Welcome back to Forum Buzz, where I peruse the DobberHockey Forums and weigh in on active, heavily debated, or otherwise relevant recent threads, reminding folks just how great a resource the Forums are. Nearly anything might be covered here, other than trades and signings, which usually get their own separate write-ups on the main site and are also normally covered in the next day’s Ramblings, or questions that are specific to salary cap issues, which is the domain of the weekly Capped column. To access the specific forum thread on which a question is based, click on the “Topic” for that question.

As is now becoming tradition, I'll start the column with a nod to the sadly now dormant "Who am I?" thread in the Forums where someone thought of a real life hockey player or persona, who can be from the past or present, male or female, in the NHL or not, and they give clues to help people guess who it is. You get to enter one guess per clue, and if you guess correctly you think of the next player, so it just keeps going indefinitely. For your enjoyment, here is a "Who am I?" sample. See how many clues it takes for you to guess who I am.

CLUE #1 – I'm a retired forward born outside of North America

CLUE #2 – I was a first round draft pick

CLUE #3 – I made my NHL debut as a teen, playing a full season

CLUE #4 – Despite two solid seasons for the team that drafted me, I was traded at age 21 to the team where I'd spend the bulk of my career

CLUE #5 – I was a big body player who finished my career with more PIM than games played

CLUE #6 – I'd have been a multicat darling, as in two separate seasons I had 60+ points, 100+ PIM, was double digits plus, had double digit PPPts, and averaged over 3 SOG per game

CLUE #7 – I won two Stanley Cups as a player, but had a worse career scoring rate in the playoffs as compared to the regular season

CLUE #8 – I played for four US-based NHL teams, two of which relocated since I played for them

CLUE #9 – I rank in the top 100 in all times games played among NHLers

CLUE #10 – Not only that, but according to nhl.com records, which only go back to the 80s, no player both as tall and as heavy as me has played as many games as me

CLUE #11 –I was captain of one of the teams for which I played, but not the one on which I won a Stanley Cup 

CLUE #12 – For nearly a decade I've run a hockey school in, of all places, Israel

CLUE #13 – The teams for which I played, in order, were Hartford, New Jersey, Atlanta, the Rangers, and then New Jersey again

CLUE#14 – My initials are B.H.

So, who am I? Hopefully you figured it out. Check the end of the column to confirm, or, if not, to find out who I am. Now onto regularly scheduled Forum Buzz programming. 

Topic #1 – Which five of the following players will score the most points this season: Nikolaj Ehlers, Nazem Kadri, Carter Verhaeghe, Matthew Knies, Kent Johnson, Adam Fantilli, Jared McCann, Tomas Hertl, William Eklund, Mikael Granlund, Anze Kopitar, Gabe Vilardi, Nick Schmaltz, Quinton Byfield, Rickard Rakell, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Jonathan Huberdeau, Matt Duchene, Ryan Donato, Sean Monahan?

Right off the bat, I'll say there are no sure things here. There is a universe where they all produce at a very similar rate. But it did say points, not points per game, so durability matters.

Donato though would be the first I'd eliminate. It was highly suspect that he put up far and away his best numbers right when he needed to earn his next payday. Plus, his deployment was not much better than his prior season in Chicago. I think he is a far worse bet versus the rest.

If you read my Fearless Forecasts column, you'll know I'm not picking PLD nor Ehlers. I feel all the Caps forwards are due to see scoring rate drops, and PLD has been very inconsistent in the past. As for Ehlers, I worry he won't mesh in Carolina, plus he does get hurt; and wingers for Carolina have not had major success under Rod Brind'Amour's system.

Kopitar and Byfield I'm also eliminating. For Kopitar, it's his last season; and although he won't want to go out with a whimper, he also will be aiming mostly for the playoffs and Olympics. As for Byfield, until Kopitar is removed from the equation, I think he will not be able to pop.

Rakell, Hertl and McCann are steady eddies who I feel are almost locks for 60 points if they play in 80 games, but who I also feel are longshots for much more. Or to put it another way, they are low risk, but also low reward.

Fantilli is tempting. But him being so goal-centric, yet without shooting a lot or succeeding on the PP, it seems like he needs a couple more seasons under his belt before he might thrive.

