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 2025-26 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide is close to being finished and will be released before the end of the month. Dobber is hard at work on projections while the writing team is putting together a host of articles from category-specific players, to risers and fallers from last year, delving into each team’s roster changes, and a whole lot more. It is part of the Dobber Hockey Keeper Pack which includes both the Guide itself and the Prospects Report, which is already available for download. Help support what we do and get yourself a great head start on your league mates by heading to the Dobber Shop and ordering a Keeper Pack!

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1. The NHL released the 2025-26 schedule and, as always, our Frozen Tools has the Schedule Planner on the site to help fantasy managers with their lineup decisions. A few highlights:

• Boston only has 20 games on light days. The heavier teams (Anaheim with 38 and Utah with 37) have nearly twice as many.
• Five teams have 16 back-to-backs, for anyone looking to handcuff their goalie. The kicker: none of them are teams like Colorado, Dallas, Vegas, or Florida. They are all bubble playoff teams, with Los Angeles likely being the best option.
• Winnipeg has only nine back-to-back games, tied for the lowest in the league. It seems a fair bet that Connor Hellebuyck gets a heavy workload again.

Go check out the Schedule Planner for more tidbits like this. (july17)

2. Late on Monday night (or early Tuesday morning, depending on where you are), Bowen Byram re-upped with the Buffalo Sabres for two years at $6.5M per season. Ian wrote a bit on it in his Ramblings yesterday, as well as a month ago.

Byram has been one of my favourite players to write about over the last five years just because of how interesting his career arc has been:

• Byram starts his NHL career in the 2021 Bubble season before suffering a concussion 15 games in. He returns a few weeks later and suffers another concussion one week after that, which ends his season.
• He starts the 2021-22 season in Colorado’s lineup and has eight points in 10 games to start the campaign. In Game 11, he receives another concussion.
• Aside from a couple of brief returns in November/December/January of 2021, Byram largely remains out of the lineup for 4.5 months, returning in early April. He plays just 30 games in the 2021-22 regular season, totaling 17 points. He did that skating secondary PP minutes and 18:48 per game. Overall, his 1.54 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 was fifth among all defencemen with 500 minutes played. 
• When the 2022 Playoffs roll around, Byram is the fifth defenceman by ice time behind Cale Makar, Devon Toews, Samuel Girard, and Josh Manson.
• Girard gets injured in Colorado’s third game of the second round in 2022. At this point, Byram is sixth among their defencemen in postseason ice time per game.
• Once the West Final starts, and with Girard still missing from the lineup, Byram steps up in a huge way. After not reaching 20 minutes in any single game in the first two rounds, Byram cracks 20 minutes in eight of the next 10 games, and averages 22:13. That moves him from the #6 defenceman to the #3 and he’s over five minutes higher than the #4 defenceman. He is the go-to guy when Makar/Toews are off the ice.
• In the 10 games where Byram is skating as the clear #3 defenceman, Colorado outscores the opponent 12-5 with him on the ice at 5-on-5. For comparison, the Avalanche are outscored with Makar/Toews on the ice by an 11-9 margin. (july17)

[Follow the link for Mike's full analysis…]

3. The Winnipeg Jets have locked up one of their top 6 forwards long-term, signing Gabriel Vilardi to a six-year extension with a $7.5 million AAV. Vilardi was two seasons away from becoming a UFA.

Vilardi had a career season in 2024-25, finishing with 27 goals and 61 points in 71 games. His numbers were helped by the fact that he was on the Jets’ top line with Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor as well as the top power play, where his 12 power-play points led the Jets. A certified Band-Aid Boy, Vilardi also played 70 games for the first time in six NHL seasons. Vilardi’s shooting percentage was also higher than 20% for the first time in his career, although he is a high-accuracy shooter anyway with a near-19% success rate in his previous two seasons.

