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. The Top 100 Roto Rankings were updated for the month of August. Feel free to use these rankings in your upcoming drafts, whether mock or real.

Just as I want to be responsive to player ranking suggestions, I should also be the same way with categories used for the rankings. That is why some changes are coming to the rankings the next time they are updated, which will be on September 15. Currently the categories are G, A, +/-, PPP, SOG, HIT, W, GAA, and SV%, which are subject to endless debate. I have a pretty good idea what the changes will be, but nothing is final until you see it here. Plus, it’s fun to add a little mystery. I will confirm, though, that the rankings will look a little different next month.

Below are some movers of the past month. For more, follow the link… (aug18)

2. Igor Shesterkin (Jul: 30, Aug: 20)

When do you pick a goalie? If you follow along with Yahoo pre-draft rankings, the answer is sometime during the second round of 12-team drafts. In my Ramblings from a few weeks ago, I listed arguments for and against what I think are the top 5 goalies being the top-ranked goalie. At this point if I had to pick one goalie, I’d go with Shesterkin.

While I’m at it, this is also a good time to mention that I moved three of the other four goalies (Ilya Sorokin, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Jake Oettinger) up as well. Every year, many of us in the industry say that we won’t pick goalies high in a draft again. But then when push comes to shove, there’s at least one goaltending run. This season, it could happen earlier than you’re comfortable with, and it could involve this cohort.

I know this section is supposed to be about Shesterkin, but you may have also noticed that Linus Ullmark is no longer the #1-ranked goalie. I still have him in my top 5 of goalies, but just barely. The potential timeshare with Jeremy Swayman plus a potential dip in the standings for Boston could cut into his value. Let’s not take away the fact that his Vezina Trophy was well-deserved, and he was more reliable than anyone between the pipes in 2022-23. If too many of your league mates are skeptical about him, don’t hesitate to grab him at the right spot. (aug18)

3. Alexandar Georgiev (Jul: 64, Aug: 46)

I could even see Georgiev being ranked among the top 5 goalies, if you consider his potential for a high win total and decent ratios. In fact, Georgiev tied for the league lead in wins with Linus Ullmark and finished fourth in quality starts in 2022-23. His lack of history as a starting goalie beyond last season might be viewed as a weakness, but at least he was able to prove that he could handle a heavy workload, starting 62 games in 2022-23. As a result, I moved Georgiev up to a spot just outside of the aforementioned top 5 goalies.

One other stat to consider for Georgiev: Really Bad Start Percentage (RBS%). Among goalies that played at least 30 games, only four goalies had a lower RBS% than Georgiev (9.7%). That means over the entire season, he had only six games with a save percentage below .850. That might be aided by the team in front of him, if you consider that his previous numbers were never as good as they were in 2022-23. As long as he’s in the same situation, that doesn’t really matter, though. (aug18)

4. Jonathan Toews has announced on his Instagram account that he won’t play in 2023-24. Toews did not officially retire, which opens the door for a possible return in 2024-25. However, I’d be willing to bet that this is the last we’ve seen of Toews as a player, since he is now 35 years of age and he was held to just 53 games in 2022-23. Once Toews announces his retirement, expect him to be named to the Hockey Hall of Fame shortly after he becomes eligible, as he was the captain of three Stanley Cup winners, won two Olympic gold medals, and was named one of the NHL’s 100 Greatest Players in 2017.  

Hopefully Toews is doing well and is healthy enough to lead a normal life, even if he does not return to professional hockey. As well, perhaps his situation will lead to more awareness about the struggles people have with long COVID as well as research for possible treatments. (aug18)

5. Let's use Frozen Tools to determine the top line combinations from last season. To find this information, click More Stats to show the full grid of buttons (if needed), then under the Production heading select Top EV Line (for even-strength production) or Top PP Line (for power-play production).

The top combination by production, Joe Pavelski – Roope Hintz – Jason Robertson, was also the third-ranked line in 2021-22. If you think that having players on the same line should result in consistent point totals, then you’re right about two of those three players. Hintz’s production grew by just three points (in seven fewer games), while Pavelski’s fell by a mere four points.

