In some good news for the Chicago Blackhawks, goalie Spencer Knight was at practice on Wednesday, per Tracey Myers,  after missing Chicago’s last three games with an illness. We will see if Knight is ready to go for Thursday night’s matchup in Utah, but that’s with the team is a positive sign nonetheless.

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In more good news, Sam Reinhart was at Florida’s Wednesday practice, tweeted George Richards. Reinhart did not play on Tuesday night, but it seems like it’s just a brief absence, so fantasy managers can breathe a sigh of relief.

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Evan Rawal reported that Colorado coach Jared Bednar seemed confident that all of Artturi Lehkonen, Gabriel Landeskog, and Logan O’Connor will be back before the playoffs, and hopefully back early enough to get some games in. It isn’t a firm timeline, but it sounds as if anyone in their fantasy playoffs should not expect Lehkonen or Landeskog back before the end of the month.

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Nick Schmaltz signed an eight-year extension with an AAV of $8-million. Schmaltz will be in his age-30 season next year and it is a raise from his current AAV of $5.85-million (from PuckPedia). Considering recent contracts we’ve seen in the last couple years from the likes of Elias Lindholm and Chandler Stephenson, this feels about right given the rising cap environment. For fantasy managers, it is a hefty raise for a guy who does hit or block shots, has never had a 200-shot season, and has never had a 65-point season (though he does have 59 points in 65 games this season).

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Cole Caufield was out of the Montreal lineup Wednesday due to illness, but rookie goaltender Jacob Fowler was excellent in net, stopping 32 of 34 shots faced, and the Canadiens managed a 3-2 win over Ottawa.

Ivan Demidov had a goal and an assist, marking his first multi-point game since late January. Alex Texier was back in the lineup due to the absence of Caufield, and Texier also scored in the win.

Drake Batherson scored twice for Ottawa in the loss, totaling four shots, a block, two PIMs, and six hits. That makes three straight 25-goal seasons for Batherson, and he needs three more points for his fourth straight 60-point season.

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Owen Tippett had one goal on six shots, adding an assist on Trevor Zegras‘ 22nd goal of the season, as the Philadelphia Flyers beat Washington 4-1. Jamie Drysdale also scored, giving him seven goals this campaign, tying a career-high set last year with the Flyers.

Samuel Ersson stopped 21 of 22 shots in the win.

Ryan Leonard scored the lone Washington goal, totaling two shots and four hits. He is on a four-game point streak.

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In these Ramblings on Tuesday, we discussed five forwards to monitor down the stretch with an eye to next season. The intention was to find some players who’ve had good seasons by some measures, have a good opportunity to make an impact late in the season, and thus would be intriguing fantasy names for next season.

Today, we’re going to do the same thing but for defencemen. We are again using player and team data from Evolving Hockey, tracking data from All Three Zones, and schedule data from Frozen Tools. All is at 5-on-5 unless otherwise indicated, and the data is current as of Wednesday, March 11th.

The red and blue dotted lines on the following graphs represent the league average among defencemen in the stat being referenced. We are limiting the sample to defencemen with at least 500 total minutes at 5-on-5, and 100 tracked minutes at 5-on-5, giving us 183 blue liners.

Luke Hughes (New Jersey Devils)

It has been a disappointing season for the New Jersey Devils as a franchise, and the younger Hughes has been no exception. His 0.54 points per game are a career-low but that’s where the bad news needs context: Hughes has managed 0.78 assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, which leads Devils defencemen and is 37% higher than his next-closest teammate. That is backed up by the tracking data where Hughes’ rate of scoring chance assists (helpers on teammate chances) and combined rate of zone entries and exits compares very well to Roman Josi:

Rating well by chance assists and zone entries/exits is exactly what Hughes should be doing in his third season. A big part of his production drop has been because of the power play – his per-minute PP production is down 39% from last year – so that needs to improve for his fantasy value to remain stable, but he just crossed 200 career games in January, and he turns 23 years old in September. If Hughes can keep up this 5-on-5 offensive involvement down the stretch, it would help make me a believer for what should be a breakout season next season.

Emil Andrae (Philadelphia Flyers)

Hands up, who knew that Andrae had a higher rate of assists at 5-on-5 this season than teammates Jamie Drysdale and Cam York? Liars.

Anyway, Andrae has been able to distribute well to his teammates, especially considering the context of the team. When we use the same parameters we just used for Hughes, there is an interesting group of comparable defencemen that pops up for Andrae:

The names are a bit overlapped but aside from Jakob Chychrun, we see Morgan Rielly, Lane Hutson, and Conor Timmins. It is an interesting group because we have top-end fantasy options in Chychrun and Hutson, a productive blue liner in Rielly, and then Timmins, who has had a tough season. Andrae is closer towards the Rielly/Timmins side of things than Chychrun/Hutson, but it’s not a bad group for the Flyers blue liners.

Andrae has just 91 career NHL games and the Flyers are still a ways away from being a reliable offensive force. He also turned 24 years old in February and is a restricted free agent after the season (per PuckPedia). Monitor how Andrae fares over the next five weeks because there are the makings of a good puck-moving defenceman here, but at 5’9″, he needs to prove himself above-and-beyond those standing 3-6 inches taller than him, and it may just be for a different franchise next season.

Simon Nemec (New Jersey Devils)

There is a group of young defencemen in the league who all have roughly the same kind of profile: very good puck skills, good in transition, but are unreliable defensively so it’s keeping their coaches from leaning on them consistently. Andrae fits that bill, so do Olen Zellweger and Pavel Mintyukov in Anaheim, and Nemec is also included. To show this, here are Nemec’s closest comparable blue liners by the aforementioned scoring chance assists, zone entries, and percentage of zone entries carried in (all hallmarks of a defenceman with very good puck skills):

Nemec just turned 22 years old in February, has just 137 career NHL games, and these key puck-skill stats compare him to Rasmus Dahlin, Mikhail Sergachev, and John Carlson. That is a great group to be in, but Nemec has also been on the ice for the most shots against and goals against per minute of any regular Devils defenceman this year. Nemec’s ability to facilitate could make him a top puck-moving defenceman in the next couple of seasons, but he won’t be a big minutes guy until he improves defensively. There is a lot of time for him to do that, but it’d be nice to see better defensive numbers down the stretch because there is very high long-term fantasy upside for him if he can skate 22-24 minutes a game rather than 18-20.

Thomas Harley (Dallas Stars)

From 2021-2025, there were 170 defencemen who skated at least 3000 minutes at 5-on-5. Of those 170 defencemen, Harley ranked 2nd by goal differential per 60 minutes relative to teammates (only Jared Spurgeon was higher). From 2023-2025, Harley was a top-15 defenceman by points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 with great underlying numbers. He looked destined to not only be a top-pair defenceman, but one of the best defencemen in the league.

That is what makes Harley’s 2025-26 season so shocking, because everything has tailed off. His goal differential and play-driving have cratered and his points/60 minutes at 5-on-5 are a career-low (just slightly lower than last season, in fairness).

Harley does have an interesting profile in 2025-26, though. When looking at defencemen scoring chance assists, the percentage of their respective team’s shot attempts they take when they’re on the ice, and including only those with an above-average points rate, four names pop up:

That is Rasmus Andersson, Justin Faulk, Jake Walman, and Thomas Chabot. All good fantasy assets, but none are truly great. These are dual-threat defencemen – they can setup scoring chances but also take a lot of their team’s shots – and Harley isn’t among the elite like Zach Werenski, Cale Makar, or Rasmus Dahlin. One of my theories is that Dallas has changed its playstyle under new coach Glen Gulutzan and Harley has needed time to adjust (not to mention his injury in November). At this point, he won’t take the top PP role from Miro Heiskanen, and that will limit Harley’s upside, but his play has improved as the season has worn on, and it’d be nice to see him keep up that momentum over the next five weeks.

Jacob Trouba (Anaheim Ducks)

One very under-discussed aspect of Anaheim’s improvement this season is Trouba’s play. From 2022-2025, there were 184 defencemen with at least 2000 minutes played at 5-on-5, and Trouba had the sixth-worst goal differential per 60 minutes relative to his teammates – we’re talking Ben Chiarot/Justin Schultz territory. It was brutal.

Trouba hasn’t been elite or anything this season, but his goal differential rate relative to his teammates in 2025-26 is above-average, and in line with a middle-tier, second-pair option. Going from a big drag to a low-end #3 defenceman is a massive improvement not only for Trouba, but for Anaheim’s blue line compared to recent seasons.

This improved play has been accompanied by a drop in his rate of hits and blocks, which are still very good (1.9 hits and 1.7 blocks per game) but are six-year lows. All the same, when searching defencemen taking an above-average rate of their team’s shot attempts, here are the comparable names to Trouba by 60-minute rate of hits and blocks:

Trouba could still manage 150 blocks and 150 hits this season while also putting up over 2.0 shots per game for the first time since 2022-23. That he’s doing this while also on pace for 40 points has made him incredibly valuable in multi-cat fantasy leagues. If he can keep up this stellar performance down the stretch as the Ducks reach the postseason, it would make Trouba much closer to the guy he was in his last few seasons in Winnipeg rather than most of his tenure in New York, and a different player to value for next season.