Draft dates are starting to be set, and it may feel today like we're in the middle of the dog days of summer, but we're less than 20 days away from players reporting for physical tests, and then they're on the ice the next day. At that point the news, rumours, and speculation are all going to be flowing fast and furious as everyone tries to prepare for the season.

The preseason schedule begins on September 23rd and completes on Oct 7th. By the end of the pre-season it's usually just the NHL roster left, so there isn't much to be gleaned. There's no need to wait right until the end of the pre-season before setting up your draft, but the later into it you can wait, the better off your fantasy teams and leagues will be to have all the latest info.

On the flip side of that, sometimes it is beneficial to draft before the pre-season, because so much of what comes out of it is just coaches trying things and throwing spaghetti at the walls to see what sticks. If you get too wrapped up in that, you're liable to make costly mistakes.

For example, in one of my dynasty leagues last year, I took Tyson Jost in the first round of our PRO re-draft (the draft after about 400-500 NHL players are kept already) as he was projected to get an opportunity in the top-six with the Wild. Well boy did he ever produce, finishing tied for seventh in pre-season scoring with seven points in five games. I had a few offers for him, and one especially stands out where I was offered Nick Schmaltz straight up for Jost. Silly me, I had bought in to the pre-season Jost hype, and I turned the offer down.

Bottom-line, use the pre-season to try and glean some info on players and their future deployments, but don't use it as the main measuring stick for value.

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For those of you not using Yahoo, you can skip these next two paragraphs, but for the thousands of us that do because our friends don't let us move our leagues to an unfamiliar platform, there are a few notes I wanted to make. The positional eligibility debacle for their forwards was a hot topic in some of my leagues last week. Yahoo takes away a lot of excess positions in the offseason (often leaving some weird and frankly incorrect ones), and then slowly adds them back in-season until by the end of the year until positional scarcity is not something we need to worry about.

With them testing out a few bugs they suddenly added a ton of excess positions, including wing eligibility to top centres like Auston Matthews and Connor McDavid. The positions that were showing for the last week before they flipped them back, seems to be the far extreme of where positions may end up by the end of the year. For now though, we need to make assumptions that we don't get so far, but end up somewhere in the middle, as there are always a few eligibilities added by the end of the year. If you end up with too many LWs or too many Cs in your draft, don't feel forced into making a trade to balance out positions, as a little bit of patience (if you can afford it) should set you straight as well.

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Brandon Hagel signed an eight-year extension with the Lightning yesterday, at a very reasonable $6.5 million price tag. This team may be aging out of their competitive window, but these long-term extensions may set them up very well for another kick at the can in a couple of years once the cap increases again. What look like fair deals now will be overpays for players at their future ages down the line, but that's when weighted against the current cap. If we end up with some large increases as has been forecasted by some in the know, the lightning may have their main core still locked up on these deals with a lot of cap space left for a couple of young players and to bring in a few more veteran pieces to fill whatever holes they need.

All that to say, I like the extension for Hagel, especially considering that he's only 25 once it kicks in, and 33 when it expires. He's at his breakout threshold, but his underlying numbers say that there isn't a ton of room left for growth. Maybe he tops 70-points once or twice, but something in the 65-point-range would be expected for his typical pace.

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A lot of us like playing the "Zero-Goalie" strategy, meaning we invest little or nothing in goalies at the draft table or in offseason moves, and then field whatever leftovers help us meet our minimum requirements. Oftentimes with goalie stats using averages, you can vin more than your fair share of categories or points with the under-heralded goalies. As a result, knowing which goalies to target in the late rounds can really make or break a season for us zero-goalie folks.

A few backups that I will be targeting this year with the chance to take over: Joseph Woll, Pyotr Kochetkov

The two sit behind some injury-prone goalies, and showed well with the chances they got last year. Kochetkov currently has two goalies in front of him, and will start the season in the minors (barring an early injury to one of the incumbents). Woll is not exempt from waivers, and will likely start the season as the backup in Toronto at the expense of Martin Jones. Of the two, Woll provides the closer production, but for those of you that have minors areas or N/A slots to stash goalies when they aren't in the NHL, Kochetkov may provide better value.

Of the other "backup" options, there are a lot to consider: Daniil Tarasov, Joel Hofer, Akira Schmid, Devon Levi, Jack Campbell, and Connor Ingram to name a few.

Tarasov, Hofer, Ingram, and Schmid all outplayed their incumbent starters for stretches last season, and could be given bigger roles this year. They have some upside for wins and ratios in the case of Schmid and maybe Hofer, while Tarasov and Ingram may be better for those in volume-centric leagues.

The other interesting two are Devon Levi and Jack Campbell. Levi's situation is well documented as the third goalie on the depth chart, but with the highest upside. He may not get a fair shake this season if not for a bad slump or injury from one of the goalies ahead of him, but he will eventually.

On the other side of the coin is Jack Campbell, who was brought in by Edmonton as a free agent, and was one of those usurped starters last season. This year, being more familiar with the players, the systems, and the city, Campbell may be in a much better position to succeed. Having the big contract in his back pocket will ensure that he gets some chances to go on a run, though in this case it may not be the first one of the season as Stuart Skinner looks like he's ahead on the depth chart at the moment.

The good thing about Campbell is that despite his tendency to have up-and-down stretches, the Edmonton Oilers have the ability to out-score a lot of goalie problems, and rack up wins anyways. In leagues where wins are kind and ratios are less important, Campbell could be a great (late) get this year.

For more goalie research, we have some new features:

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See you next Wednesday! In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter (I will continue to call it that) @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.