SPORT-SCAN DAILY BRIEF NHL 8/9/2020 Stars 1190542 Arizona Coyotes to face in first round 1190575 Stars look to flip the switch in a ‘do or die’ round robin of finale vs. the Blues 1190543 Arizona Coyotes to face Colorado Avalanche in playoff series Red Wings 1190576 could really be haunted by NHL's second draft lottery. Here's how 1190544 Bruce Cassidy is confident Bruins will shine when playoff 1190577 'Easy decision': Red Wings loan forward Filip Zadina to lights are brightest Czech team 1190545 With prelims wrapping up, here are some bests and worsts around the NHL Oilers 1190546 Round-robin finale will determine Bruins’ playoff foe 1190578 Magic not there for Oilers forward Kailer Yamamoto 1190547 Bruins absolutely should play for Islanders matchup over against Blackhawks Hurricanes 1190579 The fun is over: turn Hub City into Flub City 1190580 Experience pulls through qualifying 1190548 Sabres and Bills legends face unexpected end to paid series against Edmonton Oilers ambassador roles 1190581 Oilers may be out but 50-50 ticket draw must go on 1190549 Breaking down the Sabres’ current organizational player 1190582 Lowetide: ’s urgent summer as Oilers general depth chart manager begins 1190583 ‘This is gonna hurt for a while’: The fallout from a wild Flames elimination Friday 1190550 Flames could be tough out for a first-round favourite 1190551 Flames hope for boost from qualifying round win over Jets 1190552 What — and whom — the Flames can expect in the next 1190584 Give a chance to show unity with Wild's Matt Dumba, NHL round of playoffs players stumble as they stand 1190585 Wild players stunned by sudden end to season Chicago Blackhawks 1190586 Wild's old issues re-emerge as bubble bursts in sudden 1190553 The Blackhawks will play top-seeded Golden Knights — fashion and a familiar face — in the first round of the Western C 1190587 Five Wild storylines heading into a pivotal offseason 1190554 Blackhawks to face Golden Knights, Robin Lehner in 1190588 Wild’s bubble bursts in 11 seconds and brings another season to a harsh end 1190555 Blackhawks’ shows he’s back in top form with Game 4 heroics Canadiens 1190556 Polling Place: Are CFB coaches, administrators doing all 1190589 Canadiens to face Flyers in first round of playoffs they can to keep players safe? 1190590 How worked himself to playoff 1190557 4 reasons why the Blackhawks beat the Oilers relevance for the Canadiens 1190558 Rozner: Big effort not new for Blackhawks' Toews 1190559 Facing the Blackhawks in Round One is 'going to be fun' for Robin Lehner 1190591 Predators have plenty of time to ponder strange 2019-20 1190560 Several Blackhawks scouted round-robin game for season Western Conference No. 1 seed 1190592 Rexrode: A plan to halt the Predators’ plummet, aside 1190561 Blackhawks to face Robin Lehner, Vegas in Round 1 of from draft lottery luck Stanley Cup Playoffs 1190562 Jonathan Toews ready to be Clutch for Blackhawks' postseason run 1190593 Anthony Beauvillier’s ‘have fun’ mantra paying off big for 1190563 How the Blackhawks upset the Oilers in the Stanley Cup Islanders Qualifiers 1190594 Islanders' next opponent is either the Capitals or Bruins 1190564 Why is on track to produce more against 1190595 Islanders returned from pause a refocused team, and it Vegas showed vs. Panthers Colorado Avalanche 1190565 The Avs. The Nuggets. Two games. Three overtimes. One 1190596 Slap Shots: NHL going crazy inside bubble afternoon of sweet adrenaline overload. 1190597 Rangers hope to have winning ticket in Alexis Lafreniere 1190566 Avalanche now No. 2 seed heading into 16-team playoff sweepstakes after loss to Golden Knights 1190567 KSE, PointsBet announce partnership that will bring Senators enhanced WiFi, in-arena destination to Pepsi Center 1190598 What the Islanders’ win means for the Senators — and 1190568 Grading the Week: CHSAA’s impossible fall football why it’s not a bad thing decision, MPJ’s offensive outburst and Altitude in the dark 1190569 What did the round robin reveal about the Avalanche, the West’s No. 2 seed? 1190570 Vegas defeats Avalanche to earn top seed in Western Conference; No. 2 Avs to face No. 7 Arizona 1190571 Status of Blue Jackets’ Zach Werenski, Ryan Murray for Game 5 unclear 1190572 Goaltending depth gives Blue Jackets a decided edge 1190573 Maple Leafs 4, Blue Jackets 3, OT: Five Takeaways 1190574 Collapse: 3 reasons for optimism, 3 reasons for concern for Blue Jackets Flyers Canucks 1190599 Observations from the Flyers’ 4-1 win over the Lightning 1190653 Canucks notebook: Miller deal was all about playoffs; 1190600 Flyers win 4-1 over Lightning, take East’s top playoff seed blue-liner Benn works his way back with 2 goals from Nic Aube-Kubel 1190654 Ed Willes: Tanev takes turn playing hero, albeit 1190601 Flyers happy with NHL’s solution, but hope to go back to teammates say he's always super old playoff format next season 1190655 The Skate: It's the playoffs! The playoffs! 1190602 Flyers down Lightning, earn right to face lowest-seed 1190656 ‘Heart and soul’: Chris Tanev’s overtime winner marks the Montreal end of Canucks rebuild 1190603 Fish: Van Riemsdyk still confident despite benching, lower line placement 1190604 Flyers clinch top seed in East with 4-1 win over Lightning 1190638 Marc-Andre Fleury or Robin Lehner in ? Stay tuned 1190605 Flyers sweep round robin, earn East's No. 1 seed in 2020 1190639 Golden Knights to play Blackhawks to open NHL playoffs NHL playoffs 1190640 Golden Knights secure No. 1 seed in Western Conference 1190606 Flyers vs. Lightning round robin: Live stream, storylines, 1190641 Take 5: Getting to know the Golden Knights’ playoff game time and more opponent 1190607 2019-20 Flyers season grades: Jakub Voracek 1190642 Golden Knights on a roll, will face Chicago in first round of 1190608 How important was the Flyers’ forecheck to their success playoffs in 2019-20? 1190643 Keys to a Golden Knights victory against Avalanche, powered by Credit One Penguins 1190644 Top seed at stake as Golden Knights try to figure out the 1190609 What went wrong for Penguins against the Canadiens? Avalanche 1190610 Ron Cook: Don't let Penguins' stars off the hook 1190645 Instant preview: Golden Knights versus Chicago 1190611 What you need to know about consensus top draft pick Blackhawks Alexis Lafreniere 1190646 Golden Knights Claim Number One Seed In West With 1190612 Six pressing questions the Penguins face going forward Tense 4-3 OT Win Over Colorado Saturday 1190613 Analysis: Seven Penguins who could depart this offseason 1190614 Yohe: A Penguins series report card for the ages 1190647 Todd Reirden, confident and calm, guides Caps during an unconventional postseason 1190615 Why Sharks should sign for third go- 1190648 Capitals' Lars Eller shares picture of his second child, around in San Jose Alexander 1190649 How to WATCH: Washington Capitals vs. Boston Bruins St Louis Blues 1190650 Caps to determine their playoff future in round robin finale 1190616 Preview: Blues vs. Stars against Boston 1190617 Blues notebook: Schwartz, Schenn have exemplified slow 1190651 It's been fun, but the NHL should not stick with the 2020 start for offense playoff format 1190618 Blues hope players-only meeting leads to course correction Websites 1190619 Blues-Stars game Sunday will be televised on Channel 5 1190657 / he worst loss of Sidney Crosby’s career was totally avoidable 1190658 .ca / Quick Shifts: Why Maple Leafs' shocker 1190620 Lightning lose to Flyers, settle for No. 2 seed could catapult to big things 1190621 Lightning’s injured, leaves game in first 1190659 Sportsnet.ca / Blue Jackets in tough spot after epic period collapse: 'We can’t live in the past' 1190622 The Lightning will go as far as takes 1190660 Sportsnet.ca / How Golden Knights shed 'misfits' label, them grew into a consistent contender 1190623 Lightning continue to honor Community Heroes 1190661 Sportsnet.ca / Flames' Talbot rewarded with yet another 1190624 Why ‘cornerstone’ defenseman Victor Hedman is one Vezina-calibre post-season test player Lightning can’t lose 1190662 Sportsnet.ca / Canucks' blend of youth, veterans soars into playoffs ahead of expectations Maple Leafs 1190663 TSN.CA / Shilton: urging Toronto Maple 1190625 Leafs pull a rabbit out of the hat Leafs to stay level-headed ahead of do-or-die Game 5 1190626 The Miracle of Game 4 might be the push the Maple Leafs 1190664 TSN.CA / Masters: look to ride wave need for Game 5 of momentum and 'bring the whole thing together' 1190627 After Leafs captain and William Nylander, , scored late in regulation, Auston Matthews beat Jets 1190628 Jason Spezza’s seventh NHL fight, at age 37, marked a 1190652 Surreal season produces tremendous adversity, hell of a turning point in Game 4 against Dean Kukan and the Blue fight from Jets 1190629 The numbers suggest the Maple Leafs and Blue Jackets SPORT-SCAN, INC. 941-284-4129 are in for a heart-stopping finish 1190630 Lightning will face Leafs-Jackets winner after Flyers snatch top seed in the East 1190631 Joe Bowen's overtime Leafs goal call was loud and clear 1190632 Leafs know if they put their minds to it, they can win Game 5 1190633 SIMMONS: Game 5 couldn't possibly top the previous two for drama, could it? 1190634 Miracle on Bay St. 1190635 SIMMONS: Spezza fights, Matthews scores as Maple Leafs remarkably stay alive 1190636 This time, Toronto (Ohio) is cheering for the Jackets 1190637 Three keys to the Leafs winning Game 5 and erasing their playoff demons 1190542 Arizona Coyotes

