The injuries had really started to pile up for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Boone Jenner has yet to play this season, Yegor Chinakhov has been out since late November, Sean Monahan was injured in early January, and Kirill Marchenko broke his jaw after being hit by a puck a few games before the Four Nations break. That is what made the updates from Columbus practice on Wednesday some very welcome news:
Additionally, Boone Jenner was lined up on the second line with Kent Johnson and Cole Sillinger. At the least, it looks like Columbus will have enough bodies back to have two scoring lines again, something they were missing leading up to the break.
Dante Fabbro was also at practice. All three need further evaluation but good signs all around.
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Utah defenceman Sean Durzi is heading towards a return this weekend:
Durzi has been out of the lineup with a shoulder surgery after suffering an injury very early in the season. My guess is he isn't any real threat to Mikhail Sergachev's top PP role, and that caps Durzi's fantasy upside, but he can still be productive, especially with how often he blocks shots (over two per game across his last 152 regular season games).
Additionally, Logan Cooley was on the ice again in a non-contact jersey.
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The Montreal Canadiens got some good news as prospect defenceman David Reinbacher returned to action in the AHL:
This is good timing for Reinbacher as the Trade Deadline is approaching (two weeks from tomorrow), and there may be a spot on the roster over the final 4-6 weeks of the season. It seems likely they give him lots of time to get up to speed in the AHL, so do not expect a full-time spot for him until late in the season, and more likely next season.
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New Jersey Devils forward Nico Hischier was at practice again:
That makes two days in a row for him as he returns from injury and it looks as if he'll be ready to go when the team returns to action at home Saturday against Dallas.
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Ottawa Senators defenceman Thomas Chabot was injured at practice on Tuesday and was not at practice on Wednesday:
We may not get a firm update on him until NHL games resume, so it's something to keep an eye on for now.
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We got an update from the Boston Bruins on defenceman Charlie McAvoy and his infection:
McAvoy played another game in the Four Nations Cup before suffering that injury, but now it seems Boston will be without his services for a little while. Bad news for him, and bad news for a Boston team that is outside the playoff picture looking in with more games played than anyone else in the race.
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Colorado Avalanche forward Valeri Nichushkin was at practice with the team briefly on Wednesday:
Not practicing with the team during line rushes means he's not returning, but that he's with the team and working with a skills coach are good signs.
Both Josh Manson and Samuel Girard were not at practice.
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Connor Zary was back at practice for Calgary and skating on the third line:
A good indication he'll be ready to go when the NHL schedule resumes, but surprises do happen.
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Evgeni Malkin will be back in the lineup for the Pittsburgh Penguins on the weekend:
Malkin has been out since January 25th with a lower-body injury.
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Over the Four Nations Cup break, we have been reviewing some of my preseason projections. We did this in December, and are updating what has gone on since. We started with players I was high on that were successful early in the season, and moved to players I was high on that were not successful earlier in the season. On Tuesday, we covered players I was low on that found early-season success, and today it's moving to players I was low on that did not find early-season success.
As always, data from Natural Stat Trick or Frozen Tools.
Sidney Crosby (Pittsburgh Penguins)
Preseason Projection: 34 goals, 56 assists, 23 PP points, 260 shots, 37 blocks, 100 hits
As of Today (55 games): 17 goals, 41 assists, 17 PP points, 156 shots, 31 blocks, 52 hits
Full-Season 82-Game Paces: 25 goals, 61 assists, 25 PP points, 233 shots, 46 blocks, 78 hits
As things stand, the only real deviation for Crosby from my preseason projection is his goal total. He is within 10% of assists, PP points, shots, and hits+blocks (well, the hits+blocks are off by 10.4%, but close enough). The problem is he's shooting 10.9%, a career-low mark for any season where he's played at least 50 games, and a good bit lower than the 14.3% he has across the prior three seasons. If he's shooting 13%, he's on pace for a 30-goal season, and that would make things look a lot better.
