The Flames and Blue Jackets warmed up all wearing Johnny Gaudreau #13 jerseys. It was an excellent send off gesture between his two former teams. 

Johnny and Matthew, you are always in our hearts. pic.twitter.com/nVq75TD6I3

— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) December 4, 2024

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Patrik Laine made his long awaited Habs debut last night, skating on the second line and lining up with the top power play unit. He played alongside Kirby Dach and Juraj Slafkovsky, one of the largest top-six forward lines the Canadiens have had in years.

Laine made an immediate impression with a lower play goal in the first period. 

https://bsky.app/profile/scottmatla.bsky.social/post/3lcgxztanus2i

He finished with two shots and two hits in just over 17 minutes of ice time, and was named the game’s first star.

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Brayden Point has been money since returning from an injury, with eight goals in seven games (no assists). It hasn’t slowed down Anthony Cirelli though, who has six goals of his own in those seven games, and actually sees his shot rate improve with Point in the lineup. Might be a feature of not having to take all of the toughest assignments like he would when the number one centre is away. Cirelli really seems to be coming into his own as a fantasy relevant C2. The boosted shot rate this year is really making a big difference.

One other Lightning note is that it sounds as though Jake Guentzel was injured in practice Tuesday morning. We’ll see if there’s an update tomorrow. The Lightning don’t play until Thursday though, so we may have to wait until then.

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Dallas’ big guns have been getting back on track the last two weeks, with Jason Robertson (six points in seven games), Roope Hintz (five in six), Wyatt Johnston (seven in seven), and Miro Heiskanen (seven in six) each finally living up to their billing at the top of the lineup. Dallas does have the depth that these players won’t get overworked, and that does cap their production a bit. 

Hintz has also taken advantage of a few empty netters this year, with three. Though from owning him in a few leagues it feels like there have been a lot of late game goals by Hintz, and that’s not necessarily a good thing as it seems like he’s only scoring in garbage time. He’s the one of the four that I’m the least confident in, but he still should be at least a 70-point player the rest of the way. 

The leeching of points off empty net goals isn’t quite as bad as that bum Kirill Kaprizov though, who leads the league with five empty net goals. 

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Alexandar Georgiev has another rough night, allowing four goals on eight shots before being pulled. Newly acquired Scott Wedgewood made his Avalanche debut as a result, coming in partway through the first period, with three Avs down 4-0. The team came all the way back to make it a 5-4 victory, a great start for Wedgewood with the team, stopping all 22 shots he faced. Nathan MacKinnon led the way on the score sheet (surprise!) with two goals and an assist. 

Double whammy for the Sabres, Rasmus Dahlin left the game with back spasms. Apparently he dealt with the injury in training camp as well. Better for him to make sure he heals up fully, but either way hopefully it’s not a longer term issue. 

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Evgeni Malkin scored and added an assist last night to inch himself back above last season’s disappointing 67-point pace. That seems to be where he’s sitting now, right around that 65-70 range. At 38 years old that’s probably the best we can expect, especially if he starts to wear down more than usual as the season goes on. 

Philip Tomasino, assisted on Malkin’s goal, and now has points in three straight, meaning only in his debut game with the Penguins had he this far been held off the scoresheet in Pittsburgh. On top of it, he’s been firing the puck quite a bit, and seeing some secondary power play time. 

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With Cam Talbot and Alex Lyon sidelined, Sebastian Cossa was recalled, but warmed the bench last night while Ville Husso nearly picked up his first win of the season, but couldn’t hold the final goal out in overtime as the Bruins bested him for the third time in the game. That brings the Bruins to 5-2 with Joe Sacco as he’s coach, and Jeremy Swayman lined up to play the Blackhawks tonight. 

Lucas Raymond has both goals for the Red Wings, with Simon Edvinsson assisting on both. Someday all of these future pieces the Wings accumulated are actually going to lead them to a playoff bearth.

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The Carolina Hurricanes shuffled their forward lines last weekend, putting William Carrier up with Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis for the top line, and then I’m not quite sure which of the bottom-three lines would be each of line two, three, or four. 

However, the Canes were then thoroughly dismembered by the Panthers, losing 6-0. All that to say, Rod Brind’Amour is looking to shuffle the lines, but that iteration won’t stick.

On Monday morning they had these lines at practice:

New lines at Canes practice (12/2):

Robinson-Aho-Necas
Svechnikov-Drury-Roslovic
Martinook-Staal-Jarvis
Carrier-Kotkaniemi-Blake

Slavin-Burns
Orlov-Chatfield
Gostisbehere-Walker
Stillman

Kochetkov
Martin

📢 advertisement:

— Ryan Henkel (@RyanHenkel_) December 2, 2024

This would be a big bump for Drury if he could make it stick, but it’s tough to put much faith in any of these combos lasting long at the moment. 

