All told, it wasn't a bad start to Jonas Johansson's Tampa Bay tenure with a .925 save percentage (including two shutouts) in his first seven games. That has gone very south very quickly, though, as he's posted an .861 save percentage in his last five outings, allowing at least four goals in all of them. The team clearly needs Andrei Vaslievskiy back, and on that front, they got some good news on Monday:

👀 Looks like Andrei Vasilevskiy is joining the #Bolts for practice today. Nikita Kucherov is also back on the ice for practice today after missing Saturday's game with an illness. pic.twitter.com/68aiKqYzxw

— Chris Krenn (@Chris_Krenn) November 13, 2023

Being back on the ice with teammates doesn't mean a return is right around the corner, but the team had been aiming for American Thanksgiving, and that's next Thursday. It seems he's not far off that timeline, so a big boost to the lineup is coming shortly.

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The Washington Capitals provided updates on injuries including Anthony Mantha and Joel Edmundson:

Anthony Mantha (upper body) is on the ice in a non-contact jersey ahead of this morning's practice, as are Joel Edmundson (upper body) and Trevor van Riemsdyk (lower body)

— Bailey Johnson (@BaileyAJohnson_) November 13, 2023

A non-contact jersey is the start of the return.

After a brutal start to the year, Washington is 6-1-1 in their last eight games, and they've climbed into third in the Metro Division. A nice turnaround for this team.

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New Jersey coach Lindy Ruff said that Devils forward Jack Hughes might be back with the team on Thursday when they face Pittsburgh. Whether or not he'll be in the lineup is a whole other matter, but a good sign regardless.

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Jordan Eberle was skating at an optional practice for Seattle on Monday, and with the non-contact jersey removed. That is a very good sign for him after that skate-cut incident he suffered in practice last week.

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The San Jose Sharks called up Danil Guschin from the AHL. The prospect has 13 points in 11 games to start his season so this is a good chance for him and the Sharks to see if he can help boost the offence.

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Alex Tuch was not on the ice for Buffalo's practice on Monday. He missed both games on the weekend though they hoped he could play at least one of them. That he's still not practicing seems to indicate there was some sort of setback, but the team remains hopeful he'll be able to rejoin them this weekend.

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Marco Rossi was back to the top line at Minnesota's practice:  

No Kirill Kaprizov in today's #mnwild practice. Nic Petan a placeholder on his line. The big change in practice is a reunion of last March's dominant Johansson-Eriksson Ek-Boldy line. Rossi with Zuccarello, Hartman between Maroon and Foligno

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) November 13, 2023

It is likely just a maintenance day for Kirill Kaprizov, so let's hope that Rossi and co. can find some offensive magic with Jared Spurgeon back in the lineup. It would do wonders for both fantasy owners and anyone holding Rossi-For-Calder betting tickets, that's for sure.

They also said goalie Jesper Wallstedt was called up and will be joining the team for their games in Sweden.

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Edmonton's line combinations for their first morning skate with new coach Kris Knoblauch:

Kris Knoblauch running first practice:

RNH-McDavid-Gagner
Kane-Draisaitl-Hyman
Holloway-McLeod-Foegele
Lavoie-Hamblin-Ryan

Nurse-Ceci
Ekholm-Bouchard
Kulak-Desharnais

Skinner pic.twitter.com/nT1kAe5w5l

— Jack Michaels (@EdmontonJack) November 13, 2023

Seeing Sam Gagner back on the top line for the Edmonton Oilers is a trip, man. He is in a position to succeed, anyway.

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Edmonton's new era under a new coach got off to a good start with a 4-1 win at home to the New York Islanders. Leon Draisaitl led the way with a goal and three assists while Connor McDavid had one of each. Zach Hyman and Evander Kane each had a goal and four shots while Hyman posted a pair of blocks as Kane landed six hits. Darnell Nurse had an assist, three shots, two blocks, and a hit in a great multi-cat effort.

Edmonton looked good in this game but the thing that stood out was the lack of back-breaking mistakes. What marred their start to the season was critical mistakes – awful decision-making with passes, no backchecking – leading to a lot of goals against. Once their offence really gets going, this is likely a top-5 team in the West.

Mathew Barzal scored his third goal of the year in the loss.

Stuart Skinner stopped 32 of 33 shots he faced in what was certainly his best outing of the campaign thus far. He is still the starter for this team and if this is the start of their march to the playoffs, there'll be a lot more performances like this over the next five months.

Allowing three goals on 31 shots against Edmonton isn't an awful game for Ilya Sorokin, but he's now sitting with a .907 save percentage on the season. I'll have a bit more on the Islanders later and why the team around him is now an issue for his fantasy success.

Dylan Holloway took an awkward spill into the boards at the end of the second period and left the game, not to return.

As mentioned earlier, Sam Gagner started the game on McDavid's wing, but the key is he also finished the game there as many of the depth forwards are not often known for doing. Maybe he's the Connor Brown that everyone drafted in September?

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Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen both had a goal and an assist (PP) in Colorado's 5-1 win over Seattle. Nathan MacKinnon had a trio of helpers, including one on the power play, and added three shots in the contest. The depth shone through, too, as Jonathan Drouin and Ross Colton (PP) also scored, with the latter ending up as the game-winning tally. Drouin's goal was his first of the season, and hopefully a sign of him regaining the offensive touch he showed years ago.

Devon Toews and Tomas Tatar both had a pair of assists, and Toews added three shots, a pair of blocks, and four PIMs in a great multi-cat effort.

Brandon Tanev scored in his return to the Kraken's lineup.

Alexandar Georgiev only faced 19 shots and saved 18 of them for the victory.

