{"id":393875,"date":"2026-07-10T20:44:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T20:44:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393875\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T20:44:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T20:44:20","slug":"ramblings-anaheim-matches-carlssons-offer-sheet-evaluating-fantasy-value-improvements-from-faber-hronek-samuelsson-miller-and-byram-july-10-dobberhockey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/393875\/","title":{"rendered":"Ramblings: Anaheim Matches Carlsson\u2019s Offer Sheet; Evaluating Fantasy Value Improvements from Faber, Hronek, Samuelsson, Miller, and Byram \u2013 July 10 \u2013 DobberHockey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leo Carlsson<\/a> will not be a Philadelphia Flyer as Elliotte Friedman reported<\/a> that the Anaheim Ducks matched the 5-year, $18-million AAV contract on Thursday. This contract makes him the highest paid player on a per-season basis, and will carry him right until free agency.<\/p>\n

This is a pretty brutal deal for cap league fantasy managers with Carlsson on their rosters. He could be a 35-goal, 90-point, 220-shot centre next season and be worth nowhere near that contract. Not when Leon Draisaitl<\/a> is $4-million less per season, Nathan MacKinnon<\/a> is $5.4-million less, and Connor McDavid<\/a> is $5.5-million less. He can be rostered in the right situation \u2013 a rebuilding roster with lots of players on entry-level deals or something in that vein \u2013 but that is too much cap to swallow for anyone with a contending fantasy roster. Not much can be done here except trade him for pennies on the dollar or outright drop him.<\/p>\n

For anyone with Carlsson in non-cap leagues, this is great news. The Flyers might be a better offensive team next season, but they’d have to improve their goal scoring by 10% just to match the Ducks from last year, and Anaheim is already on the upswing. It is also good news for anyone with the likes of Troy Terry<\/a> (once he gets healthy), Cutter Gauthier<\/a>, and even Jackson LaCombe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

In yesterday’s Ramblings<\/a>, we reviewed forwards who saw a fantasy value increase in 2025-26 compared to 2024-25 on a 60-minute basis. Today, we’ll do the same but avert our gaze to defencemen. Data for fantasy evaluations (or any other data presented) is from Evolving Hockey<\/a> or Natural Stat Trick<\/a>, unless otherwise indicated.<\/p>\n

As with the forwards, the fantasy value demonstrated here is relative only to others at the same position, and relative to a replacement-level player (a top waiver-wire option in a 14-team league with six defencemen per roster). Because we’re only evaluating blue liners, we are excluding face-off wins from the analysis, focusing solely on goals, assists, power-play points (PPP), shots, hits, blocks, and penalty minutes (PIM).<\/p>\n

Brock Faber<\/a> (Minnesota Wild)<\/p>\n

Sometimes, when a team adds a defenceman who supplants another on the top power-play unit, the former PP quarterback sees their fantasy value suffer. That wasn’t the case for Faber, who posted 36 points in 48 games after Quinn Hughes<\/a> made his Wild debut, and Faber had his fantasy value rates increase nearly across the board:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It is important to note that Faber still posted seven power-play points in 48 games with Hughes in the lineup. In an 82-game season, that is about 12 PPPs, not far off the 13.5 PPPs per 82 games he averaged across the prior two seasons. The team shot 30% on the power play with Faber on the ice in those 48 games, but even if he posts 3-4 PPPs in that span, his fantasy value increase among defencemen is still inside the top-10.<\/p>\n

Losing a top PP role isn’t ideal, but a rising tide does lift all boats; from 2023-2026, the Vancouver Canucks shot 11.5% at 5-on-5 when Filip Hronek<\/a> was on the ice with Hughes and 8.8% without Hughes. It is very plausible that the Wild scores 50% more often when Faber is on the ice with Hughes, or more, and that kind of increase can greatly help offset the loss in PP role (as we saw). There is every reason to believe that Faber comes close to, or exceeds, his 51-point performance from last year. In fantasy terms, think of him as Devon Toews<\/a> from 2-3 years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Filip Hronek<\/a> (Vancouver Canucks)<\/p>\n

On the topic of Hronek, the flipside of one team adding a top PP quarterback is that his former team lost a top PP quarterback, and that helped Hronek immensely as he posted 16 PPPs in 51 games after the Hughes trade. The leap in PPP fantasy value is very evident when we compare him to his 2024-25 fantasy output:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There are concerns here. The first being Zeev Buium, a guy that has breakout potential and who should be the long-term power-play solution on the back end.<\/p>\n

The second concern is that the Canucks shot 22.7% on the power play with Hronek on the ice after the Hughes trade. For a frame of reference, there were 20 defencemen who skated at least 200 PP minutes last season, and the high-water mark among them was 22%. If that conversion rate falls to 16.5% \u2013 about average for those 20 defencemen \u2013 Hronek loses 5-6 PPPs. Additionally, he registered a point on 72.7% of the power play goals, a level reserved for the elite like Hughes, Zach Werenski<\/a>, and Cale Makar<\/a>. If that falls to 60%, he loses a couple more PPPs. With more normal rates, Hronek’s 16 PPPs in 51 games becomes roughly 9 PPPs in 51 games, so there is a major regression flag here.<\/p>\n

All the same, Vancouver traded Tyler Myers<\/a> at the Trade Deadline last year, Marcus Pettersson<\/a> this offseason, and the replacements are Jamie Oleksiak<\/a> and Luke Schenn<\/a>. Neither are threats for a true top defenceman role, so Hronek should skate around 25 minutes a night. Even on a bad team, that is enough ice time to post another 40-point season.<\/p>\n

