Kukla's Korner Hockey

* The Avalanche and Oilers both scored six goals in big wins en route to 2-1 leads in their respective series, as both teams’ star players posted multi-point performances Friday.

* The Rangers rallied to move within one win of advancing to the Second Round with the help of Barclay Goodrow’s goal on the penalty kill, marking just the third time on record that an NHL team has scored a shorthanded winner in consecutive playoff contests.

* The Hurricanes and Panthers will both look to advance to the Second Round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs on Saturday as they’re two of eight teams taking the ice.

* The NHL announced that the 2024 NHL Draft Lottery will be held on Tuesday, May 7, at NHL Network’s Secaucus, N.J., studio. The event will be broadcast on ESPN, Sportsnet and TVA Sports (time to be announced next week). Click here for odds.

The Capitals need a win badly since they are down 0-2, the three other games are all tied 1-1.

NEW YORK (April 26, 2024) – The National Hockey League announced today the 2024 NHL Draft Lottery will be held on Tuesday, May 7, at NHL Network’s Secaucus, N.J., studio. The event will be broadcast on ESPN, Sportsnet and TVA Sports (time to be announced next week).

The 2024 NHL Draft Lottery will determine the order of selection for the first 16 picks in the first round of the 2024 NHL Draft. Participants are all teams that did not qualify for the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs (or the teams that have acquired the first-round drafting positions of those non-playoff teams).

REMINDER: The NHL announced changes to the Draft Lottery format on March 23, 2021. Among the changes in effect since 2022 is a limit on the total number of selections (10) a team participating in the Draft Lottery can “move up” in the event it wins one of the Lottery Draws. Thus, only the top 11 seeds will be eligible to receive the first overall selection in the 2024 NHL Draft.

The allocation of odds for the 1st Lottery Draw of the 2024 NHL Draft Lottery is as follows:

Michael Farber with the narrative.

* Matthew Tkachuk scored a pair of goals as the Panthers opened up a 3-0 lead in their First Round series against the Lightning and became the first Stanley Cup finalist to start the following postseason with three straight wins since the 1984 Oilers.

* Sebastian Aho climbed a franchise list with his fifth career game-winning goal in the postseason and Frederik Andersen backstopped the Hurricanes to a Game 3 victory thanks to a highlight-reel save in the latter stages of the third period.

* Alex Ovechkin can help the Capitals climb back into their series against the Rangers on home ice while the Predators, Avalanche and Kings all seek to take the upper hand for the first time in the opening round as their matchups swap cities.

The Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Islanders need a win tonight to avoid an elimination game on Saturday.

from John Gushue of CBC,

Bob Cole, whose voice and lively language were the Saturday night soundtrack to hockey games over a broadcasting career that spanned more than half a century, has died.

Cole, who was 90, died Wednesday night in St. John's surrounded by his family, his daughter, Megan Cole, said.

"Thank you for decades of love for his work, love of Newfoundland and love of hockey," Megan Cole told CBC News on Thursday.

Cole said her father had been healthy "up until the very end."

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TORONTO, Canada, April 25, 2024 — Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), Rogers Communications, and the National Hockey League (NHL) today announced a milestone two-year agreement in Canada to bring hockey fans Monday night NHL hockey exclusively on Prime Video.

Prime Monday Night Hockey will stream all national regular season Monday night NHL games in English for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 NHL seasons. The deal is the NHL’s first exclusive national broadcast package with a digital-only streaming service in Canada. The Prime Monday Night Hockey package, produced by Prime Video, will feature a new broadcast team offering in-depth analysis and play-by-play coverage, and stream live exclusively to Prime members in Canada.

from Damien Cox at the Toronto Star,

Now, if there’s an NHL city in Canada that should be feeling nothing but gratitude toward its hockey team, it should be Vancouver. After missing the playoffs in seven of the previous eight seasons, and finishing sixth in the eight-team Pacific Division last season, the Canucks roared to a 50-win, 109-point campaign this year and won the division....'

• A good deal of uncertainty regarding No. 1 goalie Thatcher Demko, who missed much of the final part of the season, reappeared for Game 1 against Nashville and is now out again on a “week-to-week” basis with an undisclosed injury. Head coach Rick Tocchet said it was not a reoccurrence of the same injury.

• Unhappiness with the performance of star forward Elias Pettersson, who signed an eight-year, $92.8-million (U.S.) contract with the team last month but went pointless in the first two games against Nashville. Pettersson missed an open net in the dying seconds of the first period of Game 2, then later committed an awful turnover at his own blueline that led to Nashville’s third goal.

“I put us in a bad spot with my mistake on their third goal, that can’t happen. If I score in the first it’s a 1-1 game, different outlook,” Pettersson said afterwards. “I’m always my biggest critic and I take a lot of blame for this one.”

