With two assists on Saturday, Sidney Crosby now has a six-game point streak where he has 10 points over that span. Crosby is also a plus-2 in each of his last four games. Want to know why the Penguins are better than you thought they would be? Sid the Kid is still there, and he could be for a while longer.
In his second game with the Penguins, Yegor Chinakhov scored his first goal on three shots. He has been added to a line with Rutger McGroarty and Ben Kindel. We’ll see if this young line can breathe new life into Chinakhov’s career.
Here is Chinakhov’s goal. Very heads-up pass from the 18-year-old Kindel, who noticed that the Red Wings were on a line change. Kindel might not be taking the league by storm this season, but he has a very bright future. I’ve added him in one of my keeper leagues.
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The Sabres’ win streak has officially ended at 10 games. Prior to Saturday, their last loss was back on December 8 against Calgary. Is this the year the Sabres finally break their drought of missing the playoffs? The Eastern Conference is very tight.
In their 5-1 win over Buffalo, the Blue Jackets were boosted by the return of Zach Werenski. The high-scoring defenseman registered two assists on five shots in 23 minutes of icetime. I happen to have Werenski and Denton Mateychuk on the same fantasy team and basically swapped in Mateychuk for the approximately two weeks that Werenski was out. On Saturday, Mateychuk scored a goal and added an assist while logging 24 minutes anyway, but he saw no power-play time after being on the first unit when Werenski was out. Mateychuk has seven points in his last six games, with four of those games happening to be when Werenski was out of the lineup.
Also of note from the Blue Jackets’ blueline: Damon Severson has eight points over his last six games, including two assists on Saturday. Severson has maintained a spot on the second power play with Ivan Provorov the entire time. I’d like to see the Jackets replace Provorov with Mateychuk on the second power play, but I’m not the coach and I don’t know the technical aspects of their system.
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Jesper Bratt led the Devils with a goal and an assist in their 4-1 win over Utah. Bratt’s production has been down this season, as he entered this game with only two points in his last seven games. He has been a bit unlucky with a 5-on-5 SH% of 6.2%, and the Devils have had their share of injuries, including Jack Hughes. Expect Bratt to get back on track.
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Even though the Oilers lost 5-2 to Philadelphia, Connor McDavid extended his point streak to 15 games. With a goal and an assist on Saturday, McDavid now has a whopping 36 points over those 15 games. With six shots on Saturday, McDavid is averaging over five shots per game during the point streak. The team that I roster McDavid has turned it around during that time, winning three of its past four matchups and potentially four of five if I can hang on this week. Teams rostering McDavid are probably noticing a similar uptick as well with this recent run.
In the Flyers’ win, Denver Barkey scored his first NHL goal in his seventh game.
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Fresh off being selected for Canada at the Olympics, Jordan Binnington stopped all 25 shots he faced in shutting out the Canadiens. Binnington’s selection hasn’t come without debate, as he is having the worst statistical season of his career. More recently, Binnington entered Saturday’s game with just one quality start since November 26. During that nine-game stretch, Binnington posted an unstartable 4.30 GAA and .853 SV%.
Still, Binnington is capable of being one of the top clutch goalies in hockey, as seen at last year’s 4 Nations and the Blues’ 2019 Cup run. Expect him to be on a short leash if he starts at the Olympics, though. Both Darcy Kuemper and Logan Thompson have performed much better than Binnington this season. Binnington was strong during the final quarter last season in the Blues’ playoff push, which could have been at least partially due to an increase in confidence from a successful 4 Nations.
Phillip Danault has no points in five games since being traded to Montreal. He is still stuck at five points in 35 games.
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In the Lightning’s 7-3 win over San Jose, Nikita Kucherov exploded for a goal and four assists. Kucherov is on another amazing run with 17 points over his last seven games. Kucherov also has multiple points in six consecutive games and goals in five consecutive games. You shouldn’t need us to tell you to start him.
We expected that kind of production from Kucherov. We didn’t expect Darren Raddysh to go off, though. Raddysh had his first career hat trick on Saturday, giving him nine goals in his last 12 games. Raddysh has taken the opportunity of Victor Hedman being out of the lineup and absolutely run with it. Raddysh’s scoring is way up from anything he has produced prior to this season, and his icetime is up over four minutes per game – a major chunk of it being power-play time.
Darren Raddysh leads all D-men with 31 points (in 24 games) since November 16th – 48 days ago. Next highest is Zach Werenski with 27 points.
List of PLAYERS with more points than Raddysh since NOV16:
McDavid.
Kucherov.
MacKinnon.
Celebrini.
Draisaitl.pic.twitter.com/IzB3Xi5C9z
— Jason Gold (@JayGold85) January 3, 2026
I wonder what will happen once Victor Hedman returns to the lineup, as he is expected to return in early February. For now, enjoy the ride. If Raddysh loses that top power-play time with Tampa’s big guns, then there is no way this current production is sustainable. In fact, he could end up with a Brandon Montour of 2022-23 type of season. That being said, the Bolts could decide to preserve Hedman a bit more for the playoffs and keep Raddysh in his current role, which would make it more likely that he can continue to produce and be more than a one-season wonder.
From the Sharks’ side of things, Pavol Regenda scored all three goals. Who? Regenda was recalled by the Sharks for two games in early December and scored two goals. Then he was recalled again on New Year’s Eve, then recorded the hat trick in his fourth game this season. Regenda is not on Macklin Celebrini‘s line like Igor Chernyshov (who was held without a point on Saturday. In fact, his linemates on Saturday were Jeff Skinner and Ty Dellandrea. On top of that, Regenda was held to just nine minutes of icetime on Saturday and has not reached 15 minutes in any of his four games. Just in case you thought he might be the next Chernyshov and you are already thinking that Chernyshov is so last week.
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Matthew Schaefer‘s rookie season continues to be a memorable one. Schaefer’s second goal of the game was the overtime winner for the Islanders, giving him four points in his last three games and 12 goals on the season. Schaefer is on pace for 55 points as an 18-year-old defenseman, which is something I didn’t see coming at all. This kid is already the real deal. I wonder if Canada would have fared any better at last year’s World Juniors had Schaefer not suffered a broken collarbone in the second game.
On top of that, Schaefer admitted that he was feeling under the weather before the game, which makes Saturday’s performance even more remarkable.
Auston Matthews scored two goals, which made him the all-time goals leader in Maple Leafs history. With 421 goals, Matthews has now surpassed Mats Sundin for the team record, doing so in about 300 fewer games. Underwhelming for much of the season, Matthews has come on recently with six goals and 10 points in his last four games. The fact that he is getting more shots on net seems to be making a difference, as he is averaging over six shots per game over those four games.
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Tom Wilson left Saturday’s game against Chicago with a lower-body injury. Wilson appeared to injure his foot or ankle after a collision with Connor Murphy near the boards and limped off the ice. After the game, coach Spencer Carbery said that he doesn’t think Wilson’s injury is “too bad”, which seems like good news for his prospects for the Olympics. The Capitals’ next game is on Monday against Anaheim, so you might need to quickly find an alternative option for next week. Here is what happened.
Cannot see the right side but purely based on pattern recognition, these types of falls often result in high ankle sprains
Mechanism also stresses MCL
Time off for both depends on severity
Hopefully a positive update after Tom Wilson has an MRI tomorrow https://t.co/XSqCBTuzn8
— Dr. Harjas Grewal (@Harjas_Grewal) January 4, 2026
Also for the Capitals, Aliaksei Protas missed Saturday’s game after being a late scratch with a lower-body injury.
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Wilson wasn’t the only Olympic-bound player to suffer an injury on Saturday. Devon Toews left Saturday’s game briefly after he was tripped and slid into the boards, but he was able to return to the game. This might be worth monitoring anyway, as I’ve seen a few players return to games after an injury, then miss games after that when the injury turned out to be worse than expected. Even though he has just 13 points in 40 games, Toews is still rostered in over half of Yahoo and Fantrax leagues. He has an amazing plus/minus, as do many of the Avs, but don’t feel like you have to keep him around based on past performance.
In the Avalanche’s (Nordiques) 5-3 win, Nathan MacKinnon dominated as usual with a goal and three assists. Nate Dogg has piled up 13 points over his last four games. McDavid, Kucherov, and MacKinnon are all doing their thing right now. With all the uncertainty in the world today, at least you can count on them scoring.
Selected to the U.S. Olympic roster, Brock Nelson scored a pair of power-play goals with seven shots. Nelson now has seven points over his last four games. He has also recently found his way onto Colorado’s top power play, which is boosting his value.
The Avalanche have now won 10 games in a row, but that doesn’t seem to be as big of a deal as when the Sabres do it.
Sebastian Aho led the Hurricanes (Whalers) with a goal and an assist and seven shots. Over his last six games, Aho has 11 points.
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In the Senators’ 4-2 win over Winnipeg, Thomas Chabot scored two goals. The goals were Chabot’s first since October 25, although he has missed some time due to injury this season.
With an assist, Tim Stutzle extended his point streak to 12 games. Over that span, Stutzle has 19 points, including eight goals.
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Michael Bunting led the Predators with a goal and three assists in their 4-3 win over Calgary on Saturday. The Bunting/Erik Haula/Steven Stamkos line combined for eight points in this game, as Haula had two goals and Stamkos had two assists.
Stamkos in Quarter 1: 20 GP, 4 G, 1 A, 5 PTS
Stamkos in Quarter 2: 21 GP, 14 G, 9 A, 23 PTS
That’s why patience is a virtue. I dropped Stamkos in one league when he was ice cold. However, I just added him in another league about a week ago. I’ll try not to be so quick to drop him this time, although the second league is a shallower league. Stamkos may not ever reach his peak years in Tampa Bay again, but he seems to be worth rostering in just about every league again.
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Fraser Minten‘s second goal of the game was the overtime winner for the Bruins in a 3-2 win over the Canucks. Minten now has multiple points in back-to-back games, and he also took five shots in Saturday’s game. Minten, who was part of the return in the Brandon Carlo trade to Toronto, was playing on a line with David Pastrnak in this game. Minten is only 21 years old and isn’t buried too far down the Bruins depth chart, so he could make some noise this season. For more on Minten, see his Dobber Prospects profile.
The Canucks decided to give Tom Willander a try on the top power play on Saturday. Although he did not record a point in this game, Willander logged a season-high 21 minutes. He has been fairly productive recently with points in three consecutive games prior to Saturday. Willander doesn’t have the scoring upside of Zeev Buium, but both are former first-round picks and both form a major part of the Canucks’ future. For more on Willander, see his Dobber Prospects profile.
With a power-play goal and an assist, Filip Hronek has nine points over his last nine games, which was about how long ago Quinn Hughes was traded. Expect the Canucks to lean on Hronek even more than ever. That was the case on Saturday, when Hronek played 30 minutes. Even if he’s not necessarily on the top power play, Hronek should continue to be productive in multicategory leagues based on total icetime. By the way, Hronek is now tied with Elias Pettersson for the team lead in scoring (25 points), although Pettersson has played in eight fewer games.
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Enjoy the World Juniors! Follow me on X @Ian_Gooding and Bluesky @goodsfantasyhockey.bsky.social