Both Preds who scored PPGs are on nice points runs, with Filip Forsberg having posted nine in his last nine games, and Seth Jones – doing his best to convince naysayers, myself included, that there's room for three scoring blueliners in Nashville – with nine in his last 12 contests.

*

Meanwhile, chalk up another point for Aaron Ekblad. As great as Ekblad is shaping up to be, we have to temper our expectations. After all, in the last 25 years, there's only been two defensemen – Bryan Berard and Scott Niedermayer – who posted more than one 40+ point season before turning 21. And Berard was the last to do it…….nearly 20 years ago (1996-97)!

What's more – those who posted one 40+ season before turning 21 include players who many thought were surefire successes, but ultimately didn't live up to lofty scoring expectations, like Tyler Myers (48 points at age 19 – no 40 point seasons since then), Cam Fowler (40 points at age 19 – no 40 point seasons since then), Dion Phaneuf (49 points at age 20, but only one 40+ point season in his last four full campaigns), Oleg Tverdovsky (55 points at age 20, but never hit that total again and only posted two more 40+ point seasons), Drew Doughty (59 points at age 20, next highest total was 40 points at age 21), and Alexei Zhitnik (48 points at age 20, just two more 40 point season in his career).

What I'm driving at is guys like Niedermeyer, Nicklas Lidstrom or Chris Pronger, who each found a way to truly elevate their teams while still also putting huge smiles on the faces of poolies – are a truly rare breed, and we need to stop short of forecasting Ekblad for that kind of trajectory for now. Plus, let's not forget neither Jay Bouwmeester nor Ed Jovanovski – both of whom were top three overall picks for the Panthers – ever scored more than 51 points in a season.  Just sayin'……..

*

The big news from the Islanders vs. Buffalo game is it marked the third contest in a row where Travis Hamonic registered a PP assist, and the second where he unseated Johnny Boychuk from PP1. This seemingly came from nowhere, and probably won't stick; but for now Hamonic might make a nice short term own.

And while Boychuk was nudged from PP1, Nick Leddy might be even worse off, as he had no PP time whatsoever. It's definitely a situation that bears watching, as the stakes (the Islanders are in the league's top ten in PP conversion) are high.

*

For the Sabres, Cody Hodgson was scratched again, as his situation inches closer to the point where his owners need to be seriously concerned. One ray of hope is this is unfolding with Ted Nolan as a coach, and it might just be a case of Nolan's style not meshing with Hodgson's. If so, the cure becomes one of them leaving town, as probably will happen within a year.

Oh yea, and they managed just ten shots on goal during the game.  I have no words….

*

Sadly, seeing the Sabres and Islanders (not to mention the Habs) all in action yesterday was a reminder of just how far Matt Moulson and P.A. Parenteau (even before he was concussed) have fallen – in real and fantasy hockey – from their heyday with the Islanders. One of three explanations likely applies – (1) they were propped up by John Tavares, (2) they were at least close to being as good as they seemed, but slacked off once they hit their UFA payday, or (3) they were decent supporting players who were paid better than they should've been, making it impossible to live up to expectations.

My take is Moulson falls squarely in category #1 while Parenteau is more like a 2.5 – that is, maybe 50% category #2 and 50% category #3. How bad have things gone for each? Consider that Moulson scored 53 points in his final 58 Islanders games, then took 91 regular season games to get his next 53. With Parenteau, it's likely forgotten by many that he posted 43 points in the lockout shortened 2012-13 season (translating to a 73 point full season pace), what with him tallying only 44 points in his next 82 games with the Avs and Habs.

At the risk of overgeneralizing, I think this says a lot about so-called "career AHLers," which I consider players who spent three or more 50+ game seasons in the AHL with the final season occurring during or after age 25. Parenteau logged 450 AHL games, finally making the NHL full time when he was 27 years old, while Moulson's AHL tenure consisted of 188 games, and culminated when he was nearly 26.

That's not to say that those who fit the "career AHLer" criteria can't make at least a brief fantasy impact and be worthy of a short term own; it's just that for whatever reason players who spend that much time in the minors might not be ones to bank on having sustained success in the NHL. Maybe it's complacency after a big payday, or maybe the toll all those years in the AHL took on them.

And while there can always be exceptions to the rule and it's great to see guys like these make it in the NHL, I'm thinking twice about making keeper league investments in guys (hi Johnny Boychuk, Patrick Maroon, and Nick Holden), who logged three or more seasons of 50+ games in the AHL without having reached the NHL for good by age 25.

*

Kari Lehtonen owners are likely quite pleased after he posted his third solid game in his last four outings. But even still, the last time he gave up fewer than two goals in a contest was way back on January 3rd – 12 starts ago. He's just not stealing games for the Stars, and it's hurting the team's playoff hopes as much as it's damaging the championship aspirations of poolies who counted on Lehtonen to be a solid #2 goalie for their squads.

Meanwhile, Jason Spezza had a three point effort, continuing his hot play of late, and is now up to 12 points in his last 11 games. But beware – the only other hot stretch that Spezza had earlier this season (11 points in only six games) was followed by a four game pointless stretch. He's clearly not suited to be (or not buying into being) a "second banana" type of center.

*

So what's ailing Ryan McDonagh? Just to be clear, I'm not talking about his injury from November; I mean ailing in terms of his production, as at the end of January (prior to his recent scoring binge) he was hovering around only a 36 point full season pace. Of course this was making poolies wonder if maybe we rushed to judge him an elite fantasy d-man after he ended the 2013-14 campaign with 13 points in his final 17 regular season games and then posted a jaw dropping 17 points in his final 15 playoff games.

