Welcome back to The Journey, where we track the development of prospects as they excel in junior, make the NHL, and push towards stardom.

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Dobber's Midseason Guide was released yesterday. Get yours today so that you have the insights you need to ready your teams for the stretch run!

We reassess preseason projections, take a close look at performance to date, and project how players will perform over the last half of the campaign. I was delighted to be involved in this project again this year. Look for my prospect write-ups in the "Who's Close?" section for Chicago, Colorado, Dallas, Edmonton, and Florida.

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Before turning our attention to the recently released Top 200 Forward Prospect rankings to examine significant risers and fallers, I want to take a brief look at two talented yet enigmatic young defencemen whose value continues to feel uncertain: Nils Lundkvist (DAL) and Bowen Byram (COL).

Starting with Lundkvist, I am still finding him available for free on the wire in most of my leagues, despite the injury to Miro Heiskanen and the resulting bump in opportunity for other Dallas defenders. That situation could change in a hurry; however, he now has three points and six shots over his last two games.

Thomas Harley has been the main beneficiary of Heiskanen's absence, of course, vacuuming up almost all of the available power-play time and playing huge minutes. Lundkvist has been sneaking onto the second unit and doing some decent damage from the third pairing, where he has been saddled with the ghost of Ryan Suter all year.

Although we have not yet seen fantasy-worthy totals from the young man, he continues to trend in the right direction. Zooming out a bit, he has an excellent opportunity on Dallas' weak right side. Lian Bichsel projects to become a high-end shutdown defender and could end up playing on his off side due to the logjam of Heiskanen, Harley, and Lindell on the left. But really, no one currently in the Stars' pipeline has a great chance of unseating Lundkvist long-term, so he has something on his side that most young defenders do not: opportunity.

With 116 NHL games under his belt, Lundkvist is on track to hit his Breakout Threshold halfway through 2024-25. In other words, stay patient. Lundkvist feels like he has been around forever—he put up a couple historically awesome SHL campaigns but then seemingly flamed out of the New York system and did not do much once he arrived in Dallas—but he is still only 23 and developing.

Looking under the hood, there are quite a few positives with Lundkvist's season to date on top of his opportunity within the organization. His deployment is exactly what I want to see for young, offensive-minded defenders like him. Dallas is sheltering him heavily and giving him more offensive zone starts than anyone else on the team, including Heiskanen. And he is responding well to that preferential treatment. He is not yet one of the team's top play-drivers, but he is definitely above average and holding his own in that regard.

His expected goal share at even strength (xG 5v5) is well north of 50 (52.7%), meaning the team is creating more chances for than against when he is on the ice. For reference, Harley is sitting at 54% but with a much less sustainable shooting percentage (14.8% versus Lundkvist at 2.9%) and secondary assist rate (63.6% versus Lundkvist at 41.7%). While Lundkvist has been disproportionately lucky (1038 PDO) and not as involved in the scoring that happens with him on the ice as one would like to see (39.4 IPP), there are enough positives here that I feel confident recommending him as a pickup in deeper keeper and dynasty formats.

Moving over to Colorado, I am feeling increasingly uneasy about Bo Byram. There is his increasingly long injury history, first of all. He is out right now again, for instance, though it's good to see that it is a "lower-body injury" this time that has nothing to do with his head. He has sustained several concussions already in his young career, and analyzing the situation ruthlessly in terms of Byram as a fantasy asset, I am concerned that one more shot to the head could make him hang up the skates for good. He has already taken long breaks from the team in the past to recover and consider his future.

Even though he is no longer a prospect, strictly speaking, just have a look at his PNHLe chart that shows his projected NHL role. It has been a veritable roller coaster, and he has been on a downswing since his last peak in 2021-22.

His upside and pedigree are stronger than Lundkvist. At his best, Byram has demonstrated the capacity to be a game-changing piece on the back end. He has sublime vision and is an extremely smart, talented player. But barring a trade, the opportunity is not really there for him in Colorado. Then there are the injury concerns. And while he has been sheltered less and seen more ice time than Lundkvist, his play-driving results have been less impressive.

If you look back all the way to 2020-21, Byram has had similar deployment and results every year: he is sheltered, not given a ton of offensive starts, and is neither the worst nor the best in terms of driving play. I feel more comfortable projecting future success when a young, sheltered player is performing well in that role and proving that they are able to handle a higher quality of competition. In Byram's case, there is not a lot of data yet to suggest that he is ready for a larger role.

That said, he is only 22 and is still 70 games away from hitting his 200 games. The Avalanche have him signed to a bridge contract ($3.85 million AAV) at the moment that runs through the end of next year. Assuming Byram stays healthy, this contract term should allow them to get a pretty good sense of what they have in him before making a decision on his future in Colorado.

While he is still developing, I was hoping to see better results by now from a player once considered to be among the best defensive prospects on the planet. A few years ago, I offered a league mate Mo Seider in a one-for-one swap for Byram and got laughed at. Things have certainly not gone as expected since then.

Elite finishing, high-end primary playmaking, but not yet a significant overall impact on the Avalanche either offensively or defensively. If he were to be traded and handed the keys to a team's top power play, kind of like what happened with Calen Addison getting moved to the Sharks, I still think Byram is capable of upping some of these numbers in a hurry. But for now, the jury remains out.

Hold him if you have him, and buy low only if the price is right. Otherwise, this is a player I am content to steer clear of in fantasy for the moment—even as a Colorado fan.

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On to the monthly Top 200 Forward Prospect rankings, from which the following 12 players have graduated over the past two months: Adam Fantilli (CBJ), Leo Carlsson (ANA), Logan Cooley (ARI), Marco Rossi (MIN), Connor McMichael (WSH), Juuso Parssinen (NAS), Michael Carcone (ARI), Simon Holmstrom (NYI), Liam Foudy (NAS), Matthew Phillips (WSH), Jack Drury (CAR), and Alex Texier (CBJ).

That has created a lot of opportunity at the top of the heap, which is now a razor-thin race between Zach Benson and Logan Stankoven. Let's have a look at who has made significant strides in recent months and who seems to be falling off.

Starting in the Top 50, Connor Zary continues to rise (31→29→16→14) despite cooling down dramatically with the Flames of late. After posting an impressive 17 points over his first 23 games, he has produced four over his last nine on the back of two two-point nights. That is a lot of goose eggs, but growing pains are to be expected with any young player making the jump full time. The fact is, unlike most players on this list, he is carving out a meaningful top-six role in the NHL right now, so Zary stocks continue to trend upwards.

Amidst all the recent trade drama, Cutter Gauthier (ANA) receives a pretty significant boost in this month's rankings. He now sits at 17th overall, up from the 40s, where he resided the last couple months. Check out our take on the Gauthier-Drysdale trade. The wait time should be pretty short with him. Keep an eye on this Zegras situation, because that could have an impact on how soon we see Gauthier in a Ducks sweater.

I dug into Zegras' underwhelming season last week.

After a strong showing at the World Juniors, Noah Ostlund (BUF) stocks are also on the rise (45→42→36→28). He has had a core group of die-hard fans in the fantasy realm since his draft year, where the Swedish trio (with Jonathan Lekkerimaki and Liam Ohgren) was the talk of the town, but he continues to be overlooked somewhat as a true blue-chip prospect—much like Mavrik Bourque over in Dallas, who sits just above Ostlund now at 16th.

A couple surprising names in the Top 50 that have slid recently are Xavier Bourgault (EDM) and Oliver Moore (CHI).

I really wanted to feature Bourgault (21→26→29) in the Edmonton section for the Midseason Guide, but he just has not done enough yet at the AHL level to warrant serious call-up consideration. The transition to pro-level hockey goes a bit differently for everyone, but it seems to be hitting the Edmonton prospect especially hard. He has only four goals and 11 points in 27 AHL games this year. This is a notable step back from his rookie season (34 points in 62 games) and his QMJHL days where he was one of the most dangerous goal scorers in the league, potting 56 goals over his last 72 games. Will he be able to rediscover that scoring touch moving forward?

As for Moore, his fall is likely related to his subpar World Juniors (three in seven) and college rookie year (15 in 21). That NCAA production actually is not bad at all, though, and we will almost assuredly see a jump in scoring if he returns to Minnesota next year while team leaders like Jimmy Snuggerud (STL) depart. That has kind of always been the story with Moore: he has played second fiddle to higher-profile stars since his draft year. But you won't find many better skaters out there, even at the NHL level, and he has a well-rounded skillset to boot. No need to panic here, though this could be a decent moment to inquire after his services if you don't yet own him.

As an aside, while looking into Moore's performance at the U of Minnesota, I came across a familiar intriguing name from the 2021 draft.

Anyone remember Brody Lamb (NYR), a Hockey Prospecting darling who blew up the high school circuit in 2021? He's currently outscoring Oliver Moore (CHI) at the U of Minnesota and looks to be figuring things out at the college level. @ByronMBader

— Ben Gehrels (@beegare) January 13, 2024

Models like Hockey Prospecting tend to struggle with monster high school performances like the one Lamb posted in 2020-21 because there are so few comparables at the NHL level who followed that path. As a result, he improbably profiled as one of the most likely stars in the 2021 class but then completely fell off a cliff. At the very least, he is an interesting name to keep an eye on in deep formats. If Lamb is truly figuring things out at the college level, there could be an interesting prospect here. And he is almost for sure available for free on the wire.

Moving outside the Top 50, I will end this week's article with a quick survey of other notable risers and fallers. Consider this a Prospect Stock Watch of sorts. Lots to dig into here that we do not have time for today. If there's a player whose rise or fall you would like me to assess in a future article, let me know on Twitter/X!

Risers

Dmitry Voronkov (CBJ) 123→52—>56

Isak Rosen (BUF) 110→60→56

Dalibor Dvorsky (STL) 126→78→65

Quentin Musty (SJS) NR→72→69

Rutger McGroarty (WPG) 91→86→73

Valtteri Puustinen (PIT) 100→111→79

David Goyette (SEA) 119→92→88

Arshdeep Bains (VAN) 149→105→103

Yegor Sidorov (ANA) NR→112→108

Gavin Brindley (CBJ) 139→135→112

Riley Heidt (MIN) 217→118→116

Brayden Yager (PIT) 257→187→124

Lenni Hameenaho (NJD) NR→NR→147

Matthew Wood (NAS) 267→267→164

Eduard Sale (SEA) 213→213→187

Jani Nyman (SEA) 225→225→198

Fallers

Zach Dean (VGK) 48→85→82

Sean Farrell (MON) 67→89→85

Nikita Alexandrov (STL) 69→96→93

Jamieson Rees (CAR) 66→59→99

Samuel Poulin (PIT) 89→121→119

Ryan Suzuki (CAR) 88→83→127

Easton Cowan (TOR) 143→82→139

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Thanks for reading! Follow me on Twitter @beegare for more prospect content and fantasy hockey analysis.