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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The 2025-26 Fantasy Guide is now available for download! Projections by team and by point totals, sleepers, drafted players, rookies, goalies, advanced stats, and much more!

As for the French-language version of the Guide, it can be purchased here.

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1. Speaking of the Fantasy Guide, I want to close out today’s Ramblings by going through some things that stuck out to me in the Guide. This is to give everyone a little preview of what they will get if they purchase a copy of the Guide out of the Dobber Shop.

Pavel Dorofeyev (Vegas Golden Knights)

One of my columns in the 2025-26 Fantasy Guide was players with stock drops for the upcoming season. They can be guys with red flags for regression, or maybe their team context has changed, or a host of other issues. One of the names is Dorofeyev and it’s because of the addition of Mitch Marner. Here is part of what I wrote:

“With Jack Eichel, Mark Stone and Shea Theodore already in place, that leaves just one spot for Dorofeyev or Tomáš Hertl. Hertl plays centre…”

That Hertl is a left-handed centre to complement Eichel’s right-handedness is what makes me think Hertl has the inside track for top PP minutes. Last year, Dorofeyev had 13 goals and 58 shots on the power play, earning nearly 60% of the team’s PPTOI. If he’s dropped to the second unit, those numbers could easily cut in half. The Guide has Dorofeyev finishing with 31 goals, and fantasy managers should be happy if he can get to 30 goals again. (aug1)

2. Matthew Knies (Toronto Maple Leafs)

In the 2025-25 Fantsay Guide, Rick Roos wrote about outliers from last year. One name that was brought up is Matthew Knies, being one of nine players to score at least 25 goals (he had 29) on fewer than 2.0 shots per game (he was at 1.95). The 2025-26 Fantasy Guide has his projection for 28 goals and 60 points in 79 games, very close to what he did in 2024-25.

I will be honest: I am not overly concerned about Knies seeing a production drop with Marner going to Vegas, and that is what the goal and point projections say, too. For a bit of evidence, let’s turn to data from Natural Stat Trick… (aug1)

[Follow the link for more…]

3. The Calgary Flames extended forward Martin Pospisil for three years at an average annual value of $2.5M. Pospisil has one year left on his current deal with a $1M cap hit, per PuckPedia, and has 12 goals, 37 assists, 231 shots, 193 PIMs, 48 blocks, and 549 hits in 144 career NHL games. Over the last two seasons, he is top-10 among regular forwards (at least 1250 total minutes) by penalty minutes and hits per hour of ice time. Overall, he is sixth in total PIMs and fourth in total hits.

The first question for Pospisil is where he’ll play because he played both wing and centre last year: in his first 20 games of the season, he had 113 faceoffs taken, or about 5.7 per game, but took just 61 faceoffs over the next 61 games. If the team decides to try him at centre again, it’s not good news because they have Nazem Kadri and Mikael Backlund locked into roles ahead of Pospisil, and probably Morgan Frost, too. It would leave Pospisil as the fourth-line centre, and Calgary’s fourth line generally earned under 10 minutes a game last season.

If Pospisil plays the wing, then it’s a different story. Names like Jonathan Huberdeau, Blake Coleman, and Matt Coronato will be ahead of him but once we get to wingers like Yegor Sharangovich and Joel Farabee, it is more wide open. There would be a decent chance that Pospisil would earn middle-6 minutes as a winger, and that would mean 2-3 more minutes a game than as a fourth-line centre.  (aug1)

[Follow the link for the complete analysis…]

4. Buffalo signed goalie Devon Levi to a two-year deal with an AAV a little over $800K. It is nice to get him under contract, but with Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen signed for four more years and Alex Lyon signed a month ago to a two-year deal to be his backup, Levi might be headed back to the AHL for the bulk of the upcoming season, so the fantasy value remains marginal here. The Fantasy Guide has him appearing in just 10 games for the 2025-26 campaign.  (aug1)

5. 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.

6. 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: (july31)

[Follow the link for the complete analysis…]

7. One oversight from my articles in the 2025 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide was not including Matej Blumel in the One-Way contracts section, as he is on a one-way deal this year, which marks the first time in his career that he has that kind of contract certainty, after three years on two-way deals. I overlooked him because I, A) wasn’t familiar with him and his trajectory, having lit up the AHL last year, and B) didn’t pay attention to him as someone who I thought was likely to get lost in the shuffle in Boston with their 15 one-way contracts, in addition to also looking to find spots for Matthew Poitras and Fraser Minten.

Blumel could certainly come in to win a top-six, or even a top-nine spot this year, which could put him within shooting range of a very fantasy-relevant season. The god thing about the guide, is that where I got to highlight some other names, there was another writer who highlighted Blumel in his section, and Dobber had properly accounted for him in the Bruins section.

It's a great part about how Dobber runs things around here, by allowing the insights and preferences of different writers to be expressed without being filtered or altered, meaning that you get multiple insights on the same player, allowing you to make the best and most informed decisions you can for your fantasy teams.  (july30)

8. An interesting thing I noted from the guide was just how many teams seem to have at least 15 possible forwards that might make sense to make up a top-12 with. The Islanders, Bruins, Canadiens, Kings, Blue Jackets, Hurricanes, Sabres, Jets, Maple Leafs, Blues, Sharks (?!), and Penguins make up a dozen teams that have at least 15 forwards that no one would bat an eye with them making the opening day lineup. It makes the camp battles all the more interesting an important, and should put you on your toes to manage your rosters around those teams.

On the flip side, you have the teams like the Predators, Avalanche, and Blackhawks who barely even have 12 forwards that make sense to open the season with the club. There’s a few dark horse rookies that we could see from those teams, be it one of Matthew Wood or Joakim Kemell on the Predators, Zakhar Bardakov or Gavin Brindley on the Avalanche, or one of Oliver Moore or Lukas Reichel earning a full time spot in the Chicago top-six.

It also makes me believe a little more that the Predators might be eyeing Marco Rossi as the solution to their hole at center. If Minnesota doesn’t appreciate him, then someone will. Colorado has been looking for centers too, but they don’t have the assets to put together a package for Rossi like the Predators or Blackhawks could.  (july30)

9. I’m a big fan of what Carolina is doing with their contracts lately with the rising cap and impending legal agreement guiding their decisions. They’re getting all their young guys locked in for eight years while they still can, using the loophole for the reduced cap hit thanks to deferred money while it’s still available.

Best of all though, while their core ages into and through their prime, the cap is going to keep going up, perhaps exponentially. Five years from now they're going to be a juggernaut because they have so much more cap space than everyone else, and a solid prospect system injecting some new young players into their system every year to boot. If I had to bet on one team to win multiple cups before 2035, it’s the Canes.

10. At the moment, the Canes' system doesn’t lend itself exceptionally well to fantasy stars though, as a point-per-game season is almost the limit of what we have seen from any of them over the last handful of years. Even 90 points from one of Nikolaj Ehlers or Sebastian Aho in the next couple seasons seems like it would be a bit of an outlier.

There are tons of fantasy relevant players on their team, as they run at least nine names deep with scoring forwards, and have multiple defensemen worth rostering too, on top of two worthy 1A goalies.

K’Andre Miller is also set for another step forward, and if he can grow into that role of the top-pair defenceman, then he could be the fantasy D-man to own there. Shayne Gostisbehere is still going to run the top power play unit, but the Canes also have enough firepower to run a solid second unit, meaning there could be two or three defencemen racking up power play points.

In fantasy, the more that you can build for a bigger contention window like this, the better. Targeting players that line up with the rest of your core, instead of getting tunnel vision for players that might only help you for the current year. It sounds simple, but it’s a mistake I’ve made multiple times in the past. Easier said than done.  (july30)

11. Last weekend, there was a trio of players who signed two-year contract extensions with their current team, all of whom were supposed to have arbitration hearings this week, so let’s look at each of them.  

Maxim Tsyplakov (New York Islanders)

It was a successful rookie season for Tsyplakov as he finished with 10 goals, 25 assists, 39 penalty minutes, 40 blocks, and 140 hits. That is pretty good across-the-board fantasy coverage for someone skating under 15 minutes a game on a below-average offensive roster and finishing ninth among his team’s forwards in share of power-play ice time. Per Evolving Hockey, he also had extremely strong play-driving metrics, though actual goal-scoring and goal prevention didn’t live up to those strong metrics.

Not living up to metrics was kind of a calling card for Tsyplakov’s season. To illustrate this, here are Tsyplakov’s comparables across the league by assist rate and individual expected goal rate at 5-on-5: (july29)

[Follow the link for more…]

12. In this week's Ramblings, we’ll find one player on each team who should provide sneaky fantasy value this year, outperforming their fantasy draft positions. Let’s get right into it!

Anaheim Ducks – Leo Carlsson

Drafted second overall in 2023, Carlsson’s NHL impact looks modest so far if you’re looking at overall production. He posted a 43-point pace in year one and a 47-point pace in year two. However, a closer look reveals that he took off down the stretch of his sophomore campaign, racking up 29 points in his final 31 games, setting the stage for another step forward in year three. (july28)

13. Boston Bruins – Jeremy Swayman

Three years of excellence went out the window when Swayman struggled in his first year as Boston’s clear-cut starter. His 3.11 GAA and .892 SV% sent his fantasy value down the drain, but those stats were dampened by lengthy absences from Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm. I’m hopeful the talented young netminder can bounce back behind a healthy and formidable Bruins blueline this year. (july28)

14. Buffalo Sabres – Jack Quinn

JJ Peterka‘s departure gives Quinn a path to top-six/top power-play deployment, but he’ll need to earn that ice time with better play at both ends of the ice. He showed he was capable offensively with 15 points in his final 16 appearances last year, but will need to take strides defensively if he’s going to be trusted with more than the 15 minutes he averaged last season. (july28)

15. Calgary Flames – Matt Coronato

The 22-year-old forward had an excellent end to last season, closing out the campaign with a seven-game point streak. His deployment was modest at first, but he earned a prominent role with strong play. He was up to 18 and a half minutes a night during his final 33 appearances, where he racked up 23 points. Continued top-six/top power-play production should help him provide value again this year, especially in fantasy leagues that track shots. Honourable mention goes to Zayne Parekh, who has the individual talent to make an instant impact in the NHL, but lacks clarity in potential deployment. (july28)

16. Carolina Hurricanes – Andrei Svechnikov

After posting a 70-point pace for three-straight seasons, Svechnikov’s fantasy stock took a hit after last year’s underwhelming 55-point pace. Fantasy managers were already wary of his injury history, but last year’s dip in production may cause him to fall in drafts this year. While those concerns are justified, I can’t pass on his elite talent and favourable deployment – which are now available at a discounted rate. (july28)

[Follow the link for Brennan's full team-by-team roundup]

17. The three topics I wrote about specifically for the fantasy guide were injuries, goalies, and contract year for each team. I shared some of my observations regarding injuries and goalies in earlier Ramblings, specifically on Injury Lists and Band-Aid Boys by Team and The Five Most Interesting Goalie Situations. Today I’ll shift over to contract year and focus on some expiring contracts of note.

One of the many topics provided in the guide is identifying players with expiring contracts by team, both RFA and UFA. Two reasons we provide this information:

• Players in a “contract year” have additional incentive to perform. That’s not to suggest that a player locked up to a lucrative long-term deal will ease off the gas pedal, but both livelihood and legacy are at stake when a player is without a contract for next season. For a younger player, it’s a chance to earn a sizable raise on a current entry-level contract. For an older veteran, it may simply be about earning at least one more NHL contract. That incentive may lead to better results, but it could also put pressure on the player.
  
• Salary cap leaguers need to be aware because a potential raise for the player could affect keeper decisions. Just like the real NHL, salary cap fantasy leaguers benefit from players who are well outperforming their salary. But players won’t play on bargain contracts over the long term – they will need to be paid at an annual salary that reflects their ability. Fantasy league rules may also factor into who can be kept and who cannot, but knowing which contracts are about to expire can help you plan ahead for next season. For example, I’ve learned firsthand that salary cap leaguers may decide to shop players whose salaries are about to increase (I’ve been on the receiving end of trades like this recently). 

For a list of expiring contracts, go to the Upcoming RFAs and Upcoming UFAs report on Frozen Tools. These reports just list the players on expiring contracts and their stats, listed according to whether their contract status of their next contract is RFA or UFA.

I don’t have information on how a player typically performs in a contract year, but that research might be out there somewhere. (aug2)

18. Here are what I believe are the most significant projected 2026 UFAs, the latest information on contract discussions, and what their chances might be of returning to their existing clubs next season. Of course, their fantasy value could change with a move to a new team, so this bears watching. Because of the new CBA, all of these players could sign an eight-year contract if they re-sign this season, but the number could drop to six years if they sign as free agents elsewhere next summer.

SHOULD RE-SIGN

Connor McDavid

Yeah, let’s start there. In an interview, GM Stan Bowman admitted that he has no timeline for a McDavid extension and wanted to give him space, but he expects to have conversations soon. No need to panic, Oilers fans. There’s plenty of offseason left. Four years seems to be a more likely timeframe for a new extension as opposed to 7-8 years, as the shorter term makes it more ideal for teams to pay for future performance than past performance when a player is in his prime. Perhaps it’s surprising that McDavid doesn’t receive the maximum term anyway, but McDavid is already 28. I doubt that McDavid gets to free agency next July 1, but anything is possible if Wayne Gretzky switched teams while he was still in his 20s. Leon Draisaitl now earns $14 million per season, and I’d expect McDavid to receive even more. (aug2)

[Follow the link for more…]

LESS CERTAIN

Artemi Panarin

At age 33, Panarin is older than the names listed above, so his situation probably carries less certainty. As of early July, Rangers GM Chris Drury would not comment on whether he and Panarin have had extension talks. Panarin’s seven-year contract signed in 2019 has turned out as well as any free agent contract could, considering the number of regrettable financial decisions teams make on July 1. That doesn’t mean the Rangers will sign him a second time, although filling the shoes of their 2024-25 leading scorer would be a monumental task. (aug2)

[Follow the link for more…]

19. 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. (july31)

20. 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. (july31)

[Follow the link for more…]

21. In one of my fantasy leagues I accepted a trade a month ago that was an interesting swap of some players who present fascinating case studies.

The deal was processed in my 24-team cap-league dynasty, and included my Jakob Chychrun and Jonathan Marchessault being moved out in exchange for his Jonathan Drouin and Morgan Rielly. Take a second here to see if you settle on which side you would prefer in the exchange. (july30)

[Follow the link for more…]

Have a good week, folks!

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