Get Blais

Schenn is not having his strongest multicategory season with under two shots per game and a minus-25 ranking. That being said, he is only four hits away from reaching 100 hits, which would be the 12^th consecutive season that he has been credited with at least 100 hits. (feb17)

11. Potential bad news if you’ve been waiting on Thatcher Demko:

@irfgaffer: Sounds like Thatcher Demko suffered a setback and tweaked something in practice on Thursday. #Canucks won't know full extent of injury for a few days.

The best decision for the Canucks at this point would be to go full-on tank, so I wonder if Demko is shut down for the season if he has in fact re-aggravated his injury. (feb17)

12. Calen Addison was a healthy scratch on Wednesday night:

@JoeSmithNHL : Dean Evason said Calen Addison is healthy scratch for same issues he had in December. Not good enough in his own end. "He knows that there’s some things he has to correct in his game and we’ve asked him to and we haven’t seen the level of improvement that we want." #mnwild

Evason would go on to say that it was defensive issues that needed to be cleaned up, which makes sense for a rookie defenceman on a team with playoff hopes. By the same token, in the seven-plus weeks since Christmas, Minnesota is the lowest scoring team at 5-on-5 with 1.76 goals/60 minutes. Yes, they’ve been even worse than Montreal, Chicago, and Columbus. Conversely, they have the eighth-lowest goals against rate in that span. Addison’s goals against marks have suffered but this team needs offence considerably more than it needs defence. All the same, a night off for the rookie won’t hurt and maybe a rest is just what he needs. (feb16)

13. One of the more underrated storylines of this season is just how elite Sidney Crosby still is. His first sample of SCC/60 was elite, ranking just behind Connor McDavid on a per-minute basis. He improved on that and is now top-5 in the league in this regard, sandwiched between McDavid and Jack Hughes. His 2.77 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 is his highest rate in four years and his second-highest mark of the last decade. A seven-year low in per-minute power-play production is what’s keeping him from super-elite production. Heading into 2022-23, his three-year average in PPPs per game was 0.45. If he did that in 2022-23, he’d be on pace for a 111-point season, which would be the second-highest mark of his career. Folks, he’s still got it.

(SCC: Scoring Chance Contribution is adding a player’s individual scoring chances and their assists on teammate scoring chances.) (feb16)

14. There has been lots of discussion about Matty Beniers for Rookie of the Year, and he probably will win it, but Wyatt Johnston has been excellent for Dallas. He is third on the team in goals at 5-on-5 and has gone from league-average by SCC/60 to a standard deviation above average, which is star-level; he’s tied with Martin Necas by this measure and slightly ahead of names like Steven Stamkos and Johnny Gaudreau. If he can keep this development trajectory for a couple more seasons, it’s not if he turns into a roster player, it’s if he turns into a top-line star (pun intended for sure). (feb16)

15. If you need some help with how to approach the upcoming deadline in your fantasy leagues, the upcoming edition of Rick Roos’ monthly mailbag has some room for questions. To send yours in you can either private message "rizzeedizzee" via the DobberHockey Forums, or send an email to [email protected] with "Roos Mailbag" as the subject line. No one does a deeper dive to help you out with any kind of fantasy hockey question. (feb15)

Also, looking for salary projections when it comes to this year's crop of free agents? Follow the link as Alexander MacLean posted his Top 150 ranking here.

16. Sam Steel was a healthy scratch early this past week. Steel had been Kirill Kaprizov‘s centre for a few months now but things have been dire of late. At time of writing, Minnesota went into Monday night’s game at home to Florida as the lowest-scoring team in the league at 5-on-5 since Christmas (seriously, last in goals per minute at 5-on-5 over their last 19 games). Steel had zero points and just 11 shots in his last 10 games, skating over 17 minutes a night. Something had to change. We have to wonder how long it will be until they make a splashy trade or recall Marco Rossi, or both? GM Bill Guerin said not to expect Rossi in the near-term but I can't imagine they can hold off much longer. (feb14)

17. Patrice Bergeron may not be pacing for a great fantasy season – 29-31-60 entering Saturday – but that doesn’t mean he isn’t having a great season overall. Earlier this past week, the team was controlling over 65% of the expected goal share with him on the ice, leading the league’s forwards (min. 500 minutes at 5-on-5).

Also, the opposition had scored fewer than one goal per 60 minutes against Boston with Bergeron on the ice at 5-on-5. His play should have him in line for another Selke Trophy, or at least among the top nominations. Oh, he turns 38 years old this summer. We are seeing a special, special season from him and it’s hard to not love it. (feb14)

18. One thing that is very hard for highly-touted goalies to do is live up to expectations. Any goalie taken in the first round is expected to be a future top-end starter. At time of writing, Jake Oettinger looked every bit the part so far in his three seasons: a 0.918 save percentage (Juuse Saros and Andrei Vasilevskiy had a 0.920), ranking fourth in high-danger save percentage at 5-on-5, trailing only Igor Shesterkin, Ilya Sorokin, and Ville Husso, and the seventh-most goals saved above expected (GSAx). Per GSAx/60, his rate was five times higher than Thatcher Demko‘s and 10 times higher than Jacob Markstrom‘s. All this excludes his superhuman effort in the 2022 playoffs. Oettinger has arrived, and we love it. (feb14)

19. It has been a down year for a lot of Flames players, but we do have to recognize Noah Hanifin. Earlier this past week, he needed just six more blocks for a career-high of 90 (he was on pace for 131, actually), was pacing to tie his career-high in hits (87), as well as his career-high in shots (190). He already has his second-highest 5-on-5 point total of his last four years and would come close to last season’s mark if his shooting percentage were to normalize. Despite a decline all around him, Hanifin has still been excellent even with a big PP production drop. (feb14)

20. Jack Campbell has a long-term contract and a pretty big one (four more years at $5M AAV), so the Oilers have a lot invested in him as their Number 1. So even though he’s been terrible this year, they’ll keep throwing him out there. And lately – he’s actually been decent? At time of writing last Monday, Campbell was 8-0-0 with a 2.39 GAA and 0.917 SV% in his last eight games. Half of those were Quality Starts. In today’s NHL, a 0.917 SV% is upper-tier (he would rank 13^th among goaltenders who have played at least 12 games).

If Campbell is even remotely good down the stretch, he’ll be Edmonton’s playoff starter. And right now he is far better than “remotely good”, so it’s a certainty, barring a serious implosion.

21. We are still adding to, and improving, our DFS (Daily Fantasy) tools and things are working better than ever. I am up over 50% over the last month, and just under 50% on the year.

I play OwnersBox, to my knowledge the only available DFS platform for those living in Ontario. I put in a team in their big shootout contest every day, using an optimized stacked lineup if there are five or more games that day, or just an optimized featured lineup if there are four games or fewer. And then to hedge, I put a featured lineup into the double-up contest. I check the lineup histories that we make available, and choose the one that has been doing the best in recent weeks.

Using this strategy, I have won money in 18 of the last 21 days. Most of those days are just winning the double-up (i.e. that covers the money spent on both contests, so I break even), but several of the days I have won big. But it’s all in how you use the tools – I use strategies such as never doubling up on my goalies in multiple contests, and often if there is a cheap option recommended that I don’t like, I’ll look around for one that I do. But these tools have been great in setting me on the right path. You’ll figure out your own strategy over the course of a couple of weeks, I’m sure. Subscribe to our DFS tools here.

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Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

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