Andrei Vasilevskiy has been moved to the injured reserve, according to reporter Diandra Loux. He is set to miss at least the next couple of games, but it’s not all bad news as both Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov were back in Tampa Bay’s lineup on Monday night.

Tampa was in Toronto for that game and the Maple Leafs got a very good goaltending performance from Dennis Hildeby, who stopped all 29 shots he faced for 2-0 shutout win. That is Hildeby’s first career shutout and the first shutout from Toronto goaltending this season.

Morgan Rielly jumped into the slot late in the first period and tucked home a nice backhand goal for his fifth tally of the season, which would hold up as the game-winner. Auston Matthews sealed the game with an empty-net tally with one second left on the block. Rielly finished with the goal on three shots and a block.

Jonas Johansson played well but took the loss in net for the Lightning, giving up the lone goal on 23 shots faced. Both Gage Goncalves and Bobby McMann were ejected from the game, the former for a kneeing major and the latter for a slash to the head. We will see if the Department of Player Safety has anything to say about either incident (they won’t).

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Utah announced that Logan Cooley will be out indefinitely following his crash into the goal post in Vancouver on Friday night. Hopefully this isn’t too serious when all is said and done, but the ‘indefinite’ tag is not a great sign. J.J. Peterka should be receiving some more PP1 time as he has lately, but we will see how long it lasts.

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Steve Conroy reported that David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy will both be on the trip with Boston as they head to St. Louis, Minnesota, and Winnipeg this week. There is no guarantee that either play in any of the games, but it certainly looks as if they have a good chance at getting into the lineup sometime this week.

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On the good-news injury front for Vancouver, winger Nils Hoglander returned from his lower-body injury that had kept him out of the lineup all season.  

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For the first time in over two years, the Calgary Flames put up seven goals as they brought the hammer down on Buffalo by a 7-4 margin. Both Yegor Sharangovich (2+1) and Nazem Kadri (1+2) had three-point games, Yan Kuznetsov posted a goal and an assist, and Matt Coronato registered a pair of helpers in the win.

Rasmus Andersson and Mikael Backlund had the other tallies. Andersson finished with four shots, three blocks, and two PIMs in this matchup. He is up to 5 goals, 12 assists, 36 shots, and 35 blocks over the last four weeks.

Goalie Dustin Wolf earned the win with 25 saves on 29 shots.

Rasmus Dahlin managed a goal and an assist in the loss while Owen Power, Alex Tuch, and Tage Thompson all got in the goal column.

Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen was pulled after giving up five goals on 22 shots.

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Joel Armia scored twice, Adrian Kempe managed a goal and an assist, and Anze Kopitar also scored as the Kings took a 4-2 win in Utah. Armia totaled four shots and a block in a solid multi-cat night. Los Angeles goaltender Darcy Kuemper earned the win by stopping 19 of the 21 pucks sent his way.

Clayton Keller managed a goal and an assist in the loss while Dylan Guenther also scored. Mammoth goalie Karel Vejmelka gave up three goals on 26 shots in defeat.

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John Gibson had a huge game in net for Detroit as the Red Wings went into Vancouver and escaped with a 4-0 win. Gibson stopped all 39 shots against for his first shutout since January of 2023, a span of 117 games.

Solitary goals were scored by Andrew Copp, Dylan Larkin, Nate Danielson, and James van Riemsdyk. Defenceman Axel Sandin-Pellikka managed a pair of assists and now has points in three straight games (four assists) and is up to 10 points in 30 games on the campaign.

Canucks goalie Kevin Lankinen was pulled after giving up three goals on 13 shots.

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Joel Eriksson Ek managed his first three-point game of the season with one goal in six shots, adding a pair of assists, and totaling over 21 minutes of ice time in Minnesota’s 4-1 win in Seattle. This is hopefully the start of Eriksson Ek righting the ship after a slow start largely driven by shooting percentage.

Kirill Kaprizov, Marcus Johansson, and Vladimir Tarasenko also scored for the Wild. Winger Matt Boldy managed an assist, two shots, three blocks, two PIMs, and a hit in a great multi-cat night.

Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson held the Canucks to one goal on 24 shots for his eighth win in his 19th start.

Jordan Eberle scored the lone Kraken goal while netminder Philipp Grubauer allowed just two goals on 27 shots but took the loss.

Mats Zuccarello took a hard hit early in the game, left the ice, and did not return.

