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, Puneet Sharma, and Dobber

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1. A few fantasy teams probably missed the announcements that both David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha would not dress for Friday’s game against the Rangers. Zacha returned on Saturday, but Pasta (undisclosed) is considered day-to-day after getting “banged up” during Wednesday’s game. 

No Pastrnak, no problem for Morgan Geekie. He continues to score goals at will, potting his 18^th of the season on Friday, and a pair to hit the 20 mark on Saturday. All of Geekie’s eight points in his last six games have been in the form of goals. With a shooting percentage of 28.6%, Geekie is probably a sell very high if you can. It doesn’t sound like linemate Pastrnak will be out for a long time, and the fact that Geekie’s ice time and resulting shot totals have increased gradually over the past few seasons should help his cause going forward. (nov29)

2. Artemi Panarin has seven points over his last five games and 19 points over his last 13 games. He's just under the point-per-game mark (26 PTS in 27 GP) after a sluggish start that had us wondering whether the aging curve had hit. Following a bunch of long-term extensions recently signed by top players, Panarin is currently the top scorer among potential 2026 unrestricted free agents and will be looking for another big payday. (nov29)

3. Darren Raddysh is taking full advantage of the ice time and power-play time he is receiving as a result of Victor Hedman‘s injury. Raddysh now has 13 points over his last eight games, which makes him worth adding in many leagues (23% Yahoo/47% Fantrax entering Saturday).

Raddysh was in and out of the lineup earlier this season, so I’m not sold on him continuing to be this hot once Hedman returns. Keep in mind that the Lightning are also without Ryan McDonagh and Erik Cernak at the moment, so Raddysh’s icetime should drop significantly once all are healthy. But for now, he’s a strong short-term add. (nov29)

4. We have a release date for the 19th annual Midseason #FantasyHockey Guide!

It will be out late afternoon on Thursday January 8. Pre-order here.

5. Jesper Wallstedt continues his fine play. He now has a six-game personal win streak, all of which have been quality starts. He and Filip Gustavsson have been alternating starts recently in what has become one of the top goalie tandems in the league. (nov29)

6. Leo Carlsson incurred a minor speed bump in mid-November with no points over a three-game stretch, but since then he has added more to his breakout season. With 33 points in 24 games, Carlsson continues to find himself in the top 10 in scoring (entering Saturday action). Want to know if the hot starts from Carlsson, Geekie, and others seem sustainable? Rick Roos’ recent Fantasy Hockey Poll will give you some insight.

Meanwhile, Carlsson teammate Beckett Sennecke has extended his point streak to six games. At time of writing, the 19-year-old was only 14 percent rostered in Yahoo leagues, so he is a Duck that you could consider streaming on off nights in single-season leagues. That also doesn’t speak to his upside in keeper leagues as the 2024 third overall pick. (nov29)

7. Jake Allen's ratios (2.27 GAA, .919 SV%) are noticeably better than Jacob Markstrom‘s (3.56 GAA, .874 SV%), which should mean that Allen is deserving of more starts. Markstrom has the much larger cap hit compared to Allen, which means that Markstrom should receive at least half of the starts regardless of how he plays unless his struggles extend beyond the short term. (nov29)

8. Expected to compete for the first overall pick early in the season, the Flames have turned it around to some degree with wins in four of their past five games. Two Flames in particular are on a heater, so to speak.

Nazem Kadri now has 10 points in his last six games and will be sought after if the Flames do become sellers, but recent comments from team president Don Maloney seem to indicate that Calgary will not go the rebuild route.

Rasmus Andersson was also on the trade block before the season. If the Flames are still interested in trading the 2026 UFA, then he may be raising the Flames’ asking price. Andersson now has 12 points over his last seven games and has been moved onto the Flames’ top power play, where four of his 12 points over those seven games have come from. Most of Andersson’s advanced stats indicate some kind of regression, while the veteran defenseman has seen his season-by-season point totals decline in each of the previous three seasons entering this season. That could make him a sell-high. (nov29)

9. Brady Tkachuk returned to the Senators’ lineup on Friday after being sidelined since mid-October with an injured thumb. Tkachuk was up to his usual multicategory dominance in this game, registering an assist along with eight shots and three hits. Tkachuk has yet to score a goal in four games this season, but that should change soon enough. (nov29)

10. The Canadiens announced on Friday that they have signed Mike Matheson to a five-year, $30 million extension. Matheson receives a small raise on the $4.875 million cap hit that he currently earns, with the extension keeping him under contract until 2031, when he will be 37 years of age. That might seem like a long time, but that is the price to pay for a steady two-way defenseman who checks a lot of boxes for the Habs in the here and now.

Matheson now has six points in his last six games and 15 points in 24 games (0.62 PTS/GP), which is an improved pace over last season (0.39 PTS/GP). Since he lost his spot on the top power play to offensive dynamo Lane Hutson, Matheson’s offensive ceiling has been lowered significantly. (nov29)

11. Jakob Chychrun is working on a 10-game point streak. Over those 10 games, Chychrun has racked up 13 points. On top of that, Chychrun has a five-game goal streak… as a defenseman. Entering Saturday, his 23 points in 25 games placed him in the top 5 in scoring among defensemen. Only Zach Werenski had more shots among defensemen than Chychrun (87 SOG). (nov29)

12. Over the first month of the season, Jason Robertson scored just three goals (but recorded 11 assists) over his first 16 games. Over his last nine games, Robertson has scored 12 goals. Entering Saturday's games, the recent run had Robertson in the top 10 in both goals (15) and points (32) entering. Meanwhile, Wyatt Johnston is the first player to reach 10 power-play goals this season. No other player had more than 7 PPG. Only teammate Mikko Rantanen had more power-play points in the entire league than Johnston (16 PPP). Not surprisingly, the Stars had the most power-play goals (27 PPG) and the highest power-play efficiency (31.8%) of any team this season. (nov29)

13. Connor Clattenburg scored for the Oilers in his second career game last week, which was a little bright spot for the team. Clattenburg is a big man (6-2, 215) who went undrafted in his first year of eligibility, and then wasn't taken until the fifth round the next year (2024). His offensive upside is probably the third line, but he offers potentially 200+ Hits per year, as well as 80+ PIM. (nov26)

14. The Predators are apparently listening on Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault, while the Canucks are putting some of their “veterans” up on the block. Both teams need to pick a lane, and it will be interesting to see which younger players step up in the vacuum created by any trades. Something to be thinking about as we get into trade season. (nov26)

15. The cap league skater and goalie rankings dropped last week, which led me down a bit of a rabbit-hole of a thought rant when it comes to future planning.

Matthew Schaefer and Alexander Nikishin jumped into the top-50 for rating in cap leagues, though it is interesting to note how similarly they fall despite the two extra years on Schaefer’s contract. In part, it’s because the algorithms have trouble properly evaluating what Nikishin might get on a next contract, meanwhile to the outside observer, we can see that Carolina is locking up their young players early, and having set up Miller with his $7.75 million deal, and seeing how Miller carries a lot more of the load than Nikishin does, that probably sets a soft cap on what Nikishin could expect to see on a long-term extension. There is still the possibility of a bridge deal, but if I had to guess, I would say that six years at $8 million could work for both sides.

Now, Carolina’s management of contracts is something that I have mentioned before, and it is worth noting again just how well they have positioned themselves over the next five-to-eight years. Andrei Svechnikov is the only member of a top six forward group whose average age comes in under 25, and he is the only one signed for less than six years, with four years remaining on his deal with a $7.75 million cap hit.

Planning out to have a core locked in over the next handful of years while the NHL undergoes a huge market growth correction, could see the Canes paying their top six forwards less than a third of their total salary cap room!