Arizona Coyotes to face Colorado Avalanche in first round of Stanley Cup Playoffs

Richard Morin

Arizona Republic

The Coyotes will face the Colorado Avalanche in a best-of-seven series in the round-of-16 portion of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

With their 4-3 overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights in a round-robin matchup on Saturday, the Avalanche finished with the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference and drew a matchup with the 11th-seeded Coyotes.

The Coyotes defeated the Nashville Predators, three games to one, in a best-of-five series in the qualifying round.

The Coyotes/Jets franchise is 56-54-12-10 in 132 all-time games against the Avalanche. The clubs played each other twice this season, with each team coming away with one regulation win.

The Coyotes and Avalanche have met previously for one playoff series; Colorado defeated Phoenix in five games during the 1999-2000 season.

The Avalanche are led by former No. 1 overall pick Nathan MacKinnon, who is a finalist for this year's Hart Trophy, awarded annually to the NHL's most-valuable player. MacKinnon registered 35 goals and 93 points in 69 games in the regular season.

Dates and times for the Coyotes-Avalanche series have not yet been announced, but all games will continue to be played in the bubble city of Edmonton.

Arizona Republic LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190543 Arizona Coyotes

Arizona Coyotes to face Colorado Avalanche in playoff series

BY MATT LAYMAN

AUGUST 8, 2020 AT 3:25 PM

The Arizona Coyotes will face the Colorado Avalanche in their next postseason series, their second of the 2020 postseason and the first within the 16-team Stanley Cup Playoffs tournament.

The Coyotes already faced the Nashville Predators and won the best-of- five series 3-1. That was part of the NHL’s Qualifying Round, a first-of-its- kind postseason series in the altered format in the wake of the coronavirus. For statistical purposes, that was a playoff series, but Arizona’s series against Colorado will be the first in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Colorado went 42-20-8 in the regular season, the third-best record in the NHL and the second-best in the Western Conference.

Hart Trophy (MVP) finalist Nathan MacKinnon led the Avs with 93 points in the regular season, scoring 35 goals with 58 assists. Fellow forwards Mikko Rantanen and captain each missed part of the season with injuries but still combined for 40 goals. Calder Trophy (rookie of the year) finalist Cale Makar highlights their defensive group.

Colorado and Arizona faced off down the stretch in a tight playoff race for the last Wild Card spot last season. The Avalanche finished ahead of the Coyotes by four points, keeping the Coyotes out of the postseason. The two teams faced each other in one of the last games of the regular season in 2019, a playoff-like contest, and Arizona lost 3-2 in the shootout.

During this regular season, the Coyotes went 1-0-1 against the Avs.

In 2019-20, Colorado ranked fourth in the NHL in goals per game (3.37), sixth-best in goals allowed per game (2.71), 19th in power play (19.1%) and 12th in kills (81.4%).

The Avalanche’s goaltending tandem consists of Philipp Grubauer and Pavel Francouz. Their head coach is .

Arizona Sports LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190544 Boston Bruins “He can make unbelievable passes,” Kase said of Krejci. “You need to have just a stick on the ice. He can find you everywhere. He’s so smart. The goal for me is to show him my stick, and he will pass to me for sure.”

Bruce Cassidy is confident Bruins will shine when playoff lights are Kase has 75 minutes and 31 seconds of ice time as a Bruin. According to brightest Natural Stat Trick, just 3:21 of that was spent with Krejci and DeBrusk. The smallest of sample sizes was a positive one; they had four attempts and two scoring chances, and allowed one shot attempt and By Matt Porter Globe Staff one scoring chance.

Updated August 8, 2020, 5:23 p.m. Kase, who went 7-16—23 in 49 games for the Ducks, registered a secondary assist in six games for the Bruins. His speed and puck skills

