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. Despite being swept, the Hurricanes deserved a better fate, since they lost all four games by one goal and two in overtime. In fact, the shot total over the four games was 65-60, 38-26, 32-17, and 39-24 – all in favor of Carolina. That’s what happens when you run into a hot goalie.

Speaking of Sergei Bobrovsky, I’m still not raising his value for next season. Yes, he’s been earning his pile of money over the last month and a half, but over a longer sample size he’s an inconsistent goalie. If you’ve experienced him on your fantasy team, he can be either brilliant or disastrous. For example, he was in the top 10 in quality starts (30 QS), but he was also just outside the top 10 in really bad starts (10 RBS) this season. How many quality starts does it take to recover from a really bad start – two? Maybe three? Over the regular season, he was basically a hair below average (-3.21 GSAA).

Alex took my thought one step further, moving Bobrovsky down in his most recent Goalie Cap League Rankings. Counterintuitive? It’s certainly zigging when others might be zagging. He explains:

It’s all based on regular season numbers, so with three of his last four years being below average, turning 35 this summer, and the highest active goalie cap hit, I’m surprised he’s on the list at all. Knight may be back next year too, which would really cut into his workload. (may27)

2. As for Matthew Tkachuk, he’s a legitimate star in this league who is raising his game when the stakes are highest. If you don’t consider him among the elite, keep in mind that he’s posted back-to-back 100-point seasons for two different teams. Only the Oilers twin towers of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have more points over the past two seasons than Tkachuk (213). He’s number 4 in my Roto Rankings, and I have no plans to drop that ranking. You’d need a very convincing argument to talk me out of it. (may27)

Tkachuk's heroics will be the stuff of legend as he ends up with three game-winning goals in the third-round series against Carolina. Two of those were in overtime, including the four OT game, and this one with mere seconds remaining. He also had the primary assist on the only goal from their Game 3 win. Sergei Bobrovsky was very good again in Game 4, stopping 36 of 39 in the win, but Tkachuk is also a big reason why this series is over in four games. (may25)

Maybe this series has a different outcome with Max Pacioretty and/or Andrei Svechnikov in the lineup, or at least it could have lasted longer. Pacioretty may play a grand total of five games as a Hurricane, as he’s set to become a UFA. In fact, there’s a whole bunch of UFAs on the Canes, so there’s a major opportunity for a retool if they want one. Even though the Canes went to the Conference Final while missing the two legitimate top-6 forwards they were expecting in the lineup, they could look very different once the puck drops on the 2023-24 season. Carolina’s philosophy under Rod Brind’Amour has been more about fitting into the system than building around stars. (may27)

3. Among the top 30 in ice time, Adam Larsson sticks out as having the only player (defenseman) to receive less than 10% of his team’s available power-play time (he received just 3.5%PP). That resulted in a significant amount of even-strength ice time for Larsson (20:40), with only six players receiving more even-strength time. Paired with Vince Dunn for most of the season, Larsson received just 0:02 less ice time per game than his partner. Larsson was the stay-at-home conscience on the pairing while also receiving considerably more penalty-killing time than PP1 QB Dunn.

Even though Larsson’s scoring numbers paled in comparison to Dunn’s, he had his best offensive season anyway (33 PTS in 82 GP). Larsson reached 30 points for the first time in his career while also posting career highs in plus-minus (+27) and shots on goal (143). Larsson also led the Kraken with 222 hits and 173 blocked shots, another byproduct of high ice time. In fact, combine the career-best scoring with the excellent peripherals and Larsson suddenly has considerable fantasy value. In fact, Larsson was ranked 51 in one Yahoo head-to-head multicategory league that I’m in.

Finally, a general hockey-related question to ponder. The Oilers were widely considered the team getting fleeced in the infamous “trade is one for one” with New Jersey in 2016. But in 2023, which player would you rather have on your hockey team’s roster: Larsson or Taylor Hall? (may27)

4. Here are my favorite BT (Breakout Threshold) players for next season. I put them in order, but obviously with some of them it is so close that you can mix them around pretty easily and I would probably agree with you. I consider Tim Stutzle, Kirill Kaprizov, Dylan Cozens and K’Andre Miller as having already hit their breakouts early. I am also not looking at the ‘exceptionally-sized’ players (big or small), I’m only looking at 200 career games as the marker.

