Articles in NHL Teams

from Adam Hill of the Las Vegas Review-Journal,

There was a prevailing narrative when Adin Hill took over at goalie for the Golden Knights about how his role was to just not screw things up for a team with the structure in place to make a run at the Stanley Cup.

That the job of the journeyman backup suddenly thrust into starting duties for a championship favorite was to not be solely responsible for derailing those aspirations.

Hill has rejected that storyline with similar confidence and authority to the many shots he has turned away off the sticks of the Oilers and Stars in the past two weeks

The Knights are in position to advance to the Stanley Cup Final with a Game 6 victory Monday over the Stars at American Airlines Center largely because of his efforts, not despite them.

Now they might need even more from a player who has chosen a good time to play at such a high level, leading a postseason run in his first playoff appearance just as he’s about to hit free agency.

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from Taylor Baird at NHL.com,

from Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun,

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on the weekend that Dubas is very much coveted by Pittsburgh for its GM post, to the point where the Penguins let him speak to captain Sidney Crosby and visit their facilities.

Dubas’s unexpected availability after relations with Shanahan broke down over terms of a new contract made the Pens halt a search that was down to a short list of similarly young visionaries.

The heads of the Fenway Group, which owns the Penguins among other pro sports interests worldwide, were at the Monaco Grand Prix on the weekend and expected to settle the GM question this week.

The end of the world hockey championships might also speed up some announcements.

Bergevin, who has been over there in part as a special advisor to Los Angeles Kings GM Rob Blake since getting fired in Montreal, was also on the Penguins list at one stage. It’s believed Bergevin found his time with the Kings quite rejuvenating, though jumping right back into a big Canadian market such as Toronto might dim that enthusiasm.

Columbus GM Jarmo Kekalainen will also be headed home from Europe to deal with a coaching vacancy. Andrew Brunette, who was in line in Florida last year before it opted for Paul Maurice to replace Joel Quenneville, is getting mentioned there amid rumours the Jackets will also make a big pitch to Patrick Roy to get back under the NHL big top.

more including the situation in Toronto...

* Game 6 of the Western Conference Final goes Monday at 8 p.m. ET, with the Stars aiming to even the series after facing a 3-0 deficit – and move within reach of accomplishing an NHL first – while the Golden Knights take their third shot at advancing to the Stanley Cup Final.

* Jason Robertson can climb multiple franchise lists with a goal Monday, including becoming the first player in Stars/North Stars history to score six in the round before the Stanley Cup Final.

* The Golden Knights could see a new franchise record for most goals in a playoff year should either Jonathan Marchessault, William Karlsson or Chandler Stephenson score in Game 6.

* With just five days remaining until Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final, #NHLStats spotlights Matthew Tkachuk as the player to watch after an electric Conference Final performance.

from Alain Poupart at the NHL's website,

"We just have a plan now of what we're going to do the next few days here before we travel," defenseman Marc Staal said. "So everyone knows what we've got the next few days and we'll prepare as best we can and go from there. So, it just gets a little more structured if we know what we're doing and prepare that way."

It will be 10 days between games for the Panthers. They completed a four-game sweep of the Carolina Hurricanes in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference Final on Wednesday with a 4-3 victory at FLA Live Arena.

While concern about staying sharp might be valid, Panthers coach Paul Maurice said he preferred the idea of his players getting additional time to recover from the wear and tear of the Carolina series, which featured four games decided by one goal, starting with the quadruple-overtime victory in Game 1.

"None of the things that you would normally have wanted to have happen has happened to us and they all turned out good, so be careful what you wish for," Maurice said. "So we've just decided not to wish for anything, just take what it is. The positive for us is we do have players that are healing.

"That quadruple-overtime game, there was a cost to it for both teams and I don't think that you get to recover from that until the series is over. … It's a big block of time off and how do you stay sharp, but I would take the rest over worrying about how sharp we're going to be in Game 1."

read on

from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- A phone call I would make if I were Shanahan: Hello, Jon Cooper. Any interest in being a GM?

- The belief when Shanahan took over the Leafs: We are the Maple Leafs, we need to have the best of everything. The best coaches. The best front office people. The most progressive thinkers. You can’t consider Marc Bergevin, Peter Chiarelli or Jason Botterill to be the next GM if you’re still thinking that way.

