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The Winnipeg Jets cleared one of their two remaining RFAs by signing defenceman Dylan Samberg to a three-year contract carrying an average annual value of $5.75M, per Elliotte Friedman (Rasmus Kupari remains to be extended). Samberg saw a huge jump in responsibility this past season, going from 15:38 in TOI per game in 2023-24 to 21:08 per game in 2024-25. The Jets were excellent in his minutes, too, outscoring the opposition 69-38 when he was on the ice at even strength. That means Winnipeg scored nearly 65% of all even-strength goals when he was on the ice, which led the team (Dylan DeMelo was next-closest at 60.8%). Over the last two seasons, Samberg is in the top-50 defencemen by goal differential relative to teammates at even strength, per Evolving Hockey.

This is one of those contracts, and players, that will be much better in real life than in fantasy hockey. As long as Josh Morrissey is healthy, he will be the go-to guy on the blue line and on the top power-play unit. Aside from Morrissey, Neal Pionk has been the clear second option for the second PP unit in each of the last two years, at least relative to Samberg. That means even if Morrissey were to be injured for an extended period, it would be Pionk getting the top PP time. After all that is considered, Dylan DeMelo has been attached at the hip with Morrissey on the top even-strength pair for years now.

All this can change, but it seems likely Samberg is again heading for second-pair even strength time, minimal PP time unless there's a lengthy key injury, but with a good amount of short-handed time. He doesn't hit much and is not a huge volume shooter. He can rack up blocks because of that penalty kill role, and maybe he pushes for 30 points if he stays healthy, but a 30-point defenceman who puts up around 1.5 shots and 1.0 hits per game just isn't worth a whole lot to fantasy managers.

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It was interesting to see Jayden Struble get a two-year deal from Montreal. This gives them seven defencemen for this year at least, and five of them are left-handed. Someone like Kaiden Guhle is likely to play on their off-side, but it means that the seventh defenceman is going to be some kind of rotation between Struble and Arber Xhekaj.

As with Samberg, this is a signing that, if it works out for Struble, will have a lot more real-life impact than fantasy impact. He did have a pretty good season in 2024-25, as Evolving Hockey had him with the best defensive impacts on Montreal's blue line by both expected goals against and actual goals against. In fairness, he did do that in the most sheltered role of any regular Montreal blue liner:

By the same token, being able to drive the play in a sheltered role is one more thing that can help goaltender Samuel Montembeault. Both Xhekaj and David Savard struggled in this regard, so if the third pair can create positive differentials, it'll help their goalie's numbers, which we care about as fantasy managers.

The other aspect of this is how well Struble played with Lane Hutson. Not only were Hutson's actual goal share and expected goal share rates better with Struble than any of his other three regular partners (Savard, Guhle, Mike Matheson), but the defensive numbers by goals against, shots against, and expected goals against per 60 minutes were all better (and in some cases way better) with Struble than any of those other three:

This was a drum beat by Marc Dumont of Montreal Hockey Now during the season, and he wrote about it recently as well. A 324-minute sample from one season doesn't guarantee future results, but it's something that Montreal's coaching staff will be aware of. If that pairing can replicate that play, it gets two birds stoned at once by figuring out who should be in the lineup between Struble and Xhekaj while also taking care of the lefty-lefty pairing the team will need to employ every game.

This section may be a little long for a guy who will likely play third-pair minutes on a bubble playoff team, but if the Struble-Hutson pairing can excel again, not only does it help the goalie's ratios but helps the forwards offensively. If the Guhle-Alexandre Carrier pairing can pick up where they left off as well, it gives the team two pairs that can drive positive results, and that's good news for the rest of the roster.

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The last couple weeks of these Ramblings have been discussing an approach to projecting players for the upcoming season. We are taking a break from that today, but the recent Ramblings covered projecting goalies, and there are links to all the previous articles covering projections.

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We are taking a break from the projections talk for one reason, and that's to talk Best Ball.

Fantasy leagues come in all shapes and sizes, and one type of league that has been getting more popular over the last five years or so is Best Ball. For anyone unfamiliar with Best Ball formats, this is the basic gist:

• Best Ball formats are effectively draft-only formats. Owners in a league will draft their team before the season starts and then sit back and watch the carnage unfold. There are no manual changes to the lineup, there are no trades, and there is no waiver wire.
• The system is usually a points system. For example, goals might be worth 6 points, assists worth 3 points, shots worth 1 point, blocks and hits worth 0.5 points, or something similar. 
• Best Ball formats are decided in different ways depending on the site, but one popular type is a weekly league. A manager's roster plays their games in a given week and the best scores at each position are counted for that week. So, if you have three centres, the score from the best-performing centre is counted for the week, and the same is done in the remaining positions.
• Because there are no roster moves, the size of the roster is usually much larger than the number of players with counting scores on a weekly basis. For example, a manager might have five or six defencemen on a roster, but the top one or top two scores would count for a given week. It isn't unusual to have, say, 15 skaters on a roster and only have 5-6 of them count each week.
• Scores are accumulated each week until the end of the season.

Best Ball leagues can run for the entire NHL regular season or be a head-to-head format where the fantasy regular season ends in late February/early March and the top four or six scores advance to the fantasy playoffs.

There are a couple reasons why these leagues are appealing, and the lack of roster moves is one of them. There is no concern about having to change lineups every Monday or Thursday, and no fighting over replacements on the waiver wire.

The other reason it is appealing is that it's good practice for other drafts. It can give you a feel for where players are being drafted, what kinds of stacks are possible, and how ADPs change over the coming weeks and months. Doing one of these drafts every couple weeks helps stay on top of shifting player values and solidify draft strategies.

FanTrax is one place that has Best Ball leagues, though theirs aren't posted yet. Another place to do them is on Underdog Fantasy. They have their first contest up right now, which is $15 USD per entry with a $200K prize pool. Dobber Hockey is not affiliated with Underdog in any way, it is just a site I like to use for this format.

There are strategies to employ in this kind of format, and I thought I'd share a couple notable things while using Alex's schedule planner from the 2025-26 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide.

Vegas Golden Knights

Over the final 24 days of the regular season, there are eight teams tied for the fewest games played with 11. One of them is Vegas, but there are two things that separate them from some of the others:

1. Assuming they are a playoff team, they might be resting players. There are other 11-game teams like the Buffalo Sabres and the New York Islanders that may not have to worry about this (sorry, Sabres and Islanders fans), but Vegas likely will.
2. Vegas has zero back-to-back games in this span. Sometimes, we like to handcuff our starting goalie, or even grab a backup to try and sneak a start here and there, but that may not be the case for Vegas over the last few weeks of the regular season.

The flipside is that fantasy managers will get more games from Vegas earlier in the season, and that can help get them to the fantasy playoffs, but the fantasy roster may run out of steam when things matter most.

San Jose Sharks

The Sharks have the most games over the final 24 days with 14. That is a double-edged sword because yes, the Sharks are probably going to be a bad team again, but they may only have one top-100 fantasy pick in Macklin Celebrini. If the top of the Sharks' lineup – Celebrini, Tyler Toffoli, William Eklund – can be productive this year, they can be a league-winning stack in the championship weeks. Then again, if they have a down year, a 14-game schedule probably won't matter much. Such is the nature of stacking bad teams.