There are only two days left in the regular season, and a few teams are already done. For those of us still fighting for our lives in a couple of leagues, there are still 13 games left to be played, six tonight and seven on Thursday, with Detroit and Carolina both playing on back-to-back nights. That should help with finding some goalie starts, though the Red Wing options are more likely to be available in your free agency pile. 

There are also only a very limited set of games that still have any playoff implications, which mean that most games have a level of chaos added into them with many players being rested, and the likelihood of any team winning being turned on its head a little. It’s just Montreal and Columbus now fighting for their playoff lives after Calgary was eliminated yesterday due to the Wild and Blues banking enough points. 

If you need to make adds or rely on anyone, then finding teams either out of the playoffs who are less likely to rest players, or those two teams on the bubble with something left to put in some effort for. 

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Columbus' scoring has been a pleasant surprise this season, and I know that Cliffy touched on this a week or so ago, but I do think that Sean Monahan and Kirill Marchenko, among some of their other scorers, can continue to be excellent fantasy assets. However, I am a little concerned about the value that Dmitry Voronkov will provide over the next few years. His production has been largely tied to Marchenko and Monahan this year, and more so than Marchenko, his scoring dropped while Monahan was out. He's also the most likely of the three to get pushed down the lineup with young players or new incoming players needing more ice time. Maybe someone I would sell high on this summer, while also keeping an eye on his impending contract extension to provide a hint as to what kind of player they view him as for shaping their future lineup (i.e. a long-term deal worth $5 million or more shows they see him as a top-six player, but a two-year deal around $2.5 million might show that they see him more as a replaceable middle-six player. 

It’s also great to see Dante Fabbro doing well after being waived by the Predators. He set a new career-high in points last night with his 25th. It doesn’t sound like much, but the Columbus production on its own has been impressive, with all 25 of those points coming in 61 games for the Blue Jackets. Next year we could easily see into the mid-30s, as he has been an excellent partner for Zach Werenski. 

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The playoff draft is underway over on the forums, and since it's a slow draft we have to start early, meaning we're over halfway done now. With many of you likely having live drafts between tonight and Saturday, you might be able to use our draft as a template. You can see the rules and draft results here [LINK]. 

My two teams that I loaded up on early were Carolina and Los Angeles. Carolina has the easiest path through to the conference finals, making them a very good bet to be the team coming out of the East. LA has a tougher road, but I feel this is their year to at minimum beat Edmonton, and they seem much less beat up than Vegas, who has dealt with more injuries lately, and has a heavier matchup in round one. Darcy Kuemper is also the best goalie in the Pacific bracket at the moment. Neither team is a very sexy pick either, meaning I could stack up and own both of them, meaning if even one team makes it to the final, then I'm sitting pretty. I like to "own" two or three teams, meaning that I have the most/best players from that team, and if that team goes on a run, then I finish ahead of anyone else who picked their players. 

Once I'm through the larger chunk of the draft, I like to take two or three players from one of the remaining teams that have been minimally picked over so far. In this case, Montreal, St. Louis, and Ottawa were (reasonably so) the three last ones to have players picked from them. Of the three, Ottawa plays in the toughest corner of the bracket (in my mind), while St. Louis and Montreal would come up against one of my existing teams in round two, meaning that if they went on an extended run, I'm likely out half of my players and not winning anyways. With that, I decided to fall back of picking up one player who slipped through the cracks from a couple of different teams, targeting the Atlantic and Central brackets hoping I can match one of them with a long run that doesn't cut out one of the Kings or Canes. 

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Building off of last week where I put out my thoughts on the series that were finalized, we now have some finality in the East where we will have our first Battle of Ontario in over 20 years, in addition to another iteration of the battle of Florida. Boy are we spoiled. 

The Leafs should be the favourites here, and even if Brady Tkachuk is fully healthy (he’s likely for Thursday), the Sens don't have an element to them that looks like it would be the difference maker against a top team in a seven game series. As great as it is to see Ottawa in the playoffs, I’m staying away from them in pools. Meanwhile, the Leafs will likely go too early in drafts to be worth taking, especially when I still think the Lightning come out of that corner of the bracket. 

On that note, the Panthers could provide some draft value as the "underdog", especially with a bunch of high scoring options to choose from. However, it seems like they are much more banged up than the Lightning, and still have to deal with Aaron Ekblad missing the first two games of the series where they already won’t be able to line match against Nikita Kucherov as they're going to be on the road. We did get a bit of a preview with last night’s 5-1 Tampa win over Florida, but the Panthers were resting quite a few players while the Lightning still had the division title to play for before the game started. 

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The Wild forced overtime against the Ducks meaning that they will play the Golden Knights and the Blues have off against the Jets. Minnesota sent out Marc-Andre Fleury for the overtime in what could be good last NHL action. He made the most of it with a two-pad stack, a poke check on a breakaway, and capped the game off with win #575. Minnesota was a top-three team when healthy, and they look to be rolling again just at the right time. Vegas should be on upset watch, as much as I also think the Golden Knights may be the best bet to come out of the West. It’s right this year!

The Blues meanwhile may have to face the Jets without Robert Thomas, who sustained a lower body injury last night. Hopefully it’s just precautionary, but you never know this time of year. They’re the one out that I have any confidence in on the West side. The Jets should be able to handle them pretty easily. 

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Darnell Nurse received a one-game suspension for a cross check, meaning he’s out for game 82. 

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A friend of mine asked me why the Nashville Predators were terrible this year, and with an eye on next year, what to do with some of their players. First, with any analysis for fantasy players, we need to take a look at the numbers and the scenario to determine wat the reasons are for any changes in production. The players who came in on free agent deals – Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, and Brady Skjei – all saw similar or better ice time, power play time, and offensive zone starts than their previous seasons. None of them saw a big change in IPP, or other individual luck metrics other than Stamkos' secondary assist rate dropping and Marchessault's shooting percentage finishing a few points low. In spite of that, all three finished with their worst season in multiple years (and in Stamkos' case, his worst season since his rookie year in 2009.

The big thing for all three, was that overall the team was extremely unlucky, especially with them on the ice, to the point of scoring at about two-thirds of the rate of an average NHL team. The existing players – Filip Forsberg, Ryan O'Reilly, Roman Josi, and others – didn't see quite as drastic a drop in on-ice shooting percentage, but they were still lower than previous seasons, again without much of a change to any of their other numbers. 

What this tells me is that luck and team chemistry played the largest part in the drop, but overall, the players themselves should be able to rebound and take their usual deployment next year, jumping back to a more standard production once the bad luck is gone and replaced by some more familiarity. A great sign in that direction is that two-thirds of their current top-six group is running hot at the moment, and that's without stalwart Josi in the lineup. This team could and should jump right back into playoff contention next year. Adding a top pick in the draft this year is going to be a huge bonus. 

The one mark that I am a little concerned about is Stamkos' shot rate, which also dropped from his usual mark just over three per game, to only 2.1 per game with Nashville. As the Preds have Forsberg and Josi who are both heavy volume shooters, and then adding Marchessault on top of that (another frequent shooter) there wasn't as much volume left over for Stamkos. If that holds (and I would expect it to) then Stamos' rebound potential is capped, likely around the 75-point range instead of him getting back to being a point-per-game player. 

We'll see what changes are made this offseason before trying to project how Luke Evangelista, Michael Bunting, and other young players will fit into the lineup. 

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