Monday Morning Ramblings featuring a lack of goalie movement on trade deadline!

Since his return on January 31, Linus Ullmark is 5-0-2 allowing just 17 goals in 7 games. His save percentage in those games is 0.896%. The Senators have played great hockey this season and are able to mask a league average goalie. If Ullmark can play better than that, the Senators could go on a run to close out this season.

UPL finished Sunday night's game with a lowly 0.786%, giving up 7 goals. Surprisingly, he picked up a win as the Sabres scored 8 goals on Vasilevsky's backup.

Coming out of the Olympic break, the Sabres have been alternating Lyon (3 wins in 4 games) and UPL (4 wins in 4 games) and have moved into 1st place in the Atlantic (but the Lightning have games in hand).

Tage Thompson was dishing with 4 assists vs Tampa. Kucherov now has 2 goals 5 assists in his last 2 games. Corey Perry has back to back goals for his new team after he was placed on the Lightning's second power play unit. He only played 8:54 in the 8-7 loss to Buffalo.

Alex Laferriere took over Perry's vacated spot on the Kings first power play unit. Q.Byfield was still on the second PP unit. LA hosted the Canadiens in a roller coaster 4-3 loss. They own a terrible 10-15-7 home record at the crypto.com arena. Star addition Artemi Panarin has 6 pts in 6 games.

John Gibson (21 saves) was unable to finish the Sunday night game in which he had a shutout going. Cam Talbot (10 saves) came in to finish the job successfully. Gibson has a history of injuries and also left the game early on Monday March 2nd (upper body) after taking a shot to the shoulder.

Cam Talbot is probably available on the waivers if you are looking for a cheap goalie fix. Detroit has 3 away games next week (Florida, Tampa Bay, and Dallas).

The trade deadline just passed and despite rumours of the availability of goalkeepers like Bobrovsky, Stolarz, Montembault, Binnington, and Skinner, no goalies of significance changed teams.

There was a handful of changes that could affect production going forward, let's take a look:

Calgary shipped out a pair of established right handed defenseman in M.Weegar and R.Andersson. This logjam clears the way for Z.Parekh to be deployed in favourable offensive situations. K.Bahl has also moved up in the pecking order and is patrolling the point on the second power play unit.

R.Strome, acquired for a 7th round pick from Anaheim, took a 7am flight to Calgary and joined Z.Parekh on the top power play unit (alongside Frost, Farabee, and Coronato).  R.Strome lost all 11 faceoffs he took, but did put up 1 goal and 1 assist in the second period of his Flames debut.

With Kadri gone, a center spot has opened up. Strome lined up with Zary and "hit machine" Pospisil at even strength. The Flames picked up a surprising 5-4 home win against Bussi and the Canes. They need one more road win to become the last team to reach double digit road wins totals (Flames are 9-18-3 away from the Saddledome).

With all these trades the Flames have stocked their cupboard with picks. They own 18 picks in the first three rounds of the next three years.

Kadri hit the jackpot returning to Colorado where he won his Stanley Cup, and lining up beside Mackinnon and Necas on even strength and the power play.  Kadri has a low 6.7% shooting percentage (career 10.8%) and a low PDO (963).

That along with his increase in quality of teammates and quantity of PP ice time (in his first game with the Avalanche he received 6:43 of power play time!), Kadri should regress back to his usual production. His shots on goal this season have fallen below 3 per game, for the first time in the last 6 seasons, and his points per game this season (0.68) made him almost unrosterable....until now.

With J.Faulk dealt to Detroit, L.Mailloux got 2:00 of power play time, the most of any Blues player. Cam Fowler seems to be off both units as the Blues give looks to Broberg and Mailloux on the man advantage.

Robert Thomas and Colton Parayko were both rumoured to be going to the Sabres in the days leading up to the trade deadline, but both ultimately stayed in St.Louis.

A couple of Blues that may be available on the waiver wire: Pavel Buchnevich 14 pts in his last 13 games, and Jimmy Snuggerud 14 pts in his last 12 games. Newly acquired Drouin scored and also got to play with Robert Thomas on the power play.

The Blues usually split time with their power play units but whichever group has R.Thomas, it is considered the de facto #1 unit. Buchnevich was away from Thomas at both even strength and the power play, while D.Holloway is back from injury and getting exposure to R.Thomas at both even strength and the power play.

Fantasy relevant injuries to monitor: Jake Sanderson, Roope Hintz, Gabriel Landeskog, Dylan Larkin, Shayne Gostisbehere, and Mikhail Sergachev.

Chinakhov gets a short term boost due to Malkin's suspension. He joins Rust, Rakell, Karlsson, and Mantha on the top power play unit in Pittsburgh. Chinakhov posted 2 assists in the 4-3 shootout loss to the Flyers on Saturday, and then followed it up with a power play goal against the Bruins in a 5-4 overtime win.

John Carlson has yet to suit up for his new team, as he has been nursing an injury since the Olympic break. It'll be interesting to see if he can dethrone gold medalist J.Lacombe from the top power play unit. Currently Mintukov is quarterbacking the second unit. One factor that may play a role is the handedness.

Amongst forwards, only T.Terry (injured) and B.Sennecke shoot right. In fact this is one the reasons Anaheim picking 3rd, skipped over Lindstrom (4th overall), Demidov (5th overall), and Iginla (6th overall) in the 2024 draft, because they all shoot left.

Both Mintukov and Lacombe are also lefties. This means that both power play groups have an overabundance of left handed shooters. For years, John Carlson fed right handed Ovechkin on the Capitals power play, so he would fit right in with Anaheim's forwards and bring a bit of lefty-righty balance. Interestingly, the entire right side of Anaheim's defense (Carlson, Trouba, Gudas) are unrestricted free agents at season's end. 

Nik Ehlers is heating up with 11 pts in his last 12 games. Big things were expected from him as a free agent signing in Carolina - he would finally be freed from his Jets under-usage both at even strength and on the power play.

After being experimented throughout the lineup by Brind'Amour, Ehlers seems to be settled in on the 3rd line with Martinook and Staal, although Brind'Amour is renowned for constant line blending. J.Staal also helps with faceoffs on the top power play unit and then subs off for the speedy Ehlers once Carolina has possession.

Ehlers points per game is not that impressive (0.79 ppg), nor is his time on ice (16:38). It is slightly better than what he was getting in Winnipeg where he was under 16 minutes for the previous three seasons. His percent of power play time is 60.8% this season, slightly down from last year's 62.4% with the Jets. Other than that, he has never had a season with power play time greater than 50%.

In 2026, Jared McCann has 24 points in 25 games. Just a word of caution, he is doing this on the coat-tails of a 17.6% shooting percentage this season (career 12.5%). Expect some regression.