It's only the preseason and all of Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and John Tavares are already dealing with injuries. All of the injuries have been described using the words "day-to-day", "minor", "dinged up", and "precautionary," so none of these players need to be pushed down draft rankings. Just don't be surprised if one or more of these players are held out of all of the Leafs' remaining preseason games. It's not as if they are playing for a spot in the lineup or anything like that.

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John Gibson won't be ready to start the season after undergoing emergency appendectomy surgery this week. He is expected to miss the next 3-6 weeks, which should mean he will return between mid-October to early November. Gibson's absence should move Lukas Dostal up the draft rankings a little bit, although I would try to steer clear of drafting any Anaheim goalie due to the team's expected finish in the standings. I could actually see Dostal playing more games than Gibson this season. Oscar Dansk, who has had cups of coffee with the Golden Knights, looks like the next goalie up for the Ducks.

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The Kings have announced that Drew Doughty is month-to-month with a fractured ankle. Frank Seravalli also reported that surgery for Doughty will also likely include damaged tendon repair. Seravalli also estimates that Doughty will be out of the lineup for between 10-14 weeks, which would mean that Doughty could be ready to return sometime in December. Obviously not good news, but it could have been a lot worse.

The Doughty injury has sparked the debate as to whether Brandt Clarke or Jordan Spence will move to Doughty's spot on the top power play. I'd lean toward Clarke based on draft pedigree, but I wouldn't rule out Spence here. Spence is two years older than Clarke and has more career NHL games under his belt (101 GP) than Clarke (25 GP). However, it's not unprecedented for a player with little NHL experience to be on the top power play, with both Quinn and Luke Hughes being examples of this. Based on Friday's practice, Clarke looks like the early favorite.

Little bit of power-play practice today for the @LAKings.

Brandt Clarke working with the top unit, along with Kopitar/Fiala/Kempe/Laferriere.

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) September 27, 2024

No matter what happens on the power play, both Clarke and Spence should benefit from an even-strength standpoint. Even at age 34, Doughty logs a ton of minutes (over 25 minutes per game in 2023-24), and someone has to make those up. In addition, Doughty, Clarke, and Spence are all right-shot defensemen. Tyson Barrie, John Klingberg, and Justin Schultz are also right-shot d-men, so it's possible that the Kings sign one of these veterans to a one-year, low cap hit deal to help fill the void.  

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Since we are now in fantasy hockey draft season, I'm going to share a few of my thoughts about how to proceed with a draft. This is mainly intended for single-season leagues, but this could also be applied in those leagues that start with several keepers.

I've written about this topic in previous years and didn't simply want to copy and paste what I've written in the past. So for something different, I'm going to present draft strategies in point/counterpoint form. After all, it's important to have balanced opinions in today's polarized world, isn't it?

Have a plan, but be flexible.

It's fair to decide you want to draft scorers early and load up on bangers later. Or that you are targeting a specific player in a certain round. Or that you know exactly who you'd take if both Jason Robertson and Tim Stutzle are available. Or that you've even gone to the trouble of generating your own rankings specifically for your draft. If you don't have your own ranking system (or even if you do), I'd encourage you to read through as much of the Fantasy Guide as you can, or have at least read through the sections that matter most to you. Don't be the Johnny-come-lately who buys the guide 15 minutes before the draft and then runs into technical issues when trying to access it for the first time!

At the same time, you may have heard Elliotte Friedman quote his grandmother: "You plan, God laughs" or Mike Tyson: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." In other words, don't get stuck to a specific plan. Adapt to how the draft plays out. Have a Plan B or multiple players queued up, because the time that someone will pick your player tends to most often be in the pick immediately before yours. Or it will be the same person doing it to you multiple times in a draft. I don't know why that is, but it's happened many times to me. Roll with the punches in your draft.

Aim for Zero G, BUT draft a goalie early if it seems like good value.

Elite NHL scorers are a known quantity. You know that Connor McDavid will score well over 100 points. Nathan MacKinnon, Nikita Kucherov, and Leon Draisaitl will probably get to 100 points too. Auston Matthews will push for 50 goals, and so will David Pastrnak. Among defensemen, Cale Makar and Quinn Hughes and maybe Evan Bouchard could reach 90 points. And so on for other scorers, as you lower the bar a bit (health permitting, of course).

Goalies? Riskier. Alexandar Georgiev led the league with 38 wins in 2023-24. Yet his goals-against average and save percentage were both below average (-10.31 GSAA). On the flipside, Anthony Stolarz led all goalies that played at least 25 games with a 2.03 GAA and .925 SV%, yet he won only 16 games. Both goalies helped and hurt your team, but in opposite ways. So much of a goalie's value depends on the team in front of them, and even the best goalies are prone to long slumps or being worse than waiver-wire options during a do-or-die fantasy playoff week.

