Morning Briefing - September 25

TL;DR

• HOLD - Filip Chytil (VAN) day-to-day, upper body. Too valuable to cut on a preseason knock.
• HOLD - Seamus Casey (NJD) out indefinitely, lower body. Deep-league hold only.
• HOLD - Alex Lyon and Jiri Kulich (BUF) both left early; the club sounded optimistic on both.
• STREAM - Arvid Soderblom (CHI) stopped 35 of 36. Worth a look if Chicago names him for the opener.
• WATCH - Alex DeBrincat (DET) had eight shots on goal. Shots-category leagues take note.

Buffalo loses two more

HOLD · BUF · G, C

Alex Lyon left with an upper-body injury and did not return. Jiri Kulich came out as a precaution. Lindy Ruff sounded optimistic about both afterwards.

Neither is alarming alone. Together with Mattias Samuelsson and Olen Zellweger going down earlier this week, Buffalo has lost four bodies in a few days, and a club that thin at the back end is a worse fantasy environment for everyone on it - fewer clean exits, more time defending, lower point totals for the forwards.

Hold both. Kulich is the one with lineup consequences if it lingers; he had been working up the depth chart in camp and a missed opener would cost him that momentum. Lyon's exit matters mainly if Buffalo's crease plans change in the next week.

Chytil out day-to-day

HOLD · VAN · C/LW

Filip Chytil left Vancouver's game with an upper-body injury and will not return. He is day-to-day.

Hold. Preseason knocks with a day-to-day tag usually resolve inside a week, and Chytil's value comes from a middle-six role with power-play exposure that nobody is taking off him over one night. Centre eligibility makes the roster spot worth keeping even if he misses the opener.

Check tomorrow's report before setting a week-one lineup.

Casey out indefinitely

HOLD · NJD · D

Seamus Casey is out indefinitely with a lower-body injury.

"Indefinitely" a week from the opener means he is not playing in week one and the club does not want to guess beyond that. Casey was already behind Luke Hughes and Dougie Hamilton for power-play time in New Jersey, so this is a deep-league and dynasty problem rather than a standard-league one.

Hold through the week if you have the bench space and drop for a healthy body if you do not. The path to fantasy relevance ran through a power-play seat he was not going to win in September anyway.

Soderblom stakes a claim in Chicago

STREAM · CHI · G

Arvid Soderblom stopped 35 of 36 and finished +2.3 goals above what the chances he faced were worth.

The most actionable goalie item on the page. Chicago has not committed to a starter, and a 35-save night in the last week of camp is exactly the kind of performance that decides who gets the opener. Goalie wins and save percentage are cheap to acquire from an undrafted name, and Soderblom is undrafted in most formats.

DeBrincat fires eight

WATCH · DET · RW

Alex DeBrincat put eight shots on goal.

Eight in any game is a lot, and shots are a scoring category in most leagues, so this is worth noting even in preseason. What it does not do is change his projection - he is already drafted as a volume shooter on a top line, and one night does not add anything to that price. Debrincat is looking to improve on already a goal heavy 2025-26.

Chicago's top line generates, does not score

WATCH · CHI · RW

Roman Kantserov played with Frank Nazar and Patrick Kane and the line carried the run of play at five-on-five without scoring.

Kantserov opened camp on Chicago's first line and has stayed there, which is the part that matters - a rookie winger with Kane and Nazar has a real path to power-play exposure and top-six minutes. Worth a late pick or an early waiver claim in leagues where rookies go undrafted.

*One flag for the desk: our sheet shows him at 70th on expert boards against 261st in league drafts. A gap that size on an unproven rookie does not look like a market inefficiency, it looks like a prospect ranking being read as a fantasy ranking.

Jiricek pushing for a roster spot

WATCH · STL · D

Adam Jiricek was among the best players on the ice in St. Louis's 1-0 win and generated four shots on goal.

A prospect defenceman playing his way onto an opening roster is a dynasty note, not a standard-league move. Even if he makes the club, a third-pairing rookie without power-play time has no path to fantasy value in a normal season-long format.

Five goalies below expectation on the same night

NO ACTION · Multiple

Ville Husso (ANA), Justus Annunen (NSH), Laurent Brossoit (ANA), Pyotr Kochetkov (CAR) and Andrei Vasilevskiy (TBL) all finished between 2.3 and 3.4 goals worse than expected.

Five goalies missing by that much on one night is more likely to be our expected-goals model behaving oddly on preseason shot data than five goalies simultaneously forgetting how to play. Vasilevskiy's inclusion is the tell.

No action on any of them. Vasilevskiy in particular is not a preseason-form question, and nobody should be reconsidering a top-three goaltender over one exhibition night.

Heavy ice time, thin benches

NO ACTION · Multiple

Ty Emberson and Spencer Stastney (EDM), Scott Morrow (NYR), Hunter Brzustewicz (CGY) and Konsta Helenius (BUF) all logged more than 25 minutes.

This is what a short preseason bench looks like. Clubs dress partial rosters, the players who are there absorb the minutes of the players who are not, and the totals inflate accordingly. Helenius is a forward, which makes his 24:35 a bench-length artifact rather than a role.

None of it carries into October. If any of these names holds that workload in a full-strength lineup, that is the item worth writing.