Connor McDavid is looking a little trimmer these days.

The Edmonton Oilers captain is down at least 5 lbs, and maybe as many as 10, following a recent two-week battle with the flu, according to TSN's Darren Dreger.

McDavid typically clocks in at 6-foot-1 and 192 lbs, according to the team's official site.

"He's been sick for a week to 10 days now," Oilers coach Todd McLellan told Dreger. "He's starting to feel better, but we'll monitor his practice time."

While the illness may have McDavid feeling under the weather while away from the rink, it's seemingly had little impact on his on-ice performance, as the superstar forward has pocketed nine points in his past five outings.

McDavid is currently running a three-game point streak, in which he has collected a goal and five assists. He'll have the chance to add to that total Friday when the Oilers take on the Buffalo Sabres.

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Nazem Kadri wants to make it clear that he didn't mean to hit the penalty-box attendant with the butt end of his stick Wednesday night.

"I feel terrible about it," the Toronto Maple Leafs forward told reporters on Thursday, via TSN. "It's an emotional game and I kind of got out of control. I didn't even realize I hit him until I saw the replay afterward. I must have apologized to him a thousand times in the penalty box... There's no excuse for it. It won't happen again."

The incident took place late in Wednesday's shootout loss to the Florida Panthers, when Kadri couldn't control his frustration after taking a cross-checking penalty in the final minute of regulation time.

"It was a total accident," he added. "I didn't mean to hit him at all. That's the last thing I was thinking about. I was just trying to take out my frustrations on a water bottle. I was super apologetic. I feel bad and it's never going to happen again."

NHL director of hockey operations Colin Campbell and his department took "a good look" at the incident Wednesday night, but will likely issue nothing more than a warning, TSN's Darren Dreger reports.

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The Edmonton Oilers and Buffalo Sabres have both underachieved this season, but neither Connor McDavid nor Jack Eichel should be singled out for his club's poor showing out of the gate.

The top two picks from the 2015 draft will meet Friday night for the third time in their young NHL careers, as their clubs look to change the narratives that developed in the first quarter of the 2017-18 campaign.

Eichel is used to the Sabres losing by now, and he's vocalized his displeasure with it repeatedly, but this is new territory for McDavid - at least when the Oilers captain has been healthy.

Edmonton expected to take another step forward this season, and many pegged the Oilers as locks to make the Stanley Cup Final, but they sit second-last in the paltry Pacific Division.

Despite their poor start, McDavid hasn't missed a beat. He's tied for fifth in the NHL in assists (18), ranks sixth in points (28), and has scored 10 goals in 22 games. While Edmonton's managed only eight wins in that span, he hasn't experienced any significant slumps, and he's been particularly effective recently, with nine points in his last five contests.

His performance checks out from an analytics perspective, too. McDavid has driven possession with an even-strength Corsi For percentage of 56.29 and a Relative Corsi For mark of 3.31 percent. While other stars are generating more scoring opportunities, he's created a respectable 10.64 individual scoring chances per 60 minutes.

Though Eichel hasn't been as good, his team has also been much worse. The Sabres have lost seven consecutive games, sit in the basement of the Atlantic Division, and have a better record than only one other NHL club - the lowly Arizona Coyotes.

Buffalo wasn't expecting to make a significant leap in 2017-18, but a new general manager, a new head coach, a reinforced defensive corps, and a healthy Eichel to start the campaign had the Sabres predicting some improvement.

That hasn't happened from a club perspective, but Eichel has arguably done his part, with 18 points in 22 games.

One criticism of the 21-year-old's play has been that he hasn't scored enough. That's fair, since he only has six goals, but he hasn't been shooting as much this fall (69 shots on goal, or 3.13 per game) as he did last season, when he averaged more than four shots on goal in 61 contests.

Eichel lit the lamp Wednesday night in a loss to the Minnesota Wild, but he clearly can't do it all himself. As a team, the Sabres rank 30th in goals for, with a mere 2.36 per game.

Neither young star has enough help from his supporting cast, and that's the real problem. While Eichel could be scoring a bit more, neither player should be the scapegoat for his team's difficult start.

Both players are still appointment viewing every night they take the ice, and even more so when they face each other. Friday's matchup gives the two franchise cornerstones another chance to show it, and should serve as another reminder that they're not to blame.

(Analytics courtesy: Corsica Hockey and Natural Stat Trick)

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When an offense is scuffling - at almost any level - the first thing a coach will do to try and kickstart his group is shake up the forward lines.

Even though the Columbus Blue Jackets had won three straight games (albeit scoring only six goals), head coach John Tortorella opted to put 19-year-old Pierre-Luc Dubois between Artemi Panarin and Josh Anderson for Monday's game in Buffalo. Given that the plan was to bring the young Dubois along slowly on the wing to start his career rather than his natural position of center, it was a pretty surprising development.

Nonetheless, the trio has sported an impressive 60.38 Corsi For and 61.83 Expected Goals For percentage while playing together. Despite the line's success, Tortorella couldn't offer an explanation as to why they've clicked.

"I don't know (why it's working)," Tortorella told The Athletic's Aaron Portzline. "I don't know. If I thought it was gonna work, I would have tried it a lot earlier, before three other guys. You just never know."

Prior to putting Dubois alongside Panarin, the latter had spent most of the season with Alexander Wennberg or Nick Foligno as his center.

When asked about the science of line structuring as a whole, Tortorella, as always, wasn't shy about sharing his opinion.

"It's a bunch of bullshit," he said. "I get a kick out of us, as coaches, we talk about this, that and the other thing. 'This is what I'm looking for with that line.' It's a bunch of bullshit. We try things, and if it works, it works.

"We talked in the summer, how we were going to handle (Dubois). Is it too much for him at center, too much responsibility? Let's bring him in slowly as a wing. There you go … coaching. Half the time we don't even know what we're doing until something works. It wasn't working with Nick. I didn't like it with Wenny. Luc was finding his game while we were trying different things. The other night I just said, 'Let’s try 'em.' And there you go."

Tortorella is basically admitting that finding the right line combinations is like throwing a dart at a dartboard and hoping you hit the bulls-eye.

With five wins in a row and a spot atop the Metro Division standings, Tortorella surely doesn't care how his lines fall together, as long as his club keeps winning.

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The NHL's expansion to Vegas has been a great success story thus far, but not everyone is exactly filled with glee. Each of the other 30 NHL teams lost a player in the expansion draft process, and three teams in particular likely wish the Golden Knights went a different route with their selection.

Blue Jackets, William Karlsson

The Blue Jackets are one of the league's best teams, but their biggest flaw is their depth down the middle. Nick Foligno, who had been primarily a winger for his entire 10-year career heading into this season, has been forced to play center. Alexander Wennberg enjoyed a breakout campaign last year, but has struggled mightily this season.

Karlsson averaged just 13:23 minutes with the Jackets in 2016-17, but is enjoying a tremendous season of his own in a larger role, centering the Knights' top line. The 24-year-old has 10 goals and eight assists in 20 games. Defensively, he ranks second on the team with 19 takeaways and owns a 53.1 Corsi For percentage, despite starting over 55 percent of his shifts in the defensive zone.

Karlsson's strong play is essentially the reason why the Golden Knights didn't need Vadim Shipachyov.

Penguins, Marc-Andre Fleury

(Photo courtesy: Action Images)

Fleury has played only four games due to injury, but he has been sharp in the small sample size, owning a 3-1 record with a .925 save percentage and a 2.48 goals-against average.

Meanwhile, the Penguins have been unable to find a reliable backup netminder. Antti Niemi, Casey DeSmith, and Tristan Jarry have combined for an .839 save percentage.

Matt Murray has started 19 of the team's 23 games, but appears to either be fatigued by the larger workload, or enduring a possible sophomore slump. Regardless, his .907 save percentage and 2.88 goals-against average are both worse than the league average.

