The big news from Monday was that Florida Panthers winger Matthew Tkachuk made his season debut after missing the team's first 47 games due to multiple offseason surgeries. Going into Monday night's game against San Jose, the Panthers sat four points back of the final Wild Card playoff spot and eight points back of third place in the Atlantic. There is more than enough time for Tkachuk to make a difference and get the Panthers to the postseason, though the Eastern Conference playoff race has shaped up as a monkey knife fight.

San Jose beat Florida in Tkachuk's return 4-1, a game that included a goalie fight between Sergei Bobrovsky and Alex Nedejkovic. An actual goalie fight, too, not just some pushing and shoving:

ABSOLUTE CINEMA 🎬 pic.twitter.com/KhUsa6hz1H

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 20, 2026

Igor Chernyshov managed a pair of assists, three shots, and two hits in the win. That gives him 11 points in 15 games since being called up. Defenceman Mario Ferraro scored, had two shots, two blocks, and a hit in a very good multi-cat night. Nedeljkovic was great in net, stopping 35 of 36 shots for the win.

Tkachuk had three shots, two PIMs, and a hit in nearly 21 minutes of ice time. He skated one what could be called the third line with Evan Rodrigues and Mackie Samoskevich.

The Sharks also acquired winger Kiefer Sherwood from the Vancouver Canucks. You can read Puneet's take on the deal here.

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William Nylander is dealing with a groin injury, according to David Alter. Toronto coach Craig Berube didn't know when Nylander would be back on the ice for practice, let alone game play, so this seems like it won't be on the short-term side. Of note is that there are just 16 days left until the Olympic break.

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Priyanta Emrith reports that Kirby Dach may be back in the Montreal Canadiens lineup on Tuesday night. Alexandre Texier missed his second practice in a row, so Dach may be on the top line if Texier isn't able to suit up.

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Andrei Svechnikov scored, assisted on Seth Jarvis' power play goal, totaled six PIMs, and added four hits in Carolina's 2-1 win over Buffalo. That makes three multi-point games for him in a row (4 G, 2A) and 25 points in his last 20 games. Jarvis had five total shots and five hits included with that goal and his 82-game pace remains over 40 goals (22 in 42).

Brandon Bussi stopped 17 of 18 shots for his 18^th win in his 22^nd start. He wasn't overly busy, but he had this incredible save:

Save so good it had everyone stunned 😏 pic.twitter.com/fENHCTG6gH

— Carolina Hurricanes (@Canes) January 19, 2026

Rasmus Dahlin scored the lone Sabres goal in the loss. He is now on a five-game point streak with three goals and three assists in that span. Goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was stellar, but his two goals against on 28 shots was enough for the loss.

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Nathan MacKinnon added more fuel to his MVP credentials with two goals (one PP), one assists, 10 shots, and over 22 minutes of ice time in Colorado's 5-2 win at home to Washington. Victor Olofsson managed a goal, an assist (PP), and two shots in the win. Parker Kelly and Artturi Lehkonen had the other tallies.  

Cale Makar had a very good multi-cat night with an assist, four shots, two blocks, and a hit. Goaltender Scott Wedgewood earned the win by stopping 22 of 24 shots faced.

Jakob Chychrun scored his 18^th of the season (PP), which was assisted by Ethen Frank, who also scored, in the Caps' loss. Chychrun also had a great multi-cat night with three shots, four blocks, six PIMs, and a hit.

Charlie Lindgren took the loss, giving up five goals on 44 shots.

Valeri Nichushkin did not play in the game because he got into a car accident. He is apparently fine, he just wasn't able to play in this contest.

Justin Sourdif was back in the lineup for the Caps, and he skated 15:21 overall in his usual second-line role.

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Justin Brazeau had a goal, three shots, and a hit while Sidney Crosby had a pair of assists in Pittsburgh's 6-3 win over Seattle. After going seven games without a goal, Brazeau now has goals in two of his last three, and is up to 14 goals in 34 games. Winger Rickard Rakell also scored, giving him points in three straight games and goals in back-to-back contests.

Penguins goalie Stuart Skinner stopped 20 of 23 shots for his fifth win in his ninth start with the team.

Eeli Tolvanen had a goal, two shots, a block, and a pair of hits in the loss. That was his 10^th goal of the year, officially giving him six straight seasons with at least 30 goals. He needs one more point for four straight seasons of at least 30 points. With his massive hit totals and solid block numbers, he's turned into one of the more reliable multi-cat wingers in the league.

Kraken goalie Joey Daccord gave up five goals on 31 shots in the loss.

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Marcus Foligno scored his first career hat trick, managing four shots and a pair of hits, as Minnesota took a 6-3 win in Toronto. He now has points in three straight games with four goals and one assist in that span.

Quinn Hughes had another good night for the Wild with two assists, a shot, two blocks, and two PIMs. Goalie Filip Gustavsson held the Leafs to three goals on 30 shots for his 16^th win.  

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The New Jersey Devils managed a 2-1 win in Calgary on Monday night but the big news was that defenceman Luke Hughes left the game and Frank Seravalli reports that it is a separated shoulder. It was hard to see what happened on the replay but quite literally looked like someone pulled on his jersey from behind as he was in stride and it pulled his shoulder out of place. It really seemed like an innocent play, but the same can be said about when Connor Bedard was injured, and look what happened there.  

In Hughes' place on the top PP unit was Dougie Hamilton, but who knows if that will stick.

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Cutter Gauthier broke out of a slump that saw him score just twice in 14 games with a pair of goals in Anaheim's 5-3 home win over the New York Rangers. That gives him 17 even-strength goals on the season, one shy of his 82-game total from last year.

Lukas Dostal posted his third win in a row by stopping 19 of 22 shots.

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On Sunday, one of the big free agent dominos was knocked over as the Calgary Flames sent defenceman Rasmus Andersson to Vegas for Zach Whitecloud, a prospect, and a couple of draft picks. Ian wrote about the trade at the time so click here for his thoughts.

The first thing that came to mind when I saw the Andersson trade was how this would affect Vegas defensively. Going into Monday night's game against Philadelphia, the Golden Knights were at 2.51 goals against per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. If they stay at that level (or worse), they will finish with the worst 5-on-5 goals against rate in franchise history. To be clear: that rate in and of itself is not bad – around the middle of the league. But it is unusual for Vegas to be giving up so many goals at 5-on-5.

In my newsletter last week, I wrote about how teams/players have changed defensively this season compared to the prior two years. One of the notable teams was Vegas because they are seeing the fourth-largest increase in shots against off the rush per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 in the league, with only Carolina, Buffalo, and Columbus being worse:

We only need to look at some of the other teams with big increases in rush shots against like Carolina, Winnipeg, Florida, and Washington to see how it can affect goals against rates. Not all teams have gotten worse – Buffalo and Columbus, notably – but allowing a lot of rush shots can lead to a lot of goals against.

That brings us back to Andersson. Over the last 2.5 seasons, Calgary has been league-average-or-worse in allowing rush shots against, and in those 2.5 seasons, Andersson has had by far the worst goals-against/60 rate of regular Flames defencemen at 2.84 (next-worst is Kevin Bahl at 2.53). While we don't know for certain how responsible he is for allowing those rush shots against, that he had the worst goals against rate on a team that is not good at limiting rush shots against is an indicator here.

The other indicator is some of the tracking data from All Three Zones. Among 143 defencemen with at least 600 tracked minutes at 5-on-5 over the last 2.5 seasons, Andersson has the 10^th-worst mark for carried zone entries against at 67.2%. That means when the opposition targets him on a zone entry, the opposition carries the puck in 67.2% of the time. Here are the other defencemen somewhere in the 67-69% range:

That list does not give us a lot of confidence.

This is important to know because Vegas is a prime spot for our fantasy goalies to rack up wins as the Golden Knights have won over 50% of their games (24/47 heading into Monday night). But none of their goalies have a .900 save percentage and Akira Schmid is the only one with a goals against average under 3.00. Whitecloud had been on the ice for a lot of goals against, so maybe there's some improvement for the netminders on that front alone, but I'm not sure this will be an upgrade defensively for the Golden Knights. Andersson is the better offensive defenceman by a good margin, but the jury is still very much out as to whether his presence will help Vegas' goaltenders.

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Going the other way to Calgary is Whitecloud and, as mentioned, he had been on the ice for a lot of goals against in Vegas this season (over 3.0 per 60 minutes at 5-on-5). However, that is unusual for him as his prior four seasons had all seen goals against rates between 2.0 and 2.5 per 60 minutes. Vegas has been getting their defencemen more involved in the offence this year than they usually do, and it's only a half-season sample, so I wonder if there weren't some adjustment issues and small-sample noise going on here. On top of that, Whitecloud allows far fewer carried zone entries against than Andersson does, and he's more in line with other top Calgary defencemen:

With Whitecloud's ability to limit carried zone entries, and his usual ability to keep the goals against low, this could be a trade that helps out the Calgary goalies. It won't help the team offensively, and that's a problem for the goalies in terms of getting wins, but it wouldn't be surprising to see Whitecloud help suppress shot volume and/or quantity over Calgary's final 30+ games and help improve the ratios for Dustin Wolf and Devin Cooley.