We're just about at the midpoint of the season now, and I just submitted my input, so thoughts on the second-half are what's on the mind at the moment.

The 15^th annual Midseason Guide will be released on Friday, January 13, and you can Pre-order it here. This is included in the Platinum/Gold subscriptions only, or the Ultimate Fantasy Pack (not the Keeper League Pack). Just two more sleeps away!

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From earlier Tuesday, David Poile did a radio segment to discuss waiving Eeli Tolvanen two weeks ago, and it came as a surprise to everyone. The Predators brass appears to be the only ones that thought Tolvanen would clear waivers, and they still seem to be surprised by that fact. All he has done since then is continue his strong defensive play in Seattle, while also scoring at a point-per-game despite only playing third-line minutes (yes, two of his points did come with the man-advantage, but it was the second unit). If he can hold onto his regular lineup spot, he might be able to put up some reasonable numbers in the middle-six.

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This is now the 18^th time in 40 games that the Canucks have given up five goals. That doesn't sound good.

Thatcher Demko can't get back fast enough, but even he won't be able to drag this team back even to the playoff bubble. It's a shame because they're wasting Elias Pettersson's arrival, Bo Horvat's scoring surge, and the wonderful "rookie" season of Andre Kuzmenko. This team just has a stink about them that's hard to ignore, and despite the fact that they have an excellent schedule come fantasy playoffs, they're not a team I'm going to be targeting because A) they stink, and B) if I trade for a player because of their H2H schedule, I want to know for certain they aren't suddenly going to be traded to a team that plays four times through the main two weeks of playoff schedule.

For those of you looking into that kind of thing at this point, the top teams this year to be targeting for extra volume in those key H2H playoff weeks are BOS, CAR, COL, NSH, TOR, and VAN. The other five are unlikely to really be sellers, so they're definitely worth targeting if you have an even player to swap out.

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Anders Lee scored again for the Islanders last night, and has been having an excellent resurgence now that he has his legs (and a new ACL) back under him. He's on pace to approach his career highs in goals, points, shots, and hits, while passing them in PIMs, assists, and blocks. His ice time is also up a full minute from Q1 to Q2, and even there it's still not as high as it was before his ACL injury, so there's room to add even a bit more volume in the second half.

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While both Jeff Petry and Kris Letang are out of the lineup for the Penguins, Ty Smith is now up to three points in five games, while Pierre-Olivier Joseph has two points in the same stretch. Both youngsters are the future of the offence in Pittsburgh. Smith has been slightly more sheltered than Joseph, and has some much better underlying numbers to show for it. Easy to see in a small five game sample, but over the course of a season Smith's flaws on the defensive side of the puck would likely become very exposed. He's worth a look as a short-term streamer, but with Petry and possibly Letang due back soon, his medium-term upside is capped.  

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Tyler Bertuzzi made his return to the Detroit lineup, and the team proceeded to put up seven goals. Bertuzzi recorded point on exactly zero of them. He went minus-one, recording two hits and two blocks. No shots for the top-line winger in his return, which is surprising because in his seven-game stretch in November between hand injuries, he was averaging nearly three shots per game, which lined up with his 2.6 per game from last season.

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The Rangers lost Julien Gautier early in last night's game against the Wild, and then Chris Kreider departed the Rangers' bench in the third. Both are going to be assessed today for upper-body injuries. If either (especially Kreider) miss any time, then it would be nice to see Alexis Lafreniere get a bump in ice time with top-six linemates. Developing a former first-rounder is not done by sticking them in the bottom-six and reprimanding them with lost ice time for every mistake – not unless you want to develop them like Nail Yakupov that is.

Maybe worth shaking that tree while he's at his lowest. Less of a risk, much more of a possible reward at this point.

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Some concerning deployment of Johnny Gaudreau while playing for an equally concerning team:

#CBJ Johnny Gaudreau played a season-low 14:35 vs. #TBLightning on Tuesday, and he was held without a shot on goal for the third time in the last seven games.

— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) January 11, 2023

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With the Mid-season guide being the focus of the last week or so, I wanted to share a few thoughts of mine outside of the scope of what I am contributing to the guide. Since I was covering the peripherals write ups, that means scoring – what everyone wants to hear about. I'm going to quickly talk about a few players that I think are primed for a big jump in the second half.

K'Andre Miller – Last year we had Noah Dobson go off in the second half, and this year I think we see something similar from Miller. Part of it is really just building upon the strong Q2 he had, with 14 points in 19 games. He's doing that with hardly any power play time though, and that is the key difference between him and Dobson. Dobson was the big offensive weapon, useable on every power play, and eating up all the offensive minutes. Miller on the other hand is scoring despite playing a key shutdown role for the Rangers, alongside Jacob Trouba.

Oh, and he has also done this kind of thing multiple times this year:

Nothing better than the sound of these. 👌 pic.twitter.com/CujLJSfGJB

— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) January 11, 2023

Neal Pionk – The 27-year-old defenceman has two years playing at a 50-point pace under his belt, but the last season and a half hasn't been as kind to him (coincidentally coinciding with when I acquired him in one fantasy league). His underlying numbers don't scream "it's time to buy" but with Winnipeg under Rick Bowness making a systemic change to mobilize and use their defencemen more, it's a surprise that Pionk's numbers have remained stagnant. Josh Morrissey has gone from a 40-point defenceman to a 90-point defenceman, while number three man Dylan DeMelo has jumped from a 15-point pace to 30. The bottom-three defencemen have seem minor fluctuations, but to have Pionk eating up major minutes and not seeing his scoring jump does feel a little strange.

The bonus point here is that the Jets finally have their second-best offensive threat back in Nikolaj Ehlers, who missed almost the entire first-half.  

Alex DeBrincat – It would be a little redundant to have you guess who just passed their breakout threshold, of course it's the guy whose name I just listed. This is as simple as a case of someone whose underlying numbers are way down, and is taking some time adjusting to a new scenario. Combine that with a breakout threshold being crossed, on top of the possible return of Joshua Norris, and we're looking at a very possible 50 points in 40 games to end the campaign.

Seth Jarvis – Jarvis' new linemate Max Pacioretty has three goals and 13 shots through three games, and while Jarvis has only assisted on one of them, the added offence to the team, and directly to his line will rub off. He's put up a slightly better Q2 than Q1, though he's still a ways away from his breakout threshold. This isn't one of those big explosions, but a step up to a higher to a 60+ point pace could certainly be in the cards. Especially since we already saw him put up 18 points in 21 games in Q4 last year.

Nick Schmaltz – Schmaltz put up an excellent second half last year, and he's looking like he's starting to ramp back up again. It took him a little time to get his feet back under him after the injury that stole his first quarter of the year. Now that Barrett Hayton has been lined up with him and Clayton Keller, which is a much better option than Travis Boyd who they started the year with. We can't expect another seven-point game, but over a point-per-game in the second half wouldn't be surprising at all.

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See you next Wednesday!

In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.