Articles in NHL Teams

from Ethan Sears of the New York Post,

In their first five games under Patrick Roy, the Islanders looked, understandably, like a team in transition — taking to a new system well, but hitting stumbling blocks along the way.

In the sixth game, they looked like a team that had wholly embraced what the new head coach has preached.

And they got the result to show it, beating the Lightning 6-2 on Thursday at UBS Arena in an offensive explosion for their second-straight win following the All-Star break, with the crowd chanting Roy’s name as time ticked down in the third period.

On a night where everything went right for the Islanders, even injury luck was in their favor with Casey Cizikas back in the lineup and Brock Nelson returning for the third period after spending part of the second in the dressing room following a hit from Emil Martinsen Lilleberg.

Just as important, they played perhaps their best all-around game of the season.

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Watch the game highlights below.

Watch below.

* Jonathan Quick, Auston Matthews and Brock Faber helped their teams tally wins during a three-game slate Wednesday, which was highlighted by the NHL announcing that the 2025 Discover NHL Winter Classic will feature the Blackhawks hosting the Blues at Wrigley Field.

* Elias Lindholm can join Greg Adams (4 in 1987-88), Thomas Gradin (4 in 1978-79) and Elias Pettersson (3 in 2018-19) as the fourth player to score three or more goals through his first two games with the Canucks when the top two teams in the NHL standings tangle on TVA Sports and Sportsnet programming tonight.

* The two other national broadcasts set for Thursday involve the Lightning hosting the Islanders on ESPN and the Golden Knights visiting the Coyotes on Sportsnet 360 and TVA Sports.

from Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet,

- Very interesting note sent by the NHL on Wednesday, announcing “a comprehensive audit of the hits statistic in every game this season,” and “appropriate adjustments.” (There was also a promise audits will now be done on a nightly basis, to be updated by the next morning.) That led to jokes about teams who inflate these totals, but it was the opposite. Teams were informed that hits per game were adjusted up by almost nine, closer to what we’d seen in previous seasons. What it says is that agents or NHLPA genius Roland Lee, who use these numbers as salary comparables or in arbitration, noticed the drop and pushed for clarity.

- One trend gaining traction is teams destined to pick later in the first round aren’t married to their picks. Vancouver and Winnipeg already moved them. Sportsnet draft gurus Jason Bukala and Sam Cosentino see a drop, and several organizations agree with them.

- I can only imagine how tired Tanev is of this, already. There are a lot of teams interested in him, but it’s a unique market. There are teams who aren’t ready to win this year, but are determined to be a playoff team next year (Ottawa). There are teams who aren’t yet sure if rentals make sense for them (New Jersey). There are teams who like him but find it tricky cap-wise and trade-wise (Boston, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Vancouver). I suspect Dallas lurks, which makes a lot of sense. Undoubtedly, there are others I’m missing. He’s the Taylor Swift of trade deadline coverage.

- When it comes to goalies, Marc-Andre Fleury will have the biggest impact. He’s earned the right to call his shot; nothing happens without his approval. Fleury initially was unhappy to move from Vegas to Chicago, and needed convincing to go to Minnesota. But the guy eats, breathes and loves hockey, so he adapts upon arrival. This screams Carolina, Colorado or Edmonton, all playoff-bound. But, in some of those situations, he wouldn’t be the starter, so that factors in. Again, it’s his call, and deservedly so.

many more Thoughts, including the Arizona situation...

NEW YORK (Feb. 7, 2024) – The National Hockey League (NHL) today announced that the 2025 Discover NHL Winter Classic® will feature the Chicago Blackhawks hosting the St. Louis Blues, at Wrigley Field, home of Major League Baseball’s Chicago Cubs. The game will be televised exclusively on TNT in the U.S. and on Sportsnet and TVA Sports in Canada. Additional details for the 2025 Discover NHL Winter Classic®, including ticketing information and the game’s date and start time, will be announced when available. Fans can sign up for news and updates on the 2025 Discover NHL Winter Classic here.

NHL release is below.

A lot of dry talk from Elliotte Friedman on the Arizona Coyotes.

Land auctions, court involvement, ecd, but the bottom line is bad news may be coming to the Coyotes as early as this weekend.

from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,

After nine days between games, the Vancouver Canucks emerged from the National Hockey League break the same first-place team that went into it. Well, not quite the same.

Now they have centre Elias Lindholm, so they may be even better.

After a blockbuster trade with the Calgary Flames last week – while Lindholm was on holiday in Mexico – the 29-year-old Swede scored twice in his Canucks’ debut on power-play tips and Vancouver beat the Carolina Hurricanes 3-2 on Tuesday to re-ignite their hot streak.

The Canucks are 10-0-2 since Jan. 4. Lindholm became the first player to score twice in his Canuck debut since Esa Tikkanen 28 years ago, and Vancouver goalie Thatcher Demko won his ninth straight start to tie Dan Cloutier’s franchise record from 2002.

“My role is to help the team both ways,” Lindholm said. “Obviously. . . hasn't gone the way offensively I wanted (this season). But I'm happy to be here. I have a good opportunity to do something special here with this group. It's always nice to score and, like I said, there hasn't been too many this year. So it's nice.

“There's a lot of good players on this team. For me, it was kind of easy tonight. I didn't have to do too much. They made it easy for me.”

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Watch the highlights below.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

To win 16 straight hockey games takes more than just strong defence, great goaltending and timely scoring. It takes some breaks.

Frankly, you tend to need more than your share of the luck to win every game since Dec. 21, 2023. And even though the old hockey maxim decrees that a good team earns its luck, eventually you run up against another good team, and they deserve some too.

A near-record winning streak is forged on a wide-open net missed by the Blackhawks one night, when you’re down 1-0. It’s a post-and-in for the Oilers at Montreal, but a post-and-out when Nazem Kadri is shooting in Calgary.

This much we know to be true: the Oilers played far better in a 3-1 loss that ended their 16-game win streak in Vegas Tuesday night than they had on two or three nights where they’d found a way to extend the streak over the past 47 days.

They just ran out of fortune. Used it all up, really.

“Yeah, yeah,” agreed Connor McDavid. “We had a lot of things go right, obviously. Winning 16 straight, you’ve got to have a lot of things go well. You’ve got to get some bounces, and we got some bounces. But for the most part, I thought we went out and earned our bounces and earned our luck.

“Credit to (Vegas). Tonight they make the shot.”

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Game highlights are below.

* The reigning Stanley Cup-champion Golden Knights halted the Oilers’ winning streak at 16 games, becoming the first team to earn a victory against Edmonton in 2024.

* Two pieces of a blockbuster trade that kicked off 2024 NHL All-Star Weekend both made impacts Tuesday as Elias Lindholm tallied twice to help the Canucks extend their point streak to a dozen games and Andrei Kuzmenko scored the fifth-fastest goal by a player in their debut with the Flames as his new club inched closer to a Wild Card spot.

* Three national broadcasts make up Wednesday’s slate, starting with a doubleheader on TNT and Max in the U.S. with the Lightning visiting the Rangers and the Blackhawks welcoming the Wild, as well as the Maple Leafs and Stars going head-to-head across Canada on Sportsnet and TVA Sports.

via the YouTube page of the NHL,

An amazing one-handed effort from Holmberg surprises his teammates, Pettersson displays amazing stick-to-itiveness, Tippett with back-to-back top goals honors and Sidney Crosby plays with eyes in the back of his head!

The video is 21 minutes long, watch below.

from Helene Elliott of the LA Times,

Kings general manager Rob Blake said his desire to hear a new voice and see renewed energy within the team led him to fire coach Todd McLellan and elevate assistant Jim Hiller to the head coaching job for the rest of what has been an erratic and disappointing season.

If firing a coach who received strong support from key players recently doesn’t jolt the Kings out of a slump in which they’ve won three of their last 17 games and plummeted to a wild-card playoff position, the next voice Blake hears will come from his bosses and it will tell him he should find another job. And it would be deserved.

“I fully understand the repercussions if this team does not win or have success,” Blake said at a news conference Monday, his first public comments since he fired McLellan last Friday.

“This was done in an effort to correct the way we have played of late,” Blake said, adding that he hadn’t been pressured from above and had made the decision to fire McLellan on his own. “Our offense, our defense, our overall game, individuals, and the team have not been up to a level of our desired needs.”

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* Alexis Lafrenière scored the overtime winner to help the Rangers extend their lead atop the Metropolitan Division – a position they’ve held for 105 consecutive days.

* The Islanders saw three different players score a go-ahead goal – including Kyle MacLean netting his first-ever NHL tally – in a 3-2 win to move closer to playoff positioning.

* The Oilers will look to match the longest winning streak in NHL history when they travel to Vegas in a divisional duel against the Golden Knights as the second part of an ESPN+ and Hulu doubleheader.

NEW YORK/TORONTO (Feb. 5, 2024) – The National Hockey League and National Hockey League Players’ Association announced today that forward Evgeny Kuznetsov of the Washington Capitals will be unavailable to his Club for an indefinite period while he receives care from the Player Assistance Program of the NHLPA and NHL.

Under the terms of the joint program, he will return to the Club when cleared for on-ice competition by the program administrators.

* The League returns from the 2024 NHL All-Star Weekend with a two-game slate, highlighted by Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy race leader Auston Matthews and the Maple Leafs hosting Mathew Barzal and the Islanders on Sportsnet and TVA Sports.

* Nathan MacKinnon can reclaim first place in the Art Ross Trophy race when the Central Division-leading Avalanche visit Vincent Trocheck and the Metropolitan Division-leading Rangers in the other contest Monday.

* The Islanders-Maple Leafs game is one of several national broadcasts slated for this week, which includes the Oilers looking to tie the NHL record for longest winning streak when they face the reigning Stanley Cup-champion Golden Knights on Tuesday.

via the Pittsburgh Penguins,

The Pittsburgh Penguins have signed forward Jesse Puljujarvi to a two-year contract, it was announced today by President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Kyle Dubas.

The two-year contract runs through the end of the 2024-25 season and carries an average annual value of $800,000.

Puljujarvi, 25, signed a professional tryout with Pittsburgh on December 10 and has played in 13 games with the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins of the American Hockey League this season, tallying four goals, five assists, nine points and a plus-8.

* Connor McDavid placed first in four of the six events he competed in to accumulate the most points, outlast 11 elite All-Stars, and claim the $1 million prize at 2024 NHL All-Star Skills presented by DraftKings Sportsbook.

* A pair of international announcements on Friday included plans for NHL players to participate in the 2026 and 2030 Olympic Winter Games and a new international event, the 2025 NHL 4 Nations Face-Off, a tournament slated for next February featuring NHL Players from Canada, Finland, Sweden and the United States.

* Saturday’s conclusion to NHL All-Star Weekend will be headlined by the 2024 Honda (U.S.) / Rogers (Canada) NHL All-Star Game, continuing the 3-on-3 format used in each of the last seven All-Star Games. The opening contest will see Team MacKinnon face Team McDavid, followed by Team Hughes versus Team Matthews.

10 saves in 5 1/2 minutes.

6 1/2 minutes of your time.

NEW YORK (Feb. 1, 2024) – Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, Edmonton Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner and Vancouver Canucks center Elias Pettersson have been named the NHL’s “Three Stars” for the month of January.

from Eric Francis of Sportsnet,

Not that Craig Conroy needed to justify anything about the significant haul he’d just procured from Vancouver, but when asked about the curious timing of it all, the Flames GM was direct.

“What I was looking for in return, I got it,” said Conroy of the all-star week trade Wednesday that saw him send Elias Lindholm to Vancouver for a first-round pick, a conditional fourth-rounder, Andrei Kuzmenko and prospects Hunter Brzustewicz and Joni Jurmo.

“I was looking to get younger, and picks, and a roster player — they checked all the boxes, and it was the best deal moving forward.

“I didn’t have a timeline set, I thought it would be closer to the deadline, but about four days ago Vancouver got aggressive, so I circled back with other teams and told them I was getting pushed and needed a decision.

“I’m thinking it’s a fair deal, a good hockey trade for both teams.”

Unlike his summertime Yegor Sharangovich swap for Tyler Toffoli that was erroneously panned by many, this one is a massive win for the first year GM and his organization.

And the deal could get even better, as the fourth-rounder turns into a third-rounder if the Canucks make it to the conference final.

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