While you might have been watching the World Series (which is now a series), there were also 13 games on the NHL schedule. Lots and lots to talk about, so let’s jump right in.
In the Flyers’ 4-3 shootout win over the Islanders, Trevor Zegras led the way with two goals, an assist, and a shootout goal. In his first season with the Flyers, Zegras is looking like a potential bounce-back candidate with eight points in eight games, including points in six of those eight games. His most frequent and best linemate at even strength is a bit of a surprise in Christian Dvorak. The two could effectively contrast each other, as playmaker Zegras could benefit from having an effective two-way center such as Dvorak. Zegras is rostered in just 15% of Yahoo leagues, so feel free to click the add button if you’ve been thinking about it. The Flyers also play four times next week.
Ilya Sorokin has now allowed at least three goals in each of his first six games. He has only one quality start over that span, which isn’t good for someone like myself who drafted him in two leagues. My strategy of drafting players who fell below their ADPs in drafts isn’t really paying off so far (I’ve got another one to discuss soon).
Fantasy managers worried about Sorokin?
Per @CSAHockey, he’s facing 11 high-danger chances per game so far this season — the worst defensive environment in the NHL
On average, the NHL’s worst teams average 8 high-danger changes per game
It’s not Sorokin, it’s the Islanders.… pic.twitter.com/9iombhDkwD
— GoaliePost (@GoaliePost) October 24, 2025
In fantasy leagues, I think goaltending environment affects the goalie as much as their own performance. That’s just how the categories (especially wins and goals-against average) are designed. That’s why I wouldn’t interpret this to be as much of a vote of confidence as perhaps was intended. That being said, Sorokin’s numbers could improve if the Isles settle down defensively.
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Artturi Lehkonen has been on fire to start the season. Lehkonen scored both Avalanche goals in their 3-2 loss against Boston, giving him ten points over his first nine games. He is benefitting from playing on the Nathan MacKinnon – Martin Necas line for much of the season, and he has avoided the injury bug that has kept him from reaching 70 games in a season since 2021-22. Lehkonen has also taken nine shots over the last two games, including five on Saturday.
Mason Lohrei assisted on all three Bruins’ goals on Saturday. Lohrei has six points over his last six games.
Devon Toews: no points in nine games. After three consecutive 50+ point seasons, Toews fell to 44 points last season. Could the point total decrease even further? The Avs play again today (Sunday), so you might want to wait one more day to drop him. He’s a possible drop in shallow leagues, but I happen to be thinking about it because he’s on my team that is struggling the most.
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Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made his first start of the season after being sidelined with a lower-body injury. Luukkonen allowed four goals on 22 shots in the Sabres’ 4-3 overtime loss to the Leafs. Colten Ellis was expected to start on Saturday, but he wasn’t feeling 100% according to Elliotte Friedman. Alex Lyon has performed better than expected with six quality starts this season, so he should be in the driver’s seat to be the starter in Buffalo even with UPL back. That will probably change if he slumps, though.
William Nylander missed this game, while Morgan Rielly returned to the Leafs’ lineup. After being scratched on Friday, Nicholas Robertson was moved onto to a line with Auston Matthews and scored a goal.
With the overtime winner and an assist, John Tavares has seven points in his last four games.
Tage Thompson scored two of the Sabres’ goals, giving him goals in back-to-back games. Thompson has also been shooting the puck frequently with five shots in each of his last three games. He is also among the league leaders with 38 SOG on the season, which calculates to over four shots per game.
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The Tampa Bay Lightning entered Saturday’s game against Anaheim with just a single win in seven games. Despite coughing up a two-goal lead in the third period, the Bolts managed to squeeze out a 4-3 win thanks to Anthony Cirelli‘s second goal of the game. Cirelli also added an assist while winning a season-high 19 faceoffs in nearly 21 minutes of icetime.
Jake Guentzel scored the other two Lightning goals, giving him four points over his last three games. Guentzel also took six shots in this game.
Nikita Kucherov picked up two assists, one of which was the 1000th point of his career.
Fantasy teams have been zeroing in on the rough start of Brandon Hagel. After registering a single point in his first seven games, Hagel found his way onto the scoresheet on Saturday with two primary assists. Hagel was the most popular pick for player to disappoint in the preseason Experts Panel, which may have something to do with the unexpected 90-point campaign last season.
