SPORT-SCAN DAILY BRIEF NHL 6/13/2021 Boston Bruins Pittsburgh Penguins 1215689 Bruins have the most identifiable roster in town, but will it 1215717 Mark Madden's Hot Take: Marc-Andre Fleury's story last? keeps getting better ... just not in Pittsburgh 1215690 For Kevan Miller, the timing of Bruins’ playoff elimination 1215718 Penguins A to Z: Kasper Bjorkqvist still has plenty to prove was a cruel twist of fate 1215719 Penguins Changes: How NHL Semi-Finals Should Affect 1215691 David Krejci On Future With Bruins: ‘I Just Don’t Know Pens Thinking Right Now. 1215692 Boston Bruins DeBrusk: ‘My Haters Had A Lot To Say San Jose Sharks This Year’ 1215720 Which UFA Centers Should Sharks Target? Chicago Blackhawks Seattle Kraken 1215693 Seth Jones isn’t the solution to Blackhawks’ defensive 1215721 Projecting the protected list: Who’s staying with the woes, but Dougie Hamilton could be Winnipeg Jets and who could be picked by the Seattle Kra Colorado Avalanche St Louis Blues 1215694 Jared Bednar isn’t to blame. Avalanche players blew it 1215722 Cardinals notebook: Kim faces last test before return this with turnovers week to rotation; Gorman slugs three homers 1215695 Seven playoff losses. Eight days of heartbreak. Why does 1215723 Leading by example: Hard-working O’Reilly has enjoyed loving the Avs and Nuggets have to hurt so much? captaining the Blues 1215696 Grading the Week: All hail Ethan Horvath, restorer of sanity to Empower Field and USMNT soccer Tampa Bay Lightning 1215697 Colorado Avalanche protected list: Who’s staying and who 1215724 Lightning GM Julien BriseBois on cap maneuvering: could be picked in the Seattle Kraken expansion draft ‘Sometimes the stars align for you’ 1215698 Leftover thoughts from an Avalanche season gone too 1215725 Lightning-Islanders: Familiar foes expect another tight soon… series 1215699 Scott Takes: There’s always next year…again. 1215726 Lightning’s Nikita Kucherov: ‘Missing a whole year ... you don’t want to be that guy’ Dallas Stars 1215727 NHL playoff predictions for the semifinals: Will the Golden 1215700 The experiment with Jamie Benn at center paid off. What Knights and Lightning battle for the Stanley Cup? does that mean for the Stars next season? 1215728 Film session: Breaking down Lightning’s ‘big-game player,’ Brayden Point Detroit Red Wings 1215701 Red Wings’ Troy Stecher wins gold with Canada at Toronto Maple Leafs Worlds; U.S. takes bronze 1215729 HORNBY: Frank Fredrickson was a hero in the air and on 1215702 Two online passion projects help fans track the Red the ice Wings’ top prospects in Sweden Vancouver Canucks Edmonton Oilers 1215741 'How come we were able to make the right choice and 1215703 OILERS NOTES: Is Jake DeBrusk a trade target for everybody else was not?' Edmonton? 1215704 Lowetide: How close to NHL-ready is Oilers prospect Vegas Golden Knights Dmitri Samorukov? 1215730 Golden Knights eager to play outside division in semifinals 1215731 Golden Knights, Canadiens own far different histories Montreal Canadiens 1215732 Marc-Andre Fleury ready to face hometown team in 1215705 'I believed in this team from the start': Habs GM Marc semifinals Bergevin happy to see his moves pay off 1215733 Evans traveling to Vegas with Canadiens for Golden Knights New York Islanders 1215734 Previewing the Golden Knights’ semifinal matchup vs. the 1215706 Islanders’ Casey Cizikas motivated by 2020 playoff injury Canadiens setback 1215735 NHL playoff predictions for the semifinals: Will the Golden 1215707 Lightning’s controversial Nikita Kucherov move draws Knights and Lightning battle for the Stanley Cup? more ire before Islanders series 1215736 Next Week: Vegas Golden Knights vs Montreal Canadiens 1215708 Islanders finally giving this generation taste of past and Las Vegas 117-Degree Weather vs T-Mobile Arena euphoria Ice S 1215709 How Islanders stack up against Lightning in 2021 NHL 1215737 Las Vegas Bouncing Back From COVID: Sellout Of 9,568 semifinals At Las Vegas Ballpark Friday Evening 1215710 Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello's moniker for team's 1215738 Pete DeBoer’s Game One Gamble Paid Off For Vegas turnaround: Transformer Golden Knights 1215711 Oliver Wahlstrom close to return, but no guarantee to get back in Islanders' lineup against Lightning Washington Capitals 1215712 Casey Cizikas feeling the love, wants to return it to 1215739 Oshie's son shows off budding hockey skills Islanders fans in Stanley Cup playoffs 1215713 After Missing ’20 ECF, Czikas Itching for a Crack at Lightning 1215714 Head-to-Head: Islanders in Familiar Role, Eager Underdog 1215715 ‘Finish the Job,’ Islanders Martin Expected Semis, Wants More Philadelphia Flyers 1215716 As Laperriere's time arrives, more to come for Flyers and Phantoms Websites 1215742 The Athletic / NHL power rankings: Our fresh 1-4 rankings, plus remembering some ’90s goalies 1215743 The Athletic / NHL business notebook: The growth of custom skates, ESPN and Turner broadcaster updates 1215744 Sportsnet.ca / Canadiens’ Bergevin appears reinvigorated after challenging 2021 season 1215745 Sportsnet.ca / Quick Shifts: Why Bruins could be in for some major changes 1215746 TSN.CA / McTavish doesn't want to change much ahead of NHL Draft 1215747 USA TODAY / NHL playoff predictions: Who wins semifinal series to advance to Stanley Cup Final? Winnipeg Jets 1215740 Projecting the protected list: Who’s staying with the Winnipeg Jets and who could be picked by the Seattle Kra
SPORT-SCAN, INC. 941-284-4129 1215689 Boston Bruins To make it all the worse, offense from the Bruins’ third and fourth lines was nonexistent. The bottom-six forwards also failed to muster enough of the defensive pluck that so often can spark offense from the scoring Bruins have the most identifiable roster in town, but will it last? lines.
Third-line pivot Charlie Coyle finished the postseason 2-1—3 in 11 games and was a team-worst minus-8. That’s a long summer. By Kevin Paul Dupont Globe Staff,Updated June 12, 2021, 12:55 p.m. The muckers didn’t muck. Too few of the scorers scored.
Finally, the crusher came when defenseman Brandon Carlo exited Game Their postseason disappointment still palpable, Bruins management any No. 3 with yet another concussion, drilled into the rear wall on a clean, hour now will offer preliminary indication what their roster will look like stiff check by the Islanders’ Cal Clutterbuck. The Bruins already were when they next convene on the ice in Brighton for the start of training without Kevan Miller on the right side, not to mention the earlier losses of camp in September. depth guys John Moore and Steven Kampfer (both to surgery).
Time changes everything, of course, and time mixed with playoff regret The Bruins chiseled out a 2-1 overtime win the night Carlo exited, and typically means a deeper cut. Last season’s dismissal by the Lightning then were outscored, 15-7, over the next three losses. Rush after rush, led to waving goodbye to Torey Krug and Zdeno Chara. In the weeks Islanders forwards blitzed into the Boston end, rarely, if ever, suffering ahead, we could see unrestricted free agents Tuukka Rask and David the rude awakenings they might have been dealt had Carlo and Miller Krejci (29 years of combined Spoked-B service), both members of the been on duty. The backline turned soft and porous, a bad combination in 2011 Stanley Cup team, likewise headed for the door. February, and lethal in the spring.
Granted, this is open to debate, but the Bruins, even in the hours No telling now if general manager Don Sweeney, after allowing Chara following their most recent loss, have the most identifiable roster among and Krug to leave town, will retain Rask and/or Krejci. The two are pricey, the town’s four major sports. Remarkable. Even though it has been 10 aging, and their performances at times can be, shall we say, frustrating years since their last championship. and uneven.
Roster identity alone clearly does not equate to championships, or even Undeniable, though, is the fact that Rask and Krejci have logged long, solid playoff runs, but it keeps the customers engaged. If the time has valuable, and distinguished service here, very much contributing to a come for Rask and/or Krejci to move on, no matter by whose decision, positive team identity that the other three major pro teams now find the franchise’s valuable, fragile “Q” factor will take a significant hit. themselves, to varying degrees, unable or unwilling to match.
Unfortunately, we’re getting used to that drill around here. Fail though they have yet again, the Bruins overall have succeeded in constructing an engaging and entertaining product full of very The Red Sox, not even three years past their most recent World Series recognizable roster faces. Not long ago, all the rosters were like that here win, have since bought full boat into the MLB “parts is parts” theory of in the city of champions. Not so anymore. roster building. We’ve gone from the big-name mind-set of Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz, Manny Ramirez, Mookie Betts, et al, to a mulligan We’ve learned upon seeing some of these guys leave, even those far stew lineup cooked up in a hardball analytics lab. At Fenway, the motto is from perfect, that their equals aren’t walking through that door to pick up “numbers super nominibus” (numbers above names). where they left off.
Out in Foxborough, they’re telling us the Brady-less, Gronkowski-less, SEASON OF SETBACKS Edelman-less Patriots could be back on the path to Super Bowl glory in no time. Trust the process. That’s the same process that told us a year DeBrusk looking to turn the page ago to trust Cam Newton to run the offense, saw where that went, and It was a difficult season for Jake DeBrusk, whose future in Boston is in then brought him back for seconds this fall. doubt.
And the Celtics, well, what’s to say other than, who are those guys? The The best to be said about Jake DeBrusk’s season is that it’s over. After Green’s last title was in 2008. Kemba Walker is the lone guy on today’s three promising seasons on his entry-level deal, with flashes of brilliance roster (check website for trade updates) to have turned 18 when the Doc and promise that earned him a two-year extension with a $3.675 million Rivers Celtics beat the Phil Jackson Lakers. They lack star power. They cap hit, the amiable Bruins left winger came up empty in the top- or lack all power. Remember Cooz and Russ? Come on, some of these bottom-six roles. guys would be challenged to remember Paul Pierce once wore green. Now it’s up to GM Don Sweeney to decide if there’s realistic path to What the Bruins do have in common with all their Boston pro sports recovery here, or if he’ll shop DeBrusk in the days leading to the July 21 brethren right now is the need to be better. That 2011 title, as much fun expansion draft. Even with his poor season, he still has trade value, as it was to witness, now stands as the lone Cup win here in the last 49 albeit not for a return equal to where he was chosen (No. 14 overall) in years. No one needs to school Black and Gold fans in the pain of the 2015 draft. unfulfilled playoff runs. Is it too soon to mention too many men on the ice? A couple of significant mitigating factors when assessing DeBrusk’s performance: 1. He had a two-week tour on the COVID-19 “unavailable” The Bruins won five Cups in the first 47 years of the franchise. Now it’s list, a protracted, isolating interruption that factored largely in his playing one over the last 49 years, albeit with seven failed trips to the Cup Final only 41 of 56 games; 2. Because of an abundance of lefthanded shots up mixed in as significant connective tissue. front, he was often bumped to his off wing, his game looking especially The slight twist to this spring’s short-circuited run was that the Bruins wrong on the right side. entered the postseason with two scoring lines. Forever their playoff Both factors, in concert with his diminished market value, likely convince Achilles’ heel, scoring depth finally, and convincingly, appeared a non- Sweeney et al to give the 24-year-old a do-over in 2021-22, with the issue. The long familiar cry of, “When are you going to get us a sniper, hope that he can produce again in the 40-50-point range. Harry?!” moved to the deep background, mainly because Taylor Hall, underperforming and disgruntled in Buffalo, jumped into their hands at “A couple of setbacks this year, for sure,” DeBrusk acknowledged Friday, the April 12 trade deadline. saying that he needs “to revamp some stuff” to get his game back on track. Hall, Krejci, and Craig Smith instantly formed a formidable line and produced nearly in lockstep with the Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron- After noting that there were elements of the season he could and could David Pastrnak No. 1 trio for the month leading to the playoffs. The not control, DeBrusk added, “I dealt with a lot of negativity as well ... one Bruins, especially five on five, looked like an unstoppable force. of those things that, you know, you sign up, and I’m a big boy and I can handle that, some of it is [I] just became an easy target, so … my haters Until they didn’t. The second-liners put up 8 points, only 5 fewer than the had a lot to say this year.” top guns, in the Round 1 win over Washington. But they faded vs. the Islanders, cobbling together but 11 points in six games while the big boys DeBrusk’s aim going into next season, he said, will be proving “a lot of put up more than double (11-12—23). Hall was minus-5 and went 0-0—0 people wrong.” over the final three games, all losses. DeBrusk was asked by your faithful puck chronicler to identify the source David Krejci, soon able to sign with anyone in the Original 32, was oddly of negativity, be it from fans, media or coaching staff. evasive, or uncomfortably uncertain, when asked Friday about his future plans. “I’m going to need a few weeks,” he said, “think about lots of “I don’t really know … if that makes any sense,” he said. “I just felt like things, talk to lots of people. I love Boston, see what happens.” After there was a lot. Just one of those things, you can just feel it … not really inking contracts in Boston valued at just over $70 million, he says his pointing out anyone. The one thing that I did learn was that you obviously next deal won’t be about money. Other than that, he wasn’t ready to say play for your teammates and for people in this room — and that’s all that what it will be about … A few statistical leftovers from Bruins-Islanders I really look for, doing it for the guy beside you.” Round 2: The Bruins held a lead in all but the last game, while the No certainty where this goes. Anders Bjork, Danton Heinen, Ryan Islanders logged 00:00 of lead time in only Game 3. For the series, the Donato, and DeBrusk were positioned not long ago as prized “push- Islanders finished with a tiny edge in lead time: 110:15 vs. 108:07. The through” candidates among the kiddie corps of forward prospects. All but Bruins went a hefty 7 for 14 on the power play while the Islanders DeBrusk have been dealt. None has fulfilled his promise. delivered at 6 for 16 (37.5 percent). Uncharacteristically weak on the draw in Games, 2, 3 and 4, Patrice Bergeron clicked in Games 5 and 6, To this point, either the promise was false or misguided or miscalculated, winning 26 of 43 drops (60.5 percent). Tuukka Rask allowed eight goals or there’s a missing link in the chain of player development. Whatever the on 43 shots over his last two appearance (five periods) for a lowly .814 answer, it needs fixing. save percentage. The Bruins squeezed off 414 shot attempts across the six games to only 312 by the Islanders … The Blue Jackets on Friday ETC. named ex-winger Brad Larsen to replace John Tortorella as coach. An Habs continue Cinderella story assistant the last seven years, first under Todd Richards and then Tortorella, Larsen played his four junior seasons at WHL Swift Current, Few expected to see the Canadiens in the Stanley Cup semis, but the three of those under now Kings coach Todd McLellan … Stung by an Habs will take on the Golden Knights in Game 1 Monday. unpenalized high hit by Kyle Palmieri on the opening shift of the second period Wednesday, Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy was ordered to Those Cinderella Canadiens (take a drink, Bruins fans) take on the the room for what amounted to some six minutes of playing time. On Vegas Golden Knights Monday night in Game 1 of their Stanley Cup Friday, he sounded more disgruntled about being ordered off (suspected semifinal. concussion) than the hit. “Mandatory. I had to take a concussion test, or As hard as CH success is on the eyes of Black and Gold nation, imagine whatever it’s called. I didn’t think it was necessary, to be honest it was how Maple Leafs fans feel, their Blue and White darlings making it already over.” As for the non-call, he added, “It is what it is. It’s over.” … beyond the first round but once since 2002. They lost to the Habs in Gotta love Brandon Carlo’s spunk, when asked about the Cal Round 1 this year. More striking, in three-plus postseasons, the newbie Cluttlerbuck hit that left him in concussed in Game 3 of the Islanders Knights already have 36 playoff victories, one more than the Leafs have series: “Great hit, I had no issues with it whatsoever. He went right accumulated since the spring of 2001. through my chest, I can respect that any day of the week.” It was at least the third concussion Carlo has endured in his time with the Bruins, the The Habs, though underdogs entering the matchup with the Knights, other two delivered by Alex Ovechkin and Tom Wilson. Asked if he is edged the Leafs in seven, then went on to jumble the Jets with a 4-0 worried about the number of concussions and the potential impact on the sweep. Karma dressed as a 19th skater on the Habs’ bench after the longevity of his career, Carlo added, “No, not at this point, not at all. I outrageous, predatory slam Mark Scheifele delivered as the punctuation think this year was obviously a struggle through these injuries. It’s no fun, mark to Game 1 of the series. The Habs then ran the table, outscoring but I am not going to sit here and get discouraged, thinking my career is the Jets, 9-3, over the final three games with Scheifele suspended. headed down the wrong path because of a couple of concussions. I hope this is my last one and I can play for as long as possible. From how I’ve “I thought I was going to be tried to be shut down by Phillip Danault,” the recovered from these, I don’t think there’s any issue there.” tone-deaf Scheifele said on Jets pack-up day. “Instead, it was the Department of Player Safety that shut me down. So that definitely sucks.” Boston Globe LOADED: 06.13.2021 Some of these guys, and their enablers, won’t ever get it.
