Auston Matthews is up to seven points in three games since he returned from a nagging injury. In the days leading up to his return he said he really turned a corner in how he was feeling, and it sure looks like it. Now this mystery ailment may still be an issue, but it’s a good sign that Matthews is back to looking like his healthy self at least. 

Mitch Marner has upped his production while Matthews was out, but hasn’t missed a beat through the last three games either, matching Matthews with seven points of his own. He’s on pace for a career year, and hopefully this year he’s healthy enough to hit the century mark. 

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Jake Middleton returned for Minnesota, and his presence in the lineup is worth almost as much as the missing Kirill Kaprizov. Middleton has been excellent this year, and while he won’t keep up his 45-point pace, he did add a goal and an assist in last night’s win. 

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Alexis Lafreniere has been seeing time on the top power play unit for the last couple weeks now, but still has almost no production to show for it – two measly power play points on the season. That power play dam should break soon, and he could be an excellent buy ahead of the second half if you can get him at the price of a 50-point player. Last night he had two goals, six shots, and three hits though, so maybe today isn't quite the best moment to go shopping.

No Arthur Kaliyev in the lineup for the Rangers. His first chance to play is now Thursday against the Devils.

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In the six games since Todd McLellan took over in Detroit, the team has won five of six, averaging 3.7 goals per game, with their only loss coming the day after the hiring was made (a 5-2 loss to Toronto). Among the wins are victories over Winnipeg and Washington, two of the top teams in the league this year. McLellan has put a positive stamp on the team, and at this point we have to start believing that the changes are not just a blip for a game or two, but signs that the changes are going to continue to bear fruit.

Now, Dylan Larkin, Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat and Lucas Raymond won't continue putting up nine points every five games or so, but the boost above what their season pace was with Derek Lalonde seems to be real. Larkin for example was pacing for closer to 65 points rather than his usual 80- to 85-point pace, but he's already up to a 70-point-pace and aiming for 80 again.

Interestingly, the bottom half of the lineup has gone into a slump over the last few games. Most notably that includes Simon Edvinsson and Vladimir Tarasenko. I would be wary of owning any of the depth Detroit players and banking on a bounce back the rest of the way.

I did pick up Patrick Kane (owner 50% in Yahoo, 67% in Fantrax) who was on the wire in one of my 12-team leagues (plenty of peripherals there as well where he doesn't bring much), and I'm at least going to ride the scoring wave there. The fact he had power play points in four straight games played a role in the add too. He kept the streak going with a power play goal last night.

The top power play unit remains relatively unchanged, but the main toggle that McLellan has made with the lineup has been bumping Joe Veleno up to the top line as the puck retriever, and he has looked great alongside Larkin and Raymond. The points haven't jumped off the page yet, with two in five games, but there will be some extra assists picked up just by virtue of playing with those two, let alone the extra ice time he's getting all of a sudden. He could be someone to look at as a potential buy in deeper leagues, though Marco Kasper did also get a few shifts with Larkin and Raymond last night. 

The goalie starts are 4-2 in favour of Alex Lyon since McLellan took over, but the big difference is that while Lyon is 3-0, Cam Talbot is 2-1 and was pulled from one of his two starts. We could see a transition to a heavier workload from Lyon in the second half, that is, assuming his injury from yesterday isn't a longer-term thing. He left last night’s game after posting a perfect first period. The official news was an upper body injury, and it seemed like it was known immediately that he would not return to the game. That could just be precautionary for some kind of muscle spasm, and we’re hoping it’s nothing worse. 

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Back on January 3^rd, Colton Dach made his first career NHL appearance, and the special part about it was that he got to do it while facing off against his brother, Kirby Dach of the Montreal Canadiens. Colton isn't immediately someone to have on your fantasy radar, but he has been simmering in the AHL and has 25 points in 30 games to show for it this year. Through two games with the Blackhawks, the 22-year-old has five shots and seven hits, so there might be an eventual cross-category contributor here as a third-line forward.

