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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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1. Give a warm round of applause to everyone’s favourite team, your 2025 Stanley Cup Champions, the Florida Panthers!
In convincing fashion, they beat Edmonton 5-1, to take the series in six.
The Panthers are going to be looking to run things back next year, and not in the way that the Maple Leafs do. This is a team that has all of their core locked up to reasonable deals, except for one of their top defencemen and a Conn Smythe winning second line centre. If Sam Bennett walks, then the replacement is an in-house promotion of Anton Lundell, and from there you replace the grit on the third line.
Aaron Ekblad is the more difficult piece to replace, with his 23 minutes per game, 50-point scoring pace, and excellent play-driving metrics. Top defencemen don’t grow on trees, and that’s why I expect him to stay. The Cats have won their two Cups, they can afford to pay Ekblad whatever he wants in order to keep the band (mostly) together. Bennett on the other hand has a chance to really cash in, possibly almost doubling his current $4.425 million salary. (june18)
2. Take this news for what it is: an announcement at a nightclub while celebrating a Stanley Cup, very likely after a few beverages. Sam Bennett told a crowd at E11even in Miami that he “ain’t f-ing leaving” the Panthers. You weren’t expecting Bennett to provide the finer details of the contract such as term, cap hit, no-trade protection, and performance bonuses, were you? Maybe the Panthers organization will wait before the partying settles down before formally announcing the signing. Now we wait and see whether the contract reaches 7-8 years and close to $10 million per season as rumored. Later in the day, Elliotte Friedman confirmed that the deal hasn’t been done yet. (june21)
3. On Thursday, the Dallas Stars re-signed Matt Duchene to a four-year extension and traded Mason Marchment to Seattle for two draft picks. (Cliffy had a full breakdown of that trade here.) On Friday, the Stars continued to make quick work of their offseason business, signing two more players.
Mavrik Bourque was signed to a one-year contract worth $950,000. In his rookie season of 2024-25, the 23-year-old Bourque played 73 games while contributing 25 points and averaging 12:41 per game on a deep Dallas squad. Despite playing in only three playoff games, the former first-round pick (30th overall, 2020) Bourque has tremendous upside and should transition into a greater role in the coming seasons.
Nils Lundkvist was also signed to a one-year contract, this one worth $1.25 million. Mainly due to shoulder surgery, Lundkvist played just 39 games in 2024-25, registering five assists. A former late first-round pick of the Rangers, Lundkvist showed some promise when he was drafted for his offensive upside. Now 24 years of age, it appears that Lundkvist is simply trying to hang on with the Stars at this point. (june21)
4. Jonathan Toews is coming home. The Winnipeg Jets announced that Toews has agreed to sign with the Jets, although the signing cannot be formally announced until July 1. Toews has not played for the past two seasons for health reasons, and he also missed the entire 2020-21 “bubble” season due to COVID-19. In other words, Toews has played only two seasons (124 games total) since the world shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is a great story if Toews can make it work, but expectations should not be super high for a major splash fantasy-wise. Toews is now 37 years of age, and he scored 31 points in 53 games in his last season (a 48-point pace over 82 games). That being said, Adam Lowry is expected to miss the first month or two of the season following offseason hip surgery, so Toews should have an opportunity to contribute right away. Depending on how much he has left in the tank, Toews could also grab the second-line role over Vladislav Namestnikov. Toews should also be an asset in the faceoff circle. (june21)
5. With the free agent signing period set to begin in less than two weeks, now seems like a good time to determine what the fantasy value of top free agents could look like after they make their decisions. I don’t have any insider information on where they could sign, but I’ll mention teams that could be in the mix for these players if they don’t re-sign with their current clubs.
It seems like Marner has a 99% chance of leaving Toronto, but nothing is ever 100%. That being said, we can treat this as though Marner will be playing for a new team, perhaps in the Western Conference and/or for a team in a non-traditional hockey market.
