Frank Nazar is expected to return on Thursday night, according to Scott Power. Nazar has been out a little over a month after taking a puck to the face but after a couple practices, he seems all good to go.

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Buffalo signed winger Josh Doan to a seven-year extension worth a little under $7M per season. He is in the midst of a breakout year with 15 goals, 20 assists, and 11 power-play points in 49 games while averaging just 16:04 per game. Once (if) he starts getting more ice time, this is a 30-goal/40-assist winger in the making.

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Moritz Seider muscled Easton Cowan off the puck, dished it to Dylan Larkin, and then absolutely ran over Jake McCabe as Larkin fired home the overtime winner to lift the Detroit Red Wings to a 2-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs. Seider finished the game with two shots and a block to go with his assist. Larkin managed a goal, an assist, five shots, a block, and a hit in the win.

John Gibson held the Leafs to one goal on 31 shots for his 20th victory of the season. It is the first time since 2019-20 he’s reached at least 20 wins.

Joseph Woll was stellar in net for the Leafs, but ended up on the losing end of the game, allowing two goals on 39 shots.

Toronto defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson left the game early in the first period and did not return.

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It happens all the time: a young player enters the league, shows a lot of promise early on, and never really takes that next step forward (just ask New York Rangers fans). However, there are times when the player just needs to work things out under a new coach/system or develop other skills, and then they elevate their performance (Nick Suzuki and Clayton Keller come to mind). With fantasy managers in keeper/dynasty leagues coming up on their Trade Deadline in the next month or so, it is worth reviewing some of the younger players who’ve not taken that next big leap forward, why that’s the case, and whether they’re showing signs of being able to take that step.

Today, we are going to focus only on forwards. Player data is from Evolving Hockey and tracking data is from All Three Zones.

Cole Perfetti (Winnipeg Jets)

From 2021-2025, Cole Perfetti averaged 2.32 points per 60 minutes at all strengths. That isn’t a high-end mark, but it was around a 70th percentile point production rate, which is a top-tier second-line mark in that span. So far in 2025-26, that point rate has cratered to 1.66 points/60 minutes, which is roughly in the 34th percentile, or a mid-level third-liner. With Perfetti crossing the 200-game mark late last season, and turning 24 years old a few weeks ago, this should be a season of ascent, but it’s been one of descent instead.

One clear culprit is he’s shooting 5% against a four-year average of 11.9%. Even still, if he were shooting 11.9%, it’s only four extra goals, and a 42-point/82-game pace. That isn’t what we’re looking for.

The big problem is the power play. In 2025-26, Perfetti is managing a point on just 37.5% of power-play goals with him on the ice. His career average up to this season was 60.4% and he has not been below 55.5% in any single season. The question is whether that will rebound.

To figure this out, we’re going to do the following:

Find PP goal participation (individual points percentage, or IPP) among regular forwards from 2021-2024, restricting our sample to forwards with at least 400 PP minutes and a PP IPP rate of at least 60%.

See which players’ PP IPP fell under 60% in 2024-25 (minimum of 150 PP minutes).

Look at whether it’s rebounded so far in 2025-26 (minimum of 90 PP minutes).

The answer to that final bullet point is: Yes, sort of. Using the above parameters, we get 14 forwards, and here’s their average PP IPP from 2021-2024, the drop in 2024-25, and what’s happened so far in 2025-26:

The reason why it’s a ‘sort of’ is that there has been a rebound, but not back to the level of the three years from 2021-2024. On top of that, only 2 of 14 forwards in the sample have a PP IPP in 2025-26 that is the same as, or larger than, their PP IPP from 2021-2024: Evgeni Malkin and Timo Meier. Over half the forwards (8/14) haven’t gotten back to the 60% mark.

This is a small sample, of course, with just 14 forwards included and this NHL season still with roughly 40% of the games left to play, but Perfetti’s PP performance this year is a bit of a red flag. What would help more than anything is if he got a regular top PP role in Winnipeg, which is a big ol’ TBD.

Mason McTavish (Anaheim Ducks)

If you told me before the season that we’d get to late January with the Anaheim Ducks being above average by goals per game with a power play scoring 60% more often than last season, I would have drafted Mason McTavish way more often than I did. No one told me that, which is a good thing because McTavish is seeing a per-game declines in goals, assists, shots, and power-play points per game.

The long and short of it here is that there’s nothing really going on with McTavish – the production is down a bit across the board but no massive drop off from the last two seasons. Rather, it’s the rest of the team that has seen a massive change, which is no surprise to anyone that saw what Leo Carlsson, Cutter Gauthier, and Beckett Sennecke did through the first 40-ish games. To make that point, here is the team’s goal-scoring rate and shooting percentage with McTavish on and off the ice across the 2023-2025 seasons:

And here is Anaheim’s goal-scoring rate and shooting percentage with McTavish on and off the ice so far in 2025-26:

The goal scoring with McTavish is nearly identical to his last couple of years, it’s just what the team is doing when he’s not on the ice that has changed.

In a way, this is a good thing. While McTavish hasn’t taken off production-wise yet, having a higher scoring environment will help in the long run. With the big six-year contract extension he signed a few months ago, McTavish is also clearly a big part of Anaheim’s future, which looks very bright with guys like Carlsson, Gauthier, and Sennecke doing what they’re doing.

All this is to say that it might not be a bad idea to see if the fantasy manger with McTavish on their roster is a bit frustrated, especially if they’re pushing for a league title. There are no red flags here – whether his shot or expected goal rates, his tracking data, or anything else – and this is more about the team around him getting better than anything else. Having much more productive teammates to skate with will only help McTavish in the future and seeing as he’s not even 23 years old yet, the next five years of his fantasy value still hold a lot of promise.

Quinton Byfield (Los Angeles Kings)

As things stand, Byfield is not pacing for either a 20-goal or 50-point season. It is safe to say that is a big disappointment, and anyone that was hoping for a breakout season from him has been left holding the bag.

It is a wonder how much is on Byfield and how much is on the team around him. When looking at the 5-on-5 tracking data, I limited the sample with the following parameters:

At least 700 tracked minutes from 2021-2025 and 100 tracked minutes in 2025-26

A 20% increase in assists on teammate scoring chances

A 20% increase in contributions off the cycle/forecheck (shots and assists)

A 10% increase in rate of zone entries

Here are the players that came up:

The other six forwards are Andrew Copp, Anthony Beauvillier, Connor Bedard, Connor McMichael, Morgan Frost, and Valeri Nichushkin. Here is how those six forwards fared by points/60 at 5-on-5 from 2021-2025, how they’re doing in 2025-26, and how that compares to Byfield:

Despite across-the-board improvements in tracking data we know can lead to production, Byfield’s production has fallen off a cliff whereas the others have improved by a good margin. With Adrian Kempe having his worst season in a few years and Kevin Fiala‘s assist rate dropping off the map, we have to believe one of two things here:

Quinton Byfield, despite increasing a lot of key tracking metrics, has somehow gotten worse where others have gotten better.

The Los Angeles Kings are a poor offensive team and while there is no singular reason, their brilliant general manager intentionally making their blue line considerably worse in the offseason is not doing any of their forwards any favours.

I know where my money is.