Every Sunday this season, we’ll share 20 Fantasy Thoughts from the writers at Dobber Hockey. These thoughts are curated from the past week’s “Daily Ramblings” on DobberHockey.com.
1. It seems like everyone is talking about the exploits of Connor McDavid, and for good reason. But it also seems like no one is talking about the season that Leon Draisaitl is having. With his 27th goal Saturday, Draisaitl scored his 70th point of the season, which puts him in the top 10 in NHL scoring. That jump in the scoring race is due to a recent seven-game point streak. Actually, Draisaitl had a six-game streak snapped on Saturday: six games with at least two points each.
2. The classic breakout? Both Draisaitl and David Pastrnak have emerged as stars in their third year, leading the way for what looks like an impressive 2014 draft class. These guys jumped the line a bit as we will typically see players emerge in their fourth season, but I would suggest that this means these two still have another level to get to. It is worth to point out that these two have been helped along riding shotgun to superstars in McDavid and Brad Marchand but no one in the league does it all by themselves.
Players typically peak early. Everyone should be looking for players in years 3-5 around ages 20-23 who might pop up in a bigger role next season. One of the best indicators of future success is 5-on-5 scoring rate. Several names jump out with over 2.0 P/60 at 5-on-5: Conor Sheary (who might get to 55 points this season, Jake Guentzel, Andre Burakovsky (assuming T.J. Oshie and/or Justin Williams leave Washington), Matthew Tkachuk (only a sophomore but I don’t believe in the sophomore slump as a hard rule), Max Domi, and Anthony Mantha.
A few more names who aren’t scoring above that 2.0 P/60 rate but still look appealing: Jonathan Drouin (may yet get 55 this season), Bo Horvat, Sam Reinhart, Mikko Rantanen, Sebastien Aho, Robby Fabbri, Dylan Larkin, Christian Dvorak, Nick Schmaltz (is actually above the 2.0 P/60 mark but I’m not specifically high on him, and Brayden Point. The only guy from this latter group that I’d really consider for 65+ is Drouin because of PP exposure. Barring some radical change in usage the other guys still need to develop some more.
3. Just when I’d abandoned hope, Rick Nash has scored in three straight games. He’s up to 21 on the year. He’s only two years removed from scoring 40 in a season but has pretty clearly entered a different phase of his career.
Nash’s per-60 numbers are still solid but they’ve slipped from the elite level he was at a couple of years ago. His minutes are also down to help reduce his physical burden and yet he’s still battling injuries. He is averaging three SOG per game, but that’s way down from the near four he was averaging a couple of years ago.
At this stage, Nash should be relying on PP production to buoy his fantasy value but he hasn’t scored more than 12 PPP in a season since leaving Columbus. He’s got a year left on his deal but you wonder if the Rangers move on sooner. I suspect it would take a new team that can figure out how to get more from him on the man-advantage to get Nash’s fantasy value back up.
4. I’m all in on the Hurricanes right now. Sebastien Aho scored another two goals on Saturday, giving him eight points in his last six games. Elias Lindholm picked up another assist, which gives him a 10-game point streak. Jaccob Slavin won’t record another hat trick as he did at the start of the first five-game week, but if you need another blueliner, here’s your chance.
I "might" even be persuaded to pick up a Hurricanes’ goalie right now. That goalie would be Eddie Lack, who seems to have turned his game around since that tongue-lashing from coach Bill Peters. Since March 5, Lack has won five of his six starts with a 1.34 goals-against average and a .950 save percentage. Sometimes you just have to throw away the earlier numbers and go with the hot hand. Direct criticism can demotivate some people, but in Lack’s case he seems to have taken it as a personal challenge.
5.After sitting on top of the Western Conference for much of the season, the Wild have fallen off, having lost nine of their past 11 games. Yet, Eric Staal hasn’t slowed down, scoring his 25th goal on Saturday. That gives him nine points over his last nine games and eight goals over his last 12 games. Also, his first 25-goal season since 2010-11, when he scored 33 with Carolina. Bounce-back player of the year in fantasy hockey?
Maybe not, because we have to talk about Sergei Bobrovsky. The Jackets’ netminder posted his seventh shutout of the season Saturday and is the first goalie to reach 40 wins this season. With an 8-0-1 record and four shutouts over his past nine games, he is not slowing down either. Since the Jackets are battling for first in the Metro Division (which would mean avoiding a matchup with either the Penguins or Capitals in the first round, what a reward), Bob probably won’t be rested much over the final two weeks of the regular season. Keep starting him – he’s winning people fantasy leagues right now.
6. I had all but given up on the Canucks for fantasy hockey purposes but a glimmer of hope arrived suddenly on Saturday morning in the form of Brock Boeser. Knowing Willie Desjardins, I had assumed that Boeser would be stuck on the fourth line with limited minutes. Instead, he was installed on the second line (and some would even call the first line) with Bo Horvat and Sven Baertschi.
