It's good to be back, if only for a one-off for now. It's just great to dip my toes in the fantasy hockey waters again, beyond just keeping up with my three keeper leagues and Dobbernomics.

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Boston's woes continue, although on the bright side Jeremy Swayman has now posted back-to-back Quality Starts and has four in his last six starts. He'll pull it together – his own personal training camp is just wrapping up (i.e. he missed Boston's camp).

The entire top six has been a disappointment, but in particular Elias Lindholm is on just a 36-point pace. Coming off a disappointing 44-point year, it's hard to fathom that he's actually doing worse. Puck luck is a tiny part of the problem, with just 5.7% 5on5 S%, but I'm taking a look at his NHL EDGE numbers, which we have neatly presented in his player profile, and his shot speed is down. Every year, like clockwork, he's been good for one shot every two games that tops 80 mph. This year, in 23 games, he has just one shot reaching those speeds (and it was 81.81). He had wrist issues late last season, and an "undisclosed" injury in training camp. Based on all this, my guess is that this impacting his shot.

So what's Pavel Zacha's excuse? On pace for 25 points? He was still on the rise and in the heart of his prime! After seasons of 57 and 59 points, you should be going slightly up or at the very least the same – not way, way down. He's playing with Lindholm, when it was Jake DeBrusk last year, so that's something. But he's still lining up with David Pastrnak and getting tons of PP time. Just baffling. I can see Lindholm taking his points down a little…but this much?

Conor Garland picked up two points for the Canucks, giving him six in his last five games. It took him 34 games to get his 16^th point last year.

Brock Boeser was back in the lineup after missing seven. He played with Teddy Blueger and Danton Heinen.

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Dylan Guenther is on fire right now. Another two points Tuesday gives him six in his last three contests. His line alongside Logan Cooley and Jack McBain is really humming. He's on pace for 75 points right now and while I don't think he gets there (this year – he will eventually though), I do think he pushes hard for 70.

Mikhail Sergachev had himself a game in terms of peripherals. His Hits and BLKS rates have been down this year, but he posted two Hits, three BLKS, 2 PIM, was plus-3 on top of the goal he scored. He had just five Hits in his first 12 games, but has 10 in 10 since. He has 19 BLKS in his last nine games. Perhaps it was just a matter of getting comfortable in his new role with his new team.

Utah held Montreal to just 13 measly shots, giving Karel Vejmelka the easy win. But Vejmelka was due an easy win – he had been playing great hockey to date, without the wins to show for it. Ironically, he gets a win during what is officially an RBS.

Lane Hutson logged a team-leading and eye-popping 26:28 of ice time, the third highest of the season (and his career). He has four points in his last 10 games and is a minus-9 in that span.

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The Top CHL USA Top Prospects game (CHL vs. USNTDP) in London was Tuesday. Wednesday it is in Oshawa. I didn't get to see the Tuesday game, but CHL won it 6-1 and Matthew Schaefer was apparently a beast, solidifying his chances of going first overall with a goal and an assist. DobberProspects recently released their 2025 Draft Rankings and you can check it out here.

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We won't get sucked into John Gibson's early performance, will we? Although I can't say for sure that the other NHL teams will do the same. Right now he's 3-0-1, 2.46 and 0.915. Last year in the first 15 games he had a 2.64 GAA and 0.912 SV%. In 2022-23 he was a bit of trainwreck throughout the season, but in 2021-22 he again had an amazing start – after 15 games he had a 2.36 GAA and 0.925 SV%. In 2020-21 after seven games he posted a 1.87 GAA and 0.942 SV%. All of those seasons ended with very poor numbers. I'm not going to go back through all the years, but we've seen this song and dance from Gibson before. And with analytics staff now in place for NHL organizations, I'm guessing NHL teams know this as well. Will he be traded? The Ducks would like this. But I think Anaheim would have to settle for a low return, or hope for a sucker.

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A lot of people have been asking me about Jason Robertson, and why he's below expectations this year. I've been high on him as a 90-point player with 110-point potential for years now, and some of these notes I've been getting have been politely suggesting that I was wrong. But I don't see it that way. He had 79 points in 74 games in his second year, and 109 points in his third year. He 'fell' last year to 80 points, and now we're 20 games in and he only has 12 points. Listen. We see 90-point players fall off by 20 or 30 points for a couple of years all the time, and then they bounce back to 90 again. To get 109 points like he did, and then repeat it over and over again – that's Nikita Kucherov territory. That's elite player territory.

Robertson is not struggling because of any depth chart or linemates. He's THE guy in Dallas. Period. He could play with you on one wing and me at center and he'll still get his points. Robertson missed training camp (cyst removed from his foot). To me, that automatically buys 20 games of leeway, as that essentially becomes his training camp. Factor in the injury and playing through some discomfort (or pain) early on, and his production is easily explainable. I don't know how his foot is feeling right now, as I'm not him. I can't say for sure whether he will get back to his old self in a few games, or if this season will just be a write-off. But if it is, and he ends up with a measly 50 points (his current pace), then he is massive buy-low opportunity in keeper leagues because I am confident he gets back up over a point-per-game next year, after a full summer of recovery.

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Some stats at the quarter mark of the season, per the NHL:

• 77.6% of the goals were scored at even strength. This is the highest percentage in 51 years.
• It's the first time in 30 years (so far) that we have back-to-back seasons of 0.902 SV% or lower.
• Seven players are on pace for a 120-point season
• Hardest shot recorded so far is from Tage Thompson at 104.69 MPH
• Fastest skating speed recorded so far is from Steven Stamkos at 24.20 MPH
• Most 90+ MPH shots this season is from Victor Hedman at 21
• Most miles skated in a single game was from Travis Sanheim at 4.69 miles.

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My Team Canada goalies are Logan Thompson (starter), with Cam Talbot as the backup. The No.3 is between Samuel Montembeault, who is getting better the closer he approaches 30, and Jordan Binnington. I'm not a fan of Binnington, and even less so after his performance at last year's World's, so I'll go with Montembeault as the No. 3. Thompson has been the best goalie of the four, with Talbot next. But Talbot tends to get ice cold at times, so I'd be more comfortable with him as the backup. He brings a great veteran presence, too. You can compare all four of these goalies, along with a fifth goalie in Adin Hill, at a quick glance here.

Mackenzie Blackwood blah blah blah. Yeah, yeah, I know. But I wouldn't touch Blackwood for this with a 10-foot pole. Not even a blip on my radar. Zero trust in him. He needs to put together some consistency first.

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Since I'm already here, I figure some of you may want an update on my health – and hey, maybe some of you don't know anything about it. So I'll provide a quick summary.

In 2017 I was diagnosed with MDS which spiraled quickly into AML (leukemia). I had a stem-cell transplant from an unrelated donor and, although I'm glossing over the messy details, I beat it and was cancer-free for six years. Last year in October I was told that the AML had returned and I would need another stem-cell transplant from an unrelated donor.

AML stifles your immune system. When you hear about someone dying from it, they are actually dying from the flu, or pneumonia or some kind of infection that most of us would simply beat. I got pneumonia last November and was hospitalized for five or six weeks. I was out in time for Christmas. I went back into the hospital on March 7 and had the stem-cell transplant (SCT) on March 13. Everything was going swimmingly until around March 27. When you get an SCT, you undergo chemotherapy to wipe out all of your blood counts. All to zero – no immunity at all. So I'm at zero, and there must have been a tiny shred of pneumonia still in my lungs because, with nothing to fight it, it came roaring back. On March 28 I was in ICU and on March 31 I went into sepsis and they induced a coma. I was in a coma for six days and at one point my family came to say their goodbyes (on my 50^th birthday of all things – April 2^nd). It was that close.

On April 5 the pneumonia was under control, they brought me out of the coma and I was able to breathe initially with the help of tubes. It was six weeks of in-hospital recovery and rehab. I had no voice at all, could barely eat, and couldn't walk. It took me over two weeks just to lift a phone and clumsily type a text!

I was out of the hospital on May 16 and could walk with a cane. Since then, it's been a very slow but steady recovery. I ditched the cane in about three weeks, was eating better by mid-July and eating normally by September. I've gained back about 20 pounds of the 50 I lost. My voice fully returned about a month ago (I could speak in a hoarse voice for a few months). My energy level is steadily rebuilding. I still can't do the late nights that I used to, but I'm getting there. All that's left now is to rebuild the muscle I lost and there are still some lung issues. But everything else going really well.

That's the summary and update. Thank you everyone for pulling for me and reaching out over the past year. I'll be back on the regular soon enough!

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