Kaiden Guhle was back at practice for Montreal on Monday. He was in a non-contact jersey but has over a week to get up to speed so it seems he may be ready for the start of the regular season. Guhle had 22 points, 56 PIMs, and 294 hits+blocks in 70 games last season, so there's a lot of multi-cat value to be had if he's healthy. It also is important for Lane Hutson because if the blue line is healthy, and Guhle plays his natural side, it leaves Hutson in a third-pair role for now.

*

After some experimenting through training camp, the Rangers reassembled their top PP unit from last season:

As soon as I sent the last tweet, #NYR switched it up and reunited last year's PP1 of Fox, Zibanejad, Trocheck, Panarin and Kreider.

First time I've seen them together at this camp. You can see a little rust. pic.twitter.com/j8rCicJc48

— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) September 30, 2024

This always seemed like the probable outcome, but the experimentation may continue through the regular season. Only one way to find out.

*

An important update on Boston goalie Jeremy Swayman:

Sweeney acknowledges it's "unlikely Jeremy would be in a position" to play exhibition games at this point.

Montgomery said Korpisalo has done enough to be the opening-night starter.

— Matt Porter (@mattyports) September 30, 2024

Unless something changes quickly, it seems unlikely Swayman starts the season on time. Losing a start or two doesn't matter much as long as this is resolved much sooner rather than later, and it may even mean a solid discount in fantasy draft rooms this week. A lot hinges on him signing in the next week, though.

*

After missing part of training camp, good news for Calgary's Martin Pospisil:

Good news for #Flames — Martin Pospisil back on the ice this morning.

— Wes Gilbertson (@WesGilbertson) September 30, 2024

A small increase in ice time on the third line, with his volume of hits and PIMs, could make Pospisil a multi-cat darling.

*

Important news for fantasy managers:

Walman-Celebrini-Toffoli-Granlund-Zetterlund on a power play unit today

— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) September 30, 2024

Luca Cagnoni had been given a lot of time on San Jose's various top PP units in training camp but it does seem it's going to be Jake Walman who gets first crack in the regular season. He is very, very cheap in drafts right now.

*

The calendar has rolled to October, training camps are nearly two weeks in, and the NHL regular season starts in a few days with the New Jersey Devils and Buffalo Sabres facing off in Czechia. Fantasy hockey draft season is going full tilt now, so let's talk about some key names for drafts.

In three separate Ramblings last week, I went through some of my forward projections: high-end players, mostly middle-of-the-road options, and some of the younger stars around the league. Today, we're moving onto defencemen and their point projections.

A reminder about the parameters:

• No rookies are included yet – they are my final calculation. Thankfully, there are very few rookie defencemen that truly matter in most one-year fantasy leagues.
• All players are projected for 82 games.
• Assumptions are made about player roles. Some of these situations have some clarity – like Mikhail Sergachev/Sean Durzi in Utah – while some do not. An example of the latter instance would be New Jersey where Dougie Hamilton is the top power play defenceman due to an injury to Luke Hughes, but once Hughes returns, things are very muddled. Assumptions about share of specific PP units for those 82 games are made, and we know what they say about assuming.
• I am going to release a full rankings likely next Tuesday for my skaters, but not my projections. Dobber has his available in the 2024-25 Fantasy Guide, which is available now in the Dobber Shop.  

Alright, enough of the preamble. Let's talk defencemen point projections. Data from Natural Stat Trick and AllThreeZones.

The 80-Point Club

Last season, four defencemen registered at least 80 points and two others – Victor Hedman and Adam Fox – had that mark within reach had they played 82 games. My projections have six defencemen reaching 80 points (if we round up the decimals) but one of them is someone who finished with 69 points in 81 games last year:

Looking under the hood, there are three things underpinning a big improvement from Morrissey: an improved top line thanks to a (hopefully) healthy Gabriel Vilardi, a rebound in Morrissey's individual shooting percentage, and an improved power play. The improved even-strength scoring/shooting percentage would add about a half-dozen points to last year's total and the improved power play adds roughly four points. Put it all together and here we are.

Of course, a lot of this relies on the team's top stars remaining healthy for the vast majority of the season. I am always a little leery about projections giving me a career season for a player, but Morrissey has improved by leaps and bounds over the last three seasons and with current injuries on the Winnipeg blue line, plus departures in the offseason, the projections are giving Morrissey a career-high in minutes per game. Add it all together, and here we are. Peripheral projections aren't done yet but even with this high point projection, keep in mind he has never reached 200 shots in any season, and he has been under 100 hits each of the last two years.

Dougie Hamilton's Rebound

Thanks to excellent goal and shot rates for most of his career, Hamilton has been a top-5 fantasy defenceman in multi-cat formats more than once, even as a player who is not likely to hit 100 blocks or 100 hits. He missed most of 2023-24 thanks to a torn pec muscle, but is one season removed from a 22-goal, 74-point, 275-shot effort in 2022-23. With Luke Hughes currently injured and Hamilton on the top PP unit, these projections assume Hamilton has the top PP role for three-quarters of the season, which gives us this:

We have another player projected for a career year largely due to two things: great top-6 forward scoring on the back of elite offensive players, and a big power play rebound where Hamilton garners the wide majority of top PP minutes. And therein lies the rub.

If the younger Hughes returns and is back on the top PP unit by early November, we can cut literally 20 points off Hamilton's projection. That has a cascading effect because that drop in PP production affects all scoring categories, so there is a wide range of outcomes for Hamilton this season. Hamilton absolutely has top-5 upside among blue liners but he needs the top PP role to do it. He is a gamble that fantasy managers may or may not want to take considering he's consistently going as a top-10 defenceman in recent drafts I have done.

The Vegas Blue Line

One of my offseason contentions was that Shea Theodore would take the top PP role and that Noah Hanifin would be relegated to the second unit. So far, for basically the entirety of training camp, it has been Hanifin in the top PP role with Theodore on PP2. That reality was reflected in my projections where I slotted Hanifin in PP1 for two-thirds of the season and Theodore for one-third. It is curious, then, that these projections were spit back to me:

The big reason for this is that Theodore is, quite literally, one of the most involved offensive defencemen in the league. Here is the list of blue liners over the last three seasons to managed over 0.4 even strength assists per game played:

Across the last two seasons alone, Theodore has registered an assist on 41.3% of even-strength goals scored with him on the ice. For a frame of reference, both Cale Makar and Roman Josi are at about 36%. While Theodore has missed time and that cuts down the sample, he has the puck on his stick so much that he can easily be around 40%. Despite Hanifin being projected for about 12 more power play points than Theodore, Theodore is projected for about 12 more even strength assists alone. It all balances out to the numbers given.

It is doubtful Vegas has two defencemen reach 60 points, and given Hanifin's PP1 status right now, he's the better bet in one-year leagues. All the same, Theodore is a tremendous offensive defenceman and if he can earn the PP1 role back, and stay healthy, he has huge point production upside.

The 50-Point Mark

There are a handful of players projected in the 48- to 52-point range, but there are two that stick out for different reasons:

Justin Faulk might be one of the best draft values going right now, especially in multi-cat formats. His FanTrax ADP is outside the top-35 defencemen while he's going around the 35^th defenceman off the board on Underdog Fantasy. He is one season removed from an 11-goal, 50-point, 196-shot, 140-block, 112-hit season, good enough to be a top-20 defenceman by standard Yahoo! scoring. In 2023-24, he had 30 points in 60 games, pacing for a 40-point season while shooting a career-worst 1.5% (prior three-year average of 7.1%).

Torey Krug is out for the season and Marco Scandella is no longer with the Blues. St. Louis has young blue liners like Philip Broberg and Scott Perunovich that should be on the roster, but this team relies on its veteran rearguards so Faulk should have a bigger role than he did in 2023-24, including top PP time (for now). A rebound in his shooting percentage and a (hopefully) consistent top PP role means he can get back to the 50-point plateau. For a guy that can put up 180 shots and 250 hits+blocks, there's a lot of upside drafting him around the 35^th defenceman off the board.

Jake Sanderson appears locked into Ottawa's top PP unit. The assumption being made is that he is skating between 24-25 minutes a game in all three phases, and he has an extremely promising micro-stat profile as a defenceman that loves having the puck on his stick. A healthy Ottawa lineup that improves offensively thanks to full-ish seasons from rising young stars like Brady Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle, Shane Pinto, and Ridly Greig, plus Sanderson's usage and stat profile, gives us the 51-point projection.

The issue for Sanderson is his multi-cat contributions. He has had very good blocked-shot totals for his career, but even a 10% improvement in shot volume means roughly 180 shots on goal and his hits per minute in 2023-24 was in the 15^th percentile of the league. Even a 20% improvement in his hit rate, with an additional minute-or-so per game, would mean fewer than 70 hits. He has a long way to go in that category, and without a big shot jump, there are at least two peripheral categories where he's not a significant contributor. A healthy season almost certainly means a jump in points, but a huge leap in peripherals is much less certain.

Alright, that's it for today. We will talk more defencemen on Thursday.