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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1. Being involved in a fantasy playoff round in a head-to-head league means that you’re probably referring to the Schedule Planner more often in order to maximize every game played. Wait, you’re not doing that? If it’s not too late, go to the Schedule Planner on Frozen Tools and set your date range.

As we get to week-by-week or even game-by-game decisions as opposed to rest-of-season decisions, matchups become that more crucial. Earlier in the week, I had to decide whether to add Jamie Benn or Nick Schmaltz as I try to win a head-to-head fantasy playoff round. Both Benn and Schmaltz had the benefit of Wednesday and Friday light days, which is why I mention them in particular. Although Schmaltz has scored a little more this season, Benn offers more hits in a league that counts them. As well, the Coyotes have to face the Stars twice, while the Stars get to face the Coyotes twice. On top of that, my son recently bought a Benn t-shirt (shirsey). So I went with Benn. Makes sense, right?

Benn delivered for me on Friday, scoring a pair of goals with three shots, three hits, and two blocked shots. That ability to fill multiple categories is why I still consider him a Top 100 roto player. Benn has goals in three consecutive games and also has 14 points in his last 10 games. He’s rostered in about 70% of both Yahoo and Fantrax leagues, so maybe I lucked out in finding him.

By the way, I later added Schmaltz when I had another opening on my team. I figured two games of Schmaltz this week (as of Friday) would be more productive than one game of Alexis Lafreniere. Finding creative ways to maximize your games played is the name of the game right now. 

2. After underwhelming (by his standards) for much of the season, Alex Ovechkin is heating up again. Ovechkin scored another goal on Friday, giving him six goals in his last four games and at least a goal in all four of those games. Ovie also has multiple points in three consecutive games. To update the all-time total, Ovechkin is only 48 goals away from Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record. (mar23)

3. Tom Wilson has been suspended six games for high-sticking Noah Gregor during Wednesday’s game. Wilson’s track record and the fact that he was offered an in-person hearing meant that the length of the suspension was no surprise. Barring a successful appeal (which I don’t see happening but you never know with the Department of Player Safety), Wilson will be able to return on the Capitals’ Thursday April 4 game.

Unfortunately, this suspension comes right in the middle of the fantasy playoffs for many. Because leagues generally don’t allow a suspended player to occupy an IR spot, you might have to drop Wilson unless you’re in a dynasty format or you have a very high number of bench slots. Even if your team is guaranteed to play next week, Wilson will be unavailable all of next week. A suspension is always an inherent risk of rostering a player like Wilson or Brad Marchand, even if they have plenty to offer fantasy teams when they are in the lineup. And even if they claim that they’ll clean up their act after the latest suspension. (mar23)

4. With Vince Dunn out of the lineup, Ryker Evans is receiving regular ice time and power-play time, having recorded three points (two on the power play) over his last four games. Evans has also received 20 minutes of ice time in each of his last three games. He’s a possible late-season deep league add, and he is also worth consideration in keeper leagues. For more, see his Dobber Prospects profile. (mar23)

5. Tweeted Newsday reporter Andrew Gross: Patrick Roy, talking about his transparency with lineups, says #Isles fans deserve that.

As someone who cares a lot about what line combinations are for each team playing on a given day, it was nice to see this. I will also say that I don’t really understand the complete aversion some coaches have to this. If, say, Vegas decides to put Paul Cotter alongside Nicolas Roy and move Brett Howden up the lineup in Cotter’s place, does that really change the approach of the opposition? Are coaches going to call emergency tape sessions to alter their gameplan because Brett Howden is all of a sudden on the third line? Coaches have no incentive to ever tell the truth to the media about anything, so that’s why it’s good practice to take everything they say with a grain of salt the size of a 10-gallon hat, but there’s no reason for things to be like this. “Yes, we’re going to have the same lineup,” or “no, we’re going to swap Sam Bennett with Anton Lundell” would go a long way with a lot of people. (mar22)

6. Montreal provided an update on winger Joshua Roy, as he'll be out 4-6 weeks with an upper body injury. With four weeks left in the season, his year may be done. Roy took a shot off the hand on Tuesday night and now it appears he’s played his last regular season game of 2023-24. He had four goals and five assists in 23 games while skating just 12:08 per night. He had formed a solid second line with Alex Newhook and now it’s up to Newhook to find the same chemistry with a new left winger. It was Rafael Harvey-Pinard to start with on Thursday. (mar22)

7. Colorado coach Jared Bednar said they hope to get Nikolai Kovalenko into some games before the regular season finishes. The winger had 32 goals and 89 points in his last 98 KHL games and is now making his way to the NHL roster soon, it seems.

