Every Sunday, we’ll 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, Cam Robinson, and Dobber

1. We learned more about what ailed Steven Stamkos throughout the playoffs. According to GM Julien BriseBois, Stamkos underwent sports hernia surgery before the season pause. BriseBois stated that Stamkos’ rehab resulted in a “compensation” injury while he was preparing to participate in the return to play.

In spite of the injury, BriseBois said he expects Stamkos to be ready for the 2020-21 season (whenever that will start). Even if that is true, I’m still drafting Stamkos at a slight injury discount after he missed 13 regular-season games and almost all of the postseason. It wouldn’t be a major injury discount, as Stamkos did play 82 and 78 games over the previous two seasons (although just 17 games in the season before, 2016-17). Stamkos has averaged between 1.1 and 1.2 points per game over each of the last four seasons, so don’t forget the significant upside that is still there. You can see where I have Stamkos ranked in the Roto Rankings Top 100 (although I’m thinking of moving him down a little bit). (oct2)

2. If you followed the playoffs closely, you’ll know how much Tyler Seguin struggled (just two goals and 13 points in 26 games). Although the Stars haven’t confirmed this, it is believed that he had been suffering from multiple injuries himself. We’ll have to wait and see what those injuries are, but fantasy owners will need to know whether those injury issues will carry over into the 2020-21 season.

I don’t usually combine regular-season and playoff stats. However, Seguin’s goal-scoring troubles extend well back into the regular season. Over his last 30 regular-season games, Seguin scored just six goals to go with 19 points. Add the regular season to the postseason and it’s eight goals in his last 56 combined games. The Stars as a team weren’t scoring much during that stretch anyway, which would have affected his numbers regardless. Yet I also wonder if the injury issues also affected him then. (oct2)

3. Over at Dobberprospects, I took a historical lens on second-overall selections and compared them to expected number two overall, Quinton Byfield. It was a fun exercise. Here for the one I did for Alexis Lafreniere and the top dogs a few weeks back. (sep30)

4. Reader @drack55 asks: Best bet to be a valuable fantasy G next year between Lundqvist, Fleury, Holtby, Crawford, Anderson, Howard?

The aging vets! Well, tops is obviously the youngster in the group Braden Holtby. I’m not overly confident in how strong his results will be on a new team, but more confident then I am with the other candidates here. Wherever he signs, he’s going to get the Bobrovsky treatment (given start after start no matter how poorly he performs). And I tend to put my money on the goalie who gets the most opportunity.

Marc-Andre Fleury right now is the starter for Vegas. That makes him No.2 on this list. If he gets traded, as is speculated (and maybe that’s what Vegas is waiting for before announcing a Robin Lehner signing), I feel that he is the next best option to put forth a good year. Third on my list here is Corey Crawford. He had a fantastic playoffs and was also very good once Chicago traded away Lehner. Fourth is Henrik Lundqvist, but I don’t have a whole lot of faith in how well he can perform based on the declining stats.

I wouldn’t recommend Craig Anderson or Jimmy Howard in any fantasy league. (oct1)

5. Reader @scdakotart asks: Fantasy impact of Oscar Klefbom injury if he misses substantial time with it? Do internal players get the minutes/chance or does EDM look externally via free agency or trade?

To land anyone of substance it’s going to be very costly. I love Oliver Ekman-Larssonn as much as the next guy, but the price I’ve heard for him makes me shudder. But if they make the deal happen, then OEL and the rest of the team benefit huge. But I tend to believe that these deals have better odds of not happening than happening.

So, if they don’t land OEL and they can’t sign a Torey Krug or an Alex Pietrangelo, then I hope they don’t ‘settle’ for someone worse like a Justin Schultz or Sami Vatanen (who I respect, but gets hurt so much he’d be useless in helping a team like the Oilers).

External help, to me, is limited to those first three names I noted. After that, just look internally. Ethan Bear was awesome last year. Darnell Nurse is awesome every time Klefbom is on the shelf! Is Evan Bouchard ready to step into that No.4 or No.5 slot? I think he is. Most likely scenario to me is Nurse and Bear adding 10 or 15 points each to their numbers from last year, Bouchard sliding in and managing 25 or 30 points, and the Oilers adding a steady-eddie via free agency such as Justin Braun or Brenden Dillon. (oct1)

6. Darren Dreger reported that Boston and Edmonton are pushing hard to obtain OEL. I wrote some words about the Swedish defender a few weeks back, but the gist of it is, that at 8.25M for seven more seasons he's not an ideal target. His impact – both offensively and defensively has deteriorated over the past three seasons.

