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. Considering the performance from Connor McDavid, the goal-scoring chase from Alex Ovechkin, and the higher-scoring NHL environment in general, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of chatter about rookies this season. 

Last year, we had five rookies crack 20 goals, Trevor Zegras wowed fans with his dazzling hands, Cole Caufield re-awakened after Martin St. Louis was hired, Matt Boldy had a great second half, and so on. This year, we’re still waiting for our first 20-goal rookie, though Matty Beniers sits just one shy. He may also be the only rookie to crack the 50-point mark. From an offensive perspective, it hasn’t been an eye-popping campaign for first-year players.

With that said, there has been a lot of very good rookie performances that might be flying under the radar a bit. Let’s talk about some of these guys, starting with Beniers just below.  Follow the link for the rest.

Beniers: The clear standout from the rookie crop is the second overall pick from 2021. Including his brief tenure at the end of the last campaign, Beniers has 22 goals and 56 points in 72 regular season games. For just his rookie 2022-23 year, his points/60 minutes at 5-on-5 is in the 87^th percentile of the league, ahead of names like Claude Giroux, Jesper Bratt, Bo Horvat, and Andrei Svechnikov.

There is tracking data collected by Corey Sznajder that shows very good offensive performance as well. His scoring chance contributions aren’t elite, but comparable to names like Elias Lindholm and Valeri Nichushkin.

To be a rookie and performing like established veterans with good fantasy performances to their name is standing out. He is just starting to scratch the surface and he has the look of a Mark Scheifele-type fantasy performer moving forward, if not even better. (mar10)

2. Is there any fantasy value left on the Hawks after completely tearing it down? Besides Seth Jones, who the Hawks would trade if they didn’t sign him to that unsightly contract shortly after trading for him, no Blackhawk is rostered in more than 10% of Yahoo leagues. Yet as the games start to matter more in fantasy leagues, the amount of worthwhile options increases.

After Jones, Taylor Raddysh is the next-highest scorer left on the Hawks, even though he has not cracked the 30-point mark yet. Andreas Athanasiou is also an option. From a pure points-per-game rate, Lukas Reichel might be the player to grab. Over his spurts of NHL time, former first-round pick Reichel has six points in nine games, and more recently he’s been added to the first-unit power play. He’s also been playing on a line with… ah, it doesn’t matter with what's left on the Hawks. You can look it up on Frozen Tools if you really need to know. With Patrick Kane, Max Domi, and Sam Lafferty all traded before the deadline, Reichel should be in the NHL to stay. (mar11)

3. John Gibson stopped 34 of 35 shots against the Flames last Friday to earn his sixth quality start over his last seven games. This was hardly his busiest game, though, as he’s also faced 55, 53, and 43 shots in three other games during this run. In other words, no goalie has faced more shots over that span than Gibson (319 SA in eight GP). He’s also been solid over that span with a .928 SV%. You’d also have to go back a full month to February 12 to Gibson’s most recent really bad start. He’s also recorded four wins over his past six games, so he’s actually been getting the job done for fantasy teams that have rolled the dice on him. (mar11)

4. Jonathan Huberdeau is now on pace to finish with 15 goals. I saw a question earlier this week of someone asking whether it’s time to drop him in fantasy pools. I didn’t think it would come to this, but he might be droppable in shallower leagues if you think you can find an option that can score at better than a 0.67 PTS/GP pace. But before you do, let me provide you with one more reason not to drop Huberdeau or even any of the fading Flames. From Sportsnet Stats: Flames have the NHL’s easiest strength of season for the remainder of the season. Their opponents have a 0.503 points %. (mar11)

5. With Alex Tuch out of the Buffalo lineup, the team had been going with Jack Quinn alongside Tage Thompson in recent games. The acquisition of Jordan Greenway raised some eyebrows, given Greenway’s history with Buffalo coach Don Granato, and the raised-eyebrow people had reason as the deadline addition was moved to the top line for Thursday’s game against Dallas he scored with 15 minutes of ice time.

We will see how long the deployment lasts but it’s very notable for Greenway given his very stout hit totals. If he can add even moderate scoring to that, it’s a huge improvement for his fantasy profile. (mar10)

6. The injury update on forward Kirill Kaprizov wasn't awful, but it wasn't great, either: 3-4 weeks with a lower body injury. At time of writing on Friday, we were 38 days from the start of the playoffs, so if all goes well, he could be back with a handful of games left in the season.

They do have a 10-point cushion on Calgary, the ninth-place team in the Conference. Kaprizov has been Minnesota’s best skater this year, and the hope is he’s good to go by the end of the month. The distance they’ve built up on the bottom half of the West should help them get to the playoffs, though seeding becomes a bit more uncertain.

