There have only been a few games so far, but ice time and deployment are two factors that can significantly affect a player's production. I'm going to list a few players who are in potentially reduced roles from what I figured they would be and who I have some concern about their production levels this year already. We never want to overreact to things too early in the season, so just monitor these players and see if circumstances change over the next few weeks.

Vince Dunn – Seattle

Dunn was injured in the second game of the season and missed the Kraken's third game. Aside from his injury, his ice time and power-play deployment are not quite there yet with Mark Giordano in the fold. There was hope that Dunn would be the first unit PP quarterback and get the 20 plus minutes that had eluded him in St. Louis in his first four seasons. Here he is, still in the 16-18 minute range and behind Giordano on the PP. He still has time on his side as Giordano is 38-years old, but temper your expectations this year.

Chris Tanev – Calgary

Tanev had an excellent season last year paired mostly with either Noah Hanifin or Mark Giordano. With Giordano now in Seattle, Tanev is going to miss him quite a bit. Last year at even strength, paired with Giordano the Flames outscored their opponents 17 to four, while their CF% was 59.1. It has only been one game, but Tanev was paired with Nikita Zadorov and it did not go well with two ES goals against while they had a 44.9 CF%. The team might lack the depth to pair Tanev and Hanifin again, but expect a little regression from Tanev this year with his plus/minus and a few analytical stats.

Trevor Zegras – Anaheim

His ice time is not that of a 1st line center at only 13:59 after two games. He is behind Ryan Getzlaf and Benoit-Olivier Groulx in ice time so far. This might suggest that the coaching staff don't quite trust Zegras yet defensively. Once they do, Zegras should be averaging 17-19 minutes per game and should make a run at the Calder. It will be tough for him to produce at a Calder level with 13-15 minutes.

Max Comtois – Anaheim

The pre-season should usually be taken with a grain of salt, except when it extends into the early games of the regular season. Comtois had one point in five pre-season games and struggled. He is pointless in his first two games and not on PP1, but the Ducks will give him the benefit of the doubt to get back on track. Just keep an eye on him in the first 10-20 games as this isn't just about his lack of production. The Ducks need their young players to show progression this season.

Jakob Chychrun – Arizona

With the departure of Oliver Ekman-Larson, it seemed that Chychrun would be ready to receive the bulk of the first unit PP minutes. Unfortunately, the team brought in Shayne Gostisbehere and so far after two games, Chychrun is on the outside looking in. Chychrun played the first unit 51.2 percent of the time last season and had 14 of his 41 points with the man advantage. This season he is currently at 31.5 percent and barring injury to Gostisbehere or an ineffective power play, he might be hard-pressed to see the ice time of last season.

Roope Hintz – Dallas

It might be load management easing Hintz back and keeping him healthy, but it causes a little concern to see him pointless after his first three games. He has averaged 13:56 of ice time after three games as compared to 18:14 last season which saw him produce 43 points in 41 games. He appears to be down to the second PP unit so far with a healthy Tyler Seguin and Alexander Radulov in the lineup. His success from last season took advantage of the opportunity he was presented with, but that same opportunity might not be there as often this year. Be aware.

Denis Gurianov – Dallas

Gurianov is another victim of ice time with the healthy return of Seguin and Radulov. His ice time last season was 15:51 where he had 12 goals and 30 points in 55 games, but so far after three games, he is down to 13:03 and in the bottom six. The good news is that he did manage 20 goals in 2019-20 with similar ice time and he is still averaging 46.1 percent of the power-play time. However, he will be in tough to maintain his 0.55 pts/game unless someone goes down with an injury.

Cody Glass – Nashville

I had my worries that Glass was even going to make the Predators for the start of the season after a less than stellar pre-season. He made the team and in two games he has not upped his game any averaging 11:27 of ice time. He is essentially playing fourth-line minutes with PP time that is 48.3 percent of the time. Even in Vegas, he was averaging 14:32 of time last year with the same PP time. If he doesn't start to produce, he will lose his role on the team altogether and we could see him in the AHL sooner than later.

Dante Fabbro – Nashville

This was supposed to be the year that the 23-year old Fabbro went from a 17-19 minute defenseman to a 20-minute player and began to put up more points than the 0.22 pts/game he had in his first 108 NHL games. The addition of Philippe Myers was going to bring depth and Alexandre Carrier would be in the mix as well. After two games this year, Fabbro has been on the bottom-pairing and averaged 15:37 of ice time while Carrier is the 20-minute defender and Myers is the 17-19 minute player. The Predators also have two extra defencemen on the roster with Ben Harpur, Mark Borowiecki and Matt Benning rotating so far. With Nashville carrying eight defencemen, it doesn't keep Fabbro safe from being in the lineup every night.

Mason Appleton – Seattle

Appleton has gone from a solid third-line player who had 12 goals and 25 points in 56 games last year in Winnipeg while averaging 14:26 of ice time to a solid fourth-line player on the expansion Kraken who is averaging 11:17 after three games. His 0.45 pts/game are going to be difficult to duplicate or exceed this year unless he climbs the ladder once again.

Quinn Hughes –

Any fantasy owner of Quinn Hughes won't have liked to see Oliver Ekman-Larson replace Hughes twice in the first three games at some point on the first unit of the power play. This should tell us that Hughes will have a shorter leash than the past two years if the PP struggles and Travis Green won't hesitate to make changes. What this most assuredly means is that Hughes won't see 77.0 percent of the PP again this year as he did last season. After three games he is down to 63.7 and that is a number that we should get more accustomed to moving forward.

Carter Hutton – Arizona

I'm sure most people were concerned that Hutton was the presumed starting goalie in Arizona, to begin with. Letting in eight goals on 26 shots and being left in by your coach in the first game of the season with a new team, shouldn't be wished upon anyone. If you own Hutton on your fantasy team, you probably shouldn't. I'm sure he will bounce back closer to his stats of the past two or three seasons.

Dylan Strome – Chicago

Alarm bells should be ringing with Strome being a healthy scratch for the first three games of this season. Admittedly he didn't play very well last season with only 17 points in 40 games, but he did have a 57-point season in 2018-19 and 38 points in 58 games in 2019-20 and he is still only 24-years old. One would think he would be traded sooner than later and, surprisingly, it didn't happen in the off-season.

Neal Pionk – Winnipeg

The addition of Nate Schmidt is going to take minutes away from Pionk. After two games he is averaging 19:32 compared to 21:57 last season and after averaging 0.59 pts/game he will need to produce on the power play more than he did last year, where he had 10 PP points. Schmidt struggled last season in Vancouver so there is no guarantee he will maintain his top-pairing spot with Josh Morrissey, but as of now it is his for the losing.

These are some early observations of some players I've noticed, so please watch them all over the next little while and see if situations have changed for the better. I'm not advocating going out and dropping anyone from above. Except, Hutton. Drop him as soon as you can.

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you want me to focus on any players or topics by messaging me below or following me on Twitter @gampbler15.