Articles in NHL Teams

from Damien Cox at the Toronto Star,

Of course, Toronto’s ugly playoff drought against the Bruins also could have ended in Game 7 in 2018, but it didn’t. It could have ended with the Leafs holding a 3-2 series lead in 2019, but then Toronto’s finest could only score three goals in the final two games and went down to defeat again.

Which brings us to 2024, and another meeting between the two clubs. This time, someone of a conspiratorial mindset might think that this matchup was deliberately orchestrated by the Bruins, another chance to pummel the Leafs.

All Boston had to do, after all, was beat hapless Ottawa at home on Tuesday night to win the Atlantic Division. Instead, the Bruins made Anton Forsberg look like Vladimir Dzurilla and mailed in a 3-1 loss. That allowed the Florida Panthers, who beat the Leafs that night, to win the division and allowed the Bruins to draw the Leafs in the first round.

Was that Boston’s preference all along? If you had Boston’s record against Toronto, wouldn’t you have done the same? The Leafs haven’t bested the Bruins in a playoff series since 1959, and currently are on a seven-game regular-season losing streak against their Atlantic Division “rival.”

Just this season, it’s been all Boston. Four games, four wins. The Bruins held the powerful Toronto offence to nine goals and the vaunted Leafs power play to nine per cent efficiency. Boston goes right at the strengths of the Leafs and takes them away.

If teams were permitted to choose their first-round playoff opponent, we can agree the Leafs would have been Boston’s No. 1 pick. And maybe that’s exactly the preference the Bruins expressed in losing to the Senators.

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"It should come with an air sickness bag, this whole saga," Burke said. "It's just ridiculous that a city of 6 million people is going to fold and move to a city with 1.5 or whatever Salt Lake City has … so we're going to give up a marketplace of 6 million people for a marketplace of 1.5 million people where they've never had pro hockey other than the IHL and some AHL teams that were there.

"OK, does that make sense to anyone else? … It doesn't to me. Make this guy sell the team, get a new team in the right location and keep playing."

via azcentral

27 years in Arizona for the Coyotes.

* The 2023-24 campaign became just the second in NHL history to feature two 100-assist players as Nikita Kucherov hit the mark in his final game of the season.

* The Stars clinched the top seed in the Western Conference for the fifth time in franchise history and first since 2015-16, which in turn locked in a First Round matchup between the Canucks and Predators.

* The final gameday of the 2023-24 season will see the last two First Round matchups decided as well as a potential faceoff between Connor McDavid and Nathan MacKinnon on ESPN and Sportsnet.

fromm Matt Vensel of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,

Jeff Carter’s two little ones and his wife, Megan, were waiting Wednesday night when a line suddenly formed near center ice at UBS Arena.

As the Penguins played their season finale against the New York Islanders, a game in which they were competitive but lost 5-4, there were signs throughout the arena the 39-year-old was skating in the final game of his fantastic career.

Carter’s family had flown in from Pittsburgh to be there in person to watch him. They sat in a suite next to Jonathan Quick, his former Los Angeles teammate.

The Penguins made Carter a starter and Sidney Crosby briefly slid over to the wing so Carter could take the opening faceoff, a classy gesture by the captain.

During the third period, Penguins coach Mike Sullivan kept sending Carter over the boards, and his teammates forced passes to him whenever they got the puck. It paid off when Crosby set up Carter for the tying goal during the third period.

And then after the final horn sounded, the Islanders lined up in the neutral zone so they could shake hands with Carter, one of the NHL’s oldest active players.

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He joins Orr, Gretzky, Lemieux and McDavid. Kucherov is the first winger to hit the 100 assists mark.

$2.5M

from Tim Benz of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review,

The Pens needed both the Red Wings and the Caps to lose Tuesday in order for their regular-season finale against the New York Islanders to matter Wednesday night. But that didn’t happen. So for the second consecutive season, the Pens will miss the playoffs after making them every year from 2007-22....

So the Pens had their chances to do better against the teams they needed to edge in order to make the playoffs. That’s to say nothing of losing 6-3 in Detroit on Oct. 18.

Or, instead, we could focus on the three games the Penguins lost with multi-goal leads against Calgary, Colorado and Columbus since the calendar flipped to March. Or any game they could’ve won if their 31st-ranked power play (14.6%) wasn’t so bad. Or if they could’ve been at least average among playoff-contending teams when it came to winning games in 3-on-3 overtime instead of failing to win in that period 12 times.

The point is, any time a pro sports team needs to rely on help to qualify for the postseason and fails to get it, it’s not about the help letting them down. It’s about what the organization itself didn’t do to secure a spot on its own.

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from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

It was a book on terminally ill patients — On Death and Dying — that introduced us to the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Brian Kulina never read the book.

He doesn’t have to.

He’s an Arizona Coyotes fan.

“One day you wake up and you’re bargaining: ‘Maybe it would be different if this thing happened ... ?’” Kulina said this week, as he prepared to attend Wednesday’s franchise finale against the Edmonton Oilers at the tiny, sold-out Mullett Arena on the Arizona State University campus.

“Then you see something, and you get angry. And then you get sad,” he said. “We're running through the gamut, and where it's all coming from is, we feel like we were directly lied to.”

There will be plenty of time for Coyotes Nation to recline on its collective therapy couch and process the loss of its team to Salt Lake City. But for now, finding acceptance means avoiding the Coyotes' NHL.com web page.

The day before dropping the puck on what is 99.9 per cent certain to be this franchise’s last game here, the Coyotes' web page sports a banner across the top reading: BREAKING: Coyotes Announce Commitment to Win State Land Auction & Build Privately Funded Arena.

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* 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.

TORONTO—, Prime Video and NHL Productions reveal the trailer for the upcoming original hockey documentary Saving Sakic, premiering on April 16 for Prime members in Canada (April 17th on ESPN+ in the USA). The documentary follows the high-stakes saga that ensued when Colorado Avalanche Chairman/CEO Charlie Lyons was blindsided by an attempt to sign away the captain of his team, Joe Sakic. With only seven days to raise $15 million to save his star, Charlie finds a lifeline from an unexpected place - Hollywood.

from Ethan Sears of the New York Post,

As messy as the Islanders’ season has been, it’s fairly simple now.

Beat the Devils.

And that’s it.

Beat the Devils and the Islanders will clinch third place in the Metropolitan Division and a likely first-round rematch against the Carolina team which beat them at the same hurdle a year ago.

Beat the Devils and the Islanders will have a chance to erase the exhausting ups and downs of this season.

Beat the Devils and it will not matter that the Islanders have lost more times than they have won this season, or that they hold a negative-21 goal differential, because they will have a chance to make history and memories this spring.

“We were in a tough spot. A lot of people counted us out,” Mathew Barzal told The Post following a short practice on Sunday afternoon. “Came together as a group and have given it everything we have. Every guy in here’s been committed the last three weeks more than I’ve maybe ever seen.”

On March 24 — just three weeks ago — the Islanders were behind the Red Wings, Capitals and Flyers in the standings by three, four and six points, respectively.

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* 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 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.

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from Eric Francis of Sportsnet,

When it comes to the debate over the Kings’ soul-sucking neutral zone clog, Drew Doughty has an admission to make.

“I’d rather play a different system,” chuckled the gap-toothed veteran in a quiet one-on-one chat.

“But this is the system we’ve chosen, and all bought into.”

Unfortunately for the game of hockey, it works.

Case in point, Thursday’s 4-1 win over the Flames at Crypto.com Arena.

On a night when a rink-side shot of Will Ferrell provided the bulk of the entertainment, the Kings perfectly executed their 1-3-1 system, stymying the potential of controlled entries, and limiting the Flames to just 23 shots.

Only five were of the high-danger variety, giving former Flame Cam Talbot an easy path to clinching the team’s official playoff pass as the Pacific division’s third-place team.

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* 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.

* 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.

from Frank Seravalli of The Daily Faceoff,

The NHL is concurrently drafting two versions of a league schedule matrix for the 2024-25 season, one with the Arizona Coyotes and another with the Coyotes franchise playing in Salt Lake City in the event of relocation, multiple sources told Daily Faceoff.

That does not mean the NHL has firmed up plans to relocate the franchise yet, just that the league has a viable contingency plan for next season. But the news comes on the heels of billionaire prospective owner Ryan Smith publicly soliciting potential names for an NHL team in Utah earlier this week.

As the NHL has been working on dual paths, multiple sources indicate Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo is intimately involved in both. The first, of course, involves the Coyotes remaining in the Phoenix area by building a new arena via Arizona State Land Trust auction, which is scheduled for June 27.

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* 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.