Remember when the Flyers were picked as a Stanley Cup favorite in the 2020 bubble? They've free-fallen considerably since then, first replacing the coach and now the GM Chuck Fletcher. Injuries have piled up since then to key players like Sean Couturier, Ryan Ellis, and Cam Atkinson (among others), but the Flyers did not have the depth to overcome these injuries to the point where they will very likely miss the playoffs for the third consecutive season. Some decisions that sealed Fletcher's fate include trading for and signing Rasmus Ristolainen and Tony DeAngelo as well as failing to trade James van Riemsdyk at the deadline.

Former Flyer Danny Briere takes over as interim GM while the team looks for a full-time replacement. It will be interesting to see if the new GM decides to go full-on rebuild or simply retool, the latter of which the Flyers would usually decide when the team needed major changes.

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Somebody forgot to tell the Chicago Blackhawks that they are supposed to be tanking, especially after they traded Patrick Kane and others at the deadline. Yet they took a 2-0 lead into the third period in Florida before the Panthers scored three quick goals in less than five minutes. The Hawks tied the game with the net empty before the Panthers won in an overtime that they dominated. This week the Hawks won a game 5-0 before losing two games by a goal. They're looking more competitive than a typical team in the midst of a tank, even if their top power play currently features the likes of Mackenzie Entwistle and Philipp Kurashev. This is a good reminder that a team's management will decide to tank, but its coaches and players will continue to compete every game.

Is there any fantasy value left on the Hawks after completely tearing it down? Besides Seth Jones, who the Hawks would trade if they didn't sign him to that unsightly contract shortly after trading for him, no Blackhawk is rostered in more than 10% of Yahoo leagues. Yet as the games start to matter more in fantasy leagues, the amount of worthwhile options increases. In a day with only two games, Andreas Athanasiou was certainly an option, as was Taylor Raddysh. Athanasiou has four points (all assists) in his last four games, even though he was held off the scoresheet on Friday. After Jones, Raddysh is the next-highest scorer left on the Hawks, even though he has not cracked the 30-point mark yet.

From a pure points-per-game rate, Lukas Reichel might be the player to grab. Over his spurts of NHL time, former first-round pick Reichel has six points in nine games, and more recently he's been added to the first-unit power play. He's also been playing on a line with… ah, it doesn't matter with what’s left on the Hawks. You can look it up on Frozen Tools if you really need to know. With Kane, Max Domi, and Sam Lafferty all traded before the deadline, Reichel should be in the NHL to stay.  

For the Panthers, Eetu Luostarinen has been making the most of his time on a scoring line. On a line with Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett, Luostarinen scored a goal and added an assist on four shots. He has not seen any time on the power play in the last four games, which is something to keep in mind if you are considering adding him. Also note that the Panthers play just two games next week, both of which are on busy days Thursday and Saturday (see Looking Ahead for more information on the upcoming schedule).

Tkachuk continues to add to his torrid scoring pace, recording another three assists to give him 84 points. Only five players currently have more points. In spite of Tkachuk not scoring a goal in seven consecutive games, the goals should start going in soon. Tkachuk took seven shots on Friday and has averaged over five shots per game during his seven-game goal slump.

Sam Reinhart broke a six-game point drought with a power-play goal while taking five shots on goal. Reinhart now has at least 10 power-play goals in each of his last three seasons. Only seven players have more power-play goals than Reinhart over those three seasons.

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The Ducks have a few more medium-to-high-end fantasy options than the Blackhawks, although their odds of winning the draft lottery are similar to those of the Blackhawks since the two teams occupy a similar place in the standings. The Ducks followed up a 3-2 overtime loss in Vancouver with a 3-1 win over the Flames, a game that saw Calgary dominate the shots 35-18.

Whenever one of these types of games occurs, the goalie is usually the first star. John Gibson stopped 34 of 35 shots he faced to earn his sixth quality start over his last seven games. This was hardly his busiest game, though, as he's also faced 55, 53, and 43 shots in three other games during this run. In other words, no goalie has faced more shots over that span than Gibson (319 SA in 8 GP). He's also been solid over that span with a .928 SV%. You'd also have to go back a full month to February 12 to Gibson's most recent really bad start. He's also recorded four wins over his past six games, so he's actually been getting the job done for fantasy teams that have rolled the dice on him.  

Another fantasy takeaway of a game where the shot total is uneven is in the number of blocked shots. The Ducks blocked 22 shots in this game; the Flames, just nine. Scott Harrington, recently claimed off waivers, led the Ducks defensive effort with a season-high seven blocked shots in 20 minutes of icetime, also a season-high. No one out there probably thought to pick Harrington even for blocked shots, but this goes to show that you can potentially pull fantasy value from every corner of your waiver wire.

Max Comtois has been a dud for much of the past two seasons, but he has picked it up with four points over his last four games. Included is a goal and an assist with a plus-2 and three shots on Friday. Anaheim usually plays a frequent number of light days, and Comtois is less than 1% rostered in Yahoo leagues. The Ducks play again on Sunday against Nashville, so he could be a deeper-league option. Just keep in mind that Comtois does not have a power-play point this season.

This game represented a golden opportunity for the Flames to make up some ground in the Western Conference playoff race against a lottery-bound team. Unfortunately, the Flames could not deliver, so their share of players remain on the Frozen Tools Cold Players list.

Andrew Mangiapane: 0 PTS in last 8 GP

Noah Hanifin: 0 PTS in last 7 GP

Jakob Pelletier: 0 PTS in last 5 GP

Dillon Dube: 0 PTS in last 5 GP

Blake Coleman: 0 PTS in last 4 GP

In addition, Mikael Backlund broke a six-game point drought with the Flames' only goal of the game. I didn't even list Jonathan Huberdeau here, but he was held without a point again on Friday and has been for four of his past five games. In fact, he's on pace to finish with 15 goals. I even saw a question earlier this week of someone asking whether it's time to drop him. I didn't think it would come to this, but he might be droppable in shallower leagues if you think you can find an option that can score at better than a 0.67 PTS/GP pace. But before you do, let me provide you with one more reason not to drop Huberdeau or even any of the fading Flames listed above.

Burning the Anaheim game will raise that point percentage a bit (this tweet was posted before the game), but there’s still an opportunity to salvage something with the Calgary players on your roster.

Jacob Markstrom now has more regulation losses (18) than wins (17). That also doesn't include overtime losses (8). To compare, Markstrom had only 15 losses all of last season.  Also, this stat does not reflect well on Flames goaltending overall.

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Follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding for more fantasy hockey.