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.

NEW YORK (May 23, 2021) -- Montreal Canadiens defenseman Shea Weber has been fined $5,000, the maximum allowable under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, for cross-checking Toronto Maple Leafs forward Wayne Simmonds during Game 2 of the teams' First Round series in Toronto on Saturday, May 22, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced today.

The incident occurred at 10:07 of the second period. The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

Watch the incident below.

Quick video recap of the four Stanley Cup Playoff games from Saturday,

Below find more of Lightning/Panthers and VGK/Wild.

Some great saves in this package.

Over 17 1/2 minutes loing, so watch it below.

from Mike Harrington of the Buffalo News,

Terry Pegula came here talking Stanley Cups at his first news conference. As in more than one. And starting within three years. Forget about that. The Sabres can't even make the playoffs.

It's 10 consecutive years outside the postseason and counting, tying the NHL record. What gives? Terry and Kim Pegula have been woefully impatient, never committing to any coach or general manager once they moved on from Darcy Regier and Lindy Ruff nine months apart in 2013.

The Pegulas have made a litany of mistakes in running the Sabres, but there's no denying there's been a string of bad luck involved, too....

The facilities are world class. The personnel and management decisions are not. Who could forget signing Ville Leino to a six-year, $27 million contract three months after his overtime goal beat the Sabres in the 2011 playoffs? Or giving Christian Ehrhoff 10 years and $40 million that same summer, a signing his kids revealed the owner pushed for during a video the team shot in Finland during the 2011 NHL Global Series?

(Ehrhoff was a compliance buyout choice in 2014 and is not on the Sabres cap – but did you know he still gets $857,143 from the Pegulas every year through 2028? How many Pegula Sports and Entertainment employee salaries could that money have covered?)

How much did the Pegulas want to get rid of Ryan O'Reilly's $7.5 million annual contract after he lost his love for the game? They clearly wanted Jeff Skinner signed, but Jason Botterill overpaid at nine years and $72 million. Tim Murray hamstrung the organization with Kyle Okposo, too (seven years, $42 million). Both were clear reactions to ownership impatience.

read on

from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

- Alex Edler was suspended for two games after his knee-on-knee hit on Zach Hyman last month.

So why not Ben Chiarot now?

Why not the 20-minute Montreal defenceman, who somehow wasn’t penalized for the hit that first injured John Tavares before the knee of Corey Perry knocked the Leafs captain out of the game and likely out of the Stanley Cup playoffs?...

- If I was a kid and needed a career, I’d like to come back as Kevin Bieksa’s agent. It would make both of us rich. The two American networks doing NHL games next season should be bidding on Bieksa. He’s that good and that original. And it’s hockey, so there’s not a lot of original out there.

- Carey Price and Marc-Andre Fleury will likely be Team Canada’s goalies for the coming Winter Olympics, assuming the tournament with NHL players does come to fruition. Expect Andrei Vasilevskiy in goal for Russia, Connor Hellebuyck for the USA, Tuukka Rask for Finland and Jacob Markstrom starting or splitting time with Robin Lehner for Sweden.

- Of course, Taylor Hall has come to life. We all should have known that. He’s playing with one of the great underappreciated players of this generation, David Krejci.

When you can skate the way Hall can, and cut the way he does, and pass the puck and see the ice in the way in which Krejci does, offence comes together. It’s like a smooth quarterback throwing to a bursting wide receiver. Chemistry just happens.

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

Series Scenarios 

* Teams that take a 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven series hold an all-time record of 330-51 (.866) including a 6-0 mark in 2020.

* Teams that take a 2-1 lead in a best-of-seven series hold an all-time record of 362-154 (.702), including a 12-1 mark in 2020.

* Teams that take a 3-1 lead in a best-of-seven series hold an all-time record of 291-29 (.909), including a 13-0 mark in 2020.

* Teams that take a 3-0 lead in a best-of-seven series hold an all-time record of 192-4 (.980), including a 2-0 mark in 2020.

from Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press,

“I want to temper the enthusiasm and the excitement,” Yzerman said. “He’s a great young player. His next move is to the NHL. We’ll see how training camp, the preseason, goes. It’s a huge step up from the American league or the Swedish league to the NHL, but he probably exceeded our expectations last year going into the American league, he did very well.

“He’s got size. His skills are good. He’s got a lot of work to do, but I think there’s a lot of potential for him. We’re excited to have him over here next year. Our hope is he’s ready to play for the Red Wings at the start of the season.”

Potentially, the Wings’ right-side defense next season features Seider, Filip Hronek and either Troy Stecher or Gustav Lindstrom. On the left, Danny DeKeyser is the only veteran under contract; he and Hronek have a history of pairing well. Seider has been vocal about how much it helped his development in Sweden to play with veteran Eric Gelinas, and that’s why Yzerman might re-sign Staal — he’s closing in on 1,000 games played but still remembers how much it helped him to be partnered with a veteran his first years in the NHL....

Seider projects to be a significant player in the rebuild; maybe not as soon as next season, but certainly within the next few years. He already holds a piece of Wings history — he’s the first Red Wings defenseman since 1975 to be drafted in the top six. (Rick Lapointe was selected No. 5 overall that year, and He only played a season and a half for the franchise.)

The last defensive prospect with this much buzz was Niklas Kronwall. Taken 29th overall in 2000), he played 20 games with the Wings in 2003-04, then spent all of 2004-05 in the AHL because of the labor dispute that wiped out that NHL season. With the Griffins, he dominated — 13 goals and 40 assists in 76 games — and was named the AHL's top defenseman.

Yzerman is right to want to keep expectations in check: It’s hard for a young player, especially a defenseman, to make an impact right away. But Seider is poised to add moxie to a team that needs it, and that’s been building since the day Yzerman drafted him.

more (paid subscription)

THREE HARD LAPS

* Nikita Kucherov joined elite company with his sixth career three-assist game in the postseason as the Lightning pushed the Panthers to the brink of elimination.

