Welcome back to The Journey, where we track the development of prospects as they excel in junior, make the NHL, and push towards stardom.

Has the return of Nikolaj Ehlers to the Jets negatively impacted Cole Perfetti's ice time and opportunity? Let's start there. Perfetti missed five games due to injury himself, so the two players have only overlapped for four games so far. Small sample size caveats aside, the early answer seems to be that Perfetti is unaffected at even strength but is losing time to Ehlers with the man advantage.

Winnipeg's top six now appears set again, with Perfetti skating alongside Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler and Ehlers working with Pierre-Luc Dubois and Kyle Connors. What a fearsome top-two lines! Winnipeg tried a few depth players in Ehlers' spot during his absence, most consistently veteran PP specialist Sam Gagner who has now moved back down to the fourth line. Barring an injury or the team hitting a rut and needing a shake up, I suspect these two lines will remain relatively secure at 5 vs. 5 moving forward; the Jets seem to like keeping pairs and trios together as long as things are working.

Perfetti has averaged 30% of the available power play time over the past three games while Ehlers has seen 65%. That is quite close to Perfetti's season average of 33% for the moment but I can't shake the feeling that Ehlers has replaced the rookie in the Jets' scoring hierarchy—which is not a surprise but is important to keep in mind when valuing Perfetti, especially in redraft formats.

In the four games before Perfetti's injury (and before Ehlers' return), Perfetti averaged 66% of Winnipeg's available PP time. Over those four games, Perfetti was on the top unit and consistently among the top PP options in terms of Time on Ice (TOI). Since he and Ehlers have returned to action together, Perfetti is now playing with Wheeler on the second unit and is no longer one of the Jets' top primary weapons with the man advantage. That did not slow him down last night against Pittsburgh, though: Perfetti snagged three assists (one on the PP) and received 43% of the available PP time, still on the second unit with Wheeler.

That assist gives Perfetti only four points with the extra skater over his first 40-odd games in 2022-23, so the power play has not been a major source of production for him. He is currently on a 49-point pace for the year, and I imagine he will finish between 45-50 even with Ehlers back in the fold. As usual, however, this is a situation to monitor moving forward.

Regular readers of this column know how high I am on Perfetti; he will likely still need at least another season to fully adjust to the pace and quality of competition at the NHL level before he starts posting regular point-per-game campaigns, so if there is a buy-low window on him in fantasy, it will not be open for long. If he endures a sustained slump at any point over the next season and a half, that will be your chance to snake him away from his owner in your league. Lack of PP opportunity and production could be useful red flags to help make your case.

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Although he brings more of a tenacious attack-the-net mentality than Perfetti's slower pick-defences-apart approach, Seth Jarvis (CAR) looks a lot like Perfetti on paper. He has more NHL games (110) under his belt than his Winnipeg peer (56) but is still only 20 years old while Perfetti is 21. While Perfetti is navigating Ehlers' return to the lineup, Jarvis owners will need to stay watchful of how Caroline re-integrates star forward Max Pacioretty moving forward.

Before sustaining a minor lower-body injury last night against Columbus, Pacioretty had replaced Tuevo Teravainen on the wing next to Jarvis and Sebastian Aho. In his absence, Turbo was back with his usual running mates.

The Canes appear to be rolling two relatively equal PP units, to the point that it is not clear which one should be considered the "top" unit: they have Paul Stastny, Stefan Noesen, Martin Necas, and Andrei Svechnikov out there with Brent Burns at the point; and then they are using Brett Pesce behind Aho, Jarvis, Teravainen, and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. Who does Pacioretty replace when he returns?

Digging into the Canes' deployment numbers from the past few games with Patches in the lineup, it appears that Stastny and Noesen are the lowest in the pecking order—so Jarvis is safe with the man advantage regardless of where Pacioretty slots in. For the three games he did play so far, it looks like he mostly joined the Aho-Jarvis unit—except for the Nashville game where the Canes went with Aho-Svechnikov-Pacioretty-Necas on the top unit.

The picture here is that Jarvis has generally been stapled to Carolina's top player, Aho, which is fantastic news for his fantasy stocks. Regardless of how everything else shakes out, if he can stick with the slick Finn as a dynamic duo that is then joined by various thirds, such as Turbo and Patches, his role and production will remain on the upswing. The main concern I have here is that Carolina has so much veteran talent in its top-nine forward group. Jarvis is an astounding 14 years younger than Pacioretty, and while Teravainen has been slumping (44-point pace), he has proven to be a consistent 60-80-point player over the past five years.

We should expect both veterans to return to form and be awarded with more opportunity accordingly. Jarvis will need to maintain consistent production to avoid being usurped by one or both of these stars. Aside from one seven-game pointless streak, he has not gone longer than three games without scoring in 2022-23. Barring injury, Jarvis is on track to hit his 200-game Breakout Threshold roughly 30 games into next season. As with Perfetti, look for him to begin dropping point-per-game campaigns from that point on.

The Canes have several big contracts expiring this offseason: captain Jordan Staal, Pacioretty, Jesper Fast, Stastny, Derek Stepan, Calvin DeHaan, Frederik Andersen, and Antti Raanta. Given that the coaching staff has kept Jarvis in relative lockstep with Aho, he is clearly a player that figures heavily into this team's plans moving forward. His opportunity only stands to improve as veterans move along.

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Check out the Injury Ward column by Brennan Des to keep a close eye on injury timelines and potential returns. Here are a few more imminent returns that may impact the production of young players and prospects.

Gabe Landeskog (COL). Estimated return: mid-January (knee).

Valeri Nichushkin (COL). Estimated return: out indefinitely (ankle).

Alex Newhook, 21, has had an inconsistent year production-wise. After starting the year scoreless in his first seven games, he put up a 50-point pace through November and half of December but now has only two points in his last 14 games played. With Landeskog returning soon and Nichushkin potentially rejoining the team at any time (he has been skating recently), it will be interesting to see where Newhook ends up as the Avs lines finally solidify a bit. It has been a challenging year for them due to a spate of injuries, and their lines have mostly been in a blender.

Newhook played alongside Mikko Rantanen and J.T. Compher last game against the Blackhawks while Nathan Mackinnon centered Evan Rodrigues and Artturi Lehkonen. Although it is difficult to project how lines will shake out, Nichushkin has played primarily (35%) with Newhook and Rodrigues. Meanwhile, Lehkonen has played nearly half of his even strength minutes this year with Mackinnon—deployment that suggests the Avs' coaching staff like those two together. The most common third on that line has been Mikko Rantanten.

I imagine Colorado's top nine will look something like this when both Nichushkin and Landeskog rejoin the lineup, hopefully later this month:

Lehkonen – Mackinnon – Rantanten

Landeskog – Newhook – Nichushkin

Rodrigues – Compher – ?

Newhook still needs around 80 games to reach his 200-game BT, so he is slightly ahead of Jarvis and should break out around the midpoint of 2023-24. He has high-end to elite-level skating ability, and that combined with a similar type of attacking tenacity as Jarvis should make him a consistent 60+ scorer once he reaches his upside. If you can afford to wait, now is an excellent time to buy low on the young forward; he will come cheaper than either Perfetti or Jarvis and there are tons of red flags—like his current 14-game slump—to wave at his owner in your league during negotiations.

Josh Norris (OTT). Estimated return: late January (shoulder).

Norris, 23, is still a developing player in his own right even though he has already played 130 NHL games and paced for nearly 70 points last year. Given that Norris is ostensibly this team's top pivot already, how will things shake out when he returns later this month?

The Sens' top six is already a murderer's row even without Norris:

Alex DeBrincat – Brady Tkachuk – Tim Stutzle

Claude Giroux – Shane Pinto – Drake Batherson

Giroux (61%, 298 faceoffs won) and Pinto (55%, 230) have easily been Ottawa's best players at the dot, with solid contributions from Tkachuk (49%, 187), Stutzle (42%, 95), and Derrick Brassard (50%, 125). Norris only played five games before sustaining his shoulder injury but he went 58% (33) over that stretch and has been over 50% his entire career. The Senators clearly have three excellent options down the middle—with Mark Kastelic (61%, 199) emerging as a top-notch 4C. The question is who will drop out of the top six?

Theoretically, Pinto will be the one to drop to the third line for now. Although he has spent most of the year (46%) with DeBrincat and Batherson, he has also seen time (17%) in the bottom six with grinders Mathieu Joseph and Tyler Motte. Pinto is certainly an exciting player to own in keeper and dynasty formats but he is still the better part of two years away from his BT and his current 34-point pace only figures to drop with Norris' imminent return. There are likely better options on the wire for those in redraft leagues.

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Other veteran stars whose imminent return may impact the production of young players include Boone Jenner (CBJ, mid Jan), Evander Kane (EDM, mid Feb), Anthony Duclair (FLA, mid Mar), Sean Couturier (PHI, late Feb), and Nick Robertson (TOR, early Feb)—though he is of course a young player himself, Leafs fans will be hoping he can finally establish himself in Toronto's formidable top six.

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