Columbus forward Yegor Chinakhov has missed three weeks with an upper-body injury. It is unfortunate for him, but also because Kent Johnson has missed 14 games and Dmitri Voronkov has missed nine. In fact, the team has only had those three, and Kirill Marchenko, in the lineup for 3/32 games this season. It is a nice group of top-6 wingers and any two of them could help out Adam Fantilli.  

In the good news department, Chinakhov was back at practice for Columbus on Wednesday:

#CBJ doing an optional skate this morning after getting back late last night from Tampa.

One face it's very nice to see on the ice: Yegor Chinakhov, who has been out the past couple weeks with injury.

— Jeff Svoboda (@JacketsInsider) December 18, 2024

Chinakhov had seven goals and seven assists in 21 games before his injury. The Blue Jackets have three games left (Thursday, Saturday, Monday) before the holiday break.

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Yaroslav Askarov is back in the NHL:

The #SJSharks have recalled G Yaroslav Askarov from the @sjbarracuda.

— San Jose Sharks PR (@SanJoseSharksPR) December 18, 2024

That was in response to the injury to Vitek Vanecek:

Warsofsky says Vanecek will be out for at least a couple weeks with an upper-body injury

— Sheng Peng (@Sheng_Peng) December 18, 2024

San Jose's next four games are against Colorado, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Vegas. Having Askarov in the NHL is nice, but it's not exactly a good stretch of games for them over the next 10 days.

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New York traded Kaapo Kakko to the Seattle Kraken. I had a breakdown of the trade last night that can be read here.

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Detroit piled on the goals on Wednesday night with Philadelphia in town as the Red Wings skated away with a 6-4 win. Each of Patrick Kane, JT Compher, and Lucas Raymond had a goal and an assist, with the latter two each racking up a power play point. Kane finished the game with three shots and two PIMs in under 13 minutes of ice time.

Michael Rasmussen, Joe Veleno, and Alex DeBrincat had a goal each to round out the total.

Moritz Seider had a solid multi-cat night with an assist, a shot, and four blocks in over 28 minutes of ice time. He skated that much because Simon Edvinsson left the game in the first period with an injury and did not return.

Alex Lyon let in four goals on 19 shots but still managed the win.

Travis Konecny, Noah Cates, Owen Tippett (more on him later), and Ryan Poehling all scored for the Flyers. Konecny had a block and a hit, too, and along with career-high paces in goals and assists, he is also on pace for over 100 hits for the first time. He has really been a great fantasy option this season.

Travis Sanheim had a solid multi-cat night on the blue line with an assist, a shot, two PIMs, and two hits.

Sam Ersson took the loss, allowing five goals on 23 shots.

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Thomas Harley and Nils Lundkvist were both missing from Dallas's lineup on Wednesday night as they continue to battle an illness.

Toronto was in Dallas for a marquee matchup and escaped with a 5-3 win. Jake Oettinger got the start in goal for the Stars but was pulled after allowing four goals on 12 shots. Casey DeSmith took over and held down the fort, but it was too little, too late at that point.

William Nylander scored twice for the Leafs while Bobby McMann, Nick Robertson, and Max Domi had their other tallies. Nylander finished the game with two goals on four shots, and is now up to 20 goals on the season. He is well on pace to surpass his career-high mark of 40 goals that he posted in each of his prior two campaigns.

Robertson finished with that goal, an assist, two blocks, and three hits as he was going up against brother Jason in front of their family.

Joseph Woll was excellent in net, stopping 38 of 41 shots for the win.

Evgenii Dadonov had a goal and an assist for the Stars in a losing effort, while Colin Blackwell and Sam Steel had the other tallies.

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Nikolaj Ehlers returned to the Winnipeg lineup on Wednesday night, having missed over two weeks due to injury.

Anaheim won that game against Winnipeg by a 3-2 margin. The Ducks' top line did all the damage as Frank Vatrano scored a pair of goals and then Troy Terry sealed the win with 26 seconds left on the clock.

Vatrano finished with those two goals, an assist on Terry's tally, five shots, a block, and a hit. That makes seven goals and 10 points in the last game for Vatrano who is starting to find his footing after a slow start.