• Some rare mistakes by captain Quinn Hughes late in Game 2. Hughes took a late tripping penalty to slow what appeared to be a surging Canucks comeback attempt. Then, with the Vancouver net empty, Hughes was outskated and outmuscled by Preds winger Kiefer Sherwood along the boards, allowing Sherwood to ease the fourth Nashville goal into the unguarded Vancouver net.

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from Ed Graney of the Las Vegas Review-Journal,

You have to imagine Golden Knights goalie Logan Thompson awoke Tuesday morning feeling pretty good about himself.

He had the evening before won the first playoff game of his NHL career. The nerves were quelled. The butterflies were gone.

Imagine how Thompson feels now.

He was stellar Wednesday night, and for it the Knights have a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven series against the Dallas Stars.

And for it the Knights prevailed 3-1 before a sold-out and — as you can imagine — incredibly unhappy 18,532 at American Airlines Center.

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Here are the game highlights.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

Whatever it is, however it happens, it always seems to happen this way.

When you lead the whole game, when you’re on your toes more than your heels, when your game is assertive, in the end you get “The Bounce.”

When you trail — “chase the game” as hockey people love to say — the chase seldom lands you the quarry.

We’ll never be sure whether Quinton Byfield made a super-skilled play to deflect that puck right onto Anze Kopitar’s stick in overtime, or if a puck that was destined for an icing call just banked off the kid and fluked its way on to the clutch captain’s blade for a game-winning breakaway goal.

And it doesn’t matter, really.

We know Byfield is a fantastic looking young player, and his superior play in Game 2 earned him “The Bounce” — whether planned or pure luck.

The Los Angeles Kings won their fourth consecutive overtime game over the Edmonton Oilers by a 5-4 score, a game the Kings deserved to win. They never trailed in Game 2, and now head home with a level series and a fresh breath of life that would have been scant, had they lost this one.

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Watch the game highlights and the OT goal here.

from Terry Koshan of the Toronto Sun,

With a 4-2 victory, the Bruins took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series, often smothering the Leafs and slamming the door on an ineffective Toronto power play, killing off all five minors.

“Power play is a big part of it, right?” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We get to two (goals). Power plays needs to get you one (more), it gets you to three, if not four, and then it’s a good night offensively in the playoffs, against an elite defensive team.

“I thought the power play was all right. We had some good looks in tight around the net that we didn’t make good on, but we have to find a way to get those in.”...

The power-play is ugly, though. Through three games, the Leafs are 1-for-11 (9.1%).

“The puck is not going in, which is frustrating,” defenceman Morgan Rielly said. “But there are chances coming. We’re trying to focus on our structure and I think our entries have been good. We’re trying to get pucks to the net, trying to create rebounds and traffic. It’s matter of getting the puck across the line.”...

On the other side of special teams, the Leafs are hurting as well. Boston is 5-for-10 on the power play in the series, including going 2-for-3 on Wednesday.

more and watch the game highlights here...

* Team captains Anze Kopitar and Brad Marchand scored the winning goal as the Kings and Bruins picked up road victories Wednesday.

* Jack Eichel became the fastest U.S.-born player in NHL history to reach 30 career playoff points as the Golden Knights defeated the Stars to take a 2-0 series lead home to Las Vegas.

* The Lightning and Islanders will look to earn a first win of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs as their First Round series shift to Tampa and Elmont, respectively, for Game 3 on Thursday.

from Nicholas J. Cotsonika of the NHL's website,

The players had been introduced to Utah. They’d been greeted by hundreds of youth hockey players at the airport; toured Delta Center and Utah Jazz headquarters; and come back to the arena to find about 12,400 people packed inside for a welcome event.

Now they introduced themselves as Utah’s new NHL team. On stage before a raucous crowd Wednesday, they were supposed to state their names, positions and hometowns one by one. But they were so emotional, so inspired, they couldn’t help but fire up the fans further.

Clayton Keller grabbed the mic and yelled, “Utah! How we doin’?” Lawson Crouse took it and yelled, “Let’s make some more noise!” Nick Bjugstad yelled, “Let’s go!” Liam O'Brien told the fans they could call him “Spicy Tuna,” and Jack McBain led a “Spicy Tuna” chant.

“This is honestly one of the coolest experiences we’ve all had as hockey players,” Alex Kerfoot told the crowd.

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Below watch the team receiving a huge welcome at the Delta Center.

One team will go up 2-1 in their series while two teams can go up 2-0.

from Joe Romano of the Tampa Bay Times,

Certainly, the Panthers deserved to celebrate. Their pressure was relentless.

