Columbus Blue Jackets News Clips August 16-17, 2020

Columbus Blue Jackets PAGE 02: Columbus Dispatch: Lightning holds off Blue Jackets in Game 3, takes series lead PAGE 04: Columbus Dispatch: Coach John Tortorella’s conditioning demands pay off for Columbus Blue Jackets in Game 2 win PAGE 06: Columbus Dispatch: Postseason power play a mixed bag for Blue Jackets PAGE 08: The Athletic: Blue Jackets suffer listless Game 3 loss to Lightning after hopeful start fades PAGE 13: The Athletic: Blue-collar or blue-chip? Reconsidering the Blue Jackets’ oft-maligned forwards PAGE 17: Columbus Dispatch: Lightning 3, Blue Jackets 2, Game 3: Five Takeaways PAGE 20: Columbus Dispatch: Michael Arace | Power-play failures reduce Columbus Blue Jackets’ margin for error PAGE 22: NHL.com: Blue Jackets hope to be refreshed for Game 4 against Lightning

Cleveland Monsters/Prospects

NHL/Websites PAGE 23: .ca: Quick Shifts: Frederik Andersen's future with Maple Leafs uncertain PAGE 28: Sportsnet.ca: NHL not expected to keep expanded playoff format next season PAGE 29: USA Today: 'You poke the bear:' Bruins announcer Jack Edwards' take on Andrei Svechnikov's injury draws criticism PAGE 30: USA Today: NBC analyst critical of Bruins goalie for opting out of NHL PAGE 31: USA Today: Overtimes galore: NHL has seen 12 games go long since play resumed on Aug. 1 PAGE 32: Sportsnet.ca: How Manny Malhotra became one of the NHL's most promising young coaches

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Columbus Dispatch / Lightning holds off Blue Jackets in Game 3, takes series lead By Adam Jardy – August 16, 2020

Behind a smothering defense and a dominating second period, Tampa Bay scratched out a two- lead and held off the Blue Jackets, 3-2, to take a 2-1 series lead in the first round of the playoffs. The Lightning limited the Blue Jackets to a total of seven shots on goal during the final two periods and only three in the third period. One of them came from Eric Robinson, who scored only 1:37 into the period to make it a 3-2 game, but the Jackets would get no closer at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. Robinson opened the third period by coming off the bench, skating right into the attacking zone and getting off a powerful from straight on that was saved by Lightning Andrei Vasilevskiy, but the rebound bounced wide to the left and directly into the path of a charging Robinson. He became the 13th Blue Jacket to score in the postseason, pulling his team within a goal at 3-2 and providing an answer to a second period largely dominated by Tampa Bay. It was the first career playoff goal for Robinson. Trailing 1-0 after the first period, Riley Nash tied the game early in the second. With the benefit of numbers, the veteran led an attack up the left boards, skated into the zone and fired a right-handed shot over Vasilevskiy’s glove at 1:49 to pull the Jackets even at 1-1. It tied the game, but it didn’t change the momentum. After being outshot 9-2 to open the game, the Lightning turned up the pressure and continued to pepper goalie Joonas Korpisalo with shots until they reclaimed the lead with 5:44 left in the period. After the Jackets were called for icing, Tampa Bay changed lines, set up a play and after a clean faceoff win sent the puck wide to the left side, where Ryan McDonagh took a powerful shot that Korpisalo deflected right to a waiting Brayden , who easily buried it into an open net to give Tampa Bay the 2-1 lead. The Lightning doubled the advantage shortly before the end of the period after a neutral-zone turnover by the Jackets allowed Victor Hedman to skate right down the middle of the ice and fire a shot past Korpisalo with 1:07 left to make it 3-1. It put an exclamation mark on a period that saw the Lightning outshoot the Jackets 16-4, and it could have been a bigger deficit for the Jackets had Korpisalo not gone full extension and used his left blocker to rob Barclay Goodrow of a goal. What had been a promising start for the Blue Jackets turned as the first period progressed. Tampa Bay’s Pat Maroon went to the box only 92 seconds into the game for roughing, and after the Lightning killed the ensuing power play that generated just one shot the Jackets were in position to take an early lead thanks to a pair of Tampa penalties in short order. When defenseman Zach Bogosian tripped Oliver Bjorkstrand and center Blake Coleman slashed Alexander Texier 34 seconds later, the Jackets were gifted a 5-on-3 advantage for 1:26 at the 7:41 mark of the period. They would finish with three shots, but their best one, a shot from the left circle by Emil Bemstrom, banged off the post. Bemstrom was staring at a mostly open net as Vasilevskiy was slow to react, but the Jackets came up empty.

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And after outshooting the Lightning 9-2 to open the game, the Jackets lost their grip on the period and eventually allowed the opening goal. Alex Killorn cut up the right wing with Anthony Cirelli to his left, and as David Savard forced Killorn wide he backhanded a shot on goal while Korpisalo seemed to be anticipating a centering pass. It bounced off the goalie and into the net at 15:48, giving the Lightning a 1- 0 lead for the second straight game. Forward Cam Atkinson and goaltender Elvis Merzlikins remained sidelined and were classified as "unfit to play" for the game.

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Columbus Dispatch / Coach John Tortorella’s conditioning demands pay off for Columbus Blue Jackets in Game 2 win By Brian Hedger – August 16, 2020

It was not going well, and that’s putting it kindly. In fact, the first 12 minutes of the Blue Jackets’ 3-1 victory against the on Thursday went horribly, except for goaltender Joonas Korpisalo somehow allowing only one goal while carefully balanced on his head. "We came out the way we wanted to," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said, a day after the Blue Jackets evened a first-round rematch series at a game apiece. "Especially after an emotional Game 1, we wanted to keep putting them back on their heels, and we did that." That Game 1, on Tuesday, was more than just emotional. It was also taxing physically, lasting 6 hours, 13 minutes and needing five periods to complete. Had it lasted 30 minutes longer than the 150:27 of game time that it ultimately took, that game the opener of a first-round series that is a rematch from last year would have been the equivalent of three full 60-minute games. And for the Blue Jackets, who’d come into it with just one day to recover from a draining five-game series against the in the qualifying round a series that included two OT games of its own it was a big ask of their bodies to even try to keep pace. And their legs did fail them to start out. The Lighting charged out to a 10-0 edge in shots, zipped around the ice as if they hadn’t played five overtimes two days earlier, and all the Jackets could do, it seemed, was watch. Then, it all changed after Blue Jackets Nick Foligno finally got a shot on goal 12:27 into the game, followed 19 seconds later by Ryan Murray’s first career playoff goal. Oliver Bjorkstrand’s power-play goal put the Jackets up 2-1 not long after that, which really pumped fuel back into the Jackets’ collective tank. How’d they pull it off? There were a number of factors, including a skill level they’re rarely credited for having, plus a strong inner drive shared throughout the team. But don’t forget the conditioning work coach John Tortorella puts them through every year in training camp. And this season they endured two training camps, thanks to the NHL pausing the season March 12 for more than four months because of the COVID-19 pandemic. "We have our camp the way it is because I think it’s the proper way to do the camp," said Tortorella, who is known throughout the league for designing intense hockey boot camps when players return to start new seasons. "There’s not many things that you can control in the game. Conditioning is one." It tends to pay nice dividends, too, especially for blue-collar teams such as the Blue Jackets, whose style of play is predicated on aggressive forechecking and defensive responsibility, and skating in order to do both of those things well.

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During Tortorella’s training camps, which usually begin with a lung-burning run of two miles in 12 minutes or less, the Jackets do a lot of skating. Some players who have gone through it say their legs don’t truly feel right for a couple of weeks or longer, but they almost always say later that it was worth it. The Blue Jackets’ victory in Game 2 against the Lightning was one of those times, despite Tortorella scaling back their usual amount of conditioning during the two-week playoff training camp that preceded their arrival to the Toronto quarantine "bubble." It was another example of why he skates the Jackets so hard during camps, filling up the endurance reserves of their legs, lungs and perhaps most important their minds. "I know a lot of times it’s talked about, the amount of conditioning we do," Tortorella said. "I just think it’s part of trying to be the best we can be, and it’s certainly something athletes can control. So that’s why we go about it that way."

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Columbus Dispatch / Postseason power play a mixed bag for Blue Jackets By Brian Hedger – August 16, 2020

First, the good news. After going 0 for 14 on power plays in a five-game playoff qualifying series against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Blue Jackets have scored with the man-advantage in the first two games of a first-round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning. While splitting the first two games of the series, the Jackets are 2 of 8 on the power play heading into Game 3 on Saturday, a strong 25% success rate. "I think it’s just our mindset," said forward Oliver Bjorkstrand, whose power-play goal Thursday in Game 2 was the winner in the Jackets’ 3-1 victory. "We’re just making the plays and I think that’s where it starts, just making better plays out there, not making bad decisions." Now, for the bad news. The Blue Jackets are still having serious issues on power plays when the opposing penalty-killers step up their aggression, especially after clearing the puck into the Columbus end of the ice. Look no further than a Blue Jackets power play in the third period of Game 2 that looked more like a power play for the Lightning. Tampa Bay got the only shot on goal with center Brayden Point sitting in the penalty box for high- sticking and the Jackets fumbled the puck around without establishing their 1-3-1 in-zone setup. "I’m just hoping that we can get it more consistent," coach John Tortorella said. "We had a chance to, in the third period, to give us a little bit of breathing room, and we spent it on our end zone with them forechecking. There’s still a way to go with that." Lightning forward Blake Coleman indicated Friday that advance scouting might have played a role. "(It’s) just hard work, and obviously we’ve done a lot of pre-scout of their power play and their tendencies, so it was obviously some good positioning, some good up-ice pressure from (Barclay Goodrow) there and just having poise with the puck," Coleman said. "You want to take away as much clock as possible and just get the next guys out." Special matchup Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper was asked to remove himself from his role in the series and take a look at one of the most intriguing aspects of it from a hockey fan’s perspective. Through the first two games, the Lightning’s Victor Hedman and Blue Jackets’ Seth Jones have gone blow-for-blow as elite NHL defensemen, with both making outstanding plays while skating a jaw- dropping amount of minutes. Hedman played a career-high 57 minutes, 38 seconds in the Lightning’s 3-2 victory in five overtimes in Game 1 on Tuesday, while Jones played an NHL-record 65:06 in the same eight periods. Hedman also made a great defensive play in that game, tracking down Cam Atkinson in the fifth overtime to nix a short-handed breakaway. And Jones matched it against Goodrow two days later in Game 2.

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"It’s remarkable to me that Jones, and I don’t have the answer if he’s been up for Norris trophies, but he should be," Cooper said. "(Hedman has) broken through the door, and it’s obviously richly deserved. But you’re getting to watch in this series some of the premiere defensemen to not only play in this game, but ever play in this game." Roster addition The NHL allowed the Blue Jackets to add a fourth goalie, Veini Vehvilainen, to their roster after Elvis Merzlikins was deemed "unfit to play" following Game 4 against Toronto. Vehvilainen, a Finnish rookie who spent the season with the , arrived Wednesday. He will quarantine in his hotel room through Sunday per the league’s Phase 4 protocol for entry into the "secure zones" in Toronto and Edmonton.

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The Athletic / Blue Jackets suffer listless Game 3 loss to Lightning after hopeful start fades By Aaron Portzline – 16, 2020

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ten observations from the Blue Jackets’ 3-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup playoff series: 1. The net, it yawns There are times when a goaltender is so out of position and the scoring chance is so ripe that the opening of a hockey net looks much larger than 24 square feet. But there are times when it’s still not big enough. Blue Jackets rookie winger Emil Bemstrom, signed last summer after dominating the Swedish League, was brought to Columbus because of his offensive skills, specifically his blessed one-timer. There was Bemstrom in the left dot, a perfect pass from Seth Jones on the point, and Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy staring straight ahead and blissfully unaware that Bemstrom was loading up the big one. At 8:17 of the first period, the Blue Jackets had a chance to take an early lead on a five-on-three power play, but Bemstrom’s wrister from 24 feet rang the near post louder than the Tsar Bell, keeping the score 0-0. It’s easy to pick on Bemstrom, who also failed to convert a close-range chance set up by Zach Werenski later in the game. But truth be told, the Blue Jackets didn’t seem to have much energy Saturday, perhaps a delayed response to the five-overtime marathon in Game 1. Still, you wonder what a goal during that five-on-three does to the complexion of this game. When they came up empty there, the Blue Jackets were off and stumbling to a rather flat performance the rest of the night. “You could play the ‘what if?’ game all you want,” Blue Jackets forward Riley Nash said. “If we get three goals out of that, we’re up 3-0, and it’s a totally different ballgame. But it doesn’t happen. That’s hockey. You have to adapt and play on.” 2. Delayed reaction The burning question heading into Game 2 was how the Blue Jackets’ legs would respond to playing the five-overtime thrill in Game 1, especially after they’d just wrapped a five-game qualifying series versus Toronto. Yet, they seemed OK in Game 2 after a sketchy start. Fatigue did not seem to be an issue. But Saturday? “The recap for that game is, I thought we played probably our best 11-12 minutes of the series so far to start the game,” Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said. “We’re just, as a group … we’ve been wading a little bit here. I thought it would be the prior game (when we) hit a wall, with all the hockey that we’ve played.

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“I have to figure that’s what happened tonight because it was the whole group of us. From the 12- minute mark (of the first period) we’re just … we’re not the team we need to be, obviously, in this series.” The Blue Jackets haven’t practiced since Tuesday’s marathon. Saturday, they even skipped the morning skate in an attempt to get their legs back. They are scheduled to practice Sunday in anticipation of Monday’s Game 4. 3. A spark extinguished The Jackets fell behind at 15:48 when Tampa Bay’s Alex Killorn scored off a two-on-one with only a sprawling David Savard back to defend. Still, the Blue Jackets were out of the first period trailing only 1- 0. When Riley Nash scored off a three-on-one from the left circle only 1:49 into the second period, the Blue Jackets were back in the game. But they generated exactly zero energy after Nash’s goal, surprisingly. The Jackets went the next 13:57 without a shot on goal. In the entire third period, they generated four shots on goal, including Nash’s goal. Alexandre Texier ended the shot drought with a wrister from 39 feet at 15:46. “It felt like we were trending back in the right direction at that point,” Nash said. “We had a couple of tough minutes to finish the first, but like we’ve done all year we were pretty resilient. I thought that was going to be a point where we could turn it around a little bit.” Instead, the Lightning scored twice later in the period — Brayden Point off a rebound at 14:16, and Victor Hedman off the rush following a neutral-zone turnover at 18:53 — to go ahead 3-1 heading into the third. But if that didn’t give the Blue Jackets any jump … 4. A spark extinguished, Part 2 The Jackets got another goal from an unlikely source early in the third period. Eric Robinson fired from the high slot, then followed his puck through traffic to score off his own rebound at 1:37 of the third. Any goal helps, right? But sometimes when the bottom-six forwards chip in, the energy surges throughout the lineup. It was Robinson’s first playoff goal. Once again, nope. Actually, this time it was worse than the second period. Robinson’s goal was the Blue Jackets’ only shot on goal for the first 10 minutes of the third period. They had only two more shots the rest of the way, an 81-foot wrister from Seth Jones at 10:06 and a 71-foot wrister from Gus Nyquist at 13:33. Put another way: The Blue Jackets, though trailing only by a goal, did not generate a single shot on goal in the final 6:27 of the game. “That’s a group effort,” Tortorella said. “It’s not a team I’ve seen in a while. I think sometimes you score a goal and it gives you some juice. I think we developed seven shots after the 12 minutes of the game.

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“We’ve been teetering there as far as what’s going to go on with our guys because it’s been quite a bit of hockey. I think I’m going to put it up to that. It wasn’t just one person, it was a whole group of men that struggled.” 5. Korpisalo cooled a bit Even goaltender Joonas Korpisalo wasn’t quite as sharp as he’s been, although he did make some brilliant stops. Early in the game, Korpisalo nearly fell victim to an unfortunate bounce off the end boards, but he read the play by Tampa Bay’s Barclay Goodrow with just a nanosecond to spare, allowing him to make a left- pad save. Were any of the three Lightning goals “bad” goals for Korpisalo? Don’t think so, but with the way he’s been playing, you expect everything to get turned away. The Lightning’s first goal was a two-on-one that Killorn finished. He either skillfully disguised a pass off his backhand — he had Anthony Cirelli to his left — or he meant to pass it to Cirelli and got a fortuitous bounce. Point’s goal, for a 2-1 lead, came off a big rebound following Korpisalo’s initial save on Ryan McDonagh. Maybe Korpisalo wants the third goal back. It appeared he got part of Hedman’s shot with his blocker, but, hey, it’s Victor Hedman. Korpisalo finished with 31 saves on 34 shots. He’s stopped 152 of 159 shots (.956) so far in the series. 6. Who has their legs? By the start of the third period, Tortorella started sending out some line combinations that were … curious. He moved Bemstrom up to play with center Pierre-Luc Dubois and left winger Alexandre Texier, replacing Oliver Bjorkstrand on the right side. He had Robinson on the left side of a line with center Boone Jenner and Bjorkstrand. By the later stages of the third, they were changed again. Robinson and Bemstrom skated on either side of Dubois, while Texier joined Jenner and Bjorkstrand on a makeshift second line. Fourth-line center Devin Shore centered captain Nick Foligno and rookie Liam Foudy for a couple of shifts, too. This wasn’t Tortorella being unhappy with a couple of players and making his move. This was Tortorella recognizing that everybody was fried, so he moved young players — with more lively legs, perhaps — higher in the lineup. “Yeah, just trying to develop something,” Tortorella said. “We score a goal (early in the third), but we don’t get much after that. “Just trying to throw it against a wall and see what sticks.” 7. Cam Atkinson out again Blue Jackets right winger Cam Atkinson missed his second straight game with an undisclosed injury, which certainly didn’t help the offensive push. Atkinson had 2-3-5 and a plus-3 rating in the first six games of the playoffs,

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A high ankle sprain kept Atkinson out of the lineup for 26 games over two stretches this season, and those can be notoriously difficult injuries to shake. In Tuesday’s five-OT thriller, Atkinson picked off a pass high in the zone with the Blue Jackets on a penalty kill and took off for a short-handed breakaway that could have ended the game midway through the fifth overtime period. But Atkinson, one of the speedier skaters on the Blue Jackets’ roster, was unable to pull away from Hedman in a race from the far blue line. That doesn’t likely happen if Atkinson is 100 percent healthy. The Blue Jackets led the NHL with 419 man-games lost to injury this season. Why should the postseason be any different? “We’ve been dealing with injuries all season long,” Jones said. “It’s always been next man up for us. We wouldn’t be in this position without some guys coming into the lineup and doing a heck of a job throughout the regular season for us. “So it’s nothing new for us. We’re not going to dwell on injuries or make excuses for injuries.” 8. Merzlikins suffered a groin injury Elvis Merzlikins hasn’t been seen since the Blue Jackets’ Game 4 loss to Toronto in the qualifying series, when they took a 3-0 lead into the final 3:57 of regulation but ended up losing to the Leafs in overtime. Merzlikins hasn’t been in a game or on the bench. Matiss Kivlenieks was Korpisalo’s backup Saturday for a fourth straight game. The Blue Jackets have said only that Merzlikins is “unfit to play,” but sources Saturday told The Athletic that Merzlikins “tweaked” a groin during the Game 4 loss and will be out of the lineup indefinitely. 9. Battle in the blue The Lightning talked repeatedly Friday about wanting to make life more difficult for Korpisalo, not just with better scoring chances but also with traffic in front of him and a little heat in his kitchen. The words “mayhem” and “violence” were thrown about by various Lightning players, who had no problem opening their playbook. Either NHL officials had their ears perked, or the play was so egregious that it couldn’t be ignored. But only 1:32 into the game, Lightning forward Pat Maroon came into the crease well after Korpisalo had gloved a puck. Maroon blasted Blue Jackets defenseman Dean Kukan and drove him into Korpisalo, earning a roughing penalty. There were a series of good scrums during the game, including one late in which Korpisalo came to his own defense. 10. Footnotes Texier has yet to score a goal in this postseason, but he leads the Blue Jackets with 24 shots on goal. … Dubois won 15 of 20 faceoffs in Game 3 and is feeling it on the dot. He’s won 43 of 68 draws (63 percent) in this series. … The Lightning made a minor lineup change, sitting forward Mitchell Stephens and allowing Carter Verhaeghe to make his NHL playoff debut. … There are so many connections between these organizations, mostly at the hockey operations level. Former Blue Jackets forward

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Mathieu Darche is the Lightning director of hockey operations, while former Blue Jackets defenseman Jamie Pushor is the club’s director of pro scouting. Former Blue Jackets coach Todd Richards is an assistant on Jon Cooper’s staff, while former Jackets goaltender Curtis McElhinney serves as Vasilevskiy’s backup.

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The Athletic / Blue-collar or blue-chip? Reconsidering the Blue Jackets’ oft- maligned forwards By Aaron Portzline – August 16, 2020

COLUMBUS, Ohio — In the moments after the Blue Jackets’ Game 5 win to clinch their qualifying series over Toronto, Maple Leafs coach was asked to put aside the rawness of defeat and evaluate the club that just sent his packing. Did anything surprise Keefe about the Blue Jackets? Keefe, brought up from the AHL during the season when was fired, had never coached against Columbus, never watched them play live. His answer was illuminating. “I would say … it wasn’t necessarily in this series, but as we really broke down the video in preparing for the series, and then watching their exhibition game (against Boston) … the biggest surprise for me would just be their skill level throughout the lineup,” Keefe said. “There’s a lot of focus on their defense, with (Seth) Jones and (Zach) Werenski. But they … they’ve got a real high skill level at forward. “Obviously (Pierre-Luc) Dubois is the game breaker for them, but a real high skill level (throughout), and it doesn’t necessarily show up on the scoresheet for them all the time. But they’re really great at possession, they hold on to the puck, they can make a play, they put it in a good spot, they play with good intelligence … their forwards are really, really good in those areas of the game.” It was more than just a passing compliment from a gracious coach. Coach John Tortorella is unparalleled in the NHL when it comes to convincing his players that the whole world doubts them, that the Blue Jackets are the working-class stiffs in a league full of superstars and media darlings. Everywhere Tortorella looks, he sees a slight toward his team, whether it’s real or imagined. “That’s something we’ll keep internal,” Tortorella said earlier this week when asked about feeling a lack of respect. “It’s kind of an inner fire for us.” He’s not entirely wrong, though. The Blue Jackets’ defense, thanks to Jones and Werenski, often is regarded as among the best in the NHL. But the forwards? The words and phrases most used to describe the Columbus forwards: pedestrian, hard-working, underwhelming, limited … Pierre-Luc Dubois is seen as a (near) future No. 1 center, and Cam Atkinson has a 40-goal season on his resume. Nick Foligno, Boone Jenner and Gustav Nyquist are established, highly respected NHL players. Still, the Blue Jackets are typically seen as having a decided disadvantage at forward against most of the NHL’s top teams. This sense has been heightened, understandably, since Artemi Panarin and Matt Duchene left last summer as free agents. No way the Jackets could go toe-to-toe with Toronto’s core of Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner and William Nylander in the qualifying round, right? Not a chance they can hang with Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos, Brayden Point and others, eh?

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But the longer you watch the Blue Jackets play, the more you understand what Keefe was saying. The topic is red meat for Columbus general manager Jarmo Kekäläinen. “People are always judging forwards by the highlights and the points, and that’s not the whole game,” Kekäläinen said. “It’s a two-way game. “That (style) is well-suited for the playoffs as it gets tighter, and our guys excel in that environment. All of our forwards are excellent two-way players, and I think they are underappreciated in that way because that’s really the name of the game.” Put another way: A forward who creates six scoring chances a game will score lots of goals and points, earn a huge payday and garner lots of attention. But if that same forward is responsible for six (or more) scoring chances against, what does his club gain? It’s actually fascinating to compare the resumes of the Columbus and Tampa Bay forwards. The gap isn’t as wide as you might think: • Four Lightning forwards have been NHL All-Stars (Kucherov, Stamkos, Point and Tyler Johnson), compared with just two for Columbus (Atkinson and Foligno). • Three Lightning players have had at least one 30-goal or 80-point season (Kucherov, Stamkos and Point), as have three Blue Jackets players (Atkinson, Foligno and Jenner). • The Blue Jackets have five former first-round draft picks at forward (Dubois, Foligno, Liam Foudy, Riley Nash and Alexander Wennberg), while the Lightning have just one (Stamkos). But the larger issue, as Kekäläinen sees it, is that the Blue Jackets forwards almost all play a style of game that must be seen a few times — and perhaps up close — to truly appreciate. The numbers next to their names don’t jump off the page. The last 12 months have seen significant changes at forward for the Blue Jackets, some permanent and some temporary. Panarin and Duchene signed elsewhere. Atkinson endured an early-season slump and then suffered a high-ankle sprain. Josh Anderson suffered a shoulder injury that required surgery and limited him to just 27 games. It’s no surprise, with all of the new faces, that the Blue Jackets were 27th in the league in scoring (2.57 goals per game), the lowest-scoring team to make the post-season. Dubois led the Blue Jackets in points during the regular season, but his 18-31-49 was tied for 71st in the NHL. Oliver Bjorkstrand led the Jackets with 21 goals, but that was good for only 65th in the league. But that’s only one end of the ice. Tortorella demands that his forwards play a 200-foot game — the “Safe is Death” days are history, now — and the “third-man high” edict as a way to limit odd-man rushes and transition plays for the opponent largely becomes the responsibility of the forwards. “Every team is different,” Wennberg said. “Our motive is to play hard and work hard, and maybe we’re not putting up the same points as other guys, but right now it’s about winning. That’s what we care about.

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“We stick to our game plan, and that’s what makes us good. I don’t know if we need appreciation, really. We’re playing hard and we earn our respect that way.” That style of play is amplified in the postseason. Consider Jenner, who has a 30-goal season (2015-16) on his resume but is appreciated most for his tireless work ethic. In a regular-season game, the Blue Jackets’ opponents aren’t concerned about checking Jenner or strategizing ways to limit him. But in a best-of-five or best-of-seven playoff series, there’s a cumulative (and painful) effect in facing Jenner. “Absolutely,” Kekäläinen said. “He works so hard every shift. He takes the joy away from the other team by taking time and space away. He plays physical and wears them down. He creates scoring chances, too. Whether he’s on the top of the scoring list is another question. “There’s just so much more to hockey than the highlights.” The Blue Jackets have been elevated, certainly, by the speed and play of rookies Foudy and Alexandre Texier. Those two are not household names yet, but they’re both on that trajectory. They wouldn’t be in the lineup, though, if Tortorella didn’t trust them to play without the puck. They’ve combined for one goal (Foudy) in these playoffs, but the Blue Jackets are elated with their play. “They’re both fast, which is today’s trend,” Kekäläinen said. “They both have skill. They’re both smart and they’re both reliable. Those are the things a young player has to have in order to perform in the playoffs like they have. “A lot of times young players have all the talent, all the skill to play at this level. But they don’t understand how competitive it is, how tight it is, how smart and reliable you have to play because the other team will capitalize on it. Those two have shown that they can be relied upon.” Hard work. Attention to detail. A commitment to five-man checking more than an emphasis on creating offense. It’s not that the Columbus forwards lack skill. See Wennberg’s highlight-reel goal in Game 2. But what they emphasize in this style of play isn’t glorified, and it isn’t easy to appreciate from a distance. Toronto’s Sheldon Keefe learned to appreciate it in the qualifying round, but Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper saw it firsthand last year when the Blue Jackets swept the Lightning out of the first round of the playoffs. He sees it this year, too, as he noted before this year’s first-round series. Cooper was asked about the Blue Jackets’ “blue-collar” approach. “The term blue-collar … I don’t know, is that a positive or a negative?” Cooper said. “And second, if we’re saying blue-collar means a hard-working team, they are (that). But they don’t have blue-collar talent, they have blue-chip talent. “Teams play different styles. They play a style they choose to play. It may not fill the net every single night, but they get enough to win. And in this league, if you can get yourself three (goals), you have a pretty darn good chance of winning the game.

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“They play to that theory. They play a system and they’re good at it. They have NHL players over there. They’ve got a handful of first-rounders up front. So I wouldn’t call them a blue-collar team; I’d call them a really good team.”

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Columbus Dispatch / Lightning 3, Blue Jackets 2, Game 3: Five Takeaways By Adam Jardy – August 17, 2020

The bill of services for all the hockey the Blue Jackets have played might have finally come due Saturday night in Toronto. On the day to Game 3 of their first-round playoff series against Tampa Bay, the Jackets had needed overtime to settle three of their first seven games including their five-game qualifying round series against Toronto. One of them was Game 4 against the Maple Leafs, a game that saw them blow a 3-0 lead in the final minutes and lose in overtime, forcing a Game 5 that otherwise wouldn’t have taken place. Then, once they got to the first round, they played the fourth-longest game in NHL history, battling the Lightning through five overtimes before falling 3-2 in the opening game of the series. After a strong bounceback game two days later, the Jackets came up wanting on multiple fronts while taking a 3-2 loss and falling behind 2-1 in the series. Perhaps it was the type of game we all should’ve seen coming, given the mileage the Jackets have logged since resuming play August 2. It was at the forefront of coach John Tortorella’s mind after the loss. "As a group, we’ve been waiting a little bit here," he said. "I thought it was going to be the prior game, of hitting a wall with all the hockey that we’ve played. I have to figure that’s what happens tonight, because it was the whole group of us." Here are five takeaways from the 3-2 loss. You can’t win if you can’t shoot the puck It’s pretty straightforward. To open the game, the Jackets outshot the Lightning to the tune of a 9-2 advantage and had plenty of jump. In the process, they drew three penalties in the first eight minutes and even enjoyed a 5-one-3 power play for 1:26. They didn’t score, and Tampa Bay settled in. From the 9:21 mark of the first period, the Jackets were outshot 32-8. They generated just one more shot on net during the remainder of the period, had four during the second period and only three during the third. And yet, of those seven shots during the final 40 minutes of play, two of them went in, allowing them to keep their hopes of stealing a win alive. Forward Riley Nash, who had one of the two goals, said the Lightning didn’t do anything differently defensively to disrupt the Jackets. The offense just wasn’t there. "I don’t know if we got to the blue enough tonight," he said. "I thought we did a pretty good job of that the other night. Just a combination of things. They played a solid game. We’ll come back and look at some film and we’ll be ready to go for Game 4." Missed opportunity looms large Playing with early momentum, the Jackets came up empty on what could have been a momentum- swinging two-man advantage during the first period. First, defenseman Zach Bogosian pulled down Oliver Bjorkstrand as he cut across the slot in the offensive zone, putting the Jackets on the power play