Even though Auston Matthews missed 15 games last season, Matthews was still easily Marner’s best even-strength linemate according to Frozen Tools. That has pretty well been the case since the 2019-20 season, so we need to account for the separation of the two affecting both – quite possibly negatively. That being said, Marner had his best season in assists (75) and points (102) in spite of Matthews missing those 15 games and scoring a career-low 33 goals. Therefore, it’s not as though Marner’s production will plummet.
However, Matthews has been at a different level when it comes to goal-scoring compared to the likes of Jack Eichel or Sebastian Aho, to use examples of players on teams that are rumored to be in the Marner sweepstakes. A dropoff could be even more significant if Marner signs with a team like Utah, Anaheim, or Chicago. Vegas seems like one of the best options fantasy-wise, but they will need to do some work to clear cap space. Carolina is an ideal option because they have the space and play a style that fits Marner’s game, but Marner reportedly turned down a trade there at the deadline. The other teams I listed (and there could be more that I didn’t list) probably won’t be beneficial to Marner’s value initially, but they could be in a much better position five years from now. (june21)
Marchand scored at a sub-60-point pace during the entire 2024-25 regular season, but he added to his stock by scoring at a near point-per-game pace (20 PTS in 23 GP) during the playoffs. A team will look beyond Marchand’s age and declining point totals and see the intangibles he could bring in guiding a team to a Stanley Cup. I know of at least one team that has fallen short in recent years with a very long drought of not even appearing in a Stanley Cup Final. Of course, we’ll discuss that team.
With Marner gone, Marchand would have an opportunity to slide into Toronto’s top 6. Depending on what happens with John Tavares, the Leafs have a scoring group that is better than Boston’s and compares similarly to Florida’s. Marchand provided the Panthers with depth, playing on their so-called third line, but there’s no reason he would slide down to the third line for the Leafs – at least not for an extended period. This may not be enough to prevent a further decline over the length of the contract, which I assume would be multiple seasons.
A better team will provide more linemate options and more scoring opportunities for Marchand at even-strength. However, we’ve seen a player’s value decline when he is moved to a contender at the deadline. The flipside is that a rebuilding team could provide Marchand with more icetime and power-play time. To compare, Marchand had 47 points in 61 games for a declining Bruins squad but scored just four points in 10 regular-season games for the Panthers. However, we then saw how he performed in the playoffs. The determining factor from all this might be how much Marchand has left in the tank. (june21)
FanDuel has the betting odds for where Marner and Marchand will end up in free agency. Check it out here.
7. On social media this week, I asked for some fantasy hockey mailbag questions for today’s Ramblings so that’s what we’ll do. We will touch on rankings, goalies, and more, so let’s get right to it.
Question #1 – @Sin_Ajax: wanted to know how to deal with ranking for drafts,most ranking seems to be very off with espn and yahoo. How do you determine a good top 50 player and how to know for example an eichel or werenski is better than other top 50 players or just off pure value?
Every year, I talk about my rankings a week or two before the regular season. Here is a general breakdown of what goes into the rankings.
After completing projections for each player, it’s a matter of putting the projections into league-wide context. That context has two main components: the position of each player, and how far above/below average is the projections from a replacement-level player. Let’s break those down individually.
Positions matter in fantasy; getting a 20-goal point-per-game forward is nice but getting that production from a defenceman is rare and very valuable. When devising rankings, if you’re in a league where players are separated by position (even if it’s just forward/defence), accounting for positional scarcity should be one of the steps taken, so when I determine the overall value of each player, I separate them into positions, and that usually means LW/C/RW/D.
The second part is an extension of the first and it’s figuring out the value of each player in each category above (or below) a replacement-level player. This has a few steps:
- A replacement-level player is effectively someone that is at the bottom of the value ranking of rostered players in a given fantasy league, or one of the top options on the waiver wire. For example, if there are 12 teams in a fantasy league, and each team starts five defencemen, and each team has one spare on the bench, that is 72 defencemen on rosters. In that sense, a replacement-level defenceman is probably around the 65th – 80th ranked blue liner.
