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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The 17^th annual Midseason Fantasy Hockey Guide will be released this week on January 16. You can pre-order it here and you can find a ‘secret’ (not really) coupon code for 10% off, to help battle the terrible US exchange rate. (Hint: simply move the mouse to the top of the screen and the discount code will appear)

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1. This week was roughly the halfway point of the regular season as it is a busy week and most teams already have at least 40 games played. I thought it would be a good time to go over how some players performed in the second quarter to see if we can learn anything about what might happen in the second half. We are looking at performances from each team’s last 20 games as of the afternoon of January 6^th, with data from Natural Stat Trick and Frozen Tools. (At time of writing:)

Filip Forsberg

Forsberg has been shooting the puck a lot, and he’s skating 18:45 per game in that stretch, so he’s averaging three shots per game. However, he’s not landing a high percentage of his attempts on net, and that’s keeping that shot total down. Also, he has just one goal in those last 20 games, and actually has just one in his last 25 games. Yes, one goal in over eight weeks. Nashville has generally had scoring issues, but that he’s not even connecting on the power play is an issue. He is a buy-low option, but I wouldn’t expect him to produce in the second half like he did last season. (jan7)

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2. Martin Necas started the season with 44 points in his first 30 games. Since then, he has just four points in 13 games, including a recent six-game point slump. He has experienced an increase in power-play points and power-play time, but a decrease in shots per game from last season means that the regression from his early-season success isn’t quite finished yet. He seemed like a sell high at the time, and I even tried to sell high, and now here we are.

And how about Dylan Strome? He put up 34 points over his first 23 games. Since then, he has 11 points over his last 19 games. Like Necas, Strome’s shot rate is down from last season. Strome is averaging only 1.7 SOG/GP this season, but his job has been the setup man to Alex Ovechkin and a sub-2 SOG/GP number is normal for him. Also like Necas, Strome seemed like a sell high, but that window has probably closed. (jan11)

3. Connor Zary has been placed on IR with a knee injury following a knee-on-knee hit. The good news is that initial imaging shows that he avoided damage to his ACL or MCL. In a corresponding move, the Flames have recalled Rory Kerins, who leads the AHL in goals (21) and is second in points (34). The Flames don’t have an elite scorer and tend to receive production from all over the lineup, which could result in Kerins receiving an opportunity on a scoring line fairly quickly. (jan11)

4. Dylan Guenther will be out indefinitely with a lower-body injury. Guenther’s injury occurred during Wednesday’s game in a collision with Aleksander Barkov. With Guenther out, Josh Doan was recalled from the AHL. Doan even took Guenther’s place on Utah’s top power play. You may remember that Doan went on a late-season run last season with five goals and four assists in 11 games, so he might be worth keeping an eye on. Doan has 21 points in 25 games in the AHL this season. (jan11)

5. Nashville got some bad news on forward Luke Evangelista, as he'll be out of action for approximately four weeks. Evangelista hasn’t having a great fantasy season with 14 points in 39 games, but he was part of one of the few line combinations that has found any modicum of success for Nashville this season. This hurts the depth of a team that can ill afford it. (jan10)

6. With Sean Monahan injured and Cole Sillinger out of the lineup for Columbus’s Thursday night home game against Seattle, Adam Fantilli lined up on the top line with Dmitri Voronkov and Kirill Marchenko. Fantilli was also getting top power play time, so it sure seems as if he’ll have all the offensive opportunities possible in the near-term.

Columbus laid a beatdown on Seattle in that game by a 6-2 margin. Luca Del Bel Belluz, called up for this game because of all the injuries, had a goal and an assist with two shots for the Blue Jackets. The second-round pick from 2022 has 37 points in 34 AHL games this season, and now has three points in two career NHL games. With the injuries piled up, it might be a chance for him to show his offensive upside.

Defencemen Denton Mateychuk had a goal and an assist in the win. For Mateychuk, it is his first multipoint game of his NHL career, and he skated 19:14 overall in the contest. Entering Saturday, he had skated at least 19 minutes in three of his last four games. He had two shots and six blocks in the contest, and was up to 16 blocks and seven hits in eight games. This is someone to keep an eye on if you’re desperate in a multi-cat league. (jan10)

7. The big news from Wednesday was the postponement of the game between the Calgary Flames and the Los Angeles Kings due to the ongoing, severe wildfire in California. There has not been a date announced for the makeup game, but that is not the important thing right now.

For anyone looking to help out with the wildfire relief, there are a few different spots to do so. One is the California Fire Foundation which provides direct relief to victims and survivors of such incidents.

8. One of the enduring sagas of the 2024-25 regular season is the healthy status of Colorado Avalanche forward Gabriel Landeskog. He hasn’t played a game since the 2022 playoffs, which is pushing three years now. If he can return to the lineup and be anywhere near as effective as he was three years ago, it would be a huge boost for the team. That returns is still uncertain, though, and the team provided an update on Landeskog:

Evan Rawal (@evanrawal): (Coach Jared) Bednar says they're "optimistic" about Gabriel Landeskog moving in the right direction and ventures to guess he's further along in this process then he's ever been. Still no timeline for a return and still a ways to go.

There is no imminent return, obviously, but that he’s progressing is a good sign. This seems a situation where we’re looking months into the future, but a step forward is a step forward. (jan9)

9. Speaking of trending in the right direction, the Carolina Hurricanes provided an update on goaltender Frederik Andersen:

Walt Ruff (@WaltRuff): Andersen is also on the ice ahead of today’s #Canes practice. It is the first time we have seen him skating since he underwent knee surgery on Nov. 22. A big step as he works his way back through the 8-12 week recovery process

It seems that he still has some distance between now and a return to the crease, but it’s always a good sign to see an injured player back and skating, and he even stuck around for some practice time with the team. From Monday, January 13^th until the Four Nations Cup break in early February, Carolina is tied for the second-fewest games on the schedule with 12, according to Frozen Tools, and only one back-to-back set. With a relatively light schedule, there’s no need to rush things right now, and we’ll update as we get more on this front. (jan9)

10. For more positive injury news, we go to the Vancouver Canucks and defenceman Filip Hronek:

@Canucks: General Manager Patrik Allvin announced today that D Filip Hronek has been assigned to Abbotsford (AHL) for conditioning.

Hronek has been out of the lineup since late November but it seems he’s not too far away from a return to the NHL. He forms a fantastic top pair with Quinn Hughes and with the Canucks in a fight for a playoff spot, they need all the healthy bodies they can get. (jan9)

11. The Buffalo Sabres sent Jiri Kulich to the injured reserve and subsequently said that he has a week-to-week status. It is a tough break for Kulich, who had carved himself a nice middle-6 role for the Sabres and had seven goals in 31 games despite skating under 14 minutes a game with secondary power play time. (jan9)

12. The Montreal Canadiens held their mid-season press conference, and while there wasn’t a whole lot to glean, there were bits of information that are relevant for fantasy managers.

The first is to not expect prospect Ivan Demidov to end up in Montreal before the end of the season. Sometimes, players on expiring KHL contracts (or in college) will make their way to the NHL when their team’s season ends, but it won’t be the case with Demidov for whatever reason. There may have been some hope he could arrive in April, but that’s gone now.

The second bit of information is that the team is looking to stay the course and see where things stand a couple months from now at the Trade Deadline. They were looking at getting Patrik Laine back (again) from his illness and already traded for Alexandre Carrier a few weeks ago. The management group seems content to see how the team’s recent play – stretching back a couple of months now – holds up, and to see if they can make a legitimate push to the playoffs with the group they have. Of course, there are names like Jake Evans and David Savard who will continue popping up in trade rumours, but don’t expect the Canadiens to make a big splash, one way or another, between now and the end of the regular season. (jan9)

13. Though his overtime tally on Wednesday was just his seventh goal of the year, Pierre-Luc Dubois had 33 points through the first 41 games of the season (entering Saturday). That is back near his career marks that we expect from him, and much better than the 40 points he posted in his lone season with Los Angeles. He certainly looks like a different player. (jan9)

14. It has been a very inconsistent season for Matthew Tkachuk, who started the year with five goals and 16 points in his first 18 games, then had a four-game stretch with five goals and 13 points, and now has nine points in his last 12 outings. He is over a point-per-game status again, but both his points per game and shots per game are four-year lows. (jan9)

15. The top power play unit in Detroit remains relatively unchanged, but the main toggle that new coach Todd McLellan made with the lineup this week was bumping Joe Veleno up to the top line as the puck retriever, and he looked great alongside Dylan Larkin and Lucas Raymond. The points haven’t jumped off the page yet, but there will be some extra assists picked up just by virtue of playing with those two, let alone the extra ice time he’s getting all of a sudden. He could be someone to look at as a potential buy in deeper leagues, though Marco Kasper also got a few shifts with Larkin and Raymond. (jan8)

16. Aliaksei Protas is having an out-of-nowhere breakout season while currently skating on the Alex Ovechkin/Dylan Strome line. Protas is just cracking the 200-game mark in his career, although it is supposed to take longer than that for a player of his stature (6-6, 225 lbs.) to take that next step. Some abnormal advanced stats (24.3 SH%, 14.8 5-on-5 SH%, 3.2 PTS/60, 1055 PDO) could foreshadow a second-half drop, which could be even more pronounced if he is moved off the Ovechkin line. (jan11)

17. Despite being a contender for the last 20 years or so, the Washington Capitals have a very solid prospect system. The team traded their first-round pick less often than other contenders, and has hit with it more often than not, even in the teens and 20s. Where the team magic has been lately though in the middle rounds with Eriks Mateiko (who put on a show for Latvia at the World Juniors), brothers Aliaksei Protas and Ilya Protas, Cam Allen, and Vincent Iorio highlighting an incredible run of success with picks that often turn into AHLers at best. This team looks like they won't be bottoming out for a good 30-year period, from the late 2000s to a decade or more from now.(jan8)

18. Anyone looking to put together an extended competitive window in fantasy hockey knows that it's easier said than done, and while you can prop it up with a few well-timed trades, if your league has shrewd managers then it's the drafting that makes the difference between the GMs that can maintain success and those who yo-yo in the standings every year.

I managed to snag Ilya Protas as a free agent add in my dynasty league in October, and at the moment he’s scoring at a top-25 pace among NHL prospects by Mason Black’s PNHLe model. Noting who Washington selects in drafts and perhaps bumping them up a place or two on my own draft board is something I’ll be considering next year. They would join teams such as Carolina and Dallas whose picks I pay special attention to. (jan8)

19. Warning here, I'm diving down a rabbit hole that may really only interest me in my specific situation. That being said, if you're like me and have a team (or multiple) that you are already fairly certain will be making the H2H playoffs, then you may have already looked at H2H playoff schedules. I've touched on that a couple times already, with the bulk of the info condensed here. However, there is one new little wrinkle that I've been looking at of late.

Quick backstory, is that one of my leagues is a fantasy points based H2H league, and the best way to make a desperate comeback attempt is with a goalie shutout (typically about eight points) where a three point night from a skater will likely only net you about four points. We have a minors system there as well, so I was looking into possible goalie options to stash in my minors as Hail Mary options should the need arise. I already had Jakub Dobes in my minors system before his career opening shutout, and he would be the ideal type of candidate.

The next step is then to sort out which backup goalies may actually be starting on the Sunday of a playoff week. Well, there were more back to backs than I expected, with Buffalo holding the highest number, as they have a weekend back to back in each of fantasy weeks 23-26 (March 17 through to the end of the season). Now, sorting out whether Devon Levi or James Reimer is going to be backing up then is a whole other issue. You might just be best off looking into Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, and banking on the Sabres as a team turning things around.

For those interested, other goalies with under 40 career games who may be useful as stashes:

Justus Annunen, Jakub Dobes, Yaroslav Askarov, Arturs Silovs, Ivan Fedotov/Alexei Kolosov. (jan8)

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20. The big news on Monday would be to see which team would claim former Los Angeles Kings winger Arthur Kaliyev as he was put on waivers by the Kings on Sunday. Kaliyev had been injured for the 2024-25 season, but the team was playing well and had the forward depth they needed, so a move needed to be made.

Well, the winner of the sweepstakes was the New York Rangers. It kind of feels poetic this happens just weeks after they ship out Kaapo Kakko, but they need any/all kind of help they can get, and we’ll see how things go with Kaliyev. I like him as a player, but I’m not sure he’s a great fit on that roster because they play a rush/counter-attack style while he’s more of a forechecker who looks for open areas to get his shot off. Hope it works out, but we’ll see how this goes. (jan7)

21. And last, but not the least: Congratulations to Team USA on winning back-to-back gold medals at the World Juniors after an overtime thriller against Finland. Czechia took home the bronze after beating Sweden in a 14-round shootout.

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Be sure to also grab your copy of the 2024 Dobber Fantasy Hockey Prospects Report!

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Have a good week, folks!

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