The Colorado Avalanche provided a positive update on goaltender Scott Wedgewood and Mackenzie Blackwood as both are expected at practice for Thursday, per Evan Rawal. That is especially good news on Blackwood, who has yet to make a start in calendar 2026. Colorado hosts the Nashville Predators on Friday night, their only remaining game this week.

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Nico Hischier finished off a partial breakaway to lift the New Jersey Devils to a 3-2 overtime win over Seattle. That was his second of the game, scoring earlier on the power play, marking just his second two-goal game of the season. He is now on a three-game point streak with three goals and two assists in that span.

Cody Glass had the other tally while both Jack Hughes and Luke Hughes each managed a pair of assists. Jack now has six assists in his last four games, but just 1 goal in 12 games since returning from his hand injury.

Jacob Markstrom stopped 15 of the 17 shots he faced in the win.

Jared McCann had a PP goal and assisted on an Adam Larsson tally in the loss. That makes five goals and five assists in his last nine games for McCann.

Philipp Grubauer took the loss in net, allowing three goals on 26 shots.

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Two power-play goals from Rasmus Dahlin, plus solo tallies from Mattias Samuelsson, Jack Quinn, and Ryan McLeod, lifted the Buffalo Sabres to a 5-2 win at home to Philadelphia. Dahlin, who had four straight seasons shooting between 7.4-8.5%, went into Wednesday's game shooting under 4%. Perhaps that regression has begun.

Josh Doan managed a pair of assists (one PP), a shot, a block, and a hit. That makes eight points in his last seven games.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen stopped 20 of 22 shots in the win.

Trevor Zegras (PP) scored for the Flyers while Owen Tippett posted a goal and an assist. Zegras finished with seven shots and two PIMs, in a solid multi-cat night.

Dan Vladar got the start for the Flyers, let in three goals on five shots, and left the game after the first period with an injury.

Buffalo's Josh Norris also left the game with an injury, which is bad news given his history.

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The Ottawa Senators put up eight goals for the first time since October 2024 in their 8-4 thrashing of the New York Rangers. Bullet points are probably easier here:

• Brady Tkachuk: one goal, three assists (one PP), six shots, two hits.
• Dylan Cozens: one goal, two assists (one PP), four shots, one hit.
• David Perron and Nick Jensen: one goal, one assist each.
• Ridley Greig: three assists, one block, one hit.
• Thomas Chabot, Tim Stutzle, Drake Batherson: one goal each (Batherson's on the PP.)

The goal from Stützle is his 20^th of the season, his fourth time reaching 20 goals in the last five years. He may not reach his previous career-high of 39 but it seems he has 30 goals on the menu this season.

Leevi Merilainen took the win for the Sens, stopping 18 of 22 shots.

Gabe Perreault scored twice, Noah Laba had a PP goal, and Alexis Lafreniere managed a goal and PP assist in the loss. That is Lafrenière's third multi-point game in his last 10 outings.

Jonathan Quick gave up six goals on 17 shots and was pulled midway through the game.

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Mark Stone scored in overtime, and assisted on a Mitch Marner power-play goal, as the Vegas Golden Knights earned a 3-2 overtime win in Los Angeles. That makes a nine-game point streak for Stone, with 8 goals, 6 assists, 20 shots, 9 blocks, and 6 hits in that span. He has 89 points in his last 82 regular season games dating back to December 1^st of 2024.

Braeden Bowman scored the other Vegas goal while Akira Schmid stopped 22 of 24 shots in the win.

Kevin Fiala posted a goal and an assist in the loss while Brandt Clarke totaled one goal, three shots, and three blocks. Goaltender Darcy Kuemper gave up three goals on 27 shots in the loss.  

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In Tuesday's Ramblings, we went over forwards and their market share of shot attempts and/or expected goals. To review, a player's market share in those areas simply means the percentage of a team's shots that specific player takes when he's on the ice. So, if Roman Josi takes 20 out of every 100 shots for Nashville when he's on the ice, then his market share is 20%.

The main reason for doing this is to identify players who are getting involved offensively but whose fantasy value hasn't taken off yet, providing a good buy-low or waiver wire pickup opportunity (the last 6+ weeks from Ryan Leonard and Alex Leferriere were examples of how this can be helpful). It can also identify players who had good fantasy value but are losing it.

Like Tuesday's Ramblings, we are going to split the season in two: before American Thanksgiving and after, using only defencemen with at least 250 minutes played in each half (sample of 151 players). This is for all situations (EV, PP, PK) and the data is from Evolving Hockey.

