With the new coaching staff in place, Montreal went back to their old lines with Tomas Tatar on the top line and Tyler Toffoli on the third line. That is where those guys were when the team was having all its success earlier in the year so it makes sense to go back to it. We will see how long they stick with it. That did include moving Joel Armia to the fourth line, though, so Armia owners may not be too thrilled.

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Jason Zucker will be out a while

Penguins coach Mike Sullivan says Jason Zucker is going to be out "longer term" with a lower-body injury. Jared McCann is full contact in practice but won't play tonight at Capitals.

— Stephen Whyno (@SWhyno) February 25, 2021

Zucker was off to a slow start this year with just four goals and seven points; this will set him back only more. In the meantime, Zach Aston-Reese found himself on the second line with Evgeni Malkin and Bryan Rust. He won't get PP time but he could flourish there as Rust did in the past without PP minutes. It would be a big boost for them.

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Conor Sheary was promoted to the top line for Washington, citing his excellent play. He is also shooting over 30 percent on the season. Surely those two aren't related.

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Filip Chlapik had his contract mutually terminated by Ottawa and it appears he'll be heading back to Europe. Despite decent production in the AHL the last couple years, he was never really able to bring that game to the NHL and now here we are. He may be back in a year or two, though.

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It seems as if Filip Chytil isn't quite ready to return for the Rangers, but he's getting close. He had three points in five games before the upper-body injury hit, and with the bodies they're currently missing, they need as many depth players back as possible. Look for him to get back sometime in the next week.

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Jeff Skinner was scratched again by Buffalo. At this point, it's no longer about "getting the player going" or "putting the best lineup on the ice." There is no way that playing Rasmus Asplund or Casey Mittelstadt would help this team win more than a 28-year-old with four 30-goal seasons to his name. It really does feel like there is a rift between the coaching staff and Skinner, and that's a very bad thing for a guy with $50-million left on his deal.

If I were an NHL GM with a very bad contract on the books like, say, Matt Duchene, it would probably behoove them to take a look here. He is very clearly not worth anywhere near $9M, but there are a lot of players with cap hits between $7M-$10M that are also worth nowhere near their contract, and Skinner is still young enough with a lengthy track record of success.

Or Buffalo could just play him next to Jack Eichel, like they did when he scored 40 goals. Either/or.

Eichel, by the way, was a scratch after warmups on Thursday night. Lower-body injury, so all the trade aficionados can stand down.

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I was looking for players that might regress and found an interesting little tidbit.

Individual Points Percentage (IPP) is a metric that measures production as a percentage of goals scored. In effect, it tells us what percentage of goals scored with a given player on the ice that the player receives a point, and it's usually expressed at 5-on-5. For elite forwards, it's not surprising to see them in the 80-90 percent range. Lesser forwards will be 60-70 percent and so on down. Unsurprisingly, defencemen get in on the action at a much lower rate: last year, no regular defenceman cracked 60 percent IPP and there were only six above 50 percent, and they are almost all among the elite: Erik Karlsson, John Carlson, Roman Josi, Rasmus Dahlin, Tony DeAngelo (I said almost), and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Cale Makar was seventh, just a fraction under 50 percent. In other words, we can expect the absolute upper-crust of defencemen above 50 percent IPP, and everyone else below.  

This brings us back to what I found interesting. Among all regular defencemen this year, here are the top-3 by IPP:

• Jake Bean (83.3)
• Evan Bouchard (80.0)
• Ty Smith (75.0)

We have three rookie defencemen leading the way. That is quite the shock, and with the IPP in parenthesis, we see they're all due for regression.

Now, I would caution with Smith because he is currently getting PP1 time with the Devils, but the other two are not getting the same minutes with their respective teams.

This is the perfect time to sell one of these three guys, if they're on your fantasy roster (non-keeper/dynasty leagues). All three are heralded defencemen with a lengthy pedigree, and all three have reasonable rates of production. It wouldn't be hard to sell them as See How Good These Young Guys Are!-types in a trade.

Some of you will be in smart fantasy leagues and your owners will realize that Bean and Bouchard aren't getting a lot of minutes. Not every fantasy leagues is like that, though, so it may be worth exploring the trade route before the production crashes.

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In going through that IPP exercise, I noticed something: Miro Heiskanen's points/60 at 5-on-5 this year (1.25) is much higher than last year (1.04). That seems good!

One problem: he's not shooting. Like, at all. His individual shot attempt rate at 5-on-5 is 5.99. Last year it was 11.33 and it was 11.09 in his rookie year. It isn't that his shots are down; his shots have cratered. Among 145 defencemen with at least 200 minutes at 5-on-5 this year, he's 143^rd in iCF/60. That is pathetic.

Is he injured? I haven't seen anything but that would make sense. Maybe there are some lasting effects of COVID that just make him want to dish the puck instead of shooting it? Maybe it's a coaching decision? I have no idea what's going on here.

So when I look at Heiskanen's zero goals on the year, I'm not so sure there'll be a turnaround. There is just so far to go. He still has 40-ish games to make it up and he's certainly talented enough to do so, but fantasy owners are really on a prayer here. You won't recoup anything close to value in a trade and we're not sure if he'll get better. It is just a bad spot.  

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Just wanted to point out the season Vincent Trocheck was having. I have probably mentioned him a couple times since the season started but going into last night's game, he had 16 points in 17 contests, averaging exactly three shots per game, exceeding two hits per game, throwing in 11 blocks for good measure, and of course nearly 10 face-offs a night. Those are great numbers and he's found himself near the top of the standard Yahoo! fantasy leaderboard as a result.

One thing I hadn't really considered and was a good point I saw on Twitter a couple days ago – I forget who raised it, apologies – was that he likely just needed time to heal from that gruesome ankle injury. He was back two months later but a fractured ankle that severe would require time to heal and then the player would require time to train. He never really had that. It seems now that he is fully healed.

His line with Nino Niederreiter and Martin Necas looks great. As formidable as most any middle-six line in the league, really. Trocheck is no small part of that and this may be the new normal for him on the year, with maybe fewer goals and more assists.

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Watching Mathew Barzal make one cut on an edge and take off is always a special thing:

Mathew Barzal blows by everyone and scores. Beautiful. #Isles pic.twitter.com/L1peNV5XZN

— Rob Taub (@RTaub_) February 26, 2021

That Barzal goal would just be a harbinger of things to come as the Islanders would lay a seven-spot on the Bruins in a 7-2 win. Despite the gaudy goal total, no Islander had more than two points. Anders Lee and Barzal both had a goal and an assist, while Jordan Eberle, Anthony Beauvillier, J.G. Pageau, Oliver Wahlstrom, and Adam Pelech scored the others. It was a banner night for this Islanders team. Not so much Jaroslav Halak, who was left in for all seven goals and all 60 minutes.

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Ottawa also laid waste to their opponent tonight as they took Calgary down 6-1. In fairness to the Flames, this was the second of a B2B, the third in four nights, and the fifth in seven. That has spanned two games in Alberta, two in Toronto, and now this. They have a day off before another in Ottawa on Saturday.

Colin White had a pair of goals, while Batherson, Brown, Brannstrom, and Gudbranson tallied the others. Thomas Chabot had an assist, a shot, and three hits in a solid fantasy effort.

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Lars Eller and TJ Oshie each picked up a goal and an assist in Washington's 5-2 win over Pittsburgh. This was actually a 2-2 game with eight minutes left in the third period and, well, here we are.

Kris Letang played after missing most of the third period of their last game with an injury. He played nearly 24 minutes and assisted Jake Guentzel's power-play goal. If there's anything Pittsburgh can take from this game, it's a PP goal, because there haven't been many of those.

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New Jersey beat the Eichel-less Sabres 4-3 in overtime on the back of a three-point night from Pavel Zacha. He has had a real nice season with 12 points in 15 games so far. If he can turn into the guy he was drafted to be, which is a 50-60 point two-way forward, well, this changes the outlook of the team as a whole.