Articles in NHL Talk

via the NHL PR department,

Macklin Celebrini (North Vancouver, B.C.), a center from Boston University who was named the 2024 Hobey Baker Memorial Award winner on Friday, remains No. 1 among North American skaters for the 2024 Upper Deck NHL Draft as the NHL Central Scouting Bureau today released its final rankings. Anton Silayev (Sarov, Russia), a 6’7” defenseman, moved up one spot to become the top-ranked international skater.

NEW YORK (April 16, 2024) – The National Hockey League has set an all-time record for total attendance in a single season.

More fans have experienced live the 2023-24 regular season, acclaimed for scoring feats not seen in decades and competitive races right to the wire, than any other in the League's 106-year history.

The eight-game Monday slate pushed the total attendance figure for the 2023-24 regular season to 22,560,634 (1,294 GP), surpassing the previous high of 22,436,532 set in 2022-23. NHL games have played to 97% capacity at the 36 host venues, which include the 32 home arenas plus Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton, Avicii Arena in Stockholm, T-Mobile Park in Seattle and MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.

The 18 games remaining in the 2023-24 regular season, which concludes Thursday, April 18, will add to the record total.

* With just 72 hours remaining in the regular season, we still have four teams in the race for the final Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference with the Capitals, Red Wings and Penguins – three teams within one point of one another – all claiming victories Monday.

* Connor McDavid continues to thrill the hockey world: this season it’s with the first 100-assist campaign produced in 33 years, with The Great One the last to do so.

* Both New York teams secured clinches Monday as the Rangers earned the 2023-24 Presidents’ Trophy, while the Islanders became the 15th team to secure a spot in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

* The Capitals and Red Wings will have an opportunity to clinch the final berth into the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs as part of an eight-game Tuesday. Washington will do so with a win, while Detroit will do so with a victory and a Capitals loss of any fashion.

* The 2023-24 campaign set an attendance record Monday after the season total reached 22,560,634, surpassing the previous record set in 2022-23 (22,436,532).

* NHL Central Scouting will release its final rankings for the 2024 Upper Deck NHL Draft today at 11 a.m. ET on NHL.com and Media.NHL.com.

NEW YORK (April 15, 2024) – Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews, Nashville Predators defenseman Roman Josi and Calgary Flames center Nazem Kadri have been named the NHL’s “Three Stars” for the week ending April 14.

NEW YORK / CHICAGO (April 15, 2024) – The National Hockey League (NHL) today debuted its new campaign for the 2024 Stanley Cup^® Playoffs that highlights some of the crazy things fans do in the name of love for their teams. Three spots will launch today on the NHL’s digital and social media platforms before making their national TV debut tonight during game broadcasts, including the 9:30 p.m. ET Minnesota Wild-Los Angeles Kings game on ESPN.

* Tomas Hertl’s overtime winner helped the Golden Knights complete the NHL’s 26th three-goal comeback win this season – the most the League has seen since the record-holding 1989-90 campaign. Vegas is now just one point back of Los Angeles for the Pacific Division’s third seed.

* Seth Jarvis and Sebastian Aho combined for three straight goals in the third period to help the Hurricanes rally to victory and stay alive in the Presidents’ Trophy Race.

* The Islanders can lock up one of the final two playoff spots in the Eastern Conference while the Rangers will have a chance at securing the Presidents’ Trophy during an eight-game Monday.

from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- The general managers I’ve polled believe young Quinn Hughes is the runaway winner of the Norris Trophy, as best defenceman. And in some years, not this one, he’d be an MVP candidate …Bobby Orr is the youngest player ever to win the Norris. He was 19. Then, just to be certain, he won when he was 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26.

- I like the rather complete Carolina Hurricanes to come out of the East. They’re first in the NHL in penalty-killing, second on the power play. Penalty-killing is more important in the playoffs than the power play. But since Jake Guentzel got to the Hurricanes, he has 24 points in 16 games and Carolina has points in 13 of those games.

- Boo-hoo to the players (families) on the Arizona Coyotes already complaining about moving to Salt Lake City. The wives on the Atlanta Flames hated moving to Calgary in 1980. Forty-four years later, that’s a rock-solid franchise and a great place to live. I covered the bankruptcy hearings of the Coyotes in 2009. The NHL should have moved out of Arizona back then.

- Don’t know of anyone who hates losing more than Steve Yzerman. Which would make him all but apoplectic over the last quarter of the Red Wings season.

more notes

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

The NHL’s anticipated move to Salt Lake City after 28 years of unrequited love in the desert does not mark the end of Gary’s Folly, for we have been told by several members of the industry’s intelligentsia that Arizona will move to the head of the expansion line as if the hypothetical new team can get its arena situation sorted out. That’s a novel concept.

Indeed, there is every chance that when the NHL is ready to dilute its product by adding another two teams and perhaps a sum of another $2 billion to divide among the existing 32 ownerships’ respective bank accounts, Arizona and Atlanta will be waiting to give the league a back-to-the-future vibe. Quebec and Cleveland will have to wait.

Arizona did not fail as an NHL market nearly as much as multiple ownerships failed the market. That is why Gary Bettman won’t put a white flag on his door when it comes to the league’s interest in this Southwest outpost. The land-grab move to Glendale out of downtown Phoenix in 2003 was as predictably a colossal failure as choosing to receive the opening kickoff in overtime of the Super Bowl. A next time would include a pre-existing structure in a community that makes sense (and deferring).

I don’t know that adding Salt Lake City to the Original 32 necessarily adds much cache to the league. But removing this ongoing embarrassment of an eyesore in the desert — that, by the way, had increasingly become a ratcheted-up flashpoint between Marty Walsh’s NHLPA and Ninth Avenue — represents addition by subtraction for the league. The NHL gets to abandon its minor league facility while allowing Rob Manfred’s MLB to move into one of its own in one of the great self-owns in pro sports history.

read on plus other hockey topics of interest...

* The Eastern Conference’s final Wild Card spot changed hands three times in a span of 49 minutes Saturday, with the Penguins holding the position entering play before it was taken by the Flyers (7:30 p.m. ET) and Capitals (8:19 p.m. ET).

* The 13-game slate resulted in just one First Round matchup getting confirmed and one division title being clinched, meaning seven opening-round series, two playoff berths and the Presidents’ Trophy winner will be determined over the final five days of the regular season

* The NHL, TNT Sports and Warner Bros. Games are joining forces to bring viewers a clash of excellence in hockey and real-time animation for the first-ever MultiVersus NHL Face-Off – a simulcast of the Avalanche-Golden Knights game Sunday – exclusively on truTV and Max’s B/R Sports Add-on.

Most of the talk about the Coyotes.

added 9:27pm, via Sportsnet,

On this edition of Saturday Headlines, Elliotte Friedman discusses the desire to announce the Arizona Coyotes' relocation this week, the Oilers saying Connor McDavid will be ready for the playoffs, and much more.

from Luke Fox of Sportsnet,

A quick mix of the things we gleaned from the week of hockey, serious and less so, and rolling four lines deep....

A great get by The Cam & Strick Podcast this week as Andy Strickland conducts the first thorough interview with exiled and decorated coach Joel Quenneville about his involvement in the Chicago Blackhawks' egregious blind eye to video coach Brad Aldrich's alleged sexual abuse of Kyle Beach in 2010.

I recommend watching the interview in full and drawing your own conclusions:

Quenneville does takes some ownership for turning a blind eye and assuming upper management (a group of we'll-handle-it execs he labeled "The Firm") would deal with the situation.

"I definitely didn't handle it properly. I definitely should've handled it differently. I should've ... confront(ed) Brad from what I heard, or follow up and ask more questions to get to the seriousness of it, and then report it correctly and make sure there's follow-up off of that, whether it was the head of HR or top management, making sure they follow through on the whole process," Quenneville says, in part.

more on Quenneville, watch the interview too plus other hockey topics...

* The final weekend of the 2023-24 regular season is stocked with storylines. If it weren’t enough that two playoff spots are available, all 16 playoff seeds are to-be-determined and none of the eight matchups for the First Round are locked in, we also are one day away from the first-ever NHL showdown between Batman and Superman.

* The Golden Knights erupted for seven goals en route to clinching the Western Conference’s final playoff berth as they continue their pursuit of back-to-back Stanley Cup championships.

* Filip Forsberg found the back of the net three times to establish a franchise record for most goals in a season.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

“This is the last season. It’ll be announced tomorrow.”

Reggie Dunlop, playing coach for the Charlestown Chiefs, just stood there dumbfounded — in full uniform — as Chiefs owner Joe McGrath looked up from his desk chair and laid down the bad news in the movie "Slap Shot".

It is expected that the address by Arizona Coyotes general manager Bill Armstrong to his team and staff Friday afternoon in Edmonton was a longer version of the "Slap Shot" shtick, but with the same message.

After 27 seasons in the desert, it’s over for the Phoenix/Arizona Coyotes.

The rumours that every staff member and player have been fending off for the better part of the franchise's history have finally hit critical mass, with the pending announcement that the Coyotes will close up shop expected to come after Wednesday’s season finale at home against Edmonton.

By September they’ll be in Salt Lake City with a new identity and a new owner — but playing in a basketball-first, NBA building that is nearly identical to the one that greeted this franchise in downtown Phoenix when it left Winnipeg back in 1996.

continued

* Sidney Crosby had a night to remember as he moved into the NHL’s top 10 for points, became the 14th player in League history to record 1,000 assists and helped boost his team back into the second Eastern Conference Wild Card position, marking the fifth time in the past seven days that spot has changed hands.

* The Kings guaranteed their place in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs as they extended their home winning streak to seven games, their longest run since 2012-13 (also 7-0-0).

* It was another night of noteworthy performances for the current leaders in both the Art Ross Trophy and Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy races as Nikita Kucherov surpassed 140 points and Auston Matthews hit 68 goals.

* The Rush to the Stanley Cup Playoffs continues Friday with 10 teams in action, including the Golden Knights who hold the final Wild Card spot and the Blues who are just three points outside the playoff picture.

TSN’s Hockey Insiders have the latest on the league and the Coyotes-Salt Lake City speculation, its effect on the Coyotes players, the Flyers and head coach John Tortorella, Noah Hanifin’s extension with Vegas and Canada’s 4-Nations GM

Watch at TSN

10 of them.

* The West is not set thanks to the Blues, who are now three points back of the reigning Stanley Cup champions for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

* The regular-season will end one week from today, with four playoff spots still up for grabs (two in each conference) and all eight First Round matchups to be determined.

* None of the 12 teams that have clinched a playoff spot have secured a specific seed, and each of them have at least four potential opponents in the First Round. Click here to see all the possible outcomes.

* All five contenders in the Eastern Conference playoff race are in action tonight, with the Capitals able to overtake the Islanders for third in the Metropolitan Division standings. If that doesn’t happen, the winner of the Red Wings-Penguins matchup could move back into the second Wild Card spot.

9 minutes to watch.

from the NHLPA,

The NHLPA Player Poll has returned with the 2023-24 edition. During the regular season, 639 NHL players were surveyed on 15 hockey-related questions. Players weighed in on a variety of topics, including top positional players, most complete player, best playmaker, best style, toughest arena to play in and more!

If you need to win one game, who is the goalie you want on your team?

Make it three seasons in a row now for Andrei Vasilevskiy who received 289 votes as the players’ top pick to defend the crease for their team in a must-win game. With two Stanley Cups, a Conn Smythe Trophy and a Vezina Trophy already in his back pocket, this netminder’s experience is hard to ignore.

If you need to win a faceoff, who would you pick?

Blink and you’ll miss it! As a veteran in the faceoff circle, Ryan O’Reilly gets another clean win with 80 votes. Sidney Crosby finished closely behind with 75 votes. Meanwhile, Claude Giroux and Luke Glendening placed third and fourth, respectively, and Jordan Staal received one vote more than Anze Kopitar to round out the top five.

more plus two related videos below...

