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. Despite being a safe fantasy option for many years, Shea Weber‘s value heading into 2020-21 is uncertain. His point pace in 2019-20 (0.55 PTS/GP) is not a sharp decline from what it has been in previous seasons. Although Weber burst out of the gate with 31 points in his first 39 games, he finished with just five points in his last 26 games. He scored three goals and five points in 10 games during the return to play, which is more like his normal pace. Weber is now 35 years old, so he’s firmly in the territory of us not knowing how much longer he can be trusted as a fantasy option.

There are quite a few defensemen that you should rank ahead of Weber in pure points leagues. In roto leagues, there’s still a lot to like, though. Weber’s booming shot is still an asset to the point where his 185 shots finished in the top 10 among defensemen last season. As well, his 112 hits placed him 13th among Top 100 Roto skaters in 2019-20. He also finished second on the Habs in blocked shots, so there’s still plenty of value to be had.

Ultimately, it’s his power-play value that drags him down here. Weber has finished with single-digit power-play points in each of the last three seasons. All the while, Jeff Petry has recorded double-digit power-play points in each of his last three seasons. Don’t be fooled in drafting Weber too early in your roto league. (dec4)

2. Yahoo opened their fantasy hockey lobby and I was going through some of the positional assignments and some of them were notable. Here's a sampling:

• Leon Draisaitl has both center and left-wing eligibility. My degrading memory often fails me but I do not remember Draisaitl having left-wing eligibility last year. I am pretty sure this is new because of the time spent with Connor McDavid/Zack Kassian?
• Johnny Gaudreau has dual winger eligibility. This must have come from the time he spent on a line with Mikael Backlund and Sean Monahan because he played with Elias Lindholm, a right winger, for most of the season.
• Steven Stamkos also has dual eligibility but no center slotting. That is probably fine because I think his center days are over anyway, but he took nearly 700 face-offs in 57 games last year. Fantasy owners could be getting a lot of face-off wins from a goal-scoring fantasy winger.
• There are a ton of players with dual eligibility, actually. Just among the top-100 from their rankings, we have the two guys already named, Andrei Svechnikov, Patrik Laine, Teuvo Teravainen, Matthew Tkachuk, J.T. Miller, Kevin Fiala, Dominik Kubalik, Alex DeBrincat, Victor Olofsson, Mike Hoffman, and William Nylander. Looking further, Alex Radulov has it, as well, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him line up at left wing in my life. Fantasy owners will find themselves hard-pressed to not have one or two dual-wingers on their roster.
• Yes, Mark Pysyk has both defense and right-wing eligibility.

We should have some time to familiarize ourselves with new positions so head on over to Yahoo! to see what they have going on. (dec3)

3. Here’s the sitch on some of the key restricted free agents still left…

Casey Mittelstadt, Lawrence Pilut (Buffalo Sabres) – As we know, Pilut has signed to play in the KHL for the next two seasons, which puts him at the age of 26 when his contract is up. The Sabres qualified him, implying that they still want his rights in two years. I think he’ll give the NHL one more go, but not until that time. And since he’ll be a UFA the following year, making an impact would be very fruitful for his career…I suspect the delay with Buffalo signing Mittelstadt is not a contract amount, but the terms. I think he fears that he won’t get into the NHL this season (and rightfully so), and may not in the next season either. I think he’s angling for a one-way deal. He won’t get it, but maybe he wants it for the second year of a two-year deal. Either way, the Sabres have the room to sign him for a low-dollar deal so I think this will get done shortly after the season’s start date is announced. (nov30)

4. Dylan Strome (Chicago Blackhawks) – Strome is going through a change in agents, and the Blackhawks remain committed to getting him under contract. I think this one can go either long-term or short-term. If it’s short term, he’s probably looking at something close to $3.5M AAV for one or two years. Alex MacLean, in his September cap projections article, has him at $4.7M. But given the two months that have since passed, we have seen contract signings come in lower and lower as more weeks go by. (nov30)

5. Jack Roslovic (Winnipeg Jets) – I think this negotiation is more about role and less about money. I think Roslo is tired of being buried and wants a legit shot with legit top players. With Bryan Little going on LTIR, the Jets will have about $4.5M with which they can exceed the cap. MacLean has his value at about $2.5M and the team may come in at that on something shorter term. Roslovic is looking for a change of scenery, and I truly believe that the team is looking to accommodate him. This deal will get done, likely shortly after a season is announced. (nov30)

6. Cal Petersen recently completed a degree in management consulting (LA Kings Insider). Now that he’s got that out of the way, he can turn his attention to competing with Jonathan Quick for starts between the pipes for the Kings.