Kovalenko is currently nursing a lower-body injury so his insertion into the Colorado lineup is not imminent, but it’ll be interesting to see how they use him when he does. This doesn’t mean he’ll be a lineup regular this season, either, but his line mates might indicate what the team hopes to see from him, and, in turn, what fantasy owners might be able to expect if (when) he pushes for a full-time roster spot next season. Getting healthy is the most important point right now, but it sure seems he’ll get a chance to impress the staff this season. (mar22)

8. Artemi Panarin reached the 40-goal mark (41, actually) with a hat trick in New York’s 5-2 win over Boston on Thursday. That gave him his first 40-goal season of his career, and those tallies also pushed him to 97 points (at time of writing), another career-high. Were it not for hyper-elite seasons from the likes of Nathan MacKinnon or Nikita Kucherov, he’d be in the Hart Trophy conversation.

Jonathan Quick was in net for that win and now has 391 for his career. That ties him with Ryan Miller for the most ever by an American-born goalie. The Rangers don’t have another back-to-back situation this season but they do have Arizona and Ottawa ahead of them, so there are soft starts for the team to turn to Quick before the season is out. (mar22)

9. Just 15 of Lucas Raymond's 60 points entering Saturday action have been with the man advantage, so he’s had a tremendous even-strength season. This is a player I’ve come around on more a lot this season and he really does look like a very good top line offensive force moving forward (something like Seth Jarvis). (mar22)

10. Tyler Seguin returned to the Dallas Stars lineup on Wednesday night. He had missed 11 games with a lower-body injury, an injury that resulted in Logan Stankoven getting recalled. This was the first time Dallas has something resembling their postseason lineup all healthy and in place (with a couple minor changes possible). They are now truly three lines deep scoring-wise and Seguin’s return is a fantasy boost to Mason Marchment and Matt Duchene.

Viktor Arvidsson also returned on Wednesday night and he’s a big addition for the team’s playoff run presuming he can stay healthy. For head-to-head leagues, the Kings have three games next week and they’re all on the road against Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary. (mar21)

11. At the end of February, a pair of Ramblings posts reviewed how certain defensemen improved or declined by their rush contributions at 5-on-5 from 2022-23 to this season (Part 1 and Part 2). Today, we’re going to keep using data made available by the tracking at AllThreeZones and look at improvements or declines in other key areas from blue liners. For now, that means failed exits, so let’s look at some improvements or declines by failed exit percentage from 2022-23 to 2023-24.

This will all be at 5-on-5 and we are going to limit the sample to blue liners with 250 tracked minutes last season and 180 minutes this season. For a reference point, the league average failed exit percentage in 2022-23 was 24.4% and this season it is 26.2%. Relatively speaking, that is a 7.3% increase, and needs to be factored in. Keep in mind that ‘improving’ your failed exit% is a bad thing. 

The Top-10

The first thing that sticks out is we have carryovers from last season including Charlie McAvoy, Adam Fox, Shea Theodore, and Cale Makar. Fantasy value varies among those four players, but all are very productive either in points-only or multi-cat formats and all have shown the ability to be reliable year in and year out (health permitting). (mar19)

[Follow the link for the full analysis…]

12. Checking in on improvements and declines through the season is vital to see which players are getting lucky or unlucky, which players may see improved or declining usage, and so forth. Using tracking data from AllThreeZones, let’s look at forwards that have seen improvements or declines in their playmaking at 5-on-5.

We are going to look at scoring chance assists per 60 minutes (SCA/60), or the rate that the forwards assist on a teammate’s scoring chance. The comparisons will be against games tracked up to January 1^st, the change since then, and where things stand now. The league average SCA/60 of the 235 forwards in our sample is 3.1 in each split.

The Stand-Outs

There is one winger that stands out above the rest for positive changes by SCA, another that is behind him but also far ahead of the third-largest change, and both are currently top-6 forwards for top-3 teams by points percentage. (mar21)

[Follow the link for the full analysis] 

13. The Flyers made Sean Couturier a healthy scratch just a month after naming him captain. Couturier has struggled of late, and the drop-off stated back in December when he sustained a minor – but apparently nagging – injury. For fantasy purposes, his FOW, Hit, and Shot totals have been solid, but the actual production has been sorely lacking.

