The NHL announced the three finalists for the Norris Trophy and they are Rasmus Dahlin, Zach Werenski, and Cale Makar. This is Dahlin's first time as a finalist, Werenski's second time after a second-place finish last season, and Makar's six straight season as a finalist after winning in both 2021-22 and 2024-25.

There were a handful of worthy candidates, but it still boggles the mind that Moritz Seider is not on this list. He had excellent defensive numbers on a very pedestrian team, doing so while saddled with a lot of defensive zone starts, killed penalties, and did all that while putting up a 60-point season. If there was ever a year to nominate an excellent defensive defenceman who also was very impactful offensively, this was it. And yet.

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The Carolina Hurricanes took a 3-0 stranglehold in their series against the Philadelphia Flyers thanks to a 4-1 win in Pennsylvania. Jalen Chatfield scored the game-winning goal on a gorgeous short-handed shot, with Jordan Staal and Andrei Svechnikov adding power-play goals. That was Svechnikov's first goal of the postseason, and the Hurricanes will need more from him the deeper they go into the postseason. They still have a job to finish in Game 4 on Saturday night, though.

Frederik Andersen stopped 18 of 19 shots he faced for his seventh straight postseason win. He now has a .957 save percentage in those seven games, allowing just eight goals total. He has given up as many goals in seven games as Jesper Wallstedt did on Sunday night.

Trevor Zegras had the lone Flyers goal.

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Over the last few weeks, the season review has begun, and the last four Ramblings, specifically, have discussed individual player shot volume changes. We have covered:

• Shot volume improvements among forwards like Connor Bedard, Leo Carlsson, and Aliaksei Protas.
• Shot volume declines among forwards like Brady Tkachuk, Adam Fantilli, and Matias Maccelli.
• Shot volume improvements among defencemen like Darren Raddysh, Luke Hughes, and Mattias Samuelsson.
• Shot volume declines among defencemen like Quinn Hughes, Noah Dobson, and Nils Lundkvist.

Today, we are going to take a bit of a break from the offseason review to go over some observations from the playoffs. These are just guys who've stood out to me while watching the postseason, whether through their production or in other areas.

We are using tracking data as compiled by All Three Zones and other player/team data is from Natural Stat Trick.

Leo Carlsson (Anaheim Ducks)

This is something arbitrary, but one thing I look for in a player taking the next big leap in their development is their ability to be a one-man zone entry. Think of the elite offensive talents like Nathan MacKinnon or Connor McDavid – when they get the puck and are going full speed through the neutral zone, they can enter the offensive zone with the puck nearly every time. It isn't just the speed that enables this, but their ability to process everything they're seeing on the ice to ensure they can evade defenders and gain the blue line.

That puck-carrying skill is something I've noticed with Carlsson. That skill has been a hallmark of his basically since stepping foot in the league, but in the playoffs, it has seemed to really take another step. When I was looking through the tracking data from All Three Zones, Carlsson's puck-carrying skill immediately popped. Though the tracking data has just the first three games from the Oilers series tracked, this is what he did by zone entries per 60 minutes, along with the percentage of those entries being carried in, and the average of the other Ducks forwards in those areas:

The overall rate of zone entries isn't huge, but the gap in percentage of entries carried in is other-worldly. While the sample may only be a few games from the first round, there was nothing in the back half of that series, or through two games of the second round against Vegas, that has disabused me from the notion that Carlsson looks like a man on a mission when he has the puck on his stick.

Wyatt Johnston (Dallas Stars)

Johnston managed four goals and six points in the first round, and five of those six points came on the power play. Dallas' inability to get anything going at 5-on-5 is what nailed their coffin shut and sent them home after six games.

All the same, that power play was something else, wasn't it? And while it's easy to look at Johnston scoring 30 of his 49 goals this season with the man advantage (regular season plus playoffs) and assume he's simply riding the coattails of skilled line mates, the reality of what he does on the power play is much different. The tracking data we mentioned has all six games tracked from Dallas' first-round series against Minnesota. In that series, Johnston was responsible for carrying the puck into the offensive zone on the power play at an equal rate to the rest of the Stars' forward group combined, resulting in just as many power-play setups:

Once Dallas gets the puck moving around on the power play, Johnston is often the recipient of excellent play from his line mates. That shouldn't overshadow the fact that he is heavily responsible for getting the puck into the zone with control in the first place. Everything that happens in between is often up to the play of guys like Mikko Rantanen or Miro Heiskanen, but the Dallas power play starts and ends with Johnston. That demonstrates not only goal-scoring ability, but great zone entry work like we just saw with Carlsson.