Meanwhile, the Habs roll on, first and foremost because Carey Price has returned to playing like a goalie with a $10.5 million price tag (of whom he is the only one, of course). Headed into the semis, the reborn stopper owned the best save percentage (.934) and second-best goals-against average (1.97) of the four remaining No. 1 netminders.
Part of Price’s recovery can be traced to the hiring of Sean Burke as the club’s director of goaltending. A pro scout with the Canadiens the last four seasons, Burke took on the new gig after Stephane Waite was moved off the job.
Waite initially survived the purge following Claude Julien’s abrupt dismissal as coach after 32 games. Perhaps a move to Burke earlier, to help counsel Price, would have Julien still behind the bench.
Through their 11 games leading to the semis, the Habs had no one contributing a point per game to the offense. The closest was ex-King right winger Tyler Toffoli (4-6—10), who came aboard as a free agent in the offseason after a successful though brief tour with Vancouver following his trade there in February 2020.
Headed into the series against the Knights, the Habs’ most dynamic line has veteran Eric Staal, a deadline pickup from Buffalo, centering fellow older Corey Perry and Joel Armia (once a Sabres draftee, by the way). Size, experience, and grit.
The Habs probably don’t have enough to prevent the Knights from reaching their second Cup Final in four seasons of existence (take another drink, the bar’s open), but both the Leafs — who had a 3-1 series lead — and Jets have paid the price of underestimating the distant sons of Vincent Damphousse.
Loose pucks
David Krejci was evasive in fielding questions about his future. 1215690 Boston Bruins When Miller played this year’s season opener Jan. 14 against the Devils, it marked 651 days between NHL games. While working all season to protect and prepare his body for the rigors of the playoffs, he still For Kevan Miller, the timing of Bruins’ playoff elimination was a cruel averaged 19:04 on ice in 27 games, the second-highest mark of his twist of fate career. It was no surprise the Bruins elected him their nominee for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, given to the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.
By Tara Sullivan Globe Columnist,Updated June 12, 2021, 9:54 a.m. And still, cruel fate intervened. “A tough pill to swallow,” Miller called it.
“It weighs on you,” he acknowledged. “It’s not easy. You want to be out there with the guys helping, help them win. I think I could have helped. For two teammates already bonded by hockey, two close friends further Just get one more game. That’s the way it goes sometimes. That’s drawn together by their faith, this was not the way they wanted to be hockey, that’s life. Just turn the page.” connected at season’s end. Together, off the ice, watching from afar while the rest of the Bruins competed on it, prevented by injury from If only it were that easy. joining a postseason run that everyone in black and gold believed would last far longer than it did. “With Kevan it seemed like it’s the same old story every year,” Rask said. “He can’t get a bounce. It seems like he’s had every single injury there is But if it was tough for Brandon Carlo to watch the Bruins lose their final to have. Everyone knows him, he leaves it all out there every night he three games of the playoffs after he was slammed into the boards by the plays. His style is much appreciated by teammates. He’s a great warrior. Islanders’ Cal Clutterbuck, fate was even crueler to Kevan Miller. As It’s just sometimes you get in these injury cycles and you never seem to Miller revealed Friday during a marathon series of wrap-up Zoom calls get out of it. I feel bad for him. He’s been a great teammate. Great player. from the Bruins’ locker room, he had been cleared to return for a Who knows what the future holds for him, but he set a very high standard potential Game 7 against the Islanders, and “most likely” would have here.” been back to his usual bruising spot on defense. Boston Globe LOADED: 06.13.2021 “I was super close to being back, and most likely would have played Game 7,” Miller said. “That just makes it even worse to be honest with you.”
Carlo will surely get another chance. Miller? Who knows?
This is a man who had already battled back from a devastating knee injury, not once but twice. This is a man who understands better than anyone that the opportunity to play should be treasured. This is a man who wanted nothing more than to get back out there and fight for his guys, to take his 6-foot-2-inch, 210-pound body and go hit for hit with the bruising Islanders, to revel in the chance to do what he loves before his 33-year-old body finally says enough.
“Whether it’s winning or losing, you just want to be a part of it,” Carlo said. “I feel terrible about the way things have gone the past couple years for [Kevan]. It hasn’t been easy. When you’re away from the team it’s a bit of a disconnect. I’m thankful that during that time we’ve only grown closer. That speaks to Kevan and who he is. Especially a righthanded- shot guy, never hesitant to share advice with me, help me along the way. I feel bad obviously, it’s not the way you wanted to see his season end.”
But end it did. The Bruins didn’t make it to Game 7, bounced from their second-round series by Wednesday night’s 6-2 loss in Game 6, left with a hockey equipment-sized bag of what-ifs for a season of such promise.
What if Tuukka Rask hadn’t been playing through a torn labrum in his hip? What if David Pastrnak hadn’t missed that wide-open net? What if Taylor Hall hadn’t gone so cold or Jeremy Lauzon hadn’t looked so young?
What if Miller had been able to play?
“We missed him a lot,” Charlie McAvoy said. It was McAvoy who bore the brunt of his teammates’ injuries, clearly targeted by the Islanders as the last best Bruins defenseman standing.
“A lot,” he added. “He’s a big part of our team, the way he plays, the way he carries himself. Tons of respect for him. It would have been nice to have him.”
To retell Miller’s last few years is to channel one of sports’ great equalizers, that injuries know nothing of character or reputation. They can strike anyone, any time no matter how important the player is to a game plan or how beloved he is in a locker room.
And there is no doubt about how the Bruins feel about Kevan Miller. Since being sidelined by a Round 1, Game 4 hit from Washington defenseman Dmitry Orlov that was bad enough to send him into concussion protocol and off to Massachusetts General Hospital for a night, every Bruin hoped Miller could fight his way back just as he had from the fractured kneecap that has framed his entire Bruins existence since it happened 39 games into his 2018-19 season. He would nearly return in time for that year’s playoff run (think he might have helped in that Game 7 Cup Final loss to the Blues?), only to reinjure it so seriously that he missed the 2019-20 season. 1215691 Boston Bruins
David Krejci On Future With Bruins: ‘I Just Don’t Know Right Now.
By Jimmy Murphy
Give longtime Boston Bruins center David Krejci credit; while his media scrums can be vague at times, they’re always honest.
Speaking in his end of the season media Zoom session recently, a clearly pensive and yet conflicted David Krejci laid it on the line when it comes to his future with the only NHL team he’s known since being drafted by the Boston Bruins 33rd overall at the 2004 NHL Entry Draft in Raleigh, North Carolina.
“I talked to my parents, and they asked me. I can’t even give them a straight answer,” Krejci said Friday afternoon. “I just don’t know right now. I just don’t know.”
For the first time in his NHL career, David Krejci can become an unrestricted free agent. He just finished his 15th NHL season. He is coming off a six-year, $43.5 million extension he signed back in 2014. Krejci is seventh in assists (515) and games played (962) in Bruins franchise history. His 730 career points are the eighth-most in franchise history. As David Krejci pointed out, what he does from here with regards to his hockey career will not be based on money. Krejci, 35, also made it clear that if his NHL career is to continue, it will only do so with the Boston Bruins.
“It’s not about money,” he said. “I guess that’s all I can tell you: My next deal is not going to be based on money. Today, I can tell you, it’s not going to be about money. And at the same time, I just can’t see myself playing for a different team. We’ll see what happens I guess. I don’t even know. I talked to my parents, and they asked me, I can’t even give them a straight answer.”
Earlier in his career, David Krejci had hinted that he may consider finishing his career in his native Czech Republic and while his reasoning for that has changed, Krejci made it clear that is still an option should he and the Bruins decide to part ways.
“You guys write a lot that I wanted to finish my career in Czech, which has not changed,” Krejci admitted. “But when I said that, I was younger. I’m a husband. I’m a dad, I have two kids. They’re getting older. So yes, I still, at one point, would like to finish my career in Czech [but] for different reasons now than when I first said it. I would like my kids to speak my language because my parents don’t speak any English. My kids don’t speak Czech. I would like them to learn the language.
But again, when that’s going to happen, or if that’s going to happen, we’ll see. I’m going to try to get away from the game a little bit now and think about lots of things. Spend some time with my family and just go from there.”
The Bruins already waved goodbye to longtime captain Zdeno Chara last offseason and went with a youth movement on the blue line this past season. With a projected $30 million in salary-cap space this offseason, will they try and get younger up front too? They have enough money to do so externally and internally and will have to decide if Krejci still fits into their plans going forward. Unrestricted free agency starts July 28.
Boston Hockey Now LOADED: 06.13.2021 1215692 Boston Bruins with you. It was difficult, I wasn’t able to see my family. It was one of those things where it was just hockey all the time.
“[It] wasn’t that great of a year. Like I said, I learned a lot and how to deal Boston Bruins DeBrusk: ‘My Haters Had A Lot To Say This Year’ with that. It was just starting to get open and going [in Boston], so it was disappointing that we ended around this time. It’s exciting and still a positive side to see that life’s getting a little bit normal here.” By Joe Haggerty All that being said, DeBrusk was having issues with healthy scratches and being a consistent impact player even before COVID came on the scene a couple of seasons ago. It wouldn’t surprise anybody if DeBrusk BOSTON – There’s little doubt it’s going to be an eventful offseason for is playing for a different team next season based on all circumstances, Boston Bruins winger Jake DeBrusk after a season he even admits was but either way he’s going to need to be a lot better next season if he “disappointing.” wants to stick around the league. The 24-year-old DeBrusk finished with five goals and 14 points in 41 It certainly doesn’t take a “hater” to see that, and it sounds like DeBrusk games as he was dropped from his second line left wing spot and knows it to be true as well. eventually replaced by Taylor Hall, and he was bounced all around the lineup while also being a healthy scratch at times during the regular Boston Hockey Now LOADED: 06.13.2021 season and the playoffs. DeBrusk had a strong start to the playoffs with goals in each of his first two games against the Capitals, but then he managed just a single point the rest of the way while sinking back into play that had little impact in any way on the ice.
It was a sharp contrast to Mat Barzal, the player selected directly after him by the Islanders in the 2015 NHL draft that had a major impact on the playoff series win over the Black and Gold. It’s the same story with DeBrusk, who really doesn’t contribute much as a one-dimensional winger when the scoring runs dry.
Certainly, it was a trying season both on and off the ice for a young player that endured his worst NHL season just a few years removed from scoring 27 goals and had to push through league COVID restrictions that kept him, a single guy in his 20’s with no family to come home to after hockey, on lockdown pretty much all season.
DeBrusk admitted all of the above when chatting with the Bruins media via zoom on Friday and vowed that things will be different next season.
“I need to revamp some stuff. There were a lot of factors that went into this year. Things that I could control and [things that I] couldn’t control. I dealt with a lot of negativity as well. It’s one of those things that it’s something you have to learn, as you sign up. I’m a big boy, I can handle that, just became a little bit of an easy target,” said DeBrusk, who has dipped from 27 goals to 19 goals two seasons ago and then to five goals last season. “My haters had a lot to say this year. It’s one of those things where, like I said, just have to revamp some things with training and different mindset.
“My mindset is an interesting place right now. Every year it’s obviously different, disappointing obviously while hopes were high. I’ve disappointed myself, and my team. I’m looking forward to this [coming] year, I’ve got to prove a lot of people wrong.”
It remains to be seen, though, if it’s going to be with the Bruins. DeBrusk is part of a middle tier group of Bruins players that didn’t do enough in the postseason behind Brad Marchand, David Pastrnak and Patrice Bergeron firing on all cylinders during both playoff rounds. It’s clear the Boston Bruins still need to improve their forward depth beyond their top line and DeBrusk is one of those guys that simply hasn’t been a difference-maker nearly enough.
There’s an upcoming NHL expansion draft for the Seattle Kraken where the Bruins could leave DeBrusk unprotected. He’s really become a man without a position in Boston where the Bruins seem comfortable having Brad Marchand, Taylor Hall and Nick Ritchie as the top three wings on the left. DeBrusk was forced to play right wing most of the time this season as a result, but that isn’t really a natural fit for a player that seems more comfortable on his strong side.
There’s also going to be an incredibly active trade market once things get moving in the offseason, and DeBrusk could be a chip for the Boston Bruins. He’s still a former first round pick with speed, skill and strong NHL bloodlines, so there will be organizations looking at DeBrusk as a prime candidate for a fresh start elsewhere. There’s really no telling how much of a factor the stringent NHL protocols were in the struggles for a young guy like DeBrusk.
“This year was difficult. Obviously learned a lot, how to deal with COVID and all the things that come with it. I feel like everyone in the world can say the same thing. Coming home after road trips and stuff like that, day to day. I mean, isolation is the cute word everyone likes to use,” said DeBrusk. “I think I talked about a little bit earlier in the year, to be honest 1215693 Chicago Blackhawks He remains very talented, with the poise, vision, passing ability and rangy, adept stick usage needed to excel as a two-way defenseman in the modern NHL. He has a perfect 6-4, 213-pound frame. He’s in the Seth Jones isn’t the solution to Blackhawks’ defensive woes, but Dougie prime years of his career, set to turn 27 in early October. Hamilton could be But considering how inflated Jones’ reputation has become in relation to Blue Jackets star Seth Jones is suddenly available via trade, but he’s not his skates-on-the-ice performance, any trade to acquire him — even with actually the game-changing No. 1 defenseman the Hawks need. Pending Kekalainen now in a sticky situation with relatively little leverage — would free agent Dougie Hamilton, however, would fill that hole. be a massive overpay. For the Hawks, it would likely require a package including the 11th overall pick, one of their two second-round picks and an upper-tier prospect like Adam Boqvist or Ian Mitchell.
