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. The Bruce Boudreau watch was in full effect this week. Through all of it, how can you not feel for him? Between his tone during press conferences and the fans trying to lift his spirits with “Bruce There It Is,” there was a finality in the air at Rogers Arena as of Friday. Yet, either in an effort for ownership to save a few bucks on coaches or on management trying to keep the coaching seat warm until their guy Rick Tocchet would arrive, Boudreau was back behind the bench Saturday on what was Hockey Day in Canada. What do you think the HNIC panel spent a considerable portion of the day discussing?

This is an awful look for the Canucks, who are making a strong case at being one of the most poorly-run organizations in the NHL. In case you think I'm being too critical, I’m a fan of the team!

This is a fantasy hockey site, so I’ll quit ranting. Check out my Fantasy Take now that Boudreau was finally put out of his misery on Sunday. (jan21)

2. The news on Max Pacioretty wasn’t expected to be positive, but it was confirmed on Friday. Pacioretty re-tore his Achilles late in the third period of Thursday night’s game. I’d be surprised if he plays any more games this regular season, given how long normal recoveries from this type of injury take. A rough turn of events for Patches and the Hurricanes, who both looked to be in a great spot following his return.

Pacioretty would have helped the Hurricanes offense, which despite the team’s first-place standing in the Metropolitan Division is middle of the pack in offense (3.18 GF/GP). To give you an idea, they are one of a bunch of teams believed to be interested in Bo Horvat.

3. Since we mentioned Horvat, his nine-game point streak came to an end on Friday. He had recorded 10 points over that span. Bo has 30 goals at the midway point of the season, which means that 40 seems inevitable even with a second-half slump and he could even take a run at 50. If he scores a 50^th goal this season, I’m guessing it won’t be in a Canucks uniform. (jan21)

4. Matt Dumba was made a healthy scratch on Thursday, possibly because the Wild are currently working on a trade involving him. At one time, Dumba was a universally rostered player, but he has fallen out of that category (19% Yahoo/40% Fantrax). Could a trade revitalize his fantasy value? Dumba is a right-shot defenseman, so teams will pay a premium for a dependable two-way defenseman that can log 20+ minutes per game. (Dumba receives almost no power-play time.) He’s also on an expiring contract, so he may not be part of the Wild’s plans moving forward. (jan20)

5. Sergei Bobrovsky left Thursday’s game early in the first period with a lower-body injury. Goalie Bob was replaced by Alex Lyon, who stopped 23 of 25 shots he faced in backstopping the Panthers to a 6-2 win over Montreal. Lyon might be worth an add if you are goalie starved. I didn’t take any chances by adding Lyon in a deep league where I also have Bobrovsky rostered. 

(Update) With Bob now slated to miss about three games and with Knight also dealing with an injury (in the AHL on a conditioning stint), then Lyon is the next man up. Lyon is 30 years old and has mostly been an AHL lifer, only having played more than 10 NHL games in a season once (2017-18 with Philadelphia). After that, the next option is Mack Guzda, who is only 22 and was playing in the OHL last season (I learned about him in a Journey article during the offseason). Veteran J-F Berube (age 31), who has played bits and pieces of four NHL seasons, is also in the Panthers’ organization with the Charlotte Checkers. (jan20)

6. Entering Saturday, the Boston Bruins were 12 points clear of any other team in the league, having picked up points in all but five of their 45 games this season. That means if there’s one team that will utilize load management during the last week or two of the season, it would be the Bruins. The prime candidate for this appears to be Patrice Bergeron, who is already 37 and has already contemplated retirement. In fact, I could envision a scenario where centers Bergeron and David Krejci (age 36) alternate games if the Bruins clinch the President’s Trophy early.

Brad Marchand, who is now 34 and missed the first few weeks of the season following offseason double hip surgery, also seems like a prime candidate to miss a game or two at the end of the season. Just putting it out there – you do what you think you need to do. (jan20)

7. Goalie-wise, the Bruins have basically been alternating starts between Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman since mid-December and could continue to do so for the rest of the season to keep both goalies fresh and ready. Ullmark has been an every-game starter this season, and we should be able to add Swayman to that list as well. Among goalies with as many starts as Swayman (18) at time of writing, only four goalies (including Ullmark) had a better goals-against average than Swayman (2.27 GAA). (jan20)

8. Anthony Mantha appears to be the healthy scratch of choice in Washington, having missed four of the Capitals’ last seven games. As of Sunday, Mantha had not recorded a point in about two weeks (since January 5), which works out to three games that he played. I’d probably move on from him in all but the deepest of leagues with this intermittent use. (jan20)