This obviously has a lot of impacts in the fantasy game beyond just the loss of Kaprizov himself. He is a big part of the success of Mats Zuccarello, skating together at all offensive strengths for the most part. Minnesota’s power play has had its ups and downs and now loses a key cog of the attack. Players like Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy lose a dual threat with the man advantage. Perhaps this is what finally gets Boldy to the top line and 20 minutes a night, but at a heavy cost. Newcomer Marcus Johansson, given his usage in Washington, could be an option to replace Kaprizov on the power play. I imagine we’ll see a few different looks, though. Maybe an AHL call-up; perhaps someone whose rhymes with Rarco Mossi? (mar10)

7. Tyson Foerster, Philadelphia’s first-round pick from 2020, made his NHL debut last Thursday. It is the Flyers, and it is John Tortorella, so keep expectations extremely in check here, but it’s nice to see him get the call as the team winds down their season and figures out who stays for next year. (mar10)

8. Perhaps the least-discussed injury of the season is that of Washington defenceman John Carlson. He hasn’t played since Christmas thanks to a puck to the head, and that put a strain on the entire lineup.

Up until his injury, Washington was 13^th by expected goal share at 5-on-5, 14^th by overall goal share and ahead of teams like Seattle, Minnesota, Edmonton, Florida, Ottawa, and Los Angeles, and 15^th by points percentage. Since he left the lineup, the team is 20^th by expected goal share, 20^th by actual goal share, and 26^th by points percentage.

The above despite getting back players like Tom Wilson, Nicklas Backstrom, and TJ Oshie. The good news is Carlson was in a non-contact jersey at practice this past week. He clearly still has some time to go before he returns but if Washington has any hope of turning the ship around and getting to the postseason, they’ll need him back ASAP. Until then, Rasmus Sandin is close to a must-own in the fantasy game. (mar9)

9. The Senators had some bad news about goalie Cam Talbot last week: Out for three weeks. The Sens already have Anton Forsberg on the shelf so now they’re down to their organizational depth in net until the end of the month.

Considering they’re in a tight playoff race, this isn’t good news. Fantasy owners should check for Mads Sogaard to see if he’s on the wire because he might get some run in net now. The downside to that is their upcoming schedule: In Calgary today, Edmonton on Tuesday, then home against Colorado and Toronto. Good luck with all that, streamers. (mar9)

10. As I have been doing all season long in these Ramblings, it is time for a check-in on certain stats. There are a number of resources I use, among them our own Frozen Tools and Natural Stat Trick. Also among them is the tracking data kept by Corey Sznajder. He hand-tracks hundreds of games every year in a variety of stats that are not kept publicly, but are useful for fantasy.

The one that keeps getting mentioned here is Scoring Chance Contributions per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (SCC/60). That is simply adding a player’s individual scoring chances, their assists on a teammate’s scoring chance, and adding them together for a 60-minute rate. Generally speaking, it helps separate players who are driving offence from those that are just along for the ride. Players who drive offence can sustain their play year after year, and finding those guys is valuable.

For now, we are just going to look at forwards, and we’re going to look at changes since we last looked at this on Valentine’s Day. Clear? Great. Follow the link for the goods on Mitch Marner, Connor McDavid, Casey Mittelstadt, Logan Couture, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Cody Glass. (mar9)

11. It's good to see young players like Kent Johnson, Liam Foudy, and Emil Bemstrom in Columbus. The Blue Jackets have incredible depth on the back-end (albeit a very young system) and they will be adding a top centre in the next Entry Draft come this summer. This team should turn around quickly, and now may be the time to buy in on Elvis Merzlikins and/or Daniil Tarasov, as that will likely be the goaltending tandem moving forward. They’re relatively cheap to acquire now, and should provide quicker returns than most rebuild/resets. (mar8)

12. The Devils check all the boxes of a championship team, but since the mid-point of the season, they’re starting to come undone again because of their goaltending. If Vitek Vanecek can’t get back to his first-half numbers, then come playoff time this team is going to be eliminated by a group with a worse skater core.

Vanecek tailed off after about game #30 last year, too, and we see that a lot with goalies that haven’t been volume starters yet in their careers. I would bet that to close out the year we get more of the latter half performances than ones that look like his early-season games. (mar8)

13. Acquired at the Trade Deadline, Connor Mackey had two points in three games for the Yotes entering Saturday. He has long been someone on my watch list, and I do think Calgary should have given him a better shot before trading him.

He doesn’t shoot a ton, but he gets points, takes penalties, hits, and adds a couple blocks for good measure. He’s very well rounded and should get a great trial run to close out the year. 

