There has been some early-season injury turbulence that has already hit the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers. Adam Boqvist took a puck to the face and had to miss a game over the weekend, Aleksander Barkov injured his ankle and looks to be out a couple weeks at least, and Matthew Tkachuk missed a game over the weekend with an illness.

The news on Tkachuk wasn't ideal as the team faced off in Boston on Monday afternoon:  

Tkachuk (illness) is going to miss about a week, per Maurice.

They're targeting Oct. 22 vs. Minnesota as his return.

— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) October 14, 2024

This is a four-game week for the Panthers with the team in Columbus on Tuesday before returning home. Fantasy managers need to look elsewhere for his replacement, so be sure to check if Sam Bennett is on your waiver wire.

Boqvist was back in the lineup for Monday afternoon's game against Boston.

Florida won that game without Tkachuk or Barkov by a 4-3 margin. Sam Reinhart and Anton Lundell both had a pair of goals, with Reinhart scoring once on the power play and once short-handed. Adam Boqvist had a PP assist with a shot and two PIMs.

Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 24 of 27 shots for the win. Jeremy Swayman all four goals on 26 shots for the loss.

Mason Lohrei, Brandon Carlo, and John Beecher all scored while Lohrei and Beecher added assists.

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Linus Ullmark was not dressed for Ottawa's game on Monday afternoon with Anton Forsberg taking the start. Something to keep an eye on as the team said they were being cautious with him.

Anton Forsberg left the game after a collision with Brandt Clarke, so it was Mads Sogaard in net for the final half of the contest. Forsberg did come back to sit on the bench, though, and it may have just been more of the coach giving him the rest of the day off than anything.

The Ottawa-Los Angeles game was truly the wildest game of the season so far, and may be the wildest one we get all year. Ottawa pulled out an 8-7 win in overtime as Los Angeles blew separate 2-0, 3-1, and 4-2 leads. The two teams combined to go 7/11 on the power play and the goalies combined for allow 15 goals on 67 shots. That is a .776 save percentage between three goalies.

It will probably be shorter to just do this in bullet form. Here is how Ottawa fared, fantasy-wise:

• Josh Norris: Two goals (one PP), one PP assist, three shots, two PIMs, five hits.
• Drake Batherson: One PP goal, two assists (one PP), four shots, two PIMs, three hits.
• Thomas Chabot: One goal, one PP assist, five shots, two blocks, one hit.
• Jake Sanderson: One PP goal, one PP assists, two shots, one block.
• Tim Stutzle: Three assists (one PP), one shot, one block, one hit.
• Zack MacEwen: Two goals, two shots, nine PIMs, two hits.
• Brady Tkachuk: Two PP assists, five shots, two PIMs.

And now from the Los Angeles side:

• Kevin Fiala: Two PP goals, five shots, two PIMs.
• Alex Laferriere: Two goals, five shots, two blocks, four hits.
• Anze Kopitar: Three PP assists, one block, one hit.
• Brandt Clarke: Three PP assists, one shot, two blocks, two PIMs.
• Adrian Kempe: One PP goal, one assist, three shots, one block, one hit.

Those are just the multi-point games. Got it? Great.

Needless to say, the goalies didn't have a good day, but a lot of skaters did.

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An update on John Tavares:

No Tavares (illness) or Woll (lower body) at main practice, though Woll working out alone.

— Lance Hornby 🇺🇦 (@sunhornby) October 14, 2024

With Tavares out, Matthew Knies remained on the top PP unit in practice while Oliver Ekman-Larsson stayed there, too. OEL had took over the top spot in the team's last game and it looks like he'll have a chance to hold it for now.

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On the good-news injury front, JJ Peterka was back on the top line in practice:  

Sabres' lines and pairs at practice;

Peterka-Thompson-Tuch
Benson/Kulich-Cozens-Quinn
Zucker-McLeod-Greenway
Malenstyn-Krebs-Lafferty

Dahlin-Jokiharju
Power-Byram
Samuelsson-Clifton
Gilbert-Bryson

— Lance Lysowski (@LLysowski) October 14, 2024

He is returning from a concussion and was skating in the top-6 in practices last week, so this isn't a guarantee of anything. However, that he doesn't seem to be suffering any setbacks is a good sign.

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St. Louis forward Brandon Saad has been activated off IR:

#stlblues practice lineup:

Saad-Thomas-Neighbours
Bolduc-Buchnevich-Kyrou
Joseph-Schenn-Holloway
Toropchenko-Faksa-Walker

Extras: Kapanen, Sundqvist (non-roster) Texier (IR)

Leddy-Parayko
Broberg-Faulk
Suter-Kessel
Extras: Joseph, Perunovich

Binnington
Hofer

— Jeremy Rutherford (@jprutherford) October 14, 2024

He was also skating on the top line for St. Louis practice alongside Robert Thomas while Dylan Holloway was down on the third line. Saad had 26 goals last year but doesn't bring much else in fantasy with his limited peripheral profile.

