NEW YORK / CHICAGO (April 15, 2024) – The National Hockey League (NHL) today debuted its new campaign for the 2024 Stanley Cup^® Playoffs that highlights some of the crazy things fans do in the name of love for their teams. Three spots will launch today on the NHL’s digital and social media platforms before making their national TV debut tonight during game broadcasts, including the 9:30 p.m. ET Minnesota Wild-Los Angeles Kings game on ESPN.

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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from Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press,

The Wings play at 7 p.m. Monday, the same time the Capitals host the Boston Bruins. If the Wings lose in regulation, they're eliminated, because then they max out at 89 points, and either the Capitals or the Philadelphia Flyers — who play each other Tuesday — will get to that amount, and both hold the tiebreaker over Detroit.

That might rattle some teams, but since the Wings endured a seven-game skid through March, they've learned the skill of resilience. They've gone through experiences like playing a strong team game and still losing to the New York Rangers, like going all-out against the Capitals and still losing, and bounced back time and again.

"I think that shows the compete and battle of this group," Lalonde said. "They stay composed, they never give up. They stay on it. It’s been impressive to watch. We’re not a perfect team, we’re far from it, we have a lot of flaws, and we’re building. It’s where we’re at. But this group — they stay in the fight. I’m pretty proud of them."

In the midst of playing five games in eight days, and going into a back-to-back, the Wings took Sunday off to rest and recharge. The path, as Lalonde likes to put it, remains open, and the Wings have a look about them that says they'll pave it to their best ability, foot on the gas, with the knowledge they may need to tip their hats.

more ($)

* 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 Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- The general managers I’ve polled believe young Quinn Hughes is the runaway winner of the Norris Trophy, as best defenceman. And in some years, not this one, he’d be an MVP candidate …Bobby Orr is the youngest player ever to win the Norris. He was 19. Then, just to be certain, he won when he was 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26.

- I like the rather complete Carolina Hurricanes to come out of the East. They’re first in the NHL in penalty-killing, second on the power play. Penalty-killing is more important in the playoffs than the power play. But since Jake Guentzel got to the Hurricanes, he has 24 points in 16 games and Carolina has points in 13 of those games.

- Boo-hoo to the players (families) on the Arizona Coyotes already complaining about moving to Salt Lake City. The wives on the Atlanta Flames hated moving to Calgary in 1980. Forty-four years later, that’s a rock-solid franchise and a great place to live. I covered the bankruptcy hearings of the Coyotes in 2009. The NHL should have moved out of Arizona back then.

- Don’t know of anyone who hates losing more than Steve Yzerman. Which would make him all but apoplectic over the last quarter of the Red Wings season.

more notes

from Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press,

There was 2:45 to play in regulation, the game was tied, and the Detroit Red Wings needed at least a point to keep their playoff chase alive. A penalty to Patrick Kane meant dealing with the Toronto Maple Leafs' power play, and Auston Matthews chasing his 70th goal.

Larkin didn't want to miss a second of trying to deny Matthews, of denying the Leafs, of stoking his own team's hopes.

"I think I was on the ice for most of the penalty kill there at the end," he said, "so I was breathing through my eyes and just trying to gut it out."

"We know what’s at stake," Larkin said. "We kept saying, we need the two points. To get to this point, I’m not happy we’re in this position, fighting for our lives, but in Pittsburgh and at home against Washington, we’ve been fighting for our lives here. The sacrifice, the attitude of the guys has been unbelievable. We got rewarded for all the hard work we’ve done the last stretch here where we haven’t been getting rewarded."

read on

NEW YORK –TNT Sports, Warner Bros. Games and the National Hockey League are joining forces to bring viewers a clash of excellence in hockey and real-time animation for the first-ever MultiVersus NHL Face-Off on Sunday, April 14 at 3:30 p.m. ET, exclusively on truTV and Max’s B/R Sports Add-on.

Legendary and beloved Warner Bros. Discovery characters appearing in the highly anticipated MultiVersus videogame, including Bugs Bunny, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, Velma and Shaggy, Steven Universe and Finn the Human, will take center ice in a fully animated presentation featuring a matchup of the two most recent Stanley Cup champions, Colorado Avalanche at Vegas Golden Knights. The slobbery and short-fused Looney Tunes character Tasmanian Devil will officiate the game and drop the puck on the afternoon’s action.

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

The NHL’s anticipated move to Salt Lake City after 28 years of unrequited love in the desert does not mark the end of Gary’s Folly, for we have been told by several members of the industry’s intelligentsia that Arizona will move to the head of the expansion line as if the hypothetical new team can get its arena situation sorted out. That’s a novel concept.

Indeed, there is every chance that when the NHL is ready to dilute its product by adding another two teams and perhaps a sum of another $2 billion to divide among the existing 32 ownerships’ respective bank accounts, Arizona and Atlanta will be waiting to give the league a back-to-the-future vibe. Quebec and Cleveland will have to wait.

Arizona did not fail as an NHL market nearly as much as multiple ownerships failed the market. That is why Gary Bettman won’t put a white flag on his door when it comes to the league’s interest in this Southwest outpost. The land-grab move to Glendale out of downtown Phoenix in 2003 was as predictably a colossal failure as choosing to receive the opening kickoff in overtime of the Super Bowl. A next time would include a pre-existing structure in a community that makes sense (and deferring).

I don’t know that adding Salt Lake City to the Original 32 necessarily adds much cache to the league. But removing this ongoing embarrassment of an eyesore in the desert — that, by the way, had increasingly become a ratcheted-up flashpoint between Marty Walsh’s NHLPA and Ninth Avenue — represents addition by subtraction for the league. The NHL gets to abandon its minor league facility while allowing Rob Manfred’s MLB to move into one of its own in one of the great self-owns in pro sports history.

read on plus other hockey topics of interest...

from Ted Kulfan of the Detroit News

The Wings could have been eliminated from the playoff race with a loss in regulation Saturday. But with the score tied 4-4 entering the third period, they persevered, then killed off a Toronto power play with 2 minutes, 45 seconds left in regulation time to survive, earn a point in regulation time, then earn the second point on Larkin's overtime goal at 41 seconds of overtime.

"Man, it's one of the biggest goals of my career and I'm hoping this year to have some more big goals," Larkin said. "You can't feel any better. I knew Kaner (Patrick Kane) was going to look for that play and I knew I had my stick on the ice and he was going to hit it. I didn't even see it go in, but I knew Kaner and all the big moments he's had in his career and to see how excited he was and see to all the boys rush over, man, what a feeling."....

"If we win out and don't get there (playoffs), you probably have to tip your hat to someone who won their way through and they would have won against some pretty good competition," Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde said. "That's why I felt that point (in Pittsburgh Thursday) was so important. If we could hang in there and get five or six points down the stretch we'd have a chance. We have two now and it's on us."...

Goaltender James Reimer, playing his 500th NHL game, stopped 31 shots in earning a huge Wings victory.

"It's special," Reimer said. "On a night like this you want to play well and you want to win. It just makes it that much more special. The way the guys battled and worked and the resiliency they showed after the second period to come back in here and shut it down and play so well in the third period, I'm proud of the guys and how they worked.

more and watch the extended game highlights below...

* The Eastern Conference’s final Wild Card spot changed hands three times in a span of 49 minutes Saturday, with the Penguins holding the position entering play before it was taken by the Flyers (7:30 p.m. ET) and Capitals (8:19 p.m. ET).

* The 13-game slate resulted in just one First Round matchup getting confirmed and one division title being clinched, meaning seven opening-round series, two playoff berths and the Presidents’ Trophy winner will be determined over the final five days of the regular season

* The NHL, TNT Sports and Warner Bros. Games are joining forces to bring viewers a clash of excellence in hockey and real-time animation for the first-ever MultiVersus NHL Face-Off – a simulcast of the Avalanche-Golden Knights game Sunday – exclusively on truTV and Max’s B/R Sports Add-on.

The first period started badly for the Wings with the Leafs scoring an early power play goal. What followed were four unanswered goals from Detroit. Wings up 4-1 after 20 minutes.

Leafs scored three unanswered goals in the second, 4-4 after two periods.

No scoring in the third and Detroit was on the power play to start overtime.

Larkin scores on the pp, Wings win 5-4.

Team Stats

Detroit goals are below.

Most of the talk about the Coyotes.

added 9:27pm, via Sportsnet,

On this edition of Saturday Headlines, Elliotte Friedman discusses the desire to announce the Arizona Coyotes' relocation this week, the Oilers saying Connor McDavid will be ready for the playoffs, and much more.

Good evening and welcome to everyone. With three games left including tonight, the Red Wings will faceoff against two Original Six teams to end the season starting in Toronto tonight, ending with a home and home against Montreal, and we’re all still here to see it through. Thanks 19, Wingaholics all. No known cure.

Reimer is in goal. Ras and Copp are out. I think Walman is sitting. No other changes to the lineup have been announced.

It’s the Red Wings vs the Maple Leafs in an Original Six matchup. The puck is set to drop around 7:00 PM and will be broadcast/simulcast on Bally Sports Detroit Extra and TV20 WMYD in Detroit, and on the Red Wings Radio Network WWJ Newsradio (950 AM in Detroit) for your listening pleasure. Also available on ESPN+/NHLPP, CBC, SPORTSNET+, and SCRIPPS.

It’s a Live Blog!

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...

from Ansar Khan of Mlive,

Lucas Raymond was having a strong, bounce-back season for the Detroit Red Wings. Then he elevated to a higher plane Thursday in the most important game of the season.

Raymond was the driver in the first period, scoring twice. He was clutch in the final seven minutes, setting up Dylan Larkin’s goal and notching the game-tying tally to complete his second career hat trick.

The Pittsburgh Penguins won 6-5 in overtime, but the Red Wings’ point could loom large as the playoff race wraps up over the next few days.

Even if the Red Wings don’t make it in, Raymond has displayed the skills and fortitude of a young player emerging as a star.

“He showed some stones tonight to play the way he played in a game like that,” Larkin told reporters after the game. “He was the best player on the ice with some world-class players. That’s how you show up and play in a game like that. For a young guy to do that, it’s unbelievable.

“I think the way Lucas played tonight, if you’re looking at a step in his career, then that’s a performance that I’m very impressed by. I think that was a good statement to the hockey world.”

continnued

* 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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