For most of the last decade, the Edmonton Oilers have been trying to get some scoring depth and they may have added some by bringing in Sam Gagner on a professional tryout. The 34-year-old was Edmonton's sixth overall pick in 2007 and he had some good years, but never cracked 50 points. He played a reduced role in Winnipeg last season, managing 14 points in 48 games. There isn't much fantasy value here, but he could find his way to some power play time, and that's not good news for players like Zach Hyman and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Of course, Gagner has to make the roster first.

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In a continuing effort to recapture the magic of the 2022-23 Anaheim Ducks defence, Toronto signed Simon Benoit to a one-year deal worth $775K. The team already has seven defencemen under contract and Benoit makes eight so he's clearly just for depth, but the team needs him to be considerably better when he does play than he did back with the Ducks. Otherwise, he and John Klingberg are going to negatively impact the goaltending in the fantasy game.

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Last week, I started a series in my Ramblings looking at early draft targets, first covering the Atlantic Division and then the Metro. While most fantasy drafts will take place sometime between mid-September and early October, there are still drafts happening now. It is a fun time of the year because information is difficult to come by so there can be values (and landmines) that won't be available a month from now.

Today's Ramblings will continue the draft targets, but this time moving to the Pacific Division. As usual, data will be from our Frozen Tools or Natural Stat Trick, unless otherwise indicated.

(Note: If a forward is designated with an ADP of 'N/A', it means they're outside the top-250 forwards drafted and it's outside the top-100 defencemen for blue liners. For more on these defencemen, and a whole lot more, grab our 2023-24 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide!)

Anaheim – Jamie Drysdale (ESPN ADP: 227.1, Defence 80)

The young rearguard missed nearly the entire 2022-23 season with a shoulder injury but was given a clean bill of health back in the spring. He should be completely ready for training camp, and that includes a full offseason of training.

It feels like a lifetime ago, but Drysdale's rookie 2021-22 campaign saw him play a lot of top PP minutes; he skated 132 of his 167 PPTOI with Trevor Zegras. He finished second on the team's blue line in PPTOI per game, trailing Cam Fowler by five seconds per night.

Looking ahead to 2023-24, Fowler remains the impediment to top PP minutes. There are a few high-end prospects on their way in, but it is very unlikely Owen Zellweger, Jackson LaCombe, or Drew Helleson will take over top PP duties right away. That may go to Drysdale from the first game of the season. Bringing in guys like Radko Gudas, Ilya Lyubushkin, and Robert Hagg might eat into Drysdale's EVTOI, but he could get top PP billing, and that puts 40 points on the table at a very cheap draft price.

Calgary – Andrew Mangiapane (ESPN ADP: N/A)

With Tyler Toffoli moving on and a new coach in town, hopes are high for young wingers like Jakob Pelletier and Matt Coronato. Considering Mangiapane's ADP – which is also outside the top-15 rounds on Yahoo! – it seems like we're forgetting about the incumbents.

It was a down year for Mangiapane, but it was a down year for basically the entire roster outside of Toffoli. He shot just 9.3% after posting a 17.1% conversion rate over his first 260 career games. Just a 13% shooting rate would have seen him push 25 goals and 50 points, and that's with little power play production.

To highlight his finishing problem, here is how well (or poorly) he finished his 5-on-5 shots way back in 2019-20 when he had 17 goals skating 13:42 a night (from HockeyViz):

And this past 2022-23 season:

The effort in 2019-20 wasn't the best of his career and still looks much better than 2022-23.

There is a spot on the top PP unit up for grabs and Mangiapane will stay in Calgary's top-6 forward mix. He has averaged 26 goals, 22 assists, 171 shots, and 78 hits per 82 games over his last three seasons, and that's with very little PP output. There could be a very cheap 30-goal, 55-point, 190-shot, 80-hit winger here.

Edmonton – Zach Hyman (ESPN ADP: 104.3, Forward 54)

There just isn't much to pick from here. The top guys are the top guys, Evan Bouchard is running the PP, Darnell Nurse will rack up the peripherals, Mattias Ekholm is being drafted at a reasonable spot, and Stuart Skinner's top-15 goalie ADP feels right.

Hyman just presents a good value on ESPN right now. He was a top-35 forward in G/A/PPP/SOG/HIT/BLK formats last season and with the team's reluctance to use Evander Kane on the top power play, he'll hold onto his role as long as he performs. If Hyman can be had anywhere around the 50^th forward off the board, that is solid value.

Los Angeles – Quinton Byfield (ESPN ADP: 229.1, Forward 171)

There were two options I was deciding between other than Byfield: Arthur Kaliyev and Brandt Clarke. Kaliyev may be pigeon-holed in the bottom-6/second PP with the team's depth, and will be behind Byfield to start the year. Clarke seems to have a lot of offseason proponents so there's no need to dig in there. Byfield, however, is another matter.

I wrote about Byfield on my personal blog, focusing on his injury delays and his subsequent impact on Los Angeles's top line. It looked like he ran out of steam in the playoffs, but he's healthy for the first time in years and has had a full offseason of training. This should be the year Byfield really starts to impress upon the wider NHL audience.

