There were a bunch of stories today about NHLers currently playing in Europe heading back to their respective clubs. Joe Thornton is one, a couple of Sens being others. Just a reminder that the Government of Canada still has a 14-day quarantine in place for out-of-country travellers, meaning players travelling from Europe need to get to Canada by the end of this work week at the latest in order to be in training camp for January 1^st. It will also (likely) be the last time players from Europe who haven't relocated their families will see their family until the end of the regular season at the earliest.

I really, really want hockey fans to keep that in mind. Most players will, presumably, still be able to see their families once protocols are agreed upon. Some players won't and will not for many months, including over the holidays. And not every player is a multi-millionaire; just ask the guys on the taxi squad from the AHL making $90k a year. Please, just a bit of empathy. It is all I ask.

For posterity, here's Rasmus Dahlin sitting in an airport to head to Buffalo 11 days before Christmas:

Rasmus Dahlin is on his way back to Buffalo. pic.twitter.com/usLm1sw8jr

— Lance Lysowski (@LLysowski) December 14, 2020

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Last week, I started putting together my projections for the 2020-21 season. (I suppose it's just the 2021 season, right? We call the lockout-shortened season just the 2013 campaign. We should do the same now.) This is usually something I leave to the last week or two so at least I'm getting out ahead of it this time.

For now, I'm not going to post actual projections. I will post them a week or two before the season starts, but for now I just want to talk about groups of players. The reason for this is that most conversations we have about fantasy hockey is comparing players, not discussing numbers. We ask people, "Who would you rather have between Player A and Player B?" or "Pick one player out of these four to keep." Not always, no, but often.

Zach Parise

There is a lot of chatter around the young guns coming to Minnesota, and there is justification for that chatter. That is all well and good, but can we not forget about the guy who has scored 53 goals over his 143 games, which works out to over 30 goals every 82 games?

My projections haven't been adjusted for age yet. Because of this, Parise is being overrated by me. All the same, my initial projections have Parise in the same goal-scoring neighbourhood as Nikita Kucherov and Dominik Kubalik. He won't get there because of the young wingers being installed, he won't play 19 minutes a game, and there's not a top-6 centre with NHL experience on the roster.

In fact, this is probably the end of the road for Parise and fantasy goodness. It is hard to see him playing exclusively with Marco Rossi whenever Rossi is ready and there are no other good offensive centres on the roster and none in the pipeline ready to step up. Parise is 36 years old and is no longer a shot-volume monster. That means he'll rely on shooting percentages for big goal totals, and a high shooting percentage for a winger with bad centres is something that doesn't often happen.

A quick shout out to Parise on what was a pretty good fantasy career. Two point-per-game seasons in New Jersey, six 30-goal seasons and one 40-goal season, five seasons with at least 250 shots, and six seasons with double-digit PP goals. It has been five years since he's really had a great fantasy campaign, but he was excellent for many, many years. It is just probably the end of that road.

Viktor Arvidsson

As has always been the case with Arvidsson, his problem is on the power play. Over the last three years, he has as many even-strength goals as Tyler Seguin, two fewer than Jack Eichel, and one more than Jake Guentzel. That is great goal-scoring company. He has also never scored more than four PP goals in a single season and has 15 for his career, or one fewer than Leon Draisaitl had in 2019-20. Quite simply, if Arvidsson could score on the power play at a rate commensurate with which he scores at even strength, he'd flat-out be one of the top goal scorers in the league. Like, nearly Pastrnak/Matthews/Draisaitl company. But he doesn't, so he's not.

It might be why I can't ever not draft him. The possibility is just too tantalizing. We saw his 2019-20 collapse to where he had the worst output of his full-time career and he was still on pace for 21 goals. That is in a horrific season. If the team and the player rebounds, well, we know the upside.

As always, the compounding problem here is Arvidsson won't play over 19 minutes a game as he did in 2018-19. Coach Jon Hynes just doesn't believe in playing his top forwards heavy minutes. I get that health is a concern, but he's had three weeks of hockey in the last nine months. If he can't get healthy now, he may never. I will take that risk.

