There was just one game on Monday night, and Los Angeles took care of business at home with a 3-0 win over the New Jersey Devils. Andre Lee scored the first goal of the game, the first goal of his career, and the first goal in the NHL in 2025. That stood up as the game-winner, though Quinton Byfield and Adrian Kempe added goals late in the third period to sew things up.

For Byfield, that makes six goals and nine points in his last eight games. His usage has gone up considerably with the team often going 11 forwards/seven defencemen, and his production has increased with it. It'll be interesting to see what the Kings do once Drew Doughty returns.

Mikey Anderson had a pair of assists, a shot, a block, and a hit. He is now up to 12 points on the season, and is on pace for a career-best mark.

Darcy Kuemper held the fort in goal for Los Angeles, stopping all 32 shots he faced for his second shutout of the season.

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We got sort of an update on Auston Matthews:

Matthews in extras grey as #Leafs practice gets underway. Ekman-Larsson taking part. Holmberg absent.

— Terry Koshan 🇺🇦 (@koshtorontosun) January 1, 2025

He would go on to say that this is an injury that he may not move past this season. Whatever it is, it's going to keep him out of the lineup in the near-term, and it certainly looks as if it's something that's not going to go away anytime soon.  

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Minnesota provided an update on Kirill Kaprizov:

Hearing #mnwild star Kirill Kaprizov is going on injured reserve. Even though it's retroactive to before break and he could come off anytime, I'm hearing he's not coming on the 2-game trip. This creates room for a forward and likely defenseman David Jiricek with Spurgeon hurt.

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) January 1, 2025

Missing a pair of games and going on IR retroactive to over a week ago isn't a big deal. The only big deal right now is that he still isn't skating. It is hopefully not something that lingers too long, but there's not a lot of clarity beyond this week.

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Happy 2025, everyone! Yesterday had just one game on the schedule, so we have a bit of leeway about what to do with today's Ramblings. I thought it'd be a good time to put some markers down and make predictions for the next calendar year. So, let's do exactly that, and make seven guesses about what we could see over the next 12 months. Data is from Natural Stat Trick and is all as of the afternoon of January 1^st.

New Jersey Devils Win the Stanley Cup

This isn't exactly going out on a limb as New Jersey was around a top-5 team to win the Cup by preseason betting odds, they're currently top-5 with those same odds, and they're the sixth overall team by points percentage so far this season. All the same, considering that they missed the postseason entirely in 2024, winning the Cup would be a massive turnaround in one year.

When I look at Cup contenders, the first thing I look for is weaknesses. Well, New Jersey's top two lines both have a 5-on-5 expected goal share over 55% and actual goal share over 60%. They have a great shutdown pair in Jonas Siegenthaler-Jonathan Kovacevic, and all three defence pairs are both around (or over) a 55% expected goal share at 5-on-5, and actual goal share around (or over) 53%. Starting goalie Jacob Markstrom has also been a difference-maker for them in net, and both their power play (second by conversion percentage) and penalty kill (seventh) are top-10 in the league. If the roster stays healthy, they probably need to add one (or two) legitimate middle-6 forwards by the trade deadline to help with their depth, but this is not a team with (m)any glaring weaknesses. This could very well be their year.

Macklin Celebrini Scores 50 Goals

As it is with any player, health is paramount here, but Celebrini has been as advertised. He helps drive the play, he's tremendous through the neutral zone, he has a high shot volume, and he gets lots of ice time. Those are all things that will help him succeed, something he has shown already. Scoring 50 goals in the NHL is incredibly difficult, even in a higher-scoring environment compared to 5-6 years ago, but he has all the tools and the usage necessary to get to that level.

If there is one thing that will hurt Celebrini, it's that there is still a lot of work to do on his supporting cast. Will Smith is still developing, Mikael Granlund may be traded, William Eklund has been somewhat inconsistent (but is showing his playmaking upside), and the blue line needs a lot of improvement (let's hope Luca Cagnoni is as advertised). It is the overall issue with San Jose and, by extension, Celebrini's short- and medium-term upside. However, if those things can improve, especially for the start of the 2025-26 regular season, the super-rookie's production can really take off.

