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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3. Huge 21 Fantasy Rambles packed with goodies today. It was the first day of training camp and as I mentioned in my Tuesday Ramblings, keeping track of where players are slotted is important. Of course, things will change, but it helps us gain insight into what the coaching staff thinks of their players. Let’s go through them quickly:

• Columbus had Gaudreau-Jenner-Johnson on one line and Texier-Fantilli-Laine on another. We may be staring down Fantilli as the 2C out of the gate. (Source)
• New Jersey’s newest Devil, Tyler Toffoli, was with Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt. Forgotten prospect Alex Holtz was lined up with Nico Hischier and Timo Meier, which sounds incredibly rad to me. (Source)
• Detroit predictably loaded their top line with Alex DeBrincat joining Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond. My David Perron best ball shares are in shambles. (Source)
• Seth Jarvis was indeed with Sebastian Aho, as was new Hurricane Michael Bunting. Andrei Svechnikov was at camp and skating with Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Martin Necas, though Scevch was in a non-contact jersey. Still a good sign, however. Carolina’s first power play run through also had both Brent Burns and Tony DeAngelo in a 3F/2D setup, along with Aho, Jarvis, and Svechnikov. (Source)
• Ryan Hartman was back as Minnesota’s top-line centre, so Marco Rossi Watch begins anew as he was on the third line with Marcus Foligno. (Source)
• Interestingly, Washington had Anthony Mantha line up with the Backstrom-Ovechkin duo. That is something to watch. (Source)
• The Capitals also had Connor McMichael skating with TJ Oshie, so it seems he'll get a real chance to crack the opening night roster. (Source)
• Zach Benson was on Buffalo’s top line with Jeff Skinner and Tage Thompson, which is a nice vote of confidence for the 2023 draftee. (Source)
• As expected, Jonathan Drouin was alongside Nathan MacKinnon in camp with Colorado boasting a brand-new third line of Wood-Colton-Tatar. (Source)
• New Calgary Flame Yegor Sharangovich was on the top line with Elias Lindholm and Jonathan Huberdeau. (Source)
• As expected, with Matthew Knies next to John Tavares, William Nylander is starting out as 3C for Toronto. (Source)
• Claude Giroux was on the top line for Ottawa with their dynamic duo. If that keeps up, it’s not great news for Drake Batherson. For posterity, the Batherson-Norris duo had Vladimir Tarasenko on their left side. (Source)
• Vegas ran back the line of Howden-Stephenson-Stone that was so good for them down the stretch last season. (Source)
• Connor Brown was seen next to Edmonton’s other Connor, and Brown is someone that could have some very sneaky fantasy value even if he’s not on the top PP unit. (Source)
• San Jose had Filip Zadina skating with Tomas Hertl, so the former Red Wings prospect is going to get a real chance to make his mark, it seems. (Source)
• San Jose also announced that Logan Couture will be out indefinitely with a lower-body injury. The only other real detail was that it was something from the offseason that progressively got worse. (Source)
• Winnipeg ran a second line of Ehlers-Perfetti-Niederreiter as they try and get Perfetti acclimated to second-line centre duties. (Source) (sept22)

4. More training camp-related notes:

Trevor Zegras and Jamie Drysdale are still without a contract. Zegras and the Ducks are reportedly in agreement on a three-year extension, but they are far apart in the amount. We’re still over two weeks away from opening night, but it might be time to start thinking about moving him down your single-season draft rankings a little bit. Although both could easily sign in time for the season opener, they may need some time to get up to game speed. The Ducks have over $16 million in cap space, which should be more than enough to sign both players. However, they are not a team that typically spends to the limit.

Nikolaj Ehlers missed Friday’s practice due to neck spasms. Ehlers played in just 45 games last season and is a certified Band-Aid Boy. Moreover, he has averaged just 54 games over each of the past two seasons. His ADP has fallen this season, particularly in Yahoo (159 ADP), which may reflect the recent string of injuries. If he’s going to be dealing with more injuries this season, then you might be best to continue to fade him.

