Carolina, fresh off their elimination of the New Jersey Devils, announced that Taylor Hall is sticking around, signing him to a three-year deal with an AAV under $3.2-million. He has 21 points in 36 games with Carolina, including the playoffs, since the trade from Chicago and has formed a very good middle-six duo with Jesperi Kotkaniemi. He is getting up there in years (turns 34 years old in November) but at three years with that cap hit, he’s being paid as a high-end third line forward. That is just fine for what he brings to the team.
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The Washington Capitals became the second team to advance to the second round of the 2025 NHL Playoffs by virtue of their 4-1 win in Game 5 over the Montreal Canadiens. This was a series where Montreal showed the potential of their future about one-third of the time, but Washington showed why they are one of the top teams in the East the other two-thirds of the time. It went about how it was expected to go, and now the Caps wait for their second-round matchup against Carolina.
Washington got goals from Alex Ovechkin (PP), Jakob Chychrun, Brandon Duhaime, and Tom Wilson (PP). Wilson also assisted the Chychrun goal and totaled two shots and three hits in nearly 24 minutes of ice time. Not only did he finish the series with five points in five games, but his physical play was a big differentiator as the series wore on.
Logan Thompson stopped 28 of 29 shots in the win.
Emil Heineman scored the lone goal for the Habs as Jakub Dobes stopped 24 of 27 shots to take the clinching loss.
There is no word on when the Washington/Carolina series will start, but just looking ahead on the schedule, the earliest could be Sunday depending on how the other series turn out, and likely on Monday.
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The Florida Panthers are the third team to advance past the first round of the playoffs, with all three teams coming out of the Eastern Conference. They took Game 5 over Tampa Bay by a 6-3 margin, outscoring the Lightning by a 19-12 margin in the five games.
Depth scoring was the name of the game for the Panthers as Eetu Luostarainen (one goal, three assists), Anton Lundell (one goal, two assists), and Brad Marchand (two assists) all had multi-point nights. This is what makes Florida such a dangerous team moving forward: Three complete lines that can win their team a game on any given night.
Sam Reinhart finished the game with a goal, an assist (PP), and seven shots in just over 20 minutes of ice time. The other goals came from Carter Verhaeghe (PP), Sam Bennett, and Aleksander Barkov.
Gustav Forsling played nearly 26 minutes in the absence of the suspended Aaron Ekblad and managed an assist, five blocks, and three hits.
Sergei Bobrovsky was in net for the series-clinching win, stopping 26 of 29 shots.
Jake Guentzel, Nick Paul, and Gage Concalves scored for the Lightning.
Victor Hedman had a very good fantasy night with two assists (one PP), three shots, two blocks, and 26:37 in ice time.
Andrei Vasilevskiy gave up five goals on 30 shots for the loss in net.
Like Washington, we don’t know when Florida’s next series will start, but it’s no earlier than Sunday, and probably on Monday.
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Kyle Connor came up big for the Winnipeg Jets in Game 5 on Wednesday night, registering a goal and two assists in the team’s 5-3 win over St. Louis. That gives Connor four goals and four assists so far these playoffs, and his superb production is a reason the Jets have the 3-2 series lead and the Blues on the brink of elimination.
Both Vladislav Namestnikov and Nino Niederreiter posted a goal and an assist, with the former totaling four shots and three hits while the latter had three shots and two hits.
Dylan DeMelo and Adam Lowry had the other goals as Mason Appleton posted three helpers, one shot, one block, and two hits in a very good multi-cat fantasy night.
Dylan Samberg was also productive with an assist, a shot, a block, and a hit in 24:10 of ice time.
Connor Hellebuyck faced 19 shots and stopped 16 of them in the win.
Nathan Walker scored twice for the Blues and Jimmy Snuggerud tallied his second marker of the postseason.
Cam Fowler had an assist, a shot, and a hit in the loss. He is up to nine points in the postseason, which leads all defencemen and ties him for fourth among all skaters.
Jordan Binnington allowed four goals on 25 shots in defeat.
Game 6 goes Friday night back in St. Louis.
Mark Scheifele left the game after the first period and did not return. He took a couple big hits, notably one from Brayden Schenn which led to a Schenn interference penalty, but that hit took place six minutes into the first frame. Scheifele played four more shifts after that hit so it’s not entirely clear where the injury happened or what the nature of the injury is. We probably won’t find out more until sometime Friday morning/afternoon.
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My last four Ramblings have covered preseason projections among forwards and how they actually fared in the 2024-25 regular season. We started with forwards who underperformed their goal-scoring projection, moved to forwards who overperformed, and finished with those whose projection was very close to their actual season’s goal tally. On Tuesday, we started breaking down total point projections, starting with those who underperformed. Today, we are moving to those whose final season point totals greatly exceeded expectations from my preseason projections.
As usual, season data is from Natural Stat Trick and we are comparing to my personal projections. We are limiting the sample to forwards who played at least 41 games and were projected for at least 20 points, giving us a sample of 292 attackers. All those players also have their final total extrapolated to 82 games to put everyone on even footing.
Of those 292 forwards, 14 of them produced at least 50% more points than their projection. For example, if they were projected for 40 points in 82 games, they posted at least 60. If they were projected for 50 points, they managed at least 75, and so on. Here are those 14 forwards:
A short discussion on a handful of them.
Dylan Holloway (St. Louis Blues)
When the Blues acquired Holloway and Philip Broberg via offer sheet, I was much higher on Broberg’s prospects than Holloway’s. Funny enough, both had excellent seasons, but Holloway was preposterously good.
In Holloway’s two seasons with Edmonton, he posted 1.17 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, a genuine fourth-line rate. In his first year with St. Louis, that jumped to 2.32, a genuine first-line rate. More ice time helped his totals, obviously, but it was the playmaking that really made the difference as his assist rate at 5-on-5 (1.43) was more than double what he did back in Edmonton (0.62). If he was part of a competent top PP unit all season, he probably cracks 70 points.
This is just one year but it’s hard to overstate how good Holloway was. Even by play-driving metrics, he was a top-line forward, and if he and Broberg can build off their breakout seasons, they fundamentally change the direction of the St. Louis franchise.
Aliaksei Protas (Washington Capitals)
Perhaps some people thought Holloway could be a 25-goal, 60-point forward this season. I have a lot of doubts anyone realistically thought that Protas would have a 30-goal, 66-point season, which put his 82-game pace over 70 points. Of all breakout players in the league in 2024-25, Protas was at (or near) the top and one of the most unlikely.
This season, Protas finished fourth in the league by points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, trailing only David Pastrnak, Sean Monahan, and Nikita Kucherov. Compared to his average across the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, Protas improved by 75%. It is truly nuts.
There should be caution taken, though. Here are Protas’s shot numbers at 5-on-5 in 2024-25, compared to his prior two seasons. We are looking at shot attempt rate (iCF/60), individual expected goal rate (ixG/60), rate of shots off high-danger passes (HDShot/60 from AllThreeZones), goals/60, and shooting percentage:
Not a whole lot changed, his rate of shots off HD passes actually declined a fair bit, but he more than tripled his shooting percentage. That should send up all kinds of red flags. He is a genuinely improved player, but anytime a skater triples their shooting percentage, it warrants extra attention.
Ryan Donato (Chicago Blackhawks)
The Blackhawks finished 26th in the league by 5-on-5 goal scoring, which is actually a very solid improvement over their last-place finish in 2023-24. A big part of that is Donato’s season, as he finished with 2.25 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. That mark is nearly 42% higher than the next-closest Blackhawks forward with at least 50 games played.
Donato skated a career-high 16:19 per game, over 2:30 more than his previous career-best of 13:48. He also figured into 85.4% of Chicago’s 5-on-5 goals when he was on the ice, also a career-high (had never been above 76% before). Just something to keep in mind for next season.
The good news is that Donato managed 14 power-play points, doubling his career-high mark, and more than his prior four seasons combined (13). If he can maintain a top-6/top power play role with the Blackhawks next year, he should be productive once more.
Josh Norris (Ottawa Senators/Buffalo Sabres)
When looking at why I missed Norris’s projection by so much, it seems as if it’s everything except 5-on-5 and power-play production: Seven of Norris’s 35 points came at 4-on-4, 3-on-3, or while short-handed. He had one career short-handed point before 2024-25, and then had four in 56 games. In fact, he posted 1.25 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, a fourth-line rate.
That is why I don’t mind missing on this projection. Norris was legitimately awful at 5-on-5 but produced well at 4-on-4/3-on-3, and did far better short-handed than could have been expected. He was also a staple on Ottawa’s top PP unit, a team that led the league in PP opportunities by a wide margin at the time he was traded. He is now in Buffalo, a team that didn’t get near as many PP opportunities and was much worse overall with the man advantage. Next season seems primed for a big step back on a per-game basis.
Anders Lee (New York Islanders)
With a new general manager incoming, we will see what the Islanders lineup looks like in September, but a quick shout out to Anders Lee. His 29 goals and 25 assists were both his highest marks since 2017-18, his 233 shots were a career-best, and his 2.13 points/60 minutes at 5-on-5 tied his prior career-best set back in 2016-17 (minimum of 41 games played). With Mathew Barzal missing 52 games, Lee was often the engine of the Islanders offence this season, at least at even strength.
Lee had his best post-Bubble season but the caveat here is he turns 35 years old in July. It is great he had this kind of season, but he’s at an age where a steep drop-off is possible at any time. If he can do this again next season and the Islanders can improve the power play, maybe he reaches 60 points again, but there are a couple of pretty big qualifiers there.
