St. Louis fired coach Craig Berube early Wednesday morning. The team has struggled in most areas this year but what sticks out is the power play: 31^st in goals per minute with the man advantage. In an era where power play production is more important than it's been in at least a decade, if not longer, being that bad on special teams will not help fantasy value. I have often written over the last year and a half about the loss of David Perron and how that hurt their PP production, and that's certainly continued.

While Blues fans would like to see more wins on the board, if the team can't improve their PP goal scoring dramatically, it's hard to say there'll be a sharp increase in fantasy value. Their PP goals per minute are less than half the league average; there is a long way to go to respectability. With so much money tied up in a lot of players for at least two more seasons (if not longer), bringing in outside help is going to be tough. They have to make-do with what they have, and we'll find out shortly if it was just a coaching issue.

The team did announce the hiring of Brad Richards to help out with the power play, so a step in the right direction at least.

You can read Alex’s take on Berube’s firing here.

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Max Pacioretty was on the ice for Washington's practice:

Max Pacioretty is taking part in his first full practice, wearing a non-contact jersey. Looks to be a fairly full participant, even rotated in during some OZ drills that had a bit of contact — and knocked down Fehervary at the blue line, much to the delight of his teammates.

— Bailey Johnson (@BaileyAJohnson_) December 13, 2023

A non-contact jersey, sure, but a nice step in the right direction. If memory serves, the initial timeline was January of 2024 and that seems to be in play still. That team desperately needs his goal scoring if they want to stay in the playoff race in the second half.

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Adam Fantilli was on the top line with Johnny Gaudreau at Blue Jackets practice with Boone Jenner expected out over a month. As with all Columbus lines, we'll see how long this lasts, but it's clear who they think is the top option right now.

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Alex Tuch was back for Buffalo on Wednesday night, skating on the top line with Tage Thompson. The team started with a second line of Jeff Skinner, Casey Mittelstadt, and JJ Peterka.

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Los Angeles announced that defenceman Vladislav Gavrikov is week-to-week and that’s a tough break for them as he had been such a boon to their blue line since being acquired last season at the trade deadline. This likely means more minutes for the secondary guys like Matt Roy and Jordan Spence.

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Canada announced their team for this year’s edition of the World Juniors:

Meet the 2⃣2⃣ players who will wear the 🍁 at the #WorldJuniors!

Voici les 2⃣2⃣ joueurs qui représenteront le 🇨🇦 au #MondialJunior! pic.twitter.com/V6gTjUD24v

— Hockey Canada (@HockeyCanada) December 13, 2023

Canada’s pre-tournament games start next Tuesday against Denmark before the tournament kicks off for real on Boxing Day.

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Sidney Crosby had two goals and an assist in Pittsburgh's 4-3 shootout win over Montreal on Wednesday. The shootout went a dozen rounds before the win, the longest shootout I've seen this year. Two of Crosby's points were on the power play as the team scored two PP goals for the second time in two games. Maybe the sign of a turnaround? Crosby has 31 points in 28 games with just six PPPs mixed in there. Imagine his next 50-some games if the team's PP is even average?

Jake Guentzel also scored while Erik Karlsson had a pair of assists, seven shots, two blocks, and a hit.

David Savard, Jason Struble, and Sean Monahan replied for Montreal. Mike Matheson had an assist and five shots in the loss.

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An overtime goal from Jack Hughes lifted New Jersey to a 2-1 win over Boston. That goal is keeping him on a 40-goal/82-game pace as his superlative season continues.

Charlie McAvoy missed the game for Boston, his second in a row. Matt Grzelcyk skated over 21 minutes while Kevin Shattenkirk ran the top PP unit.

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Two third-period goals lifted the New York Islanders to a 4-3 win at home to Anaheim on Wednesday night. Mathew Barzal had a goal (PP) on four shots with a block. He now has 21 points in 14 games over the last month as his slow start is a thing of the past. He is pacing for his first 90-point season of his career so long as he doesn't miss another game.

Noah Dobson had a pair of assists (one on the PP) with a block in the victory. He hasn't scored in 12 games but he has 15 assists in that span (five on the power play) to go with 25 shots, 29 blocks, and 10 hits. With Scott Mayfield injured, Dobson's heavy ice time usage persists and he's now over a point-per-game blue liner on the campaign.

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Funny enough, on a day where Team Canada announced their World Junior roster, one guy who might otherwise be there scored Buffalo's lone goal in a 5-1 loss as Zach Benson scored his third goal of the year.

Colorado's top line did all the damage in the win as Mikko Rantanen (1+2), Valeri Nichushkin (2+0), and Nathan MacKinnon (0+2) all had multi-point games. Nichushkin has 10 goals and 17 points in 15 games since the injury to Artturi Lehkonen, totaling seven PPPs, 55 shots, 23 hits, and 10 blocks. It has been a great five weeks from him in multi-cat formats.

With Tuch back in the lineup, he was back on the top PP unit and Dylan Cozens, not Casey Mittelstadt, was moved off.

Jeff Skinner took a huge hit from Nathan MacKinnon:

Nathan MacKinnon a bien fait voler Jeff Skinner pic.twitter.com/7QvYL3Pu6h

— The Free Agent (@TheFreeAgentFR) December 14, 2023

Skinner did not play the second half of the game, so that's another injury the team and fantasy owners may have to contend with.

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After falling behind 2-0 in the first period, Winnipeg reeled off five straight goals to take a 5-2 win in Los Angeles. Winnipeg's top line did all the damage as Nikolaj Ehlers had two goals and two assists with five shots in his best offensive outburst of the season, Gabriel Vilardi had a goal and three assists, while Mark Scheifele had two goals and a helper on four shots. Ehlers now has 15 points in 15 games after a very slow start to the season.

Connor Hellebucyk saved 32 of 34 shots in the win. Remember his bad start to the season? Well, he's 13-4-1 in his last 18 starts with a save percentage of .928. One bad week and then he's been phenomenal.

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I have the next three Ramblings and some of my recent entries have been looking back on things like preseason predictions and over/undervalued players that are under/overperforming my expectations. Let's continue that trend for these next three Ramblings and hand out some awards, starting with the forwards.

These awards won't be the typical fake MVP or Top Goal Scorer trophies, but hopefully something a bit more unique.  

The David Backes Award

Backes was always one of my favourite fantasy players because his ability to produce across the board year after year was the kind of consistency fantasy owners dream of. While a lot of what constitutes a 'multi-category' player depends on the specific settings of an individual league, here I'll count goals, assists, power play points, shots, hits, and blocks. We are also going to factor in preseason draft position as it took a few years for Backes's production to really impact his draft slotting, so we'll apply that to this award.

And the winner is… Filip Forsberg

It's true that JT Miller has generally been more valuable overall, but Forsberg was routinely outside the top-100 picks in a lot of drafts for 2023-24. It is very plausible he went outside the first 10 rounds of 12-team drafts and was nowhere near a cornerstone of fantasy rosters. Conversely, Miller was often a top-50 pick in fantasy drafts, sometimes being drafted in the third rounds of 12-teamers. That is enormous value for Forsberg, so he gets the nod.

Andrew Brunette has the Predators skating well offensively and Forsberg has been great on the top line with Ryan O'Reilly as his centre. There is nothing about his profile that screams regression so he could just be in line for a tremendous fantasy season. I'm sure that Miller fantasy owners are extremely happy with their selection (I know I am in the leagues I have him), but Forsberg's surge on a team that was not expected to do anything this year should be highlighted.

The Brandon Pirri Award

Also dubbed fantasy hockey's Cy Young Award in honour of a guy that once had a year with 22 goals and two assists, we're giving this to the forward that has created the most goals this year but a relatively low total of assists. Goals are key in fantasy leagues because they can hit three categories at once (those sweet, sweet PP goals) while assists can only hit two, so it's fair that this is where we focus our attention.

And the winner is… Jake Neighbours.

This could go to Michael Carcone, who has 14 goals and 3 assists, but it only feels right we stick to the spirit of the award and go with straight ratios.

In his first 28 games of the season, Neighbours has 10 goals (that's good!) and one assist (not as good!) to give us the near-approximate ratio that Pirri had in that magical season. According to playmaking data from AllThreeZones, Neighbours's assist rate on teammate scoring chances at 5-on-5 (1.63) is a bit over half the average rate among forwards with at least 100 minutes tracked. So, no, we're not expecting a pile of assists here. Let's see if a new coach can change that for him.  

The Michael Grabner Award

One of my favourite things about watching Grabner play was seeing him get a breakaway nearly every game and still crack the 30-goal mark just once in his career. He did have a good career, by the way, but it always seemed as if his skillset made him capable of more, even if not all the skills were up to the level necessary for high-end production. So, which player has generated a lot of quality chances but doesn't have the goals to show for it?

And the winner is… Matthew Tkachuk

It had to be, right? I suppose we could use Jordan Kyrou, but we went into Wednesday night's action with Tkachuk tied for 12^th in expected goals generated this season, but tied for 182^nd in goals. Even with two goals in his last five games, he still has just five on the year, shooting 4.7% against a three-year average of 13.5%.

Tkachuk's individual expected goals per 60 minutes of 1.43 isn't far off from his last year in Calgary (1.46) but he's scoring at one-third the rate. A big second half or something under the hood we're missing? That's for another day.

The Jakub Vrana Award

Whatever people think of Vrana now (I still think he's a darn good offensive player), it wasn't long ago he was one of the most efficient 5-on-5 scorers in the league. It was something he did for several years, too, but rarely got big minutes to build off that. With that in mind, who has been a great producer this year at 5-on-5 but isn't getting commensurate minutes?

And the winner is… Nils Hoglander

Ok this is cheating a bit. Again, we could have used Carcone here, but he's stuck behind the team's stars and a really good second line. Alex Holtz kind of has the same issue in New Jersey. However, as of Wednesday afternoon, Hoglander is fourth in the league in goals per minute at 5-on-5 but 300^th in 5-on-5 ice time on a team that had Phil DiGiuseppe in the top-6 for like seven weeks. That has changed with Hoglander's recent move up the lineup, but that had been a big problem for him this season.

Hoglander is a guy that typically did a lot of the little things well – zone entries, playmaking – but couldn't put it all together consistently. If he has, and he can stay in the top-6, he could have very good value in banger leagues over the next 50-some games.

The Jonathan Marchessault Award

Every year, there are players who were stuck in a team's bottom-6, or down in the AHL, that explodes offensively. The namesake of this award is one such player; another in recent memory is Chandler Stephenson. These are guys that may have been top prospects at one point but got to their mid-20s and still hadn't been able to be a big contributor in the fantasy game. Then, one day, they are a big contributor, and we forget all about the years of underperformance.

And the winner is… Mathieu Joseph

There are a few guys that could fit here like Carcone (again), Casey Mittelstadt (though that started last year), or Robby Fabbri, but Joseph is an interesting case. He was traded by Tampa Bay because they wanted Nick Paul and Paul has just 12 points this season while playing suspect defense. He also has just five points in his last 22 games, and two of those five points came on the power play. Meanwhile, Joseph has 17 points in 23 games this season, easily out-producing Paul and doing so with fewer games played while not on an elite top PP unit. Joseph's current points per game pace is over 70% higher than his previous career best and, if he maintains it, could lead to a 60-point year. Considering he topped out at 30 points a couple years ago, that is a massive improvement. He has also been on the ice for 30% fewer goals against per minute at 5-on-5 than Paul has, and carrying a much better expected goals against rate. Whether the offense keeps up, we'll see, but Joseph's defense has been great, and something the Senators desperately need more of.