from Al Montoya at The Players' Tribune,

I was seven, playing in a house league at the old Glenview Park District ice arena back home in Illinois. And at that point, on that team, being the goalie was like losing a bet or something. We used to have to pass the goalie bag to a different player before each game. No one wanted the job. And the beat-up bag with recycled equipment didn’t exactly help sell it.

But for me? As a little kid looking for new ways to have fun? Are you kidding?

To me, it was like that bag was filled with gold. What was inside couldn’t have been any more special — the old-school leather pads, one of those ancient chest protectors where it was just the chest and you had to slide on the arms, the whole thing. It may as well have been Patrick Roy’s or Eddie Belfour’s gear. In my eyes, it was beautiful.

And when the bag landed at my feet one day, I strapped on the mask and … I fell in love. Immediately. With that mask on, I felt like I could block out the noise around me and trust my instincts to respond to whatever came my way.

To fully understand why, you have to understand what it’s like to navigate two different worlds: The one shaped by being the son of a Cuban refugee — my mom, who had come to America after fleeing the Castro regime with her parents when she was 10 years old — and the one I had to create for myself, as an everyday American kid born in Chicago.

Let me be totally clear: I’m proud of every part of my identity. But moving between two completely different versions of yourself on a daily basis can be challenging. It’s not that I didn’t know which one I most belonged to. It’s that I didn’t feel like society would let me be everything I was — Cuban, American, the son of an immigrant — all at the same time.

read on

First video is Jets/Oilers, Leafs/Canadiens and Islnders/Penguins.

Second video is below and includes more Winnipeg/Edmonton and Toronto/Montreal and Florida/Tampa.

from John Romano of the Tampa Bay Times,

This was not how the final 10 seconds were supposed to look.

This was supposed to be a celebration for the Lightning, a vindication for their hard work. This was supposed to be the end of the first-round series, and the beginning of Tampa Bay’s quest for back-to-back NHL titles.

Instead, the final 10 seconds included a pitiful attempt at a fight and one final indignity in a night full of them.

Pat Maroon tried to take out Noel Acciari after a faceoff with 10 seconds remaining but ended up in a scrum of bodies at center ice in a fitting metaphor for a team that did not go down swinging.

The Lightning lost 4-1 to the Panthers in Game 5 on Monday night with an effort that was even more disappointing than the final score.

continued

Watch the game highlights below.

from Michael Russo of The Athletic,

Taking a page from Monty Python’s Holy Grail, the Wild are Not Dead Yet!

Oftentimes in hockey, the term “steal” is overused, but the latest odds at the BetMGM King of Sportsbooks have it at 2-1 that the Wild’s charter flight home will be surrounded on the tarmac by Las Vegas Metro PD and Cam Talbot placed in handcuffs.

In a game where the Wild were outshot 40-14 for the fewest shots they’ve had in their playoff history, their goaltender deserved a celebratory beer, cold tub and naturally the fiery-red Hero of the Game hydration bucket for the umpteenth time this season during a 38-save extravaganza and 4-2 victory to force a Game 6 Wednesday night at 8 p.m. in St. Paul.

With the Colorado Avalanche patiently awaiting the winner of this series, the Wild had to put some doubt into the collective mind of a team that tied the Avs for the most points in the NHL....

“We’re not going to start dreaming about winning the series until we get it done,” two-time Stanley Cup-winning defenseman Ian Cole said. “But this was a great first step in that process. Coming here to a tough barn to win in and they came out hard and we were able to handle it and turn the tides a bit as the game went and able to survive.

“It’s the first step in a very long process, very long journey to getting this done. We just have to keep going. We can’t rest on our laurels. The series isn’t over. We’ve got to win Game 6.”

read on ($$$)

Highlights are below.

from Stu Cowan of the Montreal Gazette,

Maybe the Canadiens should put Jake Allen in net for Game 4 of their playoff series against the Toronto Maple Leafs and let Carey Price play forward to see if he can score.

Almost nobody else on the Canadiens can.

The Canadiens lost Game 3 by a 2-1 score Monday night at the Bell Centre as the Leafs took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series with Game 4 set for Tuesday night in Montreal.

The Canadiens have scored only four goals in the first three games of the series. Nick Suzuki scored Monday night, while Josh Anderson, Paul Byron and Jesperi Kotkaniemi have also scored in the series. That’s it.

Meanwhile, Price has stopped 91 of 98 shots for a .929 save percentage.

Many of the players have changed over the years in front of Price and so have the coaches, but one thing remains constant when the Canadiens do get into the playoffs: they struggle to score.

continued

Below are the game highlights.

from Robert Tychkowski of the Edmonton Sun,

It’s almost impossible to fathom.

After everything the Edmonton Oilers accomplished this season, after how they man-handled the Winnipeg Jets all year, how on earth did they get punted out of the playoffs in four games?

How, after a season in which everything went so right, did the playoffs go so horribly wrong?

“There are things we could have done better here, but… I honestly don’t know how to answer that one,” said defenceman Darnell Nurse, who logged a staggering 62:07 in a heartbreaking triple overtime loss in Game 4.

“We played hard. It sucks that we’re sitting here after four games and it’s a sweep and we took three to overtime.”

There is a massive sense of disbelief for everyone in the wake of this painfully early playoff exit. The Oilers went 17-6-2 in their last 25 games to finish with the second most regulation wins in the NHL. They had the two best players in the world. Their special teams were best in the league. Their goalie was running hot. They were a good team that truly believed it could go deep in the playoffs.

continued

from Ron Cook of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,

Good luck to the Penguins trying to bounce back from this defeat.

It is not a stretch to say their 3-2 loss to the New York Islanders in double overtime Monday night was one of the most painful playoff losses in franchise history....

But this latest loss still hurt badly.

The damn Islanders, right?

This is becoming a really rotten trend.

By losing Game 5 despite thoroughly outplaying the Islanders, the Penguins need to win Game 6 on Long Island on Wednesday night and Game 7 back at PPG Paints Arena on Friday night to avoid falling to 1-5 against the Islanders in postseason series. If they lose either game, they will be bounced from the playoffs in the first round for the third consecutive season.

There are two ways of looking at the Penguins’ chances for survival:

One, they need only to match their effort from Monday night in Game 6 in order to live and play another day.

Or two, they took their best shot at the Islanders, and it wasn’t good enough.

read on

from Ansar Khan of Mlive,

After spending his entire career in New York, Staal quickly warmed up to his new surroundings.

“I had a lot of fun this season,” Staal said. “It was good to have a fresh start. I enjoyed going to the rink every day. Really nothing but positives my whole experience start to finish. Got a good opportunity to play and for the most part I was playing quite a few minutes.”

He added, “It’s a fun D corps to play with, a lot of great guys, not a lot of big, selfish personalities, everyone just wanting to play well and help the team win.”

Clubs can sign players they hold the rights to anytime before free agency opens on July 23, but nothing is likely to transpire with UFAs until after the July 21 Seattle expansion draft. That way teams won’t need to protect or expose those players.

Staal also said he is “kind of anxious” to see what transpires in free agency. Brother Eric, 36, also is a UFA and Staal mused about possibly having a rare opportunity to play with one of his brothers (Jordan plays for Carolina).

“We had 20 games in New York after the (2016) trade deadline; that was fun,” Staal said. “When you have two brothers in the league, it’s always a possibility to try to play with one of them because it’s a pretty unique opportunity.”

Wherever Staal signs, it will be for significantly less than the $5.7 million cap hit he had from his most recent Rangers contract.

more

THREE HARD LAPS

* The Jets won the first triple-overtime game of the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs – the longest game in franchise history – to complete their first-ever sweep. Winnipeg became the third team to reach the 2021 Second Round.