Like Sorokin mentioned above, Hagel was another player that I drafted in two different leagues after watching his ADP fall a bit. Hagel still has yet to score a goal this season, and he didn’t help his cause in that regard on Saturday by not taking any shots. Despite the lack of power-play time for Hagel, I’d still consider him a buy-low opportunity because he still constructed a 75-point season in 2023-24 despite second-unit power-play minutes throughout that season.
Cutter Gauthier fired seven shots on goal for the Ducks. Gauthier is averaging nearly five shots per game and 39 shots total, which places him near the top of the leaderboard in the shots on goal category.
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The Utah Mammoth might be a force to be reckoned with in fantasy leagues. If you like to bet on games, hopefully you were paying attention when Flip Livingstone told you to place a mammoth wager on the Mammoth (okay, one within your budget because you should only bet what you can afford to lose). The Mammoth scored six on the Wild on Saturday, giving them six consecutive wins and 29 goals over that span.
Logan Cooley scored two first-period goals, giving him five goals and seven points over his past two games. Cooley also has power-play points in four of his past five games. He needs to be started everywhere.
Utah’s leading scorer is not Cooley or Clayton Keller, but Nick Schmaltz. With two goals on Saturday, Schmaltz is up to 15 points in just nine games, with seven goals and 13 points in his last six games. Schmaltz has also reached six shots in three different games this season, averaging nearly four shots per game.
The Mammoth have some strong scorers in the fold, but perhaps Schmaltz gets overlooked because he is viewed as a complimentary piece. He has managed to stay healthy over the past two seasons and as a result has back-to-back 60-point seasons. Schmaltz might be a bit of a sell high with the shot rate and shooting percentage, but he has a solid linemate in Keller and is on PP1, so he should probably avoid crashing completely.
John Marino also scored his first goal of the season and added two assists for the Mammoth.
Marcus Johansson scored both goals for the Wild in the 6-2 loss.
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Sergei Bobrovsky had an easy 17-save shutout of the Golden Knights. Bobrovsky continues to be remarkably consistent with quality starts in seven of his eight games this season.
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More tough injury news for Patrik Laine. The Montreal winger is expected to miss the next 3-4 months after undergoing core muscle surgery. Laine has played in five games this season, registering just one assist. Laine played under 14 minutes per game in each of those games, so he may not fit into the Habs’ plans to a major degree once he is able to return. Laine is also on the final season of an $8.7 million cap hit, so any team taking a chance on the Certified Band-Aid Boy next season will probably do so at a much lower cap hit.
Without Laine in the lineup, the Canadiens overcame a 2-0 deficit to defeat the Canucks by a score of 4-3. Ivan Demidov had his best game of the season, scoring a goal while adding two power-play assists. Demidov has recently found his way onto the Habs’ top power play, with Zack Bolduc being bumped down to the second unit. Preseason Calder Trophy favorite Demidov now has six points in five games, so now would be a great time to add him if someone happened to drop him in your league. Keep in mind that the Habs play only twice next week, though.
Lukas Reichel made his Canucks debut on Saturday, centering a line with Evander Kane and Brock Boeser. Although he logged nearly 16 minutes, he didn’t record a point.
You know who wasn’t held off the scoresheet on Saturday? Elias Pettersson. No, not the defenseman. The other one. Pettersson scored a goal while adding two assists to give him his first multipoint game of the season. EP40 has played a decent all-around game this season, but up until Saturday didn’t appear to be coming close to delivering on his $11.6 million cap hit scoring-wise. His effort on Saturday should give Canucks fans and those rostering him at least a bit of hope. I’d like to see him surpass a 2.0 SOG/GP average before I’m sold that he’s back. Currently EP40 is at 1.7 SOG/GP, which is the same as last season.
Fun fact: only Auston Matthews has more blocked shots among forwards than Pettersson (19 BKS).
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Dylan Strome suffered a lower-body injury after sliding into the boards on Saturday. Strome needed help from teammates to get off the ice. Following the game, coach Spencer Carbery described the injury as “concerning”, so this sounds like something that could force Strome to miss time next week. If Strome misses games, Connor McMichael could move up the lineup and could receive top power-play time, as he did on Saturday once Strome left the game.
It was a rough night overall for the Capitals, who were trounced 7-1 at home to the Senators. Dylan Cozens and Drake Batherson each scored two goals while adding an assist. Cozens now has five goals in his last five games, while Batherson has seven points in his last five games. Both players registered two power-play points, while Cozens led the Senators with seven shots on goal.
Does this qualify as a goalie fight?
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Robert Thomas left Saturday’s game in the third period with an upper-body injury. After the game, coach Jim Montgomery did not provide an update on Thomas’s condition. Losing Thomas for any length of time would be a blow for the Blues, but the good news is that Pius Suter could move up into the top 6 and succeed there, as he did with the Canucks late last season.
This is a game the Blues would like to forget, not just because of the Thomas injury. St. Louis skated out to a 4-0 lead early in the second period, including two goals from Jake Neighbours. However, the Red Wings played the UNO reverse card on the Blues with six unanswered goals en route to a 6-4 victory.
Simon Edvinsson scored two of the Wings’ goals, while rookie Emmitt Finnie continued his hot start with another goal. Finnie is now up to eight points in nine games. Finnie is still skating on the Dylan Larkin – Lucas Raymond line, and he is still available in about two-thirds of Yahoo leagues. The Wings play four times next week, so now is a great time to add him.
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Roman Josi is being listed as week-to-week with an upper-body injury from Thursday’s game against Vancouver. The injury is reportedly not related to his offseason POTS diagnosis. The uncertainty of the POTS diagnosis resulted in me avoiding Josi in drafts, so I wonder if he will be an injury risk going forward. With Josi out, Brady Skjei was moved up to the Preds’ top power play on Saturday.
In the Preds’ 5-4 shootout win, Ryan O’Reilly scored two goals while adding an assist. ROR has been heating up recently with six points in his last four games.
Anze Kopitar returned to the Kings’ lineup on Saturday after missing nearly two weeks with an injured foot. He did not register a point but took four shots on goal.
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Roope Hintz was injured on Saturday after being on the receiving end of a hit from Taylor Hall. Hintz did not register a point but took five shots on goal before leaving.
Carolina elected to go with a five-forward power-play unit in this game, with recent callup Bradly Nadeau joining the top unit. Nadeau did not record a point in his first game of the season and was skating on a line with Mark Jankowski and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. The power-play deployment seems ideal, but the even-strength usage isn’t. The 20-year-old Nadeau has scored at close to a point-per-game for a season and change at the AHL level, which deserves a look at the NHL. He may have a tough time getting the icetime he needs with the Canes to be fantasy relevant at this point, though.
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One more injury to report (Logan Clarkson is frantically typing away, as am I). Rickard Rakell left Saturday’s game in the third period with an upper-body injury after blocking a shot. Rakell entered Saturday’s game with eight points in eight games. You may want to look for another option for next week if you are rostering Rakell, as the Penguins next play on Monday.
In the Blue Jackets’ 5-4 win over Pittsburgh, Dmitri Voronkov scored a pair of goals. Voronkov has had a strong start to the season with nine points in his first eight games. The Jackets play four times next week, so adding Voronkov makes sense. He is on the top power play for the Blue Jackets, and he’s only 22% rostered in Yahoo leagues.
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With two goals in the Kraken’s 3-2 win over Edmonton, former Oiler Jordan Eberle now has six points in his last six games and eight points in nine games. Not a bad start for the veteran.
After being held without a point in his first six games, Evan Bouchard is turning things around. Bouchard scored his first goal of the season on Saturday, and he currently has power-play points in three consecutive games.
Connor McDavid has just one goal (but 10 assists) in nine games. Are you getting your money’s worth with your first overall pick? It’s still early and usually his point totals are assist-heavy, but McDavid is currently on pace for nine goals. Just make sure to tell that to the McDavid owner when you send your trade offer.
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I will be away next weekend, so I’ll talk to you in two weeks. In the meantime, follow me on X @Ian_Gooding and Bluesky @goodsfantasyhockey.bsky.social