Every Sunday, we share 21 Fantasy Rambles from our writers at DobberHockey. These thoughts are curated from the past week’s 'Daily Ramblings'.

Writers/Editors: Ian Gooding, Michael Clifford, Alexander MacLean and Dobber

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1. 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. Below are a couple and what they could mean from a fantasy perspective.

2. 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. (aug5)

3. 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. (aug5)

4. 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. (aug5)

5. I’ve finally had some time to take a real look at the NHL schedule, and sort through anything that is interesting to me as a fantasy hockey GM, especially for my H2H leagues, where the schedule fluctuations in small sample sizes can really make a difference. You can run the FrozenTools Schedule Planner report on your own any time if there is something specific you want to look into. I use it more than I care to admit. You can check it all out here.

If you want to read more on the B2B schedules, and light days vs heavy, then you’ll have to pick up the Fantasy Guide where Andrew Santillo has all of that covered. (aug4)

6. Pittsburgh signed RFA Drew O’Connor to a two-year extension. 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. (aug3)

7. 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 defensemen 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 offense 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. For example, Akira Schmid below: (aug3)

8. 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 0.911 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 netminder. (aug3)

9. I’m going to run through some of my thoughts that I didn’t get to discuss from all the moves from the Draft through to today.

Maybe the biggest move in the Alex DeBrincat trade, and how it affects two teams in very similar spots in the East. In Ottawa, DeBrincat’s absence won’t be felt too harshly, as they have some excellent top-of-the-lineup players, and assuming Josh Norris is healthy, the lineup looks to be deep enough to run three scoring lines, especially after the addition of Tarasenko.

Add in some very capable puck-moving defensemen, and three reasonable albeit uninspiring goalies in Joonas Korpisalo, Anton Forsberg, and Mads Sogaard, and they could very well be the surprise team above Buffalo and Detroit that ends up stepping forward into the playoffs. Who misses this year (at the expense of Buffalo and Ottawa)? Of last year’s teams that made the playoffs, I expect the Islanders and Panthers to take a step back and miss the playoffs. The Isles because Sorokin won’t carry them quite as far this time, and the Panthers because they have been stretched thin, don’t have as much depth as other teams, and are nursing a lot of injuries to top players. (aug2)

10. Meanwhile, Detroit does seem to be moving a little more slow and steady, and while DeBrincat adds a dimension they have not had in a long time, then depth and the star power isn’t quite there yet. Ville Husso also did what most younger goalies do, and really tailed off at the end of the season. Goalies that don’t have the experience of managing a full workload over a full NHL season really struggle in the second half, and especially in the final quarter of the season. His insurance this year is 35-year-old James Reimer, not exactly an awe-inspiring tandem to make up for the shortcomings elsewhere. (aug2)

11. The Washington Capitals getting Max Pacioretty at a $2 million cap hit is an excellent gamble for them, and the kind of thing that could make a very big difference in their season. There haven’t been any indications yet as to when Pacioretty may be able to return to game action, but considering the timeline the first time he had the injury (surgery Aug 10^th, 2022 – return to ice mid-January), the fact he returned in less than six months bodes well for his timeline this time around.

After suffering a relapse of the injury in mid-January, there isn’t any indication I could find of exactly when he had the second surgery. It sounds as though common practice is to perform the procedure within two weeks of the injury, which would mean at the latest for Pacioretty it would have been early February. A six-month recovery would put him back in game action right around the start of the season. Even factoring in an extra month to be cautious, Pacioretty should be back before American Thanksgiving.

His assist rate has gone down the last few years, but playing with one of Nicklas Backstrom or Evgeni Kuznetsov should mean that he can keep up with his goal scoring to still pace for at least a goal-heavy 50 points. If the tiny five-game sample size in Carolina is anything to go off of, then the shot rate isn’t going to be an issue either, as he had 16 shots in just over four games there. (aug2)

12. I’m very curious how the additions of Ross Colton, Jonathan Drouin, and Ryan Johansen all play out for the Avalanche. If I had to guess, Drouin gets tried out first in the top-six with Nathan MacKinnon, Johansen gets the second-line center slot to start, with Colton being tried as the second-line LW and third-line C. Once Johansen struggles for a bit, Mikko Rantanen moves back to center line two, and they end up having some success there with one of Drouin or Colton up on the top line. Having watched Johansen for a while in Nashville, I don’t have a lot of faith in him being able to help carry a top-six line, which is why I think we end up with Rantanen being tapped to carry that burden. (aug2)

13. 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. (aug1)

14. 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. (aug1)

15. Anyone that reads my Ramblings knows that I’m not a big fan of Lucas 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. (aug1)

16. Over his 24-game stretch, Luke 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. (aug1)

17. 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. (aug1)

18. In the dog days of summer, when hockey transactions have died down, I’ve had plenty of in-person and online discussions. More than enough repeated opinions that I can form a solid list of opinions that I disagree with. What better topic for a late July Ramblings? Below are a few, while you can check them all out here.