Lo and behold, as of Saturday his 5×5 IPP for this season was 14.3%! That means he'd tallied a paltry four points on the 26 goals that had been scored at 5×5 while he was on the ice! If, instead, his 5×5 IPP was merely 34.4% (i.e., what the 53rd d-man out of the 121 who played 1000+ minutes at 5×5 had last season), then his points total going into the weekend would've stood at 22 in 38 games, vaulting him to a 47.5 point pace.

Buy low doesn't even begin to describe what McDonagh is right now; but act quick, as it looks like he's turning things around given his recent surge.

*

Rough weekend for Avs fans, who were just starting to think they were poised to make some serious noise in the playoff race. But a shutout loss, followed by a drubbing yesterday at the hands of Winnipeg, has left them back in last in the Central Division. The best thing they probably could do at this point is to "blink first" and trade away some of their deep top nine, since if they do they'd figure to get a very nice return that will help them solidify themselves for the future.

Fantasy-wise, Tyson Barrie returned to the line-up and wasted no time hitting the ground running with a goal. Stretching back to last season he now has 60 points in his last 101 regular season games, for a 50 point full season pace. Yet his lack of an actual 50 point season makes him still a bit of a bargain. Grab him if you can, before he finishes this season with 50+, or close to it, after which the price will be much higher.

Also, both Matt Duchene and Alex Tanguay snapped three game scoreless skids, each posting two points on the night.

*

The Jets are an odd team in that every time I see a box score I swear they're getting three, four, or, like tonight, five goals per game. Yet they're in the bottom half of the league in team goal scoring. Part of that is depth, but it's also a factor is lingering inconsistency. I see them as a threat to get swept in the first round of the playoffs, especially with their weak sauce goaltending.

One interesting piece of data is that only ten Jets skaters saw any PP time, with the player who got the least (Jacob Trouba) receiving 2:50 and the player who got the most (Dustin Byfuglien) getting 4:16. The big loser in this was Zach Bogosian, who saw no man advantage time while going -2 on his way to no points in the ninth straight game. My condolences if you still have him on your fantasy team.

*

It was nice to see Mike Green back into the line-up for the Caps after missing only one game with a lower body injury. Of course I can't blame those of you who – like me – assumed the worst and reserved him, considering his tendency to turn day-to-day into more like week plus. I wonder if he was more eager to declare himself fit to play given his status as a UFA to be and, with that, his desire to show teams he can put together back to back 70+ game seasons?

Am I the only one who'd like to see Tom Wilson get more PP time? Sure – he's rough around the edges, but he's also a big body and has shown some flashes of skill. I get that Joel Ward and Jason Chimera have paid their dues and are skilled; but when those two combine for 9:35 of PP time and Wilson tallies a mere ten seconds, it makes you wonder. In due course, I suppose.

*

It took an empty net PPG, but Claude Giroux got his first point in four games, and Jakub Voracek his first in three (and first goal in ten). In this case, Mark Streit didn't get an assist on the goal, but recently I dug up the fact that by the all-star break those three had all factored into the same goal (i.e., one of them scored, the other two each had an assist) an astonishing ten times out of the first 130 Flyer goals.

Placing aside how impressive that is considering the variables involved, it rekindles the debate about having several players from one NHL team on your fantasy squad, since in this case anyone with all three has hit pay dirt thus far.

My quick take is going out of your way to "corner the market" on guys from a team is usually a net negative. For one, in doing so you'll usually have to overpay. Plus, it'll cause you to take your full attention away from value that could otherwise be had. Beyond that, it's never a lock that a team will do well as a whole, let alone that the players you grabbed will be the core group that dominates that team's scoring.

*

Tough break for Philly in seeing Steve Mason go down to injury, since without him their already very remote playoff hopes all but vanish. It's a shame that as a window opened with the potential return of Kimmo Timonen, it might close just as quickly.

*

I'll end with an interesting tidbit I picked up on recently, which is there are currently only ten NHLers who, as of February 1st, were age 38 or older. And guess what – if we dig a bit deeper we can see a clear trend in recent campaigns toward fewer and fewer older players on NHL teams. Here's the data for the past six seasons:

2008-09 = 23 NHL players age 38 or older

2009-10 = 17 players

2010-11 = 14 players

2011-12 = 14 players

2012-13 = 15 players

2013-14 = 12 players

We can disregard 2012-13 somewhat, since that was a shorter season, which in turn made the idea of carrying a veteran somewhat less concerning for teams. But overall this data seems to support the idea that despite advances in nutrition and training, the NHL is becoming more and more of a younger man's domain. It also could be that as players get older they're more prone to jumping ship in order to extend their careers in Europe.

For now, the fantasy takeaway is that guys on the 38+ list for 2014-15 might be prone to getting rested here and there between now and the end of the season, so if you happen to own Sergei Gonchar, Patrik Elias, Matt Cullen, Lubomir Visnovsky, or even Jaromir Jagr, Martin St. Louis, Dan Boyle, or Shane Doan (the remaining two aren't worthy of being on pretty much anyone's fantasy roster), be sure to check daily news and other sources to see if maybe they're being rested on the second night of a back to back, or perhaps turn up as an outright healthy scratch (like Visnovsky of late), especially after their team has clinched (or, in the case of Elias and Doan, been eliminated from securing) a playoff spot.