New Jersey's top line of Jesper Bratt, Jack Hughes, and Tyler Toffoli is going to go absolutely bananas this year. It does seem like the power play units have been keeping each of the two top lines together to form each unit at the moment, with Jack getting his brother Luke Hughes at the point, and Dougie Hamilton seeing time teeing it up for Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, and Alexander Holtz. Tough to see anyone as a real loser there, except for maybe the final production with the man advantage for all of them if the units split time more evenly.

In net, I have high hopes for Vitek Vanecek this year, but if you can get either Vanecek or Akira Schmid at any kind of discount, then that's a bet you have to make for a team that might end up winning the President's trophy when all is said and done this year.

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Tampa has been loading up the top line for parts of pre-season, but that doesn't mean that the second line of Anthony Cirelli, Brandon Hagel, and either Nick Paul or Michael Eyssimont aren't worth a look too. They should get some exposure to the big guns, and provide some excellent draft value. I feel like they’re really getting forgotten in drafts.

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Dobber Sports Network Releases New App https://t.co/CdwUjLkBCc pic.twitter.com/FqKCqcod1B

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) October 3, 2023

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I had my toughest draft of the year over the weekend. It's a re-draft 12-team ROTO league where we count G/A/P/plus-minus/PIMs/SOG/PPPs/Hits/Blks/FOWs & W/GAA/Svs/Sv%. We start four at each forward position, six defencemen and two goalies. It's hosted on Yahoo, so forward positions aren't a huge deal by the end of the year, but making sure you have enough RWs early in the year, plus some FOWs from the wing is key.

I had the 9^th overall pick, and my list to that point was as follows:

Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Auston Matthews, Nathan MacKinnon, Brady Tkachuk, Matthew Tkachuk, Mikko Rantanen, David Pastrnak, and Cale Makar. I was hoping to get one of my top-eight (ideally one of the Tkachuks), and then nab either Makar or Tim Stutzle around the turn. However, anytime you want someone in this league they get taken a few picks before you. However, that meant I just got to ride a few waves early-on of seeing who was available.

My team ended up as follows, and I wanted to talk about a few of the strategies and picks:

C: Crosby, Thompson, Malkin, Danault

LW: Hyman, Nichushkin, Benn, Bertuzzi

RW: Pastrnak, Giroux, Seguin, C. Brown

D: Sergachev, Dunn, Andersson, Forsling, K. Miller, Graves

G: Jarry, Grubauer

BN: Cooley, Drysdale, Vejmelka, Binnington, Wedgewood

I finished with a solid core of Pittsburgh players, between Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Tristan Jarry, and Ryan Graves. I like the outlook on the entire team, as it's a stronger team than last year due to the depth additions, not even to mention the upgrade from Jeff Petry to Erik Karlsson. I think that Graves, Reilly Smith, and Lars Eller will have a much bigger impact on this team jumping back into the playoffs than many realize. Getting Crosby in round two, and Malkin in round seven felt like an excellent way to round out my centre core, and it was a stack I was happy to have.

Waiting for goalies was part of the strategy too, and it didn't mean waiting until say round 10 or round 14 at the earliest, it just meant not jumping for someone like Jake Oettinger in round two, or an injured Andrei Vasilevskiy early in round four. I ended up with Jarry late in round five, as he was the last one I had in the top-tier of goalies that could pace for 35+ wins with solid peripherals. It sounds from camp that he is fully healthy again and looking great. He was the 12^th goalie off the board for us, but I feel like by the end of the year he will be at least top-eight for value in this league where both volume and ratios are necessary.

In rounds three and four, I had once of those moments that drafters love, and where you can take advantage of being present in the live draft. Looking at the draft list, there were six picks between my third and fourth rounders, and on the board still were a ton of centres I wanted (Tage Thompson, Elias Pettersson, Aleksander Barkov, Jack Eichel, and Ryan Nugent Hopkins). What I ideally wanted, was to take Tage in round three, and then have Mikhail Sergachev still sitting there for me in round four as my top defenceman (60+ points, top PP in TBay, excellent peripherals across the board). However, I figured that Sergachev wouldn't slip through those six picks, so I took him in round three knowing that one of those centres would slip to me. Turned out that it was in fact Tage who fell, and I got my guys.

Ensuring that I had enough fire power up front to compete meant having to wait for a few bargains to fall on defence. Getting Vince Dunn and Rasmus Andersson felt like great value, as they are both PP1 guys on playoff teams who add peripheral stats across the board. They don't have the same name value of some of the guys who went ahead of them, like Victor Hedman or Drew Doughty, but the stats end up being similar. I do find that a lot of the players who fall in drafts play for smaller markets, especially in the Western Conference. If either of those two played for the Leafs, Habs, Bruins, or Rangers, they are gone a lot earlier.

Filling out the depth, in a Roto league your bench doesn't get used as much due to the games played limits at the skater slots, so getting a few extra goalies will give you the volume necessary to hit the limits, and hopefully take over a few of those categories just based on the fact of having more starts than other GMs. Karel Vejmelka, Jordan Binnington, and Philipp Grubauer give me tons of volume to choose from.

Deeper into the draft, the more you have to gun for upside, and that either comes from trying to find the breakout star players that just aren't on the radar yet, or figuring out which middle players will see an uptick in scoring because they are playing alongside the stars.

I went for a combination of both, between Logan Cooley and Jamie Drysdale as the possible pre-breakouts, and Tyler Bertuzzi, Connor Brown, and Ryan Graves as those who might see an uptick due to an upward change in circumstance. Bertuzzi and Brown will be playing alongside two of the top centres in hockey, and aren't slouches on their own. The floors are reasonable enough too that at worst they are pretty much at the replacement level anyways. At best, they can provide top-80 or 100 value, and hitting on at least one of those late picks with that kind of return is huge. Give yourself the opportunity to gain that upside. You don't win a league because your 16^th round pick produced at a 14^th round value, but anyone after pick 150 who can provide top-75 production alongside not missing on your early picks, that's how you win.

As an aside, I'm excited to see how long Nylander sticks at centre for the Leafs, as I do think Sam Lafferty and Matthew Knies can be great fits alongside John Tavares, doing most of the puck retrieval work. It's a different look than having Nylander or Mitch Marner there, but not necessarily worse.

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In one of my other leagues, we had our draft last night, and it was a blast as always. Having a great group of GMs tops having the perfect settings any day. In this league, it's a partial keeper (6F, 4D, 1G, 1 prospect) and after having won a few titles over the last few years, my team is in need of a refresh. Defence are at a premium for keeper slots, as the value-above-replacement is a lot tougher to get an edge on versus the forwards. With only twelve goalies kept, they don't have a lot of value in trades.

I ended up going for a bit of a youth movement, or at least giving myself the option of sorting out whether I wait out last year and charge back up, or if I do well enough early-on, and then I can flip some of that youth to fill whatever kind of need I have that crops up mid-season. Having flexibility doesn't hurt, whether it's dual-positional options, some extra youth to dangle, or just being able to touch your toes without bending your knees. At least in this team I have two of those three.

All that to say, I'm really hoping for some solid seasons out of Adam Fantilli, Luke Hughes, Logan Cooley, and Devon Levi, so that I don't have multiple of them vying for my non-NHL prospect slot next year.

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It seems as though Oliver Ekman-Larsson is running the top power play unit in Florida for the time being. A great late pick in drafts that you can stream out or sell off after the first month or so.

Sticking with the Cats, we have the first confirmed goalie of the regular season:

Maurice says that Bobrovsky will start on Opening Night, so he'll likely play in 2 of the final 3 preseason games to get ready.

— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) October 3, 2023

It wouldn't be surprising to see Spencer Knight get a fair share of starts this year 30+, but for now Sergei Bobrovsky has the leg up.

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Speaking of goalies, it sounds like game-one against Pittsburgh should be Petr Mrazek, though we could see a fair bit of Arvid Soderblom early.

Luke Richardson on how the Blackhawks will divvy up goalie starts:

"We will probably try and spread it out so [Mrazek] doesn't get overworked and [Soderblom] gets lots of work… I could see us just flip-flopping at the beginning of the year, just to get them both rolling."

— Ben Pope (@BenPopeCST) October 3, 2023

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I hopped on a new Fantasy Hockey Salary Cap League podcast with Dwight and Blair, and had a great time chatting about all things cap league related:

Listen to "The howe to guide to Cap Rankings" by Capped Out Hockey. https://t.co/PtE7AyrK1P

— Capped Out Fantasy Hockey Podcast (@cappedouthockey) October 3, 2023

* See you next Wednesday! You can find me on Twitter/X here, or BlueSky here if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.