After the three New York-area teams announced they will be allowing fans, the Columbus Blue Jackets also announced limited attendance for upcoming games. What that timeline looks like is uncertain at the moment, but they are sure to get some fans in for their games in the very near future, maybe before the end of the month.

Aside from all the optics of this as several teams endure outbreaks, I wonder if there's any competitive balance to consider. If one team is allowed fans and another isn't, does that give them any sort of advantage on the ice? I don't think so but there will be data to back this up so I'm interested to see what the numbers look like at the end of the year.

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The woes continue for Matt Grzelcyk as he's considered day-to-day for the Bruins and is expected to miss at least one game. He had been given a prime role running Boston's top PP unit but hasn't been able to stay healthy enough to take advantage of it. It will be interesting to see what they do when he returns because they have been running a five-forward PP unit at time. I suspect they want to get Grzelcyk back up there at some point, but when that is matters a lot to fantasy owners.

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Jesse Puljujarvi did not skate with the team on Thursday and did not play Thursday night because of his appearance on the COVID list. More news to follow, obviously.

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Steven Stamkos did not play on Thursday night and the team is calling it an upper-body injury. He is day-to-day.

In the meantime, Tyler Johnson centred the top line.

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Nothing further on the status of Tyler Bertuzzi other than the didn't travel with the team and hasn't started skating yet. This muddles when he might return and fantasy owners may be put to a difficult decision, depending on the number of IR slots in their league.

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Corey Perry was returned to the practice squad so it appears that he is indeed the odd-man out when Joel Armia is healthy. Something to keep in mind.

Staying with Montreal for a minute: what's going on with Shea Weber?

Heading into Thursday's game, Weber had 20 shots in 13 games this year. That is the worst shots/game mark of his career – even worse than his rookie season 15 years ago when he played 17 minutes a night. I don't think it's something that's being coached, either, as his shot is usually coveted and the shot rates for most other Montreal blue liners has increased this year.

Is it injury? Something else? Not sure. His assist rate will stay solid but I'm not so sure how many goals there will be.

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After a great performance on the PP last year, St. Louis is near the bottom of the league in goals/60 with the man advantage this year. That typically had been a big source of production for them so if they can turn it around, it could mean bigger things down the road. That's a big 'if', though.

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Washington had their full roster on the ice at practice yesterday and this was the PP units they ran:

Capitals working on power play now.

PP1: Carlson, Ovechkin, Backstrom, Vrana, Oshie.

PP2: Schultz, Orlov, Eller, Kuznetsov, Wilson.

— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) February 11, 2021

Whether it's a matter of getting Kuznetsov up to speed or whatever, this is great news for Vrana owners. I was very much afraid he'd lose his role with everyone back but it appears he holds on for now. The words 'for now' being operative here.

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I am writing this on Thursday afternoon, meaning before Columbus's game on Thursday night. With that said: what's going on with Columbus?

We have heard the stories of Dubois and Laine and all that, but this team is truly playing very bad hockey. On the season, their expected goals for rank dead last in the NHL; yes even worse than Detroit. Their expected goal share is the second-worst in the league, beating out only Los Angeles. Do not be fooled by their 6-5-3 record; they're sporting a minus-6 goal differential.

Part of it has to be the blue line. Zach Werenski is injured right now and this is what Seth Jones has done on the season (from Evolving Hockey):

That is truly awful. Those are just impacts, not actual goals. Jones is being ran over regularly and they're not exactly in a division of world-beaters. This is concerning.

This isn't entirely a small sample, either. We're talking 14 games. In a normal season, we would be starting to incorporate year-to-date stats around this point. It is not a meaningless sample and Columbus needs to figure out what's going on.

The usual tenets of this team are there – decent defensively, few penalties – but that is not enough to succeed in the NHL. This team needs to turn around their play in a hurry.

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Though Marco Scandella, Sammy Blais, and Colton Parayko are all varying levels of banged up for the Blues right now, but they're all expected to be back at some point on their current road trip. Parayko, in particular, is of interest to fantasy owners as he has eight points in 13 games with great peripheral numbers. He was on pace for a wonderful fantasy season, so let's hope this doesn't derail him.

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So, what's going on with Mika Zibanejad?

Thus far, Zibanejad has one goal on 39 shots, a cool 2.6 percent conversion rate. He has never been below 10 percent in a full season and shot at least 12 percent three years in a row coming into this season. Yes, there is positive regression coming. He won't stay at 2.6 percent shooting.

But it is worth digging into what's going on here. For that, I turn to HockeyViz and his shot locations. This was 2019-20 at even strength:

We can see he had no problem getting to the net and a lot of his shots were from within 20 feet. We know scoring rates go up as we get closer to the net, so this all makes sense. That this season led to a career-best in goals is not surprising.

What's going on this year? Glad you asked:

That is a wild, wild change in pattern. He went from almost exclusively shooting from the slot to almost exclusively shooting from beyond the tops of the circles. There is a stark difference in shooting 20 feet away from the slot and 40-45 feet away from the circle.

So when I say that Zibanejad has positive regression to come, he does. He won't shoot 2.6 percent. But will he shoot nearly 20 percent if this is where he's taking his EV shots? I very much doubt it. He is not Patrik Laine or Alex Ovechkin.

I won't keep inundating with charts, but his offensive impacts, so far this season, are the worst of his career. Not only is he shooting from far away, but they're not even driving a lot of shots. It really is a bad combination.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Zibanejad had COVID in the offseason.

Will he turn it around? Yes. He won't post five goals and 15 points this year. But will he be anywhere close to the player he was last year? I think we have a lot of reasons to doubt that. For that reason, buying low on him in fantasy really needs some calculus. If you think he's scoring 25 goals in the next 42 games or whatever, you may be in for some disappointment.

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Mathew Barzal scored a late goal to tie the game 3-3 with Pittsburgh and it was a nifty goal, too:

.@Barzal_97, this is absolutely disgusting. pic.twitter.com/ilk7sYSDbZ

— NHL GIFs (@NHLGIFs) February 12, 2021

Bryan Rust scored for Pittsburgh and had five shots in the overtime effort. Evgeni Malkin was in the lineup after leaving practice Wednesday with an eye issue, and scored a goal with 18 seconds left to send it to the extra frame.

Semyon Varlamov was excellent, stopping 32 of 35 shots faced.

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Anthony Duclair hit the COVID list for Florida and that moved Brett Connolly to the top line. He scored an empty-netter and played nearly 16 minutes.

Aaron Ekblad and Alex Wennberg each had a goal and an assist as the Panthers downed the Stamkos-less Lightning 5-2. That makes six points in 11 games for the Swede, who managed just 22 points in 57 games last year.

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Alex DeBrincat continued his torrid streak with a goal and two assists in Chicago’s 6-5 loss to Columbus. Patrick Kane matched that effort.

Jack Roslovic similarly contnued his recent hot streak with a pair of goal, while Cam Atkinson had a goal and three assists in a fantastic offensive night.