The December update came out the morning of December 19th, and Crosby had a four-point game that very night. Since that update, he has 9 goals, 18 assists, and 9 PP points in 22 games. That is a pace of 34 goals, 68 assists, and 34 PP points over a full season, so his production has certainly seen a huge increase since the update. That has pushed him to a top-50 player in standard Yahoo! leagues and a top-40 player in ESPN points formats. The problem is that he was sometimes a late-second round pick, more often a third-round pick, and he's not quite at that level yet. If the next two months brings per-game production like he's had over the last two months, he will achieve close to his ADP value. If he doesn't, he won't.
Power-play production has been a big part of Crosby's recent surge and therein lies the problem. Across the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, Pittsburgh shot 12.8% with Crosby on the ice for the power play. As of the morning of the December update, Pittsburgh was shooting 13.5% with Crosby on the ice for the power play. Since that update, they are shooting 20% with him on the ice. If there is a big PP shooting percentage pullback, Crosby maintaining this level of value is unlikely.
Owen Tippett (Philadelphia Flyers)
Preseason Projection: 31 goals, 26 assists, 15 PP points, 273 shots, 50 blocks, 158 hits
As of Today (52 games): 14 goals, 16 assists, 6 PP points, 128 shots, 46 blocks, 75 hits
Full-Season 82-Game Paces: 22 goals, 25 assists, 10 PP points, 202 shots, 73 blocks, 118 hits
Well, the assists are close. That's good?
One of the assumptions in my preseason projections was that the Flyers would have a better power play in 2024-25 than in 2023-24 thanks to the introduction of Matvei Michkov. That has indeed been the case as the Flyers, generally speaking, have a four-year high in goals per 60 minutes on the power play (5.7 goals/60) and is 49% higher than last season. It isn't good, but it is better, and with the Michkov-Tippett duo on the ice for the power play, the team is scoring 9.3 goals per 60 minutes on the man advantage. That is a legitimately good mark.
The larger issue is one of a bit of luck. Tippett is registering a point on just 37.5% of PP goals scored with him on the ice. That is last among Flyers forwards with at least 70 minutes of PPTOI, and is 176th out of 198 forwards with that level of PPTOI in the league this season. He is also shooting 0% on the power play. There are signs of positive regression here, and that bodes well for the second half.
An update on Tippett before the break said he was back on the ice. He will have had two weeks of rehab time to get up to speed following his injury, so hopefully he's ready to go when the Flyers return to action on February 22nd. A larger issue is the Flyers are tied for the most games played already, so even if he returns on the 22nd, and the positive regression kicks in, it may not be enough to recoup his draft value.
Carter Verhaeghe (Florida Panthers)
Preseason Projection: 40 goals, 42 assists, 27 PP points, 267 shots, 23 blocks, 70 hits
As of Today (57 games): 15 goals, 28 assists, 16 PP points, 177 shots, 20 blocks, 72 hits
Full-Season 82-Game Paces: 22 goals, 40 assists, 23 PP points, 255 shots, 29 blocks, 104 hits
Similar to Crosby earlier, the big problem here is shooting percentage. Verhaeghe is shooting 8.5% on the season, having been over 13.5% in each season of his career with a three-year average of 14.5%. If he were shooting 14%, he'd be on pace for 36 goals, but he's not, so he's not.
Tracking data from AllThreeZones shows that Verhaeghe is getting a shot off a high-danger pass from a teammate 1.28 times every 60 minutes of 5-on-5 play. Across the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, that number was 1.7, so he's getting fewer high-danger passes to shoot from. Additionally, a couple weeks ago in my weekly newsletter, I pointed out how Verhaeghe is creating considerably less offence off the rush than in recent seasons. Fewer high-danger passes his way, combined with less offence off the rush, might be a reason why his shooting percentage is so low.
Verhaeghe saw a production uptick in the weeks leading up to the break with 5 goals and 6 assists in his most recent 10 games. However, going back to the December 19th update, he has 6 goals and 10 assists in 24 games. Things are better recently, but not over the last couple of months, and given the changes to Florida's offensive attack, it's fair to wonder how much better things will get (if at all).
Miro Heiskanen (Dallas Stars)
Preseason Projection: 11 goals, 57 assists, 29 PP points, 200 shots, 114 blocks, 64 hits
As of Today (50 games): 5 goals, 20 assists, 7 PP points, 108 shots, 85 blocks, 17 hits
Full-Season 82-Game Paces: 8 goals, 33 assists, 12 PP points, 177 shots, 139 blocks, 28 hits
Even setting aside the injury he suffered the week before the Four Nations break, this was a bad season for Heiskanen. He is under my preseason projections nearly across the board with the lone exception being blocks. Since the December article, Heiskanen has 10 points in 19 games, including four power-play points and 38 shots. Things were not really getting better.
Opinions on Heiskanen's fantasy value for the 2024-25 season will depend on where he was drafted in certain leagues. On ESPN, his ADP saw him as the 22nd defenceman off the board, and he's been a top-35 defenceman in ESPN points formats. That isn't ideal, but it's not that bad.
Things get worse on Yahoo! where his ADP was the 10th defenceman off the board and around 60th overall. In 12-team leagues, he was a fifth- or sixth-round pick and he's been around a top-30 defenceman. That is considerably worse value, so he hasn't lived up to his billing regardless of where he was drafted, but things are worse on some sites (and in some formats) than others.
The problem with Heiskanen was two-fold.
First, while he is a great real-life defenceman, he isn't an elite offensive fantasy defenceman. His best season was 2022-23 and that season saw Heiskanen post 1.21 points per 60 minutes at even strength. Among defencemen with at least 800 minutes played that season, he was 28th by points per 60 minutes at even strength. Overall, across the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, he was 26th by that measure.
That leads us to the second problem, and it is over-reliance on power-play production. Over the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, 14 regular defencemen managed at least 0.75 points per game, Heiskanen included (0.85). Those 14 defencemen averaged 36.9% of their points coming from the power play, but Heiskanen had the second-highest percentage of points from the man advantage at 43.3% (Cale Makar, 44.2%). Any drop in power-play efficiency was going to hit Heiskanen harder than most, and that's what has happened.
Heiskanen's fantasy season is basically over anyway because of his knee surgery, but it'll be interesting to see where his ADP lands in September.
Noah Dobson (New York Islanders)
Preseason Projection: 12 goals, 54 assists, 25 PP points, 195 shots, 169 blocks, 78 hits
As of Today (46 games): 6 goals, 18 assists, 7 PP points, 143 shots, 81 blocks, 42 hits
Full-Season 82-Game Paces: 11 goals, 32 assists, 13 PP points, 255 shots, 144 blocks, 75 hits
Like Heiskanen, Dobson's injury probably puts an end to his potential to live up to his preseason ADP because Dobson was often a top-10 defenceman off the board in both standard Yahoo! and ESPN points formats. Also like Heiskanen, even if Dobson had stayed healthy, he had a long way to go in the second half to live up to his preseason hype. Considering he has 6 points in 13 games since my December update, things weren't getting better, anyway.
It wasn't that I was terribly low on Dobson – he was 12th on my board – but I wasn't very interested in defencemen in that range, generally speaking. Once the elite options were drafted, I wasn't going after the Adam Fox/Noah Dobson/Victor Hedman/Erik Karlsson tier. In fact, of my 18 season-long teams, I drafted any of Fox, Dobson, Hedman, Karlsson, Heiskanen, and John Carlson a total of twice (once each of Dobson and Hedman). I was usually waiting later for rearguards I had much better values for like Zach Werenski, Mikhail Sergachev, Shea Theodore, Jake Walman, and Justin Faulk. That has largely worked out very well, Faulk aside.
The latest update on Dobson is that he is supposed to start skating next week, and fingers are crossed he can return before the end of the month. There are a lot of bridges to cross before his return, but this isn't a Heiskanen situation.
Of course, the crux of his rest-of-season fantasy value is whether he's traded or not. He has changed agents, which may indicate a desire to get something done, but we have to see a potential trade come to fruition first. If he stays with the Islanders, there are serious fantasy value concerns given that the Islanders have the worst power play in the league whether looking at percentage or goals per minute. They are also bottom-5 in the league for power-play opportunities per game this season, as well as since the Christmas break. An awful power play combined with few PP opportunities is very bad for Dobson's fantasy value.
If he gets traded, things should improve, but landing spot matters. If he can land in Dallas or Detroit? That would certainly change the equation. But if he lands in, say, Chicago or San Jose? Maybe not so much.
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