Congrats to Mikael Backlund on a new contract and becoming the captain of the Calgary Flames.
Backlund is one of the most unheralded fantasy assets out there, as he can fill all kinds of categories for your team. This past season, Backlund set career highs in points, shots and hits, all at the age of 34, while continuing to be one of the best two-way forwards in the game.
It’s going to be challenging for Backlund to improve on those numbers greatly given his age, but I think he can still easily give you 45-50 points, 200-plus shots and almost a hit a game. There are much worse options than Backlund to fill out your roster in multi-cat leagues.
Let’s get to your questions:
I’m going to say Stuart Skinner on both counts as long as he’s healthy, but that doesn’t mean Jack Campbell won’t be relevant this season. I think Campbell will get an opportunity to bounce back because of his contract and keep in mind, Skinner’s sample size is still very small. So, it’s not like he has the number one job completely locked down, especially after a rough showing in the postseason. Even if Skinner gets more starts than Campbell, I’d bet the splits are closer to 50/50 this season.
It’s Adam Fantilli for me, even though Wyatt Johnston is coming off an impressive rookie campaign. The Columbus Blue Jackets have a lot of young and veteran talent to surround Fantilli with and he has the skillset to get to around 55 points as a rookie. Johnston scored 41 last season and I’m not sure he can get a 15-point improvement without top power play time. The Dallas Stars forward also only had 22 hits in 2022-23, so Fantilli should have a decent chance to finish ahead of Johnston in that area, too.
I would rank them this way:
- Cooley
- Fantilli
- Carlsson
- Hughes
- Knies
- Coronato
- Levi
Long term I think Logan Cooley is going to be the most valuable out of this bunch and I have Devon Levi at the bottom because I think goalies are the easiest to replace in fantasy. I would try to adjust my goalies from season to season since the position seems to be so volatile.
Jakub Vrana is always a tempting pick every year because he scores as a great, he just hasn’t played enough games to become very fantasy relevant. I think it depends on your league categories, and if you have hits, I would probably hold onto Ivan Barbashev. If it’s just a points league, I would go with the upside of Vrana. He looked really good at the end of last season with the St. Louis Blues.
My answer would be Connor Bedard here, as long as there are no limits on how many years you can keep a player. You don’t get a lot of opportunities to draft a generational talent that could be part of your roster for the next 15 years. In one-year leagues I have Nathan MacKinnon ranked third, as his points per game are usually the best outside of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. If goals are weighted more heavily, though, then Auston Matthews deserves consideration.
This is an interesting question because I have Matthew Tkachuk, Matthews and Mikko Rantanen at seven, eight and nine in my rankings. I agree that Rantanen is probably the safest pick, but I’d go with Tkachuk since you have penalty minutes as a category. His blend of points, shots and penalty minutes is very rare.
Some yahoo adps seem wayyyy off. Makes me feel like I'm the crazy one lol. How many picks earlier than adp are you comfortable taking someone if you really like them?
The thing to keep in mind with Yahoo ADPs is that they encompass all sorts of different leagues with different categories and scoring systems. That can skew them a little bit and they may not be as accurate to your specific league. I always advise people to make their own rankings based on their league settings. You’ll know where players slot in best. Use the Yahoo ADPs as a general guide but don’t be afraid to deviate, even quite a bit, if it makes sense for your situation.
It’s possible he makes the Buffalo Sabres out of camp, but I don’t think he plays the full year with the team. The Sabres have a plethora of young, talented forwards, so it wouldn’t make much sense for them to burn a year of Zach Benson’s entry-level deal if he isn’t playing top-six minutes on a regular basis. Maybe he plays a handful of games for experience and then goes back down for another year of development.
Since Patrice Bergeron is now retired, I’d replace him as a keeper with Mikhail Sergachev. He overtook Victor Hedman on the top power play unit last season and broke out for over 60 points. It would also give your roster a bit more balance since four of your other five keepers are forwards.
There doesn’t seem to be. Evan Bouchard had 36 points in his final 31 games last season if you include the playoffs, as he took off when Tyson Barrie was traded and he got to quarterback the top power play. That Oilers man advantage should be just as potent once again and I’ve got the over/under set at 70 points for Bouchard, and I’m taking the over. He’s even convinced me to use a keeper spot on him over Adam Fox in my league.
I would always go as safe as possible with my early picks. If you miss significantly on an early selection, it’s really hard to recoup that value on the waiver wire. Try to make all your gambles or take any chances in the later rounds, that way if it doesn’t work out you can hopefully find a suitable replacement on waivers.
That’s also why I’m a big proponent of not using an early pick on a goalie, because that is a tricky position to forecast year over year. You can always find some gems between the pipes in the late rounds or on waivers, where it’s a lot more difficult to do that with skaters.
J.T. Miller is probably the choice here, given his propensity for collecting hits while still giving you about a point per game. There’s an argument for Aleksander Barkov as well, though, because that could end up being a tremendous value pick at that point in your draft. The only thing holding Barkov back from being a 90-point player is injuries, as he’s missed considerable time in the past two seasons. I’d go Miller but if he’s gone and you end up with Barkov, that’s a great consolation prize.
I’m concerned about a Jamie Benn regression, too. His 78-point campaign came out of nowhere, after failing to even reach 50 points in three of his previous four seasons. Plus, he had a 17.4% shooting percentage, the highest of his career and he’s now 34 years of age, so injuries can start to become a factor as well. I could also see a scenario where Matt Duchene or maybe even Evgenii Dadonov start to steal some of Benn’s power play time. If Benn gets to 60 points, I’d call that a win.
It depends on your definition of not-so-great team, but I think Thatcher Demko will be a nice bounce-back candidate this season. His numbers were really good when Rick Tocchet took over at the end of last year and I think Demko can deliver a respectable season even if the Vancouver Canucks aren’t a strong squad again. There’s also James Reimer, who outside of last season, has proven he can post decent numbers on some bad teams. Although I’m not sure how much he’ll play with the Detroit Red Wings.
Targeting players motivated to cash in on a new contract is an underrated fantasy hockey strategy and the two that come to mind this year are William Nylander and Elias Lindholm. Nylander has started out at centre in training camp which could go one of two ways. It’s either going to go poorly and teams will view him only as winger, or if he plays well, it’s going to increase his value because elite right-handed centres are at a premium.
A lot of Lindholm’s outlook is probably tied to Jonathan Huberdeau. If Huberdeau bounces back, it’s really going to help Lindholm make a case for a substantial new deal.
He’s way too good to just play 15 games. Anton Forsberg was incredible down the stretch a couple of years ago, turning in quality start after quality start. Keep in mind, even though Joonas Korpisalo got the big contract, he’s never played more than 39 games in a season before, so I can’t imagine he suddenly is capable of starting 60-plus times. If Forsberg is healthy, I could see him getting 35-40 games.
The main tandem I would be targeting is Logan Thompson and Adin Hill from the Vegas Golden Knights and some others to look at would be Vitek Vanecek and Akira Schmid, Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman, Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury, as well as the trio in Carolina.
For the defenders, players like Jake Sanderson, Bowen Byram, Luke Hughes and Owen Power are options that could emerge with a surge of points this season. John Klingberg is someone to watch as well, as he’s currently getting top power play time right now on a strong Leafs man advantage.
I’ll go with Leo Carlsson and Nate Danielson. Carlsson is a really high-end talent that’s going to just be hitting his stride when the likes of Trevor Zegras and Troy Terry are hopefully in their prime. Danielson I think could be a great two-way player that can still produce offence. He’s a big right-handed centre that can play in almost any situation.
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