Sidney Crosby was injured during Canada's quarter-final win against Czechia. He got tangled up, took a couple of awkward falls during the second period, and did not return for the third period. Hopefully we'll get more of an update soon.

*

In Tuesday's Ramblings, we covered how many scoring chances were created off zone entries by specific forwards, focusing on the most efficient forwards. Today, we are moving back a bit and doing the same thing for defencemen.

Put simply, we are finding the number of scoring chances created by a team per zone entry by an individual defenceman, as well as the overall rate of individual zone entries per 60 minutes by that defenceman. So, if the New York Rangers create 10 scoring chances off 50 zone entries by Adam Fox, then the Rangers are creating 0.2 scoring chances per entry. If Fox has 50 zone entries in 250 tracked minutes, then he's responsible for 12 zone entries per 60 minutes (50/250 * 60). The more scoring chances per entry, the more efficient the creation numbers, and the higher the zone entry numbers for the player, the more chances available for the team.

All tracking data is from All Three Zones, are for 5-on-5 play, and cover only the 2025-26 season. Individual and team goal/point data is from Evolving Hockey, and all this is current as of the Olympic break.

We are limiting the sample to defencemen with at least 110 tracked minutes, which gives us 161 defencemen. The red and blue dotted lines on the graphs are the league average rates for our sample of defencemen.

Sean Walker, Shayne Gostisbehere, Jalen Chatfield, Alexander Nikishin, and Joel Nyström (Carolina Hurricanes)

We had to start with the Carolina Hurricanes because they are one of the teams that is the most reliant on contributions from defencemen. That becomes very obvious when we understand that in our sample of 161 defencemen, 42 of them are above the league average by both team scoring chances per entry by a defencemen and individual zone entries per 60 minutes, and of those 42 above-average contributors, five of them are from Carolina's blue line:

Seeing both Gostisbehere and Walker makes sense, given their respective histories. Instead, let's focus on the other three names.

Things seem to be working out for Chatfield and his work on offence. With him on the ice at 5-on-5, Carolina is scoring 3.4 goals per 60 minutes. That is the highest rate of his career, exceeding his previous best of 2.9 goals/60 minutes back in 2023-24. He also has 0.85 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, the second-highest rate of his career, trailing only the 2023-24 season. It would be even higher, but Frozen Tools has Chatfield participating on just 24.1% of goals scored with him on the ice at even strength this season, the lowest rate of any Carolina defenceman with at least 25 games played.

The best news is that Chatfield is doing this while skating 17 minutes a game at 5-on-5, a career-high. He has been asked to play his biggest role, has been contributing well offensively, and Carolina is decisively winning his minutes on both the goal and shot clock. The problem is that without power-play time and with very modest peripherals, he still doesn't have fantasy relevance outside of deep fantasy formats.

Here is the interesting part about Nikishin and Nyström: there are 10 rookie defencemen in our sample, only three of them are above average in both areas we're studying today, and two of those three are Nikishin and Nyström:

Again, because they are from Carolina, maybe this isn't a huge surprise, but that they're both doing something offensively that neither Matthew Schaefer nor Artyom Levshunov are doing stands out and is a good sign for dynasty/keeper managers.

While Nikishin was the one who got the offseason press, it is Nyström who leads all rookie defencemen in points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 (minimum of 500 minutes), who leads all rookie defencemen in expected goal share, and who is second in actual goal share, trailing only Schaefer. As a seventh-round pick from 2021, Nyström has his work cut out for him, but here's a little tidbit: Among all defencemen who played at least 125 games between the ages of 20-22 in the Swedish Hockey League this century, Nyström has the most goals and points (per Elite Prospects). Did the Hurricanes find another late-round gem?

Charle-Edouard D'Astous and Emil Martinsen Lilleberg (Tampa Bay Lightning)

The injuries to Tampa Bay's blue line this season opened roles and roster spots for players who may have otherwise never gotten them. A lot of attention has gone to J.J. Moser for his excellent season (and rightly so), but it's worth highlighting what both D'Astous and Lilleberg have done for the Lightning:

Those two defencemen are among the 42 that are above average in both team chances off the player's entries and individual entries per 60 minutes. Of the five Tampa Bay blue liners in our sample, they are the only two to do so.

Lilleberg is currently on the long-term injured reserve and the hope was that he would return before the Olympic break, which he did not. Assuming he's good to go once the break is done, the team has Victor Hedman, Ryan McDonagh, Moser, Lilleberg, Darren Raddysh, and Erik Cernak all healthy. Lilleberg probably still has a spot in the starting lineup, but in the month before he was injured, he was skating over 20 minutes a game. When the lineup is healthy, it seems very unlikely he will come close to that mark, so his fantasy value will take a big hit. But if he can keep up the offensive success, he'll help the forwards in front of him create well offensively even with the likes of Hedman or Raddysh off the ice.

