Before Buffalo took on Boston Thursday night, we got injury news as Matthew Fairburn reported that Josh Norris would not be playing in Game 3 and is considered day-to-day. Norris' injury history needs no repeating here, so let's just hope this is truly a day-to-day thing, and not one of those 'day-to-day in the playoffs but he's out for six months, actually' things.

The Sabres won that game 3-1 over the Bruins in Boston. Noah Ostlund returned to the lineup and made an immediate impact by assisting a Bowen Byram goal in the second period and then tallying them empty-netter in the third. Östlund now has 10 points in 15 games going back to the regular season as he really seemed to find his groove down the stretch.

Byram assisted an Alex Tuch goal, giving the defenceman a goal and an assist on the night. He now has three points in three games in the series while averaging over 22 minutes a game. If he's a true difference-maker as he was during Colorado's Stanley Cup run four years ago, that adds an entirely new dimension to the Sabres roster.

Alex Lyon was in net for Buffalo and held the Bruins to one goal on 25 shots.

Tanner Jeannot scored the lone goal for Boston and Charlie McAvoy had a very good multi-cat night with an assist, three shots, seven blocks, and a pair of hits. Game 4 is on Sunday afternoon.

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Carolina's second line did the damage again as the Hurricanes took a 2-1 win over the Ottawa Senators, giving the team a commanding 3-0 series lead. Logan Stankoven and Jackson Blake each scored while Taylor Hall assisted on both goals. That line has now scored five of the seven goals for their team through the first three games of the postseason.

Frederik Andersen was solid in net once again, stopping 21 of 22 pucks directed at his net.

Drake Batherson scored the lone Senators goal. The Sens now has just three goals in three games and are staring down a sweep elimination in Game 4 on Saturday afternoon.

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Artturi Lehkonen scored the game-winning goal on Thursday night, adding an assist on a Cale Makar tally, as the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Los Angeles Kings 4-2. This gives the Avs a 3-0 series lead with a chance to wrap up the sweep Sunday afternoon. He now has 22 goals in 48 playoff games with Colorado.

Makar finished with one goal on four shots, adding six blocks, in the victory. It is his only point of the series thus far, and Nathan MacKinnon remains pointless. That is probably the scariest part of this Colorado squad: MacKinnon, Makar, and Martin Necas have combined for one goal and two assists in three games and the team still has a 3-0 series lead.

Scott Wedgewood held things down in net once again, keeping the Kings to two goals on 26 shots. He has given up just four goals on 76 shots in the series (.947 save percentage).

Trevor Moore and Adrian Kempe (PP) scored for the Kings. Alex Laferriere had a pair of assists, totaling six shots, a block, and two hits. He has assists in three of the four goals the Kings have scored in the series, but has yet to score on 14 shots. All the same, going back to the regular season, he has 20 points in his last 25 games, putting 79 shots on net in that span.

Andrei Kuzmenko was back in the lineup for the Kings after missing two months due to surgery on a torn meniscus. He started the game on the third line and top PP unit, but was eventually moved off the power play for Quinton Byfield.

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This week, my regular season fantasy hockey review started. On Tuesday, these Ramblings covered some small success I had in Best Puck formats this season, talking players like Macklin Celebrini, Andrei Svechnikov, and Jet Greaves. Yesterday, we covered some forwards I missed on projections-wise, including Dylan Larkin, Jonathan Marchessault, Sean Monahan, Mason McTavish, and Ville Koivunen.

Today, we're reviewing more projections misses, but moving to defencemen. As with the forwards, defencemen with serious injury issues, or anyone who missed more than 20 games, will be excluded.

MacKenzie Weegar – Calgary Flames

In August, when I started previewing my projections for the season, one name included was Weegar's. It might be my biggest miss of the season because his 82-game projection (59 points) was more than double what he actually produced (28 points in 79 games).  

The shooting percentage was a problem – 2.6% is a three-year low and less than half his average of 5.8% across the prior three seasons – but adding five goals doesn't get us anywhere close to what his full-season point projection.

It wasn't as if I was high on the Flames, either. Looking back at my preseason projections, Weegar was at the top of the point list with no one on the team projected for at least 60 points in 82 games:

My expectation was that with Rasmus Andersson likely to be traded at some point, Weegar would be a major minute-eater for Calgary, and that did not come to pass. In fact, he lost over a minute per game in TOI when compared to 2024-25. The extra minute wouldn't have changed a lot, but it didn't help.

The big issue was the Calgary power play. After posting 21 power-play points in 81 games in 2024-25, Weegar managed just five PPPs in 60 games with the Flames, or seven PPPs over a full 82-game campaign. Similar PP production to 2024-25 would have pushed him well past the 40-point plateau, and though shy of the lofty projection, it wouldn't have been this bad. Regardless of why, the Flames were barren of point production this season, and Weegar was a big part of that.

Dougie Hamilton – New Jersey Devils

On September 5^th, I wrote about some players whose early ADPs looked like good value to me. Among them was Hamilton, who was going somewhere around the 17^th – 18^th defenceman off the board and he was the 10^th defenceman on mine (assuming multi-cat formats). Hamilton didn't have an awful year – 12 goals, 26 assists, 202 shots, 87 hits, 77 blocks – but it was far shy of the 58-point/82-game projection I had for him.

One reason for the lack of production was what happened at even strength. Among 137 defencemen who skated at least 2000 even-strength minutes across the 2022-2025 seasons and also had at least 700 minutes in 2025-26, Hamilton had the second-largest drop in assists per 60 minutes (from Natural Stat Trick):

If Hamilton averaged 1.21 EV assists/60 minutes in 2025-26 as he had averaged across the prior three seasons, he's a 50-point defenceman. He didn't, which is why he landed where he did, but it helps highlight the variance that can happen to any player in any season.

The Devils were very bad offensively at even strength right up until the Olympic break as their rate of goals per 60 minutes (2.2) was 30^th in the league, and slightly ahead the absolute worst teams in Vancouver (2.18) and Calgary (2.19). Knowing this, it makes sense that Hamilton didn't do a lot at that strength but imagine going back to September and telling yourself that through three-quarters of the season, the New Jersey Devils would be 30^th in offence. Hamilton was a big miss for me, but the entire New Jersey roster was a big miss.

Vince Dunn – Seattle Kraken

In a late-August Ramblings looking at some preseason projections for each team, Dunn was on the list. Given that we just saw his name in the graphic above for largest drops in even-strength assist rate this season, it is safe to say that Dunn's final point total (44 points) came nowhere close to his 82-game projection (60 points). Not nearly as bad of a season as Weegar or Hamilton, but still a miss, nonetheless.

What makes this particular miss frustrating is Dunn had a career-high 21 power-play points. If his even-strength assist rate is the same as it was across the prior three seasons (1.12), he posts 59 total points and is nearly bang-on his projection. He didn't produce at that rate, so he missed the projection by a wide margin, and that's what ultimately matters.

Kris Letang – Pittsburgh Penguins

This one is truly something else. Imagine we go back to early September with some knowledge of the future. We go back and tell ourselves that Letang will play 74 games, that the Pittsburgh Penguins will be the third-highest scoring team in the league, and that they'll make the playoffs. If we knew all that in September, where does Letang get drafted?

Despite all this, Letang only posted four more points (34) than he did the year prior (30) in as many games played. One reason for this was a large shot drop. Looking again at even strength, and the same group of players highlighted in the section Hamilton, Letang had the eighth-largest drop in shot rate at even strength in 2025-26:

Shooting 2.9%, or nearly half his three-year rate of 5.7%, did not help. Losing nearly 50 even-strength shots also did not help. A normal shooting season from him would probably have tripled is goal production, but he didn't, so he didn't.

Anyone who watched Letang in the regular season, or has watched him in the postseason, probably understands this already: He struggled to drive the play for his team, making it two years in a row where this has been an issue. With 20 NHL seasons and nearly 1400 total NHL games under his belt, this very much looks like the end of his fantasy-relevance in most formats.   

Sam Rinzel – Chicago Blackhawks

In a Ramblings looking at later-round values, Rinzel was highlighted. The hope was that if he played close to a full season, he could push near the 40-point mark as a rookie blue liner. He didn't play a full season – just 54 games – but it wouldn't have mattered as he posted just 14 points in those 54 games. It isn't as if he didn't get a chance, either. In the first month of the season, here are the defencemen who played at least 10 games and averaged between 60-70% of their team's PPTOI and between 30-35% of their team's EVTOI:

Rinzel wasn't getting quite as much ice time as Jake Sanderson or John Carlson, but Rinzel's offensive usage was not far behind some of the top offensive defencemen for their respective rosters. However, Chicago's power play went 6/36 in October, which was 24^th in the league. Rinzel was eventually supplanted by Artyom Levshunov (and even Matt Grzelcyk at times) at both even strength and the power play, and though he would have a couple opportunities later in the year, Rinzel never could find that next gear as an offensive blue liner.

It is hard to put a lot on Rinzel because Chicago's power play never really found consistency and the team finished with the seventh-worst scoring rate at 5-on-5. All the same, he didn't come close to being the breakout player we hoped he could be, and if Levshunov becomes the go-to guy moving forward, Rinzel might never reach his true fantasy ceiling.