There was lots of Buffalo Sabres news so let's tackle that first.

The Sabres have recalled Brandon Biro from the AHL in response to sending down goaltender Devon Levi. Biro has already appeared in the NHL this season and with the team's injuries, this bouncing back and forth is likely to persist for him for the next month.

Jiri Kulich was sent back down and he wasn't given much of a chance with just the one game. It seems their target is 2024-25 now, barring a barrage of injuries. A chance to hone his professional game a little more, I guess.

GM Kevyn Adams also said that Tage Thompson is still not close to returning but there doesn't seem to be any setbacks. Not having any setbacks is the good news here, even if he's not expected in the lineup anytime soon.

Adams also said that injured winger Jack Quinn returning around January 1^st is still realistic, so more good news there, even if both he and Thompson are weeks from returning.

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An interesting wrinkle for Boston as they now have Jake DeBrusk on the top line:  

Prax lines:

DeBrusk-Zacha-Pastrnak
Marchand-Poitras-Heinen
Van Riemsdyk-Coyle-Frederic
Lauko-Beecher-Geekie
Steen

Grzelcyk-McAvoy
Lindholm-Carlo
Forbort-Shattenkirk
Mitchell

Ullmark
Swayman

— Fluto Shinzawa (@FlutoShinzawa) November 29, 2023

DeBrusk has spent very little time next to David Pastrnak so let's see how this shakes out.

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Gabriel Vilardi is expected to return tonight for Winnipeg, and this is the lineup they had at practice:

#NHLJets line rushes with Gabriel Vilardi taking part.

Connor-Scheifele-Ehlers
Perfetti-Namestnikov-Iafallo
Niederreiter-Lowry-Appleton
Barron-Gustafsson-Vilardi

Morrissey-DeMelo
Dillon-Pionk
Samberg-Schmidt
Stanley – Chisholm

— Mitchell Clinton (@MitchellClinton) November 29, 2023

Perhaps they're just easing him in, but it's interesting that they moved Nikolaj Ehlers to the top line. Cole Perfetti and Alex Iafallo were booted off the top PP unit for Vilardi and Ehlers, so the Perfetti/Iafallo are losing a lot of fantasy value with this return.

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Though not a big deal in fantasy himself, Blake Lizotte was at Los Angeles's morning skate in a non-contact jersey. Him coming back allows them to add to their fourth line, which will hopefully move Arthur Kaliyev back up the lineup. We shall see.

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Vegas announced Shea Theodore underwent upper-body surgery (these designations are getting ridiculous) and is out week-to-week. Whatever that all means, he won't be back for a while. That should mean a lot more top PP time for Alex Pietrangelo moving forward, though Theodore was off to a great start and not having him in the lineup hurts them everywhere offensively.

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Montreal got a late goal from Joel Armia that lifted them to a 4-2 win over Columbus on Wednesday night. Gustav Lindstrom added an empty netter while Cole Caufield and Alex Newhook also got on the scoreboard. Patrik Laine and Yegor Chinakhov both scored for the Blue Jackets in the loss.

Juraj Slafkovsky assisted on Caufield's goal, making a nice play along the boards in his own zone to get the puck to Christian Dvorak, with Caufield putting in Dvorak's rebound. After starting the year with two points in 15 games, Slafkovsky has five in his last seven, all of those points coming at even strength. As someone that watches the Canadiens nearly every game they play, you can see the confidence building in his game over the month of November. He is starting to look like the first overall pick from 2022.

Mike Matheson had two assists to go with three blocks. His 17 points put him one away from being tied with the likes of Erik Karlsson, Rasmus Dahlin, and Noah Dobson.

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Third-period goals from K'Andre Miller and Jimmy Vesey six minutes apart took the New York Rangers from a 2-1 deficit to a 3-2 win. Artemi Panarin scored in the second period, and Alexis Lafrenière assisted on his and Vesey's goals, adding four shots, two blocks, and two PIMs in a great multi-cat effort. Lafrenière is now on pace for 31 goals and 55 points, and he's tied with Jason Robertson in points per minute at 5-on-5. His ascension has arrived.

The Dylan Larkin-less Red Wings got a goal and an assist from Robby Fabbri while Moritz Seider scored once on three shots, adding two blocks. He is now on pace for double-digit goals, 51 points, and over two hits and two blocks per game. His multi-cat status has been cemented.

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Charlie Lindgren had a tremendous game in net for Washington as he allowed just one goal on 39 shots against Los Angeles in a 2-1 win. Lindgren now has five wins in seven starts, a .934 save percentage, and he's helped keep the Capitals firmly in the playoff race.

Anthony Mantha and Connor McMichael both scored while McMichael added an assist and Aliaksei Protas had two. I thought McMichael looked great basically from his first shift to his last, engaged in every shift and his line was the only one that looked dangerous basically every time they stepped on the ice. Looking so good against an elite team like Los Angeles makes it seem like he's really taken another step in his development, and is now a firm middle-6 forward for the team.

Arthur Kaliyev scored his fifth goal of the year in the loss. He has 11 points in 18 games, and that is a 50-point pace despite skating just over 14 minutes a game.

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Every year, fantasy managers have their own players that they are higher on than most of the public, or just their league mates. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes not. It is easy to focus on the hits (shout out to Quinton Byfield, Alexis Lafreniere, and Mike Matheson), but it's also important to look at the misses and see what's going wrong. Here are four players I pegged for a breakout (partial list from a September Ramblings here) that haven't reached the level they were projected for.

Brett Howden

With Reilly Smith going to Pittsburgh and Phil Kessel not returning, it seemed that Howden could have a breakout year ahead as was a staple next to Chandler Stephenson and Mark Stone during their Stanley Cup run. In 21 games this season, he has three goals, five points, 18 shots, and 21 hits. That is not a breakout.

I have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: Stephenson is having an awful year. AllThreeZones tracking has him with 1.05 scoring chance assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, which is simply his passes leading to chances by line mates. Stephenson was well over three times higher than that across his prior two seasons. The inability of that line – Howden included – to generate any sort of quality offence has led to significant line changes recently and led to Howden having an inconsistent role.

This will all come down to Stephenson. If he can't improve, Howden isn't good enough on his own to help Stone carry a line. That this winger has also averaged just one hit per game, after averaging 1.7 per game over his first two seasons in Vegas, is hurting his multi-cat value even more. If anyone has a crystal ball, let me know if Stephenson improves once 2024 rolls around. If not, Howden is almost certainly waiver wire fodder.

Rafael Harvey-Pinard

That Harvey-Pinard was injured and unlikely to return until early 2024 means he won't have fantasy value anytime soon. It isn't as if he had much anyway with zero goals and four assists through 13 games. When I was looking at data from 2022-23, there was a successful combination with RHP and Nick Suzuki as they helped the Habs create 2.9 expected goals and 4.0 actual goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. In a sample over 300 minutes, I felt confident that they could find success again in 2023-24.

The odd part is they were successful, relatively speaking. The team created 2.4 expected goals/60 with RHP and Suzuki on the ice in their brief time together this campaign, a number higher than when Suzuki was on the ice without him. They created more shots attempts and scored more often (2.6/60 against 1.6/60 without RHP) as well. Going back to last year, the team's performance with Suzuki on the ice with RHP is much, much better than without:

When the winger returns from injury, it'll be interesting to see where the team uses him. He could have a very good second half of the season, especially in banger leagues where he can be over a hit per game. It is all up to the coach, though, and that's always a concern for fantasy managers.

Luke Evangelista

This isn't quite a bust or anything, as he's on pace to push for 50 points, but I had Evangelista for over 55 points this season. He is also averaging an abysmal 11:51 per game in ice time over the last two weeks, going pointless in five of the six games (with a three-point game in the other). There has also been a healthy scratch in there, so things aren't going too well at the moment.

One concern is that the ice-time drop coincided with the injury to Tommy Novak (who was another guy I was high on and had a very productive start to his season). Novak is going to miss at least another couple weeks, and may not return until late December if his injury timeline is on the long end rather than the short one. If Evangelista has to endure another month of skating 11-12 minutes a game, it's hard to see his fantasy value rebounding, and it could be something that tanks his value when looking at his season as a whole.

It should be noted that the team is actually creating more shots, shot attempts, expected goals, and actual goals at 5-on-5 with Evangelista on the ice without Novak. However, losing the centre has undeniably hurt the coaching staff's reliance on Evangelista and while some top PP time has helped, no player can sustain fantasy value (in most leagues) playing the minutes he is. There may not be a genuine rebound until January, so fantasy owners in shallower formats may want to drop him for a more reliable option.

Matt Boldy

It has been quite the week for Boldy, as his coach was fired and then he responded by scoring on a breakaway in the team's first game under new coach John Hynes. That was just Boldy's second goal of the season through 13 games as he missed a few weeks due to injury. Scoring a goal is good news; that Boldy finished the game with 12:56 in ice time, the lowest of the season and his lowest mark in his last 51 regular season games, is not.

Hynes is a coach notorious for spreading out ice time and despite the team's top line getting around 18-20 minutes, half their forwards – Boldy included – finished between 12-14 minutes in total ice time. Mind you, Boldy is still on the top PP unit, meaning he ended the first Hynes-era game with the lowest even strength ice time total of any Minnesota forward not on the fourth line. That is, uh, not ideal.

At EPRinkside, I had an article describing Boldy's successes early in his career and struggles of late. A lot of that focused on line mates, but the truth is that if he's skating anywhere from 13-15 minutes a game, I'm not sure he'll have much fantasy value regardless of which forwards are on his line. We need to see more games from him under Hynes, but this is a worrisome start, breakaway goal aside.