Ilya Mikheyev has also left Canucks camp for personal reasons, which are reportedly family related and unrelated to his recovering knee. Mikheyev was already in doubt to start the season following ACL surgery last season and recent reports that he would not play in preseason games. He has scored at a 50-point pace for each of the previous two seasons, although he has never played more than 54 games in any of his four NHL seasons. He has the potential to be fantasy relevant if he can remain injury-free.

Tyler Bertuzzi opened training camp on the top line with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. After he was traded to Boston, Bertuzzi recorded 16 points in 21 regular-season games and 10 points in 7 playoff games. Whether he is on this line or another scoring line on Toronto, Bertuzzi is in a great, great spot for a possible career year. His contract is also for one year, which provides added motivation. (sept23) 

5. In a quick update on Buffalo’s Jack Quinn, their general manager Kevyn Adams had this to say:

Tweet @pham1717: Adams said Quinn might be ready around Christmas, but they will not rush him.

Let’s hope there are no setbacks.  

Staying with Buffalo, Adams said the injury Matt Savoie suffered at rookie camp wasn’t too severe, but he’s week-to-week, so pencil him as doubtful to make the team out of camp. That is just my guess so we’ll have to see what happens. (sept22)

6. An update on Oliver Kylington:

Tweet @Fan960Steinberg: #Flames have announced that Oliver Kylington won't take part as training camp opens. "Following yesterday's medical and fitness testing, it was determined that Oliver is unable to participate. As this is a private personal matter, no further information will be provided."

He was someone I thought would really help the team out but whatever this issue happens to be is still lingering. That seems like bad news but we’ll have to wait to hear more. (sept22)

All in all, the start of his season might be delayed. The Flames have announced that he is unable to participate in the start of training camp. The announcement cited that this followed medical and fitness testing, so it might be related to being off for an entire season. Hopefully he is doing well. (sept23)

7. In yesterday’s Ramblings, we reviewed some players I believe are on the cusp of a breakout. They are younger players that may be in line for an improvement in line mate quality, more (or better) power play time, or otherwise just a sizable increase in minutes played.

To continue the theme, I want to look at some players that have already had their breakout, and what their future may hold. These aren’t young players with several good-to-great seasons already, like Brady Tkachuk or Jordan Kyrou, but rather young players with less of a track record. To do this, I am going to compare what they did in a variety of metrics to other players of a similar age in years gone by – things like expected goal share, expected goals for/against, goals for/against, and points or shots per 60 minutes. This higher scoring era of the NHL may skew things, so it’s more of just a guideline than a hard-and-fast prediction of the future.

Alright, let’s check out a couple of them below, Dylan Cozens and Trevor Zegras. Follow the link for the rest of this installment. (sept22)

8. Dylan Cozens: Often, a team’s rebuild is turbo-charged when players that weren’t expected to be great end up being great early in their careers, or improve significantly late in their development. Buffalo’s top two centres both fit this bill and it’s how the team ended up adding 16 points in the standings from 2021-22 to 2022-23.  

It isn’t that Cozens wasn’t expected to be a good player, it’s that he turned into a good second-line centre by the second half of his age-20 season, fully breaking out in his age-21 year. When I looked at pivots that had similar seasons at Cozens’ age, two names came up: Steven Stamkos and Jack Eichel.

Off the top, we can probably eschew Stamkos. His production rates were much, much higher than that of Cozens, and his goal share puts him in another category entirely. It is interesting to see Eichel’s name here considering, well, you know.

Eichel showed up in the NHL and was immediately thrust into a top role, playing over 19 minutes a night as a rookie. That differs him from Cozens as well, but there are only so many comparable players to work with. A famous policeman once said: I don’t get points for being an idealist, I have to do the best I can with what I have.