Kirill Marchenko Goes 40-40

It has been a superb start to Marchenko's season as he's currently sitting over a point-per-game pace with 42 points in 38 appearances. He has shown excellent chemistry with Sean Monahan and, as of late, has been earning more ice time by exceeding the 19-minute mark in seven of his last 10 games. This is a young player who has been on an upward trajectory since entering the NHL, as HockeyViz shows how his contributions have improved every season:

What has hurt Marchenko so far this season is that he has just one power play goal; this is a guy who scored one PP goal every 8.5 games in his first two seasons. He should probably have 4-5 PP tallies by now, and that would have him around a 40-goal pace for a full season, but he's shooting just 4.4% with the man advantage. The good news is that Columbus's top power play unit has been legitimately good and that is a big turnaround from some recent seasons. With Marchenko improving, his line and power play unit being very good offensively, and his role expanding, all the ingredients are there for a massive 2025.

Robert Thomas Reaches 100 Points

In calendar 2024, Thomas put up 76 points in 73 games. That is a ways away from a 100-point pace, but there have been legitimate improvements to the offence as both Dylan Holloway and Zachary Bolduc have made positive impacts in their first full seasons with St. Louis. Jordan Kyrou remains as good as ever and Pavel Buchnevich has started to turn his season around after a very slow start. Those improvements matter as St. Louis is still trying find its way in the post-Ryan O'Reilly/Vladimir Tarasenko era, and it's notable that Thomas is still getting heavy usage despite those improvements. He is their top player and is still just 25 years old.

One thing that Thomas needs is for the team's power play to improve, and that will be the big thing that can take him from an 80-to-90-point player to one that can push for 100 points (a couple goals against Chicago aside). Whether it happens or not remains to be seen, but Thomas very much has the ability to be a 30-70 player if the team around him can keep up their end of the bargain.

Lane Hutson is a 60-Point Defenceman

Montreal's rookie defenceman has started his career with 28 points in 39 games. That is an 82-game pace of around 59 points, so in that sense, this isn't an extreme prediction. However, the Canadiens are still looking to move past the 'rebuild' portion of the franchise's trajectory, the power play has been inconsistent, and we have seen productive young blue liners never repeat early-career success; Will Butcher fits this bill, and Thomas Chabot does as well, to a degree. Nothing in the NHL is guaranteed.

All the same, Hutson has shown everything fantasy managers have been hoping for. That includes the power play generating far more shots and goals with Hutson running it than Mike Matheson, and Hutson ranking among the NHL's elite defencemen by high-danger passes per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (as tracked by AllThreeZones):

Hutson still has to round out his game as both an NHL defenceman and a fantasy defenceman – his rate of shots and hits still lack. However, he's already earning consistent top power play time, consistent top-four minutes, and has shown the high-end skill that we've all been hoping for. If he can keep doing this, and the team around him keeps showing the improvements they have over the last couple of months, then 60 points in calendar 2025 feels very doable.

Ryker Evans is a 40-Point Defenceman

It is very important to note the following: Even with both Vince Dunn and Brandon Montour healthy and playing every night, Ryker Evans has averaged 20:18 per game in ice time over his last five games. He has held onto a genuine top-4 role for Seattle and though he's lost his power play time for now, it's not as if Seattle has generally had a power play worth a whole lot. So far in the 2024-25 season, he has averaged 1.4 points per 60 minutes, and that's a genuine top-pair rate.

Evans still has work to do as an offensive defenceman, particularly once the puck gets into the offensive zone, but he's starting to show the flashes necessary to be a reliable point-producing blue liner. That he's earning a consistent top-4 role over veterans Jamie Oleksiak and Josh Mahura shows what the team thinks of him right now, and that's a great sign. A lack of a power play role will hurt anyone, but with young guys like Matty Beniers and Shane Wright improving, as well as balanced scoring throughout the lineup, most of the pieces are there for Evans to be a 40-point defenceman over the next 12 months. Add that to his ability to post triple-digit shots, block, and hits, and there could be a very solid multi-cat fantasy rearguard blooming here.  

Lukas Dostal is a .910 Goalie

Another one where we're not really stretching too far, as Dostál has a career .905 save percentage in 90 games (80 starts), which includes a .914 save percentage in 2024-25 alone, but we have to remember who he plays for. On the season, Anaheim is last by expected goals against per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, and 30^th by shots against. At all strengths, those measures are last and second-to-last in the league. Considering the league average save percentage this season is down to .900 (which is the fifth season of a declining save percentage and the lowest mark since the mid-1990s) and playing behind a porous Anaheim defence, Dostál being able to keep up a .910 save percentage for the next 12 months would be an impressive feat.

As a team, the Ducks have a long way to go to dig themselves out of the Lottery range and move towards pushing for a playoff spot; it will take a couple years at least. It sure does seem as if they've found their goaltender of the future, though, and Dostál has every look as one of those goalies who will be in the Best In The World conversation in a couple years. Heck, if he has a strong finish to the 2024-25 season, that conversation may start this summer.