By Ben Pope Jun 12, 2021, 6:30am CDT Bowman, if he paid that, would describe it as the necessary price to pay for a proven-but-still-young No. 1 defenseman, the kind he’s currently
praying Boqvist or Mitchell can eventually become. There’s a No. 1 defenseman available this summer with the kind of Bowman would be right about the Hawks’ dire need for that defensive game-changing abilities the Blackhawks desperately need. star power. Duncan Keith would be better off as a second-pair guy at this It’s Dougie Hamilton, the Hurricanes star staring down unrestricted free stage of his career; Connor Murphy has become a bonafide first-pair agency. option but can’t carry the Hawks’ whole unit. The Hawks might be best served staying patient with their youth movement, but there’s an It’s not Seth Jones, the Blue Jackets star suddenly becoming one of the argument for filling that gaping hole right now. NHL offseason’s biggest trade chips. Bowman would be wrong in that hypothetical scenario, though, about But the Hawks have already been tied to Jones, who reportedly recently who he chose to pursue to fill it. informed Jackets GM Jarmo Kekalainen he won’t re-sign when his contract expires next summer. The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline named the Hamilton, if somehow convinced to sign with the Hawks, would not only Hawks as well as the Kings and Canadiens as “major players” in early live up to that billing as a proven-but-still-young No. 1 defenseman but Jones trade talks in Columbus. The Oilers and Maple Leafs are also also possibly fix the whole unit. expected to poke around. A fairly successful but polarizing figure earlier in his career in Boston and On the surface, Jones makes perfect sense for Hawks general manager Calgary, Hamilton has ascended into the highest echelon of elite Stan Bowman. Jones’ agent is Pat Brisson, who also represents Patrick defensemen during his past three seasons in Carolina. Kane, Jonathan Toews, Andrew Shaw and Nicolas Beaudin and is close At even strength during that time period, he ranks first among 224 NHL with Hawks brass. Jones’ reputation, fairly earned earlier in his career, is defensemen in shot-attempt ratio (57.4%), third in scoring-chance ratio that of an elite defenseman and franchise cornerstone. (57.8%) and third in expected-goals ratio (57.3%). The Hurricanes have The Jackets are about to start a rebuild and will be looking to acquire the outscored opponents 178-129 during his ice time. And he has contributed picks and prospects of which the Hawks are building a surplus. And significantly to that goal-scoring, too, averaging 2.19 points per 60 trades provide the certainty that free agency negotiations lack, and minutes last season and 2.02 this season. Bowman would surely only complete such a trade if Jones agreed to sign Hamilton’s recent playoff performances (including this year) haven’t been a long-term extension in Chicago. quite as consistent or spectacular, but that shouldn’t undermine his stock The logic begins to crumble, however, when digging into how elite Jones too much. The Hurricanes understandably hope to keep him but will has actually been lately — and how he, as the top defenseman in the struggle to do so, with limited cap space and a multitude of other free trade market, contrasts with Hamilton, the top defenseman in the free- agents — including high-profile RFAs Andrei Svechnikov and Alex agent market. Nedeljkovic — to also re-sign.
Jones’ performance has indeed declined steadily for years, both So Hamilton will, more likely than not, become fair game when the offensively and defensively. market opens July 28.
His points-per-60-minutes rate peaked at 1.78 in 2017-18 but fell to 1.43 He’ll instantly receive the affections of many of the NHL’s now-32 in 2018-19, 1.27 in 2019-20 and 1.19 this past season — his lowest rate franchises, especially since this year’s UFA defensemen pool is shallow since he was traded from the Predators to Jackets in January 2016. beyond Hamilton, Tyson Barrie and Alec Martinez. The Hawks will be one of many suitors, and the odds will be low for them to win the His even-strength scoring chance ratio, meanwhile, peaked at 52.4% in sweepstakes. 2016-17 but has now fallen in four consecutive years. It dipped into the red in 2019-20 (at 48.7%) before plummeting to 46.8% this season, If they somehow could, though, Hamilton would be everything they need ranking 152nd among 211 defensemen league-wide. His expected-goals — and wouldn’t set back the youth movement by taking away picks and ratio was even uglier — 42.8%, ranking 201st of the 211 — and the prospects. The same can’t be said about Jones. Jackets were accordingly outscored 61-45 during his even-strength ice Chicago Sun Times LOADED: 06.13.2021 time.
To be fair, the Jackets’ overall team performance also fell off a cliff this season, but Jones was part of the problem rather than a victim of it.
That can be seen through Jones’ stats alongside Zach Werenski, the Jackets’ other elite defenseman. In 2017-18 and 2018-19, Jones and Werenski made each other better. Their even-strength scoring-chance ratio during 2,200 minutes together was 52.8%; their individual ratios without the other were both below 50%.
But the past two seasons, their results together worsened (48.4% scoring-chance ratio) and Jones struggled even more without Werenski (46.8%) — yet Werenski thrived without Jones (52.4%).
Hearing a lot of "Jones' numbers were only bad this year because the Blue Jackets were bad." It's an understandable assumption but it doesn't really hold up. #CBJ pic.twitter.com/nv0uwgoGI2
— JFresh (@JFreshHockey) May 30, 2021
Changes of scenery and system will almost certainly improve Jones’ numbers and effectiveness. 1215694 Colorado Avalanche
Jared Bednar isn’t to blame. Avalanche players blew it with turnovers
Bednar is 24-19 in the playoffs with the Avs, including 22-15 over the last three years. The window to win is still open.
By MIKE CHAMBERS
A hockey coach can only do so much. He can’t prevent his players from making costly turnovers on basic plays.
Avalanche coach Jared Bednar is not to blame for the club’s 0-4 exit and third consecutive failure to advance past the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. He’s not to blame for the Vegas Golden Knights becoming just the fourth team in NHL history to defeat the No. 1 overall seed in a series after losing the first two games.
Blame it on the guys who made the turnovers that directly led to Vegas goals in Games 5 and 6. Make no mistake, Vegas crept inside the Avs’ heads late in Game 2 — a game the Knights deserved to win — and stayed there through much of Game 4.
But Bednar and his staff helped the players regain their poise, and the Avs played well enough to win Games 5 and 6 if it weren’t for a combination of sloppy turnovers and Vegas’ lethal transition game.
The Knights deserve credit for storming back from an 0-2 series deficit and dominating Games 3 and 4 at highly electric T-Mobile Arena.
The Avs blew the series, not even forcing a Game 7, and fans might want Bednar gone. My guess is general manager Joe Sakic is not going to do it. He has too much invested in this club, including Bednar and his staff, and he is not going to blow it up as a knee-jerk reaction to losing four consecutive games for the first time all season.
Sakic is far more likely to move on from unrestricted free agents Gabe Landeskog and Philipp Grubauer than fire Bednar. Sakic has publicly said the Avs must tighten their belt for the 2021-22 season to afford one- of-a-kind star defenseman Cale Makar as well as fellow restricted free agents Tyson Jost, a forward, and defenseman Conor Timmins, plus prepare to extend Nathan MacKinnon after his team-friendly $6.3 million cap hit ends after 2022-23.
At the time he said that, Sakic mentioned making room for Landeskog and Grubauer, too. Perhaps that’s still the plan.
But Sakic is not going to waste non-cap money by doubling up on head- coaching salaries. Bednar is under contract through next season and ownership probably sees this situation just like me, that Bednar deserves to see it through.
Bednar is 184-149-39 in five seasons with the Avs, including 166-93-35 after that horrific first season of 2016-17 in which he inherited the discombobulated old-and-slow roster Sakic and Patrick Roy put together with no previous front-office experience. Since then, Sakic and assistant general managers Chris MacFarland and Craig Billington have done an exceptional job in the draft, free agency and trades, and Bednar has done an excellent job of coaching what he has been given.
Bednar is 24-19 in the playoffs with the Avs, including 22-15 over the last three years. The window to win is still open.
Sakic and his staff are partners with Bednar and, while almost every NHL head coach is eventually fired or not re-signed, that time has not arrived for Bednar.
Look at coach Jon Cooper of the Tampa Bay Lightning. A year after winning the 2019 Presidents’ Trophy and getting swept by the No. 8 seed Columbus Blue Jackets, the Bolts stayed with Cooper and they won the Stanley Cup in 2020.
As Wayne Gretzky once said, you have to lose before you can win. I thought the Avs’ two previous second-round series losses (both in Game 7) were enough to help push Colorado over the top this year.
I was wrong. But it wasn’t all Bednar’s fault and he should be given a chance to coach another year.
Denver Post: LOADED: 06.13.2021 1215695 Colorado Avalanche playoff game. With the Nuggets in an impossible 3-0 hole in this best-of- seven series, however, Joker sat down late Friday night to answer questions from the media, looking as sad as a kid who had dropped his Seven playoff losses. Eight days of heartbreak. Why does loving the Avs ice cream cone on the sidewalk. and Nuggets have to hurt so much? At the very end of the interview, Jokic offered a confession. He Every sports fan in Colorado feels pain of Nathan MacKinnon and Nikola volunteered words exchanged privately in Denver’s locker room after the Jokic as championship dreams die too quickly for even a proper defeat. “I said to the guys, ‘It was my bad, I really needed to be better,’” goodbye. Jokic admitted.
C’mon now. How could Jokic have possibly been significantly better than 32/20/10? But the MVP was disconsolate, because his best wasn’t good By MARK KISZLA | June 12, 2021 at 5:00 p.m. enough.
Let go of the pain, Joker.
Hey, we all know love hurts. But why do the Avalanche and Nuggets After seven playoff losses in eight excruciating days, maybe it’s time to have to do us like this? throw a party dedicated to burying shared tears.
Seven playoff losses. Eight days of heartbreak. The championship “The last thing I want to see is the Phoenix Suns pushing a broom across dreams for our local NHL and NBA teams? Dead. And gone. Gone too our court after Game 4,” said Nuggets coach Michael Malone, vowing to quickly to even say a proper goodbye. battle with every ounce of his fiber against a sweep when his team takes the floor Sunday. Don’t know about you, but I can’t get the anguished words from Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon out of my head. “I’m going into my Suns take 3-0 lead, push Nuggets to the brink despite Nikola Jokic’s ninth year and I haven’t won (bleep),” MacKinnon said Thursday night, triple-double baring the ache deep in his soul after Colorado was unceremoniously dumped by Vegas from the playoffs. With feeling, Malone added: “The one thing I don’t want is for us to go out just quietly into that good night. I hope we show some real fight and Let the pain out, brother. resolve and force that series to go back to Phoenix for Game 5.”
Seven losses. Eight excruciating days. Every Avs and Nuggets jersey in So here’s a toast to raising the roof one more time in Ball Arena before the city now doubles as a crying towel. they turn out the lights for the summer.
There isn’t enough Gorilla Glue in all of Colorado to mend the collateral OK, maybe one victory celebration cannot prevent a long summer of emotional damage from the worst run of bum sports luck anyone around difficult reflection for Joe Sakic and Tim Connelly, as they try to find here has ever seen. I know I haven’t ever witnessed such unrelenting missing pieces of championship puzzles for the Avalanche and Nuggets. agony. And I’m old enough to remember Joe Montana 55, Broncos 10, way back in January 1990. But it’s you — the Denver sports fan who has endured the gut punch of eight excruciating days and still steadfastly refuses to love the Avs and That Super Bowl blowout was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Nuggets any less — who deserves one more chance to share a smile But it was only one awful Sunday. The seven consecutive playoff losses with a big, goofy Joker who has won this city’s heart. by the Avalanche and Nuggets during eight excruciating days and hope- sapping nights this June have made time stand still in a place no Denver Denver Post: LOADED: 06.13.2021 sports fan wants to be. Ever. And certainly not ever again.
How unfair is it that just when Ball Arena swung its doors wide open after 15 months of dealing with the blasted pandemic, the joint was transformed into a house of pain for the Avs, Nuggets and fans whose only sin is loving hockey and basketball too much?
“My family didn’t understand why I was yelling in the restaurant, when we were watching the Avs game on Thursday,” said Jenny Kapelke, a dedicated fan of Denver sports, whose loyalty to MacKinnon and Nuggets center Nikola Jokic remains fierce, even after relocating to Snohomish, Wash. “I was talking with a friend from Colorado and we said we were hungover the whole week with a hurt heart.”
We feel your pain, sister.
As the Avalanche blew a 2-0 lead in the third period of Game 5 at home, making a Vegas victory seem like a cruel inevitability, the pain of spectators in the arena was so real and palpable to be nearly unspeakable. When Mark Stone of the Golden Knights beat Colorado goalie Philipp Grubauer with the game-winning score a scant 50 seconds into overtime, the crowd in Ball Arena no longer had the emotional bandwidth to do anything except turn together and walk away in respectful silence, as mourners do when exiting single file from the pews at a funeral service.
We waded through the muck of 2020 for this sports misery?
“It could be worse,” eternally optimistic fan Travis Taylor noted, allowing a trace of snark to invade his naturally sunny demeanor. “The Rockies aren’t in last place … yet.”
From Denver to Vegas to Phoenix and back to Colorado, my employer generously allowed me the opportunity to follow the misadventures of the Avs and Nuggets, chronicling every calliope note of an unexpectedly sad traveling circus.
The capper for me? After scoring 32 points, grabbing 20 rebounds and dishing 10 assists on a sprained ankle during a 116-102 loss to Phoenix late Friday, Jokic joined Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain as only the third player in NBA history to record a 30/20/10 stat line in a 1215696 Colorado Avalanche Grading the Week: Where does Avalanche GM Joe Sakic get all these wonderful toys?
Almost none of the Nuggets’ struggles against the Suns can be laid at Grading the Week: All hail Ethan Horvath, restorer of sanity to Empower the feet of Joker, who averaged a double-double (23.0 ppg, 11.0 rpg, 4.5 Field and USMNT soccer apg) in the first two games of the series, and added a triple-double in Plus, a quibble with Jared Bednar Game 3. The team’s myriad backcourt injuries are what’s coming home to roost — not to mention sudden back issues for No. 2 option MPJ.
It’s a bitter pill to swallow for those of us who saw what this team was By MATT SCHUBERT | PUBLISHED: June 12, 2021 at 6:00 a.m. | capable of in the weeks preceding Jamal Murray’s season-ending knee UPDATED: June 12, 2021 at 9:27 a.m. injury.
The West is wide open, and the Nuggets very well could’ve been the team to make it to the Finals. Talk about a week to forget. Denver Post: LOADED: 06.13.2021 Remember seven days ago? When the Avalanche was on a collision course with the Stanley Cup Final; the Nuggets were fresh off a thrilling first-round playoff series victory that included star turns from Michael Porter Jr., Austin Rivers and Monte Morris; and the Rockies … were playing games at Coors Field?
Oh, what a time to be alive.
Alas, those Colorado sports salad days have come and gone, and it isn’t too hard to look in the distance and see a future in which all we have left are the Rockies — who will still have to play (and lose) many more games away from Coors Field this season.
Ethan Horvath — A+
Even in a week that featured six playoff losses for Colorado teams (and more Rockies road weariness), nothing came close to approaching the international incident that transpired Sunday at Empower Field in the final 30 minutes of the CONCACAF Nations League Final.
The men’s soccer match between the United States and Mexico had a little bit of everything.
Offensive chants that halted play. Controversial video replays. Bottles hurled onto the field and at players’ skulls. A fan running onto the pitch in all his unathletic glory.
Yes, it was a raging dumpster fire.
And the only reason it was mercifully extinguished was the brilliance of Arapahoe High School alum Ethan Horvath, whose miraculous penalty kick save in extra time preserved a 3-2 USMNT victory and allowed the crowd to disperse and sanity to be restored.
For that, we all owe Mr. Horvath a debt of gratitude.
Jared Bednar — C-
The Grading the Week staff won’t pretend to be hockey tacticians on par with the Presidents’ Trophy-winning head coach of the Avalanche.
We will, however, quibble with Bednar’s seeming inability to turn around a series vs. Vegas that went south after the first period of Game 2.
Is it possible the Golden Knights were just better and Bednar’s hands were tied? No doubt.
But, for the first time in the past three seasons, we’re at least considering the possibility that he could’ve done more to get this team past the second round.
Of course, there is a world that exists in which COVID never happened, the NHL schedule is played as normal and the Avs don’t have to see the Golden Knights until the Western Conference finals.
In that world, Colorado may very well have won consecutive Stanley Cup Playoffs series for the first time in 19 years. And we’re all probably looking at this series loss quite a bit differently than a third straight second-round exit.
Nikola Jokic — A
Take a bow, Big Honey.
It isn’t every year a Colorado athlete gets named Most Valuable Player of one of the four major sports leagues — barely even every decade.
There might be some who grouse at the MVP starring for a team that just started 0-3 against Phoenix in the Western Conference semifinals. Pay them no mind. 1215697 Colorado Avalanche Adam Werner (RFA)
Mikko Rantanen
Colorado Avalanche protected list: Who’s staying and who could be Bowen Byram picked in the Seattle Kraken expansion draft?
Justus Annunen By Peter Baugh Jun 12, 2021 Joonas Donskoi
Dan Renouf (UFA) An Avalanche season that was supposed to end differently petered out Thursday night in familiar fashion: a second-round loss. And season- Nathan MacKinnon ending losses like this one hurt not only due to the lack of Patrik Nemeth (UFA) accomplishment but also because the team will not look the same again. Players will leave in free agency. The front office will make trades. And J.T. Compher this year, for the first time since 2017, there will be an expansion draft. At Kyle Burroughs (UFA) least one player who played for the Avalanche in 2020-21 will suit up for the Seattle Kraken in 2021-22. Brandon Saad (UFA)
Colorado built its team to be entertaining. The Avalanche have speedy, Erik Johnson (NMC) skilled players who, at their best, move the puck well and cut through defenses. But the team is facing tough decisions. Star defenseman Cale Logan O'Connor Makar will hit restricted free agency and get a major pay bump from his Dennis Gilbert (RFA) sub-$1 million cap hit. The team will also need to re-sign or move on from captain Gabriel Landeskog and starting goalie Philipp Grubauer, both Matt Calvert (UFA) unrestricted free agents. Keaton Middleton So, with limited cap space, one player going to Seattle and pending free agent Brandon Saad likely to attract sizable outside offers, Colorado is Kiefer Sherwood (RFA) set to lose high-level veterans rather than add them. Liam O'Brien (UFA) The Avalanche must submit their protection list for the July 21 expansion Carl Soderberg (UFA) draft by July 17. They can either protect seven forwards, three defensemen and one goaltender, or eight skaters and one goaltender. Jayson Megna (UFA)
Whom will they choose to protect? This list has the Avalanche going the Alex Newhook 7-3-1 route. It also assumes the Avalanche either re-sign Landeskog and Grubauer or protect them so Seattle doesn’t have an exclusive Martin Kaut bargaining window — and that defenseman Erik Johnson agrees to Sheldon Dries (UFA) waive his no-movement clause, which makes sense considering he’s not a logical option for Seattle. He’s 33, played only four games this season Sampo Ranta and has an injury history and a sizable cap hit ($6 million). If Johnson chooses not to waive the no-movement clause, the Avalanche will have Available to protect him, which could lead to them protecting eight total skaters so T.J. Tynan (UFA) as not to leave a defenseman like Makar, Devon Toews or Samuel Girard exposed. Protected
If those assumptions are correct, this is how it could shake out: Miikka Salomaki (UFA)
Colorado Avalanche protected list Exempt
FORWARDS DEFENSEMEN GOALIES (Note: Roster sorted by games played in 2020-21 and exemptions via CapFriendly.) Nazem Kadri Here’s a look at how those decisions were reached: Ryan Graves Forwards Philipp Grubauer (UFA) Nathan MacKinnon: Sorry, Seattle, but MacKinnon isn’t going anywhere Valeri Nichushkin near an unprotected list. He’s one of the best players in the world and the Devon Toews face of the team.
Jonas Johansson (UFA) Mikko Rantanen: Much like MacKinnon, Rantanen is a franchise cornerstone, and the Avalanche have him signed through 2024-2025. Tyson Jost (RFA) Landeskog: Landeskog’s situation is interesting. If the Avalanche sign Samuel Girard him before the expansion draft, he’ll easily be on the protected list. He’s the team captain and averaged nearly a point per game this past season. Devan Dubnyk (UFA) But the team hasn’t had contract talks with him this season, and with the Gabriel Landeskog (UFA) Avalanche’s tight cap situation, they will have to make roster tweaks to afford him, fellow pending UFA Grubauer and RFA Makar. Cale Makar (RFA) Nazem Kadri: The Avalanche missed Kadri’s toughness and scoring Hunter Miska ability against Vegas. He had to serve an eight-game suspension in the playoffs for a Round 1 hit on Justin Faulk. The discipline marked the third Andre Burakovsky costly suspension for Kadri in the past four playoffs, and it puts the Jacob MacDonald Avalanche in an interesting situation when it comes to his expansion draft status. They will have to decide if his postseason suspension history Pavel Francouz impacts how much they can rely on him in big moments. Getting $4.5 million off the books would help save money for the Avalanche’s pending Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (UFA) free agents, but the team’s final four losses against Vegas also show Conor Timmins (RFA) how much it needs physical, hardworking players like Kadri. Losing him for nothing would hurt. Protecting him makes sense.
Andre Burakovsky: Though he’s somewhat hot and cold, Burakovsky goes through stretches in which he looks like a top-line player, and he scored 19 goals in 53 games this regular season. Colorado needs his secondary scoring.
Valeri Nichushkin: Nichushkin is a top-notch forechecker who has rejuvenated his career in Colorado. He makes $2.5 million for another year: a good deal for such a useful player.
Tyson Jost: Jost might have played his way onto the protected list after a strong end to his 2020-21 regular season. He had only 17 points but was important on Colorado’s penalty kill and built good chemistry with Nichushkin. He’s a restricted free agent but should still be relatively cheap for Colorado to keep, considering he had only an $874,125 salary this past season and didn’t put up gaudy numbers.
Defensemen
Makar: When a team has a generational defenseman in his early 20s, it doesn’t leave him unprotected.
Toews: Colorado general manager Joe Sakic made a great move acquiring Toews from the Islanders this past offseason. Analytically, he was one of the best defensemen in the league. Colorado could have a defensive corps of Makar, Toews and Girard for years to come. Sakic won’t mess that up by leaving one exposed, even if it means protecting eight skaters instead of the 7-3-1 route.
Girard: Girard emerged as a first-pairing level defenseman this season and, though he struggled against Vegas, is still only 23. He’s also signed to a manageable $5 million average annual value through 2026-2027 and likely won’t be leaving Colorado anytime soon. Neither will Toews, for that matter. He’s signed through 2023-2024.
Goaltender
Grubauer: Grubauer, an unrestricted free agent, will be on the Avalanche’s protected list if he signs before the expansion draft. He’s coming off a career year in which he posted a 30-9-1 record and a .922 save percentage. His efforts led to league general managers voting him a Vezina Trophy finalist.
So who does that leave exposed? Some notable names:
Forwards
Saad: If the Avalanche can somehow find the cap space to re-sign Saad, he’d go on the protected list. But unless he takes a team-friendly deal or the Avalanche trade other players to make room for his salary, it’s going to be tough to keep him.
Joonas Donskoi: Donskoi had a strong year with Colorado, scoring a career-high 17 goals despite the shortened season. But with the Avalanche needing cap space, losing a player with a $3.9 million salary would serve a purpose, even if the team would miss him.
J.T. Compher: Compher’s situation is similar to Donskoi’s. He’s a contributing player with a cap hit ($3.5 million) that could clear up space.
Defensemen
Johnson: Johnson, the longest-tenured player on the Avalanche, has a no-movement clause. But, as previously discussed, he played only four games this regular season and is an aging defenseman with a history of injury, so he makes next to no sense for the Kraken to draft. There’s reason to believe he will waive his no-movement clause.
Ryan Graves: Graves could be a good option for the Kraken. He’s a big- bodied, capable defenseman who led the league in plus-minus in 2019- 2020. On most teams, he’d be protected, but unless the Avalanche elect to protect eight total skaters rather than seven forwards and three defensemen, he’ll be exposed. That’s the cost of the Avalanche having three stud defensemen in Toews, Makar and Girard.
The Athletic LOADED: 06.13.2021 1215698 Colorado Avalanche
Leftover thoughts from an Avalanche season gone too soon…
By Adrian Dater
Like most of you who frequent this site, I’m still trying to process just what in the heck happened in the past few days with the Colorado Avalanche.
Some stream-of-consciousness thoughts:
My hunch is that Jared Bednar will be back, but in no way am I overconfident on that. But I don’t see Joe Sakic just arbitrarily sacking him. I do think that he’ll take some time to think some things over, but Bednar led a team to a President’s Trophy that had 311 man-games lost to injury. It was still a very good season.
The expansion draft for the Kraken is July 21. Teams have to have their protected/exposed lists in by July 17.
The biggest decision Sakic and Co. have to make is “do we protect four defensemen or just three?”
Conventional wisdom has always held it’s smarter to just protect seven forwards, 3 D and one goalie. But if you have four real good D men, as the Avs do, you can protect four of them and four forwards, along with a goalie.
I think the Avs will do a 7-3-1 list, but that probably means losing Ryan Graves to the Kraken. Yeah, there are youngsters coming who can fill his spot, including Bo Byram, Justin Barron and Drew Helleson.
I think Erik Johnson had a chance to come back in the next series, which makes the loss even tougher to swallow. It would have been nice to see EJ out there.
Everyone assumes EJ will waive his no-move clause, thereby allowing the Avs to expose him to Seattle. But until that happens…
Remember, EJ has earned the right to say no to the Avs on this topic.
But I don’t think he’d want to put the Avs in a bind like that. And besides, I would think the odds the Kraken would take EJ would be fairly low.
With Nazem Kadri still having one year left on his deal, I think the Avs will protect him, keep him and, depending how his and the team’s season goes, think about maybe moving him at the trade deadline. If he’s playing great? Great, he stays.
Again, I’m sorry for letting an F word slip in my question to MacKinnon the other night. I was trying to ask something along the lines of “Hey Nate, if this team is guilty of thinking too much out there, do you ever think the mindset should just be screw it, we’re not gonna get up in our heads so much?” Instead, I mangled the question entirely, used a worse word and got rightly mocked for it. I guess, in my stupid head, I was thinking it was just a couple people in the conversation, and not subject to being streamed everywhere. My apologies, won’t happen again.
Colorado hockey now LOADED: 06.13.2021 1215699 Colorado Avalanche dedicated to this team,” he said after the Game-6 loss. Others, however, are not so sure he’s the man for the job.
The easy way out is to blame the coach and the staff, and, hey, maybe Scott Takes: There’s always next year…again. that is the problem. But blame almost never rests squarely on the shoulders of one member of the team, whether it’s the coach or the captain or the general manager. That’s not what the definition of a team By Scott MacDonald is.
This is an organizational issue. We can point fingers at the coach and his inability to make the proper adjustments. We can question Joe Sakic on “Sure, there’s always next year. It’s all we talk about, I feel like.” his trade-deadline minimalistic moves, both of which severely A defeated—and deflated—Nathan MacKinnon took to the podium underperformed in the postseason. We can blame the team’s stars and following the Avs Game 6, series-losing loss to the Vegas Golden leadership, like Nathan MacKinnon, who couldn’t seem to breakthrough Knights, slumping behind the microphone. against Vegas.
“I’m going into my ninth year and I haven’t won shit,” he said, clearly You can’t fire the whole team. So, do you can fire the coach, who has exasperated and exhausted—more so emotionally than physically. one year remaining on his contract? You can shake things up in any number of ways. In what ways is that? I don’t know, and I’m glad I’m not It’s been nine years for MacKinnon. It’s been 20 years for the city. the one calling those shots.
But this year was supposed to be different, though. Colorado had been I can tell you, from my perspective, there’s an issue with toughness, both the Stanley Cup favorites for the better part of the last six months. This mental and physical. The Avs aren’t built like a playoff team, and they was supposed to be the best roster the Avalanche has had since ‘01. don’t have the confidence to be a playoff team that makes it the distance. This was supposed to be the year. They proved it in the regular season. When the going gets tough, they can’t rise to the occasion. Vegas, on the They faltered when it mattered most. other hand, got molly-wopped in Game 1 and got a game stolen from them in Game 2 to go down in an 0-2 hole, and ufabet had the series “I thought we fought real hard and battled and played our asses off,” Avs over. But they made the mental adjustments necessary to rise to the captain Gabe Landeskog said, as the sounds of the Vegas Golden occasion, though. Knights locker room celebration echoed through the halls of T-Mobile Arena and through the speakers of the post-game Zoom conference. The Avs don’t quite have that. At least not yet.
“I’m real proud of that group in there. I’m proud of the season we had. Maybe coach Bednar has taken this team as far as he can. The Avs stoic You’re never gonna be satisfied until you win that final game of the bench boss forged an identity and a culture that has irrefutably worked season. It sucks.” on his players…to a certain degree. But maybe that culture and way of thinking just isn’t ideal for playoff hockey. Maybe a new head coach, Indeed it does, and for the third straight year, there won’t be a party at someone like Gerard Gallant or a John Tortorella or a Bruce Boudreau, Civic Center Park. Instead, the Avs find themselves hitting the links and could instill some toughness and grittiness on the soft-around-the-edges checking into their summer homes earlier than they’d like. Sans Stanley Avalanche team. I don’t know. Cup. I would be willing to give Jared Bednar the final season of his contract, We can try and look at all of the positives all we want. Sure, there’s been banking on him coaching the hell out of his team while he’s in a contract steady progress since that atrocious 2016-17 season. The following year, year. But I’m also willing to hear out arguments that he’s taken this team the Avs shocked the world and snuck into the postseason. That was a as far as he can. It’s a fair point. Will Joe Sakic be having a serious big moral victory. It was a turning of the tide. conversation with coach Bednar in the coming days? Absolutely. In ‘18-’19, they fought to the second round, improving over their past The whole team will be having some serious conversations. Start with the season. man in the mirror. Last year, in the Edmonton bubble, they fought back from a 3-1 deficit Go back to the drawing board. against Dallas and were minutes away from punching their ticket to the Western Conference Final, despite playing two-thirds of a healthy roster It’s all you can do now. and relying on a third-string goalie. We can cut ‘em some slack on that, though it was disappointing nonetheless. And, remember, there’s always next year.