Mattias Samuelsson<\/a> (Buffalo Sabres)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is an interesting case because there is a giant red flag thanks to Samuelsson shooting 11.9% after a prior career-best mark of 7.7% and a three-year average of 4.1%. However, even if we cut his goal rate in half, he is still a top-50 riser in fantasy value because there were improvements elsewhere:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The concern here isn’t necessarily the shooting percentage, but the assists. He assisted on 25.6% of goals scored with him on the ice at 5-on-5, easily exceeding the previous career-high of 21.4%, and way ahead of his three-year average of 16.8%. There were improvements in some of his playmaking tracking data (per All Three Zones<\/a>), but he went from bad to average, not from average to good\/great. Assuming Samuelsson’s goal-scoring rate declines thanks to a shooting percentage drop and his assist rate falls slightly because he figures in on fewer goals, there could be a double-whammy in fantasy value decline as he drops from a 41-point defenceman to somewhere around the 30-point mark.<\/p>\n

If Samuelsson is a 30-point blue liner who can put up 100 shots, 125 hits, and 150 blocks, he still brings a lot of multi-cat value. He also should skate 22-23 minutes per game again, and the Sabres should remain be a productive offensive team. I just have my doubts he’ll replicate his 40-point season and would rather anticipate he’s in the 30- to 40-point range than the 40- to 50-point range.\u00a0<\/p>\n

K’Andre Miller<\/a> (Carolina Hurricanes)<\/p>\n

One of the predictable rebounds was Miller, as he moved from the New York Rangers to Carolina, and saw his fantasy value increase in five of the seven categories:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

We do have to be a bit careful here. One-third of Miller’s fantasy value improvement came from penalty minutes. In leagues without PIMs, he falls from a top-25 fantasy improvement to a top-45 improvement. Still good, but your fantasy settings do matter, so keep that in mind.<\/p>\n

The other concern is Miller’s production when the team wasn’t at 5-on-5. Miller had 23 points at 5-on-5 and 31 points at all of the even strengths, which includes 3-on-3, 4-on-4, and empty-net situations. Those eight even-strength points outside of 5-on-5 play was tied for the 9th-highest total among defencemen, posting 6.6 points\/60 at those strengths. For reference, Cale Makar<\/a> was at 6.5 and Adam Fox<\/a> was at 5.8. Overall, he had as many points at those strengths in 72 games (8) as he did across 154 games from the prior two seasons. It will be hard to replicate that, and while the drop may not be substantial, it could cost him a few points.<\/p>\n

All the same, Miller led Hurricanes defencemen with 36.7% of the ice time in the playoffs (per Frozen Tools<\/a>). Staying close to this level in the regular season means 22+ minutes a night, and doing that on a Carolina roster this talented means he should be a 30-point regular with potential of finishing between 35 and 40 points.<\/p>\n

Bowen Byram<\/a> (Chicago Blackhawks)<\/p>\n

There has been no shortage of digital ink spilled on the Blackhawks trading for Byram and then extending him with a massive contract, so let’s spill a little more:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What stands out for his fantasy value increase is the power-play production. He had just seven PPPs in 82 games, but remember that this is compared to a replacement-level fantasy blue liner, and defencemen in that range produce only 2-3 PPPs every 82 games. Being able to post seven PPPs in 82 games brings substantially more value over a replacement-level option, and improvements from that point onward further increases that value.<\/p>\n

There should be some consternation about Byram going to Chicago. Over the last two seasons, he has posted 1.27 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, a top-20 rate among regular defencemen and 30% higher than the best performance from any Chicago defenceman in that span (funny enough, that was Louis Crevier, who was sent back to Buffalo in the trade). After Crevier, that rate is 50% higher than the next-highest ‘Hawks blue liner. If Chicago is a bottom-10 scoring team at 5-on-5 once again, it’ll be hard for Byram to come close to replicating that 5-on-5 production.<\/p>\n

Connor Bedard<\/a> being injured makes matters worse. We got news<\/a> on Wednesday that the shoulder injury he suffered during an offseason practice session will keep him out for four months. Let’s say he’s back November 8th, which is exactly four months from the date of the injury announcement. That means missing 40 days of the regular season, which is probably ~15 games. Last year, the Blackhawks scored 1.77 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 with Bedard off the ice. For reference, the Vancouver Canucks were the lowest-scoring 5-on-5 last season at 1.95. Chicago shouldn’t be under 1.8 goals per 60 minutes in the games Bedard misses, but it gives an idea of how much this can affect Byram’s early-season production.<\/p>\n

It seems likely that Chicago isn’t a good offensive team again (even when Bedard is healthy), but Byram has a straight path to top power-play minutes. Even on a poor power-play team, a consistent top PP role means a lot. Just think of Seth Jones<\/a>, who from 2022-2025 produced 17 PPPs every 82 games with the Blackhawks. If Byram had 17 PPPs last year, his fantasy value increase goes from one of the 30 largest improvements to sixth.<\/p>\n

The good news is that the 5-on-5 decline going from Buffalo to Chicago should be offset by the increase in power-play production. All things equal, if Byram loses 10 points at 5-on-5 but adds 10 points from the power-play, that is a huge boon to his fantasy value. If that PP production can somehow outweigh the (likely) decline in 5-on-5 production, this is a genuine top-25 multi-cat defenceman. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leo Carlsson will not be a Philadelphia Flyer as Elliotte Friedman reported that the Anaheim Ducks matched the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-393875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}