A few days ago, Jakub Vrana signed a three-year extension with the Red Wings. That specific type of contract really caught me by surprise. A three-year deal covers his age-25/26/27 seasons, walking him right to free agency. Steve Yzerman is, habitually, a very smart general manager. He knows that if Vrana shows out for these three seasons, there's something like a seven-year, $8M AAV contract waiting for Vrana at the end of this. He knows that if Vrana shows out and is worth that contract, then these are probably the only three years Vrana spends with the Red Wings organization. Again, it just seems a weird deal. There's a body of work that shows him as an elite offensive player with defensive issues, at the worst. That probably should have been a 5- or 6-year deal, though maybe Vrana refused those too. We will never know.

Anyway, what exactly is Vrana at this moment in time? It feels like it's been too long since I've done a dive on him. How did his 2021 go?

The thing with the trade from Washington is it was out of nowhere. Completely. There hadn't really been reports of unhappiness with the player, or from the player. At the time of the trade, he was also leading the Caps in points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, and was third in goals. The team controlled a whopping 65.9 percent of goals with him on the ice, so they were crushing the opposition with him on the ice. I did watch a lot of Washington games – betting/DFS related – and he never stood out as "wow he needs to go." That he brought back Anthony Mantha in a trade reflects that, but it really was just a weird trade from the go.

He did struggle defensively this year, which may be one of the reasons for the trade. From HockeyViz, his isolated defensive impact (the bottom row) was the worst it's been for his career:

We have seen him be a bit better than average defensively in aggregate for his career up to this year, so I have to think there'll be a rebound in this regard for 2021-22. He doesn't need to be an elite defensive player to be tremendously impactful; he just has to be fine. If he's fine defensively, and keeps doing offensively what he's done for his career, he can be a near-elite winger.

In the three seasons leading to 2021, Vrana was the 89^th percentile in shots, 88^th percentile in zone entries with control, and 86^th percentile in zone exits with control. Being elite in transition with a high shot-volume rate is nice, but he's also an elite finisher, averaging a 7-percent boost on his shots. While he won't repeat close to the 20 percent he shot last year, there's no reason to think he can be low-mid double digits for years to come.

Vrana isn't a big playmaker on his own. That is a bit of a problem. He has as many goals as he does assists in his career, and it's hard to get to a point-per-game status with fewer than 45 assists in a season. It isn't impossible – Kyle Connor in 2019-20, for example – it's just hard.

Going to Detroit immediately resulted in about three more minutes per game in TOI, and that got Vrana bordering on three shots per game. This guy's is a high-conversion shooter, and assuming three shots per game next year at 13 percent shooting (he's a career 13.7 percent shooter), that is over a 30-goal season. I hate to say that 30 goals are his floor, considering he's never scored more than 25, but it does seem that's the reality here. Vrana's production issue his entire career was a lack of ice time. If he's getting 17-18 minutes playing on the top line and on the top PP unit? It really does seem 30 goals and 60 points should be the expectation. Just remember he doesn't bring much outside of points and shots. His value is much different in multi-cat leagues.

The bottleneck to Vrana's upside is Detroit's centre situation. They have Dylan Larkin, and it would be great for Vrana to get every game there. But if he's not playing with Larkin at even strength, the Wings have a bunch of elder veterans or unproven players at centre. None of those spark a ton of confidence in Vrana, who assuredly won't come cheap in fantasy drafts.

It is worth remembering that Larkin was injured towards the end of last year and the team only had a handful of games with Larkin and Vrana in the lineup. There is no telling what they go with to start the season, or if it stays that way all year (with Jeff Blashill, I doubt it). All the same, this is the season where Vrana starts to scratch the surface of his upside, and he can break 40 goals if all goes right.

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Sam Reinhart signed a three-year extension with the Panthers, carrying an AAV of $6.5M. He is coming off a wonderful goal-scoring season and was probably due for finally signing a long-term deal. All the same, this carries him to his age-29 season, and those will likely be very productive years for Florida.

As far as cap leagues go, it’s a bit of a different story. Depending on league scoring settings, Reinhart doesn’t bring much in peripherals like hits, blocks, or PIMs. He is also not a lock for the top power-play unit, though I do think he starts there. It is possible, though, that Reinhart is on the second PP unit, in which case you have a $6.5M winger on your fantasy roster that doesn’t bring peripherals and has a capped ceiling. Again, depending on league settings, I may look elsewhere at this point for that kind of money.

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Isac Lundestrom signed a two-way contract and it kind of perked my ears up a little bit. A couple years ago, there was a plethora of Ducks prospects, including Lundestrom, who looked the future of the team. We are talking Lundestrom, Steel, Jones, Terry, and Comtois, to name several. Out of those five forwards, the largest contract given post-ELC was to Troy Terry, at three years and $1.45M AAV. Comtois has a two-year deal, Jones three years for less than $4M total, one year for Steel and Lundestrom. It seems the Ducks are very uncertain about how many, if any, of these players are going to be cornerstones for the next 5+ years.

This is a bit concerning for fantasy because there's no clear hierarchy. It isn't as if Steel has separated himself and pushed to the 1C conversation. He could be the 1C, or he could be the 4C. There are similar ranges of outcomes for just about every player on that list. That is the concern with drafting some of the Ducks skaters: they could earn 17 minutes a night in October and be down to 14 minutes a night in November.

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The Jets signed Neal Pionk to a four-year deal worth just under $6M a season. The funny thing is, out of all the $20M+ contracts handed to defencemen this offseason, it might be one of the best.

Since leaving New York, it has been a steady progression for Pionk. HockeyViz has him as below-average offensive and defensively with the Rangers, but he's been above-average in both regards, in aggregate, since getting to the Jets:

Over his two seasons north of the border, these are his 82-game paces: 51 points, 182 shots, 23 PPPs, 198 hits, 100 blocks, 34 PIMs. If he can put up a season anywhere close to that, he's a borderline top-10 defenceman in fantasy.

The problem is the power play. He got a lot of PPTOI in his first season – nearly three minutes per game -and that fell off to 2:10 a night in 2021. He also had a sky-high IPP on the power play (over 86 percent) in his first season. Even if he were to run the top PP unit all year, pushing for 25 PPPs is probably his maximum, and shouldn't be the expectation. There is also the chance he flat-out doesn't touch the top PP unit with Josh Morrissey taking over last year, Nate Schmidt being brought in, and Ville Heinola on his way.

Pionk brings enough in peripherals that he's valuable in fantasy regardless of format. His true upside comes with top PP minutes and he can be a stud if he gets the right ice time. If he doesn't, he's still worth rostering, he just doesn't have top-10 upside.

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I was reading Dobber's Ramblings from Monday and one name really jumped out to me: Frédérick Gaudreau. He had been a spare part his entire career but got a legit chance in Pittsburgh's bottom-6 last year and showed well; positive play-driving impacts along with 10 points in 19 games.

He is an interesting name because as Dobber mentions, Marco Rossi is the future 1C, just probably not right out of the gate. Joel Eriksson Ek plays on likely the best defensive line in hockey. That leaves another centre role open, and one that could ostensibly see someone like Kevin Fiala on the line. (Remember that Fiala was stuck on the third line a lot down the stretch last year.) While Gaudreau won't get a load of ice time, Ryan Hartman was Fiala's centre down the stretch last year and he played 16 minutes a night over the final dozen games.

In cap leagues where cheap, productive centres are hard to come by (on non-ELC contracts), Kevin Fiala's potential centre at 16 minutes a night and a $1.2M cap hit seems very reasonable to me. I think Gaudreau is a legit late bloomer, and is a playmaker-type that Fiala could use. We could easily see Gaudreau on the fourth line, or maybe even on the wing, but there is a chance he could be the 3C and that would bring him value, given Minnesota's lineup construction.