Logan Cooley (Utah Mammoth)

Anyone watching Utah's first round loss against Vegas probably had a similar takeaway: the Mammoth were being carried by the line of Cooley, Dylan Guenther, and Kailer Yamamoto. We could highlight Guenther's neutral zone transition work or his wicked shot, but Cooley really stood out to me in that series.

First, it was easy to see how physical he was. Part of it was Vegas trying to get under his skin, but part of it was Cooley really laying the body: his rate of hits per 60 minutes at 5-5-on-5 in the regular season was 4.3, roughly in the middle of the league among regular forwards, but that exploded to 11.9 hits per 60 minutes in the playoffs, putting him near the 65^th percentile of forwards.

Keep in mind that players who hit a lot don't often have the puck. That was not the case with Cooley because at 5-on-5, the Mammoth had considerably better shot attempt, shot, expected goal, and goal shares with him on the ice than off the ice:

If he saw his hit rate skyrocket and the team was getting dominated when he was on the ice, that would be one thing. That his hit rate skyrocketed even with his team having very good possession numbers tells me he got physically engaged much more than he was expected to. He only managed three points in six games, and Cooley's success is part of his great chemistry with Guenther, but he showed another dimension to his game that he hasn't shown much of in regular season play. It might not carry over to the 2026-27 regular season, but at least we know it's in his toolkit. 

Sean Walker (Carolina Hurricanes)

Starting the postseason with a 6-0 record means a lot of Carolina players will stand out, including the second line of Logan Stankoven, Taylor Hall, and Jackson Blake, along with goalie Frederik Andersen. They deserve the accolades thus far, but Walker is someone that really stood out to me through those six games.

To be clear, it is the pairing of Walker and K'Andre Miller as, by my eye and by some of the data, they've been Carolina's best defence pair in the postseason. Miller deserves some credit for his stellar play thus far, but I do want to highlight Walker because he feels like the unheralded hero of the team to this point. Looking at the same shot attempts, shot, expected goal, and goal shares we just used with Cooley, here is how Carolina is faring with and without Walker on the ice at 5-on-5:

Walker has yet to be on the ice for a goal against at 5-on-5 (this is being written on Thursday morning, so maybe I've jinxed him for Thursday night's Game 3), and all his shot metrics are around or over 60%. On top of that, Walker has been on the ice for just 18 shots against per 60 minutes at 5-on-5, the second-lowest rate of any playoff defenceman with at least 100 minutes played (Rasmus Dahlin is lower). He is getting it done at both ends of the ice, and that level of play is something that can tilt a tight series in Carolina's favour. 

Bowen Byram (Buffalo Sabres)

Byram has four goals and six points in seven games, and that excellent production is what will get the headlines. But there's something else I want to point out and it's similar to what we saw with Cooley and his physicality.

In the 2024-25 season, I remember reading an analysis of Byram's play and one thing that was covered was how he seemed shy to take a hit to make a play (I cannot remember who wrote it, and if anyone reading this remembers who did, please send it over or post in the comments). Given Byram's extensive concussion issues, it was a very reasonable way for him to operate, but in the NHL, defencemen need to take hits to make plays if they want to be consistent difference-makers. Even more so in the playoffs.

When looking at hits taken at 5-on-5, the rate among defencemen actually declined in the 2025-26 regular season by about 1% when compared to the year prior. However, Byram's rate of hits taken increased by over 5%. And that was with the team having a slightly higher share of the shots when he was on the ice compared to the year before. It seemed as if he was more willing to take a hit.

That has carried over to the postseason. While hit rates are way up in the postseason anyway, when looking at defencemen with at least 100 minutes played at 5-on-5, Byram is taking even more hits than the average increase:

Watching the Sabres' postseason games, it really does appear as if Byram is willing to take more hits to make a play, and the numbers certainly back that up. It is especially impressive when we consider that the team's possession numbers are much higher with Byram on the ice in the postseason (over 55%) than they were in the regular season (under 50%). He is a goal-scoring defenceman, and that will get the headlines, but Byram otherwise resembles the guy who made such a big impact in Colorado's run to a Stanley Cup in 2022. With Dahlin on the top pair playing at a Conn Smythe-level so far, Byram has been able to push the play when Dahlin is off the ice, and it makes the Sabres just that much more dangerous.