Even with a fantastic start to the season, there is cause for concern in New Jersey as Nico Hischier appeared to suffer a concussion in a game against Buffalo, and he's not played in over a week. To make matters worse, Jack Hughes suffered an upper-body injury and missed time over the weekend. On the bright side, an update from Elliotte Friedman said that it's not expected to be something serious, so he's not going to have a lengthy absence. Of course, we'll have to wait and see official word from the team but that's positive to start with.

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Staying on the positive side of things, there was a good update for Florida about defencemen Aaron Ekblad and Brandon Montour:

Maurice says there's a chance that Montour and/or Ekblad return after the upcoming trip to California.

— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) November 6, 2023

Neither has played yet this season as they both had offseason shoulder surgeries following their lengthy playoff run. Technically speaking, Florida went into Monday night's game against Columbus with the second-worst point total in their division, but they were just one point out of a playoff spot. They have been able to keep things stable while being without their star blueliners, and that bodes very well for the next five months (and beyond).

Fantasy owners that gambled on these guys returning before December rolled around during draft season may be rewarded for that faith. It will also nuke Oliver Ekman-Larsson's fantasy value into the ground, so not everyone wins here.

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Let's keep the positivity going with an update on two Ottawa's injured defencemen:

Zub is in a regular jersey while Brannstrom isn't taking any contact. #Sens

— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) November 6, 2023

Artem Zub will go a long way to somewhat stabilizing things defensively while Erik Brännström will help the depth generate more offence. The big name everyone is waiting for is Thomas Chabot, but this should help the team for now. It will likely put an end to the sky-high ice time totals that Jakob Chychrun has been putting up lately, though.

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Why not another positive injury update, this time on Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy:

Tampa coach Jon Cooper projects Andrei Vasilevskiy will be a bit ahead of schedule and return around the end of the US Thanksgiving holiday period.

— Lance Hornby 🇺🇦 (@sunhornby) November 6, 2023

The reality here is that goaltending has not been the issue for the Lightning; Jonas Johansson has a .916 save percentage in nine starts, a top-10 mark among all goalies with at least six starts so far this season, and higher than names like Igor Shesterkin, Ilya Sorokin, and Juuse Saros. Getting Vasilevskiy back would obviously be a benefit to the team, but it's the rest of the roster that needs to clean up their play.

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Nick Robertson was called up to the Leafs roster for Monday night's game with Pontus Holmberg going the other way. Robertson started his AHL season with five goals, 11 points, and 37 shots in nine games, so he seems very much ready to make the jump. If he can be a regular in the top-6 forward mix, it would go a long way to helping this team establish any semblance of a third (and maybe even a fourth) line. Just beware that Matthew Knies was on the top line for Monday's game and Robertson is unlikely to earn top PP time at any point unless there is an injury (or two) among their top options.

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Scott Mayfield was not at Islanders practice on Monday:

Good news on the backend:

Adam Pelech is on the ice for practice.

Bad news on the backend:

Scott Mayfield is not on the ice for practice. #Isles

— Stefen Rosner (@stefen_rosner) November 6, 2023

This is pretty important for Noah Dobson as Adam Pelech, who was injured, is expected back in the lineup soon. If Mayfield misses time (they called it maintenance but I've seen players maintain for weeks so let's wait this out), it could help Dobson keep the high levels of ice time, and subsequent fantasy production, he's enjoyed so far this season. It would be nice to see him improve on the five hits he has managed, but I'm sure his fantasy owners are not complaining about the points, shots, or blocks he's posted.

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Matt Savoie was at Sabres practice on Monday, being activated from his conditioning stint. He was skating on the third line in what was Victor Olofsson's spot. Olofsson has looked terrible to start the year so it's not hard to imagine Savoie earning a regular role (though it won't be right away because they want him to get up to speed). That goes double considering Dylan Cozens was not at practice, so the team may need to rely more on its young prospect forwards.

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Carolina had goalie Jaroslav Halak at practice on a tryout:

There is also word that 17-year veteran Jaroslav Halak will practising with Carolina today. He's not signed — appears to be a PTO — but the Hurricanes are bringing him in to take a look.

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) November 6, 2023

The team said Frederik Andersen will be undergoing some injury testing, so this makes sense. It also makes sense in general with the team ranking 31^st by save percentage so far this season (only Edmonton is worse). Halak wouldn't need to be great, just not awful, to be an improvement over what the team has had this year.

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Blake Wheeler was moved to the top line for the Rangers with Kaapo Kakko going down to the third line. As well as that team has largely played this year, the top line is scoring one goal every 60 minutes at 5-on-5. That is an awful, awful number and it's something that is not new for the top line when Kakko is there. Dominating play is one thing; actually scoring goals is another. We will see how long this lasts but Kakko's top-6 ride is over for now.

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San Jose had William Eklund on the top line at their own practice on Monday. It only took 11 straight losses and an historically awful start to get there. Progress.

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Adam Ruzicka was on the ice for practice on Monday, and that could be a boost for Calgary. They need any offensive weapon they can and Ruzicka – though far from great – is an upgrade on a few parts of their forward group.

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Matt Duchene wasn't in the lineup for Dallas on Monday night with Sam Steel taking his spot on the third-ish line. A big part of Dallas's current (and future) success hinges on the team being able to roll three scoring lines, so hopefully it's nothing long-term. It doesn't look like a long-term issue right now, but we'll wait for more from the team.

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Jason Zucker was back at practice for Arizona on Monday, albeit in a non-contact jersey. He still has a way to go but it's always good to see a player return to the ice.

Fun fact: heading into Monday night's games, the Coyotes led the Central Division in goal differential. Given how bad the bottom half of the Western Conference is, this is a team that can absolutely make the playoffs, but staying healthy (like getting Zucker back) will be paramount.

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I was going through some league-wide stats for the first four weeks, and something stuck out to me: teams are missing the net. A lot.

On the year, only 50.6% of all shot attempts have landed on target. For the full 2022-23 season, that number was 53.7%, and it was 55.8% the year before. It may just be a small sample, but last year after the same number of games played (175), teams were landing 54.6% of shot attempts on goal. Back in 2021-22, after 178 league games, teams landed 55.4% of all attempts on target. In other words, in two years, teams are getting (roughly) five fewer shots on goal for every 100 attempts taken. When looking at league averages per season, this year's shots against per game is 30.8 (per Hockey Reference), which is the lowest mark in the last six 82-game seasons. It has resulted in goals per team per game already being down slightly (3.15) from last year (3.18), and if penalties keep declining (as they often do to start a season), that goal-scoring drop will likely continue.

In the offseason, I wrote about how shot blocking had risen across the league, particularly among forwards. Without digging in further, I suspect that is the case again this year. But it is a huge drop in shot attempts/shots on goal. The gap from 2021-22 to 2022-23 dropped 2.1%, a mark that is 3.1% already this season.

It changes the equations for a lot of things in fantasy. Everything from goals, to shots, to blocks, to save percentages, to goals against averages are affected by this. Once I find some time, this is something I'm going to take a full Ramblings to cover because fewer shots means high-volume shooters are more valuable, power play scoring (likely) rises in importance, blueliners that block a lot of shots see some of their value mitigated if other players are blocking more shots, and so on. There are always quirks to the start of any season, and this might just be a short-term thing. My guess is it's not, so it's something we will monitor regularly moving forward.

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Last night’s game between Columbus and Florida turned feisty, and even teased a goalie fight, as the Panthers stormed out to a 3-0 lead and, I believe, had a 22-1 edge in shots at one point. The Blue Jackets would end up scoring four straight to force overtime, which the Panthers ended up taking thanks to a goal from Carter Verhaeghe. He and Aleksander Barkov both scored while Matthew Tkachuk had an assist and eight shots. The Tkachuk brother is up to 55 shots in 11 games with just two goals, so there's a lot of positive regression coming his way.

Gustav Forsling also scored, managing seven shots, three blocks, and a hit.

Kirill Marchenko, Alex Texier, Boone Jenner, and Sean Kuraly had the goals for the Jackets. Elvis Merzlikins was pulled after allowing three goals on 11 shots and Spencer Martin came in to save 34 of 36 to give his team a chance.

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It was another raucous matchup between Tampa Bay and Toronto as the Leafs took a 1-0 lead before four straight goals from the Lightning gave them a 4-1 lead at the end of the first period. Toronto would fight back, though, thanks to their top line as Auston Matthews scored a pair and Mitch Marner added a goal. Brandon Hagel scored late to force overtime where Calle Jarnkrok played hero as he redirected a shot-pass from Morgan Rielly for his second goal of the night and to give the home side a 6-5 win, and a valuable two points.

Whatever problems some Toronto players have had this season, Matthews now has 13 goals and 5 assists in just 12 games, landing 57 shots on target with 14 hits. His 'down' year of 2022-23 is a distant memory as he's filling the net at will.

Knies had a great game in his first on the top line with a goal and two assists while Mitch Marner had a goal and three assists. If Marner got off to a slow start – I thought he may have been playing injured – his last two games seem to has dispelled that notion.

Nikita Kucherov (2+2) had a four-point night to follow up his five-point night against Ottawa on Saturday. He managed as many points in 48 hours as Mark Scheifele, Nathan MacKinnon, and Mika Zibanejad have managed this season. Kucherov joins Jack Hughes and Elias Pettersson as the 20-point players so far this season.

Victor Hedman (1+2), Brayden point (1+1), and Brandon Hagel (1+1) all had multi-point efforts. Hedman added a pair of blocks and a hit for a great multi-cat night.

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Vancouver lit up Edmonton's goaltending once again, this time Stuart Skinner, as the Canucks scored six goals on 36 shots to throttle the Oilers 6-2. They have now outscored the Alberta team 18-6 in three games this year which, you know, isn't great if you're a fan of Edmonton.

Quinn Hughes's unbelievable season rolls on as he had a goal, three assists, five shots, a block, and a hit in the win. He joined the 20-point mark, along with Kucherov, Hughes, and Pettersson, and reached that mark in 12 games. It is quite unbelievable that he's doing this, on top of his peripheral jump.

JT Miller had a goal and an assist while Brock Boeser had a pair of tallies. It gives Boeser 10 goals on the year, a mark he didn't reach until February last season. He is up to nearly three shots per game and has nine hits in 12 contests, too, so even the peripherals have been fine.

Thatcher Demko saved 40 of 42 in the win as his own unreal start continues (.948 SV% and seven wins).

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Miro Heiskanen had a pair of assists to go with eight shots and two blocks on Monday night, but his Dallas team still lost 3-2 to Boston.

Brad Marchand and Mason Lohrei both scored for Boston, the latter grabbing his first of his NHL career. Maybe the start of a very productive career for the young man.