At the age of 28 and in the heart of his prime, Mark Stone is healthy and putting up the numbers we've been waiting for. At 50 points in 43 games, he's on a 95-point 82-game pace. We're not shocked. The only question to me had always been whether or not he can play the entirety of a season, which he's done just once (as a rookie). With two points, linemate Max Pacioretty has now surpassed the point-per-game threshold, and gives him six in three games. These are each expected results from the caliber of player. And although Shea Theodore is a tad above expectations, his 34 points is not over surprising. The biggest surprises on this team are as follows, in order of total points:

Chandler Stephenson – A 55-point pace. He has been a staple on the Pacioretty – Stone line and has Chris Clarked his way into fantasy relevance. Yep, I just dropped a Chris Clark reference. Remember him? A pure checker who struck gold for a couple of years on Alex Ovechkin's line.

Alec Martinez – He has always been a decent producer, but his career high is 39 points. So that's considered peak Martinez. Or at least it was. Now, at the age of 33, he is on a 48-game full-season pace.

Tomas Nosek – Don't look now, but the Golden Knights have a productive third line. And Cody Glass wasn't the answer. It was…Nosek? Never drafted, he was a big scorer in the Czech Republic and caught my attention when the Red Wings signed him. He spent several years on my Fantasy Prospects List, at one point sitting around 100^th in 2015. He has 17 points in his last 20 games (an assist Sunday), and despite the slow start he is on a 42-point full-season pace. His career high is the 18 that he already has this year.

Keegan Kolesar – Here is a prospect who never made it on my Prospects List because he wasn't a points guy, but more of a tough guy. In retrospect I should have included him at least as a 40-point potential player. Already he looks like he's going to be a solid 30-point, 85-PIM fantasy asset in the very near future. He was a healthy scratch Sunday – the acquisition of Mattias Janmark will certainly hurt Kolesar's numbers going forward this year.

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Nicolas Roy, who had a fine finish to last season, had been a disappointment early on in this one, with four points in 32 games. But the 24-year-old picked up two points Sunday to give him eight in his last nine. This, despite being bumped off the third line after the team acquired Janmark.

Here were the Vegas line combos Sunday, with Mattias Janmark in the lineup…

Time	%	EV – FORWARDS	GF	GA	+/-	SF	SA	SF%	CF	CA	CF%
11:48	24.7	PACIORETTY – STONE – STEPHENSON	2	0	2	9	8	52.9	10	13	43.5
8:50	18.5	TOMAS NOSEK – JANMARK – ALEX TUCH	0	1	-1	5	5	50.0	7	10	41.2
8:44	18.3	REILLY SMITH – KARLSSON – MARCHESSAULT	0	1	-1	3	7	30.0	8	8	50.0
7:01	14.7	TOMAS JURCO – CARRIER – NICOLAS ROY	1	0	1	2	2	50.0	4	6	40.0

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Anthony Mantha now has goals in all four of his games with Washington. He absolutely has the talent to post a point-per-game. But does he have the health? Here is Mantha's track record:

Broken leg (2014)

Broken finger (2017)

Groin injury, hand injury (2018)

Knee injury (2019)

Lung injury (2020)

Several people on Twitter – Mantha owners all – were trying to argue with me that not only was he not a Band-Aid Boy, but that it would be unwise to project his games next year based on his injury track record. Like, if I were to project 67 games for him next season I would be wrong. Their reasoning? The injuries were all flukes. They didn’t happen to the same area of the body, there was nothing chronic to worry about. Uh – that's even worse! The fluke-injury players are the ones to worry about. They may not have the body mechanics, or they have developed habits such as angling their head a certain way, or they just play that style of game that lends to injury. Anyway, I digress. Mantha certainly has the ability to have a 80-point season, he just needs to stay healthy to do it. And the smart move is to assume he plays about 67 or 68 games, with each game thereafter a blessing.

John Carlson followed up his four-point game Saturday with an ugly minus-5 rating Sunday.

Vitek Vanecek has now posted two straight Really Bad Starts (RBS). His SV% has plummeted to 0.908 on what had been a wonderful season.

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Taylor Hall has points in three of his four games with Boston and he's been a plus-1 in every game. He is doing well in a secondary capacity – his ice time has averaged around 14:30 on his new team after being closer to 19 minutes with Buffalo, Arizona and New Jersey.

Having Hall on the second line as opposed to, say, Jake DeBrusk, will do wonders for that top line. Not that the line needs any help. Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak and Patrice Bergeron combined for 10 points on Sunday.

So far, Nick Ritchie is maintaining his hold on the first PP unit. Hall is on the second unit, making that unit pretty potent (with Craig Smith, David Krejci and DeBrusk).

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The new coach in Buffalo is having a huge impact on the team. Or maybe it's no Hall and Jack Eichel? How does losing those two stars make the team win? Whatever the reason, the Sabres are winning now – and career minor leaguer Dustin Tokarski is suddenly this kickass goalie. Tokarski has four consecutive Quality Starts! The 31-year-old now has 13 NHL wins.

Here are Buffalo's top scorers in the 17 games since Don Granato took over as coach:

Sam Reinhart: 17GP, 11PTS

Casey Mittelstadt (!): 17GP, 10PTS

Rasmus Dahlin: 17GP, 9PTS

Kyle Okposo (now injured): 12GP, 9PTS

Finding Mittelstadt's mojo is a great accomplishment unto itself. I had no interest in him in my dynasty league, every time his name came up in trade talks. Now? I'm suddenly interested. He has 10 points in his last 11 games. But, the question is – where does he fit in? Eichel is the top center and Dylan Cozens will be No.2. Cozens, who has five points in his last five games, has been pretty good at the faceoff circle. Especially considering he's a rookie. How many points can Mittelstadt garner as a third-line center?

