It was a definite good news/bad news situation for New Jersey as they hosted Boston on Wednesday night. The Devils managed a convincing 5-1 win over the Bruins, thanks in large part to a power play that came alive for three power play goals.

The bad news was that goaltender Jacob Markstrom was injured early in the second period as Boston forward Justin Brazeau crashed into him while driving the net. It looked like Markstrom's leg got pinned between Brazeau and the post. He had to be helped off the ice and he did not return. Until we know more, it looks like Jake Allen is in line for more starts with their next game coming Saturday in Montreal.

Nico Hischier had a big fantasy night for the Devils, figuring in on all three power-play goals (one goal, two assists). He had three total shots and a block in the game, and now has five goals and three assists in his last nine outings.

Dawson Mercer scored the two even-strength goals for New Jersey as he was skating on the third line with Timo Meier. Meier wound up adding two shots and a block to his game for a solid fantasy night.

Dougie Hamilton had a goal and an assist, both on the power play, to go with three total shots, two PIMs, and a hit.

Allen saved all 16 shots he faced and earned the win because the Devils were losing at the time he entered the game.

David Pastrnak kept his hot streak going, assisting on Boston's only goal, which came off the stick of Morgan Geekie. Pastrnak totaled five shots and a hit in the loss, and he now has 40 points and 138 shots in his last 33 games.

Jeremy Swayman was in net for four goals on 29 shots before being pulled after the second period.

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Columbus was without both Sean Monahan and Cole Sillinger (day-to-day) on Wednesday night, but went into Toronto and skated out with a 5-1 win of their own. Elvis Merzlikins was stellar in net, stopping 28 of 29 shots for the win. After a shaky couple of months to start the year, Merzlikins has a .902 save percentage in his last 11 games, registering a win in eight of them.

The star of the night was Adam Fantilli who scored an empty-net goal to cap off a hat trick to lead the Blue Jackets to a big win. Fantilli finished the game with those three goals on four shots, and after a slow start of his own, he now has 11 goals in his last 27 games, or a 33-goal pace over a full season.

Luca Del Bel Belluz stepped up again for Columbus, registering a goal and an assist in the win. He finished with three shots, a block, and a hit, and now has six points in eight career NHL games. Hard to have a better start than that.

James van Riemsdyk stuffed the score sheet with a goal, four shots, two blocks, and two PIMs. Zach Werenski did the same with an assist, a shot, three blocks, and two PIMs.

Dennis Hildeby took the loss for Toronto, allowing four goals on 18 shots. Auston Matthews has the lone tally for the Leafs, posting six shots in all while adding two blocks, two PIMs, and a hit.

Matthew Knies was injured in the second period on an awkward hit along the boards and did not return.

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An overtime goal from Neal Pionk lifted the Winnipeg Jets to a 3-2 win in Colorado on Wednesday night. A bit more on the Avalanche later, but Pionk scored on a nice slap shot from the top of the circle, which we really don't see that often (if ever) in overtime. That goal was his seventh of the season, his second-highest mark of his career, and he's now three back of the 10 goals he scored in 2022-23.

Gabriel Vilardi and Morgan Barron had the other tallies for the Jets. Vilardi was moved down to the second line while Alex Iafallo was moved to his spot alongside Mark Scheifele and Kyle Connor. For Wednesday night, at least, it worked.

Josh Morrissey assisted on the Vilardi and Barron goals, adding four shots along the way. Morrissey had just two points (both assists) in his prior six games, so hopefully the start of an uptick in production.

Connor Hellebuyck was stellar in net (big surprise), allowing two goals on 27 shots for his 29^th win of the season in his 38^th start. Last season, his 29^th win came in early March in his 44^th start.

Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon scored for the Avalanche. MacKinnon finished with seven shots while Makar had three and a block. That goal moved Makar back into first place in the point race among defencemen, though he's played one more game than Zach Werenski and seven more than Quinn Hughes.

Mackenzie Blackwood took the loss, allowing three goals on 25 shots.

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The Los Angeles Kings rebounded well from a rather embarrassing loss to Pittsburgh on Monday night, taking a 2-1 win at home against the Florida Panthers. They held the Panthers to just 23 shots at even strength, and Darcy Kuemper gave up just one goal on 28 total shots for his 14^th win of the year.

Samuel Helenius and Adrian Kempe had the goals for the Kings, and that was Helenius's first goal of his career. Kempe totaled five shots, a block, and a hit, and he has now scored a goal in eight of his last 10 games. He is tied for the the most even-strength goals (16) since November 13^th, and has played three fewer games than Leon Draisaitl, who also has 16.  

Jordan Spence was skating on the power play again, and while the power play didn't score, he had an assist on the Helenius goal, registered two shots, and had two blocks.

Evan Rodrigues had the lone goal (PP) for the Panthers.

It has been a tough stretch for the Panthers offensively. Aleksander Barkov has just one goal and six assists in his last 15 games, Matthew Tkachuk has one goal and seven assists in his last 16 games, Carter Verhaeghe has two goals in his last 17 games, and Sam Bennett has one goal in his last 22 games. Over Florida's last 15 games, Jesper Boqvist has more goals than Barkov, Tkachuk, Verhaeghe, and Bennett combined (5).

Spencer Knight was good for Florida, but allowed two goals on 28 shots, and that was enough for the regulation loss.  

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For all the bad news the Colorado Avalanche have had injury-wise this season, the recent update on forward Valeri Nichushkin was not a welcome one:

Bednar said Nichushkin had a setback and he's "not close" to returning. Back to week to week, per @AltitudeSR

— Evan Rawal (@evanrawal) January 22, 2025

Nichushkin returned from suspension in the middle of November, played 21 games, and hasn't appeared yet in January. Given this update, it's a wonder if he's back in the lineup before the league takes a break after February 8^th for the Four Nations tournament.

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The Toronto Maple Leafs gave us an update on Max Pacioretty:

F Max Pacioretty has been placed on IR (retroactive to January 18).

— Leafs PR (@LeafsPR) January 22, 2025

Not only was he moved to the injured reserve, but it was also mentioned that this isn't a day-to-day thing. Pacioretty's play had dipped recently so maybe there's some correlation here, but it looks like he'll be out of the lineup for the near-future.

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After leaving their game on Tuesday night, Ottawa gave an update on forward Josh Norris:

Travis Green says Norris will be out for the weekend with an upper body injury.
Sanderson and Jensen missed practice today for precautionary reasons.

— TSN 1200 Ottawa (@TSN1200) January 22, 2025

That he's out through the weekend (at least for now) seems to indicate that he won't miss a lot of time. We will hold out that hope until we hear more from the team, but it someone like Shane Pinto will get an immediate fantasy boost with Norris out of the lineup.

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For some positive injury news, the Minnesota Wild welcomed both Kirill Kaprizov and Jared Spurgeon back to practice:

#mnwild lines (Kaprizov and Spurgeon look back, so Wild will have to make some moves to cut $)

Kaprizov-Rossi-Zuccarello
Boldy-Eriksson Ek-Hartman
Ohgren-Gaudreau-Foligno
Trenin-Khusnutdinov-Lauko
Shore

Middleton-Faber
Chisholm-Spurgeon
Merrill-Bogosian
Dermott-Jiricek

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) January 22, 2025

Minnesota is hosting Utah on Thursday night, so keep an eye for them to return then. Kaprizov has missed 12 games but the team managed to go 7-5 without him (and some key defencemen) in the lineup. Kudos to the rest of the Wild for picking up the slack because it could have been easy for this team to go on a big slide with a lot of key names missing.

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The 2024-25 Dobber Hockey Midseason Guide was released last week! It has everything that fantasy hockey enthusiasts need to close out their season including a look-ahead for each team, players that may be on the move by the Trade Deadline, prospects that could make an appearance before the end of the season, and a lot more. Help support what we do and grab a copy in the Dobber Shop!

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In a couple Ramblings last week, I looked at tracking data from AllThreeZones. In the first Ramblings, the focus was on changes for offence created off the rush from key players like Brock Nelson, Timo Meier, Seth Jarvis, Carter Verhaeghe, Nathan MacKinnon, and Cole Caufield. The second Ramblings looked at changes in offence created off the forecheck for important fantasy options like Jason Robertson, Jesper Bratt, Dylan Strome, Vincent Trocheck, and more. Today, we're going to do some of the same thing and look at who is (or is not) carrying the puck into the zone.

Here is a list of eight forwards with at least 100 minutes tracked at 5-on-5 this season, 200 minutes tracked last season, and saw big improvements in both total zone entries per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 as well as an improved (or consistent) rate of carrying in those zone entries:

Mason Marchment really sticks out here. He was one of the players highlighted as creating a lot more off the rush this year than he has previously and, when combined with the improvements in zone entries and percentage of entries carried in, his hot production start makes sense. He doesn't look to be on the horizon for a return from injury, but if he can keep doing this whenever he does return, he should pick up where he left off.

It was also interesting to see Connor Zary's name. There are a lot of reasons why Calgary is finding success this season (Dustin Wolf among them), but contributions from young forwards like Zary, Matt Coronato, and Martin Pospisil is among them. Zary's per-minute production at 5-on-5 has declined, but he's also scoring over half (0.8 per 60 minutes) the goals Calgary is scoring when he's on the ice (1.55). If his teammates could start finishing, his production would skyrocket.

The last notable thing here was seeing two San Jose Sharks names. We don't think of Luke Kunin as much of an offensive presence, but that he and Mikael Granlund are on this list – two Sharks forwards who rarely play together at 5-on-5 – tells us there has been a shift in the approach the Sharks are taking offensively. An improved forward group helps, but this is also the impact of coaching, too.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are a lot of players who've seen big declines in not only how often they're responsible for entering the zone (carry, dump-in, or pass), but are also carrying the puck in a lot less than they usually do. This is list has over double the names, but it does tell us a lot about specific players, their fantasy seasons, and their teams:

Not only are Ryan O'Reilly and Filip Forsberg carrying the puck in less often, they're just taking a lot less responsibility for entering the zone at all. For the first 10 weeks of the season, Nashville had a very had time creating any offence at 5-on-5, and it's a wonder how much the additions of Jonathan Marchessault and Steven Stamkos actually ended up negatively impacting Forsberg and O'Reilly offensively (at least up until Christmas).

Seeing both Elias Pettersson and Elias Lindholm sticks out here. Both players are having poor seasons fantasy-wise and the former is looking like a straight-up draft bust. I have been beating the drum for months that Pettersson did not come into the season healthy after we heard about his late-season knee injury that lingered into the offseason, and this is just another indicator of that.

Carter Verhaeghe's name here is something to note. He is not having a very good season, has been bounced around the lineup, and a lot of it seems to be shooting percentage-driven. If he has the puck on his stick a lot less often when Florida gets into the offensive zone, it makes some sense that his production has seen such a sharp decline.

It is also worth noting Jack Hughes here. He is creating a lot less off the rush than normal, he's creating fewer zone entries than normal, and he's carrying it in less than normal, too. This has been part of new coach Sheldon Keefe's approach to offence, so it makes some sense that with less quick-strike offence and Hughes having the puck less on zone entries that, as of Wednesday afternoon, his points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 sits at a four-year low.