Editor's note: This week we have two pinch-hitters for the Ramblings. Rick Roos subbed in with a beauty on Monday (read it here). Today, Tom Collins steps up to the plate... The last time I wrote a rambling, Alexander Ovechkin scored his 700th goal and emergency backup netminder David Ayres defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs, [...]
There are some fantasy leagues out there that count almost every conceivable statistic. I was once in a league that not only counted shootout goals, but also game-winning shootout goals. Yes, the latter is an actual NHL category that some leagues use. (For the curious, the career leader is Frans Nielsen, who has 23 shootout [...]
This is probably the worst year to be a restricted free agent, but is maybe the best time to own those RFAs in fantasy leagues that has a salary cap. Before the shutdown, deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the NHL cap could rise from $81.5 million this year to $84 million to $88.2 million next [...]
Now that the NHL will soon be starting back up again, many fantasy leagues are also getting back underway. I’m in a cap league with 23 other Dobber forum members. Each team has $100 million to spend on 25 players (plus 15 prospects that don’t count against the cap while they are in the minors). [...]
Over the past month, we’ve been looking at players with decreasing and increasing shot percentages (read the columns here, here and here). That got me thinking of goaltenders, and whether any netminders have seen a consistent decrease or increase in save percentage over several years. Even though most leagues don’t count save percentage as a [...]
One of the biggest fantasy-related issues for the 2020-21 season is what is going to happen to the NHL’s cap. Many fantasy salary cap leagues are tied to the NHL cap. When the NHL cap moves up, so does the fantasy league’s cap. Now there’s been some talk of next year’s NHL cap staying where [...]
During the last couple of weeks, I’ve been taking a bit of a dive into players who have seen their shot rates decrease over the last few seasons (see the columns here and here). All of these players were either in a trend — or close to it — of declining shot rates, so fantasy [...]
In this column last week, we looked at 10 players that were in a trend of declining shot rates. A declining shot rate should be a concern for every fantasy general manager. In leagues with peripheral categories, fewer shots are obviously not helpful. But even in points-only pools, players that take fewer shots will more [...]
In one-year leagues, one of the categories that I specifically aim to win is shots. My thinking on this is pretty basic. A player who takes plenty of shots is more likely to score, more likely to be getting lots of ice time and power-play time and more likely to be playing with other elite [...]
Every once in a while, you’ll read about a fantasy general manager punting a category in a league that counts several peripherals. This is a nice way of saying that the GM will ignore that particular statistic when drafting and instead focus on everything else. Usually, the punted category is plus/minus, but I feel like [...]
