In a pair of Ramblings last week, I looked at which forward stats correlated well to future goal and point production at 5-on-5, then I repeated the same thing for defencemen stats. Go read those to get a foundation on what we're discussing.

Building off those Ramblings, on Tuesday we went over some forwards who had large increases in two key 5-on-5 tracking stats that correlated well to future point production, including Juraj Slafkovsky, Gabriel Vilardi, and William Eklund. Yesterday, we went in the other direction to see which players saw declines in those tracking stats, including Kevin Fiala, Artemi Panarin, and Pavel Dorofeyev.

Today, we'll look at two other stats that correlated well to future point production:

• Chance Assists/60 – This counts how often a player assists on teammate scoring chances per 60 minutes.
• Assists/60 – The rate of a player's actual assists per 60 minutes.

One often leads to the other, and both lead to points, but both are some measure of playmaking ability, so we're going to lump them in together.

The tracking data is from All Three Zones and the player data is from Evolving Hockey. This is all at 5-on-5 and just among forwards. The comparison will be a player's 2025-26 output compared to the two years from 2023-2025. There is an ice-time cutoff of the median total ice time and tracked ice time in our seasons, which gives us a sample of 160 forwards. The positional designations are from Fantrax.

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In the following graphs, the red dotted lines represent the league average change per 60 minutes in the two stats for our 160 forwards, the yellow dots are players with top 40 improvements in both areas, and the blue dots are players who fell short in either or both stats.

Martin Necas (Colorado Avalanche – RW)

It shouldn't be much of a surprise that in Nečas’ first full season with Colorado, a year where he spent the vast majority of his ice time next to Nathan MacKinnon, he turned in a career season. What might be a bit surprising is that along with a big increase in his overall assist rate, his chance assist rate improvement was 35% larger than the next-closest forward in our sample:

Not only did he have the far-and-away largest improvement in chance assists, but his overall chance assist rate led all 160 forwards in our sample and was 39% larger than the third-highest rate. It wasn't just that Nečas saw improvements, or big improvements. It is the fact that he was in a tier of his own, and by a good margin.

A career year of 100 points will be tough to improve upon, but the avenue for improvement is the power play. Even if he had 24 power-play points, good for a top 50 mark in the league, Colorado was tied for 20^th in PP goal scoring. They have too much talent to not be better than that, and Nečas did have 15 power-play points in 30 games the prior year with the Avs. An improved Avalanche PP would mean a lot more PP production for Nečas, and that is a big reason the Dobber Fantasy Guide has him projected for 108 points in 80 games. He is at the perfect intersection of skill, opportunity, and line mates.

Andrew Copp (Detroit Red Wings – C)

These types of analyses always uncover something you weren't expecting to see, and seeing Copp's name among the largest increases in the two playmaking areas we're measuring for future point production certainly qualifies:

One caveat here is Copp's secondary assist rate. From 2023-2025, he produced 0.35 secondary assists per 60 minutes. In 2025-26, that rate doubled to 0.7 secondary assists per 60 minutes. That increase in secondary helpers, which can be random for forwards, was his entire increase in overall assist rate. It is always worth digging a bit deeper to see why changes happened.

In fairness to Copp, he did have a large increase in his chance assist rate. It shouldn't necessarily lead to his secondary assist rate doubling, but it helps explain some of it. I will also mention that in Tuesday's write-up, we noted how Patrick Kane saw significant increases in some key tracking data. In 2025-26, Copp spent nearly 60% of his 5-on-5 ice time next to Kane. Kane is gone, but the team did bring in Viktor Arvidsson, and that should help replace some of the lost offence.  

The real reason for noting Copp here is the trade request from Dylan Larkin. If Larkin is traded and a top-line centre doesn't come back in return, and Marco Kasper doesn't take an immediate, large leap in his development, Copp becomes the team's de facto top-line centre. That isn't great for Detroit, but it'd be great for Copp's fantasy value. He might even get some top PP time just because of a lack of options. Keep an eye on what happens with Larkin over the next six weeks.

Alex Tuch (Washington Capitals – RW)

There were 15 forwards who fit our criteria for improvements. Two of those forwards came from the Buffalo Sabres: Tuch and Peyton Krebs. Given that Krebs saw a significant role increase due to injuries elsewhere, I will set him aside. What stuck out was that Tuch's increase in chance assist rate (+1.69) was considerably larger than Tage Thompson's (+0.22) and Tage's assist rate decreased (-0.03) while Tuch's increased (+0.32). That is one reason why we're highlighting Tuch here:

The other reason to highlight Tuch is that he's moving to a new team. The Capitals certainly look poised to be in the Eastern Conference mix for a deep playoff run, but the depth that makes them potential Stanley Cup contenders also cuts into Tuch's role. Last year, he earned 14:53 per game in even-strength ice time, or 1:36 more per game than the next-closest Sabres winger. In Washington, he'll have to contend with mainstays Tom Wilson and Aliaksei Protas, the incoming Jordan Kyrou, and some guy named Alex Ovechkin. He could lose a minute per game of EVTOI, and he'll likely stay in a secondary PP role as he did with Buffalo. I think he's still a 60-point forward, but there is no longer the threat of being a point-per-game player.

Connor Bedard (Chicago Blackhawks – C)

When we think of Bedard's top skills, they probably all relate to shooting in some way. That should stand out, but his playmaking feels underrated (at least to me), and that's why it's very notable to see the chance assist and assist increases:

That Bedard suffered another shoulder injury which will keep him out of the first month(ish) of the regular season is unfortunate, because with the additions the Blackhawks have made as well as some (hopeful) internal growth, he seemed poised to threaten the 40-goal, 100-point marks. It is my firm belief that the Blackhawks still need more help on the blue line for this team to really take a leap in their scoring, even if Bowen Byram makes a sizeable impact and Artyom Levshunov improves, but this was the year Bedard should have started scratching his fantasy upside. We will have to wait another year for that, but for now, as long as he's healthy when he returns from the surgery, he should see career-best production on a per-game basis.

Lawson Crouse (Utah Mammoth – RW)

Earlier, I discussed how I wasn't including Peyton Krebs because he had such a drastic shift in his usage due to injuries elsewhere on the team. It is a similar case to Crouse as he spent nearly 40% of his 5-on-5 time with Clayton Keller. For comparison, in 2024-25, he spent just 2.5% of his 5-on-5 time next to the star winger. Playing much more with skilled players should inflate our measures, and that's what happened with Crouse:

This leap helped the Mammoth winger to his first career season with at least 20 goals, 20 assists, and 200 hits. That is massive peripheral value, and a big rebound from what he did the year before. From 2021-2024, he averaged 25 goals, 20 assists, and 202 hits every 82 games, so it's pretty much in line with what we'd expect from him, 2024-25 notwithstanding.

The additions of Anders Lee and Vincent Trocheck give the Mammoth six forwards who can realistically comprise their top two lines, leaving Crouse on the third line with the likes of Barrett Hayton, Jack McBain, Michael Carcone, or Kailer Yamamoto. Maybe he gets some top 6 time again, but even if he doesn't, we've seen him produce well without it. I am dubious he maintains these increases, but I don't have any overall concerns about a big drop in his fantasy value. 

Joel Eriksson Ek (Minnesota Wild – C)

To finish things off, we'll quickly touch on Minnesota's top centre, at least by ice time, and the improvements he made:

I do wonder how much of this was Matt Boldy taking his next step, as he also saw a reasonable increase in his chance assist rate. On the other hand, Boldy had a four-year high in 5-on-5 shooting percentage, so maybe that was just Eriksson Ek improving his playmaking. Hockey involves a lot of symbiotic relationships, and it seems these two have found theirs, and it bodes well for their respective 2026-27 fantasy campaigns. Imagine if Eriksson Ek finally has another season where he shoots 13-15% rather than 9-12%? In multi-cat formats, he could legitimately be a top-25 forward, especially in leagues counting face-off wins.