With some injured Red Wings players like Robby Fabbri and Tyler Bertuzzi returning, or set to return very soon, for Detroit, management would need to make room. Sending down their young players is one option, but it seems the team is going in another direction. Jakub Vrana was put on waivers Tuesday while we got this news about Alex Nedeljkovic:

#RedWings assign Alex Nedeljkovic to @griffinshockey for conditioning. Hasn't played since Dec. 6. Griffins have three games in next four days.

— Ansar Khan (@AnsarKhanMLive) January 4, 2023

In 60 starts (68 appearances) wearing the Winged Wheel, Goalie Ned has an .898 save percentage. It will be interesting to see what Detroit's approach will be once his conditioning stint is over.  

Vrana, meanwhile, went unclaimed on waivers. The cap hit would have been hard for a lot of teams to take on but it seems foolish for some of the bad teams with loads of cap space to pass on him. Alas, it works out for Detroit.

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Jack Eichel was back at practice for Vegas but not with the line mates he had when he was injured:

Knights' forward lines at practice:

Amadio-Stephenson-Stone
Cotter-Karlsson-Kessel
Smith-Eichel-Roy
Carrier-Leschyshyn-Kolesar

— Ben Gotz (@BenSGotz) January 4, 2023

I wrote about Michael Amadio a couple days ago and I think it makes a lot of sense to leave him with Mark Stone for now. We'll see what they do when Jonathan Marchessault is ready but if Amadio can keep up his play, this could be a three-line scoring team now. That is a scary thought for the rest of the West.

Eichel is expected back for Vegas’s next contest Thursday night against Pittsburgh.

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Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, Alexander Holtz, and Dougie Hamilton each had a goal and an assist as thew New Jersey Devils rolled over Detroit 5-1. For Hughes, he now has 22 on the season, and is pacing for over 45 tallies in a full campaign. Some more assists to his fantasy profile would really help start rounding out his game. Hamilton is now on pace for over 70 points in what would easily be his top fantasy season.

Vitek Vanecek saved 32 of 33 shots in his 14^th victory of the year.

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With only a few games in the NHL on Wednesday night I thought now would be a good chance to look at some data from the 2022-23 season thus far. (What a surprise, I know.) There are a number of wonderful resources for researching important stats and I'll start with our Frozen Tools. The work Eric Daoust has done over the last few years to add a lot of interesting and useful tools has been exceptional. The Schedule Planner is a go-to for me when looking ahead while I also use the Player Comparison tool when trying to assess some differences between similar-ish skaters. Of course, I also use Natural Stat Trick for some raw data, while paying for stat/viz sites like Evolving Hockey and HockeyViz.

One that I often mention is the tracking data from Corey Sznajder. The reason is simple: he's the only resource available for league-wide tracking data in a number of areas that aren't covered publicly, by the NHL or otherwise. (The frustrating part is the NHL has the technology to do it but, and this is just a guess, I assume teams don't want it public.) There are useful stats I look for, particularly when it comes to transition work and scoring chance creation.

Mr. Sznajder has recently added some visuals for this season and they're better for presentation than raw data in articles so let's look at some key indicators for key fantasy players from across the league.

Entries Leading to Scoring Chances

It is one thing to be able to move the puck through the neutral zone and gain the offensive zone with control at 5-on-5, it is another thing to consistently create offence off those entries. Players that can do both are very valuable offensively, with some of the top names at both being Jack Hughes, Artemi Panarin, and Leon Draisaitl so far this campaign. Last year, the full-season leaders in both categories included Hughes, Connor McDavid, Brayden Point, Johnny Gaudreau, and Nathan MacKinnon. So, yes, being strong in this area could portend good things.

Earlier this week, I wrote about Ty Dellandrea rating extremely well by this measure. There are two other players I want to point out in Troy Terry and Dylan Cozens:

Both are above the league average when considering chances generated off those entries, but neither are in the elite tier of scoring chance creation. It makes sense for Cozens, who has been playing with two rookie wingers for a large chunk of the season; rookies being able to consistently create good offensive quality is very rare outside of the generational talents. It also makes sense for Terry when we see that no other Anaheim forward is above-average in creating scoring chances off entries, and Trevor Zegras is the only Ducks forward that is even above-average on controlled zone entries.

I bring these players up for separate reasons. First, I think we're seeing a genuine breakout from Cozens (not really news, I know). It has been a long, long time since the Sabres had two full-fledged top-6 centres and it seems as if they've finally found them. Tage Thompson is in his age-25 season and recently signed long term while Cozens is a restricted free agent after this season, turns 22 in February, and should also be locked up long term as well. Assuming Rasmus Dahlin is extended after this season – he has one year left on his bridge deal – the Sabres could have their top two centers and top defenceman locked up for the better part of a decade. This is truly a team to watch for years to come.

More interestingly is what happens with Terry in Anaheim. It is clear this team is nowhere near ready to fight for a playoff spot, let alone start contending for a Stanley Cup again. If they're lucky, two years from now they'll be in a situation similar to Buffalo where they're producing offensively but likely be on the outside of the playoffs looking in. With that in mind, Terry is an RFA after this season and is a year from unrestricted free agency. Does he want to sign long term in Anaheim and, if not, could they look to trade him either at the deadline or this summer? We have heard rumblings of players available like Alexis Lafrenière, Pierre-Luc Dubois, and Jesse Puljujärvi. Not that they'd be straight 1-for-1 trades, but could packages built around Terry, one of those guys, and picks/prospects work for the Ducks?

Terry has built himself from an afterthought to an offensive star in two years. His 5-on-5 point production since the start of last season is 2.14 per 60 minutes, just a shade behind names like Brady Tkachuk and Andrei Svechnikov despite playing for the second-lowest scoring team (in fairness, Ottawa is third lowest). It would be awesome to see Terry in a contending top-6 with all the prime offensive minutes that come with it.

Scoring Chance Contributions

Any readers who've perused my Ramblings over the last year know I've discussed Scoring Chance Contributions (SCC) ad nauseum. This is simply adding two components, individual scoring chances and assists on teammate scoring chances, to give us a 60-minute rate for SCC. I have discussed the data, now let's look at it visually, with Andrew Mangiapane, Brandon Hagel, and Ryan O'Reilly specifically highlighted:

For a quick reference, the lightened franchise symbols around the top-right edge – representing specific players excelling in both areas – include Thompson, Evgeni Malkin, Brady Tkachuk, MacKinnon, Hughes, and Aleksander Barkov.

As for Mangiapane, the highlighting is necessary because of the production drop he's seen. His 0.18 goals per game are a four-year low, a rate not seen since he was a fourth liner in 2018-19. In 2021-22, his individual scoring chances stood at six per 60 minutes, with his scoring chance assists at 3.5. Both numbers have risen in 2022-23 to 8.1 individual chances and 4.4 chance assists per 60. His goals and assists per minute are both down, though, as he's seeing career-lows in on-ice team shooting percentage, individual shooting percentage, and on-ice team goals per minute. There seems to be a lot of bad luck here and whether it turns around this season is up for debate. I am still very much a believer in his scoring abilities in the longer term and dynasty owners might want to inquire if he can be had for cheap.

Brandon Hagel's performance is something to behold. He was below average in both SCC components last season in Chicago and was slightly above average in both regards the year before. This year? He is one of four Tampa forwards rating above average in both categories and he leads the team in SCC/60. Now, this isn't about Hagel turning into an offensive star on par with Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos, but it is about Hagel fitting in very nicely with the team's top options. At the time he was traded, there was some consternation about how he might fit on the team's roster and seemed like he might end up on the third line. As things stand, he's on pace to push for 35 goals and 70 points. As long as he keeps up anywhere near this level of 5-on-5 scoring chance creation, he's going to be a very good player for the Lightning.

Finally, there's Ryan O'Reilly. He just hit the injured reserve with a broken foot and the team said he'll be re-evaluated in six weeks. We are roughly eight weeks from the trade deadline. St. Louis is just three points out of a playoff spot but are chasing a Colorado team also on the outside, and have two more games played. O'Reilly being a UFA after the season means he could very well be on the move at the trade deadline if he's fully healthy, or close to it. His production has certainly taken a dive at all strengths but he’s still doing a lot to help himself and his line mates even create offensive opportunities. What can he do if he ends up in Carolina skating with Max Pacioretty and Teuvo Teravainen rather than with Brandon Saad and Josh Leivo? Or on the second line in Boston with David Pastrnak? Or, and this would be extra hilarious, back in Colorado as the 2C for a Cup run skating between Gabriel Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin? I think there's still good offensive potential here with a change of scenery and in six weeks' time, it might be worth looking at adding him to your fantasy roster for the stretch run of the season.

The last thing I'll briefly discuss is high-danger assists, or simply passes to the key scoring areas of the offensive zone. There are two players in the league averaging north of 4.0 high danger passes per 60 minutes: Connor McDavid (4.9) and… Jesper Bratt (5.4). The New Jersey winger leads the league in such passes but, and here's the kicker, the shot rates generated off those passes are less than half the league average. In other words, Bratt is creating an absurd level of chances for his teammates but not only are his teammates finishing at a lower percentage than last year, but they're not even getting shots off. This is still a young, growing team so it's a wonder what this will look like in two years. I'm guessing we're just starting to scratch the surface of Bratt's offensive upside, which is scary considering he has 110 points in his last 113 regular season games.