We saw Evgeni Malkin make his return to the Penguins' lineup last night, Elias Pettersson played his second game post-concussion, and there was a Fantrax update that said Jack Eichel should be playing his first game this week – that might be a bit early, but sometime in the next two weeks sounds right. It's great to see the stars back on the ice, and especially nice to see them back for your fantasy teams. Touch wood, but it seems like the injury bug has dissipated a little, and most fantasy IRs are littered with mostly Covid cases. What this means is that with the reduced protocols, you shouldn't have to deal with the kind of situations we saw earlier in the year where nearly half of your roster was day-to-day at certain points.

Malkin started out on the second line between Jeff Carter and Kasperi Kapanen, while also lining up on the top power play. There's no easing him into the lineup as he put up two goals and an assist. Only injuries can slow him down it seems.

I'm still curious how Eichel ends up getting deployed initially, especially with having been off for so long. With the Vegas lineup not at 100%, it might just make the most sense to move Stephenson over to the top line LW slot, keeping Max Pacioretty's spot warm for the time being. The incumbent centres in Vegas have a lot to gain or lose depending on how the lineup shakes out once Eichel returns.

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Speaking of "returns", Evander Kane is apparently going to be receiving an NHL contract by the weekend, meaning he could be in a lineup by early next week if everything falls into place. On the human side, he has had a dozen more chances than he deserves, and I'm surprised he's getting the attention he is. No one in San Jose wanted to play with him anymore, so it's a bit strange that NHL GMs are overlooking that in order to add him.

For fantasy managers, you don't have to worry about the dynamic in your team dressing room, and you can choose to ignore the legal issues if you so choose, so it follows that he's one of the most added players across all league platforms over the last week. Kane actually put up a career-high points pace last year, pacing for over 70 points for the first time in his career. It's likely that he won't hit those levels in the second half of this season, but we could see him pace for 55-60 points, with his usual monster peripherals on top of it. He has topped 100 PIMs and logged over two hits per game in three of the last five seasons, on top of averaging at least 3.2 shots per game dating all the way back to the 2010-2011 season. He's one of only a handful of NHLers that can put up those kind of numbers, so in leagues that count all of those stats, he could be a big add.

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The last big name making his return is Tuukka Rask, who signed a one-year, $1 million contract with the Bruins yesterday. He is 34-years-old, and still has some good hockey left, having put up a save percentage of at least .912% every season of his career (minimum five games). His quality start percentage was 62.5%, the exact same as Jeremy Swayman's current mark, and higher than Linus Ullmark's mark of 50%. It will be interesting to see how the Bruins handle this situation, but early on you may either have to own all three of them, or none of them.

Fluto Shinzawa, the Boston Bruins beat writer for the Athletic, is saying that in the short-term, expect Swayman to be sent down to the AHL, but it might not be too long before he's back up at the NHL level, especially considering that he is likely the future of the team's crease.

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If you're wondering how players like Eichel, Kane and Rask will do in the second half, make sure to get your copy of the DobberHockey Midseason Guide. It will be dropping on January 15 (usually mid-afternoon). This Guide comes with your Ultimate Fantasy Pack or Gold/Platinum subscriptions. It does not come with the Keeper League Fantasy Pack nor the Silver subs. You can pre-order it here if you haven't already.

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One departure we saw this week was Gregory Hofmann, who was suspended by the team after he decided he didn't want to return from the personal time he took to be back with his family for the birth of his child. He likely wasn't on many fantasy radars, but his departure does likely mean that Yegor Chinakhov has a more secure hold on a permanent lineup spot.

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Stamkos said he thought Ondrej Palat was "grinding through" something, so maybe his absence in latter part of game was more precautionary. We'll see what Cooper says.

— Joe Smith (@JoeSmithTB) January 12, 2022

The lines got tossed into the blender after Palat left, but both Mathieu Joseph and Corey Perry saw time with the big guns in the top-six late in the game. Might be worth checking your waiver wire to cover the two Lightning games left this week.

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Around this time of year I like to jump over to Frozentools, filter the shots report by total shots, and then look for the extremely low outliers. Guys like Patrick Kane (shooting 6.2%), Kevin Fiala (6.5%), and Darnell Nurse (2.1%) show up, but those are the big names that you have probably seen elsewhere on lists telling you that they may have a couple more goals in them in the second half. I like to dive down a little deeper to the guys with one goal or less, and look under the hood on those guys. This is a step down from the super-star guys. I find this level of player is where you can make up more value.  

The shot leader of the zero-goals club is somewhat unsurprisingly a defenceman. Matt Roy leads the way with 95. Defencemen often go through these kinds of droughts as their average shot distance is so far from the net, it lends itself to large variability in production. Because of that, it's not something I'm going to dive into with defencemen, and instead I'm going to stick to the forwards.

Jakob Silfverberg (75 shots, and just scored goal number two around midnight EST last night)

Before yesterday’s game, Silfverberg was the leader in shots for NHLers with only one goal, and had shot over 10% in three of the last five seasons of his career, and has only finished under 7.5% once (6.9%). If Silfverberg keeps up his shot rate of 2.3 per game (right on his career average and his average from the last three years), then he should finish a full season with around 185 shots. Even if he scores near his career low of seven percent, that would mean another dozen goals on the year. However, Silfverberg is seeing half of the offensive zone starts he did last year, and he's down under 30% right now. What that tells us, is that his usage has changed, and that likely means his shot style has changed. Indeed, it has, as he is shooting a lot less from his sweet spot of 15-30ft from the net. It's moved farther away this season, with nearly half of his shots coming from 31+ft away from the net. Those extra dozen goals that we're expecting the rest of the way are going to fade into nothing with those kind of shot numbers. This may just end up being a career low year for Silfverberg as he eats up all the defensive minutes.

Kyle Palmieri (57 shots, one goal)

Palmieri has never fit in with the Islanders, and part of it is as simple as the ice time. He went from playing at least 17 minutes per game from 2015 to 2020, but as soon as he was traded to the Isles last year they dropped him to 14 minutes, and he's only back up to 16 minutes per game now. In that ice time, he's also shooting less, despite very similar deployment. Still, that doesn't explain shooting at least nine percent every season of his career before the Isles (averaging 13% in that time) and then dropping to two percent since he joined the team a year ago. Like adding milk to a lemon tea, the Isles just seem to have curdled Palmieri. None of the underlying numbers suggest much has changed for Palmieri, so for now we have to wonder whether pacing for 30 points is his new normal.

Jakub Voracek (60 shots, one goal)

After getting traded back to Columbus, Voracek's passing has been rejuvenated. There are a lot of shooters on the Blue Jackets, which made the Cam Atkinson swap a deal that helped both teams, and Voracek fitting in exactly as the Columbus brass could have hoped. He's on pace for his highest assist rate since 2017-18, and that's with a secondary assist percentage of only 17%, so it's all primary points. What Voracek hasn't seen though, is many shots go in. Over the last three seasons, the 32-year-old is averaging just under two shots per game, while shooting around nine percent. This year is quite the anomaly though, as he's at his lowest shot rate (1.7 per game) since his rookie year, and is at a third of his previous shooting percentage low.

There is a strange juxtaposition of underlying numbers pointing in different directions for Voracek. He's seeing a career high with two-thirds of his starts being in the offensive zone, but in spite of that, his shooting distance is gravitating much farther away from the net. Nothing else really jumps off the page. It seems to me like this is a case of whoever looking at the numbers will see confirmed what they already expect. Those expecting an uptick in his production in the second half could point to certain numbers to show it's likely, but someone expecting a regression could point to another set of numbers and say the opposite. The reality will likely be somewhere in between, with Voracek again pacing for 60-65 points on the season, scoring a handful of goals, and marking the rest in the assist column. He won't be stuck on one goal all year, but don't expect him to suddenly pot four in a seven-game stretch at any point.

Blake Wheeler (55 shots, one goal)

Like Voracek, Wheeler has always been more of an assists guy, though he usually scores a fair share of goals. He had a run of seven straight 20 goal seasons, and then last season potted 15 in 50 games (a 24-goal pace). Overall, he's shooting at his usual rate, and at a fairly consistent distance from the net. His deployment is extremely similar to previous years, as are his linemates. Nothing under the hood appears at all out of the ordinary for the 35-year-old. He has missed some games already this season though, but that was from a lower-body injury sustained in mid-December, so it's unlikely that it was something nagging and causing a drop in his shooting prowess. All told, this does look like one of the cases where we can say that Wheeler should see a few more bounce, and seeing him pot somewhere between 10-15 goals the rest of the way should surprise no one.

Alexander Radulov (48 shots, one goal)

Radulov appears to be slowing down at the ripe old age of 35. His shot rate has plummeted, his ice time is down both at even strength and on the power play. He also has a minus-14 rating this year, and he has never been a minus player before in his career. His shooting percentage is under 11% for the first time in his career as well, and that's in spite of taking a larger percentage of his shots from the higher percentage areas 0-15ft from the net. Radulov has also been down on the fourth line of late, so it seems like he also doesn't have the backing of coach Rick Bowness, which further hinders the likelihood of a rebound. He should be on the waiver wire in your league, and he can stay there for the time being. 

Joonas Donskoi (40 shots, zero goals)

The current leader in shots among forwards with no goals is Joonas Donskoi. He's not the only one that has been a disappointment in his first year in Seattle, but after shooting nearly 20% last season the tables have completely turned for Donskoi, missing 100% of the shots he does take. His ice time is up, his powerplay usage is steady, and he's not playing against top competition. He has already tied last season's assist rate in two-thirds the number of games though, so the points are still coming. Problem is, last year he had even more goals than assists, and fantasy owners are not a patient bunch when waiting for fringe players to turn things around. The big red flag for me is that he has quite a few shots taken from outside 45ft, and with that, he's still only putting 1.2 shots per game on net. His shot rate and his ice time have dropped from the first quarter to the second quarter, and it really does look like he just hasn't meshed well at all in Seattle. Maybe an option as a bounce-back player next year, but not this season.

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Cale Makar had the Kodak Moment of the night:

My goodness, Cale Makar 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/bwSotX5NoB

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 12, 2022

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Happy hump day all, feel free to find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions.