The Philadelphia Flyers have had concerns about their goaltending situation for several years now, which is why it was interesting that Dan Vladar got the call for the season opener on Thursday night, and not Samuel Ersson. I was watching other games, but it seems as if Vladar was solid in net for the Flyers, stopping 32 of 34 shots he faced. Unfortunately, his team only got one shot past Sergei Bobrovsky, who made 19 saves as the Panthers managed a 2-1 win.

Anton Lundell and Brad Marchand both had a goal on six shots while Noah Cates scored the lone goal for the Flyers.

Jett Luchanko, who made the Flyers roster out of camp, was not in the lineup.

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A night after a hard-fought loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal went into Detroit and thrashed the Red Wings by a 5-1 margin. The Wings had a 31-17 shot advantage but the wide majority of that shot difference came when the team was already down 4-1.

Zachary Bolduc scored at least one goal in this game, and may have had a second (they have switched it between him and Alex Carrier twice at time of writing). Either way, he has scored in each of his first two games in a Montreal uniform, and has seven shots and two hits in his two contests.

Oliver Kapanen also scored again for the Habs, giving him two goals in two games to start the season, while Juraj Slafkovsky got on the board early in the season with a power-play goal. He now has eight shots and four hits in his two appearances thus far.

Mike Matheson had a goal, an assist, three shots, two blocks, and a hit while Noah Dobson had an assist, a shot, a block, and two PIMs.

Jakub Dobes was in net for Montreal and made several key saves, allowing just one puck to get past him on 31 shots.

Dylan Larkin scored the lone goal for the Red Wings, as he opened the scoring with a power-play goal under four minutes into the first period.

John Gibson was pulled late in the second period after giving up five goals on 13 shots. In fairness to Gibson, the Canadiens had several odd-man rushes as they were constantly getting behind the Red Wings defence.

Speaking of the Red Wings defence, Axel Sandin-Pellikka skated 22:34, the second-highest mark behind Moritz Seider's 22:51. The ice time for ASP also included secondary power-play duties and some short-handed time.

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It was a bit of a good news/bad news situation for the New York Rangers as they blanked the Buffalo Sabres 4-0 on Thursday night. While Igor Shesterkin was tremendous with a 37-save shutout, and both Alexis Lafreniere and JT Miller had a goal and an assist, Vincent Trocheck left the game halfway through the second period with an injury and did not return. As it is, the team is thin on centre depth and cannot afford to lose him for an extended period. We will update when we know more.

Lafrenière took Trocheck's spot on the top PP unit in his absence. Laf also finished the game with five shots and a hit, and he now has 11 shots through the first two games of the season.

Both Adam Fox and Carson Soucy scored for the Rangers. Fox finished with four shots and four blocks, too.

Both Owen Power and Zach Benson were game-time scratches for the Sabres, the former with an illness and the latter due to injury. Without Power, Benson, Michael Kesselring, and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, the Sabres are missing a lot of key pieces from the roster. That they still managed 37 shots should be seen as a good sign, though I'm sure Sabres fans are a bit tired of moral victories in lieu of actual victories.

Josh Norris left the game late in the third period and did not return. Another injury to keep an eye on.

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Ottawa staged a wonderful comeback in their season opener as they fell behind Tampa Bay 3-1 in the first period thanks to power-play goals from Nikita Kucherov and Oliver Bjorkstrand, as well as an even-strength goal from Brayden Point. After that, Ottawa peeled off four straight goals, including two in the final two minutes of the game, to skate out of Tampa Bay with a 5-4 win.

Shane Pinto scored twice, added an assist and had a hit in 19:21 of ice time. Of all people, Artem Zub also had a three-point night with a goal, two assists, five shots, two PIMs, and three hits in one of the best fantasy nights he'll ever have.

Brady Tkachuk had a trio of helpers (one PP), five shots, two PIMs, and four hits. It is safe to say he came ready to make an impact early in the season.

Jake Sanderson had two assists (one PP), three shots, three blocks, and three hits in a balanced fantasy night.

Linus Ullmark allowed four goals on 25 shots but held on for his first win of the season.

Kucherov finished the game with two goals on four shots while Point had that goal, two helpers, and a block.

Victor Hedman posted two helpers (one on the PP), one shot, three blocks, and a hit.

Andrei Vasilevskiy took the loss, allowing four goals on 33 shots.

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Fraser Minten's first goal of the season was a clutch one as he tallied the overtime winner in Boston's 4-3 win at home to Chicago. This was a balanced effort as the first three goals came from Casey Mittelstadt, Tanner Jeannot, and Elias Lindholm (PP). For Lindholm, he had one goal with five shots and a hit, and he has two goals, three points, five shots, and seven hits in his first two games.

Charlie McAvoy didn't get on the scoresheet but he did have five shots, two blocks, two PIMs, and a hit in a very good peripheral night.

Joonas Korpisalo got the start in net and stopped 21 of 24 shots for Boston's second win in as many games to start the campaign.

Chicago's new-look top line did all the damage as both Connor Bedard and Andre Burakovsky had a goal and an assist, Colton Dach had a helper, and Louis Crevier scored off a faceoff win by Bedard.

Alex Vlasic was back in the lineup for the Blackhawks and had two blocks and a hit in 19:10 of ice time.

Arvid Soderblom took the loss in net, allowing four goals on 33 shots.

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Pittsburgh is now 2-0 on the season thanks to a 4-3 home win against the New York Islanders. Both Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby scored on the power play, Harrison Brunicke scored his first career goal on a wicked wrist shot from the slot, and Justin Brazeau tallied the game-winner with under six minutes left, his third marker of the year.

Malkin finished the game with a PP goal, two assists (one PP), and five shots. He has multi-point games in his first two appearances of the season.

Crosby had that PP goal, a PP assist on the Malkin goal, two blocks, and two hits in just under 20 minutes of ice time.

Brunicke only played 12 minutes but had three shots and a hit to go with his goal.

Tristan Jarry managed the win in net, stopping 34 of 37 shots he faced from New York.

Maxim Shabanov scored his first career NHL goal, Jonathan Drouin got his first with the Islanders, and Kyle Palmieri also got in the goal column in the team's loss. Matthew Schaefer assisted on the Drouin goal for his first career point.

Ilya Sorokin allowed four goals on 28 shots in the loss.

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Before Carolina's home opener against New Jersey, the team announced goalie Pyotr Kochetkov was injured and would require further examination on Friday. That he needs more examination doesn't seem to be a good sign, but we'll wait until we hear more from the team for certain.

Carolina won that game 6-3 thanks to a late goal from Seth Jarvis, who added an empty-netter for a two-goal night. He had three shots and two hits to go with his two goals, skating over 20 minutes in total.

K'Andre Miller had a memorable debut for the Hurricanes as he scored twice on four shots, one of them on the power play, while managing a block, two PIMs, and two hits. He looked great in the bits of the game I was able to see, fitting in with the aggressive gameplan of the Hurricanes.

Taylor Hall had a goal and an assist, opening the scoring four minutes in and then assisting on a tally by Eric Robinson.

Frederik Andersen did enough to hang on for the win, stopping 19 of 22 shots for the victory.

Jesper Bratt, Cody Glass, and Dougie Hamilton scored the goals for the Devils. As the team had shown in a recent practice, it was Luke Hughes, and not Hamilton, on the top PP unit.

Jacob Markstrom allowed five goals on 32 shots in the loss.

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Colorado had their home opener on Thursday night but it was without goalie MacKenzie Blackwood as he's still not 100% ready for game action, so Scott Wedgewood got his second start of the season as the Avalanche hosted the Utah Mammoth.

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Colorado had their home opener on Thursday night but it was without goalie MacKenzie Blackwood as he's still not 100% ready for game action, so Scott Wedgewood got his second start of the season as the Avalanche hosted the Utah Mammoth.

Colorado took that game by a 2-1 margin thanks to a third-period power play goal from Nathan MacKinnon. Cale Makar assisted on the goal and had two shots, three blocks, and a hit.

Ross Colton had the other goal, and Wedgewood stopped 32 of 33 shots for the win.

Dylan Guenther (PP) scored Utah's lone goal, registering seven shots in nearly 20 minutes of ice time.

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Filip Gustavsson stopped all 26 shots he faced in Minnesota's 5-0 shutout of St. Louis on Thursday night. Not long after signing a four-year extension for $$6.8M per season, Gustavsson is showing why it was a good investment.

Matt Boldy had a goal and two assists (one PP) while adding a block and Ryan Hartman scored twice on four shots. Kirill Kaprizov had a trio of helpers (one PP) with a block and a hit while Marco Rossi had a goal and an assist skating on the top line.

Zeev Buium skated 20:10, fourth among Wild defencemen without Jonas Brodin in the lineup.

Jordan Binnington gave up five goals on 21 shots.

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Juuse Saros was excellent in net for Nashville on Thursday night, stopping 37 of 38 shots in their 2-1 win at home to Columbus. That is a great way for him to start the season after a very modest (by his standards) season in 2024-25.

Michael Bunting and Ryan O'Reilly (PP) both scored in the Nashville victory. Roman Josi assisted the O'Reilly PP goal, registering two shots and five blocks in 22:51 of ice time in his first game since February.

Dmitri Voronkov scored Columbus' lone goal. Zach Werenski skated over 27 minutes and had five shots, two blocks, and a hit.

Jet Greaves was in net and took the loss for the Blue Jackets, allowing two goals on 31 shots. He did keep the Jackets in the game from start to finish, and that's something Columbus hasn't gotten from any non-Greaves goalie in years.

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Kyle Connor, fresh off his eight-year extension, showed why Winnipeg wanted to get him signed by registering a hat trick on Thursday night, including two late in the third period to claw the Jets back to a one-goal deficit, but that's as close as they'd come as Dallas put up a 5-spot on Connor Hellebuyck to take a 5-4 win.

Mikko Rantanen had a goal, two assists (one PP), three shots, and two PIMs for the Stars. There had been talk about Rantanen potentially playing both halves of Dallas' power play, but he didn't do that in this game.

Jason Robertson had a goal (PP), an assist, eight shots, and a block Wyatt Johnston and Tyler Seguin both also scored.

Nils Lundkvist had a goal and an assist with two shots, a block, and a hit. It was the first time since January of 2024 that he had a goal and an assist in the same game.

Thomas Harley had two assists, five blocks, and two PIMs.

Jake Oettinger was cruising until the 9-minute mark of the third period when the Jets popped three goals in seven minutes. He finished with four goals against on 25 shots, but took the win.

Mark Scheifele tallied three assists, a shot, and two PIMs while Morgan Barron scored the remaining Jets goal.

Connor Hellebuyck allowed five goals on 37 shots.

This game pretty clearly showed how much the team is going to miss Dylan Samberg until he returns. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Jets outshot the Stars 12-5 with Josh Morrissey on the ice but were outshot 19-3 (!) with Morrissey off the ice.

Jonathan Toews had a shot and two PIMs in 18:19 of ice time in his first game in a Jets uniform.

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After a thrilling comeback win on Wednesday night, Calgary fell flat on Thursday night in Vancouver as the Canucks exploded for four goals in the third period en route to a 5-1 win.

Filip Chytil had a great season debut with two goals, five shots, two blocks, and two PIMs in 16:25 of ice time. Jonathan Lekkerimaki and Brock Boeser also got on the board.

Kiefer Sherwood picked up where he left off last year with a goal, two shots, a block, two PIMs, and six hits. The stat stuffing has resumed.

Thatcher Demko wasn't busy, but was very solid by stopping 17 of 18 shots faced.

Morgan Frost scored the lone Flames goal as goalie Dustin Wolf got the start again, but did not fare as well as on Wednesday night by allowing five goals on 26 shots.

Kevin Bahl took a puck to the head early in the third period, left the game, and did not return. It looked bad on replay so hopefully it was just precautionary.

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Joey Daccord pulled his best Juuse Saros by stopping 35 of 36 shots in Seattle's 3-1 home-opening win against Anaheim. Going back to the start of the 2022-23 season, Daccord is tied for third by save percentage among the 31 goalies with at least 75 starts (he has made 102 starts). It is getting hard to argue he's not among the upper-tier of goalies in the league. Not quite the level of Igor Shesterkin or Connor Hellebuyck, but at-or-near the top of the next group.

Seattle's offence found goals in the way they usually do: one goal from each of the top three lines. The Jaden Schwartz line got the first goal (Vince Dunn), Mason Marchment got his first in a Kraken uniform, and Jared McCann added the insurance tally in the third period. Dunn had a goal and four shots while Brandon Montour posted an assist, four shots, three blocks, and four hits.

Beckett Sennecke scored his first career NHL goal, managing three shots and a block in 17:24 of ice time. Mason McTavish skated 20:24 overall, leading all Ducks forwards.

Lukas Dostal allowed three goals on 31 shots for the loss.

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An overtime goal from Reilly Smith lifted Vegas to a 4-3 win in San Jose on Thursday night. Pavel Dorofeyev scored again (on the PP) while totaling four shots as both Jack Eichel and Brett Howden found the goal column as well. Eichel assisted on the Dorofeyev PP goal, and finished the night with three shots, a block, and two hits. Eichel now has six points in two games to start the season. That makes 20 goals and 52 points in 42 games since January 1^st.

Shea Theodore had an assist, three shots, and four blocks in 24:52 of ice time. He still remains off the top PP unit, though.

Akira Schmid stopped 20 of 23 shots for his first win of the season.

Phillipp Kurashev, Jeff Skinner, and Alex Wennberg all scored for the Sharks.

Shakir Mukhamadullin had two assists, a block, and four PIMs, but skated just 12:45 before we get too excited about a waiver addition.

Alex Nedeljkovic gave up four goals on 31 shots in the loss for the Sharks.