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, Brennan Des and Dobber

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With the All-Star break winding down, this is the perfect time to look ahead to the rest of the season. For a more in-depth look at the second half, be sure to grab a copy of the 2024 Dobber Hockey Midseason Fantasy Guide! It has projections, prospects to watch for, advanced stats reviews, players that can rebound, trade deadline targets, and a whole lot more. Help yourself out for the stretch run by ordering a copy…

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1. After 12 players battled it out to be the 2024 All-Star Skills event champion, Connor McDavid took home the title and the $1 million prize money. The competition didn’t have the costumes and overall goofiness of previous seasons, and the idea of having an overall champion and not just one-off event winners seemed to work. I’d be willing to bring it back in this simplified format, although I’m sure folks would get bored of it within a few years and long for the pizzazz of previous seasons. I think the skills format worked this season because it focused on exactly that – the skills of the NHL's top players. (feb3)

2. Vancouver did what they did last year and got a big trade deadline name off the board early, only this time it was acquiring instead of trading off:

The Flames have acquired Andrei Kuzmenko, a 2024 first round pick, Hunter Brzustewicz, Joni Jurmo and a conditional 2024 fourth round pick from the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for Elias Lindholm.

This seems to be a pretty good haul on the Calgary side for a pending UFA in Lindholm. Alex's take on the trade can be read here. (feb1)

Lindholm hasn’t been able to make the most of his contract year, as he has seen his points per game decline for the second consecutive season. Going from Matthew Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau (the Calgary version) to Andrew Mangiapane and Yegor Sharangovich as his most frequent even-strength linemates will do that. Lindholm will have a chance to reverse course on that trend, as I would bet the over on him scoring at his current 54-point pace for the remainder of the season. (feb3)

3. As for Kuzmenko, this represents a fresh start. I’d be surprised if the Flames don’t use him in a top-6 role and on the first power play right away, as that is where he has thrived in the past. Ryan Huska might take it easier on Kuzmenko for his defensive play than Rick Tocchet did, which means that Kuzmenko won’t have to overthink things and just play. The Flames seem to have juggled their lines all season aside from keeping Mikael Backlund and Blake Coleman together, so it’s anyone’s guess exactly where Kuzmenko will fit in. He’s not scoring 38 goals this season, but getting to 20 goals is still within reach. (feb3)

4. The Jets followed Western Conference rival Vancouver in adding to their scoring, acquiring Sean Monahan from the Canadiens for a 2024 first-round pick and conditional 2027 third-round pick. Monahan is obviously not the same player he was earlier in his career with Calgary, but he is still a very useful middle-6 piece for a Winnipeg squad gearing up for a playoff run. Mike wrote the Fantasy Take for you.

Expanding on Mike’s observation that Monahan is on pace for 26 power-play points, Monahan’s 16 PPP places him in the top 50 in the league in that category. The only player with as few total points as Monahan (35 PTS) within that top 50 is now-former teammate Mike Matheson, who has registered 19 of his 34 points with the man advantage. Those are the kinds of players to watch if they lose their PP1 spot, as any demotion could result in a major hit to their overall scoring.

One key question in Winnipeg seems to be whether Monahan will bump Alex Iafallo out of the top power play. You never know what coaches will decide, but I would bet on that happening. As Mike explained, Iafallo is being used in the bumper spot like Monahan was in Montreal, so it’s not a positional issue similar to why Nikolaj Ehlers hasn’t been used on the top power play for much of his career (I’ve been told by a source close to the team that Ehlers wants to play in the same spot as Mark Scheifele). Compared to Monahan, Iafallo has just 5 PPP all season, and he last registered a power-play point on December 16. In fact, Iafallo snapped a 10-game point drought in his last game, so I wouldn’t be overly bullish on him for fantasy purposes anyway. (feb3)

5. The slumping LA Kings made a coaching change, replacing Todd McLellan with assistant coach Jim Hiller. In-season coaching changes can spark a team in the short-term – just ask Edmonton.

Perhaps McLellan was at least partially done in by riding Cam Talbot too often early in the season to the point where his numbers took a steep decline (0-7-3, 3.86 GAA, .881 SV% since the Christmas break). David Rittich has even started the last two games for the Kings, winning the last one while making 39 saves in a 4-2 win. It will be interesting to see whether Hiller decides to continue with the “less cold” hand in Rittich or if he’s confident that the rest will do Talbot some good. We won’t find out for a while, as Hiller will have to wait another week to make his Kings head coaching debut, which is next Saturday against the red-hot Oilers.

