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 available for download! Projections by team and by point totals, sleepers, drafted players, rookies, goalies, advanced stats, and much more!

The French-language version of the Guide can be purchased here.

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1. A couple weeks ago, I wrote about finding this season’s Zach Werenski – a defenceman who had all the pieces to be a great fantasy option and could finally put it together. Yesterday, we looked at finding this season’s Dylan Holloway – a depth forward breakout. Today, we are going to the net and looking for this season’s Darcy Kuemper.

What do we mean by The Next Darcy Kuemper? Well, it’s a goalie who should fit the following parameters:

• Won’t be a top-10 goalie on draft boards for one-year leagues.
• Coming off a bad season but has had at least one good season.
• Has a good shot at getting over half the team’s starts.

Preference may be given to goalies who change teams, but so few starters do that each summer that it would restrict our potential pool too much (it would basically just be John Gibson this season). (aug22)

[Follow the link for the full article…]

2. I’ve picked a few players of interest from our top Frozen Tools searches of the past week that I either haven’t written much about this offseason or have something to say about. I make a point about writing about top Frozen Tools searches because these are the players that Frozen Tools visitors are curious about.

Elias Pettersson: After showing a sharp decline in just about every meaningful fantasy category in 2024-25, Pettersson has stated that he is looking for “revenge” in 2025-26. With the reported feud with J.T. Miller consuming much of the discourse about Pettersson’s performance, it’s quite likely that Pettersson’s diminished results were confidence-related. If he can put that behind him, the Pettersson revenge tour will be one of the biggest comeback stories of the coming season.

One reason to be optimistic about a better season for Pettersson is the fact that he has added muscle and trained intensely. It was believed he hadn’t trained as hard during the 2024 offseason, or perhaps he was nursing an undisclosed injury. One key for Pettersson will be to trust his shot, a onetime strength of his game. Pettersson’s shots-per-game average has declined from 3.2 SOG/GP in 2022-23 to 2.5 SOG/GP in 2023-24 all the way down to 1.7 SOG/GP in 2024-25. Pettersson looked hesitant too often last season, looking to pass the puck instead.

Petterson’s Yahoo predraft value of 109 will perhaps never be lower. As I mentioned in a previous mock draft, 60-70-point forwards are usually being picked in this range. That might be a conservative estimate for Pettersson, who was already on a 58-point pace in his most disappointing season. Expecting Pettersson to reach 100 points again is too much to ask, at least from where he is now. However, a point-per-game output is within reach if in fact he can rebound.

The truth is that projections for Pettersson will vary widely, so even the experts could have a tough time figuring this one out. At around pick 100, he’s a gamble that I’m willing to take. (aug23)

3. Marco Kasper: In his first full NHL season, Kasper finished seventh in rookie scoring with 37 points in 77 games. Even more impressive was the fact that he finished the season with nine goals and 14 points and a plus-11 in his last 18 games. Kasper was shooting the lights out at 20.5% during that span, so we shouldn’t suddenly forecast him to score 40 goals. That surge is still a good sign for a 21-year-old player, though.

His usage varied throughout the Red Wings’ lineup, but his two most frequent line combinations included top 6 forwards Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond, Patrick Kane, and Alex DeBrincat. Looking at the Red Wings’ depth chart, Kasper appears to be slotted in as the second-line center behind Larkin and ahead of J.T. Compher and Andrew Copp. The odds seem good that he will be a used as a top-6 forward throughout 2025-26, although it’s worth mentioning that Copp was out of the lineup from late February onward due to season-ending surgery.

Another element to Kasper’s fantasy value is in the hits category. With 156 hits, Kasper trailed only Moritz Seider for the Detroit team lead in hits. That’s something to keep in mind for bangers leagues. Kasper has two-way skill, so it wouldn’t be a complete surprise if he took on some minutes on the third line.