We’ll see if the scratches can re-light the spark, but the Flyers do have the depth to minimize his role the rest of the way if things don’t turn around. Without Couturier in the lineup, Morgan Frost continued to show well with a 53-point-pace overall. He has filled in well as a top-line center when needed this year, and just recently passed his breakout threshold. The buy-in window on him as a consistent 50+ point player is closing fast. (mar20)

14. Adrian Kempe has to be one of the most underrated pieces in fantasy hockey right now. It’s noteworthy because Kempe’s peripherals have seen an uptick lately, and those could be a few of the swing categories in the matchup.

At time of writing, Kempe was already over 200 shots on the year, having scored on 10% of them, which is a mark that should rise a little by the end of the year, and finish higher most seasons through the rest of his 20s. Kempe also had 34 assists, 17 PPPs, and nearly 100 hits. (mar20)

15. With the news from Nashville that Jeremy Lauzon – he who leads the NHL in hits with a whopping 327 – is out week-to-week with a lower body injury, maybe you’re looking for an add to boost your peripheral stats. May I propose Matt Dumba as the new name for you, who was available in over 80% of Yahoo and Fantrax leagues at the mid-week point. His trade to Tampa has really amped up his peripheral production. v

16. It’s almost time for Rick Roos’ monthly mailbag, and he is looking to take a few more questions. Whether it is something related to finishing your fantasy season strong, an outlook on what to expect in the offseason, or projections for who might be a better keeper/draft option next year, no one dives deeper into these questions than Rick. You can send him a question either by private message "rizzeedizzee" via the DobberHockey Forums or, instead, send an email to [email protected] with "Roos Mailbag" as the subject line. (mar20)

17. David Pastrnak is up to a 113-point pace, and hasn’t missed playing with Patrice Bergeron at all. Surprisingly, Pastrnak is taking less offensive zone faceoffs, doesn’t have any red-flags with his underlying metrics, and his scoring surge is actually being led by a large uptick in assists.

Aside from the bit about losing his Hall-of-Fame center, it feels like I can copy-paste Pastrnak’s summary for Mikko Rantanen as well. The 27-year-old has seen his assist levels rise this year with the goal scoring dropping back down a little, and is on pace to score 112 points on the season.

I had them ranked eighth and ninth respectively on my pre-season draft board, and I could see them fighting for the last inch again next year for who to rank ahead. (mar20)

18. The most under-the-radar trade deadline acquisition in my mind was Jason Zucker. His hit rate has risen with the Predators as well, and it feels like the stats keeper for the Predators is a little trigger-happy when recording hits, so for those of you missing the recent version of Zucker that put up 200 hits in a season, we may see him pace for that the rest of the way this year. (mar20)

19. Zach Werenski really needed a mostly-healthy season this year, and despite missing most of the month of January, he stood (at time of writing) to finish this season with his highest games played number since 2018-19. He is also currently tracking for this to be the highest output of his career, threatening to break the 50-point mark for the first time, and pace for over 60. All this despite the lowest shooting percentage in his career. His shot rate is down a smidge from the last couple of years, but his block rate is way up. All to say, I think he is due a big year again next year (as always, health depending). (mar20)

20. Mark Scheifele had a steep drop off in assists last year after lining up most of the year to Cole Perfetti and an aging Blake Wheeler, but it has rebounded to his usual numbers this year. As long as he is playing with at least one of Nikolaj Ehlers and Kyle Connor for the foreseeable future, then the 80-point seasons should continue to roll in. (mar20)

21. Montreal announced that prospect defenseman David Reinbacher has been assigned to their AHL team in Laval. Reinbacher had 11 points in the Swiss League this season, though it was a rocky year for the franchise, as outlined in this piece from Arpon Basu back in January. There is a month left in the NHL season so it seems very possible Reinbacher spends a few weeks in the AHL but he should get some time in the NHL eventually. What that portends for next season remains to be seen. (mar19)

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Yes, we’re already thinking about the real playoffs. So it’s a good time to mention that Dobber’s 2024 Interactive Playoff Draft List can now be purchased. You can make your own picks for series winners, or go with Dobber’s picks if you’re not sure. Purchase yours here. Keep in mind that the actual spreadsheet will be available for use in early April.

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Have a good week, folks!

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