The day has arrived and the 2024 Dobber Hockey Midseason Guide is set to release! The finishing touches are being put on it right now and it will be available for download around 7 PM ET tonight. It has second-half projections, prospects to watch for, players that will rebound or decline, and a whole lot more. Help support what we do by grabbing your copy today!

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The New York Islanders had a lot of line changes for their home game against Toronto as Casey Cizikas was out of the lineup. Oliver Wahlstrom drew into the lineup and went to the top line, but Mathew Barzal was sent to the 'third' line in response. The team also broke up the second line by sending Kyle Palmieri to play with Barzal and Simon Holmstrom, with Hudson Fasching taking Palmieri's spot on the second line. Got all that? Great. Four wins in 12 games will do this to a team.

The Islanders completed a comeback from a two-goal deficit to take a 4-3 overtime win over the Leafs in their game Thursday night. A pair of power play goals, one from Palmieri and one from Bo Horvat, powered the team to the extra frame and Mathew Barzal sealed the deal.

Ilya Sorokin saved 32 of 35 shots in the win.

Auston Matthews has two goals on four shots, and he now has 33 goals in 38 games. His rebound season sure is rebounding.  

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We got a Jeff Skinner injury update:

Jeff Skinner is week-to-week

— Paul Hamilton (@pham1717) January 11, 2024

As I said yesterday, it sucks this team has been fighting injury basically all season and has rarely had their top three lines intact. For a developing team, losing key pieces like Skinner is especially problematic.

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On the good news injury front, Kaapo Kakko is with the Rangers on their current road trip:

Jacob Trouba is IN tonight for #NYR vs. St. Louis, as is Mika Zibanejad.

Kaapo Kakko is on the trip, but won't play tonight. Tyler Pitlick is also on the trip, but won't play tonight.

— Mollie Walker (@MollieeWalkerr) January 11, 2024

He didn't suit up Saturday, but they are in Washington on Saturday. Keep an eye on that matchup for a possible return then.

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More good injury news, this time for Dallas's Jake Oettinger:

Dallas Stars continued their cap gymnastics of sending Matt Murray back and forth to AHL today. This is basically going to be the norm until Oettinger is ready to start a game, which could be this weekend if things go smooth enough.

— Sean Shapiro (@seanshapiro) January 11, 2024

Dallas is home to Nashville on Friday before traveling to Chicago on Saturday. If Oettinger is ready to go, he'll get one of those games.

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Some very good news on Gabriel Landeskog:

This is a development.

Gabriel Landeskog is skating. pic.twitter.com/ttBqTL2WBO

— Evan Rawal (@evanrawal) January 11, 2024

That he is back skating after no games played for 19 months and counting is a good sign. Clearly, he's going to need a lot of time to get up to speed. There is no official timeline update so the expectation is that he may still miss the entire 2023-24 regular season. My personal hope is that he can return sometime in late March and get a handful of games in before the playoffs, but we'll wait for more information from the team.

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In a brutal double-whammy for the Ducks, they announced forward Trevor Zegras will be out 6-8 weeks and defenseman Pavel Mintyukov about the same:

Injury Update: Trevor Zegras suffered a broken ankle on Tuesday and will have surgery in the near future. He will be out approximately 6-8 weeks.

In the same game, Pavel Mintyukov suffered a separated shoulder and will be out approximately six weeks.https://t.co/dVPHlhrPSB

— Anaheim Ducks (@AnaheimDucks) January 11, 2024

Considering this team already trade Jamie Drysdale, the roster is starting to thin out quickly. It doesn't bode well for the second-half of this season, fantasy-wise.

Things got worse in their 6-3 loss against Carolina. John Gibson left the game with an injury after the second period. Updates as we get them but this is going from bad to worse.

Seth Jarvis had a goal and two assists with five shots in the victory. He is now on pace for over 60 points and over 200 shots, so it's safe to say his upward trajectory continues.

Jordan Martinook and Stefan Noesen each had a goal and an assist while Andrei Svechnikov scored his ninth goal in the last 10 games.

In more goalie injury news, Pyotr Kochetkov left the game halfway through the second after a collision in his crease. It looked like the head/neck area and, again, more updates as we get them.

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The Lotto Line continued their recent shredding of the Eastern Conference as Elias Pettersson had yet another four-point game (2+2) while Brock Boeser scored twice (one PP) on three shots while JT Miller had three helpers in Vancouver 4-3 overtime win in Pittsburgh. Pettersson has registered 12 points over the last seven days, which feels like a lot.

Sidney Crosby scored twice on five shots in the loss. His 0.6 goals per game is the third-highest mark of his career thus far, and the highest since 2011.

Reilly Smith got drilled from behind and left the game, not to return.

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Joey Daccord's stellar play continue on Thursday night as Seattle beat Washington 4-1 in Washington. Daccord saved 25 of 26 shots he faced, and has now allowed just 19 goals in his last 13 starts dating back to December 1^st. That's a nice little six-week stretch he's put together.

Adam Larsson had a goal, an assist, two blocks, and a hit in a great multi-cat effort.

Max Pacioretty scored his first goal since returning from injury, adding a hit along the way. He has just six shots in four games, though the 17:34 he played on Thursday night was his highest of his four contests.

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Two goals from Luke Glendening (seriously) and an overtime tally from Darren Raddysh powered Tampa Bay to a 4-3 overtime win of their own. Nikita Kucherov had a pair of assists and three shots in the win. He has now crested the 40-assist plateau, something he has now done in every season since 2016-17.

Dawson Mercer scored for New Jersey in the loss, his sixth goal and ninth point in his last nine games.

Erik Cernak, who just returned from injury on Tuesday, left this game after the second period and did not return. With Mikhail Sergachev still not skating from his own injury, times are tough on the Tampa Bay blue line.

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In yet another overtime game, Sam Reinhart scored his 30^th goal of the season to lift the Florida Panthers 3-2 over Los Angeles. A late third-period goal from Matthew Tkachuk – his seventh in the last five games – pushed it to the extra frame. Tkachuk now has seven goals and 18 points in his last nine games, with 40 shots to boot. The positive regression has arrived.

Reinhart added an assist, had three total shots, a block, and a couple penalty minutes in a soldi all-around effort.

Trevor Moore scored his 18^th goal of the campaign in the loss, totaling five shots and a pair of hits. Those 18 goals are a career-best mark for him, and it was his 38^th game of the year.

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Zach Hyman had a goal and an assist in Edmonton's 3-2 overtime win (seriously, this is ridiculous) over Detroit. Hyman had six shots and a block, too, putting him at 3.8 shots per game and well on pace for his highest block total in an Oilers uniform.

Darnell Nurse scored the OT winner while also putting up five blocks and a couple PIMs in a great multi-cat effort.

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Rafael Harvey-Pinard returned to the lineup for Montreal but the team turned in its worse game of the year, on the heels of another awful game, by losing 3-2 at home to San Jose. Goals from Luke Kunin, Fabian Zetterlund, and Nikita Okhotiuk pushed the Sharks over the line. Have no fear, Habs fans, Montreal's next two games are against *shuffles notes* uh, Edmonton and Colorado.

Mike Matheson had two assists and six shots in the loss. He needs just six more points to set a career-high.

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Buffalo beat Ottawa 5-3 in a game that may decide which team could make a longshot push to the playoffs and which team is now done for the season. Ottawa looked quite horrific in this game, which has been a theme under their new coach. Have they tried unplugging their franchise and plugging it back in?

Tage Thompson scored twice and he now has five goals in his last five games; that is a lot more like his old self. Dylan Cozens had a goal and an assist while JJ Peterka also scored. Jack Quinn took Skinner's role on the top PP unit.

Rasmus Dahlin had two assists, one shot, two blocks, four PIMs, and five hits in a great multi-cat night.

Anton Forsberg was injured (our third goalie of the night) late in the first period while kicking his right pad out for a save. He left the game and did not return.

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The All-Star teams and their reserves will be announced tomorrow. With the understanding that All-Star festivities are (and should be) geared to young fans, my one quibble will always be that there must be a player from every team represented. I get why they want that – keep each fanbase engaged with the All-Star Game – but there has to be a better way than the current setup because so few players are actually named. But I digress.

Andrew Santilli's Capped column on a cap-compliant Team Canada gave me inspiration to do something fun: what would fantasy all-star teams look like with the current All-Star rules in place, but with the current salary cap and East/West instead of divisional teams? That means:

• A total of 21 players on each Conference team including three goalies, six defencemen, and 12 forwards.
• A maximum cap hit of $83.5M.
• At least one player from each franchise in either Conference.
• My personal preference to get as many superstars on the roster as possible and supplement those high cap hits with young stars for All-Star Game squads is in effect.
• I know Connor Bedard is going to miss the game because of his jaw injury, but I refuse to put another Blackhawks player on the roster.

Let's start in the West.

There are a few players from the Western Conference that have hefty cap hits that are necessary to include. When doing this exercise, there are a few issues that become apparent:

• There are only so many Vancouver Canucks we can include. Taking all of Elias Pettersson, JT Miller, Brock Boeser, Quinn Hughes, and Thatcher Demko would eat up about one-third of the salary cap, and if we add Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid, nearly two-thirds of the cap is taken with just one-third of our team rostered. That is too extreme, so cutting some Canucks was necessary.
• A decision between MacKinnon and Cale Makar was necessary. One of them was going on the roster, but both would cost a quarter of the cap. With a number of cheap defencemen available, MacKinnon was the choice.
• A couple teams – Dallas and Nashville – required going to a cheaper secondary option rather than the more expensive choice that is the better fantasy option overall. These savings are necessary with a couple players having huge cap hits.

Alright, with all that out of the way, here is my 21-man cap-compliant fantasy hockey All-Star roster:

The total cap hit here is $82.6M, so we have about $900K to work with. Leaving nearly $1M on the table might be a lot, but the problem we run into is that of the teams with at least two players – Los Angeles, Vancouver, Anaheim, Edmonton, Winnipeg – there's no one really to upgrade to. Remember, if we take off someone like Mason McTavish or Quinton Byfield, we still need to find a good fantasy producer earning around $1.7M or less. It would be enough to add someone like Eeli Tolvanen, but that doesn't feel worth it for All-Star Game purposes.

Adin Hill would be here if he could be healthy, and I know I made an exception for Bedard, but Hill had been injured for 40% of Vegas’s games until his recent return.

The one team I really struggled with was St. Louis. Robert Thomas was the obvious choice but he adds $2.3M in salary on top of Pavel Buchnevich. It might not seem like a lot, but it was either that or drop Rasmus Andersson in favour of Connor Zary, which would have left me with five defencemen. One option would have been downgrading Buchnevich to Jake Neighbours and upgrading Nyquist to Forsberg, and then looking for an upgrade elsewhere, but there are only so many dominoes worth tipping over.

The blue line is loaded with younger players. The oldest on the list is Rasmus Andersson, who turned 27 years old earlier this season, while everyone else is 25 years old or under. One thing I keep thinking is that we are in a golden era for high-skill defencemen, and the youthful nature of the six selections kind of shows that. It doesn't even include Cale Makar, the Clarke/Spence duo in Los Angeles, or Thomas Harley. That also doesn't include Shea Theodore, who is 28 years old, and all the prospects yet to come. And we're still just in the West. A true golden age, indeed.

One last note: the cheap goalies stood out. Connor Hellebuyck was necessary given how well he's played this year, and the other guys have exceptionally cheap cap hits. Probably a lesson there for cap-league fantasy managers.

Alright, let's look to the East.

Here are some problems I ran into with the Eastern Conference roster:

• There is an argument that Sergei Bobrovsky has been the best Eastern Conference goalie for fantasy, but he's also a $10M cap hit. With my four top forwards eating up well north of 50% of the salary cap, and a number of cheap goalies having very good seasons, it seemed a waste of money. I did want to shout out the excellent season Goalie Bob is having, though.
• The defence duo of Nemec/Hughes came in handy to save money, get some high-end young players on the team, and fill out a couple defence spots.
• Choosing between Ilya Sorokin and Jeremy Swayman wasn't easy. In fantasy formats that count total saves, Sorokin has been much better than Swayman. In every other format, it's likely Swayman. The Boston goalie is cheaper, though, and the ratios are all much better, so we went with him.
• There are only two natural centres on the roster, but it's a fantasy All-Star team, so who cares.

Here's the final roster:

The total cap hit was just under the limit, landing at $83.48M.

One tough cut was leaving off Sam Reinhart. He has been phenomenal, but Carter Verhaeghe is a top-25 skater in standard Yahoo! formats and is much cheaper. After all the expensive contracts of Artemi Panarin, Auston Matthews, David Pastrnak, and Nikita Kucherov, money was tight. Adding Reinhart over Verhaeghe would have required a change to either Mike Matheson or Noah Dobson. That would have forced us to another cheap defenceman like Owen Power or Gustav Forsling. In leagues that don't count plus/minus, Matheson and Dobson have been far, far better than Power or Forsling, so it is close enough between Reinhart/Verhaeghe to go in the latter's direction to save some money.

There is a very young, very cheap blue line here. No defenceman has a cap hit of $5M or higher, and four of the six are under $1M. We could have included Power over Nemec, but I have been really impressed with Nemec and over the last 30 days (Nemec was a December call-up), it's close between them.

Jack Hughes was hard to leave off at $8M. The problem was high cap hits elsewhere that were necessary to include from their respective teams, and the young New Jersey blue liners made more sense. We could add Hughes and Oliver Ekman-Larsson over Kucherov and Nemec, but I am absolutely not leaving Kucherov off this team.

It is kind of the same problem for David Pastrnak, as he and Jake Guentzel could be left off for Hughes and Sidney Crosby, but at time of writing, Pastrnak has 20 more points than the next-closest Boston teammate, one fewer goal than Brad Marchand and Jake DeBrusk combined, and leads the league in shots. It is a swap that can be made, though, to get four centres on the roster as well as all three Hughes brothers in the game.  

So, how did I do? Let us know in the comments.