Injuries up front have been a problem for Buffalo all season long. It started with Jack Quinn's Achilles issue, then Dylan Cozens's facial injury, then Alex Tuch missed time, and so on. The latest was Jeff Skinner, who missed Buffalo's last five games. The good news is that he was back on the ice for practice and in his usual top line role. It looks like he'll be good to go for the team's California road trip this week.

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On the bad news front, Jack Hughes is not expected to be skating anytime soon:

On Jack Hughes Lindy Ruff says he does not expect Jack to skate before the All-Star Break. #NJDevils

— Amanda Stein (@amandacstein) January 22, 2024

New Jersey went into Monday night's game against Vegas being 2-4-1 since Hughes exited the lineup, scoring just 19 goals in those seven games. With the upcoming schedule being that Vegas tilt before road games in Carolina and Tampa Bay, getting the team into a playoff spot after the All-Star Game is going to be tough. Fantasy managers of those that usually skate with Hughes, let lone those with Hughes on their rosters, feel their pain.

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New Jersey won that game 6-5, so a nice rebound in the scoring department for them even if Vitek Vanecek still looks shaky. In recent games, Tyler Toffoli had been moved off the top PP unit and top line, and responded with a hat trick in this win. That includes the overtime winner, which was his 20^th of the season. Toffoli now has five straight 20-goal seasons and eight for his career.

Curtis Lazar scored twice and Nico Hischier had the final goal. Simon Nemec had two assists, one shot, two blocks, and a hit in a very good multi-cat effort. He now has 12 points in his first 24 games of his career, which seems good.

Jonathan Marchessault (2+1) and Nicolas Roy (1+2) each had three-point nights for Vegas in the loss. Marchessault had six shots and three hits, and is up to 163 shots and 45 hits on the season to go with his 21 goals.

Both Vanecek and Logan Thompson finished the game with save percentages under .850, so, not ideal.

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Edmonton officially announced the Corey Perry signing on Monday. Before we get too excited, the team doesn't seem too keen on breaking up their top line, and the second line has been great with Warren Foegele next to Leon Draisaitl. At best, Perry will be on the second line without top PP time, and he could be in the bottom-6 without top PP time. Fantasy value will be tough to come by with those roles.

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Colorado got great news on the injuries to Artturi Lehkonen and Bowen Byram:

Practice is about to start, but Artturi Lehkonen is in White. Looks like he'll start with Andrew Cogliano and Ryan Johansen.

Also, Bowen Byram is in a regular jersey.

— Evan Rawal (@evanrawal) January 22, 2024

Skating on the third line isn't going to do Lehkonen many favours for fantasy, but he should be back on the top PP unit with Valeri Nicushkin still out of the lineup.

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Calgary also got great news about a defenceman as Oliver Kylington was on the ice for practice:

Oliver Kylington is on the ice for practice this morning at the Saddledome.

It's his first full NHL practice since May 2022. #Flames

— Pat Steinberg (@Fan960Steinberg) January 22, 2024

It has been a long slog for the young man, so to see him back in this spot is great news for him.

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For the first time since November 2^nd, the Winnipeg Jets allowed at least four goals, and they lost their game 4-1 in Boston. Jakub Lauko, Charlie Coyle, Jake DeBrusk (SH), and Brad Marchand (EN) all scored for the Bruins. That was Coyle's 17^th goal of the season, his highest total since 2016-17 when he tallied 18, and leaves him four shy of tying his career high of 21 goals in 2015-16. He has benefitted greatly from often skating with at least one of Marchand or David Pastrnak of late and now has three multi-point games in a row, as well as points in five straight.

Hampus Lindholm assisted Coyle's goal, and that means Lindholm now has one assist in three straight games, and nine assists in his last 11 outings. Considering he had eight assists in the first 35 games of his season, it's been a nice turnaround for fantasy managers.

Connor Hellebuyck saved 17 of 20 in the loss while Gabriel Vilardi missed the game due to injury, but that doesn't seem like anything serious.