Robertson was the main mover, as his point total jumped by 20 points (in eight more games). Believe it or not, Robertson’s shooting percentage fell by nearly 4% from his 2021-22 number. He took nearly 100 more shots in 2022-23, while he added 25 more assists. Peter DeBoer juggled the lines a bit more during the playoffs, as Robertson seemed to struggle at times. He still finished with 18 points in 19 games during the Stars’ run to the Western Conference Final. If Robertson can remain on the same line for most of the season, another 100-point season is entirely possible. For the entire breakdown, follow the link… (aug19)

6. During the press conference for the Jeff Petry trade, Montreal announced that forward Paul Byron will retire from the NHL. He missed over half of Montreal’s games from 2019-22, and the entire 2022-23 season with a hip injury. Byron has 208 career points in 521 games for three teams, most of them with the Canadiens.

Those numbers belie a career that never may have happened in the first place. He was claimed off waivers by Montreal after 130 games with Calgary, and just eight games with Buffalo, the team that drafted him. As a sixth-round selection in 2007, he wasn’t expected to last long, anyway.

But then from 2015-19, a four-year stretch that saw him reach 81 and 82 games played in two of them, he had a high-end second-line production rate at 5-on-5 (74^th percentile) with good penalty killing metrics (per Evolving Hockey). He went from waiver claim to a solid second liner, if not a great third liner, in a hurry. It is quite the story, and one that bears repeating for his resilience. From this Habs fan, thanks for the tremendous effort and best wishes in retirement. (aug17)

7. Tom Collins had an article on Monday reviewing the 10 options on Yahoo! that he felt are ranked too low. Go read what Tom has to say about Jamie Drysdale, Zach Werenski, Stuart Skinner, Josh Norris, and others.

That gave me some inspiration to look at early ADPs across two sites: ESPN and Underdog Fantasy. Keep in mind that fantasy hockey draft season isn’t for another month, there are few drafts to give us the data we need right now, and a lot will change over the next six weeks. Let's check out a couple below. [For more, follow the link…] (ADPs for each player will be in parentheses next to their names.) (aug17)

8. Elias Pettersson (ESPN: 5.2, Underdog: 21.2)

This one jumped out immediately. One site has him in the David Pastrnak/Nathan MacKinnon group of players, the other has him in the Kyle Connor/Timo Meier tier. When discussing players drafted inside the top-25, that is a chasm of difference in draft value.

Pettersson’s 102-point season will stand out, but he had 89 blocks and 74 hits in his 80 games. Those blew his prior career-highs (51 blocks, 49 hits) out of the water. If he can boost his peripherals even more, and get to 40 goals and 100 points, maybe he’s a first-round value. A lot has to go right, though, and it feels like a misstep to have him included with the likes of Nathan MacKinnon. I assume his ESPN ADP goes up a lot by October as this is a result of early mock drafts. (aug17)

9. Connor Bedard (ESPN: 20.5, Underdog: 27.6)

I wrote about Bedard’s value in best ball formats last week. Go read that for more information on this.

To pay off an ADP in the early 20s on ESPN, Bedard needs 35 goals and 100 points, or maybe 45 goals and 90 points, over three shots per game and 25-plus power-play points. It’s not much less than that to pay off an ADP in the late 20s. To profit on that pick, he probably needs a season like Jack Hughes just had with 43 goals, 99 points, 31 PPPs, and over 300 shots. That makes this feel like he’s being over-drafted basically everywhere. He did go 42^nd in the one draft I did, so it seems some draft rooms will be more bullish on him than others. (aug17)

10. More summer hockey reading for you, our Offseason Fantasy Grades team articles. The first article appeared on Tuesday, August 8, and they will continue into September. You will be able to find the links to all of them here. Check them out! 

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11. Tuesday’s Jeff Petry trade was summed up pretty well by Cliffy on the main site here. As a Petry owner in two keeper leagues (one of them a cap league) I have to say I’m a little disappointed by the landing spot. That isn’t to say it’s a bad landing spot, and I think Montreal may have been one of the worst spots for him to be with there being a lot of young options to contend with and not having a ton of offense up front, but compared to some other situations, Detroit just isn’t an exciting spot. He may see some secondary power play time and load up peripherals, but he could have done that anywhere. There just isn’t the same ultimate upside here.

The Wings seem to be pulling out of their rebuild mode a little early and a little slowly. They haven’t ascended as quickly as one would like to see, and they are running out of runway in some ways by not having added a game-breaking talent in the draft. I like that they do seem to be moving forward, it just seems to be a little slower than ideal, especially seeing how dominant the top of the East was last year and how quickly the Sens and Sabres are building in addition to what the Pens are doing for one last kick at the can. I think Detroit will be lucky to finish above 10^th this season (once again). (aug16)

12. Yahoo finally has their database open, which means a lot of sources have already been diving into where players are ranked, who is too high, too low, and who the sleepers are.

What I do like doing this early is just entering a few 14-team mock drafts, and seeing where I feel pinched the most while drafting. All of my redraft leagues are either 10 or 12 team leagues, so drafting in a 14-team mock better simulates having all of the better players gone by the time it’s you up to pick for that round. If you only do 12-team mocks for a 12-team league, then you’re going to be unhappy come draft time when all your league-mates are targeting the same players you are. (aug16)

13. The first thing I notice when running my mocks is that after the top couple of players this year, it is fairly wide open. We can probably say that Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Nathan MacKinnon are going to be the top-three drafted in most leagues. After that, do you take the scoring upside of David Pastrnak or Auston Matthews, the multi-cat coverage of one of the Tkachuks, the positional advantage of Ilya Sorokin, Igor Shesterkin, or Cale Makar. Throw in some younger upside forwards in Jason Robertson, Mikko Rantanen, and Tage Thompson, as well as the ever-present Nikita Kucherov and Alex Ovechkin, and there are already more than ten options that should get some consideration for a top-10 pick depending on the league settings.

That’s all well and good, but in running through a couple of drafts at various positions, I did find that the middle rounds in the 50-90 range produced a lot less players that I was excited about than I seem to see in years past. [For the complete rundown, follow the link…] (aug16)

14. As expected, David Krejci has announced his retirement. Krejci had taken a season off to play in his native Czechia, but returned in 2022-23 for a Boston Cup run. He finished the regular season with 56 points in 70 games, his seventh career season averaging at least 0.8 points per game. He finishes his career playing 1032 regular season games, 160 playoff contests, and all of them with Boston. Krejci wound up with 786 regular season points and a Stanley Cup. It was a really good career and all the best to him in retirement.

Fantasy players have been expecting both him and Bergeron to not be around for 2023-24, and this makes Pavel Zacha one of the more intriguing fantasy options this season. It is conceivable he jumps to 18 minutes a night alongside one of Marchand/Pastrnak/DeBrusk, if not two of them, along with top PPTOI. (aug15)

15. The IIHF has ruled that Ivan Fedotov, a prospect goalie in the Philadelphia organization, has a legal contract with the Flyers for 2023-24, meaning he will report to Philly. How this all goes down remains to be seen but The Canadian Press says the ruling sanctions Fedotov for signing with CSKA in the KHL, meaning Fedotov is suspended until December 31^st. If (or how) that affects his status in the NHL is what we need to wait on, but it appears the Flyers will have another goalie in training camp. (aug15)

16. I have been doing something I have never done, and that’s to start working on my projections early. Taking July and August to largely think about anything but hockey is usually the order of operations, but getting rain for most of the last 12 weeks has given me more spare time than anticipated. Thanks, Mother Nature, I guess?

My projections won’t be finished until sometime in September – I still procrastinate with the best of them – but I did want to go through some surprising stats from 2022-23. Constantly returning to what happened last season can get tedious, but it is the first full season we’ve had without COVID interruptions since 2018-19, so it’s worth reviewing again. These are some stats that have surprised me as I’ve started compiling my spreadsheets. For example:

17. Miro Heiskanen Had as Many Second-Half Power-Play Points as Jason Robertson

If someone had told me in September of 2022 that Miro Heiskanen would put up 73 points – more than double his prior career-best mark of 35 – I would have put a healthy sum of money on him to win the Norris Trophy. That he finished 7^th in Norris voting highlights the amount of elite defensemen in the NHL.

