It feels to me like Jack Eichel made his Golden Knights debut just three days ago, but maybe that's because I unfortunately don't own him in any of my leagues. The 25-year-old is up to seven points in 10 games thus far, and that's just while he gets his legs back under him. If you're looking for a sing though that he is feeling more comfortable, then you need only look at his bread and butter which is his shooting volume. Eichel only put two pucks on net total across his first two games, but in the eight since then he has been below four only once (a three-shot game in his fourth game of the campaign). He was up to a season-high six last night, and if it wasn't for a fantastic night by Carter Hart, Eichel could have been up to a point-per-game by now.

Hart has been rounding into form of late has been, in spite of the team in front of him still looking helpless, and possibly losing even more pieces due to a trade deadline sell-off. Hart has quality starts in three of his last four games, and seven of his last 11, with only one really bad start thrown in the mix. The volume is there too with over 30 shots against per game, which should only go up from now to the end of the year.

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In the goaltending duel between Connor Hellebuyck and Andrei Vasilevskiy, they pair allowed six goals combined in the first period, but settled down to not allow a single goal in the second period… before the floodgates opened again in the third. So much for the long-change creating offence.

If you're in a keeper league and not gunning for a championship this year, why not then now might be the time to look into buying Hellebuyck. It's one of the worst kept secrets in terms of statistical patterns/anomalies, but Hellebuyck seems to alternate good years and bad. It has been going on all the way back to when he entered the league in 2015, so we had better start using that knowledge to our advantage.

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Also worth mentioning that unvaxxed Bert will need to sit for three games as Wings tour thru western Canada later this week/next week. So Vrana could get his audition on the top line sooner rather than later.

— Ian Gooding (@Ian_Gooding) March 7, 2022

Jakub Vrana did what he does best and scored a goal in under 16 minutes of ice time. Hopefully in Detroit that number continues to rise as he gets back up to speed.  

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The Ottawa Senators had one of their centremen return from a lengthy injury layoff, and he scored in his first game back while centring the top line between Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle. He has gone on to put up five points in six games, with 13 shots and seven hits to boot. No, I'm not talking about Josh Norris, I'm talking about Colin White.  

White missed half of last season, and all but those six games this year, but he is back now and getting more comfortable by the game. He's lining up with Zach Sanford and Nick Paul now that Norris has also returned, but he is getting some solid powerplay minutes and seems to be making the best of his offensive opportunities with three points with the man advantage thus far. Players often take a while to get back up to full speed after lengthy injury layoffs, so he may just continue to improve over the rest of the season.

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After starting the year off slowly, Nathan MacKinnon has picked up to even above his usual self, as he is now pacing for his best per-game rates of his career. He's up to 4.9 shots per game, 0.9 hits per game, 0.8 blocks per game, and 1.4 points per game. All career highs. MacKinnon's shooting percentage is also the lowest it has been since Mikko Rantanen's rookie season, so there may even be some room for improvement.

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One player who has broken out this year but that you may think is going to be over-valued going into drafts next season is Jesper Bratt. However, I think it would be pretty tough to overrate him at this point. We all know Jack Hughes has 100-point upside, and could be hitting 90+ next season as long as he's healthy, but it also wouldn't surprise me to see Bratt right there with him at 90 points assuming the linemates stick together and can make it through a full season. Bratt's impacts on the game are just ridiculous right now. Check out the entire thread of the tweet below if you want to see how it lines up with Connor McDavid.

Still can't get over this graph. I'm not sure I've ever seen one this drastic before. https://t.co/7QVtJ1EHDv

— CJ Turtoro (@CJTDevil) March 7, 2022

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Auston Matthews is up to 36 goals in his last 37 games, and has taken a big lead in the Rocket Richard race. That trophy is his to lose for the foreseeable future, but there is some worthy competition. Leon Draisaitl and Chris Kreider, are currently tied for second behind Matthews in the goal race, but it's Kyle Connor down in fifth who intrigues me the most. Connor has excellent speed, hands, and shot, and I think if you're putting money on anyone but Matthews to lead the league in goals over the next few seasons, it has to be Kyle Connor.

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Jared McCann signed a five-year extension with a cap hit of $5 million per season. That's exactly what I had him penciled in for in the one cap league where I own him. My projections had him at a $5.45 million cap hit, so the number and term looks to make sense for both sides. He hasn't quite kept up with his numbers from last season, but that's not too surprising with how Seattle struggled out of the gate. Hopefully the team can reset a little in the offseason, and insulate McCann with a few other weapons up front.

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Conor Sheary is up to four goals and six points in his last four games. He's up to a 50-point pace for the first time since his sophomore season on Crosby's wing, and coincidentally he just passed his breakout threshold earlier in the year. It may be strange for us to think of a 29-year-old middle-six winger hitting another gear at this point, but he could easily be a 50-point winger moving forward.

The Capitals have two games left this week (including one today) and play four games next week as well. If you need a shorter-term streamer, then he's probably available, though don't expect anything special in the peripheral categories.

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Two players who were once traded for each other because they needed a change of scenery, Nick Schmaltz and Dylan Strome now can't stop scoring. Both had been written off by fantasy owners in recent years (they couldn't be given away in my fantasy leagues, and some owners outright dropped them – even in dynasty setups), but they are now rewarding patient GMs with two of the hottest players at the moment. Strome has racked up nine points in his last four games, and is centring Alex DeBrincat and Patrick Kane. Strome's underlying stats are still a little low, so this is really just a whole ton of positive regression all at once.

On Schmaltz's side, he has 30 points in his last 20 games, but his metrics are now starting to look like they're ready to burst. A PDO of 1030, a 5on5 shooting percentage of 13%, a personal shooting percentage of 24%(!!), and doing so averaging under 17 minutes of ice time per game all just screams regression. It may be obvious that you're trying to sell high after 10 points in his last two games, but it doesn't hurt to go fishing and see what you can net for him.

Speaking of Coyotes that GMs were starting to write off:

Barrett Hayton had never posted more than one assist in a game in his previous 67 NHL games.
Quantum leap to 4 tonight (so far). https://t.co/UFzqhGJ0Fm

— Craig Morgan (@CraigSMorgan) March 9, 2022

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We're coming up on the 90-day mark from when half of the NHL seemed to appear on the Covid list. What that means is that under the new regulations, all of those players that tested positive back around the holidays are soon to have to require testing again for entrance into the United States. As a result, we may see another spike in Covid positives as un-symptomatic players get screened out again. Make sure you have your IR as cleaned out as you can manage, just in case we see a spike and it seems to hit your roster a little harder.

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Since when did Datsyuk make a comeback with the Rangers?

It is Mika March after all. pic.twitter.com/Mcmb1eWyIm

— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) March 9, 2022

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

Cheers!