It seems every year, there is always a rookie that surprises at training camp and manages to make his team's roster. Last year, it was Buffalo's Zach Benson, and this year it's Philadelphia's Jett Luchanko as it was announced he made the Philadelphia Flyers roster. Whether he lasts the season or is sent down after a nine-game tryout remains to be seen, but the opportunity is there for him to grab it as long as he can gain coach John Tortorella's trust.

Andrew Cristall, Carter Yakemchuk, Luca Cagnoni, and Brad Lambert were not as fortunate as Luchanko as they were sent down by Washington, Ottawa, San Jose, and Winnipeg, respectively.

Cristall seemed to have a great camp for the Capitals, but they are in a cap crunch and he doesn't require waivers to be sent down, so his contract status worked against him.

Yakemchuk also stood out for Ottawa at times, but the team has six NHL defencemen and Tyler Kleven is around. Yakemchuk seems to have made a great impression and looks to have an inside track to make the team next season.

Cagnoni is another player that the team – this time San Jose – seemed to like in camp but at his age and given the state of the roster, there’s not much need to rush him to the NHL right now.

Winnipeg isn't a team that puts high-skill players in the bottom-6, so Lambert likely needed to be good enough for the second line or he wasn't going to make the roster. He is probably going to be back this season, though.

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As expected, Max Pacioretty signed a one-year deal with Toronto. As a Habs fan, it kind of hurts, but it's nice to see him get another chance after the brutal injury luck he's had over the last couple of years. All the best to him.

The Leafs also sent Easton Cowan back to the OHL.

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Nikolai Kovalenko and Cal Ritchie both remained on the Colorado second line with Casey Mittelstadt in Monday’s practice. With their injuries, they’ve needed young guys to step up so it’ll be fun to see how that pair does with this opportunity.

Artturi Lehkonen will check in with doctors at the end of October as he continues to recover from shoulder surgery. In other words, don’t expect him in the lineup for the first month of the season.

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Bryan Rust is starting the season on the IR for Pittsburgh. Not great, Bob.

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Anaheim claimed goaltender James Reimer off waivers, which should tell us not to expect John Gibson for a while after his appendectomy. This also assures Devon Levi is Buffalo's backup goalie now, which means he's a threat to Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen for starts.

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A positive update on Artemi Panarin:

Panarin said he's good to go for Wednesday. No worries.

— Colin Stephenson (@ColinSNewsday) October 7, 2024

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It has been a tough go lately for the health status of some of the top Columbus Blue Jackets forwards. Boone Jenner seems as if he'll be out for a while as he addressed the team and it was indicated this is a long-term issue. He left practice a few days ago after catching an edge and doesn't seem as if he'll be back anytime soon. Just an awful break for a guy that has had his fair share of injuries and off-ice tragedies. It appears Dmitri Voronkov will be out for a while, too. After the tragic passing of Johnny Gaudreau, there is a lot of talent missing from the Columbus lineup.

Then we got these power play lines at practice:

#CBJ lines today in practice:

Chinakhov-Monahan-Marchenko
Van Riemsdyk – Fantilli – Labanc
Pyyhtia – Sillinger – Johnson
Malatesta – Kuraly Gambrell/Olivier

— Brian Hedger (@BrianHedger) October 7, 2024

There is still no Adam Fantilli on the top PP unit, which is very curious, but I suspect it won't last long.

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A huge opportunity for Marco Rossi:

#mnwild lines

Kaprizov-Rossi-Zuccarello
Johansson-Eriksson Ek-Boldy
Foligno-Hartman-Trenin
Lauko-Khusnutdinov-Gaudreau
Ohgren

Brodin-Faber
Middleton-Spurgeon
Chisholm-Bogosian
Merrill

Gustavsson
Fleury
Wallstedt

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) October 7, 2024

I talk about Joel Eriksson Ek later in these Ramblings, but Rossi was not a guy I thought would get the top-line role out of camp, so good on him for earning his spot. Hopefully he can hold onto it after he's had his own health issues in recent history.

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After some day-to-day injury stuff for Macklin Celebrini, some good news on Monday:

Looks like Macklin Celebrini will be practicing with the Sharks today

— Curtis Pashelka (@CurtisPashelka) October 7, 2024

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Tyler Bertuzzi and Ilya Mikheyev have swapped spots in the Chicago lineup:

#Blackhawks lineup at practice:
Mikheyev-Bedard-Teravainen
Hall-Kurashev-Bertuzzi
Foligno-Dickinson-Anderson
Maroon-Donato-Smith

Martinez-Jones
Vlasic-Brodie
Allan-Murphy

Mrazek
Soderblom

Extras: Athanasiou, Reichel, Kaiser (illness)

— Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) October 7, 2024

We will see how long this lasts because I am doubtful Mikheyev is a long-term solution to Chicago's top line. At the least, Bertuzzi was still on the top PP unit.

