Welcome fantasy managers to another edition of the Eastern Edge. This week we are going to take a closer look at Boston’s bullish season, New Jersey's failed attempt at landing Quinn Hughes, as well as Ilya Sorokin's case for the Vezina Trophy. Let's get to it!

All stats courtesy of: Dobber's Frozen Tools

The Boston Bruins were featured in this year's Stadium Series at Raymond James Stadium along with the Tampa Bay Lightning and rightfully so as both teams have enjoyed incredible seasons up to this point. I'm sure we can all agree that what the Lightning have accomplished was somewhat expected coming into the 2025-2026 NHL season, however, very few believed that the Boston Bruins would be a mere five points shy of the Eastern Conference number one seed at this juncture of the NHL campaign. 

The Bruins have been an absolute wagon over the course of the last month posting a 11-2-1 record while outscoring their opponents by a 56-37 margin in the process. Boston owns the league's second-best offense during that span with 4.00 goals-for per game played trailing only the red-hot Buffalo Sabres at 4.07 goals for per game played. In addition to Boston's offensive explosion during the month of January, the team has been just as prolific defensively as well with the Bruins sporting the league's sixth best defense at 2.64 goals against per game played.

One of the greatest benefactors of the Bruins stingy play of late is Jeremy Swayman who is having a rather nice bounce back campaign having fashioned a 7-2 record which includes one shutout, accompanied by a 2.88 goals against and .902 save percentage while rocking a 6.73 goals saved above expected (GSAx). Backup Jonnas Korpisalo has been solid over the last month as well putting together a 4-0-1 record which also includes one shutout, accompanied by a tidy 2.00 goals against and .929 save percentage in addition to a 7.75 goals saved above expected. (That's a pretty sweet streaming option right there!)

One thing that has stood out for me with this year's iteration of the Boston Bruins is how deadly they have been with the man advantage, as the B's currently deploy the league’s third / fourth ranked power play which is clicking at a 27.3% success rate. Boston's total of 42 goals scored with the man advantage has them ranked fourth leagues wide.

If the Bruins can keep this level of play up for the remainder of the NHL campaign, they are going to be a rather large problem to deal with coming this spring's postseason and will undoubtedly be a very difficult out in a seven game series.

The past couple of months have not been kind to either the New Jersey Devils or their rabid fanbase.

Whether it be the endless injuries to star forward Jack Hughes, the fallout from the failed acquisition of his brother defenseman Quinn Hughes or simply the team’s poor play, things have most certainly come off the rails.

Since the 12th of December (Quinn's trade to the Minnesota Wild), the Devils rank 24th in points percentage at .479 while ranking dead last in offense at 2.21 goals for per game played (53 goals in total) during that span. The last month and a half is simply a microcosm of the Devils campaign as a whole with the team ranking 28th offensively at 2.58 goals for per game with several players playing below many fantasy managers expectations. The straw that stirs the drink for New Jersey – Jack Hughes – is playing at a point per game pace (36PTS in 36GP) however, as previously mentioned the player just cannot stay healthy for any length of time over the past few years. That being said, running mates Jesper Bratt (40PTS in 55GP), Nico Hischier (41PTS in 55GP), Timo Meier (28PTS in 50GP) have all been rather underwhelming up to this point in the season.

The signing of Jacob Markstrom has yet to bear any fruit as the big Swede continues to struggle behind a suspect defence with a record of 15-12-1 accompanied by a 3.24 goals against and .881 save percentage in addition to a -10.90 goals saved above expected ranking him 64th out of 70 goaltenders with a minimum of ten games played ahead of only Adin Hill, Anthony Stolarz, Levi Merilainen, Linus Ullmark, Sam Ersson and Jordan Binnington……..not exactly the cream of the crop to say the least.

It's not all doom and gloom for this cast of characters with a few members of the squad enjoying some individual success starting with Dougie Hamilton who has put up 12PTS in his last 11GP in what has been a trying season until this recent surge in production (thanks to a Luke Hughes injury, mind you). Youngsters Simon Nemec (20PTS in 41GP) continues to progress into what the Devils hope will be a solid top four defenseman as well as 24-year-old Arseny Gritsyuk who has put up 5PTS in the last 6GP.

Fantasy Managers far and wide will continue to monitor the situation in New Jersey as we continue to hold out hope that this franchise will get things back on track as it relates to their contention window as things have taken a bit of a left turn over the last year / year and a half.

The New York Islanders have been the feel good story of the NHL campaign with the uber-talented Matthew Schaefer breathing new life into the franchise both on and off the ice. However, it is the team’s goaltending that has come up big for the Isles this year, in particular Ilya Sorokin.

Sorokin has been building his case for the Vezina trophy all year as the 30-year-old Russian is sporting an 18-13-2 record (including six shutouts) accompanied by a 2.44 goals against and .916 save percentage in addition to a league leading 27.0 goals saved above expected (all situations).

Sorokin's underlying numbers are quite impressive as well, ranking number one in several categories such as: high danger save percentage (.882), high danger saves (300), goals saved above expected at 5 v. 5 (22.2) as well as the aforementioned league leading six shutouts this season. That being said I'm sure both Sorokin as well as the Islanders would prefer to limit those high danger chances moving forward.

The added bonus for Sorokin owners is of course the fact the Russian federation remains on the outside looking in as it relates to Olympic participation due to ongoing geo-political issues and therefore several Russian players will enjoy some extended time of to nurse any nagging injuries allowing for a small reset before the NHL kicks back up again on February 25th.

That's it for this week folks, keep an eye out for a collaboration between myself and Wild West writer Lucas Main as we present a three-part series (over the course of the next three weeks) on the top ten forwards / defensemen as well as the top five goaltenders participating in the Olympics from the Eastern and Western Conferences. 

Thanks for reading and feel free to follow me on X @mikeouellet9 or BlueSky @mikeouellet9.bsky.social

See you all again next Tuesday!