Being surprised by an early result is a response to expectations. What a person – in this case yours truly – expected to happen in the first few weeks of the season is directly related to what they were expecting to happen. In that sense, whether this is a surprise to each reader depends on what each reader thought might happen. Perusing this column may make you agree, disagree, or be indifferent with what has happened, but I still want to go over some early performances that have been novel and review what's gone on, and what could happen in the future. As usual, data from our Frozen Tools or Natural Stat Trick.

Patrice Bergeron

As anyone who read my offseason work knows, I was very concerned about how Boston would perform offensively with Brad Marchand and Charlie McAvoy expected to miss significant time to start the year. Add injuries to Matt Grzelcyk and Mike Reilly, with a dash of Taylor Hall missing time at the end of training camp, and it was a huge red flag for me in regards to the fantasy value of Patrice Bergeron. Well, on the season, he's a point-per-game player averaging 3.7 shots on goal per night. He has hit five-year highs in TOI per night, points per 60 minutes, and shot attempt rate. Needless to say, this has been a very successful start to the year for Bergeron, and Marchand could be back very soon:

Brad Marchand is ahead of schedule. Jim Montgomery says he will play before Thanksgiving.

Will not play tomorrow or Friday.

— Fluto Shinzawa (@FlutoShinzawa) October 26, 2022

The sheer amount of shots generated with Bergeron on the ice is absurd and is helping keep his point production high. Some kudos need to go to Pavel Zacha and Jake DeBrusk, but Bergeron really looks timeless at this point. Will he ever have a bad season? Maybe we'll try again in his age-47 campaign.

Boston's power play really hasn't come through in a big way with the top unit just over 7 goals per 60 minutes. If that gets better once the team's stars get healthy, Bergeron might have a monster season on his hands. Just an amazing player.

Kevin Fiala

Last season, the Los Angeles Kings were fourth in expected goals generated per minute at 5-on-5, ranking seventh by shot attempts at the same rate. With Kevin Fiala being added to the mix, my hope was that his impressive Minnesota performance – from 2019-22, Fiala's 5-on-5 goal rate was tied for 13^th in the NHL with Nikolaj Ehlers, ahead of names like Jason Robertson, Leon Draisaitl, and Steven Stamkos, and also top-20 in shot attempts per minute – would complement Los Angeles's new-found offensive prowess. That has not been the case as the team's shot rate has fallen to the middle of the league and Fiala's individual shot attempt rate is 176^th out of 192 qualified forwards. It is less than half of what he did in any of his three Minnesota seasons.

When Fiala is skating with Anze Kopitar, the team generates north of 60 shot attempts per 60 minutes. Of those 60-ish attempts, Fiala is taking fewer than six. In other words, when Fiala and Kopitar are on the ice, Fiala is taking fewer than 10% of the shot attempts. In unrelated news, defencemen Matt Roy and Mikey Anderson have career-high shot rates right now. Might be something for LAK to look into, because this seems not an ideal way to run the offence.

Jesper Bratt

It isn't really a big surprise that Jesper Bratt is faring well to start the year; he was a guy often discussed, positively, in these Ramblings in the offseason. The surprise is just how well he is faring to start the year: tied for the league lead in points (as of Wednesday afternoon), leading the league in assists, doing that skating around 17:30 a night on a team that is 19^th in scoring per 60 minutes. On top of all this, he has just one secondary assist at 5-on-5, so 8/9 points at even strength are goals or primary assists. It has just been an unbelievable start to the year for Bratt, even as the team has struggled at times (particularly in goal).

There are obvious signs of regression here. His individual points percentage (IPP) or the rate at which he's garnering a point when the Devils score with him on the ice is 100%. He was at 83% last year, which is even a bit high but could still be doable. Regardless, even with the regression built in, Bratt is well on his way to superseding point-per-game status this year. What could he do if he were skating 20 minutes a night and not 17:30? I hope we get to find out because this is a superstar taking flight and I'd like to see how he can handle heavier minutes. My guess is: just fine, thank you.

