One big offseason debate in the fantasy hockey community revolved around the Buffalo goaltending situation. The team had Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen in the system, Eric Comrie signed, and prospect Devon Levi now on the roster. Levi showed well at the end of the 2022-23 season, if inconsistent, much like the rest of the team. Levi started the season getting all the starts but he, and the team, have been off to a slow start. That's what made this news interesting:

Granato said Levi is still nursing what is nagging. Benson could be an option tomorrow, be he too is not 100% yet.

— Paul Hamilton (@pham1717) October 23, 2023

A nagging lower-body injury isn't the end of the world, but it'll be interesting to see what happens if Comrie (or UPL) go on a good run in the next week or two.

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The NHL made an announcement with regards to releasing tracking metrics:

Today the NHL announced the launch of the NHL EDGE advanced stats section at https://t.co/yZiPRb8evp, delivering metrics from the League's Puck and Player Tracking system.

This will be really cool. Love getting data like shot speeds, skating speeds, zone time and more.

— Jeff Svoboda (@JacketsInsider) October 23, 2023

I will just say that as someone who uses mostly public (and some private) data constantly, this doesn't seem to be a big deal. There is no telling how much – if at all – that these numbers will help analyze the game. Even something like goalie saves by shot location have been available at hockey stats sites for years. Until they release passing data, or player movement data, I'm not sure if there's much here. For the casual hockey fan, it probably will generate some fun debates.

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The Islanders had some new-ish lines:

#Isles at practice
Lee-Horvat-Barzal
Engvall-Nelson-Palmieri
Holmstrom-Pageau-Wahlstrom
Martin-Cizikas-Clutterbuck
(Fasching, Gauthier extras)
Pelech-Dobson
Romanov-Pulock
Bolduc-Aho
(No Mayfield (lower body))
Sorokin
Varlamov

— Andrew Gross (@AGrossNewsday) October 23, 2023

Oliver Wahlstrom was on the top line over the weekend but he did look a step behind as he keeps working back from his injury. Perhaps a sheltered third-line role is best for now, and it gives Lee some additional fantasy value.

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Some big news on the Andrei Svechnikov front:

Three goalies first on the ice. Aho the first forward to join, and the Svechnikov comes out — *no* yellow jersey.

— Cory Lavalette (@corylav) October 23, 2023

They said he's not ready yet and will need more contact practices. All the same, it's a positive step forward.

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Alex Iafallo has formally joined Winnipeg's top line in the absence of Gabriel Vilardi. That gives Iafallo top-line, top power play minutes in Winnipeg and that means he needs to be rostered in almost any fantasy format.

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Alex Pietrangelo was in a non-contact jersey for Vegas's practice on Monday. He is working his way back from an upper-body injury that has kept him out of the lineup for 10 days and counting.

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Jason Zucker is out week-to-week for the Coyotes. Lawson Crouse got a few spins on the Arizona second line when Zucker was hurt in their game against Anaheim, so he might see a bump in fantasy value.

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Montreal went into Buffalo for the lone game on Monday night and came out with a 3-1 win. Both Tanner Pearson and Brendan Gallagher had a goal and an assist while Alex Newhook had a power play assist on Pearson's power play goal. For Newhook, that makes four points in six games with a week left in October. Last year, he didn't register his fourth point until the week of American Thanksgiving, so it's safe to say he's off to a much better start.

Quietly, Pearson is up to five points in five games, managing 12 shots and 12 hits in those contests. I did not think he'd do much with the Habs but he's been extremely productive to start.

Jeff Skinner scored the lone Sabres goal, a power play tally assisted by Dylan Cozens and Rasmus Dahlin. Dahlin is sitting at a point per game to start the year with six helpers in six outings, totaling 41 shots+hits+blocks. It has been a bad start for Buffalo but a good start for him.

Jake Allen saved 36 of 37 for the win. It was his best start of the year and he's saved 67 of the 70 shots faced in his last two starts. His counterpart, Eric Comrie, allowed three goals on 27 shots in the loss.  

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We are through two weeks of the NHL season and that gives us time to take stock. Each offseason, there are hundreds of players written about in these Ramblings. There are a handful, though, that get more digital ink than others. Every fantasy analyst has their favourite players, for one reason or another, that are always top-of-mind. Let's update 10 players I was targeting in the offseason and their starts to the 2023-24 campaign, both good and bad. As always, data from Frozen Tools, Natural Stat Trick, and AllThreeZones, unless otherwise indicated.

Alexis Lafrenière

One player I thought would benefit a lot from Peter Laviolette being brought in to coach the Rangers was the 2020 first overall pick. He has just two points in five games, registering five shots and two hits in those outings. That really isn't great fantasy production and, as expected, he's still nowhere near the top power play unit. It is not what fantasy players want to see.

Of course, small samples can lead to bad luck, of sorts. Despite being on the ice for five goals at 5-on-5, he has yet to register an assist on any of them. He is not known as a world-class playmaker, but his first three years saw him assist on nearly 30% of 5-on-5 goals. He is probably being short-changed a couple of assists so far and if he has four points in five games, rather than two, this is a different conversation entirely. He is also landing just 35.7% of his shot attempts on net against a three-year average of 57.8%. With no shots on the power play, either, he could have 3-4 extra total shots added. Not a lot, but it's something.

That he and his line are playing so well is what's most important here. If they keep dominating as they have, the points will follow. Little power play time really caps his upside but with the way he and Artemi Panarin are meshing, do not be surprised if Lafrenière goes on a little points bender shortly.

Matt Boldy

My expectation was that Boldy would see a modest rise in ice time because of his growing importance to the team. Add in his natural progression as a young player and I genuinely thought 80 points was a possibility. Being injured, even if it's just for a few weeks, puts that in doubt.

This does give me a chance to talk about Minnesota. This was a team most prognosticators (myself included) had as a playoff team in the West, though outside the elite Vegas/Colorado/Dallas/Edmonton tier. Thus far, they are 2-2-1, which isn't awful, but they are 26^th by shot attempts allowed per minute at 5-on-5, worse than teams like Anaheim and Vancouver. Only two teams have a worse expected goals against per minute. With a schedule of Florida, Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles, and Columbus, they haven't really faced a murderer's row. Getting Boldy and Jared Spurgeon back should help, but there are a lot of improvements needed for this team to be taken seriously as a contender, and that level of shots allowed could be very bad for their goalies and those goalies' fantasy owners.

Mike Matheson

He has just two points (both assists with one on the power play) in four games, but Matheson also has 14 shots, 13 blocks, five hits, and six PIMs. He is averaging 25:49 a night in ice time and hasn't been below 24 minutes in any single game. It never made sense to me why he was constantly being drafted outside the top-30, or even top-40, defencemen when it was pretty obvious this ice time level would be the case. He usually produced well on a per-minute basis and even if that went down on a subpar Montreal team, the expected minutes played would help balance that out. Things might be sketchy in leagues with plus/minus but otherwise, this is about as expected.

Arthur Kaliyev

Starting the season suspended is never what we want to see, but he made good in his first game in the lineup with a pair of points against Winnipeg. He has three points in three games and has skated at least 13:30 in his most recent two efforts. Kaliyev reached that ice time level in just one-quarter of his games last year. His line with Phillip Danault and Trevor Moore has been excellent in their time together, controlling 56% of the shot attempts in their ~30 minutes together. The injury to Viktor Arvidsson was unfortunate, but the silver lining is it a assured a top-9 role for Kaliyev, and the early returns are promising. Until he starts earning more than 14 minutes a game regularly, he won't have fantasy relevance in most one-year leagues, but believers in deeper formats may be getting rewarded.

Travis Konecny

In the early portions, Konecny is tied for sixth in goal scoring across the league, but third on a per-minute basis. That discrepancy is because he's skating under 17 minutes each game on what could be termed the team's second line, though Philadelphia's second and third lines are being treated equally at 5-on-5.

Only two of those five goals have come at even strength so while the 29.4% shooting obviously screams regression, a slight improvement at 5-on-5, or more ice time, could help soften the drop. Even if he ends up at 15% shooting for the season, a drop from last year, his current shot volume (3.4 per game) would mean a 40-goal performance.

There are a lot of uncertainties with the Flyers, namely whether their strong start will persist and whether the power play improves, but Konecny is off to an excellent start. I am very nervous about him skating under 17 minutes a game thus far with Scott Laughton as his center. What to do with him moving forward is a good question because 77 more games at 16:50 a night alongside Laughton would not bode well for fantasy value; certainly not to the level he was at last year and has been so far this year.

Juuso Välimäki  

All offseason, I wrestled with whether it would be Välimäki or Sean Durzi running the top PP unit in Arizona. Late in the offseason, a friend said something to me that kind of clarified things: Why would Arizona trade a second-round pick for Durzi if it wasn't to run the top PP unit? At that point, I adjusted my projections and it moved Durzi up and Välimäki  down. Even then, I thought the incumbent blueliner would see more minutes and provide some fantasy value at a very cheap draft price.

Three points in five games is a good start for Välimäki , but he's under 19 minutes a game, and has just eight combined shots+hits+blocks. He isn't a monster peripherals guy anyway, but there's a large gap between three SHB per game and under 2.0. Following this two-game week, they have a four-game week with Chicago, Anaheim, Montreal, and Winnipeg on the docket. Let's see where he stands in early November, but the results so far have left me far from enthusiastic.

Pavel Zacha

Very quietly, Boston is off to a great 5-0 start. It has been a soft schedule – Chicago, Nashville, the three California teams – but they're not just winning, they're dominating. The issue is the team has scored just 16 goals in those five wins, leaving them well outside the top-10 teams on a per-minute basis. That lack of scoring means one point for Zacha in those five games.

On the bright side, the Boston center is up to 18:32 a night in ice time, easily a career-high, and about what was expected in the offseason. He has factored in just 1 of the 7 goals scored with him on the ice, about 14.2%, against a three-year average of 67%. He really should have 4-5 points by now, so it might be a good time to look to buy low on him. He even has five hits in five games so there's upside to come in banger formats. A rough start but it's showing a lot of promise.

Jacob Markstrom

I really don't want to get into it much, but I was a believer in a rebound season for Markstrom. He does have a .905 save percentage, which is an improvement, but not anywhere near his great 2021-22 year. With Dan Vladar not doing well, either, it can't be very long until Dustin Wolf gets the call from the AHL. The team has three home games this week against the Rangers, Blues, and Oilers (sans McDavid). Markstrom could hold the starting role, but he needs to be better than he has for fantasy owners to be rewarded.

Cam York

We will call this a mixed bag. York is up to 23:19 a night as the expected TOI rise has come to fruition. He and Travis Sanheim have been an excellent pairing so far, locking things down defensively:

The issue is Sanheim has been the one largely tasked with running the team's top PP unit. Not that this is an Edmonton/Dallas-type power play, but top-unit minutes are almost always preferable to secondary ones. He has just one goal and zero assists in five games, with 10 shots, eight blocks, and three hits. The peripherals are fine, but the team is shooting a paltry 3.3% with York on the ice at even strength. Over his first three seasons, the team shot 9.4% with him on the ice at even strength. Once the luck turns around, the assists will come, but his ceiling is capped as long as he remains PP2 (even if they are splitting the PP units somewhat).

Jordan Kyrou

I thought this would be the year Kyrou took another step in the fantasy game, pushing for 90 points as he earns more ice time and is firmly in his prime. Two points in four games isn't awful, but the injury to Pavel Buchnevich took a linemate away from him and the team's top PP unit is generating just 79 shot attempts/60 minutes. For reference, Colorado is generating 72 shot attempts/60 minutes at even strength, so the Blues are leaving a lot to be desired with the man advantage.

That Kyrou is getting 19 minutes a game and averaging a career-high 21.3 shot attempts/60 minutes are all good signs. So is the fact that the team is generating 3.5 expected goals/60 minutes with Kyrou on the ice at even strength, also a career high. Once Kyrou's – and the team's – shooting percentage turns around, the points will flow. A rough start but it should get a lot better moving forward.