He is no longer a number one defender.

That said, he can absolutely still provide value – especially in some more sheltered situations. However, if I'm the Bruins, I'd probably prefer to extend Torey Krug at fewer dollars and fewer years and save the cost of acquisition price. (sep30)

7. Speaking of Krug, reports indicate that the Bs offered him six years at 6.25M. To me, that seems like a nice ceiling of an offer for a player of his ilk. Sure, he's an incredibly useful offensive player and one we love to have on fantasy rosters. However, you do not go bananas on a player leaving their prime who needs sheltering at even-strength.

Call me crazy, but I'm not paying a player 7-8M per into their mid-30s and be forced to have them start 70 percent of their shifts in the offensive end while seeing all the juicy power-play minutes. That's the type of deal you end up choking on.

He'll undoubtedly end up in a worse offensive situation than the juicy B's top PP he's lived on for the recent history. Selling time. (sep30)

8. Juuso Valimaki split 2018-19 with the Flames and their AHL farm team before tearing his ACL and missing the entirety of the 2019-20 campaign. He's undoubtedly an NHL player and would be expected to skate in a top-four role for the Flames next season.

By heading to the Finnish Liiga – and to the club team that he spent his junior hockey with way back when, he'll have an opportunity to get reps in on the knee. The club will be able to recall him when training camps finally break late in 2020 or early 2021.

Additionally, since he was not credited with a singled pro game in 2019-20, I believe this means he will be exempt from the Seattle expansion draft.

Long term, Valimaki projects to be a multicat stud on the blueline. He chews up minutes, can rack up points, blocks, hits, the whole meal-deal. (sep30)

9. The Rangers are about to enter the post-Henrik Lundqvist era of their franchise. Something they haven’t had to do since the godly goaltender landing on Broadway back in 2005. And now we officially begin the period of Igor Shestyorkin. Shesterkin. Whatever. That Russian knows how to stop pucks.

In fact, I’m ready to say that Igor Shest-whatever, is the absolute number one netminder to own in keeper/dynasty leagues. That’s right. My apologies to Andrei Vasilevskiy, Connor Hellebuyck, Carter Hart and the rest of the elite, workhorse netminders on top teams. Shesty is young but not too young, he’s surrounded by the perfect storm of young, supreme talent that’s coming up.

The Rangers are coming hard in the near future and he’s going to be the backbone. If you’re looking for a locked-in number one for the next five or six seasons, it’s hard to argue against him.

Now, I can just hear the naysayers. “Cmon, Robinson. He has 13 NHL games under his belt!”

You’re not wrong. But all this guy does is stop pucks and rack up wins. Going back five seasons, playing against top professional players in the KHL, AHL, NHL and World Championships, he’s posted a ridiculous 138-34-18 record. Oh, and a 0.937 save percentage.

It’s unheard of. (sep30)

10. It’s going to be weird not seeing Lundqvist between the pipes for the Rangers next season. Yet in spite of his struggles last season (3.16 GAA, .905 SV%), I’d expect him to land somewhere as a backup or a 1A. Lundqvist posted a strong high-danger save percentage (10th among 61 goalies that played at least 600 minutes, according to Natural Stat Trick) in spite of a defense that was among the worst in allowing both shots and high-danger scoring chances. His numbers could look more respectable next season with a different team, albeit in a reduced role than what we’re used to with King Henrik. (oct3)

P.S.: I relaunched DobberProspects.com on Friday! Now go on and enjoy a cleaner, slicker site in time for the upcoming 2020 NHL Entry Draft. Still a few tweaks to go, and a couple of cool widgets I want to ad, but much of it is done. And please turn off your ad blocker. Any popup issues I may have had in the past are either gone, or easily squashed if any return. The player pages are pretty sweet (see Nick Robertson here), and we’ll have the team pages looking just as sweet very soon.

ALSO: The NHL Entry Draft is coming up on Tuesday. Fortunately, you can find tons of draft coverage on Dobber Sports. If you bought the Fantasy Prospects Report, it was recently updated with Cam Robinson’s Mock Draft. I like the Prospect Report’s Top 10 lists, which provide top 10s for a fantasy draft, offensive defensemen, centers and wingers in fantasy, and more. As well, I’ll probably refer to Cam and Jokke’s Fantasy Hockey Top 107 as I participate in my keeper league’s entry draft. Do you want to get to know the players that you’re considering drafting? Check out the individual player profiles.

