Anthony Cirelli, who left Game 1 in Tampa Bay's first-round matchup against Florida, was back in the lineup for Game 2 in his usual spot on the second line. It didn't really make much of a difference, though, as Florida shut out Tampa Bay by a 2-0 score on the back of a 19-save performance from Sergei Bobrovsky. That gives the Panthers a commanding 2-0 series lead as they win both road games to open the series.

Credit where it's due, the Panthers have been stifling defensively so far. The Lightning are still creating a chance here and there, but the Panthers are forechecking and backchecking their guts out every shift, cutting down passing lanes and altering shot angles, and it's showing in the results.

Nate Schmidt scored his third goal of the playoffs (?!) to open the scoring under five minutes in. Sam Bennett sealed the game with an empty-net tally in the waning seconds of the third period. Bennett finished the game with four shots, two blocks, and two hits in 17:02 of ice time.

Seth Jones assisted the Bennett goal, adding two shots, a block, and four hits along the way.

Andrei Vasilevskiy was very good for the Lightning, but not good enough, allowing the one goal on 22 shots.

Aleksander Barkov left the game halfway through the third period by taking a very, very hard hit from Brandon Hagel, and Barkov did not return. Hagel was given a 5-minute major for interference (though not a game misconduct), so we'll see if anything comes from the Department of Player Safety. Probably a gift basket.

*

For the second time in three nights, the Ottawa Senators and Toronto Maple Leafs went to overtime 2-2. For the second time in three nights, Simon Benoit figured into the overtime winner. And for the second time in three nights, Toronto scored early in the extra frame to skate away with the 3-2 win. They have a 3-0 chokehold on the series with Game 4 set for Saturday night.

Benoit assisted on the overtime goal on Tuesday night but scored the overtime winner on Thursday. It was a slapshot off a faceoff win that looked like it changed direction, but he was credited with the goal, and the Leafs are one win away from crushing the Senators in the first round.

Matthew Knies (PP) and Auston Matthews has the other goals for Toronto. Both those goals were assisted by Mitch Marner, and his helper on the Matthews goal was particularly slick. He finished the game with one shot and a pair of hits.

Anthony Stolarz was once again Anthony Stellar-z by stopping 18 of the 20 shots he faced to push Ottawa to the brink of elimination.

Claude Giroux (PP) and Brady Tkachuk had the goals for Ottawa as goaltending Linus Ullmark allowed three shots to get past him on 20 faced. He has allowed 12 goals on 65 shots thus far in the series, good for an .815 save percentage.

*

Matt Boldy and Kirill Kaprizov once again led the Minnesota Wild to a win over Vegas, this time at home by a 5-2 margin. The former had a goal, an assist (PP), and four shots in 23 minutes of ice time while the latter had a pair of power-play goals, six shots, and two penalty minutes. Boldy and Kaprizov have combined for eight goals and 13 points through three games.

Marco Rossi also scored in this game while Marcus Foligno added the empty-netter. Defenceman Zeev Buium, playing his third career NHL game, registered his first career NHL point by assisting on Kaprizov's first PP goal. That is now two games in a row where Buium has been on the top PP unit, for those thinking ahead to the 2025-26 fantasy hockey season.

Filip Gustavsson was stellar in net, making 30 saves on 32 shots.

Reilly Smith and Alex Pietrangelo had the tallies for Vegas. Mark Stone and Jack Eichel remain pointless in the series.

Adin Hill was pulled after the second period, giving up four goals on 21 shots.

Game 4 is Saturday afternoon in Minnesota.

*

After scoring four goals in two losses in Winnipeg, St. Louis returned home and laid a beatdown on the their first-round rivals by a 7-2 score. The Blues got out to a quick lead thanks to a pair of goals from Pavel Buchnevich in the first 200 seconds of the game, one of them coming on a power play. Buchnevich capped off the hat trick in the third period while also assisting on a first-period marker from Cam Fowler. Buchnevich had those four points with five shots and six hits. It is safe to say he was fairly engaged in this game.

Fowler, meanwhile, had that goal and four assists (three on the PP) with five shots, two blocks, and two hits. He is up to seven points in the playoffs, four more than any other defenceman.

Robert Thomas had four assists in the game (two on the PP). Going back to December 1^st, he has 20 goals and 56 assists in 60 games played.

Jordan Kyrou and Colton Parayko both scored power-play goals while Alexey Toropchenko tallied his first career playoff goal.

Jordan Binnington faced just 18 shots and stopped 16 of them for the win.

David Gustafsson and Neal Pionk had the goals for the Jets. Pionk finished with three shots, two PIMs, and five hits in a very good multi-cat effort.

Connor Hellebuyck was pulled halfway through the first period, giving up six goals on 25 shots.

With the series still in favour of Winnipeg 2-1, Game 4 goes Sunday afternoon in St. Louis.

*

Philadelphia Flyers defenceman Rasmus Ristolainen may be out to start the 2025-26 season:

Per Flyers, Rasmus Ristolainen "underwent successful surgery on his right triceps tendon rupture on March 26."

Expected to miss training camp and is out "about six months."

— Kevin Kurz (@KKurzNHL) April 24, 2025

Ristolainen had turned around his career in Philadelphia so hopefully this doesn't affect his performance next year. It'll be interesting to see what the Flyers do to bolster the blue line this summer.

*

My two Ramblings this week started the review of my preseason projections. On Tuesday, we discussed forwards whose goal-scoring totals were far lower than my projections, and yesterday we covered forwards whose goal-scoring totals were far higher than my projections. Today, we'll look at the goal totals that landed very close to my personal projection.

As always, final season totals are from Natural Stat Trick. Also, we are looking at forwards with at least 41 games played and were projected for at least 10 goals, which is a sample of 285 forwards. (Oddly enough, there were 283 forwards who played at least 41 games and scored at least 10 goals, so we aren't far off, overall). Here are some key names that were +/- 2% from their projected goal total:

Again, let's go through some of these.

Adam Fantilli (Columbus Blue Jackets]

Yesterday's Ramblings looked at Kent Johnson, who greatly out-scored my projection. The total for Fantilli, though, was nearly bang-on. That projection is why Fantilli was one of my most-drafted centres this season. It wasn't just the time without Sean Monahan on the roster, either, as Fantilli scored 19 of his 31 goals in the 54 games with Monahan in the lineup (a 29-goal pace).

Of course, Fantilli shooting 17.9% at 5-on-5 had a lot to do with his success. He also played for the team that led the league in 5-on-5 goal scoring and is tied for second in goals/60 minutes at 5-on-5 over the last two seasons. How much of it is Fantilli and how much of it is his environment is a fair question. All the same, he'll be in the same environment next season so it's hard to not be excited. 

Alex Tuch (Buffalo Sabres)

This is a case where I was high on the Sabres because of the downturn they had the season before. That led to coach Don Granato being fired and Lindy Ruff being hired in the offseason. To me, hiring Ruff meant Buffalo creating more off the rush at 5-on-5 than in 2023-24, and creating more high-danger shots. That is exactly what happened (tracking from AllThreeZones):

Along with his team, Tuch created more shots off the rush than the year before, and his rate of shots off high-danger passes from teammates more than doubled. Maybe there was a bit of luck (his 17.2% shooting at 5-on-5 was a career-high) but there were also fundamental (and predictable) changes that came to Buffalo's offence with the introduction of their new coach. It will be hard for Tuch to replicate a 36-goal season without more shots just because of the elevated shooting percentage, but if he can be a regular on the top PP unit next season as he was over the final month of this season? It would help him repeat as a 30-goal scorer for the first time in his career.

Jake DeBrusk (Vancouver Canucks)

It doesn't feel like DeBrusk set a career-high with 28 goals, does it? If only because of how the Canucks' season progressed, but he did, so kudos to him.

The big reason for the career-best mark was the power play as half (14) his goals came with the man advantage. This is a guy who had never had more than eight in his career and had 13 total PP goals across his prior 262 regular season games. He did it while shooting 25.5% on the power play, which might sound high but consider that across three seasons and 171 games from 2018-2021, DeBrusk shot at least 25% on the power play in each season and averaged 27%. The only difference for him was skating 209 minutes on the man advantage, having never had a season with at least 190, let alone 200.

Whether DeBrusk can reach 30 goals next season relies on this continued PP usage and the health of Vancouver's current top two centres Elias Pettersson and Filip Chytil. If the team has to endure long stretches with Pius Suter and Teddy Blueger as their top-6 centres, then DeBrusk's offence will suffer. If those top centres can stay healthy and return to form? There is 30-goal potential here.

Matt Duchene (Dallas Stars)

I try to not pat myself on the back too hard because fantasy hockey can and will humble a person VERY quickly (hence the last two Ramblings about my misses). However, one person I was much higher on than anyone else I can find was Duchene as most preseason projections I looked at had him somewhere between 55-65 points. My projection was for a shade over 81 points and both his goals and assists were nearly identical to those projections:

The one difference was I had him closer to 40 even-strength assists (he finished with 33) and 12 power-play assists (he finished with 19) but overall, it's hard to complain here. Duchene is one of the best dual-threat offensive players in the league (finishing and playmaking) and that really came to the forefront in 2024-25. It will be interesting to see where his ADP lands in September.

Victor Olofsson (Vegas Golden Knights)

Another player I was relatively high on was Olofsson. It wasn't necessarily because I am high on Olofsson as a player, but that, going into the season, Vegas was very light on wingers. They had Mark Stone, Ivan Barbashev, and Pavel Dorofeyev returning, but were relying on additions like Olofsson, Alex Holtz, or Tanner Pearson to help fill the middle-6 winger void. That is what happened as Frozen Tools has him as the fifth most-used winger at even strength behind the three named and Brett Howden (fourth if you count Howden as a centre). While Olofsson missed about one-third of the season, he still managed 15 goals in 56 games, or more than double what he had in Buffalo the year prior (7 in 51 games). A big part of that was skating 14:30 per game, or nearly an extra three minutes per game from the final season with the Sabres.

Olofsson is a free agent after this season but he should be relatively cheap and the team does seem to like him as evidenced by his role in the playoffs. If he's brought back, we may have to run it back with him in drafts once again.