Kris Letang missed Tuesday night's game for Pittsburgh with what the team said was an illness. He wasn't on the ice for practice on Wednesday and missing that kind of time with an illness made me think he had whatever is going on with Aleksander Barkov.

Unfortunately, it seems a lot more serious than that:

Kris Letang is out indefinitely after suffering a stroke on Monday.

Letang is not experiencing any lasting effects of the stroke and will continue to undergo a series of tests over the next week. https://t.co/dQeKuhrBH2

— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) November 30, 2022

As the team said, there doesn't seem to be lasting effects here which is clearly good news. There will be a lot more tests and planning that need to be done before a return to the ice is even thinkable. Frank Seravalli reminded everyone that Letang also had a stroke back in 2014 and that forced him to miss over two months of the regular season. That situation does not mean the same will happen with this one, and GM Ron Hextall said this one was much less severe than the one back in 2014. It is scary to see this happen in a person that is still so young.

All the best to Letang, his family, and his friends as he recovers.

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Goaltending in the NHL can be very cruel. Cal Petersen posted a very quality .916 save percentage across three seasons over 50 starts and signed a three-year extension in the summer of 2021. He then had a very poor 2021-22 season and has been even worse in 2022-23. That all led to this:

Placed on NHL waivers today: Cal Petersen (LA).

— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) November 30, 2022

This isn't to say he's done with Los Angeles, but it sure seems he won't be back anytime soon. The net is Jonathan Quick's for now. For my money, the team still needs help in goal but finding it at this time in the season is unlikely.

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Patrik Laine had returned to the ice when we provided an update on his injury status on Tuesday. We got another update on the scoring winger Wednesday, and it's a very positive one for fantasy owners and Blue Jackets fans alike:

Told #CBJ Patrik Laine (ankle) is likely to return to practice today, with an outside shot he returns to the lineup on Friday in Winnipeg, his former club.

Laine has played in only eight games so far this season. He suffered a sprained ankle at the end of a Nov. 12 loss to #NYI.

— Aaron Portzline (@Aportzline) November 30, 2022

One thing that surprised me when looking at Columbus power play numbers was just how good they have been. For the month of November, they are second to only Dallas in goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-4. That is very good proficiency but one small problem: they're drawing the fewest power plays per game of any team in the league this year. So, despite being second in goals per minute over the last four-plus weeks, they are managing a PP goal every 1.6 games. To put that into a bit of perspective, Detroit is 18^th in goals per minute at 5-on-4, roughly one fewer goal every 15 minutes of PP time than Columbus. However, because they're actually drawing penalties, they're scoring a PP goal every 1.3 games in that span. This has nothing to do with Laine, really, but it was just a little tangent that felt necessary.

The fantasy hockey game is about raw totals. It is about having more stats than your league mates and nothing more. While we would like a perfect marriage of both high efficiency and lots of ice time, it rarely works that way. It is why that, despite Columbus's recent power-play resurgence, we should have a little reticence about the future of their production. Even as the goal-scoring rate sits among the best in the league, Johnny Gaudreau has just four PPPs in those 11 contests. That is a good PPP rate over a full season, of that there's no doubt, but that it takes elite-tier efficiency to do it isn't a good sign. Until the team starts drawing more opportunities, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

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Robert Thomas was back at practice on Wednesday after missing St. Louis's last game, skating on his usual line with Pavel Buchnevich and Vladimir Tarasenko. He had 12 points in 10 games before missing that last contest, so he's turned his production around as the team started winning some more games.

On this topic, it's a wonder if Buchnevich is fully healthy right now. He missed time earlier in the year and has seemed normal, but the shot rate has not been good. He is currently sitting with a three-year low in shots per game even as his ice time is consistent with the prior two seasons. His shot attempt rate is down a bit from last year and the culprit seems to be missing the net too much, but could that also be related to some lingering issue? This is just a bit of conjecture in an attempt to look for reasons why his shot rate is a bit worrisome right now.

St. Louis is not a team that typically takes a lot of shots, opting to focus on quality way more than quantity. That approach has worked well for a few years, but it can also lead to spells like Buchnevich is enduring from a shot perspective. At the least, his point production is still there and that's good news for fantasy owners.

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The Stars signed Roope Hintz a couple days ago to a huge eight-year extension with an AAV near $8.5M a season. Alex MacLean wrote a bit about this and his own salary projections in yesterday's Ramblings, so go check that out.

In all honesty, Dallas has been one of my favourite Western Conference teams to watch for years now, going back to the Benneguins heyday 5-6 years ago. Part of it was being invested in them being a very up-tempo, high-paced team for a few years, part of it was enjoying watching John Klingberg in his prime, and part of it was being invested in Valeri Nichushkin as a prospect. After a couple of lean regular seasons, Hintz, Jason Robertson, Miro Heiskanen, and Jake Oettinger have my attention again.

In looking through some scoring chance data this season from Corey Sznajder's Patreon, this came across my screen: Hintz is fifth among forwards this year in scoring chance contributions (individual scoring chances plus assists on teammate scoring chances) per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. He trails only Jack Hughes, Jake Guentzel, Brady Tkachuk, Nathan MacKinnon on a per-minute basis. We are not looking at a huge sample and that's something to note. What should also be noted that by this same measure last year, in a sample of over 400 minutes, he was 14^th among forwards in the NHL. This is the list of players ranked above him: Auston Matthews, Jack Hughes, Mitch Marner, Nathan MacKinnon, Johnny Gaudreau, Vladimir Tarasenko, Robert Thomas, Connor McDavid, Aleksander Barkov, Brayden Point, Jesper Bratt, Kevin Fiala, and Michael Bunting. The only player that isn't a favourable comparison is Bunting and he skated most of the season on the league's best even-strength line with two guys in the top-3 by this stat. In other words, a trend is building. In looking at the last two years as a whole, Hintz climbs into the top-10. (Jason Robertson is inside the top-20, by the by.)

He is just shy of a point-per-game player over the last three seasons (139 points in 143 games) and the only knock might be that he doesn't shoot a lot. It seems to me that he's just a tremendous offensive talent and he's good defensively to boot. This seems like a real good deal for the Stars.

For cap league owners, this contract is fine. Supposing Hintz can be a 30-goal/85-point/25 PPP/200-shot/80-hit guy, that is very playable in cap formats. The only issue might come in cap leagues where faceoff wins matter. He switches off a lot with Joe Pavelski and that means maybe a few hundred FOWs a year for Hintz. He lags far behind other centres in this price range in that regard. If FOWs aren't a stat in your league, there's not much need for concern here. Not only do he and Jason Robertson make a phenomenal top-line duo, but the young prospects are starting to make an impact. Hintz should be fine at his price for a few years, at least.

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Mitch Marner extended his point streak to 18 games (7-17-24) with an empty net goal as the Toronto Maple Leafs took a 3-1 win at home against San Jose. The Sharks looked a little lifeless on the second of a road back-to-back, though credit to the Leafs' team defence in the game, too.

Auston Matthews also scored, his 12^th of the season, and third straight game with a tally. It was his only shot of the game so he's just over four a night, a big decline from last year. He is still pacing for an excellent season, though, especially with the hits he's added to his profile.

Ilya Samsonov returned from injury and saved 23 of 24 shots faced for the win.

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Ottawa's shooting woes continue as they scored just once on 35 shots against New York's Jaroslav Halak in the 3-1 loss. Credit to Halak for a good game but this is getting ridiculous for the Sens: the finish the month of November with 515 shots in 14 games, or 36.8 per game. They scored just 38 goals, or 7.7% shooting. At just 5-on-5, they shot 5.6%. It has been quite the scene, man.

Chris Kreider scored for the Rangers, adding four more shots and three hits to his season's total. He now has five goals in his last five games. Ryan Lindgren had three assists, managing three blocks to go with it. With eight assists on the year, he's well on his way to soaring past the 11 he had last year in 78 games.

Shane Pinto scored in the loss, his first goal in nine games.

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Buffalo managed to blow a three-goal third-period lead to Detroit and found themselves at 4-4 going into overtime. Detroit's third and fourth goals were scored by Oskar Sundqivst, who found himself skating with Andrew Copp at even strength. Maybe this is what's needed to get Copp's season going, as he assisted on both goals.

Dylan Cozens scored twice for the Sabres, giving him four goals in four games and 18 points on the year. It looks as if the breakout season is underway for him.