Dobber’s 18th annual Fantasy Guide PDF and Draft List spreadsheet is now available! Sleepers, rookies, stock drops, goalies, schedule breakdown, team-by-team projections and analysis, and more! Buy it as a standalone product, or get it as a discount as part of a package.

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Some more summer hockey reading for you: We will be starting the Offseason Fantasy Grades team articles next week. The first article is scheduled to appear on Tuesday August 8, and they will continue into September. You will be able to find the links to all of them here. For now, you can scroll down and read last season's articles and reflect on how it went with each team a year later.

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Hockey news tends to be light during this part of the offseason, but there have been a few noteworthy developments over the past couple weeks. As you probably already know, we will expand on the fantasy impact whenever a player is traded or signs with a new team. Yet player value can also change from other news, such as a retirement, injury, or draft pick signing. Here's what one of each of these could mean from a fantasy perspective.

Note: Due to a prior commitment this weekend, I am writing this a few days in advance. My apologies if any recent player news affects this analysis. If it does, I will update my analysis in a future Ramblings.

Patrice Bergeron retires

Value Up: Pavel Zacha – Suddenly without Bergeron and quite possibly David Krejci, the Bruins are now surprisingly thin at center. Enter Zacha, whose value has already taken off after being traded from New Jersey last offseason. Zacha had not posted a 40-point season prior to last season, but in Boston he recorded a career-high 57 points, which included reaching the 20-goal mark for the first time.

Zacha's most frequent line combination was with Krejci and David Pastrnak, where he was mainly used on the wing. There's a good chance that he centers Pastrnak this season, which should help him at least maintain his value. In addition, the player to fill Bergeron's spot on the power play might be Zacha, whose power-play point total should increase from 8 PPP last season. A couple of his analytics were a bit high (12.1 5-on-5 SH%, 1043 PDO), but that should be offset by an increase in overall icetime from the 16 minutes he averaged in 2022-23. Consider Zacha a potential sleeper in the coming season's drafts.

Value Down: Brad Marchand – For a very long time, Marchand has been tied to the hip of Bergeron. Now Marchand will need to adjust to life without Bergeron, his teammate since the 2009-10 season. Unfortunately, even before Bergeron's departure, Marchand's production had been trending downward. It doesn't help matters that he is now 35 years of age.

Marchand's goal total had decreased from 32 in 2021-22 to just 21 in 2022-23. The fact that his shot rate had declined from 3.5 SOG/GP to 2.5 SOG/GP likely had a major impact – more than the decrease of just under 2% in his shooting percentage. As a result, his production fell under a point per game for the first time in seven seasons, and it was mostly because of the goal decrease. Even if the Bruins can still find a way to upgrade at the center position before the season starts, Marchand appears to be hitting his age-related decline already.

Note: I would still rank Marchand ahead of Zacha, but their projections should be much closer than they have been in previous seasons.

Arizona signs Logan Cooley

Value Up: Clayton Keller – The 25-year-old Keller accomplished a lot on his own last season. His team-leading 86 points was 28 points ahead of the next-leading scorer Nick Schmaltz. Granted, Schmaltz played only 63 games, but you get the idea. The Coyotes had only three players who recorded more than a 0.6 PTS/GP pace: Keller, Schmaltz, and Matias Maccelli.

Cooley gives the Coyotes another option down the middle. We will soon find out whether Keller gels better with Cooley or Barrett Hayton, who benefitted from Keller's outstanding second half (18 PTS in last 20 GP). The addition of Cooley and emergence of players like Hayton and Dylan Guenther could mean that brighter days are ahead for the Coyotes, who on paper are starting to look more competitive. The more options, the better for Keller.

Value Down: Travis Boyd – The lack of depth in recent seasons in Arizona has meant that players like Boyd have been used in a scoring-line role. After being a waiver-wire pickup of the Vancouver Canucks in the middle of 2020-21, Boyd has emerged as an important player for the Coyotes. His icetime has increased to 16 minutes per game with Arizona from the 10-12 minutes he averaged previously with Washington, Toronto, and Vancouver. As a result, Boyd has reached 30 points in both of his seasons with the Coyotes.

As much as joining the Coyotes has given his career new life, Boyd seems like a placeholder for the incoming prospects such as Cooley. Although the Coyotes may be reluctant to start Cooley in a scoring-line role and the top power-play right away, it shouldn't take him long to get there. Once that happens, Boyd will once again assume a depth role on the team.

Matt Murray placed on LTIR

Value Up: Joseph Woll – Unless they can move some more cap space, the Leafs won't be able to acquire a veteran free agent goalie. That likely means Woll will make the NHL roster full-time in 2023-24. Woll had struggled in the AHL in his first three seasons there, but in 2022-23 he was able to put it all together with a 2.37 GAA and .927 SV% in 21 games. In addition, he played well in his brief NHL duty (7 GP, 2.16 GAA, .932 SV%).

Make no mistake: Ilya Samsonov is the starter, and he will probably play more than the 42 games he played in 2022-23. If Samsonov is injured (assuming Murray stays on LTIR all season), Woll would be given the opportunity to start. Since Samsonov and Murray are both set to become UFA at the end of the season, Woll could also be playing for the full-time starter's job as early as next season if he can put together another strong campaign.

Value Down: Murray, obviously – Even without the injuries, Murray has not had a goals-against average of below 3.00 in his past three seasons with Ottawa and Toronto. He's also been a negative GSAA (goals-saved against average) goalie for the past four seasons, although his past two seasons have been close to league average. At this point I'm wondering if he still has a future in the NHL. For a goalie that backstopped the Penguins to two Stanley Cups early in his career, this would be an unfortunate way to end his career.

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