{"id":545942,"date":"2026-04-07T17:42:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/545942\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T17:42:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T17:42:13","slug":"2025-26-rick-martin-award-finalists-rasmus-dahlin-tage-thompson-and-alex-tuch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/545942\/","title":{"rendered":"2025-26 Rick Martin Award Finalists: Rasmus Dahlin, Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rasmus Dahlin<\/p>\n<p>Dahlin\u2019s season began <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/sabres\/news\/buffalo-sabres-captain-rasmus-dahlin-letter-september-2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">with an open letter<\/a> to the Buffalo community in which he announced that his fianc\u00e9e, Carolina, had suffered from heart failure during the summer and was recovering from a heart transplant.<\/p>\n<p>While Carolina recovered back in Sweden, Dahlin returned to Buffalo and captained the Sabres to their first playoff berth since 2011. Carolina was able to join him here recently and attended the team\u2019s game against Boston on March 25.<\/p>\n<p>In the face of personal adversity, Dahlin ranks second on the Sabres with 69 points (four shy of his career high) and first in time on ice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m happy for the city,\u201d Dahlin said when asked about clinching a playoff spot. \u201cI\u2019m happy for all the guys that have been grinding here for years: the equipment managers, the trainers, my teammates. Most of [all], the people in the city. Wow, it\u2019s gonna be special, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dahlin, as always, has also made time for the community. He welcomed his friend Sophia LaBorde to join him on the Blue and Gold Carpet ahead of the team\u2019s home opener, which you can revisit in the video below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rasmus Dahlin Dahlin\u2019s season began with an open letter to the Buffalo community in which he announced that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5100],"tags":[1107,229,5133,5,4,1108],"class_list":{"0":"post-545942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-sabres","8":"tag-buffalo","9":"tag-buffalo-sabres","10":"tag-buffalosabres","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sabres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116364663088187560","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}