Every Sunday, we share 21 Fantasy Rambles from our writers at DobberHockey. These thoughts are curated from the past week’s 'Daily Ramblings'.

Writers/Editors: Ian Gooding, Michael Clifford, Alexander MacLean, Brennan Des and Dobber

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1. Hope your fantasy team has had more treats than tricks so far. As you search the contents of your Halloween bag (or your kid’s bag!) to separate the quality candy from the undesirable kind, let’s do the same for our fantasy teams.

Martin Necas has been bringing the full-size chocolate bars for his fantasy teams recently. In the Hurricanes’ 8-2 onslaught of the Bruins, Necas scored a goal and added three assists for four points, three of which were on the power play. Necas has piled up 12 points over his last five games, with eight of his 15 points this season on the man advantage. It doesn’t matter that his most frequent even-strength linemates have been Jesperi Kotkaniemi, Jack Roslovic, and Eric Robinson – Necas is finding ways to produce with anyone. With just over two shots per game and a 26.3 SH%, Necas will cool down. But as long as he stays on that top power play, he should be fine. (nov1)

2. Jeremy Swayman has mainly been a bag of tricks for fantasy teams. After allowing six goals on 22 shots to the Canes, he has as many really bad starts as quality starts (3 of each). Swayman should have been expected to stumble out of the gate after being absent from training camp. He should get back on track at some point, but I already thought he was being drafted too high in Yahoo leagues (ADP 32), and that was even before his contract situation dragged out. (nov1)

3. Charlie McAvoy has been ghosting fantasy teams recently, as he has been held off the scoresheet for nine games and counting. With just three points in 11 games, McAvoy was moved onto the second power play on Thursday, with Mason Lohrei being moved up to the top spot. Unless Lohrei can take the job and run with it, McAvoy is probably back on there at some point. Until then, those rostering McAvoy might just have to stay patient that he can work through his issues, which seem to extend beyond scoring at the moment. (nov1)

4. Connor McMichael has been an unexpected treat for fantasy teams. With a goal on Thursday, McMichael has 10 points in nine games this season. More recently, he has fired 15 shots over his last two games. He was also moved onto the top power play on Thursday, which is worth watching if he can build on that. McMichael does have some advanced stats (12.9 5-on-5 SH%, 4.0 PTS/60) that suggest a regression is on the way, but the recent increase in shots and power-play time could help offset that. The former first-round pick is rostered in just 13 percent of Yahoo leagues, but expect that number to climb. (nov1)

5. When Connor McDavid left Edmonton’s game last Monday night after jamming his foot into the boards, it was easy to fear the worst. We saw a similar player with Drew Doughty in the preseason, and that resulted in a broken ankle that will keep him out for months.

Fortunately for Edmonton fans and fantasy hockey managers alike, the news was more on the Aleksander Barkov side of things than the Doughty side of things, as the worst-case scenario was averted. Exact timeline was not announced, but it's looking like a couple of weeks.

Thankfully, Edmonton doesn’t have a very busy schedule coming up. From Monday (October 28^th) through November 10^th, just five games for the Oilers. Considering how poorly things could have gone, this is about the best anyone could have asked for. (oct31)

6. Thursday's Edmonton/Nashville game, the Oilers' first without Connor McDavid since his injury, was filled with players who have been tricking fantasy teams with lower-than-expected production. On Thursday, did any of these players finally provide some treats?

Let’s start with Zach Hyman. At long last, he scored his first goal of the season! Hyman had not scored a goal in his first 10 games, and he has only one assist this season. Frightening. Not having McDavid puts even more pressure on Hyman to score. A drop of nearly a shot per game is partially to blame, although his current 3.3 SH% and 7.0 5-on-5 SH% are also contributing to the problem. Hyman makes for a decent buy-low target, although expecting another 50-goal season should not have been in your projections.

Like Hyman, Viktor Arvidsson scored his first goal of the season on Thursday. One of Arvidsson’s issues has been lack of shots, but he picked up on that in this game with five shots. He has been playing alongside Leon Draisaitl recently, which should mean that some points will come. However, his other three points (all assists) came in one game, which means he has points in just two of his 11 games this season. That’s spooky clown ugly.

By being bumped up to the top power play on Thursday, Mattias Ekholm is the house that lets you pick extra Halloween candy out of their bowl. The McDavid injury means that the Oilers are trying an unexpected 3 F – 2 D top unit. Players like Arvidsson and Jeff Skinner haven’t scored enough to grab that spot. In addition, only Draisaitl and McDavid have more points among Oilers than Ekholm (9 PTS in 11 GP). Of course, this power-play arrangement won’t stick once McDavid returns. (nov1)

7. Sam Reinhart is picking up where he left off last season. Reinhart has five goals in his last four games as well as 10 goals in 13 games. Reinhart is maintaining his shot pace from the previous two seasons (2.9 SOG/GP). His 26.3 SH% would normally be cause for concern, but it is only slightly higher than his shooting percentage from last season (24.5 SH%). Any regression will have to wait. (nov2)

8.  That’s seven consecutive multipoint games for Kirill Kaprizov. Over that span, Kaprizov has accrued 15 points, including a goal and an assist on Friday against Tampa Bay. As I type this, Dolla Bill is on top of the NHL scoring race with 21 points over 10 games. One number that enables Kaprizov to pick up so many points, assuming he doesn’t get tired: Kaprizov has logged at least 20 minutes in every game this season except for the Wild’s first game. He likely won’t reach the 172 points he is currently on pace for, but the second 100-point season of his career is a definite possibility. (nov2)

9. Jonathan Huberdeau continues to be inconsistent. After bursting out of the gate with five points in his first two games, he entered Friday’s game with just two points in his last eight games. Huberdeau has just three assists in 11 games and an inflated 31.3 SH%, which are not positive signs for a player whose scoring totals have usually been assist-heavy. (nov2)

10. In the final year of his $11 million per season contract, John Tavares might not provide that much of a discount next season. Tavares followed up a hat trick on Monday with two assists on Thursday, giving him nine points over a current six-game point streak and 11 points in 10 games. Tavares has also increased his shot rate slightly from 3.5 SOG/GP last season to 3.7 SOG/GP this season, although his 5-on-5 SH% has increased significantly to 16.6%. Expect him to regress a bit, but not in a huge way. (nov1)

11. Vince Dunn‘s injury has resulted in more opportunity for Ryker Evans in Seattle. Brandon Montour also missed Thursday’s game because of the birth of his child, so Evans was on the top power play while logging 25 minutes of icetime. With seven points in 11 games, Evans is at least a solid short-term pickup with long-term keeper value. However, his usage might take a hit once both Montour and Dunn return. (nov1)

12. We need to have another word about Lukas Dostal. Even though he did not pick up a win on Thursday, Dostal made 44 saves, giving him his sixth consecutive quality start. Dostal also leads the league with 275 saves. I’ve said once or twice that goalies that pickup wins while killing your ratios in the process are empty calories for your fantasy roster. Dostal has been the opposite of that – the healthy snack that you need after consuming all of that Halloween candy. I don’t expect a ton of wins from Dostal, but his season numbers (1.99 GAA, .945 SV%) are remarkable in an era in which the following is happening:

@DobberHockey: It's only October, but the league's average save percentage hasn't dipped below .900 since 1995-96 (.898). As of Tuesday, though, it's at .897!

Pretty wild to think about. Will this fantasy season be #ZeroG or straight-up #HeroG?

Of course, a potential John Gibson return at some point would cut into Dostal’s workload. Yet given Gibson’s numbers in recent seasons, I have a hard time thinking that Dostal will simply hand over the starting job to Gibson when the veteran returns. I'm hoping that's the case, as he's arguably my best waiver-wire pickup so far this season. (nov1)

13. Trevor Zegras has been an anchor for fantasy teams the same way that a rock is in a Halloween bag. However, Zegras broke a six-game stretch without a point with an assist on Thursday. Let’s be honest: at this point, he’s more of a potential streamer for all those off-days on the Anaheim schedule than someone who should be rostered on fantasy teams. If Zegras is traded as rumors have suggested, then he won’t even have that anymore. Since Zegras is still only 23 years of age, it still feels like he has some untapped potential. (nov1)

14. Steven Stamkos' struggles in his first season in Nashville have been well-documented, as he had scored just one goal in 10 games entering Saturday action. Big chip bag, but lots of air inside, which takes up space in the bigger Halloween bag. I still expect Stamkos to find his form eventually, but it’s clear that an adjustment period is needed. (nov2)

15. Regardless of whether he remains on the top power play, Jake Walman appears to be in line to receive a ton of minutes for the Sharks, so he could offer something in peripherals along with a bit of scoring at the very least. Meanwhile, recently-acquired Timothy Liljegren is a wild card who appears to be at a critical juncture in his career. He showed signs of something in Toronto, but for whatever reason didn’t seem like a Craig Berube kind of player. If Liljegren can prove to the San Jose coaching staff that he should remain in the lineup on a nightly basis, then he is a strong possibility to quarterback their top power play. (nov1)

[Fantasy Take: Liljegren Sent to San Jose]

16. Brandt Clarke finished the month of October with 11 points in 11 games, five of those points on the power play, to go with 21 shots, 19 blocks, and five hits. He has also averaged 19:21 per game in his last five games so he’s starting to get a lot more usage (about two minutes more per game compared to his first six games). (oct31)

17. Kaapo Kahkonen made his first start for Colorado but was unable to do much more than Alexandar Georgiev had by allowing four goals on 20 shots in their loss to Tampa Bay last Wednesday night. In fairness, a couple of those goals were Harlem Globetrotter-esque, but Colorado finished the month of October with a team save percentage of .832, by far the worst in the NHL. That they were 5-6 with all those injuries and mostly abominable goaltending feels like a small miracle. (oct31)

18. Being fresh off shoulder surgery may have limited his goal total last season, but his shooting prowess has been on full display this year and he seems destined to crack the 40-goal mark if he can stay healthy. Although Cole Caufield is a skilled shooter, it’s worth noting that (at time of writing) he was riding high shooting percentages that will be difficult to maintain over the course of a full season. Selling high on him in single-season leagues wouldn’t be a bad idea, but he’s a top-tier goal scoring threat worth rostering all year if you’re not getting good value in return. (oct28)

19. With plans to retire at the end of this season, last Tuesday’s game in Pittsburgh was Marc-Andre Fleury‘s last hurrah – barring a Stanley Cup Final matchup against the Penguins – in the city he called home for a decade. The Wild helped him secure a 5-3 victory over his former club. (oct30)

20. At this time every season – teams nearing the 10-game mark – fantasy owners have a big decision to make: which players off to slow starts are in line to turn it around, and which might be in for a down year? There is only so much time for draft value to be recouped in a trade, so here are three players that have genuine concerns about the start to their season beyond just boxcar stats. Data from Natural Stat Trick and Frozen Tools. (At time of writing:)

Matthew Tkachuk

Even with the illness to Tkachuk and injury to Aleksander Barkov, plus an .884 team save percentage heading into Monday night’s game against Buffalo, Florida leads the Atlantic Division by points percentage. Tkachuk has two goals, four assists, 18 shots, and nine hits in his five games played, which is a good start despite that illness. There are two issues with that start, though.

First, the team is shooting 15.9% with him on the ice. His career year in 2021-22 with Calgary saw the team shoot 13.7% with him on the ice, the league leader last season was J.T. Miller at 15.6%, and the highest mark in any of the prior three years was Ryan Nugent Hopkins in 2022-23 at 15.8%. Florida is converting shots into goals at an obscenely high rate with Tkachuk on the ice, and the safe bet is that drops and hurts Tkachuk’s production moving forward.

The second problem is his ice time. Tkachuk has yet to reach 19 minutes in any of his five outings, and is averaging 17:06 per game. He had one stretch like that in February of last season, so maybe this is just an early blip at the wrong time, but there’s a big difference between skating between 18:30-19:00 and between 17:00-17:30. Florida has three games this week – Monday in Buffalo before they head to Finland for two games against – so we should have a better idea as to what his real usage will be very soon. If I were a Tkachuk fantasy owner, I would view this as a pivotal week to his fantasy season regardless of his actual point production. (oct29)

21. Elias Pettersson

Pettersson scored his first goal of the season over the weekend, which was nice to see. It is a reminder that he has four points in seven games to start the season and is averaging 1.7 shots per appearance. Going back to last season, he has 29 points in his last 40 regular season games, averaging a shade over two shots per outing. That is… not good.

On the bright side, his line has performed better at 5-on-5 since Conor Garland and Nils Hoglander were moved to his wings. The downside is that he’s still not shooting very much: Pettersson has 13 shot attempts in the four games since Jake DeBrusk was moved off his line. He has six shots on target in those four recent appearances compared to five shots in his first three games. This is a player who thrives on efficiency – he has shot at least 15% in every NHL season – so a sizable shot decline is an issue; he has 24 shot attempts in seven games this season and had no seven-game stretch with that few shot attempts last season.

At the end of Vancouver’s playoff run in the spring, Pettersson talked about knee tendonitis that he dealt with down the stretch. During training camp, he discussed changing his training regimen to work around the injury. I went to check the NHL Edge data for skating data, and everything is down from last season. There should be genuine concerns as to whether Pettersson is trying to play through a knee issue right now, and fantasy owners must decide whether they want to risk keeping him for a down year or whether he’ll bounce back to be a 35-goal, 95-point player. My guess is he won’t reach those marks. (oct29)

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