There just isn't a lot going on in the NHL these days. Well, there's a lot going on but there's not much on the ice and that's all that really matters for our purposes. Given there are just 11 games in four days leading up to the Christmas break – pending more cancellations – it gives us some time to talk about the season.

Last week, I discussed Corey Sznajder's play-tracking data and why it can be useful for fantasy. (His Patreon can be supported here and his data will be used for this Ramblings.) Check out those Ramblings for talk on both shot and shot-assist rates. There could be some guys breaking out over the last couple seasons who are very much for real, and a couple with some question marks.

Today, we're moving to the defencemen.

One skill that defencemen need in the modern NHL is puck moving. Namely, they need to be able to get the puck on the sticks of their forwards so that the forwards can transition effectively, and not bang the puck off the glass and essentially turn the puck over. Being able to exit the defensive zone cleanly can be as important as entering the offensive zone cleanly. Lucky for us, Mr. Sznajder tracks zone exits.

So, with that in mind, here are some defensemen with strong zone exit rates to start the 2021-22 season. As always, we're working with small samples, so this isn't definitive of anything. This is just to point us in the direction of players we should be paying closer attention to; this isn't to say a defenseman with a good 30 games is now an elite fantasy option.

With all this out of the way, some blue liners off to a great start this year for transitioning the puck out of their zone.

Shayne Gostisbehere

Before the season started, I wrote about Gostisbehere and had him pegged as an end-of-draft defenseman in 12-teamers; someone with 40-point upside. The reasoning being that I thought he was much better in his last year in Philadelphia than he got credit for and could see prime PP minutes. So far this season, he has 18 points in 29 games, second on the team in points. As I mentioned in that Ramblings, he typically doesn't have strong peripherals, and this year he has two shots per game and 46 hits+blocks in 29 contests. All that said, he could easily be a 40-point, 150-shot, 100-block defenseman this year that was basically free in drafts.

One reason I thought Ghost was underrated last year was his zone-exit rate: he led the Flyers on a per-60 basis, and on a percentage basis. League-wide, those rates were very similar to defensemen like Jaccob Slavin and Dougie Hamilton. How is he doing so far this year? His per-60 zone-exit rate (11.5) is identical to both Morgan Rielly and Charlie McAvoy. On a percentage basis (80.6%), he's similar to Adam Fox and Quinn Hughes. He has truly been one of the best puck-moving defencemen in the NHL this year, and it's a wonder what his point totals would look like if Arizona wasn't the worst team in hockey.

This is an interesting player for the rest of the season. Presumably, he'll be on the trading block at the trade deadline, but he has another year on his deal and teams may not want that $4.5M hit. However, he is an excellent puck mover and those aren't truly abundant. We'll see if he ends up somewhere new in March.

Mikhail Sergachev

This is one of the more interesting players in the NHL. He had a breakout season at the age of 19, posting 40 points in 79 games. Since then, he has 109 points in 228 games. In other words, his production effectively peaked at the age of 19. It isn't really his fault, though. He's earning the same level of ice time this year as last year, and as long as Victor Hedman is around, he'll earn the top PP minutes instead of the young Russian. Add in some injuries that have lowered the offensive ceiling of this team, and we get Sergachev's season to date.

While Sergachev isn't exiting the zone with control nearly as often as Gostisbehere (8.7 per 60 minutes against 11.5 for Ghost) but he has one of the highest percentages in the league at 93.1%. That means when he does have the puck and decides to exit the zone, it's almost always with possession. That number is up from last year, but he's also 23 years old. He is still improving. We'll check back at the end of the season to see if it held up.

There are a lot of positive signs for Sergachev being an elite producer at some point, but it's not going to happen until he gets that power-play role. It is nice to see him still improving, though, and maybe he can break through in the next couple years.

Oliver Kylington

One of the big performers this year is Kylington, who has 15 points in 27 games. That is quite the season to date, seeing as he had 16 points in 95 career games up to this point. Did something change?

The short answer is no, not really. In over 200 minutes in the sample in 2018-19, he was inside the 95^th percentile of zone exits with control both by percentage and per 60 minutes. He was also inside the 75^th percentile of shot assists. Those numbers fell across the board in 19-20, but over those two seasons in aggregate, he was still inside the 90^th percentile for zone exits. So, no, this skill isn't new for him, but getting 18 minutes a game is.

On the season, Kylington has the highest zone exit rate per 60 minutes of any defenseman in the league. Higher than Rielly, higher than McAvoy, higher than Fox, and higher than Hughes. While being at the top of the league might be a bit much, we have seen him be elite in this regard before, so that he's starting to peak at the age of 24 doesn't feel egregious.

It'll be hard to maintain this point pace for the balance of the season if he keeps skating 18 minutes a night with secondary power-play time. But I do believe he's truly turned a corner and is now a reliable puck-moving defenseman who can play 18-20 minutes. That is a huge turnaround for a player who looked like he may never stick at the NHL level as recently as seven months ago.

Haydn Fleury

This is a situation where we're really going to have to follow it closely. From 2018-20, Fleury was mid-pack by zone exits, with his strengths being his shot and defending his own blue line. For puck-moving, he was fine, but not good-to-great. That persisted into 2020-21, as he was slightly below average in zone exits per 60 and by percentage.

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That is why his performance this season is an outlier: 9.3 zone exits with possession per 60 minutes, roughly the same rate as John Klingberg, and higher than Samuel Girard or Miro Heiskanen. We have a guy who was average-to-below average by zone exits for three years all of a sudden be among the great performers in this area for 2021-22. That is why there's the games-played caveat; he has been a healthy scratch at times and we're looking at a quarter-season sample. He has looked very good, but we need to see a lot more.

Fleury is a good fantasy asset because of the peripherals he can bring. If he can turn into an actual point producer? That would add a significant dimension to his fantasy profile. We'll see where things stand at the end of the season, but it is a good start.

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The Devils have some players coming out of COVID protocols:

Players at today's #NJDevils practice: Jon Gillies, Akira Schmid, Chase DeLeo, Nico Hischier, Ryan Graves, and Jesper Boqvist.
— Catherine Bogart (@CatherineBogart) December 20, 2021

No telling if they’ll play Tuesday just yet, but it’s a good sign that they’re skating at practice.

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The Los Angeles Kings have made some significant call-ups

Interesting from the AHL wire. The Kings have recalled both Quinton Byfield & Alex Turcotte.
— Mark Scheig (@markscheig) December 20, 2021

They have one game left before the Christmas break, and it's Thursday night in Vegas. That is a tough start for these guys, but there are only so many options we have this week.

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There have been some rumours floating around Oilers Twitter that Oscar Klefbom could return to the lineup before the end of the season. Normally, Twitter rumours don't make their way into my Ramblings, but the Klefbom situation is interesting to me because we've heard nothing from him or the team since the start of the year. With Ben Bishop, he had a retirement press conference the next day. In Shea Weber's case, it appears he started working with the team almost immediately. Klefbom, whose career is in jeopardy, has been radio silent for months. (I should say, I haven't been able to find anything on him since the start of the season. If there's been an interview on local radio I missed or something along those lines, please post it in the comments.)

Maybe he is working towards a return and they don't want any pressure on him? Or maybe he just wants to be left alone. Just keep an eye for information on this, either confirming or denying, in the next few weeks. It would be awesome to see him back in the NHL again.

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Good news for Artemi Panarin: