One bit of NHL news that came out Monday was that the Winnipeg Jets would not be bringing back the interim coaching staff that took over for Paul Maurice. At least, they weren't extended immediately. Dave Lowry will be part of the coaching search, but my guess is if they wanted him to be the guy for the next few years, he'd have a contract in hand.

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Antti Raanta got the start for Carolina with Frederik Andersen injured, and his first-ever playoff start went as smooth as imaginable. He saved 35 of 36 – notably a tough stretch save on Jake DeBrusk in the first period that could have given Boston an early lead – and the Hurricanes took a 1-0 series lead with a 5-1 win. Vincent Trocheck had a pair of points in the third period to give him a goal and an assist on the evening.

Seth Jarvis also had a goal and an assist, scoring the first goal of the game about 36 minutes in, and assisting on the empty-netter from Andrei Svechnikov.

Boston didn't really play poorly, sometimes you just have to give it up for the goalie. A couple key turnovers didn't help the Bruins, either.

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It was a tale of two important items in the Toronto-Tampa Bay game that led to the Leafs earning a dominant 5-0 win. First, a completely hapless Lightning power play – they had five opportunities including a full 5-minute man advantage thanks to an awful hit from Kyle Clifford – and looked even just average on only their last one. Credit to Toronto's penalty kill, as they were relentless with their pressure, but Tampa will be home shortly if they let 10+ minutes of PP time per game slide while barely looking dangerous.

The second key item was Toronto's top line. Auston Matthews had two goals and an assist while Mitch Marner had a goal and two assists for huge nights. The combination of that Toronto top line rolling over Tampa's with the Leafs PK looking elite made this one a laugher by the end of it.

Ondrej Kase had a pair of assists and three shots as he was inserted in the lineup with Michael Bunting still injured. A good start to the postseason for him.

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The NHL playoffs have begun but now is a good time to start reflecting on the 2021-22 regular season. Playoff fantasy rosters are generally locked and news items dwindle with the lack of player signings, trades, injuries, or anything else we usually get from October-April. We will be looking at the final five weeks of the season to see who did well, why they did well, and whether it could lead to big things five months from now. We'll be getting a lot of information either from our Frozen Tools or from Natural Stat Trick and we are going to avoid players that are usually at the top of these lists. That means no Nikita Kucherov, or Connor McDavid, or Jonathan Huberdeau, and so on.

Matt Boldy

Funnily enough, he finished third among Minnesota skaters in points per 60 minutes at all strengths in our timeframe, behind Kirill Kaprizov and Kevin Fiala. All three finished in the top-20 and Boldy posted 15 points in 15 games. He also did that skating 14 minutes a game. Now, a lot of it was secondary assists (half of his helpers were secondary) but even taking half of those particular assists away leads to a 66-point/82-game pace. Fun fact: from Evolving Hockey, Boldy finished fifth among all skaters in wins above replacement per minute this year. The four guys ahead of him include Mason Marchment (we'll get to him later), the Matthews/Bunting top-line Leafs duo, and Johnny Gaudreau. It is just a half-season sample, but the Wild could have another superstar on their hands.

Victor Olofsson

Over his final 17 games, Olofsson had 8 goals and 19 points, skating under 15 minutes a game. There has been lots of talk about his wrist injury and how he didn't feel right until the final couple months of the season. Looking at his season's production, it makes sense. A lot of it is because he shot over 20% in that stretch but again, like Boldy, if we cut that goal production in half, he still paces for well over 60 points per 82 games (actually, over 70). I also want to mention that Olofsson and Dylan Cozens showed good chemistry down the stretch, even if Olofsson finished the season alongside Tage Thompson. One of the big weaknesses Buffalo has had for several years now is not having a competent second scoring line. They may have found one, and that changes a lot for this team. What about when Jack Quinn shows up? A genuinely exciting time for this franchise.

Robert Thomas

Like a proud papa, it's always nice to see a player that we had pegged for success finally break out. I talked about Thomas a week ago (as I did Boldy and the next guy on our list) so we won't go super in-depth here. What was applicable for his full season was largely applicable for his final month-ish of the campaign. By the same token, he posted a massive 27 points in his final 18 games and even if we cut his shooting percentage in half, he's still well over a point per game. He is rounding into one of the game's best distributors and with most of their forwards returning next year, he could be in for a big 2022-23. Some more shots would be nice.

Mason Marchment

Again, we talked about Marchment recently so we won't dig in too deep here. But I did want to point out that over his final five weeks, he led the league in high-danger shot attempts per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, and it wasn't even close – he generated 15% more high-danger shot attempts per minute than the second-place forward (a guy we'll talk about next). On the season, he finished 7^th in the league in this regard, just ahead of Timo Meier. He also had an impressive stint in the shortened 2021 campaign so this may not be a mirage. The only thing holding back Marchment from significant fantasy success seems to be his role; the lack of PP TOI is an ongoing issue. On the plus side, he brings enough elsewhere to be valuable in our fantasy game.

Nicolas Roy

The guy that finished just behind Marchment in high-danger shot attempts over the final five weeks was Vegas forward Nicolas Roy. The problem for his production is that he shot 5.6%, and he only posted 6 points in 14 games as a result. He did get over 16 minutes a game on the season, a career-high, and would have likely cracked the 40-point mark had he played a full season. Maybe not monster numbers, but this is a guy that could flirt with two shots/one hit per game next year, and with incoming Vegas cap crunch, he could be in line for a full-time top-6 role. We'll have to see how things shake out over the coming months, but regular top-6 minutes could mean solid fantasy value for cheap come draft season.

Conor Garland

This particular Vancouver top-6 winger finished top-10 in the league over the final five weeks in assists per minute. We don't typically think of Garland as an assist machine – he had just two more helpers than goals in his Arizona career – but he finished the season with 5 goals and 12 assists in his final 17 games. He performed extremely well lining up next to J.T. Miller, as they controlled nearly 60% of the expected goals in those 17 games, scoring 4.8 goals per 60 minutes. Now, keeping that goal pace for an entire season is nearly impossible, but even dropping that by 25% would mean an elite scoring rate, at a reasonable shooting percentage for the line. He had very stout shot rates for his minutes – over 200 shots playing under 16:30 a night – so he doesn't need PP minutes for fantasy value. It would take him to the next level, but he is eminently capable of a 25-goal, 35-assist season next year without that PP ice time.

Jeff Petry

Petry's season, and the Montreal season in general, as been discussed ad nauseam both here and elsewhere. It's clear the team wasn't buying into Ducharme's system, or not executing, or likely a bit of both. Whatever the reason(s), the team went from 30^th in scoring at 5-on-5 under Ducharme to 12^th under Martin St. Louis. Petry was a big beneficiary of the team's turnaround, and it left him top-5 in defence scoring per minute at 5-on-5 down the stretch. (Oddly enough, teammate Chris Wideman was first. Sure!) Regardless, Petry had 21 points in 30 games under St. Louis, and 11 points in his final 11 contests. A full offseason with the team getting healthy could mean a lot for Petry's fantasy value next year, supposing he returns for Montreal, which is an open question at this point.

Evan Bouchard

One thing that has been discussed often with Bouchard is how often he shoots. That was something brought up in that article linked in the Thomas section, and Bouchard had a massive surge in shot rate to end the season: first among all defencemen over the final five weeks at 5-on-5. There was a bigger gap between him and second place (Gustav Forsling) than there was between Forsling and sixth place (Petry). The team was break-even by expected goals in that stretch with Bouchard on the ice, but great goaltending and this team's offence meant a great goal differential. There is nothing wrong with shooting a lot, in particular, but they need to be good shots, and despite being the leader in shot rate, he finished outside the top-80 blue liners in high-danger shot attempts. Shooting for a tip or rebound is fine, but if you're doing that most of the time, those low-danger shots are basically turnovers. Finding the right balance is tough to do, and he's still a very young player. I do think he's one of the best puck-movers under 25 years old in the league and there is a lot of good to come. Being a bit more judicious will come with experience.

Jamie Drysdale

Speaking of dangerous shots, over the span of games we've been discussing, Drysdale finished 4^th among all blue liners, behind Forsling, Shea Theodore, and Dougie Hamilton by individual expected goals rate (pretty good company). That pushed him nearly into the 85^th percentile of rearguards, a wonderful finish to what was a good rookie campaign. His problem is he shot under 3% in those games, leading to 1 goal in 15 contests. It is hard for defencemen to sustain high shooting percentages, and he's a rookie, so there's not much cause for concern here. Anaheim is a young team that will go through growing pains for a couple years, so there should be some doubt as to whether he'll jump to the 50-point plateau as we've seen other young players like Quinn Hughes or Cale Makar. By the same token, he should have a lock on the top PP role and there could be enough here to get him over 40 points in 2022-23.

Chris Driedger

Over the final stretch of games, we have goalies at the top of the high-danger save percentage leaderboard that we'd expect: Linus Ullmark (he was great in April), Mike Smith (ditto), Igor Shesterkin (duh), and Ilya Sorokin (should be top-5 in Vezina voting). The fifth-place goalie in this regard was, of course, Chris Driedger. It is not secret that it was an awful season for the Seattle goalies, and Driedger's season, as a whole, wasn't good. But he, and the team, did finish strong: the net-minder had a .922 save percentage overall in his final nine games that led to the team having a 4-5-0 record in those contests (a testament to their lack of scoring). Matty Beniers was great down the stretch, Yanni Gourde finished very strong, Jared McCann had 13 points in his final 17 games, and they still have guys like Eberle and Schwartz. There could be two decent scoring lines here and if the team carries over their strong defensive play – they had better expected goals against and actual goals against rates at 5-on-5 over their final 17 games than teams like Pittsburgh, Colorado, and Tampa Bay – and Driedger could have sneaky fantasy value next season. The problem is the likelihood of split starts with Philipp Grubauer, and if they don't improve their scoring, 30 starts on a bottom-10 team isn't much to get excited about. It doesn't mean he'll necessarily play poorly, though.