The Prospects Report will be released June 1. Ten days away!! You can now pre-order all of the 2023-24 fantasy products in the shop here (or subscribe!).

*

Jonathan Marchessault continues his torrid playoff run. He scored the tying goal and added an assist to give him eight points in four games. He's been an absolute nightmare for Dallas defenders, and he's really clicking with Jack Eichel. Down the stretch of the regular season, Marchessault had 15 points in 18 games. Add the playoff numbers to that and he has 27 points in 31 games (a 71-point pace), mostly alongside Eichel. He's 32 years old, but I often find that smaller players last a little longer. They bloom late and hang around a lot longer. No analysis to back that up, but it's a feeling. Anyway, Bruce Cassidy sees the chemistry, and you know he'll keep Marchessault and Eichel together heading into next season. That makes Marchessault a sneaky pick at your draft in September.

Right now Vegas' current coach, Bruce Cassidy, is out-coaching Vegas' former coach Peter DeBoer – up two games to zilch. DeBoer has been scratching Ty Dellandrea and Nils Lundkvist. Cassidy has been scratching Ben Hutton, Michael Amadio and Phil Kessel. But the big reason I say a lot of this is due to coaching is because Vegas is winning games with Adin Hill in net. We can all agree that he's not as strong a goaltender as Jake Oettinger.

That being said, Hill has posted Quality Starts in the last four games that he has played. He also ended the season with four QS, so eight of his last 10 starts have been of the 'Quality' variety.

It was the fourth consecutive game in which Vegas came from behind. That ties an NHL playoff record. This was also the first time in NHL history that Games 1 and 2 in both Conference Finals had to go to over time.

There have been 22 overtimes this postseason. The NHL record is 28 (Tampa Bay in 2020 and Montreal in 1993).

*

Ten teams in NHL playoffs history have won three consecutive games in overtime. No team has done it four times in a row. Florida could do that if Monday's game goes to OT and they win.

*

Over his last seven games, Oettinger is 3-4 (two losses in OT), with a 3.60 GAA and 0.870 SV%. His GSAA has been -5.7760.

*

Here are my favorite BT (Breakout Threshold) players for next season. I put them in order, but obviously with some of them it is so close that you can mix them around pretty easily and I would probably agree with you. I consider Tim Stutzle, Kirill Kaprizov, Dylan Cozens and K'Andre Miller as having already hit their breakouts early. I am also not looking at the 'exceptionally-sized' players (big or small), I'm only looking at 200 career games as the marker.

1. Trevor Zegras (180 career games) – The easiest pick here, as we all believe he's going to be a point-per-game player and he's already topped 60 points twice. The obvious time for him to reach that next level is the coming season. A 25% increase gives him 81 points.
   
   
2. Alexis Lafreniere (216 career games) – Poolies have seemingly been waiting forever for this guy, but it's only been three seasons. In keeper leagues, I'm sure Lafreniere's owners are softening their stance on him. They will still want the world for him, but no longer the entire universe. A 25% increase for him only gets him to 50 points and if that's all he does – expect a second breakout the year after. But I think we see more than the 50. He was on a 45-point pace in the final 18 games of the season, though was pointless in the postseason.
   
   
3. Philipp Kurashev (191 career games) – A shoulder injury ended his season at 70 games (25 points), but he's going to easily beat his career high that he just set. And 25% is only six points. Someone is going to get the lucky winger spot beside Connor Bedard and I think it will be Kurashev and Taylor Raddysh. Actually, what I think is that Chicago will sign a free agent for the role, and maybe two. But for now it's Kurashev and Raddysh. In which case, Kurashev won't improve by 25%, but more like 100%.
   
   
4. Alexander Romanov (209 career games) – Romanov has been underwhelming in fantasy thus far, and fantasy owners have long since given up on him. However, he did jump from 13 points in 22. Another 25% on that will be easy – and gets him to 28. I think he reaches that number, but with upside if one of Noah Dobson, Ryan Pulock or Sebastian Aho get hurt. Romanov is getting zero PP time right now, so he won't get too far past 28 points without that.
   
   
5. Alex Newhook (159 career games) – Newhook suffered a sophomore jinx and fantasy owners have soured on him. But be patient. Just after the midpoint of the season, he'll cross that 'threshold' and start kicking it up a notch. Make a note to let his fantasy owner hang onto him, but then reach out in December if Newhook starts off slowly. A 25% increase gets him to a modest 41 points, but he's another player on this list that I think could exceed that low target.
   
   
6. Tanner Jeannot (172 career games) – A terrible start with Tampa, but assuming he fully recovers from his injuries he stands a good chance of beating his career high of 41 points by 25%. That makes him a 50-point player. It could happen, but would probably need Jon Cooper to try him out as Alex Killorn's replacement on a scoring line.
   
   
7. Yegor Sharangovich (205 career games) – Sharangovich's numbers took a nosedive after the team acquired Timo Meier. He might be worth rolling the dice on, as he always seems to be the Plan B for the Jack Hughes line. If he can get back on that line during his BT season, there is nice potential there. A 25% bump to his career highs would give him 58 points.

*

Another player entering his fourth season is Joe Veleno. He's played 152 career games so by the time his BT hits, it will be pushing February. But I wanted to bring up Veleno's name anyway because he got suspended for five games from the IIHF for this garbage stomping:

*

See you next Monday.