TSN Hockey Insiders Darren Dreger and Chris Johnston have the latest on the struggling Oilers, the IIHF considering mandatory neck protection, why Elias Pettersson is in no rush for an extension, what’s next for Taylor Hall, the Flyers open for business and Thanksgiving delaying Patrick Kane’s decision.
Watch and/or read the transcript at TSN
from Matt Vensel of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
Two years ago, he was pumped to sign with the Red Wings in his adopted home of Michigan, where he played junior hockey with the Plymouth Whalers.
He would get to play with one of his good friends, Dylan Larkin, and some of the other Detroit players with whom he trained in previous offseasons. And fresh off a season in Carolina in which he was a Calder Trophy finalist, he was getting a chance to be a No. 1 netminder for the first time in the NHL.
But after a promising start, things went off the rails. He got lit up several times that first season. Then Detroit demoted Nedeljkovic to the minor leagues in 2022-23. He spent three months in Grand Rapids, waiting for a call back to the NHL. It came in March. He played better. But it was too little, too late.
Looking back on his time with Detroit and where things went wrong, Nedeljkovic admitted this week that he put too much pressure on himself to perform.
“And when things weren’t going well, it just kind of snowballed,” he said. “Mentally, I wasn’t able to get out of my own way. So I really just tried to take a step back this summer, enjoy every day and look at every day as a new day and a new challenge to be better on the ice, in the gym and mentally, as well.”
Nedeljkovic has gotten a fresh start with the Penguins, who signed him to a one-year deal. So far Nedeljkovic has clicked with goalie coach Andy Chiodo, who preaches the mental side of the position perhaps even more than technique.
from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,
The Edmonton Oilers are broken.
How else to describe a team of professional hockey players who routinely make the calibre of defensive mistakes that this one makes?
What else would you call a team of NHLers who eschew the basic defensive tenets of the sport that are taught to Canadian kids long before they are able to drive themselves to the rink? The very things they mastered so long ago that paved their path to this level of the game?
Defensive details like getting a puck deep, clearing a zone with certainty, boxing out with authority -- all are foreign concepts here, on the team the standings forgot.
“We haven't played 60 minutes…” said Evander Kane, his voice trailing off — as if he knew it was a worn-out plea following a 6-3 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Wednesday. “It's … it's … I don't know. I don't know what to say.”
It is a team full of forwards who are not mindful to take on a defensive posture when their defenceman rushes right past them, up ice with the puck. It is that same defenceman who enters the offensive zone, then passes the backwards, catching everyone unaware, a cardinal sin.
It is four Oilers milling about the slot as if on a smoke break, not one of them aware enough to tie up the fifth player — an opponent who finds the rebound that has eluded the puck-focused Oilers.
Game highlights are below.
* Cale Makar prevailed in a battle against fellow defenseman and NHL scoring-leader Quinn Hughes with his fifth straight multi-point outing and reached 20 points in a calendar month for the second time in his career.
* The Bruins and Golden Knights each picked up wins Wednesday to become the first teams this season to reach the 30-point mark.
* There are no games on Thursday as we wish our friends in the United States a Happy Thanksgiving, but action returns with a packed 15-game schedule Friday starting at 1 p.m. ET.
NHL Public RelationsNovember 22, 2023
NEW YORK / PORTLAND, ORE. (Nov. 22, 2023) – The National Hockey League and adidas today unveiled the uniforms the Seattle Kraken and Vegas Golden Knights will wear when they face off outdoors in the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic® at T-Mobile Park, home of the Seattle Mariners, in Seattle on New Year’s Day, Jan. 1. The game will be broadcast live at 12 p.m. PT / 3 p.m. ET pm on TNT and B/R Sports on Max in the U.S. and on Sportsnet and TVA Sports in Canada.
from Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times,
Home cooking is a holiday theme throughout the land this week, but none more so than for Spokane native Kailer Yamamoto and his Kraken teammates.
The last time the Kraken won at Climate Pledge Arena — which doesn’t happen all that often — was last Thursday against the New York Islanders, with Yamamoto scoring a tying goal in the third period and then a decisive shootout winner. They’ll need to start winning at home more, and this week seems a timely place to start, with games on Wednesday against the lowly San Jose Sharks and another Friday against the more formidable Vancouver Canucks.
“I think we have all the right intentions,” Yamamoto said when the week began. “But sometimes, we just don’t have it at home.”
That’s putting it mildly. The Kraken play in a relatively brand-new $1.2 billion facility in Climate Pledge Arena, constructed from scratch beneath the old KeyArena roof. They get vocally rabid support from fans attending games, even if the announced sellout crowds of 17,151 tend to include an increasingly visible bit of Halloween holdovers wearing their empty-seat costumes.
