Be sure to head to the Dobber Shop to pick up your copy of the 2023-24 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide! It has projections, line combinations, future outlooks, rookie updates, a draft list, and a whole lot more. It is also updated as we get more transactions between now and the start of the season, so it's easy to stay current whenever teams make changes. Help support what we do all year long and get a head start on your league mates!

*

Part of my work for the new Dobber Fantasy Guide was looking at players that can help in the penalty minute category. One player I had on my list of players to include but missed the cut was Arizona's Jack McBain. He has 70 PIMs in 92 career games and has skated around 14 minutes a night for the Coyotes. He was ultimately left off the list because he hadn't been signed as of the release of the Guide and the team's forward crop was starting to fill up fast. I wasn't sure they had him in their plans for the future but he did sign a two-year extension with a $1.6M AAV over the weekend.

McBain reached double-digit goals and assists last year, finishing with 26 points and over 300 hits. Arizona apparently likes him in a bottom-6 role and he's a good penalty kill, and that could keep him in the lineup all season. He is a guy with very high peripheral upside and the team should be better offensively around him, at least up front.

*

The Devils signed defenceman Kevin Bahl:

Fuhgeddaboudit. We Bahlin' for two more years.

Welcome back, Kevin!

📰: https://t.co/ddmkIo8PuF pic.twitter.com/9UR0hJ4Hhg

— New Jersey Devils (@NJDevils) July 31, 2023

Bahl played just 42 games last year and his ice time has declined over his three partial seasons in New Jersey. Even with Ryan Graves and Damon Severson moving on, it isn't hard to see Bahl being largely stuck on the third pair for at least one more season; he still has to contend with Dougie Hamilton, John Marino, Jonas Siegenthaler, and the emerging Luke Hughes. They traded for Colin Miller to give themselves a bit more depth, too.

There has been good defensive work done by Bahl and he's still maturing. It is easy to envision him being a solid second-pair guy that will kill penalties in the near-future. Until he gets more ice time, though, his fantasy value will remain very low in all formats.

*

I enjoyed Dobber's Ramblings yesterday about fantasy opinions he's not quite vibing with. His points about Akira Schmid and Filip Gustavsson seem bang-on to me. His note of what Columbus might do with the top PP unit is concerning and I wrote a bit more about that later.

Timo Meier's bit is the one that interested me the most. He managed 9 goals in 21 games with the Devils, and that works out to 35 goals every 82 games. His three-year average in San Jose from 2019-22 was for 28 goals every 82 games, and he posted 35 goals in 77 games in 2021-22. His issue in New Jersey was his assist total (5). What I'll say about that is he managed a point in 76.5% of goals scored with him on the ice from 2019-22, a percentage that fell to 50% in New Jersey. Playing with the guys that Dobber named might mean fewer touches on the puck, but of 306 forwards with at least 1500 minutes over the last two years, only five were at 50% or less. Just a mark of 60% would have left him with a few more assists, and much closer to his career numbers. His decline in ice time and movement around the lineup might not be great for fantasy production, but he'll put up much better assist rates over a full season than he did in his 21-game Devils stint.

*

Just before Bubble Keeper Week, I had been using my Ramblings to review changes in peripheral stats across the NHL in 2022-23. Check out the Ramblings section to view those prior articles from mid-July.

There was also a review of changes to power play production. We looked at the changes in ice time/shot distribution with the man advantage, focused on secondary PP defencemen, and then moved to the forwards for impacts they saw with the PP changes. With the prevalence of power plays powering a preponderance of goals, looking at these differences from prior seasons helps inform our strategy as we head into draft season.

Let's take today to go over some non-elite power play options that could have great power play production seasons. We are going to look at certain players that could be a big help in the PPP category in 23-24 but are not necessarily thought of as big PPP producers at the moment. As always, data from our Frozen Tools and Natural Stat Trick, unless otherwise indicated.

Kirby Dach

Looking through power plays from last year, it should be noted how much Montreal's improved down the stretch. In the team's first 46 games, all with Cole Caufield in the lineup, the Canadiens were 31^st in the league in goals/60 with the man advantage. From the point Caufield exited the lineup through the end of the season, they moved to 24^th in the league and neck-and-neck with the Boston Bruins. Small samples and all that, but it's interesting.

Though he wound up injured himself, Kirby Dach had one of the biggest second-half jumps in PPTOI as a share of his team's PPTOI, going from roughly 60% to nearly 79%. In 12 games played without Caufield in the lineup, Dach managed four PPPs, posting 7 PPPs over his final 21 games overall. The return of Mike Matheson helped a bit, but Dach finished the year with 16 PPPs in 58 games. If he, Matheson, Caufield, and Nick Suzuki are featured parts of a heavily used top PP unit, Dach could soar past 20 PPPs. He may not stuff peripheral stats, but 20 goals, 60 points, 70 hits, and 20 PPPs are all within reach.

Boone Jenner

Mike Babcock is the new coach and that means most players have uncertain roles until we see the proof of his approach. That likely doesn't include Boone Jenner, though. The only regular centres Columbus had last year were Jenner, Sean Kuraly, Jack Roslovic, and Cole Sillinger. Only Jenner was over a 50% faceoff guy, only he and Kuraly were over 45%. I very much doubt Kuraly will be PP1, and the only centre the team added in the offseason (thus far) is Adam Fantilli. I doubt he gets PP1 status out of the gate, though he could certainly earn it after a couple months.

