I wanted to take the time to highlight some of the work our writers, podcasters, and editors have been doing around the site of late.

Of course, there needs to be a mention of our Prospects Report. Dobber and our prospect team put in thousands of combined hours of scouting, writing, and editing to put this together. It is comprehensive not only covering players that will be drafted in 2020, but also the prospects already drafted across the league. That means depth charts and future projections for players all across the 31 franchises. It can help people in dynasty leagues really plan for the future based on where they are today. Pick up a copy and help support our team!

Dobber's DraftCast, hosted by Tony Ferrari and Jokke Nevalainen, has been a wonderful treasure trove of prospect information. This is a time of year where some hockey fans may have checked out – there are only eight teams left, after all – so digging into the future of the franchise is a great way to pass the time until the next regular season. With the depth of the upcoming draft, it's very important to know the players past the elite tier. These guys will help get fantasy owners familiar with the non-Laffy names they need to know heading into the next few seasons. Please give it a listen, rate, and subscribe.

He took a well-deserved week off this week, but Rick Roos has been putting in a lot of work answering reader questions, setting up polls, and generally providing actionable information in his columns. Whether it's emailing us directly or through forum threads, we get a lot of questions every week at Dobber Hockey. Rick does a great job sorting through the ones that are either unique or provide a broad answer that can help a lot of people. Either way, anyone with fantasy hockey questions are well served by finding Rick in the forums or by emailing admin at dobbersports dot com.

Alex Maclean has been putting in great work over the last few months as it pertains to projections costs in cap leagues. Projecting stats is one thing, but in cap leagues, being able to project how much the players bringing those stats will cost is another. He's projected cost by draft slotting, by free agent status, goaltenders, and more. He's really doing a lot of great research that will help cap league players navigate a flat-cap system.

Those are just a handful that I've noticed over the last few months that have been really doing great work. There are plenty others at the site and my intention is not to dismiss their work. My only intention is to highlight work done at the site recently that I think has been very valuable for readers. I truly do appreciate being able to work here with our great team. Please consider purchasing the Prospect Guide from our Dobber Shop to help support what we do and keep the great content from our writers coming.

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An interesting tidbit from Jeremy Rutherford over at The Athletic. In his piece about Alex Pietrangelo's future, he says the belief is that Petro asked for less than what Roman Josi got (eight years at roughly $9.1M per) but that St. Louis hasn't offered anything above $8M. I just find it interesting because it gives us a baseline on what teams can expect for an ask should he not return to St. Louis. I suspect that NTC/NMC might change things a bit. All the same, I was expecting somewhere closer to Drew Doughty ($11M AAV) rather than Victor Hedman ($7.9M AAV). This may not cost a team as much as we thought.

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One thing I've noticed these playoffs is a lot of people calling the New York Islanders a boring team to watch. I don't really agree with that assessment. Stats from Natural Stat Trick.

Even in the regular season, this didn't hold up. Their pace, as defined by shot attempts for plus shot attempts against per 60 minutes, was 12^th in the league at 5-on-5 in 2019-20, higher than teams like Vegas, Carolina, and Tampa Bay. If we define pace by expected goals for plus expected goals against per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, they drop to 20^th, but are still ahead of teams like Tampa Bay and Colorado. So, by shots or expected goals, they had a higher pace than many teams we consider exciting. Did they score a lot? No, they did not. But failing to score isn't the same thing as not playing exciting hockey. I mean, did anyone watch the Senators this year?

But let’s say that playing a high pace but not scoring a lot is boring. Since the start of the first round, their shot for/against pace has definitely slowed to the bottom of the league, at least at 5-on-5. On the flipside, the Islanders are fourth in scoring among per 60 minutes teams that proceeded beyond the play-ins, ahead of teams like Tampa Bay, Vancouver, and Boston. That's at 5-on-5. At all strength, they're third in goals per 60 minutes, ahead of Vegas, Tampa, and Boston.

So we have a team that played to a relatively high pace in the regular season and was deemed boring because they didn't score a lot, so they start scoring a lot and they're still boring? This is just a guess, but it seems there may be some anchoring bias at play here. People are assuming the team we watched six months ago is still the same team today. In most ways, they are. One way they are different is they've scored a lot of goals.

If we define “fun” as pace, they did that in the regular season. If it’s defined as goals, they’re doing that in the postseason. If it’s defined as both pace and goals at all strengths, only five teams were top-10 in the regular season by pace/60 and goals for+goals against/60: Colorado, Nashville, Toronto, Vancouver, and Vegas. Every other team was boring, thanks.

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Just as an aside from everything else, I've been spending a lot of the last five or so months watching esports. I love video games, I played them competitively years ago, and I bet on them. These last few months only exacerbated that.

Anyway, this is just to raise one point: their production value far outweighs almost anything I see in traditional sports and their analysis matches it. They do a great job of mixing in funny/silly/entertaining segments with heartfelt interviews and math-heavy analysis. There's something there for everyone and it's done seamlessly.

I wonder about adaptation here. The realm of esports has grown up alongside with their audience while the same cannot be said for traditional sports. Traditional sports are ran by people who were in their prime 30 years ago. Most esports, at least in front of the camera, are ran by people who still aren't old enough for annual colonoscopies. I don't want to make this an age-divide thing, but it's hard not to notice esports broadcasts loaded with people under 35 being wildly entertaining for that demographic while traditional sports broadcasts are loaded with people over 50. If you want to attract new viewers, you need new ideas. Maybe the NHL is fine with not attracting new viewers.

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In response to the continued police brutality predominantly affecting minority communities (and more specifically – this time – the seven shots in the back of Jacob Blake) the NBA, WNBA, MLS, and some MLB teams postponed their games on Wednesday night. The NHL did not, instead opting for a 73-word statement and seven seconds at silence at one of their two games. There was backlash from fans and media alike, as well as a plea from the Hockey Diversity Alliance to postpone games on Thursday.

The players eventually decided to postpone the games on Thursday and Friday. Late, but better late than never. Now, this may shock you, but the NHL created four committees focused on diversity and tackling racism in hockey back in early June in the wake of the George Floyd murder. Since then, those committees have done nothing. So, let's not hold our breath on concrete action, but at least the first step was taken: showing solidarity with those that are suffering. And kudos to those looking to genuinely start the conversation, like Scott Laughton, James van Riemsdyk, and Kevin Shattenkirk. There is a long ways to go but taking initiative is a start.