Every Sunday, we 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, Alexander MacLean, and Dobber

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1. I was concerned in the offseason about Steven Stamkos having two short offseasons, given his injury history. He had also seen his shot rate slide in recent seasons. Well, he was leading the Bolts in shot rate going into Thusrday and he found himself inside the top-20 league-wide. If he can maintain this shot rate, it would be his highest in five years.

With Kucherov injured, the team needs Stamkos to turn back the block a bit. Seven points in four games with 16 shots is a good start. More of this and he could have a special fantasy season once again. I love when guys prove me wrong. (oct21)

2. Dawson Mercer, who scored his first career NHL goal last week, broke camp with the team after coming in with very long odds to make the team. He’s a riser from his draft year, a very smart player, and one that should carve out a long and productive NHL career. He doesn’t have quite the same ceiling as a Cole Caufield or a Trevor Zegras, but he could see a couple seasons around the point-per-game mark. (oct20)

3. I want to mention Ryan Ellis‘ excellent start to the season. I managed to target him in a couple of leagues after saying a few times through the summer that landing with the Flyers was going to be great for him. He’s an underappreciated offensive threat after playing in Josi’s shadow for so long, but he has a floor of 40 points and a ceiling of 65. With the added firepower of the Philly forwards, it’s looking like he could push for 60 even without being deployed with the top power play unit. (oct20)

4. Zach Hyman already has five goals as an Oiler. Three of those goals have been on the power play. He must love being on a high-scoring team’s first-unit power play, which wasn’t an opportunity he typically received in TO. I don’t expect Hyman to be a 50-goal scorer with the Oilers, but I do expect him to remain on that power play, which could result in a career year. The “follow the money” theory doesn’t just apply to goalies, and the Oils have invested in Hyman over the long term. So expect the Oilers to give him plenty of rope here, even if Jesse Puljujarvi seems deserving of an opportunity there.

Speaking of Pool Party, he now has points in all five Oiler games. The door has now closed on your opportunity to add him from your league’s waiver wire. (oct23)

5. Still with the Oilers, if you’re worried about Evan Bouchard getting the young d-man treatment by the veteran defensive-minded coach, don’t be. Bouchard logged 24:05 on Friday – the equivalent of top-pair minutes, and was even on the ice during the final minute when Vegas pulled the goalie. Bouchard did not score a point on Thursday, but he has three points in five games already. As well, he has looked defensively sound and not out of place, which can be a worry for high-scoring d-men with a lack of NHL experience. With 16% rostership in Yahoo leagues, Bouchard is worth adding in single-season leagues with at least four defense slots. (oct23)

6. William Eklund is receiving a lot of attention for making the Sharks as a 19-year-old, but the 23-year-old Jonathan Dahlen is getting a look on the Meier/Couture scoring line. Dahlen is in his third organization, having being drafted by the Senators and later acquired by the Canucks for Alex Burrows. Dahlen did not look AHL-ready in 2018-19 and was not happy with the Canucks organization, so the Canucks traded him for lower-upside Linus Karlsson. Dahlen then went back to Sweden and posted two strong seasons in HockeyAllsvenskan, resulting in a much-improved player in his return to North America. View his Dobber Prospects profile for more. (oct23)

7. We all know that Erik Karlsson is no longer the elite defenseman that he was during his days in Ottawa. Injuries and now even age have resulted in a decline from a point-per-game back in 2015-16 to not even a half point per game in 2020-21. Yet with six points in his first four games, is Karlsson a potential bounce-back candidate? I would say don’t bet on him returning to the top tier of fantasy blueliners. However, Karlsson still has the offensive upside to outperform the 150 ADP that he has averaged between Yahoo and Fantrax.

The Sharks have won their first four games, which probably exceeds the expectations you had for them entering the season. Karlsson’s success will depend on a few of the players around him continuing the turnaround after some subpar seasons – players such as Timo Meier, Logan Couture, and Brent Burns.

