Brett Pesce and Luke Hughes both returned to the New Jersey lineup on Thursday night. Neither had played yet this season due to a leg and shoulder injury, respectively. It certainly bolsters a blue line that has had trouble staying healthy since the start of last season.

*

Joseph Woll was back in net for Toronto on Thursday night for his first start of the season. Woll had been working his way back from injury for a few weeks and may need some time to get back up to speed, but it looks like he's good to go for now.

Anthony Stolarz played extremely well while they were waiting for Woll to get healthy, so it'll be curious to see how long the leash is. It is good news for Woll fantasy owners right now, but he needs to perform well.

On the injury front, Max Pacioretty was not at practice:

Pacioretty (lower body) not on the ice for the #Leafs morning skate

— Terry Koshan 🇺🇦 (@koshtorontosun) October 24, 2024

The Leafs said he's day-to-day, so it doesn't appear to be anything serious, but with his recent injury history, this is always something to pay close attention to.

*

The Islanders provided an update on Anthony Duclair:

Anthony Duclair will be out 4 to 6 weeks. @NYIslanders

— Renaud Lavoie (@renlavoietva) October 24, 2024

Things could be worse, so we'll wait on Duclair's return in a month or so. He had been off to a solid start with two goals and three points in five games.

*

Aleksander Barkov did not play on Thursday night, but he did skate after Florida's practice:

Barkov and Gadjovich both skating after this morning's skate.

— Jameson Olive (@JamesonCoop) October 24, 2024

After that skate, coach Paul Maurice said that Barkov may be back this weekend, but that Monday's game in Buffalo was more likely. It would give Barkov a game to knock any rust off before the team heads to Europe for a pair of games against Dallas.

*

Alex Vlasic was skating on Chicago's top power play unit in practice on Thursday. Vlasic has three assists, seven shots, five hits, and 19 blocks in seven games thus far, so he had some multi-cat appeal anyway, but this would drastically change his outlook. We will see how long this lasts, but it's worth mentioning Chicago has a four-game week next week, including games in San Jose and Anaheim. Two of those four games are on light days, too, so he could be a pretty good streaming option if he can old onto that PP role through the weekend.

*

Yegor Sharangovich looks to be on the cusp of returning:

Both Yegor Sharangovich (lower body) and Sam Honzek (upper body) upgraded to day-to-day, per head coach Ryan Huska.

Sharangovich has missed all six games this season. Honzek has missed the last two. Neither playing tonight vs. Carolina.

— Pat Steinberg (@Fan960Steinberg) October 24, 2024

Calgary was doing just fine without him, but adding a guy who reached the 30-goal plateau last season would always be welcome. When he does come back, it may be bad news for Matt Coronato's top line status, especially considering he was moved to the fourth line for Thursday's game against Carolina as it is.

*

Very good news for William Karlsson:

Bruce Cassidy says the plan is for William Karlsson to make his season debut Saturday against San Jose.

— Danny Webster (@DannyWebster21) October 24, 2024

Karlsson has yet to play this season but figures to be a key forward for the team's middle-6 as they look to stabilize those lines. We will see if this translates to power play time, and there could be a lot of fantasy goodness if he can manage that usage.

Staying with Vegas, they extended defenceman Shea Theodore for seven years with his contract carrying an AAV over $7.4M per season. When this contract starts, Theodore will be in his age-30 season, and he does have an injury history, so this doesn't come without its own risk.

All the same, if Theodore stays healthy and can avoid that post-30 decline, he is one of the best puck-moving defencemen in the league. It is a raise of about 40% from his current cap hit, though, and without huge peripherals, he may be priced out of a lot of fantasy salary cap formats.

*

Florida went into New York last night and handed the Rangers their first regulation loss of the season thanks to a 3-1 win. Anton Lundell scored his fifth goal of the year, Sam Bennett got his sixth, and Carter Verhaeghe finally got in the goal column. Verhaeghe's early first-period goal stood as the game winner as Alexis Lafrenière was the only Ranger to sneak a puck past Sergei Bobrovsky.

Bobrovsky finished the game with 25 saves on 26 shots for his fourth win of the season.

Verhaeghe finished with a great multi-cat night with his goal, six total shots, and four PIMs. He now has 34 shots in nine games on the season, and it seems his shooting percentage is starting to move in the right direction. There are a lot of goals to come yet.

Lundell is clearly off to a great offensive start this year. Last season, he didn't score his fifth goal until mid-February, so he's about four months ahead of schedule there. His point-per-game pace will be tough to keep up but it seems he's turning a corner offensively.

*

Dallas went into Boston and skated away with an easy 5-2 win. Tyler Seguin and Matt Duchene each had a goal and two assists with Duchene managing both of his helpers on the power play and Seguin's goal coming with the man advantage. Seguin now has seven points in five games this season as he's been incredibly productive whenever he's been able to stay in the lineup.

Jason Robertson and Logan Stankoven both scored power play goals while Roope Hintz added an empty-net tally. Robertson finished the game with four shots, a block, and a hit in a solid multi-cat effort.

Thomas Harley had an assist, a shot, two blocks, and a hit in a solid multi-category night for himself while Miro Heiskanen registered his first point of the season.

Casey DeSmith started the game for Dallas and stopped 25 of 27 in the win. DeSmith has allowed just five goals across his three starts, putting up two wins.

David Pastrnak and Justin Brazeau each scored in a losing effort for Boston, with Brazeau getting his goal on the power play. Pastrnak had seven total shots, a block, four PIMs, and three hits to go with his goal. He now has five goals in eight games on the season while Elias Lindholm, Pavel Zacha, Charlie Coyle, and Brad Marchand have combined for four.

Jeremy Swayman gave up four goals on 31 shots in the loss.

*

The big boys showed up for Minnesota as Kirill Kaprizov scored twice while Matt Boldy (PP) and Joel Eriksson Ek each scored once as the Wild took two points against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night. Kaprizov assisted on Boldy's PP goal, giving Kaprizov a three-point night and 13 points in seven games on the season. He's off to a quietly incredible start.

Boldy assisted Eriksson Ek's goal, giving him a multi-point night. Boldy wound up with five shots and a pair of blocks. He is up to 10 points in seven games as his tremendous start rolls on.

Marco Rossi assisted Kaprizov's first goal, and that keeps Rossi on a point-per-game pace (seven in seven) to start his season. A great start for a guy that has yet to register a power play point.

Zach Bogosian had a very good multi-cat performance with an assist, a shot, two blocks, and two hits.

Marc-Andre Fleury stopped 22 of 24 shots faced for the win.

Brandon Hagel (SH) and Nikita Kucherov both scored for Tampa Bay. Hagel is up to nine points in six games and, like Rossi, has yet to register a power play point.

Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed three goals on 17 shots in the loss.

*

Jordan Binnington was the difference for St. Louis in Joseph Woll's first start of the season as the former stopped 40 of 41 shots faced to allow the Blues a 5-1 victory over Toronto. St. Louis goaltending has now stopped 132 of 139 shots faced over their last four starts, or a cool .950 save percentage. It's safe to say both goalies are on a little bit of a heater right now.

Former Oilers Dylan Holloway (x2, one on the PP) and Philip Broberg each scored for the Blues while the freshly-signed Jake Neighbors and Alexandre Texier tallied the others. Broberg finished with a goal, a shot, two blocks, and two hits in the game.

Pavel Buchnevich had two assists and a shot while Jordan Kyrou had two assists of his own, two shots, a block, and a hit in a good multi-cat night.

Justin Faulk had an assist, a shot, five blocks, two PIMs, and two hits in a great across-the-board effort. Faulk is up to five points, 15 blocks, and 16 hits in eight games.

Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored Toronto's only goal of the night for Toronto. Woll allowed four goals on 26 shots.

*

It wasn't quite the performance they had against the New York Islanders, but Detroit was soundly outplayed by New Jersey, getting outshot 40-19, and yet skated away with a 5-3 win. Alex DeBrincat and Patrick Kane each had a goal and an assist, with the former assisting on a Dylan Larkin PP goal while both of the latter's points were with the man advantage. In fact, five of the eight goals scored in this game were on the power play.

Christian Fischer and Michael Rasmussen had the other goals for Detroit.

Simon Edvinsson had an assist, four blocks, and a hit in 20:15 of ice time. He has now surpassed 20 minutes of ice time in four straight games, and even achieved it tonight despite Detroit dressing seven defencemen because J.T. Compher was a game-time scratch.

Nico Hischier scored twice, both on the power play, while Erik Haula had a PP goal in the loss.

Dougie Hamilton had a PP assist, six shots, two blocks, and a hit in 24:28 of ice time.

Luke Hughes registered a PP assist in his return, skating on the second unit.

Cam Talbot was tremendous in net, stopping 37 of 40 shots in the win.