In a bit of good injury news, Minnesota Wild centre Joel Eriksson Ek was skating before the team's morning warmup on Thursday, according to Michael Russo. He did not play on Thursday night, but that he's on the ice and skating with coaches is a good sign that he may not be out for a whole lot longer.

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Jakob Chychrun was back in the lineup for Washington on Thursday night but Tom Wilson was not.

The San Jose Sharks scored three goals in three minutes as they beat the Washington Capitals on Thursday night 3-2. Collin Graf and Pavol Regenda both managed a goal and an assist while Zach Ostapchuk also scored.

John Klingberg was running the San Jose power play again and the team went 0-for-3. They have six goals in 108 minutes of 5-on-4 power-play time with Klingberg on the ice, and 18 goals in 121 minutes in Orlov's time. Why Klingberg is still running the top PP unit is a mystery only the gods can answer.

Alex Nedeljkovic stopped 21 of 23 shots for the win.

Dylan Strome (PP) and Ryan Leonard scored the Capitals' goals. Leonard finished with two shots, a block, and a pair of hits in a solid multi-cat effort.

Logan Thompson allowed three goals on 26 shots in the loss.

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The St. Louis Blus announced that Robert Thomas is on the injured reserve. He did not play on Tuesday night and the team announced he will be out for at least two weeks. There are only three weeks left before the Olympic break, so it's a wonder if they don't give him that extra bit of time to rest. He could have six weeks to recuperate if the team really wants him to.

Matthew DeFranks reported defenceman Philip Broberg was an extra at practice, so Broberg may not be ready to return on Friday night against Tampa Bay, but it seems as if he's not far off. At least that's a bit of good injury news for St. Louis.

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Brandon Montour was back in Seattle's lineup on Thursday night after missing a month with a hand injury.

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Kent Johnson and Kirill Marchenko each had a goal and a power-play assists as the Columbus Blue Jackets took a 4-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks. After skating nearly 21 minutes in his first game under new coach Rick Bowness, Johnson was over 17 minutes in this one, marking just the third time this season that Johnson skated over 17 minutes in back-to-back games, and the first time since late November. It seems as if the coach has confidence in the player, and the player is producing in turn. It might be time to check those waiver wires.

Charlie Coyle (PP) and Zach Werenski (PP) had the other Jackets goals. Werenski finished with five shots in a block to round out a solid multi-cat night.

Goaltender Elvis Merzlikins was stellar in goal, stopping 30 of 31 shots for his first win in six weeks.

Brock Boeser scored the lone Canucks goal, his first goal in 28 games. No, really.

Kevin Lankinen got the start in net for the Canucks and gave up four goals on 35 shots.

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Pittsburgh scored three power-play goals, one each from Justin Brazeau, Bryan Rust, and Sidney Crosby, as the Penguins took down the Philadelphia Flyers 6-3. Crosby also assisted the Rust goal, officially giving him his 16^th season with at least 25 goals and 25 assists.

Blake Lizotte, Conor Dewer, and Egor Chinakhovs scored the other goals for the Penguins. Defenceman Kris Letang registered an assist, a pair of shots, and two PIMs in the win.

Stuart Skinner was in net for the Penguins and stopped 30 of 33 shots for his fourth win in a Penguins uniform. He has allowed just 19 goals in eight starts with Pittsburgh.

Rodrigo Abols, Nick Seeler, and Matvei Michkov scored for the Flyers. Denver Barkey had a pair of assists and three shots for his second career multi-point game.

Samuel Ersson got the start but was pulled after allowing three goals on 14 shots.

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Tage Thompson had a massive night in Buffalo's big divisional showdown with Montreal as he capped off a hat trick with an empty-net goal, adding a pair of assists along the way, figuring in on all five Sabres goals as Buffalo skated away with a 5-3 win. That is Thompson's first hat trick of the season, and he now has 13 goals and 14 assists in his last 18 games. Safe to say he's on a nice little heater.

Josh Doan had a nice, balanced fantasy night with a PP goal, an assist, one shot, and one hit. That makes 10 points in eight games for Doan as his breakout season continues unabated.

Alex Tuch had the other tally for the Sabres.

Colten Ellis stopped 19 of the 22 shots he faced for the win.

Nick Suzuki and Ivan Demidov scored PP goals while Cole Caufield tallied his 22^nd goal of the season. Lane Hutson assisted both PP goals and now has 47 points in 48 games.

Jacob Fowler was in net for the Habs and gave up four goals on 26 shots in the loss.  

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Mark Scheifele posted a goal and three assists (two PP) as the Winnipeg Jets toppled the Minnesota Wild 6-2. That moves Scheifele to 1.26 points per game this season, or a 103-point pace, which is a career-best.

Josh Morrissey, Jonathan Toews, and Gabriel Vilardi all posted a goal and an assist while Connor Hellebuyck stopped 32 of 34 shots in the win.

Minnesota goalie Jesper Wallstedt was pulled after allowing six goals on 20 shots.

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On the night they retired Zdeno Chara's number, the Boston Bruins earned a 4-2 win over the Seattle Kraken. Charlie McAvoy had a stellar multi-cat night with two assists, three blocks, and four hits. Goaltender Jeremy Swayman held the Kraken to two goals on 28 shots.

Eeli Tolvanen had a very good multi-cat night with a goal, three shots, and six hits.

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Both Mikael Backlund and Yegor Sharangovich posted a goal and an assist in Calgary's 3-1 win in Chicago. Goalie Devin Cooley stopped 22 of 23 shots for his sixth win of the season, and he's now up to a .921 save percentage.

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Nick Schmaltz and John Marino each posted a goal and an assist in Utah's 2-1 win over Dallas. Goaltender Karel Vejmelka faced 27 shots and stopped 26 of them for his 22^nd win of the season (he's the only goalie with at least 20. After starting the season with an .884 save percentage up until American Thanksgiving, Karel Vejmelka is up to a .915 save percentage since, and .903 overall.

Miro Heiskanen was again not in the lineup for Dallas, and Thomas Harley remained on the top PP unit while skating over 30 minutes in a regulation game.

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Ilya Sorokin had one of the top goalie performances of the regular season thanks to a 35-save shutout of Edmonton in Alberta as the Islanders earned a 1-0 win. Anthony Duclair scored the lone Islanders goal, landing three shots in the process. I wrote about Duclair's upswing a few days ago and why there's more than solid production supporting his improvements.  

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Jack Eichel totaled one goal, three assists, and five shots as Vegas took a 6-5 overtime win over Toronto. Mark Stone had one goal and two assists, Pavel Dorofeyev scored twice, Tomas Hertl managed a tally and a helper, and Mitch Marner had a pair of assists. The big boys did the damage for the Golden Knights.

John Tavares and William Nylander each had a goal and an assist, Matias Maccelli had a couple of assists, and Auston Matthews scored in the loss.

Nylander left the game halfway through the first period and did not return. Given his persistent injury issues this year, it's not a great sign.

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In Tuesday’s 'Capped' write-up, Andrew Santillo included Jordan Kyrou, who is having a very down season with the St. Louis Blues. In fairness, the entire roster is having a down season, but Kyrou posted three straight 30-goal, 30-assist seasons and may not even get to 20-20 in this campaign.

A lot has been made about what's wrong with the St. Louis Blues offensively, and I'd like to chime in here. Over the summer, I had a long BlueSky thread (it can be read here) about how defencemen botching defensive zone retrievals, or failing to exit the zone in any manner, is something that hurt their team's goal-scoring rate more than their goals against rate. Using tracking data from All Three Zones and combining the 2021-2023 seasons, here is the negative impact on goals-for per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 by defencemen who have high rates of botched retrievals+failed exits in the 2023-24 season:

Conversely, there was very little relationship between the botch/fail percentage and goals against:

That held up when looking at the two years from 2021-2023 and how those defencemen fared by goals-for in the two years from 2023-2025. Here is the correlation between combined botch/fail percentages and Evolving Hockey's Goals-For Rate-Adjusted Plus Minus (helps put team goals-for rates with a player on the ice into context):

This problem was magnified at the extremes, as very low botch/fail percentages led to much higher goal scoring, and vice versa.

All that brings us back to St. Louis. Knowing that it hurts a team's goal scoring if their defencemen botch defensive retrievals and fail to exit the zone at high rates, let's take a lot at where every team stands by Botch Retrieval% and Failed Exit% so far in 2025-26 (blue and red lines are the league average in each regard):

In the bottom-left quadrant are teams that are better than league average in both areas. The top-5 teams here are the Utah Mammoth, Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals, Colorado Avalanche, and Carolina Hurricanes. Four of those five teams went into Thursday night's action inside the top-5 by team goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 with the exception being Carolina, who were 12^th. This has the look of another season where teams that keep botch retrievals or zone exits fails to a minimum have strong goal-scoring rates.

Conversely, we see the top-right quadrant showing all the teams that are worse than league average in both areas. There are 11 teams in that quadrant and not a single one of them is a top-8 team by goals-for per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 so far this season. Compare that to four of the top-5 teams in the other direction all being top-5 goal-scoring teams, and we see how much defencemen fumbling the puck in their zone can hurt, or at least not help, their team's offence.

Then we look way into the top-right of the top-right quadrant. There are two teams overlapping each other, both having the worst botched retrieval% with the second- and third-worst failed exit%. You'll never guess one of those teams:

At a total 77.1% botched retrieval% + failed exit%, the Blues have the worst combined percentage of any team in the league. They slightly edge out the New York Islanders (77%), and those two are the only teams above 70%. The Blues and Islanders currently sit 25^th and 21^st by 5-on-5 goals per 60 minutes this season, respectively.

To put this in context, in 2024-25, the Blues had a 55.7% combined botch/fail percentage. They went from a bit-worse-than-average to league-worst in one year, and as mentioned earlier, it's at the extremes where this becomes a problem. The Blues are at the extreme low end in 2025-26, and it's crushing their offence.

Knowing all this, when we ask 'what's wrong with Jordan Kyrou' – or Robert Thomas, or Pavel Buchnevich, or whomever – it may be the wrong question to ask. This is an instance where a very poor St. Louis blue line is neutering the team offensively, and it feels like a minor miracle the Blues are 25^th in league scoring at 5-on-5 and not 30^th or worse.

It seems unlikely this gets better in 2025-26, though stranger things have happened. What is more interesting is discussing any Blues forward who may be moved at the Trade Deadline, because they will be going to a team whose defencemen are not bumbling the puck in the defensive zone nearly as much, and that alone would be a huge boost to their fantasy values. It would make me very interested in, say, Jordan Kyrou if he waives his no-trade clause and gets moved.