9. While Roope Hintz has been injured, Tyler Seguin has snuck onto the Stars’ top line with Jason Robertson and Joe Pavelski. Over the six games that Hintz has missed (entering Saturday action), Seguin has piled up eight points, including five goals. Seguin scored two first-period goals and added a second-period assist on Thursday in Los Angeles, also finishing with a plus-3 and five shots. Prior to Hintz’s injury, Seguin had 26 points in 39 games, which is not a terrible total but there’s a clear difference here. I wonder if Seguin has a shot to stay on that line even when Hintz returns. That might help balance the Stars’ scoring so they don’t seem like so much of a one-line team entering the playoffs. (jan20)

10. There is a chance that Juraj Slafkovsky's (three months, lower body) rookie season is finished, which can cut two ways. He has a half-season of NHL experience, should be all-systems-go for September, and doesn't have to play out a lottery season on a team that is going to lose a lot of games. But he also loses that development time and any significant time missed for such a young player can be very impactful. (jan19)

11. One thing I like to do during the fantasy season is three different quarterly check-ins: one after the first 20-ish games, one after the next 20 games, and then another after Game 60 or so. While I do very early check-ins – maybe after the first 10 games – to see how players are trending to make some early decisions, it’s the 20-game mark that starts to solidify an outlook on a player’s season. After that, it’s checking in to see how they are doing within those parameters.

With that said, every team except San Jose has played at least 20 games since December 1^st, so let’s take a look at some performances in that span, and if there’s anything new to glean from it that we can apply to the fantasy realm. Data from our Frozen Tools or Natural Stat Trick, unless otherwise indicated. (jan19)

12. Elias Pettersson:

The leader by 5-on-5 points per 60 minutes in this stretch of games is the titular Pettersson. It is just 14 such points in 18 contests but speaks to the productivity he’s seen not only lately, but all season. In fact, looking at the whole season, he’s fifth in the league in primary points/60 at 5-on-5, which excludes the randomness of secondary assists. (The leader, by the way, of all players with at least 40 games under their belts is Jared McCann. It really is curious what so many other franchises did not see in this player because he’s been a good player for years now.) As we sit here on Wednesday afternoon, Pettersson’s 82-game paces are for 36 goals and 104 points, which would be career-highs (the latter by a lot). He has also done that with zero power-play goals to his name.

Just beware with Pettersson moving forward. If I’m in a one-year league and looking to the fantasy playoffs (or a stretch run in roto formats), analyzing whether Pettersson can repeat his first half is a must. This recent super-elite production at 5-on-5 is a function of the team shooting nearly 14% with him on the ice (unsustainable) and also an individual points percentage (IPP) that was 87.5%, over 20% higher than the league median. That IPP would also be a career-high over a full season after posting three straight campaigns between 60-70%. He could maintain his current level of play – which would be Hart Trophy-worthy if his team wasn’t sliding into the lottery – and still see a point drop-off without significant improvements in his PP production. Owners need to decide whether they want to risk losing out on a potential 100-point season or whether there’s going to be a second-half decline that they should trade out from as soon as possible. (jan19)

13. Nick Perbix:

So, uh, the top-3 names in shots/60 minutes since December 1^st are Roman Josi, Dougie Hamilton, and… Nick Perbix? He also ranks eighth in shot attempts/60 so it’s not a function of getting lucky with accuracy in a small sample. He has 41 shots in his last 19 games skating under 15 minutes a night as a defenseman. That feels almost impossible and yet here we are. On the season, he leads Tampa Bay defensemen in both points and shots per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. That is a blue line with Victor Hedman and Mikhail Sergachev, mind you.

This is another situation where depth will hurt his fantasy potential. All of Hedman, Sergachev, and Erik Cernak should be around for at least two more years, and Sergachev far beyond that. If Perbix can become a good offensive blue liner, can he ever earn top PP minutes, even 3-4 years down the road? It’s a long time from now in hockey terms, so anything can happen, but it is an uphill climb.

