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

—

1. If you needed assists in your head-to-head fantasy playoffs (and who hasn’t?), Miro Heiskanen has delivered. He’s riding a 10-game point streak with 17 points over that span. At time of writing, no defenseman had more points than Heiskanen since March 1. He’s getting hot at the right time, vaulting into the top 10 in scoring among defensemen in the process. It’s also fair to say that the departure of John Klingberg has helped Heiskanen’s value, as he has more than doubled his career high in power-play points with 25 PPP this season. (mar17)

2. The points keep on coming for Tommy Novak. He now has 19 points over his last 15 games, and 30 points in 36 games this season. The trades and injuries in Nashville seem to have benefitted Novak, who is regularly receiving first-unit power-play time. I’m just not sure this is sustainable, as Novak is shooting 19.7% when he shot just 4% last season. Still, this is a case of riding the hot hand, so he’s worth an add in many formats. As of last Thursday morning: 8% Yahoo/32% Fantrax. (mar17)

3. I’ll bet you didn’t think the Flames’ leading scorer at this point of the season would be Tyler Toffoli. Yet here we are after 70 games and Toffoli is Calgary’s leader in both goals (28) and points (61), the point total being a new career high. In a season where other Flames’ top-tier options are having a down season, Toffoli has a career-best point pace (0.87 PTS/GP). (mar17)

4. Pavel Buchnevich has an 11-game point streak. Over that span, he has recorded 19 points (7 G, 12 A), including a hat trick in his previous game on Wednesday. Because he’s experienced multiple injury stoppages this season and also the Blues’ struggles, Buchnevich perhaps isn’t receiving the credit for the kind of season that he is having.

Yet, among all players entering Saturday, Buchnevich was in the top 20 in points per game (1.17 PTS/GP), ahead of the likes of Brayden Point, Kirill Kaprizov, Auston Matthews, Artemi Panarin, and Aleksander Barkov. His 21.3 SH% seemed a little high, so don’t be surprised if there’s a bit of regression the rest of the way. (mar18)

5. Jakub Vrana has five points in six games since coming to St. Louis. Like Blais, His value has improved with a move to the Blues. Whenever a team decides to sell, there are always going to be players that pick up the slack, whether they have been waiting in the system for their opportunity or were acquired when other key pieces were moved out. It seems safe to add Vrana again. On Saturday, he was 28% rostered in Yahoo but 50% rostered in Fantrax. (mar18)

6. As a result of Jordan Binnington‘s suspension, Joel Hofer received his first start of the season on Friday. He stopped 32 of 34 shots he faced in the Blues’ 5-2 win over Washington. The Blues play again on Sunday, so I wonder if Craig Berube decides to give Hofer another go after his quality start or if veteran backup Thomas Greiss is given the nod. The 22-year-old Hofer has posted solid AHL numbers this season (2.50 GAA, .920 SV%), so he should receive consideration for the backup job behind Binnington next season. (mar18)

7. Owen Tippett has hit the 20-goal mark for the first time in his career. He seemed buried under a ton of other players in Florida last season, so the trade to Philadelphia has boosted his value. He’s been a regular top-6 option for the Flyers while also working his way onto the top power-play unit as well. At time of writing, Tippett was leading the Flyers with 186 shots, averaging three shots per game. (mar18)

8. Two interesting stats with Victor Olofsson: 1) He recently ended an 11-game point drought, and 2) He has a very Cy Young Award-like 26-9 statline. No player with as many goals as Olofsson has as few assists, although Cole Caufield posted a very similar 26-10 line before his season-ending injury. As you might expect, Olofsson’s shooting percentage (17.8%) seems likely to fall, while his secondary assist percentage (22.2%) could easily improve. (mar18)

9. Remember when Filip Chytil was the hottest waiver-wire pickup of the week? Late this past week, he was getting dropped everywhere. Entering Friday action, Chytil was without a point in seven consecutive games and without a goal in 17 consecutive games. 'Kid line' mates Kaapo Kakko (0 PTS in last 5 GP) and Alexis Lafreniere (0 PTS in last 4 GP) were also on the Frozen Tools cold list. The future should be bright or at least better for all three, but for poolies, this isn’t the time of year to be waiting on players to turn it around. (mar17)