The Wings will need their young high-end talent to take another step forward in order to become an Eastern Conference playoff team. Kasper was the eighth overall pick in 2022, so he comes with those high expectations. That’s why I’d expect Kasper’s icetime to increase from the 15:27 average in 2024-25 and perhaps take a small step forward in 2025-26. (aug23)

4. Dylan Guenther: After splitting time between the AHL and NHL in 2023-24, Guenther's first full NHL season was a resounding success. During that time, Guenther was able to establish himself as a fixture on Utah’s top line and first-unit power play. As the now-Mammoth look to climb into a playoff spot, Guenther will be an important player in the mix.

One burning question regarding the Utah roster is how power-play time will be handled with the offseason addition of JJ Peterka. Guenther shouldn’t be in any danger of losing power-play time, as 29 of his 60 points came with the man advantage (second on the team). As well, Guenther led Utah with 12 power-play goals.

The next step for Guenther could be the point-per-game mark. This question was asked in a recent Fantasy Hockey Poll, one of the features from the Roos Let Loose series. Guenther has played 148 career NHL games, so his breakout is projected for either later this season or early next season. As well, Guenther has yet to play more than 70 games in an NHL season, so his point total could rise accordingly assuming he is not a Band-Aid Boy. At age 22, Guenther seems like a solid player to bank on for the long term. (aug23)

5. Ville Koivunen: I am in the process of writing Pittsburgh’s Offseason Fantasy Grades article, where I’ve analyzed a few of the Penguins’ top prospects. At the present moment, Rutger McGroarty, Filip Hallander, and Owen Pickering seem to have the best chance of making the team, although Koivunen is not that far behind.

Koivunen was able to score at both the AHL and NHL level in 2024-25. Koivunen led the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins with 56 points in 63 games, while he was able to pile up seven assists in his eight-game cup of coffee with the Penguins. His tenure on the Penguins mainly included time on the top 6 with the likes of Sidney Crosby, Bryan Rust, Evgeni Malkin, and Rickard Rakell as his regular linemates. More top 6 icetime should be on the way if and when Koivunen is on the Penguins this season.

The Penguins organization also has a lot invested in Koivunen, as he was acquired from Carolina as part of the Jake Guentzel trade. A second-round pick in 2021, Koivunen is still waiver-exempt, which might be the reason he is not promoted right away. The Penguins have numerous players over 30 and many UFAs-to-be in 2026, which as a rebuilding team means they could be a busy seller at the deadline. That should be good news for Koivunen being an NHL regular by the end of the season. (aug23)

6. According to David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period, Matthew Tkachuk underwent surgery a few weeks ago and would miss the start of the season as a result. Pagnotta also speculated that a Tkachuk return to action could take place as late as January, which would give Tkachuk a runway of at least a few games before the Olympics start in February. No other hockey insiders have confirmed this information.

Assuming this report is accurate, this news shouldn’t come as a complete shocker. Surgery for a torn adductor had been on the table for Tkachuk since the Stanley Cup Final ended, and the smart move is probably to get it done as soon as possible, even if cuts into the regular season. Hopefully you have been following along here either in the Ramblings or the Fantasy Guide and have been able to prepare accordingly. In single-season leagues, Tkachuk’s draft-day value should plummet significantly (currently 19 in Yahoo). He would be a great asset to hang onto in IR if you figure the rest of your team can push through to the fantasy playoffs. (aug23)

7. The Minnesota Wild have avoided a contract holdout and perhaps even a trade, signing Marco Rossi to a three-year, $15 million contract extension. Once the contract expires in 2028, Rossi will have one more year of RFA status before becoming a potential UFA in 2029.

In his second full NHL season, Rossi finished with career highs in the important offensive categories of goals (24), assists (36), and power-play points (16). He also added to his peripheral totals with career highs in hits (63) and faceoffs won (464), also adding to his icetime total by averaging 18:15 per game. Rossi has also reached 185 career games, so his breakout threshold may come as early as this season. However, as a smaller forward (5-9, 182 lbs.), that breakout may be a bit delayed. Rossi’s potential upside as a first-line center should not be ignored, though.

One interesting stat courtesy of Mike Amato: Rossi averaged just 11 minutes per game in the Wild’s six-game playoff series with Vegas. During that series, Rossi’s most frequent linemates were Yakov Trenin, Justin Brazeau, and Marcus Foligno. For some reason, the Wild may not view Rossi as their first-line center of the future. That may explain why they are giving Rossi three years to prove himself instead of locking him up for seven years, similar to Frank Nazar in Chicago.

