Tyler Bertuzzi is out through at least Wednesday and has yet to start officially skating with the team. He had been off to a solid start with seven points in nine games with 20 shots and 13 hits but has yet to play in February due to his upper-body injury. More information as we get it.

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Steven Stamkos was removed from the COVID list after what appears to be a false positive.

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The Devils are saying that Nico Hischier was close to playing before the COVID outbreak on their roster but they also said he was close to playing the opening night of the season and he subsequently missed nine games. At this point, I'll just wait until he's actually on the ice for a game.

They have just four players left on the COVID list, but two of them are Gusev and Hischier. Pretty important.

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Joe Thornton was back in the lineup for Toronto after missing a couple weeks with a fractured rib. It may take some time for the aging wonder to get up to speed but Toronto's defensive numbers were great with him in the lineup, unsurprisingly. This is a big re-addition.

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The Nashville-Dallas game was cancelled at the request of the mayor of Dallas. There have been widespread power outages in the area in freezing temperatures so it was thought best not to have the game at the time.

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Both Matt Dumba and Mats Zuccarello have been removed from the IR by Minnesota. Dumba was having a solid start before Minnesota's season came to a screeching halt and he got injured. The team only has three games in their next 10 days, though, so don't get too excited just yet. It will be the end of the season where their schedule picks up.

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K'Andre Miller is day-to-day right now for the Rangers after leaving practice early. It does not appear to be anything serious so he may not even miss a game. We will know more later today.

Artemi Panarin skated before their practice but not with the team. It seems as if he'll miss at least one more game but again, we'll know more later.

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Erik Karlsson didn't play on Monday night. It has been a miserable start to the season with no goals and four assists in 13 games, posting just 23 shots in that span. This is despite playing over 25 minutes a night. He truly looks like a shell of the player he was five years ago. It really is a shame when injuries catch up.

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Habs GM Marc Bergevin said that Cole Caufield will turn pro after his college season, but didn't specify AHL or NHL. My guess is, barring a few injuries, he'll be in the AHL to get some pro games in before becoming a full-time NHLer in 2021-22.

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Boston has changed around their PP units a bit and the big move is re-introducing Charlie McAvoy to the top unit:

PP1: McAvoy, Bergeron, Marchand, Pastrnak, Ritchie
PP2: Moore, Krejci, Coyle, Smith, DeBrusk

— Fluto Shinzawa (@FlutoShinzawa) February 15, 2021

They also moved David Pastrnak to the second line at even strength and Jake DeBrusk to the top line. We have seen this happen in recent seasons and it's lasted maybe a few games each time. I suspect this is a combination of rewarding strong play from DeBrusk of late and Boston only having eight goals in their last four games. Again, I doubt this lasts, but it's a nice short-term boost for DeBrusk and his fantasy owners.

Coach Cassidy also said Ondrej Kase did some light skating before practice so though he's a ways away, he's on the road to recovery.

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The Buffalo Sabres hit the ice on Monday night for the first time in a couple weeks. They still don't have their full roster as there are still some names on the COVID list, including Dylan Cozens and Rasmus Ristolainen.

It is worth noting that including Monday night going through mid-March, the Sabres have 16 games in 27 days. That is basically playing four games a week every week for a month. That is a lot of hockey, which seems like it would be good for fantasy, but there may be some concerns.

My initial concern is injury. It is a lot of hockey in a short amount of time in a season that is unusual to begin with. But the Sabres are playing more than one game very two days for a month, including four sets of B2Bs. If their players would start to get a bit run down, well, I don't think we can fault them too much.

That leads to my second point: do they rest players? It is hard to see guys like Eichel, Hall, or Dahlin coming out of the lineup unless there's an injury, but guys closer to the bubble like Rieder or Miller? Maybe. They may not be important in seasonal fantasy hockey but it's something to keep in mind for daily formats.

And is there a lot of upside? Out of those 16 games, six are against the Islanders and three against the Flyers. Assuming those rosters are near full strength, over half of Buffalo's games are automatically below-average offensive matchups. Yes, volume of games is nice, but the quality of matchup does matter.

The Sabres aren't alone here. This could apply to the Devils, the Wild, and even Colorado to an extent. There will be other teams down the road in all likelihood, so the blueprint for how teams fare in their returns could be made available soon.

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After what seemed like a week of down scoring, we had some goal fests.

Florida and Tampa got into double-digits with a 6-4 Florida win. The scoring was spread out as no one had a three-point night for the Panthers, with Barkov (1-1), Huberdeau (1-1), Stralman (1-1), and Verhaege (0-2) putting up their only multi-point efforts. For Huberdeau, that makes 17 points in 13 games this year, so it doesn't seem as if playing away from Barkov is hurting too much.

