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With Yahoo opening last week I have had a chance to peruse the rankings and do a couple of mock drafts. This also follows up on last week's article where I went through the Dobber Hockey Forum Mock Draft, I figured I would do something similar with the Yahoo rankings and drafts.

As last week I went through my top 10 in detail, I'll maybe focus a little more on the next tier of players, and some other details with defence and goalies farther down the board.

Rasmus Dahlin is someone that I didn't mention in last week's Rambling, but he's certainly in that next tier of defencemen, if not on pair with Zach Werenski and Evan Bouchard, then right behind them – setup dependent of course. In spite of that, he sits down at slot 41, way behind the other two (and Lane Hutson) in the teens. There's a drop off after him though, which runs until you get to Adam Fox and Moritz Seider around pick 70 (or maybe Miro Heiskanen could be considered in that tier as well – sitting at #93). After that, there are a lot of varied options with upside and flaws, all the way down to Seth Jones at #168, which is the last of the defencemen whom I really like.

The power play production upside after that tails off very quickly, with only Filip Hronek, Vince Dunn, and maybe youngsters Artyom Levshunov and Zeev Buium worth looking at as well. That is, except for Kris Letang, currently hidden down at 495, who could be on PP1, but if he's kicked off then he's probably not worth the production and health risk at this age. Dmitry Orlov, Jaime Drysdale, and Cam Fowler also could put up some production, but they're risky bets and they sag a bit in the peripheral categories too.

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I had a leaguemate of mine who was debating between Linus Ullmark, Jakub Dobes, and Lukas Dostal to fill his one keeper goalie slot. There isn't really a market for goalies right now, so it's simply keep one and drop the rest. This is a H2H league with 12 teams and W, Sv, GAA & Sv% as the categories, making it similar enough to the Yahoo default, but with quantity of starts mattering more evenly with quality.

Last season, Lukas Dostal led the trio in both Wins (narrowly) and Svs (by a solid 300 save margin), but was the worst in GAA and Sv% by a decent margin. Generally my approach to goalies is taking the volume and hoping for the ratios, because you're more likely to come out ahead than by picking goalies for ratios (which are less consistent year to year) and hoping for volume. As a result, Dostal would be my pick of the three.

Linus Ullmark missed a big chunk of time last season, and only has Samuel Ersson as a backup, which gives him a solid likelihood of staying close to Dostal for the volume. He would be my next choice, especially considering the strength of Ottawa's defense core relative to Anaheim's. However, Ullmark is seven years older, and hasn't been extremely consistent with playing large volumes during the season, so there's more risk there both for the one year and as a keeper asset, which leans the choice again back towards Dostal.

Dobes meanwhile is the youngest of the trio, and on the best team, which on the surface should make him the choice, especially after putting up much better save percentage numbers than Ullmark or Dostal last year. However, with Samuel Montembeault and Jacob Fowler in the picture, Dobes could realistically end up only seeing 30 starts next season even if he's healthy. On the high end, he's likely capped at 50. Fowler especially is a risk to Dobes' playing time, as his upside is higher, and he's viewed as the heir apparent to the starter role, on a timeline which would match the contention window of the skater core almost perfectly.

With only one goalie keeper here, you have to get it right, and that likely means Dostal is the right pick. That can change in hindsight, but on paper right now that's the way to go.

Interestingly, with Yahoo open now, those three goalies are ranked in reverse order of what I came up with there, as Dobes is ranked 91, Ullmark at 151, and Dostal interestingly all the way down at 200. Don't just go off of the rankings, because when you add in context the value often shifts.

There are some other late goalies of interest too. The later goalies I'm looking at are the ones being passed over because they either are seen as the 1B option or because they are on a poor team despite being locked in as the more full-time starter.

The top six goalies are all debatably well ordered, but after that set of undisputed top-tier starters, things get real hazy real fast. The next few options are lifetime backup Scott Wedgewood, 23-year-old Jesper Wallstedt who will have to fend off incumbent Filip Gustavsson for the back-75% of the season, and 36-year-old Jacob Markstrom who just put up the worst season of his career.

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After that you get back to a couple reliable starters on (possible) playoff teams in Karel Vejmelka and Jeremy Swayman, before things really start to get iffy and there's not much distinction between goalie #12 on the board and goalie #30. I'm either going to get one of the last of the reasonable starters at a decent spot, or both of my goalies are going to be between 25th and 30th off the board.

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We need to have a quick chat about Alexander Ovechkin this year. I mentioned him recently in my review of the Capitals' depth up front, and after going through that I don't have a rosy outlook on his production. His rank and ADP have him around 100, and there are at least 50 more players I would pick over him this year. After pick 150 though he's someone I would consider for the upside of repeating what he did last year, but I don't expect that at all, because the PP time will be cut, the even strength ice time will be cut, and both the peripherals and scoring will suffer as a result. Don't fall for the name value this year.

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Yahoo is reliably inconsistent when it comes to position allocation, and it's tough to tell this year whether there is going to be any further pruning ahead of draft day. Lots of Cs are just eligible at that single position, but there are also plenty like J.T. Miller, Cutter Gauthier, Mitch Marner, Morgan Geekie, Rickard Rakell, and others, who are eligible at all three positions. None of them should or need to be listed at all three, and should have been pared down to one or two. If you're drafting one of those players (or any multi-position player in an early draft, be wary that the position eligibility could still be reduced – though it will likely be added back in season once the positions loosen up as usual.

There are already plenty of dual position centers worth noting as well, including Wyatt Johnston, Tage Thompson, Connor Bedard, Evgeni Malkin (all three), Leon Draisaitl, Jack Hughes, Tim Stutzle, etc. These guys are very relevant in leagues that could faceoff wins, and with there being more of them at the start of the season this year, it probably makes things a little easier to stock up and plan around. However, it also means other teams are more likely to reach for these players as well – bit of a double edged sword to it.

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I ended up running through one mock draft myself, drafting from the #13 slot in a 14-team league (I like to mock-draft the 14-team leagues as practice for my 12-team drafts because the remaining selection more closely matches who is available for the first number of rounds, where the most important decisions are made). In order, I ended up with: Auston Matthews, Jack Hughes, Rasmus Dahlin, Tim Stutzle, Adam Fox, Moritz Seider, Matthew Knies, Andrei Svechnikov, Mackenzie Weegar, Seth Jones, Joel Eriksson Ek, Vincent Trocheck, Lukas Dostal, John Gibson, Jack Roslovic, and Will Cuylle. To my eyes, that team would dominate a 12-team league, but you also can't win a league at the draft.