The first month of the season is in the books, with most teams having played 14-15 games. Today, I will highlight some deeper league adds and analyze the advanced stats to suss out some trade candidates. Here we go!

Taken 16^th overall in 2022, Noah Ostlund makes a sneaky add in deeper leagues. He is fourth amongst forwards on his team with nine points in 14 games (0.64 points per game). Last game he was with Jack Quinn and Josh Doan, but his most common line mates have been Zach Benson and Quinn. They have performed admirably with a +7 goal differential and a 67.3% Corsi For percentage, as well as among the highest offensive zone start percentages in the league. Östlund has seen his ice time balloon from 13:58 last season to 18:54 this year, and has been a fixture on the Buffalo Sabres top power play unit. The Sabres' special teams have been playing poorly, however the power play has awakened with four goals in their last two games, one of which was from Östlund himself, who now has three power play points on the season. As a result, the Sabres have shot up to 23^rd in the league in power play percentage (17.0%). The risk with Östlund is the same as with anyone not named Tage Thompson or Rasmus Dahlin: Lindy Ruff could decide that the power play personnel needs to be changed and there are no shortage of replacements that can be cycled in. The likes of Benson, Quinn, and Östlund can easily be replaced by Josh Norris, Jiri Kulich, Josh Doan, and Jason Zucker.

Simon Holmstrom, selected 23^rd overall by the New York Islanders in 2019, received a season-high 6:00 minutes of power play time in the 4-3 shootout victory over the Nashville Predators. He has five points in seven games since joining PP1 and has played over 20 minutes in six of those games. He is a high efficiency shooter, with a shooting percentage between 19-21% in each of the previous three seasons. This year is no different as he has scored four goals on 24 shots, for a shooting percentage of 16.7%. The coach trusts him, too: Holmström played the majority of overtime with Bo Horvat and Matthew Schaefer in both games that went past regulation this past week – against the Nashville Predators and the Minnesota Wild. Only Schaefer (5:33) had more ice time than Holmström (5:03) in those two overtimes.

Kirill Marchenko's lower body injury has him out week to week. The beneficiary is Jack Roslovic who takes his spot on PP1. We have seen from Jim Hiller that he values handedness on the power play. Left-handed shooter Gavin McKenna replaced lefty John Tavares on the PP, and right-handed Roslovic took the right-handed Marchenko's spot. Roslovic has meshed well with Auston Matthews on the top line. They have played together as linemates at the U.S. National Development Program. In 2014-15, Matthews led the team in scoring with 48 points in 24 games and Roslovic was second with 38 points in 25 games. Interestingly, Matthew Tkachuk was third in scoring with 33 points in 24 games.

Roslovic has been a 0.51 points-per-game player for his career, but this year has 16 points in 16 games. When Marchenko returns, Roslovic makes a good sell-high candidate. His point-per-game production this season is not only based on playing with a star like Matthews, but also on a high goal participation rate (IPP), a high secondary assist ratio, a slightly elevated shooting percentage, and a higher than usual 5v5 on-ice shooting percentage:

IPP is 84.2 (Roslovic career average is in the 65-70 range)
Secondary assists are at 60% (in the previous five seasons he has been in between 39.1% and 47.1%)
Shooting percentage is 15.4% (career 12.8%)
5v5 shooting percentage is 12.2% (between 8.8% and 9.9% in the previous five seasons)

With all these advanced numbers regressing to his norm, Roslovic's points output will take an eventual downturn. If you are a Roslovic owner, put him on the trade block and see if there is interest in him. With a spot on the top power play, he should continue his solid production at least for the short term until Marchenko returns from injury.

Finally, we turn to the Columbus Blue Jackets, Marchenko's former team, who started the season rolling with a top power play unit of Zach Werenski, Adam Fantilli, Kent Johnson, Charlie Coyle, and Matthew Knies. On October 20^th, against the Toronto Maple Leafs, this group had about eight minutes of power play time, taking eight shots, but was unable to strike gold. The Columbus power play gave up a shorthanded goal to Easton Cowan, more specifically the second unit that normally consists of Valeri Nichushkin, Sean Monahan, Denton Mateychuk, Conor Garland, and Dmitri Voronkov. Voronkov himself has been the subject of trade rumors after healthy scratches under Bowness both last year and this year. Cole Sillinger plays the second unit the times Voronkov is scratched.

Following that game, Rick Bowness vowed to make changes on the power play. He followed up on his pledge by promoting Sean Monahan and Conor Garland. Kent Johnson and Charlie Coyle were demoted. He kept this man advantage deployment for two games, after which Coyle and Johnson were back on the top unit for the following two games against the Carolina Hurricanes and the Dallas Stars, both losses in regulation.

Columbus sits in last place in the Eastern Conference but have played the fewest games (12). In terms of goal differential (-10) and points percentage (0.417) they are second last, with only the Flyers trailing them in both metrics. A deeper dive into fantasy relevant Columbus players reveals the following:

Charlie Coyle is at a career high 0.75 points per game, he currently has a very low shooting percentage (4.5%) and low secondary assists rate (12.5%, as seven of his eight assists are primary). For his career, he is usually closer to 40% for secondary assists and his shooting percentage (11.7%) is more than double what it is now. He could be a buy low if he continues to get this preferential deployment under Bowness.

Zach Werenski has been above a point per game for the last two seasons, but this year he is at 0.83 points per game. He has failed to score despite taking 34 shots. Darren Raddysh is the only player to have more shots (35) without any goals to show for it. Both defensemen are in their buy-low window.

Adam Fantilli (0.50 points per game) is another buy low target on the Columbus roster. His secondary assist rate (0%), and power play points (1) are all very low. His IPP of 40.0 should be higher as well. He is getting career-high ice time and power play time this season. There is nowhere to go but up for a few of these Blue Jackets.

That is all for this week. I hope that this article provided some helpful ideas for waiver pickups and trades!

Player data from Frozen Tools. Advanced stats from Money Puck.

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