I am mad that in one of my leagues my moves leading up to the trade deadline left me with so little cap space that I wasn’t even able to add Mackey and his $912,500 cap hit a couple of days ago when I looked into it. (mar8)

14. Evan Bouchard is someone that overall I'm not worried about. He has the top-power play spot in Edmonton locked up and is now playing around 20 minutes a night. On a playoff-bound team with positioning still to play for at this point, the Oilers shouldn’t be taking things easy at this stage either.

At time or writing, Bouchard’s hit rate was up this year, his PIM rate down and he should see an uptick in IPP, though most of the underlying numbers are reasonable. The subtraction of Barrie also has the added effect of freeing up a higher percentage of offensive zone starts for Bouchard, while Mattias Ekholm is more capable of neutralizing threats in the defensive end to provide a higher quantity of them, too. In any standard league size or bigger, I'm holding onto Bouchard, but as always, it depends on who else is available. (mar8)

15. Mattias Samuelsson has fought injuries this year and that’s made his performance a bit inconsistent. He doesn’t turn 23 years old until next week, though, so there’s more development to come. He already has the look of a very good multi-cat fantasy defenceman and that should only get better moving forward. (mar7)

16. Toronto losing Ryan O’Reilly is a very interesting development. He can hopefully return for the playoffs, but they traded Pierre Engvall, who was likely their best bottom-6 forward. That had forced the team to put O’Reilly on the third line. With Engvall in New York, and O’Reilly hurt, it’s now Sam Lafferty's chance to prove that the Leafs going out to get him was the right line to take this season. Let’s see what he does with it. (mar7)

17. It appears that Ivan Barbashev is just what the doctor ordered for Jack Eichel. The two are clicking and (entering Saturday) Barbashev had five points in six games since the trade. If I’m his agent, I re-sign with Vegas for a discount. At least for a year or two. Pad those stats and get the massive contract next time. If you thought 60 points was a breakout for Barbashev – wait until (if) he gets a full season on the Eichel line. (mar6)

18. Keep an eye on Jesper Boqvist of New Jersey. As he approaches his breakout threshold, I’m starting to see his name on the scoresheet more often: 11 points in his last 19 games (entering Saturday action). Not great numbers, but still – prior to that he had 38 in 154 games (0.24). Upside is in the middle-six, so not a first-liner, but he had been looking like a bit of a bust. (mar6)

19. Watching the Trade Deadline unfold brought some exciting trades but also some underwhelming performances from the GMs of a few franchises. It did get me thinking about a couple lessons that could be applied to fantasy hockey.

The first one is this: you don’t have to win every trade.

In fact, there are trades you should lose, even on purpose. What is meant by that is that it’s not necessary to extract every bit of value out of every trade in order to help your fantasy roster. If a fantasy owner has a team in second place in a keeper league, and they need to bolster their wingers, they may have to lose the trade in the long term to win in the short term. Maybe a top prospect like Yaroslav Askarov or Alex Holtz is necessary, along with some draft picks, to acquire even a mid-level fantasy talent like Chris Kreider or Claude Giroux. Personally, if I feel I have a chance to win a fantasy title, all options are on the table. If I don’t need an Askarov or a Holtz to win this year, they are available. Long-term, Askaraov-plus-picks would likely be much more valuable than Giroux, but the latter is much more valuable to a fantasy roster this season than that entire trade package. Moves like that are losers in the long run but can help attain a championship this year. Flags fly forever, as they say, and being unwilling to lose a trade to push for a championship is something fantasy owners do far too often. (mar7)

20. The second lesson is to not nibble at the edges.

Far too many teams come out of the trade deadline adding a third-line winger and a number-6 defenceman and think they’ve done something to bolster the roster. Fantasy leagues will vary in what owners will ask in a trade, and hopefully it wouldn’t take Askarov-plus-picks to get someone like Kreider, but at least he could make an impact on a fantasy roster. In the real NHL, just look at what Pittsburgh and Calgary did at the deadline, which is basically nothing. Adding Mikael Granlund and Nick Ritchie, respectively, does not move the needle. Boston going out and getting Tyler Bertuzzi and Dmitry Orlov does move the needle. Similarly in the fantasy realm, if a trade is going to be made, and it’s from a trailing position in the standings, go get someone that can have a significant impact on the roster. It’ll cost more in a trade but the whole point is to improve the roster to maximize its capability down the stretch. Acquiring ancillary pieces like a bench centre or a fourth goalie is not the route to take unless it’s simply shoring up the depth of a fantasy roster that’s in first place anyway. (mar7)

21. Reminder: Our DFS subscription is now on sale for $74.99 until the playoffs. That's right: 25% off! Order it here!

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Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

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