My first Ramblings in 2025! Please excuse the rust. I plan to get in a lot more of these as things return to normalcy for me, health-wise. Targeting one every couple of weeks to start, and I hope to ramp things up after that.

So I'm a patient fantasy owner. At times too patient. I think with a keeper/dynasty league mentality, this is a plus. No knee-jerk reactions to early slumps. No ruling out players before their BT season. I'm not that guy who, in roto leagues, drops a player after the first game, picks up someone else, drops that guy a few days later, grabs yet another…that's not me. But nonetheless it's hard not to be concerned about Buffalo scoring two goals in their first three games. Five players with one point so far and the rest of the roster has zero.

I don't have a lot of skin in the game with that team…except for one of my dynasty leagues. Where I have…lots of skin. I happened to have a few Sabres when they had that big year and were Top 3 in NHL scoring (2022-23). So, jumping on that, I acquired a couple more. They were young, on the rise, and already a Top 3 NHL team in what matters most in fantasy – offense. Strategy: fail. In 2023-24 they were 21^st? In 2024-25 they were 8^th. That seemed promising. But this year so far, the Sabres are dead last in goals per game with 0.67. Every other team has at least four goals, including 14 teams that had only played twice as of Sunday afternoon.

Without Zach Benson (and Josh Norris), the lines actually look pretty lean. Justin Danforth bumped up to the second line, Josh Doan bumped to the top line. Jack Quinn pushed down to the second line. In a situation like this, I'd like to see the team turn to Konsta Helenius or Noah Ostlund. Or even Isak Rosen. Rosen and Ostlund have three points each in two AHL games so far. But instead the Sabres turned to… Josh Dunne, who is known more for being 6-4 than for scoring goals. This team doesn't have the depth to score goals if they lose a key top nine player. I don't know how long it will take them to turn this around, but I'm guessing that if they still aren't scoring 10 games in – Lindy Ruff will be gone. This is the final year of his contract and tolerance for this will be low. What you often see with a coaching change is the team really responds, so I suspect that as soon as Ruff does get fired, things turn around quickly and these guys start surging. At the same time, coincidence or no, I think it times with Benson returning and one of those kids getting called up.

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Also early on, my hunch that Nathan MacKinnon will slip a little has fallen flat. With two more goals Sunday, he's up to eight points in four games! Now, to be clear, by "disappointment" I was referring to him getting 109 points instead of 125. Yeah. Big disappointment. But still, he's looking like that 125-point guy easily. My thought was driven by the falloff in his production after Mikko Rantanen was traded, but Martin Necas has really filled in beautifully (also with eight points).

I'm watching Gavin Brindley closely because I'm a big fan (of course I am, he's 5-8!), but felt he was nowhere near ready for the NHL this year. I wanted to see a full and productive season in the AHL first, with his new organization. He has a goal in four games, is playing on a checking line, starting in his own zone a lot, and not seeing PP time. I'm not sure if they're trying to make him into a checking-line guy, or if they're just rounding out his game, but in fantasy we can't be thrilled with him making the NHL if it only means he gets this kind of deployment.

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A waiver-wire player who has emerged early on is Gage Goncalves. I graduated him from the Fantasy Prospects rankings when he was 91^st among forwards. He had high certainty, low wait time and minimal upside (60 points). But right now, it's the very meaning of "upside", for those who say I give them too high. It's an ideal situation. He's been playing with Jake Guentzel (Sunday, but Brandon Hagel before that). He has three points in three games. Now, I don't believe what he's doing will keep rolling at anywhere near that pace, but one thing that is in his favor is that the Lightning do not have a lot of options to fill out those top lines and provide scoring depth. He's keeping up with them, so for now he'll get a look. But his possession metrics will need to improve or he'll get bumped back down the lineup. The Guentzel, Goncalves, Anthony Cirelli line has a CF% of just 31.6% (six chances-for versus 13 against!).

Pavel Zacha is off to a flying start with a goal and four assists already, and a point in each of his four games so far. Last year it took him 15 games to get his fifth point. He has been locked in a line that is really flying, with David Pastrnak and Morgan Geekie. And Geekie is answering questions right off the bat about whether or not last season was a contract-year fluke.

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Jonathan Toews is on the board! He picked up his first point, an assist, since 2023. Toews has been playing on a line with Alex Iafallo and Nikita Chibrikov. He's been getting PP time (his point came on the power play) and overall his ice time has steadily increased to the 19:51 that he saw on Sunday. I still don't think he can get 50 points this year, but the Jets are giving him tons of ice time. His faceoff skills haven't rusted at all – he's at a 62.3% success rate.

Max Shabanov isn't getting the "we need you" treatment that fantasy owners were hoping for, three games in. He's averaging 11:48 TOI and second unit PP time. His linemates have mostly been JG Pageau and Simon Holmstrom. He's being treated like a 40-point player, which he will be unless he can start proving the coach wrong.

Matthew Schaefer led all Islanders in ice time with a whopping 26:35. He is 34^th in the entire league in terms of average ice time – and that is with his first game in which he saw just 17 minutes, which dragged down his average. Ignoring that first game, and he would be in the Top 8 right now. In the entire league. So yeah, they're not easing him in. He has three points in three games so he's looking like he can hit that 70-point upside I had optimistically pegged for him.

Schaefer has relegated Tony DeAngelo to second PP duties, effectively making DeAngelo a likely 40-point player instead of the 55 he may have been otherwise.

Jonathan Drouin is a sneaky-good dark horse and I'm glad I snagged him in my keeper (keep 12) league in the 12^th round. He's being treated like a driver, not a passenger, averaging 20 minutes a game and six minutes per game of PP time. He's not even playing with Matt Barzal – he's on the second line with Bo Horvat, and making that line effective. Emil Heineman was the other member of that line.

Heineman is a prospect I have liked from his Montreal days, but figured he would be buried on this team. And he still might be. But continued play with Drouin would change his outlook in an awful hurry. Heineman is also a dark horse for 200 Hits.

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Brady Tkachuk left Sunday's game with a  wrist injury, shown here:

Tkachuk did stay in the game and try to play through it, but eventually left the game. The injury looks serious, this could be a bigger one. We'll know more today.

Tkachuk left in the third, so it was brief that the lines were mixed up, but early new line combos had Tim Stutzle with Claude Giroux. So a side effect of any Tkachuk absence would benefit Giroux owners.

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When I was doing the Fantasy Prospects Report on Emmitt Finnie, he was a player who had jumped out at me. Every year when I do the FPR, there are one or two prospects that weren't on my radar suddenly become very much on my radar. And these guys always pan out, other than one guy I can remember – Rourke Chartier. But he had some personal things that kept him sidelined for a year and never really got back on track. Finnie was this year's guy, along with Alex Bump (Philadelphia). But did I take him in any league? No. I felt he was three years away. But if he continued to progress (same with Bump), I would take him next year – provided he didn't boost his value so high that everyone was grabbing him. My mistake. He took the Detroit training camp by storm, forced his way onto the team and actually has two points in three games despite no PP time. He's been entrenched on the top line and if he can continue getting even a point every two games, he's going to start garnering some power-play time. He has taken Jonatan Berggren out of the lineup and may have crushed Berggren's NHL future in the process.

Easton Cowan got into his first NHL game and you know how highly the organization thinks of him when he's immediately plunked onto the top line. No pressure, though. Really. He played 14 minutes with one shot and three Hits to his name. Very little PP time. He took Matias Maccelli's spot, but Maccelli still played with William Nylander and John Tavares. I think Maccelli is a lock in that top six until at least the 20-games mark, and he'd have to have fewer than 10 points at that juncture before he starts fading down the lineup. I believe in his hockey sense and vision, so I think he'll be fine.

Nick Robertson, still fighting for his NHL life, is seeing his ice time cut drastically. He's down to averaging 10:47 per game. Despite that, his shots per game is 2.3, which is easily a career best.

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The Bobby Brink, Noah Cates and Tyson Foerster line continues to be the best for the Flyers. All three of them have three points in three games. It won't last, as Sean Couturier (four points), Travis Konecny (two points) and Matvei Michkov (pointless!) are getting all the key zone minutes. But it's good to see that the former are still producing despite their deployment (only 40% offensive zone starts) – just like last  year. In fact, at the rate Foerster and Brink are developing, they're turning Cates into a potential 50-point player.

Why is Michkov not producing? Well, so far his linemates haven't scored when he's been on the ice, so it's hard to get assists that way. And so far, he's only taken three shots on goal. I wouldn't just his goal-scoring acumen and success rate based on three shots. Give it time.

Jamie Drysdale played 6:19 on the power play. Travis Sanheim played 3:00. Emil Andrae, getting into his first game of the season, played 0:00. In 10 minutes of PPTOI, Drysdale has zero PPPts, Sanheim has zero PPPts in 6:03 of PPTOI.

But he has been patiently honing his craft on the third line. He has had four years of NHL experience, 295 games. His breakout is overdue, sure, but he was awaiting this kind of promotion.
2. The Panthers would have cap space, so do they sign UFA Roslovic (wouldn't impact…

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— Dobber (@DobberHockey) September 26, 2025

So far this is looking bang on, though I'm not surprised since I was 99% certain this would happen. But so far so good – Lundell at four points in four games.

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Jimmy Snuggerud was moved off the Robert Thomas line (replaced by Jake Neighbours) and he responded by scoring a pair of goals. It injected some offense into that third line (with Pius Suter and Mathieu Joseph).

Those worried about Thatcher Demko getting his starting role back after Kevin Lankinen was so amazing last year, are starting to feel better. Demko has been fantastic in two games, while Lankinen gave up four goals in the loss and was merely average. Demko just needs to stay healthy.

The power must have went out in Elias Pettersson's neighborhood in Vancouver, because his alarm hasn't gone off yet. My supposed comeback player of the year, ladies and gentlemen! One point in three games, losing faceoffs right left and center. On the bright side, his expected goals rate is very high (62.2% or 2.15 per 60) so hopefully he shakes himself out of the slumber soon.

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Zeev Buium is up to three points in three games now, though all of his points have come on the power play. At even strength, his metrics are pretty poor – horrible when alongside Zach Bogosian and not much better when he's alongside Jared Spurgeon. He's only had four shifts alongside Brock Faber, but those results were promising (60% CF%). Overall, the offense has been impressive, but he'll need to keep up that pace in order for the club to overlook the defense. The instant the production dips, I'm sure his ice time will dip along with it, thereby causing the production to dip further, creating a difficult spiral to get out of. Still a high risk, high reward play for this year but long term he's clearly a potential top-scoring NHL defenseman.

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Well, I’m disappointed in the turnout for Dobbernomics this year. My fault. I pushed this out a few years ago in Beta mode, kept Beta mode going for four years. You tried it. You suffered through the bugs. Now that it’s bug free, smooth, slick, fun features added like league chat, transactions increased to one each day to keep you invested. Prizes awarded for a free game… I can’t get anyone to try it again.

I’m the boy who cried wolf.

Anyway, if you are in need of another league, something extra to do with fantasy hockey, give Dobbernomics another shot. You can play daily, weekly, or every few weeks. Commitment is flexible, though obviously you'll do better the more you look at it. But the lineups you set you can just roll with for a few weeks (and let the transactions accumulate while you do this). So if it's "I can't do this every day" holding you back – don't let it.

Get the app, rate and review with my thanks.