Rick Bowness made his coaching debut with the Columbus Blue Jackets, and between the recent lineup changes and Bowness' own tinkering, there are a few lineup notes worth fantasy attention. Up front, Charlie Coyle seems to be in line for a bigger role, as he is the main centre on the top power play unit, and he made a great first impression with two goals, an assist, and seven shots. He also has a new linemate in Dmitry Voronkov, which could be a good thing for the both of them with Voronkov also picking up an assist, though Voronkov has been moved off the top power play unit lately.

On the back-end, Dante Fabbro made a great impression as well, jumping back up to the top pair with Zach Werenski, as a result of Denton Mateychuk being day-to-day with an undisclosed injury. Mateychuk and Ivan Provorov have been Werenski's most common pairings, but it was Fabbro's spot last year, and it could be his spot to lose in the short term after a successful showing in front of Bowness.

Jet Greaves got the start, which was his 10th in the past 11 games. I do wonder whether Elvis Merzlinkins gets his foot back in the door here, as Greaves has been rather pedestrian over the last week. At least he did pick up the win for Bowness.

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Ethen Frank had two goals for the Capitals, who mounted a comeback on the Canadiens to take the game 3-2 in OT. Rasmus Sandin had two assists in a season high 25 minutes of ice time. He also saw over two minutes on the power play, which is mainly because Jakob Chychrun was out with an illness. Chychrun was a game time decision, so he's likely back soon.

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Andrei Vasilevskiy out-dueled Arturs Silovs in the Lightning's first game without Brayden Point in the lineup. Nick Paul was promoted up to the top line between Nikita Kucherov and Jake Guentzel, and he could be in for a big fantasy boost if this keeps up.

On the flip side of the rink, Evgeni Malkin scored to make it three points in four games since returning from injury. Just because he's 39, don't forget about him – he's sitting pretty at 32 points in 30 games, and has greatly rebounded from last year's decline.

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The under-manned Blues managed to out-play the Canes from every angle, netting Joel Hofer his fourth shutout of the season on 33 saves. His numbers have been significantly better than Jordan Binnington's this year, and we could see a shift in volume in the second half as the Blues give Hofer some more rope while Binnington is also rested around the Olympics.

Rookie Otto Stenberg picked up an assist, putting him at seven in 13 games. He's doing that despite middle-six minutes and no power play time. The Blues have some injuries they're managing, so Stenberg was up playing with Brayden Schenn and Jimmy Snuggerud,

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Jeremy Swayman also posted a shutout, needing only 24 saves. Viktor Arvidsson put up an assist on 10 shots, and is the only Bruins currently riding a hot streak. He could be on the move at the deadline depending on how the Bruins fare over the next month, and some improved linemates could do him some further good. It's not like he's going to get less than third-line minutes on a new team anyways.

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I happened to add Pavol Regenda before his big hat-trick game last week, and at this point I'm not really sure what to make of him. He has six goals and no assists through eight games, playing mainly with Tyler Toffoli, Ty Dellandrea, Jeff Skinner, and Alex Wennberg at even strength. Three of those goals have come on the powerplay, and he has done it all with only 22 SOG, meaning he's shooting 27%. Interestingly, the shooting percentage is actually the only underlying marker that looks high. His IPPs are fine, on-ice shooting percentage is fairly average, while the zone starts % and secondary assists % are in fact low.

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Regenda has added 20 Hits though his eight games as well, but it's not what he has done so far that we want to know, it's what he's going to bring moving forward.

The short answer, is he's likely going to slowly see his role reduced, especially with Will Smith due back any day now, and then after that he's likely going to be shifted back to the AHL, where he is not one of the team's top six scorers.

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The Edmonton Oilers activated both Jake Walman and Tristan Jarry ahead of Tuesday night's game against the Predators. In Jarry's absence, Connor Ingram has been decent, and that run comes on the heels of me completely writing him off for the season, as well as dropping him in one league. Now with Jarry healthy, Ingram's run likely comes to an end, barring a waiver claim or another Oilers goalie injury. Jarry aloowed four goals on 27 shots in the OT-loss to the Predators.

Jake Walman has missed the last eight weeks, and played mainly with Spencer Stasney on the third pair in his return, putting up two SOG, one Blk, and a minus-one rating. His SOG and Blk rates have been down this year, but they are still noteworthy for fantasy as long as the 45-point scoring pace keeps up.

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Building on my poor timing with Ingram, I have had a rough season when it comes to goalies across many of my leagues. Up until Tuesday morning, I owned Jacob Markstrom in two leagues, but despite the win on Monday night, I finally cut bait with him in one league. The outlook wasn't great, with the Devils outside of the playoff picture, possibly trading their most impactful defenseman, and with Jake Allen taking at least 50% of the starts lately.

The league where I dropped Markstrom is the shallower of the two where I own him, so he will be easier to replace if and when I need to add another goalie. I have been a little quick on the trigger with goalies this year, and that has come back to bite me in a few cases.

First with John Gibson, who I had written off in Detroit after his awful start, culminating in a Dec 2^nd loss that put him at 19 goals against in his previous four games. At that point, Cam Talbot was taking over the crease, and Gibson couldn't re-direct a volleyball.

In another league, I moved out Juuse Saros in late November, right before his turnaround. In the first two months of the season he allowed more than three goals in a game eight times (six of them Really Bad Starts), and then in his third month, leading up to last night's start, there has only been one game with more than three goals allowed (and no Really Bad Starts). Saros' game picked up right after captain Roman Josi returned from a four-week injury absence. Coincidentally, that was also when Steven Stamkos turned his season around… maybe we really should have seen those ones coming. Sticking with that point, Stamkos scored his 20th of the season last night, which was also his 16th in the last 24 games. Josi meanwhile scored twice in the OT win, giving him five points in the last two games.

In the end, what I'm trying to say with goalies is that they all have bad stretches, and if you look at the stats of the majority of star goalies, most will have a bad quarter or so. For Markstrom, it's now two bad quarters on a struggling team, and he's on the wrong side of 35. For Gibson and Saros, I should have been more patient.

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Logan Mailloux signed a one-year extension with the Blues for $850K, and Micah outlined his impact to this point quite succinctly:

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He's a young player that has room to grow, and an offensive pedigree from the Junior ranks, but it's possible that he doesn't have the hockey sense to be able to put the puck skills to work at this level. No big risk for the Blues.

Meanwhile, Blake Lizotte also signed an extension yesterday, milking the Penguins for a $2.25 AAV across a three-year term. It's another one of those contracts to a bottom-six player that seems unnecessary.

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See you next Wednesday, and if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments you can find me on BlueSky @alexdmaclean.