Load management is going to be coming to hockey, and no one is going to like it. David Krejci sat for the Bruins on the second night of a back-to-back. The regular seven defencemen have also been rotating already for at least a week. Expect that to become a regular occurrence for them the rest of the way, especially with Krejci, Patrice Bergeron, and Brad Marchand all getting up there in age and likely to be rested with the games having less meaning for the Bruins to close out the year.

They have four games this week, but expect the above players to only see the ice for three of them each. These players are still lineup locks, as Bergeron and Marchand notched two assists last night, and Krejci has six points in his last eight games.

Sticking with the key Boston players for a minute, Charlie McAvoy is now up to a 66-point pace after adding two points last night. He's approaching his breakout threshold, and could be a 60-point rearguard for the next decade. Jake DeBrusk put up the best game for the Bruins though with four points overall. He too is approaching the 400-game threshold, though we would have expected the main jump in production from him back at game-200. Alas, he has tested our patience, and is finally rewarding those who believed in him with a 70-point pace in under 17-minutes of ice time per game.

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Vegas seems to be sorting themselves in the absence of Mark Stone, with Jack Eichel posting a hat-trick, and Alex Pietrangelo added three assists. Pietrangelo has been incredible this season, but has flown under the radar a little with the time he missed in the middle of the year. He started out with 21 points in 23 games, but has been on a 52-point pace since. His shot rate and power play time have both dipped of late, lining up similarly to when Shea Theodore returned from his injury. Be careful with how you evaluate Pietrangelo moving forward.

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I'm a big K'Andre Miller fan, and with two goals and two assists last night, he's up to nearly a 50-point pace despite seeing next to no power play time. There is some huge upside if the special teams points ever come in.

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Some GMs already have one (or both) eyes on next year and future seasons. I wanted to take some time to comb over a few names who I am excited about or bullish on for next year compared to where they are at right now.

Seth Jarvis

Some people have expected a little too much a little too quickly out of the 21-year-old, but he is already playing on the Hurricanes' top line while boasting some incredible possession numbers. Unfortunately, the luck just hasn't been there for him this year, so in spite of an increase in ice time and shot rate – up to 2.5 per game since the halfway mark of the season – I do think there are still a couple of higher gears for him to hit. He has an on-ice shooting percentage below eight, a secondary assist rate down at 35%, and his IPPs have dropped as well despite playing with a lot of the same players.

Assuming he's healthy, he will hit his breakout threshold around the all-star break next year, which would be an excellent time for us to expect him to go on a big late-season run, just like he showed us he can do with his 18 points in 23 games to finish off last season. He's unlikely to be drafted inside the top 150 next year, and maybe even outside the top-200. Anywhere after pick 140 he's likely going to be at or near the top of my draft queue.

Akira Schmid

Entering the offseason, the Devils will have three NHL-level goalies under team control, though only two of them have contracts for next year. Mackenzie Blackwood may be the odd one out here as an RFA, having had plenty of opportunities in the New Jersey crease, but never making the most of it. On the other hand, Schmid has come in, and played very well, even earning himself back-to-back starts just over a week ago, and then again late last week. He should start two of the next four (there's a back-to-back coming this weekend) and if he performs better than Vitek Vanecek, he may even start to take over for the remainder of the year.

Looking at the numbers, we have to take into account that New Jersey is a good team, and it is a small sample size of only 14 games as of when I wrote this section on Mar 15, but Schmid's stats are very hard to ignore. No one who has even played more than two games has a better GAA than Schmid, while only Linus Ullmark and Filip Gustavsson have better save percentage numbers. Those surface numbers are tremendous. If we dive deep into the FrozenTools database, we have charts for stats including a goalie's expected-prevented-goals at five-on-five per game – where he again profiles very favourably with the top-end guys.

Or, we could also just use the Compare Goalies tool, and filter for a comparison between Schmid, Gustavsson, Ullamrk, and Sorokin, as I have done here. Using that link, you can see that Schmid does profile favourably, but keep in mind he is still just 22, and the team in front of him is helping as well, as evidenced by his GSAA numbers compared to the others, where Schmid stands at about a half-a-goal per game, the other three are in the range of 0.6-0.9. That being said, the Devils on the whole are a young team, and will improve over the next number of years, and Vitek Vanecek hasn't done enough to lock-down the starting role for that time frame.

Mat Barzal

There is a very small sample size to bear this out, so it's really not worth going through the numbers here, but I am excited for a full season of Barzal playing wing with Bo Horvat. Barzal has been shackled the last number of years, with both a low-scoring system, and a lack of creative/skilled offensive players around him. Having someone like Horvat around will lessen the defensive responsibilities on Barzal, and add a finishing skill to his line that he hasn't had in a long time. Horvat seems like the perfect fit for Barzal, and it is unfortunate that they only overlapped for six games (plus an extra one minute of the seventh before Barzal was injured). During that stretch, Horvat saw his scoring pace drop (expected based on his percentages in a career year, as well as the move to a new and lower-scoring team), but Barzal soared with eight points in the six games, and bumped his shot rate up a smidge too. That may be more attributed to the ice-time jump though, with an ice time number under 20-minutes in only one of those six games. It helps not having to be sheltered as much, and the more ice time for Barzal the better.

Jordan Greenway

An excellent pick up by the Sabres at the deadline, Greenway still has room to grow (figuratively), and can play up or down the lineup for a young team. He still hasn't clicked yet, and has continued his tough season in Buffalo, but the Sabres have been rewarded once for their patience in an oversized player, and they will have another chance to watch Greenway's offence rebound next year, and then break out the following season as he passes the 400-game threshold. This will be his lowest point (pacing for only 12 points on the year), so it's really not too tough to see room for improvement next year. Buying low on him now nets you a safe floor of a 30- to 35-point season, with a ceiling much higher than that.

Jeremy Swayman

I had a great little blurb typed out nearly a week ago about how Jeremy Swayman was not getting enough credit for how good his numbers have been this year, and how much he has also been a key contributor on a historically great team. Well, he then goes out and posts two shutouts in a row, and he's thrown himself right back onto the radar. The key statistical difference though between Ullamrk and Swayman, is the quality-start percentage, which is over 80% for Ullmark, and only a bit over 50% for Swayman. It points to inconsistencies in the young goalie's game, but overall as his GSAA of 11.35 on the season signifies, he's still having a very good year. Lucily for his fantasy owners, Swayman is still only 24, and in the final year of his ELC. Goalies never sign their big-ticket contract straight out of their ELC, so there is still a lot he has to play for and a lot of incentive in the coming years. Many of his owners may be holding on tight to him, but he is someone that I do think is only going to get better (i.e. more reliable and consistent) over the next number of years, especially with the volume taking a big jump up after Ullmark hits free agency in 2025.

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Our DFS subscription is now on sale for $74.99 until the playoffs. That’s right: 25% off! Order it here!

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See you on Wednesday. In the meantime, you can find me on Twitter @alexdmaclean if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.