The Lightning deserved their fate, too. They have allowed Florida to control the puck and the pace.

As for Andrei Vasilevskiy? He deserved so much more.

If the Lightning cannot win a playoff game with their goaltender sliding, diving and denying pucks from every direction, then this season could be heading to a quicker end than last year.

Florida beat Tampa Bay 3-2 in overtime Tuesday night to claim the first two games of the first-round series. And when Carter Verhaeghe’s backhanded flip ended up in the net less than three minutes into the extra period, Vasilevskiy was sprawled on the ice with Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk on top of him, and three Lightning players arriving too late to do a stinking thing to help their goaltender.

“I thought Vasy made some great saves,” Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. “Both goalies played outstanding tonight. One had a little more action than the other but both made some really quality saves.”

continued and watch the game highlights...

from Paul Friesen of the Winnipeg Sun,

Before Tuesday’s tilt with Colorado, Winnipeg Jets coach Rick Bowness, talking about the 8:45 p.m. start time, joked about having a nap on the bench during the game.

Hours later his team went out and did just that.

In good shape with a 2-1 lead past the middle mark of the second period, the Jets plopped their heads on the proverbial pillow and curled up into a ball.

By the time they’d pull on their pajamas for real, they’d dropped a 5-2 decision, evening the series at a game apiece as it moves to Denver.

Three Colorado goals in the last six minutes of the second period turned what could have been such a sweet dream into a nightmare.

Inches from a 3-1 lead – Kyle Connor rang a shot off the goal post, sending play the other way – the Jets instead saw Artturi Lehkonen’s deflection tie it.

No problem, no panic, right? Bowness’s crew hadn’t been nearly as loose as it was in Game 1.

What came next can best be described as a recurring nightmare from Connor Hellebuyck’s past.

continued and here are the game highlights...

from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,\

Never have the Vancouver Canucks shot so often, and rarely have they shot so poorly.

The only way injured goalie Thatcher Demko could have helped his team Tuesday was if he had traded his paddle for a regular hockey stick, taken a position in front of the Nashville Predators’ net and actually hit the six-foot-by-four-foot target that seemed to be protected by some force field — and every human being in the Predators’ organization.

The Canucks attempted 84 shots on Nashville goalie Juuse Saros, and forced him to make a save just 18 times. Until a late, meaningless Predator power play, Nashville had blocked more Canuck shots (34) than they’d attempted shots of their own against Casey DeSmith, who is suddenly a focal point of Vancouver’s first real playoff series in nine years due to a Demko injury that coach Rick Tocchet said will keep the star goalie out “week to week.”

The Predators’ first shot of the third period occurred with 1:53 remaining and was Kiefer Sherwood’s empty-net goal that capped a 4-1 victory as Nashville evened the first-round series at 1-1 with Game 3 Friday in Tennessee.

continued and the game highlights are here...

* The Panthers and Lightning contested the first overtime game of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs which saw Carter Verhaeghe score the winner to give Florida a 2-0 series lead.

* The Avalanche and Predators both evened their series at 1-1, with the former becoming just the third team in NHL history to score 11-plus goals through the first two games of the playoffs versus the team that had the fewest goals against in the regular season.

* The Rangers took a 2-0 series lead with the help of K'Andre Miller, who became the fourth defenseman in the past two decades to score a shorthanded goal and have it stand as the game winner.

* Three contests are scheduled for Wednesday, including a Game 3 between the Bruins and Maple Leafs as well as a couple of Game 2s featuring Western Conference squads.

But the visitors may have something to do about that.

I am sitting tonight out so you are on your own.

from Thomas Drance of The Athletic,

On Tuesday, as the club took an optional morning skate ahead of Game 2 of its first-round series against the Nashville Predators, Demko was absent. It was reported, first by Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff and later confirmed by sources to The Athletic’s Rick Dhaliwal, that Demko will be out for Game 2. His status over the balance of Vancouver’s first-round series is now very much in question, with Tocchet describing the injury as “day to day.”

“He skated yesterday. He’s not going to play tonight,” said Tocchet. “It wasn’t the old injury and that’s all I really got for you guys.”

Demko is an ace in Vancouver’s hand when he’s healthy. The Vancouver starter won an astounding 35 of his 51 starts this season, while posting a .918 save percentage and a goals saved above average number bested only by Connor Hellebuyck. He is, without question, one of Vancouver’s most important players....

Between Casey DeSmith and Arturs Silovs, Vancouver has the goaltending depth to get a level of puck stopping that should still permit the Canucks to win games. You don’t expect Silovs or DeSmith to steal games (or steal an entire series) the way Demko can, but both of Vancouver’s auxiliary netminders have been good enough to win games in front of all year. Now they’ll have to continue to be as Demko recuperates.

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