– Dobber

11. Brandon Pirri was traded to Chicago for Dylan Sikura. Pirri, remember, was drafted by Chicago and spent a lot of time on the farm for them before being traded to Florida (and then elsewhere).

Sikura never really found his footing with the ‘Hawks, bouncing between the AHL and NHL the last couple of years. He’s also four years younger than Pirri.

I don’t want to get too excited here. I do think Pirri is a useful NHLer in the right role i.e. not one with much defensive responsibility (Diet Patrik Laine). It’s not that he’s terrible defensively – I think that point is overblown – but I think he’s better suited as a trigger-man than anything else. If Pirri can get useful ice time, he can score, and score a lot. Anyone who can score at a similar rate to Leon Draisaitl for 3000 minutes of 5-on-5 ice time (about three full seasons’ worth) deserves a shot in the NHL. Oh, by the way, in that span, he was in the 90th percentile for shot rate among forwards.

Sikura going to Vegas just kills his value. Eight of their top-9 forwards are already under contract for next year and they still have either Nick Cousins or Chandler Stephenson (or both) to sign, plus Cody Glass and Peyton Krebs in the wings. There are a lot of very good forwards so it’s hard to see Sikura anywhere in the top-9 for long stretches of time. Maybe he has value if there are some injuries or really impresses. But it would take a lot.

For fantasy, this trade is about Pirri. He had no chance of cracking the Vegas lineup for long stretches. He does have a chance of cracking the Chicago lineup. It’s a matter of where they slot him. (sep29)

12. Dobber gave his thoughts on the Jeff Petry extension in his Ramblings, so I won’t go too deep into it. As the resident Habs fan among our editors, I thought I would give my two cents.

In a nutshell, I like the extension. Like Dobber, I have concerns about what he’ll be like at 36 and 37 years old, but I have more faith in a good puck-mover aging gracefully on the blue line through his mid-30s (I’m thinking of guys like Mark Giordano and Brian Campbell) than players who rely on stellar defense for value (I’m thinking of guys like Chris Tanev and Marc-Edouard Vlasic). Now, Petry does both, and he does hit a lot. Knowing that, it’s fair to wonder how long he’ll hold up. Another year? Another three? Five? I’m not sure. All I know is I feel better about him still having value three years from now than I do a guy like Tanev, even with Tanev being a couple years younger.

The problem, outside of the nutshell, is there is a lot of money to aging blue liners. Shea Weber, Petry, and Karl Alzner are all at least 32 years old and will count nearly $18 million against the cap this year and over $18 million next year (less whatever is buried from Alzner once he’s sent to the AHL). I’ve talked at length about how much I don’t like either of the Ben Chiarot or Joel Edmundson contracts. In other words, the Habs, in my opinion, have a lot of money and years tied up in defensemen that are not worth it, are old, or both. The blue line they had in 2019-20 will be, more or less, the blue line they have for the next two years (only probably worse if they play Edmundson over Mete).

From a fantasy perspective, as I mentioned, Petry hits a lot – four straight seasons with at least 160. That’s what makes him so valuable for multi-cat leagues. I wonder if that doesn’t slow down as he ages and tries to save his body a bit. Shea Weber averaged 176 hits/82 games over his final three seasons in Nashville. That’s slowed down to about 160/82 games over his last couple years in Montreal as he’s lost ice time and been injured. Not huge, but 10 percent is 10 percent. Something to keep in mind. (sep29)

13. Victor Hedman won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP. Add it to the hardware with the Cup and Norris. I don't have a real problem with Hedman taking it, though my vote would have gone to Nikita Kucherov. Not that it's a poor choice; Hedman probably would be second on my list. I just think Kucherov is the engine of the offense and played 22 minutes a night while suiting up every game.

14. It was a great playoffs for the pair of pickups in Barclay Goodrow and Blake Coleman. Coleman had five goals and 13 points and while Goodrow didn't rack up points, the pair was on the ice for just two goals against on the penalty kill in their 26 games. That's over 60 minutes of ice time for each, and the shots against numbers kind of tell the same tale. Excellent penalty killing is an important ingredient for any successful team.

More than anyone as far as performances are concerned, this was Brayden Point showing everyone just how good he is, and how good he will be for years. (sep29)

15. I think Bobby Ryan signs a modest contract with a new team, maybe a two-year deal for something low around the $2M mark. And I think he posts his highest point total since 2016. I liked what I saw when he returned in February from his rehab. Provided the pandemic didn’t bring him down and he stays positive, I think the 33-year-old can contribute. I’m figuring something around 40 or 45 points, depending on the team. (sep28)

16. It’s really amazing what Rick Bowness got out of the Stars in the playoffs. I mean… Jamie Benn was done. He really was done. A 45-point former superstar who can still chip in the intangibles. But suddenly he was that point-per-game superstar again. Benn has brought them there. (sep28)

17. Corey Perry? Yes, Corey Perry! The same Perry who was getting the sheltered treatment, complete with weak quality of competition, offensive zone starts and 46.2% of the available power-play ice time in the regular season. And with all that, he managed just five goals and 21 points all season long, with the second-worst relative Corsi numbers on the team (so he was giving up too many chances along with not scoring). But in the playoffs he matched those five goals, with three of them coming in games 4 and 5 of a Cup Final.

What Perry did in the Stanley Cup Final probably ensured that he gets himself a contract for next year. Honestly, before this I didn’t think he was getting one (in fact I was pretty certain). He’d have landed a training camp tryout somewhere, but probably not a one-way deal. But with all the marbles on the line, he stepped up huge. A GM out there, probably Dallas, will see if they can get him at a similar contract hit as this year’s $1.5M. I think he can be a reasonable agitator on the third line who can (obviously) help in the playoffs, as long as the coach is careful with how he distributes his minutes. (sep28)

18. Speaking of getting yourself another contract, Kevin Shattenkirk did his part to show he can hold his own on a third pairing with second-unit PP time. Much like with Perry, Shattenkirk was given the coach-sheltering treatment with his minutes.

Unlike Perry, Shattenkirk had done enough in the regular season to earn another contract and probably a raise, putting up 34 points (albeit mostly in the first third of the season). But with 13 points in the postseason, he may have landed himself a multi-year deal and a small raise. Which he’ll take, because he knows he’s not getting any younger and that his place on a roster is no longer a given. (sep28)

19. I haven’t discussed the top Frozen Tools searches in a while. One name that's caught my attention (because he probably doesn’t in a lot of attention in fantasy leagues at the moment) is Sharks defenseman Mario Ferraro.

In his rookie 2019-20 season, the most notable stat for Ferraro was his 120 hits, which worked out to an average of about two per game and the fifth-highest total on the Sharks. Otherwise, he finished with a modest 11 points (2g-9a) in 61 games. So I’m genuinely curious as to why he was such a popular search.

Ferraro showed strong offensive upside during his first NCAA season for UMass (Amherst), scoring 23 points in 39 games. However, his stock fell in his second season, dropping to 14 points in 41 games. The presence of Cale Makar had a lot to do with that.

Of course, Ferraro’s path is currently being blocked by the two-headed defensive monster known as Erik Karlsson and Brent Burns. Ferraro could squeak in some second-unit power-play time, but that situation hasn’t exactly led Tim Heed to success. Given the current state of the Sharks defense (big minutes for Burns, Karlsson, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic, but not much after that), Ferraro might be in line for a greater role in 2020-21. That could make him a possible in-season waiver-wire add in deeper leagues. (sep27)

20. The Red Wings have signed Sam Gagner to a one-year contract extension worth $850,000. After being traded to the Wings from Edmonton, Gagner scored a goal with no assists while averaging 15 minutes per game over six games. He seems like he will help bridge the gap in Detroit’s rebuild while possibly even fetching a small futures return at the trade deadline. (sep27)

21. Detroit wasn't done after the Gagner signing, acquiring Marc Staal and a 2021 second-round pick from the Rangers for good ol’ future considerations. Staal has a year remaining with a cap hit of $5.7 million, so this is simply the Rangers clearing much-needed cap space. The Rangers have their share of RFAs to take care of this offseason, including Tony DeAngelo, Ryan Strome, Brendan Lemieux, and Alexandar Georgiev.

Acquiring Staal helps the Red Wings get closer to the cap floor while adding to their prospect base. The Wings have 20 draft picks combined over the next two drafts. Staal finished 2019-20 with 11 points (2g-9a) in 52 games, so he’s really not a fantasy option. He could, however, log significant minutes with the Wings. In related news, Steve Yzerman has confirmed that the Wings will not be bringing back either Trevor Daley or Jonathan Ericsson. (sep27)

Have a good week, folks – be safe!!

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