- When we’re ranking skaters in a fantasy league, we look back to the previous season to figure out the replacement value in that league. So, if we’re looking at the replacement value for assists from defencemen, we look at the defencemen who finished ranked somewhere between 65th – 80th overall, and what the average assist output for those players is. That means if the 65th – 80th overall defencemen in my fantasy league averaged 20 assists in the 2024-25 season, then that would be the replacement level for assists.
- That process is repeated for each fantasy category in the league and then compared to the projection of replacement-level production. If I have Noah Dobson for 15 goals and 38 assists, and the replacement level for a defenceman in my fantasy league is 6 goals and 20 assists, then it’s a matter of calculating the value above that. That calculation isn’t complex but not necessary to explain right now.
I could go a lot longer, but that’s the general idea. It is figuring out what players are expected to produce in each fantasy category relative to others at their position, how much value they bring in each category, and then comparing across positions. (june20)
8. Question #2 – @Autumn_Voyage_: I’ve heard 0G is the way to go – riding the waiver wire and getting by because ‘lol goalies’ but I swear I’ve lost my last two seasons due to them in my cats league. Is there any evidence going early(ish) goalie can work out better in the long term over a good forward?
Fantasy hockey goalies and people trying not to pull their hair out because of them: name a more iconic duo. Luckily, there was a good write-up on the Zero Goalie fantasy hockey strategy by our own Ryan Brudner. He covered the 2023-24 season last June and I recommend reading that. It is a very thorough breakdown of that strategy.
As for the 2024-25 regular season, I went and dug into this myself. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the fantasy MVPs among goalies from this season and determined that using ADPs. The average ADP between Yahoo, ESPN, and CBS was taken for a group of 45 goalies. (june20)
[Follow the link for more…]9. There was some chatter this week that Dante Fabbro and the Columbus Blue Jackets were closing in on a “four- or five-year contract worth approximately $20 million”. The numbers make sense, as I had penciled Fabbro in at a $4 million cap hit on my cap-league fantasy tem where I own him. As a result, I can also tell you first-hand what a great find he was last year, especially in the stretch run where he totaled 12 points (including five goals) in 20 games (a 50-point full-season pace).
Fabbro was an excellent fit alongside Zach Werenski on the top pair, and it’s not always easy to find someone who meshes well with your number-one defenceman, so Columbus should be locking him up as one of their first priorities this offseason.
Now, Fabbro likely won’t hit the 50-point mark next season, and Werenski might not hit the point-per-game mark again, but the underlying numbers for the pair are all completely reasonable. Fabbro’s shooting percentage is a little high, but only indicating an extra goal or two on the season. Fabbro is also heading into his 400-game breakout year, which is a trend we often see outside of the elite defencemen, so this could be the time for him to shine and hit the 30- and 40-point plateaus for the first time in his career. (june18)
10. After looking at each team’s goaltending situation last week, I wanted to take that one step further and look at 3rd string goalies who could be valuable fantasy assets this year if given an opportunity.
The most likely reason for a third stinger to come in would be because of an injury, as it only takes one mis-step for a goalie to be out for a couple months, and open up a real chance for a young guy to show he has what it takes.
Dennis Hildeby – Toronto Maple Leafs
The Leafs should be a playoff team again next year (changes or not) but the one interesting thing about their goaltending is just how injury prone both Anthony Stolarz and Joseph Woll are. Hildeby turns 24 in October, and is coming off of two fantastic seasons for the Toronto Marlies. Lots of baseline potential for both wins and ratios here if he sees some games.
Drew Commesso – Chicago Blackhawks
Looking at Hildeby’s numbers, and then looking at Commesso’s you see two very similar goalies who might have some similar upside. While Hildeby is closer to the NHL and would have a better team in front of him, Commesso was playing with less support in Rockford, and produced similar numbers to Hildeby despite also being a year younger. (june18)
11. Sebastian Cossa – Detroit Red Wings
Going another year younger, the 22-year-old Cossa also has two excellent years at the AHL level, and Detroit hasn’t had the best track record with goalies over the past year… few years… decade? The spotlight of the present and the future should now be lighting up six-foot-six Cossa who could be the solution to one of Detroit’s biggest instabilities of late. All that’s standing in his way is a 37-year-old Cam Talbot, and a 33-year-old oft-injured Petr Mrazek.