Perhaps those disguised patrons wouldn’t be quite as visible, though, if the Kraken could actually win consistently in front of them. They are 80-85-19 overall as a franchise since inception, with a record of just 39-44-8 in their own building.
* An NHL on TNT doubleheader features a pair of rematches from the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs when Sam Reinhart and the Panthers host David Pastrnak and the Bruins, while Jason Robertson searches for his 250th career point when the Stars and Golden Knights clash.
* Quinn Hughes and Cale Makar are each producing at a 100-point pace to start 2023-24 and will face off against one another when the Avalanche host the Canucks at Ball Arena.
* As the quarter mark of the 2023-24 season draws closer, #NHLStats examines where we stand entering Wednesday – less than a week from the mark.
via the NHL's YouTube page,
Global Series weirdness, wild caroms, two hat tricks for the price of one, Marchand and Benn stare down and more in the latest volume of Weird NHL!
from Shayna Goldman of The Athletic,
Shaking up the front office right now may seem like a recipe for chaos considering how tricky a transition can be — and there isn’t a ton a new general manager could do, considering the cap constraints the roster is now facing. But letting Lamoriello have free rein to deepen the hole he put the Islanders in isn’t the answer, either.
When Lamoriello was brought to Long Island in 2018 to replace Garth Snow, it brought a level of credibility to a struggling team. There was the name recognition element and success as evidenced by three Stanley Cups with the New Jersey Devils.
In the NHL, reputation often overshadows actual ability. That’s been the case for Lamoriello, especially heading into his Islanders tenure. His time in Toronto and those later years in New Jersey were far from sterling, but he was essentially given the keys to running the team by being named both president and general manager. And the Islanders have paid the price since.
It hasn’t all been bad in the Lamoriello era. This team did get to the Eastern Conference final twice. And not every hurdle was self-inflicted — no one could have anticipated a flat cap that challenged a team like the Islanders.
Lamoriello’s best move may have been one of his earliest: Hiring Barry Trotz to instill defensive stability that this team sorely lacked. And with Trotz came the likes of Lane Lambert, and maybe most importantly, director of goaltending Mitch Korn.
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NEW YORK (Nov. 21, 2023) – Vancouver Canucks forward Nils Hoglander has been fined $2,864.58, the maximum allowable under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, for slew-footing San Jose Sharks forward Kevin Labanc during NHL Game No. 278 in Vancouver on Monday, Nov. 20, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced today.
The incident occurred at 18:09 of the second period. Hoglander was assessed a match penalty.
Milan Lucic pleads not guilty to an assault and battery charge in Boston Municipal Court, after being arrested for allegedly pulling his wife by her hair and trying to choke her during an argument, according to court records.
— John Shannon (@JShannonhl) November 21, 2023
Eric Duhatschek of The Athletic answers questions from the fans, the first one is on Patrick Kane,
I’m prepared to be wrong about this in the first five minutes after my answer is published, but my gut says with the Florida Panthers. And that’s based on the larger picture considerations, off the ice as well as on. Patrick Kane is coming off major hip resurfacing surgery, the same kind that has ended Nicklas Backstrom’s season in Washington. At this stage of his career, he wants to settle in with his family, in one place, on a good team, with a chance to contend for another championship.
Kane turned 35 this past Sunday. At his age, and dealing with what will probably be a vigorous, daily maintenance regime, it’ll just be easier to tackle that in a warm-weather climate, where you’re outdoors all the time, moving around freely, able to stretch. The Panthers should be competitive for the remaining arc of Kane’s career. He’ll get a chance to play for a players’ coach in Paul Maurice and have a different professional experience than in Chicago and for a short while last season in New York....
My dark horse is the Avalanche because they are still too top-heavy, even after all their offseason moves and could use help fleshing out the top six....
more ($) questions
* Quinn Hughes became the first player to record 30 points this season and just the third different defenseman in NHL history to reach the mark in fewer than 20 games as the Canucks skated to victory.
* The Kings continued their road dominance, improving to 8-0-0 as the visitors this season with Anze Kopitar and Trevor Moore both finding the score sheet in all eight of those games.
* Four of seven contests featured a third-period comeback win Monday, tied for the most in a single day this season alongside Oct. 24, Oct. 30 and Nov. 18.
With 38 seconds left in regulation, Nashville trailed Colorado by a goal.
The Predators won in regulation.
Below, a Prince drops the puck in Vancouver.
