I have spent the offseason reviewing the fantasy seasons of non-playoff teams. This covered the San Jose Sharks, the Chicago Blackhawks, the Anaheim Ducks, the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Montreal Canadiens, the Arizona Coyotes (now in Utah), the Ottawa Senators, the Seattle Kraken, the Calgary Flames, the New Jersey Devils, the Buffalo Sabres, the Philadelphia Flyers, the Minnesota Wild, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Detroit Red Wings, and the St. Louis Blues.

** Be sure to grab your copy of the 2024 Dobber Fantasy Hockey Prospects Report!**

Today, let's get talk briefly about the regular seasons of some of the eliminated playoff teams. These Ramblings will cover the Western Conference as the Eastern Conference was written about on Tuesday. Data from Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, and AllThreeZones, unless otherwise indicated.

Los Angeles Kings

Following their third straight first round exit from the playoffs at the hands of the Edmonton Oilers, it is very fair to ask where the Kings go from here. CapFriendly has them with less than $20M in cap space and five RFAs to sign, including Quinton Byfield and Jordan Spence, plus their goaltending to fill out.

A big question for the fantasy realm will be whether Pierre-Luc Dubois can bounce back. He had 16 goals (lowest total for him in six seasons where he played at least 50 games) and 40 points (ditto) in 82 games and that's just brutal production. Here is the fun part: both his rate of 1.24 total assists/60 and 0.79 primary assists/60 minutes at 5-on-5 were the highest of his career. One reason he managed that was he attacked the middle offensively as his tracked rate of centre-lane passes was in the 93^rd percentile of forwards and among some very productive players:

There were three problems, two of which were related to each other.

Two of those problems entailed a drop in power play production entwined with a loss of total ice time. As for the second part, he dropped from 18:42 across his last two years in Winnipeg to 15:42 in his first year with Los Angeles. He lost 1:21 per game in 5-on-5 time and 1:22 per game in power play time, all of which cut severely into his production. Being a centre traded to a team with Anze Kopitar and Phillip Danault was not helpful.

The third problem was his 5-on-5 shooting percentage, which sat at 7.3%. Here is the thing: I believe it has more to do with the defencemen than the wingers (though playing over 700 minutes with Alex Laferriere doesn't help). The tracking data has 147 defencemen with at least 250 tracked minutes. Those defencemen successfully exited the zone on 73.9% of their defensive zone exits. Dubois spent at roughly 75% of his 5-on-5 time with at least one of Matt Roy, Andreas Engnlund, and Vladislav Gavrikov, and all three names were in the bottom-12 of those 147 defencemen by successful zone exits:

This isn't to absolve PLD of his problems, but when the defencemen he's largely playing with turn the puck over somewhere between 35-40% of the time, it might be hard to generate a lot of offence from the third line.

Next season, Jordan Spence will be a year older and hopefully it's a full season from Brandt Clarke. They, along with Drew Doughty, should help everyone get up the ice quicker (and more often) but as long as Dubois is skating under 16 minutes a game with secondary power play time, we cannot expect more than 50 points from him.

Nashville Predators

It will be an interesting offseason from Nashville. They have $26M in cap space and the only player they really need to re-sign is Alexandre Carrier. They also need low-dollar RFA deals for Juuso Parssinen and Philip Tomasino, so they could have around $18M-$20M in cap space to use.

Aside from whomever is brought in, Nashville needs more secondary scoring. With Tommy Novak cementing himself as a high-end playmaker, the 2024-25 season could be the breakout year from Luke Evangelista. After the All-Star break and In the playoffs, he was often the fourth forward on the team's top PP unit, and that's valuable ice time as they do tend to use their top unit a lot. He and Novak created a lot of offence together at 5-on-5, too:

They did have problems with finishing as the team shot 7% and scored just 2.5 goals/60 minutes at 5-on-5 with the duo on the ice. However, with all that cap space and this tandem now being pretty good offensively over the last two seasons, adding a bona fide goal scorer/dual threat winger could give Nashville that second scoring line that they can rely on for 17 minutes a game.

Over the last two years, Evangelista has scored 0.94 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 with Novak on the ice, which counts nearly 830 minutes of ice time. A rate like that would be comparable to names like Jake Guentzel and Bo Horvat. Of course, he needs more than 14 minutes a game to see a real breakout, but if he and Novak, and a Mystery Third Partner, can bring the heat in 2024-25, Evangelista has 25-goal, 60-point potential.

