Welcome back to another edition of Lining Up! This week we will examine players who are cold or having down seasons in part due to their deployment either at even strength or on the power play. Particular focus will be on a number of defensemen who are no longer receiving the same quality line deployment as they did previously.

Let's dive in.

Jordan Kyrou

Fantasy owners should not completely panic just yet, but Jordan Kyrou has seemingly been the lone forward on St. Louis that has not been part of resurging squad through the month of November. Both Robert Thomas and Pavel Buchnevich have been on excellent trajectories since November 1^st. In that 13-game span, Thomas has 17 points and Buchnevich has 14 while Kyrou is bringing up the rear with 10 points. In spite of having 10 points in 14 games and notching four assists in his last four, Kyrou is only on pace for a 53-point season. Worse yet, Kyrou is no longer playing alongside longtime linemates Thomas and Buchnevich and has even lost his spot on the top power play unit, being replaced by Jake Neighbours in both spots.

All hope is not lost however, Kyrou is still landing three and a half shots per game and has a low personal shooting percentage of 5.8%. No doubt pucks will start bouncing his way and ideally, he will return to the top line and power play unit in short order.

Mikhail Sergachev

Moving to defensemen, fantasy owners could not seem to agree on which player between Mikhail Sergachev and Victor Hedman would be the one to quarterback the lethal power play unit in Tampa Bay. Through the first 22 games the answer has been a resounding Hedman, as Sergachev currently has less than two minutes in PPTOI as well as a 33% share of the power play time. The result has seen him go from the 66-point pace he had last season to a 56-point pace this season. Absolutely worth rostering but given that Sergachev achieved last season's pace on the back of a fourth quarter surge of 22 points in 19 games with that role on the top power play, owners were hoping that he had completely supplanted Hedman and would be riding Sergachev along for a career year.

That has not happened yet, and he will need that deployment for his ascension to the top tiers of fantasy defensemen. The good news is that Sergachev was seeing practicing with the top unit earlier today as reported by Lightning Insider Erik Erlendsson on Twitter/X. Owners should hold onto hope still that Sergachev can still get that role.

Tony DeAngelo

To a lesser extent than Sergachev, the second coming of Tony DeAngelo has so far not panned out the way owners might have been expecting. DeAngelo has been absent the last three games while Brent Burns carries the workload on offense. No injuries or updates have been reported (seemingly just health scratches) but the situation is not conducive to earning points. Even when he has played DeAngelo is on pace for only 36 points this season and his average TOI is the lowest of his career. His percentage of power play time is the lowest in the last four years, indicating that when he does play, he is still battling Burns for the top deployment. All this is to say that if DeAngelo is not being heavily utilized on the top power play unit, his value craters and his second tenure in Carolina so far indicates that Burns may be the preferred choice here.

It will be worth monitoring his deployment when (if?) he returns but right now the outlook is not favourable.

Seth Jones

Another player who was perhaps expected to do well this season was Seth Jones. With zero points in his past four games and on pace for only 30 on the season, his lowest pace since he was first traded to Columbus, Jones has lost his premiere deployment and has been relegated to the second power play unit away from Connor Bedard. In the game against St. Louis on Sunday, despite seeing a 50% share of power play time, it was Kevin Korchinski who was the defenseman on the unit with Bedard. As Chicago is largely bereft of talent with Taylor Hall injured, Corey Perry's contract being terminated and having no one other than Bedard, this kind of deployment could decimate his value moving forward.

Seth Jones does contribute well to peripheral categories if your league counts those stats, he has so far averaged two shots, two blocks and a hit per game but many owners likely drafted Jones assuming he would at least be closer to 40 points and not 30. It is unfathomable that Jones would be away from Bedard for any serious length of time but his value has never been lower.

Erik Gustafsson – Oliver Ekman-Larsson

Rounding out the overview of cold defensemen, both Erik Gustafsson and Oliver Ekman-Larsson are two players who are in very similar situations where the incumbent power play quarterbacks on their respective rosters were injured and so both players assumed those roles on the man advantage and went on excellent stretches of production.

Over in New York, Adam Fox has been a full participant at practice and may be eligible to return as early as tomorrow night against Detroit. Since Fox went down with an injury, Gustafsson immediately stepped into his role on the power play and went pointless in only one game during that span. Meanwhile, in case you missed it both Brandon Montour and Aaron Ekblad returned from offseason injuries four games ago. Ekman-Larsson on the season has 11 points in 21 games and just over three and a half minutes of PPTOI. Coincidentally, Ekman-Larsson has zero points in his last…four games, so the affect of Montour and Ekblad on his fantasy value has been immediate.

It was an excellent showcase of talent for both players but with the return of Fox, Montour and Ekblad, their deployment will fundamentally shift and relegate them to waiver wire level talent.