I would still love to see Jackson Blake up on the top line, and any combo is good as long as it doesn’t have Martin Necas carrying around Eric Robinson and Drury. 

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The rosters for the Four Nations tournaments are set to be revealed today. I’m curious which of the Canadians or the Americans overthought their choices more and talked themselves further into a sub-optimal roster. 

Just as those team’s managers shouldn’t overthink things, don’t put any stock into these teams for your own fantasy purposes. The chance of an injury in the extra four games a player plays is quite low, while a player being rested vs not is also likely irrelevant to your fantasy season. 

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Rick Roos is looking for a few more mailbag questions to be answered in next week’s article. To get your questions to him, private message "rizzeedizzee" via the DobberHockey Forums or email [email protected] with "Roos Mailbag" as the subject line. No one does a deeper dive on your questions than Rick, and now is the time to get those hot & cold start questions in before it’s too late.

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Jacob Pelletier was recalled again by the Flames, but is only playing in the fourth line. He’s going to need a few players above him in the lineup to be sold off before the trade deadline if he wants to have any fantasy relevance this year. 

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From the land of stats that help absolutely no one, I took a quick look at which defencemen win faceoffs. There are currently zero defencemen that have won a faceoff this year. Only Uvis Balinskis (twice) and Michael Kesselring (once) have even taken one. 

Last year, Jacob MacDonald and Jake Sanderson each won one. For Sanderson it was the only one he took. Fun to imagine him ranging around the ice as a centre if the Senators ever really wanted to shake the team up. 

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The best event on the hockey calendar is only a few weeks away now. Yes, the World Juniors are coming! For fantasy managers, especially in dynasty leagues, it means we can get overly excited about prospects that are still a couple years away, based on how they perform in a tiny five game sample. For that exact reason I like to try and load up every year on a few guys that may stand out in the tournament, and then see if I can flip them before the trade deadline for actual meaningful pieces. Sometimes it works, like a couple years ago when I managed to squeeze value out of trading Ludvig Jansson (D – 10pts in seven games) of all people. Sometimes it almost works, like last year when I added Theo Lindstein before he went on to lead the tournament in defenceman scoring… but I couldn’t find a trade for him and ended up dropping him in the offseason. Other times it just doesn’t work out, like last year when I went into the tournament owning Easton Cowan, Nate Danielson, and Julian Lutz, then they all dissapointed and dropped their stocks a bit. 

All that to say, don’t pay anything extra to load up on a few guys before the tournament, but if you can add a player or two then watch to see if they take off, then it's an easy way to find money. Here are a few names I’m looking at prior to this year’s tournament:

Otto Stenberg is one of the key cogs expected to lead Sweden’s offence. He was a late first round pick by the Blues, but has generally flown under the radar since then because he’s playing over in Sweden. The transition of these players to North America is hit and miss, though a smart and talented player like Stenberg seems more likely to hit than miss. It wouldn’t be surprising to see him pace the Swedes in scoring, which should turn some heads in his direction. Still available in 87% of Fantrax leagues, but he’ll already be owned in the deepest ones. 

Adam Jecho is a hulking six-foot-five winger with decent puck skills. If he could put together his consistency and up the skating a bit, he would be a menace to try and handle even at the NHL level. He should be a top-six player for the Czechs who have medal aspirations. 

Jesse Kiiskinen was drafted by the Predators in 2023 but has already been traded in a prospect swap deal that landed him with the Red Wings. It looks like Detroit bought in at the right time, as Kiiskinen’s production has really jumped this season after transferring to a new team in the Liiga.

He projects as a middle-six scoring option for the Finns, and should be available in most dynasty leagues. 

Tanner Molendyk is my longer-odds pick to lead the Canadian D-core in points. Leaving Carter Yakemchuk and Zayne Parekh off the selection camp roster means that there isn’t a clear power play specialist. Molendyk is the least hyped of the options Canada could be loading onto the top power play, but his skating and agility would really be an asset with a creative forward core that could use movement instead of chemistry to create with the man advantage.

I was going to look into picking one specific goalie to talk about, but in tournaments like these you never know who the standouts goalie will be. Take a flier with someone and while it probably won’t work, if it does the value can skyrocket for a short period after the tournament. I own Carson Bjarnsson, though often the goalies from a team like the Czechs, the Swiss, or Germany are the goalies who really have to stand on their head and steal the spotlight. 

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