The 2025 Dobber Prospects Report is now available in the Dobber Store! With the Entry Draft just a few weeks away and the Memorial Cup behind us, now is the time to brush up on the names fantasy owners will hear called later this month. It also covers a bevy of prospects currently in the pipeline from each team, so whether looking for an update on current prospects or a preview of the names yet to come, the Prospects Report has it all. Help support what we do and click the link above to get your copy today!

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The Colorado Avalanche signed one of the bigger free agent names on the board before he could even hit free agency:

The Colorado Avalanche have signed Brock Nelson to a three-year contract extension through the 2027-28 season | 3 x $7.5 contract

— Meghan Angley (@megangley) June 4, 2025

Brock Nelseon had six goals and 13 points in 19 regular season games with the Avs but had no goals in their seven-game loss to Dallas in the first round. His line looked a lot better once Gabriel Landeskog was added to it, and with Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas (pending he doesn't get traded), Artturi Lehkonen, and Valeri Nichushkin, Colorado has a very formidable top-6 group, provided they all remain with the team and stay healthy.

The signing of Nelson, on top of Yanni Gourde's extension in Tampa Bay, removes a couple of the key centre options in free agency. The pool is getting thin, and that's only good news for Sam Bennett's agent.

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The Edmonton Oilers started the 2025 Stanley Cup Final in a much better fashion than the 2024 Stanley Cup Final thanks to Leon Draisaitl. He finished a nice passing play between Corey Perry and Connor McDavid to score a power-play goal with 30 seconds left in the first overtime and lift Edmonton to a 4-3 win, and a 1-0 series lead over Florida. It was Draisaitl's second of the game as he scored just over a minute into the first period to give the Oilers an early lead. He finished the game with four shots and four hits.

After falling behind 1-0, Florida reeled off three straight goals with two coming off the stick of Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand adding a power-play tally. That gave Florida a 3-1 lead at the time, but the Oilers clawed back with goals form Viktor Arvidsson and Mattias Ekholm to tie things up 3-3, setting the stage for Draisaitl's heroics in overtime. Ekholm had four shots and two blocks in 25:19 of ice time, the second-most ice time of any Oilers blue liner (Evan Bouchard skated nearly 32 minutes).

Connor McDavid had two assists (one PP), four shots, two blocks, and three hits in 31:12 of ice time. Defenceman Jake Walman had an assist, five shots, four blocks, and three hits in a stat-stuffing night.

Stuart Skinner was very solid in net, including a key glove save in overtime that could have easily gone in, by stopping 29 of 32 shots faced. He didn't stand on his head, but he was good, and that's all the Oilers need from him.

Nate Schmidt had two assists (one PP) in the loss, and now has nine points in 18 games in the postseason.

Sergei Bobrovsky was good for Florida, but took the loss by allowing four goals on 46 shots.

Game 2 is Friday night.

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In the last two Ramblings, we went over the MVP candidates, first among forwards and then moving to defencemen. Today, we are round out MVP performances with goaltenders.

Those two articles are the capstone of Ramblings over the last month that looked at preseason projections for forwards and defencemen, the changing NHL environment, and what it all means for fantasy owners. Those Ramblings can be found here:

• Forwards who underperformed goal-scoring projections.
• Forwards who overperformed goal-scoring projections.
• Forwards whose goal-scoring landed close to their projection.
• Forwards who underperformed points projections.
• Forwards who overperformed points projections.
• Forwards whose point production landed close to their projection.
• Defencemen who underperformed points projections.
• Defencemen who overperformed points projections.
• Defencemen whose point production landed close to their projection.

After those comparisons were done, we moved to how the NHL changed in the 2024-25 season. This is what we looked at:

• Declining shot totals, changes in block/hit numbers, and improvement in bottom-6 scoring.
• Production changes from young players in the league.
• Players who saw some key improvements but did not produce well.

Finally, we finished with how those changes affected my projections:

• Goals from top-6 forwards, declining power-play production, and how the power plays affected the top players.
• Goals and assists from defencemen, and the rising middle- and lower-class of point-producing blue liners.

For MVPs among goalies, we're going to focus on value – the 20^th overall pick performing as the 12^th overall pick is great but having guys that are 10^th or 15^th-round picks perform as third- or sixth-round picks is what we have in mind. We are also going to limit it to goalies who had more than 25 appearances. That gives us 52 goalies to work with.

