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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DobberHockey’s 2026-27 Fantasy Hockey Guide is available in the Dobber Shop! Team-by-team overviews updated through to the start of the regular season to reflect injuries, trades, or other pertinent information.

The French version, le Guide des Poolers, is also available. You can pre-order it here. 

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1. Alex Ovechkin has announced that this season will be his final one. Based on his on-ice performance, Ovechkin has the numbers to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer as the all-time leader in goals (929). Unless he somehow has a 70-goal season in him (which he has never done), Ovechkin will not become the first player to score 1000 goals in his career. Breaking Wayne Gretzky’s goal record is enough of an accomplishment, since that record seemed unbreakable at one point. (oct6)  

2. There was some very good news for Carolina Hurricanes forward Seth Jarvis as he was able to shed his non-contact jersey and participate in a normal morning skate for the first time this season. Jarvis is still making his way back from offseason shoulder surgery so his return isn’t exactly imminent, but this is a big step in getting back into the lineup. (oct9)

3. Dylan Larkin returned for the Red Wings to a chorus of boos on Tuesday, but he scored early which changed the narrative a little – he would add an assist later for good measure. This is a completely different team with Larkin in the lineup. Take notes for if/when Larkin ends up getting traded. (oct7)

Add Simon Edvinsson to the list of players that are looking to get out of Detroit. According to Elliotte Friedman, Edvinsson would prefer to be traded from the Red Wings. Edvinsson is currently not in the Wings’ lineup because he is still without a contract, which Friedman has stated as the basis for the trade request. (oct4)

4. The Canucks might be quite bad, but entering Saturday action, Elias Pettersson had two goals and six assists in five games. EP40 reclaiming his status as the guy he was three years ago would be easily the biggest development of the season for this team. (oct9)

5. The Philadelphia Flyers announced Wednesday that they signed free agent winger Michael Bunting to a one-year, $1.2 Million contract. Wing is the position where the Flyers need the least help right now, but it’s all that’s left available on the free agent market, and with there being no quick-fix call up options at the key positions, Bunting provides a low risk shakeup option for a team that has started out the season at 0-3. 

Bunting likely starts game one on line four, but he could also be a natural swap for Denver Barkey on line two (currently also featuring Trevor Zegras and Owen Tippett). Maybe some fantasy value here in deeper leagues, but likely not worth sacrificing a waiver priority for in standard sized leagues. (oct7)

6. The Rangers lost 3-1 in Washington on Friday night, but the bigger concern was goaltender Igor Shesterkin. He seemed to injure his leg sliding into the post halfway through the second period, skating off the ice without putting much weight on it, and leaving the game. (oct10) UPDATE: On Saturday, it was announced that Shesterkin would miss the rest of the regular season.

7. Entering action Wednesday, I was having a tough time with my goalies this year, rostering in multiple leagues: Yaroslav Askarov (five goals against on Monday), Dan Vladar (two losses and a GAA over five), Tristan Jarry (bad, bad, bad) and Nico Daws (only one game so far and six goals against). Luckily MacKenzie Blackwood has looked good, and Logan Thompson has been his fantastic self. 

I haven’t been one to pay up much for goaltending in recent years, and while there are always goalies who come out of the woodworks every year to post fantasy relevant numbers, it does feel like the higher and lower end goalies have a growing gap between them. If you’re starting off with some questionable goaltending like me, it might be worth circling around the trade block to see if there are any big swings you can make early to acquire a top goalie while filling a skater hole for the other team. 

Frederik Andersen is also another option, though more so in H2H leagues if you can hold out until the mid-way mark of the year and then make the big push at the end. He is due to return around the New Year, and by that point in the season either Mike Babcock will be gone, or the team will have settled into his system just in time to have the rested veteran goalie step in to steady the ship. (oct7)

9. Aleksander Barkov‘s injury timeline was updated with a post from Darren Dreger, and it sounds like Christmas might be coming by early December for his owners – a 6-8 week recovery timeline is the new expectation. The injury doesn’t need surgery, so rest and rehab for now. (oct7)

10. Florida also lost Brad Marchand to a knee injury and he'll miss six weeks. It is a good thing that this isn’t season-ending, but between Marchand and Aleksander Barkov, the injuries are already piling up for the Panthers and their division/conference remains as difficult as last year. (oct10)

11. The news on Ottawa Senators forward William Eklund was even worse than Marchand. Tweeted @ComingInHotSens: Travis Green says William Eklund has an ankle injury and will be out an extended period of time "it's unfortunate."  Eklund was seen at the rink using a knee scooter. 

