After being spoiled with the staggered start times of the Frozen Frenzy last week, we had 11 games last night with all but two starting right at the top of the hour. That means a lot of downtime in between periods. One thing that did come up from the panelists between periods was that Dylan Larkin has again expanded his trade list to a further four teams including the Utah Mammoth, Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes, and Washington Capitals. We'll see if that shakes anything loose.

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There have been a few players that have recently made their season debuts who may still be on your waiver wire as a result, but are worth looking into. I'm going to try touching on them when I get to their team recaps for the night.

Let's kick it off with Mats Zuccarello and the Kings. Zucc played only his fourth game of the season last night, after missing the last two weeks with an injury. He was a 70-point player in Minnesota alongside Kirill Kaprizov, but playing mainly with Erik Haula, Alex Turcotte, and Alex Laferriere, it has not been a hot start to the season for Zucc. He went pointless again last night though he was slotted alongside Quinton Byfield for a change. Unfortunately that lasted for less than three minutes of ice time together before Byfield left the game with an injury – stay tuned for an update there.

The rest of the Kings squad busted out of their funk though, scoring nearly a third of their goals on the season in last night's 5-2 win, earning them their first notch in the win column in their seventh game. Adrian Kempe scored twice, while Artemi Panarin produced a trio of points (one goal, two assists).

It was Logan Thompson's second bad start of the season, and he has allowed 14 goals in his last four games. Time to buy-in though as opposed to a sell-low for one of the best goalies in the league – this is the time of year that managers start to panic.

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Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, and Juraj Slafkovsky each recorded a goal and an assist, though Slaf's was the most notable of the set.

Kaiden Guhle has now been in the lineup for five games for the Canadiens, and while has has only posted one assist and his shot rate isn't all that useful (just over one per game), the Hit rate and his TOI have both been fantastic. The TOI is being brought down by an outlier at 15 minutes in his first game back, but he has been between 22:20 and 25:30 in each of the following four games.

The second half of the game was all San Jose though, as Macklin Celebrini picked up an assist on the tying goal, and then scored his second goal of the game in overtime to steal the extra point. The Sharks don't have a regulation win yet, but thanks to their higher GP total, they are currently in a playoff spot.

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Kirill Marchenko picked up a goal against his former team as the Leafs rolled through Columbus last night.

If you're confused by the Auston Matthews goal in the video, it's actually Matthews taking it to the next and the shot banks in off of Marchenko's skate at the side of the goal. They don't ask how, they just care about how many – "they" being the fantasy managers.

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Morgan Rielly, Easton Cowan, and Jack Roslovic each had three-point games, while Marshall Rifai scored his first NHL goal/point in the win.

Emil Andrae notched an assist for the Blue Jackets in the loss, while Matthew Knies was held pointless and now has gone pointless for six straight games after putting up four points in his first two games of the season.

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In a back and forth game between Colorado and New Jersey, Cale Makar (two assists), Arturri Lehkonen (two goals), and Luke Evangelista (one goal, one assist) each had two points. Evangelista is the one you might be able to trade for at this point, as he now has five points in six games, but is flying under the radar because he missed three games with an illness.

New Jersey took the game 4-3, as Colorado loses back-to-back games for the first time this season. Scott Wedgewood took the loss despite making 37 saves.

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Filip Chytil missed the first two weeks of the season, but has played nearly 20 minutes a game since returning, and posted an assist in each of his first two contests. He has had some reasonable peripherals to go along with it too. The issue with him has always been his health, which means that we can ride the wave while he's playing, but if you roster him then you need to be ready to find a replacement on a quick turnaround.

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Jacob Markstrom is set to miss about two weeks, which means we may see a Cooper Black. It could come as soon as Thursday against the Penguins on the second night of a back to back. It seems unlikely they would toss him in for the charged Brady Tkachuk return game.

Jake Sanderson is set to make what for all intents and purposes will be his season debut last night, after playing only four minutes in the season opener. It's unlikely his managers are selling him at this point, but if the debut is a flop then that's when there might be a slim opening for you to ask.

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The youth of the Bruins was on full display last night, with Matthew Poitras and James Hagens each scoring a goal to extend some solid play of late from each of them. Hagens is now up to seven points in nine games, while Poitras has a point in four straight and six in his last six games.

Mikko Rantanen had all three goals for the Stars in the 3-2 OT win. Jason Robertson had two assists, and the Stars are now on a three-game win streak with only four goals against in that span. Esa Lindell missed the game with a lower body injury, and is expected back in a week (per Bruce LeVine).

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The Ducks tried rolling out some new lines including Nikita Nesterenko on the top line, and Drew Helleson on the top D-pair, but those didn't last the game as the Ducks went down early on route to a 3-2 loss to the Islanders. Pavel Mintyukov was benched for the entire third period.

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NHL Schedule note. The Seattle Kraken and Washington Capitals each only play six games over the next 2.5 weeks leading up to Monday November 9th. Maybe time to cut bait with those fringe Pacific North-Westerners in favour of some others. The Kraken and Capitals do have some of the most dense schedules over the final few weeks of the season, and this stretch coming up is the tradeoff.

Calgary plays 10 games over the same 2.5 week stretch coming up, and multiple others have nine.

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Philip Broberg was the high scorer in the St. Louis/Winnipeg game last night, with a (power play) goal, an assist, and six shots in nearly 24 minutes of ice time. He's now up to six points in nine games and is running the top power play unit.

Joel Hofer continued his excellent start to the season with only one goal against on 33 shots, while counterpart Stuart Skinner made 26 saves in the loss, and has also put up some solid numbers this season. Both have been great later picks, though Hofer's win rate and volume seem like a better bet to be maintained over the course of the rest of the season.

That’s the difference between the two teams and their perceived sustainability, one has depth scoring, and the other one doesn’t. Mike goes on to note that Brayden Yager may make his season debut on Thursday as a result.

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Updates on the late games in the morning.

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All stats courtesy of Frozentools.

See you next Wednesday, and if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments you can find me on BlueSky @alexdmaclean.