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

—

It's back! Dobber's 2026 Interactive Playoff Draft List has officially dropped.

 Nobody's thinking about playoff pools yet… but the people who win them usually start early. Fully customizable. Set your projected finalists or just roll with Dobber's list.

See more here…

—

1. It is NCAA signing season and we saw Boston University’s Cole Hutson ink his three-year entry-level contract with Washington last weekend. More dominoes are falling as Hutson’s teammate Sacha Boisvert signed his three-year ELC with the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday. Boisvert was drafted 14^th overall in the 2024 draft and had 17 points in 26 games with BU this season. (mar17)

Hutson made his debut for the Washington Capitals on Wednesday and scored an empty-net goal as the Caps defeated Ottawa 4-1. Hutson skated on the second power-play unit and managed 16:24 in ice time. (mar19)

Playing in his second NHL game on Friday, Hutson was held without a point in 17 minutes of icetime. Unlike his first game, he was on the second unit power-play with Jakob Chychrun back on the first unit. Hutson posted some big numbers at Boston University (80 PTS in 74 GP), although don’t be surprised if he needs a bit of time to adjust to the NHL. The playoffs might be out of reach for the Capitals at this point, so Hutson is in an ideal spot to receive a solid test run. (mar21)

2. Dustin Wolf is the third goalie to reach 50 games this season, but he has only 20 wins to show for it. His fantasy value will be compromised by the rebuilding state of the Flames, so his abilities might translate better in the real-life aspect of the game. Prior to Friday, Wolf had allowed four goals in five of his past six games, so he isn’t easy to trust right now. (mar21)

3. Martin Necas matched his career high of 84 points (set last season) on Friday against Chicago, and has 22 points in his last 13 games. His fantasy value took a leap forward with the trade to Colorado and linking up with Nathan MacKinnon. As for Nate Dogg, he had 10 points in his last five games entering Saturday action, and he was locked into a three-horse scoring race with Connor McDavid and Nikita Kucherov. MacKinnon is tied with Kucherov with 114 points, both just one point back of McDavid. 

With the 4-1 win over the Blackhawks, the Avalanche also became the first team to clinch a playoff spot. Yes, the Stanley Cup playoffs are coming soon. And with that, Dobber’s 2026 Interactive Playoff Draft List is ready for order. (mar21)

4. At this time for the last three seasons, the Panthers have been preparing to go on long Stanley Cup runs. This season, they’re already shutting it down. It doesn’t make sense for them to activate Aleksander Barkov, even if he’s truly ready. Brad Marchand may have already played his last game of the season, so you can cut the cord there if you haven’t done so already. If your fantasy league has only IR and not IR+ or another flexible method of stashing injured non-IR players, then you might have to make the tough choice of dropping Sam Reinhart if you’re in a single-season league.

As far as healthy players go, Sergei Bobrovsky had the worst save percentage (.878) among the 21 goalies that appeared in at least 40 games this season entering Saturday. If it’s do-or-die time and decent goalies aren’t that hard to find on your waiver wire, he might be droppable. (I typed this just before Bobrovsky earned a shutout in Edmonton on Thursday, but use your judgment anyway.) As well, Aaron Ekblad is in a slump with no points in his last seven games, so he is replaceable if you needed immediate help this weekend. (mar21)

5. I’ve turned down multiple trade offers for K’Andre Miller in the past year because I’m not sold on his offensive upside. However, Miller is scoring at over a 40-point pace in his first season with Carolina (32 PTS in 61 GP). Miller has better value in leagues that count hits and blocked shots, as he has reached at least 100 in both categories in each of the previous three seasons. (mar21)

6. Lukas Reichel was called up by the Boston Bruins for Thursday night’s game against Winnipeg. He started the game on the ‘third’ line with Elias Lindholm and Morgan Geekie.

I am still a believer in Reichel. Looking at the tracking data compiled by All Three Zones over the years has Reichel as someone who is great in transition and can frequently gain the offensive zone with control. That is no small feat, and makes me believe there is still something here. Players in their early 20s who are excellent at gaining the offensive zone with control rarely end up as true draft busts.

Sure enough, Reichel not only scored in his Bruins debut, it was the game-winning goal as Boston laid waste to Winnipeg 6-1. He skated 14:45 in the game, but it was also a blowout so I wouldn’t expect 14-15 minutes regularly (at least for now). (mar20)

7. Matvei Michkov has 16 goals, and that gives him a chance for a 20-20 season while skating around (or under) 15 minutes a game. It has been a down year for Michkov, but if he can manage a 20-20 campaign in a bad season skating 15 minutes a game, imagine what his upside is in a good season skating 18 minutes a game. (mar20)

8. Andrei Vasilevskiy entered Saturday's matchup against Edmonton with 32 wins on the season, which led the league – three wins shy of a second two straight season with at least 35. (mar20)

9. Two points from Darren Raddysh on Thursday pushed him to the 60-point mark, making him the seventh defenceman to reach that mark this season. He has been the best fantasy draft value in what has been a tremendous season. (mar20)

10. Sidney Crosby was back in the lineup for Pittsburgh on Wednesday night as the Penguins went into Carolina to face the Hurricanes. Crosby was injured in the Olympics and had missed the last 11 NHL games with a knee injury. He was back in his usual spot on the top line between Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust as well as the top PP unit. Crosby totaled a goal, an assist, four shots, a block, four PIMs, and two hits in defeat. (mar19)

11. On Tuesday, Charlie Coyle continued his dominant run since Rick Bowness joined the Blue Jackets, scoring a goal and three assists, with two of those points on the power play. Over a full season his numbers under Bowness would have him pacing for over 100 points, over 200 SOG, over 25 PPPs, over 80 Hits, and a plus-minus rating of about 45. Those are Jack Eichel type numbers, if Jack Eichel added about three times his usual number of Hits.

What could change with that though, is that both Coyle and his most frequent linemate of late – Mason Marchment – are unrestricted free agents at the end of the season. Both are upping their next contract with their current play, and after both have bounced around to a few different teams in recent years, this hot stretch could convince them both to remain in Columbus. (mar18)

12. Without Auston Matthews, John Tavares is a number-one centre again. Tavares is on pace for his worst career plus-minus season, and is tracking to put up his worst scoring season since his rookie year all the way back in 2009-2010. At 35, the drop off isn’t unexpected, but it’s especially noteworthy since his Q1 numbers of 27 points in 21 games really masks what has been a pedestrian season otherwise of 29 points in his last 49 games (entering Saturday). (mar18)

13. Only one Leafs player is on the Frozen Tools hot list, and it’s not one of the usual suspects. It’s relatively unknown (until now) Bo Groulx, who has five points over his last five games. He’s on a line with Dakota Joshua and Matias Maccelli, so I’m not exactly rushing out to add the 26-year-old Groulx. But if you’re a Leafs fan, maybe you have a different idea. I just don’t think his 30% shooting percentage is sustainable. Groulx has 20 hits in just six games, so he at least has some bangers value. (mar21)

14. In one Roto league I have been clinging to first place for a while now, but it’s in part due to a games-played advantage over a lot of the teams chasing me.

I have learned the hard way that it’s better to be ahead than behind in games played in roto leagues, as making up man games near the end of the season can be difficult due to injuries, load management, and most GMs chasing the same couple of close categories.

At this point, I’m about eight games ahead at each position, which is right about where I want to be, so I can have a few of my top guys like Sebastian Aho, David Pastrnak, or Jack Eichel be given a game or two of rest, and then still be able to line players up for the final heavy day of the year where I can take advantage of the Yahoo games played trick (for those who are new to Yahoo roto, you can finish the season with extra games played if you leave yourself one game for a position and then fill that position for the last day where all of your players’ games will count, instead of just one).

Over the next couple of weeks there are quite a lot of really heavy days, and a lot of very light days, meaning that streaming could be very difficult through to the end of March to try and make up those man games.

The portion above I wrote on Monday in prep for today’s Ramblings, and since then I have already lost Joel Eriksson Ek and Adrian Kempe to minor injuries, which has me down a couple of key offensive contributors. I have added Noel Acciari who fills some peripherals which I need more than the scoring at this point in the season. If you’re lagging behind in games at this point, then don’t wait any longer to catch up. (mar18)

15. Circling back to the tricky schedule over the next few weeks, the need for planning is necessary in H2H leagues as well, where especially if you’re looking at March 23-29, then there are only five total NHL games on MON/WED/FRI of that week. The New York Rangers happen to play in three of those five games, in addition to not playing on any of the busy days that week, and having a final game on another light day on Sunday to boot. Now, you would probably know this already if you had the Dobber Guide, or were one of those people who really like to plan ahead, but it’s still not too late to take advantage of that, and grab yourself someone like Noah Laba (five points in his last five games), Gabe Perreault (seven points in his last four games and premium deployment), or Vladislav Gavrikov (three points last night, and 13 in his last 13 games), depending on the depth of your league.

As we’re into either the final days leading up to playoffs, or partway through the first week of fantasy playoffs for some of you, the schedule does really matter. There isn’t a huge advantage to be gained before Sunday though, with every team having either two or three games left in the calendar week. Anaheim, Carolina, Calgary, Colorado, and Washington have all three of their games on light days though, which should make them easier to fit into your lineup. (mar18)

16. When it comes to goaltenders in fantasy, two things are true:

• The numbers determine success, regardless of how ‘well’ a goalie plays. A great goalie on a horrific team will probably have bad fantasy numbers, and that’s all that matters to us.
• Goaltender performance is greatly influenced by what happens in front of them, so if we’re evaluating goalies, we need to look deeper than their surface-level stats.

Today, we’re going to look a bit deeper, and specifically look at what happened with goalies in their non-even strength minutes (power play and penalty kill). The big reason is players shoot ~13.6% on special teams and 10.5% otherwise. All things equal, goalies facing a disproportionately high number of shots on the PP/PK will have a tougher workload than those who don’t.

Data is from Natural Stat Trick and is current as of Monday, March 16^th. We are using only goalies with at least 1100 even-strength minutes, which gives us 49 goalies, or starters, tandems, and top backups.

The red and blue dotted lines represent the league average in each stat.

Yaroslav Askarov (San Jose Sharks)

An .886 save percentage doesn’t seem like a good season for Askarov when the league average is .896. However, out of our 49 goalies, he is 1 of 3 goalies to play at least 18% of his ice time on special teams, face at least 20% of his shots on the PP/PK, and at least 25% of his high-danger shots at the same strengths. It doesn’t put him quite in a tier of his own, but it’s not far off:

There is an argument that Alex Nedeljkovic has been the better of the two goalies this season, but just 17.2% of shots faced by Nedeljkovic have been on the PP/PK, which is actually lower than the league average of 17.7%, where Askarov is at 20.6%, or the fourth-highest rate in our sample. If there is an argument that Nedeljkovic has been the better goalie, there is a similar argument that Askarov has not only faced a much harder workload than Goalie Ned, but one of the toughest workloads in the league. (mar17)

[Follow the link for more analysis on Sam Montembeault, Jeremy Swayman, Akira Schmid, and Jordan Binnington…]

17. There are four weeks left in the NHL season, and fantasy managers are fighting for a head-to-head title, top spot in their roto league, or scrapping in their points formats. Maximizing games played and schedule advantage is a key to getting the most out of the depth of a fantasy roster, so let’s go around the league and highlight players that are low owned, are in a position to succeed, and have positive scheduling aspects.

Player/team data is from Evolving Hockey, roster percentages and schedule information are from Frozen Tools, and all is current as of Wednesday, March 18^th.  For the schedule, we are starting with this coming Monday (March 23^rd) and going to the end of the season.

Gabriel Perreault (New York Rangers)
Yahoo Roster: 11%
Fantrax Roster: 47%
ESPN Roster: 8%

Since the Olympic break, Perreault has averaged 17:42 per game in ice time, the most of any forward outside the team’s Big Four of Mika Zibanejad, Vincent Trocheck, J.T. Miller, and Alexis Lafreniere. The return of Miller has booted Perreault from the top power-play unit, and that’s a big hit to his fantasy value, but Perreault has averaged 1.4 individual expected goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 in these last 10 games (he has scored 1.2 actual goals/60). That expected goal rate puts him well inside the 90^th percentile of regular forwards across the league in that span.

The Rangers have just 12 games over the balance of the season starting Monday, but the key for them is that 7 of those 12 games are on light days. The first week alone – Monday the 23^rd to Sunday the 29^th – New York play four games, and they’re on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday, facing Ottawa, Toronto, Chicago, and Florida. At the least, Perreault is a depth add for the next week given that great scheduling and his role in the top-6. (mar19)

18. Nicolas Roy (Colorado Avalanche)
Yahoo Roster: 1%
Fantrax Roster: 8%
ESPN Roster: 1%

In his six games with Colorado, Roy is skating just 13:23 per game, and that’s not a lot. However, his individual expected goal rate at 5-on-5 is 1.0 per 60 minutes, considerably better than what he did in Toronto this year (0.57). Roy has been floating between the second and third lines for the Avalanche, and when either of Gabriel Landeskog or Artturi Lehkonen return, Roy will be relegated to the third line. At the least, Colorado has good-to-great puck-moving defencemen on all three pairs, so the team can still generate offence even with their top two lines off the ice.

What is key here for Roy is Colorado’s upcoming schedule. They are 1 of 10 teams to have at least 13 games left starting Monday, and those opponents have a combined .509 points percentage this season, giving the Avalanche the fourth-easiest remaining schedule. Next week, they play on Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday, so there likely isn’t room for Roy on most fantasy rosters, but the week after that they have four games, three of them are on Monday, Wednesday, and Sunday, and those four games are against Calgary, Vancouver, Dallas, and St. Louis. After next week, Colorado has a great schedule, and Roy can provide faceoffs and goal-scoring ability for deeper fantasy rosters. (mar19)

19. Logan Mailloux (St. Louis Blues)
Yahoo Roster: 1%
Fantrax Roster: 32%
ESPN Roster: 0%

The trade of Justin Faulk opened a lot of minutes on St. Louis’ blue line, and Mailloux has been a big beneficiary of that. Over St. Louis’ last 10 games, Mailloux has averaged 21:59 per game, and his 22:22 per game since the Faulk trade is second among Blues blue liners (only Philip Broberg is higher). Mailloux has even been getting 41% of the power-play time, though with St. Louis’ lacklustre power play, that isn’t worth a whole lot.

Regardless, it is a big ice-time jump, and the Blues’ upcoming schedule is a very good one: they are 1 of the 10 teams with at least 13 games remaining starting Monday, and they are 1 of 5 teams with at least five games on light days. They play on massive Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday slates next week, but the week after they have a M-W-F-Su four-game schedule, and those games are against Toronto and the three California teams. Keep Mailloux in mind a week from now to grab him for that great four-game, light-day week. (mar19)

20. Joonas Korpisalo (Boston Bruins)
Yahoo Roster: 6%
Fantrax Roster: 16%
ESPN Roster: 2%

Korpisalo has not been to Jeremy Swayman‘s level, but an .891 save percentage in 26 games isn’t bad for a backup goalie. It hasn’t been a great March for Korpisalo with 14 goals against in three starts, but he has made at least 30 saves in two of those three starts, so even with the 14 goals against, two of those three starts weren’t as bad as they seem.

What is important here is that starting Monday, the Bruins have the most back-to-back games remaining (4). With Boston in a tight playoff race, maybe they use Swayman in a couple of those B2Bs, but they haven’t started Swayman two nights in a row yet this season. In the first week alone – March 23^rd through 29^th – Boston has a pair of B2Bs that could see Korpisalo get two starts. Anyone desperate for a third/streaming goalie as the season winds down, Boston has at least one B2B situation in each of the next three weeks. (mar19)

21. San Jose Sharks

We will go quickly here because there are several San Jose players worth considering. Starting Monday, the Sharks have the most games remaining (14), the second-most games on light days (6), and their opponents have combined for the second-most goals against per game.  Once the Sharks get past the March 23-29 portion where they play on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, they have 11 games in 18 games and over half of those games (6) are on light days.

Collin Graf
Yahoo Roster: 14%
Fantrax Roster: 36%
ESPN Roster: 13%

Graf was mentioned in one of my Ramblings at the end of February and in the 10 games since, he has 4 goals, 5, assists, 24 shots, 12 hits, and 6 blocks. He has skated between 17-19 minutes per game in six straight games and has been moved up the lineup next to Macklin Celebrini in recent contests.

Sam Dickinson
Yahoo Roster: 4%
Fantrax Roster: 42%
ESPN Roster: 1%

We could have Shakir Mukhamadullin here but given his recent healthy scratch in favour of Nick Leddy, it seems there has been a pecking order established, and Dickinson is ahead of Mukhamadullin.

Over San Jose’s seven games since the Trade Deadline, Dickinson has skated 19:13 per game, a massive improvement over the 15:55 per game he skated up until that point. He hasn’t been tremendously productive, especially with no power-play role, but he has 2 assists, 8 shots, 8 blocks, and 9 hits over those last seven outings. He had 49 shots, 46 hits, and 47 blocks in 49 games up until the Trade Deadline with over three fewer minutes per game in TOI, so Dickinson can push past 1.0 shots, 1.0 hits, and 1.0 blocks per game down the stretch. With that easy schedule, he may even chip in some points, too.

Alex Nedeljkovic
Yahoo Roster: 11%
Fantrax Roster: 23%
ESPN Roster: 3%

Yaroslav Askarov has run into an injury lately, and while it looks like he’ll be back soon, Nedeljkovic has a .910 save percentage in 13 games so far in calendar 2026, compared to Askarov’s .864. The Sharks are in the thick of the playoff race out West and if Nedeljkovic can give them a chance to win every night, then he may get more starts than Askarov even when Askarov is healthy. With San Jose’s great upcoming schedule and Goalie Ned’s recent play, be sure to check waiver wires to see if he’s an upgrade on your third goalie. (mar19)

—

Have a good week, folks!

Thanks for continuing to support the website and if you’re bored and need a fantasy hockey fix – visit the gang in the forum here.