The Philadelphia and Anaheim matchup turned into a double revenge game, with former Duck Trevor Zegras outscoring former Flyer Cutter Gauthier 2-1, all in the first period. Gauthier has really slowed down of late, with only four points in the last 10 games, to bring him to 40 points on the season. Zegras meanwhile has been much more consistent in reaching 41 points with those two goals last night.

Noah Cates added a solid fantasy night himself, with two assists, and 17 PIMs because he jumped at Jansen Harkins after Harkins blindsided Bobby Brink, who left the game shaken up. Hopefully Brink isn’t facing an extended absence.

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The Islanders took it to Jacob Markstrom early and often, with Markstrom letting in nine goals in the end. He has been letting me and many other fantasy managers down this year, and the rest of the Devils in front of him haven't been much better. Ilya Sorokin secured the 44-save shutout for the Isles, setting a new franchise record.

Anthony Duclair scored a hat-trick and added two assists, his first in over six years. He has dealt with some injury issues and has been continuously dropped down the lineup. Good to see him with some solid performances still in his back pocket.

Mat Barzal also had three points in the win, giving him six in his last four, and bringing him to a 68-point pace. His shot rate has been dropping the last two years, but the assist rate has picked back up, and his shooting percentage is the highest it has been in the last five seasons.

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Andrei Svechnikov led the way as the Hurricanes tore apart the Stars, picking up four assists, including two on the power play. Seth Jarvis made an impact in his return to the lineup, with two points in his first game back after three weeks off due to a rib injury. He was down on the third line, but that doesn't seem to matter for him, and with how ice time is spread around in Carolina, it's not as much of an issue as it might be elsewhere.

K'Andre Miller and Nikolaj Ehlers each notched three points for the Canes, while Jason Robertson was in on all three goals the Stars were able to muster in response. After Robertson was snubbed from the American Olympic roster, he's going to keep this current hot streak rolling. Four points in his last two games since the team came out, and that two-point-per-game pace is something that spite can bring out.

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Auston Matthews was honored for his 421^st goal which propelled him past Mats Sundin on the all-time Leafs scoring list.

Matthews celebrated by scoring another goal, giving him 11 points and seven goals in his last five games. Maybe he's finally getting over that injury that has been nagging him?

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The 2026 Dobber Hockey Midseason Guide is set for release tomorrow. You can order yours here:

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Dobber’s Midseason Fantasy Hockey Guide 2026

As I've been working on the "other categories" section for the Fantasy Guide, I have spent a lot of time in the Report Generator section of the FrozenTools site, and most of my writing would be infinitely more difficult without it. With 2025 now in the rearview mirror, I decided to plug in some custom dates to the Report Generator so that we could see if there were any standouts in the peripheral categories in 2025.

Unsurprisingly, Nathan MacKinnon led the league by a mile in SOG. However, I was surprised to see the second name on the list. He's a five-foot-eight player on his third NHL team, and in the midst of his prime years at the moment. Yes, it's Alex DeBrincat who paced the rest of the pack in SOG in 2025 with 289. Now, he did it in 86 games, compared to the 287 SOG from David Pastrnak (79 games), Tage Thompson (82 games) and Auston Matthews (76 games). Still, schedules matter, and so does health in fantasy hockey. Don't look down on Alex DeBrincat any longer, because in the SOG column he continues to stand tall.

The top five plus-minus stats from 2025 are all Colorado Avalanche players, and more specifically their top line and top D-pair. No real surprise there, but it does underline just how dominant they have been, and there's no sign of them letting up. Again, we look to a surprise player leading the rest of the pack. This time it's a six-foot-six behemoth whose breakout threshold lined up almost precisely to the calendar flipping to 2025, and boy did Aliaksei Protas deliver. He put up 64 points in 76 games in 2025, with a plus 43 rating, and some reasonable peripherals to boot. Those 64 points were also mainly at even strength, with only two power play points, which is why his plus-minus rating was so high (there's no plus rating for a power play point).

In the PIM column, there wasn't a fair fight. Nikita Zadorov's huge December where he racked up 55 PIMs (41 in the final 10 days) put him and his six-foot-seven frame well out of reach. Arber Xhekaj gave Zadrorov a run though, as the only other regular player even close to two PIMs per game. As a defenseman, Xhekaj's sub-1.0 Blks per game leave something to be desired though. Further down the list we find Curtis Douglas, who has only been a semi-regular player for the 2025-2026 season, but has put up 75 PIMs in 27 games. He's making it into the lineup when the Lightning have injuries, but he's not a regular enough player to be universally rostered in PIM leagues.

In the Hits column, Kiefer Sherwood topped fellow former Nashville Predator Yakov Trenin by exactly 100 Hits, though the latter of the two has been leading the league in the 2025-2026 season. Marc Gatcomb is my pick to be the next one of these players who leads the league in Hits when his ice time suddenly jumps from nine minutes per game into the 13 minutes range.

I don't cover PPPs in my Guide column, but I wanted to note that Wyatt Johnston was tops in power play points in 2025 for players not named Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl. Not only was he above MacKinnon and Nikita Kucherov, but he was four PPPs clear of each of them. In 42 games in 2025-2026, his 23 PPPS has already nearly matched his previous career high of 25, with an entire three months left in the campaign.

In the Blks column, Alex Carrier was the only one to put up 200 Blks in 2025, but unfortunately for him, all of his other counting numbers have been going down. Players that put up high Blk (and Hit) numbers, really wear their bodies down and can't keep it up for multiple years. Carrier's Blk numbers have been in decline the entire month of December. Other names high on the list that have run into issues: MacKenzie Weegar (terrible season), Mike Matheson (offence and SOG are gone), Jake McCabe (injured), Dante Fabbro (wheels completely fell off), Darnell Nurse (offence is slumping and Hits have dropped too). Be careful not to hold onto the heavy peripherals players for too long.

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Recent contract extensions for Alexei Toropchenko, Linus Karlsson, Christian Dvorak, and Alex Wennberg are what we're going to see from a lot of teams who see they have more cap space than they're used to, and they don't know what to do with it. All four are overpayments, and for Karlsson and Toropchenko, they're filling up spots where you are blocking internal growth candidates on smaller contracts as well. Dvorak's is less-so about the cap hit than it is about the term, as the five-year contract is about three years too long.

There's rumors that the next domino to fall could be Sherwood, on a cap hit around $4 million for four or five years. This feels a little too on the nose with the previous two discussion points about excess contracts being signed for middle-of-the-lineup players, and bangers players breaking down faster than others.

Meanwhile, the next two most recent skater contracts signed were both Lightning defensemen, where they locked up a top-pair player for eight years at less than $7 million a season, and then extended their breakout 27-year-old rookie for another year at less than $900K. Tidy business between the Bolts and both J.J. Moser and Charle-Edouard Dastous. It's exactly why the Bolts are one of the deepest teams in the league – they can just keep adding as the years go on and the cap goes up, thanks to their long-term signings and cheap filler players. They hardly have any of those tweener contracts that fill up space on empty calories.

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See you next Wednesday, and if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments you can find me on BlueSky @alexdmaclean.