Florida's third line also chipped in as Owen Tippett and Frank Vatrano both tallied.

Tyler Johnson had a goal for Tampa, continuing his recent hot streak as their injuries hit.

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Columbus took a 3-1 lead in their game with Carolina before the Hurricanes reeled off six straight goals to take a lead, and skate to a 7-3 win. The top line had a great night as Brock McGinn (2-2), Teuvo Teravainen (1-3), and Sebastian Aho (1-1) all scored and had multi-point nights. Jordan Staal kept up his hot streak with another goal, but it should be noted he's shooting 33 percent. Might be time to hop off that train.

Joonas Korpisalo was pulled after the second period, allowing all five goals.

Boone Jenner scored (and added an assist) to give him five goals on the year. With his peripherals, any sort of reasonable scoring rate makes him incredibly valuable in multi-cat leagues.

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The Sens were down 5-1 against the Leafs but a Nick Paul short-handed goal sparked three more tallies to give us a 5-5 overtime game. Evgenii Dadonov finished off the comeback with an overtime goal, his second marker of the game, to lift the Sens to victory.

Joe Thornton made his return with a goal and an assist, with his goal coming on him crashing the crease. He looked just fine. Auston Matthews had two goals and an assist, with him and Marner both passing 22 minutes in ice time again.

The only Sens player with a multi-point game, aside from Dadonov, was Connor Brown with a goal and an assist. Brady Tkachuk had an assist, four shots, and five PIMs. Ho-hum.

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One player I talked about before the season was Denis Gurianov. It basically amounted to him having a good 2019-20 playing minimal minutes and having a real breakout in 2020-21. Well, he's averaging nearly three shots per game and has 11 points in 12 contests. Breakout underway.

The one thing that sticks out his having three PP goals out of his four tallies. He is shooting just five percent at 5-on-5 this year, converting one goal out of 20 shots. But his shot rates and expected goals are in line with last year, so this may be nothing more than a bit of bad luck.

It is a bit concerning that a lot of his 5-on-5 scoring is coming from secondary assists right now but that goal scoring rate should turn itself around. I really don't know where his season is going to go but I think it's a case where I'm holding on to find out. He was cheap in drafts and unless a trade offer is really lopsided, I think it's worth just riding this out and taking what comes.

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Speaking of secondary assists, we should point out which players have been reliant on secondary assists for production this year. We know that, at 5-on-5, those types of helpers are effectively random and high/low rates tend to regress to the mean. Players can sustain high rates for entire seasons, but only one forward had a rate exceeding one A2/60 minutes at 5-on-5 last year, and it was Evgeni Malkin at 1.04. The year before it was Alex Tuch at 1.01. Anything above 1.0, then, is worrisome. Here are some guys above that threshold so far this year.

James van Riemsdyk

The league leader at 2.23 secondary assists at 5-on-5 per 60 minutes is a guy who struggled mightily in 2019-20. A lot of people, present company included, were ecstatic to see his great early start in 2020-21, amassing a massive 18 points in 13 games. But he has 11 assists in 13 games, a rate that would see nearly 70 assists in a full 82-game season, or more than double his previous career-high mark of 33. He is also shooting over 23 percent individually. There are several blinking red lights screaming regression here. Trade him now.

Jonathan Drouin

While several Habs have had great starts to their respective seasons, Drouin has 11 points in 15 games, tying a career-best for points per game. That is a wonderful start.

However, because of his role, Drouin isn't shooting at all, with just 20 shots in those 15 games. A full season at that rate would see near 110 shots on goal. It is really, really hard to have much fantasy value with that kind of shot rate. Joe Thornton, he is not.

Here we have a player that isn't shooting and is reliant on secondary assists for production. Unless he changes the way he's playing, Drouin's value for the season has probably peaked. This is another situation where it makes sense to move on.

Nikolaj Ehlers

This one isn't as much a slam-dunk as the other two. Ehlers is absolutely getting lucky this year; his secondary assist rate of 1.51 per 60 minutes is top-5 in the league and way more than double his previous career high of 0.62. Combine that with the fact that he's shooting over 15 percent at 5-on-5 – also a career high by a lot – and there seems to be a lot of signs of regression.

What makes this tough for me is that Ehlers has a top-line role and his shot rate is comparable to stalwarts like David Pastrnak and Anders Lee. He is playing with Mark Scheifele, a guy who ranks near the top of the league in all CJ Turtoro's playmaking/transition stats:

While there is regression to come, as long as he's playing 17-18 minutes a night on the top line, he could still push for a point-per-game status in that division on that line. Ehlers is an elite winger in the league and I think he's just showing what he's capable of. He won't post 1.14 points/game the rest of the way, but I think he could sit between 0.8-0.9 with a great shot rate.