Erik Portillo – Los Angeles Kings
One more goalie with a couple years in the AHL, and lots of potential, the 24-year-old Portillo did take a bit of a step back last year at the AHL level, but stopped 28 of 29 shots in his one NHL start. The Kings have an opening for the backup role at the moment, but it seems more likely that they let Portillo at least start the season at the AHL level rather than gifting him an NHL spot out of training camp. (june18)
12. Jet Greaves – Columbus Blue Jackets
We’re not even sure at this point if Greaves is the number three, but based it off of name value on paper, he slots in there for the time being. When the Jackets had their season on the line a few months ago, Greaves was the one holding down the fort, pitching two shutouts and allowing only four goals through a five-game-in-eight-day stretch to the end of the year. Columbus would have to be crazy not to give him another look at some point this year, contracts be damned.
Cayden Primeau – Montreal Canadiens
As the oldest goalie on the list, and with the most career NHL games, the water is still murky when trying to see what Primeau’s future holds. He really struggled in the NHL last year, putting up a 4.70 GAA in 11 games, but then in the AHL he really found his game, with a GAA under 2.0, and a save percentage of .927. There is some upside, and Jakub Dobes certainly doesn’t have the backup job locked up yet. (june18)
13. One other thought while looking at Winnipeg: It’s tough to bet against Connor Hellebuyck at this point, but he’s now 32 years old, and has played at least three quarters of Winnipeg’s games (60+ in a full season) every year since 2017-18. At some point, he’s going to start to wear down, and they don’t have anyone with real upside in their system. I wonder if that might be a priority for them in the draft this year.
It's also interesting to see that the USA Olympic brass didn’t want to tie their horses to Hellebuyck quite yet, with the reigning Hart and Vezina winner not being named as one of USA’s first six players on the roster. (june18)
14. As teams did for the Four Nations Face-Off, individual countries participating in the men’s ice hockey portion of the 2026 Olympic Games in Italy named their first six roster spots. We won’t dig into every team’s decisions, but there were some notable changes made worth highlighting.
One country that didn’t change anything was Finland, naming the same six players as the Four Nations Cup with Aleksander Barkov, Mikko Rantanen, Sebastian Aho, Miro Heiskanen, Esa Lindell, and Juuse Saros. Sweden, however, did make some changes:
- Victor Hedman and William Nylander are holdovers.
- Removed from the first six names are Erik Karlsson, Gustav Forsling, Filip Forsberg, and Mika Zibanejad.
- Replacing those four names are Rasmus Dahlin, Adrian Kempe, Lucas Raymond, and Gabriel Landeskog.
It isn’t much of a surprise to see Karlsson and Zibanejad not among the first six (and I suspect both will be named to the final roster) with Dahlin and Landeskog replacing them. It is a bit odd that both Forsling and Forsberg aren’t on this list, but they will also be there as long as they’re healthy. This really speaks to the development of Lucas Raymond over the last couple of seasons.
I thought Team Germany had five locks: Philipp Grubauer, Leon Draisaitl, Tim Stutzle, JJ Peterka, and Moritz Seider. Team Germany had other ideas as Peterka was not named among the first six, but Lukas Reichel and Nico Sturm were. Okay then.
No real surprises from Switzerland: Timo Meier, Kevin Fiala, Nico Hischier, Nino Niederreiter, Roman Josi, and Jonas Siegenthaler. That is a pretty good squad so far and with both JJ Moser and Lian Bichsel likely being added to the final roster, the defence group could be solid here with enough scoring punch up front for some upsets.
Czechia named David Pastrnak, Martin Necas, Pavel Zacha, Ondrej Palat, and Radko Gudas as five skaters, with Lukas Dostal in net. I thought Karel Vejmelka might get the nod in goal, but considering the season Dostál just had, it’s tough argue with it.
