Teuvo Teravainen was back at practice on Monday, skating with his usual line mates in Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis. He suffered an injury last week and missed some time but looks to be no worse for the wear at the moment. Carolina has been an absolute juggernaut this year and part of the reason why is they have scoring wingers to spread across three lines. Teravainen being healthy allows them to keep doing this.

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Have you picked up your copy of the Dobber Midseason Guide?

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Everyone has their opinion on the Keith Yandle Ironman streak and that's fine. As to whether he's the same player the last couple years as he was the decade before that, he's clearly not. But when I look at the Flyers' blue line depth – Kevin Connauton and Nick Seeler – plus a very bad Rasmus Ristolainen, I wonder why not keep playing him. This team is bad and aside from Cam York, who is in the lineup and playing, there are no young kids needing ice time on this non-playoff team. Let him finish the season out, at least.

Beyond that, I think a player constantly being healthy is so undervalued. In a similar vein to very good players being valuable because they take away ice time from very bad players, staying in the lineup every night keeps from having to dress a(nother) bad defenceman. His career is winding down, but he had one of the most unique (and good!) careers in the modern NHL and that should be celebrated.  

The Flyers ended up losing Yandle's record game as Roope Hintz scored early and Jacob Peterson scored late to help lift the Stars to a 3-1 win. Hintz had an assist on Joe Pavelski's empty netter and that gave him three straight games with two points. Not a bad little hot streak he's on

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Robin Lehner had a 34-save shutout of the Washington Capitals on Monday night as Vegas took a 1-0 win. For Lehner, that is his first shutout of the season, and that kind of speaks to how much he's struggled at times. This is a big win with an injured lineup on the road. Could it be the start of a big second half for him as the Golden Knights get healthier?

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Hampus Lindholm had three assists while Ryan Getzlaf had one goal and one helper in a 5-3 win for Anaheim in Boston. It wasn't a very good night for either goalie, really, as John Gibson and Tuukka Rask saved just 45 of 53 shots between them. Rickard Rakell had two shots, two assists, two blocks, and two hits. Not a bad fantasy night from him.

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There is a week left in this month and it has given us four weeks of hockey since the holiday break. While some teams still haven't played a lot of games in this stretch – their busy stretch will be February – most teams have, and that gives us a sample of games to look towards. A few weeks ago, I wrote about market share of shots and how changing trends could point us to some undervalued players. This won't be near as in-depth but could hopefully show some teams and players that are moving in the right direction for the second half of the season. Stats either from Frozen Tools or Natural Stat Trick.

Adrian Kempe

He was one of the players covered in that market share article and I keep waiting for the bottom to fall out of Kempe's season, but it's just not happening. He had a tough stretch in early December but has rebounded very nicely with seven points and 32 shots in nine games since Christmas. It is the shot rate that keeps persisting, as he's top-10 among forwards per 60 minutes over the last four weeks. Because he's been skating nearly 19 minutes a night, that means roughly 3.5 shots per game, which feels like a miracle for a player who was consistently under 1.5 shots per game as recently as three years ago.

It really has given him a weird profile for scoring, with just 7 assists against 17 goals so far this season. The Brandon Pirri Memorial Award may be his, but it doesn't give us a very well-rounded fantasy option. All the same, after a brief downturn this year, Kempe is back and is really showing out offensively. He's almost certainly rostered in all but the shallowest leagues, but maybe the owner isn't buying full in yet? I am, especially with his top deployment.

Jake DeBrusk

We should always pay attention to depth players that show small blips of life. Most of the time, it's nothing. It is exactly what it looks like: a brief blip in a long season. Once in a while, though, it's the start of a whole new trend for a player. For Jake DeBrusk, he's inside the top-20 of the league in shot rate per minute over the last month. Over his last eight games, he's averaging three shots per game and has five points in there as well. The problem is that he continues to skate third-line minutes, so unless he keeps up that top-20 shot rate, he won't have sustainable shot totals for fantasy.

The reality is I think this is a situation where it's a brief blip. His play-driving numbers are nothing special this season and he did something similar last year in April/May. With that said, he has asked for a trade and if he's gone before the trade deadline, he could persist this shot rate with more ice time elsewhere. Something to keep in mind if he ever is on the move.

Kyle Connor

It doesn't feel as if Kyle Connor's season is really getting enough attention, generally speaking. He is on pace for over 40 goals/80 points with over 350 shots. Those are just silly numbers and he's this team's MVP for the season, at least to date.

He is playing extremely well, no doubt, but a big help in the jump in raw production totals is ice time. He is over 21:30 a night this season, a career-best. What's more is he's leading all forwards in the league in ice time per game since the holidays. More than the Edmonton boys, more than Nathan MacKinnon, more than all of them. It really is quite something to behold.

Unless I was blown away by a trade offer, I couldn't imagine giving up Kyle Connor this year, especially where he's skating 23 minutes a night now. They are pushing for the playoffs, and he's a big part of that push. Unfortunately, the one keeper league I had him folded this past summer. Quite the timing.

Ryan O'Reilly

It wasn't a very good start to the season for ROR, with 18 points in 27 games heading into the break. Since then, he's done much better with 10 points in 10 games. A turnaround in full swing? Well, let's take a look at that.

Over the last month, O'Reilly is top-5 among all forwards in secondary assist rate at 5-on-5. The fact he's been a point-per-game player is nice, but the fact that 40% of those points are random secondary assists is not good. In fact, that's a bad sign for things to come. This guy is on a hot streak and it's a point-per-game stretch fuelled largely by randomness. It isn't as if this 10-game stretch has been an amazing run of production; it extrapolates to about 33 goals and 82 points. If that's a hot streak where he's getting a lot of good luck, what happens when all this goes away?

O'Reilly still seems to be the top-end defensive centre he's always been but his offence has really dried up. This recent burst is nice, and maybe he even plays to a 60-point pace the rest of the way, but that's nothing special for a centre. This might be the chance for O'Reilly fantasy owners to look for a trade, seeing a player whose value may not get higher this year.

Vegas has three d-men in the top-10 in shots

One thing that has been persistent over most of this season for Vegas is their defencemen shooting a lot. At times it's been Alex Pietrangelo, or Shea Theodore, or Dylan Coghlan, or whomever else. Recently, it's all three: these three defencemen are all top-10 in the league in shot rate over the last month. That is a lot of shooting, and there are a handful of January games where these three combined for 10+ shots a game, and even 15+ shots. The team is near the middle of the league in scoring in that stretch, which really isn't a bad thing. They are missing what is an elite top line in Jack Eichel, Max Pacioretty, and Mark Stone. Once they're all healthy, the defencemen will presumably start shooting less.

For now, might be worth checking to see if Coghlan is on the waiver wire. That is, in league where we're rostering 75+ defencemen His ice time can be very inconsistent, but he's been shooting a lot with the big names missing from the lineup (well, I guess Eichel has been the entire time, but still.)

Damon Severson

With the injury to Dougie Hamilton, as well as other guys in and out of the lineup due to injury/COVID, Damon Severson has seen a monster TOI jump. Over his last nine games, he's skating nearly 26 minutes a night, coming in the top-10 defencemen in this regard. It obviously won't persist as their blue line starts to get healthy, but it has been a great last month from him in the fantasy game.

Severson has one year left on his deal and I don't think they trade him. I think they either let him walk at the end of next season (if they're in the playoffs) or trade him at the deadline (if he's not). They can't lose too many off that blue line in one offseason. That means his ice time and role, and thus his fantasy value, is only going to go down over the rest of the season. Something to keep in mind.