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at 7:07 of the first period. Thirty-four seconds later, center Blake Coleman slashed Alexander Texier, and the Jackets had the two-man advantage for nearly a minute and a half. They had multiple good looks, but none were better than the one Emil Bemstrom found from a tight angle at the edge of the left circle. He took the pass and had a wide-open half of the net to aim into, but his shot clanged off the post as Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy was too late in his effort to cover it up. The scoring chances pretty much dried up from there, and the team’s energy level began to wane significantly a few moments later. "I think sometimes you score a goal (there), yeah, it gives you some juice, but I think we developed seven shots after the first 12 minutes," Tortorella said. "It was not a good game by us." It also marked the first time in the last five games that the Blue Jackets did not score a first-period goal. Korpisalo still played well On a night where the offense was clearly sputtering and offensive opportunities were hard to come by, Joonas Korpisalo did enough to keep it close and had a few highlight-worthy saves in the process. His full-leg extension allowed him to use his left blocker to deny Barclay Goodrow on the doorstep was tops among them. For the game, he stopped 31 of 34 shots (91.2%). In the first two games of the series, Korpisalo had faced 125 shots and stopped all but four of them, good for a 96.8% save percentage. From the time the Lightning took a 3-1 lead, Korpisalo stopped the final 10 shots he faced. It gave the Jackets hope they could still climb back into the game, because given the way the offense was struggling, any bigger of a deficit would have felt as insurmountable as it would have looked on the scoreboard. For the series, Korpisalo is stopping 95.6% of his shots faced. Spreading the wealth Nash’s goal tied the game at 1 only 1:49 into the second period and marked his first goal of this postseason. It came off a nice up-ice pass from Gustav Nyquist, helped the Jackets launch a breakaway into the offensive zone that Nash finished by beating Vasilevskiy over his glove from the left wing. The Blue Jackets got their second goal from Eric Robinson, who collected his own rebound to score his first career playoff goal and pull his team within 3-2 only 1:37 into the third period. Alexander Wennberg set him up, spying Robinson charging into the zone after a line change. "It’s a nice play by Wenny," Robinson said. "Just got an early change with play down in the zone, so fortunate to come off the bench and Wenny finds me. The puck bounces around and luckily it lands on my stick. With the two goals, the Jackets have now seen their 19 postseason goals come from 13 different players. Four players have more than one goal: Pierre-Luc Dubois leads the way with four and Cam Atkinson, Oliver Bjorkstrand and Wennberg all have two apiece. In 10 playoff games last season, the Blue Jackets had 30 goals scored by 16 different players. Artemi Panarin and Matt Duchene tied for the team lead with five each.

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Atkinson missed his second straight game and was officially listed as "unfit to play." "We’ve been dealing with injuries all season long," Seth Jones said. "It’s always been next man up for us. We wouldn’t be in this position without some guys coming in the lineup and doing a heck of a job throughout the regular season for us. It’s nothing new for us. We’re not going to dwell on injuries or make excuses for injuries." See what works Tortorella said he juggled his lines in the third period in an effort to try and get anything consistent going offensively. Both Robinson and Bemstrom moved up in the lineup, with the hope that some fresher legs might generate a few more chances. "Just trying to develop something," Tortorella said. "We score a goal, but we don’t get much after that. Just trying to throw it against the wall and see what sticks." Robinson was on the ice for 5:43 during the third period after totaling 4:43 during the first two periods combined. After playing for a combined 6:24 during the first two periods, Bemstrom skated for 6:16 during the third.

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Columbus Dispatch / Michael Arace | Power-play failures reduce Columbus Blue Jackets’ margin for error By Michael Arace – August 17, 2020

Maybe, if the Blue Jackets managed to cash in during the 1 minute, 26 seconds of two-man advantage they had in the first period, maybe Saturday night’s game would have turned out differently. They had their chances. Maybe, if Emil Bemstrom — famously the youngest player ever to lead the Swedish League in scoring — was in peak Djurgardens form and he hit the net rather than the post at 8:17 of the period, maybe the Jackets wouldn’t have gotten their butts kicked. Which is what happened. The Jackets lost 3-2 to the Tampa Bay Lightning in Scotiabank Arena, and the game was not nearly as close as the final score. The Jackets now trail, by two games to one, in this first-round, best-of-seven playoff series. Game 4 is this afternoon. Maybe, if the Jackets potted a power-play goal when they had the chance Saturday, maybe ... wait. We’re talking about the Jackets’ power play? It was ranked 27th in the league during the regular season, and is 2 of 22 (9.1%) to this point in the summer tournament. The anemia of the power play makes the Jackets’ already-thin margin for error even thinner. Margin-for-error, big picture: Through eight postseason games, the Jackets have put 261 shots on their opponents’ net and absorbed 348 shots on their own net. They’ve scored 19 goals and allowed 17. That they are 4-4 and still alive is testament to their attention to detail and their collective will. Margin for error, Saturday night: The Jackets had a 17-7 advantage in shots attempted for the first 12 minutes of play. The Lightning had a 61-17 advantage in shot attempts over the last 48 minutes. It was amazing, then, that this was a one-goal game. One team was clearly dominant. “We’ve been waiting a little bit here, I thought it was going to be the prior game, about hitting a wall with all the hockey that we’ve played,” Jackets coach John Tortorella said. The Jackets, who led the league with 419 man-games lost to injury, proved their mettle by merely staying above the playoff line. In the bubble, they’ve had to dig even deeper — because their schedule has been brutal. Jackets fans can carp about that but, well, so it goes. The league doesn’t favor No. 9 seeds. And if the Jackets wanted more rest, they should’ve made quicker work of the Toronto Maple Leafs. That qualifying-round series went the five-game max, and it included two overtime games. That’s Jackets hockey. It’s top-notch defense, disciplined five-man play, sterling goaltending and guts. It is not offensive firepower. It’s hard. It’s getting harder. The Jackets played the last game of the NHL’s qualifying round and the first game of the first round. The turnaround was a bit more than 40 hours. Was the league a bit nasty with this scheduling? A case can be made; Tortorella mentioned something about it. But the league is more interested in NBCSN’s desires than the Jackets’ lactic acid. So it goes.

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Did the league know that Game 1 would go five overtimes? No. Was the league happy when the Lightning, a marquee team studded with stars, won that game? Probably. In any case, Game 2 was already scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday. The Jackets had another quick turnaround. So it goes. That the Jackets won Game 2 is a testament to their intestinal fortitude and esprit de corps. But in Game 3, it seemed clear that the insane number of minutes they’ve been forced to play finally had caught up with them. And it was everyone, as Tortorella said. Giveaways were 18-5. The Jackets had the 18. They hit the wall. From Aug. 6 through Saturday night, these Jackets had played the equivalent of eight games in 10 days, overtimes included — almost to the minute. That’s insane. Since the tournament started, they’ve played the equivalent 10 games in 14 days. Crazy. They’ve done this with the slimmest margin for error. It’s how they’re built. We shall see, now, if they can rise again and win three out of four. Is that possible? With this team, you never know. They might not have a puncher’s chance, but their chins are made of granite.

