If your fantasy lineup has any Bruins or Penguins, hopefully you were able to receive some helpings from the 7-5 score (sorry, any Kris Letang or Bryan Rust owners).

Brad Marchand had the biggest day of all, scoring a hat trick while adding one assist and a plus-4 and six shots. Marchand now has goals in three consecutive games. His 1.28 PTS/GP is on par with his scoring from his previous three seasons, so he's been exactly as advertised this season.

Even though he was separated from the Marchand/Bergeron even-strength unit, David Pastrnak still had his own great game with two goals, an assist, and five shots. Pastrnak is currently on David Krejci's wing with Nick Ritchie. Pasta also broke a three-game pointless drought and five-game goalless drought with his Saturday output.

Ritchie, by the way, has five points and 17 shots over his last five games. He's also second on the Bruins with 58 hits and receives decent power-play time, so he's worth a waiver-wire pickup in multicat leagues.

The new lucky winner of top-line duty is Craig Smith, who assisted on one of Marchand's goals. The Bruins play five games next week, three of which are against the defensively-challenged Flyers. Smith is one player to consider if you're looking for waiver-wire options to maximize your games played totals in weekly format. For more on next week's schedule, check out Looking Ahead.

Charlie McAvoy chipped in three assists, which gives him seven points over his last six games.

Casey DeSmith has been solid when given the opportunity, especially with Tristan Jarry currently sidelined. The six goals he allowed in this game is his highest total of the season, qualifying as just his second Really Bad Start in 15 games. Consider this a hiccup and continue to roll with him.

In a losing cause, Jake Guentzel and Sidney Crosby each scored a goal and added two assists.

Over his last six games, Jared McCann has four goals, three assists, and 18 shots. He played a season-high 19:07 on Saturday, so it appears he is taking advantage of increased opportunity with Evgeni Malkin out of the lineup.

With an assist on Saturday, Mike Matheson now has four points over his last three games.

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VAN's updated COVID absences list: pic.twitter.com/70nNuTHnHO

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) April 3, 2021

The Canucks COVID protocol list continues to grow, as it is now at 14 players. It seems all but official that they are not returning to play on Thursday. The Canucks are reportedly planning to recall whoever they can from the AHL. Since their AHL affiliate is in Utica, NY, those players will need to quarantine for seven days upon arrival before they join the Canucks. At this point, you should be dropping guys like Tyler Myers, Alex Edler, and Tanner Pearson from your roster. Between his current injury and now this situation affecting the entire team, who knows whether Pearson can even get traded.

But who you should be keeping and dropping from your fantasy team is not what’s most important here. There are stories about players being in really rough shape, so let's just hope that they're healthy before we focus on getting them back to game action. For example, Jayce Hawryluk tested positive for COVID already last year, which suggests he could be one of the players who is affected by the P.1 variant (Vancouver Province). This is really disheartening stuff, especially when you consider that COVID variants are hospitalizing higher percentages of people in their 20s and 30s than the original virus. There may be players who aren’t able to come back at all this season, even if the Canucks do.

This tweet from Pierre LeBrun explains a lot of what's going on.

Via sources, here is the latest on the Canucks outbreak. Again, hockey is secondary.
There are 16 players and three coaches currently affected but that list is likely to grow.
More developments ⤵️@TSNHockey @TheAthletic pic.twitter.com/sAoh5ghJUc

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) April 3, 2021

I've noticed many on social media commenting that the NHL should just end the Canucks' season at this point, since their chances of making the playoffs are already very slim. Since the Canucks are already involved in games that are meaningful to other teams, I would work under the assumption that this will be a very long layoff as opposed to the end of their season, although I think it’s doubtful they make it through their entire 56-game schedule. In yesterday's Ramblings, I discussed the effects that the Canucks shutdown has on other teams.

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Juuse Saros deserves full credit for his 41-save shutout of the Blackhawks. He posted a 3.77 GSAA (goals-saved above average) for this game, which is his highest single-game total for the season. Since February 27, Saros has an 8-2-0 records with a 1.26 GAA, a .962 SV%, nine quality starts, and an 18.83 GSAA. The next-highest GSAA among any goalie during that time is Thatcher Demko, who has an 11.05 GSAA. That presently makes him a must-start in fantasy leagues. In fact, if not for a rough start to the season, Saros might be in the Vezina conversation.

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Tyler Toffoli wasted no time in his return to the Montreal lineup on Saturday, scoring a first-period power-play goal. Toffoli has now reached 19 goals in his first season with the Habs. He even contributed five hits, which ties his season high.

Yet the efforts of Toffoli and Josh Anderson (two goals) weren't enough to stop the Ottawa Senators. The Evgenii Dadonov – Artem Anisimov unit did the most damage for the Senators. Dadonov scored two second-period goals, while Anisimov scored a goal and added two assists. Dadonov entered this game with just one point in his previous eight games, and his 0.37 PTS/GP pace is well off how often he was able to score in his three previous seasons in Florida. Meanwhile, Anisimov was playing his first game since March 10, having recently been placed on waivers by the Senators.