Remaining injury-free will also be a challenge for Band-Aid Boy Trainee Karlsson. Although he missed only four games last season, Karlsson had missed a minimum of 14 games over his two previous seasons in San Jose. If he has truly put his injuries from the past few seasons behind him, then he could provide a better return on the $11.5 million per season that the Sharks have invested in him. Unlike last season where he was a fringe player for one of my teams, Karlsson is worth starting in all leagues with at least three designated defense slots. (oct23)

8. The Alex Barre-Boulet era for the Kraken ended after just two games. In need of a skilled forward now that Nikita Kucherov will be out for a while, the Lightning have reclaimed Barre-Boulet. This time I would imagine that he receives more of a run than the 15 games he saw last season. At a minimum he should receive third-line and second-unit power-play minutes, with the possibility for more. Those in deep leagues could consider a speculative add, although there are no guarantees that ABB will be an impact player this season in spite of the need for skilled and depth forwards in Tampa Bay. (oct23)

9. With all the hubbub about Drysdale, Zegras, and Comtois, we may have forgotten about the veteran. Rickard Rakell leads their forwards in ice time – the only one over 18 minutes a night (as of Thursday) – and he’s second in shot rate. The problem is his personal shot rate has come down, so we need more shooting from him to offset the drop from his 20% shooting.

Just keep an eye on Rakell. The Ducks don’t look very good but 25 goals, 90 hits, and 200 shots will play in most any multi-cat league. Imagine if that top line starts to click? There may be a 50-point season ahead. (oct21)

10. Not only was Rasmus Sandin leading the Leafs blue line in shot attempts per 60 minutes on Thursday, he was top-10 in the league and comparable to names like Makar and Josi. It is still very early, of course, but he hasn’t looked out of place in his minutes.

The minutes are the problem, though. He is skating under 16 minutes a night and his shot rate is likely to decline from here on out. It is just too high on a team that doesn’t prioritize point shots. Can his ice time start climbing? We’re going to find out but it’s doubtful. (oct21)

11. There are sure to be panic buttons pressed eventually. Alexis Lafreniere had 21 points in 56 games last year, finishing nowhere in Calder voting, and had one point in four games as of Thursday. The upside here is he is second among their forwards in shot attempt rate this year. Compared to last year, his shot rate has jumped nearly 80% in the early going. With the injury to Kaapo Kakko and Vitali Kravtsov back in Russia, this team is running out of wingers. His 15-and-change minutes a night should climb, and if that shot rate stays constant, the goals and points should come. (oct21)

12. Playing on Long Island isn’t conducive to high point totals, but Oliver Wahlstrom seems to be in a position to break out a little, possibly passing the 50-point threshold in his second season. (oct20)

13. In his first game of the season last week, Connor McMichael replaced Hendrix Lapierre on the third line between Conor Sheary and T.J. Oshie. McMichael has long been a favourite of mine, and was even above a few players such as Matt Boldy and Evan Bouchard on my 2019 draft list. He doesn’t have a lot of flashy talent, but he just puts up points everywhere he goes. In the meantime, McMichael and Lapierre will likely both get their nine game trials while the Capitals wait for Nick Backstrom to return from the IR. If Backstrom isn’t ready by game 19, my bet is McMichael gets some leash as he should make the team next year anyways, while Lapierre’s ELC could slide for another year or two. When the talent level is even, it often comes down to contract politics. (oct20)

14. Yanni Gourde made his Seattle debut, and took over on the top line while kicking Jared McCann down the lineup to see time with both the second and third lines. That’s a hit to McCann’s fantasy appeal, while Gourde takes over as the best fantasy option on the Kraken moving forward. McCann may take a hit, but he can still put up 50-points without playing on the top line. (oct20)

15. Nikita Kucherov‘s initial injury timeline is six-to-10 weeks, meaning at the latest he should be back for the new year (and importantly for him, the Olympics). In the meantime, he’s on LTIR, so we get to watch and see what the Lightning do with the extra cap this time around. Keep an eye on the line combos in Tampa. (oct20)

16. Someone you might want to look into buying before he heats up is Mike Hoffman. Rick had more on him in Wednesday’s “Goldilocks and the Three Skaters” column, but I do just want to mention that he should be in line for more offensive minutes in Montreal than he was seeing in STL. The Blues also stifled his shot rate a little, but he should be able to bump it back up over the 10 shots per 60 minutes mark this season. Generally, that would mean over 2.5 per game. (oct20)

17. The Buffalo Sabres are… good? Not quite, they’re still going to be a terrible team, regardless of how well they start the year. Might be time to sell high on anyone not named Rasmus Dahlin or Dylan Cozens. They should also not pose great threats to opposing goalies, but keep in mind they haven’t been easy outs so far. (oct20)

18. Columbus will be a threat: Before the season, I didn’t think Columbus would be a good team, necessarily, but I didn’t think they’d be horrific. Everyone made fun of the Seth Jones signing but that was the team’s biggest loss from last season, they added Jakub Voracek up front, and both Adam Boqvist and Jake Bean on the blue line. The two defencemen, both good with the puck, are making a difference, I think.

There is also the lineup. Presumably, if Cole Sillinger, Yegor Chinakhov, Boone Jenner, and Max Domi – the latter of whom is now on the IR, by the way –  can maintain solid play for the season, the Jackets can run at least three decent lines. That might be faint praise, but being able to constantly roll out lines that are scoring threats, however marginally, is not something every team in the East can do. (oct19)

19. Minnesota appears to be very strong: My big concern, with Joel Eriksson Ek moving to the top line, would be how their second line would fare. Kevin Fiala has shown he can carry a depth line scoring-wise, and the top line would be loaded. Could their second line keep up its defensive excellence without Eriksson Ek, giving them a very good top-9?

Of course, with the caveat that it’s just two games, but the Hartman line has been arguably their best line at 5-on-5. Each of their lines has been good, honestly, but Hartman et al. have been very good at both ends of the ice. If they can keep this up for 80 more games, this Minnesota team looks very deep up front.

Beyond that, they still have Matt Boldy and Marco Rossi in the AHL. If those guys can bring along their development early in the year and make an NHL impact as spring rolls around? Well, this looks like a very dangerous team. If the defence and goaltending holds up, this could be a much better Minnesota team than we had envisioned a week ago. (oct19)

20. Seattle looks like who we thought they were: This is probably the one the most obvious to most hockey fans that have watched across the league so far this season. In the early part of the campaign, Seattle looks like a hard-working, defensive team that could struggle to score goals. Things are going about as expected.

What is interesting to me about Seattle is how they’re allocating ice time. The top line is generally playing 19-20 minutes with the second line around 18. In other words, they’re not doing the Montreal approach, which is to, more or less, spread out the ice time. That would have made sense from a team that was picking largely from second- and third-liners in the expansion draft.

That means there could be guys outside the top line with fantasy value this year. It will depend on the league and settings, but just keep an eye on the usage of guys like Wennberg and Donskoi. Any player earning 18 minutes a night is worth at least keeping an eye on. (oct19)

21. Montreal’s puck movers on D: The Habs lost a lot in the offseason: two-thirds of their top line, Shea Weber, Carey Price, and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. With the loss of very good transition players like Jesperi Kotkaniemi (yes, he had other flaws) and Danault, there would be additional pressure on the Montreal blue line to pick up some puck-moving slack. The problem being that Ben Chiarot and David Savard are not puck movers while Alex Romanov and Brett Kulak were healthy scratches at times last year. This isn’t a playoff blue line without Weber and it’s shown through the very early part of the season.

Jeff Petry is around, but like Buffalo teams in recent memory, having one or two puck movers on the blue line isn’t enough. Every player, as mentioned, needs to have some basic transition skills, and a lot of these guys don’t.

Losing Danault/Tatar was an underrated loss because they could generate offence and play good defence almost regardless of their environment. So far this season, most of the team hasn’t proven to be able to do the same. It is still very early and things can change fast, but it’s been an ugly, deserved start for the Habs. (oct19)

Have a good week, folks – be safe!!

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