What stands out about Cozens is his improvement. Over his three years, these following stats have increased every season:

• Points/60
• Power play points/60
• Shots/60
• Individual Points Percentage (% of team goals scored where the player registers a point)
• Goal share
• Expected Goal share
• Scoring chances per minute
• Assists on teammate scoring chances per minute

This just seems to be a true ascension of a young centre that would probably be the team’s top middle-man of the future had it not been for Tage Thompson‘s own breakout. It may seem like an impediment, but the NHL is littered with success cases of teams having two high-end offensive centres. It is kind of scary to think about what this 1-2 punch will look like in a couple years. Cozens is a budding point-per-game player. (sept22)

9. Trevor Zegras: This is a case where the team and the player’s style are factors. The new NHL is much, much more focused on creating quality scoring chances than they had been before 2019-20, and it’s why some young players seem to thrive but also have very poor on-ice metrics. The compounding problem for Zegras is that Anaheim has been god-awful in his three seasons and that does not do him any favours.

Because of the way Zegras plays – much more concerned with creating quality scoring chances than anything else – it was hard to find a comparable player. I didn’t find a centre, which wasn’t overly surprising, but I did find a very-good-but-not-quite-elite winger that was close enough (Jordan Eberle).

It might seem like a slap in the face to Zegras, Ducks fans, and fantasy managers to compare him to a guy that hasn’t reached 30 goals or 70 points in a decade but hear me out.

Eberle was very, very productive early in his career. That points/60 minutes rate in the graphic above, at the time, was similar to teammate Taylor Hall, and in the range of guys like John Tavares, Marian Hossa, and Jamie Benn. The problem is Edmonton was quite a bad team in the mid-2010s and he didn’t have much overlap with Connor McDavid – Eberle spent less than 37% of his 5-on-5 time alongside McDavid in their two seasons together. After his Edmonton tenure, he went to the New York Islanders where almost no one thrives offensively, which speaks to how good Tavares was in those seasons.

I have no issues projecting Zegras as a top-producing centre moving forward, but he’ll need a much better team around him before he really starts scratching his fantasy upside. How their younger players progress over the next couple seasons will inform us just how high Zegras can go. 

Follow the link for more… (sept22)

10. When looking at guys that improved significantly in 2022-23 when compared to 2021-22, there are some traits they share. Other than “play for the Edmonton Oilers” and “have a huge shooting percentage increase,” the two most common traits are 1) getting more top power play ice time and 2) getting more overall ice time. Think of players like Tim Stützle, Elias Pettersson, Travis Konecny, Martin Necas, Miro Heiskanen, and Brandon Montour. They all saw large rises in ice time, or a move to their team’s PP1, or both, and thrived.

How about 2023-24? Well, let’s take a look at some forwards that could/should see a big TOI rise, a top PP role, or both. As always, data from our Frozen Tools, Natural Stat Trick, and AllThreeZones, unless otherwise indicated. These will generally be players around 25 years old or younger but will not include rookies.

So, here are a couple of breakout candidates from Thursday's Ramblings.

Filip Chytil
Projection: 59.91 points

That's is a projection that is fairly high for a guy that may not play 15 minutes a game. What is pushing him towards 60 points is my assumption that he eventually replaces Vincent Trocheck on the top power play unit, or does so in spurts. The complication is Blake Wheeler, who looks primed to earn some top PP minutes as well, but new coach Peter Laviolette is a coach who often used two centres for his top PP unit in Washington: Dylan Strome, TJ Oshie, Evgeny Kuznetsov, and Nicklas Backstrom were four of their five most-used PP forwards over Laviolette’s final two seasons in Washington, with the last being Alex Ovechkin. All of those guys, outside Ovi, can take faceoffs. Wheeler can, too, but he’s also the same handedness as Mika Zibanejad so that feels like diminishing returns.

If my assumption is wrong and either Trocheck stays on the PP unit or Wheeler takes his spot instead, then Chytil’s projection will be way off. It is just a personal belief that the way Laviolette runs his power plays could benefit Chytil for stretches this season and help juice his point totals. We will find out soon enough. (sept21)

11. Matthew Boldy
Projection: 72.16 points

It probably isn’t a surprise to a lot of people, but Boldy is one of the forwards I have reaching 70 points for the first time in his career.

