The date of the Midseason Guide will be out January 15. This Guide comes with your Ultimate Fantasy Pack or Gold/Platinum subscriptions. It does not come with the Keeper League Fantasy Pack nor the Silver subs. You can pre-order it here.

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Goalie Alert: Pavel Francouz has been recalled from the minors and Jonas Johansson placed on waivers. Avalanche goaltending has been a nightmare, with Francouz getting injured (again), Kuemper being below-average at best, Johansson performing terribly and Justus Annunen being okay in two starts – but still a good two years away from being ready. But Francouz is back from his conditioning stint with the Eagles and he was excellent in four games there, going 3-1-0 with a 1.52 GAA and sparkling 0.945 SV%. He was my favorite preseason dark horse goalie because Kuemper has not only been injury prone, but he was just plain bad in his final season with Arizona. In 2020-21 his SV% was 0.907 and his goals saved above average was below zero (-0.68) for the first time in four seasons. Now this year it's -3.76 heading into the Sunday game against Florida.

Darcy Kuemper in his last 62 games from December 19, 2019 through December 11, 2021:

26-28-3, 2.90 GAA, 0.905 SV%, just 48.4% Quality Starts and -8.3120 GSAA.

If Francouz can stay healthy – and now we'll see if he's a Band-Aid Boy or twice stricken with bad luck – then he's a very real, very elite dark horse. The job is right there for him to steal. Kuemper did his best to stave him off with a solid outing on Sunday, allowing two goals on 33 shots.

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Nazem Kadri is sidelined and Andre Burakovsky just lost his centerman. But hold up – Gabriel Landeskog is out two weeks with an injury. Suddenly, Burakovsky gets an upgrade. He was on the Nathan MacKinnon line and the result was a hatty. In the game prior, with Kadri out and Landeskog still in, Burakovsky actually had Mikko Rantanen as his centerman and potted two goals. It's hard to call linemates an upgrade over Kadri when the guy is fourth in the league in scoring, but we can all agree that both Rantanen and MacKinnon are better offensive players. Burakovsky is shooting more with them as linemates – his 10 SOG over those two games are his highest two-game total of the season by a wide margin (previous two-game high this year was six SOG).

Kadri is day-to-day, but one has to wonder if upon his return Burakovsky remains with MacKinnon and Rantanen until Landeskog gets back.

Sam Bennett has just two points in his last eight games. But he's been firing shots on net like nobody's business. In his last 11 he has been credited with 47 SOG or a whopping 4.3 per game. He's been averaging 3.7 per game on the season and his previous high was 2.2 set last year. He's 24^th in the league in SOG, but has played the fewest games (tied) out of those 24 players.

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In the Rangers – Nashville game on Sunday the teams combined for one measly goal. But Philip Tomasino scored it and the hotshot prospect has four points in his last nine games. That's not a big deal, but what's notable is that his ice time was up to a career-high 15:16 and that he played with Mikael Granlund and Filip Forsberg. So no more of this Nick Cousins/Thomas Novak crap. The line I'd actually like to see more of is when he plays with Eeli Tolvanen and Ryan Johansen. They've played 19:36 together this season and have a CF% of 65.7%, which is his most successful result in terms of generating more chances for than against. Tomasino is a fantastic prospect and is going to spend the next two or three years trying to show that he'll either be a first-line player or a second-line player. Odds were pointing to a second-line upside, but as a pro he has done nothing but overachieve and I think those first-line odds are starting to improve with each game. Quality linemates is a nice step forward.

Kaapo Kakko goes 10 games without a point, then he gets eight points in seven games… and now six games without a point. Streaky much?

Alexandar Georgiev has always been a goalie who needs steady work in order to perform. Put him in as a spot starter every week or two and he'll let you down. With Igor Shesterkin sidelined, Georgiev has been getting that workload and as a result he has four Quality Starts in a row. He's given up just six goals on his last 123 shots faced. Shesterkin is skating and should return later in the week, so Georgiev is really only boosting his trade value here. That being said, I am not convinced Georgiev is a potential NHL starter. I think he's a 1A/1B type who will have his hot streaks.

Since November 30, Juuse Saros is 4-1-0, 1.39 GAA, 0.952 SV%, 80% QS and 5.8480 GSAA.

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Nathan Walker! It's not often that you see 27-year-old prospects get called up to play, let alone make an impact like this. The 5-9 forward has no track record at other levels of putting points on the board prior to this year, but he has 17 points in 19 games for Springfield. And after his hat trick Saturday and another two points Sunday, Walker has five points in three games with St. Louis. This year's Colin Blackwell? Well, let's wait and see if he even stays in the lineup after Jordan Kyrou, Robert Thomas and David Perron return. Unfortunately, he was showing chemistry with Brayden Schenn – but Schenn suffered an upper-body injury Sunday and is considered day-to-day.

