The Pittsburgh Penguins announced that they are going to "part ways" with head coach Mike Sullivan. Sullivan had been the head coach of the Penguins for nearly a decade, stepping in the role back in December of 2015. The Penguins won a pair of Stanley Cups under his guide but had missed the playoffs for three straight seasons and not been past the first round of the playoffs since 2018. How much is on him or on the roster is the question, but given the preponderance of coaching vacancies, it's unlikely he's without a coaching job for very long.

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The Florida Panthers scored two goals 11 seconds apart with under four minutes remaining in their Game 4 matchup at home to Tampa Bay to take a 3-2 lead, and then Carter Verhaeghe sealed the win with an empty-netter a couple minutes later to give the Panthers 3-1 lead in the series. It was a very poor ending for Tampa Bay who had scored two goals 11 seconds apart themselves back in the second period to take the lead, and then squandered a five-minute power play.

Both Aaron Ekblad and Seth Jones scored for the Panthers, while Anton Lundell had a goal, an assist, three shots, a block, and a hit in the win. Brad Marchand assisted both the Lundell and Jones goals, adding a block and two hits along the way. Marchand has yet to score in the series but he does have three assists in four games.

Sergei Bobrovsky held off the Lightning just enough, stopping 18 of the 20 shots sent his way.

Mitchell Chaffee and Erik Cernak had the goals for Tampa Bay. Cernak finished with three shots, three blocks, and five hits overall.

Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed three goals on 22 shots for the loss.

Brandon Hagel was injured in the second period, and did not return, as Ekblad launched a forearm directly into his jaw, plain as day. This being the 2025 NHL Playoffs, there was no call on Ekblad from the referees. They are likely sending Ekblad a nice bottle of whisky to congratulate him.

Niko Mikkola was given five minutes and a game misconduct for trying to break Zemgus Girgensons' neck. Girgensons was on his knees facing the boards as Mikkola drove Girgensons head-first into the boards. The latest word was the Department of Player Safety was considering suspending Girgensons for getting the back of his head in the way of Mikkola's shoulder.

Game 5 is Wednesday night back in Tampa Bay.

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The Dallas Stars have pushed the Colorado Avalanche to the brink of elimination with a 6-2 win at home on Thursday night, giving Dallas a 3-2 series lead. The Stars got a pair of lucky goals, one very early and one late in the first period, and then pulled away late in the second period to give themselves two chances to eliminate Colorado.

Wyatt Johnston scored twice (one PP) and added an assist with two shots, a block, and a hit while Mikko Rantanen had a goal and two assists (one PP) with six shots, a block, and a hit himself.

Roope Hintz scored once and registered a helper while Mason Marchment and Thomas Harley also scored. Harley finished with two shots, three blocks, and a hit.

Jake Oettinger stopped 26 of 28 shots for the win.

Nathan MacKinnon and Artturi Lehkonen scored for Colorado. MacKinnon assisted on the Lehkonen goal and totaled seven shots, a block, and a hit.

Mackenzie Blackwood gave up five goals on 18 shots and was pulled after the second period.

Game 6 is set for Thursday night back in Colorado.

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Last week, these Rambling started reviewing my preseason projections and what went right or wrong. We looked at forwards whose goal totals underperformed projections, those who scored much more than expected, and attackers with final goal numbers (or pace) very close to the preseason projections.

Today, we're staying with forwards and looking at who underperformed their projected point totals. We are going to limit the sample to forwards with at least 41 games played and who were projected for at least 20 points, which gives us a sample of 292 forwards. We are also extrapolating games-played totals to an 82-game season so that everyone is on even footing. Season data is from Natural Stat Trick.

The biggest miss had a point total nearly 65% lower than their projected point total, and we had nine forwards between 50-65%. These are those nine forwards:

What is noticeable immediately is these are middle-6 forwards who just had bad seasons. These aren't top-line guys going inside the top 50 picks of a fantasy draft. Let us go through a few of them.

Philipp Kurashev (Chicago Blackhawks)

Kurashev is a player I don't think brings much to the table besides playmaking. But, given the dearth of talent Chicago had, there wasn't much issue with penciling him in alongside Connor Bedard for most of the season and having a modest improvement on his 2023-24 campaign. That clearly didn't happen as his role was obliterated (over five minutes per game less than the year prior) and he was often a healthy scratch in calendar 2025. 

This summer will be an interesting one for Chicago, and Kurashev specifically, as he's an RFA. He also turns 26 years old in October and really hasn't shown anything at the NHL level besides modest playmaking talent. Maybe he's given one last chance on a one-year deal, but he also could just be outright released. If he can make some improvements, maybe he can be a Mikael Granlund-type, but that is his upside, and he has a long way to go to even approach that level. 

Anthony Duclair (New York Islanders)

Duclair's first five games of the season saw him post two goals, one assist, and 1.1 expected goals per 60 minutes. It was a fairly solid start. Then he suffered a groin injury, missed two months, and was never the same after his return. He even took a leave from the team and played his final game on April 1^st.

It seems obvious that the groin injury hampered him from the moment he returned. Using the skating data at NHL Edge, we can see how the number of times Duclair had a speed burst of at least 20 MPH, on a per-game basis, was cut in half from 2023-24:

That is why I don't feel so bad about missing on this one. Had Duclair kept performing anywhere near where he was before the groin injury, he has a very productive season. But he didn't, so he didn't, and here we are.   

Matias Maccelli (Utah Utes)

Maccelli's first NHL game was on March 3^rd, 2022. From that point until the end of the 2023-24 season, a span of 169 games, Maccelli posted 1.42 assists per 60 minutes at 5-on-5. That was in the 91^st percentile of regular forwards (at least 1250 minutes) and higher than names like Tim Stutzle, Mathew Barzal, and Mark Stone. With Utah re-tooling the blue line in the offseason, Maccelli going into his age-24 season, improving shot volume, this very good playmaking across 169 games, and having a 60-point pace every 82 games across the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, it seemed as if Maccelli was ready to take a step forward and be a big part of the Utah offence.

In that context, this was a huge disappointment. Maccelli had just 18 points in 55 games and, like Kurashev, was often a healthy scratch over the final three months of the season. Here is the interesting part: according to tracking data from AllThreeZones, Utah (then Arizona) was a slightly-above-average team at generating offence off the rush at 5-on-5 in 2023-24, ranking near the middle of the league. In 2024-25, Utah led the league, and it completely changed the way Maccelli created offence:

Some of Maccelli's underlying playmaking data from 2024-25 wasn't wholly different from his first three years, but the manner in which he created offence was like an entirely different player. It is believable he struggled under a new offensive system than what he was used to because players typically don't perform as fringe top-line forwards for two years in their age-22 and age-23 seasons and then become so bad they are unplayable. The point projection for 2024-25 was a big miss, but this is still a player primed for a big rebound in 2025-26, whether in Utah or elsewhere.

And now, a look at a couple veteran forwards that were big misses:

Charlie Coyle (Boston Bruins/Colorado Avalanche)

Of course, it all fell apart for the Bruins. Morgan Geekie and David Pastrnak had excellent seasons but no one else did. Coyle had 15 goals in 64 games with the Bruins, which is close to a 20-goal pace, but he had seven assists. Cale Makar started the season with seven assists in his first four games and Charlie Coyle had seven assists by early March. It is quite something.

Coyle is going into his age-33 season so he may have had his first and last 60-point campaign already. It is hard to see him going somewhere next season and getting enough ice time to support that level of production.

Chris Kreider (New York Rangers)

It isn't as if Kreider is a great playmaker, but he had managed at least 10 assists in every season where he played at least 25 games, and his 82-game pace from 2021-2024 was for 27 assists. In 2024-25, he managed eight (!) assists in 68 games. From 2021-2024, he figured into 57.7% of Rangers goals scored with him on the ice. In 2024-25, that number was a career-worst 44.8%.

There were murmurs that Kreider was fighting a back injury during the season and that was confirmed, as well as a bout with vertigo and a hand injury suffered at the Four Nations Cup. He is going into his age-34 season, so we always have to be careful about age-related decline, but a healthy Kreider with a (hopefully) improved roster might be a good draft value when September rolls around.