10. Sidney Crosby assisted twice on Thursday, which gave him 83 points on the season. That assured him of the 18th point-per-game season of his career. Only Wayne Gretzky has more (19). As an added bonus, Crosby has not missed a game this season, which is something we are not used to. (mar17)

11. One thing Montreal made it a priority to do under the new management regime is load up the blue line. Justin Barron a key piece of the Artturi Lehkonen trade, they grabbed Jonathan Kovacevic off waivers (more on him later), they traded for Mike Matheson, and brought in Arber Xhekaj (and there's still Lane Huston in college). Add in the young guys like Jordan Harris and Kaiden Guhle, and the re-tool of the blue line is taking shape. To further this, the Habs signed their 2019 second-round pick defenceman Jayden Struble.

Because of his age and contract limits, his two-year ELC starts in 2023-24 and there is no entry-level slide, according to Cap Friendly. While he will start in the AHL for now, it means that whether he’s in the NHL or AHL next season, the team is burning a year of ELC status. It should be noted that Montreal has nine defencemen signed for 2023-24, Struble makes 10, plus the prospect pool. Struble has a hill to climb if he wants to earn regular minutes next campaign, and there’s still the matter of the quality of the team. Do not expect much fantasy value for a while. His Dobber Prospects profile is here. (mar16)

12. In continuing the theme of my Ramblings earlier this week focusing on defencemen, we’re going to look at some scoring chance data. This will come from Corey Sznajder’s tracking data, the source of a lot of micro-stats some people might see floating around social media like controlled zone entries and scoring chance assists.

Back in January, we looked at some defencemen by scoring chance contributions per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. That is simply adding an individual’s scoring chances to assists on a teammate’s scoring chance, on a 60-minute basis. Clear? Wonderful. Let’s look at some improvements over the last seven weeks, as well as just the overall leaders. For example:

Rasmus Ristolainen: I would read a 5000-word breakdown on the changes in Ristolainen’s game from his first nine seasons compared to his 2022-23 performance under John Tortorella. Per Evolving Hockey, he had never had a positive impact on overall expected goals at even strength until this season, had never had a positive impact on expected goals against at even strength, and had never had a positive impact on actual goals against at even strength. All three are happening this season. It is far from his best fantasy season, and it's unlikely he ever reaches those highs of 2015-2019 again unless he’s running a team’s top power play, but there were questions of how long he might actually last in the league. Well, he’s having a legitimately good season, and he’s also seen the biggest improvement in SCC/60 at 5-on-5 since our last check-in. it is now nearly a league-average rate. Whatever some people (including me) think of Torts as a coach, resurrecting Risto’s career is an accomplishment.

Follow the link for more… (mar16)

13. Quick note that Ivan Barbashev now has eight points in 10 games for the Golden Knights, while averaging around two shots and hits per game. Linemate Jonathan Marchessault has 10 points and 2.5 shots per game in that same span. They’re working well as a pair centering Jack Eichel at the moment. (mar15)

14. When a player resurrects their career at the age of 28 to not only ensure their future in the NHL, but to be a top-end fantasy option, it’s worth noting. At time of writing early last week, Brandon Montour was sitting at 14.03 shot attempts/60 on the year, which had him 10^th in our sample. With 192 shots, he had already surpassed his prior career high of 181 through 82 games in 2018-19, and Florida had 15 games left. The power-play points are obviously a big key here, but this makes five straight seasons of increasing shot rates from Montour. Going from an after-thought to one of the top per-minute shooters in a span of three years is simply a remarkable turnaround.

