Matthew Tkachuk made his return from injury to score twice (one of which was nearly the game winner if a Tampa goal was called back) and add an assist. If the Panthers are healthy then they're going to be a handful for the Bolts. Nate Schmidt more surprisingly also added two goals in the win.

Despite the younger Tkachuk brother finding twine, the Leafs managed to save their game with an OT winner from Max Domi – must be something in those genes. Their power play also kept humming with another goal from John Tavares. The Sens have been winning the possession battle though, so I would expect them to win at least one of the next two home games.

The Canes took a big 2-0 series lead on Jordan Martinook's shorthanded goal. The way they're controlling the play, I'm feeling more confident in picking them to win their corner of the bracket.

Kirill Kaprizov is back. Two goals for the Wild superstar as well, and it serves as s reminder that the Wild were top-three team in the league before Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek were hurt mid-season. Vegas could be in trouble here with Minnesota healthy.

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It was noted during San Jose’s locker cleanout day that Will Smith would be tried again more fully at Centre next year, with the intent to have him stick. If he does have to play center, then expect a drop in his scoring rate, at minimum for the first half. It’s hard for young players to adjust to playing center in the NHL, and many do struggle to keep up with everything at once, prompting a drop in production when players do make the positional shift. I’m not concerned with Smith’s potential in the long run, but I won’t be buying any short-term shares on him at the moment. 

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I’ll be keeping an eye on any notes from Jamie Drysdale this offseason, as he hasn’t really had a healthy summer in a while. He’s healthy now, and while there is a change coming with a new coach, he should be at least settled into Philadelphia now, and could be primed to bust out in a big way if the team can shore up at centre ice as well to support an increase in scoring for the team. 

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Luca Marelli is one of my favourite under the radar prospects right now. He’s a smart defence with size who had been improving with the puck every game this season. He loves to shoot the puck too, and while his regular season numbers might have only been “good”, his playoff numbers are spectacular, with 18 points in 11 games. That’s tied with Colby Barlow for the team lead, and ahead of Beckett Sennecke and Cal Ritchie. For those not very IPP on prospects, all three are highly regarded forward prospects who are former first-round picks. Marelli is a third-round pick from 2024, and he’s starting to look like a steal. 

Columbus has plenty of defencemen on their depth chart, between Zach Werenski, Denton Mateychuk, Daemon Hunt, and others. One way or another though, the cream rises to the top, and with prospects you’re better off betting on talent than opportunity (of course it’s best to have both). 

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Patrick Kane noted during locker cleanout day that he would be open to returning to the Red Wings, and that he was hoping to hit 1500 career games. He’s currently sitting just over 1300, meaning he would need at least 2.5 more seasons. For those of you in keeper leagues, there’s little risk of a sudden retirement at the moment.

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One of the top prospects outside of the NHL, Danila Yurov, was released from his KHL contract and could be signing with the Minnesota Wild in short order.

Yurov doesn't come with quite the same fanfare as Alexander Nikishin or Ivan Demidov, but he's not far behind them either, and he also has a few more years of growth than Demidov does, meaning an immediate and lasting impact is more certain.

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Lou Lamoriello won’t return as GM of the Islanders. Not much immediate fantasy impact here, but it does make me much more interested in thinking that there’s going to be a more light and positive atmosphere around the team which could give them some hope for a rebound next year. At minimum, I think we’ll see a jump in the second half after Patrick Roy is let go – he seems like a coach that would have a short leash with a replacement GM. 

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No updates on Luke Hughes (likely a shoulder injury) and Brendan Dillon (likely concussion), but they didn’t play last night, and based on their exits from Game 1, I wouldn’t expect their returns anytime soon.

The other injury news from pre-game yesterday was that Martin Fehervary would miss the remainder of the playoffs with meniscus surgery. Based on the usual timelines I would expect him to be good to go for training camp. 

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In other injury news that might be flying under the radar as it’s from the non-playoff teams: Islanders Mat Barzal and Semyon Varlamov will be ready for camp, while Philadelphia’s Rasmus Ristolainen will not.

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I thought I would wrap up my fantasy season quickly, with a few thoughts on what went right and wrong. I finished with one of each of the podium places in my three main leagues this year, such is an excellent accomplishment considering how competitive these leagues are. I have one other league with some code friends if mine that’s very laid back, and I suffered a first round kiss in that H2H league after running into some hot goaltending – such are the bounces. 

My teams did very well despite the most frequent players across them being Aleksander Barkov (injuries and a slow second half), Roope Hintz (a very slow first half), Roman Josi (disappointing production and half a season lost to injury), and Patrick Kane (solid from the mid-point of the year which is when I acquired him in three different leagues). 

In my Roto league I was very fortunate to win, after nailing the entire draft, and dancing some trades around injuries, where I moved Kirill Kaprizov and Martin Necas at the high points for Brady Tkachuk, moved Nikolaj Ehlers right before his injury for goaltending help, sold high on Connor McMichael for Darnell Nurse‘s peripherals, and managed to snag Leevi Merilainen’s run off the wire to cover some goalie injuries. You need both good players and luck to win in fantasy. 

Martin Necas was likely my best draft pick of the year, and getting him alongside Ehlers and Lucas Raymond in back to back to back picks past pick 100 was a big reason why my team did so well. 

I did however have a few blunders at the draft table, including Travis Konecny, Pavel Buchnevich, and Dylan Cozens with three straight picks in one league, as well as Tristan Jarry in another. I also grabbed Pavel Mintyukov and Ryan Hartman in multiple leagues as late fliers, but both were dropped in quick order for better FA options. 

None of them were atrocious, which is part of why I did so well in my leagues. You can’t win the league in the early rounds, but you can certainly lose it. 

Perhaps the biggest egg on my face though was from a move I didn’t make in the offseason in my 24-team dynasty cap league, where I knew the Connor Hellebuyck owner was looking to move him. He wanted a goalie in return though, and was asking for too many futures on top of my Filip Gustavsson to make it worthwhile. However, he did also have Vince Dunn who I wanted, and I decided that it made sense for me to run into the FA draft with no goalies (more on that in a minute) and shore up my defence, moving Gus straight up for Dunn. This freed up the other GM to make a deal of Helle for a big futures package including Matthew Knies. 

None of us knew that Helle would put together the season he did, but it does cause a bit of self-reflection and asking “what if?”. I try not to get too tied up with those questions though, especially when it comes to goalies. 

Now, the FA draft that I mentioned is how we fill out our rosters in the fall for this dynasty league, and due to some restrictions on how many goalies we can carry through the summer, there were a few options available that I was interested in. Frederik Andersen, Anthony Stolarz, Ilya Samsonov, and Darcy Kuemper were all available, in addition to many other backups. Now, I had planned out my no-goalie approach with an eye on these guys and owned picks one-through-three as well as five. I ended up moving a couple of them and coming out of the draft with Anthony Stolarz and Darcy Kuemper. That would have been fine too, except I then moved them both in-season for Sean Monahan and Dylan Larkin respectively. As it happens, goaltending was my undoing in the finals, as Joey Daccord and Samuel Ersson weren’t enough to carry the load. 

My lesson from all of that, is that when you have a good goalie, you’re best off sitting on them, unless there’s an obvious red flag that they’re an immediate sell-high.

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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.