Carolina now leads the conference, Washington continues to skyrocket, the Flyers surge past .500 and Pittsburgh continues to struggle. Let's check in on our Eastern Conference. All stats and records are up to date as of Monday afternoon.  

Carolina Hurricanes // 13-4-0 // L7 Days: 3-1-0

Martin Necas cannot be stopped. He's completely overshadowing the performances we are getting from Andrei Svechnikov and Shayne Gostisbehere, who should be getting a spotlight of their own. Shayne is en route to a 63-point year, and Andrei Svechnikov is putting up career numbers, flirting with a point per game season in a real way. 

Carolina is a wagon right now – Pyotr Kochetkov is outperforming his environment at the perfect time. Amongst goalies with over 50 minutes of 5v5 ice time he's seeing the 21st most high danger shots against per 60 minutes. Tristan Jarry sees the most. 

Carolina always does well in the Corsi game – they continuously control possession and currently have the third best goal differential. Frederik Andersen will be on the shelf for "longer than expected" – Kochetkov should be rostered for as long as that takes, and even past Frederik's return. 

New Jersey Devils // 12-7-2 // L7 Days: 2-1-0

The "Timo Time" clock needs new batteries. Time is ticking away for Timo Meier – as he's lost the top power play unit to Stefan Noesen. Noesen turned into more than just a plug for hits – he's currently on pace for more points than Timo Meier – it's less that Timo lost top power play, and more Noesen earned it. 

It's worth dissecting Timo Meier's body of work throughout his career to see if we have been "catfished" to a certain degree into believing his point per game season in 2021-22 was natural progression rather than an outlier. 

I have summarized and averaged what Timo Meier's "average year" looks like by taking every season except for 2021-22 and aggregated the results. I've also truncated his rookie year, so as not to throw the averages even further south. For brevity, we'll call that summary his "Career Average" or cAvg for short. 

In 2021-22, Timo's average time on ice was 10.84% higher than his cAvg. He scored 18.59% more goals on 21.97% more shots. He got in on 11.54% more goals, as well as benefiting from 20.93% more goals being scored while he was on the ice and had 10.34% more individual scoring chances. Maybe 2021-22 was the outlier, and not a sign of growth. I hope I am wrong, as well do many of you I am sure. 

Washington Capitals // 12-4-1 // L7 Days: 2-0-1

The only streak that rivals Martin Necas' streak is Connor McMichael's streak of appearing in Eastern Edge. He's still doing awesome for those keeping track. Rasmus Sandin is also enjoying some of the apparent all you can score buffet – with nine points in his last five games played, he's up to 10 points in 18 games. 

At this pace – Alex Ovechkin is due to break Wayne Gretzky's goal record in 32 games on January 25th, 2025 versus the Vancouver Canucks. 

30 games from now the Capitals play the Oilers – wouldn't that be poetry? He also will play the Oilers in 40 games from now on February 23rd, 2025. 

Florida Panthers // 12-5-1 // L7 Days: 1-2-0

Matthew Tkachuk's slow start has many similarities to how he began the season last year. On Frozen Tools, in the quarterly breakdown you will notice that Tkachuk had 18 points in his first 21 games played – a 70-point pace – with six power play points. He is currently on a 69-point pace. In Matthew's first 13 games last year he tallied only one power play point – in his first 13 games this season he has two. 

Matthew Tkachuk has no assists thus far on the power play, and his power play individual points percentage (IPP) is criminally low at 40% – generally in the 65-75% range. He is currently 21 points shy of last year's points pace – and is currently 20 power play points shy of last year's power play points pace. 

Last Year Matthew Tkachuk's second quarter of the season saw him put up a 94-point pace, and his third quarter saw a 123-point pace. He's on a very similar trajectory this year – this could present a unique buy low opportunity for those willing to gamble on a repeat. 

Toronto Maple Leafs // 11-6-2 // L7 Days: 2-1-0

Auston Matthews will not play this week, making this the third week in a row he has been "Day-to-Day". 

With Matthews, Toronto was 16th in the league with 3.00 goals for per game (GF/GP) and a power play with a 10.0% efficiency. Since his injury, the Leafs are 10th in GF/GP with 3.17 and have the third ranked power play rolling at 34.8%. Matthews is one of the best hockey players in the world, and perhaps the greatest goal scorer of the new generation – it truly is mind boggling why and how the Leafs are doing better without him. 

New York Rangers // 11-4-1 // L7 Days: 2-1-0

Vincent Trocheck is in the midst of a debilitating cold streak. One point in his last five brings his point pace down to 26 points below his totals last year of 77 points. This year Trocheck is seeing 38 seconds less power play time on ice per game, and suffering stretches of time spent away from Panarin – who Head Coach Peter Laviolette is using to try to jump start Mika Zibanejad. 