Radko Gudas had a pair of assists with a shot, a block, and a pair of hits. Jackson LaCombe, meanwhile, keeps his production going with an assist, four shots, and a hit. LaCombe is up to 11 points in 23 games on the season, and 24 points in 60 games in calendar 2024.

Lukas Dostal had another good game in net, stopping 21 of 23 shots for the win. Among the 32 goalies with at least 15 starts this year, he is fourth by save percentage (.920).

Gabriel Vilardi (PP) and Mark Scheifele each scored for Winnipeg. Vilardi now has 36 goals in 81 games as a member of the Winnipeg franchise. Kyle Connor had an assist on both goals, and is now tied for 8^th in league scoring.

Eric Comrie took the loss, allowing three goals on 31 shots.

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Florida got Aleksander Barkov back on Thursday night, and he skated on the top line with Matthew Tkachuk and Carter Verhaeghe. He helped lift Florida to a 6-1 win in Minnesota as Sergei Bobrovsky saved 26 of 27 shots for his 15^th win of the year. It has been a rollercoaster season for Bobrovsky who now has as many games with a save percentage of .940 or higher (6) as he does .840 or lower.

Aaron Ekblad had his best fantasy game of the season with a goal, two assists (one PP), and three shots in the win. He is up to 18 points in 33 games played this season, or as many points as he had in 51 games last season.

Matthew Tkachuk scored a pair of goals (one PP), adding two PIMs and six hits. After a slow start to the season, Tkachuk has 9 goals, 13 assists, and 45 shots in his last 15 games.

Eetu Luostarainen, Mackie Samoskevich, and Niko Mikkola had the other goals for Florida. Samoskevich is now 1 of 3 rookies with at least 1.0 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 this season, along with Macklin Celebrini and Jackson Blake.

Marco Rossi scored a power play goal, which was Minnesota's lone goal on the night. He is now on pace for 31 goals and 36 assists this season as he's really rounding into the player that Minnesota (and fantasy owners) were hoping he could be.

Marc-Andre Fleury was in net for all six goals, facing 33 shots total.

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Utah staged a late comeback against Vancouver on Wednesday night as they erased a 2-0 third-period deficit thanks to goals from Clayton Keller and Dylan Guenther (PP). Mikhail Sergachev played overtime hero, scoring in the extra frame, to lift Utah to a 3-2 win.

Keller finished with a goal, an assist (PP), and three shots. Keller had a bit of a sag through most of November but now has 11 points in his last 10 games, and has 30 points in 31 games on the season.

Logan Cooley had two assists (one PP) with four shots, a block, and a hit. He has 55 points in his last 82 regular season games for Arizona/Utah, so the production is really starting to ramp up. He doesn't turn 21 years old until May.

Sergachev had the overtime goal, totaling four shots and four blocks. He has eight goals on the season, just two off his career mark of 10 set in both 2019-20 and 2022-23. Barring a horrific slump, he's going to shatter that mark.

Karel Vejmelka was solid again in net, stopping 24 of 26 shots. It has been a month since the injury to Connor Ingram, and in that month, Vejmelka has six wins in 11 starts, posting a .915 save percentage and 2.24 goals against average. It isn't a lot of wins, but the peripherals play very well in most fantasy formats.

Danton Heinen and Dakota Joshua had the goals for Vancouver. Quinn Hughes added to his season with assists on both goals, adding six shots on goal along the way. Hughes is now one point behind Makar for the lead among defencemen, and leads all blue liners in points per game.

Thatcher Demko took the loss, allowing three goals on 31 shots. After a couple rough starts returning from injury, Demko has stopped 58 of 62 shots faced in his last two outings. If he can do that regularly, there is a great 1-2 tandem here between he and Kevin Lankinen.

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In Tuesday's Ramblings, I went over some players I was high on in the preseason that are finding success in 2024-25. The week before, we discussed players I was low on that are succeeding, and players I was high on that aren't living up to expectations. Today, we'll round out the quartet by reviewing some players I was low on who have also not come through for fantasy owners yet. As a quick reminder, when talking about preseason projections, all players were projected for 82 games played. We will exclude players with injuries like Mats Zuccarello or Mathew Barzal.

Sidney Crosby

Things will vary from league to league, but Crosby's ADP in standard Yahoo! leagues was around 25^th overall, while Underdog Fantasy had him going around the 36^th pick. That means he was often a third-round pick in those leagues. My personal rankings had him as the 46^th skater on my board, so outside the top-50 when including the top goalies. While the production projections were good – 34 goals and 56 assists – the overarching problem was elsewhere: My power play point projection was for 23, with fewer than 100 hits and 40 blocks. So far this season, he's on pace for 20 power play points, 80 hits, and 40 blocks. Not far off.

Crosby's season would look markedly different if he weren't shooting 7.8%; he would be over a point-per-game player if he were shooting even 12%. On the flipside, his secondary assist rate at 5-on-5 is the highest it has been in a decade. Even if his shooting percentage improves, a decline in those secondary assists could balance out his point total. He should get better from here on out, but it's not a guarantee, and paying off a third-round pick is uncertain, let alone meaningfully profit from it.  

Owen Tippett

Going into Wednesday night's game, Tippett had nine goals and seven assists in 31 games. A big problem is landing just 42.1% of his shot attempts on goal – that number was 53.1% last year. If he can just start landing more shots on target, his goals per minute might return to where it was across the last two campaigns, but we have to see it happen first because the ratio of shot attempts/shots on goal is down across the league.

As it is, Tippett is pacing for 24 goals, 19 assists, 212 shots, and 138 hits. My preseason projection was for 31 goals, 26 assists, 273 shots, and 158 hits. Even that projection had him around the 100^th skater on my board, but he had an ADP of 77^th overall on Yahoo! and 54^th on Underdog. As it is, he's likely not a top-150 player in just about any format.

Like Crosby, a big problem in my projections was a lack of power-play points. If Tippett were hitting the net more often, maybe he'd be pacing for 30 goals, but the lack of power-play production was always going to cap his upside. Maybe Philadelphia's power play turns around in the second half, but it's largely been more of the same for most of the team, Tippett included.  

Carter Verhaeghe

Standard Yahoo! leagues saw Verhaeghe with an ADP of a fifth-round pick while his Underdog ADP was that of a fourth-round pick, both spots being towards the end of their respective round. Including goalies, I had Verhaeghe as a seventh-round value, and the big problem was peripherals: I had him projected for 70 hits and 23 blocks. Funny enough, he's on pace to cruise past both those marks, but the production has held him back from really filling out his fantasy potential with 9 goals and 16 assists in 32 games heading into Wednesday night's tilt with Minnesota. The culprit here being an 8.8% shooting percentage.

As it is, Verhaeghe has been a mess in leagues counting plus/minus, which Yahoo! does. Even if he doesn't, like in ESPN points leagues, he's still outside the top-60 skaters on a per-game basis. In other words, even in leagues where his minus-18 rating is irrelevant, he still hasn't paid off his ADP.

This is one where I may be wrong by the end of the season. Verhaeghe's peripherals have seen huge increases from what he normally does, so if he manages 125 hits, he probably doesn't need 40 goals or 90 points to be a top-50 skater in banger formats. There is a lot up in the air here – how much (if at all) does his shooting percentage improve, can he keep up peripherals, what value can he bring in fantasy leagues with plus/minus – so he can finish anywhere from a top-40 player to a top-125 player depending on how all that goes.

Miro Heiskanen

In standard Yahoo! fantasy formats, Heiskanen was around the 10^th defenceman off the board, falling to the 11-15 range in Underdog formats. I had him 11^th overall in the former and 18^th overall in the latter, so he didn't end up on any of my teams. Thus far in 2024-25, he's outside the top 25 defencemen in Yahoo! formats and is even lower in ESPN points leagues.

The problem here was a lack of goal scoring – my projection was 11 goals, and that would probably be outside the top-12 defencemen – and a lack of hits, as my projection was for 64 and he's on pace for half that. He just doesn't bring much for peripherals, especially when compared to top-12 fantasy defencemen, so even a 60-point season wouldn't be enough to float his fantasy value.

Aside from the peripherals, Heiskanen has had a huge power play problem as the top unit has largely struggled this year, and he has just three power play points. With the lack of shots/hits/blocks, and a struggling power play, it will take a miracle to pay off the value of anywhere near a top-12 fantasy defenceman.