The 18^th annual Fantasy Guide was last updated on Saturday, just with some player tryout notes. News will pick up very soon. Last week I added a column for projected goals-for by team. This week my focus will be on projected standings and my Calder picks. In two weeks, camps are in full swing and real-time news will start pouring in. All updates in the Guide are free, as those of you who have bought it over the years already know (and trust).

Goalie Post now has an app! Besides a facelift in the look, I have also put in calculations for probable win projections – a bar that goes right or left towards the team the calculation favors…goes further, the more of a favorite that team is. I use back-to-back info, home/road info, recent performance and longer-term performance. There is also a projected save bar for each starting goalie, based on how the opposition has been shooting lately (and long-term) and how his own team has been preventing shots lately (and long-term) to help you make the decision! The app is free.

Get it on your iPhone here. And I have a request: after you download it, give it a day or two, and then please rate five stars and comment.

Get it on your Android here!

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There is always a few items in my fantasy guide that raises an eyebrow or two. I'll be making an appearance on this week's Keeping Karlsson podcast to discuss some of them. But I also thought I would throw it out there on Twitter/X. I'm an open book – if you see a projection that you feel is a little wonky, let me walk you through my thought process and then you can decide if you agree with it.

This is also a good opportunity to clarify something: a projection is not always cut and dried. Sometimes I look at a player and think that if 'this' happens and 'that' happens, then the formula spits out 80 points. But if those two things don't happen, he's 50 points (as a pretend example). And while other publications will just solve the problem and call it 65 points, I have a comfort level that I have in place in which I will give him one or the other based on how strongly I believe in that situation. This can lead to my putting my neck out there at times. But I do go over thought process in the Guide as best I can, and also have charts in place that offer up percentages for that comfort level.

Anyway, let's get to some of the player projections that you are wondering about.

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Stuart. I dont know if i agree with you. That said i need to pick between saros or skinner as a keeper goalie and leaning skinner cause nashville may not be as good. Only wins gets me points. Thoughts?

— Jay Moore (@jayjmoore17) September 3, 2023

I only gave Skinner 46 appearances in my projections when he in fact had 50 last season. He was also the obvious better goalie, by a wide margin, for the Oilers. I think he'll be the goalie of the future with this team. I don't think Jack Campbell is a good goalie and longtime readers know that I never have. However, he isn't as horrible as he showed us last year. Goalies are very fickle and inconsistent. Campbell, with a $5M AAV, still makes nearly twice as much as Skinner. He'll get a real shot at the starting job. He'll ultimately fail, but while they test things out and go back and forth between the two, he'll cannibalize starts that Skinner would have accrued. As an aside, with better defense (i.e. with Mattias Ekholm in the lineup), Campbell went 5-1-0 with a 0.922 SV%. I think Skinner doesn't run away with it until we're into the second half.

It’s worth a reminder, though, that you should be drafting goalies based on a tiering system. Draft them as late as you possibly can, and take the last goalie available within that tier. In the case of Edmonton, Skinner is in Tier 3 while Campbell is in Tier 4. And whether that means Skinner ends up starting 43 games or 53 games shouldn't matter – he is on par with the other goalies within that tier, in terms of balancing reliability, upside, likelihood, challenges from within the organization, etc.

Should Skinner be in Tier 2? I'm open to that discussion. Hell, if he starts 60 games with this team he'll be in Tier 1! But given Campbell's contract and that fact that he was unrealistically terrible in 2022-23, I'm just not comfortable with that (60 starts) kind of expectation.

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Besides Buchnevich both underperforming AND rising above expectations for 2023-24, I'll be controversial and go with:
– The Bedard projection being too high (I'm probably the only one, but perhaps I am more cautious than most).

— Pat Quinn (not that one) (@FHPQuinn) September 3, 2023

Bedard 91 pts. Pretty optimistic and i get to draft him this year in my keeper!