* Alex Ovechkin recorded an NHL-record 18th career 30-goal campaign to propel the Capitals into a playoff spot on the same night Auston Matthews scored his 66th goal of 2023-24 to surpass Ovechkin for the highest single-season total among active skaters.

* Nathan MacKinnon, Juraj Slafkovsky and Steven Stamkos each netted hat tricks for their clubs. Tuesday marked the first time three first-overall picks each registered a three-goal performance on the same day.

* The Predators clinched the sixth postseason berth in the Western Conference and are officially headed to the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

* More movement can be on the horizon during a three-game Wednesday – the Golden Knights have a chance to jump into third place in the Pacific Division when they face the Oilers on TNT, MAX, TVA Sports and various Sportsnet channels.

via the NHL PR department,

It could be the three 130-point players, the 65-goal scorer, the five teams separated by two points battling for two Eastern Conference playoff spots, the three Western Conference playoff seeds still up for grabs, the five clubs separated by six points at the top of the NHL standings, the changing-daily potential playoff matchups or “all of the above” that is making for “sweet, beautiful, end of the season mayhem.”

from Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic,

The question is whether teams, players and fans are tired of this format, and whether they would prefer going back to the conference playoff format the league had before: 1 versus 8, 2 versus 7, etc.

I posed that to team presidents around the league over the past few days. I asked them because this is a Board of Governors matter, not a GMs matter.

“I understand the thought behind the current format to create rivalries between divisional opponents; there just isn’t as many regular-season divisional games like there used to be,” Boston Bruins president Cam Neely said via text message. “I’d like to see how a conference format would be received by hockey fans.”

Another Hockey Hall of Fame player turned team president, the Los Angeles Kings’ Luc Robitaille, said he doesn’t have a problem with the current playoff format but does wish there would be more divisional games in the regular season. Still, like Neely he would be open to having the discussion.

“Honestly, this is the first year where I feel like people are talking about that,” Robitaille said over the phone. “It seems to be more vocal. I have not looked into it, in terms of what it would do with everything around it, the big picture of it all. But like Cam, I would listen at least and study it, yes.”

A dozen or so other team presidents and governors requested anonymity in their responses, as the commissioner prefers this subject not be hashed out in public by teams.

Of those, the majority were in favor of going back to the 1-8 conference format or at least having a serious conversation about it.

more ($)

NEW YORK (April 8, 2024) – Tampa Bay Lightning right wing Nikita Kucherov, Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby and New York Rangers left wing Artemi Panarin have been named the NHL’s “Three Stars” for the week ending April 7.

* The race for the final Wild Card spot in the Eastern Conference remains as crowded as ever, with Detroit defeating Buffalo and concluding Sunday holding the position thanks to Ottawa’s overtime win against Washington.

* The Red Wings became the fifth different team to occupy the Eastern Conference’s final Wild Card spot through play in the past five days, following the Capitals (April 3), Islanders (April 4), Flyers (April 5) and Penguins (April 6).

* The Stars (49-20-9, 107 points) moved ahead of the idle Bruins (46-17-15, 107 points) for second in the NHL standings and kept pace with the first-place Rangers (53-21-4, 110 points), while Nathan MacKinnon (48-85—133 in 78 GP) had two assists to climb within three points of League leader Nikita Kucherov (43-93—136 in 76 GP) in the Art Ross Trophy race.

* The MultiVersus NHL Face-Off Draft took place Sunday ahead of the real-time animated presentation of the Avalanche-Golden Knights game on April 14, with Colorado’s roster featuring Velma, Superman, Steven Universe and Finn the Human and Vegas’ including Shaggy, Batman, Bugs Bunny and Wonder Woman.

* Monday’s two-game slate features the Penguins looking to unseat the idle Red Wings when they visit Pittsburgh general manager Kyle Dubas’ former team as well as the Pacific Division-leading Canucks hosting the Golden Knights in a potential 2024 First Round matchup.