can throw off defenders. Of the 477 players with more than 700 minutes Bruce Cassidy believes he has a good handle on his team. He sees played this season, Kase drew penalties at the 22nd-highest rate. energy in practice. The Bruins know the meaningful games begin next Rask to start Sunday week. Tuukka Rask will start against the Capitals, and he is likely to play the They haven’t mashed the pedal yet. They don’t have to — yet. Even whole game. “Obviously there’s a third seed at stake,” Cassidy said. “We though a loss Sunday would leave them 0-3 in the NHL’s restart, the do want to make sure he’s healthy going into Game 1. We may evaluate coach is confident the players will not shrink when the brightest lights that after a period or two.” … The Capitals are expected to start Braden shine. Holtby, whose save percentage through two games (.898) is in line with “Our guys are not in a bad place. They’re really not,” Cassidy said his regular-season numbers (.897), the worst of his 10-year career. The Saturday after his team’s final practice before Sunday’s round-robin 2016 winner has dominated the Bruins, going 18-4-0 with finale against the Capitals (noon, NESN, NBCSN, 98.5 The Sports Hub). a .939 save percentage, 1.98 goals against average and four . His last postseason start against Boston was Game 7 of the 2012 first “We want to win, we want to play better, we wanted to preserve the No. 1 round, when Joel Ward scored the overtime winner … Defenseman Matt seed, but we have a veteran group that knows what the ultimate goal is Grzelcyk will take a “maintenance day,” Cassidy said, and Connor Clifton and what’s at stake,” he said. “They know that come Tuesday or will make his 2020 playoff debut. Jeremy Lauzon will move to his natural Wednesday … they know how to play playoff hockey.” left side on that third pair. Lauzon has done a solid job on the right … A Dec. 29 upper-body injury made it tough for Clifton, 25, to build off last Their defensive breakouts and puck management are works in progress. year’s run to the Stanley Cup Final. As a rookie, he suited up for 18 of Same goes for their forward lines, which Sunday will look something like Boston’s 24 playoff games, spanning most of the final three rounds the pre-pandemic plan that put those shiny new toys on lines No. 2 (Columbus, Carolina and St. Louis). Clifton has played one game in (Ondrej Kase) and No. 3 (Nick Ritchie). If those ex-Ducks make a scoring 2020: the Bruins’ final game before the pause (March 10 at Philadelphia) splash, a team that believes it has Stanley Cup-worthy structure, defense … If the Bruins meet Carolina, they likely will see Hamilton, the ex-Bruin and netminding will get another boost of confidence. who was having a Norris Trophy-caliber season before he broke his leg Some of their current state of calm stems from clarity. After Friday’s wild in January. He sustained a new, undisclosed injury late last month and day of elimination games, the Bruins know they will face the Islanders returned to practice Thursday. (with a win over the Caps) or Hurricanes (with a loss). The same is true of the Capitals: a win gets them the No. 3 seed, a loss the No. 4. Boston Globe LOADED: 08.09.2020 “There’s a team to start thinking about, players to start to dislike,” Cassidy said. “That’s part of what gets the juices going.”

Cassidy sees two potential opponents that look the same as they did in the regular season.

“Carolina, young legs, their top guys are playing well,” Cassidy said, pointing to Sebastian Aho, Andrei Svechnikov and Teuvo Teravainen (combined 7-10—17 in a three-game sweep of the Rangers). “They’re functioning well defensively without Dougie Hamilton, who plays a lot of minutes. They played both goalies [Petr Mrazek and ].

“They play fast. They’re attack-mode. Their D get up the ice. They’re a year older. Those teams become dangerous in the playoffs when they get a little experience.”

Cassidy praised the Islanders’ coaching (Barry Trotz, 2018 Cup winner with Washington) and “stifling defense” against the Panthers, showing a surprising outburst of offense by outscoring the Cats, 13-7, in four games.

Mathew Barzal and Anthony Beauvillier have been headliners, but Cassidy appreciated how center Jean-Gabriel Pageau, a trade deadline pickup from Ottawa, has solidified the third line just as has for the Bruins over the last season. Cassidy also spotlighted the Islanders’ young defensemen — Adam Pelech, Ryan Pulock and Scott Mayfield — as “a little bit underrated back there. They’re good players,” he said. “I think the time away has allowed them to get stronger and build confidence in their games.”

Kase to suit up

This feels like a debut, rather than a return, for Kase.

The Czech winger, who will play his seventh game (six in the regular season) for the Bruins, last pulled on a No. 28 Spoked-B sweater before the first day of spring. Kase will line up to the right of David Krejci, with Jake DeBrusk as his familiar left wing. 1190545 Boston Bruins lower-figure deal for more years? Barzal, who went 19-41—60 in 68 games, is at the end of his rookie contract.

▪ Least consequential games: No surprise the fourth-ranked Flyers With prelims wrapping up, here are some bests and worsts around the looked great to start the round-robin. Young, skilled, and well-coached, NHL the Gritty Gang is plenty capable of making a deep run if Carter Hart continues to look like a young .

By Matt Porter Globe Staff Entering the weekend, Colorado, Philadelphia, and Tampa Bay were stout. Vegas won its first two games, but had to score a combined seven Updated August 8, 2020, 1:13 p.m. goals in those third periods to win. The Blues, Bruins, Capitals, and Stars were still sleeping.

▪ Dubious historical achievement: The No. 1 finishers in both East What a time to be a hockey fan. (Boston) and West (St. Louis) will not be No. 1 seeds to start the playoffs. My daily routine for Phase 4 has been something like this: wake up, Yet another thing the NHL has never seen before. handle the usual summertime chores and errands, exercise ... then ▪ Best speech: Matt Dumba, speaking from the heart about racism before watch, report, and write until I go to bed. Thanks to the NHL.TV app and the Chicago-Edmonton series. Hope more players join him. YouTube TV, I’m seeing all of some games, and some of all the others. I pop into Zoom calls and do phone interviews. I eat (mostly) healthy ▪ Worst injuries: Toronto (Jake Muzzin) and Washington (John Carlson) snacks. were hurting on the back end last week, but Winnipeg’s fate was all but sealed when forwards Mark Scheifele and Patrik Laine went down. Of course, I would rather be there live. On the other hand, this has been the most enjoyable week of hockey I can remember. ▪ Toughest scratch: , the former UNH star, lost his spot in the Flyers lineup, coach Alain Vigneault tapping ex-BU winger The lockouts were bummers, but nothing compared with five months of a Joel Farabee for his playoff debut in Thursday’s game against the pandemic, when everything ground to a halt. It has been wonderful Capitals. Do not be surprised if Philadelphia makes Van Riemsdyk, 31 having the games back. And not a positive playoff test registered (yet). and due $7 million a year through 2023, available to expansion Seattle. Superlatives from the first of several weeks on the couch: ▪ Most uncomfortable end: Everyone I polled last week thinks franchise ▪ Team of the week: This looks like a new breed of Hurricanes. No, the icon is done in Manhattan. He has another year left on Rangers were not quite playoff-worthy, but in becoming the first Stanley his contract, and the Rangers have two better . If no one Cup Qualifier winner (i.e., first to advance via the play-in), Carolina wants his $8.5 million cap hit in a trade, the Rangers could buy out the showed a whole lot of growth from last year’s surprise Eastern 38-year-old likely Hall of Famer at a meager savings ($5.5 million cap hit Conference final run. next year, $1.5 million in ’20-21). Wonder if GM Jeff Gorton can find someone in need of a stopper (Edmonton?) to trade some tasty chips for They broomed the Rangers without Norris Trophy candidate Dougie promising backup Alexandar Georgiev. He’s a pending RFA. Hamilton and fellow regular Brett Pesce. Top-line center Sebastian Aho took over (3-5—8 in three games). The Andrei Svechnikov-Aho-Teuvo ▪ Longest wait: Monday the day finally comes for Alexis Lafreniere, the Teravainen line grew a collective playoff . Aho’s sharp stick swiped sublime left wing from long presumed to go No. 1 in the draft. A six pucks from opponents, more than anyone through three games. reminder: The play-in losers will drop into the second draw of the lottery, Svechnikov, fifth in the league in hits (12), produced the first hat trick in each with a 12.5 percent chance of landing him, because a placeholder Whalercanes franchise playoff history. team won the first drawing on June 26.

That line, and this team, is as hard-working as tone-setting coach Rod Lafreniere put up a 35-77—112 line in 52 games with Rimouski of the Brind’Amour. They will be a tough out. Quebec Major Junior League, was Player of the Year in Canadian junior hockey, and “will be an excellent player in the NHL,” promised NHL ▪ Best redemption: Seven years ago, James Reimer was face-down, on Central Scouting director Dan Marr. his belly, as Patrice Bergeron and his linemates leaped away from his crease. He was the lasting foil in one of the Bruins’ most unforgettable ▪ Most appropriate use of yard tools: Anthony Jusino, a Toronto-based days: Three goals down in Game 7 of the 2013 first round, they scored production manager with the NHL, deals with logistics and budgeting, four times in 16:47 to rip out Toronto’s hearts in overtime. “but at the end of the day,” he said, “we’re just creative problem solvers.”

Reimer, the backup for San Jose’s run to the Cup Final in 2016, hadn’t ▪ Biggest upset: Carey Price (32) and (34) were looking their made a playoff start since that Game 7 debacle. He stopped 37 of 38 age. The Canadiens didn’t have enough firepower up front. After selling shots in Tuesday’s clincher over the Rangers. As the clock ran out, it was at the trade deadline, there was talk during the pause that they didn’t 4-1. That score will no longer haunt him. even want to resume the season. But they got the Price of old, upped the compete level, and sent Pittsburgh toward another reload in an “We all love hockey, but playoff hockey is the best,” a glowing Reimer impressive 12-over-5 upset. In doing so, Montreal became the lowest said. “Nothing can touch it.” regular-season finisher in NHL history to make the playoffs. As if Habs fans needed another reason to crow about No. 24. ▪ Best response: In Game 2 against Toronto, cantankerous Columbus coach screamed at top-line center Pierre-Luc Dubois on Most sobering realization: After the (12) Blackhawks beat the (5) Oilers the bench. By the end of Torts’s tirade, Dubois was yapping back. The Friday night, the playoffs will continue without Connor McDavid, Leon former No. 3 pick (2016) took it out on the Leafs in Game 3, finishing a Draisaitl, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. We’ll take that if the Nos. 22 hat trick with an OT winner. (Arizona), 23 (Chicago) and 24 (Montreal) seeds advancing means there’s chaos ahead in the Round of 16. “Stuff like that happens,” Dubois said. “Coming into today, if you’re lacking motivation, you’re playing the wrong sport.” ▪ Best fit for Lafreniere: Of the teams already out (Rangers, Jets, Panthers) or in danger of being eliminated (Leafs, Oilers, Predators, ▪ Wildest swing: In the final minutes of Game 4, Toronto-Columbus, Wild) by close of business Friday, let’s go with the Leafs, given the online fans were blasting the Maple Leafs for lack of heart. They had playoff pain they’ve endured lately. blown a three-goal lead and lost in Game 3, and here they were, getting bounced out of the playoffs in Game 4. And yet, Toronto became the first Of the above teams, the longest drought without a high pick is Pittsburgh, playoff team to follow a three-goal choke job with a three-goal comeback, which has chosen once inside the top 20 (in 2012, when former GM Ray capped by Auston Matthews’s OT winner in Game 4. Even if they were to Shero took eighth — since drafting Marc-Andre Fleury (1), lose Game 5, there was a pulse in T.O. Evgeni Malkin (2), Sidney Crosby (1), and (2) from ’03-06. Current GM Jim Rutherford has traded five of his last six first-round ▪ Biggest market-setter: Islanders star Mathew Barzal, just too much for picks. He presumably would keep this one. the Panthers to handle, will be in a tough spot this offseason: take a bridge deal, hoping the flat cap ($81.5 million) rises in the next few years ▪ Best quarantine hair: Ivan Provorov. The Flyers’ back liner became Ivan and the NHL’s upcoming TV deal pays off; or lock in the security of a Flovorov during the pause. Best quarantine beard? That would be Sportsnet insider (and 19th- “Crystal clear. It’s still perfect in my mind. The play, that [Travis] Green century whaling captain) . slash, [Sheldon] Souray slamming into Kovy, the shot, I can see exactly how it went in on [Jose] Theodore. I remember Danny McGillis was about ▪ Worst reputation: Matthew Tkachuk plays on the edge, but it’s hard for 250 pounds and I was about 150, and he was picking me up over his me to buy the accusation lobbed by Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice, who head. said the Calgary agitator tried to injure Jets forward Mark Scheifele by targeting him in the back of his leg with his skate. Cannot see a pro “To go up, 3-1, in Montreal … obviously it didn’t go as well the next six thinking about doing that intentionally, much less pulling it off. days for me. But that’s as good a memory in hockey as I have.

▪ Cheekiest bubble: From its Jumbotron announcements (“please leave “Back in the day, that slash happened five times a shift. [Kovalev’s your couches safely” after the game and “tonight’s attendance: 0,” and reaction] caught everybody off guard. We were going into the locker banning the wave), to having an employee toss hats on to the ice for room saying, how did that just happen? He got angry after that. He was Connor McDavid’s hat trick, Edmonton was having a good time. sleeping on us to that point.”

Five questions with Andrew Raycroft, Calder Trophy-winning former 5. In your year in Colorado (2008-09), you played with a 39-year-old Joe goalie and NESN Bruins analyst. Sakic. What was he like as a teammate?

1. Expectations are high for this Bruins team, and this looks like one of “Ultra-competitive. Loved to score goals on Tuesday morning in practice. this core’s last best kicks at the can. How will Tuukka Rask handle this That wrist shot, everyone talks about it, and it’s true. He loved to score. kind of pressure? “He loved fantasy football, too. He was commissioner of our league. It’s “First off, I think because of the personality and his ability to get away not surprising he became a GM. He won that year, and made us all T- from the game in the summer, that makes him better. He’s comfortable shirts of his team. I still have it. It was some kind of duck name, so the not being on the ice every day for a few months. He believes in his game shirt had cartoon ducks all over it, with the roster. He was the guy who and that he can get his game back really quickly. I’m sure he feels ready was on the waiver wire every morning.” to play already. He’s always in shape. He’s always ready. ETC. “And to have Jaro [Halak] right there, they can figure this thing out together. Sit down and have a coffee in the morning, how’d you sleep, Orr has a hand in memorabilia talk about the little things, work off each other. This rookie card sold for $204,000 in Feb. 2019.

“I look at it, it’s such a disadvantage for all the players in the play-in This Bobby Orr rookie card sold for $204,000 in Feb. 2019. round, and the goaltenders. You don’t have to worry about that first game. You’ve got an extra seven days in the bubble to get comfortable. Mike Phillips, Upper Deck’s executive vice president for sales and It’s a massive advantage for the teams playing for seeding.” marketing, is in the nostalgia business. It is a powerful force for a sports fan. 2. What would winning a Cup this year do for Rask’s legacy, and this team’s legacy? “It’s especially powerful in times like this,” Phillips said. “People long for something that will bring them back to a better time, a more positive “I truly believe that whenever we look at the legacy, I think we’re going to time.” look back with more appreciation than we had at the time. I think we’re going to realize how great he was. Winning a Cup would cement that. Upper Deck’s high-end, museum-type memorabilia items are selling well There’s going to be no question. because work-from-home fans want to brighten up their homes (and show off for Zoom calls), Phillips said. “The Last Dance” documentary “You’re looking at the goalies in the league right now … only a few guys has put a jolt into Michael Jordan merch. A LeBron James rookie card have made it to three Finals. This would be his fourth, and I understand from 2003-04 recently auctioned for $1.8 million, a record for a newer he was Timmy [Thomas’s] backup [in 2011], but he was there, he was a card. part of that team. Here’s something for Bruins fans: a Bobby Orr Tegata. “To be in the Final four years, for all of these guys, I think that kind of puts them over the top when it comes to legacy and how we look at this Last spring, Orr stuck his left hand in black ink and pressed it on a fine group of players — as possibly the best group of all-time Bruins. piece of paper, in the Japanese memorabilia tradition, then signed the sheet. Upper Deck surrounded the print with a collage of Images from “They have a great opportunity. It’s going to be much different than what Orr’s career. Fifty were made — each selling for a cool $14,999. they thought it was going to be on March 12, but they still have as good an opportunity as any other team.” “That is our cornerstone piece from Bobby,” Phillips said. “No one else does anything like that.” (Those who slapped their first puck before 1972 will argue for the Bobby Orr-era Bruins as the greatest to wear Black and Gold. But this current Loose pucks core has been in place for longer than a decade. A second Cup, and we Friday’s six-team elimination-game bonanza wasn’t the league record for may have a new No. 1.) do-or-dies in a day. Seven teams faced postseason exits on April 13, 3. How different will bubble life be for these players? 1985. The Flames, Islanders, and Sabres won, while the Blues, Kings, Rangers, and Red Wings lost … In a must-win Game 3 against the “I think it’ll be a little more similar than people think. If you think about Islanders, old pal Noel Acciari skated 22:09 for the Panthers, the first what guys do come playoff time — in the regular season everyone’s still time he’s led all forwards in ice time during a game. The record since taking their kids to school. Once playoff time comes every year, you hear 1998, when the NHL began tracking time on ice, was Sergei Zubov, who guys talk about how tired they are, how they can’t wait to hang out with played 63:51 for the Stars in a 2003 game against the Ducks … While their family again, that they haven’t been able to take kids to the park waiting for his next opponent, what did Carolina defenseman Jaccob because they’ve been so tired every afternoon. Slavin have planned? “Board games, Catan, golf simulators, Spikeball,” “I think in those things, the bubble will be similar to a Stanley Cup playoff he said. “A little bit of everything, just trying to stay sane in the bubble.” feel for these guys. They’ll have fewer distractions. They won’t have to come home and having to tell their kids, ‘Listen I have to get some rest, we have another game tomorrow,’ or ‘I have to study video.’ Boston Globe LOADED: 08.09.2020

