The Washington Capitals expect to be without defenceman Rasmus Sandin to start the 2026-27 season, according to Sammi Silber. Sandin injured his knee late in the season and his recovery is going to take several months. The Caps also mentioned that this might make them look for a defenceman this offseason, and it also means there's another roster spot to start the year where Cole Hutson can not only slot in, but play meaningful minutes.

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Charle-Edouard D'Astous was not at Tampa Bay's practice on Monday, per Jean-François Chaumont. D'Astous took that hard double hit in Game 1 and looked shaken up coming off the ice. We will have to wait and see if we get a further diagnosis.

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The Philadelphia Flyers took a 2-0 series lead over the Pittsburgh Penguins thanks to a 3-0 win in Pittsburgh on Monday night. The Flyers now have a huge advantage as they head back home for Game 3 on Wednesday night.

Dan Vladar stopped all 27 shots he faced for his second career playoff win and first career playoff shutout.

Porter Martone scored again, tucking home a backhander off a deflected puck. He finished with six shots and four hits in a little over 14 minutes of ice time. Including his nine regular season games, he's up to 6 goals, 6 assists, and 39 shots in 11 appearances. Not bad for a rookie.

Garnet Hathaway managed a goal and an assist while Luke Glendening had the other tally.

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Jordan Martinook missed on a penalty shot in overtime on Monday night, but made good late in the second overtime, ripping home a shot from the slot to lift the Carolina Hurricanes to a 2-0 series lead over the Ottawa Senators thanks to a 3-2 double overtime win.

Logan Stankoven (PP) and Sebastian Aho had the other goals for the 'Canes.

Frederik Andersen held Ottawa to two goals on 39 shots in the win.

Drake Batherson and Dylan Cozens scored for the Sens. Jake Sanderson had a very good multi-cat night with two assists, two shots, four blocks, and three hits.

Linus Ullmark did his part for the Sens, stopping 43 of the first 45 shots he faced, but the 46^th shot got past him and now Ottawa goes back home needing to win four of the next five games.

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Dallas bounced back in a big way after a 6-1 loss in Game 1 with a 4-2 win at home in Game 2. Wyatt Johnston scored twice on six shots, Matt Duchene had a goal and an assist, and Jason Robertson had the other tally, managing five shots and a block in total.

Jake Oettinger was stellar in net for the Stars, preventing 28 of the 30 shots he faced from entering his net. He had a great glove save on Matt Boldy when the game was 1-1, which would have given the Wild the lead otherwise and who knows how the game ends up.

Brock Faber scored twice on six shots for Minnesota in the loss.

Yakov Trenin took a very hard (clean) hit from Colin Blackwell late in the first period, left the game, and did not return.

Mats Zuccarello missed Game 2 with an upper-body injury. Vladimir Tarasenko start the game on the top line in Zuccarello's spot.

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The Edmonton Oilers and Anaheim Ducks finally started their series and in what had to be a sight for sore eyes for Edmonton's coaches, players, and fans, it was the secondary scoring that got them the win. Both Kasperi Kapanen and Jason Dickinson scored twice, including once each in the final 10 minutes of the third period, to push the Oilers to a 4-3 win. Kapanen had seven shots and four hits in 18 minutes of ice time in the best single playoff game fantasy performance of his career.

Jake Walman totaled a pair of assists, a pair of shots, a pair of hits, and a pair of PIMs in a solid multi-cat night.

Connor Ingram turned aside 25 of the 28 shots sent his way in the win.

Troy Terry scored two goals on five shots and added an assist on a Leo Carlsson goal, who also assisted on a Terry goal in return.

Adam Henrique left the game late in the first period after running into Kapanen and did not return.

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This is my first Ramblings since the NHL playoffs started and I just want to say: I absolutely love this time of year. The first round is usually excellent, but recently, the second round has been the best part of the postseason. Either way, between the warming weather, the barbecues, and the hockey, it's tough to beat late-April, early-May.

But we're here to talk about fantasy hockey and I want to take today's Ramblings to start my offseason review. The next few weeks – maybe a month? – will focus on looking back at the season that was before looking ahead to 2026-27.  

Today, let's start with NHL fantasy Best Ball, specifically on Underdog's site. We here at Dobber are in no way affiliated with Underdog, it's just the site I use for my best ball contests.

For anyone unfamiliar with best ball, here's how it works:

• You draft your fantasy roster and those are your players for the entire regular season. There are no trades, waivers, or free agency.
• On Underdog, the roster positions are centre, wing, defence, goalie, and flex.
• Only a handful of your players' scores count each week. On this particular site, it's centre (1), wing (2), defence (1), goalie (1), and flex (2, can be any non-goalie). You draft 16 players but only your highest scorers at those positions are used each week.
• It is a points system, and each stat is worth different point values. Skaters get points for goals (6), assists (4), shots and blocks (1), and hits and power-play points (0.5). Goalies get points for wins (6) and saves (0.6) and lose points for goals against (-3).  

So, the contest is a draft-and-hold with no roster moves, only six skaters and one goalie count each week, and it's a points system.

The specific contest on Underdog in which I participated is called the 'Best Puck Classic'. It contained 14 760 entrants at $15 per entry. This is how the league works:

• The 14 760 entrants are divided into 12-team leagues, which gave us 1230 different leagues.
• The regular season runs for 19 weeks, and the top-3 scoring rosters from each of those 1230 leagues qualify for the playoffs, so 3690 entrants reach the fantasy postseason.
• Those 3690 entrants are again split, this time into 10-team leagues. The quarterfinals runs for two weeks and the top-2 scoring rosters from each of the individual 10-team leagues qualifies for the semifinal, so that gives us 738 entrants in the next round.
• Those 738 semifinalists are once again split, and now it's into 6-team leagues. This round runs for two weeks and the highest scorer in each league gets to the final. It gives us 123 finalists (they rounded up to 125 and added the two highest-scoring second-place finishers).
• The final 125 entrants play in one giant league for two weeks and that determines the overall winner.

People are allowed multiple entries, and I had 22 different lineups. I didn't win, but I did do well. Here are the percentages of all entries that qualify for each postseason round and the percentages of my entries that qualified for each round:

I got 12/22 entries to the quarters, 5/22 entries to the semis, and 1/22 entries to the final. All in all, I more than doubled my money and had a real shot at the top prize. It is hard to complain.

In leagues like this, looking ahead to the playoff schedule, and particularly the finals weeks, is paramount. You can't win without getting to the playoffs in the first place, but to make any decent money, you need a high finish. From the outset, there were two teams I was targeting: San Jose and Carolina. That showed up in how often I drafted from each team because Nikolaj Ehlers was tied for my second-most drafted player while Macklin Celebrini and Andrei Svechnikov were tied for my fourth-most drafted players:

I also drafted Seth Jarvis on eight teams, and both Tyler Toffoli and Will Smith on seven teams. This is why I targeted those franchises.

San Jose Sharks

First, I felt that Celebrini was a true unicorn, and it showed in my projections. In this format, I had him as my 14^th overall forward and 16^th overall skater, based on 82 games played:

One of the names ahead of him was Matthew Tkachuk, but again, that is based on 82 games played, and Tkachuk was going to miss a few months, so Celebrini was my 15^th overall skater. At the start of the draft season, Celebrini was going somewhere between picks 25-40, and that made him the player with the highest potential draft value on my board.

The second reason was the Sharks' schedule in the two-week final from March 30^th – April 12^th. San Jose was 1 of 6 teams with at least eight games in those two weeks, and they had what looked like a good run of opponents: Anaheim (2), Vancouver, Chicago, and Nashville were among the eight games. It gave the Sharks what I thought was the best schedule in the two-week final. That, combined with my perceived value on Celebrini, led to me often drafting him and San Jose's top wingers.

Carolina Hurricanes

The reason for focusing on Hurricanes skaters, and particularly their wingers, wasn't the schedule but the value. Ehlers was my 56^th overall skater, and assuming maybe 15 goalies drafted in that span, worth a seventh- or eighth-round pick. I was able to take him between picks 73-96, or the seventh/eighth round, each time I selected him.  

Svechnikov, meanwhile, was my 70^th overall skater. Assuming maybe 20 goalies drafted in that time, he was worth drafting anytime in the ninth round or later. I was able to grab him between picks 96-120 each time I drafted him.  

After slow starts from both Ehlers and Svechnikov – they combined for 2 goals, 5 assists, and 46 shots through 20 games (10 each) in October – they were immensely valuable the rest of the way.

Stacking San Jose and Carolina worked out well. What also worked well was getting Jet Greaves as my third goalie on nearly half my rosters. I believed Greaves was (and is) a good goalie playing behind a competitive Columbus roster, and that turned out to be true.  

Things didn't go my way in the final, and one thing that really hurt was Carolina sitting players in Chicago on April 9^th. My one entry that reached the final had Svechnikov, Ehlers, and Jarvis, and they all sat in that 7-2 win over the Blackhawks. If they had played and got a few points, I would have doubled my winnings. If they have a big game, my winnings probably increase somewhere between 4x and 6x. That is the double-edged sword of stacking top players from top squads, but it is a reminder that team decisions are out of your control and you just have to live with that.

Overall, I'm happy with the season. I think I had the right read on Carolina and San Jose, given how many of my entries made it as far as they did, but the cards just didn't fall my way in the final. Such is the nature of the game we play, and I'm already excited for next season.