The final Infinity Stone the Boston Bruins need to complete their gauntlet is having a healthy Taylor Hall in the lineup. He hasn't played since late February with a lower-body injury and time was running out to get up to speed for the postseason. Boston provided a positive update on Hall Wednesday at practice, where he was slotted on the third line with Charlie Coyle and Tyler Bertuzzi:

Taylor Hall is practicing in a regular jersey for the first time.

— Fluto Shinzawa (@FlutoShinzawa) April 5, 2023

He is doubtful to play Thursday against Toronto but could be ready for one of their two weekend games.

*

Kirill Kaprizov was in a non-contact jersey at Minnesota practice:

Kirill Kaprizov is on the ice for #MNWild practice this morning. He's wearing a non contact jersey.

— Dane Mizutani (@DaneMizutani) April 5, 2023

This is the next step in his recovery and a full-contact practice is hopefully next. Things are looking up for Kaprizov to be in the lineup before the postseason.

*

Vancouver signed college defenceman Cole McWard to a two-year entry-level contract and he will report to the team immediately, meaning the first year will be burned this season. He had 21 points in 39 games for Ohio State and turns 22 years old in June.

*

St. Louis announced that Pavel Buchnevich should be back in the lineup on Thursday night, beating Robert Thomas back to the fold even though Thomas was the game-time decision on Tuesday, and not Buchnevich.

*

A day after a disappointing loss to Chicago, Calgary won the biggest game of the regular season by a 3-1 margin over Winnipeg. The victory brought the Flames into a tie with the Jets for the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference, but Calgary does have one more game played. Winnipeg still has their playoff future in their own hands.

Andrew Mangiapane, Walker Duehr, and Nikita Zadorov (on a wicked wrister) all scored for Calgary. That made it four goals in eight games for Mangiapane, who added an assist and is coming alive after going a month without scoring. Zadorov also had an assist, with four shots and three hits in total in a very good fantasy performance.

Jacob Markstrom saved 34 of 35 shots faced to give his team the two points, with Kyle Connor's 31^st goal of the season being his lone blemish.

*

Jacob Trouba was injured early in New York's 6-3 win over Tampa Bay on Wednesday night, leaving the game after a hit from Corey Perry. He did not return, but the team said after the game he will travel with the team, so it doesn't seem too serious.

Chris Kreider and Tyler Motte each scored a pair of goals, while Kaapo Kakko and Artemi Panarin each added solo tallies. That is five goals in 20 games with the Rangers for Motte, who is providing good depth scoring in a limited checking role. Kreider's markers pushed him to 35 for the season which is still a pretty good year even if it's down from his 52 goals a season ago.

Mika Zibanejad had three assists, two of them on the power-play goals from Kreider and Panarin. Adam Fox and Barclay Goodrow each had two helpers, with one of Fox's coming on the man advantage. Those two points give Fox 70 on the season for the second time in his career.

Alex Killorn and Brandon Hagel each had a goal and an assist in the loss.

*

Reviewing changes in player performance is one key to preparing for the next fantasy season. What those changes are can tell us a lot about what we might expect (or not expect) from a defenceman in future seasons. My Ramblings on Tuesday discussed some scoring chance creation changes for names like Jakob Chychrun, Adam Pelech, Mikey Anderson, Marcus Pettersson, Jaycob Megna, and others. Today we are going to look at changes on the power play compared to 2021-22. Specifically, that means looking at improvements (or declines) in ice time or relative ice time. We are going to use our Frozen Tools or Natural Stat Trick for the most part, as well as some tracking data from Corey Sznajder. All data will be at 5-on-4 to leave off the 5-on-3 and 4-on-3 power play setups.

Because we're comparing 2021-22 to this campaign, we are going to be excluding players that had catastrophic injuries, and therefore no real sample in at least one of the two years, as well as rookies. We are also going to do a lot of per-game metrics rather than per-minute or per-60. Fantasy hockey is judged on games played, not minutes, so it's a better measure of direct fantasy impact this season, even if per-minute rates give us a better idea of what actually happened.

For now, we'll only discuss the TOI risers. There are nine defencemen in our sample that added at least one minute in 5v4 TOI per game played in 2022-23. Four that we aren't going to discuss are Hampus Lindholm, Caleb Jones, Josh Morrissey, and Gustav Forsling. Lindholm was the de facto PP1 when Charlie McAvoy was injured, Caleb will stay behind Seth on the PP depth chart, Morrissey's season is self-explanatory, and Forsling is in the Brandon Montour boat, so we can get two birds stoned at once there.  

Brandon Montour

Let's start in Florida with our biggest TOI jump among the league's defencemen coming from Montour. He was added to the roster during the Bubble season but was firmly a depth option in 2021-22. MacKenzie Weegar being traded, Aaron Ekblad missing 11 games, and Florida running a 3F/2D PP1 setup for large chunks of 2022-23 are why Montour is where he is. He has 30 PPPs this season, doubling his total through his first 374 career regular season games. No matter the format, Montour has been nothing short of an elite fantasy option on the back end this season.

The concern is obvious: he loses his PP role. Even with secondary minutes, he would still be a very good fantasy option, but there's a huge gap between being a 70-point defenceman with great peripherals and a 50-point defenceman with great peripherals. Florida has eight key forwards signed for at least one more season and if they ever go back to a 4F/1D PP unit, it could be a huge problem for Montour. How he's valued in the offseason by fantasy players will be interesting to follow.

Related: Forsling added over a minute of PPTOI for similar reasons outlined earlier. Even meagre PP production has put him on pace for 40+ points, and the upside is obvious if he can ever assume the Montour role. There are a lot of roadblocks, though, whether in the PP setup itself or the blue line depth.

Mike Matheson

The only other defenceman to add at least two minutes per game in 5v4 PPTOI is Montreal's top blue liner. In just 44 games, Matheson has posted 9 PPPs, which is nearly double (5) what he posted in his prior 177 games. Overall, his 82-game paces for this season are as follows: 15 goals, 41 assists, 56 points, 17 PPPs, 212 shots, 127 blocks, and 95 hits.

Montreal's power play hasn't been good this season, and hasn't been good for a few seasons now. All the same, when Nick Suzuki was on the ice with Matheson for a power play, the team generated 12% more shots and 41% more goals than when Suzuki was on with any other defenceman. There were only 12 games of overlap between Matheson and Cole Caufield before the latter was injured for the season. A year of growth from the young stars alongside Matheson could mean a better PP next year and even if it’s not, Matheson is showing he can have tremendous multi-cat fantasy value when he's healthy.  

Juuso Välimäki

The immediate beneficiary of both Jakob Chychrun and Shayne Gostisbehere being traded is clearly Välimäki: since March 1^st, he is skating 22:41 a night – he was at 16:26 in the 56 games prior to that – and has 13 points in 18 contests, though just two of those points are on the power play. All the same, Chychrun and Gostisbehere being in and out of the lineup this season helped Välimäki add over 1:30 of 5-on-4 PPTOI compared to 2021-22, when he saw limited action in Calgary. In fact, he had never registered a power-play point until Game 3 of this season, his 85^th career NHL game.

This is where we have to be careful about a player being given the PP1 role. Arizona's top PP unit is scoring more often this season with Välimäki on the blue line – about 28% more often – but the team also generates 31% fewer shots. It's not hard to believe a player can make a power play more efficient, but it's still not a large sample with Välimäki – under 60 minutes – and a crash in shot generation is a problem. It isn't as simple as "the 24-year-old Finn has the PP1 role locked up for all of 2023-24."

Regardless, strides have been made elsewhere besides the power play, and that's something that we'll get to this summer. He looks to be a long-term piece on the blue line and until the younger d-men around him grow into the PP1 role, he has the inside track for the prime PP minutes.  

Calen Addison

This is kind of cheating because Addison is a rookie, but he did see an increase of nearly two minutes per game in 5-on-4 PPTOI as he's been the one tasked with running the top PP unit this season. He has been moved off at times, especially since John Klingberg was added to the lineup at the trade deadline, but it's clear the team has him tabbed as the top PP defenceman for years to come.

For all the hand-wringing of Minnesota's power play, the top PP unit is scoring 10.3 goals/60 minutes this season when Addison is running things. Comparatively, Buffalo's top PP Unit is at 11.2 goals/60 minutes, so it's not as if they're far off from one of the top quintets in the league. Addison's lack of a role outside of the power play means he has been incredibly reliant on special team production with 18 of his 28 points coming on the man advantage. It is a wonder how much more production he'd actually have with 20 minutes a night rather than 16-17, considering Minnesota is 29^th in 5-on-5 goals per 60 minutes this season, nestled between Philadelphia and Columbus.

Addison has some good playmaking skills, but he still has a lot more growth to do if he wants to be a reliable top-4 defenceman on this roster. He is just 22 years old with fewer than 80 NHL regular season games to his name, but reminds me of another young defenceman named…

Adam Boqvist

Over the last three seasons, Boqvist's points per 60 minutes at all strengths is 1.58, tied with Mikhail Sergachev. He is 26^th among 183 qualified defencemen, or the 86^th percentile, which is equivalent to a low-end number-1 blue liner.  On a per-minute basis in that span, Boqvist has out-produced names like Zach Werenski, Josh Morrissey, Rasmus Andersson, Thomas Chabot, and Jared Spurgeon.

One of the reasons Boqvist can produce is his offensive talent. In 2022-23, his controlled zone exits per 60 minutes (7.9) are in line with names like Roman Josi (7.8), Drew Doughty (7.9), Evan Bouchard (8.0), and Alex Pietrangelo (8.0). His Scoring Chance Contributions per 60 at 5-on-5 (4.4) is tied with Charlie McAvoy and slightly ahead of Rasmus Dahlin (though it's a limited 80-minute sample). One season isn't everything, so we should point out that in 2021-22, his SCC/60 was 3.0, and in line with names like Shea Theodore, Brent Burns, and Rasmus Dahlin.

At this point, Werenski is still the better PP option and will get that role when he's healthy next season. On top of that, Boqvist has very bad defensive metrics, and turns over the puck way too often, even for a player that handles it as much as he does. There is a lot of talent here, but he (like his team) has to pull it all together to really reach that next level in the fantasy game.

Next week, we'll look at changes in shot rates and see if we can glean anything from it.