The midseason guide was released on Friday – don’t wait any longer, go pick it up and make the final tweaks you’re going to need to take home a championship this year.  Remember last year when Travis Konecny went on a second half run? These players are out there in your league and the guide will help you find them.

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It gets difficult this time of year trying to zero in on who your next trade targets should be or who to pick up outside of streaming options; roles are established on most of the top units and lines at his point.  Full credit goes to Chris Kane for deploying a TOI method to see who might be popping up as second half wonders in the coming weeks.   I’ll deploy Chris’s methodology across the Eastern Conference and we’ll see who pops up.

There is one player in particular who I’ll discuss a player destined to not repeat their first half performances and maybe you can salvage a little bit of value moving forward.

Below are the key changes in deployment over the last week compared to the previous month:

The second table is the PP time on ice changes that have occurred, these should be watched closely if they are on your team or if you have the desire to acquire one of these players.

Pavel Buchnevich has not received the deployment poolies had hoped for going into this season under Coach Quinn.  Recently though he’s picked up more time playing on a line with Boo Nieves and Cody McLeod, not exactly a confidence booster.  However looking forward if the boost in deployment continues Buch will be worth a speculative add because he’s better than his current cold streak of one point in his last four games.

It has to be all systems go for Andrei Svechnikov soon doesn’t it? Like most Hurricane players he’s riding a depressed IPP and on ice shooting percentage, the collective team is beginning to find some scoring touch over the last two weeks. I’m very high on Svechnikov, he has all the signs of a second half stud, and he should be the top trade target as a secondary piece in your league.

Micheal Ferland hasn’t seen an increase in his overall TOI but he’s got some new linemates in Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen.  With this new deployment he’s certainly a piece worth rostering.

Wayne Simmonds has seen an increase in overall ice time lately, but unfortunately his PP TOI has decreased even more compared to the last month.  The UFA has a lot to prove but the new deployment trend is not trend I’m excited about.

Will Butcher has seen a modest increase in his overall TOI of 3.5%.  Interestingly the amount of time Butcher has been receiving on the PP has increased as of late but his overall percentage share of the teams PP TOI available has decreased 3%.  If you buy the midseason guide you’ll receive facts like the above.  It might not seem important but in the guide you’d find that Butcher has an IPP of about half of last seasons (53% in 2017-18 and 26% this season).  The points are coming for Butcher – will he be in your lineup when they arrive?

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One player in the last week has caught my eye more than most – Max Domi.  The darling of the first half of the season is feeling the power of regression hard in his last 14 games.   If you look up his pace you’ll see that he’s still trending towards 70 points, great by any standards.  What you’ll be missing is that over his last five games he has only two points, and over his last 27 games he only has 16 points.  The latter being a 48-point pace – much more Domi-esque.  To pile it on even further he’s been moved away from Drouin and placed with Artturi Lehkonen and Joel Armia – what a buzz kill.  Oh and if you wanted to go even further he’s seeing about a minute less of PP TOI compared to the first quarter of the season when he was on absolute fire.  The IPP of Domi looks like it still has room to come back to normalcy – 75% compared to an average of 63%.  All this is to say that if you’re currently rostering Domi, you should be sending two offers to every team trying to unload him for even a 60 point pace. Buy high sell low right???