As Dobber has mentioned on social media, the work has begun in earnest on the 2025-26 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide. He is taking care of projections and a lot of other work, while the writers and editors are contributing to areas like multi-category targets, rising stars, falling values, team-by-team analysis, and a whole lot more. It will be available this month, but can be ordered as part of the Dobber Hockey Keeper League pack available now in the Dobber Shop!

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Heading into Week 2 of the official offseason, there were three key RFA names worth keeping an eye on: Bowen Byram, Mason McTavish, and Cam York. While the risk of offer sheets and all that has started to settle down a bit, the question is whether their respective teams would be giving their players bridge deals or extending them long-term. For York and the Philadelphia Flyers, the answer lay somewhere in between:

Hearing Cam York extension in Philadelphia

5 x $5.15M

Good piece of business done

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) July 7, 2025

York is coming off a very poor fantasy season with just 17 points in 66 games. He also saw his ice time nerfed by losing nearly two full minutes per game. Maybe things will turn around with a new coach in town, but he doesn't shoot, he doesn't hit, and he doesn't rack up points. There is not a lot here fantasy-wise unless he somehow snakes some top PP time.

Carolina Hurricanes

Carolina added one impact defenceman with K'Andre Miller and one impact forward in Nikolaj Ehlers. The fantasy impact of the Miller trade can be found here and the fantasy impact of the Ehlers signing here.

Even with a trip to the Conference Finals, it's easy to forget that around this time last year, Carolina seemed headed for a step back. They were coming off three straight seasons with over 110 regular season points while advancing at least to the second round in each campaign. But they lost Jake Guentzel, Stefan Noesen, and Teuvo Teravainen up front and Brady Skjei and Brett Pesce on the blue line. The Hurricanes have re-loaded since then, including Sean Walker, Shayne Gostisbehere, Taylor Hall, Logan Stankoven, and Tyson Jost. Add Miller and Ehlers, plus the emerging Jackson Blake and Alexander Nikishin, and this team is starting to resemble the squad from 2021-2024 that averaged 113 points a year.   

The big question is how all those wingers fit in, because there is a lot of talent on the flanks but only so many roster spots. A friend mused to me wondering if we don't see one of Seth Jarvis or Stankoven get a crack at being a middle-6 centre. Either way, this team just went to the Conference Final and added a bona fide top-line scoring winger and a top-4 defenceman whose overall performance should improve now that he's out of a New York Rangers organization that had a Defence: Optional mantra. Things are looking up.

Anaheim Ducks

Trevor Zegras was sent to Philadelphia (fantasy take here) and John Gibson to Detroit (fantasy take here), while Chris Kreider (fantasy take here), Mikael Granlund (fantasy take here), Ryan Poehling, and Petr Mrazek were all added. Assuming McTavish is on the roster again – and that's not a certainty – their top three lines are set. If Olen Zellweger is the number-4 defenceman, their top two blue-line pairs are set as well.

I mentioned it on Twitter last week, but I think this is the season Anaheim takes the big step forward offensively. Using data from AllThreeZones, the team's 60-minute rate of scoring chance contributions (all individual chances and all assists on teammate scoring chances) at 5-on-5 has increased each of the last two seasons after bottoming out in 2022-23:

Teams that saw increases in both the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons include Detroit, Montreal, Edmonton, Nashville, Philadelphia, and Arizona (now Utah).  In 2023-24, those six teams averaged a 5-on-5 goal-scoring jump of 7.4% compared to their performance across 2021-22 and 2022-23. That is especially impressive when considering the league saw the 5-on-5 goal-scoring rate drop by 2.4%. If we take out those six teams, the decline is even larger. It isn't a guarantee that Anaheim has a big scoring increase, and they still need to figure out the power play, but the offseason additions of Kreider and Granlund, with more growth from their young core, might see the team add a lot of goals in 2025-26.

Montreal Canadiens

Montreal started addressing the right side of their blue line by adding Alexandre Carrier just before Christmas last year. They couldn't keep waiting for David Reinbacher to be ready, and the perfect chance for them to snag a top-pair right-handed defenceman came along so they traded for Noah Dobson and subsequently signed him to an eight-year deal with a $9.5M cap hit. Then they traded prospect defenceman Logan Mailloux for Zachary Bolduc, and signed Sammy Blais. Blais is just fourth-line depth, but Dobson should make a big impact, and Bolduc looks to be the heir-apparent to Brendan Gallagher.

While those are all great additions, what might be the biggest impact for Montreal is a healthy Kirby Dach. He had a poor season in 2024-25 before requiring knee surgery, a concern considering he missed nearly all of 2023-24 with a torn ACL and MCL. As for this past season, it's a wonder how much his knee had actually recovered as his skating metrics from NHL Edge show a big decrease in speed bursts and top speed compared to 2022-23 (black line is this past season, grey line is 2022-23):

That he's coming off another knee surgery leaves a big question mark here. If he can come back, play 75 games, and be the guy he was in 2022-23 for Montreal, he likely has a bigger impact than any of the offseason additions. If he can't, this team has a glaring hole in the second-line centre role.  

Los Angeles Kings

The Ken Holland era is here and the first thing he did was alter the blue line, which is an interesting choice considering the Kings finished with the second-fewest goals against in 2024-25 after giving up the third-fewest in 2023-24. Given the quick playoff exits, though, maybe there's a method to this madness.

Gone are Vladislav Gavrikov and Jordan Spence, and in come Cody Ceci and Brian Dumoulin. I will be honest: I do not get why general managers love Ceci so much. Among the six regular Edmonton blue liners in Ceci's three years with the Oilers, he ranked last by 5-on-5 actual goals for/against differential per 60 minutes relative to his teammates, and next-to-last by expected goals for/against differential per 60 minutes:

The actual goals for/against portion got a lot better in 2024-25, but he did that with a 1.028 PDO, or combined save and shooting percentage at 5-on-5. That was the highest mark of his career for any 82-game season. Additionally, and you're not going to believe this, but that career mark of 1.028 in the regular season crashed to .977 in the playoffs and Dallas got obliterated with him on the ice (8 goals for, 16 goals against). Considering he's the Spence replacement, and Spence was 1^st and 2^nd among Kings defencemen over the last three years by the two team-relative measures mentioned earlier, this could go south very fast.

Toronto Maple Leafs

We have to include Mitch Marner here, and while we could relate this to Vegas, and his addition there is critical, it is the Toronto side that is interesting because of the cascading effect on the lineup. Brennan had his take on the trade/signing here.

With Marner gone, and Toronto having used a five-forward power play so much after American Thanksgiving last year, it's a wonder what it does to that power play unit. Do they add someone like Matias Maccelli or Max Domi to replace the playmaking, or do they put Morgan Rielly back on the blue line? Does Maccelli go to skate with Auston Matthews at 5-on-5, or do they move William Nylander up? Is Nicolas Roy now the locked-in third-line centre?

Maccelli is the interesting guy here. He is coming off a down year, but from 2022-2024, he was one of the best playmakers in the NHL. It isn't hyperbole, either, as he managed 0.57 assists for every goal Arizona scored with him on the ice at 5-on-5. That led the league's forwards (minimum 1650 minutes, or roughly a top-6 role), and here's the top-5:

Obviously, that fell off in 2024-25 and it's partly why he was traded. But with Marner gone, and Maccelli a clear option to replace him next to Matthews, there's a huge opportunity here. While the Marner trade signals the end of the Core Four era, colour me intrigued to how this team fares with Knies a year older and Maccelli looking for something to prove.