The surge in Heiskanen’s production was due to having 34 PPPs after managing just 37 in his first 275 career games. Over half (18) of those came in the second half, a total that equaled Robertson’s PP output. I am not really sure what to do with that information except that it stunned me just how proficient Heiskanen was on the PP, and how fast it happened. I thought it might take a couple years to really find his groove, but it took maybe a few weeks? A superlative player. (aug15)

[For more, follow the link…]

18. A Russian prospect who is starting to get a bit of buzz thanks to a couple of articles in The Athletic (the biggest one being this one by Scott Powers) is Chicago’s Ilya Safonov. For the most part, young players in the KHL do not see much in the way of ice time and opportunity. The KHL is even worse than the NHL for that. So this often makes them fly under the radar for fantasy owners because the numbers that you see for them on stats sites such as Frozen Tools are unimpressive.

Furthermore, Safonov is 6-4, when just a few years ago he wasn’t even six feet. Adjusting to those new mechanics within his body is bound to take time. He broke out last season for Ak Bars Kazan, leading all U22 players in that league in scoring with 19 goals and 37 points. He’s still signed there for this season and next, so he’s more of a long-term prospect for dynasty leaguers. But given that the organization is Chicago, it’s worth noting. He was also named team captain for Ak Bars, a team that also boasted Alexander Radulov, Vadim Shipachyov, and Dmitri Voronkov (CBJ prospect). I wouldn’t be shocked if he boosts his numbers in the KHL season ahead to flirt with a point-per-game average. If that happens, your fellow keeper league owners will catch wind of him. (aug14)

19. Prospect defenseman Alexander Alexeyev is not waivers-exempt, so it’s likely that he again makes the Capitals this season. To send him down would mean possibly losing a former first-round draft pick (31^st overall in 2018) for nothing, and not many teams are willing to do that. In fact, the Caps weren’t willing to do it last year and kept him in the NHL all season – but they scratched him for more than half the games.

The 6-4, left-shot defenseman has yet to find any offensive magic in North America, not even with Hershey. And his defense has only been average at best. While teams will often keep a high draft pick in the lineup rather than lose him to waivers, even if it means scratching him all the time, I don’t recall a team doing that for two years in a row. That second year, if he doesn’t prove himself, then he gets cut and often another team will snatch him and take a chance that a new environment will change things. Hey, a change in environment/team system worked for former fifth-round pick Gustav Forsling, who was waived by the Hurricanes and snapped up by Florida. So it does happen.

But if Alexeyev has a poor training camp, Washington has a backup plan in Hardy Haman Aktell, an undrafted Swedish defenseman whom they signed in late April. Aktell is also a left-shooting blueliner who stands at 6-4. He just finished third in the SHL in scoring among defenseman with 36 points in 51 games. At 25, he’s very experienced playing pro hockey against men, and he’ll be hungry to make his NHL dream come true. (aug14)

20. I just spoke about how teams are reluctant to place their first round picks on waivers, but Detroit had done just that with Evgeni Svechnikov, who was drafted 19^th overall in 2015. They placed him on waivers and he cleared. But defensemen, such as Alexeyev, are tougher commodities to give up. Anyway, Svechnikov has given up his NHL dream, signing for two years with Ak Bars Kazan (to play with the aforementioned Safonov – see how I tie everything together?). Svechnikov, who turns 27 in the fall, was a high-scoring junior player and at one time a Top 20 prospect in my Fantasy Prospects List. He never had a 20-point NHL season. It just goes to show you that not all prospects pan out, and if you get offered a proven player for one, then it’s always worth considering. (aug14)

21. ICYMI: We have released our new app for @GoaliePost for iOS (free).

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Heart-wrenching news came down on Monday afternoon when player agent Dan Milstein announced the passing of Rodion Amirov. Just 21 years old, Amirov had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and was battling this terrible disease for two years. 

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Have a good week, folks!

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