Just a heads up that next week is Bubble Keeper Week here at Dobber Hockey. It is that time of year where we discuss those end-of-the-roster keeper questions that keeper league fantasy hockey owners make every year. We aren't interested in 'Do I keep Jason Robertson or Seth Jarvis?' and more interested in decisions like 'Do I keep Sean Couturier or Gabriel Landeskog?' or 'Do I keep Jamie Drysdale or Pavel Mintyukov?' If anyone needs help with those decisions, leave a comment below or reach out to me on Twitter here or on BlueSky here.

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And for those looking for way more relevant keeper league information, head on over to the Dobber Shop and grab the Dobber Keeper Pack! It includes both the 2025-26 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide and the 2025 Prospects Report, and those guides will provide a lot more information than we can in a 200-word answer.

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In yesterday's Ramblings, I wrote about my first best ball draft of the season, which I did last weekend. In that draft, only five defencemen were taken in the first four rounds, with Zach Werenski in the second round. It is a function of the format (only one defenceman counts towards weekly scoring, though more may count in the utility slots) but it got me thinking: If we wait for defencemen, how can we find the next Zach Werenski?

My reason for being very high on Werenski last year (he was my most-drafted defenceman and second-most drafted player overall) was that he had years of great even-strength production, but had some injury issues, and Columbus often had a terrible power play. If he could be healthy and the Columbus power play wasn't terrible, he could be a fantasy monster. So, if we apply some of the same logic, who stands out as being a defenceman that can be drafted in the later rounds and finish as a top-5 blue liner?

To do this, we're going to look for several parameters:

1. A top-pair points rate at even strength over the last three seasons, which is at least 1.0 points per 60 minutes.
2. A top-pair shot attempt rate at even strength over the last three seasons, which is at least 10.6 attempts per 60 minutes.
3. When looking at the list of qualified defencemen by points and shot attempts, is above average by one of hits per 60 minutes (3.45) or blocks per 60 minutes (4.15).
4. Is going to get top power-play time.
5. Is under 33 years old because The Athletic's aging curve has defencemen heavily declining on offence after the age of 32.
6. Is going to get number-1 minutes, or at least 23:00 per game.

If we take just the first three qualifiers – rate of points, shot attempts, and hits or blocks – and take off the injured players (Torey Krug, Alex Pietrangelo), we get 24 names:

Now we have to consider the power-play role, so let's start eliminating defencemen:

• Darnell Nurse, Mattias Ekholm, and Jake Walman are all playing on a team with Evan Bouchard, so they're gone.
• Josh Manson is in Colorado, so he's off the list.
• Thomas Chabot and Jordan Spence are in Ottawa, so they can be removed.
• Michael Kesselring (Buffalo) and Mike Matheson (Montreal) have multiple defencemen ahead of them for power-play time, so they're gone.
• Filip Hronek (Vancouver) and Neal Pionk) have high-end options ahead of them, so they can be de-listed.
• MacKenzie Weegar, Rasmus Dahlin, Victor Hedman, and Roman Josi are likely all going to be top-10 defencemen by ADP, so they're out as well.

This leaves us with a list of 10 defencemen:

Now we get to the age-discrimination portion. Excluding players older than 32 years old for the 2025-26 season means removing Dmitry Orlov, John Carlson, Justin Faulk, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Sorry, I don't make the rules (I do). That gets us down to six defencemen:

As for our final parameter of total ice time per game, we can take off Jakob Chyhcrun. He doesn't kill penalties anymore, which hurts his block rate anyway, and Washington spreads out ice time among their defencemen; Chychrun led the Capitals in share of EVTOI per game (36.2%) but it tied him for 58^th among defencemen in the league. True number-1 options are around 38%.

We can probably take off Noah Dobson. Lane Hutson is the top PP option and while I think Montreal may move to more of a split PPTOI setup, Dobson also doesn't PK much and probably won't be their most-used defenceman at even strength. He likely takes the Matheson role from last year without the short-handed ice time, which means around 22 minutes a game.

That gets us down to four defencemen, and I'm going to sort them in the order I would draft them in (for now – my projections won't be done for a few weeks):

Let's talk about each option.

Thomas Harley (Dallas Stars)

There are two things that worry me about Harley:

1. He skated 22:11 per game last year in the first half. His big ice time boost came when Miro Heiskanen was injured.
2. How Dallas runs their power play.

Harley got lots of top PP time in the second half last season because of Heiskanen's injury, but up until the injury, Heiskanen was earning just under 70% of the team's power-play time. While I do think Harley starts the season on the top PP unit, Dallas ran a 60/40 split between PP1 and PP2 last year. Top PP minutes in Dallas isn't the same as top PP minutes in Colorado or Tampa Bay. They do have a new coach, so maybe things change, but it is a concern.

To leave no ambiguity: I think Harley is one of the best offensive defencemen in the game right now and Dallas should again be a top-10, if not top-5, offence in the league. In nine months' time, it wouldn't be the least bit surprising to see him finish with 20 goals, 50 assists, 220 shots, 120 blocks, and 50 hits. There just a little uncertainty in his overall role, but it's also why he's being drafted outside the top-15 defencemen right now on Underdog Fantasy.

Mikhail Sergachev (Utah Mammoth)

Along with Werenski, this was another defenceman I was high on last season, and it worked out reasonably well. Sergachev's 2024-25 season was covered briefly in yesterday's Ramblings with the main point being he had a 53-point effort and did it with his lowest Individual Points Percentage (IPP, or rate at which he earned a point when Utah scored with him on the ice) in six years.

Sergachev was also very involved offensively. Using 5-on-5 tracking data from AllThreeZones, here is who he compared to by rate of scoring chance contributions (individual chances plus assists on teammate scoring chances) and rate of shots and assists off both the rush and cycle:

Utah is a growing team that finished 21^st overall by goals per 60 minutes last year. With further improvements from Dylan Guenther and Logan Cooley, in addition to the JJ Peterka trade, it seems very plausible they are a fringe top-10 scoring team, landing somewhere in the 10-15 range. That (hopefully) improved scoring, along with Sergachev's positive IPP regression, would make him a 70-point threat.

The question is ice time. While Sergachev earned over 25 minutes a game last year, Sean Durzi and John Marino were injured for over half the year and combined for 65 games played. Up until the Four Nations Cup break, Sergachev skated 26:44 per game. Once Durzi and Marino returned after that break, Sergachev fell to 24:52 per game. They signed Nate Schmidt and have a few prospects to consider. I still have Sergachev for well over 23 minutes a game, but if everyone is healthy, he isn't flirting with 26 a night.

Morgan Rielly (Toronto Maple Leafs)

From 2021-2024, Rielly averaged 63 points every 82 games, but he did that while earning 23 PP points every 82 games. He lost the top PP role for long stretches of the 2024-25 season and that led to his lowest PP point output (14) in any season he played at least 60 games since 2017.

With all that said, Mitch Marner is gone and there is no clear replacement for him in a five-forward PP setup. Maybe they try Max Domi or Mattias Maccelli at different times, but my guess for now is that they start with Rielly on the top PP unit. Whether he holds onto that role is another matter entirely. He is also pushing the upper limit of our age range, turning 32 years old in March.

The big issue outside of the top PP role is Toronto spreading the ice time. He has a similar issue to Jakob Chychrun: Rielly led Leafs defencemen by share of EVTOI last season (37.5%), but Jake McCabe (36.5%) and OEL (36%) weren't far behind. After the team acquired Brandon Carlo, Rielly fell to 37.1%.

Right now, Rielly is going as the 26^th defenceman off the board by Underdog Fantasy's ADP. If he can be a 50-point, 150-shot, 130-block defenceman, that ADP is fine. There is upside beyond it, but things really have to fall in place for him to be the near-70-point guy he was in 2021-22.

Brandon Montour (Seattle Kraken)

It is funny that Montour is last on our list because in 2022-23 he did what Werenski did in 2024-25. In that sense, we know that Montour has the ability in his toolbelt.

The reason Montour is last on our list is his team. Seattle has never finished higher than 20^th by PP goals per 60 minutes in any season, landing 25^th last year. They are also 17^th by PP opportunities per game over the last two seasons. The final problem is splitting power-play time as he and Vince Dunn both skated between 2:20 and 2:30 per game with the man advantage. Montour is one of their two PP options on the blue line, but a PPTOI split on a team that is, at best, average at drawing power plays and doesn't score very often on those chances caps the upside. In fact, no Seattle Kraken defenceman has managed 20 PP points in a season (Dunn came closest with 16 in 2023-24). Seven defenceman last year reached 65 total points and none did it with fewer than 20 PP points, and only one had fewer than 25 (Rasmus Dahlin, 21). If we're looking for a defenceman to really push for 70 points, if not 80, we need a lot from the power play, and Seattle is one of the last places we should look for a lot of PP production.

Overall, I think the two defencemen worthy of the title of The Next Zach Werenski are Thomas Harley and Mikhail Sergachev, though both have their own issues. Maybe there just isn't another Zach Werenski this year and we should be looking for The Next Jake Sanderson instead.