“With the testing, going into the building, if you’re not in the right mental state, those things can aggravate you. Those are the things that can add anxiety. Guys will need to figure out how to get those things out of the way, and get to their routine.”

4. You were in net for Game 4 of the 2004 Montreal-Boston series, when Alexei Kovalev took a slash and let Glen Murray score in overtime. What are your memories of that sequence? 1190546 Boston Bruins little longer to get their games going than the smaller, more fluid skaters and that’s played out on the blue line. Brandon Carlo, Zdeno Chara and Jeremy Lauzon have all had their hiccups.

Round-robin finale will determine Bruins’ playoff foe Carlo had been such a steady, calming influence on the play through much of the season but he’s fought the puck a bit in the round robin, and has made some questionable puck decisions. By STEVE CONROY | [email protected] | Boston Herald “Moving the puck, we need to simplify more, myself included,” said Carlo. PUBLISHED: August 8, 2020 at 4:27 p.m. | UPDATED: August 8, 2020 “Defensively, I feel like, in the zone, we’re in the right positions, the right at 7:11 p.m. spots and making it difficult for them to score. But, yeah, those puck possession plays have come back to bite us a little bit. I think that’s just

catching up with being off for four months. I haven’t really gotten the The Bruins’ complaints about the once-in-a-lifetime playoff format are hands going as much throughout that time period. Everybody’s legs are understandable. For roughly seven-eighths of the regular season, the B’s feeling fresh, you’re moving up the ice fast and it’s hard to control that were the best team in the league by a good margin, and you can see why puck at times. But overall, just simplifying the game will help in that they might feel a little more entitled to the top seed than any other team. regard.”

But thus far in this round-robin, the B’s as much as any team have The B’s have one more game to get things right, or at least close to it. In proven that they’ve desperately needed these meaningful tuneup games a few days, the losses will contain no silver linings. in order to regain their form. Through two games and one exhibition Cassidy said he’ll give Matt Grzelcyk Sunday’s game off as a contest, they’ve yet to look like the team they were in March. “maintenance” day in order to get Connor Clifton into the lineup. Clifton They have one more chance to grab a win when they play the was the only one of the top eight defensemen who has not gotten into the Washington Capitals on Sunday at high noon in Toronto’s Scotiabank game. Jeremy Lauzon will move to the left side. Arena bubble, but more importantly it’s one more chance improve their Tuukka Rask will get the start against the Capitals and Cassidy said the play and get that warm and fuzzy feeling before they jump into a best-of- plan is for him is to play the full game but left the door open for him to seven elimination series. come out early. What’s on the line in this one is pretty simple. Win and the B’s play the seventh-seeded New York Islanders, lose and face the sixth-seeded . Boston Herald LOADED: 08.09.2020 At a glance, the Canes would appear to be the better of the two prospective opponents. They have the Twin Finns, Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen, plus a budding superstar in Andrei Svechnikov up front and one of the league’s top young defensemen in Jaccob Slavin, all of whom played big roles in Carolina’s sweep of the Rangers. They also have some pretty good motivation after being swept themselves last year at the hands of the B’s in the Eastern Conference Final.

But what’s been clear from the get-go is that the Bruins have prioritized getting their game in order over going all out for the best seed possible. After a troubling opener against the Flyers, the B’s took a step forward in the loss to the Lightning. The object of Sunday’s game will be to take another one, then maybe one more..

While much of hockey-loving New England is fretting over the state of the Presidents’ Trophy winner’s play, coach Bruce Cassidy said his team’s state of mind is not as big of a concern as one might think.

“It’s hard to describe when we can’t engage face-to-face with you guys and you guys haven’t seen our players, just through a microphone here. Our guys are not in a bad place. They’re really not,” said Cassidy on a Zoom call Saturday. “We want to win. We want to play better. We wanted to preserve the No. 1 seed. But we have a veteran group that knows what the goal is and what’s at stake. They know that, come Tuesday or Wednesday, they know how to play playoff hockey. So as a coach, yes, I haven’t been around as long as they have, but I do know my team pretty well and I feel like we’re trending in the right direction. I see energy in practice now the last couple of days. I think that’s from just a little bit of clarity in our situation from (Friday). It’s either the Islanders or Carolina. There’s a team to start thinking about, players to start to dislike. And that’s the part of it that gets the juices flowing. I think you’ll see more energy (Sunday), but I also think you’ll see pockets of the game for both teams where it’s like ‘Hey, the real stuff starts Tuesday or Wednesday. We’ve got to be a little careful.’ Hopefully it’s not for long stretches, just the odd shift here or there but I think you’ll see some of that baked into the game for both teams at times.”

For the first time since training camp, Cassidy will have all of his players at his disposal. Ondrej Kase, who missed all of Phase 3 and the first week of Phase 4, will make his bubble debut skating on David Krejci’s right side while Jake DeBrusk will be back on the left. Anders Bjork will move to the right side on Charlie Coyle’s line while Nick Ritchie, playing his second game, will be on the left. Whether one game is enough for those ever-evolving middle six lines to gain traction remains to be seen.

While the forward lines are a concern – the B’s have scored three goals in round-robin play (two from Chris Wagner and one from Charlie McAvoy) – the back end still needs to be ironed out as well. Cassidy had said back at the start of training camp that the bigger guys might take a 1190547 Boston Bruins but neither one is a clear-cut No. 1 guy for the Hurricanes in the postseason.

What does it all mean? Bruins absolutely should play for Islanders matchup over Hurricanes Carolina is to be avoided if you are the Boston Bruins based on the torrid way it has played in the Toronto bubble, and based on the way Rod By Joe Haggerty Brind’Amour’s crew can match firepower with the B’s all over the ice.

August 08, 2020 1:30 PM It will be entirely up to the Bruins to control the fate of their first-round playoff matchup with a win or loss against the Capitals on Sunday, and that ultimately could make all the difference on how long the Bruins will manage to stay in the hunt for the Cup. It comes down to a simple equation for Boston’s opponent in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs next week, and it all depends on how the Bruins perform in their round-robin finale Sunday against the Washington Capitals. Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 08.09.2020

If the Bruins win in any fashion against the Capitals then they will face the New York Islanders in the first round starting Tuesday or Wednesday, and if they lose Sunday then they will go up against the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round. Friday started with the as a possible first-round opponent as well for Boston, but that went out the window once they were eliminated by the No. 12 seed .

As the Bruins players themselves had discussed, there is no preferred first-round adversary while knowing every team is going to be a quality opponent.

“We do sit and talk as a group every and whether it’s the first or the fourth seed, it does not matter who you are going to be playing…it’s going to be tough,” said Torey Krug in a zoom call with NBC Sports Boston earlier this week. “We went through all the teams yesterday and it just doesn’t matter. That being said we’re working our way into that playoff mode of hockey and trying to get our head wrapped around it.”

In all honestly, it’s clear the Bruins should want to win on Sunday vs. the Capitals, clinch the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference and face off against an admittedly solid Islanders team. The Islanders are well- coached as a Barry Trotz team, they have outstanding goaltending in (.923 save percentage vs. in the qualifying round) and they boast some very good players like Mat Barzal, , Jordan Eberle and Jean-Gabriel Pageau among others.

But the Islanders are a hustle-and-hard-work kind of team that maximizes its talent level during the regular season. That means they tend to have a more difficult time beating talented opponents in the playoffs working just as diligently as they are during the postseason. There is an absolute ceiling to how good the Isles can be while constantly scrapping for offense, and that means they would experience a difficult time matching the firepower of the Bruins.

The Islanders were 22nd in the NHL in offense averaging 2.78 goals per game and finished 24th in the league in power-play percentage. They relied heavily on defense, goaltending and hustle to offset the modest attack.

They will play physical and try to frustrate the Bruins, but they just can’t hang with the high-end talent of the B’s provided they show a little more urgency and competitiveness than they have during the round robin.

On the other hand, a B’s loss would put them against a Carolina team that absolutely dominated the New York Rangers in the qualifying round. The Hurricanes are a deep, young and very talented roster with young scorers like Sebastian Aho (3 goals and 8 points in 3 games vs. the Rangers), Andrei Svechnikov (3 goals and five points vs. the Rangers) and Teuvo Teravainen up front, and Jaccob Slavin and Sami Vatanen on the back end with the hope that ex-Bruins D-man Dougie Hamilton may return at some point in the first round as well.

The Hurricanes were a top-10 power play team during the regular season and had one of the best offensive groups in the NHL. They are a significantly improved team compared to the group that the Bruins ushered out of the Eastern Conference Finals with a sweep a year ago, and they added big pieces Vatanen and Vincent Trocheck at the trade deadline.

Clearly, the goaltending is still an area to exploit with the Hurricanes, but they are also coming off a playoff series where Petr Mrazek played the best hockey of his career while posting a .940 save percentage in two starts. Combined, James Reimer and Mrazek had an amazing .955 save percentage in the three wins over the Rangers in the qualifying round, 1190548 Buffalo Sabres A source said Rafters Club ambassadors were paid between $50,000 and $100,000 a year, with Perreault and Hasek at the top of the scale. Hasek would come to the a few times a year to attend Sabres and Bills legends face unexpected end to paid ambassador roles games, visit with sponsors and promote events, while locals Robert and Gare might make 20 to 30 appearances each.

Hall of Fame center Pat LaFontaine was an ambassador before he By Tim Graham became Sabres president, but has been estranged from the team since he resigned in March 2014. Aug 8, 2020 Not lost on some frustrated fans was the Sabres’ decision to hoist

sponsorship banners into the KeyBank Center rafters, too. Symbolism BUFFALO, N.Y. — At the introductory news conference for Terry suggested that Gold Ring Partners and their money had been elevated to Pegula’s purchase of the Sabres in 2011, he wept while addressing the same level as the Sabres’ on-ice heroes. Gilbert Perreault, the first draft choice in team history and its all-time “I know they’re hurting now,” Perreault said. “It’s a business. They’re not scoring king who had returned to the Sabres in 1996 as a “corporate and in it to lose money, you know. There’s nobody in the building. community relations liaison.” “How can they make money? I’m sure they’re losing money every year Last week, there was no tearful goodbye when a Sabres employee when you don’t make the playoffs.” informed Perreault his contract will not be renewed. Perreault wondered if the Rafters Club would be reunited “in a couple “I understand,” Perreault said. “I can’t even be mad about it.” years maybe, when things get back to normal.” For years, the Bills and Sabres each had a group of former players on Then he mused that his 70th birthday is in November and sounded paid personal services contracts. Duties for the ambassadors involved wistful about the possibility his days with the Sabres are over. representing their respective franchise at events for fans, sponsors and media. The Bills have employed Wall of Famers , Thurman “I had some great years in Buffalo,” Perreault said. “I had eight or nine Thomas and Darryl Talley, while the Sabres have used legends years with Terry and Kim, and they were excellent years. They’re great Perreault, Rene Robert, Danny Gare and Dominik Hasek. people. I have just good things to say about them. I wish them the best of luck.” Thomas and Talley found out months ago their contracts wouldn’t be renewed. Sabres ambassadors began to receive their notifications last week, causing a commotion among their alumni brothers about what the Pegulas are up to. The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020

“I’m not upset,” Perreault said. “I was expecting that with the COVID-19. We don’t even know if there’s going to be hockey next year. Will there be any fans in the building? The borders are closed. I can’t even go to Buffalo.”

A source involved with the conversations explained the Bills and Sabres want to move away from salaried contracts to a pay-per-appearance model and to incorporate additional former players, especially those who would appeal to younger fans. For example: Kyle Williams, Stevie Johnson, Daniel Briere and Thomas Vanek.

Talley’s contract expired in the winter and Thomas’ in the spring. Kelly still is under contract for 2020. Bills founder Ralph Wilson reportedly gave him a lifetime personal services contract to represent the organization at public and corporate events.

Kelly said he hasn’t been informed of any changes to his role.

“Not sure,” Kelly wrote in a text. “Haven’t been told anything YET.”

Officials from both the Bills and Pegula Sports and Entertainment did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday night.

Three ambassadors declined to be interviewed but confirmed they were let go and expressed disappointment, ranging from regret to outright anger, that neither Terry nor Kim Pegula was the one to deliver the news.

Some ambassadors need the side money more than others.

Hasek, the two-time MVP and six-time Vezina Trophy winner, made about $56 million over his career.

Talley revealed in 2014 that he had been suicidal over losing his home, business and cognitive function. A GoFundMe campaign raised over $150,000 to help Talley regain his footing, and former Bills president Russ Brandon offered an ambassador role to help.

“We hold absolutely nothing against the Pegulas,” Darryl’s wife, Janine Talley, said. “They came to our aid at a time when we needed the money the most. We have nothing but gratitude for what the Pegulas have done for us.”

Sabres ambassadors were known as the Rafters Club because that’s where their jersey numbers hung.

“Our role,” Perreault said, “was to be with the fans in Buffalo, talking to people at banquets or in the suites, meeting people for different occasions.

“I really enjoyed that. It was nice.” 1190549 Buffalo Sabres penciled in for Buffalo, upgrades to the center position could put him back on a Rochester-Buffalo shuttle.

Asplund Breaking down the Sabres’ current organizational player depth chart 2019-20: 29 games, one goal, two assists, three points; 33 games, three goals, 16 assists, 19 points (Rochester).

By John Vogl Contract status: Signed through 2020-21.

Aug 8, 2020 The 22-year-old made an impact during his first few NHL games but quickly faded. Consistency is necessary to secure a role in Buffalo. Otherwise, he’ll be a top-line player in Rochester. It’s been five months since the Sabres’ last game. It’s at least four months until the next one. Ruotsalainen

In the middle of an everlasting offseason, it’s easy to forget what 2019-20: 44 games, 15 goals, 28 assists, 43 points (, Finland) happened and what’s ahead. Contract status: Signed through 2021-22.

As a handy reminder, here’s an organizational depth chart that ranks After failing to land an NHL job during training camp, Ruotsalainen every position from top to bottom. We also sum up the season for all 38 returned to Finland for another season. It went well, aside from missing players under contract. As a bonus, we have potential opening-night time with an injury. He’s again on loan to Ilves because the Sabres are rosters for the Sabres and . on hiatus, but the 22-year-old is expected to play in North America Centers whenever hockey resumes. Whether it’s in Buffalo or Rochester will be up to him. Jack Eichel Dea Dylan Cozens 2019-20: Three games, zero points; 57 games, 15 goals, 24 assists, 39 Casey Mittelstadt points (Rochester).

Curtis Lazar Contract status: Signed through 2020-21.

Rasmus Asplund Signed to be a leader in Rochester, Dea led the Amerks in goals and points. The 26-year-old will fill the same role next season. Arttu Ruotsalainen Left wing Jean-Sebastien Dea Jeff Skinner Eichel Victor Olofsson 2019-20: 68 games, 36 goals, 42 assists, 78 points. Marcus Johansson Contract status: Signed through 2025-26. C.J. Smith The Sabres’ star made the jump to elite status, finishing eighth in the NHL in goals and 10th in points. Buffalo has every reason to believe he Remi Elie can move into the top five. He’ll be just 24 years old when next season starts. Brett Murray

Cozens Dawson DiPietro

2019-20: 51 games, 38 goals, 47 assists, 85 points (Lethbridge, WHL). Matej Pekar

Contract status: Signed through 2022-23. Skinner

The 19-year-old lands second on the depth chart for his skill and the fact 2019-20: 59 games, 14 goals, nine assists, 23 points. he and Eichel are the only centers guaranteed to be in Buffalo next Contract status: Signed through 2026-27. season. Cozens has outgrown junior hockey and isn’t eligible for the AHL. Ideally, the Sabres will ease him into the NHL as the third-line The first season of an eight-year, $72 million contract was forgettable, to center or move him to wing until he gets his footing. But he’s ready. say the least. The most obvious reason was a change in roles. Skinner skated with Eichel at even strength for just 103 minutes after being Mittelstadt together for 845 minutes during Skinner’s 40-goal season. Sabres coach 2019-20: 31 games, four goals, five assists, nine points; 36 games, nine Ralph Krueger wants Skinner to drive his own line, but the winger needs goals, 16 assists, 25 points (Rochester, AHL). better linemates to make it happen.

Contract status: Restricted free agent with $874,125 qualifying offer. Olofsson

Demoted after a stretch of one goal, one assist and 18 shots in 21 2019-20: 54 games, 20 goals, 22 assists, 42 points. games, the center started to produce in Rochester. The Sabres would Contract status: Restricted free agent with $735,000 qualifying offer and love for that to be a springboard back to an NHL role. Mittelstadt will be arbitration rights. 22 years old when next season starts, so he’s still young, but increased production would be an immeasurable boost for Buffalo. If he struggles An ankle injury cost Olofsson a shot at the Calder Trophy as rookie of the again, he wouldn’t need waivers to return to the Amerks. year, but not much else slowed him down. The 25-year-old rode shotgun to Eichel and fired away, proving he can score in the NHL. Now it’s just a Lazar matter of seeing how many goals he can rack up.

2019-20: 38 games, five goals, five assists, 10 points; 18 games, six Johansson goals, eight assists, 14 points (Rochester). 2019-20: 60 games, nine goals, 21 assists, 30 points. Contract status: Restricted free agent with $735,000 qualifying offer and arbitration rights. Contract status: Signed through 2020-21.

Called up when Mittelstadt went down, Lazar established himself as a A move to center sapped his production, so the Sabres’ plan should be to bottom-six forward. His biggest contributions came during overtime, move him back to left wing. If they do, the team has a highly enviable when he’d win faceoffs to give possession to Eichel. While Lazar is three-line punch down the left side. Smith Contract status: Restricted free agent with $874,125 qualifying offer and arbitration rights. 2019-20: 50 games, 12 goals, 15 assists, 27 points (Rochester). The 25-year-old is a promising pickup from the trade deadline, scoring Contract status: Signed through 2020-21. twice and adding two assists in his six games with Buffalo. He played Failing to get a call to Buffalo stung Smith, who’d scored 28 times for the center in Germany, which Krueger saw because Kahun was a teammate Amerks the previous season. The 25-year-old has an ace in the hole next of the coach’s son, so it’ll be interesting to see where the forward lines up year. His contract turns into a one-way deal, meaning the Sabres pay during camp. Regardless of the spot, he’ll be on a scoring line. him $700,000 whether he’s in Rochester or Buffalo. The organization has Okposo made it clear it doesn’t want big contracts in the AHL, so Smith could have the inside track on an NHL job. 2019-20: 52 games, nine goals, 10 assists, 19 points.

Elie Contract status: Signed through 2022-23.

2019-20: 34 games, eight goals, five assists, 13 points (Rochester). He’s settled into a bottom-six role as one of Buffalo’s more reliable defenders while chipping in offensively. Among Sabres who skated in at Contract status: Restricted free agent with $735,000 qualifying offer and least 10 games, Okposo’s points per 60 minutes of 1.67 trailed only arbitration rights. Reinhart (1.91) and Eichel (1.89).

There’s no room for him in Buffalo. The organization doesn’t want to Thompson spend heavily in Rochester. The Sabres could decline to issue a qualifying offer and make the 25-year-old a free agent. They will need 2019-20: One game, zero points; 16 games, six goals, six assists, 12 some veterans in Rochester, though. points (Rochester).

Murray Contract status: Restricted free agent with $874,125 qualifying offer.

2019-20: 55 games, nine goals, 15 assists, 24 points (Rochester). Promoted after a fine start with the Amerks, Thompson suffered a season-ending shoulder injury during his first game with Buffalo. The 22- Contract status: Signed through 2021-22. year-old is one of Buffalo’s biggest X-factors heading into next season. After a long road from 2016 fourth-round pick to skating on an AHL He’s showed potential to provide much-needed secondary scoring. contract last season, Murray has made it. The Sabres have signed the Oglevie 22-year-old to a two-year, entry-level deal. Continued growth would put the 6-foot-5 forward in the mix for a call-up next season. 2019-20: 55 games, 15 goals, 14 assists, 29 points (Rochester).

DiPietro Contract status: Restricted free agent with $874,125 qualifying offer and arbitration rights. 2019-20: 35 games, 12 goals, 17 assists, 29 points (Western Michigan, NCAA). Heading into his third season in the organization, Oglevie has entered bubble status for a roster spot in Buffalo. The 25-year-old tied Dea for Contract status: Signed through 2020-21. most goals with the Amerks and could take advantage of a thin position.

