Kukla's Korner Hockey

Kukla's Korner Hockey

Leafs, Oilers And Penguins Are Three Of The Six Teams Facing Elimination Today

08/07/2020 at 9:49am EDT

from Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun,

One Maple Leaf forewarned that the Blue Jackets “will keep comin’ at you, no matter the score”.

In other words, a three-goal deficit with Toronto on cruise control just isn’t enough to discourage a team that thrives on boring substance over style. But a blown three-goal lead in Thursday’s 4-3 overtime loss might have seen the whole series go up in smoke for the Leafs.

Coach Sheldon Keefe can’t squeeze out the defensive effort John Tortorella gets from his Jackets, never mind when Toronto’s minus Jake Muzzin, but did use some of Torts’ succinct postgame podium punches.

“We got what we deserved,” Keefe said more than once. “I feel like the game got away from us in the first period. I didn’t like it at 1-0, 2-0, 3-0. There was no real purpose or plan to our game, just making it up as we go along. We were back to a lot of really bad habits.”

After Friday it might be back home for summer and fall.

continued

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

So, as hockey people like to say, it is time for the Oilers to “suck it up.” They’ll have all summer to feel sorry for themselves if they can’t put together a win on Friday, and then pull off Game 5 on Saturday.

“If we start worrying about the (fifth) game, back to back or whatever, it’s not going to happen,” said defenceman Oscar Klefbom. He’s right: They can not win two games on Friday.

“We can all sit here and say, they had a few lucky bounces,” added Chiasson. “But our game wasn’t as good as it needed to be. We need to address that.

more

from Joe Starkey of the Pittsburg Post-Gazette,

Once upon a time, Mike Sullivan was as close to irreproachable as any coach I’ve seen, especially in the playoffs.

If Sully made a move, no matter how questionable, it always seemed to work.

But that was before he lost seven playoff games in a row and eight of nine, before he presided over one of the more listless defeats in franchise history (first-round sweep at the hands of the Islanders) and before his current team put itself a loss away from perhaps the most humiliating playoff defeat in 52 years of Penguins hockey.

Maybe that's overstating it. Maybe put it this way: The Penguins have never lost to a lesser team than these Montreal Canadiens.

continued

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Paul Kukla founded Kukla’s Korner in 2005 and the site has since become the must-read site on the ‘net for all the latest happenings around the NHL.

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