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. Across all five of my leagues, I am in the thick of championship races, and this could very well prove to be my best across-the-board season in fantasy ever.

In my one roto league I have a double-digit lead in the standings, and have spent the last two weeks slow-playing my roster to drop back down to the rest of the pack in games played by targeting only those categories which I need most (which has meant sitting some top players like William Nylander because I needed Hits, FOWs, and PIMs the most). I have no doubt the GMs in that league will chase me down, as always happens to the top team by the end of the year, but I do think I may just have enough of a lead built to hold onto first place as long as my sv% and GAA don’t get blown up in the last two weeks (despite John Gibson trying to start that collapse last night).

Across my four H2H leagues, I have one 24-team Cap dynasty, two partial keepers of various sizes, and one smaller full re-draft league with some close friends. One of the partial keeper leagues has the final this week, and I’m going toe-to-toe with the defending champ there. In the other three, I’m coming in as a middle playoff seed, and am currently in decent shape in the semis for all three. My rosters are built with an eye on the playoff weeks, so it doesn’t feel like I’m the underdog in any matchup, regardless of the regular season standings.

I’ll keep you posted on how it shakes out. Has anyone out there ever completed a championship sweep across all of their leagues in one season? (apr1)

2. When I started typing this on Thursday night, I was going to write about how the debut of Porter Martone and the return of Tyson Foerster have made the Flyers suddenly look like an intriguing fantasy team. However, despite the Flyers winning 4-1 over the Islanders on Friday night, both Martone and Foerster were held off the scoresheet. As I’ve told a few other writers on this site, all it takes is one game to change what the narrative should be for an article. I’ll still get to Martone and Foerster later, but they weren’t the focal point of this game.

Instead, Matvei Michkov was the first star for the Flyers on Friday. (Yes, I still look at the three stars from time to time, although it seemed like much more of a thing when I was a kid.) Michkov finished with a goal, two assists, a plus-3, and three shots, breaking a 12-game goal-scoring drought in the process. Michkov was held to just 11:43 in this game, probably because the Flyers led 3-0 early in the second period and Rick Tocchet decided to park the bus after that with a tired group playing the second of back-to-backs.

Still, Michkov has averaged just 14:50 in icetime this season, which is rather low for a player of his talent level. He will also finish well below the 63-point output of his rookie season. Efforts like Friday’s remind us of what Michkov is capable of, and it’s easy to forget that he is only 21 years old. Yet I’d have to wonder if Michkov would be better off on another team, since he may not see eye to eye with Tocchet. (apr4)

3. Although Martone took just one shot on Friday, he fired nine shots on Thursday and piled up 14 in his first two games. That’s the most among any player in their first two games in NHL history. On a line with Travis Konecny and Christian Dvorak, Martone led the Flyers in 5-on-5 icetime on Thursday. At first, I was skeptical about Martone because of Tocchet’s reputation of making young players earn their place in the lineup. However, Martone’s impact and upside are making it impossible for Tocchet to give him the true rookie treatment.

In case you missed it, Foerster returned on Thursday and scored a goal on four shots while on a scoring line with Zegras and Tippett. He returned four months after arm surgery in early December. The initial timeline was that he’d miss the entire regular season, but he was back in the lineup Thursday against Detroit in a boost to a roster that is fighting for a playoff spot. Foerster wasted no time making an impact as he scored in that game, with assists from line mates Trevor Zegras and Owen Tippett. (apr3)

4. Dylan Holloway has 23 points, 30 hits, and is a plus-22 in just 18 games. What he is showing now is why he was a top-100 pick in many multicategory fantasy leagues. Hopefully you didn’t drop him prior to that, when he recorded an underwhelming 17 points in 34 games. With Holloway much more of a factor now, the Blues have climbed back into the playoff race.

Sorry, Oilers fans, here’s another paragraph of what you’re missing out on. Philip Broberg has a seven-game point streak with eight points over that span. Three of those points have been on the power play. The Blues haven’t been consistent with which defenseman will QB the top power play all season, but right now it is Broberg. He is a worthy add for what will be an important Sunday in many fantasy leagues and beyond for teams that play that close to the end of the season. (apr4)

5. The injury hits keep coming for Florida as defenceman Aaron Ekblad suffered a broken finger on Tuesday night and is not likely to return this season. The Panthers have been decimated by injuries this season and it’s just one more to add to the pile. (apr3)

News also came out Tuesday that Sam Reinhart would likely not be returning from his foot injury before the rest of the year, which makes sense considering how long it has lingered and because of how little the Panthers still have left to play for. (apr1)

6. Rookie defender Alexander Nikishin hit the 30-point plateau this week. He also has 117 shots and 121 hits in 74 games, so he looks every bit the multi-cat monster that fantasy managers were hoping for. (apr3)

7. Entering Saturday's matchup with the Canucks, Dylan Guenther needed four goals and one assist in the next seven games to post a 40-30 season. Not bad for a guy skating just 17:21 per game. (apr3)

8. Filip Forsberg recorded his third 35-goal (or higher) season in the last five years this week, and was two points shy of 70 prior to Saturday action, which would give him his third straight season with at least 30 goals and 70 points. Since his first full season in 2014-15, Forsberg is 1 of 9 players with at least 350 goals, 350 assists, and 2500 shots. The others are Connor McDavid, Nikita Kucherov, Nathan MacKinnon, Sidney Crosby, David Pastrnak, Alex Ovechkin, John Tavares, and Auston Matthews (per NHL.com). (apr3)

9. Anaheim signed prospect Roger McQueen to a professional tryout so he can go finish the season in the AHL. The expectation is that he’ll sign his entry-level deal soon and the details are just being sorted out, but the 10^th overall pick from last year’s draft is leaving college hockey to turn pro. (apr2)

10. In perhaps the most surprising regular season game of the season, the Vancouver Canucks went into Colorado and beat the Avalanche 8-6 – not a typo. Brock Boeser did a lot of the damage with a hat trick on four shots while adding an assist. Entering Saturday, Boeser had 21 goals in 68 games, which is just under a 24-goal pace in 75 games, in line with his 25 goals/75 games from a year ago. (apr2)

11. Doing a radio hit on Wednesday morning, Colorado coach Jared Bednar stated that defenceman Cale Makar did not suffer any sort of serious injury on Monday night, but that he will miss a few games, per the website Hockey Mountain High. It is more about making sure that Makar is fully healthy for what the Avalanche are hoping is a deep playoff run rather than having him play through an injury at the end of the regular season. (apr2)

12. Macklin Celebrini had 40 goals and 65 assists at time of writing. Per Hockey Reference, it is just the second time in NHL history a player has recorded at least 40 goals and 60 assists as a teenager. The other was Wayne Gretzky in 1979-80. Sidney Crosby fell one goal shy as an 18-year-old and four goals shy as a 19-year-old. (apr2)

13. Collin Graf was moved back to the third line with the return of Igor Chernyshov on Thursday, but he still managed to hit the 20-goal mark for the first time in his career, and he was over a hit-per-game-player as well (1.03). He has been a solid multi-cat contributor for most of the season. (apr3)

What really holds Chernyshov back is a lack of top power-play time. However, he has shown excellent chemistry with Macklin Celebrini – entering last Thursday, the Sharks had a +11 shot differential with that duo on the ice at 5-on-5. Considering that Celebrini had a -50 shot differential without Chernyshov on the ice, the rookie has been a difference-maker. (apr2)

14. New Jersey announced that winger Arseny Gritsyuk will be out for the regular season with an upper-body injury that will require surgery. He finishes the year with 13 goals, 31 points, 149 shots, and 58 hits in 66 games. Not a bad rookie campaign on a Devils squad that really struggled to score goals at times. (apr3)

15. Connor Brown could be moved off Jack Hughes‘ line at any point, but he’s been there consistently since the Olympic break, including top power play time. Over his last 16 games, Brown has 17 points (5 PPPs) and 30 shots. There isn’t much here for hits/blocks/PIMs, but for raw production and shot volume, Brown has been more than serviceable. He has also averaged over 19:00 per game in his last 11 games, so there is a lot of ice time to go with that big role.

Brown is fixed at right wing on Yahoo, so there isn’t much roster flexibility, but with this kind of ice time and his roles, he is very good depth to be used at least a couple of times through the end of the H2H season. (apr2)

16. Blackhawks' Artyom Levshunov is done for the season with a wrist injury, and that gives Sam Rinzel some time to develop a bit more chemistry with Connor Bedard and Anton Frondell on the powerplay, which would be a boon for him if he could hold that spot even part-time next season. (apr1)

17. The Blue Jackets announced that Damon Severson will miss the rest of the season following shoulder surgery. Severson has been out of the lineup since late March, finishing the season with 32 points in 71 games. The Jackets as a team are sliding – enter Saturday, they had lost five games in a row after a major new coach bump from Rick Bowness taking over. (apr4)

18. With eight games left in the season and three weeks after the Trade Deadline, the Toronto Maple Leafs fired General Manager Brad Treliving, and no immediate replacement was named. Not sure why they did this – things had been going so well.

