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. A 120-41-23 record as Bruins head coach wasn’t enough for Jim Montgomery to save his job. Yet NHL coaching is very much a “what have you done for me lately” business, and the Bruins’ season seemed to be spiraling in the wrong direction. Roster construction is certainly an issue, which is why Don Sweeney isn’t overly popular in Boston right now. That being said, the new coach short-term bump is relatively common, so the season could easily turn around under new head coach Joe Sacco. At least the Sacco era got off to a good start on Thursday with a 1-0 win over Utah.

Entering Saturday action against Detroit, some troubling signs for the Bruins this season included the following:

• The league’s worst power play (11.9%). To compare, the Bruins had more of a middle-of-the-pack power play in the two previous seasons, even as an upper-echelon team.
• The league’s second-worst offense (2.33 GF/GP). David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand are the only Bruins currently projected to finish at above a 40-point pace.
• Free agent signing Elias Lindholm has just one 5-on-5 goal. Lindholm scored the only goal for the Bruins on Thursday on the power play. Lindholm is certainly one player to watch under the new head coach.
• A minus-20 goal differential, which is the worst in a highly competitive Atlantic Division.

Of course, coaches are rarely if ever fired if the team’s goaltending numbers are top notch. It’s no secret that Jeremy Swayman has struggled out of the gate with nearly as many really bad starts (5) as quality starts (6) entering Saturday action. That might be tied to Swayman’s late start due to his contract situation, as it takes many players time to get up to speed if they do not have a proper training camp. (nov23)

(Ed. note: On Sunday, The St. Louis Blues fired head coach Drew Bannister and replaced him with Jim Montgomery. As noted above, Montgomery was let go as the head coach of the Boston Bruins earlier in the week, so he was not out of work for very long.)

2. Joonas Korpisalo is the hotter Bruins' goalie right now, so he might be in line for more work in the near term. After a shutout against Utah on Thursday, Korpisalo has three wins and four quality starts in his last four games. He might be worth a speculative short-term add if Sacco decides to ride the hotter hand. Keep in mind that Swayman had typically shared starts with Linus Ullmark prior to this season with a career high of 44 GP last season. Looking further ahead, it remains to be seen how Swayman handles a heavier workload. (nov23)

3. Kyle Connor provided a goal, an assist, and his first career fight on Friday, which all adds up to his first career Gordie Howe hat trick. Connor fought with Sidney Crosby of all people in a rare fight of star players.

Connor is a previous Lady Byng winner, so a fight probably wasn’t something you’d made a prop bet on him to do. Yet he’s not the first Lady Byng winner with a Gordie Howe hat trick. I love stats like this (via @StatsCentre):

“Gordie Howe Hat Trick” in a regular season/playoff game – Player with a prior Lady Byng Trophy win:

Kyle Connor (2024)
Ryan O’Reilly (2023)
Pavel Datsyuk (2010)
Wayne Gretzky (1982)
Marcel Dionne (’81)
Bob MacMillan (’81)
Stan Mikita (’70)
Bobby Hull (’69)
Bill Mosienko (’53) (nov23)

4. Kris Letang returned to the Penguins lineup on Friday after missing the past three games with an illness. At time of writing, Letang had just six points in 19 games this season, and at age 37 his fantasy value is fading fast. At 73% rostered in Yahoo leagues, Letang is a potential drop. Although advanced stats suggest better puck luck is on the way, Letang’s reduced power-play time makes a potential turnaround more difficult.

Erik Karlsson had just one point in his last six games. Although 11 points in 22 games is not terrible for a defenseman, Karlsson is having a rough season if you factor in his defensive game. Although minus ratings are nothing new for Karlsson, his minus-12 was one of the worst on the Penguins. (nov23)

5. Entering Saturday, Owen Power was tied with Cale Makar for most even-strength points among defensemen (15 EVP). Yet one key difference between Makar and Power is that Makar also had 13 power-play points while Power had 0 PPP. It would take a Rasmus Dahlin injury for Power to reach his full fantasy potential, but Dahlin has remained relatively healthy the past few seasons. Power is rostered in fewer than half of Yahoo leagues, but that number could be higher. (nov23)

6. Jordan Eberle is expected to miss at least the next three months after undergoing successful surgery on his pelvis (I would hope it is successful!) Eberle was involved in a collision about a week ago and has been out of the lineup since.

Since Eberle’s injury, Andre Burakovsky has moved up to the top line with Jared McCann and Matty Beniers. Burakovsky is still without a goal in 21 games and has just two assists over his last 11 games, so the move hasn’t improved his fantasy value at all. (nov23)

7. The Golden Knights have signed Brett Howden to a five-year extension worth $2.5 million per season. In just 20 games, at time of writing, Howden was only one goal shy of his career high of nine goals set two different times. He has often skated on a line with Tomas Hertl and Pavel Dorofeyev this season, although he doesn’t hold a ton of fantasy value (just one assist with those eight goals). Regardless, he should remain a fixture in Vegas’s forward rotation going forward. (nov23)

8. It has been a very tough go for Carolina goaltender Frederik Andersen over the last few years. There have been a slew of injuries, notably the blood clot that kept him out of action for most of the 2023-24 season. As for this season, it looks like he may be out at least until late January, and given the timing of the Four Nations Cup and the longer end of that timeline, perhaps longer. Carolina still has Pyotr Kochetkov, so the team should be fine, but it’s a wonder if they don’t look for another goalie beyond Spencer Martin. We will see. (nov22)

9. Alexandar Georgiev was activated off the injured reserve and was back in net for Colorado on Thursday night. He had been a lot better since the first couple weeks, and he could be a great fantasy asset if he can both stay healthy and be more like his five starts after his mini reset (.906 save percentage). (nov22)

10. An update on Washington forward Alex Ovechkin from CapitalsPR: Ovechkin underwent further evaluation with team doctors. It was confirmed that Ovechkin has a fracture to his left fibula and is anticipated to miss 4-6 weeks. A 4- to 6-week timeline would put him out until mid-December at the earliest, and possibly into January. (nov22)

The big story is that this injury probably ends his chance at catching Gretzky's goal record this season. He needs 27 more to break the record, and even at his current pace that would mean another 33 games. Odds are though that even the most prolific goal scorer of all time won't keep up his pace of five goals every six games at the age of 39.

When he does get back, the overall point production is going to tail off. At this stage Ovechkin is a 65-point scorer which we can bump up to 75 thanks to his chemistry with Dylan Strome. That means Ovie was putting up about 1.5 times the amount of points he should have, and unfortunately the well high window slams shut with the injury. Adjust expectations for his return accordingly. (nov20)

11. Yaroslav Askarov made his San Jose debut on Thursday night, but took the shootout loss as St. Louis skated away with a 3-2 win. Askarov looked solid, stopping 29 of 31 shots, but the first goal against was 11 seconds into the game and was a result of Askarov giving the puck away on a Blues dump-in. A tough loss, maybe a goal that shouldn’t have happened, but not a bad start to his Sharks tenure. (nov22)

12. Auston Matthews has been out of action for over two weeks. The recent update on Matthews was that there’s a hope he can return to action sometime next week, but given that he’s been day-to-day for most of November already, we shouldn’t hold our breaths. (nov21)

13. A bit of bad news for Columbus on the injury front from Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline): Cayden Lindstrom had a minor surgical procedure on his back Tuesday, per GM Don Waddell. Expected to play again this season after rehab.

Lindstrom has had known back issues for months, so this tracks, and it’s good that he should be expected to return this season. All that said, back surgeries of any nature always scare me a bit.

14. Going through tracking data from AllThreeZones, something stood out to me: the league average of zone entries that are carried in (vs. dumped in or passed in) is dropping. (nov21)

The percentages of entries that were passed in had been dropping but have rebounded so far in the early portions of the 2024-25 season. In other words, a few years ago, a 60% carried entry rate was good but not high-end whereas that would be far above average now. (nov21)

[Follow the link for more…]

15. Steven Stamkos and Mikael Granlund recently updated to C/LW/RW in Yahoo, with Jean-Gabriel Pageau getting RW eligibility which is excellent for my Roto league where I own him as we count FOWs. Getting them from the wing instead of just the centre slots is a real key. 

A few others who had winger eligibility added:

Ridly Greig
Pius Suter
Evgeni Malkin
Jack Roslovic

Malkin especially is interesting as he's the most widely fantasy relevant of the bunch who went from "C" only to now also having wing eligibility. He's having a bit of a revival this year, back up to a point-per-game pace after his worst statistical output of his career last season. 

Count me among those who thought last year was the beginning of the end for Malkin. His 67-point pace wasn't awful by any means, but it was his lowest in 18 seasons. His shot and hit rates had also dropped, with the hits rebounding a little this year, but the shots are still down now among the lowest rates of his career. (nov20)

16. I recently traded for Brennan Othmann in my dynasty league, and with his hot start of five points in three AHL games thus far, I'm thinking he may not be far off from making the big club, possibly taking over Kaapo Kakko's spot in the top-nine next year. 

It got me wondering who else is lighting up the AHL that could have some fantasy relevance sooner rather than later. Here are a few names to keep you eyes on. 

Isak Rosen was called up by the Sabres after posting 13 points in 13 AHL games this year. He had 50 in 67 last year, but was held scoreless during his seven game NHL call up (with eight shots and zero hits). He has some scoring ability as a skilled middle-six centre type, but Buffalo has a lot of those players which limits his ability to make a jump up the lineup right now unless the team gets even further thinned out by injuries. 

Denton Mateychuk 

One of my favourite defence prospects, Mateychuk is following up his exceptional junior career with a stellar rookie campaign in the AHL. He's scoring a point per game, putting over two shots per game on net, and leading rookie defencemen in scoring. He has some road blocks in front of him with the pro club, but it does sound like David Jiricek could become trade bait soon, and after that it's only Zach Werenski whose upside is higher. 

17. Collin Graf

The most sought-after unrestricted free agent last summer was Graf, who is more trading up the AHL, leading all rookies in points with 19, and tied for the overall league lead as well. He may only have broken onto the scene recently, but even though the 22-year-old is a late bloomer, he's well worth targeting in dynasty leagues.

Rory Kerins

Closely following Graf, is former 6th round pick Kerins, who is putting up excellent AHL totals for the second year in a row as an undersized forward. Kerins is part of one of the most dominant AHL lines right now alongside Walker Duehr and Jacob Pelletier. He is marginally out-scoring both, and should be one of the next in line for a call up when a centre slot opens up.

AHL goalies are a much tougher bin to sift through, as numbers can be heavily influenced by the team strength and small sample sizes. Regardless, Sebastian Cossa and Yaroslav Askarov look like the cream of the AHL prospect goalie crop. Speaking of which, Askarov is up with the Sharks at the moment as Vitek Vanecek is hurt. (nov20)

18. Players taking a lot of shots is usually a good thing for fantasy owners. However, what is also important is who is taking the shots when they’re on the ice. For that, we’re going to look at which players have seen improvements or declines in market share, or the percentage of the team’s shots a specific player is taking. We are going to look at a couple forwards and a couple defencemen. These numbers are at all strengths and require at least 800 minutes played in 2023-24 and 150 minutes played this season. Data from Natural Stat Trick.

Vegas Boys

The largest jump has come from Chicago’s Ryan Donato, but what is interesting is that two of the four largest leaps in share of team shot attempts from 2023-24 both come from Vegas. (nov19)

[Follow the link for more…]

19. The power-play prowess we saw from Shayne Gostisbehere last year in Detroit is once again on full display, now with his new team in Carolina. Entering Saturday's games, he had 14 points on the season – 10 of which have come with the man advantage. As you would expect, the rise of Ghost coincides with the fall of Brent Burns, who was scoring at a shocking 21-point pace now that he’s off the top-PP unit. (nov18)

20. Heading into the season, as we discussed whether Shea Theodore or Noah Hanifin would quarterback Vegas’ top power-play unit, it was obviously a no-brainer that the team’s top-scoring blueliner nearly a quarter-way through the season would be… Alex Pietrangelo. At time of writing, Pietrangelo gad 14 points through 18 games, which ranked eighth among league defensemen. A lack of power-play time has me skeptical that a nearly 35-year-old Pietrangelo can score at this rate all year, so I’d sell high if the opportunity presents itself. (nov18)

21. It’s crazy to see that entering Saturday, 80% (8/10) of Steven Stamkos‘ points this season have come on the power play. Two even-strength points in 19 games is way too low for a player of his caliber that’s still getting good deployment. I expect the next three quarters will feature a lot more offense from the longtime Lightning forward. Buy low if you can. (nov18)

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Be sure to also grab your copy of the 2024 Dobber Fantasy Hockey Prospects Report!

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Have a good week, folks!

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