This week we are talking about players who are trending in the right direction heading into the new year, and whether their recent success appears sustainable in 2025. While there have been many players who have found success in the early going of the season, today we are focusing solely on players who have been playing some of their best hockey of late.

On the Frozen Tools main page you can easily see players who are considered hot or cold lately, so we are going to focus on players who are labeled as "hot".

I am taking the players chosen and separating them into different categories based on which direction I predict their performances to go in the new year. Stats in the table below are for the month of December.

Name	Position	Games Played	Goals	Points
Kirill Marchenko	F	13	4	14
Filip Forsberg	F	10	0	12
Jonathan Huberdeau	F	9	5	11
Sebastian Aho	F	10	4	11
Owen Tippett	F	10	6	10
Mikhail Sergachev	D	10	2	10

Category 1: Watch Out

These are the players who I believe will continue their recent success and build upon it possibly improving on their recent performances.

Sebastian Aho

The Carolina Hurricanes shifty center has been on a tear of late, with points in each of his past five games, including four goals.

Aho continues to be one of the most important pieces of an always successful Hurricanes' forward group, currently averaging 19:53 minutes per game, just below his career-high in a season of 20:09.

Aho is coming off of a career year in which he totaled 89 points across 78 games, and is gradually returning to where he left off after the regular season ended.

While teammate Martin Necas has received all the fanfare after a blazing hot start to the season, Aho has continued to produce at above a point-per-game pace (1.06 PPG).

Why I believe Aho is just scratching the surface is the fact that Aho ranks dead last on the Hurricanes in PDO at 943, and is currently firing below his career average of 15.1 shooting percentage, currently scoring on 12.5% of his shots on target.

Aho has averaged 0.43 goals per game over the past three seasons, but his 11 goals through 34 games leaves him with just a 0.32 G/GP. His small decrease in shooting percentage could account for his lower scoring rate, and I expect him to resort back towards or above his career average.

Although his goals total and shooting percentage have both dipped, his expected goals for per 60 of 3.37 is his highest total over the past five seasons. This shows that he has continued to drive the play offensively, and should continue to rack up points as we head through the middle of the season and into the home stretch. Couple that with the fact that he has missed just 12 games over the past three seasons, Aho is a safe bet to put up points in the new year.

Filip Forsberg

The Nashville Predators and Forsberg's seasons are completely intertwined. As the Predators continue to search for answers as they sit second-last in the Central Division, Forsberg can't seem to figure out where his goals went.

After racking up a career-best 48 goals last season, Forsberg has just nine goals through the first 35 games. Luckily for the Swedish sniper, he has been able to find the scoresheet in different ways, totaling 10 assists during an on-going five-game point streak.

During his career, just 53.3% of his points have been assists, but this season 69% of his points have not come from goals. If Forsberg is able to rediscover his scoring touch, there's a good chance he could have a strong 2025 portion of this season.

Forsberg continues to see plenty of opportunity as one of the Predators offensive mainstays with a 68.2 %PP, which if it holds would be the highest of his career. Although some regression in terms of assists should be expected, once Forsberg is able to return to his goal scoring ways fantasy owners will be treated well.

As expected, his 7.5% shooting is well below his career average of 12.7, but he is shooting the puck a bit less in general with a decrease of 0.8 shots per game from last season, when he posted a career-best 4.2 SOG/G.

If Forsberg wishes to keep on scoring at a point-per-game pace he will have to return to his goal scoring ways of previous years.

Category 2: The Sweet Spot

These players are those who are performing at a sustainable level and still have potential for growth. Although they should stay hot for a little while longer, in the end it is expected that they will regress back to the mean.

Kirill Marchenko

The 24-year-old Marchenko has been a budding superstar for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Marchenko leads the team in both goals (13) and points (37), and has been red hot with 10 points over his past six games.

Marchenko currently plays the second most minutes out of all Blue Jackets forwards, while his 65 %PP is also second amongst Columbus attackers.

While his goal scoring is near his career average through three seasons, his 24 assists through 35 games equates to a 0.69 A/GP which is well above his 0.24 A/GP from last season and 0.07 A/GP in his rookie year.

