Hey everyone. It isn’t my usual day but I’m filling in for Dobber on this last Monday of the regular season. We should be back to regularly scheduled Ramblings programming next week.

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One of the reasons the Minnesota Wild bought out the contracts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, taking a huge cap-hit penalty for a few seasons, was that they had some prospects they were hoping would have a huge impact on the NHL roster in short order. Matt Boldy has certainly done that, and he's earned a healthy contract extension because of it. Marco Rossi was expected to do the same, but under-performance early in the 2022-23 season has left him in the AHL. The trade of Kevin Fiala brought back a potential third player that fits this billing in Brock Faber, and the Wild signed the defenceman to a three-year contract on Sunday:

Locked in Brock! ✍️

We've signed defenseman Brock Faber to a three-year, entry level contract. #mnwild

— x – Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) April 9, 2023

Faber is from Minnesota, and played at the University of Minnesota, which makes this a nice little story. His Dobber Prospects profile is here.

The Wild have a full blue line and are scratching names like Alex Goligoski and Calen Addison with regularity. In that sense, we shouldn't expect much from Faber for the balance of this season even though he's set to report to the team today in Chicago. However, Matt Dumba and John Klingberg are free agents this summer and Goligoski is in his late-30s with a year left on his deal. A good training camp could see Faber with regular minutes in the NHL as soon as October. There are lots of bridges to cross before we get to that point but he'll have every opportunity to earn that role.

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On the topic of signees, Toronto made it official by adding University of Minnesota winger Matthew Knies:

I've been told Matthew Knies has signed his entry-level contract and is a Maple Leaf. @FriedgeHNIC first, not like it needed confirming.

— Joshua Kloke (@joshuakloke) April 9, 2023

The 20-year-old had 21 goals and 21 assists in 40 games this season and was drafted in the second round back in 2021. He goes to a Toronto team that has used a lot of different line combinations of late, and are locked into their playoff position. It'll be interesting to see if he gets any consideration for a playoff role.

Knies’s Dobber profile can be found here.

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The 2023 Dobber Playoff Draft List is now available in the Dobber Shop!

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The Boston Bruins set an NHL record with their 63^rd win of the season, taking a 5-3 victory in Philadelphia on Sunday night. David Pastrnak managed his third hat trick of the season, reaching 60 goals in a campaign for the first time in his career. He added an assist, which gives him 49 on the year and one away from his first 50-assist effort. He also had 10 total shots on target, giving up 396 in 2022-23, and four shots away from his first 400-shot plateau. Boston has two games left: Tuesday at home against Washington and Thursday in Montreal.

Pavel Zacha had a goal and an assist as he continues to add to his career year. Tyler Bertuzzi had three helpers and how has more assists (11) in 19 games with Boston than he did in 29 games with Detroit.

Jeremy Swayman saved 34 of 37 shots in the win. His save percentage remains at .921 on the season.

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Last week, we had a pair of Ramblings discussing underlying changes among defencemen. The first talked about improvements (or declines) in Scoring Chance Contributions per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (SCC/60) while the second went over blue liners who saw a jump in PPTOI. Today, we're going to stick with the power play, but looking at changes in shot rates from individual defencemen.

As usual, data will be from our Frozen Tools or Natural Stat Trick, unless otherwise indicated. In order to compare the changes, we will limit ourselves to blue liners with at least 50 minutes of 5-on-4 TOI in each of the last two seasons. That will exclude rookies and players who've had significant injuries. We are also going to exclude defencemen who've been discussed in my recent Ramblings like Miro Heiskanen, Brandon Montour, Adam Boqvist, and Calen Addison.

For a reference, here are the top-10 positive changes in shot attempt rate at 5-on-4 from last year to this one:

Again, we aren't going to review them all, but there are many names of interest. Also, a high shot rate from a defenceman doesn't mean the team has a good power play, but it does speak to their goal-scoring upside (Victor Hedman is the prime example here). Numbers are as of the morning of Saturday, April 8^th.

