The Vancouver Canucks have been on a nice little run of late, going 5-3-1 in their last nine games and that has been good enough to push them into third place in the Pacific. All those games have been without centre JT Miller as he's been on a leave of absence from the team. The good news is there's a report he will return to practice later this week:

JT Miller returning to practice Wednesday: reporthttps://t.co/gpRKuKYFVU

— CanucksArmy (@CanucksArmy) December 9, 2024

Vancouver is at home to Florida on Thursday and Boston on Saturday. It seems Miller will be back for the former, if not the latter, and that's great news for him, the team, and fantasy managers.

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San Jose finally ended their three-goalie dilemma while Colorado continues to shore up a glaring sore spot as the Sharks shipped Mackenzie Blackwood to the Avalanche. Brennan had a breakdown of the trade here.

There is not a lot for me to add. Blackwood immediately becomes a potential top-12 fantasy goalie and anyone that bought that lottery ticket in September should reap the rewards. It will be interesting to see how the Sharks plan to use Nikolai Kovalenko. He didn't show a lot in Colorado, but he still has good upside and there is some high-end young talent he can grow with. It will be a process, it won't be an overnight sensation.

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A positive update on Buffalo's Rasmus Dahlin:

Lindy Ruff said Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin had a rehab skate and felt good. There's a chance he plays later in the week.

— Matthew Fairburn (@MatthewFairburn) December 9, 2024

Buffalo is at home on Wednesday before a road back-to-back on the weekend. More as we get it but it seems the hope is he can be back for one of those two games on Saturday and Sunday.

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Speaking of Buffalo, they had a classic 1980s-style game at home to Detroit on Monday night. The two teams combined for five goals in the first period and took a 5-5 game into a shootout. That was on 52 combined shots, by the way, and after Ville Husso was pulled after allowing three goals on seven shots, ceding the net to Sebastian Cossa.

Jason Zucker had two goals on four shots, added an assist, and posted a pair of hits in a great fantasy performance. Tage Thompson, Zach Benson, and Nicolas Aube-Kubel scored the others for the Sabres.

Owen Power had an assist, two shots, and four blocks in nearly 25 minutes of ice time, and goaltender James Reimer stopped 26 of 31 shots to get his team to the skills competition.

Andrew Copp had a pair of goals for Detroit, including one halfway through the third period that started off their late two-goal comeback. Moritz Seider tied the game with under five minutes left, and he assisted on Copp's first goal of the night. Seider also had three total shots, a block, two PIMs, and three hits in a stat-stuffing performance.

Lucas Raymond had a goal on three shots with an assist and a pair of blocks, Alex DeBrincat managed a tally on four shots with a block and two PIMs, while Dylan Larkin had two helpers, five shots, and a block.

Cossa ended up stopping 12 of 14 shots to hold the fort until the shootout, which was won by the Red Wings to give them the extra point on the night, and stands as Cossa’s first NHL win.

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The New York Rangers went into Monday night's game at home to Chicago with a 2-7 record over their last nine games. Thankfully, with the Lottery-quality Blackhawks in town, the Rangers were in a position to start righting the ship. Right? Right?!?!

Obviously not. The Rangers lost 2-1 to the Blackhawks and by what I was reading on social media (I was watching Montreal-Anaheim), this wasn't a case of getting goalie'd. That tracks when looking at the final stats and Chicago carrying the shot total 32-30.

Tyler Bertuzzi scored his sixth goal of the season, and his first goal in over a month, while Taylor Hall's second-period tally held as the game-winner. Hall assisted on Bertuzzi's goal and that gives the former MVP four goals and six points in his last seven games.

Arvid Soderblom stopped 29 of 30 shots en route to the win.

Will Cuylle scored his 10^th of a season, this one short-handed, and it was the only puck to get past Soderblom. He had three shots, a block, and eight hits in a great multi-cat night.

Igor Shesterkin was good, but his two goals against on 32 shots was enough to take the loss.      

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Troy Terry scored a pair of goals for Anaheim on Monday night, while Patrik Laine (PP) scored his third goal in four games with Montrel and Kirby Dach tallied just his second goal of the season (and first since late October), which was assisted by Laine. The Ducks and Habs took a 2-2 game to a shootout as they played one of the most boring overtimes you will see, as long as you didn't catch the Red Wings/Sabres overtime earlier in the night.

Sam Montembeault stopped 27 of 29 shots while Lukas Dostal stopped 19 of 21. Laine and Cole Caufield scored in the shootout for the Habs to give Montembeault the win, and the team the extra point.

Lane Hutson had a helper on Laine's power play goal, and he now has 21 assists in 30 career NHL games. That seems good.

Cam Fowler had an assist, two shots, two blocks, and two PIMs in a solid fantasy effort.  

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We are now over one-third of the way through the regular season. There are players who were due for positive regression that are now getting it (looking at you, Zach Hyman), players who were due to go the other way and it's now happening (sorry, Cale Makar), but we have a pretty good idea of who will be successful fantasy options this year and who won't. Things can change, but I wanted to take some time to go over players I was high on before the season and I've been flat-out wrong about. Numbers are as of Monday afternoon, and data from either Natural Stat Trick or Frozen Tools.  

Timo Meier

Presuming an 82-game season, my projection for Meier was 42 goals, 35 assists, 297 shots, and 132 hits. His current 82-game pace is for 25 goals, 31 assists, 263 shots, and 161 hits. At least the hits are looking good.

