A pair of young players were extended by their teams on Wednesday.

First, Morgan Frost was extended for two years by the Philadelphia Flyers with those seasons carrying an average annual value of $2.1M. Frost, who turned 24 years old in May, had easily his best season in 2022-23 by playing 81 of 82 games, tallying 19 goals and 46 points. He seemed to be one of the young players that coach John Tortorella started to favour as the campaign wore on. There is still a lot more to prove at the NHL level and he'll have a couple years to do it, but this is all a good start for him.

For a bigger contract, defenceman Jake Sanderson got eight years from Ottawa with each of those seasons having an AAV just over $8M. In his first season, Sanderson had 32 points in 77 games, skating nearly 22 minutes a night. This is a sizable contract for a player with fewer than 80 career NHL games, but he did look phenomenal in those 77 games. The 21-year-old still has a year left on his entry-level deal so this won't kick in until 2024-25.

Being a rookie defenceman on a team with Thomas Chabot that also traded for Jakob Chychrun made it easy to overlook just how impactful he was. He performed extremely well in his own end and seemed to have no problem transitioning the puck from defence to offence. Having those traits as a 20-year-old speaks volumes about what's to come. Whether he's worth that in a salary cap league come one year's time is another matter given that Chabot is extended long-term while Chychrun is signed through 2024-25. Sanderson could very well end up one of those players that is much more impactful in reality than in fantasy hockey.

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In Tuesday's Ramblings, I started going over some of my personal projections. For some high-end guys, players changing teams, or thoughts on the young Montreal core, go read that.

Today will be more of the same, only we're going to go over specific forwards rather than groups of them. They are simply attackers that pique my fantasy interest, for one reason or another, or that carry a projection that surprised me.

Remember the caveats from the last article: these projections will be refined further over the next five weeks, each player in my expected lineups is projected for 82 games, and they are all listed as 'Forwards' rather than being divvied up by position.

Let's dig in on 10 interesting projections among the forwards. As usual, data is from our Frozen Tools, Natural Stat Trick, or AllThreeZones unless otherwise indicated.

** For a complete projection list, and a whole lot more up-to-date information, grab your copy of the 2023-24 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide!**

Kirill Kaprizov

Considering he's paced for 101 points/82 games over the last two seasons, it struck me as weird that Kaprizov's projection wasn't flirting with 100 points. Digging in further, the projections don't have a lot of faith in the Minnesota power play; he is projected for a shade over 33 PPPs, which is a drop from last season when he averaged nearly one PPP every two games (32 in 67, or 39 in a full season).

It should be mentioned that Kaprizov started very hot last season with 17 PPPs in his first 26 games. If he can manage even 80% of that output for a full year, he'll soar past 100 points. The issue is he had just 15 over his final 41 games, which wouldn't leave us far from his 2023-24 projection in an 82-game campaign. If he landed close to 40 PPPs in the coming year, it wouldn't be a huge surprise, but there are a lot of Wild question marks: Marco Rossi's ability to finally break through at the NHL, Joel Eriksson Ek's health, and Mats Zuccarello turning 36 years old a week ago. They don't know which defenceman is running the power play, they don't know who their top centre is, and they don't know if Zucc – who saw a big production drop last year – is rapidly declining. (In fairness to Zuccarello, there were percentages far out of line with recent seasons and if those normalize, he'll be fine. There are still concerns with his playmaking taking a dive, according to AllThreeZones tracking, but one down year does not make a pattern.)  Kaprizov to even be projected near the top-12 producers in this kind of environment speaks to the level of talent he has.

With the winger's solid hit rates and sky-high shot rates, he's still a borderline first round, sure-fire second round pick in fantasy drafts. This is just to say that out of some options in his ADP range – Jack Hughes, Brady Tkachuk – he has a bit of uncertainty around him.

David Pastrnak

This really surprised me, even with the retirements of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. Pasta just had a 61-goal, 113-point season and was runner-up for the Hart Trophy. Then I looked at his prior two seasons where he averaged 41 goals and 44 assists/82 games, and it made a bit of sense.

At the risk of doing math in an article, there needs to be some math highlighted here:

• Over the last three seasons, when Pastrnak was on the ice at 5-on-5 without either Bergeron or Krejci, the team scored 56 goals in 968:49. If he maintains that pace in 2023-24, and skates 1200 minutes, he'll be on for a nice 69 goals. If he gets a point on 75% of those goals, it'll mean 52 points. Right away we're down nine points from 2022-23.  
• Over the last three seasons, when Pastrnak was on the ice for the power play without Bergeron, the team scored 13 goals in 134:25 of PPTOI. At that goal rate, in a season where he gets 300 PP minutes, that is 29 PPPs. That shaves another eight points off the total and now we're well below 100.

In short, the projections think that without Bergeron and Krejci, Pastrnak will be closer to his 2021-22 production – 82-game paces of 46 goals and 39 assists – than to 2022-23.

Last season, I was very wrong about Boston's injuries, and it looks like they might make me look stupid two years in a row. All the same, Pavel Zacha and Charlie Coyle have a lot of heavy lifting ahead of them.

Pavel Buchnevich

The guy that has two straight seasons over a point-per-game production, averaging 34 goals and 53 assists per 82 games, is being drafted outside the first 10 rounds on ESPN. I guess point-per-game status doesn't buy what it used to.

Injuries could easily be a concern for many drafters. In his last three 82-game seasons, Buch has missed 19, 9, and 18 games. If he can only be relied upon for 65-68 games, it makes sense not to draft him in range with names like Zach Hyman or Alex Tuch. All I will say is guys like Evgeni Malkin and Erik Karlsson had injury concerns until they didn't, and I'd rather 68 games of Buch + 14 games from a bench replacement than 82 games of Dawson Mercer or Matty Beniers. More on Beniers in a little bit.

Clayton Keller

Digging into why he didn't get to the 80-point mark for a projection, it becomes clear very quickly: the power play. It has been mentioned in recent Ramblings, but this team has not had a better-than-average power play in a long time, and it's questionable 2023-24 is the year it turns around. The team is improving, and guys like Nick Schmaltz and Jason Zucker help a lot, but the blue line leaves a lot to be desired. If Shayne Gostisbehere couldn't run an average power play, I have my doubts the answer is Sean Durzi or Juuso Välimäki.

To highlight the power play problem, Keller's even-strength point projection (nearly 58 points) is not far off from what my Excel sheet spit out for Roope Hintz, Brayden Point, and Elias Pettersson. Each of those guys is projected for at least 10 total points more than Keller, though, and that's where Arizona's power play issues become glaring.  

If Keller could be relied upon for even 25-or-so PPPs, his projection would be over a point per game and JT Miller-like PP production would have his projection close to 90 points. If, by some miracle, the Arizona power play can be better than the league average, there is 90-point potential with Keller, but it takes a braver person than me to say Arizona will be better than average on the power play.

Casey Mittelstadt

Some of the projections made me do a double take. One of them was Pastrnak's and another absolutely was Mittelstadt. Considering this is a player I wasn't sure would be in the NHL past the age of 25, that this projection is 70 points in his age-25 season underscores that there are just some players that need several years of development rather than 2-3.

This projection is a bit unnerving. Reaching the 70-point mark while skating 15-16 minutes a night, and largely off the top PP unit, is extremely lofty. Some of the playmaking data I use has him in an elite tier, though, so the projections think he'll be extremely efficient in the minutes he does get. That playmaking data highlights this is a Diet Robert Thomas: few shots, few hits, and way more assists than goals.

Despite what my projections are telling me, it's hard to believe he'll reach 70 points given his role on the team. More refining likely drops it closer to 60 but I don't want to take away that this young star has turned into one of the top playmakers in the league. His issue in the fantasy game is Buffalo has so much good offensive depth that he may not even be a top-6 forward on that roster, and he doesn't bring a lot outside of assists.

Matty Beniers

Here we run into the Seattle Problems: ice time spread out at all offensive strengths, and regression expected at even strength. Even if Seattle is the new St. Louis – unremarkable shot rates but high-quality chances leading to high goal rates – it should be noted that St. Louis has had one 80-point season since the 2013 lockout (Tarasenko, 82, 2021-22).

