It makes no sense for the Wild to be trading Kevin Fiala, who scored his 13^th goal last night… in his last 19 games. Fiala is on fire, and is finally on pace for a 70-point season after a slow start. All of his underlying numbers are extremely consistent with previous years. On top of that, some players on the shorter side don't fully hit their stride until game 400, Fiala just hit game 385, and may be looking at hitting career highs in the next season or two.

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If you want a cheap piece of the powerhouse that is the Florida Panthers' offence, Maxim Mamin has been playing his even strength shifts alongside Aleksander Barkov and Carter Verhaeghe. If Mason Marchment can start potting six points in a game, we can definitely see a few extra points trickle over Mamin's way. He has two points in his last four games.

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With the St. Louis Blues chugging along, carried by their offence (and I guess Ville Husso as well), no one has really looked under the hood at a couple of the worrying marks for the team. Specifically, David Perron and Ryan O'Reilly have been disappointing this season to say the least. The two are on pace for their worst seasons in the last five years (eight for O'Reilly), and they aren't getting any younger. I have found for centres, you can tell when their offence is going to drop off (or if it is going to stay depressed) by looking at their faceoff percentage. ROR is a historically dominant faceoff man, and this year he has still been good, but his win percentage at the dot is also lower, the lowest it has been in… eight years. Coincidence?

I think moving forward we need to look at the 31-year-old O'Reilly as a 55 point forward, without exceptional peripherals, though he still wins 900+ faceoffs, for those of you who count those. Perron is a free agent this summer, and where he signs will affect his value, but conservatively we need to look at him as a soon-to-be 34-year-old who saw his point totals crater from an 85-point-pace to a 53-point-pace. Fortunately, he gets to pick his own situation, and if he goes back up above 18:30 minutes per game (where he has been the last two years) then his scoring could rebound. On the Blues, he's currently playing third line minutes (under 17 per game), and seeing fewer starts in the offensive zone.

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I had a friend ask me to dive into Alex Ovechkin's race towards the goal scoring crown. It's very interesting trying to compare Ovechkin to Gretzky, as there are just so many differences between them, despite the fact they are two of the greatest goal scorers of all time. Gretzky was a big volume scorer (both goals and assists) in his prime years, but slowed down – especially in the goal column – in his later years. His first year under a point-per-game was at age 37, and he retired right after that season. Ovechkin on the other hand, is showing no signs of slowing down, scoring at a similar rate through nearly his whole career. His assist totals have taken a bit of a dive in recent years, but that's to be expected. Actually, with Gretzky thought of as more of a passer, and Ovechkin as more of a scorer, it's not surprising that the two of them saw their top skill continue through their later years while their other talents faded a little (assists for Ovechkin and goals for Gretzky).

As mentioned above, Gretzky retired at the age of 38, and while Ovechkin does appear to have a lot left in the tank, he is already 36, and will be 37 for the start of next season. Currently sitting 113 goals behind Wayne for the all-time record, there is some catching up to do. Even if Ovie was to keep his current pace of close to 50 goals per season, he would need to finish this year healthy, and play another two full seasons to get within range of the all-time mark.

To compare the greats based on their production at various stages of their careers, I find it makes a little more sense to look at Gretzky's assist production when then trying to extrapolate for Ovechkin's future goal production. After the age of 30, Gretzky's assist numbers fell down a notch, and then again around age 35/36 they dropped again. For Ovechkin, he saw a decline at age 30, but he managed to rebound and found a new way to produce and keep scoring. I haven't taken the time to dive into the details, but anecdotally, Ovie has become much more dynamic since then, scoring in new ways (while also keeping his title as king of the power play one-timer).

Ovechkin then dipped again last year (age 35), but this season – despite his primary running mate Nick Backstrom missing the first half of the season with an injury – Ovie has seen his goal scoring rebound again to a 50-goal pace. He's finding ways to keep the numbers up, regardless of his age. It's promising to see, and it makes it more realistic that he could come close to (and maybe even pass) Gretzky's record by the end of his 38-year-old campaign.

With his contract expiring this offseason, Ovechkin was projected at an AAV of $9.75 million by my numbers, so when he signed a five year extension with a $9.5 million AAV, it signalled that he wasn’t going anywhere, and that he was going to stick around until he had broken the goal scoring record. Five years may be longer than necessary, but players have retired before the end of contracts before, and both sides could always re-assess the fit in a few years.

I have learned to stop betting against Ovie, so I do think he passes Gretzky's record, but I also think that it will take him into his 39^th year to do it.

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Looking at other older players, we are seeing Joe Pavelski thrive as a scorer, Patrice Bergeron leading the Selke conversation again, and a 44-year-old Zdeno Chara who continues to defy time. If you look at the list of 35+ year-olds signed to NHL contracts right now, there are plenty who are still thriving, and they have at least one special skill that has kept them relevant. Those skills, be it Pavelski's net-front abilities, Blake Wheeler's passing, or Marc-Andre Fleury's poise and reactions, are ones that can keep a player from dropping off when their physical gifts aren't quite able to keep up with the 25 year olds. There are unfortunately tons of players who are either too run down, or just completely unable to keep up with the game that have already faded out by 35. Players like Alex Radulov, Patrick Hornqvist, and Anton Khudobin are less able to keep up, and they don't have one or two high-end skills to keep them as relevant.

As an owner of Anze Kopitar, Brad Marchand, Patrick Kane, and Roman Josi across a few leagues, I'm not too worried about what the next few years will bring for them. However, a few players like T.J. Oshie, Pavel Francouz, and Nazem Kadri are guys who may feel a bit more of a steep drop off. Knowing what to look for makes a difference when you're coming up to the trade deadline, and managing who you can keep, and which players you should be going after.

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Ilya Lyubushkin made his Maple Leafs' debut, skating 15 minutes in which he only recorded one hit. He is a player that usually racks up plenty in the truculence categories, and it might take a few games for him to find his rhythm in the systems.

Some other underrated peripheral stuffers around the league:

Michael Pezzetta – Over two PIMs per game, and 44 in 14 games since Christmas. He just needs to stick in the lineup.

Jeremy Lauzon – Underrated hits monster, and should see a minutes bump when Mark Giordano gets moved at the deadline.

Alexander Romanov – One of the best up-and-coming stat stuffers on defence, his hit numbers are gaudy, and his block rate is improving too, with over two per game since mid-December.

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Thomas Chabot (just turned 25) recently returned from an injury to stuff the stat sheet as well, with two goals, an assist, and six shots. He has a shot in 21 straight games now, and in that same stretch there are as many six shot games as there are one shot games. On top of that he's averaging about 1.5 hits and blocks to really round out the fantasy production.

Two weeks ago Dobber had Chabot on his list of defencemen who could reach 80 points in a season, while another month before that, Rick Roos was praising Chabot and his upside, and pegging him to increase his production in the second half. As Ottawa has more games remaining than most of the rest of the NHL, he makes a great target for you. 

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For any of those weird leagues where you can sign/draft guys before they're drafted into the NHL, he's a name to put a tab on.

Filip Ekberg, remember that name. He's making noise in the Swedish U18 league as a 14-year-old.

While it's hard enough for a player born in 2007 to even get ice-time against top-tier U18 competition, Filip has managed to score 28 points during his 32 appearances.#HockeyTwitter

— Swedish Prospects (@ProspectsSE) February 18, 2022

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Find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.

Cheers!