For more on Rossi and the Wild, see our Offseason Fantasy Grades article on the team, released on Friday. (aug23)

8. The Chicago Blackhawks have extended forward Frank Nazar for seven years with an AAV of just under $6.6M per season. The 13^th overall pick from the 2022 draft has 13 goals and 27 points in 56 career NHL games, though he finished the season strong with 8 goals and 8 assists in 27 games after the Four Nations break. He has one more year left on his entry-level deal so this doesn’t kick in until 2026, meaning he may be with Chicago for eight more years.

For a guy with 56 career NHL games, this is a sizeable bet by the Blackhawks, but one without a huge downside. At worst, if he ends up like Jesperi Kotkaniemi in Carolina, which is to say a bottom-6 forward at a modest cap hit, then it’s not ideal but not terrible. If he keeps progressing as he showed last year, this is a steal maybe as soon as it starts in 2026, and likely not long after.

The question for Nazar’s fantasy value is where they see him playing. If they use him and Connor Bedard in tandem on the top line, that could be great. If they see him as the second-line centre behind Bedard, well, there’s not very much offensive talent in Chicago right now. It is something to revisit in a year because he’s still on his ELC so the increased price doesn’t matter yet. (aug22)

9. The Colorado Avalanche signed winger Victor Olofsson to a one-year deal. He had 15 goals and 29 points in 56 games for Vegas last season and gives the Avalanche a bit more scoring depth. With Gabriel Landeskog, Martin Necas, Valeri Nichushkin, and Artturi Lehkonen around, the top four winger spots are spoken for and there’s no room on the top PP unit. That is when everyone is healthy or not suspended, though, and Olofsson has as good a chance of any to find some fantasy value here and there when those eventual injuries do crop up. (aug21)

10. I want to take these Ramblings to look at some early average draft positions (ADP). We have drafts being done across several sites but I am going to look at ADPs on FanTrax and Underdog Fantasy. The former includes all leagues from H2H to roto, points to multi-cat, so it’s a varied array of league formats, while the latter is a draft-only points league factoring goals, assists, power-play points, shots, blocks, and hits. These are just some early outlines, but I want to look at some ADPs that are standing out to me as either too low or too high at first glance. I am going to include only their relative ranking at their position, rather than overall ADP, because the differences in the two sites render those overall ADPs rather meaningless. So, the C10 is the 10^th centre, the D15 is the 15^th defenceman, and so on. (Data from Evolving Hockey and Frozen Tools, unless otherwise indicated.)

Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins)
Underdog ADP: C9
FanTrax ADP: C7

Last season, Crosby finished between the 6^th and 10^th fantasy centre in most fantasy formats (lower in leagues with plus/minus). He saw a sizeable drop in shots per game, his highest even strength on-ice shooting percentage in a season with at least 41 games since the 2013 lockout, and a four-year high in goal participation. That is a lot of regression flags for a guy being drafted around where he ended up last year.

Crosby has been remarkably consistent in these late stages of his career, and that is a factor here. He has three straight seasons of at least 80 games, 30 goals, 50 assists, and 200 shots. Crosby, Mikko Rantanen, and David Pastrnak are the only three players to reach each of those marks in each of the last three years (from Hockey Reference):

Because of that consistency, I don’t have a huge problem with taking Crosby somewhere around the 30^th pick. The issue I have is I don’t think he has top-10 upside anymore, so I think it makes more sense to grab a top player at another position and wait a couple of rounds for someone like J.T. Miller or Tim Stutzle (assuming hits are a category). (aug20)

11. Matvei Michkov (Philadelphia Flyers)
Underdog ADP: W25
FanTrax ADP: W42

Are we doing this again? Last year, I heartily scoffed at Michkov going easily inside the top-100 picks, and often enough inside the top-75, and didn’t draft him once on 18 teams. That worked out well.  

This is a case that depends on where you’re drafting. Taking Michkov as the ~40^th winger on the board, as he’s going on FanTrax, seems fine to me. Depending on league settings and all that, he probably finished somewhere in the 35-45 range last year, so splitting the difference is perfectly acceptable.

I do worry that there will be steam on his ADP as the fantasy draft season wears on, and he starts going in the 25-30 range on FanTrax and beyond (like has happened on Underdog). Let’s do a thought experiment: assume that Michkov is going as the 50^th pick and that six goalies and five defencemen will finish as top-50 fantasy players this season. That means Michkov would need to be inside the top-40 forwards to pay off an ADP of 50^th overall. Using the 10 forwards who finished 35^th-44^th last season with Underdog scoring (goals = 6, assists = 4, all shots and blocks = 1, all hits and power-play points = 0.5), here is their average 82-game output between them, and what Michkov’s 82-game paces were:

To be an average forward at his current draft position, Michkov needs to add four goals, nine assists, and nine power-play points while multiplying his blocks by 2.5 and his hits by 3.0. Assuming relatively consistent hits and blocks to what he did last year, he would need to add something like four extra goals and six extra assists on top of what he already needs to do.

Long story short: because of the lack of hits and blocks, Michkov absolutely needs a 30-goal, point-per-game season to pay off an ADP of around 50^th overall. That is just to pay off the ADP. If you want even a modest profit from him as a 50^th-ish pick, he probably needs to be what Jake Guentzel was last year, which is pacing to be a 40-40 player with over 25 PPPs and around 225 shots. Michkov is a tremendous talent and a budding star, but the team around him is not quite there yet. (aug20)

[Follow the link for more…]

12. I am going to piggyback off a couple of things here. One is my own article from the Fantasy Guide where I cover the dropping value of some players across the league. The other is a recent podcast I listened to from The Ringer where they did a buy-sell-hold stock watch segment for movies/TV shows/actors etc. Today’s Ramblings will be a buy-sell-hold on the fantasy value of certain players across the league. Buy means that the players are going to be even better than they were last year, sell means things are going to get worse, and hold means they’re going to come close to repeating last year. We will go with one centre, one winger, and one defenceman in each category. It is done in advance of me finishing my projections, which will be done before the end of the month, so some of this probably changes in a few weeks. Player data from Evolving Hockey or Frozen Tools.

Buy

Logan Cooley (Utah Mammoth)

Through the first 41 games of last season, Logan Cooley had 35 points, which is a great 70-point pace, but he did it while skating just 17:04 per game. The rest of the way, Cooley had 30 points in 34 games (a 72-point pace) but did that skating 18:49 per game. He also did that while splitting top power-play time with Barrett Hayton.

At this point, Cooley has two full NHL seasons under his belt. Over his last 100 regular season games, he’s posted 37 goals and 82 points. Utah added J.J. Peterka in the offseason, Dylan Guenther is a year older, and the blue line will hopefully be a lot healthier than they were last year. If he plays a full season, Cooley managing another 70-point pace is reasonable, but I think this is the year he takes off and pushes for point-per-game status.

Andrei Svechnikov (Carolina Hurricanes)

Svechnikov’s 2024-25 season saw him with a four-year low in goals per game and a six-year low in points per game. He then had a much better postseason with eight goals and 12 points in 15 games. There were times he looked like the team’s best winger and at least looked as good as we remember him playing a couple years ago. The hope is that the knee issues that affected his play over the last two years are gone, and at 25 years old, he’s still in his prime.

The issue for Svechnikov is that with the newly-signed Nikolaj Ehlers, the acquisition of Logan Stankoven, the presence of Seth Jarvis, and the emergence of Jackson Blake, there is a lot of competition for overall winger minutes, and specifically top power-play minutes. That makes him more likely for 17 minutes a game than 18-plus. Even still, I think the 2024-25 season was his low point and while the lack of TOI caps his upside, he looks primed to pace for a 25-goal, 35-assist, 200-shot, 150-hit winger.