Being able to turn to a veteran like Fleury to give Murray a breather is a luxury the Penguins certainly still wish they had.

Capitals, Nate Schmidt

(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)

Boy oh boy could the Capitals ever use a puck-mover like Schmidt on their blue line right about now. Thanks to the losses of Schmidt, Kevin Shattenkirk, and Karl Alzner in the offseason, and an injury that has kept Matt Niskanen out for most of the year, the Caps' blue line has been in shambles.

Both John Carlson and Dmitry Orlov are smashing their previous career high in average time on ice. Even 37-year-old Brooks Orpik is playing 22 minutes per night.

After allowing the fewest goals in the league last year, the Caps have allowed the seventh-most this season.

Meanwhile, Schmidt leads the Golden Knights in ice time, ranks third on the team in assists, and is on pace for 41 points.

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They weren't built like any previous expansion team, but their solid start is still impressive.

The Vegas Golden Knights rallied from a two-goal deficit to stun the Anaheim Ducks 4-2 on Wednesday night, matching the NHL record with 13 wins in the first 20 games of their inaugural season.

Only the Montreal Canadiens won as many through the first 20 contests of their opening campaign in 1917-18, going 13-7-0. The Golden Knights have gone 13-6-1.

Vegas moved into first place in the Pacific Division with 27 points, leapfrogging the slumping Los Angeles Kings, who fell to the Winnipeg Jets.

It's early, but that point total certainly bodes well.

The Golden Knights have had the fifth-easiest schedule among the NHL's 31 teams early on, according to Hockey Reference's strength of schedule metric, and the Pacific is the least competitive of the four groups in the standings.

Still, they've pulled this off despite losing multiple goaltenders to injury, and that's made them one of the NHL's best stories so far.

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There were some harsh words for Anthony Mantha on Wednesday night.

The Red Wings forward received the brunt of his coach's criticism following Detroit's 6-2 blowout loss to the Edmonton Oilers.

Mantha skated for just under 19 minutes, but was held off the scoresheet as he wrapped up the night with three shots and a minus-one rating.

That performance, or lack thereof, didn't sit well with Red Wings bench boss Jeff Blashill.

"It's a hard league if you don't show up with shift-to-shift intensity every single night," Blashill told reporters following the loss. "We've got some young guys that have really helped in our success, when we've had success, but with those types of minutes comes big-time responsibility.

"Anthony Mantha has got to be way better. Way better. It's not okay to just be a passenger when you're given the opportunity to be an impact player."

Mantha has been one of the Red Wings' top performers this season, as he leads the team with 10 goals and sits one point behind Dylan Larkin for top spot in club scoring. However, he failed to produce against Edmonton.

"(Mantha) is not alone, but he's a guy who I said to at the beginning of the year, 'For us to be great, you've got to be great,'" Blashill added. "He's gone through large stretches of being great. He hasn't been great the last two games."

The 23-year-old will soon have the opportunity to redeem himself, as the Red Wings face off against the New York Rangers on Friday.

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P.K. Subban apparently goaded former teammate Brendan Gallagher into taking an extra penalty during a brawl in the third period of Wednesday's contest.

Related - Watch: Predators, Canadiens get into heated brawl

During the altercation, the Montreal Canadiens forward gave Subban a face wash - one the Nashville Predators defenseman admitted was likely the result of him chirping Gallagher's size.

"I called him short, he didn't like that too much," Subban told Sportsnet's Kyle Bukauskas postgame. "When I was talking to him I was just kind of looking over his head and I didn't think he'd like that too much. So I took the face wash, sometimes you've got to take it. Fortunately he got the extra minutes so that's why I was smiling."

Subban and Gallagher were each assessed a two-minute minor for roughing on the play, while Gallagher was also given a minor for unsportsmanlike conduct on Kyle Turris.

In the end, the Predators prevailed in a shootout, adding insult to injury for Gallagher and the Canadiens - who dropped their fifth straight game.

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