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Yegor Sharangovich is going to miss some time:

#Flames say Yegor Sharangovich is week-to-week with a lower body injury.

Sustained late in Friday's preseason finale. On injured reserve now.

📢 advertisement:

— Pat Steinberg (@Fan960Steinberg) October 7, 2024

A tough start for a guy who hit 31 goals last year and was going to be relied upon by Calgary as they start to rebuild for the future. Hopefully he's back sooner rather than later.

With Sharangovich out, Connor Zary was getting a spin on the top PP unit in practice.

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Jeff Skinner was seen skating in Edmonton's bottom-6 at practice on Monday. That is… not a great sign for his fantasy value, even if their lines do change a lot over the course of the season.

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It really does look like as if Seattle is going to be running two even power play units again:

#SeaKraken power play units:

PP1
Dunn
McCann / Eberle / Burakovsky
Beniers

PP2
Montour
Bjorkstrand / Wright / Stephenson
Schwartz pic.twitter.com/3oxHZBolIy

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 7, 2024

Maybe one overtakes the other, but this isn’t great news for the fantasy values of their top guys.

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The 2024-25 NHL regular season officially started last week in Europe but today is the first day of regular season games in North America. I have spent the last several Ramblings talking about my point projections, and today we'll get to official rankings. For the point projection Ramblings, defence was talked about here and here while forwards were discussed here, here, and here.  

As for the rankings, I published them over on Fantasy Pros. Here are my parameters:

• All players are projected for 82 games except players we know are injured/out for a while. That includes Drew Doughty, Patrik Laine, and Valeri Nichushkin, among others. For Nichushkin, I assumed he misses 20 games – that gets him back in the lineup for late November – while both Doughty and Laine are checked off for missing half the season. For players like Gabriel Landeskog, Artturi Lehkonen, and Boone Jenner, the assumption is they also miss 20 games, though there is not much clarity on their actual status (and Jenner is largely undraftable after Monday's news). It is just a best guess, so if any of them plays 77 games rather than 60 games, that would change their situation a lot.
• The stats I used are goals, assists, shots, power play points, hits, and blocks. It is very important to keep in mind that scoring systems matter a lot. Points-only formats favour some players while multi-cat formats favour others. Including plus/minus would also change a lot for players from bad teams like Montreal, San Jose, Chicago, Columbus, and so on.
• Assumptions are made on player roles, and if (when) those assumptions are wrong, it changes player value greatly. Just think of the Mike Matheson and Lane Hutson dichotomy for top PP time in Montreal.
• My method used for determining value is something called Standings Gained Points (SGP). It was developed years ago by a fantasy baseball analyst named Tanner Bell. In short, it focuses on roto formats, so these rankings would change for points formats where, say, a block might be worth 0.5 points but a hit just 0.25 points.
• SGP determines value of a player in a specific category relative to other players at the same position. For example, if a winger puts up 50 blocks, it would be as valuable in blocks at his position by SGP as a defenceman putting up 150 blocks. In roto formats, the raw totals matter, but it's an attempt to not compare what players do at different positions because each position is unique in its fantasy profile. Totals are compared to what a replacement-level player brings at each position to determine how big (or little) the positive or negative value is.
• Keep in mind, as I wrote about over the summer, there was a massive shift in hit and block rates last season. Block totals skyrocketed while hit totals fell. Put it this way: in 2023-24, there were 40 defencemen to manage at least 150 blocks whereas there were just 22 defencemen to manage 150 blocks the season prior. My assumption is the jump in blocks and drop in hits stays relatively consistent, and that means hits from defencemen are more valuable this season than blocks are. In other words, it takes a lot of blocked shots by any defenceman to bring good fantasy value; 100 blocked shots just don't mean what they used to.
• Finally, FantasyPros has some weird positional assignments. Tage Thompson is listed at right wing, JT Miller doesn't have centre eligibility, Zach Hyman is listed as a centre, and so on. That is messing with my rankings a bit and I'll have to go back over them here in the next couple of days, so things will change a bit. In general, high-end wingers are more valuable than high-end centres (outside the absolute elite tier), so it changes the value of Hyman, Miller, and Thompson a lot.

Alright, that's a long intro, so let's get to the rankings. Here they are:

There are a lot of players worth discussing here so let's touch on some of them quickly.

Aleksander Barkov, Jack Eichel, Vincent Trocheck, and Joel Eriksson Ek

What helps Barkov's value is being projected for 82 games because he's averaged 69 games played per season over the last three seasons. However, if he can stay healthy, he's one of very few players who is a legitimate threat for 30 goals, 60 assists, 30 power play points, 200 shots, 60 blocks, and 100 hits. That across-the-board coverage makes him very valuable because there's no stat where he brings negative value.

