Welcome back to another edition of Lining Up! This week will focus on the impacts of new line combinations with the recent trade of Mikko Rantanen and Martin Necas, as well as a few notable players who may be worth some attention based on their recent deployment.

Let's dive in.

Mikko Rantanen – Sebastian Aho – Jackson Blake

Well, we have to start with the biggest trade of the season (so far). Rather than discuss how Mikko Rantanen's own production might be impacted, we are going to take a look at his new line combination to suss out who stands to benefit from his arrival. Early on he has been lining up alongside Finnish compatriot Sebastian Aho and Jackson Blake. Aho is a known quantity at this point, he has hovered around a point per game pace almost since Day One in the NHL with last season being his best at 89 points in 78 games. This season he has fallen a bit below that mark and is on pace for 82 points in the same number of games. The notable difference between last season and this is the change in the linemates as Aho has spent significant time at even strength with Jack Roslovic and some combination of Andrei Svechnikov or Seth Jarvis, as opposed to last season where he predominantly was playing alongside Teuvo Teravainen, Jake Guentzel and again either Svechnikov or Jarvis. Now with the arrival of Rantanen, there comes the thought that perhaps the fellow countrymen can develop some early chemistry and boost Aho's production back to last season's mark.

Perhaps the player who stands to gain the most here is Jackson Blake. After finding himself on the top line with Aho and Svechnikov, somewhat surprisingly the arrival of Rantanen did not displace him from this plumb assignment and he is now riding shotgun to the two superstars. He has a modest 16 points in 50 games so far this season but that is largely in part to playing on the third or fourth lines. Since the start of the third quarter six games ago, he has three points and is averaging over three more minutes of ice time a night. He may not hit the point of a must-own player but in deeper leagues, his production should easily increase at closer to a 40-point pace if he can hold onto this spot.

Martin Nečas

On the flip side of the trade, Nečas was sent to Colorado and out of all the players involved in this trade, potentially stands to gain the most from his new deployment. In his first two games with Colorado, Nečas has already averaged over 22 minutes of ice time and a 93.7% share of power play time which are big increases from his season average of 18:15 TOI and 71.8 %PP. More importantly however, is that this gain in deployment also comes with playing with Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar at both even strength and on the power play. Nečas is also individually a strong contributor, when examining his IPP and PPIPP metrics which are the percentage of on-ice goals scored (at even strength and the power play respectively) where the player gets a goal or assist, Nečas has averaged a 70.5% IPP and 69.4% PPIPP over the last three seasons. If he can continue with that participation rate while gaining more ice time alongside two of the leagues biggest producers, it will unlock another level of production for him. Fantasy owners are about to find out what kind of boost a player can have when they are playing with both MacKinnon and Makar versus anyone on Carolina.

Bobby McMann

Due to the injury to John Tavares, Bobby McMann has stepped in to try and fill the void and has done an admirable job so far with five points in five games to go along with a monster 17 shots. After spending time at even strength with William Nylander, last game he was up on the line with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. Even more enticing is that he is also playing on the top power play unit which has once again reverted to a five-forward unit (leaving Morgan Rielly out in the cold). The downside is that Toronto only plays twice this week and on the heavier Thursday and Saturday nights. However, if you have room and your roster and are in need of a forward, swap in McMann while he is hot and playing alongside the two high-end forwards.

Tony DeAngelo

One transaction that flew under the radar with the Rantanen and Nečas trade was the signing of the venerated and highly respected Tony DeAngelo in Long Island. With the injury to Noah Dobson, the organization opted to fill this gap with a historically decent producer externally rather than internally. As expected, DeAngelo immediately slotted onto the top power play unit, which was actually loaded up and used for the majority of the available power play time instead of dividing that share with a second unit. He saw just over 25 minutes of action including over five minutes of PPTOI and had two shots and two blocks. If this level of deployment holds until Dobson returns, and more specifically if the team continues to utilize a single power play unit with the best players available for the majority of the time, DeAngelo could be worth streaming in for a brief duration.