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. I’m in the process of preparing for my fantasy playoffs in multiple leagues, so my recent adds, drops, and trades have leaned toward players on teams with heavier schedules during my fantasy playoffs in each league. One particular league of mine uses a playoff schedule from Monday, March 23 to Sunday, April 12, which is the first schedule breakdown listed in the Schedule Stretch Run section of the Midseason Guide. During that time period, Montreal and Ottawa (along with New Jersey) have the heaviest schedules with 12 games each. By adding Habs and Sens to your roster this weekend, you may also be thinking ahead to your fantasy playoffs!

In addition to the Midseason Guide, you can also determine your players’ playoff schedules by using the Schedule Planner on Frozen Tools. I probably use the Schedule Planner more than any other tool on the Frozen Tools website for my own fantasy teams. (mar14)

2. In one league, I added Alex Newhook because he seemed like the best available option on the Habs. With 18 points in 24 games entering Saturday, Newhook would be on a 60-point pace over an entire season. I would bet the under in that scenario, as peripherals such as a 25.0 SH% and a 20.0 5-on-5 SH% suggest a regression. There’s still a lot to like, as Newhook is on what appears to be a second line with Ivan Demidov and Oliver Kapanen. In fact, you could just as well swap Kapanen in here if one is available but not the other. Kapanen is in the top 5 in rookie scoring with 33 points in 64 games. Both are under 10% rostered in Yahoo. (mar14)

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3. And looking ahead to next week… Mentioned in this week’s Looking Ahead, onetime first overall pick Alexis Lafreniere had nine goals and 15 points over his last 10 games entering weekend action. The Rangers also have one of the best schedules for the playoff period starting next week on Monday, March 16 until Sunday, April 5.

If Lafreniere (18% Yahoo/64% Fantrax) is unavailable in your league, Gabe Perreault (1% Yahoo/41% Fantrax) should be considered a nice consolation prize. Recently vaulted to the Rangers’ top power play, Perreault had four goals and nine points over his last six games while on a line with Lafreniere and Mika Zibanejad. The Rangers’ season might be finished for all intents and purposes, but somebody has to fill the scoring void left by Artemi Panarin. This late-season scoring surge from Lafreniere and rookie Perreault could also be a glimpse into next season. (mar14)

4. With injuries to Mikko Rantanen, Roope Hintz, and Tyler Seguin, Mavrik Bourque has assumed a more prominent role. Up to seven points in his last six games entering Saturday's games, Bourque has also seen his icetime increase over three minutes per game from Quarter 1 to Quarter 4. He has also taken a regular even-strength turn with sharpshooters Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston, both of which have reached 35 goals. Bourque was only 3% rostered in Yahoo and 37% rostered in Fantrax, so he’s readily available. Dallas also plays four games next week. (mar14)

5. An MRI confirmed the worst for Auston Matthews, who will miss the rest of the regular season with a Grade 3 MCL tear and quad contusion. In case you missed it, Matthews was injured on a knee-on-knee hit from Radko Gudas during the second period of Thursday’s game against Anaheim.

Given the recent winless streak (snapped at eight games on Thursday) and the lack of response from Matthews’ teammates after the hit, the Maple Leafs are more likely to finish the season on a whimper instead of a bang. That makes it difficult to strongly recommend any Leafs players to add as a result of Matthews’ absence.

Also of note is that Matthews snapped a 12-game goalless drought just minutes before the hit. That’s the kind of season it has been for both Matthews and Leafs fans. Matthews finishes with his first-ever sub-30 goal season and his first sub-point-per-game season since his rookie campaign of 2016-17. The Matthews injury also could be the final nail in the coffin for the Leafs’ playoff hopes. The Leafs have made the playoffs every season since Matthews’ rookie season of 2016-17. (mar14)

6. In addition to being ejected from the game, Gudas has been suspended for five games, which is the maximum allowable for a phone hearing. Matthews’ agent Judd Moldaver described the suspension as “laughable and preposterous,” which many hockey fans would wholeheartedly agree with. Gudas is a popular bangers league option for his hit totals, but he will be much easier to replace in fantasy leagues than Matthews. With the suspension, Gudas will be on pace to finish with fewer than 200 hits for the first time since 2019-20. (mar14)

7. Dating back to January because of injury and Olympic break, Robert Thomas has points in nine consecutive games with 14 points over that span. Other teams will no doubt continue to try to get their hands on Thomas this offseason.

Assumed to be a slam-dunk lottery team given their trade deadline activity, St. Louis has gone 6-0-1 in its past seven games. Players like Fowler, Jimmy Snuggerud (5 G and 4 A in last 5 GP), and Dylan Holloway (5 G and 7 A in last 9 GP) have found their way onto the Frozen Tools hot list. All of them are under 50% rostered in Yahoo leagues, which would make them solid pickups down the stretch, right? Well, don’t forget to check your upcoming schedule, as the Blues have a light fantasy schedule in some fantasy playoff formats. They are also the only team to play in just two games next week, with all 31 other teams playing either three or four games. (mar14)

8. The Calgary Flames have signed forward Tyson Gross, per Eric Francis. The 23-year-old college free agent can report to the team as soon as he’s able, so we’ll see what the timeline is like soon. His Dobber Prospects profile can be read here. (mar13)

9. Andrei Vasilevskiy was stellar for the Lightning on Thursday, stopping 24 of 25 shots for his 30^th win. That made it nine straight seasons with at least 30 wins for Vasilevskiy, including the COVID shortened season where he made just 42 starts. (mar13)

10. Evan Rawal reported that Colorado coach Jared Bednar seemed confident that all of Artturi Lehkonen, Gabriel Landeskog, and Logan O’Connor will be back before the playoffs, and hopefully back early enough to get some games in. It isn’t a firm timeline, but it sounds as if anyone in their fantasy playoffs should not expect Lehkonen or Landeskog back before the end of the month. (mar12)

11. Nick Schmaltz signed an eight-year extension with an AAV of $8-million. Schmaltz will be in his age-30 season next year and it is a raise from his current AAV of $5.85-million (from PuckPedia). Considering recent contracts we’ve seen in the last couple years from the likes of Elias Lindholm and Chandler Stephenson, this feels about right given the rising cap environment. For fantasy managers, it is a hefty raise for a guy who does hit or block shots, has never had a 200-shot season, and has never had a 65-point season (though he did have 59 points in 66 games before Saturday's slate). (mar12)

12. The Kings may have lost Kevin Fiala and Andrei Kuzmenko to injury, but the addition of Artemi Panarin to the duo of Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe has been fantastic and has kept the Kings afloat. As one of my teams manages injuries, I traded for Kopitar the night of our trade deadline, and hopefully this pace keeps up through the next few weeks. Kopitar has already noted that this is his last season in the NHL, but it seems like he still has enough left in the tank to tip the scales in some fantasy playoff races. (mar11)

13. Macklin Celebrini hit 90 points last Tuesday. I had him featured in a Ramblings article in the fall where I was trying to project rest-of-season paces for him, Connor Bedard, and Leo Carlsson. Needless to say, I undershot with Celebrini, who is on pace to finish with 120 points, a stark contrast from the 93-point season I pegged him for there.

Bedard and Carlsson I had pegged to finish over a 100-point pace, and both of them are under that even if they were healthy. The injuries likely played some role as well, but it’s also good to look back and learn from our missteps when projecting. (mar11)

14. Injuries this time of year can be tough, as the teams in the playoff race keep their information closely contained, while injuries for teams out of the playoff race can mean they’re done for the year. With players such as Roope Hintz, Dylan Larkin, and Brad Marchand landing injury designations recently, the information on them has been harder to come by. It sounds like Larkin might be due back in a couple of weeks. For Hintz, he might be a few weeks, but as for anything more direct than that, good luck. In Marchand’s case, the hints seem to be that he could be shut down for the season (and there’s no reason for him to push through something right now), but the Panthers don’t have to rush into that, so fantasy managers are stuck holding the rat hot potato for the moment.

