The Winnipeg Jets need a road win badly tonight or else they will face elimination games starting on Monday.

The Vegas Golden Knights need another home win tonight to even their series with the Colorado Avalanche.

from the CP at TSN,

Nick Paul scored in overtime on an assist from Ottawa Senators teammate Connor Brown, and Canada completed its amazing turnaround at the world hockey championship with a 3-2 win over Finland in the gold-medal game.

Maxime Comtois and Adam Henrique also scored for Canada, which looked down-and-out after losing its first three games in Riga before going on an improbable run to the top of the podium.

Brown assisted on all three of Canada's goals in the final to end the championship with a tournament-high 16 points.

Mikael Ruohomaa and Petteri Lindbohm scored for Finland.

continued

Game highlights are blow.

Watch the 'slash' below.

All in 4 1/2 minutes.

NEW YORK (June 6, 2021) – Florida Panthers center Aleksander Barkov, Boston Bruins center Patrice Bergeron and Vegas Golden Knights right wing Mark Stone are the three finalists for the 2020‑21 Frank J. Selke Trophy, awarded “to the forward who best excels in the defensive aspects of the game,” the National Hockey League announced today.

Members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association submitted ballots for the Selke Trophy after the conclusion of the regular season, with the top three vote-getters designated as finalists. The winners of the 2021 NHL Awards presented by Bridgestone will be revealed during the Stanley Cup Semifinals and Stanley Cup Final, with exact dates, format and times to be announced.

Following are the finalists for the Selke Trophy, in alphabetical order:

from John Romano of the Tampa Bay Times,

For a few minutes there, Nikita Kucherov again looked like the best hockey player on the planet.

The Lightning defense looked smart, tough and efficient in the third period, and the special teams were spectacular for most of the afternoon in a 6-4 win in Game 4 against Carolina on Saturday.

Yet, if you’re being honest, the Lightning were lucky to have won.

They were lucky not to be going back to Raleigh, N.C., with the series tied, and lucky not to have suffered consecutive losses in the playoffs for the first time in more than 30 games. Mostly, they were lucky that the Hurricanes lost their damn minds.

Carolina had the defending Stanley Cup champions looking shaken and tentative on their home ice. They were beating them to the puck, they were dominating possession and they were leading 4-2 with the game more than halfway completed.

Then the Hurricanes took two penalties in the final five-plus minutes of the second period and practically punched Tampa Bay’s ticket to the next round of the NHL postseason.

continued

from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,

Barry Trotz says if he wasn’t coaching, he’d be glued to his television watching the New York Islanders playing their riveting playoff series against the Boston Bruins.

But if Trotz wasn’t coaching, the Islanders probably wouldn’t be there.

Apart from the Islanders’ defensive stoutness, the evidence of the head coach’s impact is the way New York embraces and embodies the idea of a four-line team. That, and the fact the Islanders are in their eighth playoff series since Trotz arrived three years ago, and New York’s five series wins – and counting? – are more than the franchise won over the previous 30 years.

Yeah, there is a “Barry Trotz Effect” to the Islanders, who beat the Boston Bruins 4-1 Saturday on Long Island to even the ferocious East Division final at 2-2.

continued

from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- The Maple Leafs can’t afford to pay Hyman what others will pay. They probably won’t offer the same kind of term he could get on the open market, either. And while I never discount what kind of salary cap magic Leafs money man Brandon Pridham might come up with, this seems to be a rather basic decision for the winger.

You may get one chance in your career, at the right time, to make big money. He has scored 28 goals in his past 82 regular-season games and scoring isn’t really what he does. He’s maddening to play against. He’s non-stop. He hits everything and everybody. And then he does it again the next night or the next shift. He is the 11th highest-paid player on the Leafs as he heads to free agency.

This is Zach Hyman’s time and deservedly so.

He’ll get more than $5 million a season, probably in a five-year package. And the Leafs will miss him terribly when he’s gone.

- Are Vegas and Colorado playing in the same league as Montreal and Winnipeg? Sure doesn’t look that way.

- What Frederik Andersen will find in free agency: There aren’t a lot of NHL teams looking for starting goaltenders and those that should be looking are already tied up with too many goalie contracts. One team in desperate need of a starter: Buffalo Sabres. But I’m hearing they like one of the Columbus netminders.

- The anonymous gang-like hatred on social media — where there is a correlation between the lack of followers and the amount of vitriol — never seems to quiet and continues to disgust. The latest victims: Scheifele’s family after the hit on Jake Evans, and broadcaster Tara Slone. Will this mean-spirited nonsense ever end?

- Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane each signed eight-year, $84-million contracts in the summer of 2014 that would begin one year later and would coincide with the decline of the championship Chicago Blackhawks teams.

Six years have since passed and Toews mysteriously took a step back from his season, but one thing has been certain: The Blackhawks have been an also-ran in the NHL since altering their payroll significantly to take care of their two biggest stars.

more on the first and last topic, plus more hockey notes...

On June 6, 1944, the Allies started their assault on Normandy, France.

In less than a year, victory in Europe was declared.

Below, a video of the Invasion of Normandy, with real footage, the background audio os from Saving Private Ryan.