* More than one-third of contests so far this postseason have required extra time, with 12 overtime games through 35 games played (34%). Only seven rounds in NHL history have featured more such contests.

* Goaltenders SpencerKnight and CamTalbot stood tall on Monday to help the Panthers and Wild extend their respective series to a Game 6.

They will face Toronto/Montreal winner.

3OT goal first, handshakes below.

added 2:28am, game highlights below...

Tristan Jarry

Ready for five games tonight?

Ready or not, the night will be filled with hockey, playoff hockey.

Fell free to comment on the games or anything hockey related.

Full schedule along with scenarios can be viewed below.

Germany beat Canada 3-1 today. so he saw Seider up close.

added 5:12pm, if you know German, see below, could use a translation. No need, the video has captions.

Ten goals.

Clipping.

from Charles E. Ramirez of the Detroit News,

The University of Michigan may remove the name of college football legend Fielding H. Yost from the Yost Ice Arena.

A panel has recommended the university remove Yost's name and is asking members of the school campus community for feedback on the proposal. The President’s Advisory Committee on University History is accepting input on the plan until June 7....

Officials said the panel of university historians studied the issue for a year after several requests to remove Yost's name from the arena. It determined that Yost's contributions to UM football and athletics were inequitably placed above the “profoundly deep and negative impact he had on people of color,” they said....

Yost served as the school's athletic director from 1921-41. During his tenure, he conceived and oversaw the construction of Michigan Stadium.

It was also during this time that Yost was instrumental in benching African American football star Willis Ward because Georgia Tech refused to play Michigan at home if an African American was allowed to play. That decision was a factor in the committee's decision to recommend changing the arena's name.

more

from Damien Cox at the Toronto Star,

The Colorado Avalanche look unstoppable.

To that, the Vegas Golden Knights say, we’ll see about that.

Maybe.

The playoff matchup everyone outside the North Division has wanted to see — Toronto-Montreal was the one for Canadian fans — is close to happening.

It was difficult to make much sense of overall standings this season because teams didn’t play clubs outside their division. So while Colorado won the Presidents’ Trophy and Vegas finished second, it really only means they were by far the class of their division, which included three of the seven worst teams in the NHL, all from California.

But maybe that’s nitpicking. St. Louis and Minnesota sure seem to have discovered the strength of the Avs and Knights in the first round of the post-season. The undermanned Blues, further depleted when Robert Bortuzzo and Justin Faulk were eliminated by vicious and illegal Colorado head shots, were swept by the powerful Avalanche in a series that ended Sunday night.

The Wild, meanwhile, played Vegas very well during the regular season, but face elimination at the hands of the Golden Knights on Monday evening after four games.

So we could have Colorado-Vegas set to go by mid-week.

continued

A 2 1/2 minute recap of the games played on Sunday.

from Ansar Khan of Mlive,

TSN’s Craig Button wrote that “there’s plenty of hope and excitement for the future” for the Red Wings after rating Seider No. 1 and Lucas Raymond, the fourth pick in the 2020 draft, No. 3 on his annual list of prospects.

“(The) German blueliner has elevated his play to the next level with his size, physicality, puck-handling and offensive skill,” Button wrote of Seider.

Yzerman said he is not committing to Seider and Raymond being on the NHL roster at the start of next season. Raymond might need some development time with the Grand Rapids Griffins. But there is little doubt Seider is NHL-ready; it would be shocking if he didn’t earn a roster spot out of training camp.

“I want them to make the team and have a positive impact,” Yzerman said. “Our expectation and our hope is that Moritz is ready to go. We’ll see that next fall. Lucas, I don’t want to rule it out, but we’ll let the situation play itself out and if they prove they’re ready to go they’ll be on the team.

“I’m not going to force it or rush it. We have high expectations for them. Is it next season or the season after? I’m not sure. We’d love them to play but they’re going to need to earn it.”

more

from Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post,

In between the second and third periods of Sunday night’s season-ending gut punch of a hockey game for the Washington Capitals, the video screen that hangs above the ice played the first portion of a team-produced documentary on Nicklas Backstrom. The images flipped from Backstrom raising the Stanley Cup above his head, then to the sea of red on Constitution Avenue — a perfect day for a parade. That was three years back.

Then came Backstrom, remembering.

“I want that feeling again,” he said, and quietly.

That feeling, it seems so long ago. And after the Boston Bruins dumped the Caps from these playoffs with their fourth straight victory in this first-round series — 3-1 in Game 5 at dejected Capital One Arena — it’s worth wondering whether that feeling will be back with this group. The Capitals’ last series win in the Stanley Cup playoffs came against the Vegas Golden Knights in 2018, a spring when they won four straight series for the only time in franchise history. Since then, they’re 0-3 — each one a bit more dejecting than the last.

Lose to the Carolina Hurricanes in double overtime of a Game 7 in 2019? Eh, whatever. Look at the Cup!

Lose to the New York Islanders — and that Cup-winning coach, Barry Trotz — in five quick games of the covid-delayed first round last summer? Well, Backstrom was hurt for most of that series, and who knows how the NHL’s Toronto bubble affected anyone? Move on.

But this loss would seem to bring larger questions about what’s possible for these Caps a year from now, three years from now, for the rest of the careers of Backstrom and forever running mate Alex Ovechkin.

continued

from Robert Tychkowski of the Edmonton Journal,

We all saw it. Every agonizing second. We watched the replays, listened to the interviews and dissected the expert analysis.

But anyone who witnessed the Edmonton Oilers slow motion car wreck Sunday in Winnipeg still has no idea what the hell happened.

Catastrophic third-period collapse all but end Edmonton Oilers' season

It was over. They had already won Game 3. They closed the deficit to 2-1. The message was sent. The series was back on. The Oilers looked great.

Then, inexplicably, out of nowhere in a game they had ruled for 50 minutes, the Oilers spit up all of it in a humiliating, jaw-dropping catastrophic implosion that all but ended their season.

A 4-1 lead with less than 10 minutes to play in the third period blew up in their faces like one of those dye packs the banks use to catch stupid robbers.

“Winning is hard and there are painful lessons you need to learn to win,” said head coach Dave Tippett, after the Winnipeg Jets somehow came back to win 5-4 in overtime, taking a 3-0 death grip on the series and leaving the Oilers to write another playoff tragedy to go with last year’s bubble exit.

“Tonight, we learned some hard lessons on what not to do to win in the playoffs. We did enough good things in this game to win, but we gave a game away.

“It’s disappointing because we haven’t been that team all year, we’ve done a good job of closing things out. It’s disappointing that we did some of the things we did tonight. Now we’ll see how we respond.”

continued

Catch the highlights below.

THREE HARD LAPS

* The Avalanche completed a sweep of the Blues and the Bruins won a fourth consecutive game to eliminate the Capitals as Colorado and Boston advanced to the Second Round.

* The Predators and Jets each claimed their second straight overtime win, with polarizing effects on their respective series – Nashville pulled even at 2-2 with Carolina, while Winnipeg took a 3-0 lead on Edmonton heading into Game 4 tonight.

* One in every three games this postseason has required overtime (10 of 30) after two contests went past regulation Sunday. The last playoff round to feature more than 10 overtime games was the 2017 First Round when an NHL-record 18 contests required extra time.

Handshakes first, highlights are below.

Boston wins the series 4-1 after beating Washington 3-1 today.

Colorado sweeps St. Louis with a 5-2 win.

Highlights first, handshakes below.

The Nashville Predators with a win will even their series with the Carolina Hurricanes at two games.

St. Louis and Washington need a win today to avoid elimination and the Winnipeg Jets with a win tonight will go up 3-0 on the Edmonton Oilers.

Todays's schedule is below.