The New York Islanders announced a recall of goalie Marcus Hogberg, stating that Ilya Sorokin is dealing with a nagging issue and will take time off. Sorokin is expected to be ready for the team's first game after the holiday break (Saturday against the Rangers) but as with all nagging injury problems, what is expected to happen and what will happen are not always the same thing.

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Seth Jarvis and Jaccob Slavin are both week-to-week with upper-body injuries, per Stephen Whyno. It is not great for Slavin that he missed a couple of months with an injury, returned for three games, and is now back on the shelf. Hopefully this isn't something that lingers all season because he's one of the most important pieces of that Hurricanes roster.

With Jarvis injured, expect more top PP time for either (or both) of Nikolaj Ehlers and Jackson Blake, depending on what they do with Jordan Staal.

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Brandon Hagel was at Tampa Bay's optional practice on Monday, and in a regular jersey, according to Gabby Shirley. He didn't play in Monday night's game, but that is good news for a guy who has missed the last few contests after his injury against Florida.

Tampa Bay won that game at home against St. Louis by a 4-1 margin. Darren Raddysh had another big game for the Bolts with a PP goal, two assists, and a hit. That makes 24 points in his last 19 games as he's been absolutely on fire for about five weeks now.

Oliver Bjorkstrand, Anthony Cirelli, and Pontus Holmberg all managed solo tallies as goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 23 of 24 shots for his 13^th win of the season.

Justin Faulk scored the lone Blues goal and Jordan Binnington allowed four pucks to get past him on 17 shots.

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Elias Pettersson and Nils Hoglander did not play on Monday night when Vancouver was in Philadelphia, but they were both on the ice for morning skate, according to Thomas Drance. It is at least a good sign that either (or both) could return when the Canucks host San Jose on Saturday.

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The Seattle Kraken announced that defenceman Brandon Montour underwent surgery on his hand and he will be out four weeks.

Leo Carlsson did not play against Seattle on Monday night but they expect him back this weekend following the holiday break, per Eric Stephens.

A pair of third-period goals from Jordan Eberle lifted the Seattle Kraken to a 3-1 win over Anaheim. It was Eberle's first multi-point game since November 13^th and helped the Kraken to their first two-game winning streak in a month.

Frederick Gaudreau scored a power-play goal while Kaapo Kakko posted a pair of assists (one PP), two shots, a block, and two hits.

Philipp Grubauer was excellent in net for Seattle, stopping 40 of 41 shots in the victory.

Mikael Granlund scored Anaheim's only goal, assisted by Jacob Trouba who finished with three shots, two blocks, two PIMs, and three hits.

Lukas Dostal earned the loss by allowing two goals on 20 shots.

Vince Dunn took a hard hit in the third period, left the game, and did not return. With Brandon Montour already out, the Kraken cannot afford to have Dunn miss much time. Any time he does miss should mean a lot more PP time for Ryker Evans.

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Zach Werenski did not play on Monday night in Los Angeles and the team considers him day-to-day.  

Mason Marchment scored twice on the power play and now has three goals in two games with Columbus, or one fewer than he had in 29 games with Seattle, as the Blue Jackets skated away with a 3-1 win in Los Angeles on Monday night. Kirill Marchenko had the other tally (PP) as Jet Greaves stopped 23 of 24 shots for his ninth win.

Andrei Kuzmenko scored the only Los Angeles goal while Anton Forsberg gave up three goals on 30 shots for the loss.

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A four-goal third period was the difference for the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday night as they took a 5-2 home win over the Vancouver Canucks. Matvei Michkov, Owen Tippett, Christian Dvorak, and Carl Grundstrom all managed a goal while Nikita Grebenkin potted a goal and added an assist to go with it. Tippett finished the game with a whopping 10 shots, two blocks, and a pair of hits in a great multi-cat effort.

Dan Vladar stopped 23 of 25 shots faced for his 13^th win of the campaign.

Max Sasson and Drew O'Connor scored for the Canucks. Thatcher Demko held on as long as he could on net but gave up four goals on 38 shots for the loss.

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Today is the last day for NHL hockey before the holiday break, which means now is a good time to look back on the unofficial first half of the season to see where some preseason predictions are going wrong. Some of my preseason Ramblings included:

• Why the top Montreal Canadiens fantasy picks are overvalued
• Why the top Dallas Stars fantasy picks are overvalued
• Targeting Joey Daccord in net
• Drafting Robert Thomas over Nick Suzuki (oh man)

Let's go over those one by one. Player data is from Evolving Hockey and current as of the morning of Monday, December 22^nd.

Overvalued Canadiens

The basic premise here is that Nick Suzuki was going around the 50^th pick almost regardless of the site/format/league and he typically doesn't have strong peripherals, Cole Caufield was being drafted even earlier despite ice time concerns, and Lane Hutson was going a bit later even with very modest peripherals. It wasn't that the productions concerns were high, it's just that the shot, hit, block, or ice-time categories were a big concern.

So far this season, that hasn't really been a problem for any of the three:

• Suzuki is a top-20 forward in standard ESPN leagues and top-20 skater in standard Yahoo! Leagues.
• Caufield is a top-30 forward in standard ESPN leagues and a top-40 skater in standard Yahoo! leagues.
• Hutson is a top-20 defenceman in standard ESPN leagues and a top-12 defenceman in standard Yahoo! leagues

Montreal had three skaters going somewhere in the top-75 picks (give or take), and all three are paying off in ESPN and Yahoo! leagues thus far.

As for Suzuki, a big reason why he's been such a great option is his power-play production. With 19 PP points, Suzuki is tied for 5^th in the league and has the most of any forward outside of Dallas and Edmonton. It does help when you're seeing 76% of the team's power-play time (a career-high mark) and you also have the fifth-highest increase in team shooting percentage when you're on the ice for the power play compared to the prior two seasons:

We will see if Suzuki (and Caufield and Hutson) can keep this up after the holiday break, but anyone that drafted any of the three must be happy with what they've received so far.

Overvalued Stars

This is the one that really hurts because while the Canadiens' skaters have been good, they're only a bit better than their draft slotting (that will vary by format, of course). Dallas, though, has blown their preseason draft positions out of the water:

• Jason Robertson is a top-12 player in standard ESPN leagues and a top-5 player in standard Yahoo! leagues
• Mikko Rantanen is a top-3 player in standard ESPN leagues and a top-10 player in standard Yahoo! leagues
• Miro Heiskanen is a top-5 defenceman in both standard ESPN and Yahoo! leagues

Those three aren't just surpassing their preseason draft value – they're among (or just straight up are) the most valuable players in the league at their positions. Missing out on that value hurts.

As with Suzuki and the Canadiens, the power play is a big reason for Dallas' value as Rantanen sits third in PP points and has the most outside of Edmonton, Robertson is tied with Suzuki for fifth, and Heiskanen is tied with Cale Makar for second among defencemen. Dallas leads the league with 35 PP goals in 37 games and at this rate, Rantanen is on pace to reach 50 PPPs.

Just beware of the second half here. Rantanen skated 21:27 per game in October, 19:24 in November, and is down to 19:08 in December. Similarly, Robertson's December TOI/game rate is nearly two minutes per game lower than his TOI/game in October. Also, the Stars were over one PP goal per game up to the Thanksgiving break (25 PPG in 24 games) and have 10 PP goals in 13 games since that break as they've lost nearly one full power play per game (3.33 to 2.46). With the team getting healthier, the Stars' top, er, stars are getting less ice time, and the team's power-play production is dropping as they draw fewer power plays. It will make an interesting second half in Dallas.

Joey Daccord

Seattle started the season 11-5-5 but are 2-9-1 over the last month (heading in Monday's game). Similarly, Daccord started the season 7-3-3 in his first 13 starts, posting a .900 save percentage and a 2.78 goals against average. Not elite numbers, but pretty good for a guy who was drafted around or outside the top-25 goalies. Seattle's drop in recent weeks has been reflected in Daccord's numbers as he's 2-6-1 with an .899 save percentage and 2.97 goals against average over the last month.

Notice in the paragraph above how Daccord's save percentage has been consistent before and after Seattle's crash, but the wins have disappeared and the GAA grown. In those two splits, Seattle went from 13^th by shots against per minute to 30^th. They weren't a high-scoring team at any point, but even their goal rate declined from 27^th to 31^st in the league.

After the holiday break, the Kraken have the ninth-easiest schedule in the next five weeks by opponent points percentage, per the Frozen Tools schedule planner. Things should get better soon, but Seattle's last month has really hurt the solid value Daccord was providing early on.

Draft Robert Thomas

Thomas and the St. Louis Blues certainly aren't performing up to expectations. While the problem has a lot of facets (Cam Fowler has had a massive drop off compared to his time with the Blues last year, for example), one thing I noticed going through the tracking data from AllThreeZones is that Thomas is responsible for a lot fewer zone entries at 5-on-5 than he normally is. In fact, here are some forwards who typically have a high rate of zone entries and are seeing a big drop this season:

Sebastian Aho has his lowest points/game rate since 2017-18, Travis Konecny has a four-year-low points/game rate, Kirill Kaprizov's points/game rate is a three-year low, Dylan Holloway was nowhere near the same player he was last year (before his injury), and Andrei Svechnikov's points/game mark is his lowest since his rookie season. Again, these problems are multi-faceted, but the puck should be on the stick of the best players as much as possible, and it's not happening for a lot of key names this season.