This week, we are going to look at some standouts (good or bad) in the Western Conference over the past 30 days (games since November 17) and see if there are some players or goalies who have turned on their production or hit a wall.

I'm not going to list players who have duplicated their first 15 games, but will focus on players who have increased or decreased noticeably since then.

Players Surging in Production

Alex Killorn – Anaheim

Killorn has had the most points (nine) in the past 30 days for the Ducks. He's had four goals and five assists in his past 14 games after starting his time in Anaheim with just two assists in his first six games and being injured.

Alex Kerfoot – Arizona

Kerfoot leads the Coyotes in scoring since November 17th and in 14 games has 12 points on one goal and 11 assists. He has averaged 19:15 per game and been on the power play 58.6 percent of the time during that period. In Kerfoot's first 16 games he had just four points.

Connor Ingram – Arizona

Ingram started 11 of the Coyotes' 14 games during this period and won six of them, with a save percentage of 92.8 and a GSAA of 7.53. His record on the season is now 12-6-0 with a save percentage of 92.3 and a GSAA of 10.95. He has taken over as the number-one goalie in Arizona, surpassing Karel Vejmelka.

Mackenzie Weegar – Calgary

In his past 15 games, Weegar has five goals, seven assists, 35 hits and 35 blocks. Overall, he has eight goals, 11 assists, 54 hits and 74 blocks in 31 games. He's on pace for 50 points and has already matched his career-high in goals.

Blake Coleman – Calgary

Coleman has five goals, eight assists and 40 shots on goal in his last 15 games. In 16 games prior, he had four goals, four assists and 39 shots on goal. His career-highs are 22 goals and 38 points, but he is on pace to shatter both.

Yegor Sharangovich – Calgary

Sharangovich leads the Flames in goals (nine) and points (14) over the past 15 games. In his first 16 games he had just two goals and three assists, but he is now on pace for a career-high 28 goals and 50 points.

Valeri Nichushkin – Colorado

After some controversy in last season's playoffs that saw him leave the team and not play the rest of the playoffs, Nichushkin had a slow start to the season with five goals and six assists in his first 15 games. He's elevated his game in his past 14 appearances, posting eight goals and eight assists.

Mason Marchment – Dallas

Marchment leads the Stars in points over the past 14 games with seven goals and seven assists. Marchment is having his most consistent prolonged period with Dallas and now has 10 goals and 10 assists in 29 games. He's on pace for 57 points, which would be a career high. Most impressively, only three of his points have been on the power play.

Connor McDavid – Edmonton

Over his past 13 games, McDavid has had 28 points, with nine of those coming on the power play and 19 at ES. In his first 13 games, he was battling injury and struggled (for McDavid) with just 13 points. Only five of those came at ES. He's turned the corner and is now on pace for 129 points.

Quinton Byfield – Los Angeles

Byfield has six goals and four assists in his past 12 games, with 30 SOG. Two of those goals came on the power play. In his 114 NHL games before this, he had just 10 goals on 145 SOG, with only one of those goals coming on the power play. The important step he has taken over the past 12 games is increasing his shots on goal from under 1.5 per game to 2.5 per game. He's currently on pace for 70 points. While he might slow down a little, he's made huge strides already this year.

Filip Gustavsson – Minnesota

Gustavsson had a terrible start to 2023-2024 after a promising season in 2022-2023, where he had a record of 22-9-7, a save percentage of 93.1, and a GSAA of 31.61 through 39 games. This year, he started out 2-4-1, with a save percentage below 88.0 and a GSAA of negative 8.23. Since then, he has a record of 6-3-1 with a GAA of 1.58, a save percentage of 94.1 and a GSAA of 10.21 (which is second only to Connor Hellebuyck since Nov. 17th).

Yakov Trenin – Nashville

Trenin went pointless in his first 14 games but managed to post 36 hits. In his past 16 games, he has put up seven goals, two assists and 40 hits. His ceiling is 15-20 goals, and he is now back on pace to get there.

Cole Smith – Nashville

Smith is a 28-year-old who played 69 games for Nashville in 2022-2023. That was the first time he played more than eight games in a season. He had 17 points and 198 hits in those 69 games and was likely not on the radar of anyone outside deep hockey pools. After his first 15 games this year, he had three points and 39 hits which seemed normal for him. In the past 15 games he has 10 points and 40 hits and is now on pace for 36 points. While it might not last, he is still a good option to have in pools that include hits.

Juuse Saros – Nashville

Saros had an uncharacteristic slow start to this season and was 4-9-1 after 13 starts with a save percentage under 89.0 and a GSAA in the negative at minus 4.35. In his past 11 decisions he is 10-1-0 with a save percentage of 93.3 and a GSAA of 9.49 (which is third best after Hellebuyck and Gustavsson).

Mikael Granlund – San Jose

Things seemed pretty bleak for Granlund's fantasy owners in the last quarter of 2022-2023 where he had just five points in his last 19 games. Fast forward to 2023-2024. His new team in San Jose has a lot of questions surrounding their offense. Things didn't start out well as he had just one point in his first 18 games as a Shark. Things click after that as he has 19 points in his past 16 games. He's now on pace for 65-70 points, which would be his best season since posting 64 points in 2021-2022 with Nashville.

Jake Neighbours – St. Louis

In his first 67 NHL games, Neighbours had nine goals. In his last 15 games he's tallied eight more, putting his career total at 17 in 82 games. This season started slowly with just two goals in his first 15 games on 17 SOG, but he's increased his SOG to 35 in his last 15 games, scoring on eight of them.

Nikolaj Ehlers – Winnipeg

As someone who has Ehlers in a hockey pool, it was tempting to trade him early on when he had just eight points in his first 15 games. He's turned it around and has 14 points in his past 14 games and is now on pace for 30 goals and 32 assists, which is close to his career-high of 64 points.

