When The New York Rangers brought in goalie Jonathan Quick, it was very much an open question as to the success he would find with his third team. After posting 27 wins in 43 starts across 1.75 seasons, boasting a .904 save percentage along the way, the team has re-signed Quick to a one-year extension worth $1.55-million:

THINK QUICK.#NYR and Jonathan Quick have agreed to terms on a one-year extension. pic.twitter.com/j58PZ0iGX8

— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) March 12, 2025

At the least, it gives them a bit of security in net behind Igor Shesterkin, though goaltending has been the least of this team's problems.

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The Dallas Stars provided a positive update on forward Roope Hintz:

Roope Hintz s doing well in his recovery.

Pete DeBoer said he is a possibility for Sunday at Colorado

— Mike Heika (@MikeHeika) March 12, 2025

Hints missed Dallas's game on Sunday and looks as if he'll miss at least one more, but the fact he can return either this weekend, or sometime next week, is the best news fantasy managers could hope for.

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The Detroit Red Wings laid a thorough and complete beatdown of the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday night by a 7-3 margin. It was a moderately close game until the third period, when Detroit extended a 4-3 lead with goals form Patrick Kane (PP), Marco Kasper, and Moritz Seider (PP). The win snaps a six-game pointless streak that had put the Red Wings' chances of a playoff appearance in serious peril.

Kane finished the game with two goals (both PP), three assists, five shots, and a block. He now has 14 points in 10 games since the NHL returned from the Four Nations break.

Kasper tallied two goals, one assist, three shots, and a 10-minute misconduct as things started to get out of hand once Detroit started piling on the goals. That gives Kasper 19 points in his last 25 games as the rookie has really hit his stride under new coach Todd McLellan.

Alex DeBrincat scored once, had three assists (two on the PP), and four penalty minutes. That goal was DeBrincat's 30^th of the season, the first time he's reached that mark since leaving Chicago.

Seider stuffed the scoresheet with his power play goal, four shots, three blocks, two PIMs, and a hit, and Vladimir Tarasenko scored the final Detroit marker.

Petr Mrazek stopped 23 of 26 shots for his first win in his second go-around with the Red Wings.

Both Tage Thompson and Zach Benson had a goal and an assist in the game, with Benson's power-play tally being his 10^th overall goal of the season. Thompson has now officially passed his point total from last season with 58 points in 58 games. He has a real shot of reaching the 40-goal mark for the second time in the last three years as he now has 34 in 58 games.

Josh Norris scored his first goal in a Sabres uniform as Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen allowed all seven goals on 29 shots faced.

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A late third-period goal from Elias Pettersson tied Vancouver's Wednesday night game with Calgary at a 3-3 score, and then the Canucks took the extra point in the shootout to earn a hard-fought two points. These two teams are in a battle for the final playoff spot and this is one of those games that could decide their respective playoff fates in six weeks' time.

Pettersson finished the game with a goal and an assist (PP), totaling two shots, a block, and a hit. It was his first multi-point game since before the Christmas break.

Jake DeBrusk (PP) and Pius Suter had the other goals. DeBrusk's goal was his 11^th power-play goal of the season, coming in his 65^th game. He had 11 power-play goals in his prior 241 games with the Boston Bruins.

Quinn Hughes returned to the lineup, assisting on the DeBrusk goal, while adding a shot, two blocks, and a hit.

Kevin Lankinen stopped 20 of 23 shots but took the win in the shootout.

Jonathan Huberdeau scored twice, once short-handed and once on the power play, and Nazem Kadri tallied the other in a losing effort for the Flames. Kadri had a goal, an assist (PP), seven shots, a block, and two hits.

MacKenzie Weegar had an assist on both Huberdeau goals, a block, and three hits. That gives him 31 helpers on the year, the fourth time in five years he has reached at least 30 assists.

Dustin Wolf took the shootout loss, and allowed three goals on 31 shots.

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A third-period power-play goal from Dylan Guenther was the boost Utah needed to take a 3-2 win at home against Anaheim. That was Guenther's 24^th goal of the season in his 53^rd game played. He has 37 goals in his last 82 regular season games dating back to last season. The next goal-scoring superstar has emerged.

Guenther also added an assist on an earlier Alex Kerfoot goal, with the other tally coming from Jack McBain. Keller assisted on the Guenther power-play goal, and Keller now sits 10^th in the league with 75 points.

Karel Vejmelka stopped 19 of 21 shots in the win.

Alex Killorn and Mason McTavish (PP) had the goals for Anaheim. Cutter Gauthier assisted on the Killorn goal, and that was Gauthier's 20^th assist of the season. It hasn't been a fantastic production year for Gauthier, but the signs of him being a very good producer in the future are there.

Ville Husso allowed three goals on 39 shots, turning in a very good game overall, but took the loss in his first game for the Ducks.

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Montreal blew a 4-2 lead with under 10 minutes remaining in their road game in Seattle to get a 4-4 game to overtime, and then Brandon Montour scored early in the extra frame to give the Kraken the extra point. It was truly a missed opportunity for the Canadiens and their ever-slimming hopes of reaching the postseason.

Montour scored the overtime winner, his second of the game, while adding a pair of power-play assists for a monster four-point night. He finished with three shots, two blocks, two PIMs, and a hit as well, so all his fantasy goodness was not just in the goal/assist columns.

