The Montreal Canadiens started Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final by conceding a goal to Seth Jarvis but then scoring four goals in the next 10:32 to take a 4-1 lead and, eventually, a 6-2 win.

Juraj Slafkovsky managed two goals and an assist, Cole Caufield and Phillip Danautl had one of each, while Alexandre Texier and Ivan Demidov also tallied. Through 15 games in this postseason, Slafkovský is up to 6 goals, 6 assists, 44 shots, 22 hits, and 11 blocks.

Alexandre Carrier had another productive game with an assist, three blocks, two PIMs, and a hit.

Jakub Dobes stopped 25 of 27 shots for the win.

Eric Robinson scored the other Carolina goal, and netminder Frederik Andersen allowed five goals on 21 shots.

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In yesterday's Ramblings, we continued reviewing the 2025-26 season, specifically focusing on changes among peripheral stats for forwards, including shots, blocks, hits, and penalty minutes. That covered both play at all strengths and at 5-on-5, and we included 60-minute rates as well as percentages of all peripheral stats. Go check that out for a more macro view of trends across the league over the last five years.

Today, we're staying with forwards, but going down to the individual level. It is all well and good to understand that shots on goal have been declining as hit rates have been increasing, but in fantasy hockey we are concerned with totals – my total needs to be higher than everyone else in the league (or my opponent in head-to-head formats) to win. Those totals are the focus below with data from Evolving Hockey.

To start with, let's consider at shots on goal at all strengths. It was mentioned a few times yesterday, and as any fantasy manager paying even a modicum of attention has realized, shots on goal are becoming less prevalent in the league. What does that look like over the last five seasons? Glad you asked:

Anyone that may have pushed Grade 9 math out of their head, this plot shows the distribution of shots on goal among forwards in the league. The rectangular box itself shows totals between the 25^th percentile (fringe fourth liners) and the 75^th percentile (fringe first liners). Above the top of the box are the high-end shot totals and under the bottom of the box are the low-end shot totals. The league average forward landed 1.7 shots per game and plays under 70 games, so most season totals will be under 140 shots.

There are a couple of important takeaways here.

First, back in 2023-24, we had one forward reach 400 shots (Nathan MacKinnon) and eight others surpass the 300-shot plateau. This past season, MacKinnon led the league with 351 shots and the only other player to reach the 300-shot mark was Connor McDavid. Ultra-high shot volumes just aren't a thing anymore, and it makes the elite shot totals that MacKinnon puts up much more valuable. Consider this:

• In 2023-24, MacKinnon landed 405 shots and Auston Matthews had the third-highest total with 368. MacKinnon managed 37 more shots than Matthews, or 10% more.
• In 2025-26, MacKinnon put up 351 shots, and Jason Robertson had the third-highest total with 295. MacKinnon registered 56 more shots than Robertson, or 19% more.

If MacKinnon can exceed the third-highest shot rate by nearly 20%, his elite shot volume becomes one of the most important fantasy value differentiators of any player in the league.

The next important takeaway is the forward group posting 200+ shots. With the declining overall shot totals, there were far fewer 200-shot forwards in 2025-26 (48) than just two years ago (71). However, this past season saw 46 of those 48 forwards (96%) with 200 shots finish with 300-or-fewer shots. Two years ago, it was 62 forwards between 200-300 shots, or just over 87%. That means there is less separating the high shot volume forwards now than there was just a couple years ago. Again, it just highlights how impactful MacKinnon's sky-high shot volume is.

Moving away from shots and towards blocks, it is the inverse of shots on goal. Where shot totals have declined over the last few years, block totals have increased over the last few years:

Back in 2021-22, we had just one forward crack the 80-block plateau, but each of the last three seasons have seen between 7-9 forwards reach at least 80 blocks. We are regularly seeing forwards approach, or surpass, a block per game where it used to be a rarity. That is a new wrinkle in the modern NHL and is important for multi-cat managers to keep in mind – you don't need to look solely at defencemen for help in the block column.

The other interesting part here is that back in 2021-22, forwards blocked 9.3% of all shot attempts. This past season, forwards blocked 10.3% of all shot attempts. That might not seem like a huge deal, but that added nearly 1900 blocks attributed to forwards when compared to four seasons ago. There are more shot attempts in the league now – that increased in the four-year span by nearly 3% – but the increased rate in shots blocked far exceeds the increase in shot attempts. It is a genuine shift in how teams defend their net.

We talked about 5-on-5 play in yesterday's Ramblings, so we should mention that again here. The increased shot blocking rates we have seen at all strengths also applies to 5-on-5:

Notice how back in 2021-22, we had just three forwards surpass 60 blocked shots at 5-on-5 but had 10 such forwards this past season. It is notable that in 2024-25, we had 19 forwards surpass the 60-block plateau, but the 2025-26 campaign had just 10 such forwards, and that represents a drastic decline of the top-end options.  

There has also been an increase in hits. Yesterday, we saw that forwards have been getting a bigger share of their total peripherals from the hit column, and the 60-minute hit rate among forwards was higher in each of the last two seasons than it was in any of the prior three seasons. That shows up in the box graphs we've been using so far today:

Look at the dots for each season that surpass the 300-hit mark. The three years from 2021-2024 saw just four forwards crest the 300-hit plateau but we've had seven 300-hit forwards across the last two seasons with Kiefer Sherwood and Will Cuylle managing it in both campaigns. In other words, Sherwood and Cuylle alone have as many 300-hit seasons across the last two years as all forwards in the NHL across the prior three seasons combined.

All that said, hit shares and hit rates seem to have stabilized somewhat in the past two years. Maybe we see a fluctuation next season, but it does seem we have a couple elite options we can rely on year after year for monster hit totals and then have a similar distribution below them.

Lastly, we'll cover penalty minutes. As mentioned in yesterday's Ramblings, it is the one of the four peripheral stats that have been consistent, ranging from 10-10.6% of an average forward's peripheral totals in each of the last five seasons. Remember that we excluded 10-minute misconduct penalties from our data, focusing instead on 2-minute minors and 5-minute majors. The players who rack up 10-minute misconducts are generally players who rack up PIMs (like Tom Wilson and Mark Kastelic), so that's something to keep in mind when looking at this distribution:

Excluding the misconducts, the 2025-26 season had one forward reach exactly 100 PIMs, the first time in three years there wasn't a forward over 100 PIMs. However, look at the top of the rectangle for the 2025-26 season – it sits at 30 penalty minutes. That means the 75^th percentile of penalty minutes among forwards is around 30 PIMs. Last season, that was around 28 PIMs. There are some more reasonable PIM totals available among forwards, but again, it's been the most stable of all our peripherals and there's not too much to glean here.

Let's quickly summarize what we've seen today:

• Declining shot volume means that the super-elite volume guys, and Nathan MacKinnon in particular, create a significant edge over the high-volume forwards just in the tier below them, let alone the middle-of-the-road options.  
• Shot blocking among forwards remains elevated compared to 3-4 years ago, but the high-end totals declined from 2024-25. There are still elite totals to be found, but the upper-middle-class thinned out.
• The rate of hits per minute stabilized this season. Top options like Cuylle and Sherwood remain perennial hit monsters, but there will be a couple players who post similar (if lower) totals to them.
• Penalty minutes aren't changing very much, but there were more PIMs available in the mushy middle of forwards than there was a year ago. Whether that holds for 2026-27, we'll have to wait and see.

I know writing about peripheral stuff like this can be a bit dry, but it is important to keep track of how the game is changing because when something like the shot decline happens, it creates a drastic shift in how we evaluate fantasy hockey value.

Next week, we'll move on to defencemen.