If Connor Bedard is on your keeper team, I'm sure you'd love to bubble wrap him to protect him from the dangers of a full-contact sport. Regardless, starring in hockey means risking an injury at any point. Unfortunately, there’s a real possibility that Bedard will miss his first game after he left Friday's game with a possible upper-body injury. It looks jaw or mouth related, as he appeared to be in pain in that area as he skated off the ice.

Connor Bedard went to the locker room following this hit from Brendan Smith. pic.twitter.com/OUZyKCBCRx

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 6, 2024

Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said the team will know more once they arrive home from this game in New Jersey. The Blackhawks next play at home on Sunday against Calgary, and right now he seems questionable at best to be ready for that game.

If you're looking for a "who benefits" from a Bedard injury, well, don't expect a whole lot. Bedard leads the team with 33 points, while no other Chicago player has more than 22 points. Philipp Kurashev and Jason Dickinson were the two Hawks forwards to play over 20 minutes. Kurashev has been on Bedard's line for much of the season, and he's already without a point in his last three games. With no Bedard last season, Kurashev was a 25-point player (in 70 games). This season, he's already just three points shy of that number. Dickinson, a checking-line center on just about any other team, has surprisingly already scored a career-high 13 goals. An increase in his icetime could be offset by potential regression from a 21.3 SH%.

I'll take this a step further and even suggest that you'll want your goalies – even your slumping ones – starting against the Blackhawks. With Bedard in the lineup, the Hawks have the league's second-worst offense (2.31 GF/GP). If he misses time, the scoring will most likely dry up even further. The Hawks have already lost Taylor Raddysh, Tyler Johnson, and Anthony Beauvillier on their recent road trip. You're going to need a program to figure out who plays for Chicago in the near future. On top of that, Nick Foligno also left Friday's game after fighting Brendan Smith in the second period in response to Smith's hit on Bedard.

Road trip from hell for the Blackhawks.

at Dallas 12/29: Taylor Raddysh hurt. No timetable.

at Dallas 12/31: Tyler Johnson hurt. Foot in walking boot.

at Nashville 1/2: Anthony Beauvillier hurt. Arm in a sling.

at Jersey 1/5: Connor Bedard hurt. TBD.

— Mark Lazerus (@MarkLazerus) January 6, 2024

The Hawks' lengthy injury list also includes Taylor Hall, Seth Jones, Joey Anderson, and Andreas Athanasiou. I simply won't have enough space to fill in the little injury box that goes into the Midseason Guide!

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After leaving Thursday's game with a lower-body injury, Miro Heiskanen is listed as week-to-week according to Stars coach Peter DeBoer. Heiskanen is having a slightly down season in terms of production (27 PTS in 37 GP) after a 73-point season, but he has been hot recently with 11 points in his last 11 games. You probably know by now that Heiskanen is a key part of the Stars attack and their most important defenseman from a two-way perspective – maybe even Dallas's most important player. He averages over 25 minutes per game (only five NHL players average more) while no other Stars player has averaged more than 20 minutes per game.

With Heiskanen on the shelf, Thomas Harley warrants an immediate pickup in many leagues. Harley is already rostered in 60% of Fantrax leagues but just 24% of Yahoo leagues. The Yahoo percentage should climb very soon (if it hasn't already) with this recent news. Harley is already on a 40-point pace (17 PTS in 43 GP), and his scoring pace should increase while quarterbacking one of the league's better power plays (22.4 PP%). Nils Lundkvist has been a frequent healthy scratch since early December, so the Heiskanen injury is an opportunity for him to return to the lineup and log second-unit power-play minutes.

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Continuing on the theme of injuries, Max Pacioretty made his long-awaited return from an Achilles injury on Wednesday, then played in his second game as a Capital on Friday. He has yet to record a point this season, but he at least took three shots on Friday and saw his icetime increase to 14:31. He was a PP1 regular for close to a decade, but the Capitals have yet to use him on their top unit with Ovechkin and company. He may need a bit of time to break in on his new team.

I grabbed Pacioretty at the start of the season in one league, moving him into one of my unused IR spots. After two games, I have yet to activate him. In his case, it seems beneficial to leave him there after a long layoff. However, this leads to a lack of roster flexibility if you need to add a player and cannot because of the player on IR that no longer qualifies there. If push comes to shove, and depending on the size of your league, you may have to drop Pacioretty, a player who has missed close to a season and a half with this Achilles injury. He is now 35 years old, and it's entirely possible he may never be at full speed again.

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Your new NHL points leader is now the Winnipeg Jets, thanks to a 3-1 win over Anaheim. I'll throw in a couple points about the Jets.

How do you like Nikolaj Ehlers on the top power play? It's been a long wait, hasn't it? It's taken an injury to Kyle Connor for it to happen, but better late than never. Since December 10, which is around the time Connor was injured, Ehlers has generally appeared in over 50% of the Jets' available power-play minutes each game. During that time, Ehlers has 14 points over his last 13 games, and… wait, just one power-play point? That kind of kills the narrative here, but more power-play points should be on their way. Ehlers has also mainly been on the top line with Mark Scheifele and Gabriel Vilardi during that time.

