Over the last week I've published the Cap League Rankings lists for both goalies and skaters, and also released the salary projections for the top-100 free agents. The fun part about updating the charts/tables, and then writing up and releasing the lists, is it puts my focus onto a different group of players from the ones that are more often discussed in the hockey and fantasy hockey media, as well as those that I am more on top of as part of my own fantasy leagues.

I wanted to talk about a few of them now, in no particular order:

Thomas Harley's salary projection of an annual value of $2 million and change brought some interesting comments, but the numbers check out on the back end. That doesn't mean it's to likely going to come in higher than that, but at this point the sample size is too small for any algorithm to be backing up the Brinks truck for a 22-year-old. Should he keep this up (and he has the talent, pedigree, and support to), then his cap hit on his next contract is going to be a big one. On that same note, if he keeps up this level or play and production, then the algorithm is going to recognize that and the projection is going to rise in turn by the end of the year.

We saw Owen Power and Harley's teammate Miro Heiskanen get over $8 million on their first standard contracts, and while Harley might not be quite in the same vein, he's close. On the flip side, bridge deals to Noah Dobson, Evan Bouchard, and K'Andre Miller could also be used as comparables, but those ones aren't aging too well and are going to lead to some massive third contracts very soon. It would likely be in the best interest of the Stars to lock in long-term now while they can still get a reasonable number on the deal.

Tyler Bertuzzi was initially missing from the free agency projections as his last contract had mistakenly been listed for two years instead of one, so he wasn't being filtered into the list properly as an upcoming free agent. I ended up trying to sort out about where the algorithm had him, without any access to the file as my computer was in getting the keyboard repaired. My gut feeling was that he would still be around the $5 million mark, which was similar to where he landed last summer. It may take another hot finish to the season, and a strong playoff showing for him to hit that number on a long-term deal this summer though, as his current production is slowly inching his value downwards. He's putting up his worst offensive season of his career, and just hasn't really clicked in Toronto despite the seemingly good fit.

We're still about a full season's worth of games away from Mason McTavish hitting his breakout threshold, which is going to have him hitting the point-per-game threshold, all that on top of some pretty solid multi-category contributions – especially for under 17 minutes per game. That means that it's going to line up with him being in a contract year, which could lead to a big jump from what we're expecting as of today. Anaheim played hard ball with Trevor Zegras, so we'll see if they pull the same stunts with McTavish, or if they have learned their lesson and get him locked up early. In the meantime, he's someone I'm targeting in fantasy, but he always seems to fly under the radar a little as a West-coast player.

Artturi Lehkonen is one of those players who always rates well in the cap rankings, but doesn't have that same name value as others. He had eight points in 12 games to kick of the campaign, but has been held pointless in his last two since returning after missing a large chunk of time to injury. He's playing farther down the lineup, with less minutes than early on, so don't expect his production to peak right away. Additionally, the signing of Zach Parise will bolster the LW depth, and probably doesn't help Lehkonen much the rest of the way. He might be a good buy low in a couple of weeks once his owner grows tired of him, but right now he's fresh off the IR and still full of that early-season promise.

It (rightfully) feels like we just got Jack Quinn back from injury. For someone who started the season late, it's nice to see him putting up points at a decent clip. The four points in two games before his injury didn't hurt that rate either. He's now on the shelf for an expected eight weeks, and that means it's next-man up for the Sabres who likely slot Zach Benson in on the second line alongside Dylan Cozens and J.J. Peterka. That would be a great spot for Benson over the next two months (assuming no drastic changes up to the trade deadline). He's currently on an 11-game pointless streak, which I would bet sees the dam burst very soon.

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Out of the 16 playoff teams right now, I'm not sure any are less inspiring that the St. Louis Blues, especially after that top line.

With Justin Faulk and Scott Perunovich out with injury, Torey Krug is manning his usual spot on the top power play unit, while Colton Parayko soaks up the leftovers. It has been five years now since Parayko has seen over one minute of power play time per game, but regardless of that he always seems to pace right between 30-35 points. Working in his fantasy favour are the facts that his shot and block rates are both up, bringing him over my made-up threshold of a combined 5.0 Hits+Blocks+Shots per game for fantasy relevance among defencemen in peripherals leagues. If your league counts all three of those categories and your defencemen aren't brining in that many peripherals, then it might be time to trade in a few points and bulk up.

The Blues and Blue Jackets played a very boring game, befitting of their current rosters. Some healthy players, and maybe a call up of creative players like David Jiricek and Jakub Vrana might help these two teams, but in the meantime we're stuck with struggling offences and some very unpredictable goalies. Both teams have played quite a few games over the last week or so, which follows that this game was going to be a slog. With a lot of players looking ahead to the all-star break already, we could see some similar low scores in the games Wednesday evening.

Zach Werenski's assist on the only goal last night bumped him up to a 60-point-pace, which would be the highest pace of his career. He's always had this upside, and his team's high shooting percentages balances out his low personal shooting percentage, so overall the underlying numbers show that he can keep it up. When this team's offence finally works its way back to the top-half of the league, Werenski could be seeing 60-point seasons regularly into his early 30s.

Interestingly his shot rate has dropped off this year after a couple years at 3.2, and he’s down in the mid-twos now. That coupled with his low shooting percentage means he only has one goal this season. The bad luck is going to turn, so for leagues where goals are at a premium, a second-half surge could help.

Elvis Merzlikins stopped all 22 shots he faced to record his first shutout of the season. That breaks a streak of four games without a quality start, so we won’t expect this to be some big turnaround, but it is nice to know that he can still stonewall a team on occasion.

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Mackenzie Blackwood posted the other shutout last night, stonewalling Seattle with 32 saves. He’s on a bit of a hot streak now with four Quality Starts and three wins in his past four games. The Sharks won’t win a ton of games in the second half, but Blackwood could still be a valuable volume goalie who makes a difference in the fantasy playoffs this year.

William Eklund played his first career game at centre for the Sharks last night, racking up two assists, one shot, and four faceoff wins on nine draws. The transition from wing to centre can be a tough one for young players, so it’s encouraging to see that Eklund didn’t have many troubles with it last night. It will be different doing it night in and night out, especially in games against top-tier centres (sorry Seattle), but Eklund was drafted as a centre, and plays a very cerebral game with excellent puck distribution skills; it was almost inevitable he would end up playing centre for long stretches at some point.

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In the latest example of better late than never, news is finally breaking relating to the rumours that had been swirling around these five and the rest of the 2018 Canadian World Junior team for a long time now. It would be a surprise to see them back in the NHL over the next number of years, and maybe at all in their careers. I wouldn't be holding onto them in any sized league, and overall we're just hoping for justice for all those involved.

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See you next Wednesday. In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter/X here, or BlueSky here if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.