Don't forget to head over to the Dobber Shop to grab your copy of the 2023-24 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide! The key with this guide is because it's online, it is updated constantly for transactions/injuries that occur between now and the start of the regular season. Stay up to date, and ahead of the curve, by supporting what we do year-round.

*

Pittsburgh signed RFA Drew O'Connor to a two-year extension:

The Penguins have re-signed forward Drew O'Connor to a two-year contract.

The deal runs through the 2024.25 campaign and carries an average annual value of $925,000.

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) August 2, 2023

In his 600-some minutes at 5-on-5 over the last two seasons, the DOC has managed 9.6 shots per 60 minutes. It is a higher mark than names like Kevin Fiala, Carter Verhaeghe, and Andrei Svechnikov. Unfortunately, he's shot just 8% so the goal rate hasn't been near as stellar. He does have 27 goals in his last 73 AHL games and averaged north of three shots per game in each of his three partial AHL seasons.

At the NHL level, DOC has 81 hits in 78 games while skating under 10 minutes a night. A consistent third-line role with just a bit better finishing would see him be a valuable depth multi-cat option.

*

Isac Lundestrom underwent Achilles surgery and will be out until the new year.

Meanwhile, the Ducks extended one of their core pieces for a long time:

Fantastic. Ducks lock up a key piece of their core long term. https://t.co/zw2eUGQ0yP

— Félix Sicard (@Felix_Sicard) August 2, 2023

It always seemed odd they were playing hard ball with Terry, but this is a very nice extension for both player and team. He should have a nice rebound season on the ice, too.

*

Over the last month, these Ramblings have looked at the peripheral fantasy hockey stats at length. The rise (or fall) of specific stats over the last five years were discussed, what that meant for players at different point production levels, and skaters to target for peripherals as a result of these changes.  Then we moved on to power-play production changes on the blue line and some secondary PP defencemen to target. Finally we moved on to power play production changes among the forwards, the distribution of power-play points across the league, and some forwards to target among the non-elite options.

All that was to set the stage for the 2023-24 fantasy hockey season. We need to know how the league is changing if we want any hope of keeping up with the changes.

The one area we haven't touched on yet is goalies. There is a reason for that: I hate projecting goalies. No offence to the position, it's just a volatile position. Among the skaters, there are dozens of players we can likely rely on – health permitting – for great-to-elite fantasy production year after year. There are players that surprise each season, but the top fantasy skaters usually are the elite players, or the line mates of those elite players.

It is kind of the same for goalies – Connor Hellebuyck tends to be great regardless of the quality of the team in front of him – but there are far more surprises. Last year, we just need to look at the top-12 goalies on ESPN's fantasy leaderboard for this to become obvious: Filip Gustavsson (4), Alexandar Georgiev (6), Ilya Samsonov (8), and Vitek Vanecek (12) were all drafted outside the top-12 goalies (average of ADPs from fantasy sites). Only one (Georgiev) was inside the top-20 by goaltender ADP. Among the top-50 ESPN skaters, the only real surprises were Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Brandon Montour, and Vince Dunn. Despite there being way more skaters than goalies, it is much easier to find good fantasy value late in drafts among the net-minders. Of course, the rest of your league mates are vying for the same value goalies, which can make actually getting them on your roster a lot more difficult.

One thing fantasy owners will notice about the four goalies listed in the preceding paragraph is that each of them came from a playoff team. In fact, of the top 20 goalies on ESPN last year, only one (Juuse Saros) came from a non-playoff team. Vegas alone had three goalies in the top-24. Breaking news, I know, but being on good teams helps a goalie's fantasy value immensely, even if they're not a high-value goalie themselves. So, let's look at some teams we think can get to the postseason and goalies that could carry good fantasy value for cheap at the draft table.

Cam Talbot (LAK)

It is weird to see Los Angeles with a very good skater group and pinning their hopes to Pheonix Copley and Cam Talbot. This kind of approach seems ripe for a repeat of what Vegas did in 2022-23 by ending up with no single goalie starting half the team's games. By that same token, as mentioned, Vegas had three goalies be very relevant in fantasy last year so we can't ignore Los Angeles just because we're scared of time shares.

Copley is a type of incumbent, so I assume he'll get first crack at the cage in October. Expecting him to make 55 starts, though, is expecting too much. As long as Talbot can stay healthy, it seems very possible he gets to the 30-start plateau.  

There are a lot of signs of decline. His high-danger save percentage over the last three seasons ranks in the bottom 20% of regular goalies and his Goals Saved Above Expected were consistently negative. By the same token, the same could have been said about Joonas Korpisalo for most of his career until 2022-23, and he was superb for Los Angeles in a small sample (though he is younger). For Talbot to be a good fantasy value this year he doesn't need 55 starts; just 30 on a good playoff team would be enough to keep him on most fantasy rosters.

Thatcher Demko (VAN)

He doesn't quite qualify like the rest of the group here, but I wanted to include him to talk about a very important part of the 2022-23 Canucks season.

