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 becoming the 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 North American forward

CLUE #2 – Despite being a first round draft pick, I played four seasons in the QMJHL

CLUE #3 – Once I became an NHL regular at age 21, I never missed more than eight games in any of my first eight seasons, playing for two teams

CLUE #4 – After that though, I became perhaps the epitome of a journeyman, as in my last six seasons I played for nine different teams, including three in one season alone!

CLUE #5 – I reached the 1000 career NHL regular season games played mark, but barely

CLUE #6 – Five separate times I was part of a team which reached double digits in playoff games in a season, but I never hoisted the Stanley Cup

CLUE #7 – Despite playing for ten different teams, only one was an Original Six club, for which I had my lone season of 60+ points

CLUE #8 – Even though I played for so many teams, I had separate stints with the same team just once, which happened to be the team on which I ended my career 

CLUE #9 – I retired within the last five years

CLUE #10 – Despite not panning out as well offensively as was predicted, I did win a gold medal for Canada in the World Cup while averaging better than a point per game

CLUE #11 – I was drafted in 2006

CLUE #12 – My initials are D.B.

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 – In a 14 team, H2H, daily start league with rosters of 3C, 3RW, 3LW, 1Util, 4D, 1G, plus 12 bench and categories of G (3), A (2), +/- (1), PIM (0.1), PPP (1), FOW (0.1), FOL (-0.1), SOG (0.1), BLK (0.5), HAT (3), W (5), SO (3), SV (0.1), GA (-0.5), the number of keepers is shrinking from ten to eight. Which would not be keeper among these options: Ivan Demidov, Matvei Michkov, Clayton Keller, Quinton Byfield, Will Smith, Logan Stankoven, Marco Rossi, Zach Benson, Noah Dobson, Brandt Clarke, Jackson LaCombe, and Igor Shesterkin?

Before this change, keepers could comprise as much as two-thirds of a team's line-up. Now, it's barely over half. And instead of ten keepers and 17 drafted players, it's eight and 19. As such, the draft will matter even more, and, in turn, bigger risks can be taken with keepers.

With that in mind, I'd be more inclined to keep guys who might not pay immediate dividends, but figure to have a chance to be major difference makers. Accordingly, I'm holding Demidov, Michkov, Stankoven, Byfield, Benson and Clarke. Keller is assuredly a keeper, as he's a 90-point floor player despite his slow start to the season. That leaves these four possibilities for the two non-keeps: Rossi, Dobson, LaCombe and Shesterkin.

Let's start with Shesterkin. I'm guessing most would think I'd say not to keep him since only one goalie must start. But when that is the case, you need a proven workhorse, and Igor is just that, plus would be much harder to redraft. Also, even though I haven't dissected each of the other keeper options, I feel like none would be even close to as impactful as Igor. So he's a keep.

Who is the other keep though? It's not Rossi, even after the trade. Yes, he is undersized so he should not truly come into his own for another couple of seasons; however, the reality is the best of the best on the Wild did better when not playing on a line with him. Going back to the start of last season, Kirill Kaprizov had been on the ice with Rossi for 616 even strength minutes, during which the Wild scored a total of 37 goals, so a goal roughly every 16.6 minutes. What about Kaprizov with other centers? With Joel Eriksson-Ek at even strength, the total was 340 minutes, and 24 goals, or one per every 14.1 minutes. That's a pretty sizeable difference, and concerning. I also can't help but come back to the reality that centers as short or shorter than Rossi simply do not have a track record of fantasy success, as the "best" of the recent bunch have been Tyler Johnson, Nathan Gerbe, Yanni Gourde, and Devid Desharnais, all of whom were unremarkable at best. We need to go way back to Derek Roy and Daniel Briere to find examples of two diminutive pivots who had what I'd call solid fantasy careers. Yes, past results do not predict the future, and he figures to be a #1 center in Vancouver; but he arguably already was the #1 center on an even better team. I think Rossi is a non-keep, all things considered.

The last one is tougher. LaCombe leapfrogged Olen Zellweger and Pavel Mintyukov to be the true #1 in Anaheim, and now has the big contract to show for it. But for a while it looked like he was going to be Brock Faber 2.0 in that he was faring fare worse after breaking out, and not for lack of opportunity. But LaCombe has started to seemingly turn things around, and the Ducks are clearly willing to stick with him. As for Dobson, he has a huge roadblock in Lane Hutson, plus Mike Matheson just signed an extension. There are a lot of cooks in that kitchen. However, Dobson seems to be holding his own, plus the Habs look poised to be very good, very soon, and perhaps for a very long time. I think Dobson arguably has the higher floor, but likely not a higher ceiling. I realize I said that one could afford to take risks given the number of keepers versus draft picks; however, in this case I'm opting for the surer thing in Dobson. But it's close enough that I could support a decision to opt for LaCombe instead.

Topic #2 – What does the rest of the season hold for Timo Meier? After starting the season with seven points in 15 games, he's been at a point per game pace. Is he thriving only because Jack Huighes is out, or has he finally found his groove in New Jersey?

It is quite an interesting coincidence as to when Meier started to thrive this season. And we can clearly see Hughes' injury put Meier onto PP1, where he's done quite well, as it took him only 26 games to tally the same number of PPPts as it did in 62 games last season. Hughes' injury also meant that Dawson Mercer took Jesper Bratt's spot with Meier and Hischier, with great results.

Of course since this forum topics was posted – and I started to answer it here – Meier took a leave of absence from the team, halting any momentum he'd had. But let's look ahead anyway and ask the magic question of who will find himself on PP2 if all Devils forwards are healthy? It won't be Hughes, Hischier, or Bratt. That leaves either Mercer or Meier. Yes, Meier is being paid far more than Mercer; however, Mercer is someone the team likely will want to groom for success since he'll be with them presumably a lot longer than Meier. 

What about Meier's metrics? His SOG rate and SH% are both sustainable, but his TOI, which had been above 20:00 per game in Q2, might not be, as it was two minutes less in Q1 and under 18:00 per game in each of the two past seasons. Meier's IPP on the PP is a sky high 90%, which is not sustainable but also likely has been noticed by the team, perhaps making it more difficult to see them relegating him to PP2 upon the return of Hughes. Meier's overall IPP though is just fine, as is his team SH% at 5×5.

There remains a concern in that Hughes and Meier are all but assured not to be on the same line, as both are shoot first players. Sure enough, Meier has been alongside Hischier for nearly all of the last two seasons. Hischier is very talented; however, he also is tasked with tough minutes, leading to Meier yet again having an OZ% of 45% or so. That might not be an issue for Hischier, given his proven two-way talent; but it's a misfit for Meier, who is all offense. I worry that even if Meier stays on PP1 when Hughes comes back, the Hischier line will continue to start a subpar percentage of shifts in the defensive zone. In short, I don't have high hopes for Meier suddenly rising to more than a 55-65 point player on the Devils, with a better chance of falling below 60 than rising above 65.

Topic #3 – In a 10 Team, Keep 6, H2H – 1 win, with G, A, SOG, PPP, FOW, H, B, Wins, GAA, Sv%, SHO as categories and rosters of 2C, 2RW, 2LW, 1Ut, 4D, 3G, 6Bench, 2-I/R+, 1NA, plus where there must be 4 Minimum goalie appearances per week, who's the better own: Jet Greaves or Akira Schmid?

At first glance, Schmid's 2.33 GAA and .903 SV% look pretty good, as does the fact he's won 11 games in 17 appearances. But he's done this despite just 41.2% of his starts being quality starts. How so? He's faced 30+ SOG just once, and more than 24 only three other times. So his GAA of 2.33 is not really that great, nor is his SV%. Let's also not forget that Schmid has never once played even 20 games in a season, so who's to say how he'd fare if asked to log the 30 or so games in which a back-up or 1B normally would appear. On top of that, Carter Hart has signed, and looked quite solid early on, plus brings with him a lot more experience, including as a true #1 goalie. Although Adin Hill's return date is unclear, he too looms.

Greaves is in a position similar to Lukas Dostal in 2024-25, playing better than the incumbent #1 but paid far less, except instead of John Gibson for Dostal it's Elvis Merzlikins. In the case of Anaheim, they did start to pass the torch to Dostal as the season wore on, then dealt Gibson in the offseason. But they had nothing to play for, as the team was never in playoff contention. The same is not true for Columbus, at least as of now. Greaves also has even less experience than Schmid; but the difference is this is Schmid's fifth season, versus the fourth for Greaves, with Greaves having only played one game in his first and nine and 11 in his second and third respectively. In the case of Greaves, it was less so due to him being seen as not "deserving" of more time, but instead for him to get experience before becoming part of the goalie picture.

