It has been a very turbulent season on the ice for Carolina forward Martin Necas. It looked like as if he was busting out in a big way recently with a six-points-in-four-games stretch, but that was over a week ago, and that's a lifetime at this stage of the NHL season. He found himself on a new line on Thursday:

A few different trios at morning skate for the #Canes:

Svechnikov – Aho – Jarvis
Domi – Trocheck – Teravainen
Martinook – Stepan – Necas

The Staal line remains in tact.

— Walt Ruff (@WaltRuff) April 7, 2022

This isn't an indictment of his future or anything, but it does speak to how he's struggled this year. Let's hope for a big turnaround next season.

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David Pastrnak looks like he'll miss Friday's game for Boston, but the team is saying he's still with them on the road trip. That is a good indication that whatever is ailing him is not serious.

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Lots of good news for Minnesota and their injured players:

#mnwild coach Dean Evason said Boldy, Dumba and Merrill are out tomorrow. Boldy and Merrill are getting close to a return, and Dumba is "more positive than we anticipated," Evason said. Dumba is still on the trip.

— Sarah McLellan (@sarah__mclellan) April 7, 2022

Having a full roster as they head into the postseason will be vital for this team. It also makes me wonder: what's Marco Rossi up to these days?

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The Kings got back one defenceman, which is a boost to them at this point:

The @LAKings have made the following player transactions:

Brendan Lemieux (F) and Matt Roy (D) have both been activated from injured reserve and are available for tonight's game.@Enterprise | #PlayersOnTheMove

— LA Kings PR (@LAKingsPR) April 7, 2022

There are hopefully more to come in the three weeks leading up to playoffs.

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It was a vintage performance from Igor Shesterking (if such a thing exists for a young star) as he saved all 30 shots he faced in a 3-0 shutout win by the Rangers over the Penguins. It wasn't Pittsburgh's best game, but 30-save shutouts are 30-save shutouts.

Frank Vatrano scored what ended up being the game-winning goal and that gives him 6 in 12 games with New York. Not a bad start to his tenure.

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Roman Josi had a trio of assists in Nashville's comeback win over Ottawa 3-2. He is now up to 87 points on the year, with 90 readily in sight and even 100 with another hot streak. He had a shot, a block, and four hits in a very stellar fantasy performance.

Tim Stützle missed this game, by the by, while Tyler Ennis hit the IR.

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New Jersey lost 7-4 to Montreal because the Devils refuse to play a normal hockey game anymore. Since MacKenzie Blackwood's last start in the middle of January, they are 10-22-1. They have allowed at least six goals in 6 of 12 games going back to mid-March. Both Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield had a goal and an assist in this one, with Christian Dvorak

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As mentioned in yesterday's Ramblings, there are lots of articles up around the site that can help with fantasy playoffs. This is crunch time for fantasy leagues of all shapes and sizes, so getting the right guys off the waiver wire can be the difference between a 1^st-place and a 3^rd-place finish. Jamie Molloy covered cap league options yesterday.

For this reason, I want to take some time going through some players/situations to look towards next week (April 11-17). Of course, our 'Looking Ahead' column from Andrew Santillo does a very good job of this, but I just want to add my two cents because it's such a critical time of year. With that in mind, let's look to next week and see what we can find. As many others do, I will be using Dobber's Schedule Planner over among our Frozen Tools for help with this.  

Montreal and Winnipeg

The only two teams in the league to play on the three of the four off days (M-W-F-Su) are the Canadiens and the Jets. That is both a blessing, and not. It can be a blessing because Montreal is loaded with players that are sure to be on the waiver wire, outside of the top line. It can also be a curse because who, really, has much fantasy value on the Jets outside of the guys that are likely owned already? We're talking the likes of Adam Lowry or Evgeny Svechnikov. Well, let's look into all this.

There is Rem Pitlick to leer at. He has been on Montreal's top line of late which means he is likely owned in a lot of leagues. But if he's not, he's been skating over 19 minutes across the last couple weeks and is even getting secondary power-play time. He doesn't bring much in peripherals but with four games, and three on off-days, the opportunity for meaningful production is there.

Justin Barron has been skating 19 minutes a night as well of late, and also running the second power-play unit. He does bring something in peripherals, or at least he has in his brief stint with Montreal, posting 13 shots in 5 games. Not that Montreal's second power play should be anything special, but again, lots of games on off-days and that is worth a lot this coming week.

Lastly, we should mention Mike Hoffman. He's on a brutal cold streak right now, having failed to score on his last 32 shots spanning 14 games. But he's on the team's 5-forward top PP unit and still gets meaningful minutes. If that shooting percentage can turn itself around even for a week or two, there's reasonable upside for a waiver addition.

As mentioned with the Jets, there isn't much for fantasy value outside the top guys. We could look at Zach Sanford or Adam Lowry for hits, but that's about either will bring. The latter over the former, for me, given the stability of his role, even if it's not 18 minutes a night.

Philadelphia and NY Islanders

Here we have two teams that fit the following criteria: at least four games next week with two of them coming on the typical off-days of M-W-F-Su. Again, we find ourselves with two more non-playoff teams, but luckily for us, these two might have some more fantasy value to mine than the ones named above. Let's start with the Islanders.

It is a shame how New York started the season because they would have thrown a fun wrinkle into the postseason. Regardless, the team does like to spread out ice time with eight forwards skating between 15-18 minutes over the last couple weeks. Oddly enough, Jean-Gabriel Pageau leads them in ice time and is also getting prime power-play minutes. He may have been scooped after his four-point game recently but it's worth checking anyway.

Another guy with a big outburst recently was Kyle Palmieri. He's not skating as much as Pageau, but he is over 16 minutes in three straight games and trails only Anders Lee in shot rate per minute over the last couple weeks. He doesn't get a lot of PPTOI as he's on the secondary unit, but he can bring decent peripherals for both shots and hits, and that means something when a guy has four games in a week.

Moving over to the Flyers, uh, Owen Tippett has 11 shots and 11 hits in his last five games (heading into Thursday night's action). He had a stretch like this back in Florida but even on a team that is struggling in all facets, it speaks to the value he brings even if he doesn't score. His TOI is a concern, but we should note it has climbed every game for five straight games.

Can I interest anyone in a gently-used Travis Sanheim? He has had some huge-minute games of late and though he doesn't get power-play time, can contribute on the scoreboard as well. He doesn't hit so much as block shots, but he can also land 1.5-2 shots per game as well. There's a little bit of everything to help stabilize peripherals on off-days.

For a deeper pull, there is defenceman Ronnie Attard. The 2019 third-round pick has a few games under his belt now and is getting secondary power-play time. He won't get much in the way of minutes, which brings its own concerns, but anyone needing desperate PP opportunity in deep leagues can't really be picky.

From here, it gets a bit dicier. There are 20 teams that play three games, and the vast majority of them play T-Th-Sa. Only 2 of those 20 teams plays two of their three games on the off-days: Columbus and Florida. Let's talk about those squads.

For starters, Columbus doesn't really have a hard schedule. They're at home to Montreal, then a back-to-back on the road in Los Angeles and Anaheim. They do change the power-play units somewhat frequently, but Gustav Nyquist has been seeing top PP minutes and is skating more per game over the last two weeks than any Jackets forward outside the top line.

Depth down the middle isn't too hard to find but Cole Sillinger has 12 hits in his last 7 games going back two weeks, skating just under 15 minutes a night. His ice time has increased since the All-Star break, he's been getting secondary PP minutes (sometimes on the top unit), and can bring reasonable peripherals.

As for Florida, well, it's not hard. The criteria for grabbing a Panthers skater off the wire is "are they healthy?" That goes doubly when we look at the schedule: at home to Anaheim and Winnipeg, then on the road in Detroit. It all depends on what the fantasy owner needs, though I'm guessing in many leagues, even guys like Anton Lundell, Mason Marchment, and Gustav Forsling have been scooped.

Finally, to the dregs. Here we get to teams that have three games and have only one of those games on a lighter schedule. We'll go through these teams quickly.

Anaheim – On the road in Florida and Tampa Bay before a Sunday matchup at home with Columbus. Might be worth waiting until the weekend to grab whatever players you may need because it's unlikely they'll be used during the week.

Colorado – A trio of home games here: Los Angeles, New Jersey, Carolina. Not really a murderers' row but not necessarily a cakewalk. With Nazem Kadri and Gabriel Landeskog both injured, and Valeri Nichushkin missing games, there is suddenly a lot of interest for both J.T. Compher and Artturi Lehkonen. Of the two, Lehkonen provides better peripherals so he's the first guy to grab.

Los Angeles and NY Rangers – These teams have relatively similar schedules, with a B2B on Tuesday-Wednesday, followed by a soft home game on Saturday (Columbus and Detroit, respectively). All the top guys from the Rangers are gone and they rely a lot on their power play. Conversely, there are basically three lines of moderate value from the Kings. He might be gone already, but Trevor Moore has 30 shots on goal in his last 7 games, going back two weeks, and is regularly skating 16-19 minutes a night. For a deeper option, Gabriel Vilardi has some secondary PP time going and has multiple SOGs in five straight contests.

Oh, it wouldn't hurt to check and see if Ryan Strome was dropped because of his injury and then forgotten about. It's unlikely, but it only takes a few seconds to check. Otherwise, K'Andre Miller is a guy to look to for peripherals on the blue line.

Seattle – The last team to talk about is for very good reasons. This is one of the worst offensive environments in the league and they start the week with a road back-to-back in Calgary and Winnipeg. They finish the week with a home game on Saturday against New Jersey. The only reason to grab anyone is for that Wednesday game in Winnipeg, and if you're in a league with weekly pickup limits, well, this really is scraping the bottom. Ryan Donato got up to 17 minutes in his last game, skating on the top line. This isn't a team where guys get a lot of minutes, so this is about it, unless Jordan Eberle or Yanni Gourde are available.