Not to mention that the team also has Jacob Slavin, Sean Walker, and Miller locked in for at least four more years at their current cap hits. In 2028-2029, assuming that the bottom-of the lineup players are signed for close to league minimum, and Pyotr Kochetkov is locked up long-term at around an $8 million cap hit, then the Canes could have upwards of $80 million to fill out their third line and a fourth defenceman. What that does, is it allows them to continue to bring in the big fish in free agency year after year, and by 2028 they’re looking at a third line of Jackson Blake, Logan Stankoven, and Svechnikov, all still in their prime (under 30), while the top six above them has become a murder’s row of talent. (nov26)

16. In my cap league, I’m trying to use the model above to plan for the future, and while I would love to compete this year, injuries are holding me back from really thriving this season. Missed time from Roman Josi, Mikael Granlund, Joey Daccord, Roope Hintz, Chris Kreider, Patrick Kane, and Jordan Spence has been hard to mitigate. However, a core of that group alongside Dylan Larkin, Tage Thompson, Jackson Blake, Zach Werenski, Logan Thomspon, Jesper Bratt, and more has kept me afloat thus far.

As you can tell it’s a group that generally has term on their deals outside of the older players (who will age out for some new growth to take over), and that core can hopefully keep a high level of play up into the range of the 2027-2030 seasons, where their locked in contracts will become a huge asset. Maybe easier for the Hurricanes to manage as they get to sign their own contracts and coordinate that, but it is an important thing to look ahead at your core and their contracts (or even just ages for the contention window in non-cap leagues). (nov26)

17. Gavin Brindley‘s injury was some very unfortunate timing last week, and he has been labeled week-to-week at this point with an uncertain timeline for return from his lower-body injury. As Valeri Nichushkin was also out with an injury, Brindley was trying to make the most of the bump up to the top six. He only had seven points in 17 full games to start the year, but five of those points came in his most recent five games.

He recently signed a two-year extension with the Avs, for $875K per year. If Brindley can get healthy and regain his spot in the top nine, then that could be a bargain for cap-league owners. It was surprising to see the Blue Jackets deal Brindley away, as he was a highly regarded prospect in their system and had built up plenty of chemistry with Adam Fantilli in college. However, after a couple of injury-plagued seasons, Brindley was given a fresh start with the Avs and has seized some of the opportunity. The next contract is a two-way deal next year, and one-way after that. That may have hinted to the timeline which the Avs expected Brindley to follow, but from his showing thus far, he may not play another career AHL game.

He has been a favourite prospect of mine from the months leading up to the 2023 draft, and I’m glad to see him making the most of the chances here. (nov26)

18. Individual Points Percentage (IPP) is how often a player gets a point when they’re on the ice for a goal. So, if a player is on the ice for 100 team goals, and gets a point on 50 of them, their IPP is 50%. It is a straightforward way to measure goal participation and can help highlight players that are running hotter/colder than they should be.

When perusing the defencemen around the league (at time of writing), there were some names whose IPP so far in 2025-26 stood out for one way or another. Let’s look at those names, compare their points/60 and IPP rates across the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons to the first quarter of this season, and how that should inform decisions by fantasy managers. Data is from Natural Stat Trick.

Brandon Montour (Seattle Kraken)

The leader for improved IPP when compared to the two-season stretch from 2023-2025 is Joel Edmundson. In second place is Montour:

Montour sits with 0.67 points per game, considerably higher than his 0.51 points per game a year ago, which is a good start. The problem is Seattle is generating fewer shots per 60 minutes (25.8) with Montour on the ice than last season (28.5). The expected goals are up, but not significantly (about 7%). Also, in 2024-25, only three defencemen (Luke Hughes, Cale Makar, and Zach Werenski) finished with an IPP over 60%, and Hughes was at the top at 65.7%. Unless Seattle starts generating a lot more offence with Montour on the ice, he will be fortunate to manage 30 points the rest of the way. He will still be fine in multi-cat formats, but his points-only value has a big red flag. (nov25)

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Friday (nov28)

19. We are nearly 30% of the way through the regular season, which means firm decisions need to be made about fantasy rosters. Managers hoping for a championship need to look around the league at which players could bolster their roster, and that’s what we’re doing here today. We are seeking players who are Black Friday sales targets, or guys who’ve underperformed their potential fantasy value and could be had for relatively cheap in a trade.

To do this, we are going to look at a few different areas:

• Individual Points Percentage (IPP) which is the rate at which a player earns a point when his team scores with him on the ice. So, if a player has been on the ice for 20 goals this season, and he has 10 points, he has an IPP of 50%.
• On-Ice Shooting Percentage (OISH%), or the rate at which a team scores with a player on the ice. For example, if a defenceman is on the ice for 200 team shots, and the team has scored 20 goals on those 200 shots, that defeceman’s OISH% is 10%.
• On-Goal Percentage (OG%), which is how often a player’s shot attempts turns into a shot on goal (nov28)

20. The focus will be mainly on veterans as we are comparing to prior seasons, and it will start with defencemen before moving to forwards. Data is from Natural Stat Trick.

To clarify the visuals below, here’s a guide:

• The horizontal axis shows change in IPP from 2023-25 to 2025-26.
• The red vertical line is the average change in IPP.
• The vertical axis shows the change in OISH%.
• The blue horizontal line is the average change of OISH.
• The colour of the dots is the change in shot attempts/shots on goal. The lighter the colour of the dot, the lower the change, so the light colours are a negative change and the dark colours are a positive change.

Clear as mud? Great. Let’s look at some players to target on the cheap.

MacKenzie Weegar (Calgary Flames)

At the top of the list is a perennial multi-category stud who has been off to a very slow start, and when looking at this graph, it’s clear why this is happening:

As things stand at the Thanksgiving break, Weegar has seen the largest drop in on-ice shooting percentage, averaging 10.9% across the prior two seasons and sitting at 4.8% so far this year. That is even with the team’s rate of shots and expected goals with him on the ice being right in line with the previous two years. Weegar has zero goals and four assists in 25 games, highlighting just how bad a start it has been. Had his OISH% and IPP been similar to the last two years, he would have 4 goals and 15 points. But they’re not, so he doesn’t.

Calgary is dead last by goals per 60 minutes this season, but they were 29^th by goals/60 last season so it’s not as if their offensive struggle is unexpected, and what has happened with Weegar has been terribly bad luck through 25 games. With Rasmus Andersson likely to be traded at some point and Zayne Parekh both injured and not having the trust of the coaching staff yet, Weegar seems likely to return to the top PP unit this season, too. With a lot of positive regression in store, he seems poised to have a big second half in multi-cat formats. (nov28)

21. Noah Hanifin (Vegas Golden Knights)

Two things can be true about Hanifin:

1. He is unlikely to earn top PP minutes with any type of regularity this season, and that lowers his fantasy ceiling compared to the earlier parts of his Vegas tenure.
2. Even without the top PP time, he has been very unlucky.

Here is where Hanifin sits in changes to IPP and OISH% this season:

While Hanifin’s IPP is consistent with his prior two seasons, his OISH% has completely crashed. That is not just due to a lack of top PP time, either: Vegas shot 9.7% with Hanifin on the ice at even strength in his first two seasons with the team, a rate that is 5% this season. If his normal rate were approaching 10%, he’d have 6 points in 13 games instead of 3 points in 13 games.

Aside from the positive OISH% regression to come, the positive for Hanifin is that he’s earning 38% of the team’s even-strength ice time this season compared to 36% last year (per Frozen Tools). Even without the top PP time, the injury to Alex Pietrangelo has Hanifin at 23:15 per game in ice time, an increase of 1:42 from last year. It has helped his peripherals improve and if he maintains that elevated peripheral level when the points start flowing more regularly, he’ll be just fine in multi-cat formats. (nov28)

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