Risers and Fallers: Bay Area On The Up and Up

It’ll be interesting to see if the Santagiulia venue will actually be ready to go for the ‘26 Winter Olympics in Italy. Based on the most recent pictures I’ve seen it doesn’t seem all that close. As someone who works in Building and Codes, I have decent concern, as there’s no viable Plan B per Andrea Francisi, the chief games operations officer.

Most Olympic ice is “seasoned” for the likes of a year prior to the games. Athletes will be lucky to skate it once before the women's competition starts on Feb. 5th. Allegedly, test events will be held in the month of January but that’s a minute window to get everything dialed in.

Utah and Seattle offer the most optimal schedules to stream from this week with all four of their respective games falling on off nights. Utah happens to have the most off-night games of any franchise in the month of December. Something to remember for all your positional needs.

Risers

MacKenzie Blackwood

The former Adirondack Thunder has officially shaken off the rust of injury return, rattling off back-to-back shutouts in his past three starts. Although Scott Wedgewood is performing admirably forcing Jared Bednar to deploy a timeshare, this is where you “follow the contract.”

Sooner or later Blackwood is taking back this crease. I will admit that this is absolutely a 50/50 timeshare for the time being though. But Wedgewood is 33 years old and has started 25 games or more only twice in his career. My money says he hits the wall eventually.

Yaroslav Askarov

Ten quality starts in the last eleven tilts. That’s why the young Russian was one of the rarer and rarer first round selected netminders. During the month of November he posted only one performance below a .910 SV%.

San Jose is fast on the rise with the twin attack of young guns Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith. There is still maybe a window for you to acquire the former Nashville Predator before everyone wakes up and realizes the Bay Area has a wagon on their hands.

Jeremy Swayman

I stand corrected, maybe he is fit for a workhorse load. Jamming my words right back down my throat, the Beantown pipe tender has ten quality starts in his last ten. Maybe not as impressive as Yaroslav above but the Maine product never fell below a .900 SV% in November.

Boston is performing far better than most pundits expected with the rapid ascension of goal scoring dynamo, Morgan Geekie, along fellow biscuit burier, David Pastrnak. They’re back in the mix it seems even with Charlie McAvoy assumingly out long term.

Fallers

Kevin Lankinen

If there’s a silver lining here it’s that coming off a six day layoff, he had a nice start against the Kings this past Saturday. Prior to this though, he was laying eggs more often than not in the back half of November.

Last season’s performance was a great story but it may be too tall an order to replicate in ‘25-’26. The Canucks are simply not as good as I thought they might be, going 2-5-3 in their last ten. The former Chicago Blackhawk is just not good enough to steal games often for a mediocre squad unfortunately.

Carl Lindbom

Carter Hart has arrived and the 22-year-old only collected one win in his seven starts. There’s no need for a lengthy explanation here. Between Hart and Akira Schmid in front of him, the young Swede is cooked.

Jordan Binnington

I have not been surprised by the mediocrity of his performance(s) for several years now. Nobody should be shocked when you see he had all of three quality starts in the month of November.

Yes, he can absolutely rise up and have lights out games. But they’re too sporadic throughout the season to wait on. Leaving your goaltending fate in his incapable pads is a dangerous game to play. The volume angle isn’t holding too much weight anymore either with Joel Hofer’s 13 starts to Jordan’s 18.

Other Thoughts

Everyone please watch Sidney Crosby every chance you have and appreciate his greatness before he’s gone.

Sam Bennett is finally getting going.

Mats Zuccarello can still play at a high level. Saw his first NHL goal (OTW) in person against Carolina back in ‘11. Time flies.

Victor Hedman who? Darren Raddysh is a unit.

Jamie Benn looks like he hasn’t missed a beat in his return from injury.

Luke Evangelista is heating up. Desperately needed evolution of a young player for Nashville.

Tough break for Tyson Foerster. The kid will be an elite goal scorer in this league. Have him on your list for next year’s draft(s).

Despite Roman Josi’s return, Nick Blankenburg is remaining fantasy relevant lately.

The tide is turning for Buffalo; 6-4 in their last ten.

Toronto being one of the better goals for squads yet at the bottom of the Atlantic speaks to how anemic they are defensively.