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 cap-strapped Vegas Golden Knights attempted their own Nikita Kucherov salary cap strategy, activating Mark Stone just in time for the playoffs. Prior to the playoffs, Stone hadn’t played since mid-January due to a lingering back issue. In Game 2, when the Golden Knights needed a win to avoid heading to Winnipeg down 0-2, Stone delivered with two goals, an assist, a plus-2, five shots, and four hits. Stone played with a lot of energy, which might dispel any rumblings that he is not quite 100%. 

The playoffs are a hard slog, which makes a recurrence of Stone's injury more likely the further Vegas goes into the playoffs. Stone’s ability to remain healthy during the playoffs could go a long way in determining his potential fantasy value for next season. As it stands, he is very much a wild card who can score at a near point-per-game pace. It’s not impossible for a player of Stone’s age (30) to overcome a significant injury and be productive (Erik Karlsson is a recent example), but Stone has played in roughly half of his team’s games over the past two seasons, making him difficult to rely on. At the very least, it's nice to see Stone back. (apr21)

Still with the Golden Knights, in just his second career NHL playoff game, Jack Eichel scored his first-ever playoff goal. Eichel only needed to play in 476 regular-season games before appearing in his first playoff game this season. (apr21)

2. Because of all the Carolina injuries up front (Andrei Svechnikov, Teuvo Teravainen, and do we count Max Pacioretty?), Jack Drury was moved up to a line with Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis in Game 3 against the NY Islanders. Drury hadn’t been a regular with the Hurricanes throughout the season, but in spite of not scoring a point in this series, he has logged at least 15 minutes in back-to-back games.

3. Patrice Bergeron was out again for the Bruins in Game 3, but he is expected back for Game 5. Bergeron was reportedly injured during the final regular-season game, which is ironic since the Bruins were resting numerous players down the stretch. Teams that have clinched playoff positions and seeding will continue to practice load management, which is all the more reason to finish your fantasy league’s season a week or two before the NHL season ends.

David Krejci also missed that game with an upper-body injury, which elevated Charlie Coyle to a spot in the top 6. Coyle scored a goal while taking five shots, so he might be a good short-term pickup in playoff pools that allow adds.

Taylor Hall wasn’t in the top 6, but he’s been scoring in the playoffs anyway. Hall’s scoring fell off considerably this season from a 62-point pace to a 48-point pace over 82 games, while his shot rate, power-play time, and overall icetime only decreased slightly. The Bruins have the kind of depth to keep the former Hart Trophy winner in a secondary scoring role.

4. If you need a crash course in what the Florida goaltending situation will look like next season, Sergei Bobrovsky has three more years left on his $10 million per year contract, while former first-round pick Spencer Knight will be vying for his opportunity. Alex Lyon, who is a UFA at season’s end, is stating his case for an NHL job somewhere next season. A number of teams will be considering him for at least a backup role.

5. As Chris Kane pointed out in the most recent Frozen Tools Forensics, Mats Zuccarello, who has points in all three games thus far against Dallas, slumped mightily during the fantasy playoffs with Kirill Kaprizov out of the lineup. Kaprizov has returned, which means that Zuccarello is back in business. Without Kaprizov, Zuccarello scored at a 47-point pace in 2019-20, his first season with Minnesota. Yet since Kaprizov arrived in Minny, Zuccarello has scored at 82-game paces of 68, 93, and 70 points. A completely different player.

Still with the Wild, Joel Eriksson Ek‘s return was short-lived, as he played just 19 seconds before leaving Game 3. He most likely re-aggravated his (undisclosed) injury and may be doubtful for Game 4 and likely beyond that – he was being evaluated on Saturday.

6. With Kevin Fiala still out of the lineup, Game 1 overtime hero Alex Iafallo is back on the Kings' first power play. Fiala missed the bulk of the final quarter of the season, which is when Iafallo posted his highest quarterly power-play total (4 PPP). Iaffalo was a regular on the Kings’ top power play before the Kings traded for Fiala last offseason, but he has never reached double-digit power-play points in his career. That’s probably why he was the odd man out on PP1 when Fiala arrived.

