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. We had free agency breakdowns on Saturday, on Canada Day, here at Dobber. Be sure to check in. As well, there were a lot of trades the day before the Draft:

• Dubois to Los Angeles
• Hayes to St. Louis
• Newhook to Montreal
• Toffoli to New Jersey  
• Hall to Chicago

2. The large-scale changes continue in Winnipeg. Following the trade of Pierre-Luc Dubois to Los Angeles, the Jets placed Blake Wheeler on waivers with the intent of buying out the final year of his contract and he signed with the Rangers one day later.

Wheeler and his $8.25 million cap hit seemed untradable (even with salary retention), so a buyout made sense here. Now we wait to find out if Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck are moved this offseason.

Wheeler has played in Winnipeg for the past 12 seasons, and he was the last remaining Atlanta Thrasher in Winnipeg. The former Jets captain had maintained consistency in the 0.9-1.15 PTS/GP pace for seven seasons until 2021-22, but his production had fallen off to 0.76 PTS/GP (55 PTS in 72 GP) in 2022-23. A decreased shot total (126 SOG, 1.8 SOG/GP) was a factor, as was decreased power-play usage (48.6 PP%).

He will be turning 37 just before the season starts, so age-related decline could be in effect. He’s no longer a player that should be rostered in all fantasy leagues, but he should still have something to provide in mid-sized to deeper leagues. (july1)

3. Matt Duchene‘s buyout was definitely more surprising than Wheeler’s, although I haven’t been a huge fan of the contract since the day it was signed. Duchene had three years remaining with an $8 million cap hit, which seemed rather expensive given Duchene’s production for much of his time in Nashville. The Predators have been committed to shedding salary since the trade deadline, so this move seems par for the course.

Duchene had been wildly inconsistent during his four seasons in Nashville, with a 0.38 PTS/GP season (13 PTS in 34 GP) in the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season followed by an outlier 1.10 PTS/GP campaign (career-high 86 PTS in 78 GP) in 2021-22. His 56 points in 71 games in 2022-23 was more reflective of what we should expect from him going forward. He's now more of a second-line center, which should help him maintain good but not great fantasy value in the coming season. (july1)

4. With Ryan Johansen and now Duchene out of Nashville, I’m even more committed to Tommy Novak as a potential sleeper in drafts this fall – free agent signings notwithstanding, of course. With Johansen and eventually Duchene out for the season, Novak scored 32 points over his last 30 games to finish the season. (july1)

5. A day after being acquired from the Oilers, Kailer Yamamoto was added to the buyout list by the Red Wings. Yamamoto had two more seasons remaining at a $3.1 million cap hit. The Red Wings have a considerable amount of cap space to play with this offseason and also seem like favorites to acquire Alex DeBrincat from Ottawa.

After recording a point-per-game pace over a small sample (26 PTS in 27 GP) in 2019-20, Yamamoto appeared to be on his way toward hitting some huge point totals. However, he has finished with a sub-0.5 PTS/GP pace over each of the last three seasons. Yamamoto should be a potential value signing somewhere, although the fact that he couldn’t quite make it work with the Oilers’ major weapons over the past few seasons is cause for concern. (july1)

6. Adin Hill has leveraged his playoff success into an extension with the Vegas Golden Knights, signing a two-year contract with a cap hit of $4.9 million. Hill played in just 27 regular-season games with the Golden Knights, but he made a name for himself in the playoffs, posting an 11-2-2 record with a 2.17 GAA and .932 SV% in backstopping the Knights to a Stanley Cup.

With Laurent Brossoit and Jonathan Quick (rumored to be signing with the Rangers) set to hit the open market and Robin Lehner‘s status unknown, Vegas appears to be rolling with a tandem of Hill and Logan Thompson next season. Thompson was making a strong case for the Calder Trophy before being sidelined with a lower-body injury late in the regular season. However, Hill now has both the contract and the Cup, so he should be at minimum the slight favorite to earn the majority of the starts. (july1)

7. One player I was hoping for a breakout from in 2022-23 was Tampa Bay winger Ross Colton. He had some good underlying data, was scoring well, and seemed primed to move up the lineup as the team was losing players due to cap crunches. He never really moved up the lineup, and now he’s moved on to Colorado. The trade to the Avalanche was broken down by Alex yesterday. 

