First off, Bubble Keeper Week will be starting one week from now, on July 23. If you're not familiar with Bubble Keeper Week, articles that week will focus on players who are "on the bubble" in terms of being kept on a keeper or dynasty team. Bubble Keeper Week is a perfect opportunity to discover some potential hidden gems for your roster, as well as to learn about the thought process that our writers use when making their own keeper decisions. Hope you'll take some time out of your summer to check it out.

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The Patrick Kane watch will probably go on for a while. According to his agent, Kane is not expected to sign a contract before season. You may recall that Kane underwent hip resurfacing surgery on June 1 with an expected recovery of 4-6 months, so it seems unlikely that he will be 100% when the season starts on October 10. You can let Kane fall in single-season league drafts unless a team steps up and signs him before the start of the season. However, I can imagine that he will be a hot waiver-wire commodity once more about a return date is known.

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RFA forward Tanner Jeannot has signed a two-year contract with a cap hit of $2.665 million with the Lightning. Jeannot was acquired from Nashville for a hefty price near the trade deadline – a 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th round pick as well as Cal Foote. The cap hit isn't a big one, but Jeannot may not necessarily be pushed down the lineup the way he was in Nashville.

In addition to the cost to acquire Jeannot, the Bolts have also lost some depth on right wing with Alex Killorn signing in Anaheim and Corey Perry being traded to Chicago. In other words, I wouldn't be surprised to see him on the second line along with second-unit power-play time. Jeannot seemed to be drafted en masse last season after scoring 24 goals and recording over 300 hits, but he couldn't deliver in the scoring department with just 18 points in 76 games. This season might be a better season to draft him than last season was.  

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The Penguins have signed Ty Smith to a one-year contract worth $775,000. Smith spent most of 2022-23 in the AHL, playing just nine games for the Penguins. He doesn't seem like a sure thing to make the Penguins roster again this season, but that will have to be decided at training camp. If Smith makes the Penguins, he has some offensive upside, having scored four points in his nine NHL games and 24 points in 39 AHL games.

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Also just in before I post this, the Blues have signed Alexei Toropchenko to a two-year contract with an AAV of $1.25 million.

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The Top 100 Roto Rankings have been published for July. As always, I'm looking for your input and feedback, as others may notice player value differences that I don't. Although I don't have the capacity to explain all of my rankings decisions, I'll explain a few players that I've made noticeable changes to on the rankings.

RISERS

Dylan Larkin

The Alex DeBrincat acquisition is huge for the Red Wings in that it helps to fill a scoring void. In 2022-23, Larkin was the only player with at least 30 goals and 60 points. The season before, Larkin and the since departed Tyler Bertuzzi were the only Wings to reach those milestones. DeBrincat should be able to reach both of those totals, and he should boost Larkin's value if the two of them play on the same line and on the first-unit power play.

During his eight-season career, Larkin has never reached the 80-point mark. However, he's trending in the right direction with a career-high 79-point campaign in 2022-23. He consistently takes over three shots per game, which works out to over 200 shots per season. As well, he will try to build on his 31 power-play points from 2022-23, also a career high. With the Red Wings on the rise and pushing for a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, Larkin seems like a decent bet to finally reach 80 points if he can maintain his shot total and his power-play point total doesn't drop much.

Fantasy Take: DeBrincat Traded to Detroit

Connor Bedard

Where is the best spot to rank Bedard? First-year players can be difficult to project – even players that enter the league with a lot of hype. There simply isn't the body of work at the pro level that you can use to back your projection. I've seen one writer rank him in the top 40 in single-season leagues, while another suggested that he will go in the fifth or sixth round in 12-team drafts. I've added him somewhere in that neighborhood, as the rankings are a reflection of how players are valued on the trade market to some degree.