Elliotte Friedman on the Global Series, Patrik Laine, the Calgary Flames and Patrick Kane destinations.
NEW YORK (Nov. 20, 2023) – Colorado Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar, Toronto Maple Leafs right wing William Nylander and Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby have been named the NHL’s “Three Stars” for the week ending Nov. 19.
from Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic,
So I reached out to team executives in rival front offices across the NHL and asked them a simple question: What do you feel a fair contract extension for Nylander would be?
Team exec No. 2
“I don’t see how it’s less than $11 million, given the rising cap and the season he’s having … unless he wants to take a discount to go to a destination of choice. On a seven- to eight-year deal, that is.”
Team exec No. 3
“My guess is that it comes in around $10.5 to $11 million, depending on the term.”
Team exec No. 4
“Difficult question, Pierre. What is fair and what will happen are two different things (smiley face emoji). He will be 28, has never hit 90 points (although certainly seems he will this season) and has never been past the second round of the playoffs, and only there once. But our system pays on points — rightly or wrongly — and he will have a strong case. Does he help Toronto win more than Matthew Tkachuk at $9.5 million? Probably not. But the cap is going up and Toronto pays a tax premium. $10 million (average annual value), full term. Probably gets more but fair is arbitrary.”
more ($) input
from Matthew Fairburn of The Athletic,
When the Buffalo Sabres were entering the offseason, general manager Kevyn Adams was unwavering in what he had seen from goalie Devon Levi. Levi won five of the seven games he played for the Sabres after the conclusion of his college career at Northeastern and he allowed three goals or fewer in five of those seven games, too.
While the traditional path for a goalie is to spend time in the AHL before jumping to the NHL, those seven games, along with Levi’s body of work in college, convinced the Sabres he could be different. At just 21 years old, he was going to get a chance to take the net for a team with playoff aspirations. He would play behind a work-in-progress defense and share the crease with two other unproven goalies, Eric Comrie and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen.
“I want our players to be fearless and that’s how we’re going to run the organization, too,” Adams said in April. “Donny and myself, we are going to be fearless and we’re going to trust and believe in our players. When we think they’re ready and in spots to succeed we’re going to help them. For me looking at Devon, I see a special person, I see a special work ethic, a special talent”
Few players have done what Levi is attempting. Goalies who have skipped the AHL typically come from other professional leagues like the KHL in Russia (Sergei Bobrovsky) or SEL in Sweden (Henrik Lundqvist). Carter Hart, Jeremy Swayman and Spencer Knight are recent examples of goalies who ended up with fewer than 20 AHL games. But Hart and Knight have experienced some ups and downs the last few years. Knight is in the AHL after entering the player assistance program to deal with his OCD. Swayman played nine AHL games before getting called up to work in tandem with a formidable veteran in Tuukka Rask while playing behind one of the NHL’s most consistent defensive teams in Boston. The next season, he was splitting the net with Linus Ullmark, another veteran who signed a lucrative free agent deal.
Levi, meanwhile, doesn’t share the net with a proven veteran goalie and the Sabres allowed the fifth-most high-danger chances in the NHL last season.
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from Aaron Portzline of The Athletic,
For the first time in his 471-game career, Patrik Laine’s NHL club decided they were better off with him not in the lineup. The decision was made by Columbus Blue Jackets first-year coach Pascal Vincent on Sunday, and it made eyebrows elevate all over the league.
Meanwhile, in Columbus, it’s difficult to be surprised by anything that happens this season because every day seems to be another head-scratcher, every game a new level of ineptitude.
Vincent has tried all manner of motivation so far this season, including benching star forward Johnny Gaudreau twice already this month, sitting high-priced defenseman Damon Severson for an entire third period less than a month into his Blue Jackets career, and sending highly-skilled winger Kent Johnson — a 16-goal, 40-point rookie last season — to the minor leagues.
During a recent 3-2 loss to Arizona, Vincent benched both Laine and Gaudreau — they have a combined 433 goals in the NHL — as the Jackets were scrambling to try and score the equalizer late in the third period.
Nothing has worked. Nothing makes sense right now for the Blue Jackets. After a 5-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday, the Jackets (4-11-4) have matched a franchise record with a nine-game winless streak (0-7-2), sending yet another season off the rails before Thanksgiving.
“It’s frustrating for everyone,” Vincent said. “I see those guys in the room and I hear them on the bench, and they’re saying the right things. Their intentions are right.
