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, Puneet Sharma, and Dobber

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1. Rick Bowness made his coaching debut with the Columbus Blue Jackets last Tuesday, and between the recent lineup changes and Bowness’ own tinkering, there were a few lineup notes worth fantasy attention. Up front, Charlie Coyle seems to be in line for a bigger role, as he is the main centre on the top power play unit, and he made a great first impression with two goals, an assist, and seven shots. He also had a new linemate in Dmitry Voronkov, which could be a good thing for the both of them with Voronkov also picking up an assist, though Voronkov was moved off the top power play unit lately.

On the back-end, Dante Fabbro made a great impression as well, jumping back up to the top pair with Zach Werenski, as a result of Denton Mateychuk being day-to-day with an undisclosed injury. Mateychuk and Ivan Provorov have been Werenski’s most common pairings, but it was Fabbro’s spot last year, and it could be his spot to lose in the short term after a successful showing in front of Bowness.

Jet Greaves got the start, which was his 10th in the past 11 games (at time of writing). I do wonder whether Elvis Merzlinkins gets his foot back in the door here, as Greaves has been rather pedestrian over the last week. At least he did pick up the win for Bowness. (jan14)

2. After skating nearly 21 minutes in his first game under new coach Rick Bowness, Kent Johnson was over 17 minutes in his second game on Thursday, marking just the third time this season that Johnson skated over 17 minutes in back-to-back games, and the first time since late November. It seems as if the coach has confidence in the player, and the player is producing in turn. It might be time to check those waiver wires. (jan16)

3. On Friday, Rangers GM Chris Drury shared an open message stating that the Rangers will undergo a retool but not a total rebuild. Although certain players were not mentioned in his message, Elliotte Friedman reported that the Rangers will not offer Artemi Panarin a contract extension, instead opting to work with Panarin and his agent to trade the star winger.

On a fantasy level, a Panarin trade could be a positive or a negative for him both in the short-term (rest of the season) and the long-term (next season and beyond). I won’t try to predict which team he could be traded to, but instead look at some variables that could change his value as a result of a trade.

Icetime: Panarin has averaged 20:49 per game this season, which is representative of a top-line forward. That could potentially drop with a new and deeper team than the Rangers, with a proportionate reduction in points. The icetime and scoring may not fall that much, though, as players with a similar amount of points range between around 19-22 minutes per game.

Power-play time: You probably can’t name a team with four forwards that are better than Panarin, so he would very likely be on another team’s PP1. The exception would be with a team with a very strong top power play, one in which the coach does not want to break up the unit. He is probably safe for power-play time.

Fit with new team: That is more difficult to gauge, and it may take some time for Panarin to click with new teammates… if he does at all. For all we know, Panarin may even be a rental, so an acquiring team may not even be his permanent home anyway. However, Panarin has a no-movement clause, which means he may only allow a trade to a team that he would consider signing with. Regardless, who the acquiring team is will matter for the fantasy playoffs. His learning curve may not satisfy fantasy teams, as the trade deadline is on March 6, while the fantasy playoffs in many leagues starts on March 16. (On a side note, for leagues that start their playoffs on that date, that's only five more scoring periods of regular-season fantasy hockey after this one! You've got the Olympics to thank for that.)

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All in all, Panarin’s value could shift one way or the other with a trade. While he is an established point-per-game scorer, his rest-of-season value becomes more uncertain with a trade appearing likely. If/when Panarin is traded, look out for the Fantasy Take article breaking down his potential value with his new team as well as how the Rangers could be affected. (jan17)

4. I saw someone on X mention the Carolina Hurricanes as a potential Panarin destination. Yet in scoring nine goals on Friday, perhaps the Canes players made a statement that they don’t need Panarin. In the 9-1 win over Florida, Nikolaj Ehlers led the way with a hat trick, one assist, and seven shots on goal. Ehlers needed a bit of time to adjust to Carolina with just four points in his first 11 games before picking it up with 34 points over his last 37 games. He is being used on the top power play, for those who have been waiting long enough for that to happen. (jan17)

