Lundell Extension; Tarasenko signs; new locations for Skinner, Stamkos, Bertuzzi and Perron – July 4 – DobberHockey

Lundell, fresh off a Stanley Cup win and a 35-point season, will begin his age-23 campaign for the 2023-24 season.

For fantasy purposes, especially in cap leagues, this is a bit risky. Lundell doesn’t hit much — his 61 hits in 2023-24 were by far a career high — and he doesn’t shoot much, having taken around 2.1 shots per game each of the past two seasons. Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart and Matthew Tkachuk are all on long-term contracts, and they’ll all be on the top power-play unit. Sam Bennett and Carter Verhaeghe both have a year left on their contracts. Things can change quickly, but Lundell is likely in the 40-50-point cap space until those two move on. He could be a decent value in cap leagues starting with the 2025-26 season, but next year will be tougher to manage.

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In somewhat Florida-related news, former Panthers forward Vladimir Tarasenko signed a two-year deal with the Detroit Red Wings. Alex gave a rundown of that and the Robby Fabbri trade.

Tarasenko is essentially a replacement for David Perron. At this point in Tank’s career, 35-goal, 70-point seasons are unrealistic, and if he can be a 25-goal, 55-point player, that’s a big win. I wouldn’t even expect that.

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Free agency has truly calmed down and all that remains for this offseason are a few key names, but more importance should probably be placed on the trade front. Let’s take today as one last look back at free agency and some of the most impactful moves from our fantasy perspective. As usual, data from Natural Stat Trick and Frozen Tools with tracking numbers from AllThreeZones.

Elias Lindholm

Anyone who watched a fair share of Boston games in 2023-24 knows they needed to address the center position. They tried to sit out a season after Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci and had some success, but it was clear they lacked a go-to top-line option they could use in all situations. I’m personally not as excited about Lindholm as many people seem to be, but the Bruins certainly think so. He should slot right into the top-six forward mix, though there’s no guarantee he’ll play primarily with David Pastrnak. They’ll get time together — the season is 82 games long — but whether it’s 55% of their even-strength time or 30% is very much up for debate.

The real reason this is a big signing is that it gives them a player who will likely be locked into the top power-play unit. One aspect of Boston’s season that hasn’t been discussed enough was a power play that has really, really struggled: With Pastrnak, Marchand and Charlie McAvoy on the ice at 5-on-4, the team has scored 5.99 goals per 60 minutes. League-wide, that’s worse than some of Seattle and Chicago’s players. It’s not nearly good enough, and it’s fair to wonder whether Lindholm will help, given the lack of help he’s provided the Vancouver Canucks.

That said, it does give the team three forwards to use on the top PP unit. The fourth will likely be Pavel Zacha, and that will push Matthew Poitras to the second unit for much of the season. Poitras will occasionally step in for Zacha or Lindholm, however, and that’s far from a death knell for his fantasy value.

Tyler Bertuzzi

Chicago adds Teuvo Teravainen , which likely gives them a forward to add to their top power-play unit in Connor Bedard . That effectively leaves two other roles, and it’s hard not to see Bertuzzi being one of them. Brennan wrote about the signing when it happened , and he’s leaning toward Taylor Hall and Phillipp Kurashev , and yes, that’s entirely possible. However, Brennan also mentions that Bertuzzi can bring a net-front presence that the others don’t really possess — Nick Foligno had that role a lot last year — and that’s what I think separates him from the pack. Bertuzzi’s individual 5-on-4 PP goals percentage over the last three seasons is 1.76 per 60 minutes, which is higher than the likes of Nathan MacKinnon , Andrei Svechnikov , and Clayton Keller . He’s a player that’s somewhere in the middle of the pack, certainly not elite or anything, but it’s a skill that could certainly do well on a power play team with players like Bedard, Teravainen and maybe Hall.

For a couple of reasons, I think that makes Bertuzzi one of the more impactful free agent signings for fantasy purposes. He won’t play alongside Bedard all season, but even 30-40% of the season with the rising superstar, as well as prime power play time, could get him back to the 30-goal, 60-point plateaus.

David Perron

This isn’t a signing that I necessarily consider a huge one for the individual player, it’s more about the impact he’ll have on roles elsewhere. Perron is legitimately one of my favorite non-elite players to watch over the past decade, which is why it was tough to watch him in 2023-24. His play really, really dropped off. Think about his time with and without Dylan Larkin at 5-on:

Worse still, he wasn’t an engine of the offense at all. Whether it was scoring chances, assisting teammates, zone entries, playing off the rush, none of it was good:

Yes, things can improve, and maybe they will if he plays a full season opposite Brady Tkachuk, or on the wings of Tim Stutzle or Shane Pinto. With Perron turning 36 in May, I have my doubts.

The real impact will be on the top power play unit. There’s a new coach in town in Travis Green, and this was a team that struggled on PP last season. Ostensibly, Perron should help, but we’ve already signed four forwards and that’s not counting Drake Batherson, Claude Giroux and Josh Norris. There are a lot of mouths to feed with the man advantage now, and a few players are going to be left behind. It’s not certain any of them are surefire top unit picks outside of Tkachuk, so there are going to be some frustrated fantasy owners next season, whether it’s because Perron takes up some top PP time or Green simply decides to run two even units.

Steven Stamkos

There’s not much to add to what Alex wrote about Stamkos at the time of the signing. It’s a bit of a downgrade for Stamkos’ power play output – though I don’t think it’ll decrease dramatically – and it could help Tommy Novak add some points to his total. That line has been known to struggle defensively, so it’ll be interesting to see what they do with the line combinations. Tampa Bay has tried to isolate Stamkos by using him with Anthony Cirelli at 5-on-5 and that has had very mixed (and often poor) results. It might be better to just protect a Stamkos/Novak duo and live with whatever defensive issues arise.

I will say that Nashville’s top PP unit was pretty good last season. With the trio of Filip Forsberg, Ryan O’Reilly, and Roman Josi on the ice, the team scored 9.6 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-4. That’s a lot lower than the 11.3 goals/60 scored by Tampa’s top unit, and I don’t think Stamkos will be close to 40 PP points again, but 30 points with an extra man is certainly in the cards. If he and Novak can find some of the offensive chemistry that Stamkos and Cirelli couldn’t, maybe it wouldn’t be far-fetched to see Stamkos go for a point per game again?

Jeff Skinner

It’s hard to imagine a bigger uptick than moving from Buffalo’s bottom 6 forward mix by the end of the 2023-24 season to Edmonton’s top 6 forward mix for the 2024-25 season. This is another section that won’t last long, as I’ve written extensively about how Buffalo has overhauled their offense and it has hurt the offensive production of nearly every key player on the roster, with a few exceptions. Nashville literally did this a year ago with Matt Duchene and we saw how that went with his move to Dallas.

The real question for Skinner is whether or not he gets prime power play time. All four of the top forwards that were on Edmonton’s premiere unit return, so there’s no guarantee whatsoever that Skinner will get prime power play time, and that’s important. Consider that over the past three seasons, no Oilers forward has reached 40 even strength points unless they’re Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Skinner represents an offensive upgrade over most of the names the team has had outside of those four, so perhaps he can recapture his Buffalo production of 2021-22 and 2022-23, but even then, without prime PP time, 70 points would be his ceiling.

However, if he gets prime powerplay time, this could be a career year for Skinner. I have a lot of confidence that he can bounce back for another year or two, and he’s in the best possible position to make that happen.