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, Grant Campbell and Dobber

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1. Jack Hughes has raced out to the NHL scoring lead, but his season might have hit a detour. Hughes left Friday’s game in the first period with an upper-body injury after crashing into the boards following a scoring chance.

According to Elliotte Friedman, it might take a day or two to figure out the severity of the injury. For now, consider Hughes doubtful for Sunday’s game against Chicago and cross your fingers that it’s not something serious. Without Nico Hischier (upper body) and now potentially Hughes, the up-and-coming Devils suddenly look very thin up the middle. As an example, Erik Haula's ice time had already been trending upward, but he skated nearly 19 minutes on Friday.

With 11 forwards, the Devils seemed to double-shift Jesper Bratt, as he played a season-high 23 minutes in the 4-1 loss to St. Louis. Bratt’s eight-game point streak came to an end, one that he has recorded all 18 points of his season so far. (nov4)

2. Erik Gustafsson‘s value receives a major boost with Adam Fox out of the lineup. Fox left Thursday’s game with a lower-body injury after colliding leg on leg with Sebastian Aho. Because Fox left in the first period, Gustafsson logged the most power-play time of any Rangers defenseman, but he did not record a point and his 18:42 total in this game wasn’t much higher than his season average. Gustafsson has been either a feast-or-famine option throughout his career, which has a lot to do with how much opportunity he receives. When John Carlson was sidelined last season, Gustafsson picked up 25 points over 33 games. (nov3)

On Friday, the Rangers placed Fox on LTIR as a result of the possible knee injury he suffered. An initial estimate has Fox missing 2-4 weeks, but Fox is eligible to return to the Rangers lineup in late November. He will miss a minimum of 10 games, which of course puts fantasy teams in a tight spot. (nov4)

3. The Canucks have been one of the league’s biggest surprises so far. Rick Tocchet has them near the top of the standings as a team playing its best hockey since the 2020 bubble playoffs. If you have a Canuck on your fantasy roster, chances are you haven’t been disappointed at all.

There’s nothing like a 10-goal game to inflate the stats, but will any Canucks be hit hard by regression?

Entering Saturday action, Thatcher Demko had won each of his last four games while posting quality starts in three of them. We know that a healthy and effective Demko is critical for the Canucks’ playoff chances. He’s been that and then some so far, leading the league with a .967 SV% in high-danger locations. By my research the Canucks are giving up a similar number of high-danger scoring chances this season compared to last season, so Demko’s current ratios (1.79 GAA, .940 SV%) aren’t sustainable in any way. That doesn’t mean he’ll turn into a terrible fantasy option, but his overall numbers should come back to earth. As it stands now, you could try flipping him for an elite option. (nov4)

4. Still with the Canucks, all of Brock Boeser, J.T. Miller, and Elias Pettersson had shooting percentages north of 20 percent before Saturday's outing against the Stars. All are multiple shades of red on the Frozen Tools Buy/Sell Meter, indicating that you could sell high on all. I don’t know how much higher you return on a player like Pettersson or even Miller, since both were drafted on average in the top 50 of Yahoo drafts. Pettersson already has a 100-point season on his resume, while Miller fell just short (99 points) in 2021-22.

Boeser seems like the most likely sell high to me, since he scored just 18 goals last season and is already up to eight this season. That being said, Boeser is shooting the puck a little more, and he is averaging more power-play time per game than he had last season – clearly now a PP1 fixture after Bo Horvat was traded. There’s still a lot to like about Boeser, who could hit the 30-goal mark for the first time in his career. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to try to flip him for a more established option. (nov4)

5. Sean Couturier missed Friday’s game with a lower-body injury. Couturier has missed significant time over the last two seasons because of two back surgeries, so it’s not known whether this is at least somewhat related. In Couturier’s absence, the ice time among Flyers forwards was fairly evenly distributed, so it’s difficult to know who really benefitted.

