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. In a game where your best players have to be your best players in order to win, Connor McDavid was exactly that in the Oil's series-clinching Game 5 win against the Flames. Even in a game where he was admittedly terrible, McDavid came through at the right time. He continues to stack up the points, having earned multiple points in 10 of 12 playoff games along with an eight-game point streak.

But Don’t forget about Leon Draisaitl, who has five consecutive 3+ point games while battling an ankle injury. If not for the exploits of McDavid, the Draisaitl story would receive a lot more attention. The Edmonton twin towers are far and away the playoff scoring leaders with identical stat lines (7-19-26).

Calgary needed more from 6×6 free-agent signing Jacob Markstrom, who allowed at least four goals in each of the five games against the Oilers in the second round. That’s a single-game negative GSAA for each of the five games, which also works out to an .852 SV% for the series. We’ve seen better from Markstrom in the playoffs, specifically two seasons ago in the bubble with the Canucks (78.6 QUAL% in 14 GP).

Now it’s time for the McSeries. McDavid. MacKinnon. Makar. Buckle up. The fun starts on Tuesday. (may28)

2. Brad Marchand is expected to need six months to recover from surgery on both hips. That recovery timeline puts his availability at around late November of next season. With that in mind, fantasy teams should plan for Marchand to be out for at least the first month of the 2022-23 season.

Also keep in mind that Patrice Bergeron hasn’t decided on his future, so the Bruins could be without two-thirds of their top line to start the season. That could have a real impact on David Pastrnak‘s value, particularly early in the season. If Bergeron retires, the Bruins should be in the market for a free agent center like Nazem Kadri or Evgeni Malkin.

I have Marchand in a keep 4 league and had been leaning toward keeping him, so this will make a difficult decision even harder. I am keeping Pastrnak in another league, but I will also lower my expectations a little. (may28)

3. It has been a couple weeks since they were eliminated but the Minnesota Wild not advancing to the second round kind of stung for me. I thought they had the depth all over the roster to challenge all the top teams in the Western Conference, Colorado included.

They were unceremoniously dumped in six games by St. Louis, and now they have a lot of tough cap decisions to make, namely Kevin Fiala. He is due for a big raise and because of their cap crunch – involving the bought-out contracts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise – they will need to rely on a lot of cheap contracts. Those involve not only guys already on the roster like Matt Boldy and Ryan Hartman, but guys that should push for a spot in training camp like Calen Addison and Marco Rossi.

To that end, it’s probably worth looking at the seasons that Addison and Rossi just had, and what they each might be able to bring to the fantasy game in 2022-23. Follow the link to Mike's Friday's Ramblings for the deep dive on the two youngsters… (may27)

4. Speaking of prospects that could make an impact soon, I noticed Buffalo’s AHL affiliate was knocked out of the playoffs. Their goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was injured for their final series, effectively ending his season.

At this point, Luukkonen is not a lock to be the goalie of the future. Heck, letting go of Linus Ullmark, their supposed goalie of the present, seemed to indicate all their goalie plans were up in the air. To UPL’s credit, he has just 60 total AHL games with over half of them (35) coming this past season. Is he still the goalie of the future? I guess we’ll find out in September, but this is someone to keep an eye on. It isn’t as if there’s stiff competition for either the starting or backup job in Buffalo. Some people are clamouring for a 40+ year-old Craig Anderson to return. That’s where things are right now. (may27)

5. And speaking of Buffalo, this tweet from Cap Friendly caught my attention:

~ We have rolled the website over to the 2022-23 season! Upper limit: $82.5M. Tampa Bay Lightning have the highest current cap hit, Buffalo Sabres have the most cap space. ~

Sabres were a team that seemed to come together in the second half of the season, going 22-20-5 in the team’s final 47 games. Alex Tuch stepped in admirably, they started to develop depth scoring, and the duo of Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power looked mostly great. Could they be an attractive offseason destination for some key UFAs? They’ll have lots of space for a big signing or two. (may27)

6. There were some concerns over the health of Tim Stutzle‘s knee after suffering an injury playing for Germany at the World Championship.

We got some clarification from Ottawa GM Pierre Dorion and it seems good news: Bruce Garrioch: Dorion says same knee injury for Stutzle that he had during the season. Two week recovery.

Re-injuring the same knee isn’t great, but that the recovery won’t take long, plus having the entire offseason to train, is about as good as it could get for Stutzle and the Sens. (may26)

7. At the other end of the knee injury spectrum. Samantha Pell: Capitals announce Tom Wilson underwent successful left knee surgery to reconstruct his torn ACL. Wilson is expected to miss 6-8 months.

That kind of timeline for Wilson would, at the earliest, see him miss a month of action, if not right into 2023. It all depends how he rehabs and heals, but he'll miss a good chunk of the regular season regardless. (may26)

8. The Florida Panthers were unceremoniously dumped out of the second round of the postseason thanks to a sweep from their state-mates in the Tampa Bay Lightning. Being taken out in four games as a top seed is generally a surprise anytime, but that they scored just three goals in four games speaks to how lopsided the score was. Of course, whenever something like this happens, we, as fantasy players, try to look for logic in what happened. Is there anything we can learn for next season, and what that 2022-23 Panthers roster might look like? Let’s take a dive.

To bring it to fantasy, it makes me wonder what the general public will see as the true upside of this roster next year. There are a couple key UFAs, but much of this roster should be back. In Florida’s case, Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Aaron Ekblad – but it’s a wonder where guys like Anton Lundell, Carter Verhaeghe, Anthony Duclair, or MacKenzie Weegar end up. Maybe they don’t wind up as expensive at the draft table as they would have been with a Cup run. Something to monitor when September rolls around.

According to Cap Friendly, they have under $4M in cap space for next season and at least four regulars are unrestricted free agents: Claude Giroux, Mason Marchment, Noel Acciari, and Ben Chiarot. With a little finagling, maybe they can squeeze in both Acciari and Marchment, for example, but all four won’t be returning. Losing Chiarot won’t hurt, but Giroux had 23 points in 18 games after the trade from Philadelphia. The team was deep enough that he was playing all over the top-9, and if he walks, replacing that won’t be easy. It will be easier to do that if Marchment returns. It can’t really be understated just how good his season was. He had 47 points in 54 games with just 2 of those 47 points coming with the man advantage. (may26)

9. Another guy worth a brief discussion is Sam Bennett. He had a very good fantasy year with 28 goals and 49 points in 71 games, posting 119 hits and 3.4 shots per night. His defence was a bit suspect, but his line was rarely used in a defensive role, so he doesn’t really need to be elite defensively for them. He was still a good offensive play-driver, though.

He and Huberdeau were very good in the opponent’s end, and it was regardless of having Duclair, or Sam Reinhart, or Owen Tippett (though that was the worst iteration). Bennett may not be a great playmaker, but he’s good in transition, great off the rush, and he has a world-class playmaker next to him. There shouldn’t be much concern about Bennett having a 25-goal season again, with great peripherals, provided he can play closer to 80 games in 2022-23. (may26)

10. The one guy to really be concerned about, from a fantasy perspective, is probably Anton Lundell. He is unlikely to earn top PP minutes all year, and though I do think he’ll be a top-line centre in a few years, being on the third line will keep him away from most of the top players. A line of Maxim Mamin-Lundell-Reinhart is probably a very good third line, but is it good enough to push for 60 points, as he may have done this year had he played 80-82 games? It’s a tough ask, even in a high-scoring environment both on the team and league-wide level.

We still have to see what the team does this summer, as the vast majority of returnees should be just fine fantasy-wise. It’s just once we get past their top-7 or top-8 scoring options (up front and on the blue line) that things get murky. (may26)

11. It was a busy week with my free agent salary projections coming out on Tuesday, cap league skater rankings on Wednesday morning and cap league goalie rankings on Thursday. A few quick thoughts:

Salary projections: I’ve been working on these for the last five years, and they’re a lot of fun. I try not to take them too seriously, but they are also something I work hard on to try and make it a little better each time around. Check them out, and whether you’re in a cap league or not, I think you’ll find something interesting in there.  

Cap league skater and goalie rankings: These I’ve been doing the last couple of years, and though they are a lot more work, they’re a little more rewarding as there is something a little more substantial outputted. They’ve constantly getting tweaked, and with comments from readers on what their leagues are looking for, I can also take those notes into account to make sure the numbers check out for the wide range of league styles and formats that we’re all trying to manage. Personally, the lists really help me out with finding new names to target in the offseason, guys who are underrated, be it on the lower end of the spectrum, or even star players that should be considered more valuable than their peers who are being drafted higher. Jack Campbell, Vincent Trocheck, and a few others are guys I was able to key in on last summer and acquire for 80 cents on the dollar. Take a look and see if you can find your own names this summer. (may25)

12. BTW, Rick Roos had his latest fantasy hockey poll article on Wednesday and he’s challenging you to pick out the top players who are going to be the biggest UFA disappointments this year. The poll is live now over on the forums, too. (may25)

13. Sticking with free agents, one of the key fantasy changes is possibly going to be when Kris Letang leaves the Penguins, and they need to find someone to fill that void. Mike Matheson is the player that some are thinking may see a big jump in deployment, however over the course of the season, it was very close between Matheson and John Marino. Marino saw a bit more deployment with the man advantage, had slightly better shot results, though both defencemen finished the season with two power play points.

Matheson is more of a shooter, which would replace Letang’s style of play a little better, and it’s tough to want to mess with such an effective power play over the last number of seasons. On that note, Marino does have the better track record with the Penguins over the last few years, and is also a right-handed shot, just like Letang. Working against him, is that he is also a bit more responsible than Matheson (who is a left shot), and because Marino can be used more in an array of situations, it almost pigeonholes Matheson into defaulting to the better asset to put on the power play, regardless of how anything else looks.

Keep both in mind through the summer and watch how things unfold in training camp. The better odds seem to lean towards Matheson though, so if you want to try and get ahead of this, then maybe check in with the Matheson owner now before things progress. (may25)

14. Frank Vatrano has been excellent since joining the Rangers and has rebuilt his value. It would surprise me if they let him walk, because when you find a player that fits like this, both the team and the player end up wanting to make it work. As Kaapo Kakko and Alexis Lafreniere grow, though, he could see his role reduced, so don’t go expecting 13 points every 20 games like he finished the regular season with. (may25)

15. As for Andrew Copp, he should be able to parlay these playoffs into a big contract as one of the better centres in a UFA market that is really just a lot of wingers this summer. He averaged 19 minutes per game for the first time in his career, but with the Ranger his ice time dropped, and in spite of that he put up 18 points in 16 games.

That point-per-game pace is hidden behind his struggles on a flat Winnipeg team earlier in the year, so it could be that he is underappreciated on the market, but then gets put into a situation next year where he can take on a larger role and he really thrives. As long as he doesn’t end up on the third line somewhere, then I think 60 points is an easy target. (may25)

16. Ryan Lindgren is a few games away from the 200-game threshold in the regular season, but typically defencemen need closer to 400 before they really hit their stride. He is the steady presence on a top pair with Adam Fox, and just by proxy of that he is going to get a few points and 'plusses' throughout the year. As the Rangers grow as a better offensive team, in addition to being carried on the back end by Igor Shesterkin, it feels like the kind of situation where a rising tide will lift all of the boats. That being said, his career high is 16 points, and he had under one shot per game this year. He’s a great multi-category contributor, but those of you waiting for the offence to come as well are going to be left wanting for a long time. (may25)

17. Over at the World Championship, we’re seeing the two Slovaks Juraj Slafkovsky and Simon Nemec make their cases to be picked first and second overall in the NHL draft. It likely won’t happen, but it’s great to see from one of the hockey countries that aren’t typically considered a solid threat to medal at these tournaments. If I did own the top pick in a prospect draft this year, I would certainly reach out to see if I could swap it for second or third overall, and end up with one of Logan Cooley or Slafkovsky plus an extra asset. I’m not quite ready to put Nemec in that tier, but he’s not far off. (may25)

18. Just 20, Arthur Kaliyev has had a pretty good start to his NHL career. He had just 15 goals in 81 regular season games, but he did that skating 12:40 a night. Because he’s not playing a lot, his rates look good: 0.88 goals/60 minutes (per Natural Stat Trick), 0.97 individual expected goals/60, and 18.23 shot attempts per 60 minutes. Across the league, that goal rate puts him inside the 55^th percentile of the league (a second-line rate), the ixG rate is inside the 75^th percentile (a first-line rate), and the shot attempts is near the 95^th percentile, in the same range as names like Mikko Rantanen, Evander Kane, Brady Tkachuk, and Kirill Kaprizov. Finishing has been an issue, sitting at just 7.7% conversion for his career.