This year, well, there really are no excuses. Colorado hockey now LOADED: 06.13.2021
The fact is, the Avalanche failed. They still haven’t made it out of the second round since 2002.
What more can the Avs do?
That’s a question that’s pretty hard to answer, whether you’re MacKinnon or Landeskog, or fifth-year head coach Jared Bednar, or general manager Joe Sakic.
Still, it’s a question that needs to be answered, and it needs to be answered quickly.
The window’s been wide open for the past three seasons. It still could be open for another year or two. Maybe more. But with so many large contracts expected to get doled out between captain Gabe Landeskog, your Calder Trophy-winner and Norris finalist Cale Makar, and your Vezina Finalist Philipp Grubauer, Sakic will likely be hamstrung by cap space moving forward.
The Avs will have to get younger and play their entry-level, cheap- contract guys next season, while parting ways with some veteran leadership, like Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Matt Calvert, and potentially Erik Johnson and Brandon Saad. Indeed, the Avs will be young next season. And with youth comes inexperience, and inexperience is what has been the insurmountable hump in the postseason for Colorado.
Do you point at leadership as the issue? Can Jared Bednar lead this Avalanche team to Cup glory? “I’m confident I can guide this team. I’m 1215700 Dallas Stars the roster? Or maybe the Stars sign free agents such as Mike Hoffman or Blake Coleman?
For three years, Benn’s production has hovered around a 52-point mark, The experiment with Jamie Benn at center paid off. What does that mean an output not commensurate with a top-line winger. But a tertiary option for the Stars next season? as a center? That may do.
“We liked it, and he liked it,” Bowness said. “He enjoyed playing center. By Matthew DeFranks1:39 PM on Jun 12, 2021 CDT As I’ve said many times, it’s the best I’ve seen him skate in the three years I’ve been here.”
Dallas Morning News LOADED: 06.13.2021 In order to receive vintage production from Jamie Benn, the Stars will try a vintage tactic: keeping the left wing at center.
Dallas and coach Rick Bowness experimented with the position change late in the 2020-21 season, playing the captain in the middle for the year’s final 19 games. The production ticked up for Benn, who had 10 5- on-5 points as a winger (1.34 points per 60 minutes) and nine as a center (2.11 per 60).
The plan going into next season is to keep Benn as a center.
“We love big, strong, physical centermen, and he certainly fits that build,” Bowness said during exit interviews last month. “I talked to him almost every day about it, and he enjoyed playing center. We certainly liked the look we got from him playing center. Absolutely, we’ll be looking at that for next year.”
The experiment sat well with Benn, too, who filled a void down the middle as the Stars missed Tyler Seguin (for all but three games) and Roope Hintz (who had surgery to repair a groin injury). He anchored the second line with Denis Gurianov on his right wing and Jason Dickinson and Tanner Kero rotating on his left wing.
“You feel like you can control the game a little better, have the puck a lot coming through the middle of the ice,” Benn said. “You’re able to make plays, and that’s really what I liked about it the most.”
Former Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk moved Benn to center from 2011-13 as a way to shore up depth in the middle of the ice. A decade ago, Benn struggled with faceoffs (46.2% in those two seasons) and returned to left wing once Jim Nill arrived in 2013.
He was named the league’s first-team left wing in two of the next three seasons and won the Art Ross Trophy in the year he was the NHL’s second-team left wing. So he remained at left wing as Nill acquired Seguin and Jason Spezza to play center.
“They tried to play me at center, wasn’t really a big fan,” Benn said. “I think it’s different to play center in this league at a young age. I played wing my whole life, the transition was a little hard for me, probably. After a few years, obviously know the game a little more so I was more comfortable this time.”
Benn was one of the league’s best in faceoffs this season, and his 56.1% mark was 12th among players with at least 450 faceoffs taken. He was one of the league’s best defensive forwards at 5 on 5, as opponents scored 1.02 goals per 60 minutes while Benn was on the ice, fifth-fewest in the league.
The next question is how does Benn’s placement at center affect the rest of the Stars’ lineup?
The Stars like playing Benn and Seguin together, which would mean one of them is playing wing. But if Dallas split them up, it could potentially put together three scoring lines centered by Hintz, Seguin and Benn, filled in by some assortment of wingers such as Jason Robertson, Joe Pavelski, Alexander Radulov, Denis Gurianov and either prospects or acquisitions.
“I told him he looked better at center, but I know, as he always said ‘It’s a lot more work at center,’ so I don’t know if he’s going to want to do that for an 82-game season,” Seguin said with a laugh. “But I might push for him to stay at center for a bit and let me take two nights off on the wing and just cruise around some shifts.”
A third scoring line is something the Stars have lacked in recent seasons, missing due to roster management or untimely injuries. But Dallas will have a chance next year with Radulov and Pavelski in the final years of their contracts, plus the emergences of Hintz and Robertson.
The Stars may need an injection of skill on the edges, but Benn’s move to center would give them some versatility, just as Pavelski’s ability to move between center and right wing seamlessly does. Perhaps prospects Riley Damiani or Adam Mascherin can make the jump to fill out 1215701 Detroit Red Wings
Red Wings’ Troy Stecher wins gold with Canada at Worlds; U.S. takes bronze
By Ansar Khan
Detroit Red Wings defenseman Troy Stecher will return home from the World Championship with a gold medal after Canada defeated Finland 3- 2 in overtime Sunday in the championship game in Riga, Latvia.
Nick Paul (Ottawa) scored at 6:26 of OT. Adam Henrique (Anaheim) scored the tying goal with 7:23 remaining in regulation.
Stecher registered four shots in a game-high 27:46 of ice time.
Former Red Wing Gerard Gallant was Canada’s head coach.
Meanwhile, the United States defeated Germany 6-1 in the bronze medal game.
Conor Garland (Arizona) picked up a goal and two assists while Tage Thompson (Buffalo) collected three assists for the U.S. Cal Petersen (Los Angeles) made 33 saves.
Former Red Wing Justin Abdelkader served as team captain before suffering a leg injury that kept him out of the final four games.
Moritz Seider, Detroit’s top 2019 pick, had no points, three shots and a minus-2 rating in 19:32, leading German defensemen in ice time.
Michigan Live LOADED: 06.13.2021 1215702 Detroit Red Wings And when he did, he found an atmosphere that hooked him. “I think it is very similar to European soccer as well,” he said. “Where
there’s just a constant chorus of singing and chanting. Every arena has Two online passion projects help fans track the Red Wings’ top prospects like a cheering section for the most hardcore fans that kind of lead the in Sweden entire arena in song and dance and all this jubilation.”
He estimates that by the end of his study abroad, he had taken “almost everyone on the program” to a game. By Max Bultman Jun 12, 2021 When he returned home, he brought that fandom with him, getting up early on Saturdays to watch games back in Sweden, or putting them on when he was at the school library. Once he had followed long enough to Last September, shortly before the start of the 2020-21 Swedish Hockey have a lay of the land, he started a separate Twitter account League season, Zach Ellenthal went live with a new project — an (@zellenthal_swe) just to start sharing his Swedish hockey thoughts advanced hockey stats website called Svengelska Hockey, dedicated to without annoying his main account’s followers. Sweden’s top professional league. Growing up in Connecticut, he still roots for his childhood team, the The site was the result of the 26-year-old Ellenthal’s love affair with the Rangers. But over time, he’s found his affinity for Swedish hockey having SHL, stemming from a study abroad semester in Stockholm in fall 2014. more pull than his NHL fandom. He had grown up a lifelong hockey fan with a taste for analytics, so as he began learning to code about two years ago, he sought to replicate some “There’s something more pure about Swedish hockey to me,” said of the NHL-based work and visualizations he had followed. Ellenthal, who can read and watch broadcasts in Swedish. “It’s more about rooting for your team to win, and there’s not considerations about Ellenthal wanted Svengelska Hockey to be a resource for a primarily tanking for draft position, or evaluating players through the lens of their Swedish and SHL audience — and it was. But as he tracked the user contract. People don’t complain endlessly on Twitter. Like if someone base over the course of the season, he also observed another trend: turns the puck over on your NHL team, you can do a Twitter search for about 40 percent of the site’s users were in the U.S. and Canada, with them and they’ll say, ‘Get this guy off my team, he’s a bum, I want him nearly 40 percent of the U.S. traffic coming specifically from Michigan. traded.’ There’s none of that in Swedish hockey.” “I didn’t really set out to have the site be a prospect resource,” Ellenthal That, and he was drawn to the smaller business emphasis in SHL acknowledged recently. But thanks to the Red Wings’ massive contingent fandom. of prospects in Sweden, Ellenthal’s fledgling website had indeed turned into a vital tool for fans (and media) in Detroit to follow along with the “It just reminds me of watching sports as a kid,” Ellenthal said. “Before franchise’s future lifeblood. you kind of view the game through a more adult, businesslike lens.”
With hockey seasons delayed in North America, the Red Wings had That doesn’t mean he didn’t like numbers, though. Ellenthal has kept up arguably their five top prospects all playing in the SHL. That included with hockey analytics for the better part of the last decade, used several their last two top-10 picks in Moritz Seider and Lucas Raymond, 2018 different advanced stats sites as they’ve popped up, and has thought, first-round pick Joe Veleno, as well as Jonatan Berggren and Albert over the years, that running one would be a fun project. He’s also been Johansson — second-round picks from the 2018 and 2019 drafts. working in a quantitative-heavy job (he’s a digital marketing and product Raymond, Berggren and Johansson are all Swedes and would have analyst), and two years ago began learning to code. He’s picked up little likely been there regardless, but the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the tidbits he’s seen hockey analysts share on Twitter, or from hockey AHL and NHL was enough to lead Veleno (who is Canadian) and Seider analytics conferences, and then discovered a textbook about baseball (a German) to the league on loans, where they could play full seasons stats with the programming language “R.” against high-level competition. Between those two loves, his site was born, with him trying to replicate Seider, in particular, tore through the league, eventually receiving the visualizations he’d seen elsewhere and translate them onto the Swedish league’s defenseman of the year honors after playing most of the season league. at age 19. And Ellenthal’s free website was one of the sites best equipped to illustrate his dominance along the way. (Full disclosure: I “Those player cards that I do, is really just me trying to do as verbatim a was an early adopter of the site and used it to track the Detroit contingent copy as possible of Micah Blake McCurdy’s work that he does on his all year.) HockeyViz site,” Ellenthal said.
THE SHL REGULAR SEASON IS STARTING TO END FOR SOME The name, Svengelska Hockey, is derived from the Swedish equivalent PLAYERS AND TEAMS, INCLUDING MORITZ SEIDER. HERE'S HIS of “Spanglish,” an amalgamation of the Swedish words for Swedish COMPLETE GAME-BY-GAME PLAYER CARD, ONE OF THE MOST (Svenska) and English (Engelska). It’s a fitting name for an American MEMORABLE SHL SEASONS IN RECENT MEMORY: digging deeper into the Swedish hockey scene. PIC.TWITTER.COM/WSDZKVMRLD Zach Ellenthal’s study abroad semester in Sweden led him to found the — SVENGELSKA HOCKEY (@SVENGELSKAHKY) MARCH 27, 2021 website Svengelska Hockey. (Courtesy of Zach Ellenthal)
But though the allures of easily tracking prospects’ trends in possession As our conversation went on though, one curiosity popped up. Ellenthal’s stats (and more) are surely what put the website onto the radar in Detroit description of Swedish hockey culture was an endorphin rush to listen to — with NHL futures in mind — the site’s origins actually stem from the — the purity of just riding the highs and lows of winning and losing, not contrasts the site’s creator found between the SHL and NHL. sweating contract terms or having to bury someone for a bad play. Hockey analytics certainly doesn’t preclude those outlooks on the game, Ellenthal attended Colby College, a small liberal arts school in Maine, as especially ones as simple as shot share and points per 60. But if the a global studies major. Studying abroad, of course, was part of the Swedish league’s charm was in part because of its apparent liberation program. from business-driven micro-quibbles with players’ performance, was there any chance proliferating the league’s publicly available advanced Thinking back, he says hockey wasn’t the reason he went to Sweden, but stats could dent that quality? grants that the fan in him may have been subconsciously attracted to one of the world’s great hockey nations. He can even remember sitting in “I’m someone who craves this type of data,” Ellenthal said. “And I want to class the previous spring, refreshing a box score, following along to see understand better how players are performing and trying to kind of whether Stockholm’s local club, Djurgårdens IF, would receive promotion increase the profile of how we can do analysis with Swedish hockey from the second-division HockeyAllsvenskan to the SHL — bringing the players and the league. But I really only bring a positive attitude to it. I’m top league back to the city. not setting out to figure out who’s the most overrated player and who is the most overpaid player. That’s not really my goal with this. “I was just hoping and praying that they would go up to the SHL so I’d have easy access to SHL games,” Ellenthal said. “And fortunately they “I think my goal is to make certain data and certain visualizations did win that game, and I got the chance to go to 10 or 11 SHL games that accessible, kind of try and get to parity as much as possible with some of fall.” the NHL analysis that is out there. But I’m not setting out, at least personally, to use it as a tool to say, ‘All right this team sucks, or this player is on a huge scoring drought, or this guy’s not worth the Being as far north as he is, the lack of daylight certainly gave him some investment this team made.’ … I think there is much more of a positive time to kill — Robert said during the winter it’s dark for 20 hours, and attitude that the entire culture and fan base kind of approaches Swedish certainly cold out. Add in the extra incentive to stay home during the hockey with.” pandemic, and it gets easier to understand how he found the time to keep Detroiters apprised of the latest must-see moments in Sweden. And because of the success Detroit’s prospects had this year, there wasn’t much to be negative about when it came to Seider, Raymond and Robert estimates he watched at least 200 SHL games this season, company. Ellenthal cited the Red Wings fan base finding the site as “one keeping up especially closely with Seider, Berggren, Johansson and of the first real bumps in traffic” for Svengelska Hockey. Raymond.
Now that Veleno has returned to North America, and with Seider, “It’s never been more fun to watch the SHL either,” he said. Raymond and Berggren poised to come stateside as well, many of those players will be much easier for Detroiters to keep up with. But the extra The Athletic LOADED: 06.13.2021 lens through which to view them from afar only added to the hype for the unique contingent.
“I’ve certainly never seen anything like the collection of Red Wings prospects that were playing in the SHL this year, or all across Sweden,” Ellenthal said. “Like truly an unprecedented batch — not in terms of number of prospects but just the elite, high-end quality of them … all playing in the same league at one time in a 14-team league. So really unprecedented, never seen anything like it.”
It also opened some doors for Ellenthal himself: Friday, SHL club Rögle (where Seider played) announced it had hired Ellenthal as a hockey analyst.
RÖGLE FÖRSTÄRKER ORGANISATIONEN MED HOCKEYANALYTIKERN @ZELLENTHAL. VÄLKOMMEN, ZACH! #ROGLEBKHTTPS://T.CO/C0PJSS2ZVO
— RÖGLE BK (@ROGLE_BK) JUNE 11, 2021
If Ellenthal’s site was the best way to contextualize Detroit’s prospects, though, another newly created online resource filled in the gap on the other crucial element: actually seeing them play.
