We had a typical Tuesday night with six games on the docket plus some other news, so get comfy, grab your coffee, tea, or drink of choice, and let's get rolling.

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The NHL rescheduled 31 games to help fit the schedule in around the constantly shifting Covid landscape. You can find all of the details here, but the main thing to note is that none of the games were pushed to or from the next week, so none of your immediate schedule planning changes. Additionally, the Central is seeing a few more games leak past the May 8^th end of the fantasy season. Games past that date are unlikely to be counted in fantasy leagues, but double check with your commissioner and your league service provider. 

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No Injury Ward this year from Brennan Des, so I'm going to try and cover a few relevant injury thoughts here to pick up the slack. Your injury update expert will be back next Wednesday for the full recap. 

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Teuvo Teravainen sustained a concussion in Monday's game against Tampa Bay. Timelines are tricky at the best of times, but he's currently not travelling with the team, so expect him to miss at least a week. Watch for Warren Foegele to get a short-term bump. 

The outlook is a little worse for Carl Gunnarsson who will miss the rest of the season with a knee injury. The 34-year-old will become a UFA, and may have played his last game for the Blues. He wasn't a mainstay in fantasy lineups, but he will remain in Blues lore as the first player in team history to score a game winning goal in the Stanley Cup Final. Add to that an injury to Colton Parayko, and we will likely see some added ice time for Vince Dunn, and a full-time lineup spot for Niko Mikkola.

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Nico Hischier is now scoreless in three games, but he'll be an excellent fantasy asset when he gets going. Maybe a buy-low window opening for a future 60-70-point player. He was named the newest captain of the New Jersey Devils franchise as Ian Gooding covered on Sunday. Hischier becomes the youngest current captain in the NHL, but Connor McDavid remains the youngest player to be named as captain in NHL history. This led me down a rabbit hole when I realized that the claim for the oldest is not as easy to find. Google doesn't actually have an easy answer to pop up there, and it takes some digging. I'll share the answer that I found at the end, but mull it over now and see what you can come up with. 

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When the Penguins played the Islanders on February 20^th, Evgeni Malkin played a season-low 13 minutes. Last night he scored a goal in 17 minutes of ice time, and looked a little more like himself. He did shy away from a few hits though, so I do wonder if there is something nagging at him. 

Washington's scoring came from their depth players as Conor Sheary and Richard Panik got in on the action. They won't have much relevance in fantasy leagues, as the Capitals are a team that has most of their offence run through the few top options. One guy to keep an eye on though is Dmitry Orlov, who has 11 shots in his last four games. Some secondary points will start to trickle in for him soon. 

Jason Zucker was injured in the third period. His leg got twisted up under him after clipping a caps defenceman while trying to stop, and he was in visible pain on the ice. He finally left with a fair bit of help. It would be surprising to see him back on the ice soon. 

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Jack Hughes' three game point streak was halted as the Sabres nearly shut out the Devils. The Devils controlled play for the first half of the game, but got caved in for the second half. Nikita Gusev notched his second of the year with 30 seconds left in the game, but it was too little too late. 

Buffalo looked to have a few solutions to their scoring woes of late. Maybe things would be a little more consistent though if they played the former 40 goal scorer earning $9 million? What do I know though. 

In all seriousness, tons of ink has already been spilled about Jeff Skinner and how he could get his game back, what the Sabres should do with him, etc. However, he's not the only scorer that needs a bit of a kick-start on Buffalo, as Jack Eichel and Taylor Hall are both slumping. I know that putting the three highest paid players on the team together didn't work for the Leafs the other night, but Buffalo doesn't have much more to lose this season, and tanking in a year without a superstar talent at the top of the draft means there's even less to look forward to. At least Linus Ullmark looks like a real NHL starter (as I mentioned last week), posting a 41-save shutout. 

Matt Irwin is seeing 19 minutes of ice time per game and might be a sneaky depth pick up in deeper multi-category leagues.

Despite allowing three goals, Mackenzie Blackwood posted his sixth quality start (QS) in seven games this season. He has been one of the best goalies in the league thus far this year, and really his breakout goes all the way back to the firing of John Hynes. 

In the post-John Hynes era, Mackenzie Blackwood has been the best goalie in the NHL and it's not really close. pic.twitter.com/GJOnRkZvDo

— CJ Turtoro (@CJTDevil) February 23, 2021

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In a rare game this year with both teams playing on two or more days of rest, the game itself was a bit sleepy and finished with a 2-0 win for the Predators. Some of the entertainment factor was missing with Tyler Bertuzzi out of the lineup, as he seems to always get up to something. Ryan Johansen did return for the Predators on the third line, but didn't have much to show for it in his 16 minutes. 

Speaking of John Hynes doing no good, after a couple games with the top line Luke Kunin has been banished to the far end of the bench, playing a team-low nine minutes on February 20^thand then less than 14 minutes last night. That isn't how you get a player going, and for the rest of the Predators it seems like only a coaching change could fix things now. Playing Filip Forsberg more than 12-14 minutes per game at even strength would be a great place to start. To really drive home how bad things have been, the Predators are the only team in the NHL who has not led a game this season after two periods (credit to Adam Vingan for digging that up). 

Eeli Tolvanen was up on the first powerplay, and scored his second of the campaign. If he can stick there he has some value in single season leagues too. Forsberg had a goal and an assist, and is now up to 17 points in 18 games. I think this is the year he finally hits a point per game over a full slate. 

Pekka Rinne has started and won the last two games for the Predators, and may be stealing back some starts. The 38-year-old is likely going to retire at the end of the year, but he has shaken off some rust and looks ready to be a worthwhile fantasy own through the rest of the season. In his first four games he only put up one QS, but since the calendar flipped to February he has five QSs in six games. He made the 24-save shutout against the Red Wings look easy.

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As someone who owns Carey Price in a few leagues, and Matt Murray in one, Tuesday's Canadian clash between the Senators and Canadiens was not what I was looking for. If you own some of their roster players though, it was more to your taste. 

Thomas Chabot returned and produced an assist while adding three shots to a minus-1 rating. On the flip side, Derek Stepan left the game in the second period with what looked like a shoulder issue. Early thoughts are that it probably won't be good news. 

Worry about a shoulder dislocation/subluxation for Derek Stepan

If recurrent dislocations, could mean surgery and 5-6 months off. If not, would rehab and be out week-to-week

When it's such a minor contact, we often see surgery next (ex. Tarasenko) #GoSensGo @TheFantasyDRS https://t.co/VTsUviK26i

— Dr. Harjas Grewal (@Harjas_Grewal) February 24, 2021

Tomas Tatar's shooting is becoming more sporadic, has been sporadic of late and his production has followed suit. His ice time is down, seeing less than 12 minutes in each of the last three games, and Jonathan Drouin is dropping right along with him (though he did score an unassisted goal and was back up to 19 minutes last night). It seems as though Tyler Toffoli and Joel Armia are being given the extra available ice time. Where Toffoli has been consistently dangerous all year, Armia has gone scoreless in all but two games, though one of those efforts was a four-point-night against the Canucks. He can pop off every once in a while, so he might be worth a speculative add, but beware that Montreal only plays five games over the next 11 days, tied for the fewest in the NHL. 

Shea Weber scored his third of the season in the first period, and he has finally been putting some rubber on net recently, giving fantasy owners some hope. Then he scored his second goal of the night in the second period, and added an assist on Ben Chiarot's last second winner in the third… until it was called back on a questionable goaltender interference call, and the Senators then won it in the shootout. Weber reminded us though that market correction can sometimes come in bunches. Hopefully the slow start was just a blip, but at age 35 he may just be slowing down. 