Gabriel Vilardi – Winnipeg

Vilardi went down with an injury after just one point in his first three games. He's back and healthy once again and has played eight games, posting eight points. Seven of those points have come in his past four games. He's playing like the player the Jets were hoping to get in return for Pierre-Luc Dubois.

Connor Hellebuyck – Winnipeg

Since November 17^th, Hellebuyck has the highest GSAA in the NHL at 11.90. In that period, he has a record of 8-2-0, GAA of 1.70, and save percentage of 94.4. After a slow start, he is now 15-6-1 on the year, with a save percentage of 91.7 and a GSAA of 8.54.

Players Hitting the Wall

Frank Vatrano – Anaheim

Vatrano unexpectedly started the season with 11 goals and five assists in 16 games. Not unexpectedly, he has slowed down and is pointless in six games. He has seven points and is minus 12 in his past 14. He still has 14 goals and 23 points after 30 games and should be able to threaten his career-highs of 24 goals and 41 points.

Sean Durzi – Arizona

Even before he went down with an injury (now listed as day-to-day), Durzi slowed down considerably with just one point in his last nine games. He had five goals and seven assists in his first 16 games.

Logan Cooley – Arizona

It is not unusual for a rookie to go through a series of peaks and valleys in their first taste of NHL hockey. After posting 12 points in his first 16 games, Cooley's name was included in a lot of early Calder conversations. Since then, he has played 14 games, registering a goal and three assists as a minus 10. He's hit a valley.

Dillon Dube – Calgary

Dube had 18 goals, 27 hits and 136 hits in 2022-2023. This year, hopes were high for fantasy hockey owners, who believed he would at least duplicate that. He had a slow start with just three goals and three assists in his first 15 games with a disappointing five hits. Things have not got any better in his past 15 games as he has just one assist and 12 hits. His shots on goal have gone from 1.8 per game to 1.0 and he is on pace for 19 points.

Jonathan Huberdeau – Calgary

Huberdeau is a similar story to Dube. When you think things can't get any worse production wise, they dip even lower. Huberdeau started with three goals and six assists in his first 16 games but has just six points in his past 15 games, now on pace for 40 points. He has no points in his past eight games and is making $10.5 million this year and the next five years after.

Wyatt Johnston – Dallas

Johnston is an impressive second-year player who is still only 20-years-old. In his rookie year, he ended up with 24 goals and 19 assists in 82 games. He started this season with seven goals and six assists in his first 15 games and there was some excitement that he could break out and get 65-70 points. He's slowed considerably in his last 14 games, with two goals and four assists. He's still on pace for 54 points.

Jake Oettinger – Dallas

Oettinger has had his first extended period of below-average play in his career that I can remember. In the last 10 games he played before getting injured (out week-to-week), he had a record of 3-5-1 with a save percentage of 87.0 and a GSAA of negative 7.04. On the year, he has a record of 11-7-2, a save percentage of 90.1 and a GSAA of 0.12. In 2022-2023, he had a record of 37-11-11.

Leon Draisaitl – Edmonton

It seems picky to point out a player who is still on pace for 97 points and include them here. Draisaitl was producing even when McDavid was struggling and/or hurt earlier this season. In his first 15 games he had six goals and 15 assists and was a plus three. In the 13 games since, he's had six goals and six assists and is a minus 10. He's had 10 games so far out of the 28 games he's played where he has gone pointless. He went pointless in just 12 out of 80 games in 2022-2023.

Pierre-Luc Dubois – Los Angeles

The Kings have one of the deepest 12 forwards in the NHL where a player like Dubois needs to play on the third line. He's been a disappointment for fantasy owners this year as he started with four goals and four assists after 15 games. He has followed that up with just a goal and three assists in 12 games since, now on pace for 36 points. As long as the Kings are healthy, he might have a ceiling of 45-50 points, but he might also battle for a Stanley Cup sooner than later.

Kirill Kaprizov – Minnesota

After Kaprizov put up 108 points in 2021-2022, I got used to seeing him on the scoresheet most nights. This season, he started out with 15 points in 15 games but has put up just nine in the past 13 games. He's been held scoreless 12 out of 28 games. Last season it was 16 out of 67, and in 2021-2022 it was 18 out of 81.

Ryan Hartman – Minnesota

Hartman had a good bounce back start to the season after a disappointing 37 points in 59 games last year. He started out with seven goals and four assists in 15 games but has just two assists in his past 10 games and is now on pace for just 43 points.

Andrei Kuzmenko – Vancouver

After scoring 38 goals on a 26.8 shooting percentage last year, I think most of us knew there would be some regression in his goal scoring and perhaps his point production. Even with two goals this past week, he still has just three goals in his past 13 games after putting up 14 points in his first 16 games. He's on pace for fewer than 20 goals and 48 points after 29 games.

Phillip Di Giuseppe – Vancouver

After his first 17 games this season, Di Giuseppe seemed a lock to play 80 games for the Canucks on a line with J.T. Miller and Brock Boeser. He had eight points and 24 hits, providing a much-needed forechecking presence on that line. Fast forward to the next 12 games and he had just one assist and 18 hits. He's been a healthy scratch three times over the past eight Canuck games. 

Alex Iafallo – Winnipeg

Iafallo had 13 points in his first 15 games as a Winnipeg Jet and then went 13 games without a point before getting two in game 29. He has 15 points in 29 games and is on pace for 42 points, which puts him in reach of his career-high of 43. Hopefully Iafallo sees more opportunity with Kyle Connor out of the lineup for at least six weeks.

Thanks for reading and if you have any questions or players you'd like me to look at please message or follow me on Twitter @gampbler15.