Kyle Palmieri

Last week, Cam brought up Nikita Gusev's 2021 fantasy prospects. I also talked about Gusev but more as it relates to his role on the team than anything else. I have Gusev on the second line, and thus unlikely to play 19-20 minutes a night. I have Palmieri on the top line, and thus more likely to play high levels of minutes.

It is wild to me the level of disrespect Palmieri gets. He has scored at least 24 goals in five straight seasons. He is one of eight players to do this. The other seven players are: Jack Eichel, Patrick Kane, Nikita Kucherov, Brad Marchand, Alex Ovechkin, Artemi Panarin, and John Tavares. I don't think people realize not only how good he is, but how consistent he is. In an 82-game season, you can pen him in for 25 goals, 200 shots, and a hit per game. Just lock it in and move along. (Yes, injuries throw the raw totals out of whack. I am talking about paces here.)

This year, he'll almost certainly be playing on the top line with Nico Hischier. He has never been a guy to play monster minutes and that, along with marginal teammates, is why he'll never be a 40-goal or 75-point guy. But bringing what he does in multi-cat leagues is very valuable, and it appears he'll be a great value at the draft table.

For now, Palmieri finds himself in the same company as Max Pacioretty and Sean Monahan in my goal-scoring rankings for 2021. He will almost certainly be outside the top-100 picks in most any league and I'd wager outside the top-150 in many. As has been the case for years: Draft Kyle Palmieri.

Bo Horvat

This is a weird one for a number of reasons. First, there aren't a lot of players more reliant on the power play to score their goals – over the last three seasons, 41 percent of his goals have come with the man advantage. For reference, Auston Matthews is at 25 percent and Alex Ovechkin is at 32 percent. There are guys like Patrik Laine and David Pastrnak in that 40-percent-plus range, but they are also guys with many 30-goal seasons. Horvat has one season with more than 22 goals and none with 30.

Horvat has seen his point production per game improve every season. His goals, however, have been stagnant at 0.25-0.35 per game for four years. Goal scorers generally need passers to get them the puck to score, and Vancouver's best passer is either their other top-6 centre or Quinn Hughes, neither play on Horvat's wing.

That is why I'm kind of bearish on Horvat. Not that I think he'll fall on his face; there is too much talent on the power play for him to disappear. But even with a healthy Brock Boeser on his wing, there isn't a good playmaker for Horvat unless J.T. Miller ends up on his wing. (For my money, I think that's the best way to go, with Boeser playing with Miller, but I do believe they go with Horvat/Boeser Pettersson/Miller forward pairings.)

When looking at Yahoo! ADP – which, in fairness, can be unreliable – he is being drafted around guys like Dylan Larkin and Jonathan Toews. I think both have higher upsides and similar floors, so it seems as though avoiding Horvat will be the way to go this year.

Andrei Svechnikov

I have spilled a lot of digital ink over Svech for a few years so my affinity for him is well-known. I have to say, however, that seeing him as a top-5 winger by draft slotting on Yahoo! has me nervous. Similarly, he's ranked in the top-30 by ESPN, and their standard scoring doesn't include hits.

This is… a big ask of Svechnikov. For reference, on Yahoo! last year, Artemi Panarin – all 95 points in 69 games – was the number-6 left winger. To be a top-5 winger, even with 100 hits in 56 games, Svech probably needs to be a point-per-game winger or better.

I am not saying he can't do it. In fact, I expect him to be a point-per-game winger at some point in his career. It is just a lot to ask of a 20-year-old who has never done it. That is compounded by the fact that three top-5 left wingers from 2019-20 – J.T. Miller, Brad Marchand, Max Pacioretty – are all being drafted later than Svech, and at least two of those have the pedigrees to back it up (though Marchand's injury, and Pasta's injury, muddles things a bit).

This isn't to say avoid Svech at all costs, but if I can grab an elite centre like Zibanejad/Malkin or an elite defenceman like Makar or Josi, instead of drafting Svechnikov, and then grab someone like Pacioretty or Guentzel two rounds later, I would probably be happier doing that than drafting Svech and, say, Patrice Bergeron or Quinn Hughes.