Justin Faulk

The power play was once a strength of the St. Louis Blues: from 2019-22, they were 2^nd in the league in goals/60 minutes at 5-on-4, trailing only Edmonton, and 8% higher than third-place Carolina. Injuries, trades, and free agency have thinned out the roster tremendously, and it's why St. Louis is 18^th in goals per 60 minutes this season with the man advantage. It has forced some changes to their approach as well, and it's probably why Faulk saw the biggest per-60 increase in shot attempt rate of any defenceman in our sample. However, he shot so little on the power play last year that the largest shot increase still doesn't even push him into the top-half of PP defencemen.

The additional shots have helped him to two (2) PP goals, which is more than the one (1) he's posted in each of the last three seasons. He isn't particularly efficient, as he's in the middle of the league in shooting percentage by a defenceman at 5-on-4 since 2016-17. Torey Krug should still be the top guy but if Faulk is shooting more on the PP, it should help his all-around peripherals, if not his PP production.

Aaron Ekblad

Despite Montour adding a ton of PPTOI, sometimes to his partner's detriment, Ekblad still has 17 PPPs in 67 games this season. It is a drop from a year ago, but still being on pace for 21 PPPs while running a 3F/2D PP1 is a very good sign for his fantasy future. We have some safety that even in that setup, as long as the team has its talented forwards, he can be a 20 PPP guy in a full season.

That also understates the shot improvements Ekblad made. He added 6.5 shot attempts per 60 minutes with the man advantage, the fourth-largest increase in our sample. Unlike Faulk, though, Ekblad was already shooting a lot, and that means his shot attempt rate for 2022-23 exceeds even names like Jakob Chychrun and Dougie Hamilton. Also, unlike Faulk, Ekblad has been efficient in his career, shooting 11% with the man advantage since 2016, compared to Faulk's 7.4%. As long as he's at least one of the two defencemen on the top PP unit, he will always threaten 20 PPPs, and can do so while threatening 10 power-play goals. It would be nice to see his hit/block rates tick up as well, but c'est la vie.

John Klingberg

There isn't much of a requirement to feed a fed horse here. Klingberg is on the backside of his career and the defensive metrics, which were never a strength, are now a severe liability. However, he is one of seven defencemen to add at least 6.0 shot attempts per 60 minutes at 5-on-4 compared to 2021-22, and leads all defencemen in shot attempt rate on the power play at 31.2 per 60 minutes. He and Roman Josi (30.6) are the only two above 28.5 shot attempts/60 minutes. However, he's only shooting 6.5% and that's limited him to just two PP goals on 31 shots. We could blame Anaheim, but Klingberg shot just 5.2% with the man advantage over his final three years in Dallas. This is not an Ekblad-esque shooter. This is a worse-than-Faulk-esque shooter.

It is tough to see Klingberg having much fantasy value again without an Erik Karlsson-type of resurgence. He just seems to be reaching the Keith Yandle portion of his career.

Shayne Gostisbehere

A guy who is not reaching the limits of his career is Gostisbehere. After being shoved out of the franchise by the Flyers, Gostisbehere has posted the same points/60 as Rasmus Andersson despite playing most of those games for the Arizona Coyotes. He added nearly four shot attempts/60 minutes at 5-on-4 in 2022-23, finishing well inside the 80^th percentile among all blue liners. He has five PPPs in 19 games since joining the Carolina Hurricanes.

Gostisbehere is a free agent after the season but is turning 30 years old later this summer. A lot will depend on where he lands. Maybe he signs somewhere that could use his talents like Vegas, St. Louis, or New Jersey. However, even if he lands in a good spot like that, is he going to get the minutes he got in Arizona or the minutes he's getting in Carolina? Even on a much better roster, he needs more than 17-18 minutes a night for good fantasy value. It will be interesting to follow where he lands because there is a lot of upside here in the right spot.  

That covers some of the increase shot rates. What about the guys who went the other direction and saw shot declines? Here are the 10 largest drops from 2021-22:

There are a lot of high-end fantasy names to discuss here. Let's go through some of them.