Jackson LaCombe (Anaheim Ducks)

LaCombe had a slow start to the 2024-25 season with just four points in 16 games to start the year, skating 18:21 per game on Anaheim’s bottom pair. Then he absolutely soared after that, skating 23:22 per game and registering 39 points in 59 games, a 54-point pace. He is Anaheim’s number-1 defenceman now, including top minutes in all three phases of the game. That level of ice time, even with modest per-minute shot, hit, and block rates, means he’s a threat for 160 shots, 90 hits, and 140 blocks.

My belief is that Anaheim is a team truly on the ascent, as they were 14^th by goals per minute at 5-on-5 in calendar 2025, doing that with the 11^th-ranked shooting percentage. They were creating quality offence not riding a hot streak. If the power play can take off with LaCombe at the helm, he has true 60-point potential. (aug19)

13. Sell

Jack Eichel (Vegas Golden Knights)

This isn’t that I think Eichel will be bad, or a bust, or won’t mesh with Mitch Marner, or anything like that. It’s that 2024-25 was a year where everything went right for Eichel: he played 77 games, tying his most games played in a season since his rookie 2015-16 campaign; Vegas shot 11.5% with him on the ice at even strength after he averaged 9.9% across his first three years with the team; the Golden Knights shot a whopping 19.5% with him on the ice for the power play when his previous career-high for a season where he played at least 50 games was 15.5%, and he hadn’t reached 14% in any of his first three years out West. When I see across-the-board career-best team shooting percentages for a player in his 10^th season, and those career-best marks are by a wide margin, it gives me pause.

As long as he plays at least 70 games, Eichel should pass 80 points. The question is if he can get past 75 games again, and whether the near-certain drop in team shooting percentages, even with Marner there, can be offset by some kind of increase in team shot volume. I do not want to take the bet that Eichel will miss five-or-fewer games while also maintaining across-the-board, far-and-away career-best percentages.

Brandon Hagel (Tampa Bay Lightning)

This is what I wrote about Hagel, word for word, in the 2025-26 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide:

In the five weeks following Tampa Bay’s acquisition of Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand, Hagel lost 1:31 of ice time per game. He also posted a career-high in secondary assist rate—exceeding the average of his first two seasons in Tampa Bay by over 40%. He can still be a 30-goal, 80-point player, but his 2024–25 campaign has all the hallmarks of a career year.

The emergence of Gage Concalves, the progressions from Conor Geekie and Mitchell Chaffee, and the trade for Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand make Tampa Bay a relatively deep team up front. I don’t think Hagel comes close to skating the 20:45 per game he did last season, and that means 80 points instead of 90. Hagel is a guy I’ve been waiting a few years for the breakout he had in 2024-25, and now that he’s had it, I’ll let someone else bet on him maintaining it.

MacKenzie Weegar (Calgary Flames)                             

Weegar has the type of fantasy profile that even if he does have a stock drop, he can still be a top-12 defenceman in fantasy. The issue is that he was a top-5 defenceman in a lot of multi-cat formats, and that was on the back of a career-best 24:10 per game in ice time and a career-best 21 power-play points (he had 25 career PP points in 469 games before that). He needs that power-play production to hold to repeat a top-5 fantasy performance.

Calgary has seven defencemen signed to an NHL contract, so Zayne Parekh may not start the season in the NHL. But he might, and the Fantasy Guide has Parekh with 78 games played. Either way, once Parekh is on the NHL roster, he’s a genuine threat for taking top power-play time away from Weegar. I think Weegar is a much better bet for being closer to 40 points than to 50, and if that drop in point production comes from the power-play, it’s a double-whammy for his fantasy value. I have no problem saying Weegar will be a top-12 multi-cat fantasy defenceman, but repeating a top-5 performance will be very hard, so I’m selling. (aug19)

14. Hold

Robert Thomas (St. Louis Blues)

Here’s a fun fact: there are 13 forwards who’ve managed at least 20 goals and 50 assists in three of the last four years, and Robert Thomas is one of them (per Hockey Reference). He is also 1 of 14 forwards with at least 80 goals and 200 assists over the last four years. We are all waiting for that season when he plays 80 games, the relevant percentages spike a bit, and he posts, like, 33 goals and 65 assists. Something like J.T. Miller in his middle Vancouver seasons but without the hits.

