The Department of Player Safety announced that Anaheim forward Trevor Zegras would have a hearing for his hit on Detroit forward Michael Rasmussen on Sunday night. Zegras doesn't have any real history behind him but still earned a three-game suspension. That will keep him out for the rest of the week and be eligible to return a week from today. More on Zegras further down in this column.

Also, Gary Bettman announced that Minnesota forward Ryan Hartman would have his suspension reduced to eight games.

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There were a slew of injuries to come out of the Four Nations Faceoff, though it seems both Josh Morrissey and Connor Hellebuyck from Winnipeg avoided anything serious as both were back in the lineup on Monday:

#NHLJets rushes

Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi
Ehlers-Namestnikov-Perfetti
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Iafallo-Gustafsson-Kupari
Barron

Morrissey-DeMelo
Samberg-Pionk
Stanley-Miller
Heinola-Fleury

Hellebuyck starts in goal vs –#SJSharks

Comrie

— Ken Wiebe (@WiebesWorld) February 24, 2025

Morrissey missed Saturday's game, as well as the Four Nations final, with an illness, but he's good to go. Hellebuyck seemed to just be getting Saturday off for some rest so nothing nefarious there.

It was a good thing Morrissey was back in the lineup, too, as he scored with under 30 seconds left in their home game against San Jose to tie things up 1-1. The Jets had been pressing but were unable to solve Vitek Vanecek before scoring on their 33^rd shot of the night to give them at least one point against the Sharks.

Winnipeg secured their second point as Mark Scheifele jammed home a rebound off a Nikolaj Ehlers shot to lift the Jets to a 2-1 overtime win. Scheifele finished the game with four hits while Morrissey had four shots.

Hellebuyck stopped 16 of 17 shots faced for his 35^th win of the season.

William Eklund fired the only puck to get past Hellebuyck, his sixth power-play goal of the season.

Vanecek was stellar, stopping 33 of 35 shots, but took the hard-luck loss.

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An update on Montreal forward Kirby Dach:

#Habs announce Josh Anderson and David Savard (therapy day), Brendan Gallagher (personal reasons), and Kirby Dach (lower-body injury) will all not practice today.

— Priyanta Emrith (@HabsInHighHeels) February 24, 2025

Given his very recent injury history, this is always a bit concerning, so let's hope it's nothing serious. The team called up Owen Beck as a potential replacement.

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Detroit wouldn't divulge more except to say that Andrew Copp and Michael Rasmussen will not play on Tuesday night.

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The Los Angeles Kings took care of business at home on Monday night, handing Vegas a 5-2 loss thanks to a huge game from Quinton Byfield. The 22-year-old forward had four assists on the five goals (one on the power play), adding three shots, a block, four PIMs, and a hit in a massive multi-cat fantasy effort. Going back to late January, Byfield has 2 goals, 10 assists, 22 shots, 8 blocks, and 6 hits in his last 10 games.

Trevor Moore scored twice (once on the PP) on four shots in just his second multi-goal game of the season. He does have four goals in his last six games, though, so maybe he's heating up a little bit after an extended cold stretch.

Warren Foegele, Kevin Fiala, and Joel Edmundson had the other goals. Fiala now has 16 goals in his last 33 games dating to late November.

Darcy Kuemper registered his 18^th win of the season, allowing just the two goals on 23 shots.

Brayden McNabb and Mark Stone had the goals for Vegas. Tomas Hertl had an assist, a block, and four hits in the loss, and he's now 1 of 34 players with at least 22 goals and 22 assists this season.

Ilya Samsonov took the loss, allowing all five goals on 19 shots faced.

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The NHL returned to action over the weekend, but we had a light schedule on Monday night with just two games. This is a good time to look ahead to the NHL trade deadline, which is next Friday, March 7^th. For this, we will be referencing the Trade Bait boards from both TSN and Elite Prospects. There was also a section on trade deadline targets in the 2025 Dobber Hockey Midseason Fantasy Guide, as well as a lot more that can help fantasy managers down the stretch.

With that out of the way, let's look at three forwards who could be on the move, potential landing spots, and would have a lot of fantasy value if they are indeed traded. The contract data is from PuckPedia with player data from Natural Stat Trick or Frozen Tools, unless otherwise indicated.

Brock Nelson (New York Islanders)

After three straight 30-plus-goal seasons (actually, at least 34 in all of them), Nelson looks like he will fall short of that mark in 2024-25. That might seem like a concern for a 33-year-old forward, but the key here is that most of the drop is from the power play: Nelson is on pace for 21 even-strength goals and had 24 such goals last year. He has just one power-play goal in 56 games after averaging nine every 82 games across the prior three seasons.

There are also a lot of other things he is doing well, too. Tracking from AllThreeZones shows that Nelson has managed a whopping 6.2 assists on teammate scoring chances per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 this season. As a result, his line mates are shooting 10.1% at 5-on-5 this season against a two-year average of 8.9% from 2022-2024. He can still score, but he's an underrated playmaker, and that dual-threat nature of his offence is something any team can use.

Destination: What throws a wrench in things is Nelson has a 16-team no-trade list. We don't know which teams are on that list, but given a recent player poll from The Athletic showing half of players would list Winnipeg at the top, and that Ottawa and Edmonton have very little deadline cap space, if Nelson doesn't go to Toronto, then he's staying in the United States.

Colorado feels like a viable landing spot for Nelson. Casey Mittelstadt's name has been floated around, and while the trade would be bigger than a one-for-one, a swap involving Nelson and Mittelstadt seems appropriate. The Avalanche trading Mikko Rantanen opened a lot of cap space for future seasons, the cap itself is rising, and Mittelstadt going the other way would clear even more money. This wouldn't necessarily be a rental, and Nelson could assume a similar role that Nazem Kadri had during Colorado's Cup run a few years ago. 

Rickard Rakell (Pittsburgh Penguins)

Rakell has already locked in a 25-goal season, his second in the last three years, and could push 40 goals with a sustained hot streak. An elevated shooting percentage is a big reason why, but a big change has been spending the vast majority of the season next to Sidney Crosby. Across his first two-plus seasons with the Penguins, Rakell skated more often away from Crosby than with him. There is undoubtedly still a bit of luck here, but Rakell having an all-world playmaker as his centre for most of the season has clearly helped.

Unlike Nelson, Rakell isn't much of a playmaker as his 0.34 primary assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 over the last two and a half seasons is around the 6^th percentile of the league, and his total assist rate at 5-on-5 is in the 45^th percentile. At best, he's below average, and is likely much worse than that.

Rakell is a player that has thrived off the rush in recent seasons, and that brings a good/bad aspect to it. It can help with scoring – and that's great news for fantasy – but it can lead to counterattacks against, and thus goals against. Pittsburgh's goaltending hasn't helped matters, but how he plays comes with risk. It wasn't the case earlier in his career, so maybe he can adapt to a new style if he needs to.

Destination: Rakell has an 8-team no-trade list, so if we assume the same teams that are on Nelson's list for cap reasons or otherwise (Winnipeg, Ottawa, Edmonton), as well as Buffalo, San Jose, and Chicago, it helps clarify where he could end up.

Notably, Rakell also has three years left on his contract at $5M per season. It isn't a big cap hit, especially with the incoming cap increases, but it makes him less of a rental and more of an addition for a team that is now in their Cup window and should be for a few more years.

Dallas makes a lot of sense here. They are a team that also plays off the rush offensively, the injury to Tyler Seguin has opened up a lot of cap space (and a lineup spot), and all of Jamie Benn, Mikael Granlund, Matt Duchene, and Evgenii Dadonov are free agents after this season. A trade to Dallas would bolster their forward group for future seasons as well as this one, and help insure them against player departures, however many there ends up being.

Two teams to watch are Minnesota and Tampa Bay. When healthy, each team has five regular forwards on the top two lines, but there has been a constant rotation of the sixth forward. Rakell would fill that final scoring role for either side, they both have the cap space to do it, and both teams hope to contend beyond the 2024-24 season.

Trevor Zegras (Anaheim Ducks)

After back-to-back seasons of 23 goals and over 60 points at the age of 20 and 21, Zegras has endured injuries the last couple of years missing 51 games in 2023-24 and over 20 games thus far in 2024-25. Across the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, Zegras posted 1.68 primary points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (goals and first assists), a rate higher than similarly-aged forwards like Matt Boldy (1.63), Cole Caufield (1.55), and Tim Stutzle (1.47). Compared to all forwards, Zegras's primary points rate was higher than Mathew Barzal (1.64), Martin Necas (1.62), and Valeri Nichushkin (1.61). Things have gone so poorly for Zegras over the last couple of seasons that it's easy to forget he wasn't just productive for his age, but his 5-on-5 production was that of a low-end first line forward, full stop. That was on an Anaheim team that was 31^st in the league by goals per minute, too.

It is worth noting that even with the struggles over the last two seasons, which have permeated the entire team, his rate of assists on teammate scoring chances has increased. Though his offence off the rush has declined 3%, there has been a league-wide drop of 14% when compared to the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, so he looks good with that context. There is still some good here, even with the injuries and subpar roster. His defence is still suspect, but the offence is still showing a lot of upside.

Destination: Zegras will be in his age-24 season next year and though he has just one year left on his contract, he remains a restricted free agent after that. With no trade protections, it opens the possibilities of where he could land if Anaheim does indeed trade him (which I'm still dubious about).  

Zegras could end up on a non-playoff team like Buffalo or Montreal, but let's assume he lands on a playoff roster. The one that immediately comes to mind is New Jersey.

The Devils have a slew of players with trade protections, but two that don't are Dawson Mercer and Simon Nemec. Mercer is signed for two more years at $4-million per season and is the same age as Zegras, while Nemec is on an entry-level deal for one more season. A Mercer/Zegras trade could be a straight swap, while a Nemec/Zegras trade would likely be larger just because of Nemec's bargain contract and younger age. Maybe it isn't a great fit stylistically, but the Devils are clearly looking for a lot of middle-6 help, and their Cup window is open for the rest of this decade. Zegras fits those parameters.

One team to keep an eye on is Florida, even if it is another stylistic mismatch. The closest players the Panthers have to Mercer/Nemec-types are Anton Lundell and Mackie Samoskevich, and I seriously doubt they will trade Lundell. Florida also doesn't have their first-, second-, or third-round pick in the 2025 Draft. Maybe the assets are lacking, but they have the cap space, should have more kicks at the Stanley Cup can for a few years yet, and are missing one forward for their top-6 like Tampa Bay and Minnesota (both of whom are probably in the mix, too).