The good news for Matvei Michkov fantasy owners is that he was back in the lineup on Monday as the Philadelphia Flyers hosted San Jose Sharks. The bad news is that he was skating on the second line with Ryan Poehling and Anthony Richard. Not that Flyers lines stay together for very long, but this kind of usage is not ideal to max out his fantasy upside.

For more good news, Cam York was skating in a full practice on Monday morning, but he did not play on Monday night. Philadelphia doesn't play again until Thursday, so it may just be a chance for him to get in a couple good practices to knock some rust off.

Jamie Drysdale was scratched on Monday night due to injury and will be out for the next couple of weeks. Emil Andrae ran the Flyers power play on Monday night in his stead.

Michkov was an immediate factor, assisting on a Travis Konecny power play goal before scoring later in a breakaway of his own. Michkov is now up to 12 points in 13 games, though 8/12 points have come on the power play.

A late third-period goal from Barclay Goodrow pushed the game to overtime, where it would stay for the shootout. Mikael Granlund had a big hand in that, too, with a goal, assist, five shots, a block, and two PIMs.

Macklin Celebrini didn't get on the scoresheet but had five shots and four hits in 22:26 of ice time.

Vitek Vanecek stopped 39 of 42 shots to hang on for the shootout while Samuel Ersson stopped 27 of 30, including a couple key saves on the penalty kill in overtime. Ersson did enough to hang on for the shootout win.

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A quick update on Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews:

Auston Matthews is not on the ice for #Leafs practice. Dewar with Marner and Knies.

— Terry Koshan 🇺🇦 (@koshtorontosun) November 11, 2024

Matthews is eligible to return off the injured reserve, but if he's not skating the day before the game, it would seem that he's not playing against Ottawa. The coach said as much after practice when he indicated Matthews is doubtful for Tuesday night.  

Max Pacioretty was moved to the IR and has been deemed week-to-week. He left Toronto's game on Saturday with a lower-body injury, and given his recent, and severe, injury history with his Achilles, it is a concern. No concrete updates beyond week-to-week, though.

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More really good injury news for Colorado (which has been infrequent this season):

The cavalry was on the ahead of morning skate for the Avs. Landeskog, Nichushkin, Wood, and Drouin were all skating. Looks like all but Landeskog are gonna stick around.

Help is on the way.

— Jesse Montano (@jessemontano_) November 11, 2024

We will see how long it takes for Gabriel Landeskog to get ready, but Valeri Nichushkin is set to return later this week, and it appears both Miles Wood and Jonathan Drouin aren't far behind. Great news for Avalanche fans and fantasy managers alike.

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Calgary announced Anthony Mantha is done for the season due to a torn ACL. Just a brutal injury for a player who was looking to re-establish himself in the league, and now he has a huge mountain to climb to get ready for next season.

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Montreal went into Buffalo and the two Atlantic Division teams had a goaltending duel for the ages.

Sorry, they had the completely opposite of that. The Canadiens took a 7-5 win against the Sabres and those 12 goals were scored on a combined 40 shots. Even taking out the empty-net goal Montreal scored, the teams combined for a 28.2% shooting percentage on the afternoon.

The Habs got a pair of power play goals from Cole Caufield (he's now up to 12 overall on the season), Nick Suzuki scored a pair of even strength goals 20 seconds apart at the end of the second period, and each of Josh Anderson, Emil Heineman, and Christian Dvorak (EN) rounded out the scoring.

Caufield now has 12 goals and one assist in 16 games, as he makes his bid for the Cy Young award this season. Just beware that he is shooting nearly 30%, so there is going to be a big downswing sometime soon.

Suzuki assisted on one of Caufield's PP goals, giving the centre a three-point night to go with four total shots, a block, and two PIMs. He is now back on a point-per-game pace with six goals and 10 assists in 16 games.

Juraj Slafkovsky had a trio of helpers, including one on the power play, to go with a shot, two PIMs, and a hit. He now has 10 assists and 37 hits in 13 games, though he has just one goal and 18 shots.

Lane Hutson had a pair of assists, one of them on the power play, to go with a shot in 23:44 of total ice time. He also has 10 assists in 16 games played this season.

Cayden Primeau started the game for Montreal but allowed five goals on 14 shots and was pulled during the second period. Because Montreal was losing at the time Sam Montembeault came in, and ended up winning, Montembeault got the credit for the win, saving all four shots he faced.

Rasmus Dahlin and Dylan Cozens both had a goal and an assist in Buffalo's loss. After starting the season with zero goals in 10 games, Cozens now has three in his last six.

Dahlin's goal was on the power play, giving him his fifth PP point of the season. He also had three shots, a block, and two PIMs in the loss, but has 11 points in his last eight games.

Tage Thompson, JJ Peterka, and Peyton Krebs also scored for the Sabres. Peterka had three shots and a hit to go with his goal, and he maintains his point-per-game pace with seven goals and seven assists in 14 games.

Ukko-Pekka Luukonen was also pulled from the game after allowing four goals on 18 shots, but Devon Levi allowed two goals on four shots as his replacement.

Thompson left the game in the second period due to an injury and did not return. Mattias Samuelsson also left the game during the second period and did not return. A bad day got worse for Buffalo.

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Dallas laid a beatdown of the highest order, going into Pittsburgh and laying waste to the Penguins by a 7-1 margin. This game was over before the end of the first period as the Stars scored six goals in a 16-minute span during the first frame.