Yet as much as I believe in the value of Zero G, I also believe that a draft is a value-building exercise. Ideally, you should draft a player that is the highest valued at his position relative to others. So if a Connor Hellebuyck or Igor Shesterkin is available in the third round in 12-team leagues, you should consider drafting them if you are not sold on the options at other positions. After all, I would never recommend not drafting Hellebuyck or Shesterkin. Just not too early, such as the first two rounds, when you need to build around elite scorers.

Show up for your draft, but understand that leagues are not won and lost at the draft or early in the season.

I've never heard of anyone that prefers autopick over live drafting their own players. You have total control over your roster, pick the players you want, and don't have to worry about accidentally drafting 12 centers and no goalies. Plus live drafts are fun! I don't think I need to expand on that any further other than to say in live drafts, like in real life, half the battle is simply showing up.

At the same time, almost no one believes they have built the perfect roster after a draft. That's because others are trying to build the best rosters than they can too. For that reason, many managers become the most hyperfocused on their roster early in the season. Go grab that guy that scored two goals in the first game – he's in for a big year because he's projected to score 164 goals over an 82-game pace! Never mind that he only took two shots and played 11 minutes that game.

Although I may lose out on a hidden gem or two, I tend to let my roster breathe for a bit early in the season. In other words, I don't do panic sell-lows. Then as the season wears on, I'll gradually increase my waiver-wire activity as I get a better understanding of my roster and how much value I have in each player. That way, I'll build my team up for the fantasy playoffs, surrounding my core talent with supplemental players who contribute at the right time.

Pay attention to line combinations, but don't consider them the be-all and end-all.

The Lightning have been using Brandon Hagel on the top power play during training camp. That's great! Move Hagel up your rankings. He'll finally maximize his potential the way we hoped Nikolaj Ehlers would all these years. If Hagel isn't available in your league (and he probably isn't), you can probably look for other "just a guy" players who might experience an uptick in value by being grouped with a star scorer or two. For the latest, check the Frozen Tools Line Combinations.

Is your guy stuck on the third or fourth line? Don't despair. Here's your reminder that coaches change line combinations, whether it's based on a whim or out of necessity due to injuries or performance. Line combinations will change within a season, and they can change often. Line combinations are not forever, and the cream eventually rises to the top.

Keep searching for future stars, but… live in the present.

Speaking of mountains of data, one area of hockey that I've really seen evolve in the last decade (besides analytics) is prospect information. You can follow whichever prospect expert(s) you trust, and you can watch YouTube videos and read articles that describe young players in great detail if you don't follow the leagues they play in. I don't put that amount of time into prospect watching, so I don't consider myself an expert in that field. I trust the information in the Fantasy Prospects Report, as the DobberProspects writers put in the time to follow a team's prospects. As well, the FPR has an eye toward fantasy leagues, which is what I'm really looking for.

At the same time, one big mistake that I see from fantasy team managers is overlooking currently reliable players in favor of what they hope is the next big thing. As I've said before, in a keeper league, the most important season is the one right in front of you. Are you trying to win in 3-5 years, or are you trying to win this season? Stockpiling prospects is a great idea in the sense that some of them will turn out better than others, and you don't always know who they will be. Yet to what extent are those prospects occupying roster spots affecting your ability to compete today? Carrying costs in keeper leagues are a thing, especially if you are not receiving substantial NHL results over several seasons. This is especially true with young goalies, who are drafted when they are 18 but may not be ready for full-time NHL duty until their mid-20s.

Research information, but don't go overboard.

As mentioned earlier, Dobber Sports has the tools to help you win your fantasy leagues. If you are not satisfied with that, there are plenty of other places to find that information. The internet has made it possible to find vast information in seconds. Researching information is all about being prepared for your draft and for your season.

However, living in the information age means that we have to sift through to find what is useful to us. One important skill of the fantasy game is to take only what applies to you and ignore the rest. If there is a particular statistic that keeps getting mentioned on Hockey Twitter but has no relevance to your fantasy league, don't pay attention to it. The best explanation is often the simplest one. Don't galaxy brain yourself into a decision that defies common sense. 

Understand your league rules and settings, but… understand your league rules and settings.

This one isn't conditional or contextual. This goes well beyond what is allowed and what isn't. Those who know their league settings understand which players to target. They understand how to play the game, and how to take basic and perhaps even advanced statistical information and apply it to their game.

There's a reason that those responding to questions on the Forum ask for your league settings. The answer of who to pick between two (or more) players can be different if the league is pure scoring versus if it is bangers. The value of certain players changes significantly with this information. For example, you're not interested in Radko Gudas or Jeremy Lauzon in a pure scoring league. It's a different story in bangers leagues.

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