- In the end, the Carolina Hurricanes suffered from not having Andrei Svechnikov and Max Pacioretty in the lineup while playing with a barely ready Teuvo Teravainen. That would be three of their top four offensive players. The Canes scored only six goals while being swept by Florida.

- The Dallas Stars have two more years of Jamie Benn at a salary cap hit of $9.5 million a season.

- ... This isn’t about taxes, salary caps, fans, and pressure about all the convenient reasons why Canadian teams don’t win. This is about getting better. This is about having a plan and a strategy and building a foundation. I saw Canadian hockey at its best in the ’70s and ’80s. The Oilers or the Maple Leafs could become one of those title teams. Or become like the 2011 Canucks, living a lifetime of what-if.

more notes, leaning heavily on the Leafs...

from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,

It is easy to say – because it’s logical to project – that there’s no way the Dallas Stars are actually going to win four straight games to save their season against the Vegas Golden Knights.

This conclusion isn’t because the Stars aren’t an excellent team. They are. But so are the Knights.

It’s more math than emotion: only four teams in National Hockey League history have rallied from a 0-3 deficit to win a playoff series, and it has never happened in a conference final, where teams that win the first three games are 46-0 in advancing to the Stanley Cup Final.

The Golden Knights, a 51-win team that had 111 points in the regular season, aren’t going to lose four straight playoff games after losing only three times in the first month of the Stanley Cup tournament.

This Stars’ comeback almost certainly is not happening despite Dallas’ impressive 4-2 road win Saturday in Las Vegas.

But the fantastic thing about sports is that you actually have to play the games.

And ask yourself this: Can the Dallas Stars win two consecutive games? Because that’s all they have to do now after halting the Knights and stealing momentum by winning Games 4 and 5 in the Western Conference Final.

The Stars no longer have to climb Mt. Everest. They just have to get up the Eiger.

continued

Game highlights are below.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Here is a Pass/Fail exercise for the teams that won’t hold Stanley Cup parades next month after qualifying for, and then being eliminated from, the playoffs.

Could the season nevertheless be considered successful, gaining a Pass grade for 2022-23? Or was it a failure, colossal or otherwise, thus earning an F?

That is the existential question, and here are the marks for the 13 teams that had been ousted as of Friday. Giannis Antetokounmpo has not been consulted....

Seattle: PASS for the second-year team taking out the defending champion Avalanche in a seven-game first round before pushing Dallas to seven games in Round 2.

Carolina: PASS earned with respect to the structure and work ethic the ’Canes bring night after night while ultimately undermined by the absence of their most productive forward, Andrei Svechnikov, when structure and work ethic weren’t going to be quite enough....

Boston: FAIL, as in epically, because nobody but nobody cares about their 65 victories or 135 points after they failed to protect a 3-1 first-round lead, just like nobody but nobody cares about the NBA Warriors, who won 73 games and failed to win the title. And no, it doesn’t make it any better because the Panthers have since turned into a juggernaut.

Edmonton: FAIL in coming up one round short of advancing to the conference finals and now with four series victories in eight years with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, as opposed to Pittsburgh winning the Cup in Year 4 of the Sidney Crosby-Evgeni Malkin partnership.

the rest of the teams plus more topics...

He also discussed the open GM positions but no video of that at this point.

from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

Subject to change, virtually at any hour, Sheldon Keefe remains the coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who definitely are in search of a new general manager and, who knows, could be looking for someone to replace No. 1 bottle washer Brendan Shanahan.

For a club that finally won a playoff round, albeit only to be shredded in five games under the claw of the Panthers, the joy ride was short-lived in Toronto. The Leafs went directly from the standard “OK, what happened?!” to “Yikes, what’s going on?”, an uncomfortable spot for any franchise.

The look is all the worse, of course, when it’s an Original Six club still searching for its first Stanley Cup title since 1967. Even worse for an Original Six club, led by Shanahan as team president, that had no backup plan in place if it chose to fire general manager Kyle Dubas or if he chose to leave rather than sign a contract extension.

continued plus more hockey topics...

