After ceding my last two Ramblings days to Cliffy and Dobber, I'm back and I have a whole lot of thoughts on some early-season starts from plenty of players in addition to some nuggets from games last night. We'll start with those.

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The Leafs lost not only the game, but also Auston Matthews and Anthony Stolarz to injury last night. Arguably their two most important players at the moment. It's a good thing Joseph Woll is just about ready to return. Dennis Hildeby stepped up in relief of Stolarz last night, allowing two goals on 21 shots after Stolarz allowed three goals on 10 shots. There hasn't been any indication yet how long either Matthews or Stolarz might be on the shelf.

David Pastrnak had two goals and an assist to lead the charge for the Bruins, while Jeremy Swayman stopped 30 of 33 shots for the win.

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After Frederik Andersen got run over in the first period, and stayed in the game until being pulled in the third by a concussion spotter. There was a whole mess of fighting that broke out after the run in the first, though only a pair of official fighting majors were assessed. The Caps and the Hurricanes are going to be fighting for space in the standings for five more months. The Hurricanes have a sizeable lead at the moment, with 22 points in 16 games, but the Capitals came out on top last night, and as the top team in the East last year, they can't be taken lightly.

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The goalie scales in Montreal are tilting further and further in favour of Jakub Dobes. I traded him in the offseason in a cap league to a cap-strapped team for Logan Thompson, and I thought I had come out with a big win. To this point in the year, Dobes is putting up 2.7 fantasy points per game in our setup to Thompson's 2.4, and at one-sixth of the cost.

It could be that in the long run (the next few years) that Jacob Fowler is the one with the strangle-hold on the starter's job, but for now Dobes has all the momentum in the short term.

All that to say, Sam Montembeault allowed four goals last night, including the first of the season to former Hab Joel Edmundson. Not a great look.

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As everyone is aware by now, the new wave of scorers is here, with Leo Carlsson, Connor Bedard, and Macklin Celebrini leading the way. Each of them are top-two picks from the three most recent drafts, and they have the skill and pedigree to put up some incredible numbers for the next decade. The fun part now is knowing how much is too much to pay for them, and also who they are going to bring along on their ascent to the top of the scoring leaderboard.

For the first point, I own Celebrini in a shallow keeper league, and have turned down both Nikita Kucherov, and Jack Eichel for him in one-for-one offers. They were close, they were tempting, and they were just not quite enough!

In another league, which is a full redraft, I did move Leon Draisaitl and Anze Kopitar for Leo Carlsson, Filip Forsberg, and Timo Meier. Was this an overpay? Perhaps. It's also not my most serious league, and I'm going to have more fun with those three guys on my roster than Draisaitl and Kopitar (and Rasmus Andersson who was my drop), who left me lacking in the Shots and Hits columns. If the scoring keeps up for Carlsson, then I'll call it a fair trade. If it dropsoff, then I lose it by a little, but not a landslide.

Looking under the hood on all three youngsters, Carlsson's only real red flag is the shooting percentage, which is double that of an average player, and at least 1.5 times that of the top snipers. If we take off a third of Carlsson's goals, then he's still at 22 points in 16 games, which would be a fantastic start to the year, and if we adjust it down a touch more to account for the high team shooting percentage, then we could still see him score at a 100-point pace for the rest of the season.

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Bedard's underlying numbers look similar to Carlsson's in that the shooting percentage binge is driving his on-ice shooting percentage numbers up, which is the only major red flag for him. A slight regression, but he should be able to keep up a heavy scoring pace. Unfortunately for Celebrini, he looks like the one of the three that could drop the most. His shooting percentage is at 20%, but his IPPs and on-ice shooting percentage are higher than Bedard and Carlsson, meaning there's more room to drop. Celebrini is shooting less than last season (zero shots despite two assists last night), which does leave him some room either to bump the shot rate back up and keep the scoring more by volume than efficiency, or it could be a sign that he is picking his shots better and the higher shooting percentage is more sustainable. Either way, if I had to project the scoring for each of Bedard, Celebrini, and Carlsson in the remaining 60-odd games this year, it would be something along the lines of:

Bedard: 80 points in 60 games to finish at 105 points in 76 games.

Carlsson 75 points in 60 games to finish at 101 points in 76 games.

Celebrini: 65-70 points in 60 games to finish at about 93 points in 77 games.

Rick Roos has some more insight on Celebrini in his article this morning as well.

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Carlsson is bringing along new linemate Chris Kreider, who is no stranger to scoring goals, but hasn't ever done so at this kind of rate. He also hasn't ever scored on a third of his shots across a full season. No one ever has who played more than a handful of games in a season. It's likely we see Kreider's shooting percentage finish at about half of where it is now, which would mean pacing for somewhere in the low-30s for goals on the season. Though having banked quite a few already, maybe he finishes close to 40.

Cutter Gauthier is also on pace to clear 40 goals, but he's doing so with a perfectly normal shooting percentage, and an absurd 4.7 shots per game. It's already dropping though, with an average of 3.6 shots per game in the month of November.

There are a lot of mouths to feed in Anaheim, which has been fine thus far as the team is averaging four goals per game, but they have had a lighter schedule, and that kind of scoring is extremely rare (only the 2021-22 Panthers have done it in recent times).

With Ryan Strome back, and Mikael Granlund possibly not too far behind, there could be a bit of a drop for the rest of the top-nine as the offence is spread out even further. That could also push Beckett Sennecke out of a top-nine role, and maybe even back to Junior for a while.