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Put Arttu Ruotsalainen on your radar as a potential Victor Olofsson in terms of possible short- and long-term impact:

Broke out in Finland, immediate impact in the AHL. Now scoring in the NHL.https://t.co/rZcujSk2NC#FantasyHockey #LetsGoBuffalo #HockeyTwitter

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) April 18, 2021

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Pittsburgh line combos with Jeff Carter on the squad:

Time	%	EV – FORWARDS	GF	GA	+/-	SF	SA	SF%	CF	CA	CF%
16:28	33.5	CROSBY – RUST – GUENTZEL	0	1	-1	13	11	54.2	25	17	59.5
10:27	21.3	CARTER – ZUCKER – MCCANN	1	0	1	11	1	91.7	16	2	88.9
9:20	19.0	BLUEGER – RODRIGUES – ASTON-REESE	1	1	0	5	5	50.0	8	10	44.4
5:23	10.9	SCEVIOUR – JANKOWSKI – ZOHORNA	0	0	0	2	2	50.0	3	3	50.0

That fourth line boasts 6-6 Radim Zohorna and 6-4 Mark Jankowski. If I had those two, then forget Sceviour – call up Drew O'Connor and stick him on that line. The 6-3 O'Connor, 22, has 10 points in 10 games for Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and was with Pittsburgh for a stint earlier in the year.

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So Colin Blackwell is really something, eh? It's not often that a 28-year-old not only secures a spot in the NHL for the first time, but boasts instant fantasy relevance. Blackwell has 12 points in his last 12 games – beginning on the very day he turned 28. He is in that sweet spot on the Ryan Strome – Artemi Panarin line. We've seen the effect Panarin has on his linemates. The beauty of taking a chance on Blackwell now is – he's signed for next year. So that line will remain intact for another season. More than long enough for him to pad his stats next year and earn a pretty massive raise. Provided he stays healthy.

Vitali Kravtsov – first #NHL goal#NYR#FantasyHockey #HockeyTwitterhttps://t.co/qLoy3ut3yl pic.twitter.com/aujrj5fmHd

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) April 18, 2021

Mika Zibanejad has 30 points in his last 20 games. Remember when he had nine points in 25 games and we were all complaining about how he's killing us in our leagues? He's worked his way up to within six points of having a point-per-game average.

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Marian Studenic also scored his first career NHL goal – in his fourth game. He doesn't have great upside, but you can check out our prospect profile on him here. Nolan Foote, son of Adam, played in his first NHL game and picked up an assist. He has considerably higher upside and you can read up on him here.

Nico Hischier has been back for four games now, but Sunday was the first time he was really "back". After going minus-5 and managing just five total shots in the first three games, Sunday he scored a goal and fired seven shots on net. I would have been concerned about starting him for the coming week after those early results, but Sunday set my mind at ease and should do the same to yours.

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Well the good news is that the Flyers finally got some goaltending. The bad news is – they forgot to score. Brian Elliott stopped 27 of 28 and had a shutout after regulation, but the team lost 1-0.

Ilya Sorokin stopped all 30 he faced. The rookie has a sparkling 2.02 GAA and 0.922SV%. He already has three NHL shutouts and the guy has played just 17 games. It pays to be a rookie goalie who is not only great, but also plays under a Barry Trotz system. Just gold. And people thought I had him rated too high last summer! Do the math: Trotz + high-upside goalie = awesome

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Vancouver got a couple of extra days to recover from their COVID battle, and it seemed to pay off. They started off sluggish, getting outshot by the Leafs 27-13 after two periods. But with four minutes left in the second and down 2-0 they crawled back to win the game 3-2 in OT. Nils Hoglander, who was rumored to be one of the guys hit the hardest by the variant of COVID, assisted on the first goal and scored the tying goal.

Key regulars still sidelined for Vancouver – Jake Virtanen, Nate Schmidt, Tyler Motte and Thatcher Demko. And when Alex Edler was given a game misconduct midway through, the onus was on the remaining five defensemen. Except those included Jalen Chatfield and Guillaume Brisebois, who were probably looking at 10 minutes of ice time in normal circumstances. Anyway, the result was that Tyler Myers played over 30 minutes of action while Quinn Hughes played 24:26.

Jimmy Vesey is really being pushed hard by Travis Green to become a first-line player. His ice time started at 18:13 in his first game with Vancouver, and has increased steadily, peaking at 21:50 on Sunday. The result is – no points so far. But man, if all my hunches that I shoot my mouth off about got these kinds of chances from the coach, I'd almost never be wrong. Half the time my mis-calls are the result of getting buried, or never getting that fair shot. This guy is getting that fair shot. More than fair. And this has happened right from the get-go in his entire NHL career (other than in Toronto). He hasn't done anything with it.

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Jack Campbell won 11 straight games to start the season. Now he is winless in three. And his 11^th win was an RBS – making it four consecutive weak games for him.

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My aforementioned note about mis-calls and not getting fair shots brought to mind Vinnie Hinostroza. The former and now (again) current Dobber Darling. As soon as Florida signed Anthony Duclair I knew he was sunk. Now in Chicago he has five points in six games. And that's with averaging just 12 minutes per game and no PP time. But his linemates haven't been Juho Lammikko and Noel Acciari. No, with Chicago he's either had Patrick Kane or Dominik Kubalik – two guys who can score, so he's racking up assists. If he can keep that rolling, then the ice time and even some PP time will follow. Not saying he's the second coming, only saying that he's better than he's been. That first year with Arizona gave us a glimpse.

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Last game, Patrick Marleau tied Gordie Howe for most NHL regular season games played. Tonight – he will take the lead and play Game 1768. Howe has been tops on that list for 60 years.

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See you next Monday.