Articles in NHL Teams

* “Joey! Joey! Joey!” chants rained down from the T-Mobile Park stands as Kraken goaltender Joey Daccord blanked the reigning Stanley Cup-champion Golden Knights in the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic.

* The tradition of teams wearing coordinated outfits for outdoor games continued Monday – the Kraken arrived at T-Mobile Park dressed as Pike Place Market fishmongers, while some Elvises entered the building when the Golden Knights got to the venue.

* Heart brought the sold-out crowd of 47,313 to their feet during a first-intermission performance, while fellow Seattle-based musician Sir Mix-A-Lot helped introduce the players prior to puck drop.

* Maple Leafs players wished their Toronto comrades luck in the first game of the PWHL’s inaugural season, but the visiting New York club skated to a 4-0 victory in the historic contest thanks to a winning goal by Ella Shelton. The Maple Leafs face the Kings tonight on ESPN+ and Hulu.

via the NHL PR department,

What’s Trending in 2023: Scoring is at a rate of 6.3 goals-per-game in consecutive calendar years for the first time in three decades (6.3 in 2023; 6.4 in 2022, including playoffs), while 574 comeback wins – including 228 third-period rallies – made 2023 one of the most edge-of-your-seat years in the NHL to date.

Puck drop is 3pm ET on TNT, streamed on MAX, Sportsnet and TVA Sports.

Feel free to comment on the game.

SEATTLE (Dec. 30, 2023) – A look at the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic® “By the Numbers.”

1 – The Seattle Kraken will make their outdoor game debut, doing so in a venue located just three miles from Climate Pledge Arena. Seattle will become the 29th NHL franchise to contest an outdoor game and the youngest NHL franchise to compete in such a game.

2 – The 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic will be the second outdoor game for the Vegas Golden Knights, following a loss to the Colorado Avalanche in the 2021 NHL Outdoors at Lake Tahoe. Reigning Stanley Cup champions are 5-1-0 in outdoor games.

NEW YORK (Jan. 1, 2024) – Carolina Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho, New York Rangers left wing Artemi Panarin and New Jersey Devils defenseman Luke Hughes have been named the NHL’s “Three Stars” for the week ending Dec. 31.

All in 3 1/2 minutes.

* The League’s two newest franchises will clash outdoors in the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic today (12 p.m. PT / 3 p.m. ET on TNT, Max, truTV, SN & TVAS).

* Players and teams put a bow on 2023 by setting League benchmarks, reaching major milestones and achieving franchise firsts on the final day of the year.

* The Stars ended 2023 with a bang by scoring eight goals, led by Mason Marchment’s second career hat trick.

This is a first for me.

OTTAWA – Ottawa Senators owner Michael Andlauer announced today the appointment of Steve Staios to the role of General Manager and President of Hockey Operations, the appointment of Dave Poulin to the role of Senior Vice-President, Hockey Operations and the appointment of Ryan Bowness to the role of Associate General Manager. Both Poulin and Bowness will report to Staios.

from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,\

Surely, this is the end for Ilya Samsonov as a Maple Leaf.

They can’t start him any longer. They can’t trust him. They can’t believe in him in any way.

And once the trust is broken between team and coach and goaltender — each of those has to be working in sync for success — it becomes a matter almost impossible to repair.

Samsonov has reached the awkward hold-your-breath stage of NHL goalies. When every shot is taken you wonder: ‘Is it going in, how is it going in?’ And no team can operate with that kind of uncertainty at its most important position.

We can see it from afar. The players can see it up close. The coach, Sheldon Keefe, is living it and is privately livid about it. When the Leafs need to score five, six or seven goals to have a chance to win on any night with Samsonov in net, they have no hope of moving forward.

This is not unlike what happened to Alek Manoah last summer with the Blue Jays. A starting pitcher is alone on the mound and vulnerable in the same way a goaltender is the last line of defence in hockey. When Manoah couldn’t get anyone out, the Blue Jays removed him from their rotation and eventually from the roster.

In the salary-capped National Hockey League, the moving of players is not as simple. The Leafs are searching for an answer, another goalie, another body, somebody to get in the way of a puck. Nobody in hockey is ready to do them a favour.

This is the first crisis for Brad Treliving as general manager of the club.

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23 goals in 12 minutes.

* Oilers captain Connor McDavid and Penguins defenseman Erik Karlsson each joined elite lists Saturday, with the former skating in his 600th career game and the latter collecting his 600th career assist.

* Artemi Panarin netted three goals to help the Rangers become the first team to reach the 50-point mark in 2023-24. With every hat trick this season, AstraZeneca donates $5,000 to the Hockey Fights Cancer Fund of the V Foundation up to $500,000. Click here for more information.

