Auston Matthews is good at hockey.
No April Fool’s joke here, that’s for sure.
On Thursday night, the 24-year-old potted an empty netter to secure his first career 50-goal campaign. In short order, Matthews has emerged as the game’s most lethal sniper, something he unquestionably foreshadowed in his NHL debut when he scored four times against the Ottawa Senators.
Even with those ridiculous numbers, believe it or not, Matthews didn’t pot the most goals in the NHL in March. That honour went to Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov, who’s on an absolute heater right now.
Obviously, you should use this information to your benefit next time you put together a roster for the Sportsnet Fantasy Hockey Pool. Needless to say, there’s so much value to uncover right now. Ride the hot hand!
Now to your questions:
Depending on your league settings, I would make that play in a heartbeat. When healthy, Price continues to prove time and time again that he’s still one of the league’s elite goaltenders. His resume speaks for itself, and so does last season’s playoff run. He was lights out.
With new management firmly in place, it wouldn’t be surprising in the slightest to see Montreal at least gauge the trade market for Price this summer. But first, they need him to play some games and show potential suitors that he’s healthy. And that’s why there seems to be a commitment from both sides lately to at least try and make that happen. The clock is ticking on that, however.
With Robin Lehner supposedly good to go for Vegas, it looks like Quick would be your safer bet. If healthy, Lehner will see the majority of the workload for the Golden Knights down the stretch as they continue their uphill battle to solidify a playoff spot. From Day 1, Thompson was always a stop-gap guy with both Lehner and backup Laurent Brossoit banged up. He did his job. End of story.
As for Quick, he’ll get plenty of work in April, especially given his resume and track record in big games. In general, the Kings have been a marvellous story in the second half. Barring an epic collapse, I think they have an excellent shot at making the playoffs.
If you’re in a non-keeper league, I would go ahead and drop him without hesitation. Quite honestly, not much has changed from the initial prognosis. On Wednesday, the Panthers revealed that while Ekblad continues to progress in his recovery from the lower-body injury, he has yet to resume skating. Even though a timetable was never officially released, I’d say a post-season return is a more logical expectation, especially considering there’s now only 29 days remaining in the regular season. There’s no need to rush him along.
Give me Kyrou.
Firstly, of the three players mentioned, he had the best month of March with 13 points in 13 games. In addition to that and probably most importantly, I like St. Louis’ schedule the rest of the way. They tend to play a lot on quiet nights (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday), which is great for schedule manipulation purposes. You know I love that.
Good question.
Despite Mikheyev’s recent hot play and current line deployment, I’d still side with Kallgren. With Petr Mrazek done for the regular season, it looks like the rookie netminder will be sticking with the Maple Leafs for the foreseeable future. And he’s earned it.
Even with Jack Campbell on the mend and close to a possible return, it would be in Toronto’s best interest to be careful with his utilization and usage. Looking ahead to April, starting with Saturday night’s game in Philadelphia, the Leafs are slated to play 15 times in 28 days. At this point, I think it’s conceivable to suggest that Kallgren could see five or six of those starts —provided Campbell can stay healthy, of course. Also of note, Toronto has two sets of back-to-backs remaining on their schedule.
As for Mikheyev, long-term, especially in the playoffs, he’s earmarked for a third line checking role. The way I see it, the recent promotion to the second line was more about sending a message to William Nylander, who’s really struggled for the past month or so. Perhaps Thursday night was the start of something for him.
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