Byfield’s Extension; Looking for Undervalued Options in Fantasy Drafts – July 16 – DobberHockey

Quinton Byfield has signed a five-year extension with Los Angeles worth $31.25 million over those seasons. The $6.25 million cap hit makes it very palatable for cap league purposes considering he’s only just scratching the surface of what he can produce in fantasy. It wouldn’t be the least bit shocking to see a 35-goal, 70-point, 180-shot, 80-hit season from him in 2024-25, and that’s fine for what he’s making.

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The 2024-25 Dobber Hockey Fantasy Guide is in the works and now that we’re in the thick of the off-season, it’s time to take a step back from the 2023-24 campaign, the draft, and free agency. I want to use today’s Ramblings to take an educated guess at some players who might be undervalued as we head into draft season. A few people have asked me for sleeper picks since their drafts are sometime in July, so before I actually get started on preparing for the upcoming season, let’s do that.

I haven’t started preparing my rankings in different formats yet, so this is all from memory. I’m also going to use a basic multi-cat lineup of goals, assists, shots, power play points, hits, and blocks as parameters. I’m also going to split this up into two Ramblings, one for today and one for Thursday: guys who can break out with top power play time, and then a list of guys who probably won’t get top PP time but can still reach another level fantasy-style. Data from Natural Stat Trick and Frozen Tools.

JJ Peterka

In 2022-23, the entire line of Jack Quinn, Dylan Cozens and JJ Peterka were standouts as part of the young Buffalo Sabres core. They were lackluster defensively, but were able to create very well offensively, scoring 2.8 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, which is good-not-great.

Things went south in 2023-24, when Quinn was injured for much of the season and Cozens’ production plummeted. Peterka’s didn’t, and he finished with an even-strength 25 goals, which led the Sabres in scoring, tied with Sam Reinhart and Brady Tkachuk. Importantly, Peterka ranked second among Buffalo forwards in power-play time after the trade deadline, trailing only Alex Tuch. There’s a new coach in town with Lindy Ruff taking over for Don Granato, but the buyout of Jeff Skinner has removed a stumbling block to Peterka’s prime power-play time.

Peterka added nearly three full shots per 60 minutes of ice time between his freshman and sophomore seasons, is eyeing a career-best run of power play time, and could easily finish second among the team’s wingers in ice time per game. He won’t produce many hits or blocks, but he can certainly threaten 250 shots and 20 power play points, which, coupled with another jump in production, would make for a highly successful fantasy option who may not carry a high ADP.

Cole Perfecti

Like Buffalo, there is a new coach in Winnipeg and that can only benefit Perfetti’s upside. Being a healthy scratch at the end of the road and in the playoffs is absolutely the worst place for a young player to be.

It’s not that he wasn’t productive, either. At 5-on-5, his primary points per 60 minutes (goals and primary assists) was 1.81, or higher than Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, and Nino Niederreiter, to name a few. He also finished with more dangerous shot attempts per 60 minutes (4.0) than Connor (3.9). The funny thing is that after the trade deadline, the team outscored its opponents 9-6 at 5-on-5 with Perfetti on the ice, giving him a higher on-ice goal share (60%) than each of Niederreiter, Connor, Scheifele, and Gabriel Vilardi. He also led the team in total points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 during that span. It’s really something.

The only stumbling block for Perfetti is Nikolaj Ehlers, as he will likely take up more power play minutes than his younger teammate. I feel like Charlie Brown with the football right now, as fantasy hockey owners are itching to see Ehlers play 18-19 minutes per game again. However, he still has one year left on his current contract and may not be in the lineup for Game 1 of the regular season. Perfetti could benefit from both a new coach and a bigger role. The kid is very good, he just needs decision makers to believe in him.

Kirill Marchenko

When looking at the Columbus roster, there are a number of players who could see prime power play time. Johnny Gaudreau, Boone Jenner, Adam Fantilli, Patrik Laine, Sean Monahan and Yegor Chinakhov are at the top of the list, for starters. There is also a new coach who will eventually be hired.