The Sabres brought in the undrafted free agent following a productive Biro collegiate career. Invited to last year’s development camp, he showed speed and an up-tempo game. The 24-year-old will start in Rochester 2019-20: 25 games, 10 goals, 15 assists, 25 points (Penn State, NCAA). and work his way up. Contract status: Signed through 2021-22. Pekar Another college free agent, Biro served as the Nittany Lions’ captain and 2019-20: 51 games, 28 goals, 35 assists, 63 points (Barrie and Sudbury, ranks fourth on the school’s all-time points list. Like DiPietro, the 22-year- OHL). old will start in Rochester and work his way up.

Contract status: Signed through 2022-23. Left defense

A hard-driving antagonizer who skated on scoring lines in juniors, the 20- Rasmus Dahlin year-old will try to find a similar role during his first season in the minors. Jake McCabe Right wing Jacob Bryson Sam Reinhart Mattias Samuelsson Dominik Kahun Brandon Hickey Kyle Okposo Dahlin Tage Thompson 2019-20: 59 games, four goals, 36 assists, 40 points. Andrew Oglevie Contract status: Signed through 2020-21. Brandon Biro With 84 points in 141 games before turning 20, Dahlin’s development is Reinhart on pace. He’s already Buffalo’s top defender. It seems like only a matter of time before he takes the next step leaguewide, especially after bulking 2019-20: 69 games, 22 goals, 28 assists, 50 points. up during the extended offseason.

Contract status: Restricted free agent with $3.75 million qualifying offer McCabe and arbitration rights. 2019-20: 66 games, three goals, 10 assists, 13 points. For the fourth time in his five seasons, Reinhart scored at least 22 times. His assist total slipped from 43 the previous season, but his price tag is Contract status: Signed through 2020-21. going up. The $6.5 million range could be in play for Buffalo’s top right winger. Despite ranking seventh among Buffalo blueliners in offensive-zone starts (39.23 percent), he was third in Corsi (50.46). He was also second Kahun in most goals allowed (47). Adding another left-handed defender would allow Buffalo to slide the 26-year-old into a more suitable third-pairing 2019-20: 56 games, 12 goals, 19 assists, 31 points (Pittsburgh and role. Buffalo). Bryson 2019-20: 61 games, four goals, 23 assists, 27 points (Rochester). 2019-20: 51 games, one goal, 10 assists, 11 points.

Contract status: Signed through 2021-22. Contract status: Signed through 2021-22.

The 22-year-old had a fine first pro season, putting himself in the Miller was among those affected by Jokiharju’s ascension, finding himself conversation for roster player in Buffalo. If not, he’ll take over for the as a healthy scratch after being one of Vegas’ top point producers. The departed Zach Redmond as the go-to guy in Rochester at even strength Sabres’ decision on Montour will impact Miller’s role. and on the power play. Borgen Samuelsson 2019-20: 61 games, one goal, 10 assists, 11 points (Rochester). 2019-20: 30 games, two goals, 12 assists, 14 points (Western Michigan, NCAA). Contract status: Signed through 2020-21.

Contract status: Signed through 2022-23. The only thing keeping the 23-year-old out of Buffalo is the logjam ahead of him. Borgen’s toughness sets him apart from everyone but Signed after just two college seasons, the 20-year-old will be a Ristolainen, and the Sabres will be watching closely during camp. centerpiece in the Amerks’ get-younger mandate. The second-round pick from 2018 has the size and skill to make an impact. Fitzgerald

Hickey 2019-20: 25 games, two goals, six assists, eight points (Rochester).

2019-20: 23 games, one goal, one assist, two points (Rochester). Contract status: Signed through 2020-21.

Contract status: Restricted free agent with $874,125 qualifying offer and Injuries derailed the 23-year-old’s first pro season. With the Amerks thin arbitration rights. at forward, they’d occasionally put Fitzgerald up front. He figures to benefit from fewer veterans in Rochester. In and out of the lineup in Rochester, the Amerks usually paired the 24- year-old with an offensive defenseman to take advantage of Hickey’s Laaksonen defensive game. Given the organization’s lack of depth on the left side, a 2019-20: 46 games, two goals, 10 assists, 12 points (Ilves, Finland). qualifying offer is expected. Contract status: Signed through 2022-23. Right defense Despite a big drop in assists (21 to 10), the 21-year-old is headed to Rasmus Ristolainen North America after three seasons with Ilves. He’ll learn the game in the Brandon Montour minors.

Henri Jokiharju Spencer

Colin Miller 2019-20: One game, zero points (Rochester); 39 games, one goal, 16 assists, 17 points (Cincinnati, ECHL). Will Borgen Contract status: Restricted free agent with $735,000 qualifying offer. Casey Fitzgerald A three-year pro, Spencer spent his first season in the Sabres’ Oskari Laaksonen organization far away from Buffalo. It wouldn’t be shocking if the 23-year- old didn’t get a qualifying offer and became a free agent. Matthew Spencer Goalies Ristolainen Linus Ullmark 2019-20: 69 games, six goals, 27 assists, 33 points. Carter Hutton Contract status: Signed through 2021-22. Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen For the first time in his seven-year career, Ristolainen reached the even mark in five-on-five goal differential (48 goals for, 48 against). He was Jonas Johansson minus-23 the previous season (51 for, 74 against). Krueger has called the 25-year-old a core piece moving forward, but Ristolainen says any Ullmark trades could feature him. He remains the Sabres’ most intriguing 2019-20: 17-14-3, .915 save percentage, 2.69 goals-against average. defenseman because of his uncertain status. Contract status: Restricted free agent with $1.325 million qualifying offer Montour and arbitration rights.

2019-20: 54 games, five goals, 13 assists, 18 points. He is Buffalo’s No. 1 goalie, but the jury is still out if he’s an NHL No. 1. Contract status: Restricted free agent with $3.525 million qualifying offer He tied for 11th in even-strength save percentage (.926) but was 55th and arbitration rights. while short-handed (.838). The 27-year-old’s next contract will give a clue as to how far away the organization feels Luukkonen is and whether it The 26-year-old is Buffalo’s biggest offseason question mark. He failed to believes Ullmark can make a jump to unquestioned starter. provide bang for the buck with his current deal. Will the Sabres sign him to a bigger one? Will they take their chances with arbitration? Jason Hutton Botterill gave up Brendan Guhle and a first-round pick to get Montour, but 2019-20: 12-14-4, .898 save percentage, 3.18 GAA. will new flip him? The right-side depth makes Montour expendable. Contract status: Signed through 2020-21.

Jokiharju The 34-year-old enters the final season of a disappointing three-year deal. He has failed to come close to the lofty numbers he set with St. 2019-20: 69 games, four goals, 11 assists, 15 points. Louis (.931). Though an eye condition gets some of the blame for a poor Contract status: Signed through 2020-21. 2019-20, his two-year numbers of 30-39-9 with a .904 save percentage put him in a backup role. A pleasant surprise after being acquired for Alex Nylander last offseason, Jokiharju joined Ristolainen as the only defensemen to skate in every Luukkonen game. The 21-year-old has the potential to move to the top of the right- 2019-20: 3-4-3, .874 save percentage, 3.15 GAA (Rochester); 12-7-3, side depth chart. .912 save percentage, 2.24 GAA (Cincinnati).

Miller Contract status: Signed through 2021-22. Second to Cozens on Buffalo’s prospects chart, Luukkonen had an up- and-down debut as a pro. He excelled in the ECHL but was slow to catch up to the AHL. The 21-year-old will head into next season as Rochester’s No. 1 netminder with a steady workload ahead.

Johansson

2019-20: 1-3-1, .894 save percentage, 2.94 GAA; 14-4-3, .921 save percentage, 2.28 GAA (Rochester).

