Max Pacioretty has agreed to a professional tryout with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Achilles problems have led to Pacioretty playing just 52 games across the last two seasons, and he produced just seven goals in that time. It will be interesting to see how he looks in camp, but he turns 36 years old in November and has a lengthy, serious, recent injury history. He is not the player of 2018 anymore.

*

Utah has added Kailer Yamamoto on a PTO of his own:

Kailer Yamamoto has signed a PTO with Utah HC.

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) September 11, 2024

Yamamoto had 16 points in 59 games with Seattle last season and he'll be 26 years old before the season starts. This might be his last chance to establish himself as a reliable NHLer.  

*

Fantasy hockey draft season is fully upon us as NHL rookie camps start this week(end) with training camps in full swing next week. This time of year always brings debate on skaters and goalies, which to choose and which to avoid, and which ones can be league-winning options.

When I go about my fantasy drafts, rarely does it happen that a player is a full-on 'draft this guy' or full-on 'avoid this guy'. Rather, it's all about what a player is expected to bring, what they can bring if things go right, and what their draft cost is.

Just for one example, a guy like that for me this season is Sam Reinhart. We saw last year what can happen when everything goes right, but the two questions are whether he can do that again despite it being the best season of his career by a wide margin, and whether he's worth it at his draft cost. Drafting Reinhart will often mean using a top-25 pick (current Underdog ADP of 22^nd overall and Fantrax ADP of 26^th overall) and I'm skeptical he'll come close to what he did in 2023-24. For that reason, Reinhart is a guy I haven't drafted yet through six drafts. If he was a top-50 pick, it'd be a different story.

My next couple of Ramblings I am going to talk about specific players, their ADPs, and the case both for and against drafting them. Today is going to be defencemen and we'll move onto forwards tomorrow. Most data from Natural Stat Trick or Evolving Hockey.

** Don't forget to grab your copy of the 2024-25 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide! **

Quinn Hughes (VAN-D)

Yahoo: 19.8, D2

Underdog: 42.7, D5

Fantrax: 25.7, D5

Case For: The case for Hughes is pretty straightforward: he has had three consecutive years of an improving points-per-game rate, reaching 92 points in 2023-24. He doesn't turn 25 years old until October and is a clear 24- to 25-minute guy with top power play time on a playoff team. The elder Hughes has found a groove in the NHL to where he won the Norris Trophy last season and has cemented himself among the top-10 defencemen in the league (in real terms). In points-only fantasy formats, there is an argument for taking Hughes as the top fantasy defenceman off the board, and most certainly no lower than the third defenceman.

Case Against: The case against Hughes is pretty straightforward, too: he just doesn't not bring many peripherals in multi-cat leagues. The 2023-24 campaign was the first time he reached 80 games in any of the last three seasons, playing all 82, and he still didn't crack 200 shots. Hughes also had just 29 hits and 55 blocks, giving him about one-third fewer hits than Adam Fox, and fewer than half the blocks despite more games played. Hughes also shot a career-high 8.5% against a three-year average of 4.5%, and Vancouver had the highest team shooting percentage at 5-on-5 in an 82-game season for any team since 2007.

Verdict: Hughes is frequently a top-5 fantasy defenceman off the board in multi-cat formats. In 2023-24, he was the fourth overall defenceman in standard Yahoo! leagues and that format doesn't include hits. Barring changes in peripheral production, that tells us what he needs to do to be a top-5 fantasy defenceman in banger formats. It just doesn't seem as if there's value in multi-cat formats.   

Noah Dobson (NYI-D)

Yahoo: 62.7, D10

Underdog: 52.5, D7

Fantrax: 41.7, D8

Case For: Dobson is the unquestioned top defenceman on the New York Islanders' roster. Even in the second half under new coach Patrick Roy, when the team's blue line got healthy, Dobson was pushing 23 minutes a night on average. He has three straight seasons of double-digit goals, three straight seasons of at least 100 blocks, and finally surpassed a hit per game with 84 in 79 contests last season. His 5.7% shooting in 2023-24 was right in line with his 6.2% shooting as a three-year average, too. While his individual points percentage (IPP, or rate he garnered a point on Islanders goals) at 5-on-5 was 50.7%, the team's shooting percentage with him on the ice at 5-on-5 was slightly lower than it was in 2022-23, and that led to fewer overall goals. Pullback in his IPP can be outweighed, to some degree, by an increase in team goal scoring.