The young Wild star had a huge TOI increase last year, reaching 18:29 over his 81 games. Mats Zuccarello, however, was over 20 minutes a game as he was Kirill Kaprizov‘s running mate once again. If that persists, it is really hard to see Boldy adding much ice time to his name, and he’ll be reliant on either Joel Eriksson Ek being healthy or Marco Rossi breaking out.

What is driving Boldy’s projection here is the assumption that, for stretches, Boldy and Zuccarello will effectively switch spots, putting Boldy over 20 minutes and the former Rangers winger down to 18-and-change. The team is not deep offensively and there will be times when they have to load the top line like Colorado or Tampa Bay have done. It isn’t for no reason, either: Zuccarello saw across-the-board declines (often significant ones) in his micro stats like scoring chance assists (helpers on teammate chances), controlled zone entry/exit percentages, and defensive zone work. At 36 years old, Father Time may have finally come for the Norwegian star.

Boldy is an emerging offensive dynamo, he just needs the right role to really start thriving. That upside has been apparent, and it should really start showing itself this season.

Follow the link for more… (sept21)

12. Also this past week, Alexander MacLean chimed in with his breakout candidates for 2023-24. Here are a few:

I have the players loosely sorted by how deep of a league you will have to be in to consider these players. The first players on the list will be relevant in most every league, while the later players listed will be the deeper cuts. 

Senators – Brady Tkachuk (LW): I’m prefacing this by the fact that there aren’t a lot of other Senators primed for a jump in production. Tkachuk has seem his hit rate drop from crazy-high, to just really-good, and that’s a good thing, because it means his team has the puck more and he is scoring more. This team is continuing to improve, and it’s going to be easy for Brady to pass his 83 points from last season. This past year, he averaged less than 19 minutes a night, shot only 10%, while his teammates converted at under nine percent with him on the ice. The rest of his underlying numbers all show room for growth, and the team is getting Josh Norris back healthy as well. The younger Tkachuk may not quite keep up with older-brother Matthew, but I’m definitely taking the over on 90 points for Brady this year.

Flyers – Owen Tippett (RW): Tippett is exactly what we look for in a breakout candidate: He’s at his 200-game breakout threshold, had a huge scoring bump to finish last season, still has room to grow with ice time, reasonable underlying numbers, and no superstars pushing him too far down the roster. The health of Sean Couturier would add a lot to Tippett’s case for a big breakout this year. Him keeping up his Q4 pace of 16 points in 20 games (a 65-point full-season pace) is not out of the question.

Blue Jackets – Elvis Merzlikins (G): Rebounds for Johnny Gaudreau and others with a return to health from Zach Werenski and Patrik Laine all point to the Blue Jackets finishing the year ahead of where they did last year. Add in Adam Fantilli, Alex Texier, and some reinforcements on defence, and all there really is to wonder about is how their goalies do. Merzlikins has had a tough few years both on the ice and off, but hopefully now he is a little more settled, and given some more help in his own end. With how last season went there aren’t a lot of numbers to base this off of though, and it’s more of a “he can’t be any worse and is going to start a lot” situation. Volume-wise, if he sees 55-60 starts, then 25 wins and 30+ saves per game, in line with his 2021-22 season would be the floor. (sept20)

13. My last several Ramblings have focused on point projections to help those doing drafts before training camps begin. We had groups of defencemen, groups of forwards, offensive stars that could improve/decline by a significant margin, and forwards with projections that were surprising (for any reason). Sometime before the season starts, I am going to release full rankings to show just how much players help/hurt in specific categories.

Anyone needing some extra help, go grab our 2023-24 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide for projections, line combinations, prospect outlooks, breakout players, and a whole lot more. It is updated whenever there’s a transaction, so fantasy managers will always have current information at their fingertips.

Rookie camps across the league have come and gone and main roster camps have now taken over. To that end, I am a big pro wrestling fan and that allows me to say pro wrestling and pro sports training camps have one major trait in common: positioning matters.

In pro wrestling, it means that even if a wrestler is losing a bunch of (pre-determined) matches, if their opponents are names at the top of the company, the loser is being positioned as a future star. For one reason or another, that wrestling company sees them, at the least, as a companion for their top box-office draws moving forward.

The same goes for training camps because even in split-squad situations, guys skating on the top lines or the top power play are the guys the coaching staff see as potential top-of-the-roster options. They are the players we need to keep an eye on for fantasy purposes.

For that reason, below are 10 spots to keep an eye on in training camps. It could be an open spot on a (hopefully) productive line, positions where a prospect could surprise, a power play with uncertain components, or whatever else comes to mind. (sept19)

14. Hall-Bedard-???

My assumption is Taylor Hall spends a lot of minutes with Connor Bedard. I have seen presumptions about Lukas Reichel going there instead, but having two rookies on the top line with our question mark feels like a bridge too far. I am assuming that as long as Hall is healthy, he’ll skate with Bedard. Who, then, is going to be their right winger?

There aren’t a lot of options. Tyler Johnson could go there, as could Corey Perry in spurts, but I am hoping – along with many others – that it ends up being Taylor Raddysh. He has scored at a borderline second-line rate over the last two seasons, and managed 20 goals on an awful Chicago team in 2022-23. If he ends up as the top-line running mate, and gets to the top power play? That is a useful fantasy option, especially in banger leagues considering his 185 hits in 152 games while skating just 14:30. (sept19)

15. San Jose PP1 Quarterback

This is a situation I wrote about last month, but bears repeating. With Erik Karlsson gone, there are a lot of minutes to fill, and the top power play is key amongst them. The team will be bad, but any defenceman running a top quintet is a double-digit PP point threat, and that has fantasy value in non-shallow leagues.

Following his trade from Colorado in January, Jacob MacDonald ‘ran’ the second PP unit in that he got most of whatever minutes Karlsson didn’t play, which wasn’t a lot. All the same, the only real threat is prospect Henry Thrun, and any rookie stepping into a PP1 quarterback role is a lot to ask. On top of that, San Jose has eight defencemen signed to NHL contracts. They could put any of them on waivers because they have the cap space to do it, but it tells me that Thrun may start in the AHL before a recall in November or December. Training camp will tell us one way or another. (sept19)

16. Buffalo’s Sixth Forward

With Jack Quinn expected to miss a big chunk of the regular season, there is one spot open in Buffalo’s top-6 forward mix. Casey Mittelstadt is possible, but he’s a left-shot centre that is likely needed on the third line. Victor Olofsson would make sense, at least for a couple months until Quinn returns, but then one of he or JJ Peterka would have to play on their off wing. Olofsson may be a better option on a hyper-sheltered third line with Mittelstadt.

A few of us here at Dobber Hockey, including Dobber himself, have wondered if they’ll put Jordan Greenway alongside Tage Thompson so they can move Alex Tuch down to that RW2 spot. It would make a lot of sense to balance the top two lines, but it would also weaken the top line and that might not be a good trade-off.

While Greenway could get to the top trio, I’m wondering if this isn’t a great opportunity for someone like Matthew Savoie to get to the second line out of training camp. He is a right shot that might be ready for the minutes, but he’ll have to earn it. How the team runs its lines will be something to watch closely.

Follow the link for more… (sept19)

17. Dobber took some questions from readers for his Monday Ramblings. We'll bunch up a few of those goodies below:

Reader @jav91 asked: MacKinnon or Pastrnak. Redraft H2H categories with G, A, PPP, SHP, SoG, Hits and Blocks.

This one is so close that it’s not worth agonizing over in that league format. I ran your categories on Fantasy Hockey Geek along with my projections. The result spit out Pastrnak at sixth spot… and MacKinnon at eight. MacKinnon is the greater injury risk, which makes the Pastrnak call a little easier to make.

Reader @daveOevans asked: Jeff Skinner or Kuzmenko (multi-cat league)?

