The Minnesota Wild advanced the second round of the postseason for the first time in over a decade thanks to a 5-2 win over Dallas in Game 6 on Thursday night. Quinn Hughes scored twice, including the game-winner that banked in off Ilya Lyubushkin's skate, to lift the Wild past the Stars. Hughes also assisted on a goal from Vladimir Tarasenko, and that helper gave the defenceman eight points in six games during the series.

Jesper Wallstedt stopped 22 of 24 shots in the series-clinching victory.

Wyatt Johnston and Mavrik Bourque scored for Dallas in the loss.

Minnesota now gets a second-round matchup with the Colorado Avalanche though the schedule has yet to be determined.

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The Anaheim Ducks also advanced to the second round, thanks to a 5-2 home win over Edmonton. Troy Terry, Leo Carlsson, and Chris Kreider each had a goal and two assists in the win, giving Terry and Carlsson eight points each in the series. Cutter Gauthier also scored in the game, totaling five shots and a hit. He led all Ducks skaters in their six-game win with four goals, and across his last 100 games in the NHL (regular season and playoffs), Gauthier now has 53 goals. The next great goal scorer is here.

Jackson LaCombe assisted Gauthier's PP goal, giving LaCombe nine points in the series, tying him with three others for second in the NHL postseason. Not among just defencemen, either.

Lukas Dostal bounced back with a good effort in net, stopping 25 of 27 shots.

Connor Murphy and Vasily Podkolzin scored the goals for the Oilers in the loss.

Anaheim will face the winner of the Utah/Vegas series.

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In yesterday's Ramblings, we covered young forwards who saw an improvement in their market share (market%) of shot attempts, including Cole Perfetti, Shane Pinto, Aliaksei Protas, Leo Carlsson, and more. To see which rising (potential) stars got more shot-happy in 2025-26, go check that out.

Today, we're again looking at the market% for young forwards, but this time looking at the declines. Just for some clarity, this is what 'market share of shot attempts' means:

Market share of shot attempts is the percentage of a team's shot attempts taken by a specific player when they're on the ice. So, if Carolina averages 60 shot attempts per 60 minutes with Andrei Svechnikov on the ice, and he takes 15 of those 60 attempts, his market share is 25% (15/60).

We use market% because sometimes a player will be shooting a lot but are stuck on a team (or with line mates) that don't generate a lot of shots. Identifying players who take the shots can help find undervalued goal scorers in the fantasy hockey realm.  

The focus of this article is on young forwards, or those who were 25 years old or younger in 2025-26. It is only at even strength (excluding empty net situations) and considers only those with at least 600 minutes of EV time in each of the last two seasons.

Matias Maccelli (Toronto Maple Leafs)

Two things can be true about Maccelli:

1. He had a good rebound season going from Utah to Toronto by increasing his goals per game and nearly doubling his assists per game.
2. There are signs of concern with that rebound.

That is why it's worth highlighting that in our sample of 246 total forwards, he had the eighth-largest decline in market% of shot attempts, and the largest of any forward age-25 or younger:

Taking 18.2% of the shot attempts puts Maccelli near a fourth-line rate, and that is the concern. If he remains in Toronto, he is no higher than the third winger on the depth chart, and likely no higher than fourth if Easton Cowan continues his ascension. If Maccelli is skating under 15 minutes a game with secondary PP time, we cannot expect much more than a 15-goal, 45-point season with very low peripherals. That is not a valuable fantasy option.  

Jack Drury (Colorado Avalanche)

When Drury was traded to Colorado, the hope was that he could turn into a middle-6 shutdown centre the team needed for future Stanley Cup runs. Since trading for Drury, the Avalanche have also traded for Brock Nelson, Nazem Kadri, and Nicolas Roy, which gives us a clear indication that the Avalanche do not believe that to be the case.

What is notable for Drury is that he has seen a big decline in shot volume since coming over for Carolina, and it's led to him having the 11^th-largest drop in market% of our 246 forwards:

The good news for Drury is that he's shot 11.4% overall as a member of the Avalanche against a 6.2% conversion percentage in Carolina. That helps with racking up goals, but he played all 82 games this season and finished with 99 shots on goal. Without hyper-elite finishing talent, this kind of shot volume puts 20-goal seasons out of the question. He could have some depth fantasy value in leagues that count face-off wins (he had 563 this past season), but that's about as far as it goes. He turned 26 years old in February, so the hope of further offensive upside is wearing thin.