With the Canucks mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, there’s no reason for Willie D not to play Boeser. If the Canucks weren’t an empty nothingness of fantasy value, I’d recommend a Boeser pickup in most leagues. But keeper leaguers should already be ready to pounce on him once he enters the player pool (his entrance was so unexpected, neither Yahoo nor CBS have him in their player pool at the time of writing).
7. Martin Jones allowed seven goals on Saturday. His goals-against average has risen and his save percentage has dropped every month from November on (from 1.96/.924 to 2.24/.916 to 2.55/.911 to 2.59/.908 to 2.76/.899 this month). It’s hard to trade a goalie who has logged as many starts as Jones has, but with my perfect hindsight I can tell you that Jones was a sell high during the first half of the season.
8. Welcome to the 30-goal club, Nazem Kadri! It feel like he’s having the offensive impact that he should have had last season if he hadn’t shot 6.5%. Better late than never, I suppose. Kadri now fits the statistical profile of multi-category studs like Ryan Kesler. He plays a similar role on the ice, too. This is a guy to take with a top-50 pick in leagues that score SOG along with Hits and/or PIM.
9. Nathan MacKinnon is a bit perplexing. He has all the tools but he’s got that Evander Kane problem where he just doesn’t finish at a high percentage, despite the volume and quality of the chances he can generate. But we’ve seen MacKinnon finish at a high-enough rate during his rookie season. He has the ability to produce fireworks when paired with the right linemates and Mikko Rantanen has LEGIT upside.
As disappointing as MacKinnon has been for three years now, he will still only be 22 when next season kicks off. You have to keep giving a guy like that chances. It’ll be interesting to see where I rank him next season. A lot of it will depend on the moves the Avalanche make.
10. It will be interesting to see where Ryan Spooner winds up this summer as he’s been rumoured to be on the trade block and will hit restricted free agency. Offer sheets don’t exist but the Bruins may still let Spooner walk instead of paying up. We’ve seen how effective Spooner can be in a sheltered 5-on-5 role with top PP minutes. That’s not the type of player you want to pay up for. Not when teams are finding similar production on the cheap like Sam Gagner or Jonathan Marchessault. But there is a situation where Spooner gets back to fantasy relevance. Maybe it’s back in Boston with a revamped bottom-six.
11. I don’t know how we wound up in this world where Brandon Dubinsky is the only forward that you want to own off the Blue Jackets but we are here.
Alexander Wennberg scored his first goal in 13 games on Saturday. Cam Atkinson has been held off the board in four straight and has 13 points in 25 games since the All-Star break. Over the same stretch, Nick Foligno has eight in 24, while Brandon Saad has 14 in 25.
Dubinsky, meanwhile, has quietly put up 19 points in 25 games. And, he has maintained his excellent peripheral numbers in categories like Hits, PIM and FOW. This dude is altering rotisserie leagues and many are sleeping on it because he didn’t have a strong first half.
12.This is 100% hindsight on my part but how terrible do NHL GMs look for not extending an offer sheet to Nikita Kucherov? A team could have issued stolen him for $7M annually and it only would have cost a 1st, 2nd and 3rd round pick. Not every team has their full complement of picks to pull such a manoeuver. Maybe the Lightning would have matched anyhow. But at least you force them into an adverse position. It would be worth the attempt. Just look at what Kucherov is doing for what amounts to a one-line team.
How much better would the Islanders be with Kucherov instead of Andrew Ladd, for example? 100% the Islanders would trade Ladd plus their first three picks this summer for Kucherov now. Signing an offer sheet doesn’t come with the same certainty as an unrestricted signing but this is another case where it would have been worth the attempt. Teams literally throw away multiple seasons trying to land superstar players. Edmonton put together a decade of losing to land Connor McDavid. Kucherov was just sitting there and it doesn’t seem like any GMs even tried to steal him away. What the hell. If your team had the picks and the cap space to extend an offer sheet and didn’t, you should be upset.
Kucherov is unattainable unless you drafted him but Ondrej Palat and Brayden Point remain available in a bunch of fantasy hockey leagues, providing exposure to the Kucherov supernova.
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13. Only on a team as bad as the Devils does John Moore have a shot at hitting double-digit goals.
No one outside of Taylor Hall or Kyle Palmieri is fantasy relevant on the Devils. Sure, go deep enough and we can find time for Adam Henrique, Travis Zajac or Damon Severson but 90% of folks are only concerned with those first two names.I am excited for year two of Pavel Zacha. He’s got points in six of his last seven games but isn’t used reliably enough that I’d trust picking him up in one-year leagues. Keepers, he should already be owned but I trust that he’s going to make his way into regular relevance soon enough. Even if Zacha isn’t getting top unit PP time or minutes alongside Hall/Palmieri I like the potential of him paired with Miles Wood.