That last point is what we should focus on a bit here. Kaliyev spent most of the 2021-22 season in Los Angeles’s bottom-6, and quite often on the fourth line. Follow the link for Mike's deep dive on Kaliyev… (may24)

19. On the topic of young players who shoot a lot, it’s hard not to be very impressed with Seth Jarvis this postseason. Last week, he was in the top-20 for shot rate in the playoffs, not far behind names like Filip Forsberg and Alex Ovechkin. He has helped elevate the play of Sebastian Aho (and vice-versa), and it may not be a stretch to say he’s helped save their Cup run. Aho hasn’t really looked great in his limited time away from Jarvis and those two seemed to have developed some very good chemistry. The question becomes: what does next year look like?

Andrei Svechnikov and Teuvo Teravainen will each be around for a couple more years, at least. Martin Necas is an RFA and will be back, then there’s Max Domi and what his next deal might look like. There are a lot of good scoring wingers here and that might cut into Jarvis’s upside. At the same time, the team was using Svech in a PP1 role by his second season and Jarvis could be along the same timeline. We’ll find out next year, but there is 30-goal upside with Jarvis, just like there is with Kaliyev, and he likely has a better scoring environment, too. Just things to keep in mind for draft season in September. (may24)

20. The way the defending Stanley Cup Champions manhandled the President’s Trophy winning Panthers, you have to have more respect for the Maple Leafs. The Leafs actually outplayed Tampa in 18 out of 22 periods and probably deserved the series. But the Lightning found a way – and that’s what Champs do. I think that most, if not all, teams need to have that lesson taught to them before they can reach the pinnacle. Tampa learned it. Remember:

– 2016-17: Did not make the playoffs
– 2017-18: Lost in semi-finals
– 2018-19: Swept in first round

Then they won their two Cups. It’s a process. Always has been. How come people don’t know this? I saw on my Twitter feed Florida fans insisting that the Panthers “tear it all down”, or that “Huberdeau and Barkov are obviously not the answer”. Sorry – no. They need a couple of years of lessons first. I should have considered that before making them my Cup pick. Leaf fans were saying (and still are saying) the same thing. Tear it all down. When, if that post they hit was an inch to the right they eliminate the Cup Champs? When, if the ref was in a different mood and didn’t call off the Tavares goal due to interference, they eliminate the Cup Champs? I have the attitude that if you lose a series and a single play or call could have made that entire series a win – then you’re probably on the right track.

What if Tampa “tore it all down” because “Stamkos and Kucherov were obviously not the answer” back in 2019?

What if Detroit “tore it all down” because “Yzerman and Fedorov were obviously not the answer” back in 1994 after losing in the second round? Or in 1995 after getting swept in the Final? Or in 1996 after getting eliminated in the semi-finals.

I hate to say it Florida fans, but the Panthers could also get knocked out next year in the first round, knocked out in 2024 in the third round – and then win the Cup in 2025! But there’s no easy answer or magic dust you can sprinkle on your team. When you build a team this strong – you commit to that for four or five years. You give it four or five chances. There’s only one Cup, yet four or five deserving teams. Same advice to Toronto fans. Same advice for Rangers’ fans. (may23)

21. The Maple Leafs signed veteran Mark Giordano to a two-year extension. The crazy thing? It’s for $800k – almost the league minimum. Amazing value for a 38-year-old former captain who is still in amazing shape. After landing in Toronto, his possession numbers and xG stats were excellent and he had 14 points in 27 games, which means he’s still a 40-point player. Their bottom pairing just got much, much better for next year. To me, you roll with:

Morgan Rielly – TJ Brodie
Jake Muzzin – Rasmus Sandin
Mark Giordano – Timothy Liljegren

Justin Holl can either be the No.7, bought out, or buried in the minors. I think Sandin and Liljegren take another step forward. Both players improved as the season went on, particularly Liljegren who had a very good second half. Assuming the Leafs sign Liljegren and Sandin for less than a combined $3.5M (which would take some fancy footwork, believe me), the team will have about $3.5M to sign five forwards and a goalie. (may23)

Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

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