Vegas decided to go with Marc-Andre Fleury in net on Tuesday, and even in spite of the gaffe from game three, it's tough to argue against it. Both he and Lehner deserve to be leading a team through the final four, but there's only room for one guy in the crease at a time.

The Golden Knights and the Canadiens are actually the two teams with the highest cap hit spent on goalies this season. With all four goalies likely back with their respective teams, and only Jake Allen coming in on a different cap hit ($2.875 million next season, down from $4.35 million), these two teams should once again be sitting at the top of that leaderboard. Interestingly Tampa Bay is fourth overall, and the Islanders are in the top half; Ilya Sorokin being underpaid as a rookie is part of the reason there.

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Chandler Stephenson returned for game five after missing three games with an injury. He has been excellent this season between Mark Stone and Max Pacioretty, but as someone without the real top-line upside or pedigree, you have to wonder if he keeps the spot next season. A first-line centre could be something that Vegas looks to add while they don't have to worry about the expansion draft restrictions, or they could look at an in-house replacement, with both Peyton Krebs and Cody Glass knocking on the door and deserving of a chance at regular time on a scoring line.

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A bit of topical non-NHL news. Oakland Raiders DE Carl Nassib became the first active NFL player to come out as gay.

Here's the message from Raiders DE Carl Nassib announcing publicly today, during Pride Month, that he is gay pic.twitter.com/1VA2XSfL5F

— Jonathan Jones (@jjones9) June 21, 2021

The trails are continuing to be blazed, and I for one am very happy to see it. I look forward to the day we can say this about the NHL too.

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The scoring eruption by Tampa in Monday night's game was really something… something that we should have seen coming. This is the top offensive team in the league that is firing on all cylinders, and an Islanders team that looks better than last year, albeit less locked-in defensively.

Bouncing back from this kind of defeat can be tough, but we have seen it done many times. The Isles should go with the veteran Semyon Varlamov, as I think he gives them their best shot at providing a little more reassurance in a bounce-back game six.

I picked the Islanders to get past the Lightning for two reasons. One, we have seen Tampa shut down by a strong and tight defence before, and the Islanders also have the firepower to put a few past Vasilevskiy most games. The second reason though is a little less technical, but I have often found that teams bringing back the same roster after winning a cup don't often have what it takes to grind through an entire post-season again at the 110% effort level it takes. I have been expecting them to hit a wall at some point, and I'm wondering if that 8-0 win doesn't actually hurt them. That kind of win can see you take your foot off the gas pedal just a little, and it can be tough to re-accelerate back up to that full effort for game seven. This series isn't over yet by any means.

I have actually noticed something similar in fantasy leagues. In H2H (and even sometimes in Roto – where it's harder to mount a comeback) the team that goes wire-to-wire for the president's trophy through the regular season almost always gets bounced by a team that had to push a little harder in the regular season and spent a little more time fixing up the weak spots on their roster. Those teams in the 3-5 range can be the most dangerous ones to play in your head-to-head playoffs, because they have spent the latter half of the season watching you at the top, dreaming up every possible way to take you down.

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The hiring of Gerard Gallant was a great move by the Rangers, who are expected to take another step forward next season.

#NYR Chris Drury: "I think you saw from exit interviews, my goal and hope is that we're a playoff team next year. Is it a mandate? I don't believe so."

— Mollie Walker (@MollieeWalkerr) June 22, 2021

From Chris Drury, the Rangers are saying that the playoffs next season are a hope and not a "mandate", but should it actually be the expectation? Their division was the toughest one to make the playoffs in this past year, and that was away from Carolina, Tampa Bay, and Toronto. However, all of the teams at the top there are aging out a bit, and the Rangers are coming in at just the right time. Even without any additions, the growth of their young players should be enough to tip the balance into a playoff spot. On top of that though, the Rangers have plenty of cap space, lots of young assets to parlay, and an easy path through the Seattle Expansion Draft.

As of right now, I think they are a better bet to make the 2022 playoffs than the Washington Capitals, and could be competitive with the Islanders, Penguins and the Bruins. Meanwhile the other half of the Eastern Conference would likely consist of the Lightning, Maple Leafs, Hurricanes, and Panthers.  

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Getting into the offseason, and before the draft and free agency, there's one other key piece of housekeeping for GMs to be looking into, and that's the buyout windows. In cap leagues especially this has a big impact, but for all leagues, players on over-sized contracts getting bought out and signing for cheap to play with a contender can really impact values.

In the recent past Bobby Ryan, Tyler Ennis, Alex Wennberg, Valeri Nichushkin, Corey Perry, and others have all fallen into this kind of category, where a buyout actually increases their value. Last year there were a few large contracts bought out despite long-term cap impacts (e.g. Kyle Turris and Cory Schneider). With the flat cap and expansion draft, I think this buyout season we see a similarly high-dollar-value set of players bought out.

The best part about bought-out players, is that since they're already getting paid from their last contract, usually they will take a little less money in order to put themselves in the right situation to either win, or thrive with an eye on rebounding for another, bigger contract. That means, in the short term, they go from over-paid to under-paid, they're motivated, and they put their fit on the team above most other factors. That makes them ideal fliers for fantasy leagues. Here's a few that might be able to up their fantasy value with a buyout this summer.

Mikko Koskinen (G) – Edmonton Oilers
Cap Hit: $4,500,000 until 2022
Buyout Cost: $1,500,000 until 2023
Projected Cap Hit: $1,484,000

Koskinen did not get a lot of support in Edmonton, and was out-played by 39-year-old Mike Smith. That doesn't mean he can't thrive in the right system though. His save percentage in the 1-15ft range dropped drastically from last year to this year, and that is usually an indicator of a big lack of support. His save percentage outside of 15ft was over .920%. The 32-year-old Finn has a few good years left in the tank, and on a cheap deal could be just the 20-30 starts that a top-tier-team needs to spell their main goalie for. Intriguingly, Colorado, Tampa Bay, Carolina, and St. Louis could all be looking for someone like Koskinen this summer (maybe Boston as a bit of a longer-shot as well). Playing behind one of those more defensively sound teams could really up Koskinen's ratios, though his volume would likely drop a little. 

Anthony DeAngelo (D) – New York Rangers
Cap Hit: $4,800,000 until 2022
Buyout Cost: $883,334 until 2023
Projected Cap Hit: $1,097,000

As much as I may not like DeAngelo, he does have the offensive talent to help a fantasy team if he ends up with the right NHL team taking a chance on him (because it's inevitable somebody will). He's not one to load up the peripherals, but if you really need powerplay points from the backend, he might be the cheapest high-upside option to check in on this offseason in spite of the risk.

Jake Virtanen (RW) – Vancouver Canucks
Cap Hit: $2,550,000 until 2022
Buyout Cost: $500,000 until 2023
Projected Cap Hit: $1,069,000

Virtanen has drawn some love from the Canucks fans, but also a lot of ire in his time on the West Coast, and a buyout is possibly on the way. It's time for a fresh start, and the Canucks don't have to pay him a lot to do it. Virtanen meanwhile needs to be on a scoring line to produce, so him getting into the right situation is a key. There would be plenty of options for Virtanen, who is one year removed from a career-high 18 goals and 36 points in 69 games. His ceiling might not be too much higher than that, but he can certainly get back to a 20-goal pace in a new uniform.

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If something didn't make sense then I blame it on the vaccine hangover from dose #2.

Feel free to either drop a comment, or find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions.

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Stay safe!