We are through the first week of the NHL season, at least with all the teams playing and not just the teams that made the trip to Europe. As such, I just want to give a handful of first-week observations from around the league. It is still far too early to make determinations about any team, line, or player, but there are specific teams, lines, and players we should follow for the next few weeks to see if they can keep up what they've been doing.  

Rangers' Kid Line

Though Alexis Lafrenière, Filip Chytil, and Kaapo Kakko haven't been playing together this season, they are all standing out individually. Going into Monday night's action, Lafrenière had managed a monster 13 shots in three games, skating over 17 minutes a night. Though he hasn't scored yet, he leads the Rangers in individual expected goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 by a mile, ranking second in the league among all forwards. His huge jump in shot rate is what we want to see from the former number-1 pick and more of this could easily lead to an excellent fantasy season.

Chytil has done wonderful work on the third line with a rotating cast of wingers, even if he's not being tasked with much heavy lifting. He has just one point (a goal) in his three games and it's fair to wonder how much production upside he has if both Lafrenière and Kakko are in the top-6. It just doesn't leave much for Chytil to play with but as long as he keeps up his solid two-way play, at least they won't have a third line that sinks them.

To me, it's Kakko that has been the revelation. He seemed to play well in his own end last year but just could not generate a lot offensively. That has not been the case this season as he's been a standout on the top line alongside Mika Zibanejad. It seems every game the Rangers play, Kakko makes a play that makes you sit up in your seat in wonder. His confidence with the puck seems to have grown by leaps and bounds and it's nice to see the 2^nd overall pick from 2019 look like he's starting to find his game in the NHL.

These three players are the crux of the Rangers' upside as a team. They need these guys to fulfill their potential and between growth last year and hopefully breaking out this year, all three are really bringing the depth this team needs outside its veteran stars.

Kirby Dach and Sean Monahan

Montreal took a chance on a pair of reclamation projects in the young Kirby Dach and the veteran Sean Monahan. Both have had injuries really hamper their game over the last couple years and the Habs were hoping to find the promise they both showed at different points of their careers. As someone who has watched all Montreal games (heading into Monday night), it has been a success thus far.

This duo been on the ice for just one goal, but none against, and they have been wildly out-chancing the opposition (a margin greater than 2:1, per Natural Stat Trick). Dach has been using his size in the offensive zone to keep pucks alive and sustain the forecheck while Monahan's offensive instincts look to have resurfaced. There is a lot of season left but this is a very strong start for both of them.

John Klingberg's Generation

One area the Ducks needed help with was finding puck-moving defencemen, and preferably one that could run a power play. John Klingberg was brought in for those reasons and the returns have been promising early. Through two games (before Monday night's tilt), the team generated over 52 scoring chances per 60 minutes of ice time at 5-on-5 with the former Stars blue liner on the ice. That is way too high to be sustainable, but it shows that he's doing what he was brought in to do. The defence remains questionable though he wasn't brought into be a stalwart in his own end.

How good Anaheim will be defensively is very much in question, but Klingberg's offensive impact is being felt and hopefully it's just the start of more good things to come.

New Jersey's Goaltending

Again, it's just a couple of games and that means very little, but New Jersey's goaltending needed to be a lot better this year for them to make a run at the playoffs. In fairness, MacKenzie Blackwood and Jonathan Bernier were injured for most of last year and the team was relying on AHL (or even ECHL) netminders. In the two games so far, Blackwood and Vitek Vanecek have combined for 10 goals against on 47 shots faced. That is a cool .787 save percentage. Not great!

It will be interesting to see what happens if the goaltending doesn't significantly improve in the next month or so. Will they go goalie shopping or let another season slip by with goaltending that ensures they won't have success? Vanecek and Blackwood are the guys now, but they have to prove they can help, and not hurt, this team.

Calgary Second Line

All the lineup changes meant a brand-new second line for Calgary of Dillon Dubé, Nazem Kadri, and Andrew Mangiapane. My hope was that the dual-threat nature of both Kadri and Mangiapane would find instant chemistry with each other, and Dubé would be the beneficiary from the increased ice time and line mate quality. So far, so good: they have doubled the opposition by scoring chances and have looked excellent as a second scoring trio for the Flames.

Calgary looks great again this year as the new pieces seemed to have fit in with no issues. The fantasy concern with Kadri is, as expected, he's lost a lot of ice time going to Calgary, where they spread out ice time far more than in Colorado. That should hurt his production and peripherals across the board, but it should mean very good things for the Flames. If they can keep up this level of play, the Flames are as dangerous as they were a year ago as they get deeper scoring-wise.