No, it'll be Jenner on the top PP quintet, and hopefully they can stay healthy this year. Like Dach, Jenner earned a higher share of the team's power play down the stretch, going from 63% to 72% once the calendar rolled to the new year. He would really need to strike it rich to get to 20 PPPs because his playmaking skills aren't great. However, 15 PPPs are certainly within reach, and if the team takes a big step, getting over 20 is possible.

Luke Evangelista

Over his 24-game stretch, Evangelista saw a higher share of his team's PP time (66.7%) than Mark Scheifele in Winnipeg (66.5%), Brady Tkachuk in Ottawa (65.4%), and Tage Thompson in Buffalo (63.4%) saw in the second half of their seasons. Evangelista didn't produce a whole lot with just two PPPs, but that team was shredded by injuries late in the year. Just having Roman Josi around more should help.

It is very fair to wonder if Nashville's power play will be any good. Ryan O'Reilly struggled heavily in St. Louis last year with the man advantage, the Predators got rid of Matt Duchene and Ryan Johansen, and the rest of the lineup is mostly made up of players with a lot to prove. I am a believer in Tommy Novak, though, and hopefully ROR/Josi will find some chemistry. Evangelista may get a top PP role on a bad team, but that should keep him cheap at draft tables in points-only formats.

Cole Perfetti

There are fewer more interesting players to me than Cole Perfetti. Injuries and an inconsistent role have limited his games but over his two partial seasons, he's looked phenomenal. His rate of scoring chances + scoring chance assists (helpers on a teammate's chance) in 2022-23 was similar to guys like Andrew Mangiapane and Steven Stamkos, per All Three Zones tracking data:

Perfetti's shot rate grew as well, and he has been giving decent rates of hits. It really does seem he's turning into a high-end fantasy option, even if it takes a few years to really hit his ceiling.

The problem for fantasy is Perfetti's PP role (I talked about his roadblocks to production last week). He wasn't a PP1 fixture but both Blake Wheeler and Pierre-Luc Dubois are with new teams. That could have left him with a clear path to PP1 minutes, but Gabriel Vilardi came back in the PLD trade. There is now Vilardi, Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Nikolaj Ehlers, and Perfetti on the roster. One of those guys is not getting top PP time. My assumption is Winnipeg leaves the young forward on PP2 but switches him off with Ehlers at times. However, if he can get that top PP time, he stands to receive a big fantasy boost, and his skills make him a high PPP threat if he does get that role.

Nick Schmaltz

Over the last two seasons, there are 276 forwards with at least 1500 minutes of even strength ice time. Of that group, Schmaltz is tied for 20^th (with Sidney Crosby) for points per 60 minutes, exceeding names like Tage Thompson, Leon Draisaitl, Mikko Rantanen, and Artemi Panarin. As for his comparables by goals/60 and primary assists/60 at even strength, here we go:

The comp with Nico Hischier seems apt here. Hischier just had a career year with 80 points in 81 games but did so with just 19 PPPs. Of the 31 players to reach at least 80 points in the 2022-23 season, Hischier was the only one that did not reach 20 PPPs, and only he, Clayton Keller, and Jeff Skinner finished with fewer than 25. Even when excluding McDavid and Draisaitl, the rest of the 80+ group averaged 29 PPPs. It is why it's not hard to envision Hischier getting to 90 points sometime in the next few seasons.

Producing with the man advantage remains Schmaltz's last hurdle. He has just 20 PPPs in his last 126 games, or 13 every 82 games. There should be a new power-play setup with both Shayne Gostisbehere and Jakob Chychrun gone, hopefully focusing on playmaking from the forwards rather than shots from distance. Even a decent top PP unit makes Schmaltz a 20 PPP threat, and a point-per-game guy.

Lucas Raymond

Anyone that reads my Ramblings knows that I'm not a big fan of Raymond and think he may be a bit overvalued. Of course, he's still a young player, but he'll turn 22 years old during the season and will crest 200 career games after Christmas (if he stays healthy). It would be nice to see him start showing signs of pushing the play rather than just relying on Dylan Larkin to feed him in a shooting position.

With that said, Raymond's share of Detroit's PPTOI rose as the season went on, hovering around 50% before pushing closer to 60%. The team tried a lot of different combinations as they were holding onto faint playoff hopes, but Tyler Bertuzzi moving on helped in this regard.

Competition is obviously an issue here. Alex DeBrincat is now in the fold, Larkin isn't going anywhere, and it's hard to see them leaving David Perron off that top quintet. Robby Fabbri was earning heavy PP ice time in certain stretches, J.T. Compher showed some man advantage prowess on an injured Colorado roster, and there are a handful of young guys that'll push the veterans. That is not great for Raymond but if he can take that step forward, it'll be hard to deny him that top PP role. He's flirted with 20 PPPs in his brief career, and seems poised to finally get there in 2023-24. He will have to earn it, though, given the replacements that are waiting. Detroit may even run two even-ish PP units for large chunks of the season.