– Trevor Zegras (180 career games) – The easiest pick here, as we all believe he’s going to be a point-per-game player and he’s already topped 60 points twice. The obvious time for him to reach that next level is the coming season. A 25% increase gives him 81 points.

– Alexis Lafreniere (216 career games) – Poolies have seemingly been waiting forever for this guy, but it’s only been three seasons. In keeper leagues, I’m sure Lafreniere’s owners are softening their stance on him. They will still want the world for him, but no longer the entire universe. A 25% increase for him only gets him to 50 points and if that’s all he does – expect a second breakout the year after. But I think we see more than the 50. He was on a 45-point pace in the final 18 games of the season, though was pointless in the postseason.

– Philipp Kurashev (191 career games) – A shoulder injury ended his season at 70 games (25 points), but he’s going to easily beat his career high that he just set. And 25% is only six points. Someone is going to get the lucky winger spot beside Connor Bedard and I think it will be Kurashev and Taylor Raddysh. Actually, what I think is that Chicago will sign a free agent for the role, and maybe two. But for now it’s Kurashev and Raddysh. In which case, Kurashev won’t improve by 25%, but more like 100%.

– Alexander Romanov (209 career games) – Romanov has been underwhelming in fantasy thus far, and fantasy owners have long since given up on him. However, he did jump from 13 points in 22. Another 25% on that will be easy – and gets him to 28. I think he reaches that number, but with upside if one of Noah Dobson, Ryan Pulock or Sebastian Aho get hurt. Romanov is getting zero PP time right now, so he won’t get too far past 28 points without that.

– Alex Newhook (159 career games) – Newhook suffered a sophomore jinx and fantasy owners have soured on him. But be patient. Just after the midpoint of the season, he’ll cross that ‘threshold’ and start kicking it up a notch. Make a note to let his fantasy owner hang onto him, but then reach out in December if Newhook starts off slowly. A 25% increase gets him to a modest 41 points, but he’s another player on this list that I think could exceed that low target.

– Tanner Jeannot (172 career games) – A terrible start with Tampa, but assuming he fully recovers from his injuries he stands a good chance of beating his career high of 41 points by 25%. That makes him a 50-point player. It could happen, but would probably need Jon Cooper to try him out as Alex Killorn‘s replacement on a scoring line.

– Yegor Sharangovich (205 career games) – Sharangovich’s numbers took a nosedive after the team acquired Timo Meier. He might be worth rolling the dice on, as he always seems to be the Plan B for the Jack Hughes line. If he can get back on that line during his BT season, there is nice potential there. A 25% bump to his career highs would give him 58 points. (may22)

5. My offseason series of reviewing the fantasy campaigns of non-playoff teams is winding. We have already been struggling to find successes/improvements as we’ve worked our way down the list, but we’re covering Columbus today, and they’re not a team that went into the season with similar expectations to Montreal or Chicago.  

As we have been doing, success and failures of individual players, as well as improvements and declines of the team, will be the focus here. At the end, a discussion on where the team goes from here. All of this, of course, is through a fantasy lens. (may26)

6. Sorry to sound flippant, but Johnny Gaudreau drastically under-performed his ADP on Yahoo! while Patrik Laine missed one-third of the season due to injury. No one else put up 50 points, Joonas Korpisalo barely finished as a top-25 Yahoo! goalie with his best stretch of the season being on another roster, and all the defensemen were injured. There are very good reasons why this team finished at the bottom of the East.

Over Gaudreau’s final two seasons in Calgary, when he was on the ice with Matthew Tkachuk at 5-on-5, the team scored nearly 5.0 goals per 60 minutes and controlled 62.3% of the expected goal share. When Gaudreau was on the ice without Tkachuk, those numbers dropped to 2.4 goals/60 minutes and 48.9% of the expected goal share. Tkachuk is an all-world winger and was a tremendous help here. (It should be said that it was mutually beneficial when they played together, but Tkachuk went to go play with Carter Verhaeghe in a high-tempo environment. There is a reason one kept succeeding where the other did not.)

The result of the move was Gaudreau seeing the fifth-largest decline in Scoring Chance Contributions per 60 minutes (SCC/60) at 5-on-5 from last year to this year. What SCC/60 measures is the player’s individual scoring chances plus his assists on teammates’ scoring chances. (may26)

7. The one success we might be able to point to is Boone Jenner. His Yahoo! ADP was around 165^th overall and he finished the season around 170^th in their scoring system. Considering he missed 14 games, it seems likely he would have exceeded his ADP had he been healthy, and he was fine otherwise. All the same, the best we can say about his season as that he broke even fantasy-wise. If that’s what qualifies as a success, the rest of this article isn’t going to go well. (may26)

8. A special shout out to Kirill Marchenko. Not a fantasy success, per se, but he was up to three shots per game over the team’s final five weeks. That is a good sign for a kid that was riding percentages earlier in the season. Corey Sznajder’s tracking data also has him as the only Jackets forward outside the top line of Gaudreau-Jenner-Laine to be above the league average by scoring chance rate at 5-on-5.

His zone entries led to more scoring chances than anyone not named Gaudreau or Laine, too. He has more rounding to do to his game – namely playmaking – but there is a lot to like here for a rookie season on a very bad team. (may26)

9. Previous Offseason Reviews:

Buffalo
Calgary
Pittsburgh
Nashville
Ottawa
Vancouver
Detroit
St. Louis
Washington
Arizona
Philadelphia
San Jose
Montreal
Columbus

10. Standard Yahoo! scoring saw exactly zero (0) Blackhawks skaters finish inside the top-200 fantasy options this season. Only one skater – Seth Jones at 217^th – finished inside the top-250 fantasy options, and only two – add Andreas Athanasiou at 274^th – finished inside the top-325 fantasy options. That means in 12-team leagues with 25-man rosters, precisely two Chicago skaters were fantasy viable for most of the season. Even then, variance in performance made them drags on fantasy rosters for weeks at a time. Max Domi led the Chicago roster in points with 49 and he was traded on March 3^rd. So, yeah, not much fantasy success here. (may25)

He only played 23 games, but we should shout out Lukas Reichel. In limited action, he finished third on the team in points per 60 minutes, trailing Domi and Kane. League-wide, he compared to players like David Perron and Rickard Rakell. It was just 23 games, but a pretty good showing from a 20-year-old on a team trying to actively be the worst in recent NHL history. (may25)

11. Not sure if anyone has checked out the top UFAs this offseason, but we’re looking at Ryan O’Reilly, Tyler Bertuzzi, Dmitry Orlov, Vladimir Tarasenko, and maybe Max Pacioretty if he’s healthy. Then we’re getting to players like Jason Zucker, Matt Dumba, John Klingberg, and so on. In other words, Chicago can’t really go out and sign a couple UFAs and suddenly have two pretty good scoring lines for a short-term fantasy boost. They might be able to manage one, so we’ll see what they do this summer.

All that is to say, there is considerably more they need to add besides just Connor Bedard and with no current star on the roster they can hold over (mileage may vary on Seth Jones), they have 19 roster spots to fill in the coming seasons to put together a playoff team. Players like Lukas Reichel and Wyatt Kaiser should help, but prospects are not guarantees, and the team has so far to go.  

12. From a fantasy perspective, Chicago is another disaster in the making. We have seen teams come out of nowhere to over-perform in the regular season, but just to be a league-average offensive team, we’ll need to see a 30% improvement in goal-scoring. Unless they strike it rich in the Draft, the lack of help coming this summer means another awful fantasy season in Illinois for the vast majority of the roster.  

13. Ivan Barbashev has been an excellent addition to a Vegas team that already ran three lines deep. It will be interesting to see if they can fit him under the cap next year, but they should be trying, because he’ll be worth whatever they can manage to pay him.

Right now I have him projected at around $3.3 million, but if he does end up looking for a bidding war, he could easily find someone that may refer him to Michael Bunting and give him the Zach Hyman deal. (may24)

Still with the Giolden Knights, Adin Hill is making a big push to win the other goaltending spot alongside Logan Thompson next year. He has been spectacular in the playoffs, and has had some great stretches in the past. Meanwhile, Robin Lehner is sitting on the sidelines recovering from surgery. He likely won’t be ready for the season start, but his cap hit is going to get him back into the lineup as soon as he’s healthy. (may24)

14. As for Jonathan Marchessault, he continues his torrid playoff run. An absolute nightmare for defenders and he’s really clicking with Jack Eichel. Down the stretch of the regular season, Marchessault had 15 points in 18 games.

He’s 32 years old, but I often find that smaller players last a little longer. They bloom late and hang around a lot longer. No analysis to back that up, but it’s a feeling. Anyway, Coach Bruce Cassidy sees the chemistry, and you know he’ll keep Marchessault and Eichel together heading into next season. That makes Marchessault a sneaky pick at your draft in September.

15. Ilya Samsonov played well enough to be brought back by the Maple Leafs on a multi-year deal, and he shouldn’t cost too much that it won’t get done. Goaltending is volatile and fickle, except for the very high-end ones. The Leafs don’t have an easy path to one of those, so at this point their best way forward is likely trying not to rock the boat, as bringing in a new goalie would just put them a further step back with no familiarity. The opposite would usually stand for if Samsonov goes elsewhere, but despite him switching teams for the first time in his NHL career, his numbers from the past year were remarkably solid and consistent. He’s likely worthwhile wherever he goes, though he may just need his win totals adjusted depending on the team. (may24)

16. As for Michael Bunting, the bargain top-six winger is likely going to be cashing out in free agency this year. It’s unfortunate for both him and the Leafs that he is leaving on a sour note, and with a reputation that draws the ire of referees. Overall, he positively impacted games, and showed that he can play well with good players. He won’t have the success that Zach Hyman has had alongside the dynamic center duo in Edmonton though, so hopefully no team thinks he needs the same kind of contract, especially with that kind of term. The one thing he does have going for him though is that he’s approaching his breakout threshold. (may24)

17. Logan Cooley has decided to forego signing his ELC with the Coyotes, and will be returning to the NCAA for the year, but Arizona is accumulating some nice pieces, as Clayton Keller is looking like a 90+ point player, Dylan Guenther is likely going to be a full-timer next year, and the other pieces like Nick Schmaltz, Barrett Hayton, Lawson Crouse, Jack McBain, Matias Maccelli… the list goes on. (may24)

18. With the situation in LA right now, they seem primed for a goalie trade. There are a few top goalies that may be available in a trade this summer as well. Between Connor Hellebuyck, Juuse Saros, Thatcher Demko, Linus Ullmark, and Karel Vejmelka on the trade market, and Frederik Andersen, Tristan Jarry, and Ilya Samsonov on the free agent market. The feeling is that the Kings are really only missing a top-tier goalie as their youth grows in around a solid core, and that they are going to take a big swing this summer. (may24)

19. It sure seemed as if Cole Caufield was well on his way to a successful fantasy season until his surgery: 26 goals and 36 points in 46 games, managing 3.4 shots per contest and 10 power-play points. It wouldn’t have been elite or anything, but solid enough in multi-cat formats, even ones including blocks/hits. At the time of his injury on January 19^th, Caufield was inside the 95^th percentile of NHL forwards in goals and shot attempts per 60 minutes. He is just starting to scratch his fantasy upside. At a minimum, he is going to be a great goal scorer for many, many years. (may23)

20. Caufield was injured, though, so calling his season a true fantasy success would not be accurate. In fact, it’s hard to say there were many fantasy successes on a team that had one player (Nick Suzuki, 66) reach the 60-point mark. In fact, Suzuki was the only player to reach the 40-point mark as Kirby Dach finished second on the team in points with 38 in 58 contests. Suzuki could qualify as a success with 26 goals and 66 points, posting 17 PPPs and 162 shots. He ended up inside the top-125 skaters on Yahoo! Fantasy, out-performing his ADP/ranking by a few rounds. A minor success, but a success. (may23)

21. Like Caufield, it could have been a very successful fantasy season for Mike Matheson had it not been for injury. He played just 48 games, but posted 8 goals, 26 assists, 126 shots, nine PPPs, 80 blocks, and 53 hits. On an 82-game basis, that works out to roughly 14 goals, 44 assists, 215 shots, 15 PPPs, 137 blocks, and 91 hits. All of those marks, except the hits/blocks, would have easily been a career best. A short season, but Matheson was great in the fantasy playoffs in March/early April.

A special shout out to Sam Montembeault. He put up 0.43 Goals Saved Above Expected per 60 minutes this season, again from Evolving Hockey. To put that into context, Andrei Vasilevskiy was at 0.44 GSAx/60 while Jake Oettinger was at 0.35/60. Montembeault’s team was too awful to give him consistent fantasy value, but he was a fine streamer at times, and it bodes well moving forward. (may23)

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Have a good week, folks – stay safe!!

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