It's now time to dump your excess Penguins. 

To elaborate on that, Pittsburgh has the fewest games remaining on the schedule with only 15. They also have the eighth-heaviest workload in terms of opponent goals scored per game (3.04), meaning their goalies (who already only held a tenuous spot on fantasy rosters) are now likely the worst goalies to own over the rest of the season. Alex Nedeljkovic and Tristan Jarry are both droppable in just about every format and should be replaceable with available waiver wire options in most leagues. Samuel Ersson and Ivan Fedotov are probably next from the bottom, with 16 games for the Flyers tandem and the second-most goals for per game from their opponents (3.12). The Sharks, Bruins, Devils, and Jets are the other teams with only 16 games remaining. 

On the flip side, grab whatever Sabres, Kings and Flames that you see available on the wire. Keep an eye out for Kings especially, as they have the weakest set of opponents of the three, and 13 to six Home/Road split. The starters on those squads likely aren't available, and I don't trust James Reimer regardless of schedule, but David Rittich and Dan Vladar could be options for some decent numbers from a backup the rest of the way. 

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The Panthers played their first game without Aaron Ekblad last night, and they're filling his minutes mainly just by feeding Seth Jones all he can handle. They're not easy minutes to fill either, as Ekblad and Gustav Forsling usually take on the big minutes against the highest quality of competition. Luckily with the addition of Jones they're just going back to about what the D-core looked like for the first half of the season, with Jones soaking up a lot of those power play, shorthanded, and overall minutes. He recorded a power play assist last night on top of two Hits, two Blocks, one SOG and a minor penalty.

Last night was also the first meeting between the Panthers and Bruins since the Brad Marchand trade. Unfortunately, Marchand is still injured so we didn't get to see him on the visitor side for the game, but he did hit the ice for morning skate as he looks to return from an injury. He looks very strange in a Panthers jersey. 

It does sound like he’s penciled into the second line already, alongside Sam Bennett (whom he played with briefly at the Four Nations tournament) and Matthew Tkachuk once he too is healthy. I’m going to dub that the BMT line in an ode to Subway’s sandwich – the Bigger Meatier Tastier sub. It’s a meaty line that no other team is going to like the taste of, and should free up the other offensive players quite nicely. 

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Looking at all the players that have been on the FrozenTools Hot list for more than a week and it's all top-line players and top-pair defencemen… and Ryan Donato. He's now up to 19 points in his last 14 games, adding about two shots and a hit per game while seeing top-unit power play time as well. 

Hopefully you sold high, as it's likely all downhill from here. If the crazy pace alone wasn't enough to tell you that regression is coming, then the fact that Donato has been moved off of Connor Bedard's line should really put some fear into those of you holding the hot Donato potato. 

Working in Donato's favour to keep at least a decent level of production is the lack of a big outlier in his underlying percentages, where his secondary assist rate is actually quite low. The production jump has come mainly from a big jump in ice time, which means as long as he keeps the deployment then the production should follow. 

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Leevi Merilainen was called up by the Senators yesterday. It sounds like he's up for the day to give Linus Ullmark a full and complete day off after his 48-save performance on Monday night. Keeping Ullmark from backing up and possibly getting forced into action in relief is likely a precautionary measure to try and keep him fresh through the stretch run where the Sens will be relying heavily on him as they push towards the playoffs. 

Anton Forsberg did manage the load yesterday, stopping 20 of 22 in the win. Forsberg has been good over the last few weeks, and deserves some attention when looking to stream a goalie strap. 

Up front, Dylan Cozens had another goal (his 200th point of his career) in the win. That puts him up to three points in three games for his Ottawa career. 

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Roope Hintz will miss at least a week (i.e. a minimum two more games) with a facial injury. The good news is out sounds like there was no feature, but he has to rest for a week to keep the swelling down. The other good news is that him and his hot streak should be back for his heavy schedule through the fantasy playoffs and the stretch run of the season. 

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Andrei Svechnikov and Dmitry Orlov both missed last night’s game with undisclosed injuries. It sounds like Orlov is very close to returning, but Svechnikov’s timeline is a lot less certain. 

Seth Jarvis was up on the top line in his place (alongside Sebastian Aho and Jackson Blake) and the trio dominated possession for the Hurricanes as they won their first game of the season against the Lightning. Jarvis' goal came shorthanded though, with an assist to Aho. 

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I expect deadline acquisition Luke Kunin to be a good fit in Columbus. If Mathieu Olivier and Justin Danforth can turn themselves into fantasy relevant players in various leagues, then Kunin can certainly revive some of his value as a versatile bottom-nine forward option there. He won't put up nine PIMs every game like he did in his debut, they’ll often be more like yesterday’s, with one shot and four hits being about the extent of his boxscore stats. 

Having mentioned Olivier, I now have to note that he posted another two goals last night on three shots to go with two hits. He has to be considered one of, if not the best bruiser in fantasy this year, with 118 PIMs, 86 Shots, 233 Hits, and 67 Blocks in 64 games. His new contract (six years by a $3M cap hit) is going to guarantee him ice time next year, so he’s a pretty safe bet to repeat with a similar year. 

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Pavel Dorofyev and Noah Hanifin each of up two points last night, and if you’ve been living under a rock then you wouldn’t know these two are both producing well lately. Hanifin is filling Shea Theodore's shoes admirably, while Dorofyev shows off how well he fits alongside Tomas Hertl on the second line. Hopefully your league-mates are also napping on the duo.

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Alex Ovechkin notched three apples last night in the 7-4 win over the Ducks, without narrowing the chase on the goal race with Wayne Gretzky because he passed the empty net goal to Aliaksei Protas for his first career hat trick. Impressive selflessness from the goal machine.

Perhaps most impressive from Ovechkin though is his shot rate this year which is what’s buoying the goal scoring. He's putting up his highest shots per/60 number since before the pandemic. There's nothing that's going to stop him from hitting that record before the end of the season.

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Juraj Slafkovsky seems to put up points in cities where people actually want to live, with his only pointless games in the last stretch of nine games have come in Alberta and Buffalo. Well, three points last night keeps Slaf and his streak going. Nothing actionable other than to say the young player still affixing to playing in the NHL with a big body is going through some consistency issues with his production. It’s expected, and a part of owning him at this point in fantasy. Overall the trend should continue upwards though. 

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CONGRATS TO PATRICK GILES ON HIS FIRST CAREER NHL GOAL!#TheFutureIsTeal

— JD Young (@myfryhole.bsky.social) 2025-03-12T04:31:49.146Z

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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.