Alex MacLean here covering for Dobber, and it was a nicely spaced out Sunday of hockey so there's a few more eye-test observations than usual. Get comfy, grab your coffee, tea, or drink of choice, and let's get rolling.

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Which coach is getting shown the door next?

Before clicking on Austin's profile, try to guess whether he's the @DobberProspects writer for Buffalo, Nashville, or Detroit. https://t.co/JNUOcQD6uK

— Alex MacLean (@alexdmaclean) March 7, 2021

Personally, I think it needs to be Hynes as Nashville might still have a shot at the playoffs if they act now. If you have some thoughts, chime in down below in the comment section. 

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The Midseason Guide is scheduled to be released at the end of the week – likely late afternoon on March 12. You can pre-order now and it will be available for download when it’s released. If you're not reading it and your league mates are, then be ready for a disappointing finish to the fantasy season. It's also a great way to help support us and all the content that gets pumped out on a daily basis. For the guide, yours truly is diving deep into all of the peripheral stats, so if you have any specific questions about someone's shots, hits, PIMs, etc. chime in down in the comments! 

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Jeff Skinner can't buy his way out of the dog-house. I'm sure he would trade half of his $9 million salary for this year to even get a chance back up on the top line again with Jack Eichel. Unfortunately, he was back on the fourth line again. Someday he'll get a shot and bust out for a 30-goal season again, but it may not be this season, or even next year. For now, his first goal of the season was a good start towards redeeming any of that value. 

Colin Miller's pinching finally paid off. After some terrible defensive decisions led to multiple odd-man rushes against, Miller picked the right time to step-up, and notched his first tally of the season. He looks like he's struggling to even manage a sheltered 19 minutes per night. At one point, I thought he might be a worthwhile selection for Seattle, but now he just looks like he's going to be a fringe producer at best. He's droppable in almost all formats. 

The Buffalo defencemen as a whole are tough to make sense of. I had some quick talks with the owner of Brandon Montour in one of my leagues, and the other GM didn't want to sell because of some terrible luck Montour has had this year. While that is fair, the whole Buffalo team is not shooting well, and it's not looking like there will be a huge rebound this year unless drastic changes are made. Be cautious buying in on anyone not named Rasmus Dahlin or Eichel from the Sabres just based on their luck metrics alone. 

Ilya Sorokin looked excellent through the first two periods of the game before getting beat by two in the third that he might like to have back. The second one from Miller was a bit of a butterfly. He managed to shut the door in the latter half of the third and come away with his fourth straight game. Of late, Sorokin is getting a lot more comfortable on North American ice. The Islanders' system makes things a lot easier on him, but even on his own he's an excellent goalie. He's a top tier asset in dynasty leagues, but even his 41% ownership in Yahoo should be much higher. With the Islanders leading the East Division, we may see a closer to even split of the goalies down the stretch run to make sure Semyon Varlamov is fresh for a deep playoff run. 

Despite registering points in three straight games, Noah Dobson has seen almost no powerplay time in the last six games. Dobson hasn't notched a point on the powerplay in over a month, and it seems like he ran out of rope. In one-year points leagues he's probably droppable as Ryan Pulock and Nick Leddy have taken over the top two units. 

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Defenceman Wyatt Kalynuk made his NHL debut for the Chicago Blackhawks, going minus-2 in ten minutes of action. He doesn't have much fantasy upside though, especially with the number of young defencemen the Blackhawks have coming through the system.

The Chicago Blackhawks have the league's top powerplay, and it's easy to see why it's converting at a 31.5% success rate. There's a lot of movement both with the puck and the structure of the players. It creates a lot of open seams, and having passers like Duncan Keith, Dominik Kubalik, and Patrick Kane, they certainly take advantage. 

Connor Murphy popped Erik Cernak with a scary hit that saw Cernak's head snap back and he took his time to get up before leaving for the quiet room. The Blackhawks missed Connor Murphy as their defensive zone coverage fell apart in the second half of the game. 

Pat Maroon was hooked on a clear breakaway in a lazy play by Duncan Keith, but was not given a penalty shot. He scored on the ensuing powerplay anyways. Here's an added excerpt on him from the fantasy guide: 

Maroon has been great for padding PIM totals so far, but despite low ice time he is still pacing above his career norms in PIMs, and that's partially due to already having earned a misconduct, which he typically only does once a season. 

