The Arizona Coyotes are so terrible that the only way they are getting wins is if their goalie steals one. Since Carter Hutton will never do that, it falls on either Karel Vejmelka or Ivan Prosvetov. And as much as I like Prosvetov as a prospect, I think he's two years away from being a serious NHL goaltender. So it falls on the newbie – Vejmelka. After picking up a Quality Start on Friday with just one goal allowed on 31 shots, Vejmelka carried a 1-1 tie (on 35 shots at the time) into the last five minutes of regulation before giving up a PP goal. He ended up allowing two goals on 39 shots. So he's stopped 67 of 70 shots and has zero wins to show for it. Vejmelka has a 0.950 SV% at even strength in seven appearances this season. As I've noted here before, leagues that use only wins and shutouts as their goalie categories will have absolutely no use for him.

Next season the 'Yotes will almost certainly have Shane Wright or Ivan Miroshnichenko on their team. And they have a wide-open roster and budget. Phil Kessel, Loui Eriksson, Dmitrij Jaskin, Antoine Roussel, Jay Beagle, Johan Larsson, Liam O'Brien, Travis Boyd, Ryan Dzingel, Alex Galchenyuk, Carter Hutton, Anton Stralman and Ilya Lyubushkin are all set to be UFA! Of those, they'll be able to trade Phil Kessel. Hopefully, Kessel picks it up enough to land them a prospect and a pick. But if he continues as he is (which is to barely get 10 goals and 35 points), they'll be lucky to get a late-rounder for him. They also hope Jaskin can impress the league enough to gain some value. They may get middling picks for some of their character guys like Beagle or Larsson.

But essentially, the Coyotes are going to roll into next year with Wright (or Miroshnichenko), Dylan Guenther, Barrett Hayton, Jakob Chychrun, Clayton Keller, Nick Schmaltz, Conor Timmons, Victor Soderstrom, Jan Jenik, Lawson Crouse, Christian Fischer and maybe Ghost will still be around. And Karel Vejmelka between the pipes, if he continues to show that he's an adequate NHL goalie. They'll have tons of cap space and I'm sure they will acquire a couple of high-priced salary dump big-name stars. But besides that, next summer's UFA list includes Evgeni Malkin, Claude Giroux, Kris Letang, Johnny Gaudreau, Patrice Bergeron, Tomas Hertl, Andre Burakovsky, Vincent Trocheck, Nazem Kadri, John Klingberg, David Perron and Andrew Copp. I think next year is the year they make some noise in the offseason. I think the one or two "high-priced salary dump" stars that they get will still be very good players – just unaffordable by their current teams (right now 17 teams are only within their cap space thanks to LTIR players – 17!). Think: useful players better than Kessel. Now add one or two unrestricted free agents from the list above. And that makes this a 30-win team in 2022-23. Which in turn makes Vejmelka a better own – but still not great. I think we're looking at 2023-24 before he can potentially offer fantasy owners true value, unfortunately.

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Seth Jarvis played his first career NHL game and picked up his first assist (on the power play) in 10 minutes of action. He lined up mostly with Derek Stepan and Steven Lorentz.

Another assist for Tony DeAngelo and he's up to nine points in eight games on the season. As I noted when the shit hit the fan with him at the start of last season – he's one of just a handful of defensemen capable of posting a point-per-game average. At the time, I even boldly blurted out that he was better offensively than Adam Fox. Fox has since proved that statement wrong in that he can do anything numbers-wise that DeAngelo can, but the point is – politics aside, TDA can be an elite fantasy own.

Frederik Andersen now leads the league in wins (seven) and Quality Starts (six) and his SV% is 0.956.

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Kevin Shattenkirk picked up a pair of points Sunday and is up to 10 points in 10 games. Last season it took him 26 games to reach that mark. Then again – that means that last year he had just five points in the ensuing 29 games. That had me looking further back. I noticed in 2019-20 he had 15 points in 16 games to start (with Tampa Bay). Okay, wow…so that had me looking into the advanced stats. His 5on5 S% is a whopping 20%, which is about triple his expectation. I would be reluctant to bank on this player and consider him a strong 'sell'.

Ryan Getzlaf assisted on Troy Terry's goal to give him 989 career points – that takes over the top spot on the Anaheim Ducks all-time list, knocking Teemu Selanne aside. Getzlaf may only be a 50-point player these days, but he's a three-time 80-point player and he topped out at 91 points in and 121 PIM once (2008-09).

Speaking of Terry, that goal gave him 10 points on the season and he remains atop the Ducks' leaderboard, although now Shattenkirk has tied him. The concern with Terry remains his health – he hasn't been healthy for Anaheim for an entire season yet.

Isaac Lundestrom has points in four straight games now. He has eight points in 10 games this year, though just one goal and he's not an asset for the physical categories.

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Cole Caufield saw a season-low 11:06 of ice time as his role with the team slowly deteriorates. If ever there was a rookie that needs a good hard reset on the realities of pro hockey – it's him. Although he's technically a rookie, he's seeing what they mean by the term "sophomore slump". With just one point in 10 games, and zero PPPts in 27:21 of PPTOI, you just know that he's gripping the stick a little tight now. He was the Calder pick for most people this year (he was second on my list – to Trevor Zegras), so this has definitely turned more than a few fantasy teams upside down.

