from Eric Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail,

Not sure if Detroit coach Derek Lalonde was in any danger of losing his job after the Red Wings’ playoff drought continued, but the way they battled in that final home-and-home with the Montreal Canadiens suggests he’s still got the team playing for him. More structure – and maybe more stability in goal – might be enough to finally get them over the hump.

James Reimer is an unrestricted free agent, so if no changes are made in goal, the Red Wings can go with Ville Husso ($4.75 million) and Alex Lyon ($900,000) as their tandem. Iffy.

There is reason to believe that the Calgary Flames will re-engage with the New Jersey Devils in talks for Jacob Markstrom in the offseason, but if that can’t get back on track, would Detroit consider taking on Markstrom, obliging Calgary to take Husso’s contract back, and offering up a first rounder for the privilege?

Maybe that’s something that can be addressed.

Ideally, Calgary would like a young center back in any trade for Markstrom, but if that can’t happen, then a lottery pick might be enough.

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from Bob Duff of Detroit Hockey Now,

David Perron is making it abundantly clear that he wants to remain with the Detroit Red Wings. GM Steve Yzerman is on the record as suggesting that he’s not opposed to the idea.

Why then, does Perron playing another season in Detroit seem to be such an improbable outcome?

“I like it here,” Perron said. “It’s a pretty special place.”

For his part, Yzerman also believes that what Perron has brought to the team is pretty special.

“It’s a player I have to give strong consideration to bring him back,” Yzerman admitted.

Everyone seems to be on the same page. So why does it feel like they still might end up turning the page?

The root cause of the problem is the thing that people are always describing as the root of all evil – money.

Will the Red Wings have enough of it left over to be able to pay Perron?

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Michael Farber with the narrative.

* Matthew Tkachuk scored a pair of goals as the Panthers opened up a 3-0 lead in their First Round series against the Lightning and became the first Stanley Cup finalist to start the following postseason with three straight wins since the 1984 Oilers.

* Sebastian Aho climbed a franchise list with his fifth career game-winning goal in the postseason and Frederik Andersen backstopped the Hurricanes to a Game 3 victory thanks to a highlight-reel save in the latter stages of the third period.

* Alex Ovechkin can help the Capitals climb back into their series against the Rangers on home ice while the Predators, Avalanche and Kings all seek to take the upper hand for the first time in the opening round as their matchups swap cities.

"It's a one of a kind sound."

Detroit never looked so good since the Stanley Cup parade days.

250K at the draft, 400K in the area.

The Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Islanders need a win tonight to avoid an elimination game on Saturday.

from Tyler Kuehl of Mlive,

Playoff hockey is finally back in West Michigan.

For the first time in five years, the Grand Rapids Griffins have made it to the American Hockey League Calder Cup Playoffs. Thanks to a strong second half of the season, the Griffins have home-ice advantage heading into their Central Division Semifinal matchup against the Rockford IceHogs.

A LONG ROAD BACK

Prior to the 2023-24 season, the Griffins had not punched their ticket to the postseason since 2018-19. Granted, the team could not compete in the postseason in 2020 and 2021, as the AHL did not hold playoffs due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

However, after back-to-back sub-.500 seasons, including a 28-win 2022-23 season, the Detroit Red Wings’ brass realized it needed to make a change to improve player development and focus on team success. Out went Ben Simon, and in came former Toledo Walleye head coach Dan Watson.

While the new voice in the room provided optimism, things did not start off well for the Griffins. By December, the team was sitting sixth in the division, and were barely hanging onto the last playoff spot in the Central by December.

continued with much more on the team...

from John Gushue of CBC,

Bob Cole, whose voice and lively language were the Saturday night soundtrack to hockey games over a broadcasting career that spanned more than half a century, has died.

Cole, who was 90, died Wednesday night in St. John's surrounded by his family, his daughter, Megan Cole, said.

"Thank you for decades of love for his work, love of Newfoundland and love of hockey," Megan Cole told CBC News on Thursday.

Cole said her father had been healthy "up until the very end."

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TORONTO, Canada, April 25, 2024 — Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Rogers Communications, and the National Hockey League (NHL) today announced a milestone two-year agreement in Canada to bring hockey fans Monday night NHL hockey exclusively on Prime Video.

Prime Monday Night Hockey will stream all national regular season Monday night NHL games in English for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 NHL seasons. The deal is the NHL’s first exclusive national broadcast package with a digital-only streaming service in Canada. The Prime Monday Night Hockey package, produced by Prime Video, will feature a new broadcast team offering in-depth analysis and play-by-play coverage, and stream live exclusively to Prime members in Canada.

from Damien Cox at the Toronto Star,

Now, if there’s an NHL city in Canada that should be feeling nothing but gratitude toward its hockey team, it should be Vancouver. After missing the playoffs in seven of the previous eight seasons, and finishing sixth in the eight-team Pacific Division last season, the Canucks roared to a 50-win, 109-point campaign this year and won the division....'

• A good deal of uncertainty regarding No. 1 goalie Thatcher Demko, who missed much of the final part of the season, reappeared for Game 1 against Nashville and is now out again on a “week-to-week” basis with an undisclosed injury. Head coach Rick Tocchet said it was not a reoccurrence of the same injury.

• Unhappiness with the performance of star forward Elias Pettersson, who signed an eight-year, $92.8-million (U.S.) contract with the team last month but went pointless in the first two games against Nashville. Pettersson missed an open net in the dying seconds of the first period of Game 2, then later committed an awful turnover at his own blueline that led to Nashville’s third goal.

“I put us in a bad spot with my mistake on their third goal, that can’t happen. If I score in the first it’s a 1-1 game, different outlook,” Pettersson said afterwards. “I’m always my biggest critic and I take a lot of blame for this one.”

• Some rare mistakes by captain Quinn Hughes late in Game 2. Hughes took a late tripping penalty to slow what appeared to be a surging Canucks comeback attempt. Then, with the Vancouver net empty, Hughes was outskated and outmuscled by Preds winger Kiefer Sherwood along the boards, allowing Sherwood to ease the fourth Nashville goal into the unguarded Vancouver net.

more

from Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press,

Seider's résumé puts him in line for a major pay raise from his entry-level contract, which paid $863,333 annually. Try a ten-fold increase, easily: It would be a boon for the Wings — freeing money to spend elsewhere this offseason — if Seider, most likely on an eight-year deal, comes in on around the same $8.7 million salary cap hit as captain Dylan Larkin.

But 24-year-old Buffalo Sabres defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, the No. 1 pick in 2018, has a contract with an $11 million cap hit (starting next season). Dahlin has 185 points in 239 career games. If the Wings get Seider in single-digit millions, consider it a financial victory.

"I get both sides," Seider said. "In the end, it’s a business. I think it’s not a big secret I want to be a Red Wing, and I think I am confident that I could be a good asset for this organization. That really matters for me. Then you can talk as long as you want about numbers and how long a contract should be, but if those two first parts fit well, and they do, then I’m pretty confident we’ll get something done.

"I think it’s always a big dream for every player to be with a franchise for a long time. Either way, you just want to be here. If that’s multiple contracts, then that’s fine with me, too, but I just want to be part of that team and that locker room and play in front of those fans. That's what really matters to me."

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from Ed Graney of the Las Vegas Review-Journal,

You have to imagine Golden Knights goalie Logan Thompson awoke Tuesday morning feeling pretty good about himself.

He had the evening before won the first playoff game of his NHL career. The nerves were quelled. The butterflies were gone.

Imagine how Thompson feels now.

He was stellar Wednesday night, and for it the Knights have a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven series against the Dallas Stars.

And for it the Knights prevailed 3-1 before a sold-out and — as you can imagine — incredibly unhappy 18,532 at American Airlines Center.

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Here are the game highlights.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

Whatever it is, however it happens, it always seems to happen this way.

When you lead the whole game, when you’re on your toes more than your heels, when your game is assertive, in the end you get “The Bounce.”

When you trail — “chase the game” as hockey people love to say — the chase seldom lands you the quarry.

We’ll never be sure whether Quinton Byfield made a super-skilled play to deflect that puck right onto Anze Kopitar’s stick in overtime, or if a puck that was destined for an icing call just banked off the kid and fluked its way on to the clutch captain’s blade for a game-winning breakaway goal.

And it doesn’t matter, really.

We know Byfield is a fantastic looking young player, and his superior play in Game 2 earned him “The Bounce” — whether planned or pure luck.

The Los Angeles Kings won their fourth consecutive overtime game over the Edmonton Oilers by a 5-4 score, a game the Kings deserved to win. They never trailed in Game 2, and now head home with a level series and a fresh breath of life that would have been scant, had they lost this one.

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Watch the game highlights and the OT goal here.

from Terry Koshan of the Toronto Sun,

With a 4-2 victory, the Bruins took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series, often smothering the Leafs and slamming the door on an ineffective Toronto power play, killing off all five minors.