* A tightly-contested victory in Game 4 helped Dallas stave off elimination. The Stars now look to force Game 6 to keep their championship aspirations alive in the Conference Finals, something the franchise has already done in their history.

* The Golden Knights return home with another opportunity to close out the Western Conference Final and join rare company in NHL history with their second Stanley Cup Final appearance within their first six seasons.

* This round has the potential to be the closest Conference Finals in NHL history. Games in the 2023 Conference Finals have been tied or separated by a one-goal margin for 90.0% of total playing time (511:00 of 567:43), including 99.2% in the East (318:58 of 321:38) and 78.0% in the West (192:02 of 246:05). In the NHL's modern era (since 1943-44), the highest percentage of time teams have spent separated by no more than a one-goal margin in the round before the Stanley Cup Final is 87.7% (2002 Conference Finals).

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

It’s Mailbag Friday, and we have some beauties.

So far, folks are trading Darnell Nurse, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Philip Broberg and Jack Campbell. And Kailer Yamamoto....

Let’s get started.

“Hey Mark, is Edmonton ever going to win a Cup with McDavid and Draisaitl? Or are they condemned to constant playoff exits, because the NHL has made it very hard for Canadian teams to be successful?” — @Alclembee

How has the NHL “made it very hard” for Canadian teams, Al? Edmonton has more financial resources than 90 per cent of the U.S.-based teams. They also received four No. 1 overall picks in a six-year span — one named McDavid.

When they joined the NHL they got to keep Wayne Gretzky — against the wishes of all many American owners.

Canadian fans show up and spend their money, win or lose. Not like in Denver or San Jose. Canadian cities (outside Toronto) have zero competition from NBA, MLB, college sports, etc. They’re one-horse towns when it comes to the sports dollar, with apologies to the CFL and MLS.

If the Oilers can’t win a Cup with McDavid and Draisaitl, it’s on the Oilers. Not the NHL.

more Q & A...

from Justin Bourne of Sportsnet,

Eichel's play and the opportunity Vegas has in front of it leaves the pivot with a chance to change his reputation in a way that I’m not sure has happened for a player not-named Phil Kessel before, who also got flak for his playing style before breaking through with the Pittsburgh Penguins. Both Kessel and Eichel have had people say “You can’t win with that guy,” and while Kessel proved you can win with him, he did it as the third- or fourth-most important guy on his Cup-winning teams. If Eichel were to win the Conn Smythe Trophy after his roller coaster from huge prospect to “guy you can’t win with” and back, it could fairly make us re-evaluate a lot of talented players who often just need to be put in the right situation to succeed.

It could – for the more reasonable types anyway – also make us realize there’s not some secret sauce that goes into four-round post-season success. We often treat every player who’s ever won a Cup as though they somehow discovered Michael Jordan’s water in Space Jam along the way. Having good players on a well-coached team (which has to be a dozen teams per year) who get some timely saves and breaks along the way is sometimes all it takes.

For truly talented players, I’m not sure there are many who are so deficient in defence or intangibles that you “can’t win with them,” despite plenty of players earning that label.

Eichel’s reputation had taken a beating out of Buffalo after showing himself to be a player who had a lot to learn, despite being heralded as a franchise cornerstone. He didn’t always defend well, had some maturity issues to overcome, and wasn’t quite as ready to solve Buffalo’s problems as fans had hoped. When he dug in on his own medical treatments, some considered it more whinging, rather than a player fairly advocating for the care they’d prefer.

This isn’t to weigh in on any of that, or to say that being five wins away from a Cup somehow absolves a player of all that’s come before.

more

from Matt Larkin of The Daily Faceoff,

This trend isn’t new during the highly successful era that began when Brind’Amour took over as head coach starting in 2018-19. Over that five-season span, the Canes have the fourth-best points percentage in the NHL at .661. But they’ve fallen short of the Stanley Cup Final all five of those seasons despite perennially being perceived as one of the best teams in the NHL.

In 2018-19: They lost the Eastern Conference Final to a Boston Bruins team that got six goals in four games from future Hall of Famers Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak.