Speaking from experience, finding real-time video feeds from Sweden was not always easy.
One source that could be consistently counted upon for near-live highlights, though, was another 2020-21 season pop-up: a Twitter account launched in October called @IcehockeyG. The page follows no one, serving only to post video highlights of Detroit’s SHL prospects, as well as the occasional stat or chart. As of Thursday, it had more than 2,300 followers — not an overwhelming number, but one that includes the Red Wings’ official team account, allowing the page to reach large parts of the fan base in moments.
“I remember seeing on some of the forums and stuff, it would take like two seconds from posting to the links being shared around,” said the account’s founder, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Robert. “And then of course I saw the official Red Wings channel shared some clips, and then I started realizing, OK, this is not just a small subsection of fans that are seeing this. It’s a big part of the fan base.”
And though Ellenthal’s Swedish hockey project was based in the U.S., Robert’s originated in Sweden — in one of the northernmost parts of the country, above the Arctic Circle.
“I’m about as far north as you can get,” he said.
Robert, it turns out, has been a longtime Red Wings fan, dating back to his childhood in the 1990s — a product of the franchise’s heyday teams filling up the highlight reel.
For the last couple of years, he’d had the idea to do a blog or a YouTube channel, but the wheels really started turning for him this season, when the Red Wings chose Raymond with the fourth pick in the amateur draft. Then Detroit loaned Seider to the league as well.
“That’s when I kind of felt, ‘OK, I have to do something about this, to give some more spotlight to what these kids are doing over here in Sweden,’” Robert said. “I knew there would be some interest, of course, because they’re top prospects. But it kind of blew up, and I think it’s because so many of these young players have really exceeded expectations.”
That meant his hobby grew, too. With so many players in the league, there were sometimes as many as four or five different games going at once he needed to pay attention to, to see (and clip) highlight-worthy moments promptly. That meant having one game on TV, one on his computer and another on his phone — with some extra work during intermissions to get caught up. 1215703 Edmonton Oilers Sometime in the next two to three weeks, Oilers GM Ken Holland will have a chat with Klefbom about how his major shoulder surgery is coming along. Klefbom, back in Sweden, will probably tell him one of two things: “It’s not good Ken, it’s not coming along. I don’t think I can play OILERS NOTES: Is Jake DeBrusk a trade target for Edmonton? anymore,” or “I’ll give it a shot in October at training camp and we’ll see then. Have no idea until exhibition games how it will hold up.” With the Bruins in a cash-crunch, trying to find money to resign David Krejci, Tuukka Rask and Hall, something has to give and maybe that’s RELATIONSHIP IS OVER DeBrusk, although when you’re coming off a 14-point season, you’re selling low Gaetan Haas won’t make nearly the yearly money in Switzerland he made here ($915,000), but with a five-year contract in Biel, “it’s great security for him in his home country” admits Holland. Haas has an out- clause until August 15 to listen to other NHL teams’ offers to stay in North Jim Matheson Edmonton Journal America but it wasn’t working here. His major problem: while willing to go into battles for pucks he didn’t have NHL strength and was often knocked down. Should the Edmonton Oilers make a trade play for Jake DeBrusk? Or are they set on looking for another element on left-wing, like Brandon Saad This ‘n that: Oilers farm coach Jay Woodcroft, who has done a bang-up or Zach Hyman, older more costly, as free-agents? job in Bakersfield, hasn’t interviewed in Arizona, which is a mistake because he’s well-qualified to be an NHL head coach … The Oilers have It’s a quixotic question about DeBrusk because Jake is from here and his to qualify restricted free-agent centre Jujhar Khaira at $1.2-million to dad Louie does the TV commentary with Jack Michaels, which might be keep his rights. No guarantee they will do so. In the closing playoff game a little dicey, although it’s not like playing for your dad like Adam Lowry in against Winnipeg, he played 11 minutes of a triple OT game (5:40 on the Winnipeg where his pop Dave is the Jets assistant coach. penalty-kill), which is a tell. Ryan McLeod looks like the 4C right now … Tampa’s UFA forward Barclay Goodrow is definitely on their radar. He’s The only reason we’re even talking about a trade is because DeBrusk playing wing with Yanni Gourde but he can be a third-line centre too. seems to have lost his way in Boston, tumbling to 14 points in 41 games (five goals) this year — vacillating between second and third line, more Edmonton Sun: LOADED: 06.13.2021 time on right-wing than his normal left after they traded for Taylor Hall. It was a season where he got Covid and was out for a few weeks; as a single guy, a lonely existence in lockdown mode. He was often playing on his off-side because Brad Marchand, Hall and Nick Ritchie were ahead of him on left-wing. He is not comfortable on the right. He was a healthy scratch in Game 5 of the Bruins series with the New York Islanders.
With the Bruins in a cash-crunch, trying to find money to resign David Krejci, Tuukka Rask and Hall, something has to give and maybe that’s DeBrusk, although when you’re coming off a 14-point season, you’re selling low.
DeBrusk, with a $3.65-million cap hit has speed and normally good hands and would be manageable for the Oilers if he’s on the second line. But his salary is $4.85 million this upcoming season. That seems too big to swallow, unless they can find a $3 million player to deal. Would Bruins be interested in Zack Kassian?
DeBrusk has gone from 43 points as a rookie to 27 goals and 42 in his second season, to 35 and now 14. Something’s wrong; the Bruins once had a group of kids at wing they liked (Danton Heinen, Ryan Donato, Anders Bjork, all but DeBrusk traded).
DeBrusk wouldn’t be the first, first-round pick to maybe need a change of address. Some players want to play at home, while with others it’s a bad fit. Mike Comrie didn’t like it the first go-round. Joffrey Lupul struggled in his one year here. All we know is the Oilers seriously need help on left- wing.
“My haters had a lot to say this year … I’ve got to prove a lot of people wrong,” said DeBrusk, still only 24, at the Bruins’ break-up day after their playoff ouster to the Islanders, acknowledging he didn’t play well. “I have to revamp my game. I dealt with a lot of negativity this year. I’m a big boy, I can handle that. I became a bit of an easy target.”
At this time, DeBrusk figures to be protected as one of Boston’s seven forwards in the Seattle expansion draft because Hall and Krejci are unrestricted free-agents, with Patrice Bergeron, Marchand, David Pastrnak, Charlie Coyle and Craig Smith the top five. Maybe Ritchie or Trent Frederic and DeBrusk are the last two protected forwards, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t still trade DeBrusk before the draft to a team for a player they could also protect.
WHERE ART THOU?
If Seattle wants to swing for the fences and take defenceman Oscar Klefbom, who will almost surely not be protected by the Oilers in the expansion draft because of his major shoulder concerns, the 32nd NHL team has probably done their homework on his contract. Reports suggest the contract is not insured. If taken and he goes on long-term injury if his shoulder isn’t healed after surgery, they’re on the hook for $8.2-million over two years not an outside party. So, a gamble for them. 1215704 Edmonton Oilers At the end of the 2019-20 season, most observers agreed that Samorukov needed at least one more AHL season before being NHL- ready.
Lowetide: How close to NHL-ready is Oilers prospect Dmitri Samorukov? Rocket to Russia
In mid-July 2020, the Oilers announced Samorukov would be loaned to the CSKA Moscow franchise in the KHL. It was perfect timing, with the By Allan Mitchell Jun 12, 2021 NHL and AHL season in North America uncertain of a start date, for Samorukov to get plenty of playing time in a strong league — vital at this
point in his career. The left side of the Edmonton Oilers defence is in a period of transition. The young defender emerged as a first-class addition to the Moscow An area that previously enjoyed great stability, led by Oscar Klefbom and team, playing big minutes at even strength and getting impressive Darnell Nurse, now faces the future with a great deal of uncertainty. results. Here are the even-strength goal differential numbers for all CSKA One of the major questions on the left side pertains to Klefbom’s ability to Moscow regulars during the 2020-21 season: return to full health and play this fall or winter. Right behind that question PLAYER GAMES TOI PER GAME EV GF-GA comes a litany of questions best summed up as “Who will land behind DIFFERENCE Nurse on the depth chart?” Mat Robinson One of those questions involves young Russian defenceman Dmitri Samorukov. When we last saw him in North America, he was struggling 52 with the pace and grueling schedule of the AHL, but his 2020-21 season spent in the KHL was a real eye-opener. 20:11
How close is Samorukov? Can he help Edmonton during the 2021-22 39-24 season? Should the answer to that question inform general manager Ken 15 Holland’s path forward this summer? Let’s have a look, starting with Samorukov’s AHL season in 2019-20. Bogdan Kiselevich
Bakersfield Condors 2019-20 defence 48
The Condors had a tough year in 2019-20, with injuries and recalls 18:48 affecting every part of the roster. The loss of veteran starting goalie Shane Starrett to injury was especially difficult for the team and is 35-27 reflected in the even-strength goal differentials for the blueliners: 8
PLAYER EV GF-GA DIFFERENCE Dmitri Samorukov
William Lagesson 48
25-23 17:29
2 38-14
Joel Persson 24
24-26 Klas Dahlbeck
-2 53
Caleb Jones 17:10
11-16 45-17
-5 28
Dmitri Samorukov Artem Blazhiyevsky
28-34 46
-6 15:41
Keegan Lowe 21-16
39-48 5
-9 Yegor Rykov
Evan Bouchard 49
41-51 15:16
-10 32-21
Logan Day 11
25-41 From this information, we can see Samorukov flourished on the second -16 pairing in 2020-21 with CSKA Moscow, helped by former Chicago Blackhawks and Carolina Hurricanes defenceman Klas Dahlbeck. Samorukov finished in the middle of the defensive group at even-strength goal differential, but that’s a little deceiving. He received sheltered CSKA Moscow was a strong team in 2020-21, outscoring opponents at minutes, especially in the first half of the year (15-17 goal differential in even strength by 53 goals (139-86). Samorukov, who played his off his first 26 games), before moving up the depth chart and struggling (right) side during the season, was on a pairing that tore a hole through more (13-17 in his final 21 games). the opposition at even strength. It’s an extreme positive for Samorukov and the Oilers organization.
Injury Samorukov suffered a shoulder injury during practice later in the KHL Samorukov is intriguing, and I believe there’s plenty of evidence that he season, meaning he was unable to return and play for the Bakersfield is closer to the NHL than fellow prospect Philip Broberg. His ability to Condors when the AHL season got underway. It was an opportunity play his off side gives him extra utility, and there’s a chance coach Dave missed, as a strong run in the AHL would have further confirmed a major Tippett will deploy him and his giant wingspan on the penalty kill in short step forward for the defenceman. order.
Samorukov last played on Feb. 7, so there will be a seven-month gap How close is Samorukov to the NHL? No one should be shocked if he between his injury and training camp. His shoulder issue shouldn’t affect plays NHL games in 2021-22, but an opening-night assignment is too his availability for deployment in the fall, but it is one more consideration aggressive to be realistic. as management plans the NHL and AHL rosters for 2021-22. The Athletic LOADED: 06.13.2021 Current status
Ordinarily, we could cobble together an accurate depth chart and estimate Samorukov’s starting position for opening night 2021-22. The problem with drawing any strong conclusions this far out is the large number of factors at play. The expansion draft, Klefbom’s injury, the organization’s assessment of Caleb Jones’ ability to make the next step to top-four minutes, and other factors affecting players who could occupy the Oilers’ second and third pairings in the NHL.
It’s impossible to estimate with any degree of accuracy now.
What we can do is create a depth chart assuming everyone on the current roster returns — Klefbom emerges healthy, the Seattle Kraken take a forward (or goalie), and the Edmonton left side defensively remains the same.
Fall depth chart (NHL and AHL)
The Oilers averaged 51:35 minutes per game at even strength during the 2020-21 season, 5:53 on the power play and 5:42 on the penalty kill. With a young player like Samorukov, it’s a safe bet he’ll see only even- strength minutes early in his NHL career.
Nurse played 21:45 at even strength in 2021-22, about 42 percent of the total playing time in that game state. That’s about 90 seconds more than his previous season, when Klefbom was healthy, so that average could see a reduction if the smooth Swedish defender returns.
Assuming Nurse and Klefbom (18:58 at even strength in 2019-20) are fully charged, the third-pairing defenceman on the left-hand side for Edmonton will be dealing with about 11 minutes a night at even strength. It might range to 15 some nights, but that’s the NHL opening in the fall if Nurse and Klefbom are present and accounted for in training camp.
Players signed for next season who met that 11-minute requirement a year ago include Kris Russell (16:12), Jones (12:55) and William Lagesson (12:49). Dmitry Kulikov and Slater Koekkoek, unrestricted free agents this summer, also played more than 11 even-strength minutes.
Conclusion: Absent a defenceman lost to injury (Klefbom), expansion or trade, the depth chart in Edmonton this fall would be: Nurse, Klefbom, Russell, Jones and Lagesson.
Samorukov’s 2021-22 season
When Samorukov left Bakersfield in 2020, he would have safely been described as a third-pair AHL defenceman with impressive potential.
The KHL is a quality league, so his performance in that league on a second pair suggests that he has progressed significantly.
Now, let’s answer those earlier questions.
How close is Samorukov? A good guess has him at least half a season of AHL action away from being ready to push for NHL employment. He would not be a strong candidate to audition for Klefbom’s minutes (should the veteran be unable to play), and there are multiple options for third-pair defencemen who are under contract and more likely to start the season in Edmonton.
Can he help Edmonton during the 2021-22 season? Samorukov has size (6-foot-2, 198 pounds), speed, a mean streak and the ability to win battles along the wall. He is not an offensive defenceman, despite scoring the first goal of the KHL season one year ago. His role in the NHL, at least initially, will be as a third-pairing option.
Should Samorukov’s status inform general manager Ken Holland’s path forward this summer? It’s a stretch to suggest Samorukov should be a factor for a roster spot in training camp this fall. If Klefbom can’t play, Holland may re-sign Kulikov or another veteran to fill in until Klefbom is ready (if he plays). 1215705 Montreal Canadiens Montreal Gazette LOADED: 06.13.2021
'I believed in this team from the start': Habs GM Marc Bergevin happy to see his moves pay off
The Canadiens were the last team to qualify for the playoffs but Bergevin said he never lost confidence in the team he assembled.
Pat Hickey Montreal Gazette
As the Canadiens departed for Las Vegas and a date with the Golden Knights in the Stanley Cup semifinal, general manager Marc Bergevin paused to say: “I told you so.”
The Canadiens were the last team to qualify for the playoffs but Bergevin said he never lost confidence in the team he assembled.
“I believed in this team from the start,” Bergevin said Saturday after the team held a final practice in Brossard before boarding a charter flight to Sin City. “Even in January when I said I was building a playoff team, that’s what I thought. There are always obstacles. There are two kinds of hockey, one for the season and one for the playoffs. You can’t build a team one way and change the staff for the playoffs. There are always risks to be taken, but it is paying off today. ”
“There were tough times during the year,” Bergevin added. “I think of our 25 games in 44 days. That period hurt both us physically and mentally. We also played in the Canadian division where there was a lot of travel between East and West. It all goes into the mix.”
But Bergevin said his faith never wavered, even when Toronto took a 3-1 series lead in the first round.
“For Toronto, I was calm when I woke up,” he said. “I knew the veterans had spoken, that the players had had good discussions. Perry, Staal, Allen, Eddy (Edmundson) and Weber have said some important things. It also takes luck. But it seems to be going well. I am very proud of our team. ”
Canadiens Notebook: GM Marc Bergevin's lucky suit seems to be working
Bergevin doesn’t like the term rebuild but there’s no other word to describe what he has accomplished. Ten of the players who have dressed for these playoffs weren’t with the team last season. The wisdom of some of those acquisitions has been questioned but it’s difficult to argue with the results — a comeback win over Toronto and a sweep of the Winnipeg Jets in the North Division
There is also an ongoing debate over the wisdom of the 2017 decision to give goaltender Carey Price an eight-year deal with an annual cap hit of $10.5 million U.S. but, faced with the possibility of having Price test the free-agent market, Bergevin said signing Price was a no-brainer.
“As you see in the playoffs, the teams that go far have goalies who play well,” said Bergevin. “To be successful, it takes a goaltender who’s up to the task. We had Price in Montreal and there was no reason to let him go and see him be successful elsewhere. It was a thoughtful decision, but still the best one we made.”
Head coach Dominique Ducharme also addressed the media Saturday and expressed thanks to Bergevin for having confidence in him. Bergevin also thanked Ducharme because, when the players embraced Ducharme’s system, the results most likely guaranteed that coach and general manager will return next season.
The team’s final practice in Brossard was a high-energy affair and featured some furious one-on-one battles in front of the net.
Jake Evans, who is recovering from a concussion, skated on the secondary rink with a member of the training staff. When he crossed the main rink to reach the dressing room, his teammates saluted him by tapping their sticks. Ducharme said Evans was three or four days away from being cleared to play but he won’t see action until he’s 100 per cent.
Evans, Jeff Petry and Jon Merrill all accompanied the team to Vegas but they are all doubtful for Game 1 Monday (9 p.m., CBC, SN, TVA Sports, TSN-690 Radio, 98.5 FM). 1215706 New York Islanders
Islanders’ Casey Cizikas motivated by 2020 playoff injury setback
By Mollie Walker June 13, 2021 | 12:06am
TAMPA — The Islanders had to play a majority of the 2020 Eastern Conference finals without center Casey Cizikas, who suffered a detached retina and was ruled out of last season’s playoffs after Game 2 against the Lightning.
Cizikas, the middle man on the Islanders’ fourth “Identity” line, is ready to make up for the lost time.
“It was frustrating,” Cizikas said Saturday ahead of Sunday’s Game 1 of the Stanley Cup semifinals at 3 p.m. at Tampa Bay. “I took it hard. You get so far and to kind of have to go out like that, it wasn’t easy. But here we are again, and I’m excited. I think everybody’s excited and we’re ready to go.”
Without Cizikas, the Islanders were missing an element to their physicality and suddenly weren’t as deep down the middle as they usually are. Who knows if he would’ve made a legitimate difference, considering he had just two assists last postseason prior to his injury, but he was certainly a player the Islanders missed. Michael Dal Colle, who hasn’t played a single game these playoffs, replaced Cizikas in the lineup.
Cizikas was healthy by the start of this season and competed in all 56 games. The 30-year-old finished with seven goals and seven assists. Through 12 playoff games this season, Cizikas has two goals and two assists — including the overtime winner in Game 2 against the Bruins in the second round.
“I think he left a huge hole,” coach Barry Trotz said. “Casey brings penalty killing, he gives grit, he gives you all the late-game situations, he gives you faceoffs. Casey went out early and later on [defenseman Adam] Pelech went out, so those are two pretty big ingredients to what we do.”
Oliver Wahlstrom is still classified as “day-to-day” with a lower-body injury he suffered at the end of the first-round series against the Penguins, according to Trotz, but is “getting very close to being available.”
However, even if Wahlstrom becomes an option, Trotz said there’s no guarantee the rookie will get back into the lineup right away.
“It may be based on play, based on what Tampa is trying to match up and the results that we get,” he said. “Right now, I’m pretty happy with our group, Wally included. It will be a tough decision. But we’ll walk through every situation that we would use a player, how valuable they would be in those situations and how much ice time they may get to do what they do.”
Veteran Travis Zajac, who was acquired from the Devils at the trade deadline along with Kyle Palmieri, has skated in Wahlstrom’s place on the third line. He has a goal and an assist in seven playoff games this season.
New York Post LOADED: 06.13.2021 1215707 New York Islanders was on for the entire season, which surmounted to $2,896,551. But both players will not return this postseason.
Teams routinely use LTIR, but the waters become murky when players Lightning’s controversial Nikita Kucherov move draws more ire before are brought back just in time for the playoffs. The question is, could Islanders series Kucherov have returned at the end of the regular season? That’s something we’ll never know.
“I didn’t make the rules, whether it’s cap space or something like that,” By Mollie Walker June 12, 2021 | 3:50pm | Updated Kucherov said Friday. “It’s not me, I didn’t do it on purpose. I had to do the surgery.”
New York Post LOADED: 06.13.2021 So, let’s address the cap maneuvering in the room, shall we?
The Islanders are about to take on a Lightning team that has a 20-man lineup nearly $8 million over the cap — at $89,329,116 — in the Stanley Cup semifinals. How does that happen?
Cap loopholes? Yes. Cap exploitation? Yes. Is it legal? Also, yes.
It’s a situation that has already drawn the ire of the Lightning’s opponents through the first two rounds of the playoffs. During the Hurricanes’ breakout day after the Lightning eliminated them in five games in the second round, veteran defenseman Dougie Hamilton couldn’t help but acknowledge the outside factors that led to his team’s early departure from the postseason.
“We lost to a team that’s $18 million over the cap or whatever they are,” he told reporters.
Long Term Injury Reserve is designed to ensure that teams aren’t penalized for losing top players to major injuries, and it played into Tampa Bay’s favor when Nikita Kucherov had to miss the entire 2020-21 regular season after he had hip surgery in December.
The Lightning were able to have the relief of his $9.5 million cap hit.
Nikita Kucherov
With the salary cap not enforced during the postseason, Kucherov was able to jump back into the lineup and is now leading the league with 18 points in 11 games (5 goals, 13 assists).
Essentially, the Lightning have been able to dress a lineup in the playoffs that would have been illegal to use in the regular season.
Asked about how the Lightning worked the cap regulations, neither Islanders head coach Barry Trotz nor general manager Lou Lamoriello took the bait.
“I’m not a capologist, I’m a coach,” Trotz said Friday ahead of Game 1 of the semifinals series, which is set for 3 p.m. Sunday in Tampa, Fla. “But I can tell you that Kucherov is a tremendous player. His skill-set is off the charts. He’s got a lot of deception, his release — there’s so many dangerous aspects and he’s one of the superstars in the league.”
Added Lamoriello: “I echo what Barry said: He’s a tremendous hockey player. I don’t think you need to say anymore. Certainly his past and his success speaks for itself.”
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun last month that the league did investigate the Kucherov situation, as well as a few other team’s LTIR uses. Considering Kucherov followed a similar recovery timeline to many other players who underwent a similar procedure, it was ruled that the Lightning were operating within the CBA rules.
“I know [the NHL] investigated the Nikita Kucherov one, and we have to be able to justify the surgery, the rehab time, the return to play clearance to make sure that everything was done according to the rules and according to the circumstances, and those were the cards we were dealt. And that’s how we handled it,” Lightning GM Julien BriseBois told reporters Saturday.
The only way the Lightning could’ve gotten in trouble is if they were hiding healthy players on LTIR, a scenario for which there is no evidence. However, it was peculiar how BriseBois said the organization’s “realistic hope” was that Kucherov would be ready for the 2020-21 playoffs the day the 27-year-old winger’s surgery was announced in December.
It’s worth mentioning that the Islanders are also technically over the cap, with captain Anders Lee and Johnny Boychuk on LTIR. With Lee ruled out in March to have ACL surgery, he spent 56 days on LTIR, which saved the Islanders approximately $3,379,310 against the cap. Boychuk 1215708 New York Islanders “I was 12 and went to Bobby Nystrom’s number retirement, and that’s when it really hit me how much history happened there,” Taglia says.
“I always heard about Potvin and Bossy, always knew the names,” Islanders finally giving this generation taste of past euphoria McMahon says. “But I never saw the games.”
They have their own Potvins and Bossys now, their own games. And they are halfway home to a Cup. Whether that happens is almost By Mike Vaccaro June 12, 2021 | 2:59pm | Updated irrelevant. This is a quintessential journey far more important and enjoyable than the destination.
Vac’s Whacks For those of us of a certain age, watching the Islanders renaissance has been a splendid reminder of what we had — what, sadly, we took for I was hoping to choose the new Liam Neeson flick. Overruled by the wife, granted — all those many years ago. Long Islanders are parochial and who went with “The Courier,” and I can’t tell you how terrific a choice that proud of it. Billy Joel is one of us, always. Jerry Seinfeld? One of us. Billy was. Liam will have to wait for next week. Crystal? Eddie Burns? A shout-out to my old earth science teacher at Chaminade High, Mike One of us. Always. Pienkos, who this week won Long Island CHSAA baseball championship No. 14. This was his 40th year at the helm; his teams have made it at That was the Isles of 1980-83. They not only made us proud, they made least as far as the finals 35 times and he has 617 career victories. If us champions. Islanders fans have other rooting interests in other sports, Brian Cashman wants his number … but the Isles were ours. Maybe it seems silly. Believe me, it was real. I still miss June 15 as the trade deadline. Donn Clendenon. Keith The best part of this new Isles Mania is all the faces of folks under 45 Hernandez. Heck, even if the Tom Seaver trade ended my baseball years old. For them, this was a different franchise, cast adrift for years by childhood, you always had a profound respect for June 15. lousy management and awful teams. Yet they stuck around. It was easy for guys like me: J.P. Parise scored his famous goal against the Rangers Yes, I can officially report that Tom Thibodeau sent the acolytes of a when I was 8. From then through college the Isles were a given. certain western New York college into a tizzy when he mentioned his dad’s alma mater the other night on TNT while discussing his Coach of “As a kid, I remember Pierre Turgeon getting clocked by Dale Hunter,” the Year award. School apparently called “St. Bonaventure.” I hope I got says Joe Taglia, 38, a coach and teacher at Syosset High School who the spelling right. lives in Merrick. “After that it’s been kind of … lean. To say the least.” @MikeVacc: I’ve said it (and written it) many times before: if I bought a “This is so much sweeter,” says 42-year-old Neil McMahon of Lake franchise — any sport, not just hockey — my first call would be Lou Ronkonkoma, “after two decades of … well, not much.” Lamoriello, bearing a blank check. There are so many of them, raised on terrible Mike Milbury trades, reared Whack Back at Vac on the slapstick of John Spano. It’s been easy to get caught up in the nostalgia of the Old Barn with raucous crowds elevating the good guys, George Corchia: I’d love to hire Kevin Durant’s bodyguard. Here’s a dude singing along to the national anthem, generating a din only sports can that will protect his client at all costs and doesn’t care about arena rules, achieve. NBA guidelines or sports traditions. Too bad Mike Piazza didn’t have his services when he got beaned by Roger Clemens. Of course that’s bogus. There were so many nights the past 30 years when the Coliseum was empty, when the banners up above felt so Vac: They say you see something new in sports every day. That was detached from what was on the ice. Thursday’s edition.
“Sixteen-dollar tickets, 300 level,” Taglia says. “It was always pretty easy Howie Siegel: It’s so refreshing to see a coach win Coach of the Year to move down.” honors and not necessarily go deep into the playoffs. This was more than just being at the right place at the right time for Thibs. He breathed life This is better. Taglia watched the Bruins clincher at home with his wife, into a franchise on life support. Will talent now be attracted to MSG? I Amanda, and four kids — the oldest, 8-year-old Joseph, plays goalie for say yes. the Junior Islanders. He’s all-in. He made it halfway Wednesday night so father and son enjoyed this exchange the next morning: Vac: It does seem like the Phoenix Suns are on a mission to make voters second-guess their preference for Tom Thibodeau over Monty Williams, “Dad, did they win?” though. “They did,” and Joseph exploded. “Who do we play next?” he asked. Joe @biranmoran: Lou Lamoriello is a master at getting buy-in from the entire told him Tampa. team. It’s a good time to be someone who grew up on Long Island in the “We got ’em,” Joseph said. “We’re good!” ’70s/’80s with the Mets, Nets and Islanders playing so well.
They are, again, and maybe it will be kids of Joseph Taglia’s generation Roland Chapdelain: After hearing Gerrit Cole’s double-talk, I expected who will once again be allowed to feel as my generation did once: Mickey Mantle to come up behind him, saying, “My views are just about confident, at all times. Because we’re good. the same as Gerrit’s!”
McMahon’s daughters have learned to live with their dad’s exuberance. Vac: Trust me, if you know the reference, that’s the funniest thing you’ll Soon-to-be-8-year-old Emma has become an Islanders fan herself. see all day. Sixteen-month-old Gracie forced her old man to execute a tricky New York Post LOADED: 06.13.2021 maneuver during Game 6 of Isles-Bruins.
“They’re playing great,” he says, “but it’s still 1-1 and I have her in my arms, and then Brock [Nelson] scores and we’re up but I have Gracie and her bottle and she’s asleep and I have to scream without using my voice.”
You suspect that from Hempstead to the Hamptons, from Oyster Bay to Orient Point and dozens of places in between, there have been a lot of scenes like that. Great as The Barn is, just 12,000 can be there. Everywhere else, families have tried to build their own Barns in living rooms and dens and man caves.
Feeling what we once felt, what they’ve only known through highlight videos. 1215709 New York Islanders Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay’s No. 1 defenseman, is a Norris Trophy finalist and has been one of the top defenders in the league in recent seasons. Further down the left-hand side is former Rangers captain Ryan McDonagh, who plays a good chunk of minutes, similar to Hedman. How Islanders stack up against Lightning in 2021 NHL semifinals The Islanders’ D contributes far more on offense than the Lightning’s defense does. Plus, the Islanders’ top defensive pair of Adam Pelech and Ryan Pulock have survived two of the best top lines in the NHL from the By Mollie Walker June 12, 2021 | 11:17am | Updated Penguins and Bruins. They’ve been skating against elite scorers all postseason and have continuously risen to the occasion.
