Some injury news to start: Pavel Zacha will not participate in the Olympics for Czechia due to an upper-body injury. Zacha has missed the past two games with the injury. It is not known whether Zacha will be able to return to the Bruins once the NHL season resumes. Filip Chlapik, who plays in the Czech Extraliaga and was a onetime Ottawa draft pick, will replace Zacha on the Czech roster.
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I haven’t offered to do Q&A in the Ramblings for a while. But with an empty slate for today, I thought I’d take the time to reach out to my social media followers. To be honest, I thought there’d be a lot more activity on the social media app formerly known as Twitter – I wonder if the guy who paid $44 billion for it has anything to do with that. As a general observation, I haven’t noticed as much interaction on there in the past couple years.
Anyway, here are the questions I received. Thank you to those who sent them in. Keep in mind that these are simply my perceptions, observations, and opinions, which may differ from other fantasy hockey content creators.
From X:
What is Jake Neighbours‘ ceiling? Is Luca Cagnoni the future Sharks PP1 D? Thanks.
Dobber replied by saying Neighbours’ ceiling is in the high 50’s. I think that seems about right, although I could also see Neighbours cracking 60 points at some point in his career. The 23-year-old forward is on a full-season pace of 47 points (although he has missed 13 games this season), and he has yet to reach a 50-point pace in any of his three full seasons including this one. The 60-point season might have to wait a few seasons, as the Blues appear to be gearing up toward selling before the trade deadline. The lack of high-end talent that St. Louis has now, let alone after the deadline, could limit his ceiling.
I like Cagnoni’s offensive upside enough that I drafted him in a deep keeper league. The fact that he is an offensive-minded defenseman that lacks size (5-9, 181 lbs.) could mean that he flips either way. Sam Dickinson (2024 Round 1, Pick 11) was a higher pick than Cagnoni (2023 Round 4, Pick 123), so he seems like the safer bet to be the Sharks’ future PP1 defenseman based on draft pedigree. On top of that, Dickinson is already in the NHL despite being drafted a year later, while Cagnoni is still in the AHL. Dickinson is being sheltered and is playing limited even-strength and power-play minutes, but he is only 19 years of age. Cagnoni has been putting up points in the AHL (78 PTS in 103 GP), so he has fairly decent odds of being a fantasy contributor one day.
Chat message, posted with permission:
I’ve been rolling with Darcy Kuemper, Philipp Grubauer and my keeper Dustin Wolf, and it has me firmly in the middle of my 14-team league in W, GAA, SVP, and SHO. I’ve been wondering if swapping out Grubauer for Elvis Merzlikins is actually a good idea. He seems like a new man under Rick Bowness – much more confident and picking up valuable W’s. Which way would you lean? My playoffs are from March 9- 29.
First, let’s break down Merzlikins’ performance since Bowness has taken over. From January 15 until today, Merzlikins has a 5-1-0 record with a 2.03 GAA and .924 SV% with four quality starts. Compare that to the rest of the season, where Merzlikins had an awful 4.03 GAA and .877 SV% under Dean Evason. That’s a huge difference and indicative of a shift in defensive systems under the new coach. Merzlikins is definitely worth adding if you need an extra goalie (33% Fantrax/14% Yahoo). One factor to consider is whether the long Olympic break will affect Columbus’ momentum, though.
Meanwhile, Grubauer has been a pleasant surprise in fantasy leagues. In five seasons with the Kraken, Grubauer is posting his first season with a save percentage over .900. This could also be the result of the system of new coach Lane Lambert. Seattle as a team is top-10 in goals against compared to last season where they were bottom-10.
Trying to predict goalie performance a month from now is extremely challenging, much less for the coming week. Using the Frozen Tools Schedule Planner might help in this scenario. Over your entire playoff range, Columbus has more games than any other team (12), while Seattle is in the lower half (10). Seattle’s schedule is slightly tougher (opponents .583, 3.17 GF/GP) than Columbus’ (.576, 3.04 GF/GP). If you want to expand that to the rest of your season including, Columbus plays two more games (18) than Seattle (16), but the opponent schedules and offenses are largely negligible between the two teams.
The first week of the playoff schedule will be the most important. If you need wins, Seattle has an easier time (.542 opponent record) than Columbus (.580 opponent record). The Jackets also play three of their four games on the road. However, the offenses they face are similar (Seattle opponents 3.06 GF/GP, Columbus opponents 2.99 GF/GP).
Another assumption that I will make is that Merzlikins will split starts with Jet Greaves, while Grubauer will split starts with Joey Daccord. Merzlikins and Grubauer have played nearly the same number of games and were forecasted in the Midseason Guide to play a similar percentage of their teams’ remaining games. I’ll call this a draw here, although both goalies have played in fewer than 50% of their teams’ games.
At this point, I would say that aside from the recency effect, there isn’t a clear advantage to adding Merzlikins over Grubauer. Merzlikins has been hot, but Grubauer is playing very well too. If I’m not sold that a switch such as an add/drop or a trade offer gives me the edge I am looking for, I will usually stick with what I have. That’s probably what I would do here.
From Bluesky:
Which tweener (many choices around the league, Rutger McGroarty, Ville Koivunen, Matt Savoie, Jonathan Lekkerimäki, Sabres trio Noah Ostlund, Isak Rosen, Konsta Helenius, too many to add) has the best chance to break out into a meaningful fantasy contributor by the end of next year? Very nonspecific question, but you can go in many directions with it.
I’ll start with the group of players that you listed. There could be a valid argument made for many of these players to stand out. Based on the timeline you’ve given, I’ll go with Ostlund because he has been the most impactful of this group in the NHL this season (see Frozen Tools Player Compare). Ostlund has seen modest yet gradual improvements to both his scoring and icetime this season, and he was even on the Sabres’ top power play for several games during January. The Sabres are finally on the rise, and Ostlund could be a major part of that.
Ostlund may not be the highest-upside play of the group, though. His teammate Helenius is two years younger and has played fewer NHL games than Ostlund. However, Helenius is scoring at nearly a point-per-game pace in the AHL at only 19 years of age. If you’re willing to play the long game with this, Helenius might be the better add. I wouldn’t even be shocked if Helenius leapfrogs Ostlund by this time next year.
If you can wait at least another season, Bradly Nadeau is another name to add to that list. Carolina is in a position to let the 20-year-old Nadeau marinate in the AHL, and that is precisely what he is doing with 40 points in just 32 games. Nadeau will likely be the first callup in the event of an injury to one of the Hurricanes’ forwards, but he will have to wait for his full-time NHL opportunity with the Canes an Eastern Conference contender with many established forwards locked up long-term. Of course, that timeline could be expedited if the Canes happen to trade Nadeau for win-now help.
#CarolinaCulture Bradly Nadeau is tied for third in pts/gp in AHL (min 30 games) behind AHL veterans.
He has 15 points in last 7 games.
He’s running circles around this league.
Here are his linemates (yes – we have AHL line combos, ask me how to find if you can’t) pic.twitter.com/xBrG55qz4R
— Dobber (@DobberHockey) February 5, 2026
To complete a trade recently, I allowed my league mate (who happens to be a fellow Dobber writer) to choose between several prospects that have had at least a taste of the NHL: Nadeau, Ostlund, Ben Kindel, and Braeden Cootes. His choice was Nadeau. By the way, the trade was agreed upon one day before Dobber’s social media post above. Now that I’ve traded Nadeau, he’s bound to be a star!
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Follow me on X @Ian_Gooding and Bluesky @goodsfantasyhockey.bsky.social