Byfuglien and Krejci return, Kreider’s upside, Marleau slipping and more…

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Dustin Byfuglien returned for the Jets last night and scored a goal but we might be dealing with too little, too late for most folks. I was hanging onto him in a couple of leagues and his absence and lack of IR status sunk me. That's one of the negatives with Yahoo! as a provider. Their strict adherence to the NHL's IR system is just outdated.

What's interesting about Byfuglien's return is that he did reclaim his spot on the top power play unit right away. This may have just been circumstantial as the Jets only received one power play chance last night or it may have been about easing Byfuglien back in. Either way, Tyler Myers was rewarded with continued top unit time. Myers may be worth keeping around after all. Of course, the Jets only play two games next week so perhaps not.

Interesting injury update for the Jets. Paul Maurice hopes to have Mathieu Perreault, Bryan Little and Ben Chiarot back in the lineup for the April 4^th contest against Vancouver. That would give you five games from those three over the final eight days of the season. Assuming your league is still active that could be beneficial.

The main target I'm looking at is Perreault because he was cast aside by many fantasy owners after he was presumably lost for the year.

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Wins for both Ondrej Pavelec and Mike Smith last night. Up is down. Black is white. Cats and dogs are living together.

I've pointed this out on multiple occasions but I'll do so again, Pavelec and Smith are doing quite well for themselves here in the month of March. Downright playable, which is a nice change. Do you think Pavelec knows that he's at risk of getting bought out if he doesn't get the Jets to the playoffs?

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Two assists for David Krejci in his return to the lineup. Check out the Bruins' most common lines last night:

Krejci skated on the wing alongside Patrice Bergeron and Brad Marchand. I wonder if we'll see more of that next year if Ryan Spooner is ready full time. I'm not averse to the idea.

We could see some big shifts in Boston if things keep going the way they are though. Rumours keep popping up that head coach Claude Julien will get fired if they miss the playoffs. Julien is known for a couple of things. His teams are always amongst the lowest in the league in terms of power play opportunities and he divides his power play time evenly between his first and second units. A new coach might shift to a top-heavy approach, which could get more out of the likes of Krejci and Bergeron. It would help if said coach can dig the team out of dead last in power play chances as well.

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Excellent use of their deadline pickups by the Ducks. Both James Wisniewski and Tomas Fleischmann were in the press box last night.

I'm not actually complaining here. The Ducks won and it's not the worst idea to sit your new recruits down and have them watch a game so that they can maybe get a better feel for things. Plus, the Ducks got these guys for added depth come playoff time and when that happens basically everyone has to take a turn because the roster has too many capable players. That's what we call a good problem.

Guaranteed Wisniewski would be playing if Sami Vatanen was still hurt though. Vatanen has three points in four games since returning to the lineup. No power-play points though. That power play is still an Achilles heel for the Ducks

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Tough outing for Andrew Hammond but maybe he's not to blame here. The Rangers are a buzz saw and Hammond's been playing more than at any point in his career. Dude is probably banged up and burned out. Dave Cameron thinks that Craig Anderson will be ready to back up this weekend so this amounts to bad timing for anyone counting on Hammond carrying them to the 'ship.

No Milan Michalek last night. He's been experiencing headaches after leaving a game earlier this week following a high hit. The suspicion here is a concussion, which could mean any sort of timeline. There goes one potential waiver wire grab.

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Chris Kreider had a big night to become the sixth Ranger forward to 40 points after scoring a pair and adding an assist. That the Rangers have six forwards at 40 points and a seventh (Kevin Hayes) well on his way really tells you what kind of depth this team has. That depth is why I'm somewhat cautious about Kreider's immediate potential despite the serious Pacioretty vibes he is giving off.

Barring catastrophic injury Kreider is going to score 30 goals and 60 points (at least) at some point in his career. It's just a matter of when, not if. And it's worth noting that Pacioretty has only ever scored more than 13 points on the power play once in his career so if Kreider is following that model, power play time/scoring isn't a prerequisite. Kreider just needs to up the volume of that lethal shot he has.

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Things didn't necessarily go that well for the Red Wings last night but they went according to plan. With Erik Cole and Pavel Datsyuk on the shelf, Gustav Nyquist was back in the top-six. No scores for him last night but I suspect that it will only be a matter of time. Datsyuk's return won't knock him out of the top-six either. Only Cole could do that and he's done for the remainder of the regular season so I'd buy Nyquist stock, if possible. You can check out Detroit's lines from last night:

Justin Abdelkader continues to sip from the richest of cups and scored himself a goal. He's up to 22 goals and 42 points on the season. This is about as good as it gets for him though. He doesn't have another gear.

Niklas Kronwall was back in the lineup after a night off and managed an assist.

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Nice outburst from Patrick Marleau last night with a pair of goals and an assist. One of the goals was an empty-netter though, which is a nice bit of stat-padding. If I'm a Marleau owner in a keeper league I'm hoping he has an absolute feast of good fortune to pad the stats because I don't like the way his shot charts are trending.

Shot charts are horribly flawed under the current real-time scoring system but in this case it’s fitting what I’ve seen when I’ve watched the Sharks. When you compare last year's chart to this year's, it sure looks like Marleau is losing ground and becoming more of a perimeter shooter, which just isn't going to work for him. It helps explain how Marleau's shooting percentage has dipped to a career low 8.0% this season despite being a 13.5% shooter. If this keeps up it'll be the only year of Marleau's career where his shooting will have dipped below 10%. There's an argument that that's just bad luck but if he keeps shooting from farther and farther out that's not bad luck.

The counter argument is that Marleau hasn't lost his elite skating ability. At least I haven't seen any dip when I've watched. So it may not be a physical flaw that's keeping Marleau from getting better shots, it just might be that the Sharks as a whole aren't as strong of a team and thus everyone is seeing worse shots. Improved depth for the Sharks can help ring some more productivity out of Marleau if you subscribe to this notion.

That relies on the Sharks actually improving their depth though. It also relies on next year not being the year where Marleau's skating noticeably drops off. I'm not saying that Marleau is going to show up mummified like Dany Heatley. Plenty of veterans, Martin St. Louis for example, have kept up their elite skating well into their late 30's. Skating isn't the whole picture though. An unwillingness to battle could have effects just as adverse as lost skating ability.

Something is pushing Marleau's shots further out. If there isn't a change that can draw him back into the juicy areas more often then he's a sinking ship to jump off of.

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