As a reminder from your friendly neighborhood fantasy guy – do not forget to acknowledge Valentine's Day with your loved one. Between COVID and the Superbowl, it will be easy to let things like that slide.

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It's been a surprising season in many regards when it comes to surprise player production. Leading the way, of course, is Nazem Kadri, but before we get to him let's analyze what we're seeing from Jeff Skinner.

Four goals and an assist on Sunday and he's now up to 34 points in 45 games for a 62-point pace. After declining seasons of (pro-rated) 32 points and then 22 (!) points, we had assumed that he was done. The decline had started at the age of 27, which is rare but certainly possible, and it came immediately after he signed his big contract. He lost all magic with Jack Eichel, and floundered as barely a checking-line player just last year. Now, with such a thin lineup, he's been elevated to the scoring line again and has actually been, you know, scoring. Skinner showed pretty good chemistry with Tage Thompson early on, and now it would seem that his chemistry with Alex Tuch is even better. He already has 10 points at even strength with Tuch on the ice with him – and Tuch has only played 15 games. Skinner has 40% of his ES production alongside Tuch when he's played just 20% of his ES shifts. That's a huge jump.

Skinner is a passenger. He needs chemistry with a good player in order to post fantasy-worthy points. He had that with Eichel for a half-season, and then lost it. It appears that he has chemistry with two big boys in Thompson (6-7) and Tuch (6-4). Skinner's four other 62-to 65-point seasons prior to this were followed by dips. Right now everybody underrates Skinner (including yours truly), but I can't help but think that if this line stays healthy (always a risk when we're talking about Tuch), Skinner could finally repeat his great numbers for a second year. I can't believe he's still only 29.

Potential line combinations for next season:

Tuch – Thompson – Skinner

Victor Olofsson – Casey Mittelstadt – Jack Quinn

Rasmus Asplund – Dylan Cozens – Peyton Krebs

Players to watch for scoring line roles: JJ Peterka, Arttu Ruotsalainen. I don't see Vinnie Hinostroza in that mix unfortunately, as once again he got injured at the worst time and now other players are filling the void while he recovers. And that's a shame because he was a top four forward on the team in terms of points per 60 minutes of ES ice time and actually starting to earn more opportunity.

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I don't know what's going on with Olofsson, who has always been this over-achiever as a pro. But he's been prone to injury (this year and in his rookie season) and this last one seems to have taken something from him. I'm talking about his 'undisclosed' injury that he returned from in November. Since then he has zero goals and 12 assists in 30 games and is minus-20. A good offseason of healing and a stronger roster in 2022-23 playing around him, I think makes him a good "buy low" option in the summer. Also consider that 2022-23 is his BT (Breakout Threshold) season, as he should cross the 200 games-played threshold sometime in November.

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After starting his season with two points in 14 games along with a minor-league stint, Cole Caufield has eight points in 19. That's still not great, obviously, but nobody in Montreal is scoring right now other than Tyler Toffoli. And since November 27, Caufield actually sits fifth on the team. On Sunday, Caufield saw 18:16 of ice time, which is actually his second-highest total for the season. Perhaps Marty St. Louis sees a little of himself in the diminutive Caufield?

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Alex Formenton scored a goal – but he also left the game. The Senators are playing very well defensively of late, which certainly helps goalies Anton Forsberg (first star on Sunday) and Matt Murray (who has been like the Murray of old so far in 2022). But with so many top scorers sidelined we have seen other players fill the void in that area. Formenton joins Drake Batherson (start of April) and Josh Norris (likely mid-March, unless he requires surgery in which case it becomes much longer). Of note:

Connor Brown now has five points in five games since returning from his own injury. Incredibly, thanks to the Formenton injury, Brown's ice time was a whopping 25:41 on Sunday.

Chris Tierney has five points in his last seven games.

Nick Paul has six in his last nine.

After Formenton left, Adam Gaudette took his spot on the power play, so that's a name to watch in terms of a depth option. He only has five points in his last 11 games, but he has 25 SOG and 20 Hits in that span.

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After 29 goals in 42 games, Alex Ovechkin has now gone six games without scoring.

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The inconsistency continues for Ilya Samsonov. Even with Vitek Vanecek sidelined and Samsonov finally getting in a string of starts, he can't seem to get on a roll. After a Quality Start February 1, he had a Really Bad Start on February 2. Then a QS on Feb. 10 followed by another RBS on Sunday. If you were hoping that he'd get better as the season continues, he's really not. Since December 15:

4-5-2, 3.52 GAA and 0.886 SV%

Samsonov turns 25 next week. I believe the following about goaltenders and I stick firmly to this rule:

Elite goalies become fantasy relevant over the course of an entire season at age 23, no earlier.