Toronto and Anaheim met for the first time last Monday since Radko Gudas ended Auston Matthews‘ season, and there were plenty of fights and penalties on both sides. The Leafs ended up winning that game 5-4 in overtime on John Tavares‘ second goal of the game. It was a nice comeback for the Leafs, who were down 3-1 with 14 minutes left in the third period. (mar31)

19. It is a bit of a dead zone for fantasy hockey right now. Most fantasy players are not in contention for a league title no matter the format. I have written about role/deployment changes that can matter for any fantasy players still pushing for a championship, and a couple of weeks ago some guys to monitor for the stretch run. Caleb Desjardins’ ‘Looking Ahead’ column evaluates the upcoming week in fantasy hockey and Frozen Tools can help managers in a variety of ways. Anyone still in fantasy contention is covered.

I wanted to do something a bit more fun today – let’s call it a ‘Did You Know’ section. We are taking a handful of players to see what they have done this year, or in recent seasons, and make sure those performances are highlighted.

Data is from Natural Stat Trick and current as of Monday, March 30^th.

Timo Meier Is 1 of 4 Forwards With 20+ Goals, 200+ Shots, 100+ Hits Each of Last 3 years

To be sure, Meier has not lived up to expectations in New Jersey since making his way from San Jose. His last two seasons with the Sharks saw him post 128 points in 134 games (0.96 points/game), and he has just 157 points in 238 games with the Devils (0.66 points/game). That he’s not produced to expectations should not cloud the fact that Meier has still be an excellent multi-cat option year after year with the Devils. In fact, he is 1 of 4 forwards to reach at least 20 goals, 200 shots, and 100 hits in each of the last three seasons. Two of those three others were top-15 picks in multi-cat drafts this past September and the last is the best multi-cat fantasy option of his generation:

The lack of assists this season without a big goal total means that Meier won’t be a multi-cat monster like he can be, but he’s still been very solid. On top of that, he had 4 goals, 1 assist, 27 shots, 10 hits, and 9 blocks across the previous two weeks, so anyone who made their fantasy playoffs with Meier on the roster is probably not complaining too loudly. In head-to-head leagues, timing is everything, and Meier’s timing has been great this season. (mar31)

20. Adam Fantilli Has 40+ Non-PPG and 40+ Non-PPA Across The Last Two Seasons

Connor Bedard has had a big 2025-26 season (when healthy), Leo Carlsson has had a breakout year for the division-leading Anaheim Ducks, and Zach Werenski dominates the coverage in Columbus, so it kind of makes sense that Adam Fantilli has been… I don’t want to say forgotten about, but certainly not celebrated like the others. However, there are just six forwards age-22 or younger with at least 40 goals and 40 assists outside of the power play over the last two years.

 One of them is Macklin Celebrini, and the other is Columbus’ top-line centre:

Fantilli’s playmaking has seen an improvement, so even if he’s not going to reach the 30-goal mark like he did last year, he’s added another dimension to his game. He also has more shots on goal already this season than he did as a sophomore, so there’s an improvement there as well. If Fantilli were shooting 16% as he did last year, he’d already have a 30-30 season, and the conversation is probably a lot different. He just crested the 200-game plateau a couple of weeks ago and is the locked top-line/top PP centre for a rising Blue Jackets squad. That he’s not filling the net will probably make him a draft discount in September, and we like draft discounts. (mar31)

21. Matt Boldy Is the Only Player With 60 Goals, 60 Assists, 100 blocks, 100 hits, and 400 Shots Over the Last Two Years

Boldy is known as one of the top young goal scorers in the league, and he’s definitely that as he’s tied for 20^th in goal scoring over the last two seasons. That also overlooks that he’s a great multi-category producer, though. In fact, across the last two seasons, he is the only forward with at least 60 goals, 60 assists, 400 shots, 100 blocks, and 100 hits:

Notice that of that group, only Boldy and Mark Scheifele have at least 60 goals and 80 assists, and Boldy has over 500 shots, far exceeding everyone else. Hagel needs two blocks to get to the 100-block mark, so he’ll probably join Boldy in this group.

Depending on league size and all that, Boldy was probably picked somewhere between picks 20-35 in most fantasy drafts back in September. In multi-cat formats, it’ll be hard to argue for him outside the top-25 for the 2025-26 season, and there’s probably a case to be made for him somewhere in the 10-15 range. (mar31)

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