Christian Dvorak signed a five-year extension with the Philadelphia Flyers for a little over $5M AAV. He was set to be a free agent after the season, but he's now secured a long-term deal after an impressive first half of this season. He has found good chemistry with Trevor Zegras that has given the Flyers consistent scoring for most of the year.

*

The Florida Panthers announced that Seth Jones is week-to-week, according to reporter George Richards. Their hope is that he can return before the Olympic break a month from now, and he likely would have to do so to remain on the Olympic roster. For now, this is a big boost to the fantasy value of Aaron Ekblad, who assumed top power-play duties in Jones' absence.

*

The San Jose Sharks have put defenceman John Klingberg on the IR, which means he will be out of the lineup at least through this week. In his place on Saturday, Dmitry Orlov was running the top power-play unit, so he gets a big fantasy value boost as well.

*

Washington announced that Capitals winger Tom Wilson is day-to-day with a lower-body injury. That is pretty good news, considering how gruesome the initial play looked, and it doesn't seem as if he should be out too long, but we don't have a firm timeline on his return yet.

*

The New York Rangers hosted the Utah Mammoth on Monday night, and the big news was that Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin took a light bump in the crease as he was stretching out his right leg and immediately rolled over in pain. He had to be helped off the ice and did not return. It certainly didn't look good, but we'll wait for a further update from the Rangers. Of course, any length of time missed means a lot of starts for Jonathan Quick.

Utah ended up winning that game 3-2 in overtime. A broken play in the Rangers' end led to a tic-tac-toe passing play finished on a tap-in by Sean Durzi. Utah's other goals were scored by Michael Carone and Dylan Guenther, and Guenther finished with six shots, two blocks, and two PIMs. The 22-year-old winger now has 21 goals and 144 shots in 43 games this season.

Karel Vejmelka got the start in net for the Mammoth and stopped 23 of 25 shots for his 18^th win. That ties him with Scott Wedgewood for the most wins in the league.

Alexis Lafrenière and Vincent Trocheck scored power-play goals for the Rangers as Quick gave up all three goals on 18 shots for the loss.

Artemi Panarin managed a pair of assists and that gives him 39 points in his last 30 games going back two months.

*

Justin Sourdif registered his first career hat trick and added a pair of assists in Washington's 7-4 win over Anaheim on Monday night. That gives Sourdif five goals and four assists in his last four games as he's really establishing himself as a middle-6 centre that the Capitals can rely on.

Both John Carlson and Ryan Leonard posted a goal and an assist while Alex Ovechkin scored twice. Leonard finished with three shots and a pair of hits and he's now on a four-game point streak, and he has 14 points in his last 12 games overall.

Charlie Lindgren held down the net for the Caps, stopping 41 of 45 shots sent his way for the win.

Jacob Trouba, Alex Killorn, Beckett Sennecke, and Chris Kreider all scored for the Ducks. That was Sennecke's 14^th goal of the season as he re-takes the rookie scoring lead, ahead of Montreal's Oliver Kapanen by one and New York Islanders' Matthew Schaefer by two (which is hilarious).

Trouba had a stellar multi-cat night with the goal, three shots, two blocks, and a fighting major as he answered for his hit on Leonard the last time these two teams met.

Petr Mrazek gave up five goals on 24 shots in the loss, and was pulled after the second period.

*

Today, I send in my section of the 2026 Dobber Hockey Midseason Guide – which can be ordered here and is set for release on Thursday – and my section covers the advanced stats from each team. To give a bit of a preview using our Frozen Tools, I want to offer a handful of my observations when going through the Player Usage Charts and Advanced Stats Reports.

I am going to give a short preview of the first half of the teams today, and the other half of the teams on Thursday. Today's article is using data current as of January 5^th, 2026.

Leo Carlsson (Anaheim Ducks)

Production has slowed down over the last few weeks for Carlsson, but he's still pacing over a point-per-game status and a lot of his early-season red flags for negative regression are well within normal range now. On top of that, he's driving good shot differentials relative to his team, albeit with a lot of offensive zone starts. All this is to say is that now that the negative regression has hit, we have a better idea of what kind of player he is, and that is a point-per-game guy. He just turned 21 years old two weeks ago and has 171 career games. This is a special, special player in the making.

Josh Doan (Buffalo Sabres)

As of Monday morning, Doan was pacing for 25 goals, 55 points, 200 shots, 18 power-play points, and 72 hits, and he was doing that skating 16 minutes a game. Believe it or not, he has the same rate of shots per 60 minutes (9.28) as Matt Boldy, and is higher than Kirill Kaprizov, Cole Caufield, and Nazem Kadri. He is also doing all that while driving excellent shot differentials both relative to his team and overall. It is his third (partial) season in a row doing that, and if he can get more ice time, he can be a huge fantasy asset.

Andrei Svechnikov (Carolina Hurricanes)

Over the last two months, Svechnikov is 25^th among regular forwards (at least 250 minutes) in points per 60 minutes at all strengths and inside the top-50 by points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 only (per Natural Stat Trick). Those last 30 games have seen him average over three shots and two hits per game, and he's done all this while driving good shot differentials for the Hurricanes. This has been the rebound season his supporters were hoping for, and fantasy managers who believed in that rebound are being rewarded. Let's hope it holds up in the second half of the season.

Jason Dickinson (Chicago Blackhawks)

I always have a soft spot for players who are playing extremely well in non-glamourous roles on teams where superstars get the headlines, and that fits Dickinson to a tee. It is unfortunate that injuries have limited his games played (and probably his production) but the team is carrying the shot differential in his minutes, and he's doing that with a lot of defensive zone starts and facing top competition. He has also been good on the penalty kill, which has been a Chicago strength this year. One of the best, yet most underhalded, third liners in the league.

Sam Malinski (Colorado Avalanche)

Word might be getting out about how good Malinski is, but the Avalanche are obliterating the opposition with him on the ice. Colorado is the best team in the league, so that's not unexpected, but the team also has their best shot differentials with him, not Cale Makar or Devon Toews, on the ice. Malinski is due for some second-half regression, so don't expect more than 40 points in 2025-26, but he's turning in another very good season.  

Esa Lindell (Dallas Stars)

As things stand, Lindell is on pace for 27 points at 5-on-5, crushing his prior career-high of 22 points at 5-on-5 set two seasons ago. Maybe there's some point-production regression coming, but he's been tremendous for the Stars this year while taking a lot of the top competition from the opposition (even more Miro Heiskanen). He is great for Dallas, but he is due for that point regression, is averaging under 1.0 shots per game, and averaging under 0.5 hits per game. With that (likely) production decline on the horizon, Lindell is going to be much, much more valuable in real life than in fantasy.

Joel Edmundson (Los Angeles Kings)

One of my favourite stats while writing up the Advanced Stats section: it took just 31 games for Edmundson to set a career-high with nine secondary assists (previous high of eight both last year and in 2019-20). Needless to say, that is going to regress. On top of that, the Kings are losing the shot differential battle when he's on the ice. The main issue is the Kings are handily winning the shot battle when Brandt Clarke is on the ice, and those two have been very frequent defence partners this season. In other words, the Kings are getting obliterated by shot differential when Edmundson is on the ice without Clarke. That has been the case for a lot of their defencemen, so it's a wonder if the Kings aren't looking for defensive upgrades at the Trade Deadline (considering their offseason moves, I doubt it).