Vancouver Canucks

Ostensibly, Vancouver has nearly $24M in cap space. However, they have four roster forwards and three roster defencemen to re-sign (if they so choose), as well as decisions to make on Filip Hronek and Arturs Silovs. That cap space could disappear in a hurry, so a lot of the same players that made it to the second round this season could be back next season.

The big question with this team was what to do with the second half of their top-6. They have JT Miller and Elias Pettersson signed until 2030 (or beyond) with at least one more year from Brock Boeser. After that, it's what they do with guys like Conor Garland, Nils Hoglander, Pius Suter, Ilya Mikheyev, and Vasily Podkolzin. One of those names is not only going to get top-6 minutes, but also be the fourth forward on the top PP unit. Considering how much the team uses their top unit, that is some prime real estate (Frozen Tools has them with over 70% of the available PPTOI).

There could be a big year coming from Garland. Outside the Big Three, he had the most power play time per game in the playoffs of any forward they have signed for 2024-25 (Elias Lindholm was higher, but he's no guarantee to return). Garland also saw a big uptick in ice time over the team's final 20 games, skating 16:16 per night (it was 13:59 per game in the first 62 games). In a minimal sample of 141 minutes together, he and Pettersson had excellent offensive numbers at 5-on-5, even exceeding what Pettersson did without Garland:

We will come back to this in over the summer once Vancouver's roster is a bit more set, but for now, Garland looks to be in a prime position to see a big uptick in production from his solid season of 20 goals and 47 points.

Colorado Avalanche

There is a lot of change that could come to this roster. Of course, the core of Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Cale Makar, and Devon Toews are going to be targets. However, Valeri Nichushkin is suspended for six months and while Gabriel Landeskog plans on playing, there is no timetable for his return and that could be anywhere from Game 1 of the regular season to Game 1 of the playoffs. For a team with eight unrestricted free agents, RFA Casey Mittelstadt that isn't far from UFA status himself, and $15M in cap space, that extra $7M could be very important.

In fact, Landeskog's timeline could be the difference between Mittelstadt re-signing and not. Colorado would probably want a short-term deal for two or three years while Mittelstadt is probably looking for the one monster contract of his career.

We will have to see how those negotiations play out, but Mittelstadt was great for the Avs down the stretch: from the Trade Deadline onward, the centre's 2.23 points/60 minutes at 5-on-5 was the rate of a low-end first-liner and he had 10 points in 18 games with almost no top power play time. He dropped to under 16 minutes a game with the Avs, so despite his strong play, if he's skating 16 minutes a game without top power play time, there isn't a lot of upside.

The upside comes if Mittelstadt is in a position for top PP time. With Nichushkin out, no elite prospects banging down the door, and Landeskog's uncertain timeline, there is a spot for a fourth forward on the top unit alongside MacKinnon, Rantanen, and Lehkonen. Getting up to 18 minutes a game with that top PP time would give him 70-point potential for as long as he has that role. Let's wait to see what happens in July, but this is a very intriguing situation with a wide range of outcomes.

Winnipeg Jets

There is a new coach in town and the big wonder is what this means for Cole Perfetti. It would be hard to tell that he was third on the team in primary points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (goals and first assists), behind only Nikolaj Ehlers and Gabriel Vilardi, given that he was a consistent healthy scratch down the stretch and in the playoffs. In fact, over the last three seasons, here is a list of young forwards with a lowerprimary points rate at 5-on-5 than Perfetti:

It is funny how ice time and role dictate perception, given how much the public and the league thinks of names like Dylan Cozens, Seth Jarvis, Tim Stutzle, Alexis Lafreniere, and Lucas Raymond. It is especially funny when that ice time and role are dictated by one person, and that's the coach.

Perfetti is one of the most interesting young players in the league. Winnipeg's scoring has been much better at 5-on-5 when Mark Scheifele has Perfetti next to him than when he doesn't, but Rick Bowness refused to use Perfetti on the top line in 2023-24. He also refused to just use him at all late in the season. With a new coach, it is a wonder if this changes, or if it's just more of the same. Perfetti has a high dual-threat offensive upside, but he won't reach it playing 13 minutes a game next to Alex Iafallo.