Welcome back to another week of Fantasy hockey. The trade deadline has passed, bringing us to mid-March and the season’s home stretch. Milk the waiver wire!

This week, the Flyers finally ditched ineffectual GM Chuck Fletcher; even with Conor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl both getting shut out, Edmonton managed to snap Boston’s 10-game win streak; and Minnesota has lost its best player, All-Star Kirill Kaprisov, to an LBI for the next 3-to-4 weeks.

And now, let’s get to this week’s…

Fantasy Hockey Waiver Wire Picks

Ty Dellandrea, C, Dallas Stars (ESPN: 0.3 per cent; CBS: 5 per cent): Tyler Seguin suffered a cut leg on Thursday and was seen on crutches after the game, an injury that opens the door for Dellandrea to get a promotion to the line third with a nice bump in PT. Dellandrea logged a helper Thursday to end a skid, and has mostly seen an increase in minutes lately already. The team’s 2018 first round pick has established himself as a full-time NHLer this season, albeit with plenty of inconsistency. But oh man was Dellandrea ever hot in November with four goals and six assists in 14 games. He’s mostly been a target for dynasty owners, but now looks like he’s worth a longer look in larger redraft formats. Dellandrea can skate, take a big hit (see video below) and proved capable of being a big generator of offense in junior (70 points in 47 OHL games in 2019-20), so it’s clear there’s upside here.

Mike Matheson, D, Montreal Canadiens (ESPN: 20.6 per cent; CBS: 46 per cent): We pimped Matheson just over three months ago, but he’s still available in the majority of leagues. Why? All he’s done is score four goals with eight apples over the last 14 games while looking very much the part of a No. 1 blueliner. Assuming Matheson can stay healthy (he’s had troubles doing so in recent seasons) the rest of the way, he’s a must-own Fantasy asset. In fact, had he not missed the beginning of the season, he would have likely set a new career high in goals. As a bonus, Matheson is logging crazy minutes lately (over 27 per game this month).

Quick Hits

• Carolina goalie Pyotr Kochetkov returned from the AHL with a flourish, turning aside 19 shots for a shutout against the Flyers on Thursday. He may not be back in the NHL for long (it’s still unclear how serious Antti Raanta’s injury is), but this young Russian has really opened eyes this season with four goose eggs in 20 games (19 starts). Kochetkov is a future star.
• Cam Atkinson had a solid debut with the Flyers last season, scoring 50 points before missing the last couple of weeks with an injury. This season, of course, he will miss the entire campaign in the wake of neck surgery, an injury that just helped pile on to Fletcher’s failures in Philadelphia. Let’s hope Atkinson is healthy in 2023-24; he needs just eight more points to reach 500 for his career.
• Tage Thompson has actually gone three straight games without a goal, but did manage three helpers over this stretch. He’s still tied for third in the NHL in goals scored this season despite a sluggish March in which he’s “only” averaged a point per game. Thompson broke out last season, but has blown past that in 2022-23, recording a career-best 85 points in just 64 games.
• Elias Lindholm‘s assist on Friday and goal on Monday are the only points he’s managed over the last eight games as his season has continued to go downhill. He’s gone from 12 assists in 15 games in December to eight in 12 in January and then just four in 10 February games. Lindholm has just the one helper through five games this month. Was last season an outlier?
• In his first start in nearly a month, Felix Sandstrom enjoyed his best game of the season on Thursday. Unfortunately, he received zero goal support in dropping to 1-9-1. Sandstrom, who has fallen behind Samuel Ersson on the Flyers’ goaltending depth chart, needed a game like this. We’ll see if this buys Sandstrom more frequent starts down the stretch, especially after Philadelphia is mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.
• Edmonton defenseman Darnell Nurse scored the game-winner with 4:49 left on Thursday as Boston finally lost. That was a much needed goal; while he’s recorded points in back-to-back games, he hadn’t actually dented the twine since December 30. Nurse continues to be a +/- beast, but early on this season he seemed to be headed towards threatening his career high of 16 goals. Clearly, that’s not happening.
• Getting scratched in the third period earlier this week seems to have done the trick as Nikita Kucherov is on fire, with back-to-back three point-games and 16 points in the last 11. He’s currently second in the NHL in assists, just two shy of reaching 70 for the second time in his career. Other than February (10 in 12 games), Kucherov has averaged at least one assist per game in every month this season.
• On Thursday, Tony DeAngelo served the first of his two-game suspension for spearing Corey Perry in the ‘nads. Perhaps DeAngelo’s frustrations boiled over after a four-game pointless stretch during which he went -6. Or perhaps he’s just a douche.

RotoRob Tune of the Day

James Brown (1933-2006) really helped create the funk genre. In 1972, he released his 34th album, the double LP Get On the Good Foot, featuring “Dirty Harri.” Here’s the short version of the tune, from the blaxploitation film Black Caesar.