Eeli Tolvanen scored his 19^th goal of the season, Matty Beniers had a power-play tally, and Jani Nyman scored his first career NHL goal to round out Seattle's scoring. Nyman, who leads AHL rookies in scoring as a second-round pick from 2022, was skating on a line with Jared McCann and Andre Burakovsky.

Jordan Eberle had a great fantasy night with three assists (one PP) and four shots. That gives him six points in his last six games.

Joey Daccord stopped 21 of the 25 pucks thrown his way for the win.

Patrik Laine was back in the lineup for Montreal and scored a power-play goal, his 15^th goal in his 35^th game this year. Juraj Slafkovsky scored twice for Montreal, landing four total shots and a hit. That gives Slafkovsky 40 points on the season, and 11 points in his last 10 games.

Lane Hutson had a pair of assists (one PP), a shot, and two blocks. He needs four more assists to surpass the 50-assist mark, being the first rookie defenceman to do so in 40 years (Chris Chelios in 1984-85).

Jakub Dobes was in net for the Habs and gave up five goals on 35 shots for the loss.

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With his hat trick on Tuesday night, Washington Capitals forward Aliaksei Protas is up to 26 even-strength goals on the season. Going into Wednesday night's action, that goal total ties him with David Pastrnak for fifth by even-strength goals this season. Only Leon Draisaitl (31), Tage Thompson (28), Brandon Hagel (27), and William Nylander (27) have more. What is even more impressive is the fact that Protas had a grand total of 13 EV goals across the first 169 games of his career. In other words, in 65 games, he has scored double his career EV goal total in 104 fewer games.

Of course, shooting percentage is behind this. After shooting 5.9% at even strength across the first three years of his career, he sits at 20% this season. That is, uh, a sizeable increase. That a young player figured out how to score at a more efficient clip isn't surprising, but that it's over 3x higher than what he'd done across parts of three seasons is very surprising.

It got me wondering if we've seen anything close to this in recent memory. So, I went back and looked at even-strength goal scoring from the 2021-22/2022-23 seasons, who saw a big increase in 2023-24, and how they're doing in 2024-25. We are using these parameters:

• At least 1500 minutes at even strength across the 2021-2022 and 2022-23 seasons
• At least 750 minutes at even strength in the 2023-24 season

This gave us a list of over 200 forwards. Of those forwards, there were 35 whose 2023-24 season saw them improve their shooting percentage by at least 25%, relatively speaking. That means if they were a 10% even strength shooter across the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons, they shot at least 12.5% in 2023-24. This is that list:

That is a lot of names and numbers, so let's simplify this. Here is the rate of even-strength goal scoring these forwards saw in 2021-22/2022-23, the goal scoring rate in 2023-24, and what they're doing so far in 2024-25. The results are about as we might expect:

While the shooting percentage remained elevated compared to the 2021-2023 rate, it was down considerably from what this group did in 2023-24. Also, because of declining shot rates in the league, even the elevated shooting percentage hasn't been enough to lead to elevated goal scoring. In fact, despite converting shots on goal into actual goals at nearly a 20% higher rate than from 2021-2023, goals are slightly down. Again, high percentages are nice, but volume also matters a lot, too.

It is also important to delineate here between most names on this list and younger players. Names like Seth Jarvis, Nick Suzuki, and Lucas Raymond are on the board. Those three names have had varying levels of goal-scoring success this season. Jarvis has seen his goals-per-game rate increase from last year, Raymond's is down slightly, and Suzuki's is down a lot. There are a lot of mitigating circumstances – more ice time, a more prominent power-play role – that matter here, too. And the reason that Jarvis has seen an increase in goal scoring is he's improved his shot rate significantly.

That is the hope for Protas here. While we haven't quite seen a young player with a shooting percentage spike like this, it has been supported by a high-end Washington roster and an increase in shot rate of his own. He will not repeat 23.4% shooting year after year, but if he can settle into a range like those other young players – say, between 14-18% – while earning more top power-play time in seasons to come, coupled with a rising shot rate, he can be a consistent 30-goal scorer. He has been a genuine revelation for the Capitals, we just need to be careful about expecting 30-goal seasons if he keeps skating under 17 minutes a game in the future.

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While I was thinking of the Capitals, it'll be very interesting to see what happens with Jakob Chychrun in the offseason. He also has an elevated shooting percentage (career-best 12.4%, has never had a 60-game season over 8.1%), but he has typically been a good goal scorer from the back end. He is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season and is in his age-26 campaign. In other words, this isn't a guy turning 30-years-old next year who could fall off quickly.

By the same token, we always need to be wary of a player with a career-best mark nine years into his career. I looked at defencemen who shot at least 10% in the 2023-24 season (minimum of 1000 total minutes played) and how they're faring thus far in 2024-25. That gave us 10 defenceman from last season to this one, and the drop was drastic from one season to the next

Of those 10 defencemen, every single one of them saw a decline in their rate of goals/60 minutes, and 9-of-10 saw a decline of at least 20% (the only exception has been Thomas Harley). The average of those 10 blue liners was a goal-scoring drop of 78%.

As fantasy managers, I'm sure there are a lot of us out there (myself included) who have been waiting for this kind of season from Chychrun. For managers that drafted him in September, kudos. Just beware of this being anywhere close to what he does next season.