Maybe it's time to sell high for someone underperforming in the PIM categories like Ryan Reaves or Brendan Lemieux. 

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Tampa Bay is in a league of their own when it comes to their defensive game. Don't believe me? How about you make your own chart to test your theories. Using the handy new FrozenTools feature, here's mine. Shot attempts against on the x-axis, scoring chances against on the y-axis, and the size of the bubble shows the volume of goals against. 

Only the Dallas Stars have fewer goals against, and it's due to playing three games less on the season. The reason Tampa Bay is in a league of their own isn't because they have the best defence or the best system, they actually give up an uncommon amount of scoring chances per shot. It's all on the back of Andrei Vasilevskiy, despite the poor game yesterday against Chicago. On the flipside, the Florida Panthers are one of the best defensive teams in the league – better than the Columbus Blue Jackets even – and yet Sergei Bobrovsky can't seem to find his footing. That contract may be even worse than Skinner's.

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With Igor Shesterkin out, Alexandar Georgiev got back to back starts for the Rangers after winning last night. Unfortunately, the Bulgarian netminder was chased quickly after the Penguins scored three times in 61 seconds in the first period. Here's all three of the goals: 

THREE GOALS. 61 SECONDS APART. 😅

🇺🇸: https://t.co/vQUGwlkHIB @NHLonNBCSports #HDIA pic.twitter.com/9uN9b3kzXw

— NHL (@NHL) March 8, 2021

Georgiev looked tired in the first period, and though he has been good in limited minutes this season, he doesn't seem ready to step into a starting role. Keith Kinkaid looked solid if unspectacular coming in for the latter two thirds of the game, but even if Shesterkin misses any time he still won't likely have much value. 

Despite Sidney Crosby being back in the lineup and only missing one game, Evgeni Malkin has six points in the four games since Crosby was taken out of the lineup. Despite scoring as part of a three-on-one, he didn't look very explosive last night, but seems to be racking up points anyways. The lack of explosiveness seems to be leading to a lower shot rate – the lowest of his career – and that is certainly concerning. This recent string of production may be just the window you were looking for to finally sell. 

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In a rotation on the Predators' top powerplay, they were running the umbrella with Filip Forsberg up top with Eeli Tolvanen and Roman Josion his left and right respectively. It worked almost immediately with a Forsberg point shot getting tipped in by Mikael Granlund – maybe worth a look long term. Granlund put another primary point on the board in the second until it was called back for goalie interference. 

Rem Pitlick made his season debut in what would be his second career game, notching an assist while filling in for Matt Duchene on the second line (out three to five weeks). He has some middle-six upside down the line, but it won't be this year and it likely won't come next season either. The youngster to own on the Predators is Tolvanen, who is looking much better and really starting to show how well he can pick corners. 

GOALVANEN is on 🔥🔥🔥#NSHvsDAL | #Preds pic.twitter.com/ELamNEePWs

— Nashville Predators (@PredsNHL) March 8, 2021

After a 21 save shutout on Saturday, Jake Oettinger started Sunday as well, and just like Georgiev he let in three goals. However, two of the Predators' goals were on the powerplay. Either way, let's stop playing the young goalies in back to back games at the moment. The fact that Oettinger got the back to back starts despite there being a healthy Anton Khudobin as the other option is very telling. Next year it could be Oettinger's net to lose, with Khudobin being a higher-end option for Seattle. Ben Bishop is another 4-6 weeks away. 

The Stars came back with three goals late in the third, and the goalies stole the show with a few jaw-dropping saves in the skills competition. 

EVERYBODY SAY THANK YOU PEKKA RINNE pic.twitter.com/oUnXNS1Qc3

— Nashville Predators (@PredsNHL) March 8, 2021

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Jordan Staal took a puck to the side of the face in warmup, but he was back on the bench in the first period. Losing him would be a big blow to the Canes, though he will have some regression coming after an amazing start. However, those looking to sell him high may not want to rush into it as he is seeing most of his even strength time with Andrei Svechnikov (and also Warren Foegele). Sticking with Svechnikov should dull the brunt of any impact of his percentages crashing back down. 

Grigori Denisenko should be getting more than eight minutes of ice time per night, and at least seeing some secondary powerplay time. Like with Tolvanen in Nashville though, the development curve may be slow, but when they start to figure it out and getting better deployment, it happens fast. Better to be a little too early buying in than too late. 

Vincent Trocheck and Aleksander Barkov both put up one point to add to their successful campaigns. If you want to know whether they are too hot, too cold or just right, check back in for Rick Roos' Goldipucks column on Wednesday where he will be covering both. 

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With Tom Wilson out for this game and six more, Daniel Sprong got the first bump seeing time on the second line with Evgeny Kuznetsov and Jakub Vrana. Or at least that would be the case if the second line saw a normal amount of ice time, but they were all under 14 minutes. Speaking of Kuznetsov, he's due for some bounces, and with his kind of skill the market correction may come all in one game soon. 

T.J. Oshie continues his hot start to the season, and he's an underappreciated contributor in the peripheral categories as well. At 34-years-old he's the kind of guy you won't get a fair return for if you try to shop him, but you may be able to acquire him cheaper than most scorers of his skill. 

Zdeno Chara made his impact felt on the game if not the scoresheet. He flattened Joel Farabee, drawing a crowd while the other four Capitals took the puck down the ice leading to a wide-open shot for Nick Jensen to score his first as a Capital. Dmitry Orlov also scored for the Capitals, and with the Capitals playing Philadelphia again twice in their next four games in addition to a game each against Buffalo and New Jersey, some of their other depth guys might be worth streaming for a week.

Alex Ovechkin scored his career 714^thgoal, leaving him three behind Phil Esposito for sixth on the all-time list. 

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Jacob Markstrom made a bit of a surprise start with the lineup from earlier Sunday penciling in David Rittich as the starter on the second half of the back to back. Just like the other goalies starting both days this weekend, Markstrom didn't start off well, allowing two goals in the first period. Tough to fault him when the defence left him out to dry though. 

Perfect passing looks like this: pic.twitter.com/JkFo7IxBoy

— NHL (@NHL) March 8, 2021

That's also a bad sign for David Rittich that new coach Darryl Sutter doesn't even trust him to take the second game of a back to back against Ottawa. 

Ryan Dzingel has a game in each of his two games so far with the Senators. He bring a few shots and about a hit per game, and you might think the 28-year-old winger might be worth a flier, but he's playing on the fourth line for the Senators with Artem Anisimov, and Austin Watson and seeing no powerplay time. 

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Filed under "this helped almost no one" is going to be Scott Wedgewood's shutout of the Bruins. This was actually his second shutout in three starts, but it's tough to trust him as more than a Sunday flier because he has a combined 14 goals against in his other four starts. 

Kyle Palmieri scored the only goal for the Devils on the powerplay, with a secondary assist from Subban. In non-cap leagues Subban is actually worth owning right now. He's putting up a point every other game despite his underlying percentages showing that he may have deserved a couple more, with some decent peripherals to boot. However, like with the Buffalo Sabres, be careful paying too much because the Devils don't look like they're going to be getting a lot better over the remaining 30 games. 

Jack Hughes is looking at lot more comfortable almost all over the ice, the main exception is in the faceoff dot. He took a season low three faceoffs, losing all three (Jesper Bratt took over the faceoff duties on that line for most of the game). If he ends up playing wing for a little while when Nico Hischier is healthy again, Hughes could explode for some huge scoring numbers in those games. Keep an eye on it in one-year leagues (he shouldn't be traded in keepers unless a full ransom is going the other way). 

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I'll leave this here to end things off. There was some fun PWHPA hockey on Sunday from the Dream Gap Tour, and you can find all of the highlights on the PWHPA twitter if you're interested. Women's hockey is growing fast and I really hope to see a fully sustainable league soon where the players don't have to just find time for games outside of their careers and day jobs. 

Seal the deal! Sydney Brodt (@syd14brodt) scores Team @adidashockey's 5th goal of the game! 🚨
🍏 Abby Roque – @abby_roque@NHLBlackhawks | #SDGT pic.twitter.com/GLTmJLMSSu

— PWHPA (@PWHPA) March 7, 2021

*In the meantime, stay safe!