We got an update on New York Islanders forward Mathew Barzal as Stefen Rosner reports that Barzal may still be ready for the first game of the regular season. It still isn't a great sign that a player with Barzal's injury history is missing training camp, but the news certainly could be a lot worse.

On the bright side, both Kyle Palmieri and Pierre Engvall were full participants in the first day of training camp, so two guys missed most or all of the 2025-26 season look ready to go.

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With all the changes the Washington Capitals made in the offseason, what their lines would look like was a hot topic, and we got a bit of clarity:

We get our first look at the Capitals opening night forward combinations.

Lines for group A:

Ovechkin-Strome-Leonard
Tuch-Dubois-Wilson
A. Protas-I. Protas-Kyrou
Jenner-Sourdif-Beauvillier

Then a fifth line of Miroshnichenko-Brodzinski-Frank

— Sammi Silber 🏒 (@sammisilber) September 17, 2026

This makes sense as Pierre-Luc Dubois/Tom Wilson have been a consistent duo, as have Alex Ovechkin and Dylan Strome. There is going to be changes all through the season, but if all goes well, I imagine those pairs stay fairly regular.

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Mason Marchment was seen lining up with Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith at the San Jose Sharks' first day of camp, according to Curtis Pashelka.

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Quinton Byfield, Adrian Kempe, and Artemi Panarin were a line at the first Los Angeles Kings training camp practice:

Earliest indication from camp drills is Byfield will be centering Panarin and Kempe

— Alexander Legget (@LeggetNHL) September 17, 2026

Additionally, it looks like their second scoring line, for the time being, will be Mats Zuccarello, Alex Laferriere, and Alex Turcotte. It is certainly giving Turcotte the chance to prove he should be an NHL regular.

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Luke Evangelista was with Nico Hischier and Timo Meier for the New Jersey Devils' camp opener:

Luke Evangelista gets the initial nod at #NJDevils training camp to team up with Nico Hischier and Timo Meier.

📢 advertisement:

— Amanda Stein (@amandacstein) September 17, 2026

Anthony Mantha was alongside Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt.

This is a great spot for both offseason acquisitions, though I wait to see who will be the regular fourth forward on the power play. That will be the real determinant of fantasy upside.

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With Jason Zucker injured and Jiri Kulich returning, the Buffalo Sabres' lineup looked like this for the first day of training camp:

Looked like we have some first-day lines and pairings:

Krebs-Thompson-Doan
McLeod-Norris-Helenius
Benson-Östlund-Quinn
Kulich-Carrick-Malenstyn

Kozak and Danforth rotated in.

Samuelsson-Dahlin
Zellweger-Power
Timmins-Crevier
Gilbert-Metsa

— Heather Engel (@engelheather) September 17, 2026

I am still very skeptical that Peyton Krebs stays in the top 6 all season – I imagine that when Zucker returns, or if Kulich regains his pre-blood clot form, then Krebs is back on the fourth line, but this is what they're doing with for now.

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Chris Kreider's first day of training camp with the Montreal Canadiens saw him skating on the top line with Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki. Juraj Slafkovsky was down on the second line with Oliver Kapanen and Ivan Demidov.

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The Chicago Blackhawks had Roman Kantserov skating on Chicago's top line with Frank Nazar and Patrick Kane for their first day of camp, according to Charlie Roumeliotis. The second line was composed of Tyler Bertuzzi, Anton Frondell, and Nick Lardis.

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For a couple of weeks, my Ramblings have covered fantasy draft values using my projections. Yesterday, we reviewed the best draft values among fantasy netminders, and on Tuesday, the topic was teams to stack based on projected overall fantasy value and draft value compared to Fantrax ADP. Last Friday, we went over the rookie values for both forwards and one specific defenceman. Prior to that, we covered players by position, delineating between shallower fantasy formats and deeper leagues:

• Shallow league targets among forwards.
• Shallow league targets among defencemen.
• Deeper league targets among forwards.
• Deeper league values among defencemen.

When discussing the forwards, they were all lumped into one forward category. Starting today and across my next few Ramblings, we are going to split the forwards into their C/RW/LW positions. For these positional ranks, we are using Fantrax designations. They will differ from Yahoo or ESPN but Fantrax's ADP data is also used, so we want to be consistent here.

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Fantasy managers wanting a full list of Dobber's projections, be sure to pick up a copy of the 2026-27 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide available now in the Dobber Shop! Aside from a projections list, it also has articles with a schedule breakdown, advanced stats to know, sleepers to target, players to avoid, and a lot more. It is also updated right until the start of the regular season!

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The fantasy stats used for evaluation are goals, assists, shots, blocks, hits, and power-play points. The data for the projections is from Evolving Hockey, Natural Stat Trick, All Three Zones, and Frozen Tools.

The projections are based on something called 'Z-Score', which is how much better (or worse) a player's projection is compared to a replacement-level player at their position. So, if a replacement level fantasy right winger is projected for 23 goals, and Jimmy Snuggerud is projected for 30 goals, the gap between the two provides our 'Z-Score' value. We do that for each player at each position in each of our six fantasy stats, add up all the values, and see who the top options are.

Before going too much further, it is important to know the projected production differences by position. Separating all the forwards I have projected for positive draft value in a standard 12-team league by their individual positions, here are the average projections per 84 games in each fantasy category:

Centre and right wing aren't too different. Centres are projected for more assists and blocks, right wings for more hits, but goals, shots, and PPP are fairly close. It is left wing that is much different from the others, projected for fewer goals, assists, shots, and power-play points than either C or RW, but also projected for far more hits. In other words, if you have a player who is LW/RW eligible, and they can be a 30-goal, 40-assist, 20-PPP option, that production is more valuable at LW than RW.

Our positional overview will start with centres who are eligible at left wing. We are going to look for those who are more valuable at LW and are good draft values based on my my projections and their Fantrax ADP.

The yellow dots are the draft targets, and the red dot is the specific player we're discussing. The red lines are the cutoffs for above-average fantasy value and above-average draft value.

Alex Laferriere (Los Angeles Kings – C/LW/RW)

There are players I think are better overall draft values at other positions, but there's a good argument that Laferriere is the best value centre on the board:

The simple reason for this is that his value on the wing is higher than at centre, that he's projected to bring pretty good overall fantasy value in banger leagues, and that he's triple-position eligible. There are only five of those kinds of players inside the top 250 picks by Fantrax ADP, and Laferriere looks primed to be a genuine second-line centre for the Kings; he nearly doubled his face-offs taken per game in the second half of last season and Anze Kopitar retired this summer.

All this depends on league settings, of course, because a lot of Laferriere's value comes from his hit rates, but there are very few players who can give 20 goals, 20 assists, 200 shots, 200 hits, and 200 face-off wins. He is one of them, and he can do it from any of the three positions.  

Tomas Hertl (Vegas Golden Knights – C/LW)

Providing nearly 20% more value as a left winger than a centre, with the second-best draft value compared to his ADP, brings Hertl onto our list:

It is notable that in what was a down year for Hertl, he still posted 24 goals, 34 assists, 202 shots, 25 power-play points, 114 hits, and 45 blocks. Add the fact that he had 720 face-off wins last year, good for 12^th in the league, and he can bring immense multi-cat value from the wing position, especially in leagues with FOWs.

There is a bit of a concern that a full, healthy season from William Karlsson could cut into Hertl's ice time and production. That extends to face-off wins, too. Regardless, Vegas will be relying on the top half of the roster to do a lot of the damage, and that means Hertl should maintain his top 6 and top PP roles, making him a genuine 30/30 threat with very good peripheral stats.  

Quinton Byfield (Los Angeles Kings – C/LW)

A couple weeks ago over on my newsletter, I wrote about how Byfield was among the players with the largest projected goal and assist improvements. It is little surprise, then, that we see him show up here for position and draft value:

A few years ago, Dobber wrote about breakout thresholds and why bigger forwards – those at least 6'3" and taller – need more time for them to reach their potential, with the threshold set at 400 games. Including playoff appearances, Byfield is now up to 362 NHL games played, so if he stays healthy, he'll cross that 400-game plateau before January 1^st.

With all the ice time left behind by Kopitar's retirement, Byfield is set to earn a lot of minutes, and all the key offensive minutes, at the top of the Kings roster. With Artemi Panarin added to the mix and Byfield now in a place to finally start scratching his true potential upside, he looks ready for a big production leap. He is also a 30/30 threat with 200+ shots and 500+ face-off wins. Being able to do that from a wing position is very, very valuable.

Jared McCann (Seattle Kraken – C/LW)

The big problem for McCann last year was staying healthy, but even though he missed 30 games, he still cracked the 20-goal, 20-assist plateau. In the three years since his 40-goal season, McCann has averaged 27 goals, 35 assists, 205 shots, and 20 power-play points every 82 games. His current Fantrax ADP is around the 150^th player off the board. How many forwards drafted outside the top 12 rounds of a 12-team league can realistically post 30 goals, 30 assists, 200 shots, and 20 PPPs? That is why he's on our list:

Seattle bringing in Bobby McMann at the Trade Deadline and acquiring Mackie Samoskevich this summer ostensibly gives them five top 6 wingers: those two, McCann, Kaapo Kakko, and Jordan Eberle. Someone is going to get the short end of the stick, and my bet is it's going to be either Kakko or Samoskevich (or they'll rotate). We have seen McCann skate on the third line with Shane Wright, and that wouldn't be ideal, but it's not as if he's being drafted a spot where he needs 18 minutes a game. If he can hold onto his 16-17 minutes a night, then he remains a good draft value.

Eetu Luostarinen (Florida Panthers – C/LW)

For those in deeper formats, we'll touch on a Panthers forward who presents an interesting proposition. That proposition is that the Panthers should be much deeper up front this year than they were last year, and that means a reduced role for Luostarinen. However, it also means more skilled line mates on an excellent offensive team, and that brings Luostarinen to a place where he's expected to bring good draft value:

The reason for the draft value is what Luostarinen can do with his peripherals; he is a genuine threat for 60 blocks and 150 hits, and those are levels few forwards can replicate. He won't bring a lot of production – my projections are 14 goals and 18 assists – but that's enough to not kill the value he brings in banger formats.

Unlike some others on this list, Luostarinen isn't a guy to play at centre. He won't take a lot of face-offs and he doesn't have the raw production to keep up with even low-end centres in 12-team leagues. However, moving him to the wing means the modest production hurts less than at centre, and on a team like Florida, he should push past the 30-point mark, and hopefully get close to 40.

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There are six yellow dots but only five players mentioned in this write-up. The sixth forward is Tim Stutzle, who also brings a lot of LW production and is a good draft value because he's valued as a fourth-round pick in 12-team, somewhere between the late-30s and late-40s; if he is rostered as a left winger, he brings 18% more fantasy value than as a centre and is the 30^th player on my board. As a centre, he's closer to 50^th. Something fantasy managers should keep in mind when selecting the Sens' centre.