Things just keep going downhill for the last-place Blue Jackets. They managed to throw away the game last night against the Penguins, and in the process they lost Elvis Merzlikins to an injury.

Brad Larsen said postgame that Elvis Merzlikins was feeling something early on, but didn't think it would get to the point where he had to leave the game. He also said Merzlikins was available to return had something happened to Hutchinson. #CBJ

— Mark Scheig (@mark_scheig) March 8, 2023

That all being said, it is good to see the young players Kent Johnson, Liam Foudy, and Emil Bemstrom each with two-point games. They have incredible depth on the back-end (albeit a very young system) and they will be adding a top centre to the team in the draft come Draft time. This team should turn around quickly, and now may be the time to buy in on Elvis Merzlikins and/or Daniil Tarasov, as that will likely be the goaltending tandem moving forward. They're relatively cheap to acquire now, and should provide quicker returns than most rebuild/resets.

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Meanwhile, injuries to players such as Jalen Chatfield and Antti Raanta which are labelled as "precautionary", should be taken to mean that the player will definitely be back in time for the playoffs, but there is no guarantee that we see them before then. Teams like Carolina, Boston, Toronto, etc are tough to own fantasy players from, because they have very little to play for this time of year. The players aren't as motivated, and there's no reason for them to finish games or play in the next one if they have a sore muscle. It's even tougher when those teams have some of the best fantasy schedules available over the next number of weeks.

Keep in mind though, the best ability for your players is availability.

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Three points for Erik Haula, and two for Ondrej Palat, and the third line of the Devils suddenly looks very dangerous too. This team checks all the boxes of a championship team, but since the mid-point of the season they're starting to come undone again because of their goaltending. If Vitek Vanecek can't get back to his first-half numbers, then come playoff time this team is going to be eliminated by a group with a worse skater core.

Vanecek tailed off after about game #30 last year too, and we see that a lot with goalies that haven't been volume starters yet in their careers. I would bet that to close out the year we get more of the latter half performances than ones that look like his early-season games.

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Shutouts for Markstrom (43 saves) and Gustavsson (25 saves), the 2nd straight for Gustavsson vs. Calgary and 3rd of his career

Shootout

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) March 8, 2023

On the flip side of the goalie spectrum, I do still believe in Jacob Markstrom, and if your trade deadline hasn't passed then a flip of Vanecek for Markstrom is one I would strongly consider for the short term, though I do like Vanecek's outlook better as the starting goalie on a younger team with higher-ceiling players. Last night's shutout won't be enough to erase all of the bad games from the heads of Markstrom owners, so don't worry about the missed opportunity.

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Connor Mackey now has two points in two games for the Arizona Coyotes. He has long been someone on my watch list, and I do think Calgary should have given him a better shot before trading him. He doesn't shoot a ton, but he gets points, takes penalties, hits, and adds a couple blocks for good measure. He's very well rounded and should get a great trial run to close out the year.

I am mad that in one of my leagues my moves leading up to the trade deadline left me with so little cap space that I wasn't even able to add Mackey and his $912,500 cap hit a couple of days ago when I looked into it.

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The entire Philadelphia Flyers roster has a little "cold" icon next to their name on FrozenTools except for Scott Laughton, Owen Tippett, and Rasmus Ristolainen. They also have a sparse schedule upcoming, so most of the team should be on your waiver wire at this point in time.

The Lightning took advantage of that team, and got a bit of their mojo back, especially Nikita Kucherov who scored two goals and added an assist and four shots for good measure. The team sorely misses the injured Victor Hedman, but on the offensive side of the puck Mikhail Sergachev filled in just fine, playing five-and-a-half minutes with the man advantage, and notching two power play assists in the process. He also played a team-high 25 minutes overall.

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I turned to Twitter to help fill out the rest of the Ramblings:

The Ranger's new-look PP units have been buzzing on Twitter. Any takeaways? I've seen optimism and pessimism.

— HockeyPunk (@punk_hockey) March 7, 2023

The Rangers have a few new weapons to make use of on the power play, and it seems they’re hitting the blender option lately in looking for the optimal setup. The units have been changed lately, and they will change again, be it tomorrow, or next week.

PP units today:

Lafreniere-Panarin-Trocheck-Kane-Fox

Kreider-Zibanejad-Chytil-Tarasenko-Trouba

— Arthur Staple (@StapeAthletic) March 7, 2023

These were the units yesterday, and it looks like they have put all the passers on unit one, and all the finishers on unit two. It doesn’t look like an optimal setup to me, but if there is any time you can pass the puck around and then into the net, it is on the power play. The Rangers power play has clicked at an overall rate of almost 23% so far this year, and it isn't likely to drop off a cliff because of the additions of Patrick Kane and Vladimir Tarasenko. There may be a short-term blip with the shuffling, so it's harder to rely on in H2H setups.

Overall, the Rangers have tons of scoring talent to fill two units, and while the players may get bounced up and down to varying degrees, I don’t expect there to be a rest-of-the-season bump to a player like Alexis Lafreniere who is currently on the top unit. For the team as a whole, no one should be surprised if they click at a 25% rate the rest of the season.

What's your current outlook on Bouchard? In 4 games post-Barrie he's had 0 points, 0 points, 3 points, and 0 points. I dropped Seth Jones for him but then of course Jones got hot with 4pts in his last 3. Should I regret that move?

— Chunky's Choice (@Chunkys_Choice) March 7, 2023

Evan Bouchard is someone that overall I’m not worried about. He has the top-power play spot in Edmonton locked up, is playing over 20 minutes a night, and has three shots in each of the last three contests. On a playoff-bound team with positioning still to play for at this point, the team shouldn't be taking things easy at this stage either.

Bouchard's hit rate is up this year, his PIM rate is down, and he should see an uptick in IPP, though most of the underlying numbers are reasonable. The subtraction of Barrie also has the added effect of freeing up a higher percentage of offensive zone starts for Bouchard, while Ekholm is more capable of neutralizing threats in the defensive end to provide a higher quantity of them too. 

In any standard league size or bigger, I’m holding him, but as always it depends on who else is available.  

What is your prognosis on Florida making playoffs? How do you expect A Ekblad to perform for points last 15 games? Get PP1?

— Andy Stewart (@magicstew23) March 7, 2023

I think Florida making the playoffs comes down to Aleksander Barkov‘s health, and how Sergei Bobrovsky plays. Without both of those two players contributing well, there’s just too much competition in the East. Overall, more likely than not that they make it, but it’s a very thin line. Games like last night with the game winner from Barkov and a 31-save performance with only one goal against from Bobrovsky really goes a long way.

As for Aaron Ekblad, the good news is that he has been shooting tons – averaging over four in his last 15 games. The bad news is that if Ekblad is shooting more, then the forwards aren’t, and the offense isn’t clicking as well. That shines through with his five points in that same span. 

Over his remaining 15 games or so it’s looking more likely that he scores closer to the 30-point pace he has been playing at of late than the 50-point pace we might hope for from Ekblad. His offence is really missing having Mackenzie Weegar to carry the biggest share of the defensive load for the team. 

whats your plan on how to get out of Jury Duty?

— Jason Luque (@realjluque) March 7, 2023

Nothing other than playing the odds. They have over 100 people per selection group, and they either need six or twelve. Odds were that I wasn’t getting picked anyways. I got let go at the end of the day thankfully. 

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For a quick schedule summary at this point in time, the Isles currently lead the league with 66 games played, and they're missing their top offensive catalyst in Mat Barzal. If you need to dump one of them to grab a Predator with an extra five games remaining in the season, then now is the time.

The Avalanche and Hurricanes also have some of the most games played, have excellent H2H playoff schedules, and high-octane offenses. New additions Jesse Puljujarvi and Shayne Gostisbehere add some extra options to an already long list of players that you could find on your waiver wire. Evan Rodrigues, Seth Jarvis, Jesperi Kotkaniemi, and Sam Girard have all put up some reasonable numbers lately, and are in a position to keep that up – just don't expect five points every odd game from Kotkaniemi.

Speaking of… a win-win for Montreal and Carolina at this point:

Jesperi Kotkaniemi wins it for Carolina in the shootout, in Montreal.

Storybook stuff. pic.twitter.com/LSzGKPG4oO

— Walt Ruff (@WaltRuff) March 8, 2023

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Our DFS subscription is now on sale for $74.99 until the playoffs. That’s right: 25% off! Order it here!

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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.