In these Ramblings on Tuesday, we discussed forwards who had seen a big increase in their role in calendar 2026. We separated those forwards into two groups:
Increased offensive minutes, or even strength and power play only
Increased peripheral minutes, or even strength and short-handed only
Today, let’s continue with the forwards, but look in the other direction for those who’ve seen a big decrease in their role leading up to the Olympic break. We are again separating by offensive minutes and peripheral minutes, using time-on-ice and roster data from Frozen Tools, with additional data from Evolving Hockey.
The red and blue dotted lines are the median change by each ice-time measure.
Dmitri Voronkov (Columbus Blue Jackets)
Yahoo Roster – 22%
FanTrax Roster – 64%
ESPN Roster – 68%
There have been beneficiaries to Rick Bowness being hired as Columbus’ coach back in mid-January, but not Voronkov. He went from nearly 16 minutes a game up until December 31st to less than 11:30 per game since that point, and under 10:30 since Bowness was hired on January 12th. Put it all together and Voronkov’s ice time/role decline has arguably been the most severe of any player in the five weeks leading to the Olympics:
No matter who he skates with or whatever else he can do, Voronkov skating 10-11 minutes per appearance is a death knell to his fantasy value. The saving grace is that he has put up a high hit rate this season, so he still managed 24 hits in 11 games under Bowness. For that reason alone, he can be held onto in deeper banger formats, or some type of deep keeper league. For most fantasy managers, he may be a lost cause as Columbus is 10-1-0 in 11 games under Bowness; as long as they keep winning and can stay relatively healthy, it’s hard to see Voronkov’s situation improving.
It should be mentioned that in Columbus’ first full practice post-Olympics, Voronkov was skating with Sean Monahan on the ‘second’ line, according to Aaron Portzline. Keep in mind that under Bowness, the Adam Fantilli line is the top line and Charlie Coyle‘s line is the real second line by even-strength ice time, the, but Voronkov skating with Monahan could mean 13-14 minutes a game rather than 10-11. Something to monitor.
Emmitt Finnie (Detroit Red Wings)
Yahoo Roster – 3%
FanTrax Roster – 35%
ESPN Roster 7%
Finnie is flat-out one of the best stories of the 2025-26 season as the seventh-round pick from 2023 spent a lot of the first half of the season on Detroit’s top line with Dylan Larkin. That Finnie’s managed to stay in the NHL all season is a credit to his work ethic, but the reality is that he’s seen a modest PPTOI decline and a massive even-strength TOI decline:
The January-February stretch saw Finnie lose 4:37 per game in ice time and his most recent 15 games saw him fail to crack the 15-minute mark in any of those outings. The second line of Patrick Kane, Andrew Copp, and Alex DeBrincat has been a constant when healthy, and Marco Kasper had seen some recent games on the top line with Larkin. James van Riemsdyk had several games on the top power-play unit, and when we put it all together, Finnie has been a bottom-6 regular.
Some players can maintain modest fantasy value in a bottom-6 role, but Finnie had 19 points in 41 games to start the season, skating roughly 80% of his even-strength time with Larkin. If he was pacing for under 40 points skating 16:53 per game with Larkin as his regular centre, then his new role doesn’t bode well for production. There might be some deep banger value because he can still put up over a hit per game, but things are looking bleak, especially if Detroit adds some offensive depth by the Trade Deadline.
Jonathan Drouin (New York Islanders)
Yahoo Roster – 2%
FanTrax Roster – 22%
ESPN Roster 2%
Judging by Drouin’s roster numbers on Yahoo and ESPN, fantasy managers had largely given up on him already. With the lack of productive wingers in New York, Drouin had a longer leash than he probably deserved, but even with the lack of productive wingers, he had seen a significant decline in his role leading to the Olympic break:
We could forgive Drouin’s low shooting percentage (4.4%), but he’s had two seasons where he shot under 3% (both 2020-21 and 2022-23) and two other seasons where he shot under 8% (2014-15 and 2017-18). Given he has as many seasons shooting under 8% as he does over 11%, it’s not a given that his shooting percentage improves significantly from here on out.
The real problem is he’s managed 1.16 assists per 60 minutes this season, by far his worst rate in any season where he’s played at least 40 games (previous worst was 1.46 in 2017-18). Drouin not scoring is one thing – if he’s not helping his line mates score, there’s not much reason for the coaching staff to increase is role, and he doesn’t have any peripherals to keep him relevant in multi-cat formats.
Fabian Zetterlund (Ottawa Senators)
Yahoo Roster – 5%
FanTrax Roster – 24%
ESPN Roster – 40%
With Nick Cousins finding success on the checking line with Shane Pinto, and Ridly Greig finding success on the second line with Brady Tkachuk and Dylan Cozens, Fabian Zetterlund has seen his role drastically reduced in Ottawa. The Senators tried him in various spots on their top three lines, but he has been on the fourth line recently, and it’s depressed his ESTOI and PPTOI percentages:
The drop in PP role isn’t steep, but the even-strength decline is, to the point where he’s lost over three minutes per game in ESTOI alone. He went into the break skating under 13 minutes in nine straight games, and under 10 minutes more often than he did over 12 minutes.
As with Voronkov, there is a high enough hit rate here to keep Zetterlund relevant in deeper banger formats – Zetterlund had 31 hits in 15 games heading into the break. Fantasy managers in those leagues might want to hang on and hope he can work his way back up the lineup because it’s not hard to see one of Cousins or Greig being dropped down.
Mackie Samoskevich (Florida Panthers)
Yahoo Roster – 2%
FanTrax Roster – 37%
ESPN Roster – 10%
The return of Matthew Tkachuk to Florida’s lineup means a top-6, top PP forward back in the fold, the health of Brad Marchand has been an ongoing issue for nearly two months, and the success of A.J. Greer has given the Panthers another solid depth winger option. Put it all together and Samoskevich has seen a sizeable hit to his offensive roles:
In general, I am a big fan of Samoskevich and his future upside. He has very good shot and hit rates on a per-minute basis, and he’s been able to drive the play in his two years with Florida. The problem is that as a winger on the Panthers, he’s competing with the likes of Tkachuk, Marchand, Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe, and Eetu Luostarainen. Even worse is they are all signed long term except for Luostarainen, who has another year on his deal (per PuckPedia). For now, Samoskevich may be stuck in a bottom-6 role thanks to their lineup getting healthy, and that may be the case for years to come, too.
Cutter Gauthier (Anaheim Ducks)
Yahoo Roster – 91%
FanTrax Roster – 97%
ESPN Roster – 96%
Heading into the break, Gauthier was 1 of just 9 forwards who had an ESTOI% decline of at least 2% with at least a 5% decrease in their SHTOI% (he will be the only name listed here to make the graph less cluttered):
In this stretch, the Ducks played 16 games. Of those 16 games, Leo Carlsson and Troy Terry each played five and Mason McTavish played 11. Carlsson and McTavish are centres and not wingers, but it is still a lot of talent to be missing several games and yet Gauthier still saw a decline in ice time in the peripheral phases. (He did see an increase in PPTOI% because of those missing players.)
Therein lies the problem: even with some of Anaheim’s top forwards missing large chunks of time, Gauthier still lost 1:32 per game after December 31st. What is his role going to look like down the stretch? Maybe the Olympic break gave him the rest he’ll need to be the guy he was in the first two months of the season, but there are no certainties here.
Teuvo Teravainen and Nick Foligno (Chicago Blackhawks)
Teräväinen roster percentages: Yahoo (7%); FanTrax (32%); ESPN (8%)
Foligno roster percentages: Yahoo (1%); FanTrax (6%); ESPN (2%)
This pair of Chicago Blackhawks veterans saw significant declines in their usage before the Olympics with the former seeing his even-strength role annihilated and the latter enduring a complete disappearance of his short-handed role:
For Teräväinen, this has meant losing over three minutes in ice time per game, going from 18:52 a night to 15:43 per outing, the culprit being the Blackhawks moving younger players like Oliver Moore and Nick Lardis ahead of him on the depth chart. When we add that to the checking line duo of Jason Dickinson and Ilya Mikheyev continuing their typical usage, Teräväinen has gone from a top-6 role to a fringe third/fourth line role at even strength. He still has a regular power-play spot, so that’s some good news, but for a guy that puts up few peripherals anyway, it’s not a great sign. If he ever loses that top PP role, it’s curtains for his fantasy value.
Not that Foligno was used very often in any fantasy format, but it’s worth highlighting his SHTOI% decline all the same. The Blackhawks went into the Olympic break giving up the fewest goals against per minute while short-handed and gave up even less in January/February, when they reduced Foligno’s role, than they did through December. Something to keep in mind when streaming against the Blackhawks over the final 7-8 weeks.