Skinner. I think he gets back to at least 70 points, even though a decline is likely. Kuzmenko will also decline, likely falling short of Skinner’s production by about 10 points. He won’t have as many SOG, and neither player really throws a check or blocks a shot. So for them it will come down to the points, and Skinner gets the nod. (sept18)

18. Reader @mikewalsh86 asked: Robertson or Kucherov?

Robertson. I think Kucherov will end up with about five more points than Robertson, but he won’t score as many goals, take as many shots and his plus/minus won’t be anywhere close. Your follow-up tweet didn’t indicate a plus/minus category, but SOG and goals were categories so I would stick with Robertson. Only take Kucherov here in a points-only league.

Reader @jasonkcheung asked: Points only + PPP, Bratt, Laine, or Tuch?

I think Bratt will come close to 80 points this season, and I don’t think Tuch plays 70 games. I don’t see Laine playing 65 games. On a per-game level, all three of them will be pretty close, so for this I would lean toward the guy with a healthier track record. (sept18)

19. Reader @sardz2121 asked: Cap league, points league with banger category points included. looking for inexpensive production. Tolvanen or Sharagovich? Kakko or Mittelstadt? Luostarinen or Sprong? Dorofeyev or Eyissmont?

– I think Sharangovich is a safer pick, but I would take Tolvanen for the upside and hope.

– Mittelstadt easily, if he can stay healthy – which he did last year.

– Luostarinen here, as Sprong’s boom-or-bust risk is a little much and Luostarinen I think will be a steady guy.

– If he makes the team and plays all year, Dorofeyev will be pretty good. Eyssimont is safer but has little upside.

Reader @SeanMurphyHFX asked: 12 team keep 15 league (G/A/PPP/+-/PIM/HIT/BLK). I won a couple years ago, and still have a relatively young/talented team. Traded up to 3rd overall pick this year. Would you take Fantilli or Keller?

Keller all the way. He’s still on the rise, and will pay immediate dividends as opposed to waiting on Fantilli to get going.

Follow the link for more… (sept18)

20. The Patrick Kane watch is in full effect, as we sit and wait for him to choose a new home. In addition, Darren Dreger has reported that Kane will need at least another month of rehab on his hip following June surgery. 

It’s difficult to make a projection on Kane, since we don’t know how many games he’ll play, which team he’ll play for, nor how productive he will be. The last part won’t be easy because Kane is coming off a career-low 0.78 PTS/GP pace (57 points in 73 games). There was some speculation during the season that he was being slowed down by an injury, so a bounce-back to point-per-game levels is entirely possible. However, Kane is now 34 years old, so a regression is entirely possible.

At this point, I’d only stash Kane away in deep leagues with lots of bench slots. Those in standard-sized Yahoo leagues (ie. similar to their mock drafts or only slightly bigger) should simply rely upon trying to be the first to grab him once news heats up about a possible signing. If someone has already beaten you to Kane, then it might not be a bad thing if you consider the carrying costs of having someone on your bench that is inactive. (sept23)

21. The Canucks and Canadiens agreed to a mid-level trade earlier this week, with the Canucks sending Tanner Pearson and a 2025 third-round pick to the Habs for Casey DeSmith.

This trade is interesting on a number of levels. First, Pearson played only 14 games last season because he had a fairly significant hand injury – one that the Canucks may not have handled properly. I don’t think the Canucks were expecting Pearson to be ready for the season, and in true Canucks fashion had made offseason moves that pushed them right to the cap limit again. Letting yet another draft pick fly out the door isn’t ideal, especially since the Canucks’ cap problems are mostly self-inflicted.

Regardless, it is nice to see Pearson be able to resume his career when it at one time seemed to be in doubt. The Habs have a need for Pearson because Christian Dvorak won’t be available until at least November because of a knee injury. Pearson is ideally a third-line forward at this stage in his career, but he could fill in on the second line if the Canadiens need him to.

This is a big year for the Canucks, and much of their fate rides on the performance and health of Thatcher Demko. Although I wouldn’t write this in pen yet, DeSmith appears to be the best bet to be the backup goalie for the Canucks, ahead of Spencer Martin and Arturs Silovs. DeSmith is an experienced backup who should allow the Canucks to not overplay Demko. If Demko is injured beyond the short term, I still think World Hockey Championship MVP Silovs will be recalled and push for the starting job. (sept23)

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Have a good week, folks!

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