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

—

It's back! Dobber's 2026 Interactive Playoff Draft List has officially dropped.

 Nobody's thinking about playoff pools yet… but the people who win them usually start early. Fully customizable. Set your projected finalists or just roll with Dobber's list.

See more here…

—

1. For the Washington Capitals, last Sunday's top headline was Alex Ovechkin scoring on the power play and reaching 1,000 career goals (regular season + playoffs). (mar23)

2. The Ottawa Senators announced that defenceman Thomas Chabot required surgery on his arm after J.T. Miller broke it with a cross-check. Chabot will be out 4-8 weeks which means that the earliest he might be back is for the end of the first round of the playoffs – should Ottawa get that far – and may be out until around the time of the Eastern Conference Final. It is still wild that the NHL deemed the Miller cross-check as legal even though he broke a guy’s arm, but that’s the modern NHL. (mar27)

3. The Sens did offer some good news on defenceman Jake Sanderson, as he's with the team on their Florida trip. Sanderson returning will lessen the blow of losing Chabot, and it will mean a lot of minutes for Sanderson once he does return. It should also mean a heavier workload for Jordan Spence and Artem Zub, at least to what they were getting a month ago. (mar27)

4. We love to see new rookies get their first NHL points. It started with an assist for Carter Yakemchuk in his first NHL game, courtesy of a beautiful shot from Brady Tkachuk, and less than 15 minutes of game time later, he potted his first NHL goal.

Now, most of the rookies debuting this time of year are like Sasha Boisvert or Drew Fortescue who are done their college seasons and can get a few games of experience with a non-playoff team. In rarer cases, there might be a top-six spot for a top prospect, like there might be for Michael Hage in Montreal, but often the playoff teams will keep the prospects waiting until the fall, like on Long Island where Cole Eiserman signed his ELC, but they deferred it to only kick in at the start of the 2026-27 season (so he is headed to the AHL).

Yakemchuk however, has been in the AHL all season, putting up 35 points in 38 games, adding over two shots per game, a healthy number of PIMs, but also racking up a heavy dose of minuses, with a minus-31 rating. That is cause for some concern, because if he can’t keep up on defence in the AHL, he is going to have a tough time in the NHL. The “good” news is that the Belleville AHL team has allowed the second-most goals in the league, and has a losing record, which would account for some of the plus-minus discrepancy. (mar25)

5. Elsewhere, the Chicago Blackhawks lit up the Islanders last Tuesday in a game that saw a big spotlight on the youth from both teams. In his debut, Anton Frondell picked up an assist to go with two SOG, one Hit, two Blks, and a minus-one rating in just under 16 minutes of ice time. He played with Connor Bedard on the top line, and was also part of the top power play unit – kicking Teuvo Teravainen to the second unit.

Nick Lardis had a career night, with a goal and two assists… in the first period. He finished with the three points in 14 minutes of ice time, and is making the most of his top-six role at even strength. Frank Nazar and Alex Vlasic combined for three points and some solid peripherals between the pair. The Blackhawks’ future roster is really starting to take shape.

Matthew Schaefer responded for the Isles with an assist of his own, and played over 30 minutes in the game while firing eight shots on net. Cal Ritchie scored his 10^th of the season, but it was too little too late for the Isles who slip out of a playoff spot with the loss. (mar25)

6. Owning Mikael Granlund has been an experience full of highs and lows this year. He now has more points (21) in his multi-point games (eight games) than he does in his single-point efforts (14 games) this season. Not to mention a remaining 26 games without any points, a couple of stints on the injured list, and some games down on the fourth line.

I do still own him in one league where his faceoffs from the wing are a huge bonus, but the dropping shot volume, and the non-existent Hits/Blks recently has made him much harder to hold onto. At 34 he is slowly being phased out, and I do wonder about what his role next year is going to be. Especially if Mason McTavish can get back on track and take on the C2 role – he makes one of the best buy-low options right now. (mar25)

7. J.T. Miller has failed to deliver for fantasy teams this season (Yahoo ADP 45). Miller has provided just 45 points in 59 games, while his 0.76 PTS/GP is the lowest of his career since 2018-19, which was his only full season in Tampa Bay. His minus-27 is also the worst of his career. Next season will be telling as to whether Miller can bounce back or whether his banger style of play has caught up to him. At least he has been heating up recently with six points over his last four games.