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Evgeni Malkin or not (day to day with an upper body injury) Michael Bunting has been on a tear recently, with six goals and eight points in his last seven games. His hit rate has jumped back up after a blip last year where it was half his usual rate.

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Don’t look now, but Jeff Skinner has points in three straight games. No, I’m serious, even with that you probably still don’t want to consider him for your fantasy squad. 

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Despite being a contender for the last 20 years or so, the Washington Capitals have a very solid prospect system. The team traded their first-round pick less often than other contenders, and has hit with it more often than not, even in the teens and 20s. Where the team magic has been lately though in the middle rounds with Eriks Mateiko (who put on s show for Latvia at the World Juniors), brothers Aliaksei Protas and Ilya Protas, Cam Allen, and Vincent Iorio highlighting an incredible run of success with picks that often turn into AHLers at best. This team looks like they won’t be bottoming out for a good 30-year period, from the late 2000s to a decade or more from now.

Anyone looking to put together an extended competitive window in fantasy hockey knows that it’s easier said than done, and while you can prop it up with a few well-timed trades, if your league has shrewd managers then it’s the drafting that makes the difference between the GMs that can maintain success and those who yo-yo in the standings every year.

I managed to snag Ilya Protas as a free agent add in my dynasty league in October, and at the moment he's scoring at a top-25 pace among NHL prospects by Mason Black's PNHLe model. Noting who Washington selects in drafts and perhaps bumping them up a place or two on my own draft board is something I'll be considering next year. They would join teams such as Carolina and Dallas whose picks I pay special attention to.

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Rick Roos' monthly mailbag runs next week and he has room to answer plenty more questions. To get yours to him, you can either private message “rizzeedizzee” via the DobberHockey Forums or, instead, send an email to [email protected] with “Roos Mailbag” as the subject line. No one does a deeper dive on your questions than Rick.

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Warning here, I’m diving down a rabbit hole that may really only interest me in my specific situation. That being said, if you’re like me and have a team (or multiple) that you are already fairly certain will be making the H2H playoffs, then you may have already looked at H2H playoff schedules. I’ve touched on that a couple times already, with the bulk of the info condensed here. However, there is one new little wrinkle that I’ve been looking at of late.

Quick backstory, is that one of my leagues is a fantasy points based H2H league, and the best way to make a desperate comeback attempt is with a goalie shutout (typically about eight points) where a three point night from a skater will likely only net you about four points. We have a minors system there as well, so I was looking into possible goalie options to stash in my minors as Hail Mary options should the need arise. I already had Jakub Dobes in my minors system before his career opening shutout, and he would be the ideal type of candidate.

The next step is then to sort out which backup goalies may actually be starting on the Sunday of a playoff week. Well, there were more back to backs than I expected, with Buffalo holding the highest number, as they have a weekend back to back in each of fantasy weeks 23-26 (March 17 through to the end of the season). Now, sorting out whether Devon Levi or James Reimer is going to be backing up then is a whole other issue. You might just be best off looking into Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, and banking on the Sabres as a team turning things around.

For those interested, other goalies with under 40 career games who may be useful as stashes:

Justus Annunen, Jakub Dobes, Yaroslav Askarov, Arturs Silovs, Ivan Fedotov/Alexei Kolosov.

Teams with most back to backs (two or more in the last four weeks of the season – looking at the four weekends and the final Wed/Thurs of the year) and the backups to watch for streaming:

Boston – Joonas Korpisalo

Buffalo – Already reviewed

Carolina – Tough to know which goalies will be healthy, or if there will be a trade

Columbus – Daniil Tarasov

Florida – Spencer Knight

Los Angeles – David Rittich

New York Islanders – Semyon Varlamov

Ottawa – Anton Forsberg

Philadelphia – Fedotov/Kolosov

Toronto – Timeshare here, plus health issues, tough to predict.

Vegas – Samsonov

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See you next Wednesday, and if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments you can find me on BlueSky here, or Twitter/X here.