Ramblings: Laine to IR, Sanheim signs long-term, string of debuts (14 Oct)

Many storylines emerge very early in the season, including injuries, debuts with new teams and even a signing. I’ll cover the ones that seem to stand out, at least from a fantasy perspective.

One game was all it took Patrik Laine to hit injured reserve. The Blue Jackets winger is expected to be out for the next 3-4 weeks with a sprained elbow. Laine was injured in Columbus’ opener against Carolina on Wednesday, likely after colliding with Brett Pesce. Obviously, the anticipated Laine-Johnny Gaudreau magic will now have to be put on hold, while Boone Jenner stock is likely to fall somewhat.

The player who rose to CBJ’s top powerplay unit after Laine left the game was… Justin Danforth? Yes, the box score shows that. Not only that, but acc @JacketsInsider on Twitter, Danforth was online with Gaudreau and Jenner during Thursday’s practice. Not what I was expecting either way, but Danforth could deserve a pickup in lower leagues if he can maintain those first units while Laine is out. Danforth only had 14 points in 45 games last season, although 10 of those points were goals. He’s a 29-year-old, 5-9 undrafted forward who’s spent some time in the KHL and ECHL, so he arrives with virtually no pedigree (and a potentially nice history).

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The Flyers have renewed Travis Sanheim for eight years and $50 million. For those in salary-capped leagues who need to plan ahead, that’s an increase of just over $1.5 million per season.

This signing doesn’t have much impact otherwise in fantasy leagues. To give you an idea, Sanheim is only ranked 2% in the Yahoo leagues. From a real hockey perspective, the number of 7-8 year contracts appears to be on the rise, with this signing and yesterday’s Mattias Samuelsson contract being two examples of non-star players clinching the big tenure. Teams are taking a bet that these defenders will advance as hoped and that the cap hit will be a steal once the salary cap rises, especially as the cost of the top 4 defender is typically high. Whether this is an effective strategy will only be found out in years to come.

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In perhaps the least surprising result of the day, the Penguins defeated the Coyotes 6-2, which included three first-half goals. Now in his team record 18^th season with Pittsburgh, Sidney Crosby scored one goal and added two assists with seven shots on goal. At the age of 35, Crosby hasn’t shown many signs of slowing down.

I said in preseason that the Arizona games look like they’re going to be freebies for their opponents. After that effort, I’ll double down on saying they could be historically bad this season for a team that isn’t a freshman. If you’ve got anything invested in Coyotes players, Nick Ritchie (remember him, Leafs fans?) hit two power-play goals, with defensemen Shayne Gostisbehere and JJ Moser assisting on both.

With Nick Schmaltz leaving this game early with an upper-body injury, the Coyotes’ first unit power play consisted of Clayton Keller, Travis Boyd, Ritchie, Gostisbehere and Moser. I can’t imagine them accumulating the power play points, but for what it’s worth, they’re all in an NHL team’s PP1 unit. Do what you want with it.

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From one potential lottery team to another, someone has to score in Philly this season. In John Tortorella’s debut as coach of the Flyers, it was Travis Konecny ​​and Morgan Frost. Both scored twice in the 5-2 win over New Jersey. Tony DeAngelo also made his Flyers debut, giving up two assists. We’ll likely see the frustrated version of Torts a lot this season, but for today at least, everyone in Philadelphia is upbeat and merry.

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The Senators debuts of Alex DeBrincat and former Flyer Claude Giroux weren’t quite as successful, as both were kept off the scoring charts in a 4-1 loss in Buffalo. DeBrincat has given at least seven shots to players in multicat leagues, so at least that.

Victor Olofsson scored two empty goals while firing six shots. Perhaps more notably, he was at the helm with Tage Thompson and Jeff Skinner. That was the spot Alex Tuch occupied for most of last season. Tuch was level with former first-round picks Casey Mittelstadt and Jack Quinn. Olofsson only features in 14% of Yahoo’s leagues so it might be worth catching a flight from him at the moment.

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Until one of the goalies can become Johnny Bower’s (or maybe even Felix Potvin?) second coming, Leafs Nation will be constantly worrying about the goalkeeping situation. Following Matt Murray’s disappointing result on Wednesday, it was Ilya Samsonov’s turn for his first start with the Leafs – against his former team. Luckily for Samsonov and the Leafs, things went better as he saved 24 of 26 shots to earn the 3-2 win over Washington. Expect both goalies to share starts if they get their feet wet in the pressure cooker environment. However, as the season progresses, expect Sheldon Keefe to be riding the hot hand.

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Another debut: Matthew Tkachuk scored an empty goal in his first game as a Panther to win 3-1. Tkachuk stood in what appeared to be the second line of the Panthers with Sam Bennett and Rudolfs Balcers, while Aleksander Barkov centered the top line with Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe.

Sportsnet showed a comparison of this season’s Panthers roster versus the end of last season, and one of their analysts even went so far as to claim that they won’t make the playoffs this season. I felt that was a bit unfair considering some of the losses (Giroux, Ben Chiarot) were rents acquired as of the reporting date after Florida was already at the top of the standings. Even if Calgary beat their blockbuster trade in the offseason, the Panthers will be fine.

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Another player the Panthers lost was Mason Marchment, who impressed with two goals on five shots in his Stars debut. Marchment starred with Tyler Seguin and Ty Dellandrea in what appeared to be the second tier of stars. Seguin contributed three assists.

In his first NHL game, 19-year-old Wyatt Johnston scored his first NHL goal, which was also a power play marker. Johnston and Stars new signing Nils Lundkvist, assisting on goal, formed the Stars’ second power-play unit. Johnston was in what appeared to be the third row of stars with Jamie Benn and Denis Gurianov. He might be worth a look down leagues, but remember he’s also currently in the nine-game trial.

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Put Alexis Lafreniere on a goal line and he might just thrive. Lafreniere recorded two assists in the first period when he played on Artemi Panarin’s line. It’s only one game, but Panarin and Vincent Trocheck could be the right combination for Lafreniere to start his third NHL season. Panarin did his thing, scoring one goal and adding three assists, three of those points coming in the first period.

Is Chris Kreider on your all-bust team like some of the Dobber writers? That’ll have to wait another day, as last season’s surprise 50-goal scorer scored twice in Rangers’ 7-3 win in Minnesota.

Not the best game for Marc-Andre Fleury, who allowed seven goals in 35 shots.

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Nazem Kadri faced his old Colorado team in his first game with the Flames and received his Stanley Cup ring after the game. (In case you haven’t seen these yet Avalanche rings with their boxes, they pack a punch.) Kadri provided an assist for Tyler Toffoli’s power-play goal while running in line with Andrew Mangiapane and Dillon Dube for just under 18 minutes. If you don’t think Dube deserves to be there, check out these stats: