The good news for Edmonton and Calgary was that one of them was going to come out of Sunday's Heritage Classic with a much-needed victory. In the end, the Oilers won 5-2 and more importantly for them, Connor McDavid returned to the lineup after missing two games, Evander Kane had a goal and two assists and Stuart Skinner had only his second quality start this season. 

That's all from the #HeritageClassic!

Goodnight hockey fans! 🏒💤 pic.twitter.com/5DXypikCFP

— NHL (@NHL) October 30, 2023

The Flames continue to spiral and are now 2-6-1 with just 19 goals for in nine games and have lost five games in a row. Nazem Kadri was able to pot his first goal of the season after having just one assist in the first eight games. Mikael Backlund has yet to score a goal after nine games while Yegor Sharangovich played just 9:24 in the outdoor game and has just one goal and one assist this year. The defensive duo of Chris Tanev and Ilya Solovyov had a night to forget being on for three goals against and one SOG for and 14 SOG against.

After beating Carolina 6-4 and the NY Islanders 7-4, the Avalanche have dropped two 4-0 losses in a row and have now gone just over 120 minutes without scoring. Their power play has now gone without a goal in 12 attempts since scoring against the Islanders in the first period. It didn't help that Nathan MacKinnon took an unsportsmanlike penalty and a 10-minute misconduct in Sunday's game against Buffalo.

After scoring just 13 goals in their first six games the Sabres have scored 14 in their last three games and it looks like Tage Thompson, Dylan Cozens and Alex Tuch are getting back on track. Thompson has five points in three games, Cozens seven in seven and Tuch four in three. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen had his first career shutout in Buffalo's 4-0 victory on Sunday against Colorado.

Jack Hughes went pointless for the first time in 2023-2024 but New Jersey still beat Minnesota 4-3 on Sunday. Hughes is now only on pace for 182 points. His brother Luke Hughes had two assists and now has five points in his past three games. I couldn't help but notice that he played just 15:29 after seeing between 22 and 24 minutes in the two games prior. Alexander Holtz had just 6:55 of ice time.

Kirill Kaprizov has now gone three games without a point even though he has seen over 17 minutes on the power play in those three games and has averaged over 24 minutes per game and played 27:30 in the Wild's 4-3 loss to New Jersey on Sunday. He had 15 shots on goal in the three games, so I don't think it's time to panic yet.

After going five games without scoring more than one goal in a game and being shut out twice going into Sunday's game, the Sharks scored in the 1st period but proceeded to make it six games in a row scoring one goal or less.

LIVE look at the admin reporting tonight's final score: pic.twitter.com/yTkneBWVmb

— San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) October 29, 2023

The 2023-2024 version of the Sharks might be one of the most anemic offenses in the past 20 years. They might struggle to score 164 goals in 82 games which would be 2.0 per game. They now have nine goals in nine games and have a record of 0-8-1. They are last in the NHL in shots on goal for at 24.6/game and last in shots on goal against at 38.3/game. This team as it is, might struggle to win 12-15 games this season.

San Jose did get Mikael Granlund back into the lineup on Sunday after missing seven games. Alexander Barabanov missed his third game in a row, while Logan Couture could return some time this week.

After struggling in his first four games where he went goalless with just nine shots on goal, Alexander Ovechkin has had two goals and four assists with 28 shots on goal in his last four games. That includes a 14-shot effort in the game against Toronto when Ovechkin scored his first goal of the season. I think he's alleviated some fears about him hitting the wall at the age of 38. It was a little worrisome to see Ovechkin go two games in a row without a shot on goal. In 73 games in 2022-2023 it didn't happen once.

Slow Starts

I was looking at the number of established forwards still without a goal or with one goal this season. I was trying to determine if their shot rates were still high and they were unlucky or if their shot rate had gone down and there might be some cause for concern.

Here are the NHL forward leaders in shots on goal who have one or no goals.

Player	Team	GP	Goals	SOG	Career SH%
Filip Forsberg	Nashville	8	1	36	12.7
Matthew Tkachuk	Florida	7	1	32	13.0
Owen Tippett	Philadelphia	8	1	31	9.4
Johnny Gaudreau	Columbus	8	0	27	12.4
Mathew Barzal	NY Islanders	7	1	25	10.8
Mika Zibanejad	NY Rangers	8	1	25	13.2
Scott Laughton	Philadelphia	8	0	25	9.6
Nazem Kadri	Calgary	9	1	25	10.9
Trevor Zegras	Anaheim	8	1	24	11.3
Jordan Kyrou	St. Louis	7	1	23	13.2
Nikolaj Ehlers	Winnipeg	8	1	23	11.7
Barrett Hayton	Arizona	7	0	22	10.0

These forwards are still getting the puck on net three to four times a game and for most of them it should start going in more than it has. Players like Forsberg, Tkachuk, Gaudreau, Zibanejad and Kyrou have been above 12.4 percent career shooters and should come around to that level. The others on the list have never been prolific scorers and their elevated SOG are more than likely the result of lower quality chances.

Conversely, here are the fantasy relevant forwards with the lowest amounts of shots on goal (minimum six games).

Player	Team	GP	Goals	SOG	Career SOG/GP
Tomas Tatar	Colorado	8	0	1	2.1
Anton Lundell	Florida	7	0	4	1.9
Peyton Krebs	Buffalo	9	0	5	1.0
Dawson Mercer	New Jersey	7	0	5	1.9
Kevin Hayes	St. Louis	7	0	5	2.1
Anthony Mantha	Washington	6	1	5	2.4
Zach Benson	Buffalo	6	0	6	1.0
Matthew Phillips	Washington	7	1	6	0.8
Logan Cooley	Arizona	7	0	7	1.0
Adam Henrique	Anaheim	7	1	7	1.9
Adam Ruzicka	Calgary	7	2	7	1.3
Rafael Harvey-Pinard	Montreal	8	0	7	1.5
Nils Hoglander	Vancouver	7	2	7	1.9

From the list above, some of these players have directed very little traffic at the net and haven't produced as a result aside from Adam Ruzicka and Nils Hoglander. I included rookies Zach Benson, Matthew Phillips and Logan Cooley as they haven't shot the puck much and have just the one goal to show for the three of them. This isn't meant to detract from some of the things that each of the rookies has done so far, but it's a bit of a short-term red flag unless they increase some of these totals.

I have a few concerns for Anton Lundell, Dawson Mercer, Kevin Hayes, Anthony Mantha and Adam Henrique as these forwards have averaged almost two shots on goal per game in their career before now. Something is obviously not clicking for them as shooters.

Hits and Blocks Leaders

After six or seven games, I believe it is too early to pro-rate, unless we really think that Jack Hughes will exceed 200 points in 2023-24.

However, that won't stop me from looking at early leaders of the 100 club for hits and blocks.

Last year, Jacob Trouba came the closest to achieving 200 hits and 200 blocks but came up just short at 218 hits and 196 blocks. The last player to achieve that feat was Mike Komisarek while with Montreal in 2007-2008.

No forward could put up 100 hits and 100 blocks in 2022-2023, but the closest were Auston Matthews with 78/92 and Elias Pettersson with 74/89.

Player	Team	GP	Hits	Blocks	Hits + Blocks
Jacob Trouba	NY Rangers	8	17	29	46
Ilya Lyubushkin	Anaheim	8	16	28	44
Adam Larsson	Seattle	9	24	19	43
Mattias Samuelsson	Buffalo	9	19	23	42
Mario Ferraro	San Jose	9	15	23	38
Brayden McNabb	Vegas	9	11	27	38
Rasmus Dahlin	Buffalo	9	17	20	37
Jamie Oleksiak	Seattle	9	12	24	36
Matt Roy	Los Angeles	8	18	18	36
Brenden Dillon	Winnipeg	8	21	15	36
Charlie McAvoy	Boston	8	15	20	35
Moritz Seider	Detroit	9	15	20	35
Connor Murphy	Chicago	8	15	20	35
Eeli Tolvanen	Seattle	9	23	12	35

Rasmus Dahlin has elevated his hits and blocks so far in 2023-2024 as he is well on pace for 150 of each. 2022-2023 was Dahlin's first and only season with 100 of each when he had 105 hits and 132 blocks. If his teammate Mattias Samuelsson can stay healthy and play more than 65 or 70 games he should get there for the first time as well.

Eeli Tolvanen has a career-high of 176 hits in 2021-2022 while with Nashville and had 91 hits and 51 blocks in 61 games split between Nashville and Seattle in 2022-2023. It's very difficult for a forward to get even close to 100 blocks unless they are on the first unit of the penalty kill and constantly sacrificing their body. Tolvanen doesn't even play on the penalty kill in Seattle, so his 12 blocks in nine games is impressive but probably not sustainable. He is the only forward on the list.

I might have bitten off more than I can chew this fall. Usually I'm in one conventional points pool and one keeper pool for hockey and perhaps I do a fantasy football pool as well.

For some reason, I'm now in a points pool, a keeper pool, a dynasty pool, a roto pool and a pick 'em pool with a salary cap for hockey. I also joined a fantasy NFL pool and for the very first time I joined an NBA fantasy pool with my son who, believe it or not, is not much of a hockey fan. My odds of doing well in all of them are quite low.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions or players you'd like me to look at please message or follow me on Twitter @gampbler15.