Nico Hischier was once again at practice for New Jersey on Thursday. As mentioned by Amanda Stein, this makes several practices/morning skates now that Hischier has been on the ice. It certainly doesn't seem as if there's been any sort of setback as he returns from his 'upper-body' injury, though there is still no definitive timeline.

Timo Meier was still not at practice, however. There hasn't been much divulged about him so when we know more, we'll certainly pass it along.

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Conor Timmins was seen running a power play for the Leafs at their practice on Thursday, so perhaps he's very close to a return. John Klingberg is not, as he was sent to the long-term injured reserve.

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For more good news on the injury front, Ottawa defenceman Thomas Chabot was in a non-contact jersey on Thursday:

Chabot out here in a non-contact jersey. #Sens

— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) November 23, 2023

For all the consternation about Ottawa's season – plus the injuries – they are currently tied for 16^th in the NHL in points percentage. They have the fewest number of games played with 15, where three-quarters of the league has at least 18, so they'll need to turn some of those games-in-hand to wins before any celebrating can be done, but they are firmly in the playoff race.

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On the bad-news side of the injury stuff:

BREAKING: #Blackhawks announce Taylor Hall will undergo right knee surgery and is out for the season.

— Charlie Roumeliotis (@CRoumeliotis) November 23, 2023

Taylor Hall was a favourite deep-ish pick of mine this season, so mea culpa there, but this sucks for him. He had a few healthy years in a row, but the last couple years have not been that. For a guy that will be 33 years old for next season, it's a wonder how much he'll have when he comes back in 2024.

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Thanksgiving provides us with two cut-off points.

The first is that the league is roughly one-quarter of the way through the regular season. Teams that had very poor starts – Edmonton, Minnesota, and Columbus, to name a few – are going to be in a slog to get to the postseason.

The second is that it gives us two halves to look at so far. With the vast majority of teams around 18-20 games played, it gives us two sections of anywhere from 8-10 games to look at player performance. We can look at things like drops in ice time, jumps in shot rate, players running hot/cold, and the like. Without any games on American Thanksgiving, let's look at those changes and what fantasy managers can glean from it. As usual, data from Natural Stat Trick or Frozen Tools, unless otherwise indicated.

Let's start with the easiest one: ice time. The cut off for ice time is at least 75 minutes in both halves.

Top Forward TOI Risers

To start with, here are the 10 forwards that saw the largest increase in ice time, with a quick discussion about a few of them:

Young forwards being moved up the lineup dominate the list with names like JJ Peterka, Michael McLeod, Tommy Novak, William Eklund, and Marco Rossi all appearing. Two names listed really stick out to me.

Injuries to Hischier and Jack Hughes pushed McLeod, in effect, to a top-line role. Hischier was injured first, with Hughes going down early in a game in St. Louis on November 3^rd. From November 3^rd until Hughes's return on November 18^th, here is what McLeod managed to do on the ice across six games:  

• One goal, two assists, 18 shots
• 69.4% of the expected goal share at 5-on-5
• New Jersey out-scored the opposition 3-1 at 5-on-5
• One goal against in over nine minutes of PK time
• Averaged over 17 minutes a game

In the two games since Hughes returned, McLeod skated 16:00 and 18:55, both higher than any of his first nine games with the full lineup. He won't stay at that level once Hischier is back, but it'll be interesting to see if he goes from 13-14 minutes to 15-or-more. It could limit the minutes the top centers play, and that's not ideal for their fantasy value.

The next is Logan O'Connor. He has been in Colorado for years and has long toiled in their bottom-6, getting moved to the top-6 when injuries slammed the team. Ryan Johansen lost his PP role to Jonathan Drouin in Wednesday's game and since the injury to Artturi Lehkonen, O'Connor is earning the most ice time of any Avalanche forward outside the top line  (and over a full minute more than Johansen). His entire line has taken precedent over what was supposed to be the team's second line.

O'Connor's inclusion here, like Drouin's move to the top PP unit, says a lot more about how guys like Johansen, Tomas Tatar, and Andrew Cogliano have fared than anything else. Let's see how things play out between now and Christmas.

Top Forward TOI Declines

And for the flipside, the largest forward TOI declines:

Like a lot of people, I was very high on Michael Bunting going to Carolina. With the team having a set third line, as well as Seth Jarvis, Andrei Svechnikov, Teuvo Teravainen, and Martin Necas as wingers, someone was going to end up on the fourth line. That is what has happened to Bunting, and he skated just 9:22 in the team's most recent game. He hasn't surpassed 14 minutes in a game in four weeks.

One injury would change everything but it's clear who is at the bottom of the depth chart right now. Without an injury to a roster winger, Bunting will have an inconsistent role, at best, for the foreseeable future.

The other interesting name is Chandler Stephenson. Part of that drop is related to the game he was ejected halfway through, but that doesn't tell the whole story because he's gone seven straight games without skating at least 20 minutes in any one of them; he cracked the 20-minute mark in five of his first nine games this season. In 90 tracked minutes of 5-on-5 time this year by AllThreeZones, Stephenson has yet to assist on a teammate's scoring chance. This is a guy who averaged one such assist every 15 minutes over his prior two seasons. There is something not right here for one of the top playmakers in the league. It makes me wonder if we don't see William Karlsson or Nicolas Roy taking his spot at some point.

Top Defence TOI Risers

The list of ice time increases on the blue line is littered with players on teams were there were one (ore more) sustained injuries to defencemen:

It'll depend on when Juuso Välimäki returns, but JJ Moser's last five games have seen three assists (one on the power play), 14 blocks, seven hits, and 22:35 in ice time. For anyone that needs some sort of multi-cat replacement, there are worse options.

With Erik Gustafsson on the ice since (and including) the game that Adam Fox got injured, the Rangers have outscored the opposition 6-5 at 5-on-5, and he has the second-highest expected goal share among their defenders, trailing only Jacob Trouba. Fox has been skating, so he may be back in the near-future, though I'm not sure it'll kill Gustafsson's fantasy value. He may have legitimately played himself into the team's top-four defence mix. We shall see.

Top Defence Declines

And for the other end of the spectrum of ice-time changes among defencemen:

Ok, this is a much more interesting list.

At the top are a pair of New York Islanders defencemen. That makes sense, in a way, as the team had some injuries back there earlier in the season and things have been more stable of late. It doesn't make sense because this is a team that usually balances the ice time from the majority of its defencemen. That hasn't been the case lately as Noah Dobson is earning six more minutes of ice time per game than Scott Mayfield over the team's last 10 games. Last year, Mayfield played more per game than Dobson. The change has been drastic, and a very welcome one for Dobson fantasy owners. I was very worried about him losing a lot of ice time and while he's lost a bit since the team got healthy, Dobson has still been over 24 minutes a game in November. That'll play just fine for fantasy leagues.

We see Thomas Harley, and that's no surprise as he had lost a bit of time before he got injured. What is a surprise is to see Nils Lundkvist there. Harley missed three and a half games and Lundkvist still lost ice time. The funny part is that he and Esa Lindell are the only Dallas defencemen with a goal share above 50% in November. Harley's play, particularly on the defensive end, has suffered. This will be interesting to watch play out over the next five months.

Sean Walker added about 1:40 in ice time per game in the two halves, and Egor Zamula lost a lot as a result of that (and other changes). With Rasmus Ristolainen nearing a return, it's a wonder if Zamula is long for the NHL roster. Walker, meanwhile, has six points in his last 10 games, 25 shots in that span, while adding 19 blocks and 14 hits. There is another guy that has multi-cat value if anyone needs to dig deep (though how he's impacted by the Ristolainen return remains to be seen).

Top Forward Shot Risers

Let's switch gears back to the forwards and look at rises in shot attempts per minute:

It really is a shame Timo got hurt when he did. He was starting to find the shot volume that made him fantasy famous in San Jose. Hopefully he can keep that level whenever he does come back. (And, hey, there's McLeod again.)

The interesting name for me is Ross Colton. I have been a big proponent of his scoring prowess for a few years now and even without a lot of ice time added, he's up to 2.5 shots per game over his last 10 games, managing five goals in that span. It's a wonder if he can ever get to a regular 15- or 16-minute role because that's the last barrier to sustained fantasy relevance for a guy on pace for over 25 goals and 130 hits as it is.

Top Forward Shot Declines

Oh boy:

This is skewed a bit because of Nathan MacKinnon's 14-shot game against San Jose. The thing is that if we exclude that game from the first-half sample, he's still dropped from 4.7 shots per game to 4.1 shots per game in this second half. That is with over 40 additional seconds of ice time per game, too. It would be nice to see a shot-attempt rebound in the coming weeks.

Nikolaj Ehlers is having a weird year. He was over three shots per game in the first half of our sample, even though he was earning just 15:36 of ice time per night. He is down to 2.2 shots per game over his most recent nine games with a minute less of ice time per game. The flipside is he's been more productive in those fewer minutes. His play-driving numbers are very poor, relative to what he usually does, and though the production is nice, the declining ice time and shot rates are a big, big concern.

Top Defence Shot Risers

There are some very interesting names in the rise in shot attempts per minute from the blue line:

Hey, there's Sean Walker again.

This list has three – three! – Detroit defencemen. In the two halves, the team has added a grand total of one shot attempt per 60 minutes, so there are a lot more shots coming from the defencemen. In a completely unrelated note, the team is also scoring nearly a full goal less per 60 minutes than they did in the first half of the sample.

It is nice to see Justin Faulk regain his shoot-y ways. His fantasy value was miserable to start the year, but he has nine points, 19 shots, 28 blocks, and 16 hits over his last 10 games. That'll do just fine, though it'd be nice to see some of his shots start going in the net.

Jordan Spence is clearly the name that sticks out here. Los Angeles typically doesn't get a lot of shots from its defencemen, yet he has managed just two fewer shots than Drew Doughty over the team's last eight games despite Doughty exceeding Spence by a whopping 10:31 per night in ice time. Spence still isn't really earning enough ice time for consistent fantasy relevance, but he is adding a dimension to his fantasy profile that is worth following moving forward.