Pavel Buchnevich has finally turned things around a little, with six points in his last four games, and eight in seven games since the calendar flipped to February. This comes right after I cut bait with him because I just couldn’t wait for the possible turnaround this year. He has been very disappointing offensively, pacing for only 56 points, but the PIM, PPP, and Shot rates have also greatly declined. We can’t even blame this on the transition to centre, as he played there regularly for a month at the beginning of the year, but has taken more than one faceoff in a game only twice since then. The Blues as a whole haven’t exactly been a hotbed for fantasy production, and the weak schedule in the H2H fantasy playoffs meant that dumping him in a league where he wouldn’t be in keeper consideration was manageable. 

The rest of the Blues also put up an excellent game, running over the Kraken by a score of 7-2. Jordan Binnington continued his phenomenal run from the Four Nations tournament, while Joey Daccord on the other side allowed more than four goals for only the second time all season. It was the revived Cam Fowler along with Oskar Sundqvist (and his first career three-point game) who did the biggest portion of the damage for the Blues.

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Jason Robertson was mentioned again on Monday as someone who has found his game again, and I wanted to also highlight Roope Hintz who has been coming along for the ride. Hintz is someone I haven’t yet cut bait with across a few different leagues, mainly because Dallas has more volume than St Louis in the H2H fantasy playoff weeks. 

Hintz has recently put up 12 points in 11 games to bring his season numbers up closer to what we expected, but he’s still below his pace from the last few years. The most obvious decrease for Hintz seems to be a slight loss of ice time as the Stars further balance the lines, on top of a lower secondary assist rate, and the power play production drying up a bit. 

The streak over the last 11 games has seen some balancing of the differences in those underlying differences between this year and the previous two. He might not be a point per game player again unless him and Jason Robertson play 20 minutes a game, but he should be more than a 60- point player regardless of deployment. 

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Just when you think Jeremy Swayman is getting back on track, he goes and coughs up three third-period goals and the overtime winner to the Leafs, which might as well be the dagger on the Bruins season, as the playoff bubble looks too crowded and too far out of reach with the recent injury news of Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm both missing significant time.

The one bright spot is that Mason Lohrei is up to four points in the two games since Charlie McAvoy was injured at the Four Nations tournament. He also has nine shots(!), four PIMs, and four Blocks across those two games. 

Morgan Rielly led the way for the Leafs last night, but even with the big game he's still on pace for his worst season since 2016-17. It's a great start to normalizing his production for the year, but it's going to take a lot more than that, and a big change from the production early on seems unlikely at this point.

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Bobby Brink put up the other four-point night last night, and while he's still a season away from his breakout threshold, he may be in line for a big fourth quarter as his ice time continues to rise. He's skating second-line minutes now over the last stretch of games, and between him and Tyson Foerster (three points last night) that line looks like it is going to keep chugging along into the home stretch.

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With Trevor Zegras gone for two more games after last night due to his three-game suspension, then you could look at Mason MacTavish if he’s available (63% owned on Fantrax, 11% owned in Yahoo) as a short-term replacement. MacTavish took Zegras’ spot on the second line and while he didn’t produce anything at even strength, he did pot a power play goal. 

Isaac Lundestrom was promoted from line four to line three, and he added an assist despitegoing minus-two in the game.

Sticking with Anaheim, the John Gibson injury suddenly turns Lukas Dostal into a volume starter down the stretch. The trade for Ville Husso as organizational depth doesn’t bode well for the odds of the Ducks getting Gibson back anytime soon. Tough news on Gibson’s value as well, as many fantasy owners were hoping that this would be the year he would finally be traded, and his value would spike as a result. This is usually why I advise against owning players who you’re just hoping get traded. Odds are they won’t, for one reason or another, and if they do, it’s a small percentage of players that do end up seeing that spike in value. 

To ignore my own advice in one case though, I’m holding Erik Karlsson in one league where the multi-category production from defencemen is pretty important in winning the matchups any given week. Karlsson is decent in shots and blocks, but when his scoring is down, it’s almost better to just stream someone from the wire – especially with Pittsburgh’s light fantasy playoff schedule. However, with news today that Karlsson is on the block, and the Penguins really in need of a reset, I could see Kyle Dubas almost forcing a trade through by the deadline to get Karlsson out the door. Any team acquiring Karlsson would likely toss him onto the top power play unit (I’m looking at you Florida and Detroit) unlike Pittsburgh who has years of chemistry with other players that has trumped having Karlsson on the top unit at times. 

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Joel Eriksson Ek is now on IR after suffering an injury in practice. That means a lot of minutes for Marco Rossi, who should be added in any league he’s available in at this point. He had one goal in over 20 minutes of ice time last night.

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A fun discussion I had with some of my friends, was that looking at the 2014 Olympic rosters to the 2025 Four Nations rosters, USA, Sweden, and Finland all look better on paper, but Canada isn’t necessarily better. 

Looking at the skaters I do think there’s an advantage to the current group. Prime Sidney Crosby, old Bergeron, Jonathan Toews make up the core in 2014, while Connor McDavid, Nathan MacKinnon, and old Crosby likely top it in 2025. On defence, 2014 doesn’t have a Cale Makar on the back end, though they might be slightly deeper. 

It’s in net where on paper the 2014 team has the clear advantage, with Prime Carey Price in net, as a (if not the) top netminder in the NHL, whereas the 2025 roster doesn’t have a top-10 NHL goalie. Yes, I’m aware than Jordan Binnington was fantastic in the tournament, but there is a reason why everyone was writing a stacked Canada team off. Binnington is an inconsistent goalie, who does have exceptional highs, and it came at the right time here. Can you bank on it next year at the Olympics? I wouldn’t be comfortable putting money on it. 

Which team would you rather? 

There’s links to the full rosters here in case you want to compare name to name.

2014 Canada Roster

2024 Canada Roster

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See you next Wednesday, and if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments you can find me on BlueSky here, as that’s now my primary platform.