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 Tom Collins, pinching in for Dobber

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1. The NHL’s regular season came to a close on Friday with two games that had been postponed earlier in the season. These two games provided the few fantasy teams still competing for something with one last opportunity to pull out a win. If you fall into this category, you were probably breaking these games down to the nth degree looking for the right option(s). 

If you have a playoff pool or are making some series predictions, we have some stuff here for you:

Playoff Draft List at the Dobber Sports Store

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Dobber writers' predictions for the 2022-23 Playoffs! 

2. Thursday was my final Ramblings before the postseason begins on Monday, April 17^th. Yesterday’s Ramblings covered each playoff team from the Western Conference and today we’ll move over to the East. A brief overview of each team’s season will be provided, as well as thoughts on a player or two for postseason fantasy drafts. We are going to ignore the upper-end options and focus on depth scoring; no one needs to hear that drafting David Pastrnak is a good idea. (apr14)

3. Here's a sample of the playoff team overviews: This edition of the Oilers is either the best or second-best team they’ve assembled in the Connor McDavid era, giving respect to the 2016-17 edition.

It was around American Thanksgiving that the team stopped giving regular starts to Jack Campbell. Since then, they are tied for second in the league in xG share at 5-on-5, third in goal share at 5-on-5, second in overall goal share, and third in points percentage (and comfortably leading the West). Edmonton’s power play is easily the best we’ve seen in the salary cap era, and arguably in the history of the league. If teams can’t stay out of the penalty box, the Oilers are probably favourites in the West. As much as I slag Ken Holland, he does get credit for moves like Klim Kostin and Mattias Ekholm.

All the very obvious players will be drafted in playoff pools, and that includes the secondary guys like Ekholm and Evander Kane. What about Nick Bjugstad, though? He hasn’t played big minutes since getting to Edmonton, but no forward does outside of the top PP unit and Kane. He has 31 shots on goal in his last 15 games, skating under 14 minutes a game. At the least, he’s posting shot volume, and that’s more than a lot of the depth options in Edmonton can boast. (apr13)

4. How to win your playoff pool is pretty simple. Whether it’s a bracket or a player pool, you need your teams to advance, and likely to get at least one of the finalists. With the added complexity of picking players, you also need to figure out how to weight the players to the top teams, and when to pick depth players off of top teams versus the best players off of lesser teams. (apr12)

5. Sometimes it seems a little easier to pick the winner of a conference, but this year there seem to be more options than usual. In the East, Boston has had a historically good season, but would it really be a big surprise to anyone if any of the top six teams won the conference? I can see a path for each of them, though whichever two teams end up in the wild card spots are going to have very long odds in my books to even make it past round one.

Over in the West, there is a little more parity, but the top-tier of teams does seem like the most likely place for us to find a finalist. The top-four teams, the Avalanche, Oilers, Golden Knights, and Stars, are where I would be focusing my efforts. I wouldn’t be too surprised at a run from the Kings either, but I don’t think they can outplay Connor McDavid at the moment, especially with their goaltending.

If I had to put money down on two teams right now, it would be the Oilers and the Rangers in the Cup final. Luckily though, I don’t have to put any money down at this point, and can take what the draft gives me as far as available players when my turn in up. (apr12)

6. There are a few strategies I have seen and used in playoff pools to various degrees of success, but the keys usually come down to focusing your picks across no more than five teams (and no more than three from one conference), and having a few top players from at least half of them. Occasionally it can work out to select players from just two teams, the one in each conference that you think will make the finals, but all it takes in that case to derail your postseason pool is one funky series and then you’re too far behind to catch up even if the other team does end up winning the cup.

Assuming your pool has about 12 players that you get to pick, I find that the farther you expect a team to go, you select double the amount of players from that team than you take from a team you expect to be out a round sooner. To split up 12 players evenly across four or five teams, you would have four or five skaters from each of your expected teams in the finals, at most two from your next two teams, and then maybe an odd player from the Kings who didn’t have many players gone by the last round.

*Note I do like to find a team in the last one-to-three rounds that has almost no one selected from them, and take whoever of their top players are left. If they go on a run, then it’s a big win, and if they don’t and only play six games in the first round, well the five points they scored won’t be much less than the eight points that third-liner on the cup-finalist team gets you anyways. (apr12)

7. Jeff Skinner secured the first 80-point season of his career. That’s quite a bounceback for a player that seemed to be left for dead under the previous head coach. Just two seasons ago, Skinner had a meager 14 points in 53 games and appeared to be a future buyout candidate thanks to his long-term $9 million cap hit. Now he’s a key part of the Sabres’ future and has just completed his first point-per-game campaign. Coaching changes don’t matter to every player in fantasy leagues, but they really matter to certain players. (apr15)

8. Skinner’s regular linemate Tage Thompson was out with an injury, so he finishes with 47 goals and 94 points. If you bet on him being able to repeat his 38-goal performance from last season, you were paid dividends and then some. He also fell just short of 300 shots, a number that only 10 players were able to reach. (apr15)

9. Still with the Sabres, recently-signed Devon Levi finishes the season with five wins in seven games. Small sample size, I know, but his 71.4% quality start percentage is among the league’s best if games played isn’t factored in.

Since he started seven of the Sabres’ last nine games of the season, the 21-year-old Levi has to be considered in the mix to be the starting goalie next season. He’ll have competition from both Eric Comrie and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (who was the NHL’s rookie of the month in January), not to mention that 21 is a very young age to be an NHL goalie, so he’ll certainly be in tough. Since impressing with Canada at the 2020-21 World Juniors, Levi has been flying up the goalie prospect rankings. At the very least, he needs to be added in keeper leagues. (apr15)

10. Nathan MacKinnon has notched the second 40-goal season of his career, shortly after reaching 100 points for the first time in his career. I found it hard to believe he had never reached 100 prior to this season, but injuries and COVID-shortened seasons have gotten in the way. He’s had at least a near-100-point 82-game pace for six consecutive seasons, so this 100-point season is long overdue. Only David Pastrnak took more shots on goal than MacKinnon (365 SOG). (apr15)

11. Tyson Barrie played 85 games this season, the first time that has happened since Rem Murray in 2002-03. How does that happen? A midseason trade from Edmonton to Nashville, who had three games in hand on the Oilers at the time of the trade (more if Barrie missed any games due to injury). The other players that played more than 82 games this season are Garnet Hathaway, Lars Eller, and Jack Johnson. (apr15)

12. With the health issues that Jonathan Toews had suffered over the last few years, it is clear his play was declining faster than a normal aging curve would otherwise dictate. Chicago is in Year 1 of a full rebuild and it will be a while before they’re competitive again.

All that in mind, we got word that Toews, as of Thursday night, has played his final game with Chicago. Whether Toews is on his way to retirement, or is going the Eric Staal route of jumping from team to team, remains to be seen. Regardless, he is a key figure in the last 20 years of Chicago hockey and the hope is that he can just be healthy. (apr14)

13. Colorado provided updates on Josh Manson and Artturi Lehkonen, as both players should be ready for Game 1. Lehkonen ended up playing last Thursday night, with no setbacks. Even without Gabriel Landeskog back, Lehkonen’s return does give them to true top scoring lines, and that’s a big boost for a team that is continually facing significant injuries.

However, in unfortunate injury news, Landeskog will not return at any point in the playoffs. That is awful for Landeskog, who was great in their Cup run a year ago with 11 goals and 22 points in 20 games. He had knee surgery back in October and had been lightly skating for a few weeks, but it seems there’s not enough progress to get him back in the next eight weeks. Hopefully he can take a full offseason to rehab and return as a force in the fall.

The team has gotten where they are without him, so it doesn’t change a lot for them, really, other than limit future reinforcements. This roster just needs to stay healthy. (apr14)

14. Canes' vet edefnder Brent Burns finished with 18 goals on the season, his highest total since 2017 when he finished with 29. He also cracked the 60-point plateau for the first time since 2019. (apr14)

15. As for Panthers' Carter Verhaeghe, he signs off with 42 goals. He has really emerged as an offensive force and like many others before him, the final step unlocking top-level production is a consistent top PP role; Verhaeghe finished with five fewer points at 5-on-5 than Matthew Tkachuk, but was over 30 points behind him overall largely for that reason.(apr14)

16. New Jersey got a goal from Luke Hughes in overtime to win their regular season finale against Washington 5-4. Hughes finished with two points in over 21 minutes of ice time in that game, as regulars like John Marino and Ryan Graves took a rest. It is a wonder if they’ll get him into some playoff games. Had Carolina not won their game, it would have pushed the Devils into first in the division, but it was not to be.