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* William Nylander and the Maple Leafs skated to another thrilling victory in front of a sellout crowd at Avicii Arena in Stockholm as the Swedish forward scored a highlight-reel overtime winner in the finale of the 2023 NHL Global Series – Sweden presented by Fastenal.
* A total of 52,566 fans filled the seats for four straight days of NHL regular-season play in Stockholm, with a Swedish player scoring a goal in each contest, a rally in all four games – including three multi-goal deficits erased – and all four contests decided by a one-goal margin of victory.
* Rasmus Dahlin posted a three-point performance Sunday and climbed a couple of franchise lists in the process as the Sabres defeated the Blackhawks at United Center.
* A 49-game week in the NHL includes a clash between Connor McDavid and Matthew Tkachuk on Sportsnet on Monday, a Thanksgiving Showdown doubleheader on TNT and MAX on Friday as well as a three-game Hockey Night in Canada broadcast on Saturday.
from Michael Russo and Joe Smith of The Athletic,
It had been a brutal start to the Minnesota Wild’s season, but it all came to a boiling point for president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Guerin as he watched the roster he assembled humiliate itself on home ice a week ago.
It’s one thing to lose 8-3 to a division rival, but not competing, giving up a franchise-record five power-play goals and cratering so deeply to the Dallas Stars caused Guerin to call the team together Monday morning, hours before the Wild departed for Stockholm.
Guerin let everybody have it — both as a team and individually, where it especially hurt.
“Was it a scream-fest? Bit of both.” Marcus Foligno told The Athletic. “The one thing about Billy, when he talks, everyone respects the s— out of him. That guy talks, you’re gonna really, really listen.”
“It was kind of a kick in the ass, figure our s— out kind of meeting,” Ryan Hartman added. “Something we definitely needed.”
Guerin voiced to his players — and his coaches — exactly what he voiced to The Athletic shortly before Sunday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs in their second and final game of the Global Series, which is the Wild’s fifth straight defeat and 11th in the past 14 games: “I’m not happy. I’m not happy with where we are.”
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Blue Jackets coach Pascal Vincent on scratching Patrik Laine: "Right now, I think Patty needs to take a deep breath, go back to the working lab and get his touches back, get his shot back, get his confidence back, so he can be the No. 29 Patrik Laine we all know he can be. pic.twitter.com/MT4nsy2Wn3
— Adam Kimelman (@NHLAdamK) November 19, 2023
from Colby Guy of Florida Hockey Now,
Florida Panthers captain Sasha Barkov is “day-to-day” with a knee injury coach Paul Maurice said following Sunday’s practice at the Arena.
Barkov will miss Monday’s game against the Edmonton Oilers.
“We’re still looking at it,” Maurice said. “We didn’t [place him on injured reserve] but we still can and that would take him into the weekend.”
Barkov left the Panthers win win over the Anaheim Ducks on Friday after taking a knee-to-knee hit from Jackson LaCombe early in the third period.
Watch the injury below.
from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,
- Connor McDavid is not, repeat not, LeBron James. He doesn’t want to coach, manage and play all at the same time for the Edmonton Oilers. He just wants to win. So, the fact that McDavid’s former agent, Jeff Jackson is now in charge of the Oilers and his former junior coach, Kris Knoblauch has replaced Jay Woodcroft behind the Edmonton bench, is not McDavid orchestrating havoc behind the scenes. It is ownership doing whatever it believes is necessary to make certain McDavid doesn’t sour on the franchise. GM Ken Holland will be gone at the end of the season — his call — and I wouldn’t be surprised if Dave Gagner, whose son plays for the Oilers and is another former McDavid associate and a close Jackson friend, is brought in to be Oilers GM.
- Pavel Datsyuk is eligible for next year’s Hockey Hall of Fame class. Could the Hall find a way to get him and Henrik Zetterberg in as a pair? Their entire careers were almost played side-by-side.
- How is it that the American networks, TNT and ESPN, one year in, have figured out how to present hockey better than Rogers Sportsnet is doing it in Year 10 of its 12-year deal with the NHL where Hockey Night In Canada remains a work in progress.
- This is a dangerous place where media organizations are regularly going, either linking up with, or becoming, sports gambling outfits themselves. The latest to do it is ESPN. Sometimes you can’t tell the difference between editorial content and gambling advertising on television. Hockey Night In Canada, among others, treat it as though it’s part of the show. It shouldn’t be allowed.
- Can Johnny Gaudreau have a do-over in free agency? In 97 games with the Columbus Blue Jackets, he has 22 goals and 58 assists for a respectable 80 points. In his final 97 games as a Calgary Flame, he had 45 goals, 90 assists for a spectacular 135 points.