There was some concern that Detroit defenceman Moritz Seider might miss time after blocking a shot on Tuesday night, but Ted Kulfan reports that Seider is just fine after getting X-rays completed that came back negative. Seider has been having another good multi-cat fantasy season with seven goals, 32 points, and 277 hits+blocks through 59 games. Half his points have come on the man advantage, so he's been a very good contributor to the power play point department, too.

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St. Louis defenceman Scott Perunovich was a health scratch for Wednesday night's game in Edmonton. In three games since his return from injury, Perunovich was held pointless, was not on the ice for a Blues goal at 5-on-5, and was down to 14:19 in the loss to Winnipeg. He is someone that has had an awful time with injuries for years now, and let's hope this isn't another setback for him. He turns 26 years old this summer.

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Not directly NHL fantasy hockey related, but the PWHL announced that it will go with a playoff format where the respective number-1 seeds get to pick their opponent in the first round. Not only is that cool as all hell, but it makes me think that’s something fantasy hockey head-to-head leagues should adopt.

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Minnesota announced the signing of Marat Khusnutdinov, a second-round pick from 2020. He had 20 points in 55 games this season in the KHL and 41 points in 63 games last season. The forward’s Dobber Prospects profile can be read here.

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Ottawa announced more testing for a slew of key injuries:

Jacques Martin tells @TheSuperAJ that Norris, Chabot and Sanderson sent for further tests. Said there were MRIs for some ailments. Says he hopes to have Zub back Friday. #SENS

— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) February 28, 2024

The worrisome one is Josh Norris, as he looked to be grabbing his shoulder after a collision around the net on Tuesday night. He has a serious and lengthy history of shoulder problems which limited him to eight games last season and flared up again before the start of the 2023-24 season. More updates as they become available.

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Calgary traded defenceman Chris Tanev to the Dallas Stars for a second-round pick, a conditional third, and prospect Artem Grushnikov. Alex had his take on the trade here.

There isn't too much to add to what Alex said. Fantasy-wise, I think Oliver Kylington will be the big winner with Tanev gone (and potentially Noah Hanifin in the next 7-8 days), and all of Nils Lundkvist (when healthy), Ryan Suter, and Jani Hakanpaa (when healthy) take a ding to their fantasy value. It should help the Dallas netminders a bit, though, which is good news for Jake Oetinger owners.

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Artemi Panarin had a goal and two assists (two of those three points with the empty net), Adam Fox had a power play goal, and Chris Kreider had a goal and an assist (PP) in New York's 4-1 win over Columbus. Igor Shesterkin stopped 30 of 31 shots faced and now has a .953 save percentage in seven games since the All-Star break, all of them wins. He allowed five goals against the Islanders and seven goals in the other six starts. If he's back to 2021-22 Igor, that is a game-changer for both the team in real life and fantasy rosters in our world.

Cole Sillinger had the lone goal for the Blue Jackets, registering four shots and three hits. Johnny Gaudreau took an awkward hit in the second period and left the game, but he did return for the third period and finished out the contest. We will update if anything pops up but what seemed to initially be an injury seems to be nothing serious.

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An overtime goal from Connor McDavid lifted Edmonton to a 3-2 win over St. Louis on Wednesday night. That goal broke an 11-game goalless drought, though he has 25 assists in that span so complaints from fantasy managers better be non-existent. He assisted on a pair of Zach Hyman power play goals earlier in the game, and those two tallies got Hyman to 40 goals for the first time in his career. That he did it in 56 games is remarkable. Hyman finished the game with six shots and two hits.

Evan Bouchard had a power play assist, a hot, two blocks, and two PIMs as he maintained his point-per-game status with 57 in 57. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a pair of assists (one on the PP) with two shots. He is nowhere close to last year's production, but he could threaten 25 goals and 75 points, which is a fine fantasy season.

Robert Thomas (PP) and Pavel Buchnevich (assisted by Thomas) had the goals for the Blues while Jordan Kyrou had a pair of helpers. Kyrou finished the game with three shots, a pair of blocks, and a hit but he's now gone five games without a goal.

Stuart Skinner saved 32 of 34 shots in the win.

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In Tuesday's Ramblings, we looked at which defencemen have improved their offensive contributions off the rush when compared to 2022-23. We briefly touched on a couple of blue liners that have seen declines, but it's worth looking more into which defenders have been less involved off the rush.

Again, the primary data source is the game tracking at AllThreeZones but we will also be using data from Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, and Frozen Tools. We are limiting our sample to defencemen with at least 150 tracked minutes in each of the last two seasons (160 defencemen total) and it's all at 5-on-5.

