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. We can stop calling the Utah franchise whatever we were calling them before (it was never Hockey Club in my book), as the team announced on Wednesday that the franchise is officially named the Mammoth. Overall, not a bad choice. The name is kind of fun and the logo looks good. It (logo) does kind of remind me of Nashville’s, only with a longer nose and inverted teeth, but not bad overall. The Ice Age movie crossovers have to be coming, right? (may8)

2. The NHL Draft Lottery took place last Monday, and in a huge move up the board, the New York Islanders ended up winning the first overall pick. So, the team that currently does not have a general manager now has the first overall pick in the Draft. I wonder how much this changes the view of the organization from the standpoint of some potential interviewees.

As a result of the Islanders move, the San Jose Sharks fell to second and Chicago Blackhawks to third. Utah won the second draw, which moved them up to fourth place. (may6)

3. Now that the regular season has finished and the number of games that I have to write about is winding down, I have some time to recap the fantasy hockey season that was. Where I’ll start is with players that exceeded expectations on my various fantasy teams. I’ll base this on point projections versus actual performance, but I may bring up other factors as they arise.

Martin Necas

Necas’s start to the season as one of the league’s top scorers was so unexpected, he was one of the players featured on the cover of the Midseason Guide. For a player often drafted after pick 100 in Yahoo leagues, Necas sure delivered return on investment with 43 points in his first 28 games. Yet primed for a dropoff, Necas’s production started to level off with 13 points in his next 21 games.

Then came another unexpected twist: Necas was the main piece headed to Colorado in the (first) Mikko Rantanen trade. Although his production never reached the early-season level, Necas registered 28 points in 30 games while finding chemistry with Nathan MacKinnon. In what could be a contract season, Necas will try to continue to make a strong impression, which could mean a second consecutive season of point-per-game point totals.

Nick Suzuki

Most overall stats did not change much for Suzuki compared to last season, including goals, shots, power-play points, and hits. What did change was assists, where Suzuki piled up a career-high 59 en route to a career high of 89 points. That point total was within the top 15 in the league. That’s not a huge jump from where Suzuki was projected to finish in the Fantasy Guide (81 points), but Suzuki was also drafted outside of the top 100 in many Yahoo leagues. He will be worth a top-50 pick in next season’s drafts.

Can Suzuki take the next step and get to 100 points? Don’t rule it out completely, as the Habs are trending in the right direction. Montreal has been adding some high-scoring pieces in recent seasons, including Ivan Demidov, Calder Trophy finalist Lane Hutson, and Suzuki’s linemate Cole Caufield. A rising tide lifts all boats. (may10)

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4. Some injury news out of St. Louis on Tuesday:

– Dylan Holloway had surgery and should be ready for camp.

– Tyler Tucker‘s right leg injury was likely going to keep him out of the playoffs almost regardless of how deep the Blues went. It sounds, though, like he too should be ready for training camp without needing surgery.

– Torey Krug is unlikely to get healthy enough to play in the NHL again… @hockeyviz.com: Torey Krug is apparently not likely to ever return to playing hockey, which I think is a real shame. Not many players put together a full decade of work playing at his kind of level. (may7)

5. Mats Zuccarello noted in his end-of-season media availability that he was putting 100% into making next year a good season with the Wild, but that he would re-evaluate his future after that, with retirement a possibility. He is 37-years-old at the moment, so this is not at all unexpected. Add to it that his current contract expires in the summer of 2026, and it’s more than just talk that this could be the end of the line for one of the best “small” players in the league. He paced for 64 points last year which would be impressive on its own, but in the first half he was actually a point-per-game player. It seems like the only reason he tailed off was Kirill Kaprizov getting hurt. Don’t discount Zucc as a useful fantasy piece next year just because of the retirement threat. (may7)

6. Jesper Bratt is undergoing shoulder surgery, and should be ready for training camp. I would be really curious to know when Bratt's initial injury occurred, as his season pace by quarter are interesting. His Q2-Q4 shot numbers dropped drastically from his Q1 pace, where he was putting up nearly three per game. His scoring numbers tailed off overall, though that was a more gradual fall. It’s tough to pinpoint exactly when in the season the shoulder injury might have occurred, though if it was in the first half somewhere, then a return to full health could see Bratt returning to that level of production again – a 92-point pace. (may7)

7. For those of you in a deep league looking for a dark horse pick to place a bet on for production next year, then I have a name for you. Yesterday, the New Jersey Devils signed prospect Arseny Gritsyuk to a one-year ELC. The 24-year-old put up a top-15 season in the KHL by NHL equivalency metrics, and is joining a Devils team who has top-tier talent in the top-six, but also support roles available beside them. It’s an excellent fit for an over-ripe prospect who should be a lock for the roster in the fall. (may7)

8. For those of you in the deepest of leagues, looking for the darkest of dark horses to place a bet on for production next year, then I have a name for you. The Tampa Bay Lightning recently signed Charles-Edouard D’Astous (Though on Fantrax he is listed without the “s” in Charles), a 27-year-old defenceman out of Sweden, who just scored 39 points in 49 SHL games. That was good for second in the league among defencemen, while his 12 goals placed him first. His 67 PIMs were also the highest mark in the league, and his plus-minus was second in the league on top of it all.

D'Astous came up through the QMJHL as a prospect, but was never drafted. He seemed to get squeezed out of the AHL/ECHL development during the Covid years and has played the last few seasons in Europe. The Lightning only signed him to a two-way deal, meaning there is little incentive to keep him on the NHL roster unless he fully outplays some of his counterparts. Lucky for D’Astous, the Lightning are a good team that is surprisingly shallow on the back end. After Victor Hedman, an aging Ryan McDonagh, and an oft-injured duo of J.J. Moser & Erik Cernak, the competition comes down to Darren Raddysh, Nick Perbix, and Emil Lilleberg, who are all very replaceable. (may7)

9. Los Angeles announced on Monday that they were parting ways with general manager Rob Blake. I always appreciate how these things are worded; no one quits or is fired anymore. They part ways, as if they’re a group of friends leaving a bar and going home at 2 AM.

We will see what the team decides to do. They can replace Blake internally or look outside the organization. There is still a lot of talent, and great young talent, so it isn’t as if this cupboard is anywhere close to bare. (may6)

10. Playoff performances can sometimes set the stage for future fantasy campaigns, so I thought we’d look at standouts from teams that were eliminated before last Sunday.

Kaiden Guhle – Montreal Canadiens

Montreal’s top defensive pairing of Lane Hutson and Guhle looked excellent in the playoffs, sporting an impressive 61% share of expected goals in Round 1 against the Capitals. Guhle missed two months of the regular season with a significant injury – a lacerated quad muscle – which may have prevented him from getting the recognition he deserved in fantasy formats. At the young age of 23, he’s been very reliable defensively, and gives Hutson more freedom to take chances offensively. Sharing the ice with a dynamic offensive threat like Hutson should help Guhle pick up a few more points next year. Guhle’s already a threat in leagues that track peripheral stats, having averaged 3.4 hits and 2.2 blocks a night in 11 games post-injury. I expect a healthy Guhle will see more ice time next season, giving him more opportunity to contribute to a variety of fantasy categories.

Gage Goncalves – Tampa Bay Lightning

The 24-year-old forward had a strong showing this postseason, racking up four points in five appearances while averaging roughly 17 minutes a night. He rode momentum from a solid second half of the regular season, where he put up 18 points over 33 games. It’s a promising pattern of offense that extends back to the AHL, where Goncalves has racked up 130 points in 154 games over the past three years. He’s an RFA this summer and could have sneaky fantasy potential if he can snag a top-six role next season.

Andrei Kuzmenko – Los Angeles Kings

Although he sputtered out of the postseason with one point in his final four appearances, Kuzmenko had an impressive performance overall, racking up six points in six playoff games. It took him some time to settle in with the Kings, but he really found his groove during the final stretch of the regular season, racking up 17 points in his final 15 appearances of the campaign. He clicked nicely on the LA’s AK line, displaying great chemistry with Adrian Kempe and Anze Kopitar at both even-strength and on PP1. Kuzmenko is an unrestricted free agent this summer, but I imagine he’s seeking stability in LA after playing for four different teams over the past two years. For the sake of his fantasy value, I’d like to see him re-sign in an environment where we know things work, instead of being thrown into another situation shrouded in uncertainty. (may5)

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11. My Ramblings over the last couple weeks have been reviewing preseason projections. We started with forwards who underperformed goal-scoring expectations, those who overperformed with their goal totals, and some forwards whose goal tally was close to their preseason projection. Then we moved to point totals to look at the forwards who fell short, those who exceeded expectations, and ended the forward discussion on those where projections aligned with actual production. Earlier this week, the discussion on defencemen debuted, discussing the underperformers. Today (Friday), we are moving on to which defencemen overperformed their point projections.

We are using Natural Stat Trick for end-of-season data to compare to my preseason projections. We are also limiting the sample to defencemen projected for at least 15 points and who appeared in at least 41 games, which gives us a sample of 152. Then we are extrapolating all point totals to a full 82-game season to try and put everyone on the same footing. (may9)

Let's start by looking at five blueliners who exceeded their 82-game point projection by at least 40% – it is an interesting mix of options:

12. Jackson LaCombe (Anaheim Ducks)

This is a case where I was high, to different degrees, on the Anaheim blue line, but targeted the wrong guys. I had high hopes for Olen Zellweger (still do), and thought Pavel Mintyukov could be a dark-horse producer. LaCombe was not high on my list, but he had one of the true breakout performances in the regular season with 14 goals and 29 assists in 43 games. He led Ducks defencemen in power-play ice time overall, and finished second on a per-game basis, just 15 seconds behind Zellweger.

Without going too deep on all the ways LaCombe found success this season, the long and short of it is that, per the tracking from AllThreeZones, LaCombe was excellent at breaking the puck out of the defensive zone. Not just compared to his teammates but compared to some of the top puck-movers in the league. To make that point, check out this list of defencemen with similar rates of zone exits at 5-on-5, whose team possessed the puck on at least 70% of those exits, and whose zone exits failed less than 20% of the time (including botching retrievals on dump-ins).

There are still questions to be answered here, namely who will run the team’s top PP unit when October rolls around. It seems the smart money is on LaCombe right now, but Zellweger is true competition and that gives them another option if they want. Regardless, with how much Anaheim’s offence improved, how much more it should improve in seasons to come, and LaCombe asserting himself as the team’s top defenceman, he can push for 50 points even without a significant PP role. It will be interesting to see where his ADP lands in September. (may9)

13. Lane Hutson (Montreal Canadiens)

Mike Matheson was on the list of guys who grossly underperformed their point projection, and a big reason was losing his PP role in late November to Hutson. It was not something I envisioned, and it’s why Hutson’s name is here on the overperformer list.

As with LaCombe, there are a lot of underlying numbers supporting the excellent rookie season from Hutson (not that just watching him play a few games couldn’t tell us the same thing). There is no need to run long here: Hutson is Montreal’s top puck-mover, their top PP option, and the future of their blue line. The only question is how much his peripherals improve to help fantasy managers in multi-cat formats. (may9)

14. Michael Kesselring (Utah Mammoth)

This is a case where Kesselring is a player I had hopes for, but didn’t think he’d get enough of a role to really have much production. Well, he didn’t have a big role (sixth on the Utah blue line by ice time per game), but he still managed 29 points in 82 appearances. He did that because he figured into 52.1% of the team’s 5-on-5 goals with him on the ice. Of the 138 defencemen with at least 1000 minutes played at 5-on-5, that was 8^th overall, making him 1 of 8 defencemen to figure in on over 50% of the goals. Here are the other seven:

• Luke Hughes (58.1%)
• Cale Makar (57.3%)
• Zach Werenski (55.8%)
• Rasmus Dahlin (54.3%)
• Quinn Hughes (53.9%)
• Shea Theodore (53.7%)
• Jackson LaCombe (52.9%)

Luke Hughes is a young player with huge upside, and LaCombe may have been the breakout defenceman of the season. The other five names are a veritable who’s-who of elite puck-movers.

That is one reason why it’s hard to believe in Kesselring’s season even if he’s a guy I was relatively high on anyway (I was) and even if he had good underlying data to support this performance (there is). It is a huge, huge leap from “this guy could be a good puck-mover on a second or third pair” and “this guy is among the elite puck-movers in the league”. It is also hard to see him supplanting Mikhail Sergachev on the power play, or either Sergachev or Sean Durzi in ice time, so expectations need to be tempered here. And boy, do I hate tempering expectations when a guy I’m keeping tabs on has a good season. (may9)

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15. As mentioned above, my Ramblings over the last couple weeks have been reviewing preseason projections. On Thursday, we averted our gaze to the blue line to see which defencemen underperformed their point projections. We also limited the sample to defencemen projected for at least 15 points and who appeared in at least 41 games, which gives us a sample of 152 players. Then we extrapolated all point totals to a full 82-game season to try and put everyone on the same footing.

The biggest misses are depth guys who just had bad seasons (man alive, Ryan Graves), so it’s not something I’m too worked up about. There was one big miss who was often a top-25 defenceman off the board in fantasy drafts, though. (may8)

Let's check it out:

16. Mike Matheson (Montreal Canadiens)

Full disclosure: My assumption was that Matheson would hold the top power-play role for the majority of the season while Lane Hutson got his reps in on the second unit. That was definitely not the case as Hutson took over the top PP unit a few days before American Thanksgiving and remained there for the rest of the season.

Also playing a role here was a bit of bad luck. At even strength, Matheson had not had a season below 30% goal participation since his rookie year, and had been over 40% for three straight seasons from 2021-2024, and over 50% from 2022-2024. This season, that number cratered to 25.6%. Even just a normal (for him) mark of 45% would have added 15 points to his final season total. That, plus the gap in PP points between him and Hutson (16), is 31 points missing, or nearly the entire difference between my projection and his actual tally (33 points). It is why I don’t feel too bad about missing on Matheson by so much. My bigger regret is underrating Hutson’s impact. (may8)

17. Brock Faber (Minnesota Wild)

Like many Wild players, Faber was off to a strong start – 20 points in 38 games through the end of December – and then the injuries piled up. Faber went on to post four (!) points in the next 33 games before finishing strong in April.

This is another where I don’t feel so bad about missing the mark. Faber was probably going to reach at least 40 points had the team stayed relatively healthy, but they didn’t, and he didn’t, so here we are. The point projection would have still been too high, but it would have closed that gap by a lot. Not helping the cause was the fact that he also put up far fewer blocks (115) and hits (36) than his rookie year (150 and 65, respectively) despite just 57 fewer minutes played. He will be an interesting case to project for the 2025-26 season, especially with Zeev Buium around now. (may8)

18. Cam York (Philadelphia Flyers)

After averaging 30 points/82 games across his first three seasons, I thought the Flyers would take a step forward offensively, mostly due to adding Matvei Michkov to the lineup. The expectation is York would be given top-pair minutes and accumulate close to 10 power-play points.

Well, uh, he was technically given top-pair minutes, but Travis Sanheim was given nearly four more minutes per game than any other Flyers defenceman. After him, York (20:46), Rasmus Ristolainen (20:31), and Jamie Drysdale (19:55) all had TOI levels within a minute of each other. In effect, the Flyers had a number-1 defenceman (Sanheim) and then three number-3 defencemen.

Also, York was given almost no power-play time. He finished sixth among Flyers defencemen in percentage of power-play time, per Frozen Tools, with only Nick Seeler and Erik Johnson getting less. Maybe things change under a new coach, but none of these developments are good for York’s fantasy future. (may8)

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19. And on Tuesday, we wrapped up the forwards by going over the names who fell very close to my preseason projection.

We are using Natural Stat Trick for end-of-season data to compare to my preseason projections. We are also limiting the sample to forwards projected for at least 20 points and who appeared in at least 41 games. Then we are extrapolating all point totals to a full 82-game season to try and put everyone on the same footing.

For the group that landed close to their preseason point projections, we are going plus/minus 5% of the projection. So, if they were projected for 50 points in 82 games, they produced somewhere between 47-53 points. Clear? Great. (may6)

Let’s talk about a few of them:

20. Tyler Toffoli (San Jose Sharks)

San Jose finished a distant last for the second year in a row, but Toffoli had a productive fantasy season with his third straight 30-goal campaign while posting 233 shots, which was a top 30 mark among all forwards. On a 60-minute basis among forwards with at least 750 minutes played (337 forwards), his goal rate was 90^th percentile and his shot rate was 97^th percentile. That is pretty good.

Toffoli turned 33 years old just after the season finished, so age-related decline is always a concern. The Sharks have good, young forwards for him to play with, but as the team improves, his spot on the top power-play unit gets tenuous. For now, it seems safe that he has a top-6/top power play role, but between the draft, any trades, and free agency, let’s see how the summer goes. (may6)

21. JJ Peterka (Buffalo Sabres)

As far as I can tell, no other major projections had Peterka for over 70 points in an 82-game season, and seeing as he finished with 68 points in 77 games, I’ll give myself an extra cookie with supper tonight.

In fairness, Peterka shooting a career-high 15.6% did help here, but it’s also not as if that’s an improbable number. Also, as mentioned in the Ramblings on forwards whose goal totals came in very close to my projection, my expectation was that Buffalo would be an improved offensive group under new coach Lindy Ruff, and they were. Couple that with Peterka just being a good player who is approaching his prime, and lots of top line/top PP minutes, and projecting a very good season from him makes sense.

Peterka is a very interesting player. His first full year saw good rates of scoring chance assists (SCA/60), high-danger passes (HDPass/60), and good offensive creation both off the rush and cycle while not attempting a lot of shots. In his second season, as the team pulled back on its offence to improve its defence, Peterka’s numbers suffered almost across the board, but he became a heavy volume shooter. This past season, the playmaking numbers improved once again, but the offence off the rush and cycle both landed between his first two seasons, as did his rate of shot attempts. It is basically three different styles of offence in three straight seasons.

Overall, there should still be a lot of excitement about Peterka and his production potential. He is a cornerstone for the Sabres, and his usage should reflect as such. The real question is ‘What type of player is he?’ because that hasn’t settled yet as there’s been so much upheaval around the team. (may6)

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Have a good week, folks!

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