This week on Frozen Tool Forensics we are finishing out our early season exploration into time on ice. In what has become a recurring series in the column we are using our Frozen Tools Reports to highlight some players who are seeing big changes in their deployment. Production follows deployment so knowing how players are being used is crucial to fantasy success. Today we are flipping last week's script and focusing on players who are losing out compared to the 2022-23 season.

To dig into this, I am comparing two Time on Ice reports. The first is from the end of the 22-23 season. It contains essentially the second half (about 40 games for each player) of the season. The second report is from the games to date (as of November 9th) for the 23-24 season. By the time this comes out there will be an additional game for some teams that is not represented here. We will be looking at the percentage of the team's total power play (%PP) and average total time on ice (TOI). Power-play percent gives us an idea of how much usage a player is getting compared to other players on the team and helps account a bit for small sample sizes.

First up, power play.

Our first group of players might not be too much of a surprise as they were featured on a bunch of preseason lists (here and elsewhere) as question marks. I am referring to some of our power-play defensemen. Kris Letang and Morgan Reilly were very much in the danger zone because of off season acquisitions (Erik Karlsson and John Klingberg). J.J. Moser wasn't really expected to hang on to power-play time, but he was similarly hurt by Arizona's acquisition of Sean Durzi. Dougie Hamilton is the real surprise here. Luke Hughes was always going to challenge and probably replace at some point, but I did not see anyone predicting it would be immediately in his rookie season.

In terms of future deployment, I think Moser is in his own sort of category that he wasn't exactly expected to keep this role and he is third on the list behind Durzi and Juuso Valimaki. Morgan Rielly and Dougie Hamilton managers certainly cannot love how effective New Jersey and Toronto's power-plays have been to date. Things could certainly change there, but they don't seem to have much motivation at the moment. Pittsburgh is the one where there might be a crack in the armor. The Penguins have not been great and the Karlsson trade was supposed to be setting the core up for one last run. It isn't terribly likely that Kalrsson is shifted off the top unit given the high-profile nature of the trade and the cost to acquire him, but if the Penguins continue to fall off of their preseason hopes they may be forced to shake things up a bit.

For the forwards here I see Blake Wheeler's change as the product of moving to a new team that doesn't have the need for him, but there is more optimism for most of the others that are the result of internal shake ups. Rafael Harvey-Pinard, Valeri Nichushkin, and Taylor Raddysh are all on the outs for now, but in this case the season is still young and a lot can still change for them. I am a little less excited about Nichushkin's prospects, not because he isn't a good player, but that power-play in Colorado has been very consistent through this first stretch of games. If Colorado getting shut out three times in four games didn't shake up the top unit, I am not sure what will. Raddysh is being pushed out by Corey Perry, Nick Foligno, and Taylor Hall, all of whom have injury or age-related concerns so the power play could certainly shake up over the course of the season. Harvey-Pinard is currently held off the power play by a very inconsistent Josh Anderson so there is a real possibility of change there.

When we swap over to straight time on ice, like with last week we end up seeing a lot of defensemen. For the most part we are seeing older players or players who swapped teams – or both. These are pretty logical changes, but I wanted to briefly touch on a few players from this list.

Tony DeAngelo really shouldn't be too much of a surprise. He switched teams in the off-season and was brought in specifically to support the power play. His power play percentage is slightly lower but I read that more as a sample size or that Carolina tends to have slightly more even deployment in their power-plays. His overall time has fallen quite a bit because Carolina has plenty of competent D and don't need him at even strength, I don't expect that to improve for him.

Jeff Petry is an interesting name. He has been all over the place in recent years in terms of value. He has been a top power play quarterback getting heavy overall minutes and he has been… not that. In Detroit there was maybe an opportunity for power-play time depending on how Shane Gostisbehere and Moritz Seider panned out, but some second power-play duties and a significantly reduced workload overall doesn't really bode well for Petry being a relevant piece going forward.

Kailer Yamamoto has mostly been skating with Seattle's fourth line. That is certainly why he is on this list. Moving from possibly playing with Leon Draisaitl to Seattle's fourth line pretty much kills any potential value he has. The one possible caveat here though is that Yamamoto has found some success on the power play, and given Seattle's low-scoring start he has gotten occasional opportunities further up the lineup. In their November 7th game, Yamamoto was on the line with Jared McCann and Matty Beniers, which is probably Seattle's top line, and was on the split power-play unit that saw the most time on ice. Of everyone on this list, he is the one I am most willing to check back in occasionally to see if anything has changed.

Philip Tomasino was among that surprising Nashville crew at the end of the 2022-23 season. This year not so much. There is the spot with Ryan O'Reilly and Filip Forsberg (most recently filled by Gustav Nyquist) and the line with Tommy Novak (with Keifer Sherwood and Luke Evangelista), plus the top power-play. Tomasino is in none of those places. Until that changes there isn't much to like here.

That is all for this week.

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