What was said about Barkov's health issues is applicable to Jack Eichel. He can very much be a top-25 fantasy player if he plays at least 80 games, but he won't be if he plays 60. That is why there's been a discount on his ADP this draft season.

Vincent Trocheck's 82-game paces over the last two seasons are 24 goals, 47 assists, 220 shots, 21 power play points, 65 blocks, and 179 hits. That he can be a 70-point player with excellent peripheral coverage makes him undervalued in multi-cat formats.

I do worry about how highly Joel Eriksson Ek projected if only because I worry about his role. He doesn't seem to have a lock on top-line status at even strength, and that could knock off a lot of his value if he floats between the second and third lines. He can still be a 30/30 player with over three shots and two hits per game, though.  

Timo Meier and Juraj Slafkovsky

My projections are all very high on the New Jersey Devils players, and Meier is no exception. It has him pushing 40 goals, over three shots per game, and a solid rate of PPPs, hits, and blocks. It is worth noting that in those two games in Europe, he skated 18:11 and 19:24 – last season, he averaged 17:36 per game. The projections assumed he'd push 19 minutes a game and that seems to be the case so far.

Though the point and shot projections aren't very high for Slafkovský – 25 goals and 40 assists with 189 shots – the fact that he's a lock on the top PP unit and can bring nearly one block and two hits per game makes him valuable across the board. There isn't any specific stat where he's bringing tremendous value, but bringing good value in all six categories means a very valuable player overall.

MacKenzie Weegar, Moritz Seider, Mikhail Sergachev, and Justin Faulk

It is worth remembering that up until the All-Star break, Weegar was earning just 32.4% of Calgary's power play time (Rasmus Andersson was often the top guy). Following the Trade Deadline, Weegar's share of the power play rose to 52%, and he's been on the top unit so far in training camp. If he remains PP1 for most of the season, he can be a 10-goal, 40-assist, 200-shot, 200-block, 200-hit defenceman. That is a lot of across-the-board value and contributing so much in peripherals more than makes up for the unlikelihood of him being a 70-point rearguard.

The same could be said for Seider, even if he doesn't shoot as much. He has been running the top PP unit at times for Detroit in training camp and even half the season with that top role means a lot to his overall production. In a points-only format, he may not be a top-25 defenceman. In multi-category formats, there is a good argument for him being a top-10 defenceman.

We went over Sergachev's upside in an earlier Ramblings (link was provided at the top of this section) so we won't go long here, but being able to put up over 125 each in hits and blocks with two shots per game and 60-point upside is a lot of category coverage.

Faulk turned 32 years old at the end of last season but with the injury to Torey Krug, Faulk has been skating on the team's top PP unit. This is another guy who can bring good peripheral coverage and is a threat for double-digit goals and 50 points. He was probably one of the best multi-cat draft values on the blue line this year.

Quinn Hughes and Miro Heiskanen

Last year in an ESPN multi-cat points format I played in, Hughes finished as the ninth overall defenceman, and just slightly edged out names like Mike Matheson, Morgan Rielly, and Dougie Hamilton on a per-game basis. There is so much negative value because of the lack of peripherals that it really hurts his multi-cat upside. There may not be a player more dependent on specific league settings, because he's probably a top-3 defenceman in points-only formats, but there is a good argument to not draft him as a top-10 defenceman in multi-cat formats.

Something similar can be said for Miro Heiskanen. His shot rate fell off last season from 2.6 per game to 2.3, he's never had a season with 100 blocks, and he's never had a season with 60 hits. Even if he bounces back to the 65- to 70-point range, there isn't much peripheral coverage here.

Jacob Markstrom and Samuel Ersson

With the uncertainty around Thatcher Demko's health status, and just how good Ilya Sorokin will be returning from back surgery, there are some high-end goalies with big questions marks around them. All offseason, I have been banging the Markström drum because he's the locked top starter on a New Jersey team that Vegas odds has as one of the top teams in the East. Let's just hope age doesn't catch up to him and the skaters in front of him can stay healthy.

Ersson had a big drop off towards the end of the season last year, but the young Flyers skaters are a year older, they have a full season from Jamie Drysdale and Matvei Michkov, and are looking to repeat their top-10 penalty kill once again. The team seems to love him, and he might end up being one of the best goalie draft values this season.

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I still have a couple days to look over my rankings with a fine-tooth comb, which I'll have to do because of the positional issues. However, that is largely where I stand for the season for the top-320 fantasy players. Let's see how this goes.