Monday Morning Ramblings featuring Hofer, Andersen, Dobes, Fowler, Cooley, Swayman, Askarov, Bobrovsky, and DeSmith

Following the trade deadline, the Blues handed over the reins to their youth, and as a result have climbed in the standings. The Blues have 10 wins in March and just 1 regulation loss.

Joel Hofer is 6-0-2 in March with an elite 0.959 save percentage and a 1.33 GAA. Hofer is 12th in the league this season in GSAx/60 (+0.318).

Binnington has impressed as well, going 4-1 with a 1.62 GAA and a 0.921 save percentage.

Broberg has taken over from Fowler on the top power play and has notched 11 points in his last 17 games (0.65 ppg). Logan Mailloux, acquired from the Habs for Z.Bolduc, has put up 6 points in March (13 games). Snuggerud and Neighbours are getting opportunities on the top power play. Jimmy Snuggerud tallied 15 points in March, the most in a month by a Blues' rookie since Rod Brind'Amour (November 1989).

Speaking of Rod the Bod, Carolina has ended the alternating starts between Bussi and Andersen, with Freddie getting 3 of the last 4 games.

After 5 straight wins, Andersen has lost his last 2, both against Montreal. He stopped 14 of 18 (0.778) on Tuesday, and 15 of 18 (0.833) on Sunday. Therefore, going forward, we are likely back to an even split between the two goalies.

Dobes, who was on the winning end of that Andersen loss, is 6-3 in March with a 0.920%.

The Habs have won 5 straight, including those 2 against the Carolina Hurricanes. Dobes accounted for 3 of the wins, and Fowler picked up the other 2 wins. In those 3 wins Dobes has been virtually unbeatable, stopping 100 of the last 104 shots he has faced (0.962%).

The Flames dumped Weegar and Kadri at the trade deadline, as well as R.Andersson earlier this season. Many expected a nosedive tank, but Calgary has won 5 of their last 6. The only game they lost was in overtime, 3-2 to Anaheim.

The Flames goaltending has also seen improved numbers. Cooley and Wolf have more or less split the March workload with the slight advantage going to Wolf, who is 5-3 with an 0.888 save percentage this month.

Cooley, on the other hand is 2-3-2, with a 0.900 save percentage. Devin Cooley still has one of the best all situations GSAx numbers amongst all goalies this season: His +17.5 is 6th in the league! Better yet, his GSAx/60 is tops in the league (+0.707) for any goalkeeper that has played double digit games. Ilya Sorokin, clocking in at +0.687, has the next highest GSAx/60.

Parekh is averaging 17:58 time on ice in March and is the lone defenseman on the top unit. He has 4 points in his last 5 games. The Flames currently have the 4th highest odds of winning the lottery (9.5%).

Egor Chinakhov is on a heater. 22 pts in his last 25 games. He has managed to sporadically make it onto the heavily used top power play unit of the Penguins, often when Malkin or Crosby have been injured.

The Penguins have 5 games this week, and both Malkin and Crosby are day to day. Chinakhov's secondary assists are a little high (8 of 15 assists) but he makes one of the best adds this week if he is available on your waivers.

Boston has 2 back to back games this week, so it was looking like 2 starts for Korpisalo this week. However, Swayman got both starts this weekend.

On Sunday night, he stopped 21 of 24 shots (0.875%) for a comeback 4-3 win in shootout. This followed a 6-3 win against the Wild on Saturday night where Swayman stopped 31 of 34 (0.912%).

Macklin Celebrini has cooled off to a point per game (20 points in his last 20 games).

That is a considerable drop from his 1.53 points per game pace (78 pts in his first 51 games) to start this season. Earlier in the season, his linemates were shooting at unheard of percentages, so this new version of Celebrini is likely the real one.

After missing 7 games, Askarov returned to the ice on March 26 against the Blues. Midway through that game, Sharks UFA defenseman Vinny Desharnais pushed a Blues player into Askarov, who stayed down and then left the game. Askarov missed the following game as well.

Bobrovsky has now put up 5 straight months of sub 0.900 save percentages. November (0.864), December (0.897), January (0.836), February (0.866), and March (0.899).

His contract is up at the end of the season and rumour has it the agent and the team were far apart in negotiations. He won't be getting help from Alex Barkov who was officially shut down for the rest of the season.

Seth Jones' return from his clavicle injury has not been impressive from a points perspective. He only has 2 assists in 7 games. He is logging heavy minutes, between 20 and 24 minutes, and quarterbacking the top power play unit in Florida, so the points should come.

The Flyers have been using Ristolainen (4 points in his last 6 games) on the top power play unit instead of Drysdale.

Jake Oettinger, 30-11-6, with 0.899% and a 2.63 GAA, does not go more than 2-3 starts in a row, therefore Casey DeSmith does get a decent amount of games for a backup.

DeSmith has played well this season, managing to make it into the top ten of GSAx/60 (+0.404) amongst goalies that have played at least 10 games this season.

Mikko Rantanen picked up a power play goal and a power play assist in his first game back following the injury he suffered at the Olympics. He got 6:28 of power play time, and bumped former Art Ross trophy winner Jamie Benn down to the second unit.

Kucherov missed his second straight game due to an illness. Tampa won both games: 4-2 vs Ottawa on Saturday (Vasilevksy stopped 26 of 28, 0.929%), and 3-2 vs Nashville on Sunday (Johansson stopped 29 of 31, 0.935%).

As a Kraken, Bobby McMann has 11 points in 8 games. Just a word of caution though, his 17.2 shooting percentage this season is elevated (career 13.3%).

Furthermore, a healthy Jared McCann has pushed McMann down to the second power play unit. Seattle does have an excellent schedule to end the season, tied with the Sharks for most games between April 6-16.