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. So much more than just the draft happened on Friday, but we’ll start with the draft anyway.

The Toronto Maple Leafs kicked things off, selecting Gavin McKenna with the first overall pick to no one’s surprise. That was also the case for the San Jose Sharks selecting Ivar Stenberg second overall, especially with the Sharks trading William Eklund to Ottawa earlier in the week. That meant everything lined up perfectly for Caleb Malhotra to go third overall to the Canucks, who just hired his dad Manny Malhotra as head coach. That will be an interesting dynamic. (june27)

2. The first real surprise seemed to be the Sabres selecting Daxon Rudolph fourth overall with the pick they received in the Bowen Byram trade. Chase Reid seemed like he would be the first defenseman off the board, but he fell to seventh after fellow d-men Alberts Smits (fifth to NY Rangers) and Carson Carels (sixth to Calgary). In need of something to feel good about after Jason Robertson reportedly turned them down, the Kraken selected Reid at seventh. Viggo Bjorck (Winnipeg), Keaton Verhoeff (San Jose), and Wyatt Cullen (Nashville) rounded out the top 10.

With the selections of Stenberg, Verhoeff, and Ryan Lin, the Sharks look like the big winners of Day 1 of the draft, at least from a picks perspective.

Only one of the Ruck twins was picked in the first round: Liam Ruck at #22 by Pittsburgh. The Penguins have the #39 pick, so they will have the chance to pick Markus Ruck there if he is still on the board.

You can view all of the picks at the NHL's Draft Tracker. Victor Nuno was at the draft in Buffalo and provided much more extensive coverage of the first round in Saturday's edition of Journey. (june27)

3. With everything that happened on Friday, this news might fall under the radar, but it will be meaningful for fantasy leaguers for the upcoming season. According to Hurricanes GM Eric Tulsky, Seth Jarvis will likely need 4-6 months of recovery time following shoulder surgery. At minimum, that would mean Jarvis would miss the first month of the season. A worst-case scenario would have Jarvis making his season debut at around Christmas. Even in a best-case scenario, you’ll need to slide Jarvis down your single-season draft boards.

Tulsky said, “There's a very real chance that we end up with sort of an open spot in our lineup for a month or two for a young player to step in and get an opportunity to show what he can do.” Tulsky was then asked about Bradly Nadeau, to which he said Nadeau “absolutely will be in the conversation if we need a call-up at the start of the year.” Nadeau was limited to three points (all goals) in 12 games when he was called up this season, but he scored 27 goals and 56 points in just 52 games in the AHL this past season. Nadeau makes sense as a potential deep sleeper for upcoming drafts, especially since the Canes were able to roll three scoring lines during the playoffs.

For the Hurricanes, that’s part of the bill for a long playoff run that resulted in a Stanley Cup. At least their lineup is pretty well set with almost everyone returning from their playoff run. Armed with a new contract, Jackson Blake could move up onto the top line. Jesperi Kotkaniemi could even come out of hiding. Kotkaniemi did not play a single playoff game this season. (june27)

4. In perhaps the most significant and most surprising trade of the day, the Vegas Golden Knights sent power-play specialist Pavel Dorofeyev to the New York Rangers for the #26 and #92 picks this year and a conditional 2028 first-round pick. Vegas then traded the #26 pick and eventually ended up with the #29 pick, which they used to select Juho Piiparinen. The Rangers promptly signed Dorofeyev to a seven-year contract with a $11 million AAV. I’ll let Mike Clifford take it from here with the Fantasy Take. (june27)

5. St. Louis acquired Mason McTavish from Anaheim for two first-round picks. I wrote the Fantasy Take for that one.

Boston acquired JJ Peterka from Utah, also for two first-round picks. I also wrote the Fantasy Take for that one.

One of the Mammoth’s first-round picks acquired in the Peterka trade was then flipped to Detroit for goalie Sebastian Cossa. The Red Wings then used that pick to select J.P. Hurlbert. This is a solid trade for Utah, who need a backup goalie for Karel Vejmelka and now have a top goaltending prospect to fill that spot. Cossa will no longer be waiver-exempt next season, while the Wings already have goaltending depth with veteran John Gibson along with prospects Trey Augustine and Michal Postava in the system. In fact, Postava started over Cossa in the AHL’s Grand Rapids Griffins’ playoff run this season.

The Buffalo Sabres acquired defenseman Olen Zellweger from the Anaheim Ducks for prospect forward Anton Wahlberg and a second-round pick. Cliffy wrote the Fantasy Take for that one too. Buffalo continues to shuffle its defense this offseason with Bowen Byram and Michael Kesselring being moved out and Zellweger and Louis Crevier coming in.

The Chicago Blackhawks shipped Andre Burakovsky to the Ottawa Senators for a 2027 sixth-round pick. This trade is simply the Hawks clearing the final year of Burakovsky’s $5.5 million cap hit from the books, a contract that he originally signed with Seattle fresh off a 61-point season with Colorado. Even though he received significant minutes with Connor Bedard, Burakovsky recorded 33 points in 75 games in 2025-26. I don’t see how his value improves much, if at all, with the trade to the Senators.

The Senators weren’t done on Friday, trading for goalie Samuel Ersson from Toronto for a fifth-round pick in the 2027 draft. Unless further development occurs, Ersson is projected to compete with Leevi Merilainen to be the Senators’ backup goalie behind Linus Ullmark. Both Ersson and Merilainen are RFAs this offseason. 

On Thursday, the Columbus Blue Jackets traded for winger Valeri Nichushkin, and I wrote about that trade here. (june27)

6. Wednesday, the Buffalo Sabres traded the rights to winger Alex Tuch to the Washington Capitals, and the Caps subsequently signed Tuch to an 8-year contract worth $10.5M per season. Our own Alex had his breakdown of the signing here.

One point that Alex brought up that I think is pretty important here is it seems as if the Washington Capitals are not expecting Alex Ovechkin to return next season. Whether that is the case or not, we’ll see, but they’ve now added two genuine top-line wingers this week in Tuch and Jordan Kyrou. They already have Tom Wilson and Aliaksei Protas, with both Ryan Leonard and Ilya Protas showing a lot of promise as young flanks. Tuch, Kyrou, Wilson, the Protases (Protii?), and Leonard makes six wingers for their first three lines. Ivan Miroshnichenko signed an extension back in October, Anthony Beauvillier still has a year left on his deal (per PuckPedia),  they extended Ethen Frank for two years, and they could still bring back Brandon Duhaime. That is just a lot of wingers, and a lot of good-to-great wingers, for one team, and it makes me think that it means Ovechkin has played his last game in the NHL. I guess we’ll find out in the coming weeks or months. (june25)

7. There was a slew of other very important trades earlier in the week including Brady Tkachuk, Simon Nemec, William Eklund, Jordan Kyrou, and Bowen Byram. Each trade was covered from a fantasy angle and they can be read here.

8. The Los Angeles Kings have signed Brandt Clarke to a five-year contract with a $7.4 million AAV. In his second full season, Clarke finished with a career-high 40 points, including 13 power-play points. Clarke is a legitimate fantasy option, as he has unseated veteran Drew Doughty on the Kings’ top power play. Clarke offers more than scoring, also leading the Kings with 185 blocked shots. Given the sizable contract, the 23-year-old Clarke appears to be a core piece for the Kings going forward.

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The New York Islanders signed defenseman Tony DeAngelo to a two-year extension with a $4.5 million AAV. This is a significant raise for DeAngelo, who just finished a contract with a “prove it” $1.75 million AAV. 

After bouncing around through several teams with even a brief stop in the KHL, DeAngelo seems to have found a home on Long Island. In his first full season with the Islanders, DeAngelo finished with 35 points in 76 games. The fact that Matthew Schaefer is the Islanders’ top defenseman for everything limits DeAngelo’s upside in fantasy leagues, as DeAngelo finished with just seven power-play points. That used to be his bread and butter in fantasy leagues, as he has three prior seasons of 19, 20, and 19 power-play points. As a result, DeAngelo is more of an option for deeper leagues. 

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The Ottawa Senators signed defenseman Jordan Spence to a four-year extension with a $5 million AAV. Like DeAngelo, Spence receives a significant pay hike. Spence was earning $1.5 million in 2025-26.

In his first season with Ottawa, Spence reached career highs in both points (31) and icetime (18:44). The 25-year-old Spence has an inclination toward offense, which means that he should be of interest in at least some fantasy leagues. However, Spence will be behind Jake Sanderson and possibly Thomas Chabot on the power-play pecking order. Carter Yakemchuk is also on the way up, so the Sens have no shortage of options. The fact that the Senators have invested this contract in Spence should help his cause, though. (june27)

9. Brent Burns is back for another season! The 41-year-old defenseman has re-signed with the Colorado Avalanche for one more season. Burns finished his first season in Colorado with 35 points in 82 games while averaging just under 19 minutes per game. Burns is more of a depth defenseman at this point in his career, but he should at least get into every game to keep his consecutive games streak intact (1007 games) as long as he is healthy. Burns still averages around two shots per game and one block per game, so he still offers something in deeper multicategory leagues.

The Avalanche also re-signed Brett Kulak to a five-year contract with a $4.5 million cap hit. Kulak received the somewhat rare statistical anomaly of playing 83 games in 2025-26, split between Edmonton, Pittsburgh, and Colorado. Kulak was also the only player to play more than 82 games this past season. With just 12 points all season, Kulak is a much better real-life defenseman than fantasy league option. He recorded just three points in 27 games with the Avalanche. (june27)

10. The Buffalo Sabres announced a contract extension for winger Zach Benson, totaling seven years at $7.5M per season. Benson turned heads in the playoffs with nine points in 13 games playing a gritty style, but he has shown very good playmaking and defensive skill through the early portions of his career. He has yet to round into an offensive force, and won’t be a significant fantasy asset until he earns regular top PP time, but he just turned 21 years old in May and crossed the 200-game threshold late in the 2025-26 season. It shouldn’t be long until he’s a regular 20-goal, 40-assist forward with upside far beyond that with a bigger role. (june26)

11. Seattle continued its offseason makeover by signing Bobby McMann to a six-year contract worth $5.75 million annually. It's a solid piece of business for the Kraken, who continue to build what might be the NHL's deepest collection of middle-six forwards. Whether it makes Seattle significantly better remains up for debate, but McMann should have every opportunity to secure a top-six role. After arriving from Toronto before the trade deadline, he produced 14 points (10 goals, four assists) in 18 games with the Kraken and looked like a natural fit in their lineup. (june22)

12. I wanted to offer some thoughts on this year’s group of draft prospects. Before that, a few notes.

First, I am not a prospect person. My job is writing about the NHL, and while I do have to get to know the prospects, I am not out here grinding Swedish league game tape. I watch the World Juniors, some games from the various NCAA playoffs and Memorial Cup, and that’s about it. Analyzing and writing about the NHL every day is my focus.

For that reason, I rely on things like the Dobber Prospects Report to catch up on what I need to know. It is very helpful for getting a read on players further down the draft board, changes to the skills of certain prospects, or whatever else I might need to know. I cannot thank the Dobber Prospects team enough for all they do.

The second note is that because much of my writing covers fantasy hockey, and success in fantasy hockey is about value, that is how I evaluate prospects. I don’t really care who the top few picks are (unless my beloved Montreal Canadiens are making one of those picks). What is important are the prospects with top-10 talent that fell down the draft board for whatever reason (Jakob Chychrun in 2016 and Zach Benson in 2023 come to mind), or the small players with a world of skill who’d be a top-10 pick if they were 6’2, but because they’re under 6’0, they are drafted in the second round (Logan Stankoven and Lane Hutson are recent examples of this).

Aside from the Prospects Report, I do read other rankings such as Scott Wheeler and Corey Pronman at The Athletic, as well as the Hockey Prospecting model from Byron Bader. (june26)

With all that said, here are some 2026 prospects who stuck out to me:

13. Tynan Lawrence

In fairness, there is a bit of a bias here because Lawrence is from my hometown of Fredericton, New Brunswick, and I will always root a bit harder for a hometown guy.

What immediately sticks out to me is his birthday. Lawrence is an August birthday, which means he won’t turn 18 years old for two more months. As a teenager, an 8- or 10-month difference in age is significant for development, so that he’s projected to be a pick in the top half of the first round despite being on the younger side of the development curve is a big plus in his column.

Every scouting report highlights two strengths: skating and transition play. While I’m less concerned with the skating ability of prospects, being a good skater buys a player time to develop other skills. Whether we’re talking about playmaking, hockey sense, or whatever else, those other issues can be improved because the great skating temporarily makes up for those shortcomings.

Lawrence is a name to watch for his landing spot. He may not have the offensive upside right now to be a high-end fantasy producer in five years, but his young age and great skating will give him time to add those skills, and that he’s already a solid offensive player means there’s some real upside here if he adds pieces to his toolkit in the coming years.

[Follow the link for more…] (june26)

14. What a crazy Tuesday that was in the NHL world. Give NHL GMs cap space, a weaker draft class, a barren free agent group, and it turns out that making a trade isn’t actually that difficult!   

We saw Bowen Byram moved for the fourth overall pick, and some secondary pieces. Jordan Kyrou landed in Washington for Connor McMichael, a first, and Milton Gastrin. Simon Nemec and Maxim Tsyplakov were shipped to Calgary in exchange for two late future firsts, an early 2026 second round pick, and prospect Etienne Morin. The Senators also flipped the ninth overall pick that they received in the Brady Tkachuk trade and received William Eklund back in addition to prospect Kasper Haltunen.

On that note, my post-mortem on the Sens from last week is already out of date, but the general thought in it isn’t and that’s noting that the Sens are at a bit of a crossroads with needing to move forward with their current skater core built to win very soon, and trying to do that with a weak prospect pool, and a bunch of first round picks as a result of the Brady Tkachuk trade. They made their first splash with Eklund, but they likely need at least one more in order to keep themselves from falling behind in the arms race that is the Atlantic Division. (june24)

Cliffy was busy with the write ups, and you can find his fantasy take articles here.

15. The deal that I thought was the most interesting was the Kyrou trade, with Connor McMichael going the other way. As someone who went to University in London Ontario, and follows the Knights more than any Junior team as a result, my ears perked up when I heard McMichael was getting moved. He may not have played with Robert Thomas there, but having developed in the same system it would be nice if they could find some chemistry together at the NHL level.

The other angle of this deal, is that McMichael’s contract should still come in at a lower AAV than Kyrou’s despite the fact that they are both coming off of 46-point seasons, and McMichael was playing two minutes a game on the penalty kill along with more than half of his zone starts being in the defensive end. Meanwhile, Kyrou was seeing twice the power play time that McMichael was, no PK time, and was starting two-thirds of his shifts in the offensive zone. A one-for-one flip here wouldn’t have been an awful move by St. Louis, but getting a first round pick and a recent second round selection as well? Masterful move. (june24)

16. There is plenty of content out on the internet that focuses on prospect analysis, mock drafts, and other NHL Draft centered discussions, but I find that fantasy draft ratings, and especially those with some reasoning and context to back it up is lacking, so we’ll try to fill the gap here.

Today, ahead of Saturday's NHL draft, I’ll be running through the top-25 picks as they are currently rated on my draft list for my 24-team dynasty cap league, where I currently have picks 20 and 30. I like to know not just the players within the range of my picks, because it’s always good to know whether it’s worth it to move up or down before a tier drops off.

With fantasy prospect drafts, I value both a player’s ceiling as well as how well they may retain their value as a trade asset over the next few years. This is my draft ranking from consumption of many draft rankings and stories, tinkering based on my own draft preferences, and understanding the preferences of my leaguemates. Right now, I have my own tiers from 1-2, 3, 4-9, 10-14, 15-25. After that point, it tails off into a large pool of players who might hit but likely won’t, and you’re throwing darts based on whose prospect writing you like best.

Now let’s get to it.

Tier 1:

– Gavin McKenna (LW)

McKenna has had a lot of scrutiny on him, but as a first-overall fantasy pick he seems like the safe option. At this point in the draft you really don’t want to over-think things.

– Ivar Stenberg (LW)

Stenberg may have a slightly higher ceiling than McKenna by some outlets, but the floor is also lower and McKenna’s pedigree keeps him afloat as the number one.

Tier 2:

– Viggo Bjorck (C)

His size may knock him down some NHL draft boards, but it may end up being a bit of a plus for fantasy purposes as he should be a top-six centre eventually and the height might keep him away from some of the bigger defensive responsibilities.

[Follow the link for more…] (june24)

17. Rick Roos is looking for a few more questions to be answered in his upcoming mailbag 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 keeper, free agency, and draft questions in before it's too late. 

18. Related to the draft picks that were on the move, Mackie Samoskevich is someone I am going to keep an eye on in drafts heading into next year. Last year we saw Washington pay a second round pick to get Justin Sourdif out of Florida, and he ended up being a key part of Washinton’s depth forward group this year, and was on my roster for half of this past season for my Roto Leeague Championship.

Samoskevich is also being pulled out of Florida for what might be viewed as an excessive return of draft picks, but could it be that we see a similar jump from the 23-year-old? Well, the signs are there that a breakout is coming. Samoskevich posted 29 points in 55 games across the three quarters last season where he wasn’t stapled to the fourth line, including finishing the season with 11 points in his last 16 games, which would be a 58-point pace in next year’s 84-game season. He’s half a season away from his breakout threshold, and I find those can come a little early if there is a significant Pro season already under a player’s belt outside of the NHL, for example Samoskevich’s 62-game, 54-point season in the AHL in 2023-2024.

Would it be too bold, or not bold enough after that to say that we see 50 points out of Samoskevich this season, with a stronger second half that what he puts up to start the season? (june24)

19. NHL pre-season schedules are coming out and it does seem as though they should be wrapped up on Sat Sept 26^th, meaning we could see the NHL season start on Tuesday Sept 29^th. 

20. With the Toronto Maple Leafs pulling off a sign-and-trade to add defenceman Darren Raddysh to their roster (I wrote about that here), this year’s group of free-agent defencemen thinned out quite a bit. There are still several names that have, and could have, significant fantasy relevance, so let’s go through this year’s group of top free-agent rearguards and what their future team, and fantasy managers, could get.

Last week, we covered forwards both at the high end and further down the list. Data will be from Evolving Hockey or Frozen Tools, with tracking data from All Three Zones, unless otherwise indicated. When discussing fantasy value for defencemen, we assume a multi-cat league with goals, assists, power-play points, shots, hits, blocks, and penalty minutes.

John Carlson

Carlson is currently 36 years old but turns 37 years old in January. The chief concern with regards to his play is if, and how much, age will start affecting his play. Any team signing him won’t have to go long term, but if the age decline hits, it can hit very hard, and very fast, making even a 2- or 3-year contract an albatross.

To this point, though, Carlson hasn’t shown many signs of slowing down. His 2.19 points per 60 minutes in 2025-26 was his highest rate since 2021-22, and 36% higher than his three-year average. A big part of that was shooting a career-best 9.2%, but even if he shot at half that rate, his points rate would still have been 20% above his three-year average.

The reason Carlson was so productive is because he’s a genuinely great playmaking defenceman. When looking at three 5-on-5 tracking stats spanning the last two seasons – assists off the rush, assists off the cycle/forecheck, and assists on teammate scoring chances – he isn’t quite in the Quinn Hughes/Cale Makar tier, but he’s not that far behind:

Over these last two campaigns, Carlson ranks third among all defencemen by assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, trailing only Rasmus Dahlin and Lane Hutson. If Carlson can retain this level of playmaking, any team that signs him gets one of the best passing blue liners in the league.

Carlson has holes in his fantasy value with modest penalty minute totals and going from 75 hits per 82 games from 2021-2024 to 41 hits per 82 games over the last two years. However, he is a perennial 10-goal, 40-assist threat who can elevate the scoring of his forwards. His fantasy upside depends on where he signs, but any team signing him should immediately be better offensively.

[Follow the link for more…] (june23)

21. Over my last few Ramblings, the subject has been the free agent crop of 2026, and Tuesday’s Ramblings (above) focused specifically on five defencemen: John Carlson, Rasmus Andersson, Jacob Trouba, John Klingberg, and Mario Ferraro. Earlier, we covered some top forwards like Alex Tuch and Bobby McMann (who is now signed), and then some secondary forward options like Mason Marchment, Viktor Arvidsson, and Mats Zuccarello.

To cap off this series on free agents, let’s finish the defence crop. These are guys a bit further down the list but are intriguing names whom fantasy managers may be keeping tabs on, for better or worse. Player/team data for the charts is from Evolving Hockey or All Three Zones. Ice time data is from Frozen Tools.

Ryan Shea

A big reason why the Pittsburgh Penguins returned to the postseason was unexpected contributions from depth players, and one of them was Shea. He had a +22 goal differential at 5-on-5, which led Penguins defencemen, and backed it up with a 52% expected goal share, which led Penguins defencemen with at least 1000 minutes played. In his first two seasons with Pittsburgh, he had a -11 goal differential and 48% expected goal share.

Shea’s fantasy production was the definition of a mixed bag. On a 60-minute basis, his overall value wasn’t good, but he did have positive contributions to goals and assists, and aside from power-play points, his profile compared well with Filip Hronek:

Here is a fun stat: over the last three seasons, Shea is shooting 8.7% at 5-on-5. Among 186 defencemen with at least 2000 minutes, that ranks fourth, nestled between Cale Makar and Charlie McAvoy.

The problem is whether this was driven by the team or improvements from Shea himself. He was never a big producer in the AHL, is 29 years old, and the Penguins shot over 13% with him on the ice. That ranked third among all blue liners with at least 1000 minutes. Given his age, lack of track record at lower levels, and that his production is largely a function of a team shooting percentage spike, I would not want to bet on him equaling or improving on his 35-point output in 2026-27.

[Follow the link for more…] (june25)

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Reminder: Dobber's 2026 Fantasy Hockey Prospects Report is available now in the Dobber Shop! Both Dobber and the Prospects team highlight the prospects you need to know. It has an in-depth look at each team's current prospect pipeline and estimated arrivals for their top, young (hopeful) stars. Head on over to the Dobber Shop and grab a copy of the Prospects Report! 

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Have a good week, folks!

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