We're approaching the Olympics, and while the Men's Ice Hockey games don't start there until February 11^th, the final games we get before the break are on Thursday February 5^th. That means there's only today and tomorrow to get some games in before the break.

After their games last night, Anaheim and Toronto are now done until the end of February, so you can safely drop any fringe players from their squads. Florida, Los Angeles, and Vegas both play back-to-back games over the next two nights (the last two game days remaining), with three games in the five-day week at the end of the break. Nashville also has a back-to-back now leading into the break, but they only play two games on the other side of the break.

*

If you are a regular FrozenTools user, you might have noticed an issue or two over the last few days, and that's due to some server upgrades. Hopefully moving forward the site should be much faster and much smoother, though it comes at the cost of the current transfer time. It also means that the boxscore pages aren't available, and those are a key part to getting all the info we can for Ramblings. What that means is this week might be a little lighter on some of last night's insights. Alas, we'll still recap a couple key points.

*

Sebastian Aho put up the best stat line of the night with a goal and two assists, both on Seth Jarvis goals. Jarvis has been a point per game player since mid-December, and it's great to see him healthy and performing again.

Brandon Bussi is up to 21 wins in 25 games, and keeps his incredible winning streak going.

*

Elvis Merzlikins posted a 24 save shutout, and has been getting a heavier workload recently. The Blue Jackets are looking up, and if Merzlikins is carrying the load in the second half, then he's worth owning in more than the one third of Fantrax leagues and one eighth of Yahoo leagues where he's currently rostered.

Mathieu Olivier had two goals last night. One of them was assisted on by Charlie Coyle, who has been fantastic since the coaching change. Ten points in his last five games is really going to put him back on the fantasy radar.

*

Bo Horvat led the way for the Islanders with a goal and an assist, and he looks to be going into the Olympics on a high note. Matthew Schaefer also scored for the Isles, his 16^th of the season. That's good for third among all rookies (behind Beckett Sennecke and Oliver Kapanen) and fourth among all defencemen, only trailing Zach Werenski, Jakob Chychrun, and Darren Raddysh.

It does appear though that Schaefer is losing a bit of steam when it comes to the shot volume though, because he averaged 2.5 SOG per game through the first half of the season, but since passing the halfway mark 14 games ago, he has only put up 1.5 SOG per game. The scoring is still there, but the lower volume may mean the goal scoring dries up a little in the second half too.

For the Penguins, Sidney Crosby notched an assist after leaving the game shortly to nurse a butt-end of a stick to the mid-section, but it wasn't anything that was going to take him out for long.

Egor Chinakhov scored a goal and added an assist, bringing him to four goals and six points in his last six games. He has been getting more of a look in Pittsburgh than in Columbus, and has been looking even more comfortable lately. He has been lining up with Tommy Novak and Evgeni Malkin, who are also on Hot streaks.

📢 advertisement:

*

After Clay Stevenson put up a decent first game for the Caps on January 31^st(allowing three goals in a win) he then was tabbed to start both games of the Feb 2^nd/3^rd back-to-back, and allowed a combined four goals. This is as a result of the injuries to both Logan Thompson and Charlie Lindgren. While Thompson is likely to return on Thursday, Lindgren's status has less certainty, and it could be that Stevenson continues to get some games as the backup in Washington after the break. Maybe useful for the occasional DFS slate, or those of you in leagues where every goalie start is hoarded.

*

Lineup note for tonight, Kiefer Sherwood looks to be returning from injury, and will play his first game with the San Jose Sharks. Get him back in your lineups immediately with this kind of deployment.

*

As the resident Preds fan, I have a lot of thoughts on the Barry Trotz news. There are some mixed feelings about Trotz stepping down. I loved him as a coach, and he is an icon in Nashville, having carried the team and the identity there for so long. It will be interesting to see who they bring on in his place.

As a General Manager… he's been rather pedestrian. In isolation, he made a lot of moves that looked great on paper, but as a whole, the mix of them didn’t point well enough in a specific direction, and as a result the Preds are in a weird spot right now. They are a playoff bubble team yet again, and because of the age of their core they should probably be selling some of those players off. However, they have just gone through the last few seasons with some heavy volume at the draft table, both in quantity and quality, so stockpiling future assets isn't necessarily the way to go either.

Moving Ryan O'Rielly for example for a late first and a mid-rate prospect seems redundant, and I would rather them just hold those players for the playoff run this year, and then revisit things in the offseason where maybe it's more likely that an RFA can be pried loose. Those kinds of deals would fit in a lot better for the Preds than stockpiling more future longshots.

As Roman Josi is my favorite player, I hope for his sake that they can push for the playoffs this season, because that 8th seed is ripe for the picking. I know that sets up a matchup against Colorado, but the Avs look like the kind of Goliath team that takes their foot off the gas in the last month of the season and gets kicked out in round one. Maybe wishful thinking, but between Boston, Tampa Bay, and a few other President's Trophy winning teams in recent years, these kinds of upsets do happen.

*

I was discussing Braeden Bowman with a league mate of mine earlier this week, and he was noting that Bowman had some solid upside because he has shown he can pay with Jack Eichel. While that's true to an extent, Bowman has 19 points in 39 games, but only five in his last fifteen games. He has played only about 40% of his minutes with Eichel, but those minutes account for about 60% of his production. All in all, Bowman is likely someone who is a bit more of a passenger at this stage. Really, a lot of people could play decently well with Eichel, and it doesn’t feel like Bowman's spot on Eichel's right wing is etched in stone.

*

In an under-the-radar move from a few days ago, the Rangers claimed defenceman Vincent Iorio from San Jose, who had claimed him from Washington earlier in the year. The Capitals likely would have reclaimed Iorio, but the Rangers were higher in the claim order (i.e. lower in the standings).

Iorio developed well in the junior ranks, and has spent the last few seasons acclimatizing to the AHL. After averaging close to 20 points per 60-game campaign in three seasons in Hershey, the move to San Jose's system brought an explosion in scoring in a small sample size, with seven points in six games with their AHL team.

📢 advertisement:

He now looks to be getting an opportunity with the Rangers, who are without Adam Fox, and really otherwise only have Scott Morrow (six points in 28 games this season) who he would have to battle with for power play time. Iorio has the means and opportunity right now, and he just needs to run with it.

**

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