Louis Crevier (Chicago Blackhawks)

This was a very interesting name to find. There were 16 defencemen in the sample to be at least one standard deviation above average by market share of shot attempts both pre- and post-American Thanksgiving. Of those 16 defencemen, only three added at least 1:00 of ice time per game between the two halves, and here are the three:

Crevier added well over three minutes of ice time per game, while also being among the most regular shot-takers of all defencemen in the league. Overall, since American Thanksgiving, Crevier has taken 24.8% of Chicago's shot attempts when he's on the ice, which is the fifth-highest rate among the 151 defencemen in our sample. We could shrug it off as a hot streak for 6-7 weeks had Crevier not had a top-20 market share of shot attempts through the first 7+ weeks of the season.

Crevier is not a defenceman typically known for his offence, but not only is he shooting frequently, he leads Chicago defencemen in primary assists at 5-on-5 with seven, and he leads them in total points at 5-on-5 with 11. He won't get top PP time, so there is a cap to his potential point production, but he's averaging 1.5 hits and 0.8 blocks per game, is shooting the puck a lot, and has seen his ice time increase each month of the season from 12:34 in October to 18:54 in January. As a depth option in multi-cat formats, the pillars to support his fantasy value are there.  

Vladislav Gavrikov (New York Rangers)

Gavrikov's name has been a popular one over the last couple of weeks because the injury to Adam Fox assuredly means not only more ice time, but a crack at a top power-play role. He may have been scooped up already in various fantasy formats.

With that said, Gavrikov is 1 of 13 defencemen in our sample to see an increase in his market share of both shot attempts and expected goals, and he's also seen an increase in ice time of over 1:30 per game:

It isn't as if it's leading to a plethora of more shots, but he is averaging 1.65 shots per game since Fox's initial injury at the end of November, compared to Gavrikov's average of 1.33 shots per game up to that point. Even if he keeps up that pace the rest of the season, we're taking maybe 10-15 extra shots. All the same, an incremental improvement here with the potential of a top PP role at least until the Olympic break makes Gavrikov a must-own in all but the shallowest multi-cat formats.

Pavel Mintyukov (Anaheim Ducks)

Mintyukov is the lone defenceman in our sample who has a top-10 improvement in both market share of shot attempts and market share of expected goals in the two halves (in fairness, Shayne Gostisbehere was really close). Here is how he compared to Gavrikov, who had big improvements in each category himself:

What is also important here is that Mintyukov has seen an improvement over 3:30 in TOI per game between the halves, so not only is he shooting more (with more quality attached to those shots), but he's been getting a lot more ice time. Like Crevier earlier, Mintyukov has increased his ice time per game every month of the season and now stands at 21:48 per game in the month of January, right alongside Jacob Trouba (21:49) for the top TOI rates on Anaheim's blue line.

The result here has been Mintyukov going from 0.76 shots per game to 1.4 per game. That is a huge difference and with some good PPTOI being added to his profile recently, Mintyukov's name is one to consider in any fantasy format that doesn't have shallow rosters.

Cam York (Philadelphia Flyers)

The last defenceman with big positive changes of note is York:

The good news here is that his market share of shot attempts and expected goals has increased a lot over the last 6-7 weeks. The bad news is that his ice time has seen a decline, going from 24-25 minutes per game in October/November to around 21per game in December/January. He has seen an upswing in TOI over the last week or so, which would then make those market share improvements really matter. If he can keep up these changes, keep his power-play time, and stay close to where he was in TOI per game earlier in the season, York will be a name to circle in basically any fantasy format. Those are three 'ifs' in a row, though, and it's not as if the Flyers are an offensive juggernaut that can support his production if those things decline.

Darnell Nurse and Mattias Ekholm (Edmonton Oilers)

The title here includes Nurse and Ekholm because they had the two largest drops in their market share of shot attempts and expected goals on the Oilers blue line, and two of the largest drops in the league. But it's interesting that Evan Bouchard isn't far behind, and none of the five regular Oilers defencemen have increased their market share of both shot attempts and expected goals:

Zach Hyman returned from his injury on November 15^th, so that probably figures in here, but the Oilers have easily been a top-10 team since American Thanksgiving, and it happens to coincide with their defencemen taking far fewer shots than earlier in the campaign. Maybe a coincidence, maybe not, but interesting all the same.

Jake Sanderson (Ottawa Senators)

Along with Ekholm and Nurse, Sanderson has seen a significant drop in his market share of shot attempts and expected goals:

Overall, it hasn't really hurt Sanderson's fantasy value much. The first half saw him with 4 goals, 14 assists, and 2.17 shots per game in 23 contests, and the second half with 4 goals, 11 assists, and 2.14 shots per game om 21 appearances. His role and ice time are in no danger, but it's a wonder if he rebounds from this market share decline or if he stays where he is.