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In a chaotic game between the Blackhawks and the Blue Jackets, Patrick Kane proved that he doesn't age. He's on a 123-point full season pace, and he's looking like he could keep that up for the next couple of years at least; don't sell him just because of the age. Brandon Hagel got in on the scoring with his first NHL goal, but he's not someone you likely have to worry about looking into in your fantasy league. Connor Murphy returned to the lineup and played 25 minutes, indicating he's feeling okay. He's only noteworthy in leagues that count hits and blocks (and ideally don't count plus-minus). It meant that youngster Nicolas Beaudin was out of the lineup.

Patrik Laine had looked a little uncomfortable in the new system at even strength in Columbus, but last night the Finnish winger wasn't lacking in finish, scoring twice and adding an assist in a shootout loss. A bit of an adjustment period is not uncommon with players changing teams in season, and typically the star talent shines through eventually. It was additionally concerning that he had been down to an average of 15 minutes per game over the last week, and had six shots in his last six games. Laine put all of those concerns to rest last night, looking engaged throughout his 22 minutes of ice time (the game did go to overtime so the number is a little padded) while firing a season-high six shots at Kevin Lankinen.  

Zach Werenski remained out and is still day-to-day, as is defenceman Michael Del Zotto who has had an excellent start to the season with six points, 37 shots and 45 hits through 19 games. Don't expect much of an update on either one as John Tortorella is notoriously skimpy with his information. 

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Mike Smith has started hot, entering the game at 4-0, and pushing to steal some starts from the underwhelming Koskinen. Unfortunately, Vancouver got to him early with three goals in the first period. He’s still worth owning, but he won’t keep up his Vezina-like numbers. He managed to settle down though and Edmonton came back to win on the back of two points from Dominik Kahun. Smith move to 5-0 for the first time in his career.

Ethan Bear continues to sit out with an injury, and the team is also now down Slater Koekkoek who broke his collar bone in Edmonton's last game. 

Jake Virtanen's speed is theoretically keeping him in the lineup, but it's not ensuring he gets reasonable ice time. He's averaging less than 12 minutes of ice time per game on the year, and almost half of that of late. If the Canucks want some speed in the bottom-six, they should consider playing Marc Michaelis. The tenacious winger is currently on the taxi squad, and had some scoring success in the NCAA last season, as well as in Germany during the offseason. 

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My last Capped article will be coming out tomorrow before our own Logan Doyle (@doylelb4) takes over the column. It's going to be a publication of the salary projections for the top 200 free agents in the 2021 class. I'm sure I'll find a way to push out an update closer to the offseason, but for those of you who like to do some early planning in cap leagues, this should really help. Otherwise, it makes for some great discussion about who is worth what, and why.  

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For those of you who are interested in catching some high-quality women's hockey, there's a good opportunity coming up this weekend: 

We are excited to announce that Sunday's game of the @SecretDeodorant Dream Gap Tour #NYShowcase will be broadcasted live @NHLNetwork in the USA and on @Sportsnet in Canada.

Read more here: https://t.co/jwgLRToTRH pic.twitter.com/A93HMXHnmi

— PWHPA (@PWHPA) February 23, 2021

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Trivia answer:

There are a few notable players who were named captain for their age 39 seasons, including Doug Weight (NYI), Al MacInnis (STL), Dave Andreychuk (TBL), and Scott Mellanby (ATL). Mark Messier (NYR) was probably the player a lot of people guessed, as he returned to the Rangers at age 40 to be handed the captaincy back. However, Messier misses the title by a year, and I'm not sure he should be eligible anyways as he was initially named captain at age 31 in his first tour with the team. 

Unbelievably, at the age of 41 beloved former Maple Leaf Dave Keon was named the Captain of the Hartford Whalers for the 1981-82 season. It was Keon's last season in the NHL, and he beats out a 41-year-old Doug Mohns (captain of the Inaugural Washington Capitals) by a matter of months. 

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Stay safe!