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THREE HARD LAPS
* It's been a long road to the top, but Sharks forward Patrick Marleau finally matched “Mr. Hockey” on the NHL’s all-time games played list.
* The Coyotes overcame a 2-0 deficit to defeat the Blues after Oliver Ekman-Larssonguaranteed a win for Leighton Accardo, who the club honored in a pre-game ceremony.
* Sunday’s six-game slate opens with the Bruins facing the MassMutual East Division-leading Capitals on NBC.
Before Saturday's game.
via Sportsnet,
Patrick Marleau joined Ron MacLean and Kelly Hrudey to talk about tying Gordie Howe’s record for NHL games played, and looks back at his favourite memories of the legendary Howe.
The Wings started strong and had numerous scoring chances in the first period but could not score.
With less than 30 seconds left in the first, Chicago scored and it became an uphill battle for Detroit.
Chicago added a goal in the second and two goals (one ENG) in the third to make the final score 4-0.
added 10:20pm, Below find post game talk and game highlights.
via Sportsnet,
Elliotte Friedman and Chris Johnston look at the latest news from around the NHL, with the Canucks recovering from COVID-19 and the playoff situation for all the Canadian teams.
from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,
The NHL and NHLPA have handled the unprecedented challenges posed over the past 13 months admirably, balancing the well-being of the industry with the safety of those under their charge.
But sending the Canucks back to work after the most serious outbreak of COVID-19 encountered by any NHL team so they can dutifully play out the string of a season gone horribly wrong seems a story that belongs under one of those generic headlines we’ve read all too often:
“CORPORATION ORDERS EMPLOYEES BACK TO WORK”
Please do not talk to me about the integrity of the schedule or the integrity of the playoff race in the Canadian division. Neither exists under these conditions. The five teams that have a sum of 19 games remaining against Vancouver will in essence be picking at the carcass of a club whose players, staff members and respective families have been struck, and struck hard, by the P1 variant of the virus.
Playing these games — when they start Sunday night, the Canucks will be scheduled to play 19 games in 32 days, an insane burden even if placed on the healthiest and best conditioned of teams — will add mockery to the playoff race, not justify it....
continued plus more topics including...
So I hear or read about the Blue Jackets’ upcoming decision whether to “rebuild or reload,” and wonder if we are taking about the same Blue Jackets who have won one playoff round in their history. That one triumph came two years ago while they still had all the guys who left town as soon as they could.
For the first time this season the Wings have posted three wins in a row. To many of the Wings faithful this represents a streak of sorts. Improvement with some consistency, even at a snails pace is better than none, and, the addition of the two new players seems to have sparked the team on a bit. It's the best effort we've seen this season.
Vrana scored his first goal as a Wing, which was also the game winner, on a nice feed from Lindstrom as he(Vrana) exited the penalty box, and skated in alone, ripping a nice shot into the back of net. I don't remember the last time that happened, but, it sure felt good.
One more win against the Cawks tonight would really go a long way as far as holding the interest of 19 Wingaholics for the remainder of the season.
It's a Live Blog!
from Mark J. Burns of SportsBusiness Journal,
NHL jersey advertising could become a reality as early as the 2022-23 season, multiple sources tell Sports Business Journal, cautioning that nothing has been finalized or approved by the league’s Board of Governors.
In recent weeks, NHL clubs have been conducting valuation work -- some with third-party sports sponsorship and marketing agencies as well as valuation firms -- to determine what a jersey patch and helmet decal could both be worth before eventually providing that data to the league, sources said. In other words, what’s the business and revenue case for formally adopting the new sponsorship assets, some sources described.
The exact location of a jersey patch, chest or shoulder, is also still being discussed and evaluated, sources said. Jersey patch sizing is unknown at this time.
from Nicholas J. Cotsonika of NHL.com,
Growing up in Aneroid, Saskatchewan, Patrick Marleau looked to see which players from his province had made the NHL. At the top of the list was one of the greatest of all time, the one who had played more NHL games than anyone else, Gordie Howe.
"It gives you hope," he said. "It gives you hope that maybe that could be me one day playing in the NHL, since these other guys before me did it coming from small farming communities in Saskatchewan."
Playing in the NHL is an accomplishment in itself. Out of everyone who has laced up a pair of skates, only 8,102 have appeared in the League in more than a century, starting with its first season in 1917-18. The number is 8,074 including only the regular season.
Marleau is about to reach one of the greatest milestones in the sport considering that, and it's all the more special because he is passing none other than Mr. Hockey. Marleau is scheduled to tie Howe's record of 1,767 NHL regular-season games when the San Jose Sharks play at the Minnesota Wild on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; BSN, NBCSCA, NHL.TV) and break it at the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday.
from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,
Up until the Red Wings and Capitals stunned the trading floor on Monday, the best deadline deal belonged to the Islanders, who jumped out ahead by five days and added dependable ex-Devils Kyle Palmieri and Travis Zajac to a strong group of forwards.
But then, just as the dealin’ was nearly done, the Capitals filched the single-best talent that few knew to be available, acquiring 6-foot-5-inch right winger Anthony Mantha from the Red Wings.
“Wow!” said one front office executive, praising Red Wings GM Steve Yzerman for the deal....
The Capitals, always enamored by size and skill (why not?), surrendered slick Czech forward Jakub Vrana and Slovak right winger Richard Panik, whom Yzerman drafted for the Lightning in his Tampa GM days. They sweetened the package even further with first-round (2021) and second-round (2022) picks. Sweet haul, no doubt.
But the best player in the deal is Mantha, who pitched in with 1-1—2 in his Capitals debut Tuesday night. Few in the league have the new age Big M’s size and skill, which the Red Wings no doubt viewed to be true in November when they extended his deal for four years at a $5.7 million cap hit. Five months later, what, he’s trade bait?
The asterisk on Mantha, age 26, is his erratic consistency and motivation. He can appear maddeningly disengaged, even now seven years into his pro career. In part, that label was why, even with his size, he lasted until No. 20 in the 2013 draft (three picks after the Senators grabbed Curtis Lazar, don’t ya know?).
Vrana, 25, will be a restricted free agent in the summer, and the Capitals were concerned he might earn Mantha kind of money via salary arbitration. Now that’s Yzerman’s worry. Stevie Y is hoping Vrana (career-high 25 goals, 52 points) might find Detroit a comfortable fit with fellow Czechs Filip Hronek (D) and Filip ZadinaRW). If he’s right, that might bring some added value to the deal. Detroit is a hard sell these days.
The deal is somewhat reminiscent of the Bruins abruptly dishing Joe Thornton to the Sharks 23 games into the 2005-06 season, when no one knew the former No. 1 pick (1997) was being shopped...
more and other topics too...
5 1/2 minutes long, conference begins with a question about Lucas Raymond.
from Mike McIntyre of the Winnipeg Free Press,
COVID-19 is no joke. But the way the NHL has mishandled an outbreak on the Vancouver Canucks sure is, suggesting a tone-deaf league that will always put profit over people, including forcing a sickly bunch to hit the ice when it was unsafe to do so.
Only a player-led revolt and some public shaming forced a last-minute change of plans that is just slightly less egregious.
If NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and company had their way, the Canucks would have hosted the Edmonton Oilers on Friday night, their first game since March 24 and the start of a murderous stretch of hockey that would involve 19 games over 31 nights. It would have come after just one measly practice, with multiple players still in virus protocols and others still working their way back from battling serious symptoms that were a result of the more potent Brazil variant.
That, folks, was a recipe for disaster.
Instead, Vancouver was given an extra two days to gear up for what will now be 19 games over 32 days starting Sunday, which is still ridiculous.
from Damien Cox at the Toronto Star,
So the Leafs are really pretty much the same team they were before the deadline, perhaps slightly improved, with the same strengths and same weaknesses. No. 1 on the list of those weaknesses is the uncertain situation in net, and while four different masked men have now earned points for Toronto this season, we all are pretty familiar with the NHL’s rule that you can only play one at a time.
Currently, that looms as a prickly problem for Keefe. He’s got lots of goalies hailing from lots of different places, and he just needs one of them to play well enough to get the club past the first round of the playoffs. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
The fate of this team in this bizarro season rests on Keefe identifying a goalie, and on whether Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews, John Tavares, William Nylander, Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin, Zach Hyman and perhaps one or two others have the ability to play much better in the playoffs this spring than they did in last summer’s bubble playoffs. Joe Thornton and Jason Spezza are nice stories and occasional contributors, as is Wayne Simmonds. But the big money boys have got to come through.
For 44 games, this team has performed very well. If it can hang on to first place, sometime next month it will likely face Montreal in the playoffs. That could be loads of fun and the stars will need to come out.
Dubas has so far declined to touch the core of this team, believing it will mature and eventually perform at a level that might get the Leafs to within striking distance of the Cup.
Soon, we will see if he was right. Or, more accurately, whether he was right within the context of a season like no other.
from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,
Given two more days to prepare for the worst month of their hockey careers, the Vancouver Canucks will have a full lineup when they end an unprecedented 24-day layoff Sunday against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
They don’t know who will be coaching (bench boss Travis Green was among the hardest hit by the organization’s COVID-19 outbreak) or who will be playing (except injured star Elias Pettersson won’t), but at least the Canucks will have a team. They wouldn’t have had one Friday had the NHL not revised Vancouver’s schedule a second time and pushed back its re-entry into the stretch drive for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
With 19 games in 32 days, the Canucks may well finish a regular season that has been officially declared a disaster while the top four teams in the Canadian division are playing playoff games.
After a year in which the NHL thought it had seen everything, it turned out nobody had seen anything like the Canucks’ COVID-19 outbreak, which was made exceptional – and especially dangerous – because it was driven by the aggressive P.1 variant.
None of the league’s earlier outbreaks, including those similar in scope and duration to the Canucks’ crisis, were caused by any of the coronavirus variants that have built a gigantic third wave in Canada.
A Canucks’ official described it this week like this: 10 days into the NHL’s earlier major outbreaks, nearly all the players involved had recovered enough to resume training; 10 days into the P.1 variant outbreak in Vancouver, not only were a lot of players still sick but a few were actually getting worse.
THREE HARD LAPS
* Oilers captain Connor McDavid is set to return to the ice and can accomplish a rare feat with his 70th point of the season.
* Jeremy Swayman became the ninth different rookie goaltender to post a shutout in 2020-21. The most in a single season in NHL history is 17.
* Tyler Toffoli joined rare company by scoring his 20th goal with the Canadiens in fewer than 40 games.
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