On a side note, I was discussing with a friend recently how the Miller trade last season has turned out to be a lose-lose for both the Canucks and Rangers. Miller has four more seasons left with a cap hit of $8 million, so there’s a strong probability that the remainder of his contract won’t age well for the potentially rebuilding Rangers. As for the Canucks, they received Filip Chytil, Victor Mancini, Marcus Pettersson, and Drew O’Connor in the trade (the last two from Pittsburgh by flipping the first-round pick they received from the Rangers for Miller). Not a lot to get excited about from a Canucks perspective. (mar28)

8. Adam Sýkora made his NHL debut for the New York Rangers on Wednesday night. The second-round pick from 2022 has spent the last three years in the AHL and amassed 58 points in 131 games. He is not typically known for his offence, but with the team’s lacklustre forward depth, he has a chance to make an impression for next season. (mar26)

Still with the Rangers, 23-year-old Dylan Garand is very unlikely to take over as the Rangers’ starter from Igor Shesterkin anytime soon, but there could be an opening at backup next season with the 40-year-old Jonathan Quick on the final year of his contract. Garand has a 2.83 GAA and .896 SV% in 36 AHL games this season, which isn’t a superb stat line, but the Hartford Wolf Pack team in front of him hasn’t been particularly strong. For the here and now, Garand might be worth a streaming start or two down the stretch. (mar28)

9. Artturi Lehkonen was back in the lineup for Colorado on Thursday night following an injury back on March 2. First it was Gabriel Landeskog and now it’s Lehkonen, so the Avalanche are starting to get healthy at just the right time. In Lehkonen’s return to the lineup, he assisted on Nathan MacKinnon‘s game-winning goal but skated just 12:06 while mostly lined up next to Brock Nelson on the second line. No problem with Colorado easing Lehkonen back into action, but a second-line, PP2 role doesn’t leave a lot of room for high-end fantasy value. (mar27)

10. Daniil Tarasov has had a very good season for the Panthers, given all the injuries on the roster. He makes for an intriguing name in fantasy drafts next season. (mar27)

11. At the Trade Deadline, the Boston Bruins acquired forward Lukas Reichel from the Vancouver Canucks in exchange for a sixth-round draft pick. Reichel started in the AHL, where he had five points in three games, and was called up to the NHL last week. He has two points in three games since the recall, averaging 14:02 per game with some secondary PPTOI. Reichel, the 17^th overall pick from 2020, never really established himself in Chicago during their rebuild and Vancouver clearly wasn’t a good spot for him, either.

In January of 2025, I wrote about Reichel’s time in the NHL over at another website. The long story short was this: Reichel had some tracking data – namely what he does on zone entries – that put him in company with high-end forwards across the league. It wasn’t a small sample, either, as we were talking about over 700 tracked minutes at 5-on-5 spanning four seasons and 169 NHL games, and what he does on zone entries is something that normally helps teams offensively.

Now that Reichel is back in the NHL, it’s worth going over what happened in Chicago, what makes him a unique player, and why it can work (or not) in Boston. (mar26)

[Follow the link for the full analysis…]

12. I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about (and dealing with) how this past week’s NHL schedule was so unbalanced. Next week it gets a bit better, and if you’re in a position to get a jump on schedule management there, then target the five-game week from the Penguins. (mar25)

13. After putting up 21 points in 49 games with the Predators prior to the trade deadline move to Colorado, Nick Blankenburg has barely been given a chance with the Avs to this point. However, with their playoff spot locked up we could begin to see the stars rested a little, creating some opportunities for surprise games from players like Blankenburg the rest of the way. Something to keep in your back pocket. In my dynasty league I had to drop him last night to activate a player returning from injury, but I do still see some upside in the right situation. (mar25)

14. I’m still bitter that I gave Darren Raddysh away in my dynasty league the day before he started his scoring outburst. No way to see it coming though, and like NHL goalies, you just have to have a short memory sometimes. (mar25)

15. Joel Hofer blanked the Capitals on Tuesday for his sixth shutout of the year. Jordan Binnington may be good for Team Canada, but Hofer is the best goalie on the Blues. (mar25)

16. Rick Roos is looking for a few more mailbag questions to be answered in next week's article. To get your questions to him, private message “rizzeedizzee” via the DobberHockey Forums or email [email protected] with “Roos Mailbag” as the subject line. No one does a deeper dive on your questions than Rick, and now is the time to get those playoff draft questions in before it's too late – or, maybe you’re already looking ahead at some offseason keeper choices, and trying to get ahead of the game there.