Luckily, Logan Clarkson digs out injury info for us regularly on DobberHockey. Having the injury Ward articles twice a week now has been a big help to me with the injury info. (mar11)

15. Now that we’re past the trade deadline, we’re onto the stretch run and fantasy playoffs. Lot’s that we can prepare for there, but if you’re in a dynasty then you might also be looking ahead to the draft.

Chase Reid is a name that I’m wondering if he jumps a little higher in the NHL draft (maybe into the top-three?) than where a lot of public scouts have him as a top-10 player. One of those guys who just seems to check every single box as a smooth skating right-shot defence with size and puck management skills. (mar11)

16. I have also recently learned that there is a set of twins who are up for the 2026 draft, and at this point in the public sphere it seems that they might both go in the top two rounds. Can we start the campaign now to have them picked by the same team? It doesn’t matter what team, we just need the Ruck brothers (Liam and Markus) to play together. They each had a pair of points last night for Medicine Hat in the WHL, giving them both 94 points in 63 games this year in case you’re wondering.

I’ll try to get some 2026 draft thoughts in over the next few months as we approach the big event in June. (mar11)

17. We are at the point of the fantasy season where managers are either in their head-to-head playoffs, contending for a roto championship, or looking ahead to next season. There are a handful of players who’ve either seen their situation change dramatically since the Trade Deadline, or who’ve otherwise stood out to me this season. Today’s Ramblings will feature five forwards I’m keeping a closer eye on over the final quarter of the season.

Individual player and team data is from Evolving Hockey, tracking data is from All Three Zones, all data is at 5-on-5 unless otherwise indicated, schedule information is from Frozen Tools, and all this is current as of Monday, March 9^th.

The red and blue dotted lines in the graphs below represent the league average the statistic being discussed. We are limiting the sample to forwards with at least 400 minutes at 5-on-5 and 100 tracked minutes, which gives us a sample of 323 forwards.

Matias Maccelli (Toronto Maple Leafs)

With Nicolas Roy and Scott Laughton traded, Toronto’s depth forward group has been thinned out. That means guys like Maccelli and Easton Cowan, who were sometimes scratched this season, should be full-time players from here on out.

Over Toronto’s last three contests, Maccelli is fourth by TOI/game at 5-on-5 among their forwards, and he’s spent a couple of games on the top line with Auston Matthews. That ice time is important because some of the tracking data has been very favourable for Maccelli this season. Specifically, when looking at his rate of scoring chance assists (assisting on a teammate’s scoring chance), scoring chance contributions (those assists plus individual scoring chances) while also being above average by primary points rate (goals and first assists), here are Maccelli’s comps this year:

The names are bunched, but Maccelli compares well to Robert Thomas, Ivan Demidov, Logan Cooley, and Luke Evangelista. Over Maccelli’s last 25 games, he has 8 goals and 8 assists, and that works out to a 26-goal, 26-assist pace over an 82-game season.

Maccelli’s two issues are a lack of top power-play time and a lack of peripherals. The Leafs have 1 of the 10 hardest schedules remaining by opponent points% while being tied for the second-fewest games remaining. All that makes Maccelli nothing more than a streamer in non-shallow points-only formats. However, he has a chance to try and lock down a top-6 role for next season, so he’s a guy to keep an eye on over the final five weeks. (mar10)

18. Tommy Novak (Pittsburgh Penguins)

The 5-game suspension to Evgeni Malkin and injury to Sidney Crosby means a lot of centre depth missing from the Penguins right now. In Pittsburgh’s two games since the Malkin suspension, Novak has averaged 16:16 per game in TOI against an average of 13:33 per game in January/February. He even got a bit of top PP time in Pittsburgh’s win on Sunday.

It has been a nice rebound season for Novak, averaging 0.57 points per game despite skating under 14 minutes a game. In fact, when isolating just forwards in the 84^th percentile (or higher) by primary assists/60 minutes, here are the closest comparable performances to Novak’s by the scoring chance assist stat we just saw with Maccelli along with zone entries per 60 minutes:

A few of those names are bunched up, but that is David Pastrnak, Nick Suzuki, Mark Scheifele, and Connor Bedard. Novak has been an extremely productive facilitator for the Penguins this season and, like Maccelli, is having a good rebound effort. With the Pittsburgh forward depth being challenged right now, and the team marching towards the playoffs anyway, Novak will be a player to watch down the stretch. (mar10)

19. Frank Nazar (Chicago Blackhawks)

Injury kept Nazar out of the lineup for a month but with the trade of Jason Dickinson, Nazar is now the absolute locked-in second-line centre, and there’s no defensive protection on the third line. The Blackhawks have a brutal schedule over the next two weeks with Utah, Vegas, Minnesota (x2), Colorado, and Nashville ahead, so it’s a good time for the 22-year-old Nazar to show that he can be The Guy after The Guy.

Knowing that, it is important to note how well Nazar has been facilitating for his teammates. When looking at just forwards with an above-average rate of primary assists, here are the comparable players by combined rate of zone entries+zone exits and the percentage of zone entries carried in:

Nazar is responsible for a lot of zone exits and is very efficient on zone entries. He is still a work in progress, but there is a lot of good under the hood, and it would be nice to see him start to piece it together over the next five weeks. (mar10)

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20. In these Ramblings on Tuesday (above), we discussed five forwards to monitor down the stretch with an eye to next season. The intention was to find some players who’ve had good seasons by some measures, have a good opportunity to make an impact late in the season, and thus would be intriguing fantasy names for next season.

Today, we’re going to do the same thing but for defencemen. We are again using player and team data from Evolving Hockey, tracking data from All Three Zones, and schedule data from Frozen Tools. All is at 5-on-5 unless otherwise indicated, and the data is current as of Wednesday, March 11^th.

The red and blue dotted lines on the following graphs represent the league average among defencemen in the stat being referenced. We are limiting the sample to defencemen with at least 500 total minutes at 5-on-5, and 100 tracked minutes at 5-on-5, giving us 183 blue liners.

Luke Hughes (New Jersey Devils)

It has been a disappointing season for the New Jersey Devils as a franchise, and the younger Hughes has been no exception. His 0.54 points per game are a career-low but that’s where the bad news needs context: Hughes has managed 0.78 assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, which leads Devils defencemen and is 37% higher than his next-closest teammate. That is backed up by the tracking data where Hughes’ rate of scoring chance assists (helpers on teammate chances) and combined rate of zone entries and exits compares very well to Roman Josi:

Rating well by chance assists and zone entries/exits is exactly what Hughes should be doing in his third season. A big part of his production drop has been because of the power play – his per-minute PP production is down 39% from last year – so that needs to improve for his fantasy value to remain stable, but he just crossed 200 career games in January, and he turns 23 years old in September. If Hughes can keep up this 5-on-5 offensive involvement down the stretch, it would help make me a believer for what should be a breakout season next season. (mar12)

21. Emil Andrae (Philadelphia Flyers)

Hands up, who knew that Andrae had a higher rate of assists at 5-on-5 this season than teammates Jamie Drysdale and Cam York? Liars.

Anyway, Andrae has been able to distribute well to his teammates, especially considering the context of the team. When we use the same parameters we just used for Hughes, there is an interesting group of comparable defencemen that pops up for Andrae:

The names are a bit overlapped but aside from Jakob Chychrun, we see Morgan Rielly, Lane Hutson, and Conor Timmins. It is an interesting group because we have top-end fantasy options in Chychrun and Hutson, a productive blue liner in Rielly, and then Timmins, who has had a tough season. Andrae is closer towards the Rielly/Timmins side of things than Chychrun/Hutson, but it’s not a bad group for the Flyers blue liners.

Andrae has just 91 career NHL games and the Flyers are still a ways away from being a reliable offensive force. He also turned 24 years old in February and is a restricted free agent after the season (per PuckPedia). Monitor how Andrae fares over the next five weeks because there are the makings of a good puck-moving defenceman here, but at 5’9″, he needs to prove himself above-and-beyond those standing 3-6 inches taller than him, and it may just be for a different franchise next season. (mar12)

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