THREE HARD LAPS

* For the first time in more than a decade, eight goals were scored in the same playoff period as the Lightning and Hurricanes each tallied four times in the second period of Game 4.

*  Skating in his 100th career playoff game, Nikita Kucherov recorded his 14th outing with three-plus points and helped the defending champions move within one win of advancing to the Stanley Cup Semifinals.

* Mathew Barzal helped tie the game and then pulled the Islanders ahead with a goal in the third period as New York rallied again and drew even in its Second Round series with Boston.

The Islanders beat the Bruins 4-1 in a very entertaining game.

Game highlights are below.

The HNIC panel topics included- The David Krejci spear/slash call tonight, Paul Stastny will travel with the Jets for games 3 & 4, Olympic agreement getting closer and teams are interested in Vince Dunn of the Blues.

Also Taya Currie, a female goalie drafted today by the Sarnia Sting in the 14th round.

via Sportsnet,

With a 6-4 win today over the Carolina Hurricanes, the Tampa Bay Lightning are one win away from advancing to the semi-finals round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Game highlights are below.

from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

League wide, through the 56 games played through Friday night, teams this postseason enjoyed very limited success when yanking the goalie. Only three goals had been scored by clubs attacking six on five. Worse, the team defending those six-on-five assaults scored 19 times into the vacated net. The approximate ratio of 1:6.

Over the last three playoff seasons, to provide some comparison, the ratios have varied significantly:

2020 — 21 goals for the attacking team vs. 34 for the defending team. Approximate ratio, 2:3.

2019 — Eight goals vs. 31 goals. Approximate ratio, 1:4.

2018 — Seven goals vs. 33 goals. Approximate ratio, 1:5.

In the postseason, the added drama around those desperation goals is that they can prove the difference between a season ending, or a season extended, a team moving on to another series, or even winning the Cup

.more, mostly Bruins related...

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

This isn’t so much about whether a team can succeed when it commits 49.7 percent of its cap allotment to four forwards in what has become a flat-earth NHL. It is about what happens when the forwards who embody your vision and around whom you have built your team flame out spectacularly in the crucible. It is about what happens when you might have given the money to the wrong people.

It is about what happens when Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, neither of whom has a particularly appealing public persona, fail to produce after a season of producing zany numbers. It is what happens when there isn’t enough support to compensate for a series-ending injury sustained early in Game 1 by John Tavares. It is what happens when Willy Nylander becomes the lone member of the remaining amigos to elevate his game.

This isn’t quite the same as the Capitals’ repeated failures last decade to get through the Penguins. It is not tantamount to the Rangers running into the Islanders wall in the early 1980s or the original Jets’ inability scale the Edmonton mountain later in that decade.

The Maple Leafs have lost five consecutive opening-round series (including last year’s qualifying round under the bubble) to four different teams. They have been beaten by the Caps, by the Bruins (twice), by the Blue Jackets and now by the Canadiens. Eight times, the Leafs have skated into potential clinchers. Eight times, they have lost. Five times over the past three years, they played a winner-take-all contest. Five times, they were on the wrong side of the handshake line.

continued

via the NHL PR department,

Series Scenarios
* Teams that hold a 2-1 lead in a best-of-seven series own an all-time record of 366-156 (.701), including a 4-2 mark in 2021.

* Teams that hold a 3-1 lead in a best-of-seven series own an all-time record of 294-30 (.907), including a 3-1 mark in 2021.

* When a best-of-seven series is tied 2-2, the winner of Game 5 holds an all-time record of 215-58 (.788).

from Tara Sullivan of the Boston Globe,

Taylor Hall came to Boston with a fascinating addendum to one of NHL’s most impressive résumés. He came with honesty. And candor. The kind of honesty and candor rarely acknowledged by athletes of Hall’s caliber — ones who trade as much on inner belief as their skills at skating, scoring, shooting or passing.

“I’m not the most confident hockey player right now,” Hall acknowledged in his introductory Zoom call, back on April 12. “Throughout this year, there have been a lot of struggles, and obviously goal scoring has been one of them. I have to find that part of my game back.”

In revealing how much he had struggled across a 37-game tenure in Buffalo, in sharing how much it wore on him to know his paltry two goals were so far away from his Hart Trophy-winning season in 2017-18, Hall spoke to how much he needed a change of scenery. In doing his part to make sure that change would happen in Boston, he also spoke to the growing role athletes themselves are playing in determining their future.

And there is no arguing he made the right call.

It’s hard to imagine the union going any better.

Hall, slipping into place on the Bruins’ second line alongside David Krejci and Craig Smith, quickly found “that part of his game,” scoring eight goals in 16 regular-season games and adding two more in the opening playoff series win against Washington. And the Bruins are the happy beneficiaries of his awakening, heading into Saturday night’s Game 4 against the Islanders with a 2-1 advantage in their second-round series.

continued

from Ken Dryden at the National Post,

Head hits. Whether intentional, careless or completely accidental, that distinction matters only to the hitter, not to the player hit. Nor even much to the rest of us now. The back stories — it’s the sort of thing he would do, or wouldn’t do — who cares? It’s about Tavares not Corey Perry, Evans not Mark Scheifele.

And we know now. Everybody knows. Not just the scientists. The media know. Ron MacLean knows. So do Elliotte Friedman and Cassie Campbell, so do Darren Dreger, Craig Simpson, Pierre LeBrun and all the others. They know. George Parros knows, Bill Daly knows, so do all the owners. Jeremy Jacobs, Geoff Molson, Larry Tanenbaum, they all know. Mark Chipman, David Thomson, Murray Edwards, Daryl Katz, Francesco Aquilini, Eugene Melnyk. They all know. Don Fehr, the head of the NHL Players’ Association, he knows. Gary Bettman knows.

They can’t not know, they can’t pretend not to know. They know. And we know they know.

And the players know. Their wives and girlfriends know. Their kids and parents and friends know. The wrenching scene after the Tavares and Evans injuries, the two players on the ice, face down, face up. And their teammates. They’re paid not to know, to ignore or forget, to keep on going no matter what. Their silence. The incredible echoing, deafening silence in the whole arena. Across the country.

more

NEW YORK (June 5, 2021) – Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews, Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Jaccob Slavin and Minnesota Wild defenseman Jared Spurgeon are the three finalists for the 2020-21 Lady Byng Memorial Trophy, awarded “to the player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability,” the National Hockey League announced today.

Members of the Professional Hockey Writers Association submitted ballots for the Lady Byng Trophy at the conclusion of the regular season, with the top three vote-getters designated as finalists. The winners of the 2021 NHL Awards presented by Bridgestone will be revealed during the Stanley Cup Semifinals and Stanley Cup Final, with exact dates, format and times to be announced.

Following are the finalists for the Lady Byng Trophy, in alphabetical order:

Under two minutes to watch.

RIGA, Lativa – Colin Blackwell (North Andover, Mass.) and Sasha Chmelevski (Huntington Beach Calif.) both scored and Cal Petersen (Waterloo, Iowa) made 29 saves, but the U.S. Men’s National Team fell to Canada, 4-2, in the semifinal round at the 2021 IIHF Men’s World Championship.

“This has been one of the best groups I’ve ever coached character-wise,” said head coach JackCapuano. “To lose our captain, our alternate, a top prospect, and to still be able to put this effort in tonight says a lot about this group. We still have a chance to come home with a medal and I know this group will give each other everything they’ve got to do so.”

from Ted Wyman of the Winnipeg Sun,

Having three key players out of the lineup didn’t help, but the biggest problem the Winnipeg Jets have right now is the Montreal Canadiens.

The Jets were unable to get their game together once again in Game 2 of the North Division final and fell 1-0 to the Canadiens at Bell MTS Place Friday night.

The Jets were better than they were in Game 1, when they lost 5-3, but the Canadiens were simply the stronger team. The Canadiens got a tremendous, 30-save shutout from all-world goalie Carey Price as they won their fifth straight game since falling behind 3-1 in their first-round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“I thought it was a great step in the right direction,” Jets captain Blake Wheeler said. “I thought we played a great game. We got off to a way better start and had quite a few looks to tie the game up and it was just a matter of being unable to get that bounce to go our way.”

Montreal continued to use a stifling checking style, quick sticks and speed to disrupt any hopes the Jets had of establishing their offensive game plan.

contiued

from Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post,

If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the desert.

After the Avalanche wilted in the third period and lost 3-2 to Vegas, coach Jared Bednar took a blow torch to his Colorado players, putting them on full blast for failure to compete. But a hot and bothered coach didn’t stop there. Bednar scooped up the ashes and threw them under the team bus on the sizzling asphalt of the arena parking lot.

“We can dissect the game in 100 different ways in what went wrong. But it’s a waste of time, a waste of time,” Bednar said Friday night.

“The video doesn’t lie. They were the more competitive hockey team from start to finish.”

Oh, burn.

This Bednar Blast, however, had not yet reached full boil. This coach is not a screamer by nature. But if looks could kill and egos in the Colorado locker room are weak, we might as well bury any chance of the Avalanche winning the Stanley Cup in 2021 right now.

On this sweltering spring day in the Nevada desert, the high temperature was 107 degrees. But that was nowhere near as hot as the straight fire Bednar spit after the Avs blew a chance to take a 3-0 stranglehold in this best-of-seven series by allowing two Vegas goals during an ugly 45-second span of the final period.

“We’re kidding ourselves if we think that’s the way we can beat a team that tied us for first in the league,” Bednar said. “We’re going to have to compete way harder that in order to beat them. And the sooner we realize that … if we haven’t already, we’re late to the party.”

continued

THREE HARD LAPS

* After Derek Carr of the Las Vegas Raiders made an appearance in front of a full house at T-Mobile Arena, Jonathan Marchessault and Max Pacioretty quarterbacked the Golden Knights’ third-period rally by scoring goals 45 seconds apart late in the third period.

* Carey Price and the Canadiens will return to Bell Centre with a 2-0 lead in their Second Round series after they shut out the Jets in Game 2.

* A pair of pivotal Game 4s go today as the Hurricanes and Islanders look to even their series with the Lightning and Bruins, respectively.