Welcome back to another edition of Lining Up! With some leagues entering into the championship week or owners gearing up for playoffs, this week we will take a look at noteworthy players or line combinations to help you out during the crunch time of the season.

Let's dive in.

Tomas Hertl

Tomas Hertl made his debut with Vegas last night against Vancouver and immediately made his presence known with a power play assist and four hits for a solid debut after missing two months. He was not on the first line for the moment but instead played with Chandler Stephenson and Michael Amadio. He did however play on the top power play unit and was good for an 83.5% share of the available time, which is the kind of deployment owners would want from Hertl down the stretch.

Hertl has played to at least a 62-point pace over his last five seasons but this year, on a particularly impotent San Jose squad, he is only slightly below that mark with a 59-point pace. His production on the power play has still been good, with 10 power play points in 49 games, likely due to the fact that his former team has a not-terrible power play, and that Vegas and San Jose actually have similar power play conversion rates this season (19.1% and 20.9% respectively). The big discrepancy is in Even Strength Goals where Vegas is 10^th in the league compared to San Jose who is dead last. Vegas has scored 68 more goals at even strength, if Hertl had played the season on a team with that many more goals and at his current IPP, he would likely be back in line with a 65–70-point pace. With continued deployment on the top power play unit and the move to a higher scoring team, Hertl would be a great asset for the final fantasy week or your playoff pools. He may even have been dropped and forgotten about given his low ownership in Yahoo leagues of 41%. For even more incentive, Vegas plays five games during the combined final stretch of fantasy playoffs and all five of those games are on light nights as well as a game against Chicago and Anaheim to end the season.

Philipp Kurashev

Another team with a great schedule down the stretch is Chicago, which makes this the perfect opportunity to check in on Connor Bedard's most frequent Philipp Kurashev. Besides his recent hot streak of four points in four games, Kurashev has had the good fortune of holding down a spot alongside Bedard for over 60% of his time with various third wheels at even strength this season, which is a huge number to be playing alongside the star rookie. He has also spent the large majority of his time on the power play with Bedard as well, averaging nearly three minutes with the man advantage. The results have been great for Kurashev, he has more than doubled his career-high 25 points in as many games with 51 so far and increased his power play point total from four to 18. Now more than ever is a great time to add Kurashev if you have been missing out, as Chicago has a similar schedule to Vegas, playing five games between now and next Thursday the 14^th, and all on light nights.

As a note for next season, Kurashev will be an excellent late-round draft pick as he would be the frontrunner to continue playing with Bedard as both players continue to grow and improve.

Nazem Kadri – Andrei Kuzmenko

The pair of Nazem Kadri and Andrei Kuzmenko have been joined together recently and have since been connecting. Kadri has seven points in his last six games including three power play points in that span. This pace brings him to a 71-point pace on the season, notably one of his best seasons over the last several years outside of his monster 87 points in 71 games with Colorado. He has quietly carved himself a role in spite of playing predominantly with Martin Pospisil and Connor Zary for the majority of his time at even strength and continues to provide solid peripheral coverage with over three shots per game.

Perhaps his recent hot streak has been ignited by Kuzmenko who, after starting out his tenure in Calgary lining up alongside Jonathan Huberdeau and Yegor Sharangovich, has moved to play with Kadri and since put up nine points in the last five games, including four goals in that span. This recent stretch brings Kuzmenko up to 17 points in 23 games since the trade and pushes him to a 60-point pace over a full 82 games. Similar to Kurashev, Kuzmenko could provide sneaky value as a late-round draft pick based on how he has played since the move to Calgary.

However, it is worth noting that he is still taking under two shots per game and as a result, has scored on 20% of his shots over the last 23 games. That rate is not completely unsustainable and is lower than his rate from last season, but it is above the norm for what we would expect from a forward. The upside though is since joining Calgary he has averaged 15:31 of TOI but over the last five games since joining Kadri, Kuzmenko is up to three full minutes more on average. The high shot rate is less of a concern over the remaining games so long as he can continue to maintain this level of deployment and should be worth your attention if your roster is in need of a player to stream in. Calgary in particular has one of the best schedules for the rest of the season, playing six games, four on light nights and they play San Jose twice, and Anaheim and Arizona once each. Kadri and Kuzmenko could be in line for very strong finishes.