* The Golden Knights and Kraken are set to practice outdoors on Sunday at T-Mobile Park in Seattle ahead of the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic on New Year’s Day.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

- Nominated for the Most NHL Moment of 2023 and winner by acclamation:

The league’s favorite-son, cringe-worthy franchise in Chicago selecting the next prodigy, Connor Bedard, with the first-overall selection in the draft that should have been stripped from the organization for enabling the Kyle Beach sexual assault scandal but wasn’t because, well, the NHL.

- The state of both NHL goaltending and Jonathan Quick’s game has reached the juncture where the Rangers might actually be able to get a No. 1 for their No. 2 — what do you think, Leafs Nation? — but wouldn’t even be able to think about doing it.

- How is Ninth Avenue’s soulless marketing campaign for the Alex Ovechkin Turtle Race to 894 going these days?

OK, who do you have in a bare-knuckle fight for the Jack Adams as coach of the year, Philadelphia’s John Tortorella or Vancouver’s Rick Tocchet?

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from Joe Smith and Michael Russo of The Athletic,

Kaprizov’s first return to Winnipeg since being hurt there in March was a rough one. This was where Kaprizov suffered a lower-body injury on March 8 when Logan Stanley toppled over him, forcing the Wild star to miss a month. Kaprizov got hurt again on Saturday, leaving the game in the third period after taking a couple nasty, unpenalized cross checks to the lower back by Dillon, the Jets’ hard-nosed defenseman. It looked to be a retaliation after Kaprizov floored Dillon with a reverse hit. Give Jake Middleton credit for fighting Dillon later in the period, taking on the tough defenseman in defending Kaprizov.

more ($) on the game...

Coach Hynes had no updates on the injuries (goaltender Filip Gustavsson did not come out for the 3rd period)

from David Staples of the Edmonton Journal,

Paul Coffey has his defensive brigade playing like, well, their own newly-minuted versions of Paul Coffey.

Since Coffey took over in mid-November as coach of the Oil d-men, this group has been transformed from plodders into puck movers.

They have got their feet moving. They have got their eyes up, searching to bomb away with stretch passes. And they are moving and probing at the offensive blueline to launch hard shots on net.

All this has played out with Edmonton’s d-men crushing it at even strength, cutting down slightly on their individual major mistakes on Grade A shots against, dropping from 1.53 per game before Coffey to 1.31 per game per player with Coffey.

They have taken an even bigger jump on the attack, where they’re making a higher rate of major contributions to Grade A shots for, going from 1.06 per game to 1.34 per game.

That kind of statistical improvement represents the difference between a d-man who is playing solid hockey to one who is playing at an all-star level, which Mattias Ekholm, Evan Bouchard and Darnell Nurse are all doing under Coffey’s guidance.

This is the same Coffey whose promotion to Asst. Coach was met with no end of scoffing from some loud factions of fans in Oil Country.

You know may have heard the complaints if you logged onto social media for a moment after Coffey was signed up: Coffey is a member of the OBC (Old Boys Club). Coffey has never coached at the pro, college or major junior level. Coffey is special assistant to owner Daryl Katz, which is sure to cause dissension. What does Coffey know about modern players anyway?

read on

from Luke Fox of Sportsnet,

Enough is enough.

Uncle.

Ilya Samsonov and the Toronto Maple Leafs need a break from each other.

To keep trotting out the goaltender who opened the season as the club's Number 1 option is to ask your fans to close their eyes and cross your fingers on the opposition's every scoring chance.

It's asking your skaters to score six.

It's asking your coach to watch valuable standings points slip through fingers. Or, rather, through legs, under arms and over heads.

Sheldon Keefe surely has spoken to his general manager, Brad Treliving, privately about the matter multiple times.

But it's telling how desperate the Samsonov situation became Friday night, following Toronto's second 6-5 overtime loss to the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets, that Keefe politely requested his boss do something about the cavern in the crease.

"Mistakes get magnified when you don't get saves," Keefe told reporters at Nationwide Arena.

"It’s the NHL. We need saves, we need points, and we need wins, so I’m sure Tre is going to consider everything."

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Below are the game highlights.

* Sebastian Aho has recorded 1-7—8 since Wednesday and is the first player in Hurricanes/Whalers franchise history with four points in consecutive days.

* The Golden Knights concluded a successful 2023 with their 27th victory at T-Mobile Arena on Thursday – tied with the Avalanche and Rangers for the most home wins among all teams this calendar year.

* The Kraken will put their seven-game point streak (5-0-2) on the line when they host the Flyers in their final contest before facing the Golden Knights outdoors on New Year’s Day in the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic.

from Julian McKenzie of The Athletic,

There was reason to believe that a new season along with coaching changes would bring about a much different Huberdeau, especially since the winger was leaned upon heavily for his input regarding that coaching search. Not only have we not seen a new Huberdeau, statistically speaking, things couldn’t be worse for him.

It’s one thing for him not to be on the team’s top line or power-play unit. But Huberdeau simply hasn’t played like someone worthy of being in either of those spots. Huberdeau is in the midst of a career-long, 12-game pointless drought and hasn’t recorded a point in December. It’s the latest setback in a season where Huberdeau was benched for an entire period against the Nashville Predators, only for the team to come back and win without him. Per Hockey Reference, Huberdeau is now on pace for a career-worst season with nine goals and 34 points.

“I try to forget,” Huberdeau said. “I can go 60 games without a point at this point. You want to get some points. But I’ve stopped thinking about it. Because if not, it’s going to make me frustrated.”

What can’t be forgotten is that 114 games into his Flames tenure, and now in the first year of an eight-year, $84 million contract, Huberdeau has yet to find a permanent home on a productive line....

“When someone’s in a slump, the only way out of it is to dig in and work harder,” Huska said. “It’s easy for a coach to say it. The player is like ‘Oh, I got to make plays. I squeeze my stick tighter and it gets harder and harder. But at the end of the day, you just have to grind. You have to work your way through it. And you have to trust that you’re a good player and that you can make those plays.”

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from Carol Schram of The Hockey News,

If you thought the Philadelphia Flyers were grinding down their opponents during their first 33 games of the season, you ain't seen nothing yet.

"If we're going to survive, you have to check at this time of year – you just change your mindset, here, about the small little battles in the game," said Philadelphia coach John Tortorella after his team came out of the holiday break with a disciplined 4-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena on Thursday.

"Quite honestly, before the break, I didn't think we were playing hard enough, but I left them alone because we were finding ways to win," he added. "Now we're going to coach them. I think we need to be a harder team to play against and hopefully we can build on the checking tonight and bring it into tomorrow night's game."

It's hard to argue with Tortorella's point. The Flyers' last game before Christmas was a wild 7-6 shootout loss in Detroit on Dec. 22, where Philadelphia came back from a 5-1 deficit to take a late lead before settling for a point.

Thursday's outing looked a lot more like textbook Torts, whose 723rd career NHL win as a coach broke a tie with Alain Vigneault for 10th place all-time.

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Watch the game highlights below.

* Sebastian Aho has recorded 1-7—8 since Wednesday and is the first player in Hurricanes/Whalers franchise history with four points in consecutive days.

* The Golden Knights concluded a successful 2023 with their 27th victory at T-Mobile Arena on Thursday – tied with the Avalanche and Rangers for the most home wins among all teams this calendar year.

* The Kraken will put their seven-game point streak (5-0-2) on the line when they host the Flyers in their final contest before facing the Golden Knights outdoors on New Year’s Day in the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic.

from Lyle Richardson of Spector's Hockey,

Four players most likely to be moved before the March trade deadline, the latest on the goalie market and some recent Flyers speculation as we catch up on the NHL Rumor Mill.

FOUR MOST LIKELY TRADE CANDIDATES>

THE HOCKEY NEWS: Adam Proteau recently listed Calgary Flames defenseman Chris Tanev, Anaheim Ducks forward Adam Henrique, San Jose Sharks goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen and Chicago Blackhawks center Tyler Johnson as the four players most likely to be moved by the March 8 NHL trade deadline.

All four are eligible to become unrestricted free agents next July unless they agree to contract extensions with their current clubs.

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These should help you prepare for the return of NHL games tomorrow (14 games beginning at 7pm ET).

Goals first, saves below.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

This is not a perfect union. But there are no perfect teams in this NHL. The Rangers sometimes bend but they don’t often break. Now that the Artemi Panarin-Vincent Trocheck-Alexis Lafreniere unit has cooled, without a five-on-five goal over the past nine contests, the Kreider-Zibanejad-Blake Wheeler connection has taken the baton and run with it.

There is a long way to Tipperary, almost as long as it is to the start of the playoffs. An entire season essentially lays ahead. The winter grind takes its toll. Which is one way to say that it will be mighty interesting to see what the 37-year-old Wheeler has in his arsenal come April, May and June.

But if the winger maintains his legs, if the chemistry that appears to be developing among him and Zibanejad and Kreider flourishes, then the Blueshirts may not have to go to market for a right wing to play in that spot. If Wheeler can thrive under playoff conditions, the Rangers have the prototypical power winger to offset the best buds. And general manager Chris Drury can use his deadline resources elsewhere.

This is a can-do collection that is likely playing slightly over its skis. But there’s a grit there, exemplified by a kid like Will Cuylle or a veteran named Nick Bonino. The team is more than the collection of its parts.

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Then this happened.

* The Oilers earned a third-period comeback win on consecutive days for the third time in franchise history and became just the sixth team in the past 35 years to score four-plus goals in the final frame on two straight days.

* Two other Canadian clubs collected victories Friday as well as Detroit after surrendering a four-goal lead to Philadelphia.

* The NHL heads into its holiday break with a 14-game slate Saturday, which includes four Hockey Night in Canada contests and a rematch of the 2023 Stanley Cup Final on Sportsnet.