The big question is what to do moving forward. Montour has one year left after this one and then he’s a free agent. Does he play another 100 regular season games for Florida, or is he off elsewhere? There should be questions about his assist totals, but as long as he skates 24 minutes a night with PP1 time, there isn’t much reason to assume a crash in fantasy value. (mar14)

15. It's a lot of fun to watch certain hockey players and Arber Xhekaj is certainly one of them. He shoots, he hits, he scores, he fights. It’s awesome. He hasn’t played in over a month, though, so we could be forgiven for not remembering everything he brought to the table. Yes, he was physical, but he also came in 16^th on our list of 176 defencemen by shot attempt rate at 13.02, settling between Jacob Trouba and Victor Hedman. He didn’t get much ice time at 15:16 a night, and it’s partly why he posted just 1.5 shots per game. The other part is the same problem as Skjei, which is hitting the net: Xhekaj missed on over 55% of his shot attempts (league average is about 52.7%). It might not sound like a lot, but even at 15 minutes a night, it’s an extra shot every 10 games. If he were ever to get more ice time, that effect is magnified.

Like many of the Montreal skaters this year, Xhekaj’s future with the team is uncertain. He didn’t have much overlap with Mike Matheson, and every Habs defenceman is under contract for at least one more year. For right now, it’s hard to see him having much more fantasy value than he had in his 51 games in 2021-22, but extended for a full season. Like many of the Montreal skaters this year, though, this is a long-term project and meager point totals should keep his cap hit low for many years to come. Rejoice, you multi-cat cap leaguers. (mar14)

16. Wrapping up his first season in a Dallas uniform, Nils Lundkvist has been a healthy scratch at times recently as the team marches towards the postseason, and that’s not a great sign. However, with the defence Jani Hakanpaa can provide, Ryan Suter‘s veteran presence (i.e. contract), and the lineup staples, Lundkvist was always going to fight for a bottom-of-the-roster role unless he took a massive leap forward in his development.

On the bright side, he still got lots of experience this season, should get more games by the end of the campaign, and there are good signs here. For example, at time of writing early last week, Evolving Hockey had his even strength expected goals for impact at the top of all Dallas defencemen, and in the 73^rd percentile across the league. His shot attempt rate (12.08/60) was right on the border of a standard deviation above the league average, and exceedsed names like Rasmus Dahlin and Josh Morrissey. Unfortunately, the team was shooting 7.5% with him on the ice, last among all Dallas defencemen by a good margin (Suter was next-lowest at 8.5%). His playmaking skills aren’t up to par yet but there are signs of life here. Give him a couple seasons to really settle in. (mar14)

17. The Rangers got a great deal on acquiring Patrick Kane (since, I’m guessing, Kane left Chicago with no other choice). But I worried that Kane’s possession metrics wouldn’t fix themselves on a new team and that he would disrupt New York’s chemistry. He also has a skill set that they didn’t need. But…how can they turn down a chance to get Kane for so cheap? They couldn’t. And honestly it feels like they are worse with him than they would be without him. He’s a square peg and they are trying to jam him into a round hole. He still has sublime offensive talent, but can the coach give protected minutes to both him and Vladimir Tarasenko?

It’s hard to say that if the Rangers lose it will be Kane’s fault – or even that it would be the fault of management for acquiring him (since they had little choice). But I didn’t like this fit for the Rangers when the trade went down and I don’t like it now. I like it ‘instead of Tarasenko’ but not ‘along with Tarasenko’. (mar13)

18. The Bruins are hoping that Tyler Bertuzzi turns out to be a better answer for the Patrice Bergeron line than Jake DeBrusk. I don’t think this situation is something that will be resolved before the playoffs, so you can probably expect each to see stints there as we head down the stretch. Whoever wins the role for the postseason would be a pretty great dark horse pick for playoff pools. (mar13)

19. Pavel Dorofeyev was recalled by the Golden Knights early last week and plunked on a line with William Karlsson and Reilly Smith. He picked up his first career NHL goal and assist – both at ES and both with his linemates in on the tally. Dorofeyev is the second best forward prospect in Vegas’ system (by fantasy standards) and he moved up in this month’s top 200 prospects at forward, published on the 16th. (mar13)

20. Barrett Hayton and Clayton Keller are really starting to click now. Early last week, Hayton had eight points in his last four games. And…I had him on my bench. Yippee! (mar13)

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

—

Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

Thanks for continuing to support the website and if you’re bored and need a fantasy hockey fix – visit the gang in the forum here.