Even with Gabriel Landeskog injured, there is still Mikko Rantanen, Artturi Lehkonen, and Valeri Nichushkin on the wings. Alongside the addition of Ryan Johansen, the top-6 is filling out and Colton will assuredly not get power-play time without injury. At the same time, he has a legitimate chance to play with skilled offensive players, and that matters a lot. If he can add legitimate points upside to his monster hit totals, there is a Tom Wilson-type multi-cat performance in the waiting here, at least as far as hits go. (june29)

8. A day after trading for his UFA rights, the Blackhawks made Corey Perry‘s signing official, which was an offer he couldn’t refuse: one year, $4 million. In signing 35+ veterans Perry and Nick Foligno to identical contracts, the Hawks are hardly being efficient in their attempt to reach the cap floor.

In other words, they’re committing to another season of full tank mode. That’s too bad for Connor Bedard. Although the first overall pick should be a strong favorite (THE favorite?) for the Calder Trophy, Bedard’s true potential for the 2023-24 season may be limited. We’ll have to wait and see what happens during free agency, though. (july1)

9. Teams also needed to submit all of their qualifying offers by Friday. Some of the most notable players not receiving a QO include the following:

Jesse Puljujarvi
Denis Gurianov
Mackenzie Blackwood
Ethan Bear
Maxime Comtois
Tyson Jost
Anders Bjork
Travis Dermott
Morgan Geekie
Caleb Jones
Nolan Patrick
Colin White
Kieffer Bellows
Austin Wagner
Christian Fischer
Michael McLeod
Daniel Sprong
Sam Steel
Klim Kostin

All of these players became unrestricted free agents. Sometimes it’s more nuanced than the team simply didn’t like the player. It’s about the amount of the qualifying offer and the injury status of the player. For example, I think the Canucks would have qualified Bear had he not been injured at the World Championship. He would have needed a qualifying offer of $2.2 million, which isn’t easy for the cap-tight Canucks to pay for a defenseman who is expected to be out until December due to shoulder surgery. (july1)

10. As mentioned above, one-time Oiler Jesse Puljujarvi became an unrestricted free agent on Saturday, as the Hurricanes didn’t make him a qualifying offer. He’s also undergone double hip surgery and is out indefinitely. Split between Edmonton and Carolina in 2022-23, Pool Party managed just 16 points in 75 games last season, which in itself is a serious setback for his NHL future. He has yet to play 400 NHL games (334 to be exact) needed for the Breakout Threshold for larger forwards, so he might still be worth one last chance to an NHL team. Edmonton rushing him into the league as an 18-year-old in 2016-17 certainly didn’t help his development. (june30)

11. The Sabres were hit with a bit of bad news late last week, as Jack Quinn is expected to miss the start of the season with an Achilles tendon injury. The timeline from now for recovery is about 4-6 months, which would place an estimated return at around late November. Quinn finished his rookie season with 37 points in 75 games, which was good for seventh in rookie scoring.

In terms of fantasy implications, Victor Olofsson has been rumored to be on the trade block, but perhaps now the Sabres will decide to retain him instead. Olofsson had a decent total of 28 goals in 75 games in 2022-23, but for some reason he was a healthy scratch for a few games late in the season. The Sabres have a bunch of other prospects who could make the team on opening night, including Jiri Kulich, Matt Savoie, Isak Rosen, and Lukas Rousek. Whoever it would be would need to stand out in training camp. (june30)

12. The first round of the 2023 NHL Draft was Wednesday night in Nashville. Dobber Prospects’s Peter Harling was down there and seemed a bigger fan of the Arizona picks than some others. Peter is a sharp guy that I like to read so there may be more to what the Coyotes were doing here.

There were rumblings on social media through the day that Anaheim might not take Adam Fantilli second overall and indeed, they went with Leo Carlsson. As I often say, I am not a prospect guru, but this seemed a shocking pick. Not that Carlsson is a bad player and will be a bad NHLer or anything of the sort, it’s more the upside that was left on the board. It is one of those picks that has work or it changes the future of the franchise for the worse. Fantilli is on his way to Columbus instead. (june29)

13. Speaking of which, as a Montreal fan, it was surprising to see David Reinbacher go fifth overall with the offensive talent left on the board. The reason it was surprising is because they just finished a season with 279 games played from rookie defencemen. They had four rookie blue liners play at least half the season and there is also Lane Hutson on the way. Not that they'll all pan out, but in a draft with a lot of high-end forwards, it seemed a great opportunity to double-up on the Juraj Slafkovsky pick and give themselves more chances at having a future superstar forward. Instead, it’s stuffing more vegetables in an already-full vegetable crisper. It’s a pick that should turn a good player out, but it felt like better players were there. (june29)

14. Philadelphia landed Matvei Michkov seventh overall. I get the concerns about when he’ll be available but I feel safe saying at least one player drafted ahead of Michkov will take at least two years to get to the NHL. The concern for Arizona and Montreal would have to be that Michkov would never arrive in the NHL, because the Flyers may have landed the second-best player in a generational draft with the seventh pick. It would be nice to see him with Travis Konecny someday.