17. Matthew Knies scored his 19^th and 20^th goals of the season (one shorthanded) on Tuesday, a second straight 20-goal campaign for the youngster. His shooting percentage and shot rate have both dipped this year, but his assist rate has really picked up, making him an even more dangerous player. As a bigger player, his breakout threshold technically isn’t until the start of the 2028-29 season, but at this rate a steadier ascent to above a point-per-game player seems more likely. (mar25)

18. The Utah Mammoth announced the signing of Caleb Desnoyers to his three-year entry-level deal. The fourth overall pick from 2025 had 78 points in 45 games with the Moncton Wildcats in the QMJHL this year. It will be interesting to see how the Mammoth decide to use him for the balance of the campaign considering they’re likely to reach the postseason. (mar24)

19. The New Jersey Devils indicated that defenceman Brett Pesce may not return this season, according to Amanda Stein. Pesce has been out for three weeks with a lower-body injury and had only played 37 of the 61 games leading up to the injury in what has been a forgettable season for him and the franchise. It does provide minutes security for notable fantasy options like Simon Nemec. (mar24)

20. In one of the funniest games of the season, Mika Zibanejad suited up for his 1000^th NHL regular season game as the New York Rangers hosted the Ottawa Senators. There was a nice ceremony before the game and his teammates all dressed up with wigs in the design of Zibanejad’s haircuts over the years. And then the Rangers went out and lost 2-1, putting up nine (!) shots on goal, which was the lowest total for a regular season game since 2003 (according to Hockey Reference). I shut the game off after the first period because this Rangers team made the Toronto Maple Leafs look like they were putting in a lot of effort recently. (mar24)

21. Every month or so this season, these Ramblings have reviewed changes in a player’s circumstance or performance, discussing things like ice-time changes, role changes, shot volume changes, and so forth. With a little over three weeks left in the regular season, let’s do that one last time.

We are using player shot data from Evolving Hockey and ice time data from Frozen Tools. We are going to look at data up until the Olympic break and compare it to data since the Olympic break ended four weeks ago. All is current as of Monday, March 23^rd.

Kent Johnson and Denton Mateychuk(Columbus Blue Jackets)

There can be multiple things that are true of Kent Johnson‘s season:

• He had a poor start.
• His production hasn’t really picked up since the Olympic break.
• There are signs of him breaking out of that funk.

The signs of him breaking out are market share of shot attempts and market share of expected goals. A quick explainer:

• ‘Market share’ means the percentage of a team’s shot attempts, shots, or expected goals a specific player takes when he’s on the ice. For example: if Connor McDavid is on the ice for 2000 shot attempts taken by the Edmonton Oilers this season, and he takes 500 of those 2000 attempts himself, his market share is 25% (500 divided by 2000). That same idea applies to shots on goal and expected goals.

Using specific ice time restraints for each of the pre- and post-Olympic sections, which gives us 310 forwards, Johnson has the fifth-largest improvement in market share of shot attempts and the tenth-largest improvement in market share of expected goals:

He isn’t getting much ice time and is shooting under 5%, so the raw fantasy numbers are meagre, and his fantasy value is minimal for the vast majority of fantasy leagues this season, but it does give some hope for next season.

Teammate Denton Mateychuk also has multiple true things about him right now: his market shares of shot attempts and expected goals have increased slightly since the Olympics, which is good, but his ice time has been completely nuked, which is not. Mateychuk has seen the fifth-largest drop in percentage of his team’s short-handed ice time, the 28^th-largest drop in percentage of power play time, and the 29^th-largest drop in percentage of even-strength ice time:

Put it all together and Mateychuk has seen 1 of the 10 largest drops in ice time (tied with two others). He is now clearly a bottom-pair option for the Blue Jackets, so while his long-term outlook is still bright, barring an injury or two, he may not have much fantasy value over the next few weeks. (mar24)

[Follow the link for more…]

—

Have a good week, folks!

Thanks for continuing to support the website and if you’re bored and need a fantasy hockey fix – visit the gang in the forum here.