Amazingly, we are entering the final five weeks of the 2020-21 NHL season. Keep in mind that it's a condensed schedule, of course, which means that the amount of games left is equivalent to a normal six-week schedule. And with COVID (still) impacting the schedule, it makes it tough to plan. Right now, Montreal, Boston, Philly, Minnesota, Arizona, Toronto, Washington, Dallas and New Jersey play eight games in the next two weeks while Vancouver plays five. I get the sense that Vancouver will have further delays – they are getting hammered badly by the virus. I suspect their five games in the next two weeks will be rescheduled. That means that from April 25 through May 11 they will have 12 games (17 days) which will lead all teams. The Canucks currently have seven games scheduled in that window, and Boston/Montreal 'currently' lead all teams with 10 games scheduled.

You can customize our schedule planner here. It will help you for playoffs and H2H leagues in the weeks ahead.

With the schedule about to change and more of Vancouver’s games getting postponed, there is some question as to how they will fit it all in. After all, if the Canucks are sidelined for two weeks (at least!). To reschedule those games would mean playing 19 games in 23 days – pretty much impossible. But, the NHL can extend the season to May 18 – they have said this before. So it would be 19 games in 30 days, which is doable. And you may see VAN-CGY games as the final two. Those games, if they don’t have playoff implications, might get cancelled and they seed for the lottery based on win percentage. It is my understanding that the only risk of losing games is Calgary and Vancouver missing two each – and I put those odds very low (under 5% right now, my best guess).

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Heading into Sunday, it was the third-worst team in the NHL up against the (tied) best team – and hammered them. Detroit hammered Tampa on the strength of a first-star outing from Thomas Greiss. Tampa actually started minor leaguer Chris Gibson, and he did keep it 1-0 halfway in. But can a 5-1 loss be blamed on the goalie?

By the way, with Jonathan Bernier sidelined, Greiss has turned his game around. Sometimes…well, okay often… a goalie just needs to be the de facto starter with nobody breathing down his neck and stealing starts, to get things rolling Since March 20, Greiss is 1-4-1, 2.57 GAA and 0.922 SV%. Five of those six starts were Quality Starts – the other one was an RBS, which dragged the overall numbers down.

Adam Erne since Feb 25 #LGRW #fantasyhockey #HockeyTwitter

GP: 19
G: 7
A: 4
PIM: 15
PPP: 6
SOG: 32
HITS: 32https://t.co/rUgcNQkLcJ

— Frozen Tools (@FrozenTools) April 4, 2021

In his last five games, Michael Rasmussen has three points, 12 SOG and 13 Hits. Probably the best stretch of the 21-year-old's career. His ice time is also up a bit lately, with Bobby Ryan and Robby Fabbri sidelined day to day.

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Anthony Cirelli and Alex Killorn each have just a point in their last seven games. Both were racing towards career years but have slowed considerably. The two of them have been lining up with Steven Stamkos lately, and Stamkos has just three points in his last eight games – and only one point at even strength while playing with those two. May want to change up those lines a little.

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The Capitals scratched Jakub Vrana for the second consecutive game. If this doesn't wake him up (and although I admit I don't see many Washington games, I didn't know he was sleeping) then what are the odds he is traded in the offseason? He's an RFA this summer and I don’t see him signing anything with the Caps logo at the top if he keeps getting scratched.

A three-point game for Alex Ovechkin gives him 16 in his last 13 (11 goals). Still no signs of slowing at 35 years old.

Washington continues to win despite their goaltending. Their 132 goals lead the NHL (tied with Colorado, but the Caps have played an extra game), but their 117 goals allowed puts them 11^th-worst. Vitek Vanecek has been a nice revelation this year, but his numbers are really quite mediocre in the grand scheme of things (0.907 SV%). And Coach Laviolette is clearly leaning Ilya Samsonov, but Samsonov is not showing signs of stepping up. His 0.896 SV% in 13 games isn't getting any better – in Sunday's game his SV% was 0.897 and the game prior it was 0.750. It looks like the Caps are trying the Edmonton Oilers circa the 80s approach to winning.

