Alexander Ovechkin keeps on chugging along, scoring his record-extending 30^th goal (and his 31^st too last night) to hit that plateau for the 20th straight season. Pierre-Luc Dubois had four assists in the win, while Jakob Chychrun added three points, and a number of other top-of the lineup names picked up a pair as the stars propelled the Capitals to the 6-4 win last night over the Flyers (more on them later).

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Meanwhile, the league's next top goal scorer potted his 47^th goal of the season, and his 15^th since the Olympic break. Yes that's Cole Caufield, who has no empty net goals on the season, and trails only Nathan Mackinnon (49 goals – nine since the Olympic break) in the Rocket Richard race. At this rate Caufield may even overtake MacKinnon for the award.

The Habs took care of business against the Lightning, winning a convincing game 4-1, and putting their stamp on the conference as one of the main threats to come out of the East. Mike Matheson and Juraj Slafkovsky each had two points for the Habs, while Jake Guentzel scored his 36^th goal of the season which was the lone marker for the Lightning. He's now up to nine points in his last five games, and inching closer to a career high in points.

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The only real noteworthy event in a meaningless Devils/Rangers game was the goalie fight between Igor Shestrerkin and Jacob Markstrom. On top of the PIMs, Shesterkin provided his owners with a stellar one goal against on 23 shots. MArkstrom didn't fare so well, allowing four goals on 22 shots.

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The Senators came out flat against the Panthers last night, with Linus Ullmark allowing five goals on 16 shots in the first 14 minutes of the game. Matthew Tkachuk and Seth Jones each had three assists with Tkachuk adding a goal to boot. Carter Verhaghe tallied a pair of the goals as well, and picked up an assist for his own three-point night. The Panthers don't have nearly the same roster they have because of all the injuries, but they do still have some talent that they can flash if their opponents aren't careful.

Speaking of injuries, news came out yesterday that Sam Reinhart would likely not be returning from his foot injury before the rest of the year, which makes sense considering how long it has lingered and because of how little the Panthers still have left to play for.

Daniil Tarasov stopped 23 of 26 shots, earning his first win in his last five starts. He has been getting the starting nod in about every second game since the Olympic break, though it hasn't necessarily been earned through successful play.

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For the Penguins, playing the second of their back-to-back Monday/Tuesday games ahead of their remaining three games in the final four days of this week, there was a bit of lineup shuffling due to injuries. Bryan Rust sat for an undisclosed injury, while Evgeni Malkin made his return to the lineup after a four-game absence, picking up his hot streak right where it left off with an assist. He was one of a dozen players to record a point for the Penguins – Yegor Chinakhov led the way with the only two-point performance, giving him 14 points in his last 14 games.

The Penguins did most of their damage early, chasing John Gibson after three goals on 14 shots.

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Sam Carrick got injured while fighting Anders Lee, and the arm/shoulder injury looked to be one that might have him miss a decent chunk of time. That would mean the Sabres are down two of their centers with Noah Ostlund also nursing an injury. On top of that, Josh Norris left the game briefly before returning for the third period, so he may not be fully healthy either.

Norris still managed two assists in the game (and six PIMs), and with both Tage Thompson and Jack Quinn picking up a goal and an assist, that propelled the Sabres to another win over the Isles.

Assists from Bo Horvat on all three Islanders goals wasn't enough for the Islanders, and neither was the three goals allowed by Ilya Sorokin on 32 shots, not quite making up for the stinker on Monday night. His fantasy managers are at least going to have the save volume this week, but there have been a lot of poor goalie performances to kick off what is the Semis or Final week in most H2H leagues.

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Viktor Arvidsson had a hat-trick and David Pastrnak recorded three assists as the Bruins doubled up on the Stars 6-3.

The Stars don't have a lot to play for at the moment, but they're still generally not an easy opponent. We could see a few of them rested through the stretch run, with players like Cameron Hughes getting some opportunities in the lineup. Hughes had two career games for the Bruins back between 2019 and 2021, which makes up his career total of three games. He has had a lengthy and productive career at the AHL level but hasn't been able to make the jump.

Unsurprisingly it was again Wyatt Johnston and Jason Robertson leading the way for the Stars with two points apiece. Mikko Rantanen picked up an assist for three points in his first three games since returning from his injury.

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Nikolaj Ehlers picked up three points, continuing what has been an excellent run after needing a few games to get his feet under him with the Hurricanes. Since mid-November he has been very close to a point-per-game player, though the 70-pooint full-season pace doesn't quite reflect that.

On the other side, Mason Marchment picked up points on both Columbus goals, giving him 27 points in 33 games with the Blue Jackets. Another player whose full-season pace of 53 points doesn't reflect the more recent production level.

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Sasha Boisvert sat last night in favour of Sam Lafferty, which isn't too much of a surprise as the Blackhawks manage the load on their new young players.On top of that, it gets Lafferty a game or two in the lineup before he's likely back in the press box for Andrew Mangiapane returning. Likely not much fantasy relevance from any of them before the end of the season, but Mangiapane does have a 55-point season to his name, so he has gone on runs before.

On the back end, Artyom Levshunov is done for the season with a wrist injury, and that gives Sam Rinzel some time to develop a bit more chemistry with Bedard and Anton Frondell on the powerplay, which would be a boon for him if he could hold that spot even part-time next season.

This was also Anton Frondell's first NHL home game, which means the deployment could be managed a little better, and he was centering his own line to boot. It didn't take long for him to score his first NHL goal, which came less than five minutes into the game.

Frondell finished the game with the goal on top of three shots, his first positive plus-minus rating, another Hit, and his best night in the facoff circle with four wins in 13 draws. He’s up to five points through his first five NHL games, with four of those points being primary efforts.

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Porter Martone made his NHL debut with the Flyers, and he had a couple of close looks but couldn't quite get to his first NHL point. He did register five shots, one Hit, and a penalty in 17 minutes of ice time. He played mainly alongside Christian Dvorak and Travis Konecny, while also slotting in on the top power play unit.

Here were the lines from Martone's first game, where there was a bit of juggling with Carl Grundstrom and Denver Barkey getting flipped around.

Num	Time	%	EV – FORWARDS	GF	GA	+/-	SF	SA	SF%	CF	CA	CF%
1	9:55	20.3	TRAVIS KONECNY – CHRISTIAN DVORAK – PORTER MARTONE	1	1	0	8	1	88.9	15	6	71.4
2	5:09	10.5	SEAN COUTURIER – LUKE GLENDENING – GARNET HATHAWAY	0	0	0	1	1	50.0	5	1	83.3
3	4:57	10.1	OWEN TIPPETT – CARL GRUNDSTROM – TREVOR ZEGRAS	1	0	1	1	1	50.0	4	3	57.1
4	3:54	8.0	NOAH CATES – MATVEI MICHKOV – DENVER BARKEY	1	0	1	1	2	33.3	2	2	50.0
Num	Time	%	EV – DEFENSE	GF	GA	+/-	SF	SA	SF%	CF	CA	CF%
1	15:58	32.7	RASMUS RISTOLAINEN – TRAVIS SANHEIM	3	1	2	9	3	75.0	21	9	70.0
2	13:53	28.4	CAM YORK – JAMIE DRYSDALE	1	2	-1	3	6	33.3	13	10	56.5
3	10:08	20.7	NICK SEELER – EMIL ANDRAE	0	0	0	3	2	60.0	10	4	71.4

An additional wrench in the mix (especially for power play time) is that Tyson Foerster may not be too far away either, with Tocchet hinting that he may be available before the end of the season (which again is only two weeks away).

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The off-days are again a schedule topic as busy Thursday/Saturday slates affect which adds would actually be make it into your lineups. The St. Louis Blues are the remaining team to target this week, with games on Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday. The only team with three off-day games remaining.

Dalibor Dvorsky and Philip Broberg are adds I have made in separate leagues looking for different contributions over the next few days.

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Across all five on my leagues I am in the thick of championship races, and this could very well prove to be my best across-the-board season in fantasy ever.

In my one roto league I have a double-digit lead in the standings, and have spent the last two weeks slow-playing my roster to drop back down to the rest of the pack in games played by targeting only those categories which I need most (which has meant sitting some top players like William Nylander because I needed Hits, FOWs, and PIMs the most). I have no doubt the GMs in that league will chase me down, as always happens to the top team by the end of the year, but I do think I may just have enough of a lead built to hold onto first place as long as my sv% and GAA don't get blown up in the last two weeks (despite John Gibson trying to start that collapse last night).

Across my four H2H leagues, I have one 24-team Cap dynasty, two partial keepers of various sizes, and one smaller full re-draft league with some close friends. One of the partial keeper leagues has the final this week, and I'm going toe-to-toe with the defending champ there. In the other three, I'm coming in as a middle playoff seed, and am currently in decent shape in the semis for all three. My rosters are built with an eye at the playoff weeks, so it doesn't feel like I'm the underdog in any matchup, regardless of the regular season standings.

I'll keep you posted on how it shakes out. Has anyone out there ever completed a championship sweep across all of their leagues in one season?

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For those that aren't in the race over these remaining two weeks, there's always the playoff drafts to look ahead to:

Dobber's 20th (20!!) annual Interactive playoff draft list – out in early April (April 10) and updated right up until the playoffs! Use Dobber's own picks, or run your own playoff scenario using the brackets provided and print your own list! Preorder it here.

Dobber’s 2026 Interactive Playoff Draft List

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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.

One Comment

forkthewendy 2026-04-01 at 07:25Log in to Reply

“Has anyone out there ever completed a championship sweep across all of their leagues in one season?”

Well, last year I won 4 out of 4 of my Rotisserie leagues (on Yahoo!, I have 8 leagues where I split them 4 Roto and 4 H2H), 3 of them being of the Elimination kind. Now granted, some leagues had some managers that forgot their team after the first few weeks, and the level of the rest of the managers varied a lot, but there were also some managers I’ve played with for years now who always battle for championships and make it tough on you, so it definitely wasn’t just a walk in the park. Some good luck and good drafting led to my best Fantasy year ever…which has been followed this year with prob my worst year yet :D The way she goes!