A jump in ice time for Beniers, somewhere between 18 and 19 minutes a night, could soften some of the regression but it may be hard for him to build off his rookie season while skating 2:30 a night on a bottom-third power play. Add the impending regression and this projection seems fine for him. He has a lot of talent but it's fair to wonder if he isn't falling into the Mat Barzal trap where he doesn't have elite line mates, nor a great power play, and it keeps his production lower than it otherwise would be.

Mark Scheifele

All Winnipeg Jets forwards projected poorly. Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Nikolaj Ehlers, doesn't matter. None of them are projected for 75 points, a mark reached by three different Jets forwards in their last three 82-game seasons. For anyone that didn't pay close attention to Winnipeg last year, their power play (in goals per minute) fell from tied for 11^th over the 2020-2022 seasons to a tie for 24^th in 2022-23. Whether it's the coaching changes, shake-ups with the roster, or a combination of issues, it was a bad year for the Jets power play.

For Scheifele, this resulted in his worst point/game mark since 2014-15, and that is in a season where the average NHL team scored more goals than in any season since 1994.

Scheifele ran into some bad luck with the assists, which hopefully turns around. He also ran into some good luck by shooting 20.4%. If he drops to 35-ish goals, even a 45-assist season keeps him shy of a point per game. Maybe some familiarity with Bowness helps Winnipeg's offence in their second season together, but there should be a lot of concern for just how well this team produces goals in 2023-24. My belief is the 65-point projection is low and will rise over 70 with more refining, but the worries are real.

David Perron

This won't be lengthy because Perron is a name often discussed in these Ramblings this summer. The bulk of the Perron fantasy discussions have been that, if healthy, he can be relied upon to push for 60 points while providing very good peripherals. The addition of Alex DeBrincat should help the power play and a handful more PP points would have gotten Perron to 60 points in 2022-23. Even at 35 years old, his skills haven't diminished too much, though they could fall off anytime. Even still, do not be surprised if we look up in April and he has 20 goals, 40 assists, 180 shots, and 90 hits.

JJ Peterka

Despite a loaded farm, Buffalo will be missing Jack Quinn for a large chunk of the season, and that puts Peterka at the top of their Young Winger List. He is still behind Jeff Skinner and Alex Tuch, but we did see them get moved around the lineup a bit last season and that leaves Peterka a chance for some sparse top-line minutes. Any injury to Tuch or Skinner could see Peterka get to the top PP unit, too, though Victor Olofsson and Mittelstadt may have something to say about that.

The Dobber Guide says to "Expect another small step forward" for Peterka and I agree, but we differ on how big that small step is. He may not be ready to explode to a 70-point season like Mittelstadt, but adding 20 points is reasonable if he's skating 15:30 a night rather than 13:30, with some top line/top PP time sprinkled in. Maybe he runs into the same problems guys like Martin Necas has in his young career, but I am very bullish on Peterka long-term and believe he starts striding towards his upside in 2023-24.

Tommy Novak

Seeing Novak projected for 47 points in 82 games a season after he posted 43 in 51 games was jarring. There are issues, though.

First is his shooting percentage. He converted on 18.3% of his shots, and that's a far, far cry from what he did in the AHL from 2020-2023 when he shot 11.5% in 94 games. Maybe he is a very efficient shooter, but when I see minor-league numbers like that, compared to what he did in his 51-game NHL stint, it is a red flag.

The second problem is line mates. Yes, he'll have most of the same line mates as he did last season even if he's not on a line with Filip Forsberg and Ryan O'Reilly, but they all have the same things to prove that Novak does. Add that there are two open forward spots on the top PP unit and all of Novak, Cody Glass, Philip Tomasino, Juuso Parssinen, Luke Evangelista, and Gustav Nyquist vying for those two roles, and there should be concerns as to just how much prime PPTOI he receives.

I am a Novak believer, I'm just not a Nashville believer. He is a guy I'm lower on than what the Dobber Guide has, and I could very well be wrong on this, but I think we have to wait a couple years before all those young forwards develop more before pencilling Novak in for perennial 60-point seasons.