There has been no shortage of interesting storylines around the Philadelphia Flyers over the last couple of seasons, but one of them is certainly the career renaissance of Rasmus Ristolainen. He had played very well defensively over the last couple of seasons for the Flyers and that has pushed his name into trade rumours. He is injured now, though, and while no timeline has been given, the trade deadline is just three weeks away. We will pass along more information as we get it, but it's not ideal timing.

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Jake Sanderson was seen skating before practice:

Jake Sanderson doing some pre practice drills. #Sens pic.twitter.com/szl31Gyen1

— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) February 14, 2024

Sanderson also doesn't have a timeline for his return but that he's back on the ice is a step in the right direction.

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In more good injury news, Vegas defenceman Shea Theodore was on the ice in a regular jersey for practice on Wednesday. It is the next step as he returns from an injury that has kept him out of the lineup since November. Coach Bruce Cassidy said in an interview after practice that next week is a realistic timeline for Theodore's return, so it shouldn't be much longer before fantasy owners get a star blue liner back on their rosters.

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Coming off a 7-0 blowout loss, Los Angeles had some new lines in practice, and they featured a returning Viktor Arvidsson:

Byfield – Kopitar – Fiala
Moore – Danault – Arvidsson
Laferriere – Dubois. -Kempe
JAD – Turcotte -Lewis – Kaliyev

No Carl Grundstrom, who left last night's game with a lower-body injury. https://t.co/2VLTvOWZ52

— Zach Dooley (@DooleyLAK) February 14, 2024

Arvidsson has yet to play this season due to back surgery but he appears on the cusp of a return. Adding him to the lineup makes this team deeper up front and gives them three legitimate scoring lines, but we'll have to see how the ice time and power play units shake out. Barring a miracle, it certainly does look like any hope of fantasy relevance for Arthur Kaliyev is gone.

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A little update on free agent Phil Kessel:

Phil Kessel on the ice in Abby! pic.twitter.com/uZh0WvLWex

— Rick Dhaliwal (@DhaliwalSports) February 14, 2024

The rumours have been that he's going to be a Vancouver Canuck very soon and it sure seems that way now.

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Florida went into Pittsburgh and easily handled the Penguins by a 5-2 margin. Florida got out to a 4-0 lead and didn't look back, getting a pair of goals from Anton Lundell, one from Aaron Ekblad (PP), another from Jonah Gadjovich, and Matthew Tkachuk's 18^th tally of the season. That was Lundell's third multi-point game in his last 10 appearances, a span where he totaled seven points and 27 shots. If he can get going offensively, it makes this team one line deeper.

It was a three-point game for Tkachuk who has 37 points (16 on the PP) in his last 21 games.; just an obscene stretch of production from him. Ekblad had three total shots and a hit in the game.

Bryan Rust and John Ludvig scored in the loss for Pittsburgh. Tristan Jarry allowed all five goals on 23 shots faced. Going back to November 16^th, or nearly three months, Evgeni Malkin has 24 points in 36 games. That is not enough from him and brings concern about just how much fantasy value he'll have down the stretch.

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Winnipeg and San Jose certainly played a hockey game on Wednesday night. The Jets won 1-0 thanks to a goal from Morgan Barron. Shout out to everyone that sat all 60 minutes through that one.

Connor Hellebuyck faced 17 shots and saved all of them for his third shutout, and 25^th win, of the season. Kaapo Kahkonen was excellent on the other side, saving 38 of 39 shots faced in the loss. He has a .905 save percentage on the season, which is good considering where he plays, but just six wins in 22 starts. That team is something else.

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Minnesota pushed their win streak to four games thanks to a 3-1 win in Arizona. Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy each had a goal and an assist (each had a PPP) while Jonas Brodin scored the game-winner in the second period. Eriksson Ek had three total shots, four hits, and a block, and now has 24 goals overall, surpassing his total of 23 from last season in 25 fewer games played. He needs three more to set a career high in what has been a tremendous fantasy season from him.

Logan Cooley scored the lone Arizona goal. He is up to 26 points in 52 games in what has been a productive rookie season from him.

Connor Ingram left the game after the second period due to injury. It doesn't seem to be anything serious as coach Andre Tourigny estimated he'll miss 7-10 days but those days matter for fantasy owners. Karel Vejmelka should be getting the starts for the time being, though the team has a back-to-back on Sunday/Monday, so there's at least one other streaming day to come.

Barrett Hayton was finally moved back to Arizona's top line for the second half of the game. He was there before his injury and it was just a matter of time before this happened.

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When trying to create goals, the type of play that precedes the shot is very important. A pass to a defenceman in the offensive zone is frequently less valuable than a seam pass, so finding out how a player is creating offence should be dug into a bit.

Using tracking data from AllThreeZones, let's look at some forwards who've changed their passing tendencies from last season to this one. The focus will specifically be on passes to defencemen, termed 'Low-To-High Passes', or LTH. The parameters are as follows:

• At least 125 tracked minutes for both 2022-23 and 2023-24.
• All at 5-on-5.
• At least 10 passes in each season leading to a shot for a teammate.
• Only looking at forwards.

That gives us a sample of just 163 forwards, but a lot of the top fantasy stars are included so it's worthwhile to see what's going on under the hood for some very notable names.

Three forwards separated themselves from the rest by increasing their passes to the blue line, but only one stands out:

Ryan O'Reilly is having a big rebound season in terms of production with 45 points in 53 games following his 30 points in 53 games a season ago, and the difference has been power play production. It seems to have gone on quietly, but O'Reilly has 12 power play goals, and that's more than David Pastrnak, Leon Draisaitl, Auston Matthews, and Elias Pettersson. His 20 power play points have him among the top-25 forwards in the league and account for nearly 45% of his total production. Conversely, his points/60 at 5-on-5 (1.78) is right in line with what he did last season (1.73/60). The good news is his shot attempt rate on the power play is a career high. The bad news is that his PP shooting percentage is his highest in 13 years and if that ever dries up, it'll be hard to make it up at 5-on-5 with the way he's creating offence for the team.

There is a group of 11 forwards that have increased their LTH pass percentage between 20-26%, and when considering who is struggling offensively among some top fantasy options, some of the names make sense:

Kevin Fiala's 5-on-5 points/60 is a five-year low as his primary assists have dried up. With the frequency that he's been involving the Los Angeles defencemen, it seems a little wonder why that's the case. It is still too early to have a determination on Jim Hiller's influence behind the bench, but getting Fiala to be more creative in the offensive zone is on the to-do list.

Tim Stützle has a career-high by points/60 at 5-on-5, which is nice to see. He is also doing that with 1.17 secondary assists/60, easily the highest mark in the league, and 30% higher than the forward in fifth place (Charlie Coyle, 0.9/60). Fantasy owners will take points however they can get them, but this is something that does regress, and the way he's been including his blue liners is concerning (whether for this season or next).

Seattle's offence has been night-and-day from 2022-23, and when seeing both Matty Beniers and Alex Wennberg on this list, it starts to make sense why that's happening. Beniers's issues run deeper than just this – he has one secondary assist and his shooting percentage is a paltry 6.1% – but there has been a change offensively, and the points show the results of that change.

It is interesting seeing Adrian Kempe here. He and Fiala typically play on different lines for Los Angeles, so this would indicate it's more a team thing than a player thing. With Los Angeles 29^th by 5-on-5 scoring since December 1^st, things need to change, and only time will tell if Hiller makes the necessary adjustments.

At the other end of the spectrum are some notable names that are passing the puck to the blue line much less often than in 2022-23. Well, four of the five names, at least:

I was one of the people concerned about David Pastrnak's production with both David Krejci and Patrice Bergeron retiring. Well, he's responded by posting a six-year high in primary assists/60 and a six-year high in overall assists/60. He is looking for his teammates in dangerous spots and it's helped the team stay afloat offensively.

Oliver Bjorkstrand has seen a decline by points/60 at 5-on-5 but it's all been driven by a low individual shooting percentage (6.5%, a six-year low and the first time in those six years he's been under 9.5%). More goals from Bjorkstrand himself would be nice for fantasy owners, but he's helping Seattle create quality offence when many others are falling behind.

Having Matt Duchene here is a nice comparison for O'Reilly. The former was bought out by Nashville in the offseason while the latter signed in Nashville as his replacement. Nashville also hired a new coach in the offseason, so it's not entirely just the team, but Duchene's primary assists/60 and points/60 at 5-on-5 are both the highest they've been since 2017-18. That second line for Dallas has been one of the most productive in the NHL this season, and Duchene is probably the best signing from the offseason because of it.

The name that sticks out is Jesperi Kotkaniemi. At this point, he's been reduced to Carolina's fourth-line centre and has two points in his last 20 games. Between his passing proclivities and his career-high individual expected goals/60 and shots/60, things should be looking better for him but he sits with a four-year low point rate. He had a lot of time next to Martin Necas and they couldn't find the back of the net with any regularity. This is a lost fantasy season for Kotkaniemi but this is still an interesting player who only turns 24 years old this summer.

One last player to talk about is from Washington. Only 18 forwards in the sample have 25% fewer passes to the blue line than Dylan Strome when compared to 2022-23, and he's in very good company:

Strome's offence at 5-on-5 has tanked when compared to last season, or even the one before in Chicago, but Washington has been terrible this season, scoring-wise. The team's scoring rate with him on the ice far exceeds names like Alex Ovechkin, Tom Wilson, and TJ Oshie, and he's made the best of a bad situation. It is hard to see things improving for this team for a year or two until a couple of their prospects make the leap, but Strome would be a fun player to watch on a good offensive team.