Brady Tkachuk (Ottawa Senators)

For fantasy production, there were a lot of red flags for Tkachuk this season. He skated 16:58 per game, his lowest rate since his rookie season and 1:16 less per game than in 2024-25. He did not improve his finishing, shooting under 10.5% for the eighth straight season, and to top it off, his market% declined as well:

That drop in market% takes him from Jason Robertson/Tage Thompson territory to Jack Eichel/Dylan Holloway territory. This is a big problem for Tkachuk because his 30-goal seasons have been predicated on extremely high shot volume. He had 22 goals in 60 games, and that pro-rates to 30 goals in 82 games, so he can still get there, but it is not automatic at this new market%. And if the team's shot volume when he's on the ice declines, the problem gets much worse.

This is a precarious situation because if Tkachuk skates under 17 minutes a game at this shot rate, the potential for 40 goals becomes less likely, barring a shooting percentage spike. As fantasy managers, we will exchange some shot volume for better finishing, but without better finishing, we have to be more realistic about what we can expect.

Peyton Krebs (Buffalo Sabres)

With career-highs in goals (12), assists (27), shots (93), hits (201), blocks (41), and PIMs (78), I'm sure that fantasy managers in deeper multi-cat formats were not complaining about Krebs' season.

The first thing to say about that is 5/12 goals and 8/39 points came on an empty net. Relying on a guy to get 20% of his production from the empty net is asking a lot.

The second thing to say is that Krebs saw a market% decline, and it was the 22^nd-largest decline of our 246 forwards:

If we exclude the empty-net goals, Krebs' goal-scoring rate at even strength actually declined when compared to 2024-25, and that came in a season where his most-common line mate was Tage Thompson. It isn't unreasonable to think that playing with Tage means that there are fewer shots for Krebs, but it brings us back to the empty-net conundrum: how much can we rely on Krebs being 1 of 17 players with at least five empty net goals year after year?

Connor Zary (Calgary Flames)

I am hesitant to ascribe too many skills changes/declines to Flames forwards because they started clearing out their top skaters and kickstart the rebuild, and that was part of the reason the Flames finished last in goal scoring. At the same time, Zary has not typically been a big volume shooter to start his career, and that got even worse in 2025-26:

Taking 18.4% of the shot attempts is a borderline fourth-line rate, and in line with names like Yanni Gourde and Parker Kelly. The difference between those two and Zary is that Tampa Bay and Colorado are elite offensive teams that can boost the scoring of secondary and tertiary players. That is… not the case in Calgary.

Sometimes, players can fall into a 'better in real life than in fantasy hockey' bucket and that may be the case with Zary. He has fewer than 200 NHL games and can still improve, but it is going to take a few years (at least) for Calgary to turn the ship around, and even if he earns more ice time as other veterans leave the roster, the Flames being so poor offensively will keep him from meaningful production; 20 goals and 40 points would be a good season.

Adam Fantilli (Columbus Blue Jackets)

Quickly, I want to touch on Fantilli because it was a bit of a weird year. In my weekly newsletter, I covered how Fantilli's playmaking numbers took a leap in 2025-26. One issue is that it came at the expense of shot volume as he saw his market% decline:

It is true that his shots per game increased, but a big part of that was because of the power play. He had 51 shots on goal with the man advantage in 82 games, more shots than he had in the first 131 games of his career. If his power-play shot rate had stayed constant to what he did in 2024-25, his rate of shots per game would have slightly declined.

To me, this isn't a big concern yet. Fantilli doesn't turn 22 years old until October, did not hit the 200-game plateau until March, and seems to be adding other dimensions to his game. Even with the market% in shot attempts, his rate in 2025-26 was still that of a low-end top-line forward. Assuming he gets additional ice time and has further growth to his game, this is one of those situations where a declining market% doesn't concern me.