This week on Frozen Tool Forensics we are focusing on short-term production. If your team is still alive you are likely looking for the extra push to get through this playoff round. What matters most is not if a player is likely to be good down the stretch, but if they can help you now.

To generate the list of players for today we are grabbing the list of hot players from the Frozen Tools home page. That list also includes a whole lot of players who are definitely rostered across the board, so we are going to be focusing on those who are a bit more widely available.

The data for these players is as of Thursday morning, so they will not include games on March 26^th. The following list is generally in the order that I would consider making adds.

Connor Brown has seven points in his last five games (and 13 points over 11 games), and his rostered percent numbers have been shooting up lately. The big reason is that he is playing on the top line and top power play with Jack Hughes. His shot rates are a bit inconsistent, but as long as he is getting this deployment he is a must add.

Egor Chinakhov is only 19 percent rostered on Yahoo, and it isn't clear what else he needs to do to get people to pay attention and get that number up. Yes, some of his production is buoyed by the fact that he was getting increased minutes and top power-play time when Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were out of the lineup. Both are back now, but he was doing just fine prior to that too (and with recent injuries, both may be out of the lineup again). Since January 21st Chinakhov has 22 points in 23 games and is shooting just shy of three times per game. He should be rostered in many more leagues and certainly go double check to see if he is an improvement over the bottom of your roster.

Marco Rossi seems to finally be hitting a bit of a stride in Vancouver. He has 10 points over his last six games, is getting top unit power-play time and over 17 minutes total time in each of his last three games. He is not shooting much so definitely will be relying on his teammates to continue producing. For now, they are shooting, so he is worth a look.

Beckett Sennecke, and several Ducks players, were on a bit of a scoring drought through the middle of March. However, he now has four points in his last four games and he is shooting. The bad news is that his time on ice has been declining, as has his power-play role. As of March 24^th, he was on the second unit. Given that Chris Kreider or Troy Terry might be more interesting, Sennecke has definitely shown he can produce. He is 42 percent rostered in Yahoo so he might not be available in some leagues but is certainly worth a look.

Lawson Crouse has been relevant a few times during the season and with six points over his last five games, plus seeing top line time in Utah makes him worth a look again. Particularly if you are in a league that counts hits, he is consistently a strong contributor there which gives him a good baseline of value.

Quinton Byfield is an interesting name. He has seven points in his last five games but hasn't been able to get ideal deployment with Artemi Panarin either at even strength or on the power-play. I am willing to cut him a little slack as he has had a couple of relevant stretches this year and I am hoping he can hang on to some production for a little while longer.

Noah Cates has four points in his last four games but isn't shooting a ton. He has a pretty decent deployment floor as he consistently gets strong ice time as a second- or third-line utility center. His value rises and dips as his linemates shuffle and as he occasionally gets top power-play time. It does look like he was getting that top power-play deployment in Calgary's game on March 24^th, and while he is interesting while he is there, it changes so frequently that it is not really consistent enough to count on.

Calgary is a bit of a question mark, but Matt Coronato now has three points in his last three games. He also has multiple games over 18 minutes a night recently. Early in the season I was pumping his tires, but he hasn't quite executed in 25-26. Things are starting to look a little bit better under the hood and he might be worth a flyer in deeper leagues.

Matvei Gridin is in a similar situation. His time on ice is a little bit all over the place, but he has been putting up points recently with seven in his last 10 games. I am a little less confident than with Coronato but still might be worth a shot.

It is hard to know what to do with Ivan Barbashev, or really any Golden Knight at the moment. Big names have absolutely disappeared in recent weeks and there just isn't a lot of offense going around. Barbashev has three points in his last three games so is doing a little bit of something but has been a borderline candidate even when the team has been able to score. Given the challenges in Vegas right now, I am certainly hesitating to increase my shares of Golden Knight forwards.

With several injuries in Minnesota, Vladimir Tarasenko got promoted to the top line and top power play. He had some success over those very games but with the return of Joel Eriksson Ek, and Kirill Kaprizov, Tarasenko is quite a bit less interesting, and I would likely leave him be. It is the same story with Bobby Brink. He had a few good games, but I do not anticipate that it will continue.

Zach Benson has six points in his last four games, but with low shot counts, no power-play time, and less than 13 minutes of ice time overall on most nights recently, he is not an ideal candidate from this list.

📢 advertisement:

Jonatan Berggren technically makes the hot list, but I am not interested. He has missed a lot of time, doesn't get good deployment and barely shoots. This does not seem like anything more than a random collection of points.

That is all for this week.

Do your part to support organizations working to make hockey for everyone.

Professional Women's Hockey League

Hockey is For Everyone

Black Girl Hockey Club

Athletes for Hope