Welcome back to another edition of Lining Up. Hopefully everyone had a great Christmas or holiday break and is ready for hockey to resume after a brief pause. This week we will take a look at a few hot line combinations from the last couple of weeks and how they can help your fantasy team moving forward.

Let's dive in.

Mark Scheifele – Nikolaj Ehlers – Gabriel Vilardi

After another two goals against Boston last Friday night, the top line of Mark Scheifele, Nikolaj Ehlers and Gabriel Vilardi is currently firing on all cylinders. Since Ehlers replaced Kyle Connor on this line the three have really developed some chemistry in a short timeframe. In less than 80 minutes of ice time together at even strength, the trio has 13 goals for and only two against while driving play with a 61.2 Corsi For percentage. All three players are on hot streaks and newest acquisition Gabriel Vilardi leads the way with 12 points in just five games. In his move to Winnipeg, Vilardi is taking nearly three shots per game, up a full shot from last season, and is seeing an extra minute of ice time as well. Ehlers meanwhile, has ten points in his last five games and since that injury to Connor. During that time, he is seeing more than two minutes extra time on ice per game than his season average and is taking nearly a full shot more in these last seven games than on the season as a whole. This is great news for Ehlers fans who held on through his first 21 games where he only notched 11 points.

Not to be outdone, the straw that stirs the drink on this line Mark Scheifele is up to eight points in the same five games which now brings him up to a 92-point pace on the season. This would tie him for his best point output if it can continue and none of his underlying metrics indicate that he is scoring at an unsustainable rate. Indeed, his 14.8 shooting percentage and 29.2 secondary assist percentage are actually low and due for a positive regression. Perhaps indicating that his production can continue.

Regardless, this line is really clicking right now and all three players are benefitting. Scheifele is owned in most leagues but both Vilardi and Ehlers are available in about a third of leagues. If yours happens to be one of them, go out and grab one of the two hot players.

Yegor Chinakhov – Kirill Marchenko – Dmitri Voronkov

The aptly called 'Russian Line' in Columbus has been dominant lately, in 110 minutes together the line has seven goals for and only three against. They are outplaying any line combination with Johnny Gaudreau or Adam Fantilli on it at the moment. Leading the way on a great hot streak is Yegor Chinakhov who has ten points in his last seven games, including six goals in that span before going pointless against Toronto on Saturday night. They are giving him every opportunity to succeed based on his 62% of the power play share as well as just over 18 minutes of time on ice. Both are well above his averages on the season of 37.5% and 14:55 and if he can continue to see this usage regardless of any potential regression, that may help to offset a significant drop off. Kirill Marchenko and Dmitri Voronkov are also chipping in with seven and five points respectively during that same span and are seeing similar usage totals. Indeed with both Boone Jenner and Patrik Laine out with injuries the entire line has joined Gaudreau on the top power play unit. The Russian Line will be looking to carry their momentum forward over the break, they play a porous New Jersey squad who rank 4^th in Goals Allowed per Game coming out of the pause before a back-to-back Friday and Saturday. Decent streaming options considering that both Chinakhov and Voronkov are owned in less than 10% of Yahoo leagues while Marchenko is owned in only 22% of leagues. They should all be readily available to help out your roster.

Unlike the top line from Winnipeg however, all three players are showing higher than expected numbers in their underlying analytics, indicating that they are likely to slow down at some point. If their usage, in particular deployment on the power play, can continue it may help to marginally offset a regression but do not hesitate to drop one of them quickly if it appears as though the streaks have come to an end.

Matt Duchene – Tyler Seguin – Mason Marchment

This line has been touched upon before in this column, but once again the combination of Matt Duchene, Tyler Seguin and Mason Marchment are heating up. Regardless of the ups and downs of this line, it is encouraging to see that throughout the season they have been consistently together for the majority of their time at even strength. They have banked nearly 300 minutes as a unit or approximately two-thirds of the time for each player. This is a good indication that the coaching staff likes this line and that new arrival Duchene is being given consistent players to build chemistry with. Over his last six games, Duchene has notched nine points which helps to bring him just shy of a point-per-game pace so far. He has seen his ice time rise slightly from the first quarter to this quarter, over his last 12 games he is up to about a minute more per game which is good to see. Duchene's underlying analytics are not screaming out that a major regression is coming but his PDO does indicate that he is a bit lucky at the moment while his personal shooting percentage of 15.3% is still within normal ranges.

Seguin is also performing well lately with five points over the same six game span. Marchment though has not seemed to jump in on the action as much with three points in six games but so far during the second quarter he has 10 points in 12 games after a strong showing at the beginning of the month. He has also seen his ice time jump up almost a minute and a half between quarters. All of this is to say that despite not being on significant hot streaks at the moment, Dallas will play St. Louis and then Chicago twice after the Christmas break and so each of these players should be on your radar to stream in while they are playing well.