Bobby Brink scored a goal and added an assist on Friday, giving him three multipoint games in his last five games. Brink is a rookie with a bright future, and he’s worth at least a short-term pickup. Yet beyond Couturier, no Flyer has averaged more than 17:30 of ice time. John Tortorella isn’t the most fantasy-friendly coach, so I’m having a hard time figuring out whether this could be sustainable. If a player like Morgan Frost can be healthy scratched a bunch of times already, then what’s stopping Torts from placing Brink on the fourth line soon if he’s not impressed with his game? The Flyers have been better than expected early on, creating multiple worthwhile waiver-wire adds. Brink is the latest, but I wouldn’t give him a long leash unless you’re in a keeper format more because of the system he’s in than anything. (nov4)

6. Pavel Zacha continues to be hot. Entering Saturday, he had goals in three consecutive games, as well as a five-game point streak with six points over that span. Currently on a line with David Pastrnak, Zacha had totalled 13 shots over those last three games. Given the big hole in the middle from the offseason departures of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, the most telling stat for Zacha has been ice time. He is averaging just over 19 minutes per game, which is over three minutes higher than last season’s average. (nov3)

7. Matt Boldy returned to the Wild lineup from an upper-body injury this past week, recording two assists in 21 minutes of ice time in his first game back. The Wild haven’t gotten off to an ideal start, so perhaps the return of Boldy will help. Boldy and Marco Rossi were recently moved onto a line with Kirill Kaprizov. Rossi scored a goal and an assist on Thursday with four shots. Entering Saturday, he had three goals and five points over his last five games, which means that he could finally be making some noise in single-season fantasy leagues. At time of writing, Rossi was only 3% rostered in Yahoo leagues. It might be time to add him to your watch list, or simply add him to your team if you are in a deeper league (he is only center-eligible, though). (nov3)

8. Semyon Varlamov posted shutouts in back-to-back games, his latest coming on Thursday against Washington. In both games, Varlamov faced at least 30 shots, which is why he was featuring a sparkling 0.972 SV%. Could Varlamov receive a greater share of the starts than we originally expected? Entering Saturday, Ilya Sorokin has been more ordinary with a 2.99 GAA and 0.911 SV%. Varlamov could be worth adding soon, as he is rostered in just 20% of Yahoo leagues. As expected, the Isles are a top-10 team in goals against but a bottom-10 team in goals for. (nov3)

9. Johnny Gaudreau finally scored goal number one of the season in his 10^th game. Johnny Hockey had been averaging over three shots per game, so he was clearly due. However, his five points in 10 games seems rather ordinary. Add to that the goal was an empty-netter, which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. But hey, you've got to start somewhere. (nov3)

10. One nice story in an otherwise disappointing season so far for the Oilers is the return of Sam Gagner. Now 34 years of age, Gagner scored a pair of goals on five shots in his first game of the season on Thursday. Both of Gagner’s goals came in the third period, cutting Dallas’s lead from 4-1 to 4-3. Gagner had signed a one-year contract with the Oilers just two days earlier. Gagner skated 13 minutes while on an even-strength line with Ryan McLeod and Dylan Holloway, so temper your expectations. (nov3)

11. Nicklas Backstrom announced he’s stepping away from the team for injury reasons, which seems pretty clearly to be that his hip hasn’t responded as he had hoped post-surgery. He did not look like himself at the end of last season and the start to the 2023-24 season has been worse, so this isn’t a huge surprise, but still very unfortunate for him. Whether it’s the end of his career remains to be seen, but he won’t be back in a Capitals uniform anytime soon.

As it relates to fantasy, this likely means a lot of Dylan Strome and Evgeny Kuznetsov moving ahead, with Connor McMichael being virtually assured a fourth-line role at worst, and probably a third-line role. (nov2)

12. The season-ending injury to Kirby Dach was brutal for him, considering how well he’s played since his trade from Chicago, and all the injury issues he’s endured already. It was also brutal for the Juraj Slafkovský–Alex Newhook duo. The coaches want to keep them together, and that necessarily means they won’t play with either Nick Suzuki or Cole Caufield. It was Josh Anderson on their wing of late, and that is perilous for them defensively; Anderson is in the 12^th percentile for defensive impact over the last three years. The young duo was already struggling without the puck, and now they have a winger that is making things worse. 

The concern is that the line is pinned in their zone so much they don’t get a chance to create offensively as they could (or should). It also means a lot of high-danger shots faced by the Montreal goalies and that makes it an all-around problem fantasy-wise. We will see how long it lasts, but options are limited so they may get more games together than they should. (nov2)

13. After Quinton Byfield rejoined the Kings last year, he eventually made his way to the top line, and they had a phenomenal stretch: 2.8 expected goals for (4.3 actual goals) and 2.3 expected goals against (1.4 actual) per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 in January, February, and March combined. Things slowed down in April, and they got steamrolled in the playoffs. It was a question if the three-month stretch would repeat itself in 2023-24, or if the downturn would carry into the new season.

Entering Saturday, it's been a repeat of that three-month stretch as the Kings’ top line (at time of writing) is carrying 53.4% of the expected goals and 54.9% of the actual goals at 5-on-5. They have often been used in a shutdown role, are still finding success, and it’s allowing their second and third lines to flourish offensively. Byfield was up to six points in nine games, too, as he starts to show the offensive promise he was drafted for. Both Adrian Kempe and Anze Kopitar were off to point-per-game paces, too, so there is fantasy goodness alongside good real-life play.  (nov2)

14. I made a trade in one of my partial-keeper leagues, of my Luke Hughes for his Miro Heiskanen. Their stat lines are fairly similar right now, though the hot power play in New Jersey has made the difference thus far.

Our league does count hits and blocks, where Heiskanen does have a bit of an advantage over Hughes, and generally I like my defensemen to fill up those peripheral categories. On top of it though, I’m just a big fan of Heiskanen, and I think that his last three games where he has been held scoreless, may be his only three-game-scoreless-streak of the season. It may be a close thing with Hughes and who comes out of this year or even the rest of their careers with the better fantasy value, and for the next few weeks it could be Hughes with that top power play unit, but I’m siding with Heiskanen here. (nov1)

15. Ryan O’Reilly played his 1000th game last Tuesday night, and despite his game falling off last season, he seems to have fit in very well with the Predators this year. Last year, a dip in power play ice time, as well as playing on a Blues team that was scoring less, really dented O’Reilly’s production.

His shooting percentage is high (at time of writing), but that should be offset by some positive regression in his other luck metrics, meaning the scoring pace of 60+ points should be here to stay with the Predators. A Filip Forsberg injury or a drastic reduction in ice time could change things in the short term, but this year and next the floor seems fairly high. (nov1)

16. If you need an early season team audit, some in depth analysis before pulling the trigger on a trade, or if you are just uncertain as to whether a specific player's hot (or cold) start to the season will continue, then make sure to get your question in to Rick Roos. The next edition of the Roos Lets Loose monthly mailbag drops a week from today. There are two ways to send in questions (1) private messaging "rizzeedizzee" via the DobberHockey Forums, or (2) emailing [email protected] with "Roos Mailbag" as the subject line. No one will do a better or more in-depth analysis on your question than Rick will. (nov1)

17. The Arizona Coyotes are suddenly looking like a reasonable team to stack some fantasy players from. Entering Wednesday, they had seven skaters with six or more points through eight games (a 60+ point-pace). Six of those players come as pairs from three different lines, with the seventh being the power play quarterback Sean Durzi.

What I’m taking out of this, is that the Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz pairing we can keep as is, they’re producing as expected. The Logan Cooley and Matias Maccelli combo also seems to be gelling, though the worry for Maccelli is if the even strength production dries up a bit, he doesn’t have the top-unit power play production to fall back on. For Michael Carcone (the AHL’s reigning scoring leader) and Jack McBain, it’s unfortunate they can’t play Chicago every night. The peripheral production will be there all year, but the scoring is likely going to pace similar to the two or three points every seven games that they were putting up prior to their recent eruption against the Blackhawks. (nov1)

18. In honour of Halloween (is that something we honour?), today is a good time to look at scary starts across the league. Whether good or bad, there are always players, lines, or teams that terrify fantasy owners and digging into what’s happened and what may happen in the future is necessary. Let’s look at six frightening first few weeks.

Jason Robertson

Going into Monday night’s game, Robertson had one goal and four points in six outings. After a 109-point season last year, and back-to-back 40-goal seasons, it’s certainly not the start fantasy owners were looking for. Of course, shooting 5.9% against a three-year average of 15.8% is one culprit, but there’s more going on.

First off, his ice time is down. Robertson is earning 17:50 a night, down a full minute from a year ago. The early portions have seen his power play shot attempts decline 33% from last year, which isn’t helping matters. Finally, the team is taking 30% fewer shot attempts on the power play with their top unit on the ice (and Roope Hintz has not made a difference). Once shooting percentages turn around, both Robertson’s and his linemates’, production will improve, but there are some red flags that indicate a return to last year’s levels may not happen. (oct31)

19. Shea Theodore

Alex Pietrangelo was injured, and Shea Theodore went on a tear: two goals, seven points (four on the PP), 20 shots, and six blocks in five games. What is notable is that even after Pietrangelo returned, Theodore skated 23:36 in an overtime loss to Chicago, where he accumulated two points, and 25:13 in a home win against Los Angeles, adding another assist. All told, he was up to 11 points in 10 games entering Saturday action and has been one of the most valuable fantasy defensemen this season.

For Theodore’s career, two things were missing from his fantasy profile: high levels of TOI and a heavily-used top PP role. Again, entering Saturday, he was averaging a career-high 23:45 per night and earning nearly 78% of the team’s power play time. He had been below just 60% of the team’s PPTOI for three straight seasons. He finally has the role that fantasy owners need for Theodore to produce a high-end fantasy season. Hits and blocks will still be tough to come by, but a career point-producing season awaits him if he retains his current role. (oct31)

20. Carter Hart

Heading into Monday night’s game against Carolina, in six starts, Hart had four wins and a save percentage of .924. He, and the Flyers, have been one of the best stories through the first three weeks of the season.

We have seen this before, though. Hart was 6-0-2 through eight starts last year with a save percentage of .946. The rest of the season saw him go 16-23-8 with an .898 save percentage. So, what’s different this year? The team, of course.

Last year, through November 5^th, which was roughly three weeks of the regular season, Philadelphia was last in shot attempt share at 5-on-5 (38.9%), 30^th in expected goal share (37.9%), and 28^th in goals per 60 minutes (2.04). This year, they are 14^th in shot attempt share (52.4%), sixth in xG share (54.9%), and 12^th in goals/60 (2.67). Were it not for backup Samuel Ersson being shredded for 12 goals in his two starts, the Flyers could legitimately be at-or-near the top of the Metro Division. It is not even close to the same team as 2022-23.

Whether Hart and the Flyers keep up their start requires a crystal ball, but Hart doesn’t need an elite team in front of him to still be a good fantasy option. Ersson is playing his way out of a roster spot and that means Hart should be in line for a lot of starts. A high volume of starts, combined with a (hopefully) average-at-worst team in front of him could be a good fantasy season. The next 70-some games will tell us the truth. (oct31)

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21. Last year, Jacob Trouba came the closest to achieving 200 Hits and 200 blocks but came up just short at 218 Hits and 196 blocks. The last player to achieve that feat was Mike Komisarek while with Montreal in 2007-2008.

No forward could put up 100 hits and 100 blocks in 2022-2023, but the closest were Auston Matthews with 78/92 and Elias Pettersson with 74/89.

Rasmus Dahlin (at time of writing) had elevated his Hits and blocks in 2023-24 as he was well on pace for 150 of each. The 2022-23 campaign was Dahlin’s first and only season with 100 of each when he had 105 Hits and 132 blocks. (oct30)

[Follow the link for more early season leaders…]

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Have a good week, folks!

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