His shooting percentage of 13 is just below his career average of 13.4, but he ranks second out of all Blue Jackets with a PDO of 1047. His high PDO could be due to his ability to keep the puck out of his own zone with his strong offensive play.

While Marchenko should continue to benefit statistically from the fact that he is playing a career-high of 18:16 minutes per game, there could be some cause for caution after he saw his season run a similar trajectory in 2023-24. He also got off to a strong start last season, before tailing off a bit. After tallying 24 points in the first 41 games, his points total took a small dip as he mustered up just 18 points over the final 37 contests.

Marchenko should have no trouble staying up near a point-per-game for the remainder of the season since he is putting up a career-best 2.9 shots per game, while also owning a shooting percentage near his career average.

Mikhail Sergachev

Since coming over to the Utah Hockey Club in a trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning this past summer, Mikhail Sergachev has taken the reins of being the "guy" on Utah's backend.

The 26-year-old defenseman now has six points over his past five games, and has been eating minutes at an all-time rate. Sergachev is averaging a career-high of 25:53 minutes per game this season, while averaging an astounding 27:47 over his past eight outings.

The former ninth-overall pick back in 2016 has rewarded Utah for taking a chance on him after an injury-plagued 2023-24 season, and has bounced back to the form we saw when he tallied 64 points in 79 games the season prior.

His 0.76 points per game narrowly trails the 0.81 PPG he posted in 2022-23, and he has already quadrupled his goal total from last season, in the exact same number of games (34).

Expect some regression when it comes to goal scoring as Sergachev's 14.3 shooting percentage is unsustainable, especially for a defenseman. But luckily for his fantasy owners, his role as Utah's quarterback on the power play is perfectly safe as his 70 %PP is well above his career average.

Sergachev is always involved when on the ice and that has led to just eight of his 18 assists being secondary assists. Sergachev will continue to be relied on at both ends for Utah, and with them currently sitting just outside of a playoff spot, expect Utah to continue to deploy the versatile defenseman as often as they can.

Category 3: Chill Out

The players listed in the "Chill Out" category are guys that should struggle to keep up their success based on a variety of factors.

Jonathan Huberdeau

Just three seasons removed from a 115-point outburst, Jonathan Huberdeau has gone through a recent offensive revival with 13 points over his past 10 games.

His current 60-point pace would mark his best season since heading north of the border to the Calgary Flames, but there is reason to doubt its sustainability.

Huberdeau's 21.7% shooting percentage seems bound to regress as it surpasses his career average by a total of 12.5%. Unless he found some magic in his stick, expect that number to dip in the near future.

The 31-year-old has seen an increase in playing time, averaging 18:30 minutes per game, more than a minute above his highest season total with the Flames of 17:25. But his usage on the man advantage has taken a bit of a hit. After averaging 2:52 power-play minutes per game over the previous two seasons, he's currently running at 2:35 this season.

While it is completely possible that Huberdeau continues to collect points, it is hard to believe that he will keep scoring at this pace, especially given the fact that he has already surpassed his goal total from last season through just 34 games.

Owen Tippett

Tippett has been a spellbinding player to watch this season. After a slow start which saw him tally just 11 points over his first 23 games to start the season, Tippett has amassed 11 points over his past 12 games, including a four-point performance against the Columbus Blue Jackets on December 21.

Tippett's recent offensive uptick also includes seven goals on just 23 shots. That's a shooting percentage of 30.4, after he had just a 6.3 S% over the first 23 games. His season-long 12.6 S% is better than his career average of 10%, so a slight reduction in scoring is inevitable.

Despite the surge in scoring, Tippett has seen his role decline. Tippett's average time on ice through the first 23 games was 17:23, and it has gone down to just 14:50 over the past 12 games. His power-play time has taken a huge dip as well, decreasing from 2:47 to 1:18 per game.

For most an increase in production should lead to more opportunity, but Flyers head coach John Tortorella often throws unexpected curveballs. So unfortunately for the talented Tippett, even with his recent impressive performances, his potential is limited.