Another Hab who is struggling is Jeff Petry, who finally posted his first point of the season on Sunday. He leads Montreal in total PP ice time with 33 minutes. He's still a 'hold' for me, and will continue to be a 'hold' for as long as he's leading this team in PP ice time. The Habs have four goals on the power play this year. Four. When that fixes itself, then the points will come.

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Rasmus Asplund has been more of a defensive or two-way forward, but there was always some upside to his offensive game. Right now we're seeing it – and he's getting the PPTOI to help nurture it. He has four points in his last three games and six in his last six, while seeing first-unit PP time (though just one PPPts to show for it). He's really clicking with Tage Thompson and Victor Olofsson on Buffalo's best line.

This is on Asplund, from the 2020 Fantasy Prospects Report where we compare him to Zach Hyman (very apt):

Rasmus Asplund, C

(2020: 76) (2019: 100)

The 22-year-old is still looking like a hard-working third-liner with the potential to click alongside a top-six star that will help boost his numbers a little. Although his offensive upside is limited, Asplund's floor is high and he does make for a safe poolie pick. Built along the same lines as a Zach Hyman, Asplund probably won't luck into elite linemates like Hyman has enjoyed. But that's not to say it's impossible given what the Sabres have coming down the pipeline, as well as already on the current roster. Potentially, Asplund could be a 200-hits energy player who regularly pops 40 points and this could happen in as little as two years. The 5-11, 176-pound Swede can still be sent down without waivers, so it's possible he won't become a full-timer until 2021-22. But he'll most assuredly get there. He's started off in the SHL on loan until play begins.

Upside Comparable: Zach Hyman (20-40-60, 40 PIM)
3YP: (12-29-41, 30 PIM)
Fantasy Upside / NHL Certainty: 15%, 90%

Expected Arrival: Will have cups of coffee / get a look this year, full time in 2021-22.

DH Draft Advice: Too soon. Wait until next year to consider drafting.

Defenseman Jacob Bryson is a depth fantasy guy to stream from time to time. He has four points in eight games this year. In that same FPR I quote from above, we compared Bryson to a lesser Samuel Girard with high-40s upside, but a likelihood in the low-30s. He's starting to get a bit of PP time for the Sabres.

Jeff Skinner is getting top PP unit time when he should honestly just get buried in the lineup the way Kyle Okposo is. Skinner has six PPPts in his last 235 power-play minutes. SIX in 235 minutes with the other team having fewer players to stop him!

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I'm very concerned about Jack Roslovic. I do believe he is one of those over-achieving players who can produce above adversity. But he's facing adversity now and I'm not sure that, even overcoming this, it will result in much more than 45 points this season. In what should have been another step forward, a new coach has changed the dynamic. Only twice this season has Roslovic seen more than 14 minutes of ice time out of eight games. Brad Larsen has him lining up with their best player Oliver Bjorkstrand, but Larsen is giving the first-line ice time to Jakub Voracek and Patrik Laine. And he's removed Roslovic from the top PP unit. Larsen loves Boone Jenner. He's just a coach who prefers leadership/defense to finesse when it comes to the center position. Jenner is their captain. And so far Jenner hasn't shown a lot of the grit we've seen from him in the past (barely one Hit each game and zero PIM), but he's got all the ice time and PP time in the world. Career highs in both so far. Jenner only has five points in eight games so far, but all of them are goals. He's winning tons of draws right now (60.3% win rate). So while Jenner's upside is probably not any higher than 60 or 65 points at best, he's getting the nod from the new coach. Roslovic's upside is probably 10 points higher, with a better 3YP on top of that. But he has to prove himself and work his way back up the lineup. And I just don't know if he can do that in time to give us much of a fantasy season.

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It's all about stopping the spread of COVID. But more importantly from the NHL's perspective – it's about keeping all the governments happy in both countries. Every player (just a couple of exceptions now that Mackenzie Blackwood is getting vaccinated) is double-vaxxed. Yet they are still getting themselves exposed to the virus. Unfortunately, that means players are unexpectedly getting cut from the lineup at the last minute. Look no further than the debacle with San Jose on Saturday. Well, Saturday had some big names as well – Jakob Silfverberg (ANA), Gabe Vilardi and Viktor Arvidsson (LAK), Chad Ruhwedel and Marcus Pettersson (PIT), Ville Husso (STL) and Jared McCann (SEA).

McCann's was announced about two hours before game time! While the two Pittsburgh defensemen's announcement resulted in the Pens calling up Pierre-Olivier Joseph.

This is gonna play havoc on fantasy rosters all season long. But on the plus side, being vaccinated means that these players will likely be back after missing just one or two games. Whereas last year it would cost them five or six and often meant rescheduling the games.

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Here is a nice update on the San Jose situation if you are a Dahlen owner:

SOURCES: Dahlen, Nieto Asymptomatic; Dahlen Could Return Tuesday https://t.co/bSLITFwrcc

— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) November 1, 2021

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Rick Roos is looking for questions for his fantasy mailbag. You'd get your answers in a week, but if you don't mind waiting – fill out the form here. You know how thorough a job he does with these…

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🚨NEW FEATURE🚨

This is an add-on to our #fantasyhockey Schedule Planner. At the bottom of the page you can compare any two teams and get the amount of schedule conflicts!

Example: #Flames and #TexasHockey have 2 conflicts in the next fantasy week.https://t.co/bP9KhlCxxg pic.twitter.com/BvZQ5GdnXl

— Frozen Tools (@FrozenTools) November 1, 2021

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See you next Monday.