I don't like to discuss NHL rumours very much in these Ramblings because most of them turn out to be false and it's usually a waste of time. However, there was important news from Kevin Weekes that Nashville's top prospect goaltender Yaroslav Askarov would not be reporting to the AHL this season and was looking out of Nashville:

**Breaking News** 🚨 📰
I'm told that Top Goalie Prospect Askarov has informed the @PredsNHL that he will not report to their @TheAHL team, and has requested a trade. #HockeyX #Preds pic.twitter.com/EQFGs7FUJK

— Kevin Weekes (@KevinWeekes) August 19, 2024

This is hardly a surprise given the long-term extension that the Predators gave to Juuse Saros, but this could be very beneficial to a young team looking to add a top, young goaltender right now. With the obvious caveat that goalies are voodoo, teams like Chicago, Columbus, San Jose, and even Detroit or Los Angeles should be kicking tires right now. We'll see how this all shakes out, but this is a very interesting deal looking to go down before training camp.

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Montreal acquired winger Patrik Laine from Columbus, plus a second round pick, for defenceman Jordan Harris. You can read Brennan’s take on the deal here. I am going to post my thoughts in tomorrow’s Ramblings.

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The 2024-25 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide is now for sale in the Dobber Shop!

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A couple weeks ago, these Ramblings covered a best ball draft I did. It was just to take a first-look overview of ADPs, the tiers of positions, and thoughts on specific players. Since then, I have done another best ball draft and a Yahoo! mock. They don't use the same categories, but they're close enough to complement each other.

One thing that is important in any fantasy league is stacking. It is simply drafting two, three, or more players from the same team and hoping they catch lightning in a bottle to provide great cumulative draft value. Aside from the obvious spots like Edmonton, Colorado, or Tampa Bay, there are recent examples like the Vancouver Canucks (2023-24) and Buffalo Sabres (2022-23) where the team had a phenomenal season and rewarded fantasy mangers stacking them in drafts.

It isn't just conjecture. There was data accumulated by Matt Moody at The Morning Skate pod regarding those best ball formats in 2023-24. In those leagues, the top two teams from each 12-team league advance to a site-wide playoff starting in March. All things equal, there is a 16.7% chance of advancing from the regular season to the playoffs. Moody found that, for example, fantasy teams two-man stacks from Montreal, Nashville, Boston, Philadelphia, and Vancouver had an advancement rate above 25%, as did three-man stacks from Vancouver, the New York Islanders, Colorado, and Toronto. Even some four-man stacks got through:

For that reason, I want to go through some stacks that I think are both A) plausible to achieve in most fantasy formats, and B) have a reasonable chance of working this year. Again, we'll ignore the elite teams because they're either too obvious or difficult to stack correctly.

Buffalo Sabres

At the top of my list is going back to the Buffalo well. A number of times this summer, these Ramblings have mentioned the fact that Lindy Ruff is a coach that likes to push the pace and focus on quick transition from offence to defence, and that could make this Sabres team closer to their 2022-23 edition than 2023-24.

The best part of stacking the Sabres is that, in 12-team leagues, there won't be a need to use a first round or perhaps even a second-round pick. The earliest that Rasmus Dahlin is being drafted is the late-second, early-third round on Underdog, and even later on Yahoo!. Similarly, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen and Tage Thompson are being drafted somewhere after the top-50 picks, and names like Alex Tuch, JJ Peterka, Dylan Cozens, and Owen Power even later.

I know it seems like he's been in the NHL forever, but Rasmus Dahlin is just 24 years old. He is starting to come into his prime and shown the ability to be a monster peripheral performer. Even if Cale Makar puts up 15 more points, Dahlin can make up the difference elsewhere. We have already seen the upside that Thompson and Tuch can bring, and Peterka and Luukkonen may be just scratching the surface of stardom.

Utah

If there is a team in the West I think can surprise this season, it's Utah. This was a team that had a higher goals-per-minute rate than teams like Calgary, Los Angeles, Ottawa, and Buffalo last season but who couldn't keep the puck out of their net. To help remedy that, they completely overhauled their blue line by adding Mikhail Sergachev, John Marino, and Ian Cole. This team should be better defensively, perhaps by a lot, and if their young offensive stars keep improving, they can be a Wild Card playoff team. There isn't much need to spend high levels of draft capital on players like Clayton Keller and Mikhail Sergachev, and then moving down to names like Dylan Guenther or Connor Ingram. It is a relatively cheap stack to make.

Ottawa Senators

I get the eyerolls that are going on, seeing as we've been waiting for Ottawa to take that next step as a franchise for a while now. However, as far as stacking in fantasy goes, aside from Brady Tkachuk, there are good values across the board. On both Yahoo! and Underdog, Tim Stutzle is going after the 50^th pick, and that makes him stackable with Tkachuk. After that, there are good values on everyone from Claude Giroux to Drake Batherson to Thomas Chabot.

The real question is what to do on the blue line. Both Chabot and Jake Sanderson are candidates for the top power play unit, and there is enough offensive talent to basically run two somewhat even power plays. That might be good for the team, but it'd be awful for fantasy value, and that is the big concern here.

Regardless, other than a first-round pick on Tkachuk, it won't be necessary a top-50 pick on any other Senators player as part of a stack. We know the upside that guys like Stützle and Chabot have, so this might be worth taking a swing.

Vegas Golden Knights

We are waiting for the shoe to drop on when the age of the Golden Knights, and the lack of top prospects, catches up to them. It is not likely to be 2024-25, and there are not many Vegas players going anywhere near the top of the draft. Depending on the league, Jack Eichel is going somewhere between picks 20 and 50, and then everyone else much later. So, depending on the league, there may not be a need to use a first or second round pick on any Vegas skaters, Tomas Hertl is going anywhere between the 7^th and 12^th rounds, Shea Theodore even later, and there are good values on Mark Stone and William Karlsson. There is even decent value on Noah Hanifin, even if I'd rather risk drafting Theodore. 

There are some injury-plagued players in the mix, which is why it's not one of my favourite stacks to put together. However, this team was 11^th by 5-on-5 goal scoring last season. They lost Jonathan Marchessault, but Pavel Dorofeyev is ready for full-time duties, and they'll hopefully get a full-ish season out of Stone. That can make up for part of the Marchessault loss, and an improved power play would go a long way to boosting the fantasy values of the top players. Considering the light investments necessary at the draft table, the Golden Knights are a stack to consider.

Columbus Blue Jackets

At the bottom of my wish list is Columbus, but there are reasons to be excited here. At 5-on-5 last year, the Blue Jackets tied Buffalo for 12^th in the league by 5-on-5 goal scoring. They outscored teams like Nashville, Tampa Bay, Carolina, and the New York Rangers. The big problem was the power play where they finished 31^st. In fact, their power play goal rate (5.2 goals/60) was less than half of the top teams in Edmonton (10.5 goals/60) and Tampa Bay (11 goals/60). That is just not good enough to support high-end fantasy values for several players.

The good news is that this team should be healthy and all their young forwards like Kirill Marchenko and Adam Fantilli are a year more experienced. They have good playmaking veterans with Johnny Gaudreau and Sean Monahan, and Zach Werenski is still capable of running a good power play when he has the forwards to do it. There is sneaky-good depth scoring on this roster with a solid top-end, even with Laine now in Montreal.

The better news is there is no rush to draft Columbus players in drafts. Werenski might be the only player that is a top-100 pick, and the rest can be grabbed towards the late-middle or end of most drafts. Columbus has the talent among their young and veteran forwards to be above-average offensively, and there are very low draft costs here. It is possible to create the core of a team with the typical high-end picks and then grab this stack in the second half. Not a bad gamble for those taking part in a lot of one-year drafts.

St. Louis Blues

It isn't that I'm particularly high on the St. Louis Blues, it's that no one else is, either. On Underdog, the only member of their top power play unit from 2023-24 that is going inside the top-100 picks is Jordan Kyrou sometime in the 5^th-6^th round. Over on Yahoo!, the only member of their top power play unit from 2023-24 that is going inside the top-100 picks is Robert Thomas sometime in the 7^th round. If we assume that the first 6-8 players drafted on each roster of a 12-team league are that team's core, none of the top five picks and only one of the picks from 6-8 will be necessary to start this stack. That is the kind of value we look for when trying to hit on a stack.

A down year from Kyrou still produced 31 goals, 67 points, and 251 shots. A down year from Buchnevich still saw him crest 60 points with over 200 shots. Thomas is just hitting his stride and he has 100-point upside. With Torey Krug injured, Faulk is the guy that will at least get top PP minutes to start the year, even if he doesn't hold on the role all season. With the multi-cat value Jake Neighbours can bring, there are solid fantasy performers across the board. Like Columbus and Vegas, St. Louis isn't a team I'm specifically looking to stack, but there is value here for fantasy owners wanting to avoid popular targets.