7. After leading the league last season with 26 power-play goals, Chris Kreider fell to just eight power-play goals this season. Kreider fell from 52 goals last season to 36 this season, but so far, he has been as hot as any goal scorer in the playoffs. Kreider leads all players with five goals and has threaded the needle at least once in each of the three games against the Devils. (apr21)

8. For the first season and a half of his contract with Seattle, Philipp Grubauer appeared headed toward major bust territory. Yet when the calendar flipped to 2023, he managed to settle things down, posting a 14-7-3 record with a 2.53 GAA. His save percentage over that span was still around league average (.902 SV%), but he had a decent 61.5% quality start percentage over that span, as well. Grubauer will need to be better than average in stealing a game or two against his former team for Seattle to pull off the first-round upset. (apr21)

9. Buffalo had their end-of-year press conference and these can usually be kind of useless for fantasy purposes. The campaign has just finished, the Draft and Free Agency are months away, and teams may have coach/management upheaval in the meantime. It can make those mornings kind of fruitless even if it’s the last chance to really get insight on the team from management until those events in June and July.

We did get one interesting nugget from the Sabres’ clean-out, though, as Coach Don Granato said he'd be comfortable with a Devon Levi/Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen tandem next season.

Not that anyone expected Levi or Luukkonen to be kept off the roster, but it gives them a vote of confidence. I also wonder how the starts might go, and the leash each player may have. While I do think Levi is the goaltender of the future and has the clear inside track, this team clearly has the 2024 postseason in mind and the goalie that is playing better will likely get the net. That doesn’t guarantee a heavy workload for either. (apr20)

10. Last Tuesday, I started my offseason series of reviewing the fantasy seasons of each non-playoff team. That edition covered the Buffalo Sabres and today we’ll be moving to the Western Conference. We are going to touch on successes, failures, improvements, declines, and where the team goes from here. 

Easily one of the most interesting teams heading into the 2022-23 season was Calgary. In 2021-22, they won their division and advanced to the second round of the postseason. But then they fell flat in the Battle of Alberta, getting bounced in five games to Edmonton, and had a turbulent offseason. Johnny Gaudreau left for Columbus, Matthew Tkachuk was traded for Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar (among other pieces), and the team signed Nazem Kadri. All that upheaval led to 93 points and outside of the playoff picture in 2023. They also had no fantasy options that ended up as super-elite, unlike the season prior. (apr20)

11. So, let’s dissect the Flames' season a bit, from a fantasy perspective.

Successes: Though it’s tough to say a team with one (1) player in the top-75 fantasy options on Yahoo! had successes, there was at least one great fantasy season: Tyler Toffoli. He was the guy that finished top-75 on Yahoo!, coming in 42^nd overall, and in the neighbourhood of wingers like Artemi Panarin, Alex Ovechkin, and Kyle Connor. Considering he was very often drafted outside the top-120 players, or outside the first 10 rounds, finishing as a fourth-round value is a wild success for him.

Toffoli finished the campaign with career-highs in goals (34), assists (39), power-play points (25), shots on goal (268), and even hit a seven-year high in penalty minutes with 28. He also posted the highest shots/60 minutes of his career. Where most of his teammates underwhelmed, Toffoli finally had the full regular season fantasy performance that many fantasy players (at least me) had been waiting for years to see.

Mikael Backlund was also pretty good with a career-high 56 points, 260 shots, and 97 hits. The problem is he shot 7.3%, and that inefficiency is something we’ll discuss later. Regardless, a good fantasy season for him.

For the rest, please follow the link… (apr20)

12. I’ve spoken at length in the past about how high I am on K’Andre Miller, while Adam Fox was my pre-season Norris pick. With the forward core on the Rangers, there are enough points to share between the two, and even to trickle enough down to the others including Jacob Trouba and Ryan Lindgren. For Fox’s sake, it’s good that Ryan Lindgren is healthy again, as Fox struggled in the quarter of the season that Lindgren missed. (apr19)

13. Eeli Tolvanen scored the first playoff goal in Seattle Kraken history, doing what he does best: scoring goals, shooting the puck, and adding a few hits for good measure. The move to Seattle was necessary to kick-start his scoring, but like in Nashville, Tolvanen won’t hit his ceiling in Seattle’s spread-out offense. (apr19)

14. For anyone that may have missed it last weekend, the Dobber Panel put together its predictions. Editors and writers, as well as Dobber himself, put out their picks for each series, the Cup finalists, the Cup winner, and the Conn Smythe winner. Go check that out to see where our collective heads are at.

I am going to be honest here: I picked the Kings to win the West in our Dobber Panel picks, but did so before we found out Kevin Fiala and Gabriel Vilardi were going to be out for Game 1 (ed. note: Viladi returned for Game 2). Had I known that 24 hours earlier, I probably would have taken them to lose to the Oilers in the first round. (apr18)

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15. The Trade Deadline was on March 3 and I often look at the stats from that point forward, just to get a feel for how the roster changes league-wide impacted production. Some youngsters (usually on contenders) see less opportunity. Some youngsters (usually on non-playoff teams), suddenly see a whole lot more. Here are some interesting things that jumped out at me…

Dylan Strome had 25 points in his last 19 games. Trading away forwards Marcus Johansson and Lars Eller really opened things up for Strome.

Rasmus Sandin had 15 points in his last 19 games. But only three in the last 10 games after John Carlson returned. On one hand, that clearly shows that Sandin can and will be a productive fantasy player. On the other hand, at least for next season, his numbers will rely heavily on Carlson’s health. He’ll be a 30-35-point player if Carlson plays 82 games next year. But he’ll be a 55-point player if Carlson plays fewer than 40 games. (apr17)

16. Jared McCann had 24 points in his last 21 games. It looks to me as though in January or thereabouts, coach Dave Hakstol finally decided to treat McCann as the team’s best offensive option. Once Andre Burakovsky got injured, McCann’s ice time jumped from just over 15 minutes per game to well over 17:30 per game, with a PP time boost too. McCann is entering his prime and his second-half rate is quite sustainable, although maybe at 35 goals instead of 40. (apr17)

17. Tommy Novak finished with 21 points in 23 games after the deadline, with the Predators shipping off Mikael Granlund and Nino Niederreiter. Novak’s ice time promptly jumped to 17:18 per game down the stretch. With Filip Forsberg, Matt Duchene and Ryan Johansen set to return in the fall, Novak’s ice time could take a hit. But I think he has proven himself enough that those players will be fit back into the lineup around Novak, as opposed to instead of him. (apr17)

18. Casey Mittelstadt posted 21 points in 22 games after the Trade Deadline. The Sabres didn’t do much at the deadline, moving out Rasmus Asplund and bringing in Jordan Greenway. The big difference for Mittelstadt was moving up to play with Alex Tuch and Jeff Skinner, thanks to the Tage Thompson injury. He wasn’t nearly as productive without Victor Olofsson and Tyson Jost. He played with the latter two for 23.3% of his ES shifts and earned 18.6% of his ES points. But he played just 10.2% of his ES shifts with Skinner and Tuch, picking up a whopping 23.3% of his ES points. How things shake down next season will be interesting, as there is Dylan Cozens to consider as well. Cozens had 16 points in 22 games after the deadline. Prediction: Cozens and Mittelstadt take turns throughout 2023-24 with hot/cold streaks. In the end, Cozens will finish with more points because of his chemistry with JJ Peterka and Jack Quinn, who are themselves rising stars. (apr17)

19. Morgan Frost had 17 points in his last 20 games. The trade deadline had nothing to do with this, as the Flyers weren’t very active. But his chemistry with Owen Tippett really grew over time. And so did the admiration of coach John Tortorella, who early on wasn’t impressed with his work ethic. That’s history now, and Frost saw his ice time increase steadily over each quarter, peaking at 18:07 ATOI in the final month. Frost appears poised to top 60 points next season, and more to come after that. (apr17)

20. Ditto for Barrett Hayton, who similarly earned more ice time as the season went on, and he had 18 points in 21 games after the deadline. If Hayton continues to play with Clayton Keller, and I believe that will be the case, you can look for him to flirt with 70 points. Without Keller, this may be as low as 50.

Both Hayton and Frost were top prospects who many fantasy owners had soured on. But it’s another lesson in patience. Both young players enter their BT season next year, and it certainly looks good that they will, indeed, breakout. (apr17)

21. Sammy Blais had 17 points in 21 games after the deadline, when he was traded to St. Louis. He immediately saw a five-minute boost in average ice time, and made a fine addition to a line with Brayden Schenn and Brandon Saad. Blais is, unfortunately, quite a Band-Aid Boy. And while maybe a healthy Blais staying on this line could be a 50-point player. Or even better. But the odds of that are slim and none. Still, given what he offers in other categories, he’ll be well worth owning in most formats that (of course) have an IR. (apr17)

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Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

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