Timo Meier Didn’t Help New Jersey’s Offense

The Devils are becoming an offensive juggernaut. Fourth in the league in scoring. Adding Meier at the deadline and then signing him to an extension pushes them over the top, right? Nope. They would be pushed over the top with or without Meier.

Meier had just 18 points in 32 games (regular season and playoffs) after joining the Devils. He played most of his shifts with some combination of Jack Hughes, Jesper Bratt, Nico Hischier and/or Dawson Mercer. In other words – a serious upgrade to Kevin Labanc and Tomas Hertl. But with weaker results.

I have him on the second line with Hischier, and I still have him producing solid numbers. But there are times when you are confident in the projection, and times when you are not. I wouldn’t be confident in giving him a 60-point projection, nor am I about the 71 points I have for him. Is his role with New Jersey going to make him a 60-point player? Perhaps he needs to be ‘the man’ in order to achieve 75-plus points. With the Devils, he’s their fourth top offensive gun at best. And that’s just among forwards. (july31)

19. Jesper Wallstedt is Not a Threat to Filip Gustavsson

Here’s one that seriously bothers me. Fantasy owners in dynasty and keeper leagues are honestly factoring in Wallstedt when they evaluate Gustavsson’s future value. Zero impact. Be more worried about Wallstedt! Yes, Wallstedt is extremely talented and a potential elite goaltender and multi-year NHL All-Star. But he’s a long way from being ready. His AHL debut season was less than impressive. As a rare first-round draft pick goalie, fantasy owners assume the red carpet is rolled out for him. And I’m sure it is. But he’s probably not joining the Wild until 2026-27 when he has to go on waivers to be sent down.

Why not sooner? Well, what do you expect from him? A 0.931 SV%? That would be pretty awesome, and I can see an elite prospect like Wallstedt posting something like that. Gustavsson actually did it. Gustavsson, who is a high draft pick himself (55^th overall), is already performing the way we ‘hope’ Wallstedt will perform. He’s already there! Why would a team replace a goalie who is doing what every team prays for their goalie to do… with a goalie who ‘might’ do that?

In fact, as I alluded to above, I would be more worried about Wallstedt. There is precedence for this. Jonathan Bernier and Jonathan Quick. Bernier was drafted 11^th overall in 2006. He was the next big thing. His talent was through the roof. Quick wasn’t drafted quite so high, at 72^nd overall in 2005. By 2010, Bernier was NHL-ready. But by that point, Quick had two full seasons under his belt, including a 39-win year. The Kings were hoping Bernier would turn into a 39-win goalie, but Quick was already there! Bernier was stuck as a backup for three seasons, hardly getting any starts as Quick won Stanley Cups. It was 2013 before Bernier got traded out of Los Angeles, but by then – I think his development suffered. He had a couple of good years in Toronto, but truly failed to find that ‘elite level’ that was expected of him. If there was no Jonathan Quick – would Bernier have been the hero for Los Angeles? Would his story be written differently? (july31)

20. Brandt Clarke is Not a Lock for a Los Angeles Roster Spot Out of Camp

This one is not etched in stone. I consider it likely – but 55% likely, and not 99% likely. He’s an elite offensive talent from the blue line in an era where offense from the blue line is peaking. He also takes a lot of risks, and if he gets caught the odd time in junior hockey, he’ll get caught a lot more in the pros. He made the team last year, wasn’t sheltered at all and was partnered with a veteran in Alex Edler.

My best guess is that he will play a few games to start the season, go down to the AHL for five or six weeks, and then return for good. The initial NHL run will show the coaching staff how far he has come along over the past year, and what still needs to be fixed. The AHL stint will be good for addressing those issues.

I think Jordan Spence is just as NHL-ready, but he also needs another half-season of AHL time. I can see the Kings adding a depth defenseman such as Nick Holden or Caleb Jones, to keep their spots warm until they’re called up for good. (july31)

21. Taylor Hall Doesn’t Automatically Surge in Value

Actually, that headline is a little off. Hall does surge in value. Now. But it’s his ‘results‘ that aren’t automatic. I, along with everyone else, have Hall and Taylor Raddysh playing with Connor Bedard to start. But I have very little faith in it working out for Hall. He failed in Buffalo when the Sabres signed him to play with Jack Eichel. Since then, he’s been a very good secondary player with the Bruins. Out of the spotlight, with ice time that’s about three minutes per game below what he was getting in his heyday – and given sheltered minutes.

With Lukas Reichel, Philipp Kurashev, Cole Guttman, Andreas Athanasiou and even Ryan Donato each dying for that spot on the Bedard line, I can see one of them playing the role of dark horse in the second half after Hall either gets injured (which is almost a guarantee), or underwhelms.

Which players thrive on that Bedard line is up in the air, and I can see it not truly having a resolution until well into the season. But there is one guarantee for success via Bedard. And that’s Seth Jones. There is no other defenseman even close to Jones in experience and pedigree, and his upside absolutely peaks. (july31)

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BTW: Some more summer hockey reading for you. We will be starting the Offseason Fantasy Grades team articles this 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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Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

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