In today's article, we will take a quick look at early season developments for several Eastern Conference teams.

Senators Line Combinations

We start with the Ottawa Senators, who have been deploying newly acquired William Eklund on the top power play and on the second line with Dylan Cozens and Fabian Zetterlund. Zetterlund has played with fellow Swede Eklund on the Sharks. At even strength, they have spent close to  100 minutes with each of Macklin Celebrini and Tomas Hertl. Mikael Granlund has almost 300 minutes of even strength ice time centering Eklund and Zetterlund between 2023 and 2025.

Dylan Cozens gets to partner in on that chemistry. The trio scored on their first shot of the game against the Montreal Canadiens in the Kraft Hockeyville pre-season game in Saint-Boniface, Quebec. With Arber Xhekaj draped over him, Eklund buried home the pass from Cozens. Zetterlund could set career highs playing on the second line. He is a hits beast, accumulating 309 hits over his last 166 games (1.86/game). His first game included one assist, one hit, and one shot.

The top line in Ottawa consists of newcomer Andre Burakovsky with Tim Stutzle and Drake Batherson. After he returns from injury, Burakovsky should see an uptick in even-strength ice time, and join the best quality of linemates he has had since his time in Colorado (2019-2022) where he averaged 0.785 points per game. In the meantime, Warren Foegele is starting in his spot on the top line with Stutzle and Batherson.

Later on in training camp, more specifically the day after the Senators lost both split squad games to the Toronto Maple Leafs, they put Stutzle in between Eklund and Zetterlund, while Cozens was centering Batherson and Burakovsky, an indication that Travis Green may experiment with the top six arrangement throughout the season.

Maple Leafs – Blue Jackets Trade

A significant trade broke hours before last Monday's 5 pm NHL roster deadline between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Puneet Sharma broke down the fantasy implications here, while Andrew Santillo looked at the implications of this trade in salary cap leagues here.

In terms of NHL asset value, the edge goes to Matthew Knies, the 23-year-old unicorn who provides a unique combination of physicality and skill signed to a sweetheart deal ($7.75M AAV for five years). Although Kirill Marchenko may be more offensively talented, his extension will cost the Maple Leafs $12.5M for six years (after this year's 'unpaid' volunteer work at $3.85M). Players who want out don't usually generate such a lucrative trade return. Not only did Don Waddell snag the better asset in a salary cap environment, he also got out of the Elvis Merzlikins contract and the Miles Wood contract.

The Maple Leafs were already starting the season using LTIR, so tossing in Merzlikins is not that big of a deal. John Chayka now has $7 million in cap space to work with. His next move has to be on defense. The last time Don Waddell wanted to get rid of a contract, it cost him a second-round pick to ship Patrik Laine to Montreal. Knies is being used as a net front presence on the top power play in Columbus. He is off to a sizzling start with four points in two games, including a power play goal.

Jack Roslovic and Kirill Marchenko have played together as linemates in Columbus. Now they get Auston Matthews as their center. Roslovic was a popular sleeper pick in drafts because of the projected Line 1 and Power Play 1 deployment.  Marchenko who is a right-handed shooter, replaces Roslovic on the Leafs top power play, so Roslovic's value takes a hit, but he did pick up a power-play assist on the second unit against the New York Islanders. The Marchenko-Matthews-Roslovic line is performing great at 5-on-5, ranking highly in metrics such as expected goal percentage and slot shot differential in this small sample size.

Canadiens Prospects

A couple of Montreal Canadiens prospects are off to a hot start. Jacob Fowler played in back-to-back games against the Syracuse Crunch, stopping 52 of 55 shots (.945 SV%). Sam Montembeault remained with the big club after allowing only one goal in pre-season. However, throughout training camp it was Jakub Dobes and Jacob Fowler on practice squad A, composed of mostly NHL players, while Montembeault and Kaapo Kahkonen were with the B squad. The Laval Rocket play again next Sunday, which could include Fowler if Montembeault hasn't been dealt.

The other prospect is Michael Hage, who sits tied with University of Michigan linemate Jayden Perron atop the early NCAA scoring leaders list. Both have three goals and four assists in back-to-back games against the Bowling Green Falcons. Bowling Green is not expected to be a strong team, with only one NHL drafted player on their roster (Connor Levis, 7^th round pick of the Winnipeg Jets in 2023). The Wolverines by comparison have 16 NHL drafted prospects, including Hage (Montreal), Perron (Carolina), Henry Mews (Calgary), William Horcoff (Pittsburgh), Cameron Reid (Nashville), Jack Ivankovic (Nashville), Jack Nesbitt (Philadelphia), and J.P. Hurlbert (Detroit). Landon DuPont, the potential first overall pick in the 2027 draft, also plays for the Wolverines. Hage also started strong last season against weaker opponents.

Ovechkin's Final Season

Alexander Ovechkin has declared this his last year of NHL hockey. After averaging 17:27 of time on ice last year, Ovechkin has seen a significant decrease this year to 12:46 and 13:34 in his first two games. His power-play time has been halved from an average of 4:29/game to 2:16/game, albeit in two games.

Due to the depth of talent on the Washington Capitals forward group, this trend will likely continue, and it has affected all forwards, not just Ovechkin. Dylan Strome is down from 18:02 to 15:37, Tom Wilson 19:28 to 17:13, Pierre-Luc Dubois from 16:49 to 15:21. Alex Tuch who was at 19 minutes or higher in ice time for the last four seasons in Buffalo, is down to 17:16. Just when you thought Jordan Kyrou's 15:44 from his last season with the St. Louis Blues could not get any worse, he too is down even further to 13:31.

Player data from Frozen Tools. Advanced stats from Money Puck.

Follow me on X/Twitter here: @KmanHockey_DH