Tyler Seguin returned to the Dallas Stars lineup on Wednesday night with his team hosting Arizona. Seguin had missed 11 games with a lower-body injury, an injury that resulted in Logan Stankoven getting recalled. This was the first time Dallas has something resembling their postseason lineup all healthy and in place (with a couple minor changes possible). They are now truly three lines deep scoring-wise and Seguin's return is a fantasy boost to Mason Marchment and Matt Duchene.

Dallas won that game against Arizona 5-2 thanks to goals from Seguin, Logan Stankoven, Jamie Benn, and Craig Smith. Jason Robertson also scored once on four shots, added an assist, and had three hits in a very good multi-cat night. Nils Lundkvist dressed for Jani Hakanpaa and had two assists, four shots, two blocks, and two hits.

John Leonard replied for Arizona, as did Clayton Keller who is now up to 28 goals on the year and should hit 30. For all of the Coyotes' problems, he's still producing well.

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Viktor Arvidsson also returned on Wednesday night and he's a big addition for the team's playoff run presuming he can stay healthy. For head-to-head leagues, the Kings have three games next week and they're all on the road against Vancouver, Edmonton, and Calgary.

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Los Angeles scored six against Minnesota on Wednesday night, taking a 6-0 win from the Wild. Viktor Arvidsson had a goal and an assist with five shots skating on Pierre-Luc Dubois's line (more on him later). Anze Kopitar, Kevin Fiala, and Phillip Danault also had a goal and an assist while Matt Roy and Jordan Spence tallied. The goals from Spence and Fiala were power play tallies, too.

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Some good news on Dylan Larkin:

#RedWings Lalonde: Larkin possible for tomorrow. Will see how he feels in morning. Compher and Perron maintenance days. Rasmussen under the weather. Reimer starting tomorrow vs. NYI.

— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) March 20, 2024

Even if Larkin isn't back in the lineup for Thursday, his return is imminent. On the downside for fantasy managers, the Wings have just three games next week and they're all on the road: in Washington, Carolina, and Florida. Not a great schedule for his return to fantasy lineups.

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An update on Minnesota defenceman Jonas Brodin:

#mnwild defenseman Jonas Brodin will have an MRI today. This obviously doesn't come at a good time with four weeks left in the regular season. Good news is it's not ACL, I'm told

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) March 20, 2024

We will pass along information when we see more, likely Thursday/Friday.

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Toronto laid waste to Washington 7-3. More specifically, Auston Matthews laid waste to Washington with two goals, three assists, five shots, a block, and a hit. One of those assists was on the power play, too, and he's now one point away from hitting 90 on the season.

William Nylander had a goal and two assists, John Tavares had a goal and two assists, Max Domi had four helpers, while Tyler Bertuzzi and Jake McCabe also scored. Bobby McMann also got on the board with his 11^th goal of the year.

Charlie Lindgren was in net for all seven goals against and Connor McMichael scored his 15^th goal of the year.

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Checking in on improvements and declines through the season is vital to see which players are getting lucky or unlucky, which players may see improved or declining usage, and so forth. Using tracking data from AllThreeZones, let's look at forwards that have seen improvements or declines in their playmaking at 5-on-5. We are going to look at scoring chance assists per 60 minutes (SCA/60), or the rate that the forwards assist on a teammate's scoring chance. The comparisons will be against games tracked up to January 1^st, the change since then, and where things stand now. The league average SCA/60 of the 235 forwards in our sample is 3.1 in each split.

The Stand-Outs

There is one winger that stands out above the rest for positive changes by SCA, another that is behind him but also far ahead of the third-largest change, and both are currently top-6 forwards for top-3 teams by points percentage:

Interestingly, Carter Verhaeghe's assists/60 at 5-on-5 have fallen from 1.2 to 1.1 in that split, but he's also second among the team's forwards in assists/60 since New Year's Eve (only Matthew Tkachuk is higher). Even as Florida's 5-on-5 scoring remains very pedestrian for their talent, he's maintained excellent assist rates, and it's pretty obvious why that is.

Hey, it's Nikolaj Ehlers being really good. Plus ça change…

The Next Five

After those two wingers, there is a quintet of wingers somewhat bunched together and they range from rising stars to veteran fantasy options:

After scoring 12 goals in 29 games, JJ Peterka has just nine in his last 41 outings. The shots per game have declined from 2.7 to 2.4 in those two splits, and his assists/60 have fallen as well. Buffalo has had a much harder time scoring this season as they've changed their offence to improve their defence, but fantasy owners should take note that Peterka looks to genuinely be adding a playmaking dimension to his game. He is starting to round into a very complete offensive threat and his ice time has been rising of late.