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This is unexpected. Ryan Murray tallied three assists Sunday and that gives him six assists in his last three games. Before that, he had four points – all assists – the entire year. He's been moved to play alongside Damon Severson and it looks like that's really working out for him. He had been with Sami Vatanen (or at times PK Subban) throughout the year before this latest run.

Jack Hughes snapped an eight-game pointless drought. He's still, overall, moving in the right direction. He just needs a couple more years. He now has 13 points at even strength this season. He had 12 all of last year, in nearly double the games.

Jesper Bratt now has nine points in his last 11 games. Here is who Bratt played with (along with the rest of New Jersey's line combinations courtesy of Frozen Tools):

Time	%	EV – FORWARDS	GF	GA	+/-	SF	SA	SF%	CF	CA	CF%
12:05	23.5	J KUOKKANEN –  HUGHES – Y SHARANGOVICH	0	1	-1	10	6	62.5	18	9	66.7
10:12	19.9	M MCLEOD – M MALTSEV – JESPER BOQVIST	0	0	0	7	2	77.8	13	5	72.2
9:06	17.7	TRAVIS ZAJAC – N MERKLEY – A JOHNSSON	2	1	1	7	4	63.6	10	6	62.5
8:03	15.7	PAVEL ZACHA – MILES WOOD – J BRATT	1	1	0	3	3	50.0	6	7	46.2

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Mackenzie Weegar has four points in his last two games and is plus-6 in that span. He lost Aaron Ekblad as his partner and went a couple of games without points after that. So is he doing better without Ekblad? I'm not sold, in terms of his offense. His PP time isn't seeing any kind of uptick, and I find it hard to believe that he can flourish for long with Gustav Forsling by his side. But then again, Forsling has points in four straight and is actually a plus-10 in his last five games! If this pairing continues to work, it would have to be considered one of the biggest surprise pairings in history. Both players were fringe NHLers before Joel Quenneville came around. Now, together, they are fantasy relevant?

Aleksander Barkov has 21 points in his last 15 games. It is worth noting that in the two games since his return from injury, his ice time was held to under 20 minutes (17:46 Sunday) – a mark that he almost always hit prior to the injury. So he's being eased back in. Hopefully this doesn't mean he's still battling the injury.

Barkov had exactly five SOG in five of his last seven games. That just jumped out at me, scanning his game logs.

With Chris Driedger's shutout, he has three straight Quality Starts and in his last five games he is 4-1-0, 1.21 GAA and 0.959 SV%. At 32 career NHL games, he's starting to sell me that there is something real here. He is an unrestricted free agent in the summer, as he turns 27 in May. Will he be the next Carter Hutton? Or is there something to this guy? Sergei Bobrovsky makes $10 million per year for the next five seasons. And that's a contract you can't just bury or buy out (or even trade). But would Driedger sign with Florida when other teams have more of a need? Can Florida give $13M to their goaltending alone?

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Patrik Laine Futility Watch

A new feature in my Ramblings because I find it fascinating. John Tortorella's personality versus Laine's personality. The one-dimensional skill set versus the coach that demands the most in all dimensions. Who will win? Well, Laine, of course. The coach always gets fired eventually. But in the meantime, how much will Laine suck in fantasy hockey? An so, much like I had Andreas Athanasiou's quest for minus-100 last year in the Ramblings every week, this year I will be noting Laine!

Four points in his last 20 games, minus-10

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But Jack Roslovic gets scratched?

Roslovic was back in the lineup Sunday, but held to under 13 minutes of ice time against Florida. The team was held off the scoreboard.

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Petr Mrazek is back, and is he ever! With the 28-save shutout win he's off to a great start. He's played five games now, but really he played just four – one he left after a couple of minutes. In those four games, he has three shutouts.

So what will Carolina do with their three-headed monster?

Correct me if any of this is wrong.

So #LetsGoCanes has a 3-headed goalie monster right now. Maybe they waive Reimer? He might get through.

Ned, BTW, was never up for 30 straight days, he kept being sent up and down to the TS. But that yo-yo stopped on Mar 18

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) April 5, 2021

I know the easy answer is "trade Reimer". But who wants him? Trades that make sense almost never happen. So, being realistic, I think you can expect one or two more starts from Reimer to prove himself, and then he gets waived. Possibly during the busy Deadline Day action. But my guess here is that going forward, Mrazek gets bulk of the starts with Ned subbing in every third game. And don't count on Reimer for more than three or four the rest of the season unless he lands on a new team.