All the same, the Bolts may have found another good late-round pick. We need to see more than 35 games from him at 15 minutes a night, but it’s a start, and he may not need PP1 minutes for fantasy value, just 19-20 minutes a game to stuff those peripherals. (jan19)

14. Josh Norris and Evander Kane suddenly returning to action ahead underscores how much these athletes and their medical support pushes the limits of usual recovery timelines. When you have the ability to sit on an injured asset that you can buy-low on, it’s often worth your while as those players return earlier than anticipated a good portion, if not a majority of the time. Anthony Duclair, Gabriel Landeskog, and Vladimir Tarasenko are the next major names to watch out for. (jan18)

15. Paul Cotter is a name that you probably haven’t heard much of this year in fantasy circles, but he’s worth getting on your radar, especially in leagues that count PIMs. His minutes, shots, scoring rate, and especially his hit rate have risen from the start of the year. He had four minors in his first eight games, and it has been zeros since in the PIM column, but he does have a history of high PIM numbers at the lower levels, so there may be an explosion with a fight/misconduct very soon. All of his power play time has come in Q2, which does say that he is getting a bigger look offensively. As a fourth-round pick back in 2018, Cotter is on a good development curve, and may still have some growing to do. (jan18)

16. Cody Glass has been centering the top line recently, between Filip Forsberg, and Matt Duchene. A plum assignment if he can keep it, though the Nashville lines have fluctuated all year. Maybe worth a short-term pickup, and he could be a solid fantasy contributor in the coming years, but don’t expect any consistency for the rest of this campaign. (jan18)

17. There were two contracts signed in the last week, with the Bruins extending Pavel Zacha at a $4.75 million cap hit for four years, and the Wild extending Matt Boldy at a $7.0 million cap hit for five years. Both are very reasonable deals, and are close to my current projections for them as well.

My numbers do need some updating though, and that will happen over the next week as I update the cap league rankings for the skaters (publishing Jan 25^th) and the goalies (publishing Jan 26^th). With those done, then I will publish the upcoming 2023 free agent class salary projections as well around the end of January, as all of this work is part of one cohesive system. (jan18)

18. Troy Terry is going into his age-26 next season and needs a long-term extension soon, being a year from unrestricted free agency. He is another guy discussed in the Midseason Guide, and someone I’ve discussed often in these Ramblings pages. Seeing him skate for a contender in a better offensive situation could really unlock his next level of fantasy value. Does Anaheim want to pay out, say, eight years at $8M a season when they could be years from contending? A thought for Terry dynasty owners and non-owners alike as we barrel towards the Trade Deadline. (jan17)

19. Some news about Carolina goalie Pyotr Kochetkov and his NHL status early last week, something Dobber predicted in his Monday Ramblings yesterday. With Kochetkov being waiver exempt, it was always very possible the Hurricanes would send him back to the AHL when the veteran goalies were healthy. Unlike Buffalo and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, though, Carolina does not have a few rookies they can send down in paper transactions to effectively keep everyone together, depending on who is starting in goal. The only waiver-exempt player the Hurricanes have besides their goalie is Seth Jarvis. Unless there’s injury or gross underperformance, it could be tough sledding for Kochetkov to have any fantasy value this regular season. (jan17)

20. Josh Morrissey, who has 51 points in 47 games this season when his career high before this was 37, is actually taking fewer shots. His SOG/GP is 1.70. Last season it was 2.19 and before that it was 2.07. He’s dishing more, but his primary/secondary assist ratio has remained the same as always – meaning the assists haven’t been a fluke. His goal rate will go down, but his assists rate may actually continue.

21. Some notable halfway point of the regular season stats:

– Goals-per-game were averaging 6.4. The last time it matched that was in 1995-96. Interestingly enough – the scoring rate has actually climbed from 6.3 after the first quarter. You rarely see scoring rise as the season goes on. Usually teams come out of training camp still getting their systems in place, hockey is a little sloppy, and scoring starts a little higher and gradually comes down.

– At midpoint, three players had already reached 30 goals: Connor McDavid, David Pastrnak and Tage Thompson. The last time that happened at the midpoint was 2007-08 (Ilya Kovalchuk, Jarome Iginla and Alex Ovechkin). There were 23 20-goal scorers, the most since 95-96 (25).

– The Bruins (32-4-4, 68 points in 40 GP) have left the rink – or field – without a point only four times in the first half of the season and are on pace to set single-season NHL records for wins and points. The number of points the NHL-leading Bruins are on pace to have at the half was 139, which would set a new single-season NHL record. The 1976-77 Canadiens (60-8-12, 132 points) hold the current benchmark and are one of two teams in League history with 130+ points in a season. Montreal held a 29-5-6 record (64 points) entering the League’s halfway mark in 1976-77 and posted a 31-3-6 mark over the second half to set the current record.

– In the last 80 years, this happened: Never has both the Cup champion (Colorado) and points leader from last year (Florida) been out of a playoff spot at the midpoint.

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