*

Both Jakub Vrana and Tyler Bertuzzi were missing from Detroit's morning skate before their game on Monday night, which gave us radically different top-6 line combinations:

No Bertuzzi at Red Wings morning skate. Also don't see Vrana.

Kubalik Larkin Raymond
Zadina Copp Perron
Söderblom Rasmussen Sundqvist
Suter Veleno Erne

Chiarot Seider
Määttä Hronek
Hägg Lindström
Oesterle Walman

— Max Bultman (@m_bultman) October 17, 2022

We got some clarification for Bertuzzi:

Tyler Bertuzzi is out 4-6 weeks with an upper body injury

— Carley Johnston (@carleykjohnston) October 17, 2022

That is a brutal break for Bertuzzi and the Red Wings. He missed a lot of games last year due to the COVID border rules and looked primed for a big year with those rules now gone. He and Dylan Larkin have developed good chemistry over the seasons, and this takes a big offensive weapon away from a Detroit team that needs as many as it can get. This is a big opportunity for Dominik Kubalik, though, and we'll see if he can regain his goal-scoring form that he showed in his early days with Chicago.

Johnston would later tweet that it was personal reasons for Vrana as to why he missed the game. In other words, it could be a short-lived trip to the second line for Filip Zadina, but we'll see how this goes first.

Detroit also completely re-tooled the power play with Kubalik and Filip Hronek moving to the top unit while Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider dropped to the second unit. With how these talents have been split, though, it makes me wonder if we don't see more of an even PP distribution than we saw in their first couple games where Raymond had nearly double the PPTOI of Andrew Copp.

*

We got some new Montreal lines for their game on Monday:

Martin St-Louis brasse ses cartes à matin !

Monahan – Suzuki – Caufield
Drouin – Dach – Anderson
Dadonov – Dvorak – Gallagher
Slafkovsky – Evans – Hoffman

— Luc Gelinas (@LucGelinasRDS) October 17, 2022

It is weird to see Dach and Monahan be split. As mentioned earlier, these guys are a couple of reclamation projects and the extremely early returns looked promising. To me, it seems as if this is about bringing more balance to the other lines than anything else. The Monahan/Christian Dvorak lines have been solid at both ends, to my eyes anyway, while the Suzuki and Jake Evans trios have struggled at times. This could bring more balance, but it could also just end up creating new holes where there weren't any before. Time will tell, I suppose.

*

There were early indications that Marco Rossi would be a healthy scratch for Minnesota, only getting into the lineup if Mats Zuccarello couldn't go:

Marco Rossi seems to be a healthy scratch tonight and #MNWild fans are definitely going to handle that well.

— Dane Mizutani (@DaneMizutani) October 17, 2022

The writing was on the wall for Rossi here. He started the year on the fourth line and skated under five minutes in their home loss to Los Angeles.

*

Buffalo has some new lines in practice:

We were told not to read too much into the lines, that it's just tinkering. That said…

Skinner-Thompson-Tuch
Mittelstadt-Asplund-Olofsson
Peterka-Cozens-Hinostroza
Quinn-Girgensons-Okposo
Krebs-Sheahan-Bjork

Dahlin-Samuelsson
Power-Jokiharju
Bryson-Lyubushkin
Fitzgerald

— Heather Engel (@engelheather) October 17, 2022

This doesn't look good for Jack Quinn. Young players getting moved down the lineup can be a precursor to just being demoted to the AHL entirely. He and Casey Mittelstadt just haven't synced together yet and Quinn could pay the penalty here.

My guess is we see a lot of lineup movement from the Sabres, at least early on. They are really trying to make Mittelstadt work and for that reason he's probably going to get a lot of different line mates until (if) they find something that works. Aside from the duo Tage Thompson and Jeff Skinner, I'm not sure there are any specific duos/trios that we'll be able to rely upon in the fantasy game.

*

The Coyotes provided an update on Jakob Chychrun:

Coyotes D Jakob Chychrun will join the Coyotes and begin practicing in Montréal later this week.
Also, D Jusso Välimäki is allowed to play in Canada. He just doesn't have his US visa yet. The Coyotes' next three games are in Toronto, Montréal and Ottawa.

— Not the country music singer Craig Morgan (@CraigSMorgan) October 17, 2022

Arizona would also reveal that Nick Schmaltz would miss 6-8 weeks with an upper-body injury.

Losing Schmaltz is a big loss for them. He is easily the team's top offensive option after Clayton Keller and that leaves the team, and Keller, without much potency. Not that we expected the much from Arizona, but this could leave them in a big hole offensively. It does give Lawson Crouse a chance to consistently play with Keller, though, and if he can bring good production along with his typically stout hit totals, he could have a lot more value in banger leagues than he did a week ago.

*

It was a tough night for injuries as there were a few key ones to go around.

• Jake Muzzin left the Toronto game with an apparent neck injury and did not return.
• Connor Brown left Washington's contest with a lower-body injury and did not return.
• Aaron Ekblad did not return for the third period in Florida's game in Boston.

We will provide updates when we get them but as far as Ekblad is concerned, that would be a major loss for the Panthers if it's any stretch of time. Brandon Montour already missed Monday night's game and with MacKenzie Weegar now in Calgary, the blue line can only take so many losses. Either Montour, if he returns soon, or Gustav Forsling could stand to earn a lot of top power-play time, depending on Ekblad's injury severity.

*

Staying with the Caps, Evgeny Kuznetsov could hear from the Department of Player Safety very soon for this slash to the face:

Let's play "How many games?"

Evgeny Kuznetsov whacks Kyle Burroughs in the face with his stick. #Canucks pic.twitter.com/RQ5CMLdFBG

— Tim and Friends (@timandfriends) October 18, 2022

Despite this, he still had a good offensive game for fantasy players with three assists, three shots, a couple penalty minutes, and a hit. He was split from Alex Ovechkin to start the game though that didn't last as they were put back together halfway through the contest.

Washington won the game 6-4, posting a comeback being down 4-2 heading into the third period. Ovechkin had two goals and two assists while both Dylan Strome and John Carlson had one of each. Carlson had three shots, four blocks, and a hit as well, putting together a great fantasy effort.

*

The New York Rangers' top players had a monster night at home against the Ducks. Mika Zibanejad had two goals and two assists, Artemi Panarin had a goal and three assists, Vincent Trocheck had one of each, Kakko and Lafrenière both scored, and Adam Fox had three assists in the team's 6-4 win. As mentioned earlier, with the Kid Line really starting to come into their own, this Rangers team looks incredible offensively night after night. This is a very dangerous team as long as they keep playing in this manner.

Trevor Zegras scored in the loss, giving him three points in three games. John Gibson was pulled after the second period in favour of Anthony Stolarz and the team shared after the game it was due to injury. More will be passed along when it’s available.

*

Despite a late push from Toronto, the Leafs lost at home to Arizona by a 4-2 score. Toronto thought they had tied it up late but had a goal called back on a hand pass. Shayne Gostisbehere, Nick Ritchie, and Christian Fischer all had a goal and an assist in the victory. Gostisbehere now has five points in three games to start the year and is a pending free agent. What he's been able to do offensively on poor Arizona teams is a testament to his ability.

*

Jake DeBrusk had a goal and two assists in Boston's 5-3 win over Florida, just days after it seemed DeBrusk might miss time with an injury. He had five shots and a hit in 18:51 of ice time as he was slotted back on the top line with Patrice Bergeron.

It should be noted that with Ekblad injured, the Panthers used both Forsling on the top PP unit and ran a five-forward unit later in the game with Sam Bennett jumping on the ice. Just keep an eye on the PP usage in their next game, or perhaps some practice info.

*

A lucky bounce off Filip Hronek sealed a 5-4 Los Angeles overtime win in Detroit. A late goal from Oskar Sundqvist, his first of the season, pushed the game to the extra frame but a pass from Philip Danault deflected in off the Red Wings blue liner to give the Kings the win.

David Perron had two goals and an assist in the loss, adding six total shots, a block, a hit, and a couple of penalty minutes. With the injuries the team is enduring early, he'll need to shoulder more of the offensive load, and this was a good start.

*

Kirby Dach scored his first goal in a Montreal uniform, and overtime winner no less, as the Habs beat the Penguins 3-2. Cole Caufield scored late in the third to give us some OT, assisted from Jonathan Drouin, which was his first point since January.

Kaiden Guhle had a pair of assists in nearly 25 minutes of ice time, adding three shots, a block, and three hits. It has been a good start to the season for the young rearguard.

Evgeni Malkin scored twice in the loss.