In this week’s instalment, I’ll be sharing thoughts about a few lines listed in the table below. Using Dobber’s Line Production Tool, I compared even-strength point production around the league over the past three games. I compiled a list of the highest scoring line for each team at even strength. Here’s the list…

Notable Notes

The 33-year old Alex Ovechkin has 37 goals in the 50 games he’s played this season. Can we just take a second to appreciate how insane that is? Ovi leads the league in goal-scoring and has a seven-goal lead on second place. There are a bunch of players who haven’t even scored seven goals yet! That Nicklas Backstrom guy is pretty good too – with 51 points in 49 games. While T.J. Oshie has been the third member of this line recently, Tom WIlson has also seen considerable time on Washington’s top forward unit. In case you were curious, the Ovechkin-Backstom-Oshie trio has controlled a higher percentage of the shot share (52%) compared to the Ovechkin-Backstrom-Wilson line (49%).

With nine points in his last seven games, Frank Vatrano has been on fire lately. Across his three previous NHL seasons, the greatest number of games he’d played in a single year was 43. In 2018-2019, he’s already played 47 games with plenty more ahead of him. Vatrano is in a great situation playing alongside Aleksander Barkov and Evgenii Dadonov, but he’s simply not getting enough ice-time to inspire confidence in his long-term value. Speaking of his line mates, Barkov is one of the best two-way players in the league and Dadonov has been a positive possession player throughout his time in the NHL. So, it’s surprising to see how underwhelming this line’s advanced numbers are. They’ve controlled less than 48% of all shots taken while they’re on the ice, 46% of scoring chances and just 42% of high-danger opportunities. Granted, the sample size is still relatively small (58 minutes), so we might see some improvement going forward. One final note on this line and it has to do with Dadonov. He had 43 points in 42 games to close out last season, so don’t be surprised if he has a hot stretch to close out the 2018-2019 campaign.

The Arizona Coyotes define resilience. No matter how many times you knock them down, they’ll find a way to get back up and stay in the fight. Despite the number of significant injuries they’ve had to deal with this season, they remain within striking distance of a playoff spot. A large part of the team’s recent success can be attributed to a few cold Coyotes getting hot. Exhibit A is Richard Panik – the 27-year-old forward managed just 14 points in his first 39 games of the season but has seven in his last eight. Exhibit B? Vinnie Hinostroza. He had 12 points in 32 games to start the season but has also turned it around with six in his last eight. While I’m hesitant to recommend rostering either player for the rest of the season, they certainly make for viable streaming options when Arizona has a favourable schedule. In fact, I might even take it a step further for Panik who is seeing the most ice-time of his career (16:51) and might be on a hot streak that you can ride for the next little while. How does that Snoop Dogg song go? Keep him while he’s hot? Drop him when he’s not? As much as I want to close this segment with that clever wordplay, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the Panik-Stepan-Hinostroza line has controlled 55% of all shot attempts while they’re on the ice. That number is made even more impressive when you realize that they start more of their shifts in the defensive zone than in the offensive zone.

Nino Niederreiter has been a Carolina Hurricane for just four games and he already has four goals – he had nine goals in 46 games with the Wild prior to the trade. Look, I know the sample size is still small, but this guy is still available in 58% of Yahoo Leagues. A large majority of you can essentially acquire him for free. In his four games with Carolina, he’s been averaging four shots a game while seeing about 17 minutes of ice-time – both huge improvements from his situation in Minnesota. With all due respect to his teammates in Minny, Sebastian Aho is probably the most talented player Nino has played with recently, so I’m curious to see how the two of them perform as a duo moving forward. As a line, Aho, Niederreiter and Justin Williams have been pretty dang impressive. Again, I must stress that we’re working with a super small sample size as this trio has played together for just under 31 minutes through four games this season. I’m going to throw some pretty impressive numbers at you, so it’s important that you keep that in mind. They’ve controlled 65.6% of all shots taken while they’re on the ice, generating 66.7% of all scoring chances, and creating 64.3% of all high-danger opportunities while on the ice.