It was a successful first effort for the NHL with its Frozen Frenzy on Tuesday night. Despite some hiccups in Columbus, or with a couple production issues, it seemed to have gone off without a hitch. It would have been nice if they hadn't scheduled it for the first day of the NBA season but as with all things in the NHL, baby steps. Hopefully they do it again next year on a Saturday, even if it's after the NFL/college football seasons end.

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Carolina had the same lines at practice they did on Tuesday night:

The #Canes at practice:

Aho – Teravainen – Jarvis
Bunting – Kotkaniemi – Necas
Martinook – Staal – Fast
Svechnikov – Drury – Noesen (Lemieux)

Slavin – Burns
Skjei – DeAngelo
Orlov – Chatfield (Coghlan)

All three goalies are on the ice. pic.twitter.com/3e604DbQJk

— Walt Ruff (@WaltRuff) October 25, 2023

Having Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen split center duties (though Teuvo took the faceoffs in that game) is an interesting wrinkle to their lineup. I wonder if this is just to alleviate the workload Aho has while returning from injury. The issues with this team are not at the center position.

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Jack Roslovic had new linemates in practice:

#CBJ forward lines today

Gaudreau-Jenner-Roslovic
Texier-Fantilli-Bemstrom
Marchenko-Sillinger-Danforth
Voronkov-Kuraly-Olivier

— Jeff Svoboda (@JacketsInsider) October 25, 2023

It makes sense the Jackets are trying new things with Patrik Laine out and the team still not playing up to their expectations. Praise has been effusive for Roslovic so far this season so maybe he can make something out of this opportunity.

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Despite scoring four goals in 5:30 during the second period, New Jersey lost to Washington by a 6-4 margin. Devils goaltending allowed five goals on 24 shots and that could be a glimpse into the future of this team as the netminders struggle to keep an elite roster afloat.

Dyaln Strome had a pair of goals for the Caps, and he now has four goals in six games on the season. Alex Ovechkin had a goal (EN) and an assist, registering four shots and a hit in the win. He now has points in four straight games after a very poor start to his season. John Carlson had a power play assist and now has points in five straight outings.

Tyler Toffoli (2+1) had a three-point night for the Devils, as did Jack Hughes (0+3), who added four shots in his 21-plus minutes of ice time. Hughes now has 17 points in six games to start the year, which seems pretty good, I think.

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There was only one game last night so let's dig into some stats for the season. My last Ramblings covered players I was personally high on in the offseason and how their starts have gone. Today will focus on surprises.

What constitutes a surprise in fantasy will vary from person to person. I am surprised that Brandon Hagel has lost his 5-on-5 and power play role, but others may not be. This is strictly from my perspective, which will be different from what others have. Please keep that in mind.

Alright, let's get to some shocking starts. We will exclude the very obvious guys, namely the ones in Detroit.

Travis Sanheim

That Philadelphia would probably be better if Sean Couturier and Cam Atkinson were healthy, along with younger guys like Bobby Brink and Tyson Foerster making an impact, was believable. What was hard to envision was Sanheim looking like the defenceman he was 4-5 years ago, and not the guy he'd been for a few years now, while skating heavy minutes. The team is controlling nearly 57% of the shot attempts and 65% of the expected goals with him on the ice at 5-on-5 as he and Cam York have formed a great top pair for the team. That the Flyers are shooting ~3% with them on the ice is why their actual results aren't much better. Once that regresses positively, the points (and goal differential) will follow.

It isn't the schedule, either. Sure, games against Columbus, Ottawa, and Vancouver help, but they've also faced Edmonton, Dallas, and Vegas, the latter two one-goal losses on the road. Sanheim's blocks, hits, and shot attempts per minute are all career-best marks (so far), and he's skating nearly 26 minutes a night with five points in six games. If that's what happens when he's getting unlucky, there could be a big improvement coming in the next 70-some games.  

Joseph Woll

This isn't a huge surprise, necessarily, as Woll is one of the late-round goalies I was targeting in drafts. There is a difference, however, between "I think he could steal starts from Ilya Samsonov" to "he has one of the top save percentages in the NHL through two weeks".

Of course, three games mean nothing for any player's future, and that goes double for goalies. Woll is now up to a .932 save percentage in 14 regular season games, a .915 in four playoff games, and improved save percentages in four straight AHL seasons, finishing with a .927 last year. Samsonov has had immense struggles to start his season, allowing 14 goals on just 83 shots. Toronto does not have a back-to-back situation for a couple more weeks and it'll be interesting to see how the Leafs handle their goalies in the meantime. They won't give any netminder Juuse Saros-like workloads, but it can't be long until Woll is the 1A in their 1A/1B situation if things keep going as they are.  

Trevor Moore

Last year, Moore had five goals in the team's first 20 games, and he only got there thanks to a hat trick against Edmonton. This year, Moore has five goals in Los Angeles's first six contests. It has been a scorching start for the depth Kings forward and speaks to why fantasy owners love shot volume: whenever the pucks start going in for a high-volume/low-percentage player like Moore, the goal tally starts soaring.

No, he won't keep shooting 30% or more, or even 20%, but this could shape up as a career year for him. Arthur Kaliyev has fit in seamlessly on the wing in Viktor Arvidsson's absence and gives the team a genuine third scoring line. Fantasy owners should just be aware that the Kings do not have a four-game week for a while (early December), so don't be hasty on the waiver wire. Let's pick this back up in a couple months but this is an incredible goal-scoring start for a guy not typically known as a high-level producer.

Joel Eriksson Ek

There are reasons for concern in Minnesota, but fantasy owners have to be enamoured with Eriksson Ek's start. He is a forward I thought was being undervalued in drafts but envisioning this type of early production, particularly with Matt Boldy missing so much time already, was impossible: five goals, four assists, 18 penalty minutes, 19 shots, three blocks, and 14 hits in six games. He had 10 points in the team's first 16 games last season so he's off to a scorching start here.

The shot volume is a big point here. Even without Boldy, Eriksson Ek has managed at least three shots on goal in four straight games. Being over three shots per game helps create a goal-scoring floor and he's more involved in the power play than ever.

Quinn Hughes

The Quinn Hughes Discourse is extremely tiresome, but here we are. It's not that he's off to an incredible production start, though six points in six games is obviously excellent. No, what is more interesting is his shot total: 21 pucks on target through the early portion of the season. Last season, he had a six-game stretch in March with 17 shots, and one with 20 shots in February/March of the year prior, but never 21 shots. It literally is a career-best run for him, shots-wise, and it's not just being fortunate with how much he's hitting the net: at 5-on-5, Hughes The Elder is in the 94^th percentile for shot attempts per minute, and trails only Dougie Hamilton in attempts per minute at all strengths. He is legitimately shooting the puck as if he's Brent Burns or Evan Bouchard, and that is quite surprising.

This is the next gear fantasy owners needed to see for Hughes's fantasy value. Putting up 70-point seasons is phenomenal but doing it with fewer than two shots per game and single-digit goal totals does not give a very broad fantasy profile; he was the Joe Thornton of defencemen. The multi-cat value is still precarious because he doesn't block or hit very much, but just adding shots and goals is a huge boost to his fantasy game. Let's see if he can keep it up for the next five months.

Mathew Barzal

The Islanders' early schedule – Buffalo twice, Arizona, Ottawa, Columbus, Washington and Detroit in their first 10 games – combined with an entire training camp next to Bo Horvat made me believe that Barzal would get off to a great start, and would carry that through the year. Four points in five games isn't awful, but a 66-point pace is not what we're looking for.

Another problem is ice time. With Horvat skating over 20 minutes a night when he got to New York, I thought Barzal would get about the same, and he's not. He is getting about 45 seconds less per game at even strength than Horvat and a small decline in PPTOI percentage has kept his ice time totals fairly static. It would be nice to see him push 20 minutes a game rather than 19.

On the bright side, there is positive regression coming. The team is shooting just 5.1% with he and Horvat on the ice at 5-on-5, and that will rise (hopefully a lot). He is shooting more, attempting 16 shots per 60 minutes, but his shot-on-goal totals are deceiving. He has landed 80% of his shot attempts on goal, a rate that was 54.7% last year and 63.8% the year before. Even a rate of 65% would leave him closer to three shots per game rather than four. All in all, there's still a lot of uncertainty here.

Frank Vatrano

One of my long-time favourite skaters in the fantasy game has been Vatrano. He usually puts up very good shot and hit rates, and that always gave him multi-cat appeal. Very quietly, he's off to a tremendous start to the season with five goals, six points, 24 shots, and 12 hits in six games. The nine-year veteran is attempting 24.4 shots per 60 minutes, a rate that puts him around the 97^th percentile of the league's forwards. I have my doubts he stays there, but maybe, like Moore, we could be seeing a career year at its onset. Skating 19:17 a night, by far a career-high, is helping a lot.

It also gives us a chance to shout out the turnaround the Ducks are seeing. They are carrying just 47.6% of the shot attempt share at 5-on-5, but that is a drastic improvement on last year's 40.8%, nowhere near the bottom of the league, and higher than teams like Tampa Bay, Minnesota, and the Islanders. The team's top-6 forward mix has been thriving and for a rebuilding team, it shows the improvements their top, young stars are making. It's another case where we'll check in after American Thanksgiving, and some areas still need improvement (like the power play), but it's been a great start for Vatrano and the Ducks.

Victor Hedman

Seven points in seven games from a guy I thought would be relegated to the second PP unit is a surprise to me. I genuinely assumed Mikhail Sergachev had taken over that role and that has not been the case at all; Frozen Tools has Hedman earning over 75% of the PPTOI. He is also the only Lightning blueliner to be on the ice for more goals-for (5) than against (4). Nick Perbix is closest at an even 7-7.

It is hard to argue with the PP results. Tampa Bay is fourth in the league in goals per minute with the man advantage and Hedman has three PPPs in those seven contests. He is even getting more ice time than last year. Sometimes, we have to take our medicine, and Hedman is feeding me mine quite forcibly. Unless something drastic changes, this is going to be an 'L' for me and a big win for the Hedman offseason believers.