Roman Josi is flying under-the-radar right now for the Nashville Predators as a comeback player of the year candidate for the NHL after posting his first two-goal game of the season in Tuesday's win over the Edmonton Oilers.
There were a lot of concerns heading into the season regarding Josi's health after his offseason diagnosis of the POTS syndrom, which can cause dizziness and exhaustion.
Josi talked about his symptoms and how he first realized something wasn't right heading into training camp this past September, per Teresa Walker of The Associated Press.
""I just knew something was kind of off. And I think last year just kind of got to the point where it’s getting worse, getting worse and worse and then obviously that hit happened against Florida, and I think that was kind of the point I was like: I need to figure out what’s going on.”"Teresa Walker, Associated Press
Despite the scary diagnosis and his age, Josi stated that he was 100 percent ready for the start of the regular season as the Captain of the Nashville Predators, a team coming off a massively disappointing season that was one of the worst in franchise history.
Roman Josi's comeback season was put in jeopardy very early on, but he battled back and is now a big part of the Nashville Predators turnaround
Josi played in the first eight games of the season, logging five points and shaking off the rust pretty fast. An unrelated injury put him on the shelf for another month before returning to game action on November 22 against Colorado.
Josi would quickly and in impressively get back on track showing up on the scoresheet and being a positive impact on his team. The Predators would begin their season turnaround shortly after that with back-to-back wins over Detroit and Chicago. Since then, the Predators have climbed up the Western Conference standings and right in the thick of the wildcard race now with a healthy Josi.
Per Brooks Bratten of the team's official website, Josi joined just five other defensemen in NHL history on Tuesday night with his 10th career overtime goal, and also jumping to 11th place all-time among defensemen in game-winning goals with 37 for his career.
Lots of great Roman Josi notes from @NHLPR:
— Brooks Bratten (@brooksbratten) January 14, 2026
Josi became the sixth defenseman in NHL history with 10 career overtime goals.
Josi scored his 37th career game-winning goal to pass several blueliners and tie Kevin Hatcher for 11th place on the NHL’s all-time list among defensemen.… pic.twitter.com/A6BsVxWGHu
Josi is also quickly approaching his 1,000th NHL game. He sits at 996 games, making January 22nd's home matchup against Ottawa the 1,000th game milestone if Josi doesn't miss anymore time.
When it comes to career points and active NHL defensemen, only five players are ahead of Josi. Brent Burns, who has played over 500 more games than Josi, leads the active list with 933 points. Josi sits at 747 and 13 points behind the next player on the list, John Carlson.
Among the top active defenseman, they have all played more career games than Josi. You have to go down over 200 points to Morgan Rielly to find the next active defenseman with fewer than 1,000 games played that shows up in the top-10.
Josi is even further up the active NHL defenseman list for career goals with 198, which puts him third. He should hit the 200-goal milestone at some point this season, and sits just six goals behind Erik Karlsson for second place.
I'm not sure how many more season Josi has left in the tank, but it appears that for now he is managing his POTS diagnosis very well and it's not affecting his level of play. If it is, it's not noticeable and he's pushing through it in heroic fashion.
Josi's ice time has gone down a little bit, but he's still averaging over 23 minutes per game while puting up 23 points in 34 games. So his ice time is down nearly two minutes from last season, but he is still finding ways to find the scoresheet, impact the power play and contribute on the rush.
The Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy goes to the NHL's comeback player of the year and is defined as going to the player who shows qualities of "perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey".
With what Josi has battled back from after taking the hit from Sam Bennett last season, getting the diagnosis at his advanced age and battling back to put together a season like he is right now, he fits that definition to a tee.