The way that the Senators have gone through goalies this season, it was inevitable that Anton Forsberg would end up in their lineup at some point. Even though he has allowed three goals in each of his two starts with the Senators, Forsberg has earned quality starts in both games, having faced 41 shots against the Leafs on March 25 and then 38 shots on Saturday.

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Carter Hart returned to the Flyers lineup on Saturday following his two-game reset. Although he did not earn a W, he has to feel good about stopping 22 of 24 shots before the Flyers lost in the shootout. Starting a Philly goalie is still a risky proposition, but you should get volume if you need it from both Hart and Brian Elliott. The Flyers play five games, including two back-to-backs. Three of those games are against the Bruins, one is against the Islanders, and the other is against the Sabres, which does not make this a strong recommendation to start Flyers goalies.

Flyers players, though, should be started. One example is Claude Giroux, who has seven goals and 11 points over his last 12 games. That includes the two goals he scored on Saturday. Giroux has also been averaging three shots per game over that span, so he should be considered a fairly reliable option.

Something else I noticed from the Flyers in this game: they ran with five defensemen. Ivan Provorov led this group with 26:33 in icetime.

Anthony Beauvillier scored twice for the Islanders, giving him six goals and eight points over his last seven games.

Ryan Pulock has now been held without a point in 11 consecutive games. In addition, he has still not scored a goal yet this season. This season has been a disappointing one for him with just 12 assists in 38 games. If you need to shorten your bench for players to drop, he might be an option.

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The Florida Panthers welcomed back Aleksander Barkov and Patric Hornqvist from injury on Saturday. But it was Alex Wennberg who led the Panthers with a hat trick against the Blue Jackets, his former team – on the same day that he announced that he will be a father. Wennberg has now scored goals in back-to-back games after he had been held without a point in his previous four games. I had added him as a Barkov injury replacement in one league, and it just took him a little time to come through.

Over the six games that Barkov missed plus Saturday's game, Wennberg has averaged over 21 minutes, including four and a half minutes of power-play time per game. His season averages are just under 18 minutes of total icetime and just under two minutes of power-play time. Those important minutes may drop, although it is worth mentioning that Wennberg played 22 minutes and was on the first-unit power play on Saturday even with Barkov in the lineup.

Sergei Bobrovsky's 500^th NHL game was one to remember, as he made 44 saves to lead the Panthers to a 5-2 win against the Blue Jackets – also his former team.

Jack Roslovic was made a healthy scratch on Saturday. Roslovic hasn't been terrible since he joined the Blue Jackets (22 points in 31 games), so this is probably another example of a coach (Tortorella) who is not happy with Roslovic's all-around game. After the game, Torts did not want to explain why Roslovic was scratched.

Is it fair to say that since the Blue Jackets/Jets trade, Roslovic has been the best player of the three?

Stats since the big #CBJ – #GoJetsGo trade earlier this season.

Roslovic – 22 PTS in 31 GP
Laine – 14 PTS in 28 GP
Dubois – 14 PTS in 23 GP

Roslovic will be a healthy scratch tonight.

— CapFriendly Depth Charts (@CF_DepthCharts) April 3, 2021

Roslovic being scratched meant that Michael Del Zotto entered the Blue Jackets lineup as a seventh defenseman.

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After finishing his KHL season and serving his time in quarantine, Vitali Kravtsov finally made his NHL debut on Saturday. He was held without a point with three shots in 10:45 (no power-play time) while playing on a line with Filip Chytil and Alexis Lafreniere. Kravtsov is a must-own in keeper leagues, but he's probably going to need some time to get his feet wet in the NHL before he starts paying dividends for fantasy owners.

With two assists, Adam Fox has extended his point streak to 10 games. That gives him an astounding 18 points over his last 10 games. Over that span (since St. Patrick's Day), no defenseman has more than 10 points. He's a top-tier defenseman in fantasy.

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Anton Khudobin has been placed in COVID protocol, so Jake Oettinger received the start on Saturday. It turned out to be a quality start, as he stopped 41 of 43 shots to earn a 3-2 win over Carolina. Oettinger had allowed three goals in each of his previous four starts. Oettinger is only one game behind Khudobin, so there's a very good chance he could actually play more games than Khudobin this season. Where things will really get interesting is when Ben Bishop returns, as Oettinger has earned a full-time NHL job while Bishop and Khudobin are each signed for two more seasons after this one.

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I was just going to mention Martin Jones, as I did yesterday. But Dobber did the work for me. 😊

Wow Martin Jones since March 13:https://t.co/xwsaZrwKO9#FantasyHockey#HockeyTwitter #SJSharks pic.twitter.com/bRR8Fh4TED

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) April 4, 2021

In case that’s hard to read, since March 13 Jones has a 7-1-1 record with a 1.86 GAA and .942 SV% and 77.8 QS%. Yes, he’s been reliable.

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For more fantasy hockey discussion, or to reach out to me, you can follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding