Very good news for the Philadelphia Flyers as Sean Couturier was back at practice, skating on the top line on Wednesday. Remember he had missed a bunch of games before their COVID break and despite some wins, the team looked very much a shell of what they can be with him in the lineup.

This is how their lines broke down:

JvR-Couturier-Farabee
Raffl-Hayes-NAK
Bunnaman-Patrick-Kase
Morin-Andreoff-Sushko

Provorov-Myers
Sanheim-Ghost
Hägg-Gustafsson

Hart
Elliott

— Bill Meltzer (@billmeltzer) February 17, 2021

Needless to say, they're still missing some bodies. They play tonight against the Rangers and Sunday against the Bruins.

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Dallas and Tampa Bay had their game on Thursday night in Dallas postponed because of the ongoing electric grid collapse in Texas. It has been a very bad week for millions of people in the state and hockey is at the bottom of the list for priorities at the moment. All the best to the people in Texas as they get through the recovery.

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Following the trade to Toronto, Alex Galchenyuk is slated to start skating with the team today. Where he fits in is uncertain right now, but it's almost assuredly in the bottom-6 to start, whenever he gets there. I wouldn't run to the waiver wire just yet.

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Jacob Trouba left his game on Tuesday night with an injury and did not return. On Wednesday, we found out that he's going to miss 4-6 weeks. Assuming K'Andre Miller returns in short order, he should get a fair amount of ice time as well as PP2 TOI. Check your waiver wires.

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Both Jaden Schwartz and Colton Parayko were out of St. Louis practice with injury on Wednesday. We got news that Schwartz is day-to-day but didn't get a whole lot beyond that. With the injuries we'll discuss below, they're starting to pile up for the Blues. Getting and staying healthy over the next couple months needs to be paramount.

Tyler Bozak isn't close to returning and though Vladimir Tarasenko steams ahead, the Blues' strength is their depth. It is the fact that their third line, when healthy, can contribute. That is going to be hard with both Bozak and Robert Thomas injured.

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Some good news on the COVID front:

🔋⏳💪🏻 #feelingbetter pic.twitter.com/LYi6wcFgzx

— Marco Rossi (@marcorossi2383) February 17, 2021

Remember that Rossi contracted the virus in the fall and never really recovered, with issues being found in his medicals with Minnesota. For that reason, he's out for the year. That he is starting to feel better is a very good sign, and should be reminder that even 19-year old elite athletes can succumb to the symptoms and have long-lasting issues. For now, let's just hope no more issues crop up for him and he can return at full strength in the fall.

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I was doing some research for the daily fantasy slate last night and found something curious: heading into Wednesday night's game, the Canucks' three leaders in shot rate per 60 minutes were Adam Gaudette, Jake Virtanen, and Tyler Motte. All of Bo Horvat, Elias Pettersson, and Brock Boeser were enjoying career-lows in shot attempt rates. In fact, the Canucks have three defencemen – Juolevi, Edler, Schmidt – taking more shots per 60 minutes than each of Miller, Boeser, Pettersson and Horvat.

There are two reasons why this is odd. First, this was definitely not the case last year, as Boeser was top-5 on the team in shot rate and each of the forwards named shot more than every defenceman except Edler. The second is that something similar is happening in Tampa Bay – last year, Kucherov, Stamkos, and Johnson were 1-2-3 in shot rate for the Lightning. This year? Erik Cernak and Victor Hedman are first and second in shot rate. There may be other examples like this I've missed but it was something I noticed for Tampa Bay while researching for DFS a few nights ago.

I bring this up because goal scoring is down at 5-on-5 across the league. So far this year, teams are scoring 2.41 goals/60 minutes (according to Natural Stat Trick) while that number was 2.48 last year. Shot rates are also down, so that might be a reason why there's less scoring, but what if defencemen are becoming more involved, to the detriment of the team's offence? Just a thought. I will look into this a bit more for tomorrow's Ramblings.

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Not every team is shooting less, obviously. Teams like Colorado, Ottawa, and Carolina are shooting more this year at 5-on-5, per minute, than they were last year.

Just in general, I think we're seeing the game of hockey changing almost in real time. This started a few years ago when defencemen started getting more involved with transition and I think it's continuing now as teams find the value in cross-seam and behind-the-net passes. A few years ago, I mused on Twitter that Vegas seemed to do better with cross-ice passes than anyone else, something backed up by their shot locations for the 2017-18 season:

just anecdotally by my amateur eyes, they do seem to love the royal road passes.

— Michael Clifford (@SlimCliffy) April 18, 2018

It seems almost every team is trying to ensure gaining the blue line with possession and making as many passes as necessary to set up a good shot, rather than just winging it from wherever and jamming for rebounds. This isn't new to hockey, per se, but it is new in the sense that it seems to be a league-wide thing now. Again, more detail tomorrow.

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Artemi Panarin was back at practice for the Rangers and this is how they lined up:

#NYR practice lineup:

Kreider – Mika – Buch
Panarin – Strome – Kakko
Laf – Rooney – Blackwell
Lemieux – Howden – PDG (Gauthier rotating in)

Lindgren – Fox
Miller – Smith (Johnson rotating in)
Hájek – Bitetto

— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) February 17, 2021

Yeah, K'Andre Miller is in line for a whole bunch of ice time, alright.

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Carolina and Florida had an early game that see-sawed back-and-forth before going to overtime at 3-3. Aleksander Barkov stole a cross-ice pass from the Hurricanes, sprung Jonathan Huberdeau, and the winger sealed it to give Florida two points and a 4-3 win. That gave Huberdeau a two-goal, one-assist night with Juho Lammiko, Alex Wennberg, Vincent Trocheck, and Jordan Staal rounding out the scoring.

Huberdeau with one of the best passes you’ll see this season:

Huby??? This pass??? OKAY 🤯 pic.twitter.com/KjHGTqjmwv

— Florida Panthers (@FlaPanthers) February 18, 2021

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The Leafs took a tight 2-1 win from the Sens. Auston Matthews kept up his streak with the first goal while Alex Kerfoot tallied the game-winner. Shots were about even and that should set up a nice return match on Thursday night.

Brady Tkachuk had a goal and seven shots to go with three hits. His fantasy season just keeps rolling.   

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Blake Wheeler is having a real bad start to the season. Going into Wednesday night, he had 14 points in 15 games, which seems real good. And it is! But the problem there is over half of those 14 points (8) have come on the power play. He has been a great PP performer in recent seasons, but even his highest PP/total points season was under 50 percent, and most seasons closer to 30-35 percent. Players relying on the power play for that much of their production inevitably decline.

The problem is two-fold here. First, without inundating with charts, his offensive and defensive impacts are atrocious. He has been among the worst defensive players in the league and his offensive impacts are well below average as well. Wheeler isn't just not playing like himself; he's barely playing like an NHLer.

This shouldn't come as a massive surprise. His shot rate at 5-on-5 has been declining for several years now before cratering to a career-low this year. His zone entry/exit numbers have been declining for a few years as well. He turned 34 years old in August. That a 34-year old is breaking down isn't a shock in the NHL.

 Can he turn it around? It seems he'll get every opportunity to do so. Despite the extremely poor play, visible on paper or just watching the games, Wheeler played 20 minutes a couple games ago and 18:35 on Monday night. He is still getting top-line slotting with top PP minutes. If he can turn it around, he will have every opportunity to do so. Whether to trade him or not depends on whether you think he'll stabilize. Because if he doesn't, his numbers are going to get a lot worse over the next 40 games.