— Maxime Murray (@MaximeMurray) September 3, 2023

Hmmm..the only one I saw that stuck out was Bedard at 91 pts when nobody else is over 55..not sure how that happens. But hey you're the pro not me 😁 #lovethedobberguide

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— Taylor Ringuette (@tayzer82) September 3, 2023

So…yeah. There's the matter of Connor Bedard. I guess he's an important player in fantasy? I do find it hard to believe that 'nobody else' had him projected for more than 55 points, but I also admit that I was pretty aggressive with Bedard's projection. I've been pretty vocal about my feelings on Bedard, strongly believing that he'll be, if not better than Connor McDavid, then certainly equal. Well…if I feel that way, then shouldn't I project a similar rookie season? McDavid had 48 points in 45 games as a rookie, getting better as the season went on. That's an 87-point pace. In 2015-16, when McDavid was a rookie, scoring was at 5.34 goals per game. In 2022-23 it was 6.29 – and I still think there's another notch upwards still to come. If Bedard is generational, and I think he is, then 90+ points is not only attainable, but likely (if he stays healthy). A 55-point projection by other prognosticators is astonishingly low.

You may argue that McDavid had Taylor Hall, Leon Draisaitl, Jordan Eberle and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins on his squad. And I agree, Bedard does have a weaker team around him. But the reality is, that Edmonton team was also pretty weak. Draisaitl had nine career points prior to that season, and is that any different than Lukas Reichel having 16 career points prior to this season? McDavid didn't have a stud like Seth Jones, either. Ironically, Bedard has Hall on his team as well, albeit as a shadow of his former self.

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You have the Flames projected for 290 goals in the guide. Biggest increase of all teams. They lost Toffoli, and no big scorers added. Why do you project them so high?

— Jake Blumes (@JakeBlumes) September 3, 2023

I really like this question because, optically, it is a huge and seemingly unexplainable jump and it deserves analysis. First, it's worth noting that the Flames compiled a grand total of, wait for it: 291 goals in 2021-22.

Regardless, the projection is definitely a surprise when you consider that Tyler Toffoli, the team's top scorer last season, is no longer there. The team adds Yegor Sharangovich, Oliver Kylington and rookies Jakob Pelletier and Matt Coronato. And while those players help, even collectively they can't replace Toffoli's 73 points along with the points from players whose spots they're taking.

But this has nothing to do with those players. No, instead let's talk about Jonathan Huberdeau and Nazem Kadri. Huberdeau, who is still in his prime, followed up four consecutive years of posting a 91-plus-points full-season pace. He went from 115 points to…55? Coach Darryl Sutter tried his damnedest to use this thoroughbred to plow the fields. It was disgusting to witness and I was pretty much done with Sutter before December. He killed this team. And while I don't believe Kadri is a 100-point player (his full-season pace in 2021-22), he's certainly better than the 56 points we just witnessed. Under new Coach Ryan Huska, everything changes and it begins with those two. Adding 10 points to Kadri's 2022-23 totals is an easy call. And I think projecting Huberdeau for 82 is low-balling it, if anything. But with those two stepping it up, it will help get Elias Lindholm and the rest of the team on track. All because of a coaching change.

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Foerster at 54 ? Thanks DD!

— David Schroeder (@MrDavidaca) September 3, 2023

I'll admit that this one is probably the one I'm the least comfortable with. If he makes the Flyers (I have it as 85% that he will), then he'll do it because he's putting up the points. That being said, the total I gave him was aggressive, and it came down to using the right mix of NHL production (in limited games) and AHL production in my formula. I spent a good twenty minutes Sunday evening reviewing my numbers and reflecting on my comfort level here. I believe in Foerster as a prospect who will produce, but on a team like the Flyers I think such a player will have a hard time making it to 50. Putting more emphasis on his AHL production last year and replacing that variable accordingly, I have adjusted his projection to 43 points. Still a strong number, but more in line with a 'Wyatt Johnston' kind of season instead of a 'Matty Beniers' kind of season.

This adjusted projection is now reflected in the latest update.

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See you next Monday.