Auston Matthews was back in the lineup for Toronto on Wednesday night as the team hosted Chicago. He missed nearly three weeks (though one of those was the All-Star break) due to his injury. He was back on the top line with William Nylander and Michael Bunting, which is interesting because Matthews/Nylander had been spending time on different lines leading up to the Matthews injury. We will see how long it sticks.

It was a successful return for Matthews as the Leafs took an 5-2 win from the Blackhawks. The centre had a goal (which was a nice shot off a great William Nylander possession) and an assist with three shots and two blocks in 16:39 TOI. Nylander had two assists, and one goal on three shots, in a productive effort from the top line in their reunification contest.

John Tavares and Rasmus Sandin also had a goal and an assist each while Conor Timmins scored in his own return to the lineup over Justin Holl for this one.

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Calen Addison was a healthy scratch on Wednesday night:

Dean Evason said Calen Addison is healthy scratch for same issues he had in December. Not good enough in his own end. "He knows that there's some things he has to correct in his game and we've asked him to and we haven't seen the level of improvement that we want." #mnwild

— Joe Smith (@JoeSmithNHL) February 15, 2023

The coach would go on to say that it was defensive issues that needed to be cleaned up, which makes sense for a rookie defenceman on a team with playoff hopes. By the same token, in the seven-plus weeks since Christmas, Minnesota is the lowest scoring team at 5-on-5 with 1.76 goals/60 minutes. Yes, they've been even worse than Montreal, Chicago, and Columbus. Conversely, they have the eighth-lowest goals against rate in that span. Addison's goals against marks have suffered but this team needs offence considerably more than it needs defence. All the same, a night off for the rookie won't hurt and maybe a rest is just what he needs.

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Rasmus Andersson was at practice on Wednesday:

Good news — #Flames D Rasmus Andersson is on the ice for practice today at the Saddledome.

— Wes Gilbertson (@WesGilbertson) February 15, 2023

He had missed Calgary's games over the last week after getting hit by a car. He was on the fourth pair in practice, so maybe he won't be ready for Thursday's home game but keep an eye out for the weekend.

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Sean Monahan will travel with Montreal on their upcoming road trip:

Parmi les joueurs blessés, Sean Monahan est le seul qui sera du voyage de deux matchs, en Caroline et à Toronto.

L'objectif est qu'il puisse poursuivre sa remise en forme.

Nous n'en savons pas plus présentement en ce qui concerne la durée de son absence. @RDSca

— Patrick Friolet (@PFrioletRDS) February 15, 2023

The team said he won't play in either of their next two games but they have two more road games after that so he could get in the lineup then. The trade deadline is about two weeks away so getting him to cement his value is important for Montreal, and for Monahan.  

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Part of player evaluation is continuing to check in with players to see how they've improved (or not). As the famous quote goes: it ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble – it's what you know for sure that just ain't so. (Not sure how famous that quote actually is but I like it a lot.) In other words, not reviewing what you think you know (updating priors) is a dangerous game.

For that reason, I want to check in on Scoring Chance Contribution changes per 60 minutes (SCC/60) at 5-on-5 this season. To the readers that may be unfamiliar, there is someone named Corey Sznajder who hand-tracks hundreds of games every year and keeps tabs on dozens of micro-stats. One of those stats is SCC/60, which is simply adding a player's individual scoring chances and their assists on teammate scoring chances, then converting it to a 60-minute rate. The average among qualified forwards this year (at least 125 minutes tracked) is 7.6 per 60 minutes with one standard deviation above average being 10.0/60 or higher. Clear? Great. We will use these parameters:

• December 28^th cut-off for the first set of data, a February 14^th cut-off for the full season, and check the difference between the two to see what has changed.
• In order to qualify, a player must have at least 100 minutes tracked in the first set and 125 minutes tracked on the season as a whole (so players that had significant early injuries like Nick Schmaltz, Nicklas Backstrom, or Anthony Cirelli won't be included).

We will start with the largest increases and here are the 10 biggest jumps between the two samples:

Let's talk about a few of these players and some others further down the list.

Mikko Rantanen

The largest increase came from Colorado's top winger who has gone from above-average through Christmas to among the elite by SCC/60, ranking just behind names like Nikita Kucherov and Mark Stone overall. He has 10 goals and 20 points in his last 19 games, averaging four shots per game. Over his last three seasons, Rantanen is sixth in goals, seventh in points, and 13^th in shots. He is on pace for a 54-goal season. We need more ink spilled on Rantanen's elite offensive skills.

William Nylander

It should probably be mentioned that likely half of Nylander's first sample came playing with John Tavares, while he's largely skated with Auston Matthews since (when Matthews has been healthy). It makes sense that a winger who was already a standard deviation above average in this regard shot up even more when skating alongside a top-3 offensive player in the league. Nylander has produced extremely well over these last three months, posting 47 points in 39 games. It should be noted that fewer than 30% of those points came on the power play. Imagine if that was a super-elite PP like Edmonton?

Victor Olofsson

There has been some line mixing in Buffalo of late given the lack of depth scoring but it hasn't been Olofsson's fault: the guy has 10 goals and 14 points in calendar 2023, an 18-game stretch. He is averaging 2.8 shots per game in that span compared to just 2.1 per game through New Year's Eve. It should be noted that his SCC/60 is still just a bit above average so it's not as if he's elite now, and his numbers come from his scoring chances and not his playmaking. However, Olofsson has certainly found his offensive touch again and he's on pace for a 36-goal season, having already set a career-best with 23.

Sidney Crosby

One of the more underrated storylines of this season is just how elite Sidney Crosby still is. His first sample of SCC/60 was elite, ranking just behind Connor McDavid on a per-minute basis. He improved on that and is now top-5 in the league in this regard, sandwiched between McDavid and Jack Hughes. His 2.77 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 is his highest rate in four years and his second-highest mark of the last decade. A seven-year low in per-minute power-play production is what's keeping him from super-elite production. Heading into 2022-23, his three-year average in PPPs per game was 0.45. If he did that in 2022-23, he'd be on pace for a 111-point season, which would be the second-highest mark of his career. Folks, he's still got it.

Wyatt Johnston

There has been lots of discussion about Matty Beniers for Rookie of the Year, and he probably will win it, but Wyatt Johnston has been excellent for Dallas. He is third on the team in goals at 5-on-5 and has gone from league-average by SCC/60 to a standard deviation above average, which is star-level; he's tied with Martin Necas by this measure, and slightly ahead of names like Steven Stamkos and Johnny Gaudreau. If he can keep this development trajectory for a couple more seasons, it's not if he turns into a roster player, it's if he turns into a top-line star (pun intended for sure).

Dylan Larkin

Heading to an offseason where he should cash in handsomely, either in Detroit or elsewhere, Larkin has had an up-and-down year production-wise. He had 33 points in 37 games to start the season, totalling 13 goals, which is fine but fantasy players were hoping for more. He has started to pour it on of late with seven goals and 17 points in his last 14 games, averaging 3.3 shots per game. He was 1 of 16 forwards to add at least two SCC/60 to his first sample total and he's now just shy of being a standard deviation above average across the league.

Mats Zuccarello

This is a player who fits the Olofsson mould, in a way, given that his SCC/60 was 3.6 in the first sample, which is less than half the league average. He is now sitting at 6.7 SCC/60, which is still below the average of 7.6. HockeyViz seems to think that Kirill Kaprizov is not just a big factor in Zuccarello's offence, but that Zuccarello's entire fantasy profile rests with skating alongside the MVP candidate:

Zuccarello has still been a great fantasy asset this year but players should be worried with Minnesota's recent line shuffling. If the Swiss flank ever finds himself away from Kaprizov… yikes.

Alright, let's get to a few of SCC/60 declines.

William Carrier

It feels weird to have William Carrier as a player that declined in a big way, but he did. He had the largest decline in raw SCC/60 in the two samples, going from 12.1 (elite) to 8.3 (above average but not great). Funny enough, Carrier seeing a slightly bigger role of late with Mark Stone out of the lineup has led to him posting points in six of his last seven games (totalling eight points overall). He will need to keep up the production, and hopefully re-find his SCC rate, if Vegas wants to keep in the playoff race.

Alex DeBrincat

Another big decline from a player who is still producing is Ottawa's big offseason acquisition in Alex DeBrincat. Despite a large decline – similar to Carrier, with similar SCC/60 rates – DeBrincat has seven goals in 19 games in this second sample. That isn't great, especially considering his track record, but it is an improvement over his 11 goals in 34 games to start the year. However, he has just 11 points in those 19 games, a huge decline from the 33 he posted in those 34 contests to begin the campaign. Being less involved in the offence will do that to a player. We'll see if he can find his game over the final third of the campaign.

Nico Hischier

The last big decline to discuss is New Jersey's Nico Hischier. He had the fifth-largest decline (Jack Hughes had the fourth-largest, actually) in SCC/60, which was reflected in his production: 0.94 points/game in the first sample compared to 0.84 in the second sample. Even that second points/game mark is buoyed by a 15.1% shooting percentage, where he was 12.8% from 2019-22, so things could be even worse. New Jersey's issues of late – fourth-most shots against per minute since Christmas, ranking 18^th by shot attempts for per minute – are being disguised by the fact that the team is 5^th in save percentage in that span. Unless Hischier and company find the game they had in the first two months of the season, it could be a short postseason trip.