Starting this Ramblings off with a birthday shout out to my dad who turned 65 a few days ago. I wanted to thank him for all the amazing support he's given me that have helped me become who I am. We need to appreciate these people in our lives as much as we can, because they give us our best memories, and help us build our passions. It's also why all of us love these sports and fantasy endeavours so much, is because they help us connect even further with those we love, as well providing some entertainment and competition that we all seek. Just a reminder that all of this is a game and that we're doing this for fun – my dad always made sure I was enjoying myself first, and then succeeding second.

Thanks dad for showing me how easy it is to love a sport, and for allowing me to grow into it at my own pace. Make the most out of all those senior discount rates!

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With Leon Draisaitl locked in now at a league-high $14 million AAV, the Oilers maintain status quo with their roster, but they may be in a tough spot cap-wise own the line. Drai goes from one of the biggest cap bargains to the most expensive – though still a very valuable player. Overall, his value in non-cap leagues stays where it is.

What this deal highlights most, is how big contracts are going to be in the coming years. In my cap league I spent the summer acquiring players with deals locked in for the next number of years like Aleksander Barkov, Roope Hintz, Morgan Rielly, and others. Locking in those players who signed longer deals during the end of the flat-cap era will give you a huge advantage in two or three years when they’re still on their same deals while the cap is up over $110 Million.

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Brennan's Ramblings way back on July 15^th touched on the fact that some players like Dougie Hamilton and Zach Hyman performed a lot better in year #2 with their new teams, as a point towards why he wasn't buying too much hype around Jake Guentzel in Tampa. After reading that I felt like it might be worth diving into a few players who changed teams in the summer of 2023, and who might rebound a little in year two with their new teams, a-la Hamilton and Hyman.

Erik Karlsson was coming off a 100-point season with the Sharks, and was joining Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang in Pittsburgh, what could go wrong? Well, Malkin is slowing down, Letang and Karlsson's style overlapped, and the rest of the team was a letdown. This time around the team has more time to sort out how to make Letang and Karlsson's skills complement each other rather than cancelling out. He won't hit 100 again, but I'm taking the over relative to his 56 points last year.

Taylor Hall was injured 10 games into last season and hadn't quite figured out how to play with Connor Bedard yet. Bedard though was also trying to adjust to the NHL, only hitting a point-per-game in the fourth quarter of the season. With Hall back to full strength alongside a more developed and confident Bedard, the four points in 10 games Hall scored last year should be below his floor for this year, with the upside for a lot more.

Max Domi finished his first season with the Leafs with 16 points in 20 games, playing mainly alongside Auston Matthews. If he can keep the 15 minutes of overall ice time (augmented by the two minutes of power play time), then he could be a 60-point player again.

Jamie Drysdale was traded mid-season to the Flyers after scoring five points in 10 games with the Ducks. He dealt with multiple injures last year, and only played 24 games with the Flyers, racking up another five points. Drysdale being healthy might have more of an impact on the rebound than becoming more comfortable with the team, but the combination of both should hopefully see Drysdale hit the 40+ point highs that his pedigree says he should produce.

Alex Iafallo is now 30 years old, and after playing six seasons with the Kings while scoring over 30 points in every season after his rookie year, he joined the Jets and promptly dropped to 27 points over a full season. Iafallo was on pace to blow past his career high in points after the first quarter, while playing on a line with Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor. Then he was inexplicably removed from that duo and stuck in the middle-six for most of the rest of the year. With a new coach, and some familiarity with the roster, Iafallo should be back over the 30-point mark once again, and parhaps even into the 40-50 range.

I also wanted to touch on Timo Meier and Alex Killorn. I don't want to beat a very productive horse here in Meier, but once again I have to highlight that he put up 24 points in his last 21 games last season, with that streak starting right about when he passed 82 games with the Devils. Being healthy and familiar with a team really makes a difference.

As for Killorn, he may be 34 and much less fantasy relevant now, but with more familiarity in the team, and the improvement of the overall roster, the rising tide lifting all boats may include the antique vessel in Killorn as well, as he played mainly with Troy Terry and Leo Carlsson – a pretty sweet gig if he can hold it.

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One of my leagues does a draft position draft in order to set our draft slots. We create a randomized for the 12 GMs, and that dictates who picks their slot first. Often times the first selection is the #1 overall slot (to take Connor McDavid), but after that there are usually some varied opinions and strategies. Depending on where your tiers fall this year, you may prefer picking 3rd rather than 2nd, or maybe picking 12/13 at the turn is more to your liking. 

In order to pick your draft spot, you need to have a sense of what players you like and where your tiers are. In my view, there is the Mcdavid tier, then it opens up a bit into Nathan MacKinnon, Leon Draisaitl, Auston Matthews, and depending on your league settings, either Brady Tkachuk or Nikita Kucherov. 

Add in Matthew Tkachuk, David Pastrnak, and Cale Makar as the next three, and that’s my set of nine that I want to make sure I get in on. I also feel there’s a drop off after pick 14, with Mikko Rantanen, Artemi Panarin, Jack Hughes, Sidney Crosby, and Kirill Kaprizov (make it 15 and add J.T. Miller if your league has enough categories). 

With that in mind, I wanted to try to net one player from my tier of nine, and two from my top tier of 15 (our league does have the right category layout that I would use a top-15 pick on Miller). Unfortunately, that doesn’t quite line up, but it does show me that my sweet spot is right about pick nine or 10.

As I had the 10th overall selection in our draft pick draft, it did come down to a choice between picks nine, 10, or 11. Ideally I would have taken first overall or somewhere in the top-five, but I made do with what was left, picking the 10^th overall slot. Worst case scenario based on my rankings is that I end up with Mikko Rantanen and Sidney Crosby (we have FOWs as well, which keeps Crosby in the top-15). That wouldn't be a death spell at all for my fantasy team, and would be a pretty safe and solid base to allow me some flexibility for the rest of my roster construction.

The theory behind picking a draft slot is as simple as that: base it mainly off of the first round, and then a bit more on the second and possibly third rounds. After that, which draft pick you selected ceases to matter as much, as the drafts never unfold as you expect them to and the chaos factor by this point is beyond any ability to properly plan for down to a specific draft slot. Sort out where you have tiers that end in the first few rounds, and what picks would allow you to maximize getting the most players from your higher tiers.

For those of you that want to add an extra layer of intrigue to your one-year leagues, I highly recommend this setup. 

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See you next Wednesday, and if you want to keep up with it you can find me on Twitter/X here, or BlueSky here if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.