Interestingly, Greaves has won barely a third of his games despite having a better SV% than Schmid, mainly due to his GAA being a good bit higher than Scmid's. Yet 60% of Greaves' starts have been quality starts. The issue is 20% have been really bad starts, making him a bit of a feast or famine fantasy performer. Schmid might not have a very high quality start percentage, but his really bad start rate is lower than that of Greaves, although not too low, again owing to how few SOG he faces.

What's also important to consider is Merzlikins' $5.4M deal looks a lot different today than when signed in 2021, as the salary is no longer as large a chunk of the cap, and it's one season away from expiring. That is actually the same expiration time as Gibson's, and Gibson earns $6.4M, or $1M more than Merzlikins. So if he could be traded, seemingly so too could Elvis.

But although Greaves appears to be the "better" goalie in terms of skill as compared to Schmid, and the one who has a better chance to be a starter as early as next season, there's also the reality that unless this team deals Vasilevskiy, neither of these two would be a keeper; so in truth, only what happens the rest of this season will matter. Schmid is better in GAA and should get more wins (two of the four goalie categories), that is unless Hart is handed the reins or Columbus opts to take Merzlikins out of the picture. 

In the end, I'd probably opt for Schmid here, underscoring how sometimes in fantasy hockey the categories determine player values more so than skill.

Topic #4 – In a 10 team, roto (daily starts), keep 20, league with 3C, 3LW, 3RW, 5D, 2G, 1UTIL, 3IR rosters, and categories of G,A,PTS, +/-, PIM, PPA, PPG, D PTS – W, SV, SV%, are any of these players an upgrade over Brock Boeser: Bryan Rust, Nazem Kadri, Marcus Johannson, Tyler Toffoli, Pavel Zacha, Owen Tippett, Teuvo Teravainen, Anthony Cirelli, Andre Burakovky? Or should the GM stick with Boeser?

Boeser is a player who I feel many think has accomplished more than he actually has, as looking back he has only three seasons where he produced at a 70+ point rate, but never more than 75. I think part of his retained perceptual value is the memory of the strong start to his career, plus the fact he has regained his scoring touch every few seasons, kind of like Vincent Trocheck. But the difference this time is he's fallen more below that 70+ rate than in the past, making it less certain he'd rise to that level once again. Also, the last two times he hit the mark he was being centered by J.T. Miller, who's now gone. Boeser's IPPs and team SH% at 5×5 also are lower than in his prior seasons between 70+ point campaigns too, further raising concern he might not hit the mark again. I would definitely consider other options.

The players listed though all are imperfect in one or more ways. I'd rule out Johansson right away, as he's 35, shooting at a sky high rate, plus is nearly a decade removed from producing anywhere near this level. This is unsustainable. Toffoli has managed to stay in the top six in San Jose, although his overall TOI is dropping and he's not always on PP1 anymore. He's no spring chicken either at nearly 34-years-old. I think his days of being productive are coming to a close, his four points on Saturday notwithstanding. Teravainen is doing what he seems to do every season, which is get red hot for about a dozen or so games, before coming back to earth. He is what he is at this stage in his career, a 50ish point player with little to no realistic upside above that. None of those three would be likely amount to an upgrade.

As for Burakovsky, many might forget that from 2019-20 through 2022-23 he had four straight seasons of 63-68 point scoring pace. He also has been the only player consistently stapled to Connor Bedard throughout the season, and has found himself on PP1 more often than not. Yet with Bedard out now, Burakovsky loses his lure. Speaking of great gigs, Cirelli has found himself playing alongside Nikita Kucherov for most of the season; yet he's not significantly benefitting, and still cannot find a coveted spot on PP1. If he can't do better than a 50-60 pace under these circumstances, then he likely never will. Tippett looked so promising in 2023-24 when he was firing pucks on the net and shining in Q3, only to majorly disappoint in 2024-25, he has seen his scoring nearly return to 2023-24 levels, but none of this has led gains in TOI either overall or on the PP. Tippett is essentially maxed out as far as production. No one in this group would be a better option than Boeser.

That leaves Kadri, Zacha, and Rust, and I think they are indeed the only ones in the conversation. Kadri is the unquestioned #1 center in Calgary; however, that is not ideal because he does not have top-tier wingers to play alongside him. Still, he is a 65-point downside player, and even as the Flames have struggled in the first third of the season, he's ahead of his pace last season, and let's not forget he was a point per game player in Q4, plus could get traded, perhaps even to Minnesota. Rust is a 70-point floor player; but he also is a certified Band-Aid-Boy. If things continue as they are now, this will be the third straight season where the Pens have shot 10.7%+ at 5×5 with him on the ice. Zacha has always been tantalizing, largely due to his draft pedigree. But until this season he'd struggled to score with the man advantage, whereas he's thriving in that area now. Still, his scoring is right in the 55-60 point range, which is either good news since if he's able to up his non-PP scoring to where it should be, his scoring rate could climb to 70+, or bad news if his PP scoring comes back to earth.

In the end, it's likely Kadri or Rust. Of the two, I like Kadri. His spot is cemented, and he's shown he can score even when those around him are far from elite. His age is a concern; but I figure he has at least several more seasons in him, plus could land in Minnesota, or, even if not, can be flipped if he gets hot for a player that's younger and still an upgrade versus Boeser.

Topic #5 – In the same league as noted in Topic #3, are Andrei Svechnikov and/or Emi Heineman worth holding, or would it make more sense to drop one or both to use to stream, for example defensemen to get BLK and HIT? The team's line-up is:

C: Sam Bennett, Jordan Staal, Sean Monahan
LW: Leon Draisaitl LW/C, Tim Stutzle LW/C, Kirill Kaprizov, Svechnikov LW/RW
RW: Jason Robertson RW/LW, Clayton Keller RW/LW, Brandon Hagel RW/LW, Lucas Raymond, Heineman RW/LW
D: Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes, Rasmus Dahlin, Nikita Zadorov
G: Andrei Vasilevskiy, Jesper Wallstedt, Brandon Bussi, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen
I/R: McAvoy

This team has forward flexibility thanks to many having multi-positional eligibility. Both Svech and Heineman do as well; however, if one or both were to be dropped, the team likely would not suffer in terms of it having too few viable options at each position. The question does really boil down to whether one or both merit a "spot" on this roster, or should be dropped in favor of streaming at defense to up the team's hits and blocks.

Looking at the roster, I count just eight forwards. And since this is a ten team league, that means under 100 forwards are likely rostered. That's significant for two reasons – first, because if one or both are dropped, there will almost assuredly be others that can be grabbed to take their place should that become necessary or when McAvoy comes back from injury, as he'll make it so the team would need to stream either just one defenseman spot, or none.

Are Svech or Heineman top 100 players in this league? I was thinking that Heineman could thrive in view of the injury to Kyle Plamieri; however, he's actually being deployed worse, and has not been featured on PP1 of late. He's hitting, and it's not like the Isles have many better options for the top six; however, point per every other game scoring doesn't cut it even if he gets three hits a game. As far as Svech, the good news is in Q2 his ice time is over 18:00 per game, up by two minutes per game versus Q1 and with half the added minutes coming on the PP. The results have been him shooting more, but not scoring much more, with barely over a point per every other game production.

What concerns me most about Svech is his 5×5 team SH%, which peaked at 8.4% back in the 2022-23 season, has since gone down, to 8.0%, then 7.4%, and so far for 2025-26 sits at 7.2%. Those are lousy numbers, indicating not enough offense is occurring when Svech is on the ice, and things are only getting worse. Compounding that is his overall IPP, which, when he scored in the 70s, was around 65%, which is not great. Only one other time was his PP IPP over 60%, at 60.7%. This season it's 54.5%, which is still quite weak. It really is a double whammy in that offense is not happening when he is on the ice, and when it does, he's not factoring into scoring. He's continuing to get top tier deployment for now, is only 25 years old, earns $7.8M per season through 2028-29 and was a former second overall pick. But it seems like either the effort level is not there on a nightly basis, or he's just not as great as was predicted, or both. He's also not even the HIT and SOG machine he once was. I do believe Svech is not likely to significantly improve unless he gets traded or is sent a "tough love" message by being made a healthy scratch. But even then I'm not convinced he'd rise back to the 60s again, let alone the 70s.

In short, I think that given the number of forwards owned, I would feel safe in dropping one or both of the two. If only one was to be dropped, I'd have it be Heineman, as the Canes seem to still be trying to – pun intended – "make Svech happen."

Topic #6 – In a 12 team, Keep 9 plus 7 prospects, and with scoring being G (4.25 for D, 3.5 for F), A (e for D, 2.5 for F), Hit (0.5), BLK (0.5), Win (2), SV (0.3), GA (-1.5), SO (2), a team currently has this as its roster:
F: Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Ivan Demidov, Troy Terry, Trevor Zegras, Joran Kyrou, Jared McCann, Mackie Samoskevich, Bennett Sennecke, Andre Burakovsky, Pavel Zacha, Victor Olofsson, Brayden Schenn
D: K'Andre Miller, Artyom Levshunov, Mattias Samuelsson, Artem Zub, Jake McCabe, Simon Edvinsson
G: Jakub Dobes, Dan Vladar, Tristan Jarry
IR: Shayne Gostisbehere, Zach Benson
Prospects: Cole Hutson, Berkly Catton, Michael Hage, Porter Martone, Axel Sandin-Pellikka, Jacob Fowler

Should they trade Caufield for Cutter Gauthier?

The first thing I notice is this team has lots of players on the Habs – six if I count correctly. But only three are forwards, and they also have two Duck forwards. If they make this trade, they would be putting fewer eggs in the Montreal basket, but actually ending up with now more Duck forwards than Montreal forwards. Inasmuch as these are two teams seemingly on the rise, this is not a bad problem to have though; but at some point there might be consideration for trying to diversify a bit more, just to be safe.

Gauthier has made a huge splash, firing SOG at a huge rate, placing him third overall among all forwards. And he's doing this while taking the ice for not even 18:00 per game, and just 2:35 per contest on the PP, with the latter being due to the Ducks icing two true PP units. On the one hand, things can only improve in both areas; but on the other, his elite production becomes more suspect given the less favorable circumstances under which it’s occurred. Gauthier's metrics are not overly concerning; his OZ% is roughly 60%, which is not too high for an offensive-minded player. The team shooting 12.5% at 5×5 with him on the ice, which is a tad on the high side, but his IPPs, at 68.0% overall and 58.3% on the PP, are both decent enough to show he's seemingly for real, yet also allowing for room for improvement. His secondary assist rate is a bit high at 50%, as normally high volume shooters have a higher share of primary assists, with their SOG resulting in goals for them or someone else on a rebound. But all things considered, Gauthier seems pretty legit.

As for Caufield, like his linemate Nick Suzuki all he's done is get better in terms of scoring rate every single season he's been in the NHL, and is on pace to do so yet again. The difference this year is his PP scoring, as it took him fewer than half as many games to reach double digits in PPPts as compared to last season. But might it be a fluke? His PP IPP is 66.7%, which would not raise eyebrows for a consistent point per gamer; however, for Caufield, whose PP IPP was 44.7% last season and 53.8% the season prior, it is atypical. But let's also not forget that Caufield is an undersized player who has not yet even reached the 400-game mark when a breakout would be expected to occur. So seeing him start to connect the dots in terms of the PP may be consistent with him starting to inch toward a major breakout.

What's also important is although Caufield is only receiving about 30 seconds more man advantage time per game than Gauthier so far this season, he's out there for over two-thirds of Montreal's PP minutes, whereas Gauthier has hovered right around 50%. This is due to Anaheim drawing more penalties, but I place a lot more weight in PP minute percentages than actual PP averages, since the latter can change quite a bit season to season as a team's approach changes. Caufield's metrics have no real worry areas, as they're either consistent with past seasons or not objectively unreasonable.

For sure Gauthier has lure, given what he's shown and being three years younger than Caufield. But Caufield is a proven performer, and still seemingly improving. The Anaheim ice time philosophy is indeed a concern. It's also difficult to decide between them because their goals to assists rates are similar, as are their hits and blocks. Both also look to have no challengers to their top line LW spots. This is about as close to a coin flip as I can envision. In the end, I think the fact that Caufield and Suzuki keep getting better, and the team would be able to stack them, is enough to likely cause me to not make the trade. There's also my philosophy that unless a trade clearly favors me, I usually do not make it, as chances are I can find another deal where I'd more assuredly "win" the trade.

************

THE ANSWER TO WHO THE PLAYER IS……….Derick Brassard!

************

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.