Tye Kartye was moved back to the top line alongside Matty Beniers during the third period. We shall see if it lasts.

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We are now a month into the NHL season and while sweeping conclusions shouldn't be made yet, there is certainly enough data to start projecting into the future. Let's look at some key stats from the early portion of the season and how it can help fantasy owners make decisions moving forward.

The New York Islanders

When digging into some DFS work, I came across the fact that the Islanders have the highest pace of any team in the league, as determined by shots for + shots against per 60 minutes at all strengths. It is quite shocking to see a New York Islanders team rank at the top by this measure, but they are at 65.5 SFA/60 and over a full shot higher than Pittsburgh. Here are the seven teams at least 62.5/60 or higher:

The shots against are interesting, as the team is giving up more shots per minute than any team not based in San Jose or Chicago. Mat Barzal and Bo Horvat are the biggest offenders, as the team is giving up over 36 shots against/60 at 5-on-5 with either (or both) on the ice. Getting a save percentage above .950 is keeping their goals in check.

Barzal and Horvat are clearly getting unlucky with the team shooting 4.8% with them on the ice. We wouldn't expect elite conversion numbers, but the team has shot at least 8% with Barzal on the ice at 5-on-5 in each of his prior four seasons (and never below 7.75% in any season of his career). Just getting to 8%, with their shot volume, would mean adding nearly 1.4 goals/60 minutes to their offense. Whenever that dam breaks, fantasy owners will reap the rewards. It is a bit concerning that the team is giving up that many shots for the Ilya Sorokin or Semyon Varlamov owners, however, even if the team's tandem has been off to a great aggregate start.

The Nashville Predators

I assume that, like many, there thought was Nashville would be a bad team this year. That has not been the case at 5-on-5 where they rank 10^th in the league by expected goal share (between New Jersey and Florida). The problem has been turning that possession into goals as they sit 21^st in the league in goals per minute at 5-on-5.

The issue has been the depth. With Ryan O'Reilly and Filip Forsberg on the ice at that strength, the team is generating 3.9 expected goals and 4.4 actual goals per 60 minutes. With them on the bench, those numbers plummet to 2.5 and 1.9, respectively. Tommy Novak's line has improved a lot since getting Kiefer Sherwood alongside them, so maybe that turns things around, but we'll have to see where things stand a couple months from now.

Brendan Gallagher's Resurgence

After years of enduring injuries, Gallagher looks like his old self again. Across 305 forwards with at least 125 minutes at 5-on-5 this year, he is ninth (!) in the league by on-ice expected goals-for rates. That is ahead of elite lines like the Islanders' second line, the Los Angeles top line, and anyone from New Jersey. His individual expected goals/60 is 1.66, a career-high, and he's scoring 1.5 goals/60, a three-year high and the third-highest mark of his career. He and Sean Monahan have been great together on Montreal's third line.

The problem for fantasy is that the influx of young talent has reduced Gallagher's role. He is all the way down to 13:31 a night, a career-low, and 1:30 less per night than just two years ago. That, combined with just nine hits in 15 games, is going to make it hard for him to be rostered in most formats. Keep him in mind for four-game streaming weeks, however.

Dallas's Top Line

One problem with rostering Carolina Hurricanes forwards in fantasy is that they don't get elite levels of ice time; Sebastian Aho has never reached 20 minutes per night in six years (he's just shy of that this season at 19:57) and when guys like Nathan MacKinnon and Auston Matthews are getting 21-22 minutes a night, it puts the fantasy value behind the eight ball.

That is happening in Dallas this year. Jason Robertson is earning a three-year low 14:09 per game at 5-on-5, a number that is outside the top-30 forwards by ice time. Even worse is the loss in power play time, as Frozen Tools has the entire top line under a 60% share of the team's available PPTOI. Last year, Robertson was over 66%. Despite the team currently drawing more power play opportunities per game (3.21) than last season (3.12), Robertson has seen his PPTOI per game drop 20 seconds. That may not seem like a lot, but if all else remains equal, that means three power play points lost (at least) over a full season. When we're talking about elite fantasy options, those nibbles at the edges of value can mean the difference between a good-and-great season, and that's what's happening here.

Dallas is coming off a beatdown of Minnesota, and Robertson has seen a couple 20-minute games over the last 10 days. Maybe things are changing, but it's certainly a concern for now.

Carter Verhaeghe Stardom Lurking

Verhaeghe has started being a mainstay on the top Florida power play unit and he has two power play points in his last five games. Over a full season, that would work out to 33 power play points; before this season, he had 19 PPPs in 254 career games. His six goals in 14 games put him on pace for 35 tallies, all while he's averaging 3.5 shots per game.

His problem has been the assist total. He has just four helpers in 14 contests, and just two at even strength. Though he's never excelled in that area, we'd expect him to have 4-5 EV apples by now based on his career rate in Florida. If we add 3-4 points to his current total, he could be a point-per-game player, and that's without having that top PP role until recently. The big culprit is that he's usually skating with Matthew Tkachuk and he's shooting 5.1% against a three-year average of 13.5%. Once that turns around, the goals will come for Tkachuk, and the assists for Verhaeghe.

The complication is with Sam Bennett‘s return. He had been a fixture on the top PP unit and could take Verhaeghe's role now that he’s back in the lineup. However, that new top PP unit has been elite since adding Verhaeghe and, for now, it would make less-than-zero sense to take him off. If he can hold onto that role while Tkachuk's shooting percentage regresses, the next 60-some games for Verhaeghe could provide tremendous fantasy production. It might be worth digging around to see if he can be had for (relatively) cheap in a trade, just beware his hit total (seven) dings his fantasy value in banger formats.

*Some stats from Natural Stat Trick