Feeling almost back to normal this week, and the endorphins from the Leafs winning certainly helped.

Unfortunately for Canada, only two of their three playoff teams made it to the second round, with Winnipeg being the odd team out. Aside from the rooting interest in Toronto, the series I am most looking forward to this round is the EDM/VGK matchup. It's a heavy matchup between two very good and skilled teams, with both high-end talent and lots of depth.

Our DobberHockey Panel has their round two predictions out here.

Stick tap to Chris Kane for going 7/8 in the first round. Him and I were the only two to correctly pick the Kraken, but he managed to nearly sweep the rest too. My cup pick in New York got toppled by Akira Schmid, who I do own in my main cap league, so I'm not too upset about it. At this point, it's a wide-open field. The Leafs may be the model favourites, but I just don't trust them yet to be able to finish the job.

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We knew the Flames were going to be an interesting team to watch this offseason, and that was even before they parted ways with their GM, and fired their head coach whose extension hadn't even kicked in yet. The GM change won't affect fantasy values at all, but the coaching change should. Regardless of what system is implemented, the goalies will be better than they were this past season, there's just no other way around it. When you hit rock bottom, the only place to go is up.

I think that they end up keeping both Jacob Markstrom and Dan Vladar this summer, and they don't gift Dustin Wolf an NHL spot out of camp. At the first injury though he is up and starting the first game, and he has the talent to be able to carry things from there. In short, he's not someone that I'll be drafting this coming year, but he is someone that I will be rushing to the waiver wire for as soon as one of the incumbents look uncomfortable.

Offensively, it's a guessing game as to whether Jonathan Huberdeau will get his swagger back. I'll be looking to buy at the right price, but I'm not close to treating him like a top-30 player in any drafts or trade talks. There are too many more sure things that you can get instead at that price.

If you're looking for some good and happy news, Oliver Kylington appears set to make his return for next season, as he has returned to the team, and all reports are that he is upbeat about getting back out there. He finally got regular minutes in 2021-22, and was able to turn that into a career year and a $2.5 million AAV contract extension. His numbers on the whole for the year look better than they should though based on a torrid pace in the first half. In his final 40 games, he only notched 12 points (a 25-point-pace). If he is back and healthy, the rust may hold him closer to that 25-point-pace than the 47-point-pace he had going in the first-half. That, and the presence of Rasmus Andersson on the top power play unit.

The Flames should be a team in the playoff hunt next year, and they will be hugely helped from a fantasy standpoint if the coach brought in is willing to play the skilled rookies like Matthew Coronato and Jakob Pelletier. Having them as regulars would lengthen the lineup and lend some extra fantasy value to the middle of the defence core as well.

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The Minnesota Wild are bringing back Marcus Johansson on a two-year deal worth $2 million per year. It seems like a luxury signing for a team that is going to be so cap strapped next year due to the buyout penalties. I wonder if this doesn't hurt them later in the offseason, especially when they are hunting for that top-line centre that they have been looking for the last number of years. Maybe it can be Marco Rossi, or some other internal candidate, but it looks unlikely that there is going to be any room for a realistic external option to be brought in.

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We know that Andrei Vasilevskiy had a poor showing in the playoffs, but the discourse around him this year was that his regular season numbers were below what should be expected from him. However, the reality is that he was extremely consistent this year with what we have seen from him in the three seasons before.

His last four seasons (from Frozentools):

Season	Team	GP	W	L	OTL	SO	GA	SHA	GAA	SV%	MIN	QUAL	QUAL%	RBS	RBS%	GSAA
2022-2023	T.B	60	34	22	4	4	159	1875	2.65	0.915	3596	35	58.3	11	18.3	21.00
2021-2022	T.B	63	39	18	5	2	156	1868	2.49	0.916	3760	39	61.9	7	11.1	17.72
2020-2021	T.B	42	31	10	1	5	93	1237	2.21	0.925	2523	24	57.1	0	0.0	20.80
2019-2020	T.B	52	35	14	3	3	133	1605	2.56	0.917	3121	31	59.6	7	13.5	11.45

The consistent save percentage and GSAA numbers combined with a higher GAA actually tell the story of a goalie that is playing just as well as usual, but the team around him is allowing more shots, and of a slightly higher-danger variety. With the team likely losing Alex Killorn, and maybe Ross Colton in the offseason, in addition to the core coming back another year older, there is some concern that while Vas' save percentage may not dip much, the number in the GAA column may continue to rise.

Not that I ever draft goalies early, but if I was going to next year, Igor Shesterkin, Ilya Sorokin, Jake Oettinger, and maybe Juuse Saros would be the goalies I would draft ahead of Vas.

To round out my top-10 for completeness sake: Alexandar Georgiev, Linus Ullmark, Connor Hellebuyck, Filip Gustavsson, and Vitek Vanecek.

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After a very shaky regular season, and not starting game one of the playoffs, Sergei Bobrovsky really found his rhythm for game one of the second round. With his contract in place, and the status of Spencer Knight unknown for the beginning of next year, there is some real upside that he could be back in or at least around the top-10 goalies next year.

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Rick Roos' annual Fearless Forecasts column is a must-read, and his end-of-the-season recap is also very interesting. I'll take a quick second to brag that the only three votes I cast in the poll were for three of his best predictions. He had some exceptional insight this year, so check that out. You can read it here.  

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Joe Pavelski returning for the Stars really starts to tip the scales in their favour in this series. The continued absence of the Kraken's top goal-scorer Jared McCann only compounds that. I expect that to be the shortest series of the second round in spite of Seattle’s game one win. Luckily for those of you with players from either team in your hockey pools, it seems like this could be a track meet.

🌟 WELCOME BACK JOE PAVELSKI 🌟 #StanleyCup

🇺🇸: @espn ➡️ https://t.co/XLQlIIcUUi
🇨🇦: @Sportsnet ➡️ https://t.co/JJXGbg8vT0 pic.twitter.com/WIa8nniYCb

— NHL (@NHL) May 3, 2023

The coming fall may be Pavelski's last training camp, as he turns 39 this summer. He has paced for 70+ points in four of the last five seasons, and the last three since he started lining up with Jason Robertson. In spite of the age, it would be a surprise to see him not hit the 70-point benchmark again. If anything, with Roope Hintz and Robertson lining up alongside him, Pavelski could even be dragged up over 80 points if he's healthy all year. He finished with four goals last night in the loss.

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It's always fun to see rookies score their first playoff goals:

Matthew Knies gets his first of the Stanley Cup Playoffs! 💥 pic.twitter.com/VTiq2yZIEF

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 3, 2023

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See you next Wednesday. In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.