Hoping everyone had a safe and fun Halloween. There were only two games on the light NHL schedule, which is uncommon for a Tuesday. The rest of the week still sees your usually stacked Thursday and Saturday slates, though with only one game left from the Penguins and three from more than a handful of teams, it's worth checking your roster against your waiver wire to see if there are any advantages you can pick up. Dallas is your clear winning if you loop in next-week's games as well, with seven in the next 12 days. Three of those games are on light days, and aside from one game against Boston, their next two weeks are a very soft schedule. It then flips after that, with more spaced out games, and a murderer's row of opponents in a mid-November stretch.

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Sticking with the Stars, I made a trade in one of my partial-keeper leagues, of my Luke Hughes for his Miro Heiskanen. Their stat lines are fairly similar right now, though the hot power play in New Jersey has made the difference thus far.

Our league does count hits and blocks, where Heiskanen does have a bit of an advantage over Hughes, and generally I like my defencemen to fill up those peripheral categories. On top of it though, I'm just a big fan of Heiskanen, and I think that his last three games where he has been held scoreless, may be his only three-game-scoreless-streak of the season. It may be a close thing with Hughes and who comes out of this year or even the rest of their careers with the better fantasy value, and for the next few weeks it could be Hughes with that top power play unit, but I'm siding with Heiskanen here.

If you have a vote or a take on the deal, feel free to let me know in the comments.

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Just a quick PSA because I see this all too often: If you have a minors system, then make sure you use whatever available/leftover adds you have to make sure it's full. Bench space is an asset as much as a better player, a tougher position to find, cap space, or a draft pick. Use whatever you have available.

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Ryan O'Reilly played his 1000th game last night, and despite his game falling off last season, he seems to have fit in very well with the Predators this year. Last year a dip in power play ice time, as well as playing on a Blues team that was scoring less, really dented O'Reilly's production. after notching an assist last night he now has, he has seven points and is playing over 20 minutes a night, with more than four minutes per game with the man-advantage, through his first nine games with the Predators.

His shooting percentage is high to this point, but that should be offset by some positive regression in his other luck metrics, meaning the scoring pace of 60+ points should be here to stay with the Predators. A Filip Forsberg injury or a drastic reduction in ice time could change things in the short term, but this year and next the floor seems fairly high.

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If you need an early season team audit, some in depth analysis before pulling the trigger on a trade, or if you are just uncertain as to whether a specific player’s hot (or cold) start to the season will continue, then make sure to get your question in to Rick Roos. The next edition of the Roos Lets Loose monthly mailbag drops a week from today. There are two ways to send in questions (1) private messaging “rizzeedizzee” via the DobberHockey Forums, or (2) emailing [email protected] with “Roos Mailbag” as the subject line. No one will do a better or more in-depth analysis on your question than Rick will.

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The Arizona Coyotes are suddenly looking like a reasonable team to stack some fantasy players from. They have seven skaters with six or more points through eight games (a 60+ point-pace for those of you who don't like doing multiplication in your head). Six of those players come as pairs from three different lines, with the seventh being the power play quarterback Sean Durzi.

What I'm taking out of this, is that the Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz pairing we can keep as is, they're producing as expected. The Logan Cooley and Matias Maccelli combo also seems to be gelling, though the worry for Maccelli is if the even strength production dries up a bit, he doesn't have the top-unit power play production to fall back on. For Michael Carcone (the AHL's reigning scoring leader) and Jack McBain, it's unfortunate they can't play Chicago every night. The peripheral production will be there all year, but the scoring is likely going to pace similar to the two or three points every seven games that they were putting up prior to the eruption against the Blackhawks.

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The Leafs looked flat after coming home from an early-season road trip, and changed things up on the power play while looking for a spark.

Noteworthy change on the Leafs third power play tonight: Morgan Rielly replaced John Klingberg on the No. 1 unit.

— Jonas Siegel (@jonassiegel) November 1, 2023

If Morgan Rielly can hold down that spot with the top unit, then his value jumps. That being said, he does already have four power play points through nine games after adding one last night. It's not as though he is suddenly going to pace for a career-high 30 power play points, it's just that once his five-on-five scoring catches up, the power play production won't have dropped off. Rielly has averaged about 23 power play points per 82 games the last three seasons, and though he is on pace for a higher number this year, his power play ice time has been cut in half thus far, likely meaning if it continues over a full-season sample size, the production would be about halved as well.

Jordan Spence picked up an assist, and now has points in three of his last four games. He's seeing secondary power play usage, and a heavy dose of offensive zone starts. With the ability of the Kings to roll multiple offensive lines, Spence does have some streamer upside. However, he only has two games in the next seven days, so he might just be a watch-list add for now.

On the note of LA being able to run lines, they are actually leading the league in goals per game. Practically their entire top-nine (with the exception of Pierre-Luc Dubois and Anze Kopitar) are on pace for career-high offensive seasons. There will be some overall regression – for example Kevin Fiala won't score 109 points this season – but this team is set up to be a feast for fantasy owners the rest of the way. Arthur Kaliyev and Quinton Byfield are real assets, and some consistent growth for them over the next few years is going to push them to top-of-the-lineup status eventually.

Cam Talbot is now 4-2-1 and has a strangle-hold on the LA crease. He's going to be an excellent fantasy own this year, and it's likely too late to buy in on him. If you missed out on Talbot but still need cheap goaltending, Stuart Skinner, Karel Vejmelka, Joey Daccord and whoever of the Buffalo rotation that you can get your hands on, are all worth a look.

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7 rookies are within 2 games of losing their slide eligibility:

1 game away:
Connor Bedard #Blackhawks
Kevin Korchinski #Blackhawks
Adam Fantilli #CBJ
Pavel Mintyukov #FlyTogether
Matthew Poitras #NHLBruins

2 games away:
Logan Cooley #Yotes
David Jiricek #CBJ…

— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) October 31, 2023

David Jiricek is the only one of these players who may be sent back down, and that is only because of Columbus' log-jam on defence. They have Andrew Peeke and Adam Boqvist sitting in the press-box, a luxury most teams can't afford. At some point room will be made for Jiricek if he hasn't forced his way onto the team already, but it could be all the way until next summer before we see one or two of the incumbents traded.

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Elias Pettersson scored a hat trick on five shots. Linemate Ilya Mikheyev is now up to four points in five games as well, and my be sitting on the waiver wire in some leagues – worth a look. Quinn Hughes added three assists to bring his total up to 11 points in nine games on the season. His pairing finally got scored on at even strength as well. He’s going to get some serious Norris consideration if this keeps up.

Even a healthy Thatcher Demko may have a tough time breaking into the Vezina race, but he will at least help push the Canucks towards a playoff spot, and meaningful games in March and April are good for the Canucks’ fantasy owners as well.

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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.