Without looking, could you tell me which are the two Anaheim Dmen with the most points this season? Answer in a moment.

The top point-getter at this stage isn't last season's leader, which was Jackson LaCombe at 43 points in 75 games. This year, he only has six points through his first 15 contests, though he is still convincingly running the top power play unit and playing 25 minutes a night. The points will come for him, and with his new contract in his back pocket at a $9 million cap hit, he's going to get all the leash he needs. Just about all of his underlying numbers indicate a big bounce back is coming.

Stunningly, it is Jacob Trouba who leads the Ducks in points with 11 through 16 games, and Drew Helleson in second with eight. Big regression coming to Trouba, and some for Helleson as well. Both should likely be at four of five points at this stage instead.

A few other players you might look to buy-low on at this point: Sean Monahan, Jonathan Marchessault, Mats Zuccarello, Artemi Panarin, Mason Marchment, and Pavel Buchnevich.

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Looking at the Predators for a minute, Steven Stamkos' underlying numbers are screaming buy-low. While he is turning 36 soon, that doesn't mean there's absolutely nothing left in the tank. Even older players in the NHL don't consistently have 8.1% of their shots go in, and have their team score on 3.5% of their shots with said player on the ice. The holding might be painful for a little while longer, and it might only be a bounce back to a 50-point-pace, but the bounces are coming.

Speaking of bounces for the Preds, Nick Blankenburg is taking advantage of some fortunate ones early in the year. Initially I thought he was going to be the sixth defenceman on the depth chart, and maybe splitting PP2 duties with Brady Skjei. However, Adam Wilsby and Spencer Stastney both appear to be higher on the depth chart than Blankenburg, despite the latter putting up solid possession metrics, and six points in his last six games. With Wilsby due back in the lineup soon, and Roman Josi also due back at some point, Blankenburg is definitely a sell-high if your league is deep enough to own him.

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Another lesser-known Dman that was mentioned here over the summer as someone to keep your eye on, Charle-Edouard D'Astous has five points in eight games for the Lightning and seems to be steadily making up ground in the depth chart. The 27-year-old "rookie" is six-foot-two, and 211 pounds, with some puck skills to boot. The block numbers could be better for a defenceman, with only four through his first eight games, but with 11 Hits, eight SOG, and nine PIMs, there is some peripheral value too.

He could be a victim of the numbers game when the Lightning are healthy, but that's at least a week or two away if everything goes well for them, and in the meantime D'Astous saw nearly 20 minutes of ice in his latest game, playing mainly on the second pair with Erik Cernak.

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Another name that came from way off the radar, Emmitt Finnie was mentioned in a Ramblings or two through training camp as someone to keep an eye on, and he has only recently lost his top-line spot to Alex DeBrincat. He's still on line-two, but has no points in his last seven games after starting out with eight in nine. That's likely in part because Dylan Larkin has gone cold with only three points in his last six, which has brought him down into a much more reasonable range for his underlying numbers.

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The scoring leaderboard for defensemen is something to behold. There's Cale Makar at 23 points (entering last night's late game), Miro Heiskanen and Josh Morrissey (after three points last night in a 5-3 win over the Canucks) at 16, and then a handful of players at 14 before you get into a couple dozen more for the next few rungs. It's a tribute to Makar and just how dominant he is on both the ice and the scoresheet, but it's also interesting to see Heiskanen this high after a slow start from him. He has two points in his first seven games, but then something clicked and he has closed out this dominant run with 11 points in five games. This current scoring rate is back in the range he put up from 2022-2024, and is making last season's dip look like an aberration. It's also not the best result for Thomas Harley, who has been stuck with second power play minutes thus far.

Jason Robertson had a hand on all three Stars goals in last night’s OT win over the Sens, and Mikko Rantanen also picked up a goal and an assist. Both of them have also been on hot streaks for the last six games, which has gotten the whole team back on track.

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We had some NHL debuts over the last few nights for Gabe Perreault and Nate Danielson. Perreault was up on the top line with Mika Zibanejad and J.T. Miller, and notched a power play assist in 14 minutes of ice time. He could be worth a look for those of you in non-keeper leagues and in need of some added offence.

For Danielson, he's likely not going to make an immediate fantasy impact, though playing as the third-line centre, he did manage four shots and an even rating despite the Wings losing 5-1 to Chicago.

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Jet Greaves was one of the most popular goalie breakout picks in the offseason, but thus far he hasn't really been able to outplay the incumbent Elvis Merzlikins, who has been about average for him thus far through his career. His save percentage is up, though his GAA is still above 3.00, which tells you that Columbus hasn't been as stout defensively thus far, and that Merzlikins (and Greaves to a slightly lesser extent) have seen more shots against than they were last season.

Greaves started the opener, but the two netminders have been alternating every game to this point in the season. Expect that to continue (which makes projecting a starter a few games out much easier if you're looking at streaming), at least in the shorter term, or until we see an injury. Ivan Fedotov has been solid at the AHL level so far and shouldn't be forgotten about either.

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If you're looking for some more reading, then there's a thread on Jordan Spence from Monday, which is an excellent analysis on what he does well, and why it's not recognized by counting stats or the Ottawa coaching staff. Hopefully for his fantasy owners, he can stay in the lineup regardless, as he has been putting up points so far when he has been in the lineup.

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See you next Wednesday, and if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments you can find me on BlueSky @alexdmaclean.