Welcome back to another edition of Lining Up. It's early in the season but already there are controversies and injuries beginning to mount. This means plenty of players are receiving new opportunities to thrive and Lining Up will try to make some recommendations to help fantasy rosters in the week to come. Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some get to quarter-back the top Florida power-play.

Let's dive in.

Dominik Kubalik

Dominik Kubalik has had a moderate start to his career while in Chicago. His first two seasons showed strong promise as he produced back-to-back campaigns with a 0.68 points per game pace. However last season saw a dip where he only tallied 31 points in 78 games for a 0.40 pace. Now with a change of scenery on a rising Detroit squad, he has kicked off his fourth season with eight points in five games and is lining up alongside Dylan Larkin for more than half of his time at even strength.

He has also seemingly earned a spot on the power-play unit with David Perron and Dylan Larkin. Detroit may be splitting time between two units more so than other teams, but this unit saw a slightly larger share of the available time last game at 54.5%. Kubalik is currently rostered in only 40% of Yahoo leagues, get him while he's receiving this deployment and on the hot streak.

Jeff Petry

After a dismal season last year in Montreal that saw Petry post only five points through his first 34 games, he began to come around under the guidance of new coach Martin St. Louis, closing out the campaign with 11 points in 13 games. Petry subsequently moved to Pittsburgh where his fantasy value became questionable. From the 2017-2018 season to last season, Petry had a %PP average of 50 compared to the 33.6 he has seen so far with Pittsburgh. Even with that lesser deployment, he has been very valuable early this season, especially in multi-cat leagues. Petry currently is sitting at one goal and four points in five games along with just over two shots per game and over five hits and blocks. In practice and in last night's game against Edmonton, Petry has temporarily supplanted Rickard Rakell on the top power-play unit and will have his opportunity with the stars on the team until Jake Guentzel returns.

Pittsburgh still has three games remaining this week including a potentially great back-to-back matchup against Vancouver and Seattle. Consider swapping him in even if Guentzel returns.

Brandon Montour

Another defenseman finding himself lining up on the power-play is Brandon Montour. Florida's last game on Sunday saw Montour with 06:15 of power-play time on ice with the top unit, replacing an injured Aaron Ekblad and beating out Gustav Forsling for the prime spot. Montour has produced three points in four games so far and so long as he is maintaining this deployment, is worth rostering. Florida has three potentially high scoring games this week against Chicago Philadelphia and an Ottawa squad possibly without Anton Forsberg. He is also only 27% rostered in Yahoo leagues so consider rotating him into your lineup.

Cole Perfetti

Cole Perfetti has had a strong start to the season and is currently riding a nice little hot streak with five points in his last four games while playing on the second line with Blake Wheeler and Pierre-Luc Dubois. Last season he saw similar deployment over his short 18 games, playing alongside Dubois and Kyle Connor but had more muted results. He posted seven points in those 18 games while playing nearly two-thirds of the time on that line and unfortunately lost the remainder of the season due to multiple injuries. So far though, a full offseason to recover and starting with the team right from day one seems to be providing good results as he is producing more efficiently.

Perfetti was the 10^th overall pick in 2020 and is the top prospect within the Winnipeg organization. He posted 15 points in 17 games while in the OHL before a short run for Team Canada at the WJC where he had six points in two games. He has point-per-game upside and is comparable to a Nicklas Backstrom-style player. At only 16% rostered in Yahoo leagues and with three games still to come this week for Winnipeg, scoop up Perfetti and ride the hot streak to a win.

Nicolas Robertson

The rookie Toronto forward and younger brother to Dallas star Jason Robertson is recently lining up alongside John Tavares and William Nylander on the second line. He has spent just over 70% of his time there and, so far, has produced three points in three games, including two goals in his first game. Additionally, Robertson has averaged 15:04 of TOI so far which is almost a five-minute increase from his previous callups with Toronto and he is seeing 55.5% of his faceoffs in the offensive zone. Both are good indications of solid deployment and should allow him the opportunity to continue producing. Toronto still has three games remaining this week in their road trip, including a back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday. Keep an eye on Robertson perhaps as a late week pickup for those two games.

Thanks for reading.