I just don’t think that’s this year. Cam Fowler had a huge rebound after getting to St. Louis but maintaining that level will be difficult. Justin Faulk is years removed from being a top-pair guy, and the bottom pair has its own question marks. And though I am a big fan of both Jordan Kyrou and Dylan Holloway, neither are truly super-elite wingers in the Mitch Marner/Kirill Kaprizov/Sam Reinhart tier. The Blues have enough talent to ensure that Thomas has great production years, but there is still a piece or two missing to get him to elite production.  

Mikko Rantanen (Dallas Stars)

Over Rantanen’s final 2.5 seasons with Colorado, he averaged 22:32 per game. Over his 20 regular season games with Dallas, that was 19:07. After winning in overtime of the second game in the playoffs, Rantanen skated 21:35 per contest. So, even in the postseason with Dallas as a Stanley Cup contender, Rantanen lost a minute per game in TOI compared to his regular season time in Colorado.

Between the regular and postseason, Rantanen had 40 points in 38 games with Dallas, which is 1.05 points per game. Across his final 2.5 seasons with the Avalanche, he averaged 1.29 points per game. In an 82-game season, that is a 20-point difference. I am holding Rantanen because I think he can be what he was last year, which is roughly a top-25 fantasy option, but I think the days of him being a threat to crack the top-5 skaters are over.  

Lane Hutson (Montreal Canadiens)

A full year from Ivan Demidov, a (hopefully healthy) Kirby Dach, and the trade for Noah Dobson should make Montreal a better team than in 2024-25. The problem for Hutson progressing much past the 66 points he earned last year is that the coaching staff loves Mike Matheson, Dobson adds another high-end puck-mover to the blue line, it is a full season from Alex Carrier, and Kaiden Guhle should be healthy. Where, exactly, Hutson slots beyond the top PP minutes is a bit uncertain. He seems a safe bet for top pair minutes, but I think Montreal now has a deep enough blue line to spread out the ice time, rather than relying heavily on their top two pairs and playing their third pair under 15 minutes.

I’m a Habs fan, and I was definitely wrong about Hutson’s upside last year. Maybe I’m wrong about Hutson’s fantasy value again this year, but I think a healthy Guhle, the addition of Dobson, and a full year from Carrier makes this team’s defence group much deeper than it was last season. It is great for the team, but I’m not sure it really helps Hutson’s fantasy value. Banking on 65-70 points again seems reasonable, but I think it’s another year or two before he really ascends to a perennial point-per-game defenceman, so I’m holding his stock. (aug19)

15. Let's review each team’s top scoring defenseman from last season and predict whether that blueliner will score more than last year, less than last year, or at a similar rate. My range for similar rate is roughly three points above or below last season’s output. Let’s get right into it!

Anaheim Ducks – Jackson LaCombe
2024-25: 43 points in 75 games
Output Prediction: Increase

LaCombe dazzled last year after taking over PP1 duties in mid-December. A full season with the top group should help him build on his strong showing as a sophomore. Anaheim was awful with the man advantage last year and seems set to improve under the guidance of new assistant coach Jay Woodcroft, hopefully boosting LaCombe’s overall output.

Boston Bruins – Mason Lohrei
2024-25: 33 points in 77 games
Output Prediction: Increase

Had he not missed so much time with injury, this spot probably would have gone to Charlie McAvoy who posted 23 points in 50 appearances last year. Lohrei saw a greater role while McAvoy was sidelined and ended up with a respectable 16 PPPs last season. The offensive talent is clearly there with Lohrei, but he needs improve his defensive game to be trusted with more opportunity. While he’ll face more competition for minutes now that the Bruins’ blueline is healthy, I think the young blueliner’s offensive skill will shine through and enable him to build on last year’s 33 points.

Buffalo Sabres – Rasmus Dahlin
2024-25: 68 points in 73 games
Output Prediction: Similar

Dahlin is an elite blueliner whose offensive ceiling can only be limited by the team around him. I expect him to flirt with the 70-point mark for the third time in four seasons. Let’s just hope Buffalo can rediscover some of their 22-23 magic with the man advantage. (aug18)

[Follow the link for the full 32-team review…]

16. It’s time for another Yahoo mock draft. You can view the full results of this draft and league settings at my personal blog.

If you’ve tried a mock draft on Yahoo, you may have noticed that ADPs do not appear yet. I’m not sure whether they are waiting for more real drafts to take place or if they can take them from mock drafts.

The mock drafts I’ve participated in so far have also served as one form of input for the Top 100 Roto Rankings. My view is that rankings should take into account where players are getting drafted or even ranked by the providers like Yahoo and Fantrax, even if their rankings are wildly inaccurate. For example, if you find a player with a 10^th round ADP that has potential 3^rd round value, I don’t advise drafting that player in the 3^rd round. Instead, wait until closer to the 10^th round (maybe 8^th or 9^th round) so you can maximize your other picks. In other words, don’t draft a player early if you can draft them several rounds later. Without further ado, below are my picks:

(1-5) Cale Makar – In my last mock draft writeup, I discussed who my top four are. For that reason, I selected the fifth pick so I could challenge myself as to who I would pick there. True to form, the first four picks were exactly who I thought they would be. But who is the best of the next bunch?

I thought long and hard about David Pastrnak, but I think his production slips a bit with the Bruins’ current situation. Kirill Kaprizov also appears on the Yahoo default queue, but games missed is an issue. I left defensemen for too long in the last mock draft, so this time I’ll go with Makar, the projected highest-scoring blueliner.

By the way, my top tier of defensemen consists of Makar and Quinn Hughes. That’s it. (aug17)

17. (2-20) Mitch Marner – What if Marner outscored everyone on the Leafs? He’s mainly a pure scorer with his value lower in multicategory leagues. Other options here included Sam Reinhart, Brayden Point, Artemi Panarin, Jack Hughes, Jake Guentzel, and Sidney Crosby – all of whom were chosen before my next pick.

(3-29) Jason Robertson – I wasn’t going to let Robertson slip away in the fourth round this time. He’s no longer worth a first-round pick or even a second-round pick, but he’s a solid third-round pick that might be rated too low by Yahoo.

(4-44) Clayton Keller – He might not get enough love in fantasy drafts. Keller has posted three consecutive 30-goal and 75-point seasons and is coming off his first 90-point season. He profiles as a slightly lower point scorer than Marner, but with a few more goals.

(5-53) Brandon Hagel – I got Hagel in the sixth round in my previous mock draft. Even getting him the fifth round is huge value in my opinion. I’d bet the under on 90 points again, but I don’t think he’ll see a major dropoff either. I’ve also noticed that I filled up my wingers and need centers and other positions! That’s the downside of picking who I think is the best player available.

(6-68) Jake Sanderson – This might be a reach considering where Sanderson’s preseason rank is for Yahoo, but he is trending in the right direction. I was actually targeting Adam Fox here, but he was picked right before me. (aug17)

18. (7-77) Dylan Strome – Tons of autopickers in this draft meant that I had to think fast. I needed a center, and Strome seemed like the best one available. I think there’s a bit of regression this season, and some of that is tied to Alex Ovechkin. Looking back, the best available alternative at the center position appeared to be Seth Jarvis.

(8-92) Linus Ullmark – I was looking at the Markstrom/Ullmark goalie group just before pick 100. Other possible goalie picks at around pick 100 or shortly after include Anthony Stolarz, Jordan Binnington, Juuse Saros, Sam Montembeault, Jeremy Swayman, and Pyotr Kochetkov. These goalies are either high-volume starters for low-mid-level teams or timeshare goalies on contending teams.

(9-101) Elias Pettersson – Quite honestly, Pettersson’s preseason value will be a source of debate. He has 100-point upside, so he could be drafted higher than the 60-70-point players that are typically getting picked in this round. Yet his performance last season wasn’t even worthy of this spot. I don’t think you can go wrong drafting him around pick 100, though.

(10-116) Andrei Svechnikov – I’m sticking to my plan of drafting multicategory specialists such as Svechnikov, Tom Wilson, and Timo Meier in the middle rounds. It’s good to figure out if you have categories like hits and shots covered yet, and if not, target them. The differences between options are harder to find at this point in the draft, so you might as well draft what you need.

(11-125) Tom Wilson – One downside to the strategy listed above is that it may not account for positional needs. I still need defensemen and another goalie, and the good options are thinning out. (aug17)

19. (12-140) Thatcher Demko – If you’re using a Zero G strategy, then Demko might be an option for you. If he’s over his injuries from last season, then he has a strong chance of exceeding this value. The Canucks won’t overwork him, as Kevin Lankinen should probably play about 40% of the time, assuming minimal injuries. 

(13-149) Darnell Nurse – I couldn’t find any hidden gems among defensemen, so I went back to the multicat well with Nurse. He won’t anchor the Oilers’ blueline and he could even see his icetime decrease, but he finished in the top 10 in combined shots, hits, and blocks in 2024-25 (although I just remember that this mock draft doesn’t count blocked shots).

(14-164) Noah Hanifin – We’re all out of decent PP1 options here, so I had to target strong PP2 options who could receive PP1. Hanifin seems to fall into that category. Shea Theodore is a Band-Aid Boy, while Hanifin should log a ton of minutes anyway.

(15-173) Dylan Cozens – I don’t get much time to dig deep for a sleeper. Cozens could provide decent value, especially if he can find his game with the Senators. In addition, he has suddenly become a strong source of hits, reaching 100 hits for the first time in 2023-24, then leaping to over 200 hits last season.

(16-188) Gabriel Landeskog – This is the most likely pick that I’ll drop, so might as well see if Landeskog is even a fraction of the player he was before the injury. The main factor is whether Landeskog can last a full season after missing nearly three whole seasons.

Hopefully you get a chance to try a mock draft just to get you thinking about your own rankings before your real draft. (aug17)

20. Hope you enjoyed Bubble Keeper Week all of last week and were able to get a view on how we at Dobber make our keeper league decisions. These decisions are never easy and can even involve a lot of second-guessing.

I'll put a wrap on Bubble Keeper Week with a story. I know I’ve shared this story before at some point. Maybe not here, but on social media for sure. The story is about my worst-ever keeper decision.

Back in 2015, my fourth and final keeper decision came down to two real-life teammates. Player A finished with 72 points in 2014-15. Player B, who I added from the waiver wire that season, finished with 65 points. I decided to keep Player A. Makes sense to keep Player A because he had more points, right?

Well, Player A was Tyler Johnson. Player B, however, was Nikita Kucherov.

You don't need me to tell you that the two players’ careers took different directions after that. A missed opportunity like that could have decimated my team’s chances of winning for a long time, right? Well, as radio announcer Paul Harvey used to say, now it’s time for the rest of the story.

Three years later in 2018, I ended up in a three-way tie for the league championship (this was a rotisserie league, not head-to-head, so a tie for the championship was possible). Perhaps Kucherov would have put me over the top, but I’ll never know. I then won the league outright in 2020. Yes, that was a shortened season, but it’s still a victory!

What I’m trying to say is that the failure of a horrible decision didn't linger for me. In fact, my team actually improved from 9^th in 2015 to 5^th in both 2016 and 2017 all the way to the 1^st place tie in 2018. There was an 8^th place finish in 2019, but we won’t talk about that! Winning (or losing) a league involves many decisions. You won't get them all correct, but hopefully you make more right decisions than wrong decisions.

On a less positive note, the league disbanded in 2022. This league was an expert’s league that lasted over a decade. The commissioner decided to step down, and no one volunteered to be commish in order to keep the league alive. On top of that, one prominent member (a well-known fantasy sports writer) decided not to continue. I didn’t want to be in charge of this league because I am already the commish in two other leagues. This type of scenario is the reason I can’t subscribe to 5+ year rebuild plans in keeper leagues. For all you know, the league could be gone by then! You never know what the future may hold.

That was my final contribution to Bubble Keeper Week. I wish you the best of luck with your own decisions. (aug17)

21. If you’re looking for a competitive fantasy league to join, why not try the DobberHockey Tiered Invitational League? For more information, click on the link.

Have a good week, folks!

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