We are a couple weeks into the full NHL season and the injuries are starting to pile up across the league. Aaron Ekblad, Nikolaj Ehlers, and Tyler Bertuzzi, just to name a few notable fantasy options, have already hit the IR and will be out for lengthy, if varied, timelines. Ottawa has started to endure their own as Josh Norris is expected to miss at least a couple weeks with a shoulder injury suffered over the weekend. This is how they lined up without him:

Sens morning skate lines for Monday.

Tkachuk Stützle Batherson
DeBrincat Brassard Giroux
Motte Pinto Joseph
Kelly Kastelic Watson
xxxx Gambrell xxxx

Chabot Zub
Sanderson Hamonic
Brannstrom Holden
xxxx Zaitsev

— TSN 1200 (@TSN1200) October 24, 2022

Your eyes do not deceive you, that is Derick Brassard lining up at 2C, where he started their home matchup against Dallas on Monday night. Brassard was signed just before the season for depth down the middle but played his first game of the year yesterday. I'm sure there were a lot of fantasy owners pining for Shane Pinto to get moved up, but it seems the team likes him in that third-line role, which is often used as a shutdown trio.

We'll see how long this lasts. Maybe Brassard does stay there until Norris returns but it's hard to see him playing 18 minutes a night at this stage of his career. He hasn't averaged over 15 minutes of TOI/game over a full season since 2017-18.

Even without Josh Norris, Ottawa played a very good home game against a solid Dallas team and skated away with a 4-2 win. Brassard scored the insurance marker, skating a little over 16 minutes. He stayed in his second line spot all game long. Brady Tkachuk had a goal and an assist, with two shots, two PIMs, and two hits. He is now up to 10 points in this early portion of the season.

Tyler Seguin had an assist on Wyatt Johnston's goal for the Stars, allowing Seguin to maintain his point-per-game start to the year.

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We have to wonder if Brad Marchand is starting to get close:

Prax lines:

Zacha-Bergeron-DeBrusk
Hall-Krejci-Pastrnak
Frederic-Coyle-Smith
Foligno-Nosek-Greer
Marchand-Studnicka-Lauko

Lindholm-Grzelcyk
Forbort-Clifton
Zboril-Reilly
Carlo-Stralman
McAvoy (non-contact)

Swayman
Ullmark

— Fluto Shinzawa (@FlutoShinzawa) October 24, 2022

Skating on the fifth line in practice is at least a good sign he's starting to get back into the swing of things. He has also been seen doing some power-play work, which is always a positive for players returning from injury. His timeline, at least as of September, seemed to be sometime around American Thanksgiving, which is a month from now. Having such serious hip surgery, combined with the team's 5-1 start to the year, means there's no rush to get him back ASAP. We'll await further updates but there continue to be good signs of progress.

I'm still hesitant to assume Marchand will be the Marchand we've watched for years coming off the hip surgeries, but time will tell here. Maybe he gets all the recovery time needed and can really hit the ice flying.

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Dylan Strome was moved back to the top line in Washington, playing between Alex Ovechkin and Conor Sheary. He has been off to a solid start to the season with four points in six games, but three of those have come on the PP. He has just one 5v5 point, as the team is generating just 1.84 expected goals per 60 minutes with him on the ice (a career-low for him). The Caps went into Monday night's game in New Jersey with the 28^th-ranked offense by expected goals at 5-on-5 (and mid-pack by actual goals). They need more from Strome at 5-on-5 offensively, and we'll see if the move next to Ovechkin helps.

Connor McMichael was once again scratched, as he's been out of the lineup for 6 of 7 Washington games this year. Despite the injuries and underperformance elsewhere, he just can't get regular minutes. An intrepid NHL GM would make a phone call to see if the team may be ready to part with him.

Washington ended up winning their game on Monday night by a 6-3 score. On the day MacKenzie Blackwood was named the third star of last week, he gave up five goals on 18 shots and was pulled after the second period for Vitek Vanecek, who let in one goal on four shots. That is a combined six goals against on 22 shots. By my math, the Devils goaltenders now have a combined .844 save percentage this season. It's not great.

This isn't to absolve the Devils skaters, who left the goalies out to dry on a couple goals, but .844 is not going to cut it by any stretch. Not sure where they go from here other than just ride out the storm.

Strome had a pair of assists in this game while Alex Ovechkin scored on the power play, totaling five shots and four hits. Jesper Bratt scored his first of the year for New Jersey in the loss.

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Filip Chytil looks to have a week-long injury:  

Rangers say Filip Chytil will miss at least a week, minimum four games. #NYR

— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) October 24, 2022

Beat writer Larry Brooks would later say it's believed to be a concussion but I haven't been able to find a confirmation from the team (not what we'd get one). This is a bad break for a guy who really took a big stride forward in the playoffs last year and was continuing that in the early parts of this season. It leaves them a bit bare in the bottom-6, with Alexis Lafrenière staying in the top-6 mix but Vitali Kravtsov just returning and heading to the third line. He will need to really start making good on his promise if Chytil's injury keeps him out any longer than the week that the team is expecting.

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Rasmus Dahlin was the first star of the week in the NHL:  

⭐️ HE'S A STAR ⭐️

Rasmus Dahlin is the NHL's first star of the week!https://t.co/SbXlC4Jnbc | #LetsGoBuffalo pic.twitter.com/BXYJXbln1k

— Buffalo Sabres (@BuffaloSabres) October 24, 2022

Dahlin has scored in all five of Buffalo's game, has eight points, has 18 total shots, and a combined 20 hits/blocks. It has just been a superlative start for him and the team, as he leads the NHL's blue liners in points and the team has four wins in five games.

I was going through Natural Stat Trick and found something pretty funny: Dahlin leads defensemen in all-situations individual expected goals per 60 minutes at 0.96 with the next-closest at 0.8. Across the league, it's slightly higher than names like Patrick Kane, Vladimir Tarasenko, Nikita Kucherov, and Carter Verhaeghe (yes, all forwards). Dahlin has really been getting good looks at the net though his shooting percentage is still going to crash. I just thought it was interesting he was actually getting so many good chances.

It just really looks like Dahlin is coming into his own as a top-end #1 rearguard. We need more than five games but the performances from him, goals aside, have looked impressive night in and night out.

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Denis Gurianov was healthy scratched for Dallas on Monday night. Jacob Peterson took his spot on the second line with Tyler Seguin and Mason Marchment.

It has been a real rocky path for Gurianov in the NHL. His first full season saw him score 20 goals in 64 games skating under 13 minutes a night. It looked like he was going to be a big piece of this team moving forward. However, as pointed out by a lot of beat writers and coach Pete DeBoer, the consistency is the problem:

Pete DeBoer on the message to Denis Gurianov. pic.twitter.com/I16LvOe4cV

— Matthew DeFranks (@MDeFranks) October 24, 2022

Unless you're an upper-echelon player, a veteran – and Gurianov is 25 years old now – cannot take off shifts, plural, at a time, let alone games. He does have good offensive upside, but it really looks as if his days in Dallas are numbered unless he finds another gear and can stay at that gear most of the time.

Whether Gurianov ever becomes an NHL regular is an open question but at this point, he probably needs a fresh start somewhere else.

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Both Pavel Buchnevich and Brandon Saad were out of the lineup with injury for St. Louis on Monday. With David Perron moving on in the offseason, this team is missing a lot of winger talent, even with guys like Jordan Kyrou and Vladimir Tarasenko in the mix. It also thins out their depth as Brayden Schenn and Ivan Barbashev are moved into the top-6.

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We got some brand-new Minnesota lines:

#mnwild lines

Kaprizov-Gaudreau-Zuccarello
Foligno-Rossi-Boldy
Duhaime-Eriksson Ek-Hartman
Jost-Steel-Dewar/Shaw

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) October 24, 2022

It has been a poor start for the Wild, going 1-3-1 and ranking 28^th in the NHL by expected goal share. The loss of Kevin Fiala made me nervous for Matt Boldy, but Boldy has been one of the few problems on this team. Rather, the Joel Eriksson Ek checking line has looked very beatable early this season and the top line has had a tough time scoring at 5-on-5. The strength of this Minnesota team a year ago was an elite scoring top line with one of, if not the, best checking lines in the league. Missing Jordan Greenway for most of the year hasn't helped but it shouldn't be this bad either. This is a team that is well under the cap because of buyout penalties but they're not supposed to be bad, and certainly not this poor.

Lastly, they need more out of their goaltending. While the team hasn't been good as a whole, they were last in the league in 5-on-5 save percentage going into Monday night's action. Unless that significantly improves, it probably doesn't matter if the skaters turn their season around.

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We had a slew of Canucks injury updates:

Hughes and Dermott are week-to-week.
Stillman and Boeser are day-to-day.

As confirmed by Coach Bruce Boudreau at morning media.

— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) October 24, 2022

To add to this, Brock Boeser is day-to-day and missed Monday night's contest.

Like Minnesota, goaltending has been a big issue for the Canucks, but it's more on the penalty kill where the team's PKSV% is an awful .619. That will improve, a lot, but if they remain at the bottom of the league in this regard, it's going to lead to more ugly nights like we've seen already.

On the bright side, Elias Pettersson is playing as well as he ever has and that makes the team worth watching every night regardless.

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