For more on the coaching change, Mike has the Fantasy Take. (feb3)

6. Yesterday’s Ramblings discussed some players that could have a big 10 weeks to close out the regular season. Not necessarily high-end fantasy options but players that are showing signs of life that can help fantasy rosters for a cheap acquisition cost whether through waivers or trade.

Today, let’s continue looking at the second half and talk specifically about keeper/dynasty formats.

This is the time of the fantasy hockey season where owners are making the decision to go for the title/playoff spot or re-tool for the future. For managers in keeper and dynasty formats, this often involves making decisions on high-end names. Let’s talk about some of the high-end names that are surely at the forefront of many trades in these types of leagues. As usual, data will be from Natural Stat Trick or Frozen Tools, unless otherwise indicated. (feb2)

So, let’s check out a couple: 

7. Tage Thompson

It has not been a good season for Buffalo and Thompson is no exception. Figuring out what’s gone wrong isn’t as simple as one or two things, and that’s what makes the stretch run very uncertain.

The first thing is how the team abandoned the rush offense that made their scoring prolific at times. Tracking data from AllThreeZones clearly shows a significant drop from one of the most rush-heavy teams to a below-average one:

As a trade-off, Buffalo is much better defensively at 5-on-5 than a season ago, but this is a genuine shift in how the team operates offensively, which doesn’t bode well for a Tage turnaround. He has also been earning just 12:50 per game in 5-on-5 time since the Christmas break, about his season average, and down a fair chunk from the 13:40 a season ago.

The other problem is the power play. Thompson has three PP goals in 39 games and that comes one season after he had 20 PP tallies. Shooting 9.4% against a three-year average of 21.9% seems to underline the big problem. Here’s the issue with that shooting percentage: just 45% of Thompson’s PP shot attempts are making it on target. His three-year average prior was 60.8%. He is getting more of his shot attempts blocked, and more are missing the net, and that would indicate to me that teams are playing him tighter which forces him to be finer with his shots. The results haven’t been ideal. Things should get better through natural regression alone, but it’s hard to say they will approach last season’s rates. These are problems that are fixable, so that’s the silver lining here, but that feels more likely to happen in the offseason/training camp than the next 33 games. (feb2)

8. Joey Daccord

A lot of a fantasy goaltender’s value is tied into the success of their team; Charlie Lindgren has just nine wins in 20 starts because Washington can’t score while Semyon Varlamov‘s Goals Against Average has gone up when compared to 2022-23 despite a higher save percentage because the Islanders allow way too many shots. When looking for a fantasy goalie, especially in a small sample like the 10 weeks post-break, evaluating the team in front of them is critical.

All that is why it’s not hard to buy into Joey Daccord‘s run. He has 13 wins in his last 24 games, a stretch that has seen him post a .930 save percentage. Among the 33 goalies with at least 900 minutes played in that span, Daccord is facing the fifth-farthest average shot distance at 37.9 feet (the median is around 35.5 feet). He also doesn’t face heavy shot volume, either. In that sense, he’s not being heavily tested, and the shots he does face are generally easier to save than most goalies. Seattle’s 5-on-5 defense has improved after a rocky (for them) start, and they don’t take a lot of penalties. That is all great news for Daccord. Goal scoring might be an issue for wins, but as long as the defense holds up, it’ll make Daccord’s job easier.

Can Daccord be a .920 goalie the rest of the way? That is lofty, and goalies are fickle, especially in small samples. With that said, he’s in a position to succeed and when looking for a productive fantasy goalie in a small sample, it is hard to ask for much more than that. (feb2)

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9. Columbus announced that Adam Fantilli will be out eight weeks with a laceration to his calf sustained in Sunday’s game against Seattle. That would put him on track to return at the end of March, so it doesn’t end his season, but it will only give him a few weeks of game action. (feb1)

10. On Tuesday, a few offseason breakout predictions that have not come to fruition were discussed. Today, let’s look at some potential breakouts that are in the cards over the next 10 weeks. As always, data from Natural Stat Trick and Frozen Tools, unless otherwise indicated.

For more breakout predictions, as well as second-half projections, advanced stats, prospects in the offing, and a whole lot more, be sure to grab your copy of the 2024 Dobber Hockey Midseason Fantasy Guide!

Two things we are looking for when trying to identify a potential breakout player:

1. The opportunity for meaningful offensive minutes, and preferably both top-6 and top power play minutes.
2. Signs of life in a lesser role whether through shot rates, playmaking numbers, unluckiness, or likely some combinations of the three.

These won’t necessarily be players succeeding for the first time but could include names that have had success in prior seasons but have had an unsuccessful first half. (feb1)

Let's check out a couple:

11. Dmitri Voronkov

Dating back to December 11^th, or Columbus’s last 20 games, Voronkov has a 5-on-5 individual expected goals/60 rate of 1.36. That mark is top-5 among all forwards with at least 200 minutes in that span, just ahead of names like Zach Hyman and Trevor Moore. His 82-game pace is for just over 20 goals, and his 42 hits and 35 penalty minutes in 44 games bring some banger value as well. This is a 23-year-old who had more goals (32) than assists (30) over his most recent three seasons in the KHL, so that he has more assists (13) than goals (12) to this point of his rookie season is a good sign.

Relying on any Columbus skater for consistent production is kind of a fool’s errand; we have to admit that much. The power play and even strength line combinations change frequently, and Voronkov has yet to reach 18 minutes in a single game this season. He is not at the top of their pecking order, but he’s shown good chemistry with both Kirill Marchenko and Kent Johnson, and he can offer enough peripherals in 14-15 minutes of ice time for relevance in banger leagues. If Voronkov’s 5-on-5 shooting percentage climbs – just 8.2% in this span – the goals will follow. If he can ever start earning 17 minutes a night regularly? That’s when the juice becomes worth the squeeze. (feb1)

12. Olen Zellweger

This is an easy one, and for a prospect that has a lot of hype, it’s likely Zellweger was nabbed off the waiver wire in most non-shallow fantasy leagues. Regardless, it provides an opportunity to talk about his upside.

Expectations are high for the 20-year-old blue liner. He was second in points by defensemen (first by points per game) in his final WHL season and led the WHL in points (and points per game) the year before. Pat Quinn at Dobber Prospects wrote about him as a top defense prospect to own in long-term keeper leagues and I agree with that. The model at Hockey Prospecting views him as a player that is very, very likely to be a star in the league, too.

In his three NHL games (before Wednesday night), Zellweger has three shots, three hits, five blocks, and a power play assist. He ran what should be the team’s top PP unit in all three contests, though there have been times when the other power play has gotten more ice time. C’est la vie.

Every fantasy manager has ‘their’ guys. They are players that person is higher on than most, even if that player is an exceptional talent anyway. Zellweger is one of those players for me. Whenever I’ve had a chance to watch him, the things he does with the puck are often impressive, if not jaw-dropping. His agility helps with his escapability so even if he’s not a tremendous straight-line skater (which is a strength anyway), the shiftiness helps him make high-end plays in both zones. There will be mistakes, of course, and those will take time to correct, but the upside is sky-high with Zellweger. Consistent fantasy production will almost certainly be lacking if he’s skating 15 minutes a game, but this is a guy that should be on fantasy rosters in any league that isn’t shallow due to the power play role alone. It is time to get excited. (feb1)

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13. For some quick hits, here are a few players I’m keeping an eye on.

Anthony Cirelli – Skating on the second line with Brandon Hagel and Nick Paul recently, Cirelli went into the break with eight points in six games, averaging nearly 19 minutes a night. Hagel and Cirelli have been dominant together without Steven Stamkos on their line (3.0 goals/60, 62.6% expected goal share in 257 minutes) and with Tampa Bay fighting for a playoff spot, they are leaning more on Cirelli and his line mates. 

Adam Boqvist – A recent injury was unfortunate, but Boqvist had been averaging 22 minutes a night in the six games since getting back to the lineup. This is a player who often demonstrated high-end offensive skill but was so poor defensively that coaches hesitated to use him. His defense still isn’t strong, but opportunity matters. Just check to see where, and how often, he’s being used when Columbus returns from their break.

Logan Cooley – Being on pace for a 43-point season is nothing to sneeze at as a rookie, especially on a team that has struggled to score at 5-on-5 for large swaths of the season outside of Michael Carcone’s absurd stretch. He had points in four straight games heading into the break and had shown good chemistry with Dylan Guenther in a depth role: 60.4% expected goal share, and 54.1% shot attempt share, at 5-on-5 in 102 minutes together. (feb1)

14. Over the last week I’ve published the Cap League Rankings lists for both goalies and skaters, and also released the salary projections for the top-100 free agents. The fun part about updating the charts/tables, and then writing up and releasing the lists, is it puts my focus onto a different group of players from the ones that are more often discussed in the hockey and fantasy hockey media, as well as those that I am more on top of as part of my own fantasy leagues.

I wanted to talk about a few of them now, in no particular order:

Thomas Harley‘s salary projection of an annual value of $2 million and change brought some interesting comments, but the numbers check out on the back end. That doesn’t mean it’s to likely going to come in higher than that, but at this point the sample size is too small for any algorithm to be backing up the Brinks truck for a 22-year-old. Should he keep this up (and he has the talent, pedigree, and support to), then his cap hit on his next contract is going to be a big one. On that same note, if he keeps up this level or play and production, then the algorithm is going to recognize that and the projection is going to rise in turn by the end of the year.

We saw Owen Power and Harley’s teammate Miro Heiskanen get over $8 million on their first standard contracts, and while Harley might not be quite in the same vein, he’s close. On the flip side, bridge deals to Noah Dobson, Evan Bouchard, and K’Andre Miller could also be used as comparables, but those ones aren’t aging too well and are going to lead to some massive third contracts very soon. It would likely be in the best interest of the Stars to lock in long-term now while they can still get a reasonable number on the deal. (jan31)

15. We’re still about a full season’s worth of games away from Mason McTavish hitting his breakout threshold, which is going to have him hitting the point-per-game threshold, all that on top of some pretty solid multi-category contributions – especially for under 17 minutes per game. That means that it’s going to line up with him being in a contract year, which could lead to a big jump from what we’re expecting as of today. Anaheim played hard ball with Trevor Zegras, so we’ll see if they pull the same stunts with McTavish, or if they have learned their lesson and get him locked up early. In the meantime, he’s someone I’m targeting in fantasy, but he always seems to fly under the radar a little as a West-coast player. (jan31)

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16. Every year, there are players that I’m higher on than the consensus, and there are players I’m lower on. At the end of November, I wrote about four players pegged for a breakout that had failed to live up to expectations. Matt Boldy was one of them, and he has certainly turned things around under John Hynes, but the rest are still misses.

Let’s go through some misses (injuries aside), what’s gone wrong so far, and whether things can turn around over the next 30-some games as fantasy managers prepare for the stretch run. Data from Natural Stat Trick and Frozen Tools, unless otherwise indicated.

Tim Stützle

Heading into Monday night’s game, Stützle was a point-per-game player, so it’s hard to call him a full disappointment. However, in leagues counting hits, my preseason projection had the center as a top-15 fantasy skater. It is safe to say that he’s fallen well short of those expectations with just 10 goals and 2.8 shots/game, a decline from last season.

Ottawa’s power play has been a big problem. Ottawa has scored just 5.3 goals/60 minutes with he and Brady Tkachuk on the ice for the man advantage. Last season, that number was 8.6/60 and the year before it was 9.1. It isn’t just because of Thomas Chabot missing time, either, as they are actually scoring less often with Chabot than other defenseman on the ice. Not only is Stützle goalless on the man advantage, but his power play assists/60 are down nearly 16% from his two-year average.

The bigger problem is that even if the power play rebounds, some of those gains could be lost due to Stützle leading the league in secondary assists/60 at 5-on-5 by a wide margin. A regression there would partially eat into any PP improvement. No matter what happens, unless Ottawa’s power play turns itself around, he will not be a high-end fantasy option the rest of the way. (jan30)

17. Matty Beniers

That Seattle would regress as a whole seemed likely, given their team 5-on-5 shooting percentage in 2022-23 was the highest for an 82-game season since advanced stats started being tracked in 2007. But that Beniers would have an 82-game pace of 35 points as part of that regression was definitely not expected. Missing five games due to injury aside, it has been a brutal fantasy season for the second year forward (though he’s played in parts of three seasons).

Last season, the tracking website AllThreeZones had Beniers second among nine Seattle forwards (min. 300 tracked minutes) by scoring chance assists/60 (SCA/60, or the rate he assists on a teammate’s scoring chance). His rate of 4.11/60 was 20% higher than the league average among forwards, and his overall assists/60 at 5-on-5 was inside the top-third of forwards in the league.

It has been a different story this season. His SCA/60 rate has dropped to 3.66/60, which is still above average, but a drop from last season. His assists/60 have declined nearly 40% and that, on top of his own shooting percentage drop, has crushed his fantasy value. For a guy I thought could get to 70 points, and had projected for well over 60, this is a massive disappointment.

There is definite bad luck going on as the team is shooting just 5.6% with him on the ice, a mark that is in the bottom-10 of the league. Even just 9% would see the team score over a full goal more per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 than his current rate.

At the same time, this is the chance to highlight the problem with relying on Kraken forwards for fantasy production. Alex Wennberg leads the group in ice time per game but is under 19 minutes – no Kraken forward is among the top-60 of the league’s forwards in TOI/game this season. Frozen Tools also has no Kraken forwards earning 51% of the team’s PP ice time. This approach can help the team win games, but it certainly won’t help fantasy managers, and Beniers’s season shows how little margin for bad luck there is with this kind of deployment.  (jan30)

18. Bowen Byram

After posting 41 points in 72 games across two seasons, Byram seemed primed for a 40-point season in 2023-24, even if he missed 8-10 games (my 82-game projection was for 47 points). That has certainly not been the case as he sits with 12 points in 41 games, having missed eight games. Pacing for a 24-point season is not what was expected. At all.

It is hard to point to bad luck here. In over 500 tracked minutes in the 2021-2023 stretch, he averaged 2.12 SCA/60. In over 220 tracked minutes this season alone, that number is 0.54, so his playmaking has collapsed. He’s carrying the puck into the zone on just 31.7% of his zone entries where the prior two seasons saw Byram carry the puck into the zone on 37.8% and 41.4% of the time. Of the entries, he is passing off less than 5% of the time, where he was between 12-16% the prior two seasons. Last season, he passed or carried the puck into the offensive zone over 53% of the time, but he’s under 37% this season. Combine the loss of controlled zone entries with a complete disappearance of playmaking, and it’s not hard to figure out why he has precisely one (1) primary assist at 5-on-5 in 41 games. (He had six of those assists in 42 games last season, and five the year before in 30 games.)

The final note is that he’s not playing much with Colorado’s top stars. On the season, he’s spent just 26.9% of his 5-on-5 time with Nathan MacKinnon on the ice. Comparatively, over 70% of Cale Makar‘s 5-on-5 time has been with MacKinnon on the ice. That Makar has been healthy has been great for his fantasy managers and the team in general, but it’s certainly not helping Byram’s fantasy value. With the team’s lack of scoring depth, it’ll be hard for Byram to rack up points the rest of the way.

Setting aside the disappointing fantasy season, there are declines in a lot of areas that made Byram successful in recent seasons. It isn’t a long-term issue, but a better second half in some of the tracking areas – even if it doesn’t lead to much fantasy relevance in the next two months – would help alleviate concerns that would surely pop up in the offseason. (jan30)

19. The Blue Jackets announced that Patrik Laine would be out indefinitely after entering the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program. Injuries have limited the 25-year-old forward to just 18 games this season, and he currently sports a career-low 41-point pace. He’s been out with a broken clavicle since December 14^th. Although it seemed like he was getting close to a return, this past Saturday, we learned he’d suffered a setback in recovery. Obviously, his on-ice play takes a backseat to whatever going on right now. Hopefully, this stint in the program brings him to a better place. (jan29)

20. The Rangers also released a significant injury update on Sunday, ruling Filip Chytil out for the rest of the season. Chytil’s been sidelined with an upper-body injury – believed to be a concussion – since November 2^nd. He recently suffered a setback, raising concerns about his long-term health because he has a history of concussions. The 24-year-old forward broke out with a 50-point pace last year and was primed to build on that this season, centering New York’s second line with Artemi Panarin and Alexis Lafrenière. His absence opened the door for Vincent Trocheck, who has 42 points in 39 games (1.08 points/game) since Chytil got injured – a big jump from four in 10 (0.40 points/game) he had before. Ultimately, the most important thing here is Chytil’s long-term health, so let’s hope this extra time off gives him an opportunity to fully recover for next season. (jan29)

21. With Carter Hart‘s very indefinite leave of absence, Samuel Ersson is now the starter in Philly. He has earned it with some solid play during the first half, but he’s had a rough go of it lately. Ersson now has four consecutive losses and three consecutive really bad starts.

If Ersson isn’t up to the task, the Flyers’ playoff hopes won’t be in great shape. Cal Petersen has been recalled to be Ersson’s backup, and he finished the 6-2 loss for the Flyers. Petersen has struggled mightily during the past few seasons, and he hasn’t shone in the AHL either this season (15 GP, 3.26 GAA, .890 SV%). (jan28)

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Have a good week, folks!
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