Midseason Guide will be out January 14. In my Ramblings I had been saying "15" but that's wrong. It's the Friday, not the Saturday, that this will be out. So January 14 – 18 days! 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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I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday break and having a wonderful Christmas with family and friends. As seems to be tradition here every year, I like to take it easy for the December 25 Ramblings and just zip through some 'more abstract' reports at Frozen Tools and comment on them.

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Most Consistent Player

Nathan MacKinnon – with points in 16 of 17 games, he has hit the scoresheet in 94.12% of his games.

The rest: Aleksander Barkov (87.5%), Jake Guentzel (83.33%), Connor McDavid (82.76%), Brad Marchand (80.95%), Alex Ovechkin (80.65%), Max Pacioretty (80.00%)

Surprise names in the Top 30: Nazem Kadri (79.17%), Devon Toews (75.00% – actually ahead of Cale Makar!), Valeri Nichushkin (72.22%)

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Top Expected Goals-For per 60 Minutes of Ice Time

How much "shot quality" does a certain player's teammates (including himself) generate when he is on the ice? I did filter for minimum 10 games, though for a stat like this I like to use at least 20. The more games the better. But nonetheless, since it is early in the season it's interesting to see some of these names while using the 10-game mark as the minimum.

Name	Pos	Tm	GP	xGF/60	xGA/60
LUCAS CARLSSON	D	FLA	13	4.01	1.76
MARK FRIEDMAN	D	PIT	11	3.55	2.48
ANDREI SVECHNIKOV	C	CAR	26	3.44	2.49
JESSE PULJUJARVI	R	EDM	28	3.41	2.33
NINO NIEDERREITER	L	CAR	23	3.39	2.73
CONNOR MCDAVID	C	EDM	29	3.36	2.54
RASMUS SANDIN	D	TOR	25	3.36	2.03
WILLIAM NYLANDER	R	TOR	30	3.30	2.35
AUSTON MATTHEWS	C	TOR	27	3.28	1.98
JESPER BRATT	R	N.J	29	3.27	2.48
PIERRE-LUC DUBOIS	C	WPG	30	3.25	2.34
SETH JARVIS	C	CAR	20	3.20	2.25
MAXIM MAMIN	R	FLA	11	3.20	2.30
MICHAEL BUNTING	L	TOR	30	3.19	2.18
EVAN RODRIGUES	L	PIT	30	3.16	1.82
LOGAN BROWN	R	STL	10	3.16	2.47
SONNY MILANO	L	ANA	27	3.11	2.18
SAM BENNETT	C	FLA	24	3.09	2.12
KYLE CONNOR	L	WPG	30	3.08	2.78
JOHNNY GAUDREAU	L	CGY	28	3.07	2.11
MATTHEW TKACHUK	L	CGY	28	3.07	1.93
TONY DEANGELO	D	CAR	22	3.07	2.41
NICOLAS ROY	C	VGK	29	3.06	2.54
CONNOR MCMICHAEL	C	WSH	29	3.06	2.06
DARNELL NURSE	D	EDM	23	3.04	2.27
SEBASTIAN AHO	C	CAR	26	3.04	2.89
EVAN BOUCHARD	D	EDM	29	3.01	2.52
ANDREAS JOHNSSON	L	N.J	30	3.01	2.60

Journeyman Friedman is an odd name to see here, but it looks like Carlsson should get more ice time than his 14-odd minutes. Just to see what happens. Mamin is impressive in the sense that I gave him zero chance with this team due to them signing too many players. But with 12 minutes of average ice time and just 11 games of action, he's still managed five points.

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Top Shot-Blocker (per 60 minutes of ice time)

Kris Russell – He averages just 16:27 per game and has played just 14 games so far, but he has 39 BLKS. That's an average of 10.2 per 60 minutes of ice time.

The rest: Alec Martinez (9.0), Ryan Pulock (8.1), Mario Ferraro (7.6), Zach Whitecloud (7.6)

Top forward: Austin Watson (7.5). Not bad, considering the next best forward is Colton Sceviour at 5.0.

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Top IPP at Even Strength

I like looking at this because it tells me which players are over-performing based on the line they are on. It indicates that, if the coach so desired, a move to a higher line would pay off for both player and fantasy owner.

Artturi Lehkonen – 100%. After 31 games, Lehkonen's line has scored 11 times. He was in on all 11 with either the goal or one of the assists. He is the only player in the league to play more than 25 games and have a 100% IPP. Most of the other players at 100% (there are 16 of them) are fourth liners with no potential for moving up the lineup. A plugger with three points, such as Trent Frederic, was in on all three of his line's goals. That doesn't mean he deserves a look on a scoring line. But besides Lehkonen, the other names of interest at 100% are: Logan Brown (six points in 10 games – in on all six goals that his line scored), Klim Kostin (five points in 18 games), and Carl Grundstrom (eight points in 23 games).