There was a mix of young players and veterans named to Slovakia with Juraj Slafkovsky, Martin Pospisil, Simon Nemec, and Martin Fehervary named alongside Tomas Tatar and Erik Cernak.
Canada had five of the six same players named at the Four Nations Face-Off also named for the Olympic team: Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Brayden Point, and Cale Makar. The one change was taking off Brad Marchand‘s name and putting Sam Reinhart on. Even with Marchand’s exceptional postseason, this is likely the right decision because Reinhart is going no matter what and at Marchand’s age, it’s worth waiting for the first half of the 2025-26 NHL season to see how he’s holding up.
As with Canada, the United States made one change from its initial six players at the Four Nations Cup, keeping Auston Matthews, Jack Eichel, Matthew Tkachuk, Quinn Hughes, and Charlie McAvoy while swapping out Adam Fox and swapping in Brady Tkachuk. Fox will almost assuredly be there in Italy, so this doesn’t feel like a big deal. (june17)
15. It was a tale of two playoffs for Wyatt Johnston as he had three goals and seven points in seven games against Colorado, followed by one goal and two assists in 11 games from there against Winnipeg and Edmonton, going pointless in nine of those 11 games. We can chalk it up to some bad luck, but he had the lowest individual expected goal rate at 5-on-5 of any of their top-9 forwards. He also had poor tracking numbers as his rate of assists on teammate scoring chances (SCA), his overall scoring chance contributions (SCC), and offence created off the rush were all down significantly from the regular season.
Tracking numbers declining in the playoffs against tougher competition isn’t a surprise – among forwards across the league anywhere within 10% is normal – but these are declines of 35-40%. It was a genuinely poor performance at 5-on-5 for Johnston despite that strong first round. He does have three full seasons under his belt now, though, and is the team’s top centre. It isn’t a concern about his future, but there were genuine reasons why he struggled to produce in the postseason, especially after the Colorado series. (june17)
16. At the opposite end of playoff performances from Johnston is Carolina winger Andrei Svechnikov. At 5-on-5, he led Carolina by goals (4), shots (26), individual expected goals (3.66), and tied Sebastian Aho for points (6). Svechnikov also led the team in overall goals (8) and individual expected goals (8.12). It was a drastic turnaround from what was his worst regular season, from a production standpoint, since his rookie 2018-19 campaign. The good news is there was also good under-the-hood stuff to support his production as he saw a drop in assists on teammate scoring chances (though a 15% decline isn’t unreasonable) but increases in overall chance contributions, and offence both off the rush and cycle/forecheck.
Carolina isn’t in the business of moral victories, but that Svechnikov generally looked so good after such a down year in the regular season has to be a big takeaway. It will be interesting to see where his ADP lands when September rolls around. (june17)
17. With just one assist in eight games, including some healthy scratches, it wasn’t a breakthrough postseason for Ryan Leonard. All that aside, we must point out he finished third among their forwards by shots per minute at 5-on-5, fifth by individual expected goals rate, and he was credited with eight assists on teammate scoring chances. That was as many Andrei Svechnikov, William Karlsson, and Auston Matthews.
It was surprising to see Leonard not rack up a few more points because in my recollections of watching the Capitals (and I did watch all their playoff games), he always seemed to make a couple plays every game that led to a good chance, either for him or his line mates. This is one of those performances that won’t stand out just reading box scores, but I think there is a really, really good player here that showed what he’s going to be capable of not just 3-4 years down the road, but as soon as October. (june17)
18. Colorado isn’t in a position for the franchise to take away moral victories from a first-round loss, but it has to be genuinely heartening just how good Gabriel Landeskog looked once he got back in the lineup. He had four points in five games, saw his ice time increase in each game, boosted the possession numbers of the second line, and didn’t seem to suffer any setbacks. There is a difference between preparing all season just to play five games and preparing for an 82-game regular season schedule, plus the Olympics, plus a hopeful deep playoff run. Landeskog has played five games in the last three years and, assuming an Olympic appearance and a couple rounds in the playoffs, is staring down 100 games in an 8- to 9-month span. How he responds to that remains an open question, but it’s hard to be anything but optimistic about his 2025-26 season given how good he looked in his brief playoff appearance. (june17)
19. Finally, we get to a big decision-making point for the New Jersey Devils. Simon Nemec struggled in the regular season, which is why he was sent to the AHL, but he showed well in the postseason. Or, well enough considering the injuries and returns the team was dealing with. The tracking data was solid, the on-ice differentials (shots and expected goals) were about average for their blue line, and he had a plus-3 goal differential at 5-on-5. Nemec has one year left on his entry-level deal, which would make him a very cheap piece either on the New Jersey blue line or someone else’s. He could be part of this team for the long haul, or he could be dealt for help up front. It was just four games, but I thought Nemec looked more like the guy he was as a rookie rather than as a sophomore. It will be fascinating to see what the team decides to do because if he has another bad year, it would nuke his trade value. On the flipside, if the playoff performance was a glimpse of the improvements to come, he would be a top-pair defenceman for the next decade. Decisions, decisions. (june17)
20. In today’s Ramblings, we’ll discuss players who had disappointing regular seasons, and then we’ll evaluate their bounce-back potential for the upcoming campaign.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen – Buffalo Sabres – G
The 2023-24 campaign was UPL’s first crack at carrying a heavy workload and he excelled, posting a 2.57 GAA and .910 SV% through 54 games. Unfortunately, he couldn’t build on that momentum this season, finishing near the bottom of the league with a 3.20 GAA and .887 SV% through 55 appearances. Now, GAA and SV%, while popular metrics of goaltending in fantasy formats, don’t paint an accurate picture of a goalie’s individual performance because they’re heavily influenced by team defense. To better understand how the team played in front of UPL, we can look at Buffalo’s expected goals against. Both this season and last season, the Sabres ranked bottom-10 in expected goals against per 60, with a rate of 3.17 xGA/60 this year and 3.21 last year (via Natural Stat Trick). The fact that Buffalo’s defense was so bad last year but UPL still managed to post a respectable GAA and SV% highlights his individual talent and the level of play he’s capable of. Reinforcing that idea of strong individual play last year, he posted 22.46 goals saved above expected – ranking sixth in GSAx across the league. This year, his individual play fell off a cliff as he finished with 8.77 goals saved below expected (via Evolving Hockey).
At 26, UPL is pretty young for an NHL goaltender. Young goalies often need time to develop in the big leagues and it’s plausible that this season's struggles represent a learning year, so I’m optimistic UPL can bounce back. He showed in his first season as Buffalo’s starter that he’s capable of playing well over a large sample, even in difficult circumstances where the team in front of him is making his job harder. I think he has the talent to post solid numbers again next year, and there’s room for his situation to improve if the Sabres make moves to get better defensively this summer. The one wild card to watch out for is highly touted Devon Levi, who has put together a couple of strong years in the AHL and may be ready for a 1B role next year. Some goalies appreciate a long string of starts to stay in form but that might not be an option for UPL, who may need to share the net with Levi next season. (june16)
[Follow the link for more…]21. Is Connor Bedard going to be a generational player or “just” a star?
I had Bedard as one of my players that didn’t meet expectations when I was recapping the regular season about a month ago, and I’d have to say that Dobber and I are thinking similarly here.
Bedard hasn’t quite shown himself to be a generational talent in his two seasons, scoring in the 0.8-0.9 PTS/GP range. Over a similar number of games played over the past two seasons, however, Bedard’s point production has been close to the likes of Brady Tkachuk, Tage Thompson, and Rasmus Dahlin. That’s still pretty solid, even if it’s not at the elite level that we hoped.
On top of that, Bedard will just turn 20 in July. In Bedard’s first two seasons, the Blackhawks haven’t surrounded him with a ton of talent, as he is 36 points ahead of the team’s second-leading scorer over his two seasons. The Hawks have $29 million in cap space this offseason, so don’t be surprised if they make a play at a free agent or two to supplement the young talent coming in. That could make Bedard smile a little more next season. (june15)
Have a good week, folks!
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