After a brief holiday break, the NHL returns to action on Friday. While the Canucks are only practicing today ahead of their Saturday matinee affair with the Seattle Kraken, there’s plenty of league-wide news to chew on, so let’s dive into it.

On Friday, Alex Ovechkin skated on the Washington Capitals’ top line and top power play unit. That would suggest he’s ready to return against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday, but Caps head coach Spencer Carbery was non-committal when asked about Ovechkin’s status for tomorrow.

“We will see,” Carbery told Monumental Sports Network’s Tarik El-Bashir. “Things are trending in the right direction. Cannot say he is in the lineup tomorrow. We’ll have to see how he responds to practice today. We’ll know tomorrow morning.”

Whatever the case, seeing Ovechkin back at practice is a welcome sight. The 39-year-old was making some great headway to start the season in his chase for Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goal-scoring record before going down with a fractured left fibula. The 16 games Ovechkin missed as a result of the injury is the longest absence of his career.

Impressively, the Capitals stayed afloat during their captain’s absence, as the team enters play today second in the Metropolitan Division with a 23-9-2 record. They sit just one point back of the New Jersey Devils for the top spot in the Metro. Prior to going down with his injury, Ovechkin was up to 15 goals through 18 games this season, with 10 assists along the way.

The Canucks are set to take on Ovechkin and the Capitals on January 8th in Washington.

Mackenzie Blackwood got paid on Friday, as the Colorado Avalanche announced that they had signed the 28-year-old netminder to a five-year contract extension with an annual average value of $5.25 million.

The Avs recently traded for Blackwood, as they finally said enough when it came to their well-documented goaltending issues. Blackwood was a pending unrestricted free agent as he is in the final season of his two-year contract that he signed with the Sharks on July 2023, which has a cap hit of $2.35 million.

The trade, which saw the Avs send Alexandar Georgiev, Nikolai Kovalenko, a 2nd-round 2026 pick, and a 2025 5th-rounder to San Jose, seems to be paying off for Colorado early on. Through four starts with the Avalanche, Blackwood has posted a .931 save percentage to go along with a 3-1-0 record.

The deal helps answer the question of what the market for a non-star goaltender will look like moving forward. We’ve seen goalies like Igor Shesterkin, Linus Ullmark, Jeremy Swayman, and Jake Oettinger all sign for big money this season, but a goalie like Blackwood getting $5.25 million certainly provides a comparable for a goaltender like Kevin Lankinen’s camp to use in contract negotiations.

Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews has been ruled out for the next two games, meaning he’s set to miss his 12th and 13th games of the season due to an upper-body injury. Matthews has recorded 11 goals and 23 points in his 24 games this year, and is still struggling to stay healthy despite travelling to Europe for another opinion on his injury.

In Minnesota, Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov didn’t travel with the team to Dallas and is day-to-day with a lower-body injury, per the Wild’s PR department.

Kaprizov has been one of the NHL’s top performers during the first three months of the season. In 34 games, he has tallied 23 goals and 27 assists, amassing 50 points. This places him tied for second in goals and tied for fourth in total points. Leading up to the holiday break, he recorded points in five of his last six games, notching five goals and seven points during that stretch. Remarkably consistent, the former fifth-round pick has been held without a point in just seven games so far this season.

The Russian star missed the Wild’s 4-3 shootout loss to the Calgary Flames on November 23rd with a lower-body injury as well. It was the only game Kaprizov had missed so far this season. Hopefully this is a brief absence for Kaprizov, who has yet to play a full NHL season through his first five years in the league.