I have Vilardi ranked #90 on the Top 100 Roto Rankings, which were recently updated for July. (june19)

4. In case you missed it on Thursday, the Leafs acquired Dakota Joshua from the Canucks for a fourth-round pick. Joshua has held some bangers league value in the past; in particular, the 2023-24 season where he scored 18 goals and 32 points and was credited for 244 hits. Joshua’s numbers regressed to just seven goals and 14 points in 57 games last season, but it should be noted that Joshua missed the first month of the season due to testicular cancer and also dealt with a leg injury.

2025-26 should be a better season for Joshua, although getting to 20 goals again might prove to be difficult. Not only is Joshua likely to play in the Leafs’ bottom 6, but he has never taken 100 shots in a season. His 18-goal performance was fueled by a 21.4 SH%, although he is known as a selective shooter. To make room for Joshua, the Leafs could be trading another forward. Nicholas Robertson has been rumored to be on the trade block for a while, and he is currently scheduled to go to arbitration. (june19)

5. Meanwhile, the Canucks made this trade to clear cap space, as Joshua has a $3.25 million cap hit. The Canucks’ biggest need is currently at the center position, and they are believed to be shopping around for one. To give you an idea, the oft-injured Filip Chytil is currently their best option at 2C. (june19)

6. Today I’m using Frozen Tools to look up players who might experience shooting percentage regression in 2025-26. The criteria are players that have played at least 40 games last season with a much higher shooting percentage than previous seasons. All of these players will have high shooting percentage, but these aren’t all the shooting percentage leaders from last season. For example, Brayden Point was second among these players with a 22.8 SH% while scoring 42 goals, but I don’t think he’ll regress a ton next season because he has shot at least 20% in each of the last three seasons.

Here are the players I’ve picked out. I haven’t started a “bust” list yet for the coming season, but these players are worth considering for it.

Aliaksei Protas

Protas might be the most unexpected 60+ point player from 2024-25, and a look under the hood at the advanced stats shows why. It starts with a shooting percentage of 21.4%, which is far and above the range of 5-9% that he had reached in his previous three seasons. In addition, his 14.1% 5-on-5 SH% was the second-highest in the league among all players who played at least 40 games. Throw a 3.2 PTS/60 and a 1041 PDO, which are also well above career norms, and you have the recipe for a potential bust this coming season.

Another thing: Protas is a giant on skates at 6-6 and 247 lbs. The impulse might be to draft him in bangers leagues; however, he has never reached 50 hits or 20 PIM in a season in his four NHL seasons. Add to that the fact that Protas has averaged fewer than two shots per game in each of those four seasons, as well as logging microscopic amounts of power-play time (2.9% of the Caps’ available minutes), and you have a player with far too many red flags. (june19)

[Follow the link for more…]

7. The Anaheim Ducks have signed goalie Lukas Dostal to a five-year extension carrying an AAV of $6.5M. That will carry though to the end of the 2029-30 season, and Dostál’s age-29 season. He has a career .902 save percentage across 107 starts and 121 appearances, which is a miracle considering how bad the Ducks have been over the last four years. He looks like one of the next great goalies in the league, but he won’t elevate in the fantasy game until the team in front of him drastically improves. They are on their way up, but there’s a large gap between where he and the Ducks are now, and where goalies like Connor Hellebuyck and Andrei Vasilevskiy are with their respective squads. (july18)

8. It looks as though Columbus forward Yegor Chinakhov has requested a trade:

Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline): #CBJ aware Yegor Chinakhov wants to be traded — and they’ve had trade talks — but GM Don Waddell said he’s not going to simply accept the best offer to appease Chinakhov. Will only move him if he gets an acceptable offer. Expectation is he’ll be at training camp.