“Power play is a big part of it, right?” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We get to two (goals). Power plays needs to get you one (more), it gets you to three, if not four, and then it’s a good night offensively in the playoffs, against an elite defensive team.

“I thought the power play was all right. We had some good looks in tight around the net that we didn’t make good on, but we have to find a way to get those in.”...

The power-play is ugly, though. Through three games, the Leafs are 1-for-11 (9.1%).

“The puck is not going in, which is frustrating,” defenceman Morgan Rielly said. “But there are chances coming. We’re trying to focus on our structure and I think our entries have been good. We’re trying to get pucks to the net, trying to create rebounds and traffic. It’s matter of getting the puck across the line.”...

On the other side of special teams, the Leafs are hurting as well. Boston is 5-for-10 on the power play in the series, including going 2-for-3 on Wednesday.

more and watch the game highlights here...

* Team captains Anze Kopitar and Brad Marchand scored the winning goal as the Kings and Bruins picked up road victories Wednesday.

* Jack Eichel became the fastest U.S.-born player in NHL history to reach 30 career playoff points as the Golden Knights defeated the Stars to take a 2-0 series lead home to Las Vegas.

* The Lightning and Islanders will look to earn a first win of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs as their First Round series shift to Tampa and Elmont, respectively, for Game 3 on Thursday.

from Nicholas J. Cotsonika of the NHL's website,

The players had been introduced to Utah. They’d been greeted by hundreds of youth hockey players at the airport; toured Delta Center and Utah Jazz headquarters; and come back to the arena to find about 12,400 people packed inside for a welcome event.

Now they introduced themselves as Utah’s new NHL team. On stage before a raucous crowd Wednesday, they were supposed to state their names, positions and hometowns one by one. But they were so emotional, so inspired, they couldn’t help but fire up the fans further.

Clayton Keller grabbed the mic and yelled, “Utah! How we doin’?” Lawson Crouse took it and yelled, “Let’s make some more noise!” Nick Bjugstad yelled, “Let’s go!” Liam O'Brien told the fans they could call him “Spicy Tuna,” and Jack McBain led a “Spicy Tuna” chant.

“This is honestly one of the coolest experiences we’ve all had as hockey players,” Alex Kerfoot told the crowd.

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Below watch the team receiving a huge welcome at the Delta Center.

One team will go up 2-1 in their series while two teams can go up 2-0.

View the roster as it stands today.

from Kevin Allen of Detroit Hockey Now,

Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin and goalie Alex Lyon were two of the 15 players named to USA’s preliminary roster for the World Championships.

Larkin will be joined up front by Ottawa’s Brady Tkachuk, Columbus’ Johnny Gaudreau and Montreal’s Cole Caufield among others. The World Champions is expected to draw more name players this year because the NHL is planing an international tournament next season and will send players to the next Olympic Games.

Lyon is the only NHL goalie named thus far as USA Hockey waits to see which goalies will be available by first round playoff knockouts.

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from Joe Romano of the Tampa Bay Times,

Certainly, the Panthers deserved to celebrate. Their pressure was relentless.

The Lightning deserved their fate, too. They have allowed Florida to control the puck and the pace.

As for Andrei Vasilevskiy? He deserved so much more.

If the Lightning cannot win a playoff game with their goaltender sliding, diving and denying pucks from every direction, then this season could be heading to a quicker end than last year.

Florida beat Tampa Bay 3-2 in overtime Tuesday night to claim the first two games of the first-round series. And when Carter Verhaeghe’s backhanded flip ended up in the net less than three minutes into the extra period, Vasilevskiy was sprawled on the ice with Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk on top of him, and three Lightning players arriving too late to do a stinking thing to help their goaltender.

“I thought Vasy made some great saves,” Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. “Both goalies played outstanding tonight. One had a little more action than the other but both made some really quality saves.”

continued and watch the game highlights...

from Bob Duff of Detroit Hockey Now,

Next season could be viewed as the year of the more for the Detroit Red Wings. That’s because the team will be dealing with so much more than they were at the outset of the 2023-24 NHL campaign.

There will be more expectations placed upon this team after missing this season’s playoffs via a tiebreaker. That will lead to more pressure, more responsibility and more growth within the team.

Will it all result in more wins? That’s the great unkown at this juncture. But it will also lead to more opportunity and Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde is viewing that as a good thing.

“Expectations for certain are going to change and that’s a positive,” Lalonde said. “Those expectations changed when we went 16-4-2 in February. Expectations changed when we started the season 5-1. Expectations changed when we won six straight.”

continued