It is fun to see Nils Höglander on this list. Whether it's playing more in the top-6 or just natural positive regression, he's shown some good playmaking skills in parts of his career, and it's showing up again now. Since New Year's Eve, he's fourth among the team's forwards by primary assists/60 minutes, trailing Teddy Blueger, Elias Pettersson, and Pius Suter. It seems as if Vancouver's patience with the player is paying dividends.

Young Stars and Veterans

After that earlier group, there were large improvements for both Mitch Marner and Mikey Eyssimont, which put them in a duo of their own. (Those two players having similar jumps in scoring chance assists, even if the overall rate is widely different, is pretty funny.) The following group of five features three players that fantasy mangers should take note of:

It is notable that a lot of Cooley's time over the last couple of months has come skating with Dylan Guenther. They have played so well together that they have even been given shutdown minutes now and then, which is almost unheard of for a pair of players with 132 combined regular season games to their name. Cooley has yet to start racking up the assists, but his play has certainly picked up since New Year's, and that's a great sign for his fantasy future.

In the second-half split, Jarvis leads Carolina skaters by primary assists/60 minutes by a wide margin (about 24%) and he's top-10 among all forwards in the league. He now has 25 goals and 30 assists on the season with just 15 of those 55 points coming on the power play. After a bit of a stumble in his sophomore season, Jarvis's third year has been outstanding, and he's been vital to Carolina's offence. The fact that he's already surpassed 100 hits this season portends a great multi-cat fantasy option for years to come.  

Is Jonathan Huberdeau really finding his groove in Calgary? Finally? His primary assist rate at 5-on-5 is 36% higher than the next-closest regular Flames forward since January 1^st, and his rate is in the 95^th percentile of the league's forwards in that time. Overall, his SCA/60 rate is still nowhere near what it was at the end of his Florida tenure, but it's considerably better than it was in the first half of this season, and he has 27 points (22 assists) in his last 31 games.

Robert Thomas

Just to quickly touch on Thomas (no, not like that), his improvement was in the first standard deviation above the average change, and his overall SCA/60 rate this season is now in line with names like Marner and Artemi Panarin. Since January 1^st, his primary assists/60 rate is low (0.87), but it's also 50% higher than the next-closest Blues forward. His overall assists/60 at 5-on-5 is 52% higher than the next-closest Blues forward, too. The rates aren't high, but this is a very poor offensive team, and he plays a lot of minutes. He is not a well-rounded multi-cat option, but he now has a career-high shot rate that at least makes 25 goals a very real possibility.

The Drops

Much like Verhaeghe and Ehlers putting themselves into a two-man group of largest SCA/60 improvements, there is a pair of forwards in a tier by themselves by largest SCA/60 decline. After reading the names, fantasy managers across the world will nod in unison:

Two goals and six points in the last nine days have helped Tuch's second-half splits look a lot better than they were, because he had a stretch with just 16 points in 27 games before that. After posting back-to-back seasons of at least 1.0 primary assists/60 at 5-on-5 with Buffalo, Tuch is down to 0.77 this season. The team's offensive changes have affected everyone, and that includes a winger many fantasy managers were relying on for 30 goals and 70 points.

At the risk of feeding a fed horse, it's been a rough go for Pierre-Luc Dubois. His points per game have actually gone up since January 1^st, but a lot of that is related to a big rise in power play production (six PPPs in his last 35 games compared to one PPP in his first 33). Three assists in the last week in two games against Chicago is also helping.

Next Five Drops

There are a couple depth players with drops, and then this group of five:

Evgeni Malkin's production drop really started at the All-Star break, and he has 11 points in 22 games since. Even worse is that he has just 38 shots in those 22 games. Not only is the playmaking – which started the season at an elite rate – taking a big dive, but he's not shooting, either. Not great signs for a player turning 38 years old this summer.

We won't go long here, but I will need a full-season documentary on what happened with the 2023-24 Los Angeles Kings. They have righted the ship since the All-Star break, but a lot of that has been defensive improvements/goaltending, and not necessarily the offence. There shouldn't be huge concerns about Quinton Byfield's future, but seeing Dubois's name earlier, Byfield now, and Adrian Kempe also with a sizable drop elsewhere on the list, means everyone not on the Phillip Danault line has a lot of explaining to do.