The DobberHockey Fantasy Guide is now available for download! It's the same guide that you've come to know and love every year, which includes player projections for scoring and peripheral categories in PDF form by team and by Excel list. Included are sleepers, draft review, Calder nominees, stock drops, goalies, and much more!

If you're looking for the Fantasy Hockey Geek (which is a personal favorite of mine), the Dobber 2024-25 projections will be in their system by next week. Follow @FantasyHockeyGk on X for updates.

A couple other items to share with you:

Bubble Keeper Week will be from August 11-17. In case you're not familiar, our writers will share players that are on the bubble on their various keeper teams. We'll have some interesting – if not eclectic – content for you that week. Think of it like when a radio station plays deep cuts from an album instead of the usual top 40.

The Offseason Fantasy Grades articles for each team will start appearing this coming Tuesday. Follow along at this link.

It might be the middle of summer, but there's lots happening here at DobberHockey. Doesn't seem like a holiday to me.

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One potential bubble keeper in a few leagues is Jordan Spence, who the Kings signed to a two-year contract at a $1.5 million AAV. Spence was sent to the AHL for a very brief period last season, but he won't be waiver-eligible this season and should stay on the roster full-time. Spence has some offensive upside, so expect him to be on the Kings' second-unit power play.

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Here are some players that are no longer bubble keepers and you can officially cut ties on, as they have signed in the KHL:

Denis Gurianov, 2-year contract, CSKA

Alexander Barabanov, 2-year contract, AK Bars

Ivan Prosvetov, 3-year contract, CSKA

Gurianov, who showed some promise earlier in his career, was held to just two points in 18 games split between Nashville and Philadelphia in 2023-24. Barabanov registered 13 points in 46 games this past season, but he was a combined minus-55 the past two seasons on some dreadful Sharks teams. Prosvetov was the backup goalie for the Avalanche early in the 2023-24 season, but the emergence of Justus Annunen at the NHL level seemed to make him irrelevant in the Colorado organization.

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Faceoffs are not counted in all fantasy leagues, but they are included in a few. Does your league count total faceoffs, faceoff wins, faceoff losses, and/or faceoff percentage? Understanding which stat(s) your league uses is important in determining which faceoff specialists to target.

This is an obvious one, but centers are the primary players taking faceoffs, making them more valuable in leagues that count faceoff statistics. If your league counts faceoffs, make sure your forwards contain a strong composition of centers.

Winning faceoffs can also lead to more puck possession and scoring opportunities, indirectly impacting other scoring categories like goals and assists.

You might also want to pay attention to matchups, as some teams and players have better faceoff records against specific opponents. That could help if you are in a tight head-to-head matchup heading into the weekend (particularly Sunday).

Here are some of the top faceoff specialists you might want to consider for your fantasy team.

Sidney Crosby

Sid the Kid led the league in faceoffs won in 2023-24 with 1090 FOW, and he finished second to the now-retired Patrice Bergeron with 978 FOW. No one has taken more faceoffs per game the past two seasons as Crosby, who averaged nearly 23 faceoffs per game in 2023-24. To give you an idea of Crosby's dominance in this category, no other player won at least 900 faceoffs in 2023-24.

In order for a player to win a high volume of faceoffs, it helps to have a high faceoff win percentage. Crosby helped his cause with a 58.2 FO% in 2023-24, which only a few players that played close to as many games as Crosby exceeded. Crosby has had at least a 50% winning percentage in the faceoff circle for the past seven seasons, and he has finished below 50% just twice since 2007-08. He's your best option in this category at the moment.

John Tavares

Of the 49 players that won at least 500 faceoffs last season, none finished with a 60% faceoff success rate. (Nico Sturm won 497 faceoffs and had a 60.1 FO%, however.) Of those players with at least 500 faceoff wins, none had a higher faceoff winning percentage than Tavares (59.3 FO%). Tavares also takes care of business in the volume department, finishing in the top 10 with 802 faceoff wins. He has consistently won at least 55% of his faceoffs over each of the past five seasons.

Simply having a strong faceoff winning percentage is not enough. The more faceoffs won at that percentage, the higher the average will be relative to other players on your team and your opponent's team.

Other high-percentage faceoff winners with strong faceoff win totals and scoring: Vincent Trocheck, Leon Draisaitl, J.T. Miller, Claude Giroux, Aleksander Barkov. These options should work no matter how the faceoffs are scored.

Joel Eriksson Ek

Among players in the top 10 in total faceoffs, Eriksson Ek was the only player to win less than 50% of his faceoffs in 2023-24. If we were rounding to the nearest full number, it would be 50%, but more accurately JEE came in at 49.7%. All of the players in the top 10 took at least 1450 faceoff draws and won at least 750 draws.

In any of his seven full NHL seasons, Eriksson Ek has never won more draws than he has lost, with the 49.7% win rate his single-season career best. That's not to suggest Eriksson Ek is bad at taking faceoffs. The distinction here is that he is a better option in leagues that count total faceoffs (1602 – 3^rd) or faceoffs won (796 – 10^th) than he is in leagues that count faceoff percentage, where he has proven to be average at best. If you need faceoff percentage, someone like Tavares is a better option.

Other sub-50% faceoff winners with strong faceoff win totals and decent scoring: Nathan MacKinnon, Mark Scheifele, Nazem Kadri, Dylan Cozens, Casey Mittelstadt. If you simply need volume in faceoffs or faceoffs won without the faceoffs lost or win percentage, these options will work.

Jordan Staal

Staal is a unique case. He finished ninth with 799 faceoffs won in 2023-24, yet all of the players in the top 10 in faceoffs won finished well ahead of him in scoring. Yet that shouldn't necessarily stop you from targeting Staal in leagues that count faceoffs. Staal consistently finishes with a high percentage of faceoff wins, winning 58.1% of his draws in 2023-24 while finishing above 50% in every season since 2010-11.

Staal also contributes in hits and blocks, making him valuable in multi-category leagues. He has registered at least 100 hits in each of his past nine seasons, while his role as a defensive forward results in him blocking more shots than the average forward. In shallow faceoff leagues, you might be better to leave Staal on the waiver wire due to his lack of scoring at an important scoring position (sub-40 points for last three seasons). In a deeper multicategory league, Staal definitely holds value in the non-scoring categories.

Other strong faceoff options that are not dominant scorers: Mikael Backlund, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Adam Lowry, Jason Dickinson, Colton Sissons, Nick Bjugstad, Alexander Wennberg.

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