Of course, the sunk cost of long-term contracts often determines who receives the majority of the starts. Thanks to the Kings’ run of success in the early part of the 2010s, Quick will receive $5.8 million for three more seasons. Yet if Henrik Lundqvist can be bought out, then potentially so can Quick. The fact that Petersen started five of the Kings’ last eight games (winning four of them) suggests that they will give him a long look in 2020-21.

Just how many starts will that be? That will be up to coach Todd McLellan. If you’d like to know what other fantasy owners think, this goaltending situation could end up being a dead heat. This according to the most recent Roos Let Loose poll, where Rick asked folks whether Quick or Petersen (among other goalies in potential timeshares) would start 60% of his team’s games. A potentially condensed schedule could mean that this goalie situation turns out to be a 50/50 timeshare, regardless of whether one goalie outplays the other by a significant margin. Petersen, with his career 2.62 GAA and .924 SV% in 19 GP, will get his opportunity in 2020-21.

7. If you were counting on Mats Zuccarello for your fantasy team, you’ll need to start looking for another option. He won’t be ready to start the season after undergoing right arm surgery. With a shortened season, Zuccarello probably shouldn’t be counted on for a whole lot.

One look at the Wild depth chart on Frozen Tools and you’ll see that the right wingers listed are… Zuccarello, Ryan Hartman, and that’s it? I’ll get behind that, though, because I also noticed this lack of depth at RW from another credible source. Not that I’d go running to him in fantasy leagues, but Hartman plays with a physical edge that could make him useful in bangers leagues. He has recorded between 69-74 PIM the past four seasons, as well as three seasons with 100+ hits.

There could be further adjustments to accommodate. Kevin Fiala is listed as a left wing, but he could move over to the right side. The Wild have a ton of centers, so someone like Nick Bjugstad could move into the top 6 if he moves over to the right side. The ice time (and power-play time) for someone like Jordan Greenway might also be worth watching.

I suppose this could also improve the odds that first-round pick Marco Rossi cracks the Wild roster, although he has been given permission to represent Austria in the World Juniors. With a hopeful season start of mid-January, Rossi would have enough time to return during training camp and at least audition for nine games (or shorter, given the shortened campaign).

8. I was having an offline conversation with Steve Laidlaw – go check out his podcast that has been added to the Dobber Network – and he brought up Florida’s power play. My most recent Ramblings talked about big changes to PP units around the league and he brought up Mike Hoffman leaving Florida. He raised a good point to me that their best PP seasons of Aleksander Barkov years have been the two seasons with Hoffman in the lineup. I mean, the guy did score 28 PP goals across two years.

My running theory on power plays, and offense in general, is that talented shooters matter but not as much as playmakers. But here was an instance where there was one big change to a lineup and it led to wildly improved results. Correlation does not equal causation and all that but beginning with the guy that actually puts the puck in the net is probably a good start. (dec3)

9. Anyway, how does Florida fare this year? It is a fair question to ask because they do have Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, and Keith Yandle still, but they had those three guys before Hoffman showed up and the power play was bad. Owen Tippett may be ready to step into the NHL this year, but I wouldn’t rely on him being locked for PP1 minutes on a team coached by Joel Quenneville. They added Patric Hornqvist and I think he takes some heat off. He has a higher goal rate on the PP over the last three years than stalwarts like Bo Horvat, Vladimir Tarasenko, and Joe Pavelski. If he were going to a team like Ottawa or Anaheim, or even Los Angeles or Montreal, I would be concerned with his PP output. Going to play with Barkov and Huberdeau on a heavily-used top unit quells those concerns.

Hornqvist has averaged 11 PP goals per 82 games over his last four years. Mike Hoffman averaged 14 PP goals a season over the last two years. If Hornqvist can just maintain his pace, I think there’s good reason to believe Florida’s power play stays consistent. However, adding two new pieces to it will require time, so I would expect a lot of changes on Florida’s PP1 through the year. (dec3)

10. I can’t stop thinking about one prospect in particular: Moritz Seider. The Red Wings took him sixth overall in 2019 and that was a bit of a surprise. Bob McKenzie had him 16th on his board, Cam had him 13th, while McKeen’s Hockey had him 15th. Not that those three sources are the be-all, end-all, but those are among the sources I trust for prospects.

When he was taken by Detroit, guys like Dylan Cozens and Trevor Zegras, all ranked higher in our sources, were still available. Victor Soderstrom, ranked higher in two of those three sources mentioned, was a defenseman still on the board. Ostensibly ‘better’ options were available, yet they went with Seider.

Since then, the guy has just been on a tear. In his first pro season in the AHL, he posted 22 points in 49 games. That was as an 18-year old rookie. So far this year in the Swedish league, he has eight points in nine games. As a 19-year old sophomore (I guess he’d be a rookie in that league). Max Bultman at The Athletic wrote a piece on him recently, mostly covering how his coaches, whether in the AHL or SweHL, all rave about him. Now, that’s nothing new for a young prospect, as coaches aren’t known to trash their young stars unless their name is Josh Ho-Sang. But that raving comes coupled with the excellent production as a teenager.

All this in combination with the fact that Steve Yzerman, a guy who played with Nicklas Lidstrom for years, was the one who drafted him. I know that’s an appeal to authority argument, but I believe Yzerman has earned his credibility through his various tenures as GM. (dec3)

11. I am as big a fan as Filip Hronek as anyone else, but I think we need to realize that there is a potential superstar on the way, and probably very soon. There is one guy here worth the price of acquiring in a dynasty trade, and it’s the guy who hasn’t stepped foot on an NHL ice surface yet. (dec3)

12. Earlier this week, Jonas Seigel published an Athletic article that broke downtown the top-50 trade value players in the NHL. I figured I would piggyback off of that idea and rank a few of the top fantasy trade assets.

With fantasy hockey, there is always the issue of the manager’s love affair with a certain team or individual that will inflate their value in specific circumstances. I’m going to attempt to bake that into this equation. Maple Leafs fans are nuts. Canucks fans maybe even more so. Florida fans? Probably not.

Here are Mitch Marner (10th) and Jack Eichel (9th), follow the link for the rest:

Mitch Marner: The 23-year-old has posted back-to-back 94-point paces. His totals over the last two seasons place him 11th overall in the league. He doesn’t score nearly as much as others in front of him, which may slide the perceived value down a hair. It also hurts that he’s the second-most valuable player on his team. (dec2)

Jack Eichel: The pedigree is there. The points are there. The situation is… not there. Not yet anyway. Eichel should command a massive haul in a fantasy trade, but people are justifiably afraid of Buffalo. He’s been spectacular by himself that last few seasons. Now he has Taylor Hall and a continually improving Rasmus Dahlin. The best is yet to come. (dec2)

13. Nils Höglander was up to his old tricks on Tuesday. The king of lacrosse goals came oh-so-close to nabbing another but Bolts goaltending prospect Hugo Alnefelt was up to the challenge.

Höglander managed to nab a pretty tip-in goal on the power play to give him three goals and five points in his last six SHL contests and 10 in 15 on the season. It's a shame he wasn't born two weeks later or else he'd be eligible for his third WJC tournament – an event he absolutely torched a year ago.

The 19-year-old is on loan to his Rögle club for another two weeks before he's cleared to slip across the pond and participate in his first NHL training camp. There are some in the organization that are quietly expecting him to make a lot of noise at camp. If I'm a betting man (which I am) I'd wager he's still a season away.  (dec2)

14. Quickly on Alnefelt, he'll be tagged as the starter for the Swedes at the WJC this month but Jesper Wallstedt will be nipping at his heels. Regardless, Tampa Bay has another studly puck-stopper coming up the ranks.  (dec2)

15. I was asked who I would prefer between Jesper Wallstedt and Yaroslav Askarov. It's Askarov today, but it's damn close.

This upcoming 2021 draft class is a unique one. There are a handful of very talented defenders who will litter the top-10 selections. There is not one obvious elite forward talent. And then there's Wallstedt. Just like the hype surrounding Askarov a year ago, we will have the same type of thing happening this year with Wallstedt. A likely top-10 talent, but will he go that early? My guess is he lands around the same spot as Askarov.

About a month ago, I spilled some ink on the Swedish netminder along with the other youthful goalies on their way to dominating the NHL ranks. Well, he's done nothing to dispel that theory so far this season.  (dec2)

16. Here are some power-play situations I think we see some big changes this year. They may not be changes right out of the gate, but certainly once the season gets moving. We are probably going to have a season around 50 games, so teams can’t wait 7-8 games for their power plays to figure it out. Here are some situations ripe for big changes. Stats from Natural Stat Trick and line combos from our Frozen Tools.

Nashville Predators: So, uh, whew. Jon Hynes took over coaching duties in Nashville on January 7. From that point to the end of the season, the Preds had four forwards with at least two minutes of PPTOI per game: Mikael Granlund, Craig Smith, Filip Forsberg, and Kyle Turris. Three out of four won’t be suiting up for the Preds in 2020-21. So, yes, there will be massive changes coming here.

