We're getting to the point of the season where drops are likely being made in fantasy leagues. I still think it's too early to make any significant changes outside of both injuries and demotions, but that doesn't mean other people aren't doing it.

Here are some players I think fantasy owners might be having a bit of a panic over. Some of them may be worth checking in for a trade, too.

Artemi Panarin

Three points in four games isn't something to get all in a huff about, but the problem here is his shot volume so far. Four games in, Panarin has four shots on goal, and his shot attempt rate of 13.1 per 60 minutes is the lowest of his career. The last two seasons, for example, have seen shot attempt rates north of 16.1. A decline in shot rate of roughly 25% is huge for any player, but especially brutal for someone who was likely drafted among the top-20 picks.

It has been a rough start for the Rangers health-wise, but Panarin is now skating with Mika Zibanejad. Maybe that's what he needs to get the offensive juices going. Anyone looking to buy low may need to wait another week or so, but it's a situation worth monitoring.

Cale Makar

Going into Thursday night's contest, Makar had no goals, one assist, and a minus-6 rating. For fun, I went and looked at Makar's season last year. He did have two stretches with just one point in three games, early and late in the season. I suspect that if Makar starts the year with 8 points in 6 games, and then has 1 in 3 contests after that, it isn't even a concern. But it's the start of the season, so we find his name here.

This isn't a concern. Nathan MacKinnon was out for two games, Devon Toews and Valeri Nichushkin are still missing, and Gabriel Landeskog was suspended. If someone in your league is panicking, I'd even trade fair value for him right now (a Guentzel- or Kane-type).

Sebastian Aho

It is just a couple games for Aho but he does have just four shots in those two games. All that isn't really the concern here, in my opinion. The concern for me is both Andrei Svechnikov and Teuvo Teravainen, I'd argue the team's two top offensive wingers, are often skating on the second line. The team has moved Martin Necas down temporarily, but his line mate quality is still muddled. I am wondering if he has point-per-game upside playing with, say, Necas and Kotkaniemi, two guys with 53 goals in 300 combined NHL regular season games. They are obviously still growing, but we don't want players growing into their role with Aho, we want producers. Just keep an eye on line combinations here. Aho needs more consistent help.

Matthew Tkachuk

I think fantasy owners and Flames fans will need to have patience. I am very familiar with Sutter-coached teams, having made money off the Kings years ago when people still weren't believing in fancy stats. They had a tough finish to the season last year but were playing very well, and the same can be said of the early parts of this year. The team is shooting 4.5% at 5-on-5. It's just a tough early stretch.

That applies to Tkachuk, with just one assist in the two games. He is, however, skating over 20 minutes a night and has 14 shots in those two contests heading into Thursday night. There is a huge breakout coming soon.

Alex Pietrangelo

In three games, Pietrangelo has zero points, despite a four-year high in TOI per game. The Golden Knights are enduring some brutal injury problems right now, but the schedule is somewhat forgiving. The next 10 games include: Edmonton, Dallas, Anaheim, Ottawa, Montreal, Detroit, and Seattle. Maybe there's a fantasy owner in your league that sees Petro with zero points, the injuries on the team, and just wants to cut bait immediately, knowing it could be a while before the roster is back to full strength. Petro should be just fine later in the season, and peripherals can float him for now.  

Roope Hintz

This is a big, big problem. I wrote about Denis Gurianov yesterday, but the same problems apply to Hintz. Maybe there's some sort of lingering injury issue, but Hintz has lost nearly five minutes of ice time from last season. His last two games have seen him at 12 minutes even. He is honestly getting less ice time than Michael Raffl. It is utterly bizarre.

Again, maybe there's something we don't know under the surface. But unless something changes fast, we're not looking at a fantasy option that'll not live up to their draft billing, we're looking at a fantasy option that could be on the waiver wire by the end of the month.

Nikolaj Ehlers

We keep saying it, but it bears repeating: we're not sure what Ehlers did to Paul Maurice to make him hate the great Dane, but we wish he hadn't.

In all seriousness, when you get to a point where you need another player on the top PP unit to replace Blake Wheeler, and you go with Riley Nash instead of Ehlers, it's all we need to see.

This is the reason why I'm always hesitant to draft Ehlers. The Jets could wake up tomorrow with Scheifele, Connor, Wheeler, Dubois, Stastny, and Copp on the IR, and Ehlers would still be on the second PP unit, playing 16 minutes a night. It's all up to individual risk tolerance, I guess, but Ehlers will never hit is ceiling unless he's traded or Maurice is fired.

Seth Jones

The nice thing about Seth Jones is that he's on pace for 40 points, is averaging 3.5 shots a game, and has nine hits+blocks in four contests. The not-nice thing is the Blackhawks look like an abomination on the ice. No joke, they've looked worse than any team not named Montreal, and that includes Anaheim and Vancouver.

I still have a lot of faith in Jones because, as mentioned, he's still on pace for a very good fantasy season and the team has been largely horrific. If they turn it around, he's going to be a beast.

Sam Reinhart

What we've seen happen to Reinhart was something I discussed in the offseason: what if they use him on the third line to stretch out their scoring? It took two games for Anthony Duclair to be moved back to the top line with Barkov/Verhaege with Reinhart being moved down.

This isn't a pat-on-the-back thing. Joel Quenneville seems to have pairs of players he likes, and Duclair, Reinhart, and Hornqvist aren't among those pairs. Those are the guys whose fantasy value is likely to fluctuate the most through the season. Reinhart won’t sink his value playing with Anton Lundell, but it’s not the same as the guys further up the lineup.

Cole Caufield

Of course, we do have to talk about Montreal. They have looked completely lost to start the season, be it offensively, defensively, special teams, whatever. Outside of basically Jonathan Drouin, this team has looked like dog water through the start of the season.

The problem with Caufield was one I raised in the offseason: Montreal spreads out their ice time too much. We had hopes Toffoli-Suzuki-Caufield would be used as a true top line, but no dice. Caufield is playing 15:16 a night. It is hard to be a top-100 player in fantasy, especially if you're a player without peripherals, playing that little a night. Caufield should be great, but his coach is abysmal, and he won't get the role he deserves until there's a complete overhaul in Montreal from top to bottom. That should come at some point, but it won't help for this year.

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Mark Scheifele has hit the COVID list and the team says he is symptomatic. There are a lot of teams dealing with things like this – Pittsburgh with Jeff Carter, Colorado with Nathan MacKinnon – and this is just going to be a fact of life in the NHL this year. Breakthrough cases will happen, and players will still get sick even if they're vaccinated. It is just the nature of the virus we are dealing with. It is a reminder just how potent a strain we're enduring at the moment.

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Jack Hughes is going to be out a while with a dislocated shoulder. It won't require surgery and the team is saying he'll be re-evaluated next week. I wouldn't expect anything less than a couple weeks, but no surgery is a very good sign here.

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John Klingberg was skating briefly in Dallas's practice but did not stay on the whole time with the team. I would guess that means he's going to be out for at least another game but we don't have anything concrete right now. Jason Robertson isn't going to be back just yet, either, and but he seems right around the corner as well.

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Jesperi Kotkaniemi scored in his first game back to Montreal as the Carolina Hurricanes stormed out with a 4-1 win. Sebastian Aho came alive with a goal and two assists, proving that my concern may be unfounded. (I still don't think he'll be a point-per-game player this year. Montreal is just another kind of awful.)

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Sam Bennett scored his fourth of the season while Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 30 of 31 in Florida's 4-1 win over Colorado. On top of that, Gabriel Landeskog may have another phone call from DoPS soon for this hit:

Panthers not happy with Landeskog after this hit on Ekblad which gets two minutes for boarding pic.twitter.com/V7N8jry2bz

— NHL Review (@nhl_review) October 22, 2021

I don't think it's malicious but he does have a very recent history of suspensions.

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Cole Sillinger scores his first NHL goal and Patrik Laine secured two points with an OT victory as Columbus took a 3-2 win from the New York Islanders. It should be noted that Sillinger jumped all the way up to 17 minutes in this one. If he can maintain that level, then we might have some fantasy value worth talking about.