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. To break in the month of September, I’m taking a bit of a left turn from my typical Ramblings. More specifically, I’ll discuss two topics that were brought up on Twitter (X still sounds strange) this week and expand on them here.

One such topic is ADPs (average draft positions). If you’re not familiar with the acronym or term, it refers to the average pick that a player is chosen in a fantasy draft. This information is readily available on fantasy providers such as Yahoo and Fantrax. I believe that ADPs are important, but I also understand that they have their limitations.

The other topic derives from a recent question to Dobber on Twitter, where someone offered Andrei Vasilevskiy for the number one pick (which would be Connor Bedard). I motivated me to share my thoughts on vetoing trades.

Follow the link for the extent of both those rambles… (sept1)

2. One common question that I get asked leading up to fantasy drafts is which players I like as potential sleepers. This season I’ll try to be proactive and jump on that question early. Keep in mind that leagues come in all different shapes and sizes, so what may be a sleeper for one may not be a sleeper for another. For that reason, it might be better to say that these players could perform above normal expectations. Perhaps you can even draft them a bit early – although not too early (read yesterday’s Ramblings, where I discuss the importance of ADP).

I may mention more potential sleepers to target before the season starts, depending on developments through what’s left of the offseason, simply being reminded of something that could result in a sleeper situation, or just simply my own gut feeling.

For example: Seth Jarvis was a popular sleeper for last season’s fantasy leagues, but he only managed to post a similar point total while playing in more games. It might then seem like he qualifies as a post-hype sleeper, but he’ll only be playing in his third NHL season. A closer examination of his numbers shows an incredibly low shooting percentage of 7.5%, which was less than half of that of his rookie season (15.5%). In addition, Jarvis managed to up his shooting rate from 1.6 SOG/GP to 2.3 SOG/GP, which should result in better puck luck in his third NHL season. By reaching 200 games midway through the season, he should be projected for a strong second half in particular.

For more sleepers, follow the link… (sept2)

3. According to the Associated Press, Patrick Kane said he’s “kind of getting back to his old self” three months after hip surgery. Although he hopes to be cleared for contact soon, he plans to remain on the six-month rehabilitation schedule. That still puts him on track for the beginning of December. Expect him to have an NHL home by then, although he should only be drafted in deeper leagues at this point because of the possible 1–2-month absence and declining production (57 PTS in 73 GP last season). He will be a very popular waiver-wire add once he’s ready to return, though. (sept1)

4. According to Elliotte Friedman, Phil Kessel would like to play in 2023-24 and is not concerned about his ironman streak ending. Kessel suited up for just four playoff games during the Golden Knights’ run to the Stanley Cup, but playoff games don’t count in an ironman streak. However, his playoff deployment should probably foreshadow the fact that he won’t be an everyday player if he signs somewhere. Kessel is the only player to have played 1,000 consecutive games (he’s at 1,064), but it seems like this streak will come to an end this season.

The key to an ironman streak? Perhaps it is a lack of physical play; more specifically, hits. Kessel has not registered more than 12 hits in an entire season since 2014-15, his final season with the Leafs. Keith Yandle, the NHL’s previous ironman, was not an overly physical player either, as his career high in hits was 53 – relatively low for a defenseman. Brent Burns, who has the next-highest active games streak at 761, might seem like an exception. However, Burns has not reached 100 hits in any of his past seven seasons. (sept1)

5. To cap off my recent series of Ramblings focusing on draft targets, we’re going to turn our gaze to the Central Division. This past Tuesday saw the Pacific Division get covered, with the Metro and the Atlantic the week before.

Pre-training camp fantasy drafts offer the opportunity for value due to imperfect information. They are gambles, but they can pay off handsomely when they work out. As mentioned in the article on the Pacific, no one is drafting Quinton Byfield, but if he shows up on the top line and second PP unit in camp, his ADP will rise. That is the kind of value we’re discussing here.

As usual, data will be from our Frozen Tools or Natural Stat Trick, unless otherwise indicated. If a player’s ADP is listed as ‘N/A’, it’s because they’re outside the top-250 forwards or top-100 defensemen being drafted. (aug31)

Let's check in with three below:

6. Arizona – Nick Schmaltz (ESPN ADP: 225.7, Forward 139):

It is curious to see Clayton Keller with a sixth-round ADP, in the neighbourhood of Sebastian Aho and Jordan Kyrou, while Keller’s line mate that has averaged 76 points/82 games over the last two seasons goes 13 rounds later. What hurts Schmaltz in some leagues is he may be listed as center-only, which is insane considering he has just 339 faceoffs over the last two years, fewer than TJ Oshie (349) in 24 more games played. Alas, fantasy sites!

Assuming Schmaltz earns a winger designation at some point, this is a guy primed for a point-per-game season. The only thing holding back him and Keller from higher highs is the power play. Now that they don’t have defensemen who love bombing shots from the point with the man advantage, maybe the PP turns itself around.  

I am not saying Schmaltz and Keller are equals; Keller is the better offensive talent and shoots the puck a lot more. Schmaltz, however, is a very underrated offensive talent in his own right and he’ll still get top billing in all the important offensive minutes. He is much preferrable to other options in his draft range like Tyler Seguin, Matias Maccelli, and Blake Wheeler. (aug31)

7. Colorado – Ross Colton (ESPN ADP: 229.7, Forward 226):

Colorado’s 2022-23 season was marred by injury and a lack of depth forced them to play their top guys a lot; there were 24 regular forwards in the NHL to play 20:10 a night and five of them were from Colorado alone. This offseason was spent reloading the Avalanche depth and that includes bringing in Ross Colton.

If we look at Colorado’s top-6, all the spots may be taken with four key returnees plus Ryan Johansen and Jonathan Drouin. We have seen issues crop up with Valeri Nichushkin (injury or otherwise) while Drouin is far from a sure thing to thrive with the Avs. They would likely want to see Colton on a balanced third line with Miles Wood, Ben Meyers, Logan O’Connor and the like, but as the Avs saw just last season, we don’t always get what we want.

Over his last two seasons in Tampa Bay, Colton’s 5-on-5 goal rate was 88^th percentile across the NHL and higher than names like Timo Meier, Pavel Buchnevich, William Nylander, and Andrei Svechnikov. He will provide value in banger formats regardless but he’s not far from playing 17-18 minutes a night with the Avalanche, and he has genuine 30-goal upside. (aug31)

8. Dallas – Thomas Harley (ESPN ADP: N/A):

A couple months ago, I wrote about Harley and his ascension on my personal blog. For much more extensive thoughts on his development path and 2022-23 season, go read that. For a shortened version: it isn’t hard to argue that Harley was Dallas’s second-best defenseman in the postseason behind Miro Heiskanen. He had a similar performance to Bowen Byram in Colorado during the 2022 playoffs. Byram has 41 points in his last 72 regular season games with little PP production. That is the path for Harley.

Dallas is absolutely loaded up front and should be able to roll one elite scoring line and two good ones. Even without the top PP role, there should be enough scoring to support a second 40-point blue liner, provided Harley can get close to 20 minutes a night. There are a number of blue liners on the wrong side of 30 on the Dallas roster so it doesn’t take much imagination to see him supplanting a soon-to-be 39-year-old Ryan Suter in short order. (aug31)

9. Below are a couple of Tuesday's Pacific Division players:

Calgary – Andrew Mangiapane (ESPN ADP: N/A):

With Tyler Toffoli moving on and a new coach in town, hopes are high for young wingers like Jakob Pelletier and Matt Coronato. Considering Mangiapane’s ADP – which is also outside the top-15 rounds on Yahoo! – it seems like we’re forgetting about the incumbents.

It was a down year for Mangiapane, but it was a down year for basically the entire roster outside of Toffoli. He shot just 9.3% after posting a 17.1% conversion rate over his first 260 career games. Just a 13% shooting rate would have seen him push 25 goals and 50 points, and that’s with little power play production.

To highlight his finishing problem, here is how well (or poorly) he finished his 5-on-5 shots way back in 2019-20 when he had 17 goals skating 13:42 a night: (see image). The effort in 2019-20 wasn’t the best of his career and still looks much better than 2022-23.

There is a spot on the top PP unit up for grabs and Mangiapane will stay in Calgary’s top-6 forward mix. He has averaged 26 goals, 22 assists, 171 shots, and 78 hits per 82 games over his last three seasons, and that’s with very little PP output. There could be a very cheap 30-goal, 55-point, 190-shot, 80-hit winger here. (aug29)

10. Vegas – Logan Thompson (ESPN ADP: 217.7, Goalie 27):

On ESPN and Yahoo!, Thompson and Adin Hill are not separated by much, so it’s the Ilya Samsonov/Matt Murray decision of a year ago. Hill signed an extension, so he likely gets first crack at the starter’s net, but he doesn’t have a long history of success. He has a Stanley Cup, though, so that’s something that tips in his favour at the outset of the season.

All the same, the expectation shouldn’t be 50-plus starts from Hill. Even including the 2023 playoffs, he doesn’t have a single NHL season of 40 starts. It is plausible that not only is Thompson the better goalie, but he’ll just get more starts in 2023-24 than Hill. If they end up close, Thompson will be slightly cheaper at the draft table. Given the choice between similar options, we’ll go with the cheaper, and possibly better, option. (aug29)

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11. 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! 

12. Generally I do wait on goalies, though I think there are a few to be found at a bargain price even within the top 100 picks this year, so it may not be as late to be filled on my rosters as most years. However, there are also a few goalies going early that I definitely don’t think are worth the cost.

One player that I can already tell you that is going to be on zero of my teams prior to the beginning of the season is Stuart Skinner. Goalies are fickle as they come, and Skinner has all of the makings of an “offseason-appointed-starter” that I like to try and avoid.

First off, he’s coming in as a sophomore goalie and there have been a lot of rookie goalies over the years who fail to adjust once they have been scouted and broken down by NHL competition. Working in Skinner’s favour is that he does have a history of heavier workloads, and his last quarter of the season was also his best. While there are still some markers for success, what really worries me the most are the expectations and the competition. (aug30)

13. Jack Campbell had a terrible first season in Edmonton, but goalies (and especially those that are a little more prone to streaks like Campbell) take a while to adjust to new team defense structures and players. Now that he has his feet back under him, I do expect a very solid bounce-back campaign from the veteran. His larger contract should ensure that he does get the opportunities, and that Skinner (even if he ends up the much better goalie again this year) will be capped around the 50 games he played last season.

I would expect the actual split to be closer to 50/50, with each getting a couple of runs when the other is slumping. The West being the weaker conference means that the top teams like Edmonton can afford to split goaltending duties to ensure both are relatively fresh come playoff time. That will likely hinder the volume value of both goalies. For where Skinner is being drafted this year, it doesn’t feel worth the risk to me. (aug30)

14. Five other goalies I am fading this year (because the BOS duo counts as one):

Connor Hellebuyck – He’s a Vezina caliber goalie every second season, but the ones in between are closer to average – he’s due for an average season and it coincides with a Jets team that is sliding down the standings.

Linus Ullmark & Jeremy Swayman – First, they’re very unlikely to repeat the historic year they just had, especially with the team losing key players. Second, they eat into each other’s starts and only with an injury would one of them top 50 games. For where they’re being drafted there are goalies still available that could/will play 60 games and have similar peripherals.

Filip Gustavsson – Similar reason to the Boston duo above, he’s being drafted at close to his upside, but the team in front of him and the risk of him losing starts to Marc-Andre Fleury is real.

Thatcher Demko – I’m staying away from Canucks in general except for Quinn Hughes, J.T. Miller, and Elias Pettersson. Demko is also a big injury risk, and put up Jekell and Hyde numbers when healthy last season.

Carter Hart – Similar to Demko, the team in front of him is one I want nothing to do with the goalies for, in addition to the fact that they have a whole bunch of other NHL-level goalies under contract to compete with him for time. Maybe I’ll end up with him in a league where saves are counted and I need a second volume-starter, but I think it unlikely since I could still draft Karel Vejmelka, Ville Husso, the LA duo, or maybe even Jacob Markstrom just as late. (aug30)

15. For the fantasy leagues that count faceoff wins, centers with wing eligibility are a huge advantage. Even for those that don’t count it, knowing which centers are more likely to gain winger eligibility early on in the season gives you a lot more flexibility at the draft table. Fantasy platforms including Fantrax and Yahoo don’t take away positional eligibility in-season, they only add it. Yahoo especially is liberal and unpredictable with their eligibilities as I was discussing in a previous Ramblings. That led me to look into which players are currently just listed as centers who will likely end up adding some winger eligibility in-season. There is more of an advantage to be gained in Yahoo leagues here than in Fantrax where the positions are a little more reliable, and you can and have the flexibility to make your own position edits.

Right now (August 30), players including Jack Hughes, J.T. Miller, Tim Stutzle, P.L. Dubois, and Claude Giroux are listed as wingers who win a fair number of faceoffs. Even with that though, there is still an excess of fantasy-relevant players listed as just centers. Let’s go through the list by following the link… (aug30)

16. For most of the last decade, the Edmonton Oilers have been trying to get some scoring depth and they may have added some by bringing in Sam Gagner on a professional tryout. The 34-year-old was Edmonton’s sixth overall pick in 2007 and he had some good years, but never cracked 50 points. He played a reduced role in Winnipeg last season, managing 14 points in 48 games. There isn’t much fantasy value here, but he could find his way to some power play time, and that’s not good news for players like Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Of course, Gagner has to make the roster first. (aug29)

17. Dobber took some questions in his Monday Ramblings. Below are a few:

Reader @JeremyPhillyFan asked: Will Brandt Clarke make the team?

No, because it never hurts to transition a top prospect into the AHL first. However, he’s pretty close to NHL-ready and I have a feeling he’ll be called up early. He’ll likely impress enough with that stint that he gets called up again – and by January, Clarke will make it impossible to be sent back down because he’s just too good. That’s my prediction. (aug28)

18. Reader @Mr_CollinWilcox asked: 12 team, keep 4 dynasty league. Bedard will almost certainly go 1st overall in my league draft. Do you think Fantilli will be good enough in the long run to warrant a 1st round selection this year?

In a keeper league that only keeps four players, this means that players such as Jake Guentzel, Cole Caufield, Dylan Cozens, and possibly Trevor Zegras and Mikhail Sergachev will be available this year – and that caliber of player will be available every year. So, no, in a league such as this I would worry about Fantilli in later rounds. There are plenty of proven players with similar upside who are more likely to give immediate 70-point help. (aug28)

19. Reader @wbusilla asked: Which 2 of 3 would you keep in points/ppg/shg/gwg league? Hertl, Trocheck or Novak?

I’m a fan of Tommy Novak, but his sample size is too small to take him over established producers like Tomas Hertl or Vincent Trocheck. (aug28)

20. Reader @sardz2121 asked: It seems like defensemen scoring is trending up, is this changing your drafting strategy in any way?

Great question, though I’ve been talking up the defensemen offense trend for several years now. But it’s definitely taken a completely different level. I identify any defenseman who is a safe bet for 55 points – but also has the upside for 75 – and I push them up ahead of point-per-game forwards on my list. There aren’t many of these defensemen, so getting that kind of production on your roster in those spots is a huge advantage.

Here are the defensemen, just giving the list a quick glance: Shea Theodore, Dougie Hamilton, Brandon Montour, Evan Bouchard, Charlie McAvoy, Mikhail Sergachev, Miro Heiskanen, Josh Morrissey, Roman Josi, Adam Fox, Rasmus Dahlin, Quinn Hughes, Cale Makar and Erik Karlsson. (aug28)

21. Reader @SteveLaidlaw asked: What will be the single most important position battle (non-goaltending) for the upcoming fantasy season?

You really got me with the non-goaltending caveat, but here are some thoughts:

Erik Karlsson vs. Kris Letang at even strength. The Penguins are going to go with a five-man unit at even strength. Who gets Sidney Crosby and who gets Evgeni Malkin? If Karlsson gets Malkin, then this would boost Malkin a lot more than if he had Letang there. I think this battle has a huge impact on Malkin’s potential output.

I’m also looking at the situation up the middle for Columbus. You have Boone Jenner, who is more of a checker and has limited upside. You have Jack Roslovic, who has been under-achieving so far in his career, other than in brief spurts. And you have Adam Fantilli, who easily has the highest upside of the three and is also NHL-ready. With Patrik Laine healthy, Kirill Marchenko having emerged and Kent Johnson taking another step, a spot in the top six at center is crucial. Cracking that top six and holding onto the spot could mean a difference of 20 points. Especially with the huge upgrade the Blue Jackets added in terms of mobility on the blue line.

And of course, the much talked about battle to be the wingers on the first line in Chicago. Yes, Taylor Hall gets first dibs, so that part won’t be much of a battle (until he loses the spot – and don’t think he won’t, as his best days are behind him and he was unable to click with Jack Eichel back when he was with Buffalo). Taylor Raddysh, Lukas Reichel, Andreas Athanasiou and Philipp Kurashev are all solid candidates to start in that spot alongside Connor Bedard. The winner could see another 20 points padded into his stats this year.

Honorable mention: Tony DeAngelo vs. Brent Burns for PP time on Carolina. (aug28)

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