Welcome to Just the Stats with TSN Stats guy Kevin Gibson. Be sure to check back every Wednesday to find out who’s hot and who’s cold to help you set your fantasy lineup.

Trivia Question: Who was the last team New Jersey Devils goaltender Corey Schneider got a win against? (Answer below)

Hot

- Alexander Ovechkin picked up his first hat trick of the season on Tuesday night. It was also his first career hat trick versus Detroit. Ovechkin has 21 career hat tricks and now has managed to get one against 13 different teams. Ovechkin has multiple hat tricks against seven teams, with a high of three against the Ottawa Senators. He’s been on fire since mid-November with 13 goals in his last 12 games. He also has 25 goals in his last 30 games played, which puts him on pace for 68 this season. If Ovechkin does score 68 this season, it will give him 676 career goals – 218 shy of Wayne Gretzky’s record of 894. Ovie will be 34 at the start of next season, which means he will need to average 44 goals in each of the next five seasons to pass the Great One.

- Vancouver Canucks rookie Elias Pettersson has three goals and seven assists over his past four games, including his second five-point game of the season this past Sunday. The last Canucks player with two five-point games in a season was Alexander Mogilny back in the 1995-96 season. Pettersson’s hot hand has helped the Canucks win three games in a row, which is tied for their longest win streak on the season. Next up for the Canucks is a trip to Nashville on Thursday night, a place where they’ve won once in their past four games.

- Edmonton captain Connor McDavid has 43 points on the season, while the Oilers have scored 87 goals. McDavid has been in on just about 50 per cent of all Oilers’ goals this season, the highest percentage of any player in the league this season. Edmonton has won the last seven games McDavid has played in (he missed one with the flu), and he has points in six straight games (four goals, six assists). The Oilers have won four straight games and seven of their past eight. The Oilers are 8-2-1 under new coach Ken Hitchcock, giving up 2.27 goals against per game in that span – second best in the NHL over that span. Unfortunately, the Oilers don’t even have the best goals against per game in Alberta during that time. Calgary is slightly better at 2.20.

- The Tampa Bay Lightning have more wins (four) in the past week then the Chicago Blackhawks have in the past six weeks. Tampa has won seven straight, averaging more than five goals per game with their power play clicking at 39 per cent in that span. The Lightning host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night in the first meeting between the division rivals this season. It will be a tall order for the Leafs as Tampa Bay is 18-2-0 versus the Eastern Conference this season. Nikita Kucherov went the first two games of the season without a point, but he’s found the scoresheet in 25 of the 30 games since. Kucherov has an eight-game point streak at home (two goals and 12 assists).

Cold

- There’s good news and bad news for the Blackhawks. The bad news is they’ve lost eight games in a row. The good news is they play the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday, a team they’ve beaten eight straight times. Tuesday saw Chicago lose their eighth straight game, running the celebration for Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith, who were playing their 1,000th game together – a first in NHL history by defencemen. How bad are things in Chicago? The Blackhawks opened the season 6-2-2. Since then they are 3-16-3, averaging just over two goals a game while surrendering nearly four goals against per game. 

- New Jersey Devils goaltender Corey Schneider hasn’t won a game in almost a calendar year. His last win was on Dec. 27, 2017, which was the culmination of a five-game win streak. Since then he’s appeared in 20 games, going 0-15-3 (the Devils are 0-17-3 in that span). Schneider started in 18 of the 20 games and appeared twice in relief – both games against Tampa where the Lightning were easily winning. In those 18 starts, Schneider has a 4.15 goals-against average and a save percentage of .864. The Devils lost 10 of the 18 games by one goal. Eight-seven goalies have won at least one game since Schneider’s last victory, including Edward Pasquale (Tampa Bay) and Thatcher Demko (Vancouver), who both have a single career start.

Answer: The Detroit Red Wings on Dec. 27, 2017.

Kevin Gibson has been TSN’s Stats Guy for more than a decade. He has also written many non-leather-bound books. Follow him on Twitter @TSNResearch.