5. Late on Friday, the Ducks announced that Leo Carlsson is expected to miss the next 3-5 weeks after undergoing a procedure to treat a lesion in his left thigh. This injury issue could have been slowing Carlsson, who was in a 10-game point drought before registering two points against Buffalo on Saturday – his final game before being sidelined. Prior to his slump, Carlsson exploded out of the gate with 41 points in his first 33 games. Carlsson’s status for Sweden at the Olympics next month is now in doubt. (jan17)

6. The St. Louis Blues announced that Robert Thomas is on the injured reserve. He did not play on Tuesday night and the team announced he will be out for at least two weeks. There are only three weeks left before the Olympic break, so it’s a wonder if they don’t give him that extra bit of time to rest. He could have six weeks to recuperate if the team really wants him to. (jan16)

7. Joel Hofer's numbers have been significantly better than Jordan Binnington‘s this year, and we could see a shift in volume in the second half as the Blues give Hofer some more rope while Binnington is also rested around the Olympics. (jan14)

8. I happened to add Pavol Regenda before his big hat-trick game last week, and at time of writing, I’m not really sure what to make of him. He has six goals and no assists through his first eight games, playing mainly with Tyler Toffoli, Ty Dellandrea, Jeff Skinner, and Alex Wennberg at even strength. Three of those goals have come on the powerplay, and he has done it all with only 22 SOG, meaning he’s shooting 27%. Interestingly, the shooting percentage is actually the only underlying marker that looks high. His IPPs are fine, on-ice shooting percentage is fairly average, while the zone starts % and secondary assists % are in fact low. Regenda has added 20 Hits through his eight games as well, but it’s not what he has done so far that we want to know, it’s what he’s going to bring moving forward. The short answer is he’s likely going to slowly see his role reduced, especially with Will Smith now back from injury.(jan14)

9. The Edmonton Oilers activated both Jake Walman and Tristan Jarry ahead of Tuesday night’s game against the Predators. In Jarry’s absence, Connor Ingram has been decent, and that run comes on the heels of me completely writing him off for the season, as well as dropping him in one league.

Jake Walman missed the last eight weeks, and played mainly with Spencer Stasney on the third pair in his return, putting up two SOG, one Blk, and a minus-one rating. His SOG and Blk rates have been down this year, but they are still noteworthy for fantasy as long as the 45-point scoring pace keeps up. (jan14)

10. Building on my poor timing with Ingram, I have had a rough season when it comes to goalies across many of my leagues. Up until Tuesday morning, I owned Jacob Markstrom in two leagues, but despite the win on Monday night, I finally cut bait with him in one league. The outlook wasn’t great, with the Devils outside of the playoff picture, possibly trading their most impactful defenseman, and with Jake Allen taking at least 50% of the starts lately.

The league where I dropped Markstrom is the shallower of the two where I own him, so he will be easier to replace if and when I need to add another goalie. I have been a little quick on the trigger with goalies this year, and that has come back to bite me in a few cases.

First with John Gibson, who I had written off in Detroit after his awful start, culminating in a Dec 2^nd loss that put him at 19 goals against in his previous four games. At that point, Cam Talbot was taking over the crease, and Gibson couldn’t re-direct a volleyball. (jan14)

11. In another league, I moved out Juuse Saros in late November, right before his turnaround. In the first two months of the season he allowed more than three goals in a game eight times (six of them Really Bad Starts), and then in his third month, leading up to Tuesday night’s start, there has only been one game with more than three goals allowed (and no Really Bad Starts). Saros’ game picked up right after captain Roman Josi returned from a four-week injury absence. Coincidentally, that was also when Steven Stamkos turned his season around… maybe we really should have seen those ones coming. Sticking with that point, Stamkos scored his 20th of the season Tuesday, which was also his 16th in the last 24 games. Josi meanwhile scored twice in the OT win, giving him five points in two games.

In the end, what I’m trying to say with goalies is that they all have bad stretches, and if you look at the stats of the majority of star goalies, most will have a bad quarter or so. For Markstrom, it’s now two bad quarters on a struggling team, and he’s on the wrong side of 35. For Gibson and Saros, I should have been more patient. (jan14)

12. The Ottawa Senators signed goalie James Reimer to a one-year contract. He is likely not the goalie he was five years ago, but it isn’t as if we’ve never seen a goalie come out of nowhere to get on a second-half hot streak before. Ottawa is desperate for wins, and if he can out-perform Leevi Merilainen, then he will get the bulk of the starts. Goalie-needy fantasy teams need to at least consider him. (jan13)

13. Cole Perfetti has struggled to build on last season, and the breakout many of us expected (myself included) just has not materialized. He is shooting a career-low 5.2%, and while his PP TOI has ticked up, his overall minutes are down nearly a full minute per game. That said, he has been showing flashes of life lately, picking up six points in his last six games entering Saturday. (jan12)

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14. The whole Dougie Hamilton/GM Tom Fitzgerald saga seems to be getting uglier by the day and while we will probably beat it to death before it’s over, the Devils issues don’t just top at Hamilton. Players like Ondrej Palat have offered very little return since arriving in the New Jersey and this whole situation, likely will not improve until Tom Fitzgerald makes a move and ships Hamilton out of New Jersey, if that even makes a difference at this point in their season. (jan12)

15. A month ago, this column discussed player market share. The term ‘market share’ is what it sounds like: What percentage of a team’s shot attempts/shots/expected goals with a given player on the ice are accumulated by that player? We do something similar with Individual Points Percentage to calculate which players are figuring in on their team’s goals the most/least often. This is the same thing, but with shot attempts, shots, and expected goals.

One reason we do it is to find hidden gems. Among the top-25 forwards by market share of shot attempts up until American Thanksgiving were Ryan Leonard and Alex Laferriere. In 35 combined games since, they have 11 goals, 17 assists, and 87 shots. In 47 combined games before that, they had fewer goals (10) and assists (11). Market share often highlights top goal and/or point producers anyway, but it can indicate some players who could either be under-performing (Tage Thompson led shot attempt market share up to American Thanksgiving and his point-per-game rate has increased since) or could be very productive with a bigger role (like Leonard).

With that out of the way, let’s look at market share among some forwards at all strengths. We are splitting the season in two, using American Thanksgiving as the mid-point. We are limiting the sample to forwards with at least 200 minutes in each ‘half’ – 272 forwards – and all data is from Evolving Hockey. (jan13)

16. Auston Matthews (Toronto Maple Leafs)

A lot has been made about Matthews’ season, whether he’s healthy or not, and a potential decline. It should be noted that in the first half of our game sample, Matthews took 32% of the team’s shot attempts, which was the sixth-highest rate in the league. In the second half of our game sample, Matthews leads the league:

In Matthews’ 69-goal season two years ago, his season-long market share of shot attempts was a shade under 30%. So, not only was he above that during his slow start, but he’s been far above that in the recent stretch that has seen him score 12 goals in his last 19 games. His 82-game pace this season is for 45 goals, exceeding his pace from last year. Whatever else is the problem, it’s not because Matthews is afraid to shoot the puck, and with seven goals in seven games (heading into Monday night), he might be getting ready for one of his patented month-long heaters en route to the Olympics. (jan13)

17. Anthony Duclair (New York Islanders)

With injuries and poor play marring his first 14 months in an Islanders uniform, it would make sense if fantasy managers were wary of trusting Duclair. Well, below is a chart with all the forwards whose change in market share of both shot attempts and expected goals is at least one standard deviation above average (or roughly the top 16%). Duclair is among them, leading the way in expected goal improvement:

There hasn’t been a big ice-time leap for Duclair yet, but it is notable that in 13 games between Halloween and American Thanksgiving, he skated under 13 minutes in each contest. Conversely, he has skated over 13 minutes in his three January games, and 11 times in his last 17 games. He had that huge five-point night last week, so he’s been on fantasy radars, but there has clearly been some more trust from his coaches of late. That trust is built off him being much more involved offensively, so if he can keep this up and stay healthy, he can be a productive fantasy option again. (jan13)

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18. In Tuesday’s Ramblings, we went over forwards and their market share of shot attempts and/or expected goals. To review, a player’s market share in those areas simply means the percentage of a team’s shots that specific player takes when he’s on the ice. So, if Roman Josi takes 20 out of every 100 shots for Nashville when he’s on the ice, then his market share is 20%.

The main reason for doing this is to identify players who are getting involved offensively but whose fantasy value hasn’t taken off yet, providing a good buy-low or waiver wire pickup opportunity (the last 6+ weeks from Ryan Leonard and Alex Leferriere were examples of how this can be helpful). It can also identify players who had good fantasy value but are losing it.