I look at Vincent Trocheck and I wonder how I ever gave up on him. I rarely give up on players after two bad seasons, especially if an injury is involved. So why was I so convinced that he was done? He returned in 2018-19 from that leg injury and was ineffective. Then in 2019-20 he was bad again. Traded to Carolina he was terrible in his brief look at the end of the season. That doesn't seem like enough time to write him off, so why did I? Looking back at what I say and do, sometimes I don't understand my thinking. My M.O is always patience.

Anyway, that's my long-winded way of saying that Trocheck is most certainly back: 29 points in 28 games. Five points in four games with 13 SOG since returning from injury.

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Dallas line combos on Sunday. The Benn, Dowling, Gurianov line was brutal – look at the lopsided chances…

Time	%	EV – FORWARDS	GF	GA	+/-	SF	SA	SF%	CF	CA	CF%
14:04	24.3	JOE PAVELSKI – ROOPE HINTZ – J ROBERTSON	0	0	0	6	9	40.0	15	15	50.0
12:39	21.8	JAMIE BENN – J DOWLING – DENIS GURIANOV	0	0	0	4	9	30.8	5	22	18.5
6:38	11.4	A COGLIANO – BLAKE COMEAU – R GARDNER	0	0	0	1	6	14.3	3	12	20.0
4:26	7.6	TANNER KERO – N CAAMANO – TY DELLANDREA	0	0	0	2	1	66.7	3	2	60.0

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Whatever extra training the Leafs gave Alex Galchenyuk with the Marlies really worked. Sure, he was effective there with eight points in six games. But I read that he was getting personal one-on-one coaching with some psychological stuff involved, too. Whatever it was, he has this new attitude that is very tangible. He's working hard on the ice and the Leafs are dying to have a top six winger added. I think, so far, he's fitting that bill. He has four points in eight games, which isn't great, but those are all at even strength which isn't so bad.

Zach Hyman has nine points in his last nine games. Since being reunited with Auston Matthews his fantasy value has really spiked. I did love that third line when he was on, with Pierre Engvall and Ilya Mikheyev, but Wayne Simmonds is on that line now and it's just a shadow of what it was.

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I really felt that Darryl Sutter would push the Flames to go on a run after he was hired. I didn't think they would make the playoffs, but in the Midseason Guide I had them making it pretty close (just missing). It looked pretty good for three or four games, but since then the bottom has really dropped out. The team has forgotten how to score. Rasmus Andersson has just two points in 15 games (pointless in 14 of them), Juuso Valimaki is pointless in 14 and getting scratched.

The Old Warhorse Sutter is leaning on his vets – with Mark Giordano leading the way. Giordano was getting 30% or 40% of the PP time. Then Sutter comes in and now he's seeing 65% or more. The result? Uh… not much. Two PPPts since Sutter took over. Johnny Hockey has four points in 13 games. The answer, obviously, is to put Brett Ritchie on that line?

Time	%	EV – FORWARDS	GF	GA	+/-	SF	SA	SF%	CF	CA	CF%
13:23	23.9	BRETT RITCHIE – SEAN MONAHAN – J GAUDREAU	0	1	-1	1	5	16.7	4	10	28.6
12:12	21.8	ELIAS LINDHOLM – M TKACHUK – DILLON DUBE	0	2	-2	8	7	53.3	13	9	59.1
12:03	21.5	MILAN LUCIC – MIKAEL BACKLUND – A MANGIAPANE	1	0	1	8	8	50.0	14	11	56.0
9:29	16.9	J NORDSTROM – SAM BENNETT – DEREK RYAN	1	0	1	10	4	71.4	16	6	72.7

Ugh. Put Lindholm on that line, put Andersson on the power play instead of Giordano.

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The Arizona – Anaheim game turned out to be the battle of the kids. Jakob Chychrun scored all three goals and the first hat trick of his career. Oh, and the OT winner. While Trevor Zegras assisted on both Anaheim goals. The future of those teams. If Chychrun's injury woes are behind him for good, he's going to be a stud with a capital S.

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See you next Monday.