Dalibor Dvorsky was one of the players I was keeping an eye on so good on St. Louis for grabbing him 10^th. If Dvorsky lives up to what analysts seem he can be, the future is very bright with him, Robert Thomas, and Jordan Kyrou around for the long-term.

I’m going to be honest: my heart sank a bit when Zach Benson fell to the Sabres at 13^th overall. To reiterate: I am not a prospect person and rely a lot on the observations of others. With that said, I had Benson in my personal top-5 for this draft and seeing him go to a team like Buffalo at 13^th was not thrilling. Considering the absurd wealth of very young talent Buffalo already has, the fact they had one of the best top lines in the league that had none of these prospects on it, added Devon Levi at the end of the year, and now drafted someone that could be a star in five years? It really feels like Buffalo is the next Eastern team that will establish itself as a perennial contender alongside New Jersey. If a few things break right for them, this is a cap-era dynasty in the making.

I liked the Colby Barlow pick for Winnipeg. A goal scorer that can play along with Cole Perfetti‘s tremendous skill is a nice start to the next era of Jets hockey. I had a similar feeling for Gabriel Perreault to the New York Rangers at 23^rd. There’s a non-zero chance he ends up a better player than any of the current members of their Kid Line. (june29)

15. Outside of Connor Bedard and maybe Adam Fantilli, none of these players should be expected to make an impact next year, and probably not the year after either. They may be excellent players, some more NHL ready than others, but set the expectations. Everyone being concerned about Michkov being 3+ years away. In four years he is going to be a top-five talent in this class, and for those in cap leagues, he will also still be on his ELC at the time. (june28)

16. Day 2 of the NHL Draft went down with less fanfare than the first day. Although the likelihood decreases that a player makes it to the NHL the lower they are drafted, the odds aren’t zero as many star players have been drafted after the first round. I’ll use this opportunity to highlight five players drafted after the first round that could be worth targeting in very deep fantasy leagues. This might be useful for those of you who need to look beyond the obvious names.

I’m going to try to refrain from making judgment calls on whether the player will be an NHLer and making comparisons with other players picked before. These are 18-year-old kids, so I don’t like to make matter-of-fact blanket statements about what their entire career will be like. The emphasis here is on fantasy leagues, and there’s obviously no guarantees they will be NHL stars.

The Prospects Report has been a great help to me with this. Purchase a copy of if you haven’t already.

Andrew Cristall (40^th overall, Washington)

Cristall seemed destined to fall, but out of the first round? Injuries may have played a factor in his draft-eligible season, but he’s viewed as the very definition of a high risk/high reward player. In other words, it seems like he’ll either be a high-end NHL playmaker or a long-term AHLer who won’t cut it in the NHL.

His Dobber Prospects fantasy upside of 9.5 but NHL certainty of 7.5 reflects that. If at least 30 draft-eligible players are getting picked in your league, I’d be willing to bet that Cristall is in that top 30. Maybe even the top 15. Although his lack of consistency might frustrate fantasy leaguers when (if) he makes it to the NHL, the overall product might not. A total of 95 points in 54 games in a draft-eligible season is impressive, no matter how you slice it. The Capitals are a team that have been committed to offense as long as Alex Ovechkin has been there, so they might be a good match for Cristall’s skill set.

[Follow the link for more…] (june30)

17. We can thank the FHFH crew for running the FrozenTools reports already with the new schedule, to show us the best teams to own for goalie B2Bs, overall off-night leaders, and those teams whose players you should target for heavier H2H playoff schedules. The off-night leaders are again Anaheim and Washington, and this may be the first time in a long time that Anaheim becomes more fantasy relevant as a team than Washington is. The Ducks have some very fun fantasy assets to work with now.

New Jersey leads the league in B2B games, and after trading Mackenzie Blackwood, it means that there should be some solid value for Akira Schmid.

The top teams for the H2H playoff schedules being Edmonton, Ottawa, and Seattle is really interesting. Seattle isn’t a very heavy fantasy lineup, but that should mean that there will be streamers that they can provide when the time comes. Ottawa and Edmonton are top-heavy teams, so you either own the fantasy relevant players, or they will be against you. Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl become even more unbeatable with the added games played. Do whatever you can to get one on your team this year. (june28)

18. The 2023 NHL Awards were on Monday night and some of the major awards went the direction a lot of fans expected. Connor McDavid swept the MVP awards by taking home both the Hart and Ted Lindsay trophies, while Boston teammates Patrice Bergeron and Linus Ullmark earned the Selke and Vezina Trophies, respectively. Their coach Jim Montgomery was the Coach of the Year in a deserved honour. There was maybe some trepidation as to the Calder Trophy and how much weight voters may give Stuart Skinner‘s performance after he became the starter in Edmonton, but that went to Matty Beniers, who was the only rookie to crack the 50-point mark (he had 57 in 80 games).

It was the Norris Trophy that seemed to have some debate around it. The balance was between Erik Karlsson‘s superlative offensive season on a basement team, or Adam Fox‘s elite all-around play in all situations, or Cale Makar‘s typical dominance from the blue line in a campaign that saw him miss 22 games. The votes ended decidedly in Karlsson’s favour for his third Norris Trophy win, but Fox did garner over 40 first-place votes while Makar finished third.

Regardless of anyone’s feelings on the Trophy’s voting, I just want to point out what a great time it is to watch defencemen in the NHL. I grew up following the puck-movers like Scott Niedermayer and Nicklas Lidstrom, but to have so many high-end guys playing in the league at the same time feels special. There are the three that were Norris finalists this year, plus Roman Josi, Quinn Hughes, Miro Heiskanen, Victor Hedman, Dougie Hamilton, Charlie McAvoy, and so many more. They are helping make the game more exciting and the fact that there are so many that are improving in their early 20s portends great things for the league. With guys like Olen Zellweger, Brandt Clarke, and Luke Hughes all knocking on the door of a roster spot, there may be a few more like them coming, too. (june27)

19. A few days ago, I was searching the web for the final number on the overall league S%. I Googled different terms, trying to find a link that will give me what I want. I looked at sites like Quant Hockey and Hockey Reference, still coming up empty. Not even NHL’s site had it. Best I could find was a breakdown by team.

I know it’s a simple matter of pasting the standings into Excel, adding up the goals and the shots and doing the math – 20 seconds at most. But I couldn’t believe that this data couldn’t be found and I stubbornly spent a good 20 minutes looking.

Then I realized – Frozen Tools has this. I’m such an idiot. Frozen Tools has everything. So I go to the site, check out the Team Stats in the menu, and voila – the league and team summaries for a variety of stats are right there. I go to Frozen Tools out of habit for all my player stat info (if I’m looking for something and it’s not there, I have it added – but that hasn’t happened in a long time). But for team info, it’s not yet habit to go look there. Lesson learned.

That number, by the way, is 9.6%. That’s the league S% for 2022-23.

20. Delving into Frozen Tools, I found other interesting tidbits…

When Alex Ovechkin was healthy (73 games), he was out on 96.5% of the available power-play time for Washington. Almost every second. All year long. Next highest was Leon Draisaitl at 80.6%.

Jason Robertson finished sixth in scoring, as you know. But he was tied for third in points per 60 minutes played (4.2). In fact, out of anyone in the Top 20 in scoring, only William Nylander (who finished 20^th) averaged less ice time than Robertson’s 18:50.

Daniel Sprong actually finished 11^th in points-per-60 with 3.7. That’s interesting and impressive, but his 12.4% 5on5 S% tells me that his production is bound to dip next season.

21. Here are the Top 10 highest secondary-assist percentages, among players who have a points-per-60 of 2.0 or higher:

Artturi Lehkonen (2.3 pts/60), 70.0%
Jesperi Kotkaniemi (2.1), 68.08%
Andrei Kuzmenko (3.3), 60.0%
Rickard Rakell (2.4), 59.4%
Phil Kessel (2.1), 59.1%
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (3.8), 58.2%
Eetu Luostarinen (2.0), 57.7%
Jason Zucker (2.4), 57.1%
Tomas Tatar (2.3), 57.1%
Lucas Raymond (2.1), 57.1%

Indicates that their assist totals were likely puffed up a little this year, and is one of many red flags to consider when evaluating players this offseason.

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The Prospects Report was released June 1. Updated Friday with the 17^th annual Mock Draft. You can order all of the 2023-24 fantasy products in the shop here (or subscribe!). Get the fantasy hockey angle on every player, not to mention a full breakdown of players already in each team’s system!

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Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

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