Like Tuesday’s Ramblings, we are going to split the season in two: before American Thanksgiving and after, using only defencemen with at least 250 minutes played in each half (sample of 151 players). This is for all situations (EV, PP, PK) and the data is from Evolving Hockey.

Louis Crevier (Chicago Blackhawks)

This was a very interesting name to find. There were 16 defencemen in the sample to be at least one standard deviation above average by market share of shot attempts both pre- and post-American Thanksgiving. Of those 16 defencemen, only three added at least 1:00 of ice time per game between the two halves, and here are the three:

Crevier added well over three minutes of ice time per game, while also being among the most regular shot-takers of all defencemen in the league. Overall, since American Thanksgiving, Crevier has taken 24.8% of Chicago’s shot attempts when he’s on the ice, which is the fifth-highest rate among the 151 defencemen in our sample. We could shrug it off as a hot streak for 6-7 weeks had Crevier not had a top-20 market share of shot attempts through the first 7+ weeks of the season.

Crevier is not a defenceman typically known for his offence, but not only is he shooting frequently, he leads Chicago defencemen in primary assists at 5-on-5 with seven, and he leads them in total points at 5-on-5 with 11. He won’t get top PP time, so there is a cap to his potential point production, but he’s averaging 1.5 hits and 0.8 blocks per game, is shooting the puck a lot, and has seen his ice time increase each month of the season from 12:34 in October to 18:54 in January. As a depth option in multi-cat formats, the pillars to support his fantasy value are there. (jan15)

19. Vladislav Gavrikov (New York Rangers)

Gavrikov’s name has been a popular one over the last couple of weeks because the injury to Adam Fox assuredly means not only more ice time, but a crack at a top power-play role. He may have been scooped up already in various fantasy formats.

With that said, Gavrikov is 1 of 13 defencemen in our sample to see an increase in his market share of both shot attempts and expected goals, and he’s also seen an increase in ice time of over 1:30 per game:

It isn’t as if it’s leading to a plethora of more shots, but he is averaging 1.65 shots per game since Fox’s initial injury at the end of November, compared to Gavrikov’s average of 1.33 shots per game up to that point. Even if he keeps up that pace the rest of the season, we’re taking maybe 10-15 extra shots. All the same, an incremental improvement here with the potential of a top PP role at least until the Olympic break makes Gavrikov a must-own in all but the shallowest multi-cat formats. (jan15)

20. Pavel Mintyukov (Anaheim Ducks)

Mintyukov is the lone defenceman in our sample who has a top-10 improvement in both market share of shot attempts and market share of expected goals in the two halves (in fairness, Shayne Gostisbehere was really close). Here is how he compared to Gavrikov, who had big improvements in each category himself:

What is also important here is that Mintyukov has seen an improvement over 3:30 in TOI per game between the halves, so not only is he shooting more (with more quality attached to those shots), but he’s been getting a lot more ice time. Like Crevier earlier, Mintyukov has increased his ice time per game every month of the season and now stands at 21:48 per game in the month of January, right alongside Jacob Trouba (21:49) for the top TOI rates on Anaheim’s blue line.

The result here has been Mintyukov going from 0.76 shots per game to 1.4 per game. That is a huge difference and with some good PPTOI being added to his profile recently, Mintyukov’s name is one to consider in any fantasy format that doesn’t have shallow rosters. (jan15)

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21. In Tuesday's ‘Capped’ write-up, Andrew Santillo included Jordan Kyrou, who is having a very down season with the St. Louis Blues. In fairness, the entire roster is having a down season, but Kyrou posted three straight 30-goal, 30-assist seasons and may not even get to 20-20 in this campaign.

A lot has been made about what’s wrong with the St. Louis Blues offensively, and I’d like to chime in here. Over the summer, I had a long BlueSky thread (it can be read here) about how defencemen botching defensive zone retrievals, or failing to exit the zone in any manner, is something that hurt their team’s goal-scoring rate more than their goals against rate. Using tracking data from All Three Zones and combining the 2021-2023 seasons, here is the negative impact on goals-for per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 by defencemen who have high rates of botched retrievals+failed exits in the 2023-24 season: