NHL Today: Mammoth Improvement

This week, French defenseman Pierre Crinon was suspended by his own country after dropping the gloves with Tom Wilson at the Olympics; a weird goal against Jeremy Swayman helped lead to the decision to lighten the colour of the boards at the Olympics; and the amazing development of Carolina goalie Brandon Bussi has led to him being rewarded with a three-year, $5.7 million extension. Other Fantasy hockey stories we’re tracking include…

Clayton Keller Again Leading Utah

The Utah Mammoth (nee Arizona Coyotes) is a team that’s been on the rise for some time. Since bottoming out with just 25 wins in 2021-22 as the Coyotes, this club rose to 70 points and then 77 in its final season in Arizona. Last season, in its debut in Utah, the club made a big leap to 89 points and is on pace this season to top 90 and make the playoffs for the first time since 2019-20.

Among the season highlights is Clayton Keller being named to Team USA, which entered the tourney as a serious Gold medal contender. While he didn’t dress for the first two games of the Olympics, he looked good in limited ice time (9:51) in the third game, getting into action in place of Kyle Connor. Clearly, Keller was stoked to play (see video below) and he remained in the lineup for the quarterfinals.

And while Keller is still seeking his first point of the tourney, he’s enjoying another strong NHL season. No, he isn’t likely to match the career-best 90 points he put up in 2024-25, but he’s the team’s leading scorer with nearly a point-per-game and he entered the break hot, posting back-to-back multi-point efforts.

Since Keller broke his leg in 2021-22, he’s been quite durable, and while he’s going to be hard pressed to match or best the 659.2 Fantasy points (Yahoo) he posted last season, he’s still accumulated an impressive 467.8, good for just outside the top 30 in the league.

Surprisingly, he has already posted more primary assists (15) at 5×5 than he did all of last season, but it’ll be tough for him to match the 309 iCF he logged as he has just 190 so far in 2025-26.

Keller is undersized, and that will likely always be a problem, but given how good his instincts are on the attack, he has done a superb job in compensating for that so far.

Vancouver’s Rebuild

It’s hard to fathom that just two seasons ago, the Vancouver Canucks won 50 games and accumulated 109 points while making it to the second round of the playoffs. Since then, almost nothing has gone right as in 2024-25 they dropped to 90 points and missed the postseason, but this season, they are dead last in the entire NHL, seven points behind the next worst team.

Vancouver entered the break having lost 17 of its last 19 games, and things fell apart so badly that the team traded franchise defenseman Quinn Hughes earlier this season.

Among the package the Canucks got back, which also included Marco Rossi, Liam Ohgren and a 2026 first round pick, is promising rookie defenseman Zeev Buium, who could be a legitimate foundational piece in the rebuilding process.

A longshot Calder Trophy candidate (+30000 as per FanDuel), Buium is beginning to make waves in the Fantasy hockey world, although his production remains inconsistent and he did suffer a broken bone near his cheek before the break. Fortunately, he should be ready to return after the Olympics, even if Vancouver has no real reason to rush him back.

Before the trade from Minnesota, Buium was scoring points at a higher clip (14 in 31 games), and that production has dried up on a Canuck team struggling to score (just six in 20 games), but the good news is he was getting more PT on the West coast before getting hurt.

As a dynasty asset, we love this kid because of his immense offensively potential. For the remainder of this season, Buium is likely a top 60 blueliner, assuming he doesn’t remain sidelined too long. The San Diego native is on the smallish side for a defenseman (6’0”, 183), so it remains to be seen long term if he can handle the rigours of NHL life, but even as a sheltered third pair blueliner who gets plenty of PP time, he can be a superb Fantasy option.

Waiver Wire Pick of the Week

Trevor Moore, LW, Los Angeles Kings (ESPN: 1.8 per cent; CBS: 12 per cent): This is more a speculative pick than anything, but we assume that Moore will be leaned on more heavily after Kevin Fiala suffered a season-ending broken leg in the Olympics. The Kings signed Moore to a five-year extension midway through the 2022-23 season and that faith was rewarded with a career season in 2023-24 (31 goals, 57 points), but he slumped to 40 points in 2024-25 and has managed just 15 through 44 games this season. However, he got the Kings’ only goal in the game before the break while logging a robust 17:45 of ice time and he’s clearly healthy now after dealing with an UBI that sidelined him for most of January. In fact, in Moore’s first game back, he scored a goal and added the winner in the shootout, so we know he’s capable of producing. We’re expecting more of this down the stretch given the extra PT he should receive.

RotoRob Tune of the Day

Sly and the Family Stone had a huge influence on American pop music from the ’70s on. In 1979, they released their ninth album, Back on the Right Track, and the lead single was “Remember Who You Are,” which reached No. 28 on the Cash Box Black Contemporary Top 100 chart.