Ottawa has won two games in a row and a big part of that has been the goaltending from Anton Forsberg. His four starts since (and including) his game in Sweden has produced a .936 save percentage, and those recent two wins have seen him stop 72 of 74 shots. This team still needs to stay healthy, though, which makes the news about Thomas Chabot concerning as it looks like he may be out for a while.

Chabot had already missed time to injury this season and it's part of a worrying trend. He missed 14 games last season and 23 games the campaign before. As of today, he's missed over one-quarter of Ottawa's games dating back to the 2021-22 season, and that number will rise however long he's out now. It is very unfortunate because this guy helped carry some very bad teams 4-5 years ago and now that they're much more talented up front, he can't stay in the lineup.

With Chabot out of the lineup on Tuesday, Jake Sanderson was back on the top PP unit. One problem with that is Ottawa is generating 13% more shots on the power play without Sanderson on the blue line, and Ottawa's power play has generally been an issue all season. If this team wants to start winning more games regularly, they need to do better than drawing the second-most power plays per game but being outside the top-10 teams by power play goals per game. They may be in tough until Christmas, though, as none of their opponents between now and then are in the bottom-third of the league by penalty kill percentage.

Maybe hiring Jacques Martin will help? In additional Ottawa news, they hired the former coach to be an advisor to the coaching staff.

Clearly, I'm not an NHL coach, but this can't be a good thing, right? Hiring someone to be a babysitter for a coaching staff in the world's top hockey league doesn't seem like something that is done when there is a lot of confidence in the job being done. Maybe I'm wrong.

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Staying with top Eastern Conference defencemen, bad news on Rasmus Dahlin:

Per the Sabres, Rasmus Dahlin is dealing with a lower-body injury. They're still gathering more info on his potential status for tomorrow.

Maintenance day today for Kyle Okposo.

— Heather Engel (@engelheather) December 6, 2023

We will update when we get it, but this is not a team that can afford any sort of extended absence from him. They are struggling to stay anywhere near the playoff race as it is and this would make that hill even steeper. If he does miss time, Owen Power presumably jumps to the top PP unit, so owners in shallower formats may want to jump on that if they have an open spot on their roster.

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A bit of good news for Washington winger TJ Oshie:

TJ Oshie (upper body) is practicing this morning wearing a non-contact jersey

— Bailey Johnson (@BaileyAJohnson_) December 6, 2023

Fun* fact: out of 151 forwards in the league with at least 50 minutes of power play time this season, Oshie is the only one without a point. There is bad luck, to be sure, but it's also his third straight season of declining per-minute power play production. He turns 37 years old in a couple weeks so it's fair to wonder just how much he has left in the tank.

*level of fun depends on your fantasy roster and which team you cheer for  

Evgeny Kuznetsov also returned to the Washington lineup following his healthy scratches, skating on what looks to be the second line with Hendrix Lapierre and Matthew Phillips. The reality is that if his game doesn't improve, it's very possible that is the team's fourth line by ice time.

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Andre Burakovsky was in the normal lineup on Wednesday during Seattle's practice:

#SeaKraken practice lineup, 12/6:

Kartye-Beniers-Eberle
McCann-Wennberg-Burakovsky
Tolvanen-Gourde-Bjorkstrand
Tanev-Bellemare-Yamamoto
Studenic / McCormick

Dunn-Larsson
Oleksiak-Borgen
Dumoulin-Schultz
Evans-Megna

Grubauer
Daccord

— Mike Benton (@Benton_Mike) December 6, 2023

Burakovsky hasn't played since October with an upper-body injury. He has had a tough time staying healthy for the Kraken, skating in just 55 of their 108 regular season games over the last two seasons. He can be very productive when healthy, but as with all Kraken forwards, a balanced ice-time approach at both even strength and on the power play is not conducive to consistent fantasy success.

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After missing Tuesday night's game, Cale Makar was at an optional practice for the Avalanche on Wednesday, according to beat writer Peter Baugh. Makar has been supernova this season with 34 points in 23 games but that health bug has kicked up again for him. Hopefully he's no worse for the wear and ready for their game Thursday night at home to Winnipeg.

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Detroit confirmed that Patrick Kane will be in the lineup for their home game against San Jose on Thursday night. If they go with the lines that were reported by Ansar Khan a few days ago, then he'll be on the second line with old teammate Alex DeBrincat. Joe Veleno was between them as the centre in that practice while Kane was on the top PP unit (DeBrincat PP2).

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A lot is being made of Pierre-Luc Dubois's fantasy season, but it's a bit misguided, I think.

First, just going to Los Angeles was going to give him competition. I wrote back in September that he'd be in a fight to replace Phillip Danault on the second line and it was far from a sure thing that he'd get that role. Even if he did, they weren't going to nuke Danault's ice time to true third-line minutes (he's too good for that) which meant it'd be more likely they'd have two second-ish lines, rather than a 1-2-3-4 setup.

The second note is that Dubois currently has his highest points/60 rate at 5-on-5 since 2018-19. In fact, his primary points rate (just goals and first assists per minute) is in the 84^th percentile of forwards with at least 200 minutes at 5-on-5. That is easily, easily, a first-line rate.

His two problems are the two problems that were obvious from the outset of the season: Los Angeles's top power play unit is worse than their second – that was the case across the prior two seasons – and he'd be fighting with Danault for even strength ice time.

The fact that Dubois has stopped hitting is something I didn't envision and that is compounding the fantasy value drop; he's averaging one hit every 30 minutes of ice time compared to once every 15.8 minutes over his final two years in Winnipeg.

This may be a lost season, fantasy-wise. The team is playing too well – their top two lines in particular – to change much and even if he gets back to the top PP unit, they often split that PP time. We will see if anything changes, but for now, he's a player that will be much more valuable in real life than in fantasy for some time yet. Once in a while, I do get things right.

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Maybe it's because I often look at overall rates for fantasy, but I did not realize that Nazem Kadri has one (1) goal at 5-on-5 this season. He has scored once on 50 shots for a cool 2% shooting. Three of his other goals have been at 3-on-3 or 4-on-4 with one on the power play.

I, uh, what? I know Kadri struggled shooting-wise in his first full year with Calgary but we're less than three weeks from Christmas. That shooting percentage will turn around, but it's fair to wonder how high it'll go as his shots per minute are a five-year low. Maybe a buy-low spot, but yikes, not someone I'd want to rely on in fantasy for a productive 55-game stretch the rest of the way.

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Well, I made the mistake of dual-screening with Pittsburgh/Tampa Bay as the Penguins didn't show much fight until the third period, by which point the Lightning held a 3-0 lead, which wasn't far off the final score of 34-1. The final shots may have been relatively close (28-24 for Pittsburgh) but that seemed more a function of Tampa Bay getting bored or Pittsburgh shooting from 45 feet.

Either way, Nikita Kucherov had another good night with a goal and an assist, both coming on the power play. He now has 22 power play points on the season, which is absurd. He has as many power play points in 26 games this season than all but four teams have power play goals in total (at least as of the end of their game with Edmonton and Vegas pending at 21 and 20 PP goals, respectively). It really is preposterous what he's done through the first third of the campaign.

Anthony Cirelli and Tanner Jeannot also scored while Victor Hedman had two power play helpers. That was Jeannot's sixth goal in 27 games, as many as he registered last season in 76 games. Safe to say he's been a bit better in the fantasy game, especially as his four hits pushed him to 93 already this year.

Jake Guentzel scored in the final minute, his 10^th of the year, to break Andrei Vasilevskiy's shutout.

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Florida's top line carried them to a win as Evan Rodrigues (2+2), Sam Reinhart (1+2), and Aleksander Barkov (1+1) all had at least one goal and one assist en route to a 5-4 win. Barkov had two shots and three blocks as well, so his multi-cat effort was very solid.

Carter Verhaeghe also scored one on six shots. He now has goals in three straight games and has 12 on the year. Another great fantasy effort in the making.

That was Rodrigues's second four-point game of the year, and it was more points than he had in his previous 10 games combined (3). That is quite the boom/bust fantasy option right there.

Radek Faksa, Evgenii Dadonov, Mason Marchment, and Thomas Harley all scored for Dallas in the loss. Harley added an assist so he's now up to 10 points in 21 games this year, and that goal was his first PP goals of his career. He is starting to develop into quite the offensive defenseman.

Niko Mikkola had two assists, two shots, two blocks, and a hit in a very good fantasy performance. He is also up to 10 points on the season and has been a good fantasy producer in multi-cat formats.

Tyler Seguin was injured midway in the third period on a hit, it appeared, and he did not return to the game.

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