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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

With less than 6 minutes left in the 3rd Vegas trailed 2-1.

A minute later, Vegas is leading the Colorado Avalanche 3-2.

The tying and winning goals can be watched below.

added 1:52am, Game highlights below.

USA/Canada at 7:15am ET and Finland/Germany at 11:15am.

Medal games are on Sunday, still TBD for the puck drop.

Montreal took a 1-0 lead early in the 2nd period with a short-handed goal and that is the only goal they would need.

Montreal 1 Winnipeg 0.

Game winning goal is below and highlights will soon follow.

added 10:55pm, Game highlights are below.

Will the Montreal Canadiens keep their winning ways tonight with another win in Winnipeg?

The Colorado Avalanche have yet to lose a game in the post-season. They be trying to win their 7th game in a row tonight.

Schedule and notes are below and feel free to discuss the games tonight.

from Ted Kulfan of the Detroit News,

Blashill used the word “tactician," a coach with “different offensive ideas” to describe what characteristics he and Yzerman are looking for in the assistant coach.

“Especially a guy with an offensive kind of mindset, somebody that brings some different, potentially unique, ideas,” Blashill said. “It’s hard to come up with things that are real different or unique in the game, and that’s not necessarily how you win.

“But ultimately is there some fresh ideas or unique ideas or different thought processes?”...

“We need to add to our personnel to get the right fit so our power play has a chance to be more successful,” Yzerman said. "We have to do something different with our power play, for sure. Our power play is 31st, collectively. It struggled the last few years.

"We need to add to our personnel to get the right fit, so our power play has a chance to be more successful and we need to do things a little bit differently than we have done. The spots players are put in and the way we bring the puck up the ice, it needs to be addressed.

more (paid sub.)

via Sportsnet's YouTube channel,

Watch FULL media availability from Winnipeg Jets forward Mark Scheifele after receiving a 4-game suspension for his headshot on Canadiens forward Jake Evans that sent him off on a stretcher. Scheifele says Evans' health is first thing on his mind, hoping for a quick recovery, also explains the hit from his perspective, his emotions before and after, and why he thinks the hit wasn't bad, also says he can accept the punishment, but can't accept the abuse his family is taking over this, and much more.

NEW YORK (June 4, 2021) – San Jose Sharks right wing Kurtis Gabriel, Nashville Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne and New Jersey Devils defenseman P.K. Subban are the three finalists for the 2020‑21 King Clancy Memorial Trophy, which is presented “to the player who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a noteworthy humanitarian contribution in his community,” the National Hockey League announced today.

Each NHL team nominated a player for the King Clancy Memorial Trophy, with the three finalists and winner chosen by a committee of senior NHL executives led by Commissioner Gary Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly.

The selection committee applies the following criteria in determining the finalists and winner:

from Eduardo A. Encina of the Tampa Bay Times,

Hurricanes captain Jordan Staal’s overtime goal Thursday night not only silenced the largest crowd to watch a game at Amalie Arena in more than 15 months, it also pumped life into his team.

The Lightning may have played their best game of the second-round playoff series against the Hurricanes — they controlled the puck, manufactured scoring chances and revived their power play — but Game 3 ended with a 3-2 loss in front of an announced crowd of 13,544.

The Lightning could have put the Hurricanes’ season on the ropes with a win. Instead, Carolina got its first victory of the series, cutting its deficit to 2-1.

“I think our team has gotten better every single game, and that’s what I’ve liked,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “We’ve just got to keep going. You can hang your head on these (kinds of losses). You’ve just got to turn the page and go to the next one.

“The playoffs are a big damn roller coaster, and you can’t get too excited when you’re high, can’t get too low when it’s low, and you’ve just got to keep trusting in your process.”

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from Matt Porter of the Boston Globe,

They revere tradition here, from the four Stanley Cup banners — now about four decades old — to the newer hallmarks of Islanders Hockey, namely: hang in there, get some gigantic saves, grind out a tight win.

Brad Marchand stomped on the script.

As Islanders goalie Semyon Varlamov was trying to steal Game 3 in a duel with Tuukka Rask on Thursday night, Marchand sent a shot from outside the left circle, some 6 feet before the goal line. It floated over Varlamov’s glove, top corner, far side, at 3:36 of overtime.

A sniper’s touch. The final: Bruins 2, Islanders 1, a 2-1 series lead for the Black and Gold, and a chance to take a commanding lead in Game 4 on Saturday night.

“Any puck,” said Marchand, who scored his third career playoff OT winner, “has a chance to go in.”

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from Ansar Khan of Mlive,

At least one Detroit Red Wing will return from the World Championship with a medal.

Defensemen Troy Stecher and Moritz Seider helped their teams to quarterfinal victories Thursday in Latvia and a spot in Saturday’s semifinals.

Canada, with Stecher, defeated Russia 2-1 in overtime and will face the United States on Saturday (7:15 a.m. ET, NHL Network). Germany, with Seider, edged Switzerland 3-2 in a shootout to advance against Finland on Saturday (11:15 a.m. ET, NHL Network).

Andrew Mangiapane (Calgary) scored the winning goal for Canada. Stecher made it possible by taking a drop pass just inside the blue line, making two nifty moves to elude defenders and sending a backhand pass across the front of the net for a one-timer.

Stecher led his team in ice time (25:51).

Seider logged 23:07, second on his team, in ice time. Leon Gawanke scored the tying goal with 44 seconds remaining in the third period.

“I think we were the better team from the beginning,” Seider said in a story posted on iihf.com. “There was no doubt that we were going to win that game. We can be very proud of ourselves.

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THREE HARD LAPS

* Twenty of the 54 games contested in the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs have required overtime (37.1%) after both games on Thursday went to extra time. Despite being early in the Second Round, the 20 overtime games this postseason are already tied for the 11th-highest total in a single playoff year in Stanley Cup Playoffs history.

* Nail-biting games have become a common occurrence in the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Overall, 27 of the 54 games contested this postseason have been decided by a one-goal margin (50.0%).

* With each of their teams competing in crucial Game 3s, Brad Marchand and Jordan Staal each scored their second overtime goal of the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs.