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. For those that have already wrapped up their fantasy seasons, or don’t have much left to contend for, there’s always the playoff drafts to look ahead to:

Dobber’s 20th (20!!) annual Interactive playoff draft list – out in early April (April 10) and updated right up until the playoffs! Use Dobber’s own picks, or run your own playoff scenario using the brackets provided and print your own list! Order it here.

Running your own scenarios, and trying to get a feel for which teams have an easier path through to the final or conference finals is the best way to find the ideal teams to target. Everyone is going to want a piece of Colorado, Dallas, and Minnesota as three of the top teams, but two of the three of them are going to be eliminated before round three begins, and it’s tough to find a best guess as to who that will be.

Utah could be a popular pick moving over to the Pacific side of the bracket, while the winner of a possible Boston/Carolina first round could go a few rounds deep too. The Atlantic looks to be strong like the Central, where any one of the top-three teams could realistically win, though many are going to point to the experience for the Lightning as a reason that they will come out on top.

I think I am likely going to end up with a lot of shares from the Sabres, Oilers, and Bruins, with maybe sprinkling in a couple of my last picks on whoever makes the WC2 slot in the West, as Colorado is showing some holes lately, and there’s a branch of the multiverse where Minnesota and Dallas beat each other up and provide an upset route to one of Los Angeles, San Jose, or Nashville. (apr8)

2. So, this weekend represents the final weekend of the regular season. Maybe it’s not relevant if your fantasy league has called it a season and declared a winner, but we still serve those out there who are still playing.

The following is for leagues that finish on Sunday, but all of these players could also be considered in leagues that go the distance (until Thursday).

Teams with games both Saturday and Sunday: Boston, Columbus, Calgary, Montreal, New Jersey, NY Islanders, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, Utah, Vancouver, Washington

By the way, have you noticed anything in the way of load management so far? All it seems to have been is the Panthers and all their injuries, which may or may not improve their draft lottery odds. Maybe we’ll hear about teams resting star players for the playoffs a game or two before they start, but so far it has been a big nothingburger.

Here are some players that you can target that play games on both Saturday and Sunday:

Cole Hutson – I featured Hutson last week, but I’ll take the opportunity to reaffirm his status here. Hutson is rostered in only 20 percent of Yahoo leagues, which seems rather low given his contributions so far (8 PTS and 5 PPP in 11 GP). Hutson has received sub-50% of his team’s power-play minutes over the last four games, but that is something that you should hardly fret over unless you specifically need power-play points. At age 19, he already seems well on his way to an impactful career. Could the Hutson brothers be discussed in the same realm as the Tkachuks and Hugheses soon?

Ryan Leonard – A top-5 rookie scorer, Leonard has been heating up with six points over his last six games. He has also been shooting the puck with regularity during that time, averaging three shots per game over those six games. Leonard’s icetime could be higher, as he has still been averaging under 14 minutes over the final quarter and is not always on the top power play. He is averaging over a hit per game this season and is averaging over two hits per game in his recent hot run. Another 14: Leonard was rostered in just 14 percent of Yahoo leagues as of mid-week. (apr11)

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3. For the first time since 1990, a Montreal Canadiens player managed a 50-goal season as Cole Caufield reached that mark on Thursday night in the team’s 2-1 win at home against Tampa Bay. That gives him 18 goals and 30 points in 21 games since returning from the Olympic break.

Juraj Slafkovsky scored the game-winning goal with just over a minute left in the game, his 30^th tally of the season, and the first time he cracked that plateau in his career. His assist on the Caufield goal also pushed him to the 70-point mark for the first time in his career.

Nick Suzuki assisted both goals and was two points shy of reaching 100 entering Saturday action. (apr10)

4. An update on Colorado’s Nazem Kadri:

@jessemontano_: Kadri "will miss some games" but Jared Bednar said the plan is to get him in at least one more regular season game.

That might end Kadri’s regular season even if there is hope to get him in for one game. In the meantime, Gabriel Landeskog was moved up to Colorado’s top PP unit for Thursday night’s game.

Montano also tweeted that Cale Makar was practicing in a non-contact jersey on Thursday. A good step forward as he looks to return from injury before the end of the season. (apr10)

5. Luke Hughes has been shut down for the rest of the season, according to the New Jersey Devils, as he’s set to undergo a procedure to fix a lingering issue. He finishes his third season with 35 points in 68 games, totaling 2.2 shots per game, which is a career-best mark. Simon Nemec assumed top PP duties for the game on Thursday night. (apr10)

6. The Boston Bruins signed prospect James Hagens to his three-year entry-level contract. Hagens had signed a tryout contract to go play with Providence in the AHL, but after six games, he’s getting the call up. There is no information yet about when he’ll make his debut, but this is something that is important to track over the final week of the fantasy hockey season. (apr9)

7. The Philadelphia Flyers announced the signing of Jack Berglund, their second-round pick from 2024. He had 12 points in 40 games as a 19-year-old in the Swedish league and will report to the Flyers’ AHL affiliate to begin. He won’t have fantasy relevance this season but certainly a good sign for his future that the team decided to offer him the three-year entry-level deal. (apr10)

8. The Minnesota Wild signed prospect Viking Gustafsson Nyberg to a two-year contract, tweeted Michael Russo. The first year of his deal will be burned this season, so he will be an RFA next year. He is ineligible for playoffs but can play regular season games. (apr10)

9. Entering Saturday, Evan Bouchard had 91 points on the campaign, surpassing 90 points for the first time in his career. Connor McDavid was leading the league in points (with 133), and Bouchard was leading all defencemen. (apr9)

10. Logan Stankoven entered the Olympic break at 10 goals, but now has 21 on the season, while linemate Jackson Blake is now past the 50-point marker for the first time in his career. Those two have been tied together on the second line for most of the season. The third member has most often been Taylor Hall, but Hall has also been cycled down to the fourth line not infrequently, which could be a risk for him next year as Bradley Nadeau looks to join the team full time. The obvious spot for him would be taking over Hall’s second-line wing slot, and giving the line of Nadeau, Blake, and Stankoven a heavy dose of offensive zone starts while the other three lines carry more of the heavier matchups. All that to say, I like Nadeau’s outlook for next year. (apr8)

11. Jacob Markstrom, at 36, seems to have lost a bit of his speed, and he has been chasing games all season. His play has further tailed off in the final quarter, and with Nico Daws in the wings, one has to wonder whether Dougie Hamilton isn’t the only big contract that the Devils are shopping this summer. (apr8)

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12. The future showed out for Washington on Wednesday night as Ryan Leonard scored his 18^th goal of the season and Ilya Protas registered his first career NHL point by assisting on an empty-net goal from Cole Hutson. (apr9)

The Caps calling up Ilya Protas from the AHL to be their ace in the hole as a second line center for their longshot playoff push is quite the jump for him after being in the USHL two years ago. He has had a meteoric rise, playing one year each in the USHL, OHL, AHL, and now stepping into the NHL after lighting up each of those previous stops.

He's been lining up between his brother Aliaksei Protas and Tom Wilson, which would be terrifying to play against. Tom Wilson at 6'4″ and 225lbs might be the smallest one on that line (assuming the younger Protas has put on some weight since his most recent published numbers from last summer), and he is the shortest.

The Capitals could be losing Alex Ovechkin in the offseason, but they should be in good hands moving forward with their current core, as the management team has done a fantastic job of balancing selling off pieces with remaining competitive over the last few years. (apr8)

13. It does seem like the pendulum is leaning in Scott Wedgewood's favour for the start in game one of the playoffs for the Avalanche. In his last 10 games before Saturday action, he won seven of them while putting up a 1.54 GAA and a .935 sv%.

To start off next season, though, assuming Mackenzie Blackwood can have a healthy offseason, then I would expect him to return to being the de-facto number one in Colorado in the fall, seeing at least 50 starts on the season. Maybe some buy-low opportunity this summer depending on how the playoffs play out. (apr8)

14. The Islanders made a major shakeup, letting Patrick Roy go and bringing in Pete DeBoer as their new head coach. This move could completely reshape the team’s direction. For a deeper dive and fantasy perspective, check out Ian Goodings’ take here. (apr6)

15. Remember when it seemed like Evgeni Malkin was radioactive in preseason drafts? The future Hall of Famer was drafted in just 10% of Yahoo leagues, which likely consisted of either deep leagues or the odd fantasy leaguer that thought Malkin was still a superstar. It turns out that Malkin still has a lot left in the tank.

If the Penguins were serious about their statement of this being Malkin’s last season with the team, then surely other teams would be willing to sign the soon-to-be 40-year-old for at least one more season. Malkin has managed to reverse the aging process with his first point-per-game season (61 PTS in 55 GP) since 2022-23. He’s had an impressive comeback season. Also of note is the fact that Malkin has increased his average shot total by nearly a shot per game from 1.8 SOG/GP last season to 2.6 SOG/GP this season. (apr5)

16. Love him or hate him, Jack Hughes is one of the hottest players in the league right now. Since scoring his golden goal, Hughes has piled up 37 points over his last 22 games. If he can find a way to avoid a significant injury for an entire season, Hughes might truly become fantasy elite. A 100-point season would go a long way in attaining that designation. (apr5)

17. John Tortorella has shown faith in Carter Hart, who started five of the team's last six games entering Saturday. Goaltending is what ailed the Golden Knights prior to the coaching change, so it’s entirely possible that Hart turns out to be Torts’ guy. Remember that the two were together in Philly, a fact that I overlooked in the Fantasy Take. In fact, I think I completely forgot that Hart was on the Vegas roster because he was still injured. Don’t forget to check GoaliePost for the latest starting goalie info. (apr5)

18. There were only four games on Monday night, and there are just 10 days left in the regular season, so now is a good time to get a head start on looking towards the playoffs. Let’s do a little playoff preview and start with the first four teams that qualified for the postseason: Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, and Minnesota Wild.

Data is from Hockey Reference, Evolving Hockey, Natural Stat Trick, and Frozen Tools. All is current as of the morning of Monday, April 6^th.

Carolina Hurricanes

There is one thing that should be known about the Hurricanes: relative to their games against fellow members of the Metro Division, they struggled against the Atlantic this season:

An .800 points percentage is a 131-point pace, and a .59 points percentage is a 94-point pace. If Carolina played all their games against the Metro, they might be the best regular season team of all time. If Carolina played all their games against the Atlantic, and the rest division performs as they have this season, Carolina wouldn’t make the playoffs. Their games against Montreal skew things (three losses, minus-7 goal differential), but the same could be said for their games against New Jersey (four wins, plus-11 goal differential).

That is notable because there is a decent chance that two teams from the Atlantic – two of Boston, Ottawa, or Detroit – are the two wild card teams, and an opponent in the first round for Carolina. The Hurricanes have gone 5-2-1 against those teams, but did not fare so well against Boston, so they could be in tough in their first-round matchup.

All the same, Carolina is fourth in goals-for per game this season and are a near-lock have home ice at least until the Eastern Conference Final. They are the second-highest scoring home team in the league, trailing only Colorado, so that’s a good thing for them.

The downside for Carolina’s fantasy playoff value is that scoring is very spread out among the team. They have five 20-goal scorers (Jordan Staal has 19 and Logan Stankoven has 20 so they could reach that plateau as well), but only one 30-goal scorer (Seth Jarvis, though Andrei Svechnikov needs one more for 30) and zero 35-goal scorers. They also have just one point-per-game forward (Sebastian Aho has 78 points in 77 games) and just one 40-point defenceman (Shayne Gostisbehere, 47). This is a team that could very well reach the Eastern Final again, but someone like Nikita Kucherov could have more points in three rounds than anyone on the Carolina roster will have in four (if they get to the Stanley Cup Final).

Carolina is a top scoring team that can get to their conference final, but the choice between top players from that roster against top players from Tampa Bay or Colorado isn’t much of a choice if we’re looking for raw per-game upside. (apr7)

19. Colorado Avalanche

It is a bit of a good news/bad news situation for Colorado. The good news is that they are likely to win the Western Conference, which means home ice throughout the Western playoffs, and they also get a matchup with the second Wild Card seed. That means someone like San Jose, Nashville, or Los Angeles, which is preferable to facing Utah as the first wild card.

The bad news is if they get through the first round (and if they don’t, it’s a massive failure), they get the winner of the Dallas/Minnesota series. The Avalanche have just four wins in eight games against those two teams and five of those eight games went to a shootout. The top of the Central Division is a meatgrinder, and that means despite Colorado being the top team in the West, they are far from a lock to reach the West Final.

When healthy, the team’s offence revolves around Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas, and Cale Makar. If Colorado goes deep, it’ll because they’re highly productive. It also helps lift secondary scoring options, particularly ones that have been fixtures of the power play post-Trade Deadline like Brock Nelson and Nazem Kadri.

Colorado also has a lot of depth scoring on the blue line. Makar is over a point per game, and Sam Malinski, Brent Burns, and Josh Manson have all reached the 30-point plateau. Burns has crested the double-digit goal mark with 12, and Malinski fourth among defencemen in assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 this season. Notably, Malinski averaged 15:56 per game until the end of December, and 18:49 per game in calendar 2026. Part of that is a very recent uptick with Makar injured, but even before the Makar injury, Malinski averaged 18:30 per game in 33 games from January 1^st to Makar’s injury (March 30^th), so he’s been leaned on more as he’s established himself as a top-4 defenceman.

Top Avalanche skaters will be top picks in fantasy playoff pools, but even secondary options that aren’t getting top PP time like Artturi Lehkonen, Valeri Nichushkin, Malinski, and Burns are worth grabbing in later rounds. Just beware that their path to the West Final hits a drastic incline in the second round. (apr7)

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20. On Tuesday, these Ramblings started a playoff preview with the first four teams to qualify for the postseason: The Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, and Minnesota Wild. Today, we’ll continue the postseason preview with four more teams.

As this is being written (the morning of Wednesday, April 8^th), only the Tampa Bay Lightning, Buffalo Sabres, and Montreal Canadiens have qualified for the playoffs. However, the Pittsburgh Penguins are six points clear of fourth place in their division with four games remaining. They also have the tie-breaker (33 regulation wins) over the Philadelphia Flyers (25), Columbus Blue Jackets (27), and New York Islanders (28), so they need just two points in their next four games to qualify. They may very well qualify going 0-4 the rest of the way, too, which is why MoneyPuck has them at 99.8% to make the playoffs while HockeyViz has them at 99.9%.

So, we have the Lightning, Sabres, Canadiens, and Penguins as our next four playoff teams to preview. Reminder: Data is from Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, or Frozen Tools. (apr9)

21. Tampa Bay Lightning

The success of Darren Raddysh is well known to us by now, but that Tampa Bay has gotten great seasons from the likes of J.J. Moser, Emil Lilleberg, and Charle-Edouard D’Astous is what has kept them at-or-near the top of the Atlantic Division. The key for that quartet is that they are all between 49-60% goal share at 5-on-5 without Nikita Kucherov on the ice with them:

Ryan McDonagh and Erik Cernak haven’t had the same success, but they also take a lot of shutdown minutes with a lot of defensive zone starts. Starting in the defensive zone with the Yanni Gourde line is quite different from starting in the offensive zone with the Brandon Hagel line.

Unlike some other teams, there is a clear delineation between the haves and the have-nots in Tampa Bay. Gage Goncalves is sixth among their forwards by points/60 minutes at 5-on-5. His rate (2.09 points/60) is that of a low-end, top-line forward in line with names like Beckett Sennecke and Morgan Geekie. After Goncalves, Pontus Holmberg is seventh among Lightning forwards by points/60 minutes at 5-on-5. His rate (1.34 points/60) is that of a high-end fourth-liner. In other words, the Lightning don’t have a single forward who produced 5-on-5 points at a second- or third-line rate. It is feast or famine on this roster, so if those top guys get shut down, the Lightning are in big trouble.

It also makes Tampa Bay easy to stack for playoff pools. There are the top six forwards – Kucherov, Hagel, Jake Guentzel, Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, and Goncalves – and the rest can be left to the side.

Finally, there is the question of Victor Hedman. He has been injured and ineffective for long stretches of the season, and he’s currently away from the team attending to personal matters. If he can come back and be the guy he was last year, it gives the Lightning another difference-maker. If he can’t, they might only have one defenceman (Raddysh) worth drafting in most fantasy leagues.

Tampa Bay has a 6-4-0 record against their likely opponents in the first and second rounds (Buffalo, Boston, Montreal) with a minus-1 goal differential – they have a +61 goal differential in their other 68 games. They are a top-heavy roster for fantasy selections and that makes them a very fragile team to draft; a deep run from those top guys can win the pool but an early exit would mean that fantasy playoff roster is DOA before the end of April. (apr9)

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Have a good week, folks!

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