Charlie Coyle continued his dominant run since Rick Bowness joined the Blue Jackets, scoring a goal and three assists, with two of those points on the power play. Over a full season his numbers under Bowness would have him pacing for over 100 points, over 200 SOG, over 25 PPPs, over 80 Hits, and a plus-minus rating of about 45. Those are Jack Eichel type numbers, if Jack Eichel added about three times his usual number of Hits. With Sean Monahan seemingly having been downgraded as a result, and Adam Fantilli starting to come into his own as a top-line threat, it's a template that is working for the Blue Jackets right now.

What could change with that though, is that both Coyle and his most frequent linemate of late – Mason Marchment – are unrestricted free agents at the end of the season. Both are upping their next contract with their current play, and after both have bounced around to a few different teams in recent years, this hot stretch could convince them both to remain in Columbus.

On Carolina's side, Andrei Svechnikov scored his 25^th of the season, putting him within striking distance of matching his previous career high of 30 goals from back in 2021-2022. He has kept his scoring fairly consistent in recent years, and the drop in SOG is on its third season down at around 2.5 per game, which looks like it's here to stay. The Hit rate is also down this year, down under two per game for the first time since the decade turned to the 2020s.

Alexander Nikishin assisted on Svechnikov's goal, bringing him up to 26 points on the year, in what has been a very solid rookie campaign for the young Russian. Nikishin has been reliable in every category, and has gotten better as the season has progressed. Having added the secondary PP time after almost none in Q1, his offensive ceiling has really jumped as well. He's not in the Matthew Schaefer tier, but a steady ascension to a top-20 fantasy blueliner seems like it should be in the cards.

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Without Auston Matthews, John Tavares is a number-one centre again. Tavares is on pace for his worst career plus-minus season, and is tracking to put up his worst scoring season since his rookie year all the way back in 2009-2010. At 35, the drop off isn't unexpected, but it's especially noteworthy since his Q1 numbers of 27 points in 21 games really masks what has been a pedestrian season otherwise of 28 points in 48 games since.

Meanwhile, Bo Groulx is making the most of his stint as the third line centre, as he picked up another point last night (an assist this time) to give him four points in five games this season. He has never been a prolific AHL scorer, but this year is a career high for him at the AHL level, so the 26-year-old appears to be showing that his peak level is something that can translate to the NHL level.

Tavares' former team got the last laugh last night as the Islanders controlled most of the game, with Mat Barzal picking up three assists, and Ilya Sorokin making 23 saves on 24 shots for the win. Cal Ritchie also picked up two points, giving him five in his last five games, making his statement that he needs to be up in the top-six and given more ice time than the 14 minutes per game he has averaged lately.

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Pavel Zacha scored two goals for the Bruins, but his two points weren't enough as Cole Caufield, Nick Suzuki, and Lane Hutson each recorded their second point of the game on Caufield's OT winner, which also happened to be his 40^th of the season.

The Bruins now narrowly hang onto the final playoff spot in the East over the Blue Jackets, who still have a game in hand.

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Minnesota ran over Chicago last night in the first period, and then held on to win in overtime. Spencer Knight couldn't do much more, stopping everything in the second and third periods, and 34 of 37 overall. Marcus Johansson had three points, including assisting on the OT winner, which gets him back on track a bit after his hot start cooled significant;y in the second half.

Louis Crevier scored two points for the Blackhawks, his 17^th point in 64 games, and his fourth multi-point game of the season. Connor Bedard also recorded two points for the Hawks, and he's now up to 64 points, and would be pacing for just under 100 points if he was healthy all year.

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Checking in on Ryan Ufko two weeks from his season debut back at the beginning of March, and he's now up to four points in six games. If the scoring isn't there for him though he's not going to bring much value, as through those six games he has only two Hits, one Blk, and four SOG.

Fellow youngster Matthew Wood scored a late go-ahead for the Preds, and he has shown flashes of being a great fantasy asset in the next few years as he grows into the C2 role with the Predators.