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NHL.com / Blue Jackets hope to be refreshed for Game 4 against Lightning By Sean Farrell – August 17, 2020

The Columbus Blue Jackets canceled practice Sunday and hope to be refreshed for Game 4 of their Eastern Conference First Round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Monday (3 p.m. ET; NBCSN, TVAS, SN360, SN1, FS-O) after their coach said they may have "hit a wall." "To me it's not physically tired, it's mentally tired, and some mental mistakes," Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said. "That's when I have to start thinking maybe we hit a wall there … and we're trying to refresh ourselves to play the next game." The Blue Jackets lost to the Lightning 3-2 in Game 3 on Saturday and trail the best-of-7 series 2-1. Columbus played an additional 122:01, the equivalent of more than two regulation games, while going to overtime three times in five games prior, including 90:27 in a 3-2, five-overtime Game 1 loss to the Lightning on Tuesday, the fourth-longest game in NHL history. "It's not giving them an out, that's not what we're trying to do," Tortorella said. "I think sometimes people may perceive it that way. As hard as we push, and as honest as we are in certain areas and what we want and the standard of play that we want, the standard of practice that we want, we also need to be honest with them as far as what we think of where they think they're at as far as their energy level. "We're honest about everything, good, bad, and ugly as far as what's going on with our team." The eight players who lead the NHL postseason in total ice time play for the Blue Jackets. Defenseman Seth Jones is first (267:06), and his average ice time of 33:23 per game also is first. His defenseman partner, Zach Werenski, is second in each category (243:53; 30:29). Jones played 65:06 in Game 1 of this series, the most by a skater since time on ice was officially tracked in the 1997-98 season. Werenski played 61:14, fourth all-time in a single game. "I can't really think of a time we played this much hockey," Jones said. "But I think we all feel pretty good, you know, we feel ready to go. We're involved in a series where you can't take games or periods or shifts off. And you know everyone's played the exact same amount of hockey, so there's no excuses when it comes to being tired or mentally tired or things like that. "We're professional athletes and we have to find a way to be the best we can be every time we hit the ice." Having all of their postseason games in one hub city and not having to travel has helped the Blue Jackets recover, defenseman David Savard said. "It's not as hard on the body, the fact that we can really take care of our body after games and make sure we have a good night's sleep and stuff like that," he said. "So it's definitely a huge part of the bubble, not having to travel, and our recovery's a lot better. And I think our team is planning on all those things and making sure everybody's ready to go, and they've been doing a really good job."

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Sportsnet.ca / Quick Shifts: Frederik Andersen's future with Maple Leafs uncertain By Luke Fox – August 16, 2020

A quick mix of the things we gleaned from the week of hockey, serious and less so, and rolling four lines deep. We’ll give the Leafs stuff a break after this blog, promise. 1. When Frederik Andersen looked across at the team that beat his Toronto Maple Leafs this time, the fourth time, he saw defensive structure. He saw a comfort level playing hard in tight, low-scoring affairs. Yes, he saw Joonas Korpisalo doing cartwheels, but he also saw a consistency from the men defending Korpi’s crease. “If we can get used to doing that in the season and not expect to blow teams out or only really show up when it’s, like, a really big game in the regular season… if we can have it more become an everyday thing and really get used to playing like that, I think that’s going to benefit us in the long run,” Andersen said. “Once we realize that we can be really tough to play against, I think that’s when you’ll see us go deeper than we have in the past.” Without question, Andersen surrendered a couple of softies (Cam Atkinson’s dagger in Game 1 and Liam Foudy’s insurance in Game 5) in the Leafs’ play-in exit. And his elimination-game stats are decidedly less than kind. But Andersen is easily the best netminder the organization has employed since Ed Belfour, his cap hit for 2020-21 is a friendly $5 million, and we’re not so certain there’ll be a sure upgrade to be had here. and ’s championship days seem behind them. And if Jacob Markstrom re- signs in like Jim Benning has assured, Robin Lehner (a Maple Leaf for a minute) may be the most coveted UFA goalie on the market. He won’t come cheap, nor should he. Cam Talbot might present a compelling target, but his career lows plunge deeper than Andersen’s. How much faith do you wish to put in a career tandem guy like or Thomas Greiss? The Wild, Rangers and Penguins appear to be open for goalie trades, but how sure can you be what they have to offer will look as solid behind Toronto’s blueline? Just think of how two-time Vezina champ Sergei Bobrovsky performed behind Florida this season. From the Stanley Cup Qualifiers to the Stanley Cup Final, livestream every game of the 2020 , -free, on Sportsnet NOW. Were the salary cap escalating, perhaps when Kyle Dubas touches base with Andersen’s agent, Claude Lemieux, in the near future, they’d talk extension heading into Andersen’s contract campaign. I’d be shocked if that happens. I’d be equally shocked if Andersen is not starting opening night in Toronto. Ditto Zach Hyman, the other core piece with only one year left before a raise. “Every one of these decisions takes on a more pronounced importance,” Dubas said during his season- ending press tour. “We have space, but we don’t have it in overabundance, and especially if things are

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going to be locked in for a couple years with the cap, we’ll probably not be able to act as quickly as we’d like to with some of these guys coming up.” Andersen’s thoughts on his next deal? “Whatever’s gonna happen, happens,” he said. Control the controllable. Train hard. Come back stronger, better. Our bet is the growth has to come around Andersen, that he’ll be given one more shot to finally backstop the Leafs to a playoff series win, and that Jack Campbell should be given a larger share of starts to (a) keep Andersen fresh and (b) discover if Campbell can become a legit 1B. “He’s a helluva goalie as well,” Andersen said. “Hopefully we can get back and play with that group again.” In the autopsy, Andersen noted that this was the most comfortable he’s felt in an elimination series, largely due to a mental shift. “The more I can focus like a normal game and not having thoughts about how big of a game it is, that’s when I played the best in the playoffs,” Andersen explained. “For players, it’s easy to get wrapped up in a playoff game that you got to hit a little harder and stuff like that. But as a goalie you can’t save the puck harder. You can’t over-push in your movements. Going forward, I think that’s the biggest lesson.” 2. Tyson Barrie is saying all the right things in the wake of a bad fit. This is a guy who was rumoured to be asking for an AAV of $8 million on his next contract before he was traded out of Colorado as part of last summer’s Nazem Kadri deal. And like a number of Avalanche, Colorado cut ties before the core player’s big payday came due (see: Paul Stastny, Ryan O’Reilly, Matt Duchene). Now Barrie is an unrestricted free agent coming off his second-least-productive season in his past seven (five goals, 39 points) and facing a pandemic cap. “I wish I would’ve left a little more of a stamp on the series,” said Barrie, pointless in five games and surrendering his spot back to Morgan Rielly on the top power-play unit when the season was on the line. The mismatch with the Leafs, Barrie says, has given him more empathy for players adjusting to a and he will be rooting for his friends in Toronto moving forward. Just as he’s cheering on the Avs now. A little bitter with the sweet. “It would be tough to see them win it the year I leave, but I’m good buddies with all those guys and love them and wish them the best,” Barrie said. “I’m hoping those guys get it done.” Barrie’s final appearance as a Leaf ended abruptly with this check by Boone Jenner in Game 5: “I banged my head on the ice pretty hard. Had some headaches,” Barrie said. “They’re careful with the concussion protocol. Thankfully, I’m feeling pretty good right now.” Barrie, 29, remains optimistic that his next landing spot is with a team that needs a power-play quarterback but one that can pair him with a stay-at-home type.

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Is he looking for short term? Long term? “At this point I have no idea what the future holds,” he says. 3. Interesting to hear Wendel Clark’s thoughts on these Maple Leafs’ inability to get over the hump. For the rugged Leafs legend, his series MVP was Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno, whose blue-collar, check-finishing third line tore apart Toronto’s and is already giving Tampa fits. “[Foligno] was in on everything,” Clark praised on Lead Off with Ziggy and Scotty Mac. “That’s the type of energy that’s leading by example — and it’s not anything to do with points. “You wouldn’t say he’s their best forward. But when I’m looking at the game saying, ‘What controlled the game?’ — it would’ve been a lot in how he played.” #CBJ | @NickFoligno pic.twitter.com/PiZmxyzOII — Columbus Blue Jackets (@BlueJacketsNHL) August 12, 2020 4. “You don’t replace Pasta.” When my wife scoops quinoa on my plate and when Bruce Cassidy loses David Pastrnak from his lineup, turns out we both say the same thing. Ironically, the vaunted Bruins power play kicked into gear in Game 2, scoring twice on Carolina without the Rocket Richard winner on the ice. David Krejci had himself a great 60 minutes. But 5-on-5, Anders Bjork is no substitute is on Patrice Bergeron’s wing. Consider Pastrnak day-to-day. He has been ruled “questionable” for Saturday’s noontime Game 3. “It’s our turn to push back,” Cassidy says. Crazy thing is, it would appear Pastrnak’s injury stems from this celebration of Game 1’s overtime goal: Anyone else watch this and suffer a Bill Gramatica flashback? 5. Is there 20-year-old with more swagger than Andrei Svechnikov? The kid is out here throwing down more than a point per game, attempting lacrosse goals during playoff overtimes, slamming Charlie McAvoy into the boards, and standing up while taking his medicine from Zdeno Chara. “I think he actually enjoys those challenges,” coach Rod Brind’Amour says. “He can dish it out as well as he can take it. Pretty impressive for a young man.” Svech’s explanation for his approach to these series is a simple one: “It’s hockey. We have to play hard.” Sebastian Aho: 10 points in 5 postseason games Andrei Svechnikov: 7 points in 5 postseason games — luke fox (@lukefoxjukebox) August 14, 2020 6. Fun fact: Jake Gardiner logged more minutes than any other player for the Toronto Maple Leafs over the past 10 seasons (11,764:46), including this one.

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On Carolina, he was deemed the seventh and a healthy scratch for Thursday’s critical Game 2 playoff victory over Boston. That, in a nutshell, illustrates the gap in blueline depth between a good defensive roster and a thin one. 7. This is no slight to Gerard Gallant, but I wonder if Peter DeBoer’s status as the new guy in Vegas made it easier for the coach to bench face-of-the-franchise Marc-Andre Fleury in favour of the rental on a shorter, cheaper contract. Fleury and DeBoer aren’t tied with the history of misfits who journeyed all the way to the Cup Final. Robin Lehner is undefeated as a member of the Golden Knights (3-0 in regular season; 4-0 in playoffs). “It wasn’t what Flower didn’t do; it’s what Robin has done since he’s gotten here,” DeBoer says. Game 2 pic.twitter.com/mGJ3XDekri — Robin Lehner (@RobinLehner) August 13, 2020 8. NBC is the network being courted by the NHL for the next big U.S. broadcast rights deal and — let’s be honest — a major reason why we are watching playoff hockey in August, in time slots previously reserved for the cancelled Summer Games. Maybe it’s on some please-like-my-sport, but I’m always curious to see which American cities are tuning in to these games. NBC released its local TV ratings for the qualification round, and a couple results stick out. Las Vegas — whose team was playing relatively meaningless round-robin games — tied as the market with the highest rating (1.4), ahead of traditional hockey hotbeds like (1.1), St. Louis (0.85), Boston (0.65) and Chicago (0.64). What a win getting into Vegas first has been for the league. The other rating that shines is Buffalo at 1.1 (tied for third in the country). We needn’t remind you the Sabres, owners of the sport’s longest playoff drought, are not involved in the tournament. Man, this city deserves to be relevant in 2020-21. Good news: They knocked the sweaters out the park. FIRST LOOK: Royal Blue is BACK! The Sabres new home and road uniforms pic.twitter.com/Jpfb32m7qf — The Charging Buffalo (@TheChargingBUF) August 11, 2020 9. It took the pressure of an elimination series for the Bruins, the Presidents’ Tophy winners and defending Eastern Conference champs, to muster their first victory in the bubble. “I’d have preferred we just started that way, personally. Made an extra exhibition or game or two, however, to get the players going. That’s just my feeling on it,” said coach Bruce Cassidy, no fan of permanently expanding the tournament. “It just dilutes the regular season with the play-in round. If they shorten the regular season a little bit, then I could see that being an option. “Maybe if I was the team on the bubble, I’d think differently.”

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10. During the umpteenth intermission of Tuesday’s 151-shot, 150-minute Blue Jackets–Lightning epic, Jon Cooper dangled a carrot: a full off-day if his players could summon the next goal and poke a hole through Joonas Korpisalo. Never underestimate the value of the vacation day. ok goodnight everyone this twitter account is taking a maintenance day tomorrow — Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) August 12, 2020 11. When you ask a hockey player about the officiating, you run an 80 per cent chance of getting a non- answer. But after slogging a record-breaking 65:06 in a gut-wrenching loss, I figured it was worth a try on Seth Jones. The defenceman said he wanted an explanation as to why the whistle was swallowed on Victor Hedman’s reach-around/push of Cam Atkinson that busted up a partial breakaway in OT. “I get a call [against me for] pretty much the same thing,” Jones replied. “The officiating to me was kind of suspect all night. So, we just want a clear explanation and never got one.” Head coach John Tortorella — already on probation for putting the zebras on blast in January — walked to the post-game podium and gave a warning before the first question got asked. “Don’t ask me about the non-call,” he said. The Hedman play is borderline. Not quite a hook, nor a hold. But when you compare it to Jones’s penalty in the same contest, there’s certainly an argument for better consistency: (Disclaimer: I have no horse in this series whatsoever) This is tough to justify man. Jones gets called for this play on Killorn, but Hedman doesn't get called for his play on Atkinson. I understand that it's close and every play is different but these two are similar pic.twitter.com/SL2NDeA2qD — Omar (@TicTacTOmar) August 12, 2020 12. A small anecdote on the character of Claude Julien. When Steven Stamkos of the rival Tampa Bay Lightning slammed into a TD Garden post in 2013 and was rushed off in an ambulance with a broken leg, Julien (then the Bruins’ coach) showed up at the hospital to pay the other team’s superstar a visit. Julien surprised Stamkos with a gift — a Game Ready compression and cold therapy system to help the sniper return to the game he loves as soon as possible. Speedy recovery, Claude.

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Sportsnet.ca / NHL not expected to keep expanded playoff format next season By Sportsnet Staff – August 16, 2020

After the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench in the 2019-20 NHL season, the league decided to expand the post-season to a 24-team field. Don’t expect the revamped format to stick around for the 2020-21 campaign, though. “We’ve all enjoyed watching this and I was hoping it would create the momentum for the possibility of seeing this in the future… but this is not looking like it’s going to happen,” Sportsnet‘s Elliotte Friedman said on Saturday’s Headlines segment on . “There doesn’t appear to be the momentum for it and it doesn’t look it’s something that’s going to be tacked on to future NHL seasons.” From the Stanley Cup Qualifiers to the Stanley Cup Final, livestream every game of the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs, blackout-free, on Sportsnet NOW. The best-of-five Stanley Cup qualifiers saw a number of shocking upsets, highlighted by the 12th-seeded Canadiens eliminating and the in four games. Montreal was 10 points out of a playoff spot when the season was paused on March 12. In the Western Conference, both the 12th-seeded and 11th-seeded won their matchups over the and , respectively.

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USA TODAY / 'You poke the bear:' Bruins announcer Jack Edwards' take on Andrei Svechnikov's injury draws criticism By Mike Brehm – August 16, 2020

Skilled second-year NHL pro Andrei Svechnikov had to leave Saturday's game when his leg buckled while he was tangling for position with defenseman Zdeno Chara in front of the net. But Bruins play-by-play announcer Jack Edwards later had the take that the forward might have brought it on himself because of an earlier incident. "What NBC hasn’t shown yet, regarding the unfortunate injury to Svechnikov: the Carolina wing playing hobby-horse, riding Chara on the back apron of the goal," Edwards tweeted. "You poke the bear, you take your chances. No one wanted to see Svechnikov hurt, but he bit off more than he could chew." The Hurricanes' official Twitter feed was critical of Edwards' take, saying, "This one should have stayed in the drafts, Jack." Svechnikov's leg bent awkwardly during the third-period incident and he grabbed his knee and had to be helped off the ice. He wasn't able to put any weight on his leg. The Hurricanes lost 3-1 to fall behind Boston 2-1 in the Eastern Conference quarterfinal. "It didn’t look very good obviously," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said after the game. "He fell really awkward." Brind'Amour said he had no update on Svechnikov's condition. The second-year pro had 61 points in 68 games this season and is known for scoring a lacrosse-style goal and repeating the move in December. He has a team-high four goals in the postseason.

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USA TODAY / NBC analyst Mike Milbury critical of Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask for opting out of NHL playoffs By Scott Gleeson – August 16, 2020

NBC analyst Mike Milbury criticized Boston Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask for his decision to opt out of the Stanley Cup playoffs to be with his family. Rask announced Saturday he would be leaving the team amidst the Bruins' quarterfinal series with the Carolina Hurricanes, with the matchup tied 1-1. The news came less than two hours before Game 3. Rask said he wanted to be his wife, two girls and newborn baby. “Nobody's simply opted to leave the bubble just because they didn’t want to be here and they needed to be with their family," Milbury said during a segment on NHL on NBC. "I wouldn't have done it, the rest of the league’s players have not done it." Milbury added Rask leaving is "going to be a difficult decision to swallow for Boston Bruins fans." Milbury, 68, is a former defenseman in the league, playing all 12 of his season with the Bruins. In a statement, Rask said Saturday: "I want to be with my teammates competing, but at this moment there are things more important than hockey in my life, and that's being with my family. I want to thank the Bruins and my teammates for their support and wish them success." The Bruins replaced Rask with veteran Jaroslav Halak for the rest of the series. General manager Don Sweeney was supportive of Rask's decision in a statement. "We understand completely where Tuukka is coming from," he said. "I don't think it's any big surprise to us, to be honest. We were privy to some information before the rest of the public. This has been a difficult decision for Tuukka. But the Boston Bruins are in full support of why he made this decision. His family is safe and healthy. But with a newborn and two other young girls it's been challenging. It's nothing specific. Fortunately, his family is healthy. To have their dad back to be around on a regular basis is exactly what Tuukka needs to do at this point in time." USA TODAY LOADED: 08.16.2020

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USA TODAY / Overtimes galore: NHL has seen 12 games go long since play resumed on Aug. 1 By Aria Gerson – August 16, 2020

Friday night, the and St. Louis Blues showed once again that 60 minutes isn't always enough to settle a playoff hockey game. St. Louis' Jaden Schwartz tied the game 3-3 with 6.4 seconds left after David Perron's deflection hit him before going past Canucks goalie Jakob Markstrom. The Canucks got the win, though, on an overtime breakaway goal by at 5:55 that put the defending Stanley Cup champions in a 2-0 hole in the first round. The game was the 12th, including three in the round robin, to go into overtime since the season resumed Aug. 1 in the Toronto and Edmonton hubs. Overtime creates a little bit of an issue in the bubble setup because crews need to disinfect dressing rooms between games. Game 1 of the Boston Bruins-Carolina Hurricanes first-round series in Toronto was pushed to the following morning because of a five-overtime classic between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday night. The Bruins and Hurricanes then went into two overtimes before Boston's Patrice Bergeron picked up the winning goal. Barring six overtimes, nothing the Bruins and Canes did could have lived up to the Columbus-Tampa Bay game, which, at 6 hours, 13 minutes broadcast time and 150:27 of playing time, was the longest in the history of both franchises and the fourth-longest ever. Just eight teams have been eliminated from the bubble, and two were ousted with an overtime loss on Aug. 7 when the and Nashville Predators fell in Game 4. And there was a third overtime game that day. A day after blowing a three-goal lead and losing to the Blue Jackets in overtime in Game 3, the Toronto Maple Leafs came back from a three-goal deficit with less than six minutes remaining. Toronto star Auston Matthews' overtime goal sent the series to Game 5. But the comeback was all for naught, as the Blue Jackets won Game 5 on Sunday, advancing to their first-round matchup with the Lightning. That's a rematch of last year's first round when the Blue Jackets stunningly swept the Presidents' Trophy winner. It was that back story that made their five-overtime classic so great. In a world where so much is uncertain, at least we have overtime playoff hockey. USA TODAY LOADED: 08.16.2020

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Sportsnet.ca / How Manny Malhotra became one of the NHL's most promising young coaches By Gare Joyce – August 17, 2020

That season Malhotra transformed into more of a student of the game. Hitchcock showed him the importance of the “Why” behind every on-ice action and the added layers of knowledge were addictive. “At that point, I had played for a lot of coaches in a lot of different systems,” Malhotra says. “And for the most part, you’re always just told, ‘Do this. This is what we’re doing.’ Whereas for Hitch, he gave you the ‘Why.’ And for me, it was kind of like a lightbulb moment. “It was fun for me because it gave me the freedom to think the game a little bit more,” he adds. “I really enjoyed that side of it. And then, even just communicating with my teammates and talking to them about the game, talking to them on the bench, talking between periods. I really started to enjoy that aspect of the game. So, that’s when I started to have that seed in my mind that I think I would enjoy coaching.” Hitchcock, whose 849 wins are third on the NHL’s all-time coaching list, says Malhotra embraced the changes and was a different player literally the day after their talk. And it didn’t take long for teammates to follow. The Blue Jackets set a then franchise-high of 92 points and made the post-season for the first time in team history. Hitchcock says the accountability on the roster completely changed and it started with Malhotra. “He helped a fledging organization really grow,” says Hitchcock. “He was the ultimate glue guy. He was the guy where if you want to know how to work, look at this guy. You want to know how to play the right way, look at this guy. You want to know how to act and behave as a professional, look at this guy. We had someone that we could point to. And it was Manny.” For the rest of his 16-year playing career, Malhotra would be that guy, the one who led by the strength of his example and earned respect not through stats and star power but rather his approach to the game. When his playing days came to an end, a transition to coaching would’ve been a no-brainer for anyone who’d shared a dressing room with him. And since taking an assistant’s role with the Vancouver Canucks, he’s been a key behind-the-scenes asset for the club and its promising young core. Several people within the industry peg him as a rising star in the coaching ranks who’s got all the qualities of an excellent NHL bench boss. And should that happen one day, it would be more than just a sound hockey decision‚ it would also be a trailblazing moment. Sportsnet.ca LOADED: 08.17.2020

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