Tampa Bay Lightning // 9-6-1 // L7 Days: 2-0-0

Brayden Point was taking line rushes on the top line today, indicating his return is imminent. Head Coach Jon Cooper would not commit to saying whether he is playing Tuesday or not – stating only that he is "trending in the right direction". 

Boston Bruins // 8-8-3 / L7 Days: 1-1-1

Jeremy Swayman continues to struggle. After a holdout that garnered the fifth highest goalie contract in league history, MoneyPuck has him as the 17th worst goalie in goals saved above expected per 60 with a minimum of four games played. 

Philadelphia Flyers // 8-8-2 // L7 Days: 3-0-0

So far in the month of November, Travis Sanheim leads all defenseman in average time on ice per game with 28:04. He also has seven points in the eight November games so far – which is good for 5th in points per game amongst defenseman granted a six-way tie at 1.00 points per game and a three way tie at 0.88 where Sanheim resides.

New York Islanders // 7-7-4 // L7 Days: 1-1-1

Returns on the horizon.

Anders Lee, Kyle Palmieri and Bo Horvat are all better than point per game in November. Lee has four goals and six assists in eight November games, Palmieri has three goals and six assists, while Horvat has two goals and seven assists – they have three power play points between the three of them in November.

Ottawa Senators // 8-8-1 // L7 Days: 1-1-1

Claude Giroux was having a somewhat renaissance season, at least until this eight-game, one-point cold streak came into his life. Before the cold streak he was rolling at point per game. 

Buffalo Sabres // 8-9-1 // L7 Days: 1-2-0

Tage Thompson is nearing a return, unfortunately Alex Tuch seems to have landed on the shelf at the same time. 

J.J. Peterka is having himself a fantastic season so far, being a point per game through 16 games. He looks good under the hood too – a little lucky in the shooting percentage and on ice shooting percentage departments, but low IPP and low secondary assist rates could wash out any regression he might see in shooting percentage. 

Pittsburgh Penguins // 7-10-3 // L7 Days: 1-2-1

Tristan Jarry is still bad. Jarry is seeing the most high danger shots against per 60 in the league, and by a country mile. His mid danger save percentage (MDSV%) is brutal at .684. Surprisingly, his high danger save percentage is good, relative to the amount of saves he is making. His high danger goals saved above average per 60 (holy mouthful) is in the positive – but just barely at +0.07 HDGSAA/60. The mid danger shots are killing him, his MDSV% is worst in the league. 

Detroit Red Wings // 7-9-1 // L7 Days: 1-2-0

Alex Lyon and Cam Talbot have been nothing short of draft value gold mines this year. There was an interesting piece on Low Danger / High Danger shots by Justin Bourne that sheds some light on team win percentage and the number and ratio of low danger to high danger shots opponents are putting up and how it impacts teams' chances of winning. This bleeds heavily into goalie performances and might open a small window of opportunity for us as fantasy managers to attempt to project goalie performances. 

Cam Talbot sees the 2nd most 5v5 low danger shots against per 60 minutes (LDSA/60) in the league – Alex Lyon is 19th. Talbot sees the 11th fewest 5v5 high danger shots against per 60 minutes (HDSA/60), and Lyon is 14th. 

Low danger shots tend to keep the goalie warm, and allows them to find their in game rhythm. 

Amongst other leaders in the fewest 5v5 HDSA/60? Kevin Lankinen, Anthony Stolarz, Darcy Kuemper – and many other Zero-G darlings. Leaders in the most LDSA/60? Vitek Vanecek, Mackenzie Blackwood, Lukas Dostal, Anthony Stolarz. 

If you can comb through and find a netminder who appears on both lists, you might be able to find yourself a reliable patchwork goaltender for your fantasy team. 

Columbus Blue Jackets // 6-9-2 // L7 Days: 1-2-0

Columbus has opted to break up the Chinakhov – Monahan – Marchenko line that ranks sixth in expected goals percentage, 16th in expected goals-for per 60 and ninth in actual goals-for percentage (more than 75 minutes together ). They've replaced Yegor Chinakhov with Dmitri Voronkov – who has actually improved that line in all those categories. 

Dmitri Voronkov has three points in his last three games, including two goals. 

Montreal Canadiens // 6-10-2 // L7 Days: 2-1-0

Over the last two weeks the Canadiens are scoring as much as the Vegas Golden Knights on a per game basis – but Juraj Slafkovsky can't seem to get in on too much. No points in three games and five in his last 10, three of those five came from one game against Buffalo. Kirby Dach seems to be struggling as well with only three points in his last 10. 

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That's our Eastern Edge Eastern Conference update for the week. Thank you for reading, as always feel free to chirp me in the comments below, in the Fantasy Hockey Discord or you can reach out on X – @FHFHockey. In the meantime, you can catch updates from me on the Five Hole Fantasy Hockey Podcast.