I am very much so a believer in the Pittsburgh Penguins this year. Most of my fantasy teams reflect that perception even pre-draft, and the results have already been born out in a small sample size. Evgeni Malkin looks engaged and dangerous, Sidney Crosby looks as timeless as always, and having a lot more depth down the lineup is going to make a huge difference throughout the year. A healthy Tristan Jarry is going to be great value, and once Erik Karlsson really settles in the sky is the limit.

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On the other end of Pennsylvania the Flyers dominated the Canucks. Morgan Frost was the latest young player to sit, and on top of what Dobber mentioned on Monday about the Flyers sitting their youth, we have to be ready for Frost to sit a few more times as well. There is some history with him having been a common healthy scratch last season under John Tortorella as well.

Owen Tippett was bumped up from the third line to the "first" one. Generally, the Flyers' top line is whichever one Sean Couturier is on, but the team has a designated fourth line, and then three other fairly interchangeable lines making up their top-nine. He has had a slow start, but I'm still a believer that he is at least getting over 50 points this year. He can be a streaky player, so patience is necessary. With a season-high four shots last night he's doing his best to try and get on the scoresheet.

Travis Konecny kept up his hot start to the season, adding an assist and diversifying his boxscore presence with 12 penalty minutes as well. He had 77 PIMs each of the last two seasons, so he's no stranger to a few big PIM games.

Jumping back to Sean, it's really nice to see this from Couturier – especially as it wasn't even a sure thing that he would be playing last night due to some kind of undisclosed minor injury.

Coots, there it is! 🔥

Sean scores his first goal since December 10th, 2021. pic.twitter.com/hgTCZtkFHw

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 17, 2023

Thatcher Demko made 40 stops (some of them highlight worthy), but took the loss anyways because his team just couldn't do enough in front of that magnificent performance.

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TRADE

To Vancouver #Canucks
D Mark Friedman
F Ty Glover

To Pittsburgh #LetsGoPens
D Jack Rathbone
F Karel Plasekhttps://t.co/j0fvxpaTgO

— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) October 17, 2023

There was a minor trade yesterday, where Pittsburgh and Vancouver swapped some depth pieces. Mark Friedman looks like he could be in line for a few regular minutes now. Last night Noah Juulsen played only nine minutes, and would likely be the one replaced in the lineup. In limited minutes for Pittsburgh last year he was putting up 1.5 shots, two hits, and one blocks per game.

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The Oilers meanwhile were very happy to not be playing the Canucks and Thatcher Demko today, and after a disappointing two losses to start the season, absolutely seam-rolled the Predators back into fossils.

Quick hits on some numbers for the Oilers last night:

-Four points each for Leon Draisaitl and Zach Hyman

-Draisaitl scored both goals as the Oilers went two-for-two on the power play

-Six goals for the Oilers, and only seven skaters notched points

–Connor Brown went pointless down in the bottom-six

Juuse Saros was pulled after the first period where he allowed four goals on 11 shots. It's tough to blame him too much, as the team in front of him put up about as much resistance as whipped cream.  Kevin Lankinen didn't fare too much better in relief here, and his appearance and the rest Saros gets may even push back when Lankinen gets his first start of the year.

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Roope Hintz is back on the ice and notched an assist last night. As good as he may be, he's not someone I have on any of my teams because I haven't wanted to deal with the game-time-decision headache. He's an excellent player, but someone that makes things very difficult for fantasy lineups. While he is in the lineup today, see if you can make a trade for someone like Tim Stutzle, Brayden Point, Sebastian Aho (though he didn't play in last night's game because of an upper-body-injury, so wait for an update there first), etc. Your season-long sanity will take a win, even if the per-game production is a push.

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ICYMI We have released our new app for @GoaliePost for iOS and Android (free)
✅Starting goalie notifications
✅Goalie Ramblings
✅Projected saves graph for each goalie for upcoming game
✅Projected win odds

Please rate 5⭐ https://t.co/Yq4sQm36vr #FantasyHockey

— Dobber (@DobberHockey) August 30, 2023

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Devon Levi has thus far started all three games for the Sabres, and earned his first win in an OT game against the Lightning. He hasn't looked amazing yet, but it is a long season and Levi is still only a 21-year-old rookie.

Eric Comrie and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen have rotated as the backup, with Comrie getting the first game. Buffalo's first back-to-back is October 23^rd/24^th, so at the latest we should see another goalie then. That being said, I would expect Levi to not be over-worked, especially in the early-going, so the out-of-conference game tomorrow against Calgary might be when we see our first change in the goalie rotation.

Note for fantasy GMs trying to predict who is starting when (especially when the coach is a bit tight-lipped) the main thing to note is that often the backup will get the weaker team on a back-to-back. However, one other pattern I have noted, is that the weaker goalie will often be given the out-of-conference team, meaning a loss would just be a two-point different in the standings instead of a possible four-point-difference for a conference rival.

Without Andrei Vasilevskiy the Lightning really might not be a playoff team, and if they're not in a playoff spot by American Thanksgiving (the earliest we might see Vas return), then it is going to be very tough for them to make that jump.

Rasmus Dahlin's usual defence partner Mattias Samuelsson left the game in the third period. Connor Clifton played most with Dahlin in Samuelsson's absence, and could see a slight uptick on the offensive side of the puck if the latter misses any time. 

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"(I won't) play them if they take penalties." – Lindy Ruff

Tonight's #NJDevils takeaways vs. Panthers:
-Ruff Frustrated
-Slow starts continue
-Meier benched
-& morehttps://t.co/lu302rZ9kI

— James Nichols (@JamesNicholsNHL) October 17, 2023

For any of you in leagues that count PIMs, expect the numbers from most of your Devils players to drop a bit.

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P.L. Dubois made his return to Winnipeg, playing his first game against the Jets since this summer's trade to the Kings. He scored the opening goal in a blowout game for his first as a King. It was the third line of Trevor Moore, Arthur Kaliyev, and Phillip Danault that did most of the damage, with seven points between the trio. It was Kaliyev's first game of the season after serving a two-game suspension. His future is very bright, even though he won't keep up the 164-point-pace.

The main piece of the return in the Dubois trade, Gabe Vilardi, unfortunately left the game in the first period after getting twisted up in the corner. He did not put any weight on the leg as he left the ice. Keep an eye out for today's Injury Ward article to see if there are any updates on his status and timeline.

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Ducks' practice lines today:

Zegras-Carlsson-Terry
Vatrano-McTavish-Strome
Henrique-Groulx-Silfverberg
Johnston/Jones-Carrick-Leason

Fowler-Gudas
Mintyukov-Lyubushkin
Vaakanainen/Luneau rotating with LaCombe

Jamie Drysdale is not on the ice today.

Gibson-Dostál#FlyTogether

— Derek Lee (@Derek_Lee27) October 17, 2023

Excellent deployment for Leo Carlsson being flanked by Trevor Zegras and Troy Terry, with Carlsson looking like he may be healthy enough to return to the lineup very soon.

No update at the time of writing as to why Drysdale was not on the ice. Hopefully it's just a maintenance day, as he has been a solid fantasy player through the first two games.

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In what may have been Marc-Andre Fleury's start in Montreal, he spun a vintage performance, including a huge windmill save. At the end of the game he came out for a full curtain call as well.

Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello each had three points for the Wild, and they each now have five points through the first three games. Kaprizov looks primed to jump back over 100 points again, and if Zucc keeps playing like this he may coast past last season's 70-point-pace as well.

Joel Eriksson Ek also had himself a huge night with two goals, 16 PIMs, four shots, and three hits.

The Canadiens looked completely dis-jointed on the power play last night. If they can't get that going, then it really hampers the upside of some of their offensive players. Cole Caufield for example may end up with under 10 goals with the man-advantage instead of the 15 or so that he might otherwise be able to manage.

In the meantime, with Kirby Dach out for the rest of the year, as Mike outlined yesterday, Raphael Harvey-Pinard is the immediate beneficiary as he jumps from the bottom-six all the way to the top-line. Last night he had an empty 13 minutes though, while Josh Anderson shifted down to fill Dach's spot on the second line, and while he didn't bring the offence, the 16 PIMs and five hits will certainly make some fantasy managers happy.

Kaiden Guhle also left the game in the second period and did not return. He has one point, seven shots, five hits, and eight blocks through two-and-a-half games now. Worth a look in deeper multi-category leagues once he's back to full health.

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In one of the late games, there was a very notable line change. Jonathan Drouin was bumped down to the second line, as the Avs loaded up the top line with Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Valeri Nichushkin. He went pointless with two shots, and a season-low 11 minutes of ice time.

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San Jose and Carolina combined to score six special-teams goals on the night in a 6-3 Hurricanes win. The Canes are really showing that all of their defencemen can remain fantasy relevant despite the over-saturation.

Frederik Andersen left the game six minutes in after being hit in the mask with a shot. Antti Raanta finished the game an earned the win. We could see Pyotr Kochetkov up in the NHL again very soon as well as a result of Andersen possibly missing some time.

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See you next Wednesday! You can find me on Twitter/X here, or BlueSky here if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.