Granlund was great for San Jose in 2023-24, but they literally had no other options, and it is a common misconception that poor teams can't produce good scorers. When he went to the Stars, he was just okay; and the Ducks need him a lot less than San Jose did, so I fear he won't be deployed well enough have a chance at a 70+ point scoring pace.

Huberdeau has risen back from being an unmitigated disaster to decent again. But he is not shooting enough, and barely produced at a 60-point rate in 2024-25 despite 23 PPPts. He seems like he is stuck in the 60s as a ceiling. As for the other elder statesman, Duchene reinvented himself as a pass first, very effective playmaker for Dallas. Gone though is Pete DeBoer and his philosophy of dividing ice time among three lines. Duchene is likely to be deemphasized, and, with that, to see his scoring rate drop by perhaps quite a lot.

This is Eklund's breakout threshold season, but I don't like that he was increasingly separated from Macklin Celebrini as 2024-25 unfolded. It might be a testament to San Jose seeing in him the ability to help give the team two scoring lines; but without assurance that he'll be stapled to Celebrini, I can't pick him either. I also can't go with Vilardi. He has a great gig in that he seems to be stapled to Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor at ES and on the PP; however, he's simply not a points magnet as compared to them, such that the line might be quite successful, and Vilardi an integral part of that, but without it being reflected in his points total.

We're left with Kadri, Knies, Verhaeghe, Johnson and Monahan. At first Kadri seems like he'd fall into the same camp as the steady eddies, but he thrived after being unshackled from Andrei Kuzmenko, and should be a safe bet for the 70s, which is also how well Monahan and Johnson did, and I see no reason for them to do worse. Verhaeghe is without a lot of the players that he normally lines up alongside, but is still a top liner and PP1 fixture, which, even on a less potent Florida squad, should allow him to rise about the rest. Knies also looked better and better as 2024-25 unfolded, and will be given ample opportunity to succeed. Those five end up as my picks.

Topic #2 – In a scoring system of G(2), A(1), +/-(0.5), PPG(1), PPA(0.5), SOG(0.05), who will do better this season, Connor Bedard or Elias Pettersson? 

This is intriguing, since there might not be two forwards in the NHL for which there is a wider gap between their floors and ceilings. Or to put it another way, I've seen speculation that each might be capable of scoring upwards of 100 points this season, but others saying they might not rise above the 60s, if even that high.

What we know is both are "the guy" players on their teams at this point, meaning they will be on the top line and PP1, getting heaps of TOI in the process. So I think this will boil down to the categories, plus where, within the wide spectrum of possible scoring rates, each will actually fall.

Pettersson's trends have been fewer SOG and goals in general. But those were when J.T. Miller was still in Vancouver, so although this is not me saying Pettersson will transform fully back into what he was in 2022-23, I find it difficult to envision him being as bad as he was last season. Also, as noted, he stands to get back if not to, than close to, the 20:33 he received per game in 2022-23, rather than the two full minutes less TOI last season. Pettersson also had been a solidly plus player until last season as well, with consistent PPPt totals, but varying PPGs.

As for Bedard, obviously we have a smaller sample size from which to draw. This is technically his breakout threshold, though, if comparisons to Nathan MacKinnon turn out to be apt, that might not mean major gains just yet. Plus, although Vancouver isn't brimming with top talent, few could argue they stack up better than Bedard's teammates. So Bedard would need to be the one to make the magic happen, which, if last season was an indication, could be difficult.

Still, despite shooting the puck less and scoring at a slightly lower rate, Bedard had gains in PPGs and PPPts, and shot at a rate which was a good bit higher than EP40, plus his ratios of goals and PPGs were better too. But +/- was a big issue, and likely will remain the case. For perspective, even though Pettersson was -10 last season, that still netted him 18 points over Bedard, who was -36. And I think that hefty weighting of +/-, as well as SOG being worth nearly nothing, are what tilt the scales to Pettersson for this season.

Topic #3 –What should expectations be for Seth Jarvis this season? He ended 2024-25 with 21 points in 18 games; but was that a preview of how 2025-26 will unfold, or just a hot streak?

Much has been made of the arrival of Nicolaj Ehlers and how he will factor into Carolina's plans, but will that affect Jarvis either way? Although it's not necessarily predictive as to how things will unfold with Ehlers in the mix, in the 14 games Jarvis played while Mikko Rantanen was on the Canes, he had nine points, with four coming in one game alone. Not great to say the least.

