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. Whether or not you like analyst Craig Button, he had a big take about Bo Horvat this past week, saying Horvat was done in Vancouver. Now, a lot of people immediately took that a step too far, thinking he’s going to be traded tomorrow. While it’s not impossible, it’s as close as you can get. I think what Button is alluding to, is that Horvat’s negotiations have not gone well, and may force Vancouver’s hand by opting for free agency. If the Canucks are not in the playoffs come March and the trade deadline, then there’s a very serious discussion to be had about whether he gets traded at that point or not.

If he does get moved, Horvat is the kind of player that could turn almost any playoff team into a very real threat to go all the way. He scored again last night, adding two assists, and bringing this season’s point total to 20 in 17 games. His underlying numbers really aren’t far out of line either. The shooting percentage is a touch high, but it’s only an extra goal or two that he has added as a result. He has grown into a point-per-game center that will win 1000 faceoffs and adds over three shots per game. There aren’t many of those around. (nov16)

2. You were able to take a rest from your doubts about Thatcher Demko, at least for one game. Demko made 37 saves in a 4-1 Canucks win, which was just his second win of the season. Demko had posted just one quality start prior to Friday, and this was actually his first game (in 12 GP) where he has allowed fewer than three goals. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where Demko and Spencer Martin have alternated starts over the Canucks’ last 10 games. I’m not at the “drop Demko” point yet, and Friday’s start certainly showed shades of Demko from last season in a game where the Canucks were outshot. You may want to keep him on your bench for the short term, though, as the Canucks have some tough matchups ahead against Vegas (x2) and Colorado next week. (nov19)

3. Eric Comrie, who has grabbed the starting goalie job for the Sabres, is expected to be sidelined for several weeks. That leaves Craig Anderson and recently recalled Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to guard the crease for Buffalo. The Sabres have fallen back to earth and lost seven consecutive games after roaring out of the gate, so tread carefully on this one. Anderson’s early-season success (3 W in his first 3 GP) is likely related to being able to rest for multiple games between starts, which matters if you’re 41 years old and still playing professional hockey. For that reason, Anderson could struggle under a heavier workload. Watch for UPL to receive more than a spot start while he is up with the big club. (nov19)

4. Calen Addison has just one point in his last 11 games. In spite of the lack of production, he’s still receiving first-unit power-play minutes. It’s difficult to recommend dropping someone who is receiving first-unit power-play minutes, and I haven’t done that in the one league that I roster Addison. Yet he hasn’t scored a goal this season and doesn’t deliver much in the way of peripherals (at least for a defenseman). Six of his eight points this season have been with the man advantage, which could justify your patience. (nov19)

5. Starting two consecutive games since sitting for three before, Sergei Bobrovsky was pulled after allowing four goals on 11 shots in the first period alone last Friday. Spencer Knight, who entered in relief and also played yesterday, currently has the far superior numbers, so he’s at least forcing a timeshare with $10 million man Bobrovsky. I’d have to think that Bob’s numbers will improve somewhat as the season goes on, but he may not be quite what you hoped for in terms of both volume and ratios. (nov18)

6. Juuso Parssinen is making a great impression on one of Nashville’s scoring lines. The recent callup (more on him in the latest Journey) is 3-2-5 in his first four NHL games. He’s been on an even-strength line with Filip Forsberg and Mikael Granlund, and has also received some power-play minutes. A former seventh-round pick, Parssinen is rostered in just 11 percent of Fantrax leagues. I’m not sure that he’s worth a pickup in redraft leagues yet, but keeper leaguers should at least give him some thought. (nov18)

7. Before netting a pair of goals last night, Mathew Barzal might have had the league’s most unique statline. Entering Saturday action, he still hadn’t scored a goal this season, yet he was a point-per-game player based on assists alone. To put it another way, no player had as many points as Barzal (19) without any goals. Something else that was weird is that his shot rate was up from last season (from 2.2 SOG/GP to 2.6 SOG/GP). Barzal has never been known as a goal scorer, as he has reached 20 goals only once in his career (his career-best rookie season). Going back to last season he had just four goals in his last 54 games. If you’re in a categories league and have Barzal, just make sure you’re receiving goals elsewhere. (nov18)

8. In New Jersey’s breakout, much of the credit has gone to Jesper Bratt and Jack Hughes, yet the team captain is having quite a season so far. Nico Hischier has nine goals on the season while maintaining his point-per-game pace (19 PTS in 17 GP). Hischier isn’t lining up with either of the aforementioned names at even strength at the moment, but current linemate Tomas Tatar was just on a seven-game point streak before having it snapped yesterday.

Speaking of lines, you can check out the new Line Change Tracker on Frozen Tools. You can find out which players are being bumped up or bumped down their lineup. (nov18)

Also new on Frozen Tools: a Hot/Cold report by team. I find this very handy for DFS purposes especially, but also leagues that require daily or weekly lineups. It captures teams scoring a ton (in the “hot” section) and teams holding down the goals allowed (also in the “hot” section in another chart. (nov14)

9. Last week Jake Bean was a hot pickup because of the injury to Zach Werenski. This week, he joined Werenski on the sidelines with an upper-body injury from Tuesday’s game. Because of all the injuries on Columbus’s blueline, Marcus Bjork (not Anders Bjork or Bjork the singer) has advanced from AHL callup last week to power-play time this week. The more established Vladislav Gavrikov received slightly more power-play time on Thursday, so he might be the next man up if you’re looking for a potential power-play QB. To be perfectly honest, there isn’t much left on the Blue Jackets defense. (nov18)

10. Congratulations to Phil Kessel on becoming the first player to play 1000 consecutive games! Maybe the best thing about having him on your roster during that time period is that you never had to place him on IR. Here are some other contributions that he has made during that span. (nov18)

11. The Moritz Seider goal watch is over, as he hit the twine for the first time this season late Thursday. Last season’s Calder Trophy winner was held without a goal in his first 16 games. He’s had a rough go with it recently without a point in his previous four games, while his plus/minus has also suffered (-7 in last 4 GP). He showed tremendously in his rookie season, so it might be a matter of a sophomore slump. He might be worth a buy-low attempt, particularly in a keeper league. (nov18)

12. Mike Matheson made his return to play yesterday for Montreal. The Habs have been using a five-forward power play the entire month of November and have actually been mid-pack in the league in goals per minute, which feels like a miracle. They might not want to shake things up immediately, but Matheson is a candidate to eventually get some top PP minutes.

On the flipside, Jonathan Drouin is on injured reserve for 4-6 weeks. It has been an awful few years for Drouin health-wise as he’s played just 117 of a possible 236 regular season games going back to the start of the 2019-20 campaign. He has discussed his anxiety issues as well and now we just have to hope he can put it all back together eventually. He is still just 27 years old so there are a few years to reclaim his playmaking prowess. (nov17)

13. Long-time Duck, Adam Henrique, has been moved to the top line with Trevor Zegras and Troy Terry over the team’s last few games, to go with the top PP unit. This has led to Adam Henrique collecting six goals and nine points over his last eight games. He has averaged nearly three shots per game and is on a six-game point streak. Anaheim is a bad team, but that top line is getting lots of opportunity to produce offensively.

Something that isn’t discussed enough with this team is the chemistry between Henrique and Zegras. As long as Henrique maintains his current role, he probably should be rostered in most fantasy formats. (nov17)

14. The recent injury to Jack Quinn was a tough break because it seemed as if he was turning a corner in the early portion of this season. He was barely shooting through his first handful of games, managing 6.1 shot attempts per 60 minutes. That rate would be fine for a mid-tier defenseman, not a (hopeful) high-end rookie forward. His next seven games were much more promising as that shot rate more than doubled to 15.1 shot attempts per 60 minutes. He was earning PP1 minutes from time to time as well. 

His problem was that he still wasn’t earning a lot of ice time overall. Even his recent uptick saw him sitting at 13:09 per game and skating more than 14 minutes once in seven contests. It is really hard for almost any player to have fantasy relevance with that level of TOI. All the same, dynasty owners want to see him improve and he looked to be trending in that direction. The rookie returned to the lineup yesterday against the Maple Leafs. (nov17)

15. Tyler Bertuzzi made his return to the Wings lineup last Tuesday, and was slotted right away onto the top line with Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond. After Raymond started the season with only two points in seven games, he has heated up of late with points in eight of his last 11. Larkin has also been hot all season, with 22 points in his first 18 games. Alongside those two, that bodes well for Bert to hit the ground running and put up a 75-point lace the rest of the way, just like what he did last season. (nov16)

16. As the resident Habs fan, this has been a great season to watch. Cole Caufield could crack 40 goals, Kirby Dach looks like the player Habs fans hoped he would be, Jordan Harris looks like he will become a regular NHL defenseman, while their non-first-overall draft picks from 2022 have all had good-to-great starts to their respective seasons in other leagues.

It should go without saying that there are signs for regression with Nick Suzuki, though. Before Saturday action, he was shooting 27% overall and that’s a big red flag. What’s more is that his conversion rate at 5-on-5 was over 31% (!!!), second highest among all regular forwards, behind Morgan Geekie (36.4%) in Seattle. His three-year average to start his career was 8.5%. To put it differently, shooting 11% would be a career-high and still be roughly one-third his currently level. Cut off four EV goals from his total and he’s still on pace for a point per game but would clearly see a big hit to his fantasy value.

With the duo of Caufield/Suzuki on the ice at 5-on-5, the team was shooting over 20% earlier in the week. Regression will hit hard here, and I have concerns about Suzuki’s production the rest of the way. Not that he’ll fall off the map, but the Montreal power play isn’t producing much so a big drop at 5-on-5 will really hurt here. It may not be a bad idea to see if he can be traded for a potential top-50 center that will be more stable the rest of the way. I would rather have Hischier for the balance of the season, for example. (nov15)

17. After a scorching hot start (10 G in his first 15 GP), Gabriel Vilardi has cooled off considerably with no points over his last five games. Vilardi is still sticking around on that Kopitar line, so the pucks might start to go in for him again. However, you might have missed your window to sell high in a non-keeper league, as he will be hard-pressed to have another run like he had earlier this season. (nov19)

18. I hope you have Matej Blumel on your radar. The 22-year-old has made a strong transition to North American hockey when he followed up a good training camp with 11 points in his first nine AHL games. It was enough to earn an early recall to the big club and he showed some good things on a line with Tyler Seguin and Mason Marchment. Yeah. For now, he’s stolen the spot from Denis Gurianov, who is sidelined with a UBI (but let’s be honest – Gurianov was on his way to the press box anyway). A fourth-round pick in 2019, Blumel jumped 233 spots in my monthly Prospect Rankings.

19. And how about Nick Perbix by now? Throughout last week I added him to my DFS lineup because his value is so low and his production relative to that has been good – and getting better by the day. No PP time, but decent enough shot volume and BLKS upside. Consider him a potential Gustav Forsling for now – and being as he’s new, there both upside and downside. 

20. Kirill Kaprizov should still hit 100 points this season, but you have to wonder how well he would do under a more freewheeling system: 130? 140? If the Wild score, it is one of four forwards: Kaprizov, Mats Zuccarello, Matt Boldy or Joel Eriksson Ek. After that we go down to Mason Shaw, on pace for 40 points. Until Marco Rossi figures out the league – and he will – this is the way things will be with this team. Very little fantasy interest beyond those players and Calen Addison (who is slowing down already, as rookies tend to do).

21. We had the 2022 Hockey Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Monday. It is highlighted by a trio of high-profile Canucks players with Daniel and Henrik Sedin plus Roberto Luongo. There was also Daniel Alfresson, Riikka Sallinen, and Herb Carnegie.

There has been some debate as to the merits of some of these players i.e. are they truly HOF players or are they just pretty good players that may not have gotten in if were smaller. I just wanted to go over a few stats from the Sedins:

• Henrik is third in assists this century with 830, trailing only Sidney Crosby (902) and Joe Thornton (1043). He probably gets passed by Patrick Kane in the next couple seasons, as well as Nicklas Backstrom if he can get/stay healthy. Henrik stands a good chance of staying in the top-5 for a while, though, depending on the next few years from Anze Kopitar and Evgeni Malkin.
• Daniel is 1 of 7 players this century with at least 375 goals and 625 assists. The others are Thornton, Crosby, Kane, Malkin, Alex Ovechkin, and Martin St. Louis. They are all current or future HOFers.
• In the five seasons from 2007 through 2012, Daniel (3) and Henrik (5) were both top-5 in the league in points per minute. The top-8 reads as follows: Crosby, Malkin, D. Sedin, Ovechkin, H. Sedin, Pavel Datsyuk, Steven Stamkos, and Teemu Selanne. Again, all current or future Hall of Famers.
• In that same five-season stretch, Daniel was 10^th in the league in expected goal differential (per Evolving Hockey), just a shade behind Crosby.

Arguments about who should or shouldn’t be included are part of hockey fandom and can make for fun debate. My argument is that the twins belong whether looking at their entire body of work or their peak performance.

For those arguing about Luongo, he led the NHL in save percentage from 2000-2018 (min. 500 games played). What else does he need to do?

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Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

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