Other notables: Alex Formenton (90.9%), Jordan Kyrou (89.3%), Jack Hughes (88.9%), Max Domi (88.2%), Andrew Mangiapane (87%)

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Top IPP on the Power Play

I look at this stat as an opportunity for more PP time. If we see this, then you know the coach will. Usually he will adjust the units to give more PP time to the player that is performing. Sometimes he doesn't (as you've seen over the years with players such as Jakub Vrana in Washington). It happens. But at least this stat tells you who may be deserving.

Jordan Kyrou leads the league with 100% PPIPP in 27 games. He has eight PPPts despite being stuck on the second unit (i.e. just 38% of St. Louis' available PP time).

Other notables: Mangiapane plays just 46.4% of Calgary's PP time, but has been in on all six points the Flames scored on the PP with him out there. You can already see his PP time tweak upwards in the second quarter… Filip Zadina sees 44.5% of Detroit's PP time, but he was in on all four PP goals that the Wings scored with him out there.

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Secondary Assists

If this number seems inflated for a player, I will look deeper and see what he does career-wise. If  you go to any player's Frozen Tools profile, the Advanced Stats tab will tell you his secondary assist % for each year. I then use that 'usual' number to guess at where he 'should' be right now and how many points he has more than he 'should' have. It hints at where his numbers slip to in the second half.

Tops in this category is Connor McDavid. But I'm not too concerned. It's McDavid. Second is Adam Fox. But again, as a top-scoring defenseman his secondary assists will be high. In fact, this year he is at 53.8% and last year it was 54.8%. Sustainable.

But third in the league is Chandler Stephenson. He has 13 secondary assists for a 59.1% rate (nine primary assists). Over the last two seasons, his Sec Assist % was 39%. The difference there is about four or five 'extra' assists so far this year. So instead of 31 points in 31 games right now, he would normally have 27. His 5on5 S% of 11.4 also indicates some puck luck, so the two stats back each other up.

Other players of concern: Pavel Buchnevich (61.1%), Anze Kopitar (61.1%), Shayne Gostisbehere (71.4%), Joonas Donskoi (71.4%).

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Home vs. Away

No fantasy hockey reason to look at this. Just for my own curiosity. But here are some interesting notes:

Auston Matthews was blessed with 17 Hits credited to him by his home arena's statisticians in 15 games. In 12 games on the road he has five Hits. Anze Kopitar has similarly friendly statisticians at home, as he has 21 Hits in 19 games versus nine in 14 on the road.

Nazem Kadri has 23 points in 11 games at home and 15 in 13 on the road. Evgeni Kuznetsov has 22 points in 15 home games versus just one goal and eight points in 13 road games. Vladimir Tarasenko is 20 in 16 at home and nine in 15 on the road.

Other huge discrepancies: Aaron Ekblad (19 in 16 home, five in 12 road), Nik Ehlers (18 in 17 home, six in 13 road), Roope Hintz (18 in 14 home, four in 13 road), Tomas Hertl (17 in 15 home, five in 14 road), Jaden Schwartz (17 in 15 home, THREE in 13 road!).

Loving the road: Timo Meier has just nine points in 12 home games, but on the road he has a whopping 20 points in 13 games. Jake Guentzel has eight points in 12 home contests, and 19 in 12 road matches. Super-rookie Lucas Raymond has given his home fans just 10 points in 16 games, but saved his best for the road where he compiled 18 in 15. Mangiapane only has three points at home this year. Three! In 11 games! But on the road he has 16 goals and 17 points in 17 games. Matt Duchene has eight in 13 at home and 17 in 13 on the road (more than double).

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One last stat, and again this goes in the category of "interesting" as opposed to "helpful". But I looked at the Three Stars report.

Sebastian Aho leads the league with seven first-star wins. No other player has six.

Two players have been given the third star on four different occasions without ever winning a first or second star: Eeli Tolvanen and Ben Chiarot.

Brandon Hagel also got the third star four times, but he also got second star once.

David Pastrnak won the second star of the game six times and third star once. He has not won first star yet.

Kevin Fiala and Tomas Hertl have earned the first star of the games the most times in the league this season without ever being named the second or third star. Three times they were first star.

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So Frozen Tools is starting to put out awesome new tools that focus on DFS – just in time to not have any games! But FWIW, here is a page you can to and filter out players based on your needs as you fill your DraftKings or FanDuel roster. We are also working on a roster optimizer, which is very awesome – running simulations of 3000 potential rosters before spitting out three optimal ones: 1) based on hot/cold players, 2) based on weighted average and 3) based on DraftKings default. We are running it in test leagues for now…but of course there are no leagues! So we're a bit stuck, otherwise you'd see this right now. But stay tuned for that.

Goalie Post's new site and app are now ready for testing … and we have no games right now to test! So we'll be testing in the week ahead and then hopefully launch it after that, provided there are no hitches.

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Merry Christmas to you and yours!

I'll see you Monday.