The NHL announced the three finalists for the Selke Trophy as the league's top defensive forward, and they are Anthony Cirelli, Brock Nelson, and Nick Suzuki. Each had tremendous seasons for their respective teams, though eventually it would be nice to see Noah Cates get recognized. He doesn't put up the same offensive numbers as some of the others, but his defensive impact over the last few years, both at even strength and on the penalty kill, makes him one of the best defensive forwards in the league.

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Speaking of Cates, the Philadelphia Flyers announced that he will miss the rest of the second round with an injury. Given the lack of centre depth the team already has, and the fact they're down 2-0, this is a big blow to their chances of pulling off a comeback.

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After going just 1-for-24 in the first round, Buffalo's power play came through in a big way on Wednesday night, scoring twice on three opportunities to lift the Sabres to a 4-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens. That gives Buffalo the 1-0 series lead with Game 2 set for Friday.

Ryan McLeod and Josh Doan both had a goal and an assist while Jordan Greenway and Bowen Byram also tallied. After going pointless in the first three games of the Boston series, Doan now has two goals and three assists over his last four playoff games, totaling 10 shots and 8 hits in that span. He and Zach Benson have found some tremendous chemistry since being united a couple months ago.

Alex Lyon stopped 26 of 28 shots for the win.

Nick Suzuki and Kirby Dach had the goals for Montreal.

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The Anaheim Ducks evened up their series with the Vegas Golden Knights thanks to a 3-1 win. Leo Carlsson finished off a nice pass from Troy Terry to give the Ducks a 2-1 lead early-ish in the third period, and then Jansen Harkins sealed it with an empty-netter. Beckett Sennecke had the team's first goal, slamming home a power-play goal halfway through the second period.

Carlsson now has four goals, five assists, 36 shots, three blocks, and five hits through eight playoff games. His superlative breakout season is being capped off with a great postseason debut.

Lukas Dostal stopped 21 of 22 shots in the win. His shutout was broken thanks to a power-play goal from Mark Stone with six seconds left in the game.

Game 3 goes Friday night back in Anaheim.

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The last handful of Ramblings have started the review of the 2025-26 season, and the last three, in particular, have covered changes in shot volume:

• Shot volume improvements from names like Connor Bedard, Leo Carlsson, Aliaksei Protas, and more.
• Shot volume declines from forwards like Matias Maccelli, Adam Fantilli, Peyton Krebs, Brady Tkachuk, and others.
• Shot volume improvements from defencemen such as Mattias Samuelsson, Darren Raddysh, Luke Hughes, and more.

Today, we're finishing our shot volume series by returning to defencemen, and going the other direction to see which ones have seen declines.

When discussing shot volume, the measure used is 'market share'. For anyone unfamiliar with that term in this context:

Market share (market%) is simply the percentage of a team's shot attempts taken by a specific player when that player is on the ice. So, if Colorado averages 75 shot attempts per 60 minutes with Nathan MacKinnon on the ice, and MacKinnon takes 25 of those 75 attempts, his market share is 33%, or 25/75.

This helps find players who are shooting a lot, but whose team/line mates have low shot volume, and helps contextualize players with high shot volume but who play for high-volume teams.

We are considering just even-strength play (excluding empty net situations) and including only defencemen who played at least 600 minutes in both the 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons. The focus will mostly be on younger defencemen, so those in their age-26 seasons or under.

Quinn Hughes (Minnesota Wild)

The first player we'll discuss is one of the most important blue liners in the fantasy hockey realm because his 1.09 points per game is second among defencemen across the last three seasons, trailing only Cale Makar. He has also put up less shot volume than Makar – about 11% fewer shots per game in that span – and that has led to fewer goals, and less overall fantasy value. Hughes took a big step in his shot volume in 2024-25, but that declined again in 2025-26:

Falling from roughly 24.6% of his team's shot attempts a couple seasons ago, which was sixth in the league, to 19% of his team's shot attempts this year, is a big decline. That takes him from a fringe top-5 mark to outside the top-50, going from a range that included the likes of Makar and Zach Werenski to a range that includes names like Shayne Gostisbehere and Mikhail Sergachev. Overall, Hughes dropped from an average of 231 shots every 82 games to 207 shots every 82 games despite adding over two minutes per game in ice time.

When discussing elite fantasy options, a player losing ~25 shots per season matters a lot. That especially applies to someone like Hughes who doesn't have elite shooting percentages like Makar. What is especially worrisome is that the shot volume rate got worse with Minnesota than it was in Vancouver. If that persists, he will be in tough to be a reliable 200-shot defenceman.

Nils Lundkvist (Dallas Stars)

This one is a bit of a cheat because Lundkvist didn't meet the 600-minute threshold for the 2024-25 season, but I thought it was worth including him because of the team he plays for and the potential he has.

The most concerning part of Lundkvist's fantasy potential is games played. Whether due to scratches or injury, he has yet to play more than 60 games in a single season and he has just 150 games played over the last three years. No matter the level of belief we have in a player, if we can't really rely on them to play more than 55 games, their fantasy relevance is minimal.

To make matters worse, Lundkvist saw his shot volume decline in 2025-26 by a significant margin:

The 2024-25 season saw Lundkvist take 22.7% of Dallas' shot attempts, and that would be Noah Dobson/Roman Josi territory. However, the 2025-26 season saw that crash down to 17.6%, which is Oliver Ekman-Larsson/Hampus Lindholm territory. And, with his being no higher than fourth on the Stars' blue-line depth chart when he's healthy, there isn't a lot of ice time. Certainly not to the level of OEL or Lindholm.

I am a believer in Lundkvist's talent and think that if he can stay healthy, even without much power play time, he can be a productive defenceman. However, unreliable games-played numbers, combined with a declining shot rate and very modest ice time, means the light at the end of the tunnel is getting further away.

A quick mention here to Jayden Struble as we see his name just under Lundkvist's in that picture. He averaged 69 shots every 82 games across his first two seasons and that absolutely cratered to a 36-shot/82-game pace in 2025-26. He lost ice time and is no higher than the sixth defenceman on Montreal's depth chart right now. With David Reinbacher and Adam Engström knocking on the door, Struble's days in Montreal may be numbered. Despite strong hit and PIM totals, with low block and shot totals, the multi-cat value is waning.

Kevin Bahl (Calgary Flames)

Not that we ever relied on Bahl for heavy shot volume, but he averaged 113 blocks, 125 hits, and 58 penalty minutes every 82 games over the last three seasons. That kind of peripheral production makes him a name to know in multi-cat formats, so any kind of shot volume increase just brings more peripheral value. Unfortunately, he saw a decrease in 2025-26:

In 2024-25, Bahl took 15.6% of Calgary's shot attempts when he was on the ice. That isn't great, ranking around names like Nick Jensen and Damon Severson, but crashing to 11.1% this past season is a huge problem. Out of 131 defencemen in our sample, that ranked 130^th and put his 82-game pace at 62 shots.

The funny part is Bahl scored four goals, a career-high, despite this shot decline. That was thanks to shooting 7% and considering his two-year average before this season was 2.8%, and career average before up until 2025-26 was 3.6%, I wouldn't bank on that repeating. The peripherals elsewhere were still strong, but this level of shot volume is a big drag in multi-cat formats. Hopefully he can rebound in 2026-27.

Jacob Bernard-Docker (Detroit Red Wings)

Not that Bernard-Dober has much fantasy value, but for a guy who looked to be on his way out of the NHL after playing just 112 games with three different teams across two seasons, he may have found a home in Detroit. He has averaged 137 blocks and 74 hits every 82 games over the last three years, but despite a regular-ish role in Detroit, his shot volume fell:

A mark of 19.3% in 2024-25 would have put Bernard-Docker somewhere around the top-third of the league, but his mark of 15.1% in 2025-26 puts him around the bottom-quarter of the league. Again, very minimal point production means Bernard-Docker isn't fantasy-relevant outside of the deepest multi-cat formats, but even in a full season, we may not get more than 50-60 shots from him.

Noah Dobson (Montreal Canadiens)

We will finish things with Dobson, who is very much fantasy relevant and just had his fifth straight season with at least 10 goals. Four of Dobson's last five seasons have seen him post at least 10 goals and 35 assists, but where his goal scoring used to be a function of his shot volume, that changed in 2025-26. He shot a career-high 7.6%, which was necessary because he saw a notable decline in his shot attempt market share at even strength:

It isn't a decline the size of guys we saw earlier in this article, but that decline, combined with the loss of top power-play time coming over from the New York Islanders, compounds the problem. Keeping in mind the overall ice time he lost, Dobson dropped from 6.2 shots per 60 minutes to 5.3 shots per 60 minutes. It takes him from a top-15 defenceman and pushes him outside the top-30. If he can keep shooting 7-8%, it isn't a huge deal for his goal scoring. If his shooting percentage drops back to 5-6%, then it becomes a big problem.