Oliver Bjorkstrand

There are surprising things about Bjorkstrand's start for different reasons. Notably, he has 32 shots on goal in 8 games, averaging four per night. His shot attempt rate (20.3 per 60) is the highest of his career (18.9 in 2019-20) and his individual expected goal rate at 5-on-5 is also a career-high. I thought he'd fare well in Seattle, where the team looked to have improved a lot up front in the offseason, but career-high shot rates was not what I had in mind. He has been a peripheral monster to start the year, even if the hits aren't where we want them.

What is also surprising is he has zero even-strength goals on 25 shots, with his lone tally coming on the power play. For a guy that had a three-year average of 13% shooting, going 25 straight even-strength shots without a goal is a bummer. It has kept his point totals mute, with four points in eight contests.

His 3.1% overall shooting percentage will turn around and when it does, there could be a very significant fantasy season waiting for him. If he's shooting his normal 13%, he has four goals instead of one, is just under a point-per-game, and on a 40-goal pace. If Bjorkstrand keeps shooting, the fantasy returns will come.  

Tage Thompson

Was I wearing blinders? Maybe. Tage Thompson was a player I thought would be a good goal scorer in the league, but it just took him time to get there. He broke out last year with 38 goals in 78 games, shooting 15% and landing over 3.2 shots per game. That shot volume, with better line mates, was what I had envisioned his future to look like. Whether he shot 15% was open for debate, but a high shot rate and 11-12% shooting would mean 30-goal seasons.

It hasn't been that way to start the year as Thompson's shot attempt rate is a four-year low at 15.2 per 60 minutes. He finished last season in the 96^th percentile for shot rate; that has plummeted to the 70^th percentile this season. The interesting part is this: the team's shot rate with him on the ice has fallen 10% from last year but his individual shot attempt rate has fallen 23%. In other words, his loss in shots basically makes up for all of Buffalo's losses in shots with him on the ice. Jeff Skinner's has also fallen, so there are more shots going to non-Skinner and non-Thompson players with them on the ice. This is the Kevin Fiala Problem Part Deux.

We'll see if this turns around. Buffalo has had a strong start but are getting .944 goaltending at 5-on-5. When that dries up, the team's top offensive stars will need to shine.

Cale Makar

On the topic of declining shot rates, whew baby. Cale Makar's shot attempt rate in all situations has fallen 15% from last year. The drop has come from the power play, where Makar's shot attempt rate (17.6 per 60 minutes) is down nearly 28% from his first three seasons in the league. This has been a function of the team's shot attempt rate on the power play falling off a cliff – north of 120 per 60 minutes in his previous two years and under 88 per 60 minutes this year. The team's PP is still scoring a lot – by far first in the league in goal rate – so they probably don't care a whole lot, but I imagine that Makar's fantasy owners care that he's just over two shots on goal per night.

Patience is needed here. Whether his shot rate improves to where it was last year is one thing, but his shots on goal per game will get better: he landed 47% of his shot attempts on goal, at all strengths, in his first three seasons, a number that sits at 38.4% this year. Once that small-sample number turns around, he should easily be over 2.5 shots per game. Whether he gets north of 3.0 is an open question, though.

Evan Bouchard

I should have seen this coming. Once Jay Woodcroft took over last season, Evan Bouchard's ice time fell from 21:41 a night to 17:33 a night. My assumption was that Bouchard's talent would force the coach's hand and push him up the depth chart in 2022-23. That has definitely not happened as Bouchard sits at 18:09 per game, with zero goals and two assists in six contests.

On the bright side, the peripherals are very stout. He has 20 shots on goal and 16 hits in those six games. Though he has the opposite of Makar's problems with shot attempts/shots on goal as he's landing 71% of his shot attempts on target, he's still shooting a lot. There should be concern about his shots/game dropping once that 71% normalizes (he was 50% a year ago) but still managing 2.5 shots per game with 18 minutes a night is a good performance.

Jake Allen

One thought I've had a lot over the last few years regarding Jake Allen's performance is that he's gotten better with age. This doesn't seem to be hyperbole as Evolving Hockey has him with positive Goals Saved Above Expected in three of his last four seasons, including 2021-22. He had just one positive season in this regard in his first five full years in the league. Despite Montreal being 30^th in expected goals against per 60 this year, they are 14^th in actual goals allowed. He has been great to start the year, a continuation of his stellar play from a year ago on a very bad Habs team.

His performance is important for this young team. The future of this team that is currently in the lineup – Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Kirby Dach, Kaiden Guhle, Jordan Harris, Juraj Slafkovsky – are all age-23 or younger. Those six players have fewer than 500 NHL games between them. Mistakes will be made and knowing Allen can bail them out is a good thing for them. If he can keep up this level of play, Allen will be a very useful fantasy asset and likely return good value on his draft position.

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Both Tom Wilson and Nicklas Backstrom were doing light skating for the Capitals:

Tom Wilson (ACL surgery) and Nicklas Backstrom (hip resurfacing surgery) are skating for the first time since their respective injuries today (just briefly).

They won't skate again for another few days. Not ready to truly resume skating. All part of their rehab process.

— Samantha Pell (@SamanthaJPell) October 26, 2022

As mentioned, this is still part of the rehab and doesn't indicate anything close to an imminent return. That they're both skating is a good sign, though, and perhaps he can return with meaningful time left in the regular season. It all depends how he recovers to his hip surgery. The team is 4-3, which isn't bad, but is bottom-5 in the league in expected goal share. They could be in trouble once their league-high 12.3% 5-on-5 shooting comes down and the reinforcements would be welcome.

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Nicolas Beaudin, Chicago's first-round pick in 2018, was traded to Montreal:

#Blackhawks trade defenseman Nicolas Beaudin to Montreal for forward Cameron Hillis, who will report to AHL's Rockford IceHogs.

— Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) October 26, 2022

Cam Hillis is a 22-year-old third rounder from 2018 who has split time between the AHL and ECHL over the last couple years. With Montreal's depth up front, non-elite forward prospects are expendable, and they take a shot in getting Beaudin to the level some had hoped for him.

Beaudin played just 22 games with the Blackhawks, failing to crack the roster in 2022-23. In his 2017-18 draft year in the QMJHL, he tied Noah Dobson for second in points among defencemen with 69. That never really translated to success in the AHL, posting 42 points in 137 games. Further to that, 10 of his points came in 9 games during that COVID 2021 year when AHL depth was thinned out. So, he had 32 points in his other 128 games. Not great.

Whether he becomes an NHL regular is open for debate, but these are the types of reclamation projects a rebuilding team like Montreal needs, particularly on the blue line. He was a very good puck-mover – at least our Dobber Prospects team thought so – early in his career so getting that touch back is important. If he can develop well, there will be ample opportunity for him to reach the NHL on a roster that needs blue-line help.

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Ottawa Senators fans and fantasy owners got very bad news regarding Josh Norris:

D.J. Smith says there is no timeline yet on Josh Norris. But it's going to be "long-term".

They are still debating surgery option.

Decision will be made in the next few days, but Smith sounds like Ottawa will be fortunate to have Norris return at some point this season.

— Ian Mendes (@ian_mendes) October 26, 2022

That the team just hopes he can make it back this season is an indication of how serious this is. The immediate replacement is Derick Brassard, obviously, but whether that's still the replacement in January is a whole other question. I can't help but wonder whether we see Shane Pinto see an increased role sooner rather than later.

This is also a tough break for Claude Giroux fantasy owners. He loses a goal scorer on his even-strength line and is the odd-man out on the power play up front, at least for now.