The big part of my projection was assuming he'd have a top power play role for the vast majority of the season. He started there, but it wasn't long until he was supplanted by Stefan Noesen, and that's been the case for nearly two months now – it has been 25 games since they made the change, and New Jersey has the league's top power play in that time. It is safe to say that without an injury, Meier isn't getting that role back.

There is still good multi-cat value, but Meier was often going as a top-40 pick in September drafts, which is a stretch now. He won't be a 75-point player without top power play time, so we're going to have to chalk this one up to a loss.

Juraj Slafkovsky

I drafted 20 teams this year and don't have Slafkovský on any of them. That was more because his draft position was way too inflated, and not because I wasn't relatively high on him. My preseason projection was 25 goals, 40 assists, 193 shots, and 164 hits. At time of writing, his 82-game pace is 7 goals, 41 assists, 106 shots, and 222 hits. The assists and hits are good, the shots and goals are not.

From Christmas onward last season, Slafkovsky averaged 6.5 shots per 60 minutes. The assumption was he'd hold onto a 19(ish)-minute role on the top line and marginally improve on that. It clearly hasn't happened, but what is curious is he's landing just 40.7% of his shot attempts on goal; that number was 47.7% in his first two seasons. Teams are generally landing fewer shot attempts on goal as block and miss rates have increased, but this is extreme. Even if he just starts landing more of his attempts on goal, his shot rate will rise, but he clearly won't be a 25-goal scorer, so this is a big miss.

Adam Fantilli

If you told me back in September that, two months into the season, Columbus would be seventh by goals-for per game, and higher than teams like New Jersey, Dallas, the New York Rangers, and Colorado, I would have drafted even more Fantilli than I did. (Out of 20 teams drafted, I took him nine times. Nine!) My preseason 82-game projection was 31 goals, 33 assists, 227 shots, and 113 hits. His current pace is 15 goals, 24 assists, 170 shots, and 128 hits. Hey, we got the hits right again.

What really hurts here is the same as with Meier: A lack of a power play role. Fantilli has seen some top PP time, but is seventh among their forwards in percentage of power play time. With Kent Johnson back and healthy, and with Yegor Chinakhov potentially back soon, Fantilli may not see a regular top PP role this season. It still wouldn't be enough for Fantilli to get to the 30/30 mark, though, so we can write off 2024-25 ('he'll be a great draft value in September', I tell myself).

Charlie McAvoy

I had some concern that Mason Lohrei would take the top PP role at some point, and he has spent a couple games there, but it has largely been McAvoy all season. That is what makes his current pace all the more disappointing: 14 goals, 14 assists, 6 power-play points, 170 shots, 119 blocks, and 144 hits. I had him for 12 goals, 52 assists, 23 power-play points, 145 shots, 177 blocks, and 162 hits. The goals are close, and both the shots and hits are above what I expected. Those assist and PPP totals, though. Woof.

Not only is Boston's power play dead last by goals per minute this season, but they are scoring 2.5 goals per 60 minutes with McAvoy on the ice for the man advantage. That is about league average for 5-on-5 scoring. Surely, the Bruins won't keep shooting 4.5% in McAvoy's power play time, but we can safely say this won't be the first 60-point season of his career.

Justin Faulk

As soon as the injury to Torey Krug was announced by St. Louis, I couldn't draft enough Justin Faulk. Not that I'm high on him as a player, generally speaking, but there was a distinct lack of options to run the power play, Faulk did it at times the prior two seasons, and more ice time should mean better peripherals. The thing about assumptions…

With a consistent top PP role and more ice time, my preseason projection for Faulk was 9 goals, 42 assists, 18 power play points, 194 shots, 147 blocks, and 111 hits. To date, he's pacing for 3 goals, 19 assists, 10 power play points, 155 shots, 132 blocks, and 98 hits. We aren't far on the blocks and hits, but everything else is a giant miss.

St. Louis is playing better under new coach Jim Montgomery, and Robert Thomas is back, but Faulk has lost the top PP role to Colton Parayko (for now, anyway). Even with some positive regression coming, Faulk will not be a 50-point defenceman, and probably not a 40-point defenceman. It is disappointing because he got the minutes and role expected, but the production completely collapsed. Hockey is a funny game.  

Jeremy Swayman

Once all the contract concerns really started to sink Swayman's average draft position, I started drafting even more of him. I had a pretty good idea Boston wouldn't let this drag out into the regular season, and they weren't going to give Joonas Korpisalo ~40 starts as if he's Linus Ullmark. Well, Swayman signed two days before the regular season, and Korpisalo is pacing for 25 starts. That should be good for fantasy, right? Well, the funny thing about goaltenders is none of this is funny.

Swayman is currently sporting an .893 save percentage, good for 29^th among the 34 goalies with at least 12 starts. Because of Boston's scoring problem, and Swayman's poor play, he's winning just 45% of his starts (averaged 63.2% in his first four years and was 58% last season). Not great, Bob.

Boston's first 20 games saw them 27^th and 31^st in the league by shots and goals per minute, respectively. Since firing Jim Montgomery, they are 7^th and 15^th, respectively, by shots and goals per minute. Swayman has a .918 save percentage in six starts in that span, and has won four of his six starts. Maybe he's this type of goalie from here on out, which would be nice, but when looking at the season as a whole, he is very unlikely to finish as a top-6 fantasy backstop.