D'Astous was injured at the end of January and after that injury, both Hedman and McDonagh returned from their own injuries. At best, if D'Astous is ready to play when the NHL resumes, he'll be a 6^th or 7^th defenceman for the Lightning. He may just be straight-up sent to the AHL because he's waiver exempt. He has put up solid penalty minute, hit, and block numbers, and his 82-game pace was for over 30 points. That made him viable in some deeper multi-cat formats, but at the least his ice time will take a hit, and at worst he'll not even be in the NHL over the final eight weeks.

Either way, in addition to the explosion from Raddysh and top-notch play from Moser, the Lightning have learned a lot about their defensive depth, and they've shone brightly.

Mattias Ekholm (Edmonton Oilers)

Across the two seasons from 2023-2025, Ekholm produced 8.3 zone entries per 60 minutes, which was about 7% above the league average. So far in the 2025-26 season, Ekholm has been responsible for 11.5 zone entries per 60 minutes, which is 56.4% above the average of our sample. That, along with the scoring chance creation off his entries, puts him in pretty good company:

The problem is that it's really not leading to a lot of production, at least relatively speaking. From 2023-2025, Ekholm averaged 1.3 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, which was 13^th among 179 defencemen with at least 1500 minutes played. So far this season, he's producing 1.22 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, which is 34^th among 184 defencemen with at least 500 minutes played. The Oilers are scoring much less with Ekholm and Connor McDavid on the ice than usual, so Ekholm's surge in offensive involvement is not helping the team score more often or him produce points like he usually does. His 82-game point pace is the lowest of his three full seasons with Edmonton, so it's a wonder if he's helping or hurting his (and the team's) cause by playing as he is.

Morgan Rielly (Toronto Maple Leafs)

For all the slander that Rielly gets, both rightly or wrongly, it is worth noting that he's the only Toronto defenceman of the five in our sample to be above average in both areas we're analyzing today:

We see high scoring chance creation numbers off Simon Benoit's zone entries, but the Leafs are also creating by far their worst offensive numbers with him on the ice of all their defencemen:

• 1.74 goals/60 minutes with Benoit on the ice; 2.88 goals/60 with him off the ice
• 18.9 shots/60 minutes with Benoit on the ice; 27.7 shots/60 with him off the ice

To a degree much more severe than Ekholm, Benoit's contributions are not helping the Leafs.

Conversely, Toronto is creating the second-most goals and most shots per 60 minutes with Rielly on the ice. There are a lot of goals against, but the goalies have also produced an .878 save percentage in Rielly's minutes. He may be poor defensively, but his prior career-low for save percentage when he's on the ice is .902. Things will probably look a lot better down the stretch once the goalies make some more saves, and the Leafs need Rielly to keep doing what he does because no one else on their blue line can.  

Alex Vlasic (Chicago Blackhawks)

Though it's nowhere near as drastic as what's happening in Toronto, it is worth noting that the only Chicago defenceman to be above average in both team chances per player zone entry and individual entries per 60 minutes is Vlasic:

With more games to be tracked between now and the end of the season, it's not impossible that someone like Levshunov or Sam Rinzel also climbs into the positive side of both ledgers, but for now, Vlasic stands alone. It is helping Vlasic to 0.82 points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, which isn't anything special compared to the league – roughly a mid-tier second-pair rate – but it is 34% higher than his two-year average from 2023-2025.

The issue is that offensive involvement hasn't really helped elevate the team:

• In Vlasic's minutes with Bedard, the Blackhawks are scoring 2.5 goals per 60 minutes, which is roughly the league average, and the team is at 3.6 goals/60 minutes when Bedard is on the ice without Vlasic.
• In Vlasic's non-Bedard minutes, the team scores 1.8 goals per 60 minutes. Overall, Chicago scores 2.0 goals per 60 minutes with Bedard off the ice.

Whether looking at Bedard's minutes without Vlasic, or the team's minutes without Bedard, Vlasic's involvement in zone entries, and the scoring chances generated therein, aren't helping the team score more goals than they are otherwise.

Here is the bright side: Vlasic producing more and being involved offensively is a good sign. He just crossed the 200-game threshold earlier this season, and as a 6'6" defenceman, he may take even longer to develop. If he can keep building on this offensive profile, and retain his defensive play, he'll be a very successful two-way defenceman for the Blackhawks.

The downside is that Vlasic is unlikely to earn meaningful power-play time, his puck skills will likely never be that of a top-end offensive defenceman, and his peripherals aren't very good – none of his three full seasons have seen him reach 1.5 shots or 0.75 hits per game. He might turn into a defenceman who can push for 40 points, but if he does it with 120 shots and 50 hits a season, there's not a lot of appeal outside of deeper points-only or multi-cat formats. In medium-sized or shallow fantasy leagues, he remains waiver fodder, especially until the Blackhawks develop reliable, high-end scoring depth.