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Matthew Tkachuk and Carter Verhaeghe both had a goal and an assist while Sam Bennett had three helpers in Florida's 4-1 win in Nashville. Tkachuk had seven shots and two hits, Bennett had one shot, one block, and seven hits, and Verhaghe posted two shots, two PIMs, and a hit as all three had excellent multi-cat nights. Brandon Montour also had an excellent multi-cat night with a goal, four shots, three blocks, and a hit.

Anthony Stolarz saved 26 of 27 for the win and Sam Reinhart scored his 34^th goal of the year. It was also his 17^th PP goal on the season, setting a career high with 36 games left in the campaign.

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Jason Zucker had a goal and an assist against his former team as Arizona stomped Pittsburgh 5-2 in Arizona. He finished the game with three shots, a block, two PIMs, and a hit in a very balanced multi-cat performance.

Alex Kerfoot, Lawson Crouse, Juuso Välimäki, and Nick Bjugstad all scored as well. Crouse had five total shots and three hits as he's pacing for over 30 goals and over 140 hits as he's certainly cemented himself as a solid middle-6 scorer who is very valuable in banger formats.

Sidney Crosby had a goal, six shots, and a hit in the loss. Aside from Crosby's excellent goal scoring this season, he's also over one hit per game for the first time since 2018-19.

Connor Ingram stopped 25 of 27 shots in the win. He now sits with a .919 save percentage on the year with a 2.47 goals against average. Ingram has been tremendous for the Coyotes this season, and excellent since he got there last season.

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Thatcher Demko started Monday night at home against Chicago and was rewarded with a 2-0 shutout where he made 31 saves. It is his fifth shutout in 34 starts after posting three shutouts in the first 162 starts of his career. Aside from all the tremendous Canucks offensive performances this season, Demko has been a wall for them in net. This goes all the way back to last season when he returned from injury, too, as he's cementing himself as one of the top half-dozen goalies in the leagues.

Quinn Hughes and Pius Suter scored Vancouver's goals as Hughes now has 12 goals and 57 points on the season. If Hughes had zero goals this season, he'd still be tied for third in points among blue liners. Just an incredible season thus far.

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Los Angeles scored three goals for just the fifth time in their last 13 games and still managed to lose at home to San Jose as the Sharks took the extra point in a 4-3 shootout win. Fabian Zetterlund, William Eklund, and Justin Bailey scored for San Jose. It is funny that Eklund scored his first goal in 18 games, and managed at least four shots on goal for the first time in 12 games, as he was moved to the third line for this one. He also skated over 21 minutes, which was the second time in three games he's done that.

Quinton Byfield had a goal and an assist (PP) as both Drew Doughty (PP) and Trevor Moore also got in the goal column. Despite Los Angeles's scoring problems of late, Byfield is still on pace for 26 goals, 35 assists, 21 power play points, and two shots per game. The breakout season rolls on.

Kaapo Kähkönen stopped 44 of 47 shots for the win. The netminder has five wins in his 19 starts (six wins overall but one was in relief), and he has made 44 saves in three of those five wins.

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A lot of effort is put into prospects and rookies for fantasy hockey purposes because they are the building blocks of the future of any fantasy keeper/dynasty roster. It can cause us to look past the rookies we were invested in a year prior, so this is an update for that.

Let's take a look at second-year players and how they're performing when compared to their rookie year. Data from Frozen Tools and Evolving Hockey, unless otherwise indicated.

Jack Drury

It is hard for a player to stand out when they're normally playing fourth-line minutes, so we'll start with Drury because he has seen the largest rise in points/60 minutes of the 2022-23 rookies (1.17 to 2.37). It is nice to see, but there are red flags.

Drury is shooting 12.8% at 5-on-5, a massive increase from his 3.3% a season ago. Rebounding from that isn't the issue but rather that 12.8% would be a genuine first-line conversion rate, and that is on a team that usually doesn't have high shooting percentages. He has also seen a 13% drop in shot attempts per minute, so the spike in shooting percentage coupled with a drop in shot rates make this a bit muddled. The extra production is nice, it's just far from a sure thing this is his talent level moving forward.  