The Islanders and Lightning meet again, this time during another season Defense is the Islanders’ bread-and-butter, and that shouldn’t change unlike any other. Their Stanley Cup semifinals series, which begins this upcoming series. Sunday in Tampa, Fla., will be a rematch of the playoff battle in the Edge: Islanders Edmonton bubble last September, in which the Lightning defeated the Islanders in six games on the way to their first Stanley Cup title in 16 Forwards years. Head coach Barry Trotz memorably said at the start of this season that he’d have visions of that loss to Tampa Bay on his deathbed, but Similar to the Islanders, the Lightning are a well-balanced four-line team. now he and the Islanders have earned an opportunity to rewrite the Tampa Bay, however, undoubtedly brings more star power, with a script. scoring threat on each line. The Lightning have Nikita Kucherov, Alex Killorn, Yanni Gourde and Pat Maroon — and also Brayden Point, Steven “I think we feel like we still have some unfinished business,” Josh Bailey Stamkos and Blake Coleman. said stoically after the Islanders’ series-clinching win over the Bruins in Game 6 Wednesday night. The Islanders’ Mathew Barzal has just started finding the back of the net, while players like Brock Nelson, Kyle Palmieri and Josh Bailey continue Let’s not forget, the Lightning soundly defeated the Bruins in five games to do so. After facing the high-scoring Penguins and Bruins, the Islanders in Round 2 last postseason, which gave them ample time to rest up as will likely need even more to outscore the Lightning. the Islanders were forced into a Game 7 by the Flyers. The Isles had just one day in between Game 7 against Philadelphia and Game 1 against Kyle Palmieri the Lightning to travel to Edmonton. Corey Sipkin If we’re piling on the excuses, fourth-line center Casey Cizikas at the time Edge: Lightning was ruled out for the remainder of the postseason after Game 2 due to a detached retina. They also were without top-pair defenseman Adam Special Teams Pelech, who played through a broken wrist in the Isles’ overtime win in Game 5, in their season-ending Game 6 loss. While the Islanders’ power play got hot during their second-round series against the Bruins, their usually top-notch penalty kill was picked apart by Mathew Barzal (r) and Steven Stamkos will surely clash during this Boston. They gave up seven power-play goals to the Bruins. And if playoff series. Boston was a lofty task, the Lightning will be an even more difficult challenge. Paul J. Bereswill The Lightning has scored on 15 of their 36 man-advantage opportunities This time around, the Islanders are bringing reinforcements. Trade this postseason, which amounts to a league-leading 41.7 percentage. deadline acquisition Travis Zajac has already had to fill in for rookie They average 3.27 power-plays per game, which is also the best in the sharpshooter Oliver Wahlstrom. Barring any major injuries, depth NHL among teams that are still active. shouldn’t be a deciding factor for the Islanders. Edge: Lightning The Post’s Mollie Walker takes a look at how the teams matchup. Coaching Goaltending Jon Cooper may be the reigning Stanley Cup-winning head coach, but Trotz may feel that Semyon Varlamov was snubbed by not being a Barry Trotz also knows what it takes to win a championship series. He finalist for the Vezina Trophy, but he acknowledged that the three finalists did it with the Capitals just three years ago. were more than deserving of the top goalie award. And one of those three was the Lightning’s Andrei Vasilevskiy. Trotz has made sure the Islanders have kept their eyes on the prize this entire postseason, while also encouraging them to enjoy each victory. Vasilevskiy was remarkable during the regular season, proving to be one His demeanor is something the players look to, and his determination is of the Lightning’s most valuable players as he faced an average of nearly contagious. 30 shots a game. He led the NHL in wins (31) and garnered a .925 save percentage in 42 starts out of 56 games. Edge: Islanders
This postseason, Vasilevskiy is leading the league in saves (352), has Prediction allowed the second-fewest goals (25) and has posted a 2.24 goals- against average. The Islanders have waited all season to take that next step from the point at which their playoff run ended last year, and it’s pretty poetic that they’ll The Islanders are the first team to have one goalie record all four wins in get a chance to do it against the Lightning. one series and another record all four wins in the next since the Canadiens did it in 1987 with Patrick Roy and Brian Hayward. Though But Tampa Bay is a loaded team with star power that rivals both squads Varlamov has seemingly rebounded from his shaky performances in the Islanders had to defeat to get back to this point. It will take a top-tier Games 2 and 3 of the first-round series against the Penguins, which effort every game for the Islanders to combat the Lightning. prompted Trotz to turn to rookie Ilya Sorokin, Varmalov allowed a few Lightning in seven questionable goals to the Bruins. New York Post LOADED: 06.13.2021 Edge: Lightning
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Defense
The Islanders averaged the second-fewest goals against per game with 2.23 during the regular season, while the Lighting weren’t too far behind with 2.59. Compared to the rest of the Islanders’ opponents this postseason, the Lightning should have the most equally defensively savvy squad. 1215710 New York Islanders With Trotz’s help, Lamoriello has succeeded in creating a team in his own image, one built for the playoffs.
The Bruins are a big, tough, physical team, but after six games they Islanders GM Lou Lamoriello's moniker for team's turnaround: appeared worn down and no longer in the mood to engage with the Transformer Islanders’ on-ice bullies.
That often is what works this time of year. Consider the NHL final four of the Islanders, Lightning, Canadiens and Golden Knights. Staff What happened to all the fancy stars, from current ones such as Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews and Nathan MacKinnon to perennials such as Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin? They called Bill Torrey "the Architect," which fit the guy who built the Islanders from scratch into a dynasty in less than a decade. They are gone, along with the Bruins’ famous No. 1 line, taken out by the Islanders in the second round, just as they took care of Crosby in 2019, So what about Lou Lamoriello? Ovechkin in 2020 and Crosby again in 2021. He cannot be the "architect" of the Islanders’ current three-year run of Of the top 10 NHL players entering the season on lists compiled by playoff series victories because much of the core was assembled by NHL.com, NBC.com and TSN, the only ones still playing all represent the Garth Snow. Plus, that moniker is taken. Lightning. But he deserves one for all that he has done since being hired in 2018 – On paper, that is a daunting task for the Islanders. But Lamoriello does three weeks after Torrey died – to run the franchise’s hockey operations. not build rosters on paper. Islanders general manager Lou Lamoriello speaks with the media at "I love listening and talking with Lou," Trotz said. "We talk daily. He Northwell Health Ice Center on May 6. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van understands building a roster. Dyke "There will be a Player A and Player B and the values that a lot of people "Renovator" is not quite right. "Alchemist" is accurate, but a little too might put on a certain player because it’s the sexy thing to do. He artsy. "Inscrutable Genius Feared by Most of the League" is too wordy. understands the intrinsic value of a player in tough games and in the Let’s go with "Transformer," even if Lamoriello does not seem like the locker room and as a teammate and as a pro, all the stuff that you really comic book action figure type. don’t put a lot of numbers to.
The culture change he has orchestrated has been shocking – or maybe "Everything he does is very thorough and has substance to it. It’s not not so much to those who paid attention during his three-Stanley Cups lacy, fancy stuff. It’s real stuff, and he puts a lot of value into that." run with the Devils. Newsday LOADED: LOADED: 06.13.2021 Mathew Barzal spoke at length on Friday about the professionalism that Lamoriello and coach Barry Trotz have instilled.
"Whether that’s having short hair and clean facial hair throughout the regular season or details on the ice like changing hard coming out of the bench, practicing hard, just being a pro," said Barzal, whose maturation Trotz has spoken of regularly.
"Whether you’re going out for dinner on the road or coming to the airplane, you have to be a pro 24/7."
It started for Lamoriello with bringing in a perfect complement in Trotz, as Torrey did with Al Arbour before him.
Shortly thereafter, the team’s best player of this century, John Tavares, left via free agency. Ever since, Lamoriello methodically has gone about re-signing his veteran base and adding essential pieces, to great effect.
His most recent big move was forced by the severe knee injury Anders Lee suffered on March 11. It prompted him to trade for Devils veterans Kyle Palmieri and Travis Zajac.
The former leads the team in playoff goals with seven; the latter stepped in when Oliver Wahlstrom was injured and scored the first goal in Wednesday’s second-round clincher against the Bruins.
Last year, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Andy Greene, another Devils refugee, were late-season pickups.
Pageau might be the most useful all-around player on the team and has become a fan favorite. He also leads the Islanders with 13 points in the playoffs.
Lamoriello signed Leo Komarov on the day that Tavares left, which at the time only made Tavares’ departure seem worse. Now the longtime hockey pest is the left wing on the first line of a Stanley Cup semifinalist.
He signed Matt Martin for the Maple Leafs when he was in charge there, then left Toronto and brought Martin back with him.
He signed Semyon Varlamov in 2019 when Robin Lehner left in free agency. Varlamov was the MVP of the 2020-21 team.
Lamoriello spoke to reporters on Friday about all of the above players, noting like he often does their character on and off the ice, and their team-first approach. 1215711 New York Islanders
Oliver Wahlstrom close to return, but no guarantee to get back in Islanders' lineup against Lightning
By Colin Stephenson
Rookie forward Oliver Wahlstrom skated with the Islanders at practice Saturday and is "getting very close to be available,’’ according to Islanders coach Barry Trotz, but he added that Wahlstrom may not step right back into the lineup as soon as he is ready.
Travis Zajac, the veteran former New Jersey Devil who took Wahlstrom’s place after Wahlstrom was injured in Game 5 of the Isles’ first round series against Pittsburgh, has played well. Zajac takes some faceoffs, and scored the game’s first goal in the Islanders’ second-round series- clinching, 6-2 win over Boston in Game 6 Wednesday.
"Right now, if Wally were healthy, there's no guarantee he gets back in the lineup right away,’’ Trotz said. "It may be based on play, and based on what Tampa is trying to match up, and the results that we get.
"Right now, I'm pretty happy with our group, and Wally included,’’ he said. "It will be a tough decision.’’
Trotz said everyone on the current roster made the trip to Tampa.
Kucherov move defended
Tampa Bay GM Julien BriseBois on Saturday defended the move to place star forward Nikita Kucherov and his $9.5 million cap hit on long term injured reserve for the entire regular season — allowing the Lightning to be salary cap compliant — and get him back just in time for Game 1 of the playoffs.
"When all of the decisions were made to know that Nikita needed [hip] surgery… I didn’t know how things would unfold,’’ BriseBois told reporters in Tampa. "Luckily for me and our organization, I don’t think they could have unfolded any better.’’
Kucherov enters the series against the Islanders as the leading scorer in the playoffs, with five goals and 13 assists in 11 games. After the Lightning ousted the Carolina Hurricanes in the second round, Hurricanes D Dougie Hamilton said, "We lost to a team that’s $18 million over the salary cap, or whatever they are.’’
Island Ice Ep. 97: Isles go marching on from Boston to Tampa
Andrew, Colin and Neil discuss the Isles' Game 6 win over the Bruins with Boston Globe columnist Tara Sullivan at Nassau Coliseum, then look ahead to the Tampa Bay Lightning series.
"I didn’t do it on purpose, obviously,’’ Kucherov said. "I had to do the surgery. I had to go through the whole five months of rehabilitation. And when the time came [that] I was ready to play, it was the playoffs.’’
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Casey Cizikas feeling the love, wants to return it to Islanders fans in Stanley Cup playoffs
By Colin Stephenson
Casey Cizikas, one of the guys who has been on this team for a while, finds himself really enjoying watching people hitching rides on the Islanders bandwagon as the team has extended its playoff run to the NHL semifinals.
"It's exciting,’’ Cizikas said Saturday, on the eve of Game 1 of the best- of-seven semifinal series against the Lightning which begins in Tampa Sunday afternoon. "You see them at the games, they're cheering, they're going nuts, and that's what you want. You want to you want to build this, this team, and you want fans to be supportive.
"You see the love from everywhere, and people are starting to believe in us,’’ he said. "As a group, that changes everything. You want to go out there, you want to compete for them, and you want to do whatever you can to keep them coming.’’
Cizikas, 30, a fourth-round pick by the Islanders in 2009 who’s been a regular since the 2012-13 season, especially wants to compete against the Lightning, the defending Stanley Cup champions.
Island Ice Ep. 97: Isles go marching on from Boston to Tampa
Andrew, Colin and Neil discuss the Isles' Game 6 win over the Bruins with Boston Globe columnist Tara Sullivan at Nassau Coliseum, then look ahead to the Tampa Bay Lightning series.
A year ago, he was forced out of the lineup, and out of the Edmonton bubble after Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final series between the Isles and Lightning, because of a detached retina in his eye. The Islanders lost to the Lightning in six games before Tampa Bay went on to beat the Dallas Stars in the final and win the Cup.
"It was frustrating,’’ Cizikas said Saturday of his early departure last year. "I took it hard. You get so far and to kinda have to go out like that, it wasn't easy. But here we are again, And I'm excited. I think everybody's excited. And we're ready to go.’’
As the center of the Isles’ valuable fourth line, between Matt Martin and Cal Clutterbuck, coach Barry Trotz said the loss of Cizikas last year was a major blow to the Islanders.
"I think he left a huge hole,’’ Trotz said. "Casey brings penalty killing; he gives you grit; he gives you all the late game situations, he gives you faceoffs. And … later on, [defenseman Adam] Pelech went out, so those are two pretty big ingredients to what we do.’’
The 5-11, 195-pound Cizikas led all players in faceoff percentage through the first two rounds, winning 61.4 percent (97-of-158) of his draws. And he is one of the Isles’ most important penalty killers, though the Isles’ PK will need to be much better in this series than it was against Boston, when it allowed seven goals in 14 times shorthanded.
With Tampa Bay’s power play clicking at 41.7 percent in the first two rounds (15-for-36) it will be crucial for the Islanders to limit the number of penalties they take. But they still will need to be better when they do find themselves a man down.
"They’ve got threats from everywhere,’’ Cizikas said of Tampa Bay. "So as a PK, we’ve got to be disciplined. We can do that — know our routes, and not give them second opportunities. When the puck's on our stick, we've got to get it down [to the opposite end of the ice]. And we’ve just got to battle. We’ve got to make it hard on them, we’ve got to make it uncomfortable for them.’’
Cizikas knows the Islanders are an underdog going into the series. He’s not intimidated.
"We're a confident group right now, and our game is where it has to be,’’ he said. "We're going to play hard. We're going to play our style and they're going to have to beat us. We're not going to beat ourselves. We're going to play straight line hockey, we're going to get pucks in deep, and we're just going to play as hard as we can.’’ 1215713 New York Islanders
After Missing ’20 ECF, Czikas Itching for a Crack at Lightning
By Christian Arnold
When the New York Islanders were in the thick of some of their toughest battles against the Tampa Bay Lightning last year in the Eastern Conference Finals, Casey Cizikas was stuck watching from afar.
Cizikas called it frustrating when he was asked to look back on that moment as the Islanders get ready to face Tampa once again in the semifinals. He left Game 2 in the Eastern Conference Finals with a detached retina and underwent successful surgery in the offseason to fix it.
Less than a year later with his team back in a familiar spot, the Islanders fourth-liner is relishing the chance to make an impact this time around.
“I took it hard. You get so far and to have to go out like that wasn’t easy, but here we are again and I’m excited,” Casey Cizikas said. “I think everybody is excited and we’re ready to go.”
Head-to-Head: Who has Edge in New York Islanders-Tampa Series?
As part of the Islanders’ “identity line,” Casey Cizikas has helped make an impact during the team’s run back to the semifinals for the second consecutive year. Cizikas’ physical play has helped generate chances for the Islanders’ offense and his work in the faceoff circle has made him one of the best in the league during the postseason.
Cizikas has had a 61.1 percent success rate through the first two rounds, which has seen him win 97 of the 158 draws that he as taken in the playoffs. And on the penalty kill, he has been another important asset.
When Cizikas went out in the early part of the conference finals last year, the Islanders felt it. So much so that when they reached the trade deadline this year, they made sure to add someone who gives them depth at center.
“He left a huge hole,” Islanders head coach Barry Trotz said. “Casey brings penalty killing, he gives you grit. He gives you all late-game situations, he can do faceoffs.”
Knowing just how well Tampa can play, the Islanders will need all the help they can get to defeat them and move on to the Stanley Cup Final. Tampa has been one of the highest-scoring teams in the playoffs and their power play has been lethal.