Also, we are going to try to get everything to one number. This is how we're going to do that:

• There were 1142 wins from the 52 goalies in our sample, or an average of 22 wins per goalie. We are going to award or subtract 0.045 points for every win above or below that 22-win mark (1/22). Of course, that will hurt backups and streamers, but this is about total value at the position, and volume matters.
• There were 128 shutouts from the 52 goalies, or an average of 2.5 shutouts per goalie. We are going to award or subtract 0.4 points for every shutout above or below that mark (1/2.5).
• For save percentage, we add each individual goalie's save and shots against totals to all the saves and shots in this sample, divide all the saves by all the shots, subtract the league average save percentage of the sample (.902), and multiply by each goalie's minutes played. This factors in both the performance relative to the average goalie and the minutes played by each netminder. So, a goalie with 53 games and an .890 save percentage will be a much worse value than a goalie with 28 games and an .886 save percentage.
• For goals against average, we add all the goals against from the 52 goalies to each individual goalie's goals against, add all the minutes from the 52 goalies to each individual goalie's minutes, divide the first number by the second number, multiply by 60 minutes, and subtract the league average goals against rate from these goalies (2.75). Then we multiply by -1 to get the right positive negative numbers, and then multiply by 52 (the number of goalies). It gives us the same idea as the save percentage: goalies who play 50-60 games will have a bigger impact (good or bad) than goalies who play 25-35 games.
• We are going to add those numbers together, multiply by the average ADP across CBS, Yahoo, and ESPN (per FantasyPros), and get an overall value.

This is not a perfect measurement, and things will change based on individual league settings or ADPs, but this should get us pretty close to the most valuable goalies based on that draft position. Managers with Connor Hellebuyck or Andrei Vasilevskiy on their rosters probably aren't complaining about those early picks, though.

Here are the three goalies who are at the top of the board for draft-based value:

Probably no real surprises here, but let's go through them.

Darcy Kuemper (Los Angeles Kings)

Given Kuemper's struggles to finish his tenure in Washington, it isn't a big surprise he fell outside the top-100 picks on a regular basis. This is a lesson in the quality of the team in front of a goalie, though: The 2023-24 season saw Cam Talbot post a .913 save percentage in 54 games with the Kings while David Rittich had a .921 (!) save percentage. The Kings were excellent defensively in 2023-24 and were even better in 2024-25. The result is the season Kuemper just had.

Filip Gustavsson (Minnesota Wild)

Remember before the season when there was genuine concern that Minnesota would carry three goalies? Jesper Wallstedt made two starts, both coming in a one-week span in December. Maybe there will come a day when teams carry three goalies regularly, but even the Montreal Canadiens did that out of necessity a couple years ago, not because they really wanted to. Something to keep in mind.

Anyway, the Minnesota Wild have typically been one of the best defensive teams in the league basically this entire century, and certainly since the 2021 Bubble season. Few teams are better perennially at keeping dangerous shots to a minimum, allowing their goalies to rack up a lot of easy saves, and that was true again in 2024-25: as a share of all shots faced at even strength, Minnesota goalies faced the fifth-lowest percentage of high-danger shots but also faced the eighth-most even-strength shots per 60 minutes. It made the Wild 1 of 2 teams to be top-10 at limiting high-danger shots while also allowing a lot of perimeter shots:

This has often been great for Minnesota's fantasy netminders, and the tradition continues. (Now, just imagine if Minnesota had a competent penalty kill.)

Anthony Stolarz (Toronto Maple Leafs)

Toronto gave up a lower share of high-danger shots against at even strength than Minnesota did, but also allowed few even-strength shots overall. Either way, that gave Stolarz (and Joseph Woll) a pretty good environment to succeed in net, and Stolarz had the best season of his career reaching career-highs in starts (33), wins (21), and shutouts (4) while tying a high save percentage (.926). If he makes 50 starts with those kind of numbers, he's easily a top-5 fantasy goalie overall. Just keep in mind that he can have phenomenal numbers like this but to reach that upper tier of fantasy goalies, Stolarz needs a lot of starts. If they decide to split starts with Woll, it's great for the team but not necessarily for fantasy managers.

Quickly, let's touch on one goalie who had a massive change in fortune.

Mackenzie Blackwood (San Jose Sharks/Colorado Avalanche)

Blackwood wasn't on the above list because he didn't have an ADP, which makes sense when we think about him starting the season in a split-start situation on arguably the worst team in the league. Then he was traded to Colorado and the rest is history. Considering the revolving door of goalies the Avalanche has had over the last five years, even Blackwood is not a guarantee to repeat this performance, but he's clearly the number-1 guy heading into 2025-26, so he's going to be a lock as a top-10 goalie of draft boards, maybe even top-5.

After those guys, here are the next three goalies by draft-based value:

One name was a top pick, so there is not much need to dig in there. Kevin Lankinen gained steam through draft season as Thatcher Demko's future became more uncertain. The third name is up for the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year and has been one of the most hyped goalies over the last five years.  

Dustin Wolf (Calgary Flames)

This is going to be an interesting case to dig into more this summer. Assuming the Flames bring back Connor Zary, Morgan Frost, and Kevin Bahl, the roster will be very similar in 2025-26 that it was in 2024-25. In that sense, the impact (or lack thereof) from prospect defencemen Zayne Parekh and Hunter Brzustewicz might be the thing that can help Wolf go to another level fantasy-wise, or not. Not just for defensive ability, but the Flames finished 29^th by goal scoring in the league (only Anaheim, Nashville, and San Jose were worse). The team was solid enough defensively, but a lack of goals makes it hard for Wolf to rack up wins. We have seen numerous rookie defencemen over the last five years have good offensive impacts on their teams. Can either Parekh or Brzustewicz (or both) do the same? Even just being a middle-of-the-road scoring team would help Wolf rack up more wins.