Ramblings: Thoughts on Fantilli, Thrun, Benson, Nikishin, Andrae, Kovalenko, Bedard and More … (Sep 25)

Dobber

2023-09-25

The 18th annual Fantasy Guide is available for immediate download in the shop. Last week, camps opened! The Guide and Draft List were updated about a dozen times each. Sometimes the projections were tweaked, but mostly just injury updates and notes. Business has picked up! Be sure you have the most updated Guide on the market when you enter your draft! Pick it up here.

Goalie Post has a FREE app! Email (and soon to have push) notifications of any last-minute goalie changes. Please rate and review. Within the app's Starting Goalie Grid are 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. There is also a projected save bar for each starting goalie.

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And get ready for the new Dobbernomics app, which is coming very soon. The app was submitted to the stores on Sunday. Follow me on Twitter for an announcement as to when it will be ready for download.

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As already noted and Rambled about all week, NHL training camps have opened and a few things have caught my eye.

Columbus has an obvious and intriguing battle at center, and as expected – Boone Jenner is getting the Golden Boy treatment. He's a two-way guy, a leader, and more of a checker, but prolonged exposure alongside Johnny Gaudreau is bound to have an impact on his upside. I always find that these types of pluggers who would normally struggle to reach 55 points, eventually get to 70 or beyond if they play with a superstar for a couple of seasons. Jenner is looking like a strong candidate for this, if he can just stay healthy.

Also of note, though, is the fact that 18-year-old Adam Fantilli is coming off a huge prospects camp and was immediately inserted on the Patrik Laine line. The two have shown good chemistry so far, and if this works out it would definitely expedite Fantilli's expected production. It would also help Laine, as well, because – Fantilli has far more offensive talent than Jenner and this line would quickly become the No.1 line on the team.

This would also spell bad news for Jack Roslovic. While Roslovic was 'okay' last  year, it wasn't good enough. Last season was his time to really put his stamp on the team. Had he done that, he would roll into this season as a top-six pivot, with expected production to be very promising. Instead, he was mediocre, and now at risk of losing most of his offensive opportunities.

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Preseason games have now begun, and with that is our coverage in Frozen Tools. Of interest to you:

The box scores are especially notable because the NHL changed their presentation. Now, at a glance, you can't see the assists. Our box scores are not only set up for the optimal fantasy hockey experience, but yeah – we have goals and assists right there at the top of each game.

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Mika Zibanejad left the Rangers game with an upper body injury, but he apparently may have taken a stick to the arm. No further details were given, but it's not encouraging. Zib being out for a significant length of time really boosts Filip Chytil's stock, so this is a situation to watch closely.

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Logan Stankoven is a prospect coveted by pretty much anyone in a keeper or dynasty league with any kind of depth. The Dallas pivot scored twice on Sunday. In the Fantasy Guide I listed his odds of making the team at 20%, but he could certainly force the matter. Tremendous upside, and regardless of whether he makes the team or not – we'll see him in the NHL this year for more than a few games.

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A guy in my deep dynasty (15 teams, 34 players per team) drafted San Jose defenseman Henry Thrun in the fourth and final round of the draft, Sunday. I found the pick interesting, as I didn't have him on my list but knew him well and believe he has potential. Had my list gone up to 60, he would have certainly been on it. With San Jose short a PP quarterback, they will certainly give Thrun a long look there. Early in camp, they were considering going with a five-forward PP unit. Mere hours after Thrun was taken in our league, he potted two goals and added an assist – including a point on the power play. So…that's a pretty good start.

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Speaking of defensemen out to prove themselves and earn more PP time, Conor Timmins picked up a pair of assists for the Leafs, including one with the man advantage. He cannot take his foot of the gas – he needs to keep going, because this deep roster will bury him quickly.

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Yes, I had my first draft and it was in a huge dynasty league with a group of very smart and invested owners. Trophies are very hard to come by, and I find it very difficult to have players that I want in the draft to slip through. After a deep NHL draft like the one we just witnessed in the summer, it certainly gave us an abundance of options – which allowed other players to slide. I was happy to acquire Alexander Nikishin with my first pick, at 10th overall. He won't be in the NHL this season or next, so the wait time is there and so is the risk. But this guy is an elite talent worth holding onto. He already has seven points in nine KHL games.

I had managed to acquire 12th overall as well, and was thrilled to have Zachary Benson reach me there. I had been adding Sabres over the past several months and so he fits in with that – I now have Tage Thompson, Jack Quinn, Casey Mittelstadt, JJ Peterka, Devon Levi, Eric Comrie, Noah Ostlund and Benson. This is a team that packs a lot of offense, which is what fantasy hockey is all about. At least in this league! Benson played with Tyson Jost and Jordan Greenway in Sunday's game a popped in a goal against Washington. The Sabres are a deep team with a lot of firepower both in the NHL and in the system. So how do they fit all those players in? Well, the cream rises to the top. And if other players are looking great but not finding a proper role, they'll be moved to other teams to fill needs. On other teams, those players will then flourish. Don't let organizational depth here hold you back from adding some of Buffalo's prospects to your dynasty squads.

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After those two picks, I had to wait until 36 – at which point I would have picks 36, 38 and 43. So a nice little run there. My pipedream was for Chicago's young prospect goalie Drew Commesso to slide that deep. But regardless, I wanted to come out of those three picks with Nikolai Kovalenko and Emil Andrae. Well, Commesso did slide, teasing me into thinking I might get Connor Bedard's future goalie. But alas, Commesso was taken at 31. I did need a goalie, but at this point there is no need to reach for one. The remaining goalies that interested me (Nico Daws, Erik Portillo, Eetu Makiniemi) were the same in terms of appeal.

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Pick 36 arrived and Kovalenko was still on the board. I was happy to get him, and had him ranked 14 on my list. This guy is tearing up the KHL with 11 points in nine games, and the Avs are in touch with him very frequently. I believe they're going to bring him over after the KHL season and he could get in a few games at the end. They love his hustle and tenacity – and seem to be caught off guard by how well his offensive skills have exploded. He has already signed with the Avs.

I did, indeed, get Philadelphia rearguard Andrae. It was Pick 38. He was touted as a prospect who may be close to NHL-ready, thanks to playing pro hockey against men overseas. He has great hockey sense, and in the Fantasy Prospects Report we called him a great dark horse pick who could have an impact not unlike what Tobias Enstrom did back when he joined the NHL years ago. I had him rated pretty high in my Top 50 in the FPR, too. Sure enough, he's turning heads in training camp. Philly beat writers just can't write enough about this guy.

At Pick 43 I couldn't resist the guy who was 20th on my list. Nineteen players above him on my list were taken, but 20 was still there and I didn't want to pass up on this guy for a goalie. The goalie can wait. I selected Matthew "Mackie" Samoskevich. He's having a good camp, and while I think he's still a year away, I like the safety of this pick (drafted 24th overall in 2021 – so the organization will do everything they can to make it work) and his solid upside (top six in the future, possibly 70+).

And then to close down the draft, at Pick 60, I gave serious thought to the fact that my No.21 player was still available. Marat Khusnutdinov has top-six upside and could be a coveted prospect a year from now. He's in the KHL for another season, but he's a good one to sit on. However, with Benson, Ohlund, Samoskevich, Bobby Brink and Kovalenko – I have more then enough prospect forwards to sit on. I've reached my personal max on that. Generally speaking, in this kind of league, I like to draft a goalie every year or two if I can. At this point, the aforementioned Portillo and Makiniemi were taken. Nico Daws was very tempting. Even more so, because his teammate Akira Schmid was taken 11th overall! There was something intriguing about taking a player at 60 who is really only marginally behind a player was selected at 11. Both players are big – ideal for the NHL. Daws was taken higher (third round versus fifth) and is slightly younger (drafted a year later). Schmid came in and was excellent for the Devils in the regular season and had several amazing playoff games before the bottom dropped out. But goalies are so fickle, is the difference between one and the other really so vast that one gets first-round status in this league while the other doesn't get a second thought? How much do we really believe in Vitek Vanecek? A lot can happen over the next two years, and I thought Daws could end up being a savvy pick up. So that's who I took.

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NHL Connor Bedard Primer (interesting notes from the desk of the NHL)

345 players have made their NHL debut at age 18 or younger, including 76 active players and five last season. Only seven 18-year-olds have averaged at least a point-per-game at that age (minimum 20 GP).

That's an amazing stat, and something to keep in mind. Connor McDavid turned 19 halfway through his first season, so he doesn't count. Bedard – he'll still be 18 at the end of the campaign, as his birthday is in July. Here are the seven players who achieved a point-per-game average at age 18 or younger at the end of the season:

  1. Wayne Gretzky 1.53
  2. Dale Hawerchuk 1.30
  3. Sidney Crosby 1.25
  4. Ron Francis 1.16
  5. Patrick Kane 1.10
  6. Steve Yzerman 1.08
  7. Ted Kennedy 1.00

And that's it. That's the full list!

If Bedard scores on opening night, he will be the third-youngest player in NHL history to do so, trailing only Aleksander Barkov and Eddie Olczyk.

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Non-Bedard Season Primer

Since 2014, there have been at least five new teams making the playoffs each season that did not make it the season prior. Something to remember. Those 16 teams are not locks to get there again. You can expect five to miss. In my Guide, I projected four teams to miss the postseason this year that made it last year – so odds are, I have missed one.

Ottawa has never had four 30-goal scorers in the same season in their history. They have three players who did it last year – Tim Stutzle, Brady Tkachuk, Claude Giroux. And Vladmir Tarasenko has reached that mark six times.

The most goals in season-opening games? Michel Goulet and Dino Ciccarelli are tied with 14. Eight different players have done this 13 times, but just one of them is active. You guessed it – Alex Ovechkin.

Ovechkin, by the way, is 72 away from Wayne Gretzky's lofty 894 career regular season goals.

Sidney Crosby is 48 assists away from 1000, and 13 just other players have hit that mark.

Marc-Andre Fleury is 15 games away from appearing in 1000. Only three goalies have done this. And he is eight wins away from passing Patrick Roy for second all time. Martin Brodeur's 691 is way out of reach.

Auston Matthews' next goal will be his 300th. If he scores in the first game, he'll be the 10th fastest in history to do so (482 games). Gretzky did it in 350.

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Good luck in your drafts this week! And thanks for supporting all the sites that make up Dobber Sports.

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See you next Monday.

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