As for the postseason, the Devils are going to have home-ice advantage over the New York Rangers in what should be a tremendous series. One team is firmly in their Cup Window while the other is just opening theirs, not to mention the geographic rivalry. It should be a fun series. (apr14)

17. Brock Nelson brough his season total to 36 goals and 75 points in all 82 games. He nearly reached last season’s breakout 37-goal total and saw his points per game go up 10%. It’s not often a player hits their stride in their 30s, but here we are.

It is a well-earned playoff appearance for the Islanders. Oliver Wahlstrom has missed over half the season, Mathew Barzal missed nearly one-third of the campaign, and Bo Horvat hasn’t been a great producer since the trade, yet they still managed to reach their first goal. Ilya Sorokin is clearly a huge part of this, but that’s also what makes them dangerous to the team they face in the first round. (apr13)

18. Matthew Knies made a much better impression in his second NHL game than he did in his debut. He launched three shots on net, nearly scoring on one (with Ryan O’Reilly picking up the rebound for Knies’ first NHL point). With the big guns out of the lineup, he saw some more power play time. Overall though, he looks like he is making an effort to be a big-game and heavy player, which is the fastest way that he can earn himself a regular spot in the postseason lineup. (apr12)

19. Last week, I said I would look into a few players that I think could be on next season’s iterations of the surprise and disappointment lists.

Surprise, the breakout threshold group: Owen Tippett, Alexis Lafreniere, Kaapo Kakko, Cody Glass, Quinton Byfield.

This group all comes with very little time to their breakout threshold, and some high draft pedigree to boot. Fantasy owners will have varying levels of patience with these players, but I like them all for at least 60 points next season. There is also Dawson Mercer, who I mentioned last week. He doesn’t have the same top-10 draft pedigree that the others do above him on the list, but as I have mentioned before he has all of the markers to be set up for success next year. A jump for him is coming, the question just becomes: how big?

It’s less exciting to find someone who breaks out just on time, though, so follow the link for more, as well as other players that may disappoint… (apr12)

20. The term ‘market share’ might be familiar to anyone who follows television ratings or the business world, but for fantasy sports, and hockey in particular, it also has a use.

For our purposes, market share is what percentage of a team’s shots or expected goals that occur with a given player on the ice are attributed to that player. For example, if Minnesota generates 100 expected goals (xG) when Kirill Kaprizov is on the ice in a full season, and 30 of those expected goals come off Kaprizov’s stick, his xG market share is 30%.

If Anaheim generates 1000 shot attempts (CF) with Derek Grant on the ice in a full season, and 250 of them are taken by Grant himself, his CF market share is 25%. For this installment of Ramblings, let's look at forwards only. Stats are as of the morning of Saturday, April 8. (apr11)

On a related statistical note, last week, we had a pair of Ramblings discussing underlying changes among defensemen. The first talked about improvements (or declines) in Scoring Chance Contributions per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (SCC/60) while the second went over blue liners who saw a jump in PPTOI. Today, we’re going to stick with the power play, but looking at changes in shot rates from individual defensemen. Check it out. (apr10)

21. One of the reasons the Minnesota Wild bought out the contracts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, taking a huge cap-hit penalty for a few seasons, was that they had some prospects they were hoping would have a huge impact on the NHL roster in short order.

Matt Boldy has certainly done that, and he’s earned a healthy contract extension because of it. Marco Rossi was expected to do the same, but under-performance early in the 2022-23 season has left him in the AHL. The trade of Kevin Fiala brought back a potential third player that fits this billing in Brock Faber, and the Wild signed the defenseman to a three-year contract last week. Faber is from Minnesota, and played at the University of Minnesota, which makes this a nice little story. His Dobber Prospects profile is here.

The Wild have a full blue line and are scratching names like Alex Goligoski and Calen Addison with regularity. In that sense, we shouldn’t expect much from Faber for the balance of this season. However, Matt Dumba and John Klingberg are free agents this summer and Goligoski is in his late-30s with a year left on his deal. A good training camp could see Faber with regular minutes in the NHL as soon as October. There are lots of bridges to cross before we get to that point but he’ll have every opportunity to earn that role. (apr10)

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Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

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