No firm timeline on an ankle injury is never good news. Any fantasy manager with Eklund on the roster should be ready for him not to be back in October, and it could stretch out well beyond that. (oct10)

12. The Los Angeles Kings gave us some news on Mats Zuccarello. Tweeted @DooleyLAK: Zuccarello out "week-to-week" per Peter Laviolette. No further info on his injury, PL preferred to keep internal. 

A week-to-week designation is never ideal, but it’s better than hearing months, plural. (oct10)

13. Some bad news for New York Islanders blue liner Alexander Romanov, who tore his ACL and will miss 6-8 months. A six-month absence would take us pretty much to the end of the regular season, so unless the Islanders reach the playoffs, it looks like Romanov’s season is over once again. He missed most of last year with a shoulder surgery, and now this knee surgery is doing the same. (oct8)

14. In a bit of a surprise, the Flames placed Connor Zary on waivers (and he cleared). Zary has played in two games this season, registering one assist in 13:38 of icetime while being a healthy scratch last Saturday against Vancouver. Zary’s scoring rate has dipped from 0.54 PTS/GP in 2023-24 (34 PTS in 63 GP) to 0.34 PTS/GP in 2025-26 (25 PTS in 74 GP). Zary was a first-round pick in 2020 who just turned 25 with a $3.77 million cap hit. (oct6) 

15. We are a week into the NHL season and while there isn’t a lot of useful data right now besides ice time, one thing to keep track of is ‘Market Share’. That is just the percentage of a team’s shots taken by a specific player with that player on the ice. So, if Kirill Kaprizov is on the ice for 50 shots, and he takes 10 of them, his Market Share is 20%. It helps identify players that could be relevant fantasy goal scorers if their role improves. It also helps identify players who aren’t shooting much, even if their team or line is. Using play-by-play data from the NHL, here are some players to keep an eye on, for better or worse.

We are going to limit our sample to teams who’ve played at least four games, and for now we’ll only look at even-strength play (including empty-net situations and overtime). For a frame of reference: in a full season, the absolute high-end Market Shares among forwards are between 30-35% with high-volume guys over 25%. Among defencemen, the elite Market Shares are 22-25% with the high-volume options over 20%.

Let’s start with a trio of forwards before reviewing defencemen. These will include all shot attempts: goals, on net, missed, and blocked. Here are the market shares among select forwards from the New York Rangers, Seattle Kraken, and Carolina Hurricanes:

Will Cuylle (New York Rangers)

There are many interesting stories around the Rangers: a 4-1 start, Alberts Šmits making the team, both top two scoring lines looking dangerous, and Adam Fox‘s reduced usage. It is easy to overlook the fact that Cuylle has three points in five games (all assists) with 14 shots on goal and 18 hits in his five appearances. He has yet to score, but the fact that he’s taking a whopping 46.5% of the team’s shots at even strength shows how involved he is in the offence.

The avenue for Cuylle to top-6 minutes is taking Tye Kartye‘s spot, and it may happen for reasons that have nothing to do with Kartye’s play: Through five games with Cuylle and Noah Laba on the ice at 5-on-5, the Rangers have a -35 differential by shot attempts. That third line is getting annihilated and play like that will lead to them being broken up sooner rather than later. What the lines look like after being broken up is a fair question, but there is a way for Cuylle to get a bigger role in short order. (oct8)

16. Bobby McMann (Seattle Kraken)

The early returns on the McMann-Chandler Stephenson duo aren’t bad, all things considered, as they are +2 by scoring chances with three goals scored at 5-on-5 in their four games. McMann has 15 shots on goal in those four appearances, scoring twice, and posting a Market Share of nearly 30% at even strength. Going back to last year, in 22 games with the Kraken, McMann’s Market Share at even strength is over 35%. Maintaining that rate for a season would make him one of the elite shot-volume guys in the league.

Keep in mind that ice time matters. McMann might be an elite shot-volume option for his role, but if his role is 16-17 minutes a night, he won’t post the raw SOG totals that guys like Tage Thompson or Nikita Kucherov will. All the same, at every step of his Kraken career, he has shown the penchant for being a guy who can post 3+ shots per game. We won’t know with any certainty for a few more months, but this is a great start to the season for him. (oct8)

17. Jackson Blake (Carolina Hurricanes)

With the news of Seth Jarvis‘ surgery and recovery, there was (justified) excitement among fantasy managers about what Blake could do. He would get top PP time, and maybe his line would get some extra EV ice time with Jarvis out. Well, he’s getting top PP time, and that’s jacking up his TOI rates, but he has just eight shot attempts at even strength through four games, good for a 13.7% Market Share. Last year, Blake’s Market Share was just under 21%. If this gap were to hold, and the team generates the same number of shots with him on the ice as they did in 2025-26, we are looking at maybe 50 fewer shots on goal.