14.Patrik Berglund has snagged Paul Stastny’s top PP minutes with the latter on the shelf. He has three points in the past three games but we’ve seen flashes from Berglund all season. It never seems to last. None of the Blues’ centers seem capable of sustaining fantasy performance. At times, Stastny has looked like he’d be returning to the 60-point plateau. Jori Lehtera always teases with the supposed "chemistry" he has with Vladimir Tarasenko. Berglund sometimes looks like a 30-goal man. It never holds up.
If you want to climb on board with Berglund, I can understand why. Exposure to Tarasenko is tantalizing. I just can’t get there. Even in a sprint situation like the fantasy playoffs, I can’t trust that Berglund will get it done.
15. The Islanders lost Ryan Strome to injury Tuesday night. Strome is nearing a crossroads. After bursting out with 50 points as a sophomore he has taken steps backward. He has been unable to click with John Tavares and he’s barely making a dent with the minutes he gets on the PP. The Islanders have younger, more exciting options already on the team or coming shortly: notably Josh Ho-Sang and Mathew Barzal.
Now, Strome is only 23 and in his fourth full season in the NHL. Josh Bailey finally emerging this season as a 27-year-old is a great example of how long this can take. Ladd is another guy who took a lot of time and both of those guys, like Strome, were lottery picks. So, Strome is not a lost cause, but we might be waiting a while. I’m ready to move on to fresher options.
16. Hampus Lindholm picked up three points Wednesday night, ending an eight-game drought. He is so talented and shows just enough flashes to keep fantasy players intrigued but I wonder if Lindholm is ever going to emerge as a reliable fantasy option. Last season was his lowest-scoring as a pro but arguably provided the biggest tease as he set career highs in goals (10) and SOG (149). Even in a secondary role, with double-digit goals and the right bounces a defenseman can net 40 points. Instead, Lindholm has gone backwards after missing the first month of the season negotiating a new contract.
Even if you suspect that the Ducks will move on from Cam Fowler, they still have Shea Theodore and Brandon Montour ready to step into a top offensive role so no guarantees that Lindholm emerges next season. A full training camp will help but I’ll be letting other folks take the risk on his breakout.
17. Jimmy Howard has been fantastic since returning to the Detroit lineup, as he tries to make another statement that he wants the starting job back. I suspect that the Wings leave him exposed to expansion, though. He doesn’t have a no-move clause in his contract and I’m sure the Wings would rather keep their 25-year-old goaltender, Petr Mrazek, and free themselves of $5.3 million in salary for the next two seasons. And, I would have said that Vegas would have passed on Howard, too – except he’s really showing this year that he is as good as he’s ever been. Howard is 3-0-1 in four games since returning and has allowed just seven goals on 115 shots. His GAA this year is 1.91 in 21 games.
18. You may be interested to know that Preds’ Craig Smith has six helpers over his last three games. Linemate Colin Wilson has five helpers over his past two games, while Colton Sissons has three goals over his last two games. There’s a hot line for you that is flying under the radar.
19. Hunch: Aleksander Barkov breaks out next season. Although, as a ‘Band-Aid Bow’, the term ‘breakout’ may not be as good as it should be, given the likely games missed. But his fourth NHL season hasn’t been a good one. He has too much talent for this kind of production to be his ceiling. He has another gear for sure. So, that makes next year, his fifth one, a strong breakout likelihood.
20. The Flames signed goalie Tyler Parsons to a three-year entry-level contract this week. I normally don’t waste my time with teenaged goalies. Even in deep leagues, such as the one I’m in with 15 teams and 37 players per team. It’s deep enough that other GMs in my league have no problem drafting 18- or 19-year-old goalies. But I don’t bother because I can always get a 22- or 23-year-old who I’ll only have to sit on for two years before seeing dividends. Even the top prospect goalies make you wait until they’re 23 or 24 (or longer).
Andrei Vasilevskiy is a recent example. He’ll finally pay dividends next year – when he’s 23. You thought, when he was 20, that he’d be "the guy" within a year. That was obviously wrong. John Gibson is another example. Here is his first year of actual help and he’s 23. Last year’s 40 games helped in spurts, but not the way you needed him. Again, at 20 or 21, you figured he was "right there". It didn’t happen. Meanwhile, goalies sneak up on you: Matt Murray, Devan Dubnyk, Thomas Greiss – bet their current owner didn’t draft them as teenagers! Don’t waste roster space.
But I digress. Parsons, although technically will be 20 by the time I draft next, I could possibly consider. In a later round. Because in Calgary they have an injury-prone Brian Elliott. And an injury-prone Jon Gillies. There is an opportunity here to sneak into fantasy relevance at 21 or 22 the way a Steve Mason did. Anyway, in the final round of my four-round draft, I would consider this (near) teenager.