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Elias Pettersson scored two early goals for the Canucks, both on the power play and assisted by Brock Boeser and Marco Rossi. Pettersson has been extremely inconsistent this year, and would likely be best served by getting a fresh start for the fall. If he ends up sticking around in Vancouver though, that trio could work as a top-line option for a basement team that won't have the depth to compete. As they say though, someone has to score on the bad teams.

The Florida Panthers got Sam Bennett and Seth Jones back in the lineup yesterday, and with those reinforcements their place in the standings is a little misleading towards the actual team they're icing on a game to game basis, making them a more dangerous opponent for opposing goalie matchups.

With Jones back, Aaron Ekblad's fantasy value likely dips back down to right around zero, while Mike Benning likely gets dropped from the lineup despite one assist in two games.

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In one Roto league I have been clinging to first place for a while now, but it's in part due to a games-played advantage over a lot of the teams chasing me.

I have learned the hard way that it's better to be ahead than behind in games played in roto leagues, as making up man games near the end of the season can be difficult due to injuries, load management, and most GMs chasing the same couple of close categories.

At this point, I'm about eight games ahead at each position, which is right about where I want to be, so I can have a few of my top guys like Sebastian Aho, David Pastrnak, or Jack Eichel be given a game or two of rest, and then still be able to line players up for the final heavy day of the year where I can take advantage of the Yahoo games played trick (for those who are new to Yahoo roto, you can finish the season with extra games played if you leave yourself one game for a position and then fill that position for the last day where all of your players' games will count, instead of just one).

Over the next couple of weeks there are quite a lot of really heavy days, and a lot of very light days, meaning that streaming could be very difficult through to the end of March to try and make up those man games.

The portion above I wrote on Monday in prep for today's Ramblings, and since then I have already lost Joel Eriksson Ek and Adrian Kempe to minor injuries, which has me down a couple of key offensive contributors. I have added Noel Acciari who fills some peripherals which I need more than the scoring at this point in the season. If you're lagging behind in games at this point, then don't wait any longer to catch up.

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We have also seen recent injuries for Eeli Tolvanen (game-time decision last night), Nick Jensen (meniscus surgery – four-to-six weeks), Kirby Dach (UBI – 2-4 weeks), and oh yeah, Leon Draisaitl is expected to miss the rest of the regular season with a lower body injury. That likely means he won't be fully heathy to start the playoffs, if the Oilers even make it. In the meantime, Jason Dickinson looks to be taking over as the full-time second-line centre between Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jack Roslovic, which would leave a permanent spot for Matt Savoie on Connor McDavid's line. Savoie had points in two straight games entering last night, and in those two games added seven shots and two minutes of power play time. He could be an excellent late season stream, albeit with some planning due to Edmonton's poor remaining schedule. Josh Samanski and his hit rate could be worth looking at for some leagues due to his added minutes as the third line centre.

On the plus side of the injury news, Gabriel Landeskog and Arturri Lehkonen are back skating. It looks like Landeskog's week-to-week status could be moving closer to a day-to-day timeline, and Lehkonen may be right there with him for a return date.

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Circling back to the tricky schedule over the next few weeks, the need for planning is necessary in H2H leagues as well, where especially if you're looking at March 23-29, then there are only five total NHL games on MON/WED/FRI of that week. The New York Rangers happen to play in three of those five games, in addition to not playing on any of the busy days that week, and having a final game on another light day on Sunday to boot. Now, you would probably know this already if you had the Dobber Guide, or were one of those people who really like to plan ahead, but it's still not too late to take advantage of that, and grab yourself someone like Noah Laba (five points in his last five games), Gabe Perreault (seven points in his last four games and premium deployment), or Vladislav Gavrikov (three points last night, and 13 in his last 13 games), depending on the depth of your league.

As we're into either the final days leading up to playoffs, or partway through the first week of fantasy playoffs for some of you, the schedule does really matter. There isn't a huge advantage to be gained before Sunday though, with every team having either two or three games left in the calendar week. Anaheim, Carolina, Calgary, Colorado, and Washington have all three of their games on light days though, which should make them easier to fit into your 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.