The Prospects Report was released June 1. Updated Friday with links and notes on where each draftee was drafted (for easy navigation and reference). You can order all of the 2023-24 fantasy products in the shop here (or subscribe!).

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And ground has now been broken on the 18^th annual Fantasy Guide. I’ve written the intro, the 5on5 S% article that I do each year (amazing track record of success with that one) and the Advanced Stats analysis sections for a few of the teams. We’re rolling!

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I'm losing a lot of respect for NHL general managers. This week has been non-sensical.

Why did Montreal draft David Reinbacher at five? No disrespect to the pick – I think it's fine. But I think they could have had him at eight or even 10. So, using fantasy hockey strategy, trade the pick to one of the many teams several slots below them, and get an extra pick in the second or third round. And then draft Reinbacher. Anyway, I’ll dig deeper into the draft in tomorrow’s Ramblings, space permitting.

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I really respect the business sense of general managers who walk away from restricted free agents, in order to not be forced to pay their qualifying offers – and then they sign them the next day for a couple hundred thousand dollars less. This really drives home the importance of every dollar of cap space. Tyson Jost, Jaret Anderson-Dolan, Mike McLeod, Nathan Bastian, Mackenzie Blackwood, etc., etc.

But then…

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Chicago obviously wants leadership, grit, and playoff experience. They also need to make sure they hit the salary floor. I get it. But with most teams in the league absolutely falling over themselves to clear cap space, GM Kyle Davidson was wrong to use that space to give Corey Perry and Nick Foligno $4M each. You want to overpay them to make sure they stay? Great. Give them $2M. That's still an overpay. Then use that extra $4M I just saved you by taking advantage of desperate teams out there!

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And then Blake Wheeler signs for $1.1M. He'll get 20 goals and 55 points – nearly double what either Foligno or Perry do.

Listen up, kids. Apparently, this is the hierarchy of player value:

Corey Perry – $4M
Ryan Reaves – $1.25M
Blake Wheeler – $1.1M

Understand? No? Me neither https://t.co/fKh4Jv5Dnc

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) July 1, 2023

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Adin Hill and Alex Lyon, to me, were equal goaltenders back in March in terms of talent. Three months later, one squeaks out a contract that is not quite $1M per season, while the other makes nearly $5M per season. What happened? Lyon carried the Panthers on his back into the playoffs. He had a couple of rough games in the postseason and the $10M goalie came in and took over. If Bobrovsky was only making $3M, Lyon would have probably continued to start for Florida. Hill, the No.3 goalie in Vegas, gets the start in the playoffs by default. He does well behind a strong Bruce Cassidy system. Logan Thompson is 100% a better goalie – that's not up for debate. In January, many hockey experts felt Thompson was the leader in the Calder race! Why did Vegas give Hill so much of their cap space? The alternative was to let him walk, and sign Lyon for that same number that Detroit got him at. Then you have Thompson and Lyon, with Robin Lehner as a possible down the road. Save the cap space for a January trade, if something doesn't work with Thompson/Lyon.

Goalies are signing for less than $2M. Collin Delia (WPG), Cam Talbot (LAK), Jonathan Quick (NYR), Antti Raanta (CAR) all signed for less. And the other FA goalies – Mackenzie Blackwood, Frederik Andersen and Joonas Korpisalo – each signed for less than Adin Hill. Why? Why? WHY would Vegas do that?

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Toronto needs to shake things up. For years, they've been adding toughness and experience, trying to address those areas while keeping their Core 5. Under the new general manager, they get…him trying to address those areas while keeping their Core 5. Ryan Reaves is just Wayne Simmonds 2.0. He'll get into the lineup 75% of the time this year, probably not at all over the next two years. In the playoffs, he'll get scratched for half the games at the very least!

The Maple Leafs have bought out the final two years of Ryan Reaves' contract.

Schedule Tweet
12:30pm Sun Jun 30 2024

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) July 1, 2023

This isn't a fix. This is more of the same. If you want to fix the team, you have to trade one of your key guys. And not what fans say. Not Mitch Marner, and not John Tavares. It has to be one of Morgan Rielly (because he's a No.2 defenseman treated as a No.1), or Auston Matthews (because he can get you a Top 10 defenseman in return, nobody else can do this – Matthews gives you the best return), or William Nylander (because his contract negotiation style is hardcore – impossible to deal with, so trade the problem to somebody else). Trade one of those three players for a top defenseman with size, skill and grit along with whatever picks and prospects make the deal work. That's the courage needed in Toronto. True change.

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I really like Connor Brown for Edmonton. The fact that he had played with Connor McDavid in junior for two years (Erie) indicates he'll be tried on McDavid's line.

If McDavid can turn Hyman into an 83-point player, he can turn Brown into 70 https://t.co/Ln1sY2hRuW

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) July 1, 2023

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I understand why NHL players, who are occasionally healthy scratched, still get signed by other NHL teams. I don't understand why they would get signed for anything over $1M and anything beyond one year.

Toronto signs Reaves.

Detroit signs Justin Holl (three years, $3.4M AAV)

Buffalo signs Connor Clifton (three years $3.33M AAV)

Boston signs Morgan Geekie (two years, $2M AAV)

These are all players who were scratched at least a couple of times last season because they weren't good enough to crack the team's roster. The Holl deal, in particular, cost Steve Yzerman a bit of respect in my eyes. I just laid out case after case that showed teams risking losing a player to free agency by not qualifying them, just so that they could save a mere $100k of cap space. And a day later, GMs toss millions at players who were scratched by other teams. No logic.

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Last year, the Anaheim Ducks screwed up when they gave Ryan Strome a five-year contract with a $5M AAV. Then, in this year's free agent frenzy, they give Alex Killorn four years with a $6.25M AAV. They got sucked into Strome's production getting inflated by Artemi Panarin, and now they're getting sucked in by Killorn's production getting inflated by Steven Stamkos. This is a 45- to 50-point player who can play on the second PP unit and the second PK unit. He is a capable shutdown forward and a thread to score. His best season was at age 33, this past year, which is a contract year. A GM falling for a contract year is the longest lesson never learned in all of pro sports. Stamkos added 15 points to Killorn's numbers.

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The point is, there was nobody available in free agency that I would sign, if I was a GM. Yes, my team's fans would shout that their GM doesn't care, and that their GM does nothing. But a year or two from now I wouldn't be trying to buy out or dump those contracts that I signed just to make those fans happy. I would inquire about getting deals that help my roster. Examples:

Blake Wheeler to New York for $1M. Yes, he wanted to go to New York, so I would probably need to be GM of New York to get that deal. But I would at least ask.

Sam Steel to Dallas for $850k. Last year was a great experience for Steel, who is now 25. He had a flash of productively playing with Kirill Kaprizov. Now he needs to repeat that with a player like Wyatt Johnston – and this time, sustain it. He's betting on himself. If he works out, Dallas looks like geniuses. If he doesn't, the contract is easy to bury in the minors or just let him go next summer.

Dnaiel Sprong to Detroit. Yes, it's $2M but it's only one year. Worth seeing if I can get even more production out of him.

James van Riemsdyk – just one year and $1M for Boston.

Cam Talbot for $2M to Los Angeles.

Basically, any player who would sign for under $2M, I would investigate fit. If they fill a need, those are the players I target.

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But Killorn? I would hang up on that agent when he was in mid-sentence of explaining what he wanted. "We're looking for four years at over six mi-" <click>

Jason Zucker? "Yeah, Dobber, we're after five mi-" <click>

Gustav Nyqvist? "Looking to get multi years for three mi-" <click>

This year's FA Frenzy seems even worse than usual. But those few terrible deals were mixed with so many good ones.

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Lou Lamoriello doing Lou Lamoriello things again. He always keeps his players. This is great loyalty and really good for the players. But, my philosophy is – if your team never wins the Cup, do you want to try your best to head into next season with as close to the same team as possible? Year after year you keep mostly the same team together, and year after year they end up the 15^th best in the league. Keep going with that? Seems dumb.

So the Islanders are a death sentence for fantasy hockey owners who have a player traded there. And it's made worse by the fact that – they'll never leave!

Saturday, the Isles signed Semyon Varlamov, Scott Mayfield (seven years!) and Pierre Engvall (seven years!), all three were free to sign anywhere else. The Isles also signed Ilya Sorokin long-term at a sweet deal – eight years at $66M (just over $8M per season). And if Zach Parise decides not to retire, the Islanders will keep him too. Lou's philosophy: "if my team is mediocre, I need to keep this team forever!"

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Best (sweetheart) deals, that teams will not regret:

1. Blake Wheeler, BOS
2. Sam Steel, DAL
3. Daniel Sprong, DET
4. Matt Duchene, DAL
5. John Klingberg, TOR – as with Morgan Rielly, Klingberg is not a No.1 defenseman. But at least he can share some of that load in terms of the offense. Perhaps that helps Rielly focus on D and improve the team that way. It's just a one-year deal, so very low risk.
6. Max Pacioretty, WAS – just two years, $4M. If he doesn't get injured again and his Achilles is fine, he could be an absolute steal.
7. Connor Brown, EDM – Just a base salary of $775k. He played with McDavid before, this is worth the home run swing. If he reaches his bonuses and they pay him $4M, it will be because he did well.
8. Cam Talbot, LAK – Talbot will get injured so often (I'm sure) that Pheonix Copley will end up playing more, anyway. But Talbot being there will at least take the pressure of being No.1 off of Copley. And at $1M, you can't go wrong.
9. Conor Sheary, TBL – this is where I start to not like the deals as much, but the risk is tolerable. Sheary signed for three years, $2M per year, which is not horrible to buy out if he doesn't play as well as he did last season.
10. Alex Nedeljkovic, PIT – goalies are fickle. Great one year, horrible the next. Ned was good at one time. Now he's bad. As a backup option for the Penguins, he's worth a shot. It's only one year and just $1.5M. If it works out, they can extend him. If not, no biggee.

This not in order of best player, but rather the risk versus potential upside and payoff. How Ryan Donato (CHI) got paid more than Sprong (double, for twice the term) is beyond me. But Chicago has been doing stupid things ever since the Draft ended (great Draft for them, though, more on that further below).

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That above list was hard to do. I was honestly stuck after five or six. The below list is easy. Well, maybe not easy because I have to somehow chop the list down to just 10. But it's easy to find bad contracts!

Top 10 regrettable contracts signed on July 1 that will have the teams trying to dump or buy out within three years. Or, if just one-year deals, it nonetheless limits the return that the team would get at the trade deadline, or hampers their cap enough to hold them back from making trades this season to better their team. Bookmark this page and check back in three years and see how I do. I will go 10 for 10.

1. Nick Foligno, CHI – a healthy scratch at times with Boston, Foligno brings character and experience – and little else – to a young Chicago team. Nobody, and I mean nobody, saw weaker overall Quality of Competition on the Bruins than Foligno did. Coach Jim Montgomery didn't trust Foligno to handle more challenging lines, and kept a tight rein on Foligno's ice time.
2. Alex Killorn, ANA – this is arguably worse than Foligno (and Perry) because this is for four years. It's a terrible cap hit at $6.25 AAV, and I suspect they'll need that cap space sooner, rather than later. Just one year after this team signed Ryan Strome and are now stuck with that contract.
3. Corey Perry, CHI – I like Perry and good for him to get his money. Well deserved and an amazing career. But $4M is what he got combined over his last four years and he's coming off his worst season. It's only a one-year deal, but Chicago could have really added a ton of assets with that cap space. And at the deadline, if they are out of the playoffs, it's not as enticing for other teams to grab Perry at even a quarter of this cap hit.
4. Justin Holl, DET – A healthy scratch. Frequently panned by the advanced stats crew as a detriment to Toronto whenever he steps onto the ice. So, yeah, let's give him $3.4M – more than he's ever made in a year. And then let's lock that rate in for three years. He didn't earn a raise, he earned a camp tryout.
5. Ryan Reaves, TOR – I like Reaves. But his time is over. The Rangers scratched him nine times last year, and the Wild scratched him once. I don't care if he's getting just $1.35M per season – he's signed for three years. He's playing 50 games this year, 20 games next year, and 10 the year after. And throughout all that, I bet he doesn't even get in 10 playoff games. He's not the answer.
6. Michael Bunting, CAR – Bunting has shown he can produce and score alongside talent. On a third line without talent, he's a 35-point player. There is also the matter of his personality on the ice. But a coach like Rod Brind'Amour should straighten that out pretty quick. Still, $4.5M is a big price tag, especially if you're locked in for three years.
7. JT Compher, DET – five years at $5.1 AAV is pretty steep for a third-liner. Didn't they learn from Andrew Copp last year? I do like Compher better than Copp, but Detroit is a team that will need cap space in two years.
8. Ryan O'Reilly, NSH – Just 24 hours ago, Nashville GM Barry Trotz was like "Whew! Glad I got out of that Matt Duchene contract. Lesson learned! I'll never do that again." And now, here we are. I hope Trotz understands that O'Reilly is likely a 50-point player this year, and hopefully still that next year. He should still be an effective shutdown forward throughout this four-year deal, but those last two years are probably going to be tough to justify. I think his last year will be bought out in 2026.
9. Connor Clifton, BUF – three years at $3.33M AAV is a lot to pay a defenseman who was a fringe NHLer throughout his 20s and then at 28 finally becomes a bottom-pairing guy who still gets scratched. Clifton had to be sheltered by Boston, and he still wasn't great.
10. Carson Soucy, VAN – is this the going rate for a bottom-pairing defenseman coming off his best season that was (red flag) in a contract year? Three years and $3.25 AAV? I think the AHL is filled with Soucys that would be happy to take the minimum. Keep in mind, the Kraken saw fit to give Soucy just 14 minutes per game when it mattered most – the playoffs.

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Dobber for GM!

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I have some thoughts on the Draft, but I'm already well over my space here. I'm back tomorrow with the Ramblings again, so I'll go through those thoughts – as long as the free agent signings cool off.

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See you tomorrow.