It was a huge night for Dallas's 'second' line as Mason Marchment had a goal, four assists (one on the PP), two shots, and a hit, Matt Duchene had a goal, two assists (one on the PP), and a block while Tyler Seguin had a power play goal with two shots. Not a bad night for the 'second' line.

Miro Heiskanen got off the goal-scoring schneid with a pair of tallies on seven shots with a block. Those were his first two goals of the season, and he still has just six points in 14 games.

Wyatt Johnston and Logan Stankoven had the other tallies for the Stars.

Jake Oettinger stopped 20 of 21 shots for the win.

Anthony Beauvillier scored his fourth of the season in the loss. Joel Blomqvist got the start in goal and was pulled in 10 minutes after allowing three goals on eight shots. Alex Nedeljkovic allowed four goals on 31 shots the rest of the way.

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Samuel Girard took advantage of a Brady Skjei turnover to get a clean breakaway and lift the Colorado Avalanche to a 3-2 overtime win over the Nashville Predators. Girard finished the game with one goal, one assist, three blocks, and a hit in an excellent fantasy performance.

Mikko Rantanen and Devon Toews had the other goals for the Avs. Rantanen finished with four shots, three blocks, two PIMs, and two hits in a great fantasy night while Toews had five blocks in 24:44 of ice time.

Alexandar Georgiev had another very good effort, saving 29 of 21 shots in the win.

Colton Sissons and Luke Evangelista had the goals for Nashville. Juuse Saros stopped 29 of 32 shots, but took the overtime loss.

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Dustin Wolf had a tremendous performance in goal for the Calgary Flames as they took a 3-1 at home to Los Angeles. Wolf stopped 28 of 28 shots to earn his fifth win of the season. He now sits with a .913 save percentage and 2.84 goals against average, too, so the ratios have been good as well.

Kevin Rooney (EN) and Jonathan Huberdeau scored for the Flames. Mikael Backlund also got on the scoresheet with a goal, assist, three shots, a block, and a hit in a very balanced effort.

Rasmus Andersson had seven blocked shots for Calgary, and now has a whopping 57 blocks in 16 games.

Trevor Moore had the lone goal for the Kings, and Darcy Kuemper allowed two goals on 27 shots in the loss.

Quinton Byfield assisted Moore's goal, had an assist, a pair of PIMs, and a hit. Byfield now has two goals, six assists, and eight hits in his last nine games, so there has been some fantasy value building.

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Carolina bounced back after their loss to Colorado by beating a Mark Stone-less Vegas team 5-2 in Vegas. The Hurricanes' depth shone through as Jesper Kotkaniemi, Eric Robinson, and Jordan Staal each had a goal and an assist in the game. Kotkaniemi had six shots and a hit to go with his two points, and now has 10 points and 33 shots in 14 games. Is he starting to reach his potential?

Jordan Martinook and Tyson Jost had the other goals for Carolina. Jost was in the lineup because Seth Jarvis was a game-time scratch due to injury, so something to keep an eye on.

Jaccob Slavin had two assists, a shot, and a block on the blue line.

Pyotr Kochetkov stopped 30 of 32 shots for the win.

Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev (PP) scored for Vegas. Eichel had a goal and an assist, actually, with four shots and a block. Eichel is now up to 24 points in 15 games for the Golden Knights.

Adin Hill allowed four goals on 21 shots and was pulled early in the second period.

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While I'm thinking of Toronto, I came across something interesting over the weekend.

Sheldon Keefe's coaching tenure in Toronto was marked by one thing that constantly stood out: the defencemen didn't shoot very much: In 2022-23, Leafs defencemen took just 24.7% of the team's total shot attempts (lowest percentage in the league) and they also had the lowest percentage in 2023-24 at 24.9%.

With Keefe now coaching in New Jersey, I was interested to see if the same pattern would hold or if it would change under Craig Berube. Well, as of Monday night, the Leafs were again at the bottom of the league by percentage of shot attempts from defencemen:

The highest shot rate on Toronto's blue line is Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who is about the 80^th percentile of defencemen in the league (minimum of 100 total minutes), while Morgan Rielly is about the 66^th percentile. No one else on the blue line is higher than the 32^nd percentile. I just bring it up because it matters for fantasy peripherals, but also indicates this is more of a personnel thing than a coaching thing. Just beware of guys like Conor Timmins and Jake McCabe because those shot rates are very low.

It is also interesting to see Detroit with the third-lowest percentage. They were about the middle of the league last year and didn't really change the roster much. It is probably a good thing a higher share of the shots are going to the forwards because the team has the second-lowest shot attempt rate in the league, ahead of only Philadelphia (as of Monday afternoon).

Also, just for posterity, Los Angeles had the second-lowest percentage of shots from the blue line in 2023-24 and is still fifth-lowest in 2024-25. I bring it up because they usually struggle to generate shot quality at 5-on-5, but it's not because they're firing shots from the blue line. A funny little quirk to how the Kings run their offence.

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When I was looking at shot rates, I noticed Chandler Stephenson's name. Not that he's ever been a shooter, but he's currently sitting at 5.33 shot attempts per 60 minutes at all strengths. For reference, he was 39% higher across his last three seasons in Vegas. Also, 5.33 attempts per 60 minutes would be the 12^th-worst mark among defencemen in the league this season. He may not reach 100 shots this year and he if doesn't go on a shooting percentage bender at some point, well, 10 goals and 40 assists just isn't much of a fantasy season. He really has not been good in Seattle, so we'll see how they use him moving forward.