Vladislav Namestnikov has had an up-and-down career and has mostly been an afterthought in fantasy in recent seasons. However, he has been heating up with seven points in his last five games, including two assists on Friday. He's been skating on what appears to be the Jets' second line with Alex Iafallo and Cole Perfetti. Namestnikov is rostered in just 4% of Yahoo leagues and 11% of Fantrax leagues.  

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Congratulations to the United States on winning this season's World Junior Championship, winning the gold medal game 6-2. Isaac Howard, who looks like Tampa Bay's top prospect, scored a pair of goals in the gold medal game. Howard tied for the tournament goal lead with Vancouver draft pick Jonathan Lekkerimaki, who was named tournament MVP.

Czechia defeated Finland 8-5 in a high-scoring bronze medal game.

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The 2024 Midseason Guide will be available in one week! Look for second-half projections, sleepers, advanced stats, historical trends and prospects you need to know. For more information and to make your purchase, click here.

My work as the Managing Editor at Dobber Hockey combined with Dobber's health situation means that I'm completing a ton of work right now to get this ready for Friday January 12. That means I'll go ad hoc here and discuss one of my own fantasy teams, taking this opportunity to bring up a few worthwhile talking points about roster building and strategy.  

I've never been a huge trade guy in any of my leagues. In fact, in a previous Ramblings a few years ago I described how I much prefer using the waiver wire over making trades because of the control I have. In other words, it takes two to make a trade. That being said, I completed two multiplayer trades on one of my teams recently – both on the same day!

Some background: This is a very deep salary cap league that includes 20 teams and space for plenty of prospects. Finding a fantasy-relevant player with an efficient contract on the waiver wire is nearly impossible. If I learn about a prospect that might help my team, chances are he's been scooped up already. Trades now become a more viable option to improve my team.

After an unexpected run to the league final that followed a seventh-place finish in the regular season, reality has hit my team. Currently in the mushy middle, I don't see a path toward winning the title this season, as at least half a dozen teams look significantly better than mine. The team is suffering through decreased production from Evgeny Kuznetsov, Johnny Gaudreau, Dylan Strome, Brent Burns, Tyson Barrie, and even the aforementioned Heiskanen. That's a good chunk of my core (remember, this is a 20-team league). Sometimes it's difficult to honestly admit your team needs improvement, but it'll help in the long run.

My philosophy with making the trades involves taking a step back this season if it means taking two steps forward in the future. I need to upgrade my prospect base, as I don't have nearly enough blue-chip prospects in my system. I took over the team at the start of last season from an owner who was in win-now mode and traded draft picks to contend. That philosophy benefitted me in my playoff run last season, but I wasn't optimistic about the team when I first took it over.

My first trade involved sending Linus Ullmark and Sean Monahan to a top-5 team for a 2024 first-round pick, Shane Pinto, Kaapo Kahkonen, and Alexander Barabanov. I would expect the first-round pick to be between picks 15-20, but my rationale is that my own first-round pick was traded away by the previous owner, so my first priority was to get it back. Pinto should be returning from his suspension in eight games and is expected to sign a one-year qualifying offer for $875,000 (Ottawa Sun). I needed a backup-type goalie in return to ensure I meet my two minimum goalie starts per week, and a look under the hood at Kahkonen shows that he hasn't been as bad as his numbers show (8 quality starts compared to just 2 really bad starts). Barabanov was a throw-in, but he has scored goals in back-to-back games while playing on the Tomas Hertl line. I hate to give up Ullmark, since he was this team's MVP last season. I'll lean on the improved Sergei Bobrovsky for my goalie starts (I'll admit, I was wrong on him this season) while judiciously deploying Kahkonen, who is a UFA after the season and thus a possible trade candidate. The other team requested Monahan for his faceoffs (57.4% FOW).

My second trade involved sending Nick Schmaltz to another top-5 team for Andre Burakovsky and Easton Cowan. I lose the C-LW-RW roster flexibility and slightly better scoring that Schmaltz provides over Burakovsky, but Schmaltz's production is down like many of my other players. Although Schmaltz is officially labeled as the Band-Aid Boy, Burakovsky has been a better example of one recently, missing 62 total games over the past two seasons. Although Burakovsky was productive when in the lineup last season (0.8 PTS/GP), Seattle isn't the best team to maximize player value because icetime and power-play time is distributed very evenly and there is no high-end scoring star there. I might be buying high on Cowan because he played in the World Juniors, but I recognize that he seemed like a reach as a late-first-round pick of the Leafs (I turned down this team's original offer involving Cowan). However, he now surpasses Filip Bystedt and Otto Stenberg as my most-rostered non-NHL prospect on Fantrax (my 2023 first-round pick had also been traded away).

The one player on my trade block who generated the most trade interest was Heiskanen, who in the end I decided not to trade. Heiskanen is only 24, so I think it makes sense to keep him since I only plan to go on the retool route as opposed to a full rebuild. Plus it's going to be difficult to trade him now because of his injury situation. Maybe I need to get more aggressive, but I don't believe in 3-5 year rebuilds. Scoring is only part of the league's scoring system, and my team has been strong in net and with peripherals. If the team sinks further, then I'll finally be rewarded with the top picks I need anyway and may even try to pick up more. At the very least, the two recent trades are a good first step to preventing a slow decline.

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