He had a great start last season with 7 goals and 7 assists in 21 games before an upper-body injury caused him to miss over three months. He returned to the lineup in early March but went from 17+ minutes a game before he got hurt to under 14 minutes a game after his return. He also saw a lot of healthy scratches over the last few weeks of the season with Columbus chasing a playoff spot. A bunch of different injuries have limited him to just 113 games over the last three years and it’s tough to gain footing averaging 38 games played per season. He has offensive talent to produce well, but it seems as if it won’t be in Columbus. (july18)

9. The Utah Mammoth have re-signed Michael Carcone to a one-year extension worth $775,000. Carcone registered 19 points in just 53 games for the Hockey Club last season, with games missed due to both injury and being a healthy scratch. The season before, Carcone was the unlikeliest 20-goal scorer in the league, finishing with 21 goals while riding a high 18.9 SH% and averaging just 1.5 SOG/GP. Following the 2024-25 season, Carcone believed that he would be signing elsewhere, but that feeling has obviously changed (KSL Sports). However, he may be in a similar role compared to last season as Utah’s 13^th forward. (july16)

10. Anton Frondell, the third overall pick in the 2025 draft, has agreed to a three-year entry-level contract with the Blackhawks. Frondell is at least a year away from making his NHL debut, as he will be playing for Djurgården of the SHL this coming season. For more on Frondell, check out his Dobber Prospects profile. Or better yet, purchase your copy of the Fantasy Prospects Report. (july16)

11. The Top 100 Roto Rankings have been updated for July. Take a look if you have a very early draft or you are just curious. I’m also interested in any feedback in case you see something that I don’t.

I’ll also share some observations on some younger players that are new to the rankings, as well as three players that fell as a result of their team having a disappointing season.

Starting From the Bottom

With apologies to Drake for the heading of this section, we have some new entrants to the Roto Rankings. As we go further down the rankings, the differences between these players gets smaller and smaller. They could be a higher value than what they are showing, but current value has to be accounted for as much as upside because these are single-season rankings.

In his second full season, Logan Cooley established himself as Utah’s first-line center while also taking on top power-play duties. Adding JJ Peterka provides the Mammoth with another scoring option potentially on Cooley’s even-strength and/or power play line. Either way, 2025-26 could see Cooley hit the 70–80-point range if all goes well.  (july16) 

12. Finally free from the John Tortorella experience, Matvei Michkov is ready to make waves. After Tortorella was let go from the Flyers, Michkov scored nine points in the last eight games. To be fair, Michkov had been hot before that with 16 points over his last 12 games of the season. Perhaps he knew the writing was on the wall for Torts, or perhaps Torts’ teaching methods had finally gotten through! Michkov had been hot and cold throughout the season with a 6-game point drought before the late-season run and two 7-game point droughts before that. He had also been healthy scratched in November. Rick Tocchet does stress defensive accountability in his system, but he’ll also realize how few scoring options the Flyers have at the level of Michkov. (july16)

13. How much more the Blues valued Dylan Holloway over the Oilers is astounding. Holloway averaged over five minutes more per game in his first season with the Blues, with some of that icetime including power-play time. The Oilers may not have had room for an emerging talent like Holloway in their top six because they are simply closer to being a Stanley Cup contender, but usage is not something that should be lost in the offer-sheet drama. Holloway got a bit lucky with some advanced stats (11.1 5-on-5 SH%, 2.9 PTS/60), but he should fit into their top 6 again. (july16)

14. Falling Rangers

It’s possible that the Rangers bounce back to some degree under new head coach Mike Sullivan. However, I need to account for declining returns from several Rangers, most notably Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck, and Mika Zibanejad. There are reasons for optimism for all three players, which is why I haven’t pushed these players down as much as I could. (july16)

[Follow the link for more…]

15. After a few days of peace on the trade front, the Penguins took flight again, acquiring 24-year-old netminder Arturs Silovs in exchange for Chase Stillman and a fourth-round pick in 2027.

A late first round selection in 2021, Stillman hasn’t been able to produce in the AHL over the past three years and probably won’t be relevant in fantasy leagues this year while he competes for a depth role in Vancouver.

On the other hand, Silovs is an intriguing addition for Pittsburgh. He’s struggled in a small volume of action for Vancouver, but he was excellent in the AHL this postseason, leading Abbotsford to the Calder Cup with a 2.01 GAA and .931 save percentage through 24 games. From a fantasy perspective, this trade gives Silovs a more direct path to the NHL as he only has to battle the fallible Tristan Jarry for a starting gig since Joel Blomqvist still needs time to develop. However, it also makes his life more difficult in the short term because Vancouver was better defensively than Pittsburgh last season. Silovs has the individual ability to make waves in fantasy leagues next year, but he’s still finding his footing in the NHL and won’t exactly be insulated by the Penguins, so I’d temper my expectations for the upcoming campaign. (july14)

16. In today’s Ramblings, we’ll discuss a few promising power-play quarterbacks primed to produce more with the man advantage than they did last year.

Jackson LaCombe – Anaheim Ducks

A full season on the top unit should allow LaCombe to build on last year’s underwhelming power-play point total. He only started seeing top-unit duties in mid-December but led the team with eight PPPs from that point on, seeing 56.2% of Anaheim’s total power-play time. He’ll face competition from 21-year-old Olen Zellweger, but LaCombe looks further along in his development thus far and has produced better results with the man advantage. The Ducks are hoping Jay Woodcroft can breathe some life into their power play after they posted a league-worst 11.8% success rate last season. I’m hoping the team finally opts for one stacked unit instead of splitting time evenly between two groups. (july14)

17. Charlie McAvoy – Boston Bruins

This is a tricky one because although McAvoy is the incumbent PP QB in Boston, Mason Lohrei stepped in and did an excellent job with the man advantage while McAvoy was out injured last season. McAvoy is an elite two-way defender but his results as Boston’s power-play quarterback haven’t been spectacular over the past few years, so there’s certainly room for an offensive blueliner like Lohrei to steal time on PP1. That said, Lohrei still needs to develop his defensive game, and I imagine new coach Marco Sturm will want to see Lohrei take some strides defensively before rewarding him with top-unit PP time. As a result, I expect McAvoy to start the year on PP1. If Lohrei gets promoted midseason, the Bruins aren’t exactly dripping with forward talent and could still run two blueliners on the top unit, meaning McAvoy’s demotion to PP2 isn’t guaranteed. Although the Bruins’ top unit has lost some punch in recent years, there’s enough talent in that top group – headlined by David Pastrnak – to help the unit’s QB flirt with 20 PPPs over a full season. If we’re talking purely from a fantasy value perspective here, Lohrei is a low-cost, high-reward pick because of his potential to snag a PP1 role in-season. McAvoy is the costlier, safer option as the PP incumbent who contributes to various fantasy categories. At your draft table, if McAvoy is being targeted in the first few rounds as if he’s guaranteed to see top-unit PP time all year, then I’d probably avoid him. However, if he’s falling after last year’s injury struggles and dampened offensive output, then I’d certainly be interested. Even if he isn’t on PP1 all year, it’s a pretty safe bet he’ll improve on last year’s measly four PPPs. The team scored on a shockingly low 6.76% of its power-play shots while McAvoy was on the ice, which is probably half the rate I’d expect (via Natural Stat Trick), so I imagine he bounces back from that bad luck next year. (july14)

18. Lane Hutson – Montreal Canadiens

Only four defensemen in the league tallied more power-play points than Hutson last year, so suggesting he’ll improve on his 26 PPPs as a rookie is a big statement, but it’s one I stand by. The logic here is that Hutson had to spend the first stretch of last season on PP2, limiting his overall output. In his first 20 appearances, he saw a modest 40% of Montreal’s total power-play time and posted a mediocre four PPPs. He started seeing consistent reps on the top unit from that point on and racked up 22 power-play points over his next 62 games, holding a 67% share of the team’s PP time. For reference, Evan Bouchard was the only blueliner with more PPPs than Hutson during that stretch, and he had 23. A full season on PP1, with exposure to the team’s top offensive talents, should allow Hutson to build on an outstanding rookie showing with the man advantage. While some might be wary of a sophomore slump, with teams having a better scouting report on Hutson one year into his NHL career, I just don’t think there’s much opponents can do to stop him. He’s so dynamic offensively, if penalty kills stop biting on his shifty fakes and giving him space, he’ll just make the perfect pass to one of his talented teammates. One wrinkle might be figuring things out with Ivan Demidov on PP1, because even supremely talented individuals need time to adjust and build chemistry together. However, Hutson and Demidov skated together on the power play very briefly in the playoffs and looked good together, so this isn’t completely foreign territory such that we’d need to account for significant growing pains. (july14)

19. Sam Rinzel – Chicago Blackhawks

The 21-year-old blueliner had excellent results in a small sample with the Blackhawks last season. After an impressive college campaign in which he was one of the highest-scoring blueliners in the NCAA, Rinzel signed his entry deal with Chicago and racked up five points in nine games. Three of those points came with the man advantage over his final six appearances, where he saw 84% of the team’s total power-play time. While most fantasy hockey nerds will be familiar with Rinzel, I don’t think he has the same name recognition as Artyom Levshunov, Alex Vlasic or Kevin Korchinski – three blueliners with plenty of potential who have all been linked to Chicago’s PP1 at various stages of their young careers. Again, it was in a small sample, but in my eyes, Rinzel jumped to the front of the PP QB line in Chicago with his play last season. He’ll fly under the radar in most one-year fantasy drafts, but could provide great value if your league rewards power-play production. The Blackhawks are perceived as a below-average team overall, but they had a surprisingly strong showing with the man advantage last year, finishing seventh overall with a 24.9% success rate. The four forwards responsible for that success last year – Connor Bedard, Tyler Bertuzzi, Teuvo Teravainen and Ryan Donato – will all be back in the mix next season, so it’s not like a high degree of turnover will make that rate harder to replicate. (july14)

20. John Klingberg – San Jose Sharks

It’s not exactly going out on a limb to suggest that a player who tallied zero power-play points last year will be able to improve on that total in the upcoming campaign. Klingberg has been limited to just 25 regular season games over the past two years as he underwent hip resurfacing surgery in December 2023. He had a solid post-surgery showing with the Oilers and earned himself a one-year, $4-million deal with San Jose. Klingberg has always been regarded as an offensively focused blueliner with defensive deficiencies, but that won’t be a huge concern for a rebuilding Sharks team that isn’t overly concerned about winning or making the playoffs this year. It makes a lot of sense for San Jose to put Klingberg in a position to produce (i.e., the top power-play unit), pump up his value, and then flip him to a contender at the trade deadline. Klingberg doesn’t seem to face much competition for the PP1 QB role as his offensive toolbox and track record of power-play production look better than the next best option Dmitry Orlov. 20-year-old Luca Cagnoni had excellent offensive results in the AHL last year, but probably needs more time before he’s ready for full-time PP1 duties in the NHL. San Jose’s power play wasn’t anything to write home about last season but features an abundance of young, up-and-coming talent between Macklin Celebrini, Will Smith, and William Eklund – plus the veteran sniping smarts of Tyler Toffoli. (july14)

21. In my two Ramblings earlier this week, we started an offseason series about how to project the following season. On Tuesday, we looked at first steps to take when creating projections, and yesterday extended on that by looking at how projecting defencemen differs from projecting forwards. Today, we’re going to build off what we did yesterday by looking at the league environment. Player data is from Evolving Hockey with some power play data from Hockey Reference.

In these Ramblings couple months ago, the changing league environment was discussed in terms of shots, hits, and blocks. Go read that for a head start on how those stats have been shifting over the last few years (and last decade).

There are several ways to start looking for changes in the scoring environment. One thing that affects production more than just about any other aspect of a player’s total output is what they can do on the power play. Consider that in the three years from 2021-2024, the top-99 point producers got an average of 31.7% of their overall point total from the power play (mean) and none of those 99 top producers got less than 14% of their production on the man advantage (min): (july18)

[Follow the link for more…]

Have a good week, folks!

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