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. The Trade Deadline is behind us but the next five-and-change weeks will determine fantasy championships. Using the Schedule Planner over at Frozen Tools, here are three forwards keep an eye on when digging through the waiver wire. (At time of writing:)

Sam Colangelo (Anaheim Ducks – W)

It didn’t take long for Colangelo to graduate from the AHL after posting 20 goals and 19 assists across 42 games, averaging 3.5 shots per game along the way. The second-round pick from 2020 has found that scoring touch in the NHL with seven goals in 21 games across the last two seasons. Yes, he’s shooting 23.1%, but it’s still nice to see, nonetheless.

Colangelo has found some chemistry with fellow rookie Cutter Gauthier as the Ducks have averaged 56 shots attempts, 2.8 expected goals, and 11.8 high-danger shot attempts per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 with those two on the ice. It is a small 62-minute sample, but finding some early offensive chemistry is better than not.

Over the rest of the season, Anaheim is tied with 10 other teams with 19 games remaining (Los Angeles has the most with 20). What separates Anaheim from most of them is that 10 of those 19 games are on ‘light’ days. It is not an easy schedule – sixth-hardest by opponent points percentage – but it is a good opportunity to rack up some games played from a guy who has 41 hits in 21 career NHL games. Just this week alone, Anaheim has games on each of Wednesday-Friday-Sunday. (mar11)

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2. When it comes to first games with new teams, you can’t do much better than Mark Jankowski, who scored two goals in his Hurricanes’ debut (following the trade deadline). Logan Stankoven also had a strong debut for Carolina, scoring the game winner on the power play. Remarkably, seven of Stankoven’s ~16 minutes on that night were played with the man advantage as Carolina had six PPs. Playing on the Canes’ top unit should provide a decent boost to Stankoven’s fantasy value as he wasn’t seeing much time with the man advantage in Dallas. He was placed in a position to succeed at even strength, skating beside Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov. (mar10)

3. The Golden Knights and Adin Hill agreed to a six-year, $37.5 million contract extension on Friday. Hill’s cap hit will increase from $4.9 million this season to $6.25 million starting next season. Hill has solidified himself as Vegas’ starting goalie with solid numbers (24-11-4, 2.53 GAA, .906 SV%, 4 SO). The Stanley Cup-winning goalie has also been hot recently with five wins and five quality starts over his last six games.

Hill’s goaltending partner Ilya Samsonov is among the goalies set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer. As of today, this is what the UFA goalie market will look like:

@JesseGranger: With Adin Hill now off the market this summer, these are the top pending UFA goalies:

Frederik Andersen (CAR)
Ilya Samsonov (VGK)
Alexandar Georgiev (SJS)
Jake Allen (NJD)
Alex Lyon (DET)
Dan Vladar (CGY)
Vitek Vanecec (FLA)
Jonas Johansson (TBL) (mar15)

4. Leon Draisaitl scored two goals on Friday (one was the overtime winner over the Islanders), which makes him the second player to reach 100 points while leaving him just one goal shy of 50. Draisaitl is the runaway leader in the Rocket Richard race, as he is 13 goals clear of second place. He also has a 17-game point streak in which he has piled up 26 points. When all is said and done, Draisaitl might have some Hart Trophy votes coming his way. It’s also worth mentioning that he has reached 100 points in four consecutive seasons and each of the last six seasons that have been at least 70 games. (mar15)

5. Neal Pionk missed Friday’s game and is considered week-to-week with a lower-body injury. It sounds like an issue that he has been battling through, so the intent might be to rest Pionk for the playoffs. Pionk has been a reliable defenseman for multicategory fantasy teams, as he was on pace for 45 points with over 200 combined hits and blocked shots.

As for myself, I dodged a bullet recently by turning down a trade offer that would have sent me Pionk. That is my absolute worst fear in making a trade in a non-keeper league. (mar15)

6. Injury issues for the New Jersey Devils had really been piling up and there is always hope things aren’t as bad as they seem. There had been some rumblings (not Ramblings!) that Devils defenceman Dougie Hamilton would be out for at least the rest of the regular season with his lower-body injury, though, and that was confirmed by the team on Thursday as Hamilton will indeed miss the remainder of the regular season.

Between Hamilton, Jonas Siegenthaler, and Jack Hughes, the team is missing a lot of talent. The hope is that either (or both) of Hamilton and Siegenthaler could return for the postseason, but that seems very much up in the air as well. (mar14)

7. Calgary Flames forward Connor Zary was suspended for two games following his elbow to Elias Pettersson on Wednesday night. There was no major/match penalty at the time, which seems rather silly when looking at what happened.