Hampus Lindholm

It has been an up-and-down season for Lindholm, fantasy-wise. Early in the year, when Charlie McAvoy was injured, Boston's big acquisition in 2022 went on a tear: 13 points in 13 games leading to McAvoy's return. Since that point, Lindholm has 38 points in 63 games. Overall, it's a wonderful fantasy season, but it has been uneven. On top of all this, Lindhom's shot rate on the power play more than halved. He is not a PP sniper, so it's not a huge deal for him, but 17 shots in 180 minutes of TOI does not indicate that he could be a burgeoning PP star next season.

There is also the question of McAvoy. He hasn't been able to get much run on the top PP unit with Lindholm around, and the trade for Dmitry Orlov, but there is that option. It is reminiscent of the Brandon Montour–Aaron Ekblad situation in Florida: injury led to another option getting a lot of top PP run and it has cut into Ekblad's production. Lindholm is doing that to McAvoy right now, but is it going to stay that way next season, and the one after? That is a different question and there are concerns about Lindholm's fantasy value because of it.

Alex Pietrangelo

This one is kind of a double-edged sword. Pietrangelo has seen a huge shot decline and it's translated to 0.28 PP shots per game against 0.45 in 2021-22. That may not sound like a huge deal but over an 82-game season, it's 14 fewer PP shots. They tend to be some of the most valuable shots any skater will take, so a double-digit decline is a big deal.

However, Pietrangelo has run into a big shooting percentage problem. He shot 10.2% at 5-on-4 from 2016-17 through 2019-20 in St. Louis. That ranked 11^th among 64 defencemen with at least 400 minutes with the man advantage, or easily inside the 80^th percentile. In the three seasons since he got to Vegas, though, things have been much worse: shooting 4.4% at 5-on-4, a mark that ranks 42^nd of 53 qualified blue liners in that span, or the 20^th percentile. Are they sure they want Pietrangelo taking a lot of PP shots, anyway?

(Just FYI: Shea Theodore has a virtually identical shooting percentage over the last three years to Pietrangelo at 4.5%. It should come as no surprise that Vegas is 21^st in goals/60 over the last three seasons. This is a team thing.)

To kind of hammer home the point about wanting Pietrangelo to shoot less, the team is scoring 7.3 goals/60 with him on the ice this season at 5-on-4. It isn't a great mark, but it's 45% higher than last year, and more than double his mark in the Bubble 2021 season. The team is also generating more shots on the man advantage with Pietrangelo on the ice than they ever have. Maybe the shot drop is bad (in a way) for Pietrangelo but good for the team?

Josh Morrissey

Like Lindholm, it has been an up-and-down year for Morrissey. He started the season legitimately in the Norris Trophy conversation, posting 39 points in 34 games leading to Christmas. He had 14 power-play points in that stretch, too. For comparison, he had 15 PPPs the year before in 79 games, so, putting up 14 in 34 contests was a blistering start. He also had another real good stretch from late-January to early-March, posting 16 points in 13 games.

Morrissey has put up a lot of PP assists (25) but has just two PP goals this season. That is down from six a year ago, and three in 59 games back in 2018-19. A big reason is having just 24 shots on goal at 5-on-4 this season in 74 games played, compared to 40 a year ago in the same number of games. A drop in shooting percentage combined with a drop in shot rate will do a number on goal totals.

That Morrissey is still putting up PPPs is what largely matters, but he does have just four such points in his last 21 games. He has been shooting more of late as the PP has declined. Is this another guy who should take the Pietrangelo route for the betterment of the team?

Quinn Hughes

One of the 2022 offseason's hot fantasy topics was whether Hughes was going to make good on his intent to shoot more. Well, he has, in a manner: he is managing 0.06 more shots per 60 minutes than 2021-22. That has led to two (2) more shots than he would have if he had the same shots/60 this season as he did last season. Improvement!

Jokes aside, Hughes is shooting less on the power play than he ever has and saw a big decline from a year ago. Considering his three-year shooting percentage at 5-on-4 going into this season was 2.7%, maybe not a bad idea. It hasn't helped the team score more on the PP, though, so maybe the "shoot more" thing should be revisited over the summer?

Of all the shot drops, Hughes is the guy we should worry about the least. He is a proven, high-end puck-moving defenceman and the core PP guys should be around for a while.