Speaking of 27-year-old St. Louis prospects, both of their 'prospect' goaltenders are that very age. While Jordan Binnington and Ville Husso remain sidelined, and the team remains too cap-strapped to call up Joel Hofer, the team is riding Jon Gillies (Sunday's starter) and Charlie Lindgren. Lindgren has been incredible, going 3-0-0 with a 1.42 GAA and 0.947 SV%. Gillies, in his only start, allowed three goals on 39 shots for a Quality Start. Now try telling me that a goalie's numbers and rise to stardom aren't heavily influenced by team and system more than his own talent! Binnington is in COVID protocol and Husso is out indefinitely (likely short term) with an LBI.

The white-hot Pavel Buchnevich was held off the score sheet for just the second time in 10 games on Sunday. He had 13 points in nine games prior to that.

Since being recalled in mid-November, Scott Perunovich has seen steady second-unit PP time. After dominating the AHL with 20 points in 12 games (!), he had five points in nine games for St. Louis and seems to be the second coming of Adam Fox. However, he has been held off the score sheet for five straight games now.

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Ryan Getzlaf returns to the Anaheim lineup and Troy Terry returns to the score sheet. Not a coincidence. Terry with a pair of goals Sunday and 11 SOG combined in the two games since Getzlaf returned.

Stop me if you've heard this one: After posting 12 points in 12 games to start the season, Kevin Shattenkirk has hit a wall, managing just four points in 18 games since. If you didn't sell him when he was going nuts, the window has closed.

My second favorite preseason goalie dark horse was Anthony Stolarz. And then John Gibson had to go and ruin that by being awesome again. But, in true Gibson fashion, he is injured again and now we get to see why I like Stolarz so much. Stolarz, too, has had to fight through injuries in his pro career. Very serious ones. But since joining Anaheim he has been staying healthy. And in 18 games with the big club he is 9-6-1, with a SV% of 0.929 and a GAA of 2.22. Durability will always be a question with him, but he is a solid goalie who will give you great numbers whenever Gibson is out.

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I don't even know what to say about Chandler Stephenson. Even when the stars are back in the lineup, he's still outscoring them. Four more assists (!) Sunday, out-producing his more-heralded linemates Max Pacioretty (three points) and Mark Stone (also three). The effort brings him back up to a point-per-game average and we're 26 games in. Stephenson's "per game" averages are currently at career highs in each of the following categories: goals, assists, points, SOG, Hits, PPPts, BLKS and FOW. Whoever snagged him late in the draft in roto leagues got a huge steal there.

You know what I love? When my goalies face each other and they both play terrible and give up a ton of goals. Thanks a lot Cam Talbot and Robin Lehner. Why couldn't that game be a 1-0 win instead of the NSH-NYR one?

Vegas' Zach Whitecloud has five goals in his last 11 games. Not bad for a third-pairing defenseman, and a nice bonus for any teams that had him for his BLKS value.

The Wild have scratched Rem Pitlick for two straight games now. He leads the team in Pts/60 with 3.7. But he's been overachieving big time and his defensive metrics are pretty bad, so you can expect a lot of careful, selective minutes given to him by the coach. Short leash.

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Bruce Boudreau

First head coach in #Canucks history to start 4-0-0 pic.twitter.com/HNVc7HNgqc

— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) December 13, 2021

In those four games, JT Miller leads the team in scoring with five points, Brock Boeser next with four, while Conor Garland and Bo Horvat have three each. Elias Pettersson has just two, but he did score on Sunday.

Also of note, Nils Hoglander has seen his ice time drop under Boudreau and he has been completely removed from the power play.

Much has been made of Boudreau's loosening of the offensive reins but so far it's been the defense that has improved. Here are Thatcher Demko's numbers:

4-0-0, 1.21, 0.962 and all four were Quality Starts. His goals saved above average is an astounding 6.616.

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After seven goals in his first seven games, Andrei Svechnikov has two goals in his last 19. And just two points in his last 10. His overall pace is now at 66 points over a full season, and looking at his metrics they seem to indicate this number is about where he'll land. So these last 10 games were a market correction of sorts.

Jaccob Slavin had five points in the seven games that Tony DeAngelo was sidelined for COVID protocol. The timing for DeAngelo was unfortunate because he emerged from the NHL's protocol…just in time to fall into Canada's protocol. Canada requires a 14-day quarantine after a positive test, so TDA was forced to miss the next three games (Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver). He'll return to the lineup next game, and Slavin's ice time and PP time will got back to normal.

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Our Frozen Tools section now has a DFS Draft Kings lineup optimizer. We're still fiddling around with it, and have other DFS tools on the horizon (close!). But check out what we have so far here.

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See you next Monday.