Are we set for Flower Power in Game 5? And a look at secondary assists as an indicator of regression for defensemen.

Buckle up, these ramblings got away from me and rambled on.

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Game 4 between Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh ended up close, and overall, it was a pretty solid game.

Trevor Daley's injury and the severity of it will have an impact, but Pittsburgh leaves Game 4 knowing they can still handle the play, drive possession and fill the net. It assuages the loss.

Marc-Andre Fleury likely has the No. 1 gig back now, and he shouldn't be viewed as a downgrade in net. This was a 1A, 1B situation once both tenders were healthy, and Matt Murray handled his starts well. He might be better than Fleury, but the margin isn't significant enough to have a significant impact.

Should Fleury implode, Murray returns to the crease.

Tampa Bay were significant underdogs in Game 4, and I expected the Lightning to win Game 3 because of the back-and-forth nature of the series. Overvaluing a dominant performance is ill-advised.

This is more important in daily games, but sometimes it is difficult to remember a team is never as good or as bad as they show. Game 4 was an excellent example of that.

The Shawn Michaels stuff is cool, too.

Sorry, I don't have any riot-inciting takes to fire up the comments this morning, but Justin Schultz did grab another helper and has one in consecutive games. It was a secondary five-on-five assist Friday, though.

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One means to finding offensive sustainability from season to season is comparing primary and secondary assists, especially for defensemen. I've pulled all the following statistics from War-on-Ice.com.

Here are the players who had at least five more secondary assists than primary assists at five-on five during the 2014-15 season.

First, there are players without fantasy relevance on the list, and there are good players on good teams that shouldn't sound the alert sirens. However, there were also some good players on good teams who did decline.

Here are the fantasy relevant players from the list and their production this season.

So, it's a mixed bag, but there are some similarities between a number of the defensemen. Danny DeKeyser, Sami Vatanen, Alex Pietrangelo, Dennis Wideman, John-Michael Liles, Niklas Kronwall and Alexander Edler all saw their secondary assists drop, and besides Vatanen all saw a significant to modest fantasy decline.

In Vatanen's case, not taking a step forward following his strong 14-15 campaign could still be viewed as a disappointment, though.

However, the point here is to be wary of overvaluing defensemen with high secondary assist totals because the statistic is likely less sustainable, or at least the case could be made it is.

Still, creating a prototype defenseman with particular factors/characteristics can help identify potential candidates for negative regression in the category going forward. A marked differential between primary and secondary assists is a solid starting point.

Any time you throw a blanket over six defensemen and look for commonalities, there are going to be just as many — if not more — differences, such as role and playing time, injuries, the success of the team, etc. etc.

This was a quick exercise in an attempt to provide some insight and return actionable fantasy advice. But this is more about looking back to look ahead.

First, let's group Edler, Liles and Kronwall together. All three are declining talents who weren't fantasy priorities this fall, but Edler and Kronwall aren't complete afterthoughts, either.

For Kronwall, when you breakdown his 14-15 assist total down as 20 power-play assists, three primary assists and eight secondary assists, there were two glaring signs of regression ahead.

Edler isn't as cut and dry, and he also missed time, so that was a significant impact as his per-game numbers didn't drop significantly. There is one significant difference in comparison to Kronwall, too. Edler doesn’t have the competition for offensive minutes that Kronwall does.

We should always be on the lookout for older defensemen in decline, especially if there are younger blue liners eyeing their offensive minutes. Liles is a strong example of this with Noah Hanifin leapfrogging him this season.

Although not included in the group above, Suter and Weber both declined, but they made up for the lack of secondary helpers with more primary ones. Their fantasy value is pretty stable, too. Although, with the development of other blue liners on their respective teams, both are potential candidates for decline, albeit likely not for another year or two.

Wideman's free fall was easily predictable. The negative regression that hit the entire team was expected, and Wideman had a career year at age 31. So, while there were plenty of signs, one of them was the 15 secondary assists.

His 2015-16 campaign had the suspension, the limbo time waiting for the suspension, and the Flames added Dougie Hamilton. Wideman's15 secondary assists certainly were a significant contribution to his career-best 56 points and 41 assists. Regardless of whether there were a number of other reasons he failed to return similar numbers this past season.

The remaining three, Pietrangelo, Vatanen and DeKeyser are the players in their prime, on good teams who lost fantasy value because of significantly fewer secondary assists.

There is reason to analyze why these players registered fewer secondary assists, but it is also safe to just posit they all posted double-digit marks in the statistic in 2014-15, which for defensemen, is difficult to accomplish to begin with and even more difficult to repeat in consecutive seasons.

Only 25 defenseman registered 10 or more secondary assists during the 2014-15 season, and just nine defensemen hit the mark in 15-16. Just Keith Yandle, Dougie Hamilton and Kevin Klein achieved the feat in consecutive campaigns, after all.

Back to the previously mentioned trio.

DeKeyser is an easy explanation. Following the coaching change, he was utilized in a defense-first role and started 55.3 percent of his shifts in the defensive zone compared to just 47.8 the year before. To further highlight his defensive role, DeKeyser's power-play cut was cut from 1:46 per game to 0:33 per game.

Pietrangelo's role has slowly shifted to a more defensive focus over the past two seasons, and while he is still a high-end fantasy defenseman, dropping from 46 points to 37 is a huge blow. Additionally, it stands as a career-low mark since becoming a regular — the lockout-shortened campaign included, in terms of points per game.

It is worth noting here, too, though, that both DeKeyser and Pietrangelo were pushed out somewhat by additions. Mike Green landed in Detroit, and Colton Parayko broke out and cut into some of Pietrangelo's offensive looks for St. Louis.

Pietrangelo was also already behind Kevin Shattenkirk in offensive zone starts. Just to highlight it, Pietrangelo started 46.4 percent of his shifts in the offensive zone, Parayko started 51.1 percent and Shattenkirk started 52.9 percent in the opponent's zone.

And then there was Vatanen, and it is a curious case.

There wasn't significant change, but again many fantasy owners were hoping for more. Overall, Vatanen traded a few less power-play goals for more PP helpers and his five-on-five assists dropped.

Specifically, he lost eight secondary assists.

Progress isn't linear, though, and the fact Vatanen actually scored more points in the 2015-16 season than the year prior, despite losing those eight secondary helpers, should actually be viewed as progress.

So, while the progress we anticipated didn't translate in fantasy results, it likely did take place.

In this case, Vatanen's regression was so significant in the stat that we can now bake in a few more secondary assists at five-on-five for next year.

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I've been throwing stats at the wall for roughly five years now. Sometimes something sticks, and sometimes there is a clump on the floor.

Here, it was incredible to see the variance in secondary assists among defensemen from year-to-year, and then to see how many fewer secondary assists were credited to rearguards this past season.

So, to recap, there is one common factor/characteristic contributing to a prototype defenseman regressing in fantasy value because of an expected drop in secondary assists, and it is age.

Most defensemen have to eventually take on more responsibility defensively, or they're cast as offensive specialist, and their five-on-five minutes suffer or never grow.

Pietrangelo and DeKeyser are examples. Whereas, some players just decline and are leapfrogged by younger talented because of their age, as Kronwall and Liles highlighted. Younger players typically have to earn their tough minutes and prove their capable of taking care of their own end.

It is a trade off for established blue liners. They're placed in fewer opportunistic situations, and instead taxed with tougher matchups and more defensive responsibility.

Over the course of an entire season, the difference shows up statistically. Sometimes it is minor, but given the difficulty defensemen have in returning 10 secondary assists at five-on-five to begin with, it adds up at the end of the season.

Again, this is just a quick look at one statistic, so it shouldn't be craved into dogmatic stone. But with that said, grabbing and comparing this stat helps statistically prove some things we already knew, but maybe didn't have a great way to fact check.

Obviously, fewer offensive looks from one year to the next is going to cut into production and hinder fantasy value, but how do you showcase it?

Looking at secondary assists is one means.

After our trip down memory lane, it is only fitting to take a trip in the DeLorean.

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Here are the defensemen with a five-plus differential between their primary and secondary assists at five-on-five last season.

Klein and Hamilton can be ignored. After positing at least 10 secondary assists in consecutive seasons, it can be accepted that their production in the category is more sustainable than their peers.

Plus, Hamilton is just entering his prime, and while his ceiling is still unknown, his floor is target worthy. Klein is a fringe fantasy contributor in deep setups.

Kris Letang is an elite player and shouldn't be viewed as a negative regression candidate, either. There could be fewer secondary assists, but the likelihood of him adding a handful more primary helpers is just as probable.

We can also write off the majority of the list because they're not fantasy relevant.

Here's the quick-hit take on the other fantasy relevant defensemen:

Francois Beauchemin: Signal the warning signs. Beuchemin checks the differential box, the age box, and the Avalanche have a number of younger defenders ahead of him offensively. This isn't shocking analysis, but it is worth noting when a candidate for negative regression shows up in the category. A Wideman-like fall is ahead.

Tobias Enstrom: What the roster looks like will have some impact here, as Jacob Trouba's a restricted free agent and could be dealt. If Trouba's gone and a rookie defenseman is inserting into the lineup, it would likely hurt Enstrom more. Regardless, he is a fringe fantasy asset. He is a solid example of a defenseman who have strong offensive years but has settled into more defensive responsibility over time, though.

Zach Bogosian: This is a similar case to Vatanen. Bogosian will have a difficult time improving on his seven secondary assists at five-on-five, especially with Rasmus Ristolianen established as the top offensive defenseman on the club. Bogosian's late-season run was largely unsustainable as a whole, too. However, and back to the mention of Vatanen, Bogosian might still be able to return solid numbers despite a drop in secondary assists.

Marc-Edouard Vlasic: While age isn't a factor, Vlasic is coming off a career year with a team that likely overachieved slightly. Like Wideman, we should be expecting some negative regression at face value. When you consider the difficulty of posting 10 secondary assists in consecutive seasons, Vlasic will have difficulty repeating his 39-point effort next year.

Mark Streit: Already surpassed by Shayne Gostisbehere, Streit could also see Ivan Provorov leapfrog him next year. Still, here is the biggest concern. Streit posted his worth points-per-game mark (0.37) last year since his rookie campaign in 2005-06. So, with the youth coming, and Streit entering his age-39 season, there are a number of reasons to be wary of Streit for the 2016-17 season.

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Enjoy the long weekend, Dobberheads.