* After a historic regular season in which he climbed to the third-most regular-season wins in NHL history, Marc-Andre Fleury continued his ascent of another all-time list as he blanked the Wild and helped the Golden Knights move within one win of the Second Round.

* The Presidents’ Trophy-winning Avalanche can achieve a rare feat today as they attempt to become the first team to advance to the Second Round of the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Eliotte Friedman, Chris Johnston and host Ron MacLean discussed- The future of J.T. Miller in Vancouver, the Nazem Kadri suspension, he is considering an appea, John Tavares health update and coaches talking about the refs.

Also, the AHL is considering a play-in for their playoffs.

via Sportsnet,

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

- Was about to report that Paul Maurice would be added to the list of Rangers coaching candidates were he to be dismissed following a potential Jets’ first-round ouster, but this just in: Connor McDavid says Maurice should make the move from Winnipeg to Broadway immediately.

- Apparently extremely late to the party on this, but there is an undercurrent suggesting Joel Quenneville has his sights set on moving to Seattle to become the coach of the Kraken once his season is over with Florida, which might explain why Seattle general manager Ron Francis has moved so slowly on this hiring.

If the Puddy Tats let Quenneville get away, and certainly so if this is related to money, then perhaps we should all rethink whether Aleksander Barkov is a slam-dunk to re-up with the Panthers before he becomes eligible to hit the open market a year from July.

-- Finally, let’s hope that neither Turner nor ESPN, the networks that will split the NHL’s national package beginning next year, would cut away from a star player berating his team’s goaltender after a gaffe in overtime as Alex Ovechkin did to Ilya Samsonov immediately following the Capitals’ Game 3 defeat to the Bruins.

And as that scene unfolded, all I was thinking was that Ovechkin was fortunate that the goalie wasn’t Alexandar Georgiev.

more topics...

Chris Peters at Betway.com recently talked with Clark Gillies and Bobby Nystrom, two key components during the dynasty days of the New York Islanders.

I've always believed on factor in a great team is teammates caring for each other.

This proves my point.

The Florda Panthers decided to send a message.

Then more of the same below.

Four games today, two in the afternoon and two in the evening.

It's like a double, double header.

Full schedule is below and you are invited to comment on the games.

Watch both incidents below.

First up Bruins/Caps and Avs/Blues. Below find Jets/Oilers and Preds/Canes.

from Samantha Pell of the Washington Post,

The Washington Capitals simply could not keep up with the Boston Bruins on Friday night in Game 4 of this first-round playoff series. The visitors looked lifeless, at least a step behind the blur of black and yellow sweaters at TD Garden.

The result was a 4-1 loss that left them on the brink of elimination, trailing this best-of-seven affair 3-1 with Game 5 on Sunday at Capital One Arena.

“This one, we just weren’t good enough,” Capitals Coach Peter Laviolette said. “We weren’t fast enough. We didn’t execute well enough.”

Should the Capitals fail to climb out of this hole, it would be the third straight season in which they were ousted in the first round since they won the Stanley Cup in 2018.

“We have to want it,” center Nicklas Backstrom said. “It’s obviously a big game coming up, and we have to be mentally ready. I feel like the previous three games before this we were a lot better than tonight. So we’ve got to be mentally ready, and we’ve got to play for each other. That’s maybe something we didn’t do tonight.”

continued

Game highlights are below.

from Mark Spector of Sportsnet,

It’s games like the one played on Friday night that define the term “playoff experience.” A crucial game for Edmonton that started out heavily in the Winnipeg Jets’ favour, then slowly shifted Edmonton’s way. By the third period, it was two teams slugging it out in search of what became obvious would be the one goal that would win this game.

Then, overtime heartbreak.

A Paul Stastny wrist shot, an Adam Larsson screen/deflection, an OT winner that puts Edmonton down 2-0 in their opening round series.

“We battled all game. We were still battling in OT,” said Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. “We just needed one to break them. We didn’t get one tonight.”

If you’d have told me the Oilers would allow only two regulation goals in two games (that weren’t empty netters) and would be down 2-0 in this series, I wouldn’t have believed that was possible.

If you’d have added that Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl — the NHL’s two leading scorers — would be pointless as they board the charter to Winnipeg for Game 3, I’d have started talking you into a wager.

read on and watch the OT goal below...

The St Louis Blues are down 3-0 in their series with the Colorado Avalanche after a 5-1 loss Friday night. Craig Berube wasn't happy.

via Lou Korac tweets,

Berube went off on the officials tonight. First, on the Schenn no call: Yeah, he broke his stick, should be a penalty."

Berube on officials: "Like the refereeing every game, we get one or two calls. It's usually late in the third period. They're getting four a game, five, how many did they get tonight, five? I mean, it's not that lopsided. I'm not sure why. We don't get the calls that we deserve.

More Berube: "Parayko gets tripped in the corner, they go down, score a goal on the goalie challenged goal. He gets tripped in the corner, slew-footed and they don't call it, okay, and it cost us a goal. It's terrible. It's so one-sided, it's not even funny."

Why is the officiating so one-sided? Berube: "I don't know, you'll have to ask the referees or the league. I don't have an answer for that."

Rod Brind’Amour is in the same boat.

THREE HARD LAPS

* Matt Duchene scored the double-overtime winner to cap the third-longest game in Predators history and cut their First Round series deficit to 2-1.

* The Jets are headed home with a 2-0 lead in their First Round series after Paul Stastny scored within the first five minutes of overtime in Game 2.

* The Bruins and Avalanche took series leads of 3-1 and 3-0, respectively, to move within one win of the 2021 Second Round.