Last year, Vancouver had the worst penalty kill in the league. Their 11.1 goals against/60 minutes was dead last and nearly a full goal/60 worse than teams like Montreal and Buffalo. If we take out the 55-plus minutes Oliver Ekman-Larsson played, Vancouver's goals against number also goes down nearly a full goal per 60 minutes. Vancouver's bad penalty killing numbers were heavily skewed by OEL's play in limited minutes, compounded by Luke Schenn also performing poorly. After February 19^th, with both OEL and Schenn no longer playing for them, Vancouver went from the worst penalty killing team by goals against per minute to 10^th. Over the final two months of the season, the Canucks allowed fewer PP goals per minute than teams like Dallas, Minnesota, and the Islanders.

How improved Vancouver's PK will be over 82 games is a fair question, but the additions of Ian Cole and Carson Soucy are legitimate defensive improvements for the roster. It is hard to imagine Vancouver's penalty kill being that bad again, and a healthy Demko should reap the rewards. I am not overly bullish on Vancouver being a playoff team, but they should be in the mix, and there's the potential for the PK to be hugely improved, along with Demko's overall numbers as a result.

Akira Schmid (NJD)

It feels like a lifetime ago already, but remember when Schmid came in after New Jersey went down 0-2 in the first round, and allowed one-or-zero goals in four of the next five games to send them to the second round? Despite a rough second round, Schmid had a .921 save percentage in the postseason, backing up his .922 in 18 regular season games.

Vitek Vanecek still exists, and he did get to 52 games played last year (48 starts) while posting a .911 save percentage. He has the heftier contract and likely gets the nod coming out of training camp (Dobber wrote about this situation on Monday). This is one where we'll have to see where ADPs land, but it makes me wonder if it's not similar to the situations Samsonov/Murray and Georgiev/Francouz found themselves in. Even with just 16 starts, Pavel Francouz was the number-31 goalie on ESPN last season. If Schmid can get 25-30 starts, he could be a top-25 goalie, and it still leaves room for Vanecek being the full-time net-minder.

Joseph Woll (TOR)

We may be looking at the last hurrah with Toronto's current core. It seems unlikely the entire Big Four is back in 2023-24, and Toronto is desperate for a deep playoff run, so the better goalie will get the run of play. Injuries and competition kept Ilya Samsonov to 40 starts in 2022-23 and he has yet to start half his team's games in any season of his career. He has only been around four years but, with regards to workload, it's definitely one of those "have to see it to believe it" situations.

Woll has been a professional for four years but has mostly spent time in the AHL. There was improvement every year, though, going from an .880 save percentage in 2019-20 before getting to .892, then .907, and finishing with a .927 in 2022-23. That is far from a guarantee he'll be good in the NHL, but his early returns have been promising and Samsonov may be 11 months away from leaving the franchise. For now, Woll is one of presumptive values on the season.

Joel Hofer (STL)

St. Louis acquiring Kevin Hayes indicates to me the team has no interest in rebuilding. This is a team that wants to push back to the postseason and as such, they'll have to go with the hot hand in net. They are not a team that can afford to give Jordan Binnington three months of poor play before making a different choice.

Let's be honest here: 2019 was a long time ago and it's been a steady decline for Binnington since. He started 60 games in 2022-23 and got his doors blown off. St. Louis will be forced to turn to Hofer if Binnington doesn't show early signs of stability.  

Hofer is another AHL goalie that showed improvement every season, topping at a .921 save percentage in 47 games last season. He was serviceable in a few NHL starts and he will assuredly be very cheap at the draft table in September. He doesn't have to be great to get past the 30-start plateau this season, he just needs to be better than Binnington.

Devon Levi (BUF)

Craig Anderson has retired, and he was Buffalo's best goalie last season until Levi showed up. Among 63 regular/backup goalies in 2022-23, Evolving Hockey has both Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Eric Comrie in the bottom 15% of the league by Goals Saved Above Expected per minute. Despite having two goalies make 51 starts and be among the worst in the league, Buffalo missed the playoffs by one point. This was a good – if flawed – team that would have been in the postseason if they had just a shade better goaltending through the first five months of the season.

It brings us to Levi. Both Comrie and UPL are signed for 2023-24 but both are one-year deals and Comrie will be an unrestricted free agent next July. It is unclear why the Sabres would give either guy the lion's share of starts unless they perform very well early in the season. Neither contract is hard to stuff in the AHL and they have cap space to not worry about doing so. If the Sabres miss the playoffs again by a point or two and the Comrie/UPL duo finishes the upcoming season with, say, 49 combined starts and an .892 save percentage, the coach and GM will look pretty bad.

All this is to say I am not sure why Levi wouldn't be the guy over the course of the season. Maybe he doesn't get start after start in October and November, but if he plays anything like he did down the stretch last campaign, it's difficult to see exactly why the Sabres wouldn't make him the full-time starter. There should be concerns about what his ADP will be – maybe he gets inflated to the point where the risk isn't worth it – but there's only one Buffalo goalie I want to draft among the top-25 net-minders.