There is no massive concern here yet – it is just four games. However, the fact that Blake’s shots per game have risen slightly from last year is entirely because of the additional ice time, not an improvement in his shot profile. This is a player to watch over the next month, and particularly once Jarvis returns in the next 4-6 weeks. (oct8)

18. There is one defenceman I want to talk about quickly, so here is what it looks like among St. Louis Blues defencemen:

Adam Jiricek (St. Louis Blues)

Jiříček has only played three games, but the Blues have played four, and the fact that he’s so high on our chart is why he stands out. He has yet to register a point and has yet to play 20 minutes in any contest, so the current and near-future fantasy value isn’t very high. Regardless, being around a 24% market share so early in his career is something to monitor; anything over 20% would indicate a high-volume blue liner. Let’s see how the next couple of months go, but this first week of his career has been encouraging. (oct8)

* Additional data from Natural Stat Trick or Frozen Tools. 

19. On Thursday (above), I had a Ramblings covering early shot Market Shares for different players. The term ‘Market Share’ here is just the percentage of a team’s shots a specific player takes when they’re on the ice. So, if Dylan Guenther is on the ice for 100 shots from the Utah Mammoth, and he takes 30 of those shots, his Market Share is 30%. This helps identify players who have high shot volume but whose team, or line, doesn’t shoot much.

We are using all shot attempts (missed, blocked, or on goal) and only at even strength (including empty nets) with data scraped from NHL play-by-play. In addition to those from Thursday, there are three players who stood out for different reasons.

Emil Heineman (New York Islanders)

Heineman has two goals in four games, with those two goals coming on three SOG. It is nice to shoot 67%, but it also should be noted that among Islanders forwards, he has a high share of shots:

To this point, Heineman sits at 27.6% of the Islanders shots at even strength. Last year, that number was 22.4%. In his one full season with Montreal, he finished at 24.4%. His first four games of the 2026-27 campaign stand out by comparison, so that’s the good news. What is also good news is just two of his eight shot attempts have landed on goal. Over the prior two seasons, he landed over 48% of his even-strength shot attempts on goal. He has been short-changed a couple shots so his SOG total will rise.

The reason this is important is that by shot attempts per 60 minutes, Heineman has dropped by nearly 30% compared to last year. That drop is a function of the team creating far less offence when he’s been on the ice, not because he’s less likely to take a shot. Once (if?) the team’s offence starts to find itself, and Heineman’s attempt/SOG ratio improves, so will his SOG totals. (oct10)

20. Owen Tippett (Philadelphia Flyers)

Even for a guy who typically shoots a lot anyway, what Tippett has done through the Flyers’ first five games stands out:

He has never finished a season above 36% and has averaged 33% over the last four seasons. A rate over 40% assuredly comes down as even the elite Market Share guys in a season will finish around 35-37%, but understanding Tippett’s Market Share puts his even-strength shot-rate drop in context. His attempts per game and per 60 minutes are a four-year low, but his Market Share is sky-high. His drop in shot rate is a function of the team’s struggles to generate offence, not Tippett’s unwillingness to shoot. (oct10)

21. Zayne Parekh (Calgary Flames)

As of yesterday afternoon, the Flames sat second in the league by shot attempts per 60 minutes at even strength, trailing only the New Jersey Devils, who’ve played one fewer game. They are last by goals per 60 minutes, but that’s kind of expected. Regardless, the Flames are firing the biscuit, and Parekh stands out on the blue line.

The fact that Parekh, Simon Nemec, and Yan Kuznetsov have three of the six highest shot attempt rates among all NHL defencemen this season might explain why the Flames are struggling to score, but it also indicates all three are not being shy about getting heavily involved in the offence. That is a balance Calgary has to strike: letting their young blue liners lead the charge offensively but not sacrificing goals at the altar of generating a disproportionate number of low-danger shots.

This is going to be a tough year for Calgary, and this brand of offence likely won’t lead to many goals, but it is very encouraging to see all three blue liners, each under the age of 25, being so offensively-minded.

It should also be mentioned that the shots from the Flames’ defencemen are largely coming at the expense of the forwards. Yesterday, I mentioned how high-end shot volume guys typically end up in the 25-30% range. The only forwards in Calgary over 25% are Mikael Backlund (a preposterous 40.2%) and Martin Pospisil (26.1%), who has been a bottom-6 regular. Matt Coronato sits at 22.4% after averaging 26.5% over the prior two seasons, and Yegor Sharangovich (15.2%) has also seen a decline from his prior two years (21.9%). Again, it’s encouraging for the defencemen to be so heavily involved offensively, but until the tide shifts back to the forwards, this is going to limit the already-meagre fantasy value of their top scoring options. (oct10)

Have a good week, folks!

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