Then there's the powerplay. Jarvis saw the 23rd most PPTOI of any forward in 24-25, yet his 19 PPPTs only put him tied for 70th among forwards. Ehlers, on the other hand, had 22 PPPts, good for a tie for 48th, and this despite him ranking only 120th in PPTOI. And the Canes, despite not heaping ES TOI on players, do run a true PP1, where forwards will see at least two-thirds of total PP time. Most likely both will start on PP1; but we should keep in mind that Jackson Blake and Logan Stankoven saw PP1 time for junctures of last season, meaning they could again, especially if Jarvis continues to not produce in line with being on PP1. 

Jarvis is a RW, and Ehlers a LW, meaning they are unlikely to factor into whether either one is on the top line, although with a coach like Rod Brind'Amour, you never know, as he might see this as an opportunity to spread the offense around more. It is worth noting that the Canes did load up their top line with Rantanen, Aho and Jarvis at times during Rantanen's brief stint as a Cane; but more often it was Blake as the third member of the top line, not Jarvis. And while indeed Andrei Svechnikov also plays LW, he rarely played alongside Aho, meaning Ehlers should be the guy who gets that spot. But Stankoven and Blake play RW, resulting in Jarvis having twice as many contenders for a top line spot. And if we look at how Carolina did when Jarvis and Aho were on the ice together versus not, in the 584 minutes they shared the ice, 29 goals were scored, while in the time they were apart, Aho did worse but not by much (23 goals in 489 minutes) whereas Jarvis did considerably worse (13 goals in 372 minutes). Aho with Blake resulted in 19 goals in a total of 356 minutes though, which is a better per minute average than with Jarvis, albeit not by too much.

Getting back to the Brind'Amour system. It spreads around offense like few teams, as other than Aho no forward sees 20:00 of TOI. On the other hand, many get 15:00+. If we look at the TOI of the 32 forwards who scored at a point per game or higher rate in 41+ games last season, only eight, or 25% had a TOI lower than that of Jarvis, and four of the eight were among the bottom six in scoring rate of the 32. And although past results do not dictate future outcomes, and if Martin Necas had stayed with Carolina for the entire season this might've changed, you have to go all the way back to 2006-07 to find an instance of any winger averaging a point per game for Carolina. So in sum, I'd say Jarvis is less likely to rise to point per game numbers as he is to tread water and land again at roughly a 75 point pace, or perhaps a notch lower.

Topic #4 – What should be expected from Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen this season? Can he improve or is he a placeholder at best?

Certainly 2024-25 didn't unfold the way UPL, the Sabres, or his fantasy owners had hoped. But it might be even worse than it appears, since after 15 games he stood at a quite impressive 2.45 GAA and .914 SV%, with a total of eight quality starts. In the 40 subsequent games he played, however, he had only 12 more quality starts, and his save percentage went from bad, to worse, to dreadful with each passing quarter. Also, it would be one thing if this had been the first time UPL had logged that many games, as we could write this off as him losing steam. But 2023-24 saw him play only one fewer game, yet with far better results, prompting the Sabres to sign him for five years in the offseason.

How bad was UPL? He didn't manage an even strength SV% of .900. That might sound not terrible, but it is, since going back to 2010-11, there've been only 18 other instances of a goalie failing to stop 90% of the ES shots he faced while appearing in at least 41 of his teams' games. Who else made this list? It does include Jonathan Quick twice, but at ages 32 and 36, plus Jacob Markstrom, for a terrible 2022-23 Flames team and at age 32, as well as Juuse Saros last season, also for a terrible team but at age 29. The other names are mostly very bad goalie, namely Ben Scrivens, Brian Elliott, James Reimer, Martin Jones, Elvis Merzlikins, Scott Darling, Keith Kinkaid, Jake Allen, Samuel Ersson (twice), Philipp Grubauer, and Alexandar Georgiev, with those who did so by age 25, which is how old UPL was, being Ersson and Elliott. Suffice it to say, this is not great company in which to find oneself.

But what of the fact UPL still managed to have over 50% of his starts be quality starts despite such a woefully bad SV%? It does give glimmers of hope, since literally no goalie has ever had as high a GAA and as many Really Bad Starts, yet still over a 50% Quality Start rate. So perhaps he can elevate himself above some of the guys whose careers went nowhere?

On the other hand, his SV% on one day rest was 0.867, and that was based on 22 starts with one day rest. If a goalie is going to be a true #1, the reality is the majority of his starts will occur with one day rest, given that most teams play on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and in fact UPL started the 12th most games of any goalie last season, and ranked 11th in number of starts with one day rest, meaning he wasn't tasked to do more than others. So this is very discouraging.

When looking at what the Sabres did – or did not – do for UPL, they gave up the 12th most shots against, which is not that bad. And the average shot distance he faced was 36.09 feet, which was right in the middle of the pack among the 40 goalies who played 1500+ minutes last season. And his average distance of goals allowed was 19.78, which would seem to be quite good, but when looking at the best of the best they are nearly all above 20 or 21 feet.

In sum, the outlook for UPL does not seem great. But there are glimmers of hope. Still, if I had to bet for or against him, I'd opt for the latter.

Topic #5 – A GM is an expansion team in a 10 team, keep 5 H2H vats league with categories of G, A, PTS, +\-, PIM ,PPP ,SHP ,Hits ,Blks ,GWG; W, L ,GAA, SHO, Saves. Their roster is:

C – Sidney Crosby, Macklin Celebrini, Dylan Larkin            

LW – Matthew Tkachuk, Filip Forsberg, Carter Verhaeghe

RW – Lucas Raymond, Dylan Guenther, Will Cuylle

D – Moritz Seider, Adam Fox, Mikhail Sergachev, Shayne Gostisbehere, Travis Sanhiem

UT – Jake DeBrusk, Bryan Rust
Skater Bench – Bo Horvat, Marco Kasper, Pavel Buchnevich, Boone Jenner, Leo Carlsson, Artyom Levshunov

G – Ilya Sorokin, MacKenzie Blackwood

Goalie Bench – Lukas Dostal, Joel Hofer, Kevin Lankinen, Arturs Silovs

What should their plan be for this season? Should they keep things as is?

When I read expansion team, I figured it would be about how to rebuild; however, this team is likely a contender right now. Still though, the team is a bit polarized in terms of its skaters, with great ones that are age 28 or older, or 24 or younger, but nearly none in the age 24-28 sweet spot. This does not mean it cannot win now; it will likely introduce a dilemma of sorts, however, when it comes to keepers, since there can only be five. Knowing that, the questions become not only whether to shape the team – in terms of keepers – to be poised to win now, or instead to win later, but also what to do about this current season.

I think the approach to take would be not to tinker with the team for the first half, to see how things unfold. If there is a real chance to win this season, then I'd not be against dealing Kasper, Levshunov or Raymond to help win now, whereas if this team doesn't end up competitive, I'd turn to unloading the likes of Crosby, Horvat, and/or Ghost to shift the focus to the future.

If either of those paths are taken, that, in turn, would likely shape keepers as well. But if the team is competitive as is, then perhaps a middle ground keeper approach becomes best, with the five that come to mind being Celebrini, Tkachuk, Forsberg, Seider, and Guenther.

The risk with "going for it" of course is other teams who are not in the running will be busy making deals to get the best possible five keepers for next season, whereas this team has to focus on the here and now. If winning comes at a cost of not the absolute best five keepers, then that would be a small price to pay. Plus, with only five keepers per team, yet rosters that include this many players, I suspect that the league realistically cannot be won or lost solely based on a team's keepers.

If the team falls out of contention, players I'd consider moving are Larkin, since he is what I call as "WYSIWYG" player, meaning he basically produces at the same rate every season, such that he can be traded for actual value yet with little risk of seller's remorse due to his production spiking. I could also see trading Fox, who is not well suited for this league given his weakness in multicat; plus, I don't envision him as a keeper potential, but he nevertheless has significant name value, making him ideal to trade. Crosby too could be one to trade as well, especially if he stays with the Penguins, as he likely won't be able to revert to his higher scoring ways given the team's aging and struggles.

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THE ANSWER TO WHO THE PLAYER IS……….Bobby Holik!

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Questions for Mailbag column needed

The upcoming edition of my monthly mailbag still has room for more questions, which you can send me by either private messaging “rizzeedizzee” via the DobberHockey Forums, or emailing [email protected] with “Roos Mailbag” as the subject line.