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Here at Dobber Hockey, players we like to keep an eye on are those approaching-or-exceeding the 200-game breakout threshold. They are younger players that have had (parts of) 2-3 seasons in the league and are hopefully starting to find their game. They get close to that 200-games played mark, have a big second half, and then they are full-fledged fantasy stars the next year. It is worth checking on which players will meet that requirement in the second half of the 2025-26 season and are showing signs of life. These are players fantasy managers will want to keep an eye on over the next month or so and either acquire in a trade or grab off the waiver wire.

We are going to focus on two forwards today with data from Evolving Hockey and tracking data from All Three Zones: William Eklund and Jack Quinn. Data current as of the afternoon of Monday, December 8th.

William Eklund (San Jose Sharks)

Yahoo – 35%; Fantrax – 83%; ESPN – 61%

Eklund reached the 200-game threshold on Sunday night in San Jose’s 4-1 win in Carolina. There is one big problem with his current fantasy profile and it’s that he’s not skating with Macklin Celebrini at 5-on-5. They are using Eklund and Alex Wennberg on the second line in a checking role and over the last two seasons, the Sharks score 3.1 goals per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 when Eklund is on the ice with Celebrini but just 2.2 goals/60 without him. That is a drastic drop from a very good first-line rate to a below-average rate.

That time away from Celebrini is crushing Eklund’s assist production as his rate of assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (0.64) is less than half what it was last year (1.30). In fact, after averaging 26 even-strength assists per 82 games across 2023-2025, he is on pace for 16 this year.

All that shouldn’t overshadow the fact that he’s shooting the puck this year more than he ever has, both on a per-game and a 60-minute basis, and both at 5-on-5 and overall. On top of that, when looking at the 5-on-5 tracking data since the start of last season, three wingers pop up as comparable names by Scoring Chance Assists/60 minutes (SCA/60, or helpers on teammate chances), zone entries per 60 minutes, and percentage of zone entries carried in:

With those three stats, columns have been added for the average among each team’s forward group in that span, and the percentage above that average by each of those four players. Notice that Eklund has the 2nd highest percentage of SCA/60 relative to his team, the 2nd highest zone entry rate, and the highest carry percentage. He is the only player on this list to finish 1st or 2nd in each category relative to their team. In other words, not only is Eklund excelling when compared to a top winger like Clayton Keller, but he’s doing it in a much worse environment.

Therein lies the issue with Eklund. Until he gets Celebrini as a centre, there just isn’t another centre on the San Jose roster that can help boost Eklund’s assists. He can continue to improve on what has already been an upward trajectory to stardom, but if he’s skating with a centre that can’t score, and half a defence group that can’t move the puck, then acquiring him would be looking to the 2026-27 season and beyond, not the second half of the 2025-26 season.

Jack Quinn (Buffalo Sabres)

Yahoo – 3%; Fantrax – 34%; ESPN 2%

Quinn is a fascinating case because from 2022-2024, he averaged 2.33 points/60 minutes at 5-on-5 in 102 games played. That was a genuine top-line rate in line with names like Mikko Rantanen, Mark Stone, and Travis Konecny. Then he had an Achilles injury, some other injuries piled up, and he had a very down year in 2024-25 buoyed by some power-play production.

That has changed in 2025-26. His production has rebounded in a big way from 2024-25, increasing by 31% on a per-minute basis. His shot rate and expected goal rates have also jumped, but the biggest note is his playmaking. He currently sits with 1.3 primary assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, which ranks in the top-10 of the league among forwards with 250 minutes. It isn’t just luck, either, as his SCA/60 and high-danger pass rates are far-and-away career-bests while also having a career-high carried-entry percentage (combining 2022-23 and 2023-24 then looking at the last two individual seasons):

Of course, the sample here is about 58 minutes, but he has as many SCA (7) and HD Passes (3) in those 58 tracked minutes as he did in his entire 2024-25 sample. The fact that his primary assist rate is so high indicates to me that the high SCA/60 and HDPass/60 rates aren’t a function of just small-sample noise, but that he’s genuinely been a high-end playmaker to start this season.

Quinn passed the 200-game mark in late November. His problem is that while the Sabres aren’t a great team, they do have a lot of talented wingers in Alex Tuch, Zach Benson, Jason Zucker, Josh Doan, and Tage Thompson (depending how he’s used). It provides a lot of road blocks for Quinn earning more than the 16:29 per game he’s averaging now. However, depending on how the next couple months go, Tuch and Zucker may find themselves on new teams by the Trade Deadline. Quinn looks to be rounding into the player he showed the promise of being, but his true fantasy ascendence will have to wait at least until March, if not next season.