JJ Peterka

Despite Buffalo's letdown season, Peterka has been a big bright spot. He has seen sizable increases in ice time per game as well as goals, points, shots, and blocks per 60 minutes. There has also been a small rise in assists/60. The play-driving has improved dramatically and while his shooting percentage has also jumped, it's still just 11.5% and that's more than manageable.

Peterka is a favourite across many of the Dobber writers and editors, and he's showing the growth we want to see as fantasy managers. There is still more rounding to his game to do, particularly in some of his playmaking numbers (in the tracking data from AllThreeZones), but for a second-year player on a team that's declined offensively, there are a lot of great signs.  

Cole Perfetti

It is hard to argue with results, but it still is tough to see Perfetti's ice time decline from a season ago. The drop isn't large – a little over 30 seconds a game – but it does put into context where he stands on this roster. Thankfully, a large jump in his shooting percentage from 8.9% to 14.3% is saving his per-game production, even if the assists have dried up a bit. That he's shooting much more often – shots/60 up 32% from his rookie year – is what's making him a 25-goal threat even with his modest ice time totals.

The next step for Perfetti is a consistent top PP role. His fantasy value won't ascend until that happens, but everything else is trending up, so it feels like a matter of 'when' and not 'if'.

Kirill Marchenko

Marchenko showed his goal-scoring bona fides in his rookie season and though his goals/60 has dropped a bit (1.32 to 1.19), it's still a low-end first-line rate. That is a great mark for a second-year player on a poor team.

The improvement has come from Marchenko's assist rate, which has more than tripled from his rookie year. It comes from an improvement in his playmaking as the tracking data referenced earlier has him growing his scoring chance assists/60 (helpers on teammates' changes) by 66%. His fantasy profile requires more balance – assists still need to grow and more hits would be nice – but there are both surface and underlying improvements on offense and that's awesome to see.

Nils Lundkvist

This is a bit of a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that the tracking data has Lundkvist making a large improvement in his scoring chance assist rate which, combined with modest improvements in his zone entry rates, have led to a jump in Lundkvist's assist rate. In fact, he needed just half the games (30) to surpass his 2022-23 assist total.

The bad news is not much else has gotten better. The play-driving metrics have taken a nosedive and his modest hit and block rates have declined (the latter by 37% on a 60-minute basis). There have been genuine offensive improvements in some areas, but not all, and the suspect defence will keep his minutes low. With Miro Heiskanen on the roster for years to come, and Thomas Harley's growth, Lundkvist will be blocked from rising too much on the depth chart even if he pulls it all together.   

Fabian Zetterlund

Playing on arguably the worst team in a generation is going to make it hard for any player to stand out. That Zetterlund is on pace for 23 goals, on this team, is nothing short of a minor miracle. His goal-scoring jump is fueled by a huge leap in shooting percentage and ice time, but he's also seen an 8% rise in per-minute shot attempts and 14% rise in per-minute individual expected goals. The playmaking – and thus the assists – have taken a dive, but who is there to pass to, anyway.

Zetterlund's defensive play-driving has fallen off considerably but, again, who really cares on this team. His offensive play driving has improved, and he's shooting (and scoring) more; that second sentence is more important than the first. He has even added a bunch of blocks with his additional ice time, which is always nice.

Owen Power

When discussing some of Buffalo's problems this season, the blue line is a big part of it, Power included. Not only are his goals, assists, and shots per 60 minutes down from a year ago, which is bad news when coupled with his ice time drop of over 2:30 per game, but his offensive play-driving has cratered, too. That is not what fantasy owners want to see.

On the bright side, the tracking data has him improving his playmaking numbers, and the team is generating more chances off his zone entries than a year ago (he's improved the zone entry numbers, too). He has also improved his hits and blocks per 60 minutes, so even with the loss of ice time, he's likely to surpass those numbers from a year ago. At just 21 years old, there are no long-term concerns here, it's just reasoning why his season hasn't been as productive as his rookie year.