In 2019-20: They lost in the first (second) “playoff” round of the bubble tourney, lit up again by Boston’s Perfection Lne, this time in five games, with Bergeron scoring the game winner in two of them.

In 2020-21: The eventual champion Tampa Bay Lightning took them down in five games, buoyed by a combined eight goals from Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos.

In 2021-22: Done in by the New York Rangers, who got a .949 save percentage from Vezina Trophy winner Igor Shesterkin across seven games of their round-2 matchup.

Defeated because the other team had at least one superstar-grade player. Every. Time.

Ask around the league – other players, coaches, scouts, analysts – about the Carolina Hurricanes’ identity in the Brind’Amour era, and you typically get similar answers:

“They all play the same way.”

“Total buy-in.”

“They keep coming at you in waves.”

The Brind’Amour Way has pretty much universally been perceived as a strength, but it also highlights a weakness that was on display during the Eastern Conference Final: the Canes don’t have a dominator who can will them to victory, particularly at the forward position.

more

from Ed Graney of the Las Vegas Review-Journal,

They knew how hard the push would be, how desperation has this way of lifting a team’s level of play. There would be no celebration for the Golden Knights on Thursday night, no Western Conference title just yet, no Clarence S. Campbell Bowl to take pictures around.

It’s still going, folks.

Dallas apparently has something left in its pursuit of what would be a historic comeback, the Stars having avoided being swept out of this best-of-seven series with a 3-2 overtime victory before a sellout gathering of 18,532 at American Airlines Center.

It was the best we have seen of Dallas in four games.

Certainly when it mattered most.

“Our effort level wasn’t good enough,” Knights forward Jonathan Marchessault said. “Just not good enough for our group. It’s still in overtime, so it was right there for us. They played well defensively. Their desperation was higher than ours, and at this time of year, it’s about who wants it more.”

It’s true, after all: The fourth one is always toughest to get.

read on

from Joe Smith of The Athletic,

Cooper had given intro speeches a half-dozen times in previous stops, from his first coaching job at a high school in Lansing, Mich., to teams in Texarkana, Green Bay, Wis., and Norfolk, Va. But this was different. These weren’t kids. It was future Hall of Famer Martin St. Louis. Captain Vinny Lecavalier. Future cornerstones Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman.

GM Steve Yzerman introduced Cooper, telling the group there’d been a leadership change. The next time they made changes, it’d be to the roster. The Hall of Famer had Cooper’s back from the start. All eyes were glued on Cooper, wearing a suit, no tie and a striped shirt unbuttoned at the top.

“The silence was deafening,” Cooper remembers.

The speech was short, about five minutes, but it was memorable. He brought up his background, having started on Wall Street and as a lawyer. He told the team it needed to be close — do everything together. He said they were going to have fun, with coaches allowing music in the dressing room before games and between periods.

And then there was the kicker.

“He told our team it was missing something — and that was swagger,” Stamkos says. “And he had that to him. He said this group was eventually going to get there.”

“He was convincing,” adds St. Louis, now an NHL head coach himself in Montreal. “I felt good about it. I can say that.”

Swagger or not, nobody — not even Cooper — envisioned what was coming. Four trips to the Stanley Cup Final in 10 years. Two Stanley Cups. No coach in NHL history has more wins at their 10-year anniversary with a team than Cooper’s 476, according to NHL Stats. The list of coaches who spent their full first decade with the same franchise is just 11 deep, including the likes of Toe Blake, Jack Adams and Barry Trotz — and Cooper has the most wins of anyone on it. The only coaches to have more combined regular season and playoff wins over any 10-year span are Arbour and Scotty Bowman. There may never be another coach who wins 11 consecutive playoff series.

more ($)

* After Jason Robertson pulled the Stars even twice, Joe Pavelski netted the overtime winner to help his team stave off elimination and climbed multiple all-time lists in the process.

* Game 4 of the Western Conference Final marked the 23rd overtime contest of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the ninth-highest total in a single postseason in NHL history.

* The 2023 Stanley Cup Final will open either Wednesday, May 31st or Saturday, June 3rd. Click here to view the different schedule scenarios.

