The NHL's regular season came to a close on Friday with two games that had been postponed earlier in the season. These two games provided the few fantasy teams still competing for something with one last opportunity to pull out a win. If you fall into this category, you were probably breaking these games down to the nth degree looking for the right option(s).

With a goal and two assists in the Sabres' 5-2 win over Columbus, Jeff Skinner secured the first 80-point season of his career. That's quite a bounceback for a player that seemed to be left for dead under the previous head coach. Just two seasons ago, Skinner had a meager 14 points in 53 games and appeared to be a future buyout candidate thanks to his long-term $9 million cap hit. Now he's a key part of the Sabres' future and has just completed his first point-per-game campaign. Coaching changes don't matter to every player in fantasy leagues, but they really matter to certain players.

Skinner's regular linemate Tage Thompson was out with an injury, so he finishes with 47 goals and 94 points. If you bet on him being able to repeat his 38-goal performance from last season, you were paid dividends and then some. He also fell just short of 300 shots, a number that only 10 players were able to reach.

Casey Mittelstadt finishes the season with 10 points in his last six games and 17 points in his last 11 games. Mittelstadt had a previous career high of 25 points, so falling one point shy of 60 should qualify as a breakout for the former first-round (8^th overall) pick. He was also the only Sabres player to appear in all 82 games. Don't forget about him in fantasy drafts next season.  

Recently signed Devon Levi finishes the season with five wins in seven games. Small sample size, I know, but his 71.4% quality start percentage is among the league's best if games played isn't factored in. Since he started seven of the Sabres' last nine games of the season, the 21-year-old Levi has to be considered in the mix to be the starting goalie next season. He'll have competition from both Eric Comrie and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (who was the NHL's rookie of the month in January), not to mention that 21 is a very young age to be an NHL goalie, so he'll certainly be in tough. Since impressing with Canada at the 2020-21 World Juniors, Levi has been flying up the goalie prospect rankings. At the very least, he needs to be added in keeper leagues.

Speaking of playing all 82 games, this wasn't Columbus's season at all.

It is unfathomable the amount of injuries Columbus had this year. They won't have a player play all 82 games. The @DallasStars have 8! (And an 81, and two 79's) https://t.co/Pm1QqlYy9b

— BucciOT.Com (@Buccigross) April 15, 2023

Worse yet, the Blue Jackets had only seven players that played at least 70 games. While we're on the subject of the Jackets, only Anaheim has better draft lottery odds than Columbus. I can’t help but think they’d be better if not for all the injuries.

Here are your draft lottery odds. pic.twitter.com/hAAq4We9OP

— Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) April 15, 2023

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Nathan MacKinnon scored a hat trick with an assist on Friday, including the game-winning goal in the Avalanche's 4-3 win over Nashville. Nate Dogg has the second 40-goal season of his career, shortly after reaching 100 points for the first time in his career. I found that hard to believe he had never reached 100 prior to this season, but injuries and COVID-shortened seasons have gotten in the way. He's had at least a near-100-point 82-game pace for six consecutive seasons, so this 100-point season is long overdue. Only David Pastrnak took more shots on goal than MacKinnon (365 SOG).  

Nathan MacKinnon is on another level tonight#GoAvsGo pic.twitter.com/CEAvUkxNs6

— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights (@HockeyDaily365) April 15, 2023

Kiefer Sherwood scored a pair of goals in the Predators loss, which means he has scored a goal on both the first game of the season and the last game of the season. The third man on the surprising Tommy Novak – Luke Evangelista line, Sherwood has scored goals in back-to-back games. I'm guessing he falls down the lineup once the more proven scoring options Filip Forsberg, Matt Duchene, and Ryan Johansen return to the lineup, but those returns could also affect the value of Novak and Evangelista, who had made some noise late in the season in their expanded roles.  

Another interesting games played stat: Tyson Barrie played 85 games this season, the first time that has happened since Rem Murray in 2002-03. How does that happen? A midseason trade from Edmonton to Nashville, who had three games in hand on the Oilers at the time of the trade (more if Barrie missed any games due to injury). The other players that played more than 82 games this season are Garnet Hathaway, Lars Eller, and Jack Johnson.

Colorado's win over Nashville means that they clinch the Central Division, finishing just ahead of Dallas. The Avalanche will face the Seattle Kraken in the first round, while the Stars face the Minnesota Wild.

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If you have a playoff pool or are making some series predictions, we have some stuff here for you.

Playoff Draft List at the Dobber Sports Store

Free NHL Playoff Box Pools

Writer's Predictions for the 2022-23 Playoffs – coming soon!

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Call it the NHL's version of Black Friday. With the regular season now in the books, the Penguins, Capitals, and Ducks have already gotten an early start on their offseason personnel changes.

The 3 longest active playoff appearance streaks in the #NHL have all been snapped:#LetsGoPens – 16 seasons#ALLCAPS – 8 seasons#Preds – 8 seasons#NHLBruins and #LeafsForever now own the longest active streaks at 7 seasons.

— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) April 14, 2023

Although the decline of the Penguins has been more slow than sudden, it seems like a bit of a surprise that they won't be in the playoffs. Ron Hextall was blamed for many of the team's issues, so he was let go along with Brian Burke. Although Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are still point-per-game scorers even after celebrating their 35^th birthdays, the Penguins are very much "mid" (to borrow a word from my son) in terms of overall offense (3.18 GF/GP). The same goes for their defense, with Tristan Jarry a slightly above average (7.74 GSAA, 0.18 GSAA/60) starting goalie.

The new Penguins GM will need to keep the team competitive by navigating around the contracts of Crosby, Malkin, and Kris Letang, all of whom are signed for multiple seasons beyond this one. They will also need to decide what to do about the goaltending, with Jarry set to become a UFA this offseason.

The Capitals situation seems similar to that of the Penguins, the only difference being that they decided at the deadline that they would be sellers. Alex Ovechkin is signed for three more seasons after this one, so will he sit through more seasons with no playoffs while he chases the goal-scoring record? We could look at the Chicago situation with Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews as a template. Washington might still take another run at being competitive, especially since they don't have many contracts coming off the books, but we'll find out more about their plans this offseason. Don't forget that they had numerous lengthy key injuries, including Nicklas Backstrom, Tom Wilson and John Carlson.

In Anaheim, Dallas Eakins was the fall guy for a team that finished dead last in the standings. But given draft lottery odds for a potential generational talent, is that a bad thing? The Ducks orchestrated a perfect tank, going winless in their final 13 games. From a fantasy perspective, Trevor Zegras was the only Ducks player rostered in more than 50% of Yahoo leagues (although Troy Terry is just under that at 49%). Although the Ducks have some nice pieces currently (Zegras, Terry, Mason McTavish), there simply isn't enough there in the present to be competitive. This is a team in need of a high pick, whether that be Connor Bedard or someone else.

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