A slow start becomes a different problem when the role starts shrinking with it.
A few scoreless games in October are normally not very interesting. When they arrive together with fewer minutes, less power-play exposure or declining individual involvement, there is more reason to pay attention.
Four established players have started cold. The underlying cases are quite different.
Jonathan Marchessault — Nashville
Marchessault is the clearest concern of the group.
He has opened without a point, but the more relevant change is in his deployment. His total ice time has fallen from 17:20 in the opener to 16:22 and then 13:17, while his share of Nashville’s power-play time has moved from 42% to 39% and then zero. He began the season on PP2 and was off both units entirely against Toronto.
Five shots in three games do little to offset that trend.
Marchessault was already coming off a 31-point season, so this is not simply an established scorer experiencing three unlucky games. Nashville appears willing to reduce the offensive role, and the combination of lower five-on-five usage and disappearing special-teams exposure removes some of the mechanisms that could produce the rebound.
Three games remain a very small sample. The role change is still real.
For now, this looks less like cold finishing and more like early role erosion.
Dylan Holloway — St. Louis
Holloway has also started without a point and has generated only four shots through three games. His total ice time fell sharply after the opener, from 19:21 to 15:35 and 16:03, which is notable after he averaged more than 18 minutes last season.
Unlike Marchessault, however, the valuable part of Holloway’s deployment remains intact.
He has been on St. Louis’ first power-play unit in all three games. The unit has received roughly 65% of the Blues’ total power-play time, and Holloway’s individual PP usage has essentially tracked that full first-unit share. He also remains part of the top-line structure around Robert Thomas and Jimmy Snuggerud.
That makes the four shots more interesting than the zero points. Holloway has the nominal role required to produce, but he has not been particularly involved inside it yet.
St. Louis’ PP1 has also failed to score despite retaining most of the available power-play minutes, so there is little reason to isolate Holloway’s lack of production from the unit around him.
If his individual shot generation recovers while top-line and PP1 deployment hold, this becomes a fairly ordinary cold start. If the total minutes remain closer to 15–16 and the offensive involvement stays this quiet, the difference between having a premium role on the lineup card and actually benefiting from it becomes more relevant.
The role has softened. It has not disappeared.
Roope Hintz — Dallas
Hintz has two assists through three games, so he is not technically scoreless. The start is cold in a different way.
He has only three shots, while his total ice time has declined in each game from 16:57 to 16:03 and 15:31. Last season he averaged 17:20.
The power play provides some reassurance. Dallas has kept its established first unit together, with Hintz alongside Mikko Rantanen, Jason Robertson, Wyatt Johnston and Miro Heiskanen. That unit has received 73.3% of Dallas’ available power-play time, one of the heavier PP1 allocations in the league so far.
There is therefore no meaningful power-play demotion to explain the slow start.
The more relevant issue is individual volume. Hintz can produce efficiently without playing 19 or 20 minutes, but three shots across three games leaves very little margin for that efficiency to work. Dallas also has enough forward depth to distribute five-on-five minutes more evenly than some teams, making a return to last year’s workload less automatic.
His PP1 position keeps the fantasy floor relatively stable. The question is whether the lower total usage and limited shot generation are simply an opening-week fluctuation or the beginning of a slightly smaller offensive footprint.
That distinction matters more than the two assists.
Sam Reinhart — Florida
Reinhart provides the useful counterexample.
He has opened with no points despite generating 10 shots, and his total minutes have eased somewhat from the very heavy workload he received at the beginning of the season. Unlike Marchessault, there is almost no evidence that Florida is reducing his premium offensive opportunity.
Reinhart has remained on PP1 throughout and has received roughly 70% of Florida’s total power-play time. In the latest game he was still above 60%, after reaching 86% in the previous one. He has already generated six shots on goal and 13 attempts on the power play without recording a point there.
That looks much more like failed conversion than disappearing opportunity.
Florida’s first unit has yet to produce, despite Reinhart continuing to occupy one of its central roles. His usage is therefore doing most of what fantasy managers would want it to do; the box score simply has not followed.
The distinction is useful because Reinhart and Marchessault currently share the same number of points.
Their fantasy situations do not resemble each other.
Reinhart remains heavily involved in the situations most likely to generate future scoring. Unless that deployment begins to change, there is little in the first four games that materially weakens his underlying fantasy case.
Same temperature, different problem
All four players have started below expectation, but the box score hides most of the useful information.
Marchessault has lost both total minutes and power-play share. Holloway’s total usage has fallen, but the top-line and PP1 role remain. Hintz still owns a large share of an excellent Dallas power play, while his individual shot volume has almost disappeared. Reinhart is producing nothing despite deployment that remains almost exactly where fantasy managers would want it.
That is why a cold start by itself is rarely enough.
The more useful question is what is becoming colder with it.
For Marchessault, the answer is the role.
For Holloway and Hintz, there are enough secondary changes to monitor without treating them as demotions.
For Reinhart, so far, it is mostly the scoreboard.