Bedard is ranked a little higher than Larkin because of that mystery factor, although the two appear to have very similar projections. What if Bedard tears up the league in his first season, just like he has at every level? In his first season, Connor McDavid scored at an 87-point pace in his first season (cut in half by injury), while Auston Matthews scored at a 69-point pace. Only three players had a higher point-per-game than McDavid in his rookie season of 2015-16, so adjust for era and McDavid would have had 100 points in his rookie season if not injured. I wouldn't go that high on Bedard, but his ranking also reflects the fact that someone in your draft will reach for him in the hopes that he far surpasses his draft-day value.

30 goals and 60 points is a conservative estimate in my mind for Bedard.

— Steven Ives (@StIves72) July 16, 2023

Evan Bouchard

Bouchard is a potential top-10 defenseman in fantasy next season, even though I don't have him ranked in that spot yet. The Tyson Barrie trade did wonders for his value, as he was moved onto the Oilers' lethal first-unit power play with (you know the names) and proceeded to rip it up. Bouchard followed up a final regular-season quarter of 16 points in 18 games with an unprecedented power-play performance in the playoffs. Even though the Oilers were knocked out in the second round, Bouchard led all players with 15 power-play points… in just 12 games!

Although teams will start to figure out ways of cutting the damage from the Oilers' power play, it still has a long way to fall. It finished with a 32.4% success rate – over 6% higher than the next-best power play. Bouchard should easily surpass his 43-point career best and then some in 2023-24.

FALLERS

Chris Kreider

Moving Kreider down the rankings doesn't have anything to do with anything that happened during the offseason, unless you can argue that the Rangers potentially losing Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko could hurt his scoring. Quite the opposite, from what I'm seeing. In the final quarter, Kreider scored 10 points in 19 games for what was barely a 40-point pace. Nine of those 10 points were goals, which is something I'll get to shortly.

Kreider wasn't going to score 50 goals again, although 36 goals isn't that bad. The concern is with the assist total, which has always been light for Kreider. He has never recorded more than 25 assists in a season, and he fell to just 18 in 2022-23. In addition, his shot total decreased slightly from 3.2 SOG/GP to 2.9 SOG/GP. To me, Kreider is still a top 100 option, but I had to move him down based on the fact that the 50-goal campaign seemed like a one-off as opposed to the norm. 

Elias Lindholm

Even after firing unpopular coach Darryl Sutter, the Flames continue to trend downward. With a season left on his contract, will Lindholm end up re-signing in Calgary, or will he be part of a potentially larger group of players on their way out? The trade rumors might make his fantasy value unsettled, but the fact is that his numbers had already fallen in 2022-23.

Jonathan Huberdeau's steep decline in points was a major storyline with the Flames, so Lindholm's decline in many categories was overshadowed. Lindholm fell from 1.0 PTS/GP to 0.8 PTS/GP, 42 goals to 22 goals, and 2.9 SOG/GP to 2.3 SOG/GP. Playing on a line with Johnny Gaudreau and Matthew Tkachuk worked like magic for Lindholm in 2021-22, but unfortunately that had to be broken up with the departures of both Gaudreau and Tkachuk. Lindholm had to make it work with a variety of linemates last season, the most frequent being Tyler Toffoli. Now Toffoli is gone, so a further decline might be in the cards.

Tyler Toffoli

Speaking of Toffoli… a move from the sliding Flames to the upstart Devils might seem like it would do wonders for Toffoli's value. However, the move might be better for the Devils than it will be for Toffoli's fantasy value. Cliffy made an excellent point in his Fantasy Take in that Toffoli is not a shoo-in for first-unit power-play time like he was in Calgary and other stops in his NHL career.

Toffoli may line up with one or more of Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, Nico Hischier, or Timo Meier at even strength. By playing on the right side, Toffoli could easily line up with two of these players. However, these four are capable of generating a solid power-play unit of their own. As well, Toffoli depends on the power play to take his numbers to the next level. In scoring a career high 73 points in 2022-23, Toffoli reached a career-high 25 power-play points when he had never scored more than 16 power-play points in any season before that. Toffoli was just within my top 100 last month, but now he falls out of it completely. 

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