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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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So that escalated in a hurry. When last I Rambled (i.e. last week), the odd game started to get postponed. Now we have 17 teams off until next week in what can be considered a bit of a reboot. Every Canadian team is off.

Teams that will play two games this week: ARI, BUF, CBJ, DAL, PHI, PIT, TBL, VGK, WSH

Teams that play one game: CHI, LAK, MIN, NJD, NYI, SEA

All other teams are off. And I know a few of you have been saying "just shut everything down", but that's probably just frustration. These teams listed above still test every day, mostly negative tests. Frankly with this new COVID variant I suspect more postponements will happen in January and February. So I think we need every game completed where possible, to minimize the future ones that need rescheduling. All players are double-vaxxed and most players are asymptomatic. It's a shame that they need to quarantine, given that they feel fine, but it's about minimizing the spread. And until the Canadian government changes its views on that, the league will likely continue with that policy. Meaning, in fantasy hockey, we need to deal with the unexpected. We could set our rosters with players who have four-game weeks…but wind up with zero games played from some of those guys.

Should fantasy leagues do something about this? Nope. NHL teams have to deal with this, and fantasy is about emulating the running of a hockey team. Luck is a part of the game – both the real one and the fake one.

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Washington and Vegas will come out of the Christmas break with the fewest games left to play – 49. Anaheim, Buffalo and Pittsburgh are next at 50. Boston will have the most games to squeeze in. They have 26 games under their belt, which means another 56 to play. Colorado and the Islanders will each have 55. All other teams will have between 51 and 54.

With the recent announcement that cross-border games (any games involving a US team against a Canadian team) are postponed until Christmas. The NHL now has the ability to withdraw from the Olympics. So expect that announcement to come this week.

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Shea Theodore has 19 points in his last 22 games, so his season has been humming along just nicely since that slow start. In that same span though, Alex Pietrangelo has 21 in 22. Scary one-two punch that will play on separate pairings unless Vegas pushes hard for a goal – then the two are put together.

The Islanders are averaging just 2.19 goals per game. And with Mat Barzal on COVID protocol it doesn't help matters. J-G Pageau has his spot on the top line. But while his shot totals have spiked sharply, he was pointless in his first two games on that line with Anders Lee and Oliver Wahlstrom before finally scoring Sunday.

But I think this all boils down to depth scoring. And that's on Brock Nelson, Anthony Beauvillier and Josh Bailey. And of the three, Beauvillier has been the worst. With a 5on5 S% of just 5.1, he's clearly been snakebitten. But his offensive zone start percentage is the highest it's been in three years. He 'should' be producing more, but it's not happening. So right now, he's pretty much an anchor on Nelson. Getting Beauvillier going would change so much on this team, but there is very little indication that it's going to happen anytime soon. This Christmas break can't come soon enough for the Beauvillier family.

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Nik Ehlers went off for four points on Sunday and his season has taken a sharp turn for the better with the month of December. In eight games he has 11 points. That includes 36 SOG (a whopping 4.5 per game). A hint of things to come under the new coach? All season long, Ehlers has played with either Paul Stastny or Mark Scheifele. But rarely has he played with both. Sunday he played with both. The trio combined for nine points and were in on all four goals.

Scheifele also has 11 points in eight games.

Since October 21, Connor Hellebuyck has had an astounding 76.2% of his starts as Quality Starts. Just 11 wins to show for it, but still – his numbers have been phenomenal. In those 21 games his SV% is 0.924 and GSAA is 8.1120 (goals saved above average – i.e. your average NHL goalie would have allowed eight goals that Hellebuyck did not allow).

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Ivan Barbashev has arrived. And the key has been playing on an all-Russian line with a couple of star players in Vladimir Tarasenko and Pavel Buchnevich. Barbashev picked up his third consecutive two-point game on Sunday and he now has 15 points in his last 12 games. He has 25 points on the season and if he gets a two-point game next time out – he'll set a career high with 27. So yeah, this is quite a jump. He just turned 26 last week and is entering his prime, and his numbers playing junior hockey and AHL hockey indicate he actually has good upside, so these fantasy-worthy numbers are certainly believable. I don't know if Robert Thomas gets his spot back on that line – I have to think that the magic with these Russians is allowed to continue.

In his last eight outings, Jordan Binnington has just one Quality Start. He is 2-4-2, 3.36 and 0.888 in that span. He also has a -5.704 GSAA (i.e. your average NHL goaltender would have stopped nearly six goals that Binnington allowed).

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In his first NHL start since 2019, Garret Sparks picked up the win for the Los Angeles Kings, allowing just two goals on 35 shots. He'll backup Jonathan Quick while Cal Petersen is in COVID protocol.

Matt Roy has seven assists in his last 10 games. Besides two assists on Sunday he also added three Hits and five BLKS (and was plus-3).

Anze Kopitar picked up an assist and that gives him 672 – all with the Kings. He tied Wayne Gretzky for second in franchise history behind Marcel Dionne's 757 career assists.

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At 25, the undrafted Joe Snively got into his first ever NHL game – and he picked up an assist, despite playing just 6:53. The 5-9 former college star is enjoying another productive AHL season with Hershey, posting 22 points in 21 games. The Caps have three scoring-line players sidelined with COVID. Players across the league like Snively will get more looks as a result of these extra man-games that are sure to be lost in the coming weeks.

Another 5-9 Washington player – Conor Sheary – also picked up an assist Sunday. Sheary now has points in five straight. He has 14 points in his last 20.

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Mike Matheson has five points in his last five games. He's not seeing any PP time and Kris Letang is still healthy, so it's probably not a sustainable trend, but it's good to see Matheson get his numbers on track. His points-per-game this year is 0.44, which is the best in his six-year career. He has 23 points in his last 44 games dating back to last season.

Evgeni Malkin is now practicing in a regular jersey, meaning he can take contact. I would expect him to return immediately after the Christmas break, but I suppose it's possible that they give him a game prior. They play the Flyers on Thursday.

With PK Subban and Ryan Graves out (COVID), Ty Smith is back in the offensive mix for the Devils. The assist Sunday gives him five of them in his last nine games – three of them on the power play. However, he is also minus-7 in that span.

Then again, the Devils have been getting killed lately. Dougie Hamilton and Jack Hughes are each minus-10 in the last four games.

And – obviously this is related – Mackenzie Blackwood and Jonathan Bernier are both sidelined with actual injuries (i.e. not COVID), and so New Jersey is rolling with Jon Gillies and Akira Schmid. The two are winless in four games and have given up 16 goals on 128 shots.

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Look for Alex Tuch to make his season debut and his Buffalo debut Monday night against the Blue Jackets. He was practicing with Dylan Cozens and Brent Murray.

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I'll see you on Christmas Day as you wait on your significant other to get ready to go and need a quick read – I'll be right here with fresh content, as always.