After missing a couple games due to illness, Jordan Kyrou was back in the lineup for St. Louis on Monday night. This is a big deal for the Blues because while they have good forward depth, the third line has been struggling at times over the last month. He helps stabilize that line a bit, or at least helps boost their offensive profile. Good news all around for fantasy owners and the Blues.

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A small update on Jason Zucker:

It was just a terrible break for the guy as he had just returned from injury. When there is a more solid update to provide, we will pass it along.

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Jake Muzzin looks to be on his way back for the Leafs, with his return coming as soon as Tuesday night. This is a big deal for them as Muzzin returning healthy and playing like he did right up until this season would be huge for Toronto. Let's not forget that he had not been having a good 2021-22 season, though, and if he can't regain his form, this may not help that much.  

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Bowen Byram was recalled by Colorado following a brief AHL stint. It seems very good news for him as there have been no setbacks since returning from his concussion problems. Those kinds of issues are always terrifying for a player no matter their age, but to see such a young player having to go through it is awful. Let's hope there are no more issues at the NHL level and this kid can reach his full potential. It really would be nice to see him have a monster playoff performance.  

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Every month I like to take part of a Ramblings and review the previous month-ish of NHL action. There are many reasons to do this, but one is to see if there are any trends across the league that we need to note. It could be changes in ice time, deployment, shot rate, or a host of other issues (or some combination thereof). Noticing these trends and changes can help inform the future, and there are only four weeks of NHL action left. It is crunch time in fantasy leagues, and I wanted to take today to talk about ice-time changes.

One thing that struck me last month was a decline in ice time basically across the board for top-end forwards. Some lost more than others, some actually gained ice time, but by-and-large, many top forwards lost significant ice time last month. This is going to be a lengthy list, but here are some very notable names that lost at least one minute of TOI last month (data from Natural Stat Trick, times are rounded, and this is at all strengths):

• Alex Ovechkin (-2:40)
• Phil Kessel (-2:25)
• Ondrej Palat (-2:21)
• Mikael Granlund (-2:20)
• Alex Tuch (-2:12)
• Jesse Puljujarvi (-2:10)
• Mathew Barzal (-2:02)
• Jamie Benn (-1:58)
• Bo Horvat (-1:49)
• Nikolaj Ehlers (-1:27)
• Filip Forsberg (-1:26)
• Jordan Eberle (-1:18)
• Evgeny Kuznetsov (-1:14)
• Chris Kreider (-1:10)
• David Pastrnak (-1:09)
• Tom Wilson (-1:07)
• Ryan Nugent-Hopkins (-1:00)

That is just a small sampling for guys who've seen big TOI losses of late. The thing is, that list doesn't even do justice to a lot of other players that saw TOI declines start earlier than March. For example, Johnny Gaudreau lost about 50 seconds from before/after the All-Star break, while his centre Elias Lindholm was closer to 1:10 in TOI losses.

Why this happened probably depends a lot on which team we're talking about. Some of the Edmonton guys got stuffed down the lineup when Jay Woodcroft showed up so they could throw three scoring lines at the opposition, while Washington got healthy and didn't need to use Ovechkin and co. as much as they had in the first half of the season. I do wonder about some spots like Buffalo and Seattle, teams that have been out of the playoff race for months. There is something to be said about wanting to give younger guys a bigger role when games don't really matter, if nothing else than to see what some of the young guys have to offer. There is always a balance on these non-playoff teams of coaches trying to win today and management wanting to get a look to the future.

Things like TOI drops are very important to note for your fantasy leagues. Buffalo seems to want to give their depth lines a bigger role, the Islanders are rolling three lines despite not having a single rookie among their forwards, while Nashville is giving more ice time to their second and third lines, though Granlund's decline was a result of being moved to the second line.

When looking at the other end, we do see a lot of younger players having picked up a lot of ice time last month. Inside the top-20 for largest TOI increases in March are guys like Jack Roslovic (injury to Boone Jenner), Dylan Strome (locked on the Patrick Kane–Alex DeBrincat line), Cole Caufield (new coach), Owen Tippett (traded), Troy Terry and Trevor Zegras (who else is there in Anaheim, anyway?), and Jack Hughes and Yegor Sharangovich. Then there are guys that just received a new role for various reasons: Rem Pitlick joining Montreal, Kevin Hayes being Philadelphia's only natural centre left (or close to it), Valeri Nichushkin taking Gabriel Landeskog's minutes, Ryan McLeod getting some top-6 time for Edmonton, and the same being said of guys like Michael Amadio and Jordan Martinook.

It did strike me as funny that New Jersey, aside from Sharangovich/Hughes mentioned earlier, had a lot of forwards pick up a lot of ice time. They also had Dawson Mercer, Jesper Bratt, and Nico Hischier all add at least two minutes to their profile. The Devils certainly weren't making a playoff push, so it seemed as if they were genuinely trying to win games while also giving their young stars more ice time. It's a nice balance to strike.

The last four weeks of the season are going to be a rollercoaster. The East is basically set while the West only has a few teams in genuine striking distance for the two Wild Card playoff spots. We could see a lot of younger players getting bigger roles across the league, and that has wide-ranging implications from different players having meaningful fantasy value, to established guys having their profiles hurt by a reciprocal loss in TOI.

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Much earlier in the season, I talked about Best Ball leagues. In as few words as possible, Best Ball leagues are where fantasy owners draft their team before the season, and that's it. No setting lineups, no trades, and no waiver wires. A certain percentage of their players' season-long fantasy tallies apply to the final score – say, half of the skaters on a roster and 1 out of 3 goalies drafted – and then whoever has the most points, wins.

Of course, there are variations of this. There are leagues that have fantasy playoffs (like head-to-head leagues), there are leagues that play through to the end, and there are leagues that reset so all playoff teams get a fresh start with four weeks left. Whatever the case, it can be a lot of fun, and is certainly good draft practice anyhow.

Personally, not a great best ball year for me. I did two standard best ball leagues and two of the playoff variety over on Underdog Fantasy. For the former, I have one league where I'm out of contention and another where I'm just off the podium. Not bad, considering one of those teams has three centres of Elias Pettersson, Sam Bennett, and Joel Eriksson Ek. For the playoff-variety formats, you needed to finish top-2 in your individual league, then get moved to a larger pool with all the other top-2 finishers to create smaller individual leagues that would eventually end up with just a single winner by the end.

I had two teams move on to that larger pool with the other top-2 finishers. One team lost Drew Doughty and Aaron Ekblad to injury, while the other team was anchored by Auston Matthews, and I lost him for two games to suspension. Not that he would have won it for me, but there was no hope once all those guys left my lineups.

That is the nature of these types of leagues. You can be having a great season for months and then a couple injuries and a suspension later, and you're done in seven days. That is why some people really don't like head-to-head leagues, and I get that. I also find it a bit realistic, because an NHL team that loses its number-1 centre and their top defence pair as they're heading into playoffs is also unlikely to be successful. A bit of realism never hurt.

Despite not having a great year, if I can reach the podium in one of the two full-season leagues I'm in, we'll come out with a small profit. Again, it can be frustrating because you can't protect your team if injuries hit, but it's also a lot of fun to do with friends and is good draft practice.

For anyone wanting to check out best ball playoff formats, go visit Underdog Fantasy. They are not paying me or this site to say this, I just think they have a good product that is fun for NHL fans. For anyone that is on FanTrax for season-long leagues, I believe they have best ball formats over there as well.