NEW YORK (May 25, 2023) – The National Hockey League today announced the schedule scenarios for the 2023 Stanley Cup Final, which will match the Florida Panthers against the winner of the Western Conference Final series between the Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars.

Based on their higher regular-season point totals, either the Golden Knights or Stars will host Games 1 and 2 of the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final, as well as Games 5 and 7, if necessary. The Panthers will host Games 3 and 4, as well as Game 6, if necessary.

from Luke DeCock of the News & Observer,

In their minds, they were still ready for overtime, for what would have been the third time in the series. The end came so quickly, it was almost impossible to comprehend.

The Carolina Hurricanes fought back twice to tie the score, their season on the line, ready to carry the battle into another 20 minutes, only for Matthew Tkachuk to beat them.

Again.

With 4.9 seconds to go. If there’s a more painful way to end an excruciating playoff series, science is going to have to get back into the lab.

“Really confused,” Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho said. “I don’t know if confused is the right word but obviously, don’t know how did that happen. It didn’t feel like a 4-0 series to me, but it is what it is.”

The Florida Panthers won four one-goal games — two in overtime, three on Tkachuk goals that left the Hurricanes no answer — to sweep the Hurricanes, bookended by a quadruple overtime win in Raleigh in Game 1 and Wednesday’s 4-3 win on a late power play, given for a tripping call on Jordan Staal behind the Florida net that was patty-cake compared to the gross bodily harm allowed over the previous 19 minutes.

continued

* The Panthers and Hurricanes were tied or separated by a one-goal margin for all but 2:40 in the Eastern Conference Final, which ended with a Game 4 thriller that included an opening-minute goal, a multi-goal comeback, a tying marker by Carolina with 3:22 to play and then an NHL record-tying series clinching goal at 19:55 of the third period by Florida’s Matthew Tkachuk.

* The Panthers reached the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in 27 years – their only other trip came in 1996 – and will begin the championship series in either Las Vegas or Dallas. The Golden Knights currently hold a 3-0 series lead against the Stars in the Western Conference, which resumes tonight at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN+, ESPN, SN, TVAS, CBC.

* The Panthers became the third team in NHL history to eliminate three of the League’s top four teams in the same postseason, the third team in the NHL’s modern era (since 1943-44) to win three or more series after entering as the lowest-ranked team in the Stanley Cup Playoffs – all after spending only 28% of their season in a playoff spot.

The Florida Panthers in many of the regular season predictions were supposed to be very good - they weren't. They barely made the playoffs as the last wild card spot.

Now they are in the Stanley Cup Final after defeating the Carolina Hurricanes 4-3 to sweep the series.

Along the way Florida defeated the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs and now the Hurricanes, not an easy road.

They will open the SCF on the road against the winner of the Vegas/Dallas series.

Below watch the game winning goal with 4 seconds left in regulation. added 11:19pm, Handshakes and highlights have be added in the comment section along with other post game moments

A good one tonight.

NEW YORK (May 24, 2023) – Dallas Stars forward Jamie Benn has been suspended for two games for cross-checking Vegas Golden Knights forward Mark Stone during Game 3 of the Western Conference Final in Dallas on Tuesday, May 23, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced today.

If the term of the suspension is not fully served during the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the remaining game will be served at the beginning of the 2023-24 regular season.

The incident occurred at 1:42 of the first period. Benn was assessed a major penalty and game misconduct for cross-checking.

Video is below.

from Luke Fox of Sportsnet,

Trade bait, bridge candidates, and future superstars that need to be locked up ASAP.

The 2023 class of restricted free agents offers a smorgasbord of situations.

And while several potential ’23 RFAs avoided the drama and uncertainty by signing well in advance of expiry (Mathew Barzal, Roope Hintz, Dylan Cozens, Matt Boldy, and Stuart Skinner among them), plenty of intriguing young talents remain unsigned.

As these RFAs look to bank off their platform seasons and owners wrestle with slow-to-rise salary cap, many tense negotiations (or trades?) are still on deck.

The situations in Winnipeg, Ottawa, New Jersey, New York, and Anaheim are particularly interesting.

Here’s where things stand with the top 12 RFAs of 2023 as July 1 fast approaches.

continued and a good read if interested in the topic...