The Capitals announced yesterday that Alex Ovechkin is out week-to-week, and we have a new Injury Ward writer to cover the big news. We’re bringing in Logan Clarkson from GoaliePost over to take over the column from Blake Creamer. All the best to Blake, and keep your eyes peeled for Logan’s debut this afternoon. 

Back to Ovechkin, the big story is that this injury probably ends his chance at catching Gretzky’s goal record this season. He needs 27 more to break the record, and even at his current pace that would mean another 33 games. Odds are though that even the most prolific goal scorer of all time won’t keep up his pace of five goals every six games at the age of 39. With the injury, he’s probably going to need to be back by New Year’s to have a shot. 

Not much else to add, likely grade 2 MCL injury and hopefully no longer than 4-6 weeks https://t.co/b0FvmJrICi

— Dr. Harjas Grewal (@Harjas_Grewal) November 19, 2024

Ovechkin doesn’t have an exact timeline, but it could end up being around the end of December when he’s able to return. 

When he does get back, the overall point production is going to tail off. At this stage Ovechkin is a 65-point scorer which we can bump up to 75 thanks to his chemistry with Dylan Strome. That means Ovie was putting up about 1.5 times the amount of points he should have, and unfortunately the well high window slams shut with the injury. Adjust expectations for his return accordingly. 

In the meantime, this opens a roster spot to get Hendrix Lapierre back in the lineup, but it likely hurts Strome’s production. 

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I’m not going to speculate at all with this J.T. Miller news, and will just say I hope he can get sorted what he needs to and that everyone is okay. 

Canucks Forward J.T. Miller to take indefinite leave for personal reasons. pic.twitter.com/RzjZT3bKCK

— Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks) November 19, 2024

In the meantime, there are some big minutes to fill, but a loss of a skilled player to play alongside. 

First look at new lines shows that without Miller and Conor Garland, this roster looks pretty shallow. 

first run through #Canucks lines
DeBrusk-Pettersson-Sherwood
Joshua-Suter-Höglander
Heinen-Blueger-Lekkerimäki
Räty-Bains

— Jeff Paterson (@patersonjeff) November 19, 2024

That’s music to Jonathan Lekkerimaki’s ears though, as he has a chance to step up and earn a much bigger share of ice time. 

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The Oilers claimed Kasperi Kapanen from the Blues (as some form of payback for the offersheets maybe?) but I don’t see any real fantasy upside here. The rest of the team played well yesterday, putting up five against Linus Ullmark and the Sens. The big guns got back on track with Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, and Evan Bouchard each notching three points. That puts McDavid 10 back of MacKinnon, but even with MacK's lead, McDavid still has to be the Art Ross favourite at this point, right?

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The defending Champs and the top ten in the league meet for the second time within the last week. In the first game the Panthers were all over the Jets, and handed them their worst loss of the season.

Then, last night Mark Scheifele had a hat-trick and the big guns for the Jets all showed up to turn the tables on the Panthers. Another loss really could have become a worm in their minds and eaten away at their confidence, thinking that they couldn’t hang with a real playoff team. As it is, the Jets now know they can beat anyone, and thus really does look like a team primed for a Presidents Trophy run. 

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Chicago jumbled their lives for this game and the result was Connor Bedard playing wing alongside Jason Dickinson and Joey Anderson. The result was two Dickinson goals, two Bedard assists, and no points for Anderson. Expect the former two there to remain a pairing, with someone new cycled in for Anderson. 

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Brayden Point returned for the Bolts and pitted two goals on five shots including the OT winner. Darren Raddysh had two assists and is making a case to stick back in the lineup, but he’s blown his chance on the top power play for now. 

Tristan Jarry had his best NHL game in a while, but that’s three goals against and a loss. The bar is pretty low at this point. 

Three goals for Pierre Engvall in his last three games. He's averaging over two shots per game for the first time in his career. After not even making the team out of camp, he seems to have found a home on the third line. That is until the team gets healthy again.

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Connor McMichael has gone two straight games without a point, and the market correction may be coming in now. He’s still shooting 25%, and for a player that has a keen nose around the net he might keep an elevated shooting percentage more than the average player, but even for him 25% is much too high. His team’s on-ice shooting percentage is also about 40% too high, and he’s surprisingly only starting 35% of his shifts in the offensive zone. 

Luckily though, not all of his metrics scream regression. McMichael is fast approaching his breakout threshold, and while his goal numbers should regress, his assists does have some room to grow. He’s due to pick up some more secondary assists, and he’s been unlucky on the power play as well, with a low IPP with the man advantage despite playing a key role in the middle of the ice. 

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The Thanksgiving week schedule coming up at the end of the month is a little quirky. Here’s an excerpt from my H2H schedule article that I put out in the summer. 

“Nov 25 – Dec 1 has about 20% more games than a usual week, despite no games on Thanksgiving Thursday. Four busy days (11 games or more) on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday that week – that means a lot of back-to-backs on the Friday/Saturday.”

Maximizing Your Fantasy Hockey H2H Schedule

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Steven Stamkos and Mikail Granlund recently updated to C/LW/RW in Yahoo, with Jean-Gabriel Pageau getting RW eligibility which is excellent for my Roto league where I own him as we count FOWs. Getting them from the wing instead of just the centre slots is a real key. 

A few others who had winger eligibility added:

Ridley Greig

Pius Suter

Evgeni Malkin

Jack Roslovic

Malkin especially is interesting as he’s the most widely fantasy relevant of the bunch who went from “C” only to now also having wing eligibility. He’s having a bit of a revival this year, back up to a point-per-game pace after his worst statistical output of his career last season. 

Count me among those who thought last year was the beginning of the end for Malkin. His 67-point pace wasn’t awful by any means, but it was his lowest in 18 seasons. His shot and hit rates had also dropped, with the hits rebounding a little this year, but the shots are still down now among the lowest rates of his career. 

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I recently traded for Brennan Othmann in my dynasty league, and with his hot start of five points in three AHL games thus far, I’m thinking he may not be far off from making the big club, possibly taking over Kaapo Kakko‘s spot in the top-nine next year. 

It got me wondering who else is lighting up the AHL that could have some fantasy relevance sooner rather than later. Here are a few names to keep you eyes on. 

Isak Rosen was called up by the Sabres after posting 13 points in 13 AHL games this year. He had 50 in 67 last year, but was held scoreless during his seven game NHL call up (with eight shots and zero hits). He has some scoring ability as a skilled middle-six centre type, but Buffalo has a lot of those players which limits his ability to make a jump up the lineup right now unless the team gets even further thinned out by injuries. 

Denton Mateychuk 

One of my favourite defence prospects, Mateychuk is following up his exceptional junior career with a stellar rookie campaign in the AHL. He’s scoring a point per game, putting over two shots per game on net, and leading rookie defencemen in scoring. He has some road blocks in front of him with the pro club, but it does sound like David Jiricek could become trade bait soon, and after that it’s only Zach Werenski whose upside is higher. 

Collin Graf

The most sought-after unrestricted free agent last summer was Graf, who is more trading up the AHL, leading all rookies in points with 19, and tied for the overall league lead as well. He may only have broken onto the scene recently, but even though the 22-year-old is a late bloomer, he’s well worth targeting in dynasty leagues.

Rory Kerins

Closely following Graf, is former 6th round pick Rory Kerins, who is putting up excellent AHL totals for the second year in a row as an undersized forward. Kerins is part of one of the most dominant AHL lines right now alongside Walker Duehr and Jacob Pelletier. He is marginally out-scoring both, and should be one of the next in line for a call up when a centre slot opens up.

AHL goalies are a much tougher bin to sift through, as numbers can be heavily influenced by the team strength and small sample sizes. Regardless, Sebastian Cossa and Yaroslav Askarov look like the cream of the AHL prospect goalie crop. Speaking of which, Askarov is up with the Sharks at the moment as Vitek Vanecek is hurt, and he could get his first start with the Sharks in very short order. 

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See you next Wednesday, and if you want to keep up with it you can find me on BlueSky here, or Twitter/X here if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments.