The salary cap has put the squeeze on teams trying to add supporting players, so we are starting to see more players being added on a professional tryout basis. Three veteran NHLers were able to land PTOs on Friday:

Zach Aston-Reese – Toronto

Calvin de Haan – Carolina

Danny DeKeyser – Vancouver

These three players don't move the needle in pure scoring leagues. However, if they are able to turn the PTOs into contracts with these teams (or potentially another team), their additions could affect other players on the bubble to make the lineup – in particular, rookies that you might be crossing your fingers on. For example, DeKeyser earning a spot on the Canucks could push Jack Rathbone down to the AHL to start the season, as both are left-shot defensemen. With Aston-Reese auditioning for a roster spot on the Leafs, Nick Robertson is also less of a certainty to crack the big club.

In bangers leagues, however, these PTO players might hold a bit of value. Aston-Reese led the Penguins with 187 hits, even though he played only 52 games for them before being traded to Anaheim. Also, de Haan finished third in the entire NHL with 172 blocked shots while finishing second on the Blackhawks with 146 hits.

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One area that I think is untapped when it comes to competitive advantage in fantasy leagues is power-play information. So much of analytics focuses on 5-on-5 play, which has been proven to make sense when it comes to season outcomes by team as well as overall scoring trends by player. Yet power-play points is one important category in fantasy leagues in that it can be similar to the "double word score" in Scrabble for rewarding multicategory leaguers twice. As well, a full-time role on the first-unit power play can provide a boost to a player's overall scoring.

Charron identifies three particular shooters above as having a below-average goals-for rate on the power play due to their teams' overreliance on them. Fortunately, Frozen Tools tracks lots of power-play data (click the PP Data button), with one of those stats being power-play shots on goal (PP SOG). Let's examine the league leaders in PP SOG.

Alex Ovechkin is the obvious top dog on the list, far and away the leader in power-play shots. Despite all those shots, Ovie did not lead the league in power-play goals, finishing behind both Chris Kreider (26 PPG) and Leon Draisaitl (24 PPG). Even with that booming shot, Ovechkin and the Capitals had only the league's 23^rd-ranked power play last season with an 18.8% success rate. Based on reputation alone, that number seems surprising.

Charron identified T.J. Oshie as an underutilized part of the power play. Even though Oshie is usually a regular on the first-unit power play, he took just 21 power-play shots in 44 games for four power-play goals in 2021-22. Oshie took 31 power-play shots in 53 games for 13 power-play goals the season before – a power-play goal total that was bettered only by Draisaitl that season. Tweaking the power play to be less reliant on Ovechkin might benefit the 35-year-old Oshie, who consistently reaches double-digit overall shooting percentage and even has two seasons with an over 20% shooting percentage.

Patrik Laine finished way down the list at tied for 55^th, but he played in only 56 games. Prorated over a full season, Laine would have finished with around 71 power-play shots, which would have placed him comfortably in the top 20. Despite missing all those games, Laine finished just one power-play shot behind team leader Oliver Bjorkstrand (since traded to Seattle), so Laine is relied upon to take shots. Those shots only amounted to five power-play goals all season. The Columbus power play finished right behind Washington's with an 18.6% effectiveness, but it will be interesting to see whether the addition of Johnny Gaudreau changes things.

Victor Olofsson finished a little below Laine, as he was tied for 63^rd with 47 power-play shots on goal in 72 games. Olofsson wasn't even the Sabres leader in power-play shots, as Tage Thompson took more shots with the man advantage (57 PP SOG). Olofsson converted on seven of those shots, behind only Thompson (10 PPG) and Kyle Okposo (8 PPG). Perhaps the Sabres have figured out that spreading out the shots on their power play works, as they had a more effective power play than both the Capitals and Blue Jackets in 2021-22 (21.2 PP%).

Olofsson played in just under half of the Sabres' power-play minutes (47.6%), and he's not even listed as a first-unit power-play option in the Fantasy Guide. Perhaps he was only mentioned by Charron from a PP SOG/60 perspective (Frozen Tools doesn't track that particular stat, just PPP/60PPMIN, which would be a discussion for another time).

You may have noticed that Kreider wasn't even in the top 10 in power-play shots in spite of leading the league with 26 power-play goals. He finished just outside of the top 20 with 66 power-play shots. By my math, that calculates to a power-play shooting percentage of nearly 40 percent! Go to Goals By Type on Frozen Tools and you'll see 17 of Kreider's 52 goals were tip-in goals. No other player had more than nine tip-in goals. I couldn't find a breakdown of power-play goals by type, but the high tip-in total might explain the high power-play shooting percentage.

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Follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding for more fantasy hockey.