Meanwhile, The New York Rangers provided something of an update on Arthur Kaliyev and Adam Fox:

@Peter_Baugh: Arthur Kaliyev has returned to New York. He has an upper-body injury and will receive further evaluation and testing. Adam Fox is in a non-contact sweater again.

Let’s hope that Kaliyev’s injury is nothing serious, but it’s good to see Fox continue practicing, even in a non-contact jersey. Hopefully he can be back for the team to make a real run at a playoff spot over the final month of the season.

Dallas Stars forward Roope Hintz was not at practice for the team on Thursday. On Wednesday, the team was hopeful Hintz could return by Sunday, and there’s still a chance he could once he starts skating over the next couple of days, but being unable to practice doesn’t seem like a good sign.

And, the Minnesota Wild gave a sort-of update on forwards Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek: Coach Hynes did not have an update on a timeline for Brodin, who (ICYMI) skated this morning with Andy Ness. Kaprizov and JEEk have not started skating. (mar14)

8. In Columbus’s home game on Thursday night, forward Yegor Chinakhov was a healthy scratch while Boone Jenner was moved to the top power-play unit over Dmitri Voronkov. After posting seven goals and seven assists in 21 games to start the season, he suffered a back injury and missed over three months of action. Perhaps he needs more time to get up to speed because he has not looked right since his return. (mar14)

9. Sidney Crosby has 50 assists on the season. He has 23 goals as well, so it seems a virtual certainty he reaches the 25-goal, 50-assist mark again this year. If (when) he does, he’ll be just the fourth player in NHL history with at least 12 separate seasons with 25-plus goals and 50-plus assists. The others are Wayne Gretzky (15), Joe Sakic (13), and Marcel Dionne (13). (mar14)

10. Will Smith‘s two-point night on Thursday was his fourth two-point game since the Four Nations break, or in less than three weeks. Entering Saturday, he had 20 points in his last 20 games and was actually ahead of both Macklin Celebrini and Matvei Michkov by points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. (mar14)

11. When The New York Rangers brought in goalie Jonathan Quick, it was very much an open question as to the success he would find with his third team. After posting 27 wins in 43 starts across 1.75 seasons, boasting a .904 save percentage along the way, the team has re-signed Quick to a one-year extension worth $1.55-million. At the least, it gives them a bit of security in net behind Igor Shesterkin, though goaltending has been the least of this team’s problems. (mar13)

12. Entering Saturday action, Lane Hutson needed three more assists to surpass the 50-assist mark, being the first rookie defenceman to do so in 40 years (Chris Chelios in 1984-85). (mar13)

13. With his hat trick on Tuesday night, Washington Capitals forward Aliaksei Protas was up to 26 even-strength goals on the season. Going into Wednesday night’s action, that goal total tied him with David Pastrnak for fifth by even-strength goals this season. Only Leon Draisaitl (31), Tage Thompson (28), Brandon Hagel (27), and William Nylander (27) had more. What is even more impressive is the fact that Protas had a grand total of 13 EV goals across the first 169 games of his career. In other words, in 65 games, he had scored double his career EV goal total in 104 fewer games.

Of course, shooting percentage is behind this. After shooting 5.9% at even strength across the first three years of his career, he was sitting at 20% this season (at time of writing). That is, uh, a sizable increase. That a young player figured out how to score at a more efficient clip isn’t surprising, but that it’s over 3x higher than what he’d done across parts of three seasons is very surprising.

It got me wondering if we’ve seen anything close to this in recent memory. So, I went back and looked at even-strength goal scoring from the 2021-22/2022-23 seasons, who saw a big increase in 2023-24, and how they’re doing in 2024-25. We are using these parameters:

• At least 1500 minutes at even strength across the 2021-2022 and 2022-23 seasons
• At least 750 minutes at even strength in the 2023-24 season

This gave us a list of over 200 forwards. (mar13)

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14. While I was thinking of the Capitals, it’ll be very interesting to see what happens with Jakob Chychrun in the offseason. He also has an elevated shooting percentage (career-best 12.4%, has never had a 60-game season over 8.1%), but he has typically been a good goal scorer from the back end. He is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season and is in his age-26 campaign. In other words, this isn’t a guy turning 30-years-old next year who could fall off quickly.

By the same token, we always need to be wary of a player with a career-best mark nine years into his career. I looked at defencemen who shot at least 10% in the 2023-24 season (minimum of 1000 total minutes played) and how they’re faring thus far in 2024-25. That gave us 10 defenceman from last season to this one, and the drop was drastic from one season to the next. (mar13)

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15. It’s now time to dump your excess Penguins. 

To elaborate on that: At time of writing, Pittsburgh had the fewest games remaining on the schedule with only 15. They also had the eighth-heaviest workload in terms of opponent goals scored per game (3.04), meaning their goalies (who already only held a tenuous spot on fantasy rosters) are now likely the worst goalies to own over the rest of the season.

Alex Nedeljkovic and Tristan Jarry are both droppable in just about every format and should be replaceable with available waiver wire options in most leagues. Samuel Ersson and Ivan Fedotov are probably next from the bottom, with 16 games for the Flyers tandem and the second-most goals for per game from their opponents (3.12). The Sharks, Bruins, Devils, and Jets are the other teams with only 16 games remaining. 

On the flip side, grab whatever Sabres, Kings and Flames that you see available on the wire. Keep an eye out for Kings especially, as they have the weakest set of opponents of the three, and 13 to six Home/Road split. The starters on those squads likely aren’t available, and I don’t trust James Reimer regardless of schedule, but David Rittich and Dan Vladar could be options for some decent numbers from a backup the rest of the way. (mar12)

16. Last Tuesday night, the Panthers played their first game without Aaron Ekblad (20-game suspension for use of a banned substance) and they filled his minutes mainly just by feeding Seth Jones all he can handle. They’re not easy minutes to fill either, as Ekblad and Gustav Forsling usually take on the big minutes against the highest quality of competition. Luckily with the addition of Jones, they’re just going back to about what the D-core looked like for the first half of the season, with Jones soaking up a lot of those power play, shorthanded, and overall minutes. He recorded a power play assist in that game on top of two Hits, two Blocks, one SOG and a minor penalty. (mar12)

17. Tuesday was also the first meeting between the Panthers and Bruins since the Brad Marchand trade. Unfortunately, Marchand is still injured, so we didn’t get to see him on the visitor side for the game, but he did hit the ice for morning skate, as he looks to return soon. He looks very strange in a Panthers jersey. 

It does sound like he's penciled into the second line already, alongside Sam Bennett (whom he played with briefly at the Four Nations tournament) and Matthew Tkachuk once he too is healthy. I'm going to dub that the BMT line in an ode to Subway's sandwich – the Bigger Meatier Tastier sub. It's a meaty line that no other team is going to like the taste of, and should free up the other offensive players quite nicely. (mar12)

18. Looking at all the players that have been on the FrozenTools Hot list for more than a week and it’s all top-line players and top-pair defencemen… and Ryan Donato. He’s now up to 20 points in his last 15 games, adding about two shots and a hit per game while seeing top-unit power play time as well. 

Hopefully you sold high, as it’s likely all downhill from here. If the crazy pace alone wasn’t enough to tell you that regression was/is coming, then the fact that Donato has been moved off of Connor Bedard‘s line should really put some fear into those of you holding the hot Donato potato. 

Working in Donato’s favour to keep at least a decent level of production is the lack of a big outlier in his underlying percentages, where his secondary assist rate is actually quite low. The production jump has come mainly from a big jump in ice time, which means as long as he keeps the deployment then the production should follow. (mar12)

19. I expect deadline acquisition Luke Kunin to be a good fit in Columbus. If Mathieu Olivier and Justin Danforth can turn themselves into fantasy relevant players in various leagues, then Kunin can certainly revive some of his value as a versatile bottom-nine forward option there.

Having mentioned Olivier, he has to be considered one of, if not the best bruisers in fantasy this year, with (at time of writing) 118 PIMs, 86 Shots, 233 Hits, and 67 Blocks in 64 games. His new contract (six years by a $3M cap hit) is going to guarantee him ice time next year, so he's a pretty safe bet to repeat with a similar year. (mar12)

20. The Chicago Blackhawks are making their way towards another Draft Lottery, which is symbiotic with a recent roster move as they called up 2024 second overall pick Artyom Levshunov for last Monday night’s game in Colorado. Perhaps sending the defenceman out against the Avalanche isn’t an ideal way to get him acclimated to the NHL, but by the same token, it is a top test to see just how he can handle that kind of situation. Levshunov skated 20:55 including some secondary power-play time in his NHL debut, landing three shots on goal and blocking two as Chicago fell by a 3-0 score to Colorado. (mar11)

21. Juuso Valimaki is going to be out until late 2025 with a knee surgery. Välimäki was having easily his worst season since joining the Utah/Arizona franchise and hadn’t played since January. I didn’t see any updates on when this happened, so it very well could be that he had been playing through some sort of knee problem, which would help explain why his performance had taken such a sharp downturn. (mar11)

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Have a good week, folks!

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