It is fair to wonder what the outlook would be on Byfield if he hadn't shot 4.1%, and hadn't registered one power-play point in 53 contests. Assuming the Kings run a pair of 4F/1D power plays, that could increase a lot – the Kings had five forwards reach 20 PPPs, six reach double digits, and it would have been seven if Gabriel Vilardi were healthy all year. This isn't pencilling Byfield in for 21 power-play points but managing 10-12 is reasonable. A rebound in shooting percentage, a consistent top-6 role, and secondary PP minutes puts 15 goals, 50 points, and a hit-per-game on the table with upside well beyond that.

San Jose – Jacob MacDonald (ESPN ADP: N/A)

When looking at San Jose's blue line depth, we can say this much: they certainly have defencemen on the team.

Last year, after Erik Karlsson, it was just throwing defencemen at the wall and hoping they stick on the power play; they had five defencemen skate between 30 seconds and 1:30 a game of PPTOI, but none of them reached 65 total minutes with the man advantage. It was just Karlsson and then whomever was rested, apparently. All this is to say there shouldn't be any competition for top PP minutes on the Sharks blue line. Or maybe we see a whole season of Jacob MacDonald, PP1 quarterback.

It could very well be that MacDonald runs the power play because he has that experience in the AHL. It seems absurd that the team would turn the power play keys over to a 30-year-old with more ECHL games than NHL games, but it's something we need to consider with their lack of options. Either way, grabbing MacDonald at the end of deep drafts could see sneaky value for fantasy players. All I will say is that if a fantasy owner is relying on getting this top PP blue line role right for fantasy success, things have gone horribly wrong.

Seattle – Oliver Bjorkstrand (ESPN ADP: 228.8, Forward 165)

Mining Seattle for fantasy value is tough because of the way the team runs – only one regular forward last year (Alex Wennberg, 18:41) cracked 17:30 a night, and no forward reached 2:45 of PPTOI per night. To that last point: about half of regular PP forwards in the league (108/214) reached 2:45 a night, yet no Kraken forward did it. Spreading out the ice time that much limits the fantasy upside for everybody on the top-half of the roster.

All that aside, Bjorkstrand is being drafted as the final roster spot in a lot of 12-team leagues, if at all. He had a brutal start to the 2022-23 campaign, posting 4 goals and 16 points in 34 games while shooting just 4.5%. In calendar 2023, though, he had 16 goals and 29 points in 47 games while shooting 14.5%. That is much closer to what he had done in his career.

Any Kraken selection comes with risk. There are enough similar forwards that an established player can go from 17 minutes a night to 15 minutes a night quickly, and no one should be expected to reach 19 minutes. Bjorkstrand can reach 25-goal, 50-point, 200-shot, 70-hit marks and it wouldn't be an extreme rebound. That will work just fine as a bench option, and a fortunate shooting season puts 30 goals on the table.

Vancouver – Anthony Beauvillier (ESPN ADP: 228.7, Forward 161)

There are five Canucks wingers for four top-6 wing spots: Brock Boeser, Andrei Kuzmenko, Conor Garland, Ilya Mikheyev, and Anthony Beauvillier. Mikheyev was injured just a few games after new coach Rick Tocchet took over, but among the other four wingers, Boeser received the most ice time after that point, followed by Beauvillier at just shy of 17 minutes a night. He put up 20 points in 33 games, which works out to 50 points over a full season. He also posted roughly 1.2 hits and 1.9 shots per game.

Once Tocchet took over, there was a three-wing rotation on the top PP unit between Kuzmenko, Boeser, and Beauvillier. Even if that persists in 2023-24, Beauvillier could still manage double-digit power play points while being PP1 for just one-third of the season and PP2 for the rest.

Given where some of the Canucks players are being drafted, finding value will be difficult among the notable names. It is the wingers where the value comes in and if we assume Garland and Mikheyev are not top PP threats – I don't believe they are – Beauvillier is on the very short list of wingers for a PP1 role. Any injury could see him locked on that unit, and he should get second-line minutes besides that. He is another guy, like Bjorkstrand, with 50-point, 70-hit potential.

Vegas – Logan Thompson (ESPN ADP: 217.7, Goalie 27)

On ESPN and Yahoo!, Thompson and Adin Hill are not separated by much, so it's the Ilya Samsonov/Matt Murray decision of a year ago. Hill signed an extension, so he likely gets first crack at the starter's net, but he doesn't have a long history of success. He has a Stanley Cup, though, so that's something that tips in his favour at the outset of the season.

All the same, the expectation shouldn't be 50-plus starts from Hill. Even including the 2023 playoffs, he doesn't have a single NHL season of 40 starts. It is plausible that not only is Thompson the better goalie, but he'll just get more starts in 2023-24 than Hill. If they end up close, Thompson will be slightly cheaper at the draft table. Given the choice between similar options, we'll go with the cheaper, and possibly better, option.