Examples of this in the modern area are restricted only to Carey Price, Marc-Andre Fleury and Andrej Vasilevskiy. No others. Philadelphia tried to push Carter Hart into the role at age 20 and it nearly ruined him. Now Hart is finally doing okay and he's – you guessed it – 23. But is he helping a fantasy team this year with a 9-16-5 record? Not much. But at least now Hart looks promising enough to get there at age 24. Hell, even the Penguins rushed Fleury at 21, but he was 23 before his numbers helped fantasy owners (instead of hurt them).

There are no exceptions to this rule. Even if a goalie is somehow good enough, after seeing Philly nearly ruin their Golden Boy and watching Washington maybe do the same to their Golden Boy, no team in their right mind is going to rush their stud. This means that Spencer Knight, 20, is a safe bet to not be the starter in Florida until at best 2025-26. This means that Jesper Wallstedt, 19, is a safe bet to not be a starter in Minnesota until 2026-27. This means that Yaroslav Askarov, 19, is a safe bet to not be a starter in Nashville until 2026-27. Stop dreaming otherwise! The best you can hope for is that these future studs will be as great for fantasy hockey as Vasilevskiy. I believe Igor Shesterkin would have fallen into this category had he crossed the ocean two years earlier.

Good goalies become fantasy relevant over the course of an entire season at age 25.

This seems to be where Samsonov will fit in. Remember six years ago I criticized fantasy owners for drafting him at age 18, saying they'll be sitting on him for seven years. Well, here we are. And it's also very possible that this is Askarov's future. Or Wallstedt's. This age was the age the following goalies arrived: Tristan Jarry, Juuse Saros and Frederik Andersen. And Shesterkin. And countless others.

Average goalies become fantasy relevant over the course of an entire season at age 26 or even 27.

This is actually a pretty surprising portion of the goalies. Jordan Binnington was 26. Kaapo Kahkonen will be 26 next season. Jacob Markstrom was 27. Cam Talbot – 28!

Anyway. I get a lot of pushback on goalies, not just on Twitter or via email, but from guys in my fantasy hockey leagues. No – Spencer Knight is not taking over for Sergei Bobrovsky next year. Nor the season after. Maybe, at best, partway during that year. At best. And no, Wallstedt isn't a threat to Kahkonen in two years. Nor three. If he's truly elite, then he might be a threat in four years but by then if Kahkonen keeps doing what he's doing then he has an NHL job for good as a top starter. Ditto for Saros versus Askarov. Just try to keep things in perspective when you're talking about goalie values and development time. They take much longer than skaters.

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That Bryan Rust has 37 points so far this season isn't shocking. The fact that he's done it in just 27 games certainly is. What's more, he has 28 points in his last 15 games. That line with Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel is elite – with Rust and Guentzel now in their prime, and frankly Crosby at 34 tops 95% of the players out there in their prime. Crosby has 42 points in his last 30 games.

Not unexpected, but Evan Rodrigues is now at just three points in 16 games. Still, that early season run was enough to earn him a permanent spot on that third line. And with a healthy Pittsburgh lineup, that means Jeff Carter and Danton Heinen as his linemates. He got a brief sniff on the first line in place of Rust, but as linemates those three gave up three chances against and created zero chances for.

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With a goal Sunday, Nazem Kadri now has another seven-game points streak. It's the third time he's had a point seven games in a row this season – with the first two reaching 10 and 13 games. The entire season he has been held off the score sheet nine times – and just five times since October 28 (37 games). Yes, it's a contract year. And of course he won't repeat this. But the reality is – only about four players in the entire league could repeat something like this. He's on a 118-point pace! The fact is, if he slows to a 60-point pace the rest of the way, he ends the season with 88 points. And an unrestricted free agent who just had 88 points is going to sign for something north of $8M AAV. And if a team has an $8M player on their roster, you can damn well be certain that he will have the two best forwards on the team to play with and well over 2:30 in PP time each game. In that situation, Kadri is probably a safe bet to exceed 70 points in 2022-23, no matter what team he plays on.

Darcy Kuemper, a struggling goaltender that I didn't like as an acquisition for Colorado, is posting some fantastic numbers over the last nine games. Since January 15 he is 7-0-1, 1.40 GAA, 0.952 SV% and 77.8 QS%. He is the goalie for the best team in the league, and they are keeping the shots distant (he's fourth among starting goalies in terms of average shot distance faced).

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Since tallying 18 points in eight games, Joe Pavelski is now pointless in six, which is a season-low. Prior to this, he hadn't gone more than three games in a row without points.

Since December 8, Braden Holtby: 4-6-0, 3.44 GAA, 0.895 SV%. His GAA and SV% the two seasons combined prior to this one? 3.20 GAA and 0.896 SV%. He's the same goalie he's been over the last two seasons – his hot October is but a distant memory.

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Follow me on Twitter for details and the official 'launch' announcement of the new Goalie Post! Still no official launch yet, but finally great progress last week as I see in real time the list of final fixes shrink. It was up around 30 a week ago, and taking a quick look now as I write this – 13. Exciting stuff. And sorry for teasing it for what must be three or four months now. I should have learned by now that "a month" in programmer-speak is "four months".

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See you next Monday.