Marchenko ranked fourth among Columbus forwards in power play time per game toward the end of last season, but one of the names ahead of him was Alex Nylander, and he’s gone now. Assuming Monahan takes over for Nylander and the other two forwards are Gaudreau and Jenner, Laine is the biggest obstacle to Marchenko getting top power play time. There are reports that he has requested a trade, though, so we could very well see Marchenko on the top power play unit come October. There’s still Fantilli to consider, but that feels like something that happens a month or two into the season rather than right away.

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking on my part, but Marchenko is a scoring winger and if Laine is traded, the team will be short on that (depending on where they place Fantilli). He brings a skill set that few (if any) other forwards on this roster have, and after averaging 26 goals per 82 games to start his career, this is looking like a 30-goal season in the making. He could even take over 200 shots and push toward 70 hits with some more ice time, so this is a guy I’ll be interested in when the draft rolls around in September.

Logan Cooley

If I had to guess right now, Arizona’s top four power play forwards are Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, Dylan Guenther, and Cooley. The reason Cooley gets favored over other options is that he’s a left-handed center, which would give them one left-handed shooter and one right-handed (Schmaltz) shooter on the power play faceoffs. Barrett Hayton is a possibility, sure, but he seems to have lost some favor with the coaching staff, possibly due to injury, so he could regain it. There’s also Alex Kerfoot, but I really don’t think Kerfoot’s offensive potential is anywhere near enough for a team looking to see an improved power play in 2024-25.

Coming into last season’s trade deadline, Kerfoot was the best power play unit. Funny enough, the second PP unit with Cooley (9.6 goals per 60 minutes) was significantly outperforming the best PP unit with Kerfoot (7.0 goals per 60 minutes). This is a team that needs to improve its special teams to really take a step forward and has the talent to improve its mid-level power play. That means Cooley needs to move up, especially with how well he and Guenther played together after Guenther’s recall.

MacKenzie Weegar

This is an odd one, because beyond the potential power play production, this player possesses abundant peripheral ability. Regardless of his special teams role, he’s flying past 100 blocks and could push toward 200 hits while adding two shots (or more) per game. That alone makes him a coveted fantasy selection.

The concern for Calgary’s power play – talent aside – is that they could make several changes to the blue line throughout the season. It wouldn’t be the least bit shocking to see Weegar, Daniil Miromanov, and Rasmus Andersson take turns running the top PP unit. There will likely be weeks where all three take turns as PPQB. That’s going to be annoying, but I personally believe Weegar is the best puck mover on the team’s blue line, and talent wins. So I think Weegar wins.

Weegar’s potential role is a big one. He seems like a sure thing to be a top-25 defenseman in any multi-cat format, but consistent top PP role could make him a legitimate threat to be a top-5 defenseman.

Lucas Hughes

Hughes isn’t necessarily a sleeper – too many people have overestimated him – but I can’t help but wonder if he’s underrated despite how highly people rate him. We only have to look at the 2022-23 season, in which Dougie Hamilton skated less than 22 minutes per game for New Jersey, managed just 86 blocks (Hughes had 55 as a rookie), and yet he led Yahoo! point formats by default thanks to stellar power-play production and high shot totals. I don’t think Hughes will reach 22 goals or 275 shots, but he can reach 15 goals and 200 shots, and that, coupled with the plethora of assists he should provide, puts him at least in the top 15. I think he’s the next defenseman to truly push himself into the elite ranks of blue line producers, and he’s in a great position to do just that. We’ll see where the ADPs land, but I can easily see him finishing the 2024-25 season as a top-20 defenseman in nearly all formats.

Joseph Woll

Goalies are weird, and maybe Toronto doesn’t want to give Woll 55-60 starts in a season after he missed significant time with injury. Either way, neither Anthony Stolarz nor Matt Murray are significant obstacles to being, at the very least, the 1A starter in a 1A/1B situation, so as long as Woll doesn’t fall on his face at the start, he should have the cage to start. Whatever we think of the Leafs, they were, at worst, an average defensive team last season, they don’t tend to take many penalties, and they beefed up their blue line in the offseason. I think there’s a real chance they’re both top 10 in goals for and against in 2024-25, and that’s a great situation for Woll.