17. Here is what we know: we’ll have Filip Forsberg on the left side of the PP and we’ll have Roman Josi at the top. At least that should happen; if it’s something else, something has gone horribly wrong. I have to assume a healthy Viktor Arvidsson finds his way back to the top PP unit, so now we have three. Four is going to Ryan Johansen, because someone has to take faceoffs and he’s very good at them. The question is the final spot.

It makes sense to round out the PP unit with Matt Duchene, their big-money forward. Despite a poor 2019-20, his even-strength playmaking numbers were still excellent, and that bodes well for a rebound. For my money, I think they start with Forsberg/Johansen on the two half-walls, Arvidsson in the middle, and Duchene down low.

The wrinkle comes with Philip Tomasino. The 2019 first rounder seems poised to join the NHL roster and I wonder if he gets PP1 minutes. I assume he gets them at some point through the year, it’s a matter of how much and when. I think it makes sense that, unless he completely blows the doors off, he gets his feet wet playing PP2 for the half-season and then comes back PP1 for the full 2021-22 season. It is just conjecture for now. (dec1)

18. This is a bonus, and it’s more a question than anything: who is going to be the PP1QB? Over the final few months last year, they had three d-men all skate basically the same minutes: P.K. Subban, Sami Vatanen, Damon Severson. With Vatanen gone, if they keep the same basic structure of a 4F/1D and 3F/2D, they have a spot open on one of the PP units, and we’re still no closer to answering who is PP1QB.

My guess is that Subban gets the minutes initially. They probably want to pump his value for an eventual trade, and PP1 minutes are the way to do that. Severson got the PP1 role down the stretch last year so he’s ostensibly the favourite, but I still think upping Subban’s value is the priority. (Just by the by, depending on ADP, Severson may be the best draft option of the two. We will have to wait and see.) Our second question, then, is which defenseman jumps up and gets Vatanen’s PP minutes.

To answer that question, we have to answer another: does Ty Smith jump to the NHL roster? The team signed Dmitry Kulikov and that gives them Ryan Murray–Will Butcher-Kulikov down the left side. But Kulikov is nothing special and Smith should be a cornerstone for years to come. If he’s in the lineup, it’s hard for me to think he doesn’t get some PP2 time. But he has to get into the lineup first. (dec1)

19. I know that I mention Frozen Tools a ton in my writing. It’s now my go-to site for everything from the usual statistics to the unconventional. Quite frankly I would be at a loss for topics to write about during an extended offseason. What makes Frozen Tools interesting is the choices beyond the usual stat categories.

One of those choices that I recently wanted to examine further was the Most Consistent option, which lists both a Game Played With Point stat as well as a Consistency Percentage.

Usually rookies aren’t known for their consistency. Yet, Victor Olofsson was just that in his rookie season, scoring in 33 of his 54 games for a 61.1% consistency percentage. This consistency was slightly higher than that of studs like Sidney Crosby, Sean Couturier, and Blake Wheeler. As far as Sabres who played at least 10 games, only Jack Eichel had a better consistency percentage. Not surprisingly, Olofsson had the second-best points-per-game total (0.78 PTS/GP) on the team. We’ll have to wait and see how the Taylor Hall addition affects Olofsson’s value. (Fantasy Take: Hall Picks… Buffalo?) (nov29)

20. William Nylander is an example of a player whose value could vary depending on the type of league you play in. I recently listed him as an option that you shouldn’t overpay for in roto leagues because of his low peripherals. However, he was a top-30 option on this list with a consistency percentage of 64.7% (points in 44 of 68 games). Compare that to his holdout-shortened 2018-19 season, when his consistency percentage was just 33.3%. Not only fewer games, but also fewer points per game (0.50 PTS/GP). (nov29)

21. Kailer Yamamoto has a low games-played total relative to others around him on the list due to his midseason callup. Once he was up, he was a must-own in fantasy leagues, recording at least one point in 19 of the 27 games he played in. That worked out to a consistency percentage of 70.4%, which is not far below the leaders. In those 27 games, Yamamoto scored 26 points to give him 0.96 PTS/GP, which was a top-30 among players who played in at least as many games as he did.

Playing on one of the league’s hottest lines with scoring leader Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins certainly boosted Yamamoto’s numbers. Fun fact: His scoring rate in the AHL in both 2018-19 (27 GP, 18 PTS, 0.67 PTS/GP) and 2019-20 (23 GP, 16 PTS, 0.70 PTS/GP) were lower than his scoring rate with the Oilers in 2019-20. Regardless, he appears to be a permanent fixture with the big club. (nov29)

Have a good week, folks – be safe!!

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