Welcome back to The Journey, where we track the development of prospects as they excel in junior, make the NHL, and push towards stardom. Now that we finally have a few games from the brand-new 2023-24 season to work with, let's break down a few of the early storylines surrounding the league's younger players.

The biggest rookie storyline was of course Connor Bedard taking his first-ever NHL regular season face-off against fellow generational talent Sidney Crosby:

Sidney Crosby 🆚 Connor Bedard on the draw to start this one off.

What a moment. pic.twitter.com/4BPboh8jdp

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) October 11, 2023

Although the Blackhawks mega-prospect will need to work on his face-off technique, the other parts of his game are translating seamlessly to the NHL. He is a treat to watch and is already drawing fans in droves across the league.

Kent Johnson's Healthy Scratch

After scoring 40 points as a rookie, Johnson was one of the most surprising young players to be scratched for his team's opening game. He was back in the lineup on Saturday night against the Rangers but was basically bumped by the red-hot Emil Bemstrom, who I profiled back in mid-September for his consistency and play-driving in limited AHL action last year.

Blue Jackets coach Pascal Vincent had a lot to say about the scratch a couple days ago:

Should #CBJ coach Pascal Vincent opt to scratch Kent Johnson from tonight's season-opener against the Flyers, here's almost 700 words from him explaining why. It essentially comes down to pace of play and Bemstrom earning a spot in the lineup with his preseason performance -> pic.twitter.com/OF7R25RaGC

— Brian Hedger (@BrianHedger) October 12, 2023

He mostly just complimented Johnson—a nice change of pace from a head coach talking about a young player—but he also mentioned "pace" several times when explaining why Bemstrom made the lineup at Johnson's expense. Vincent clarified that the scratch had nothing to do with Johnson's conditioning, skill, or locker room presence. Columbus simply has a deep team this year and he got outworked. Johnson's immediate response at the following practice suggests that watching the first game from the stands was a wake-up call. Skill alone is not enough to cut it in the NHL.

Needless to say, Johnson has tons of skill and remains a high-end own in keeper and dynasty formats, though he might not exceed last year's 40 points by too much in 2023-24. His low shot (1.6/game) and hit (0.19/game) rates will also suppress his value in multi-cat formats. Nevertheless, the point potential here is significant.

He is on track to hit his Breakout Threshold halfway through 2024-25.

Connor McMichael's Big Break

Good news: McMichael made the Caps out of camp this year after spending most of last year down with Hershey (AHL). In their recent game against the Penguins, McMichael's line with Tom Wilson and Evgeny Kuznetsov played two-and-a-half more minutes than any other combo.

Bad News: McMichael's line was dramatically outplayed (31.3 CorsiFor%) by Pittsburgh. Of course, the rest of the team didn't do a whole lot better. The Penguins were in control the entire game, and the Caps generally looked slow and uncoordinated.

Good News: One of the McMichael line's two scoring chances was this excellent individual effort:

Connor McMichael with a dangerous chance against the Penguins. Love to see him cutting to the middle and using that dangerous shot of his. https://t.co/p46ScWqRhv

— Ben Gehrels (@beegare) October 15, 2023

Bad News: Well, he didn't score. But he basically took the puck by himself from his own blue line right to the opposing hash marks. With a shot like his, he won't miss from that distance very often. If he can continue to play with confidence and attack the middle, pucks will start going in before long. He has been a prolific shooter at the AHL level (2.7 shots/game last year, 3.8 the year before), so it is fantastic to see him doing so at the highest level.

Arber Xhekaj = Fantasy Unicorn

I reached on him in a few leagues to ensure I had the privilege of stashing Xhekaj (Jack-EYE) in my Util slots. He put up huge PIM and Hit totals last year in limited action on top of decent scoring and shot rates, and I was intrigued by his potential to take a step forward in 2023-24. But I was also nervous because he was facing competition for Montreal's sixth D slot and his spot in the lineup wasn't assured.

Then he was sent down to the AHL right before the season began. But it turned out that those were just cap gymnastics, and he made quite a splash in his first game, fighting Ryan Reaves (TOR) and racking up three hits, an assist, and 17 penalty minutes. He even saw some power play time! I'm not a fan of fighting in hockey—it seems insane that professional athletes are still allowed to brawl on the ice when that would result in major disciplinary action in almost every other major sport—but it was impressive to see Xhekaj plow a behemoth like Reaves backwards into the net:

Ryan Reaves vs. Arber Xhekaj pic.twitter.com/bcNByIDprQ

— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) October 11, 2023

Xhekaj adds serious grit to this Montreal team, and he feels like the new Tanner Jeannot in fantasy in that he is not just a one-trick pony like many other elite Hit/PIM options (ie. Nicolas Deslauriers). He fights to stick up for his teammates, and he is not out there just going for the big splashy hits that could take him out of position. He drove play well last year relative to his teammates in a sheltered role, which suggests that he is capable of handling more challenging Quality of Competition in 2023-24.

Plays like this one in that same game against Toronto show off his two-way awareness:

Caufield and Xhekaj with hits. Xhekaj's hit was particularly nice. Bounced Knies off the puck and then started the rush. Great stuff. pic.twitter.com/tzs1iqqRzK

— Marc Dumont (@MarcPDumont) October 12, 2023

Dach, Newhook & Slafkovsky Finding Chemistry

Sticking with the Habs for a moment, new addition Alex Newhook and former first-overall pick Juraj Slafkovsky looked excellent together in the first game of the season. Hadi, Dobber's Director of North American Scouting, put out a terrific video analysis of the key changes he saw from Slafkovsky in that game:

Juraj Slafkovsky has improved his game in key areas, which could set him up for long-term success.

My video analysis:https://t.co/K6RSmn5CHn

— Hadi Kalakeche (@HadiK_Scouting) October 14, 2023

It feels like Newhook has been around the league for a long time now, but this is really only this third full season. The 22-year-old was always an exciting prospect, particularly because of his blazing speed, but he has a star-like swagger to his game in the early going that suggest he is playing with peak drive and confidence.

If these three can continue to click, it will be fantasy gold. Plus, Montreal will finally be able to boast two dangerous scoring lines and might just be able to surprise this year.

New-Look Nashville

Over the first few games of the year, here are the lines we're seeing from the youth movement out in Tennessee:

Gustav Nyquist – Ryan O'Reilly – Filip Forsberg

Juuso Parssinen – Cody Glass – Luke Evangelista

Philip Tomasino – Tommy Novak – Cole Smith

It's early, of course, but there are a few interesting points here. First of all, Glass—not O'Reilly—-is currently leading the team in face-off win percentage with 60.9%. That won't last, of course; O'Rielly is one of the best draw-takers in the game. But it is a great sign to see Glass taking a step forward in this area after ending up just a hair below 50% on 700 draws in 2022-23. His early success suggests he will stick down the middle and is continuing to develop into a potential top-two center.

Glass has a similar creative swagger this year to Newhook, by the way. He is trying slick little passes and consistently looks dangerous with the puck. Let's hope he continues to avoid the injury bug that bit him early in his career.

On the opposite end is Novak, who has won only five of his first 15 draws. Dobber has him pencilled in as Nashville's top center in the Guide (which is still constantly being updated, by the way), but there is a risk that he ends up sliding to the wing or slotting in as the Preds' third C if he cannot get things together more at the face-off dot.

With goals in his first two games (plus five shots and a couple hits), Parssinen might be the dark horse to outscore some of his fellow higher-pedigree youngsters on this team while also adding more category coverage across the board. Although he is relatively well-known in fantasy by now, he is still a former seventh-round pick (2019) and is probably still flying more under the radar than former early-rounders like Glass, Tomasino, and Evangelista. Don't sleep on the feisty Finn!

*****

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