Twitter isn’t the only place where hockey players can be trending.

Too often, we look at hot/cold streaks from a perspective of points only. While there are some of those on this list, there are always other trends and streaks you should be aware of. You need to know who is doing much better than anticipated in categories such as hits, blocked shots, faceoffs.

It’s sometimes more than simply looking at a player’s season statistics. Looking at how they’ve been doing in a specific category over the past month or so can give you an idea of who may be more productive recently. 

Here are 10 players who are on streaks/trends of some type over the past 10-15 games.

10. William Nylander‘s plus/minus

Not all streaks can be helpful with fantasy hockey, as shown by Nylander’s plus/minus streak. In the last nine games, Nylander is a minus-11. This is one of the statistics that Leaf fans point to when they turn Nylander into a whipping boy (which is starting to happen again). However, in those nine games, Nylander has seven points, 26 shots, five power-play points and five blocked shots. As a fantasy owner, you accept the plus/minus trade-off as long as you are getting that type of production. It just sucks if you lose your matchup by a single plus/minus. 

9. Luke Kunin hitting

It’s an absolute shocker that Kunin has started throwing his body around as much as he does. In his first three seasons, he never had more than 1.79 hits per game, and that was in his rookie campaign. His hits per game actually dropped the next couple of seasons, before rebounding in a big way to 2.21 a year ago. Now this year, he’s upped his hitting game even more, up to 3.10 hits per game on the season. He has at least three hits in each of his last 15 games, and a total of 65 over that time (4.33 per game). That’s the highest among forwards and third-highest overall in that time frame. 

8. Calvin de Haan blocking shots

If you need blocked shots, de Haan is your man. Since January 8, de Haan has 63 blocked shots in 14 games, which is about 4.5 blocked shots per game. That is easily the highest among any players in that time frame. The next highest is teammate Connor Murphy, who has 44. No one else has even 40. What’s a nice bonus is that while he doesn’t produce much offense, he does contribute in other categories, including hits and lately, shots. 

7. Nick Paul shooting

Paul missed a few weeks of action, but it seems like his New Year’s resolution was to shoot the puck more. His career-high shots per game going into this season was 1.88 a year ago. In his first 32 games this campaign, he took 63 shots, which equals 1.97 shots per game. In 16 games since, he has 44 shots, 2.75 shots per game. What’s funny is that he took zero shots on Sunday, but had an excellent fantasy game (one assist, plus-one, five PIM, three hits, one blocked shot, 12 faceoff wins and a season-high 3:19 power-play time). 

6. Nic Dowd winning faceoffs

Some leagues count faceoff wins as a category, and it gives some extra value to centres (especially if you can slot them in as a winger). Dowd was never a big name in this category, but last season he started to become a dominant faceoff guy. His 432 faceoff wins were 21st in the league, and he won 56.3 percent of his draws, 15th-highest among regular faceoff guys. This year, he’s won 313, an average of 8.46 per game. Since January 22, he’s won at least eight in nine straight games, and has hit double digits five times. Since January 22, he’s third in the league in the faceoff wins, averaging 11.9 per game. 

5. Minnesota Wild’s power-play

On January 21, Minnesota went 0-for-two on the power play. At the time, they had the 25th-ranked power-play. The next night, they went two-for-five against the Hawks, which started a five-game streak where they had a power-play goal (the streak was snapped last week in their last game). Since January 22, the Wild has six power-play goals and is ranked tied for fourth in power-play efficiency. It also boosted some of the production from some underachievers. Spurgeon had three power-play points all season, but two during this streak. Kirill Kaprizov had eight power-play points, but now sits at 12. Mats Zuccarello had 10, but now sits at 14. Their four games this week are all against teams in the bottom half of the league for penalty killing, so don’t be surprised if the success continues for this week. 

4. Brandon Hagel‘s role on the top power-play unit

Although he was on the top power-play line for a couple of games during the season, he was never given the type of opportunity he is seeing now. In his first 33 games, Hagel averaged 1:13 power-play time per night, only 21.8 per cent of Chicago’s minutes. On January 13, he was promoted to the top line and has been there since. In the past 12 games, he is averaging 2:56 power-play time per night, about 72.6 per cent of Chicago’s power-play minutes. Although Hagel hasn’t been producing (just two power-play points in those 12 games), there’s no real danger of losing those minutes any time soon. The Hawks ranked 21st in the league in power-play percentage (18.1 per cent) before the Hagel promotion. Since then, they rank sixth at 27.3 per cent. For the curious, Hagel’s power-play time has come at the expense of Kirby Dach. 

3. Jon Gillies getting the starts

Anyone need a starting netminder? Thanks to the injury to Mackenzie Blackwood, Gillies has taken over the Devils net but is only owned in two per cent of Yahoo leagues and nine percent of Fantrax leagues. He’s had only one really bad start (allowing six goals in 40 minutes against the Leafs on February 1), and has been better than you might think since January 13. In that time, he is 3-6 with a 3.28 GAA and a .900 SV % (take out that Toronto game, and it’s a 2.83 GAA and a .919 SV%). Blackwood is on the IR with a heel injury, but as Brennan Des wrote in his injury report last week, Blackwood is looking for other treatment options, which could mean a longer-term absence. If that is the case, Gillies will be getting a lot more starts. 

2. Tyson Barrie‘s pointless streak 

Last week, Dobber’s ramblings was an update of defensemen who might score 80 points one day. Barrie was listed in the long-shot category thanks to his tough start to the season. Since Dobber wrote that column, Barrie has lost his power-play role to Evan Bouchard in the three games since. New coach Jay Woodcroft may choose to change that, but still went with Bouchard on the top power-play unit in his first game behind the bench. Barrie is now pointless in 11 games and is seeing a drop in ice time (he’s been under 20 minutes in six of the last eight games). Not good developments for Barrie owners. 

1. Brayden Schenn scoring goals

Schenn has had a tough season. He missed nine games in November with an upper-body injury, followed by another five games last month with another upper-body injury. He also missed two games for Covid protocols. All that led to five goals in his first 22 games. While he did have a shooting percentage of 15.6 percent, he only had 32 shots (1.45 shots per game). However, he now has seven goals (and 13 points) in his last eight games. His shooting percentage has skyrocketed to 35 per cent, but he’s also taken 20 shots (an average of 2.5 shots per game).