Kaiden Guhle

Though likely not thought of as a player that jumps into the rush all that often, Guhle was in the 86^th percentile for shots/60 and assists/60 combined off the rush in 2022-23, and higher than names like Mikhail Sergachev, Charlie McAvoy, and Quinn Hughes. That has dropped considerably in 2023-24, giving us the 16^th-largest drop season-over-season, and these are his comparables:

Montreal, as a team, is playing much less off the rush this season than last, going from a top-10 team to outside the top-20. There has been an increased focus on defence and it's hurt Guhle's production as his points/60 at 5-on-5 have fallen by 38%. The team is allowing fewer shots and far fewer goals with Guhle on the ice this season, so that focus is paying off, and this is just part of his development; he just turned 22 years old in January and his next game will be Game 100 of his career. It will be interesting to see if this swings back the other way in 2024-25.

MacKenzie Weegar

The next group has several players we'll discuss, Weegar included, and they're all at least one standard deviation below the average drop in rush contribution rates:

Weegar's rate of 0.47 assists/60 minutes at 5-on-5 is his lowest mark since his 2017-18 rookie season but, thankfully, he's shooting 10.2% so his overall point production is just fine. He is a multi-cat star, and the team does play a lot off the rush, but a lot of Flames defencemen have seen their individual rush contributions drop (including Noah Hanifin and Rasmus Andersson). Weegar's much-improved shot rates and sky-high shooting percentage are helping balance things out, but it feels like the production floor could fall out from under him at any moment.

Brandon Montour and Aaron Ekblad

If this were written two weeks ago, seeing Montour's name would make more sense. That he's posted 10 points in his last five games removes a lot of concerns fantasy owners had. Individual Points Percentage regression is in overdrive.

Ekblad is the interesting name here. His 5-on-5 points/60 is a career-low but part of that can be chalked up to the team shooting 7.1% with him on the ice, his lowest mark since 2016-17. This feels like a chicken/egg argument about whether the team is scoring less because Ekblad is jumping up less, or he's jumping up less because the team is scoring less. Either way, all of Montour, Ekblad, Gustav Forsling, and Niko Mikkola have seen their rush contributions decline from 2022-23, so the Paul Maurice effect is real.

Darnell Nurse and Mattias Ekholm

Another team that has seen a more focused commitment to defence is Edmonton as both Nurse and Ekholm have seen large drops in rush shots/assists, and while we could chalk up part of Ekholm's drop to changing teams a year ago, Evan Bouchard has also seen a drop though he's not featured above. One byproduct of this is Edmonton allowing fewer expected goals and actual goals against/60 at 5-on-5 than in 2022-23, and the improvement is drastic when looking just at the team's games under new coach Kris Knoblauch.

Both Nurse and Ekholm have seen a points/60 decline, and Nurse's has been substantial at 25.4%. Nurse is still a big contributor to both blocks and hits, and he could still hit 30 points, so it's not all bad, but if he keeps doing this, it might make 40-point seasons a thing of the past, especially with the declining ice time.  

Drew Doughty

This is a case where the player jumping into the play less has not resulted in a points/60 drop at 5-on-5, but since December 1^st, the only team with a lower goals/60 at 5-on-5 than Los Angeles is Chicago. Honestly; they're being outscored by Anaheim and San Jose.

For this specific situation, I have no idea what to make of the player or the team. On the season, the Kings are creating the second-most shots/60 off the rush but they're 22^nd by goals/60. The four teams in a similar range for shots off the rush are Los Angeles (22^nd  by goals/60), Philadelphia (18^th), Calgary (13^th), and Colorado (5^th). As a team, the Kings are between the Coyotes and Predators for goals/60 this season, and Los Angeles – when healthy – is deep enough to have Pierre-Luc Dubois and Viktor Arvidsson on the third line. Maybe this isn't a team that can play the way their coaches are being asked, but something needs to change quickly. Some positive regression will help a lot, but it feels like there's something else going on.

Morgan Rielly (and Toronto)

Toronto has not often been a team that has asked their defencemen to join in the rush. However, Rielly has seen a large drop, Mark Giordano is just below him, and Timothy Liljegren's drop is even steeper. For a team that didn't often ask its blue liners to get involved offensively, this is extreme.

Like Doughty, Rielly's points/60 at 5-on-5 is higher than last season and in line with his three-year average. In that sense, his drop in rush contributions isn't hurting his production. Going from 33% of his 5-on-5 time with Auston Matthews last season to 38% this season isn't hurting, either.