Case Against: Though skating nearly 23 minutes a game down the stretch is still a good sign, he skated a whopping 26 minutes a game up until the All-Star break. Injuries on the Islanders blue line led to him getting a pile of minutes, and when they got healthy, he went from Rasmus Dahlin-type usage to Vince Dunn-type usage. He started the year with 52 points in 49 games with all that ice time, and that fell to 18 points in 29 games after the All-Star break (removing one game where he got injured in his second shift). The ice-time decline hurt his block and shot totals, too, and if he's the guy he was post-All-Star break rather than the guy he was beforehand, he's not a top-10 fantasy defenceman.

Verdict: Dobson is probably fine enough to take around the 10^th defenceman off the board because of his role, consistency, and peripheral production, but much higher than that brings a lot of risk to a player that is going to see a significant usage drop.

Brock Faber (MIN-D)

Yahoo: 105.9, D23

Underdog: 113.4, D19

Fantrax: 94.0, D22

Case For: Faber has a good pedigree behind him and was one of the breakout stars of 2023-24, posting 47 points in 82 games while skating nearly 25 minutes a night. Performing that well at 21 years old bodes very well as he garners more experience, and the top of Minnesota's lineup is still lethal with Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, and Joel Eriksson Ek being high-end performers. Even with Jonas Brodin and Jared Spurgeon returning (hopefully) healthy, Faber looks to have the top power play role in his grasp. Remember that early in 2023-24, Faber was not the top PP guy for Minnesota: at American Thanksgiving in late November, he was actually sixth among their defencemen in share of power play time (it was mostly Calen Addison). He finished the year with 16 PPPs, so a full year would easily have 20 PPPs in play, if not 25.

Case Against: If Spurgeon and Brodin are both healthy, it's hard to see Faber coming close to 25 minutes a game again. Even heavy usage is probably going to leave him closer to the 23- to 24-minute range, and that is rarely a good thing for peripheral production. Also, Faber's top PP time is far from guaranteed as the team would have options if the man advantage is slow out of the gate in 2024-25. Let us not forget that he was just a shade under 25 minutes a game and posted 1.7 shots and 0.8 hits per game. He needs a large per-minute increase in peripherals to offset losing a couple minutes per game in ice time.

Verdict: Going somewhere as a top-20 defenceman off the board is fine value, and at that point there are risks with any option: Drew Doughty's and Erik Karlsson's age, Gustav Forsling's power play status, the multiple options in Vegas, and so on. The issue is that he seems to be at the top of that mid-range tier, rather than at the bottom of a high-end tier, and that means he probably doesn't have top-5 fantasy defenceman upside. The value seems ok, just not great.

Thomas Harley (DAL-D)

Yahoo: 135.5, D38

Underdog: 155.1, D28

Fantrax: 140, D36

Case For: In standard Yahoo leagues last year, Harley finished as the 17^th overall defenceman. In Underdog formats, which is points format that weights goals, shots, and blocks the most, he finished as roughly a top-30 defenceman. In other words, there are some spots where he seems to be a good value (Yahoo, Fantrax) and some where he doesn't (Underdog). He was Dallas's second-most used defenceman on the power play so if Miro Heiskanen suffers an injury, Harley is the go-to guy. Harley also got a lot more ice time as the season wore on as he skated 18:40 per game through New Year's Eve and 22:37 per game from New Year's Day onward. He had 45 hits in 47 games after New Year's, so he can be a hit-per-game guy with over 125 blocks while pushing two shots per game. Harley brings good peripherals and with Dallas's forward depth, he can cruise past 30 even strength points. Add in 10-or-so power play points, and there's a 40-point guy with very good peripherals, at minimum.

Case Against: Harley shot over 10%, which will be very difficult to replicate. A lot of his value was driven through goal scoring, and while he can reach double-digits again, asking him to reach 15, or more, is asking too much. Also, despite being the number-2 defenceman for the power play, Heiskanen earned 70% of the power play time (per Frozen Tools). Once we get to the 30-ish defenceman off the board, we're not going to get someone who is guaranteed a top PP role, but he's probably not going to get it unless the team's top PP unit falls on its face (unlikely) or Heiskanen gets hurt. He can be a 40-point guy with his usage, but being a 60-point option is too high a bar for someone earning 25-30% of the team's power play time.

Verdict: Unless something happens to Heiskanen's PP role, Harley is not going to be a top-10 power play defenceman, so the upside is capped. However, as the 30^th-or-so defenceman off the board, the value is fine for this burgeoning star (pun very much intended).