The 2026-27 Fantasy Guide is now available! If you have already purchased it, you'll receive the following documents with your purchase:

• PDF Guide, which includes both articles and team-by-team projections
• Excel Draft List, which includes sortable projections

Both documents are updated as needed until the start of the regular season. To take advantage of the updates, go back to the Downloads folder and download a new copy.

Immediate PDF and Spreadsheet download!

Guide: https://t.co/BjHdp5lAFk
Keeper Pack: https://t.co/fJDjWt2THj
Ultimate Pack: https://t.co/5blNTg2NVV
Subscriptions: https://t.co/WcYSwHoY7r

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) July 24, 2026

Purchase yours if you haven't already. You won't be disappointed! I won't blame you if you take a long read through it before checking out today's Ramblings. But the Ramblings are here as promised every day.

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All arbitration cases have now been settled, with two prominent RFAs avoiding arbitration with agreements announced on Friday.  

Cole Sillinger avoided arbitration with the Columbus Blue Jackets with a three-year, $4.625 million AAV contract. Sillinger finished 2025-26 with 33 points in 81 games, although with just eight goals. The 33 points tied a career high for Sillinger, though. He has finished with 32 or 33 points in each of his last three seasons, topping out at 0.5 PTS/GP in 2024-25. Sillinger, who played on Charlie Coyle's line in 2025-26, seems unlikely to finish with more than 40 points in 2026-27. However, he has added value in bangers leagues with 100+ hits in three of his past four seasons.

Akira Schmid also avoided arbitration with the Florida Panthers with a two-year, $2 million AAV deal. Schmid was acquired by the Panthers from Vegas earlier in the offseason and is projected to start 2025-26 as Jacob Markstrom's backup. If Markstrom continues to struggle the way he had last season, Schmid could earn more of a timeshare. Schmid appeared in a career-high 34 games with the Golden Knights last season, finishing with 16 wins, a 2.59 GAA, and .893 SV%.

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Programming note: The Offseason Fantasy Grades articles will be back again this offseason, starting on Tuesday August 4. We will cover them in reverse alphabetical order this season, so Winnipeg Jets fans will not have to wait until the end like they have in past seasons. You can find last season's Offseason Fantasy Grades here if you would like a trip down memory lane to see what the teams looked like at this time last year.

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One of the topics I wrote about in the Fantasy Guide was injuries. Any injuries that could affect a player's availability to start the season have been noted in the Injuries section for each team, while injuries to key players such as Connor Bedard and Seth Jarvis have been accounted for in their projections. The last thing you want to do is use a high pick on a player that will miss a significant chunk of games (in a single-season league, anyway).

Just prior to releasing the Fantasy Guide, Dobber also released his 2026 Band-Aid Boy list. All of the Band-Aid Boys have been listed in the Injuries sections as well. Which teams have the most Band-Aid Boys, and which teams have the fewest? I'll pull that data for you and try to analyze what it could mean.

MOST BAND-AID BOYS

Pittsburgh (10)

Andrei Kuzmenko, Blake Lizotte, Egor Chinakhov, Justin Brazeau, Samuel Girard, Bryan Rust, Evgeni Malkin, Rickard Rakell, Tommy Novak, Trevor van Riemsdyk.

If there was ever a Band-Aid Boy lifetime achievement award for a team, the Penguins would be the recipient. The Penguins never make it through an NHL season without a rash of injuries. However, I could not locate any Penguins players entering the season with any kind of lingering injury issues. Perhaps they are turning a corner!

No Sidney Crosby or Kris Letang seems surprising, yet they've become more durable as they've gotten older. (Who among us is fortunate enough to have experienced that?) Crosby missed 14 games last season, but he missed only two combined games in his previous three seasons. Letang has missed eight games in each of his previous two seasons but appeared in all 82 games in 2023-24. Being a Band-Aid Boy isn't forever.

My assumption was that the Penguins are the oldest team in the league because of all the over-35s (Crosby, Letang, Evgeni Malkin, Erik Karlsson), but as per Elite Prospects, they are only the 11^th-oldest team (average age 28.88). Age and injury risk should be taken into account if drafting multiple Penguins to your fantasy team.

Florida (8)

Aleksander Barkov, Radko Gudas, Seth Jones, Brady Tkachuk, Matthew Tkachuk, Aaron Ekblad, Garnet Hathaway, Brad Marchand.

The answer to the question of which team is the oldest is the Los Angeles Kings (average age 30.71). They had five Band-Aid Boys. Florida finished a close second (average age 30.16).

The Panthers are certainly going to be a wagon this coming season, but they are not without vulnerability. They are an older team that has players coming off significant injuries. The Fantasy Guide injury writeup for the Panthers was the longest of any team based on how many players were shut down before the season ended. They've paid a price for three consecutive Stanley Cup runs, which add two months to a season when compared to a non-playoff team. The Panthers have top-9 depth like no one else, but injuries to key players can lead to increased minutes (and increased injury risk) for other key players.

Buffalo (8)

Noah Ostlund, Zach Benson, Jiri Kulich, Jason Zucker, Josh Norris, Mattias Samuelsson, Conor Sheary, Conor Timmins.

While Pittsburgh and Florida are on the older end, Buffalo is the fourth-youngest team in the league (average age 26.48). They also have the second-lowest total of total NHL games played (6,944).

I don't have the research behind this, but I wonder how much injuries held back the Sabres prior to their 2025-26 breakout. A total of 11 Sabres appeared in at least 77 games in 2025-26, which is no more than five games missed. Compare that to Florida, where only four players appeared in at least 77 games; and Pittsburgh, where only six players appeared in at least 77 games.

This is a team that is young enough to turn a corner in this category, although I'm still genuinely concerned that a player like Norris can make it through a full season. Norris has been in the NHL for six full seasons and has never reached 70 games in a season.

FEWEST BAND-AID BOYS

Tampa Bay (1)

Pontus Holmberg.

That list might grow for the Lightning next season. J.J. Moser was the only Bolts defenseman to appear in at least 75 games last season. Erik Cernak, Ryan McDonagh, and Victor Hedman all missed at least 20 games last season.

Utah (1)

Barrett Hayton.

I don't know if this means anything, but all three of these teams finished in the bottom third of the league in blocked shots in 2025-26: Utah 23^rd (1,117 BkS), Ottawa 26^th (1,101 BkS), and Tampa Bay 29^th (1,006 BkS). There are obviously many other ways a player could be injured beyond blocking a shot, but I thought that was interesting.

Ottawa (2)

Shane Pinto, Thomas Chabot.

Chabot deserves special mention here. Over the past five seasons, Chabot has appeared in at least 80 games just one time and over 60 games just twice. He has missed an average of 19 games over each of the past five seasons. The fact that he misses a chunk of games every season will cut into his fantasy value.

Curious about any team’s Band-Aid Boy total? Purchase a Fantasy Guide, or go to a team’s Depth Chart page on Frozen Tools and look for the Band-Aid icons.

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Follow me on X @Ian_Gooding and Bluesky @goodsfantasyhockey.bsky.social