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After missing Sunday's game for Minnesota, good news for Joel Eriksson Ek:

Reassurancethat Ek will be in St. Louis for the game tomorrow https://t.co/sZndKdcshF

— Jessi Pierce (@jessi_pierce) October 14, 2024

The Wild only have two games this week, so there is time for him to heal up after Tuesday's game in St. Louis.

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It took one game for Andrew Mangiapane to be moved to Washington's third line in practice, so his tenuous fantasy value took a big hit.

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Macklin Celebrini isn't traveling with the team for their three-game road trip, so it looks like the earliest hope is for him to return to the lineup Sunday against Colorado.

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Jake Allen registered a 20-save shutout as New Jersey held the red-hot Utah squad off the scoreboard in a 3-0 win. The Devils got goals from Seamus Casey (PP), Nico Hischier (PP), and Stefan Noesen. Noesen was moved to the top PP unit over Timo Meier and led to Noesen skating nearly 15 minutes. Hischier (PP) and Casey also added assists.

It is worth noting that Dylan Guenther skated under 14 minutes in this game. More on him later, but the ice time is really a concern for fantasy managers.

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Ilya Sorokin made his first start of the season for the Islanders on Monday night. Devon Toews was a late scratch due to injury.

Colorado allowed a pile of goals again as the team lost 6-2 to the New York Islanders. Alexandar Georgiev allowed five goals on 37 shots, and it was by far his best performance of the season. Everyone has a bad week, but on the ice, no one has had a worse week than him to start the season, allowing 13 goals on 62 shots against.

Sorokin had a very good first start of the season, allowing two goals on 34 shots in the victory. He even has some time off to get more practice under his belt as the team is off until Thursday night.

Brock Nelson scored twice (one short-handed) on five shots, managing two blocks as well. Kyle Palmieri, Mat Barzal (EN), and Anders Lee had the other tallies. Lee finished with seven shots and a block.

Alexander Romanov had an assist, a shot, six blocks, two PIMs, and five hits in a great multi-cat night.

Calum Ritchie scored his first NHL goal while Casey Mittelstadt scored the other. Mittelstadt had three shots and a hit with over 20 minutes in ice time.

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Secondary scoring was the catalyst for Pittsburgh's 6-3 win in Montreal as Lars Eller scored twice back in his old stomping grounds while Kevin Hayes added a tally. Hayes's goal held as the game-winner as he managed a pair of shots and a pair of hits to go along with it.

Evgeni Malkin turned back the block with a goal and two assists, managing the one shot with a hit. Malkin's line mate Rickard Rakell scored once on three shots, posting three blocks and a hit.

Kris Letang also scored, managing two shots, a block, and three hits in the win. Matt Grzelcyk had two assists, two shots, a block, and a hit.

Juraj Slafkovsky (PP), Emil Heineman, and Kaiden Guhle had the goals for Montreal. Guhle had that one shot, four blocks, two PIMs, and two hits in a great multi-cat night. Slafkovský had three shots and three hits to go with his PP goal. Mike Matheson had his first multi-point game of the season with two assists (one on the PP), two shots, and three blocks.

Tristan Jarry stopped 24 of 27 shots in the win while Sam Montembeault allowed five goals on 30 shots.

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The New York Rangers took a 4-1 win at home to Detroit on Monday night. Each of Chris Kreider, Alexis Lafreniere, Reilly Smith, and Mika Zibanejad scored a goal while Artemi Panarin had a trio of helpers. Panarin is now up to seven points in three games to start the season as he picks up right where he left off last season.

Zibenejad had a three-point night, adding two assists, and both he and Panarin had one of their helpers on a Kreider power play goal. Kreider had two shots, two PIMs, and two hits to his name.

Igor Shesterkin was excellent in net, stopping 31 of 32 shots faced for the win.

Dylan Larkin had the lone goal for the Red Wings while Moritz Seider had two shots, three blocks, two PIMs, and three hits.  

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It is still very early days in the NHL season as the vast majority of the teams are just a week into their campaign. Samples are still small so there's not much to draw on in terms of goals and assists; percentages reign when we're talking a few games for each team.

There is a sentiment that applies to the NHL that I like to remember: all games count towards standings, and all stats count towards fantasy categories, but when taking the long view this early in the season, it's more important to see where and how players are being used rather than if they're finishing their shots or not. Let's take a spin around the league to see how teams are using their players in the early days of the 2024-25 campaign. Data from Natural Stat Trick or Frozen Tools.

Calgary Flames

One of the early surprises is the 3-0 start by Calgary, posting wins over Vancouver, Philadelphia, and Edmonton. Shooting over 18% as a team is a big reason why – no team shot over 12% last season – but they are also carrying 53.7% of the high-danger shot attempts, good for 12^th in the league. Not elite, but good, and a lot better than many of us thought they'd be.

Standing out early is Connor Zary as he's been skating on Mikael Backlund's line as well as the top PP unit. Zary has earned over 19 minutes per game so far, third among Flames forwards and trailing only Backlund and Nazem Kadri. With four points (one on the PP), seven shots, two blocks, and three hits, he has been productive everywhere. The first-round pick from 2020 is an important piece to this team early on.

One concern is MacKenzie Weegar. He does have a great early stat line with two goals (both PP), one assists, seven shots, eight blocks, and eight hits in three games, but he's at 22:12 per game and is fifth on the blue line by 5-on-5 ice time per game. He is definitely not someone to trade or anything, but skating 22 minutes a night would not be living up to his late-season usage from 2023-24.  

Buffalo Sabres

It is a tough 1-3 start for Buffalo, but I suspect once they stop shooting 7.3% as a team (no team finished under 8.2% last year), things will look a lot better.

That applies to Dylan Cozens, too. He has 16 shots on goal through four games (along with 10 hits) but has yet to register a point. He is skating 19:40 per game, though, and has been moved to the team's top PP unit. At nearly 2:30 per game more than last year and a prime PP role, Cozens is being put in a position to succeed offensively. It is worth checking on his status in your fantasy league because with that much ice time, things can only get better from here.

Seattle Kraken

With a new coach being brought in, the hope was that Seattle's approach to how they use their top players would change. That has not been the case through three games as Chandler Stephenson is the only forward earning more than 18 minutes per game (Matty Beniers is at 17:56) while no forward is earning more than 52% of the team's power play time.

Last season, the only Seattle forward to earn more than 18 minutes per game was Alex Wennberg, and Beniers was second at 17:57. Also, no forward earned more than 52% of the team's PPTOI. Other than swapping Wennberg for Stephenson, the team's usage has remained basically identical to 2023-24. It is just three games, and we have already seen some line changes, but the team may just be running back the same approach as last season. That is not good news for guys like Jared McCann and Oliver Bjorkstrand.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Though they'll be listed as the third line on some lineup sites, the Columbus trio of Kent Johnson (19:47), Cole Sillinger (18:16), and Mikael Pyythia (17:28) has been the team's second line through two games. Both Johnson and Sillinger have also been skating on the team's top PP unit, so they are both being put into good offensive spots to start.  

It will be interesting to see how long this lasts. The Sean Monahan-Kirill Marchenko-Yegor Chinakhov has been very good early on, so they're clearly the top line. It has also been tough sledding for Adam Fantilli's line, so Johnson and Sillinger might keep getting this kind of high usage for a while yet.

The problem for now is Columbus has three games this week, all on heavy days, and only two games the week after. The short-term schedule is not favorable, so I wouldn't be dropping any proven players for the likes of Sillinger/Johnson just yet.

Utah

Another hot start is over in Utah as the team had a 3-0 record heading into Monday afternoon's game and Dylan Guenther has five goals in those three games. The first note here is that Guenther is skating just 15:04 per game so far, down from even last season when he was at 16:17. I am very high on Guenther, but if he stays around the 15-minute mark, he will be hard-pressed to have consistent fantasy value over a six-month span.

What is more interesting is how they're using their defencemen. Both Mikhail Sergachev (25:52) and Sean Durzi (25:33) are over 25 minutes a game, though that does include two overtime contests. We were expecting an uptick in Sergachev's usage given his top PP role with his new team, but that Durzi is still getting that much ice time is also important. He could be a Devon Toews-like performer if he can get this usage and stay healthy, but he did leave Monday’s game and did not return. Would be a tough break for him this early in the season with that kind of usage.

Anaheim Ducks

It is just two games and Jackson LaCombe – top power play during the preseason – was scratched for both due to illness. However, with LaCombe out of the lineup, Pavel Mintyukov led the team in ice time with 23:07 per night. He doesn't have a point or a shot yet, but that kind of usage for Mintyukov would be a huge boon to his long-term fantasy value.

Anaheim doesn't play again until Wednesday night, but they have three games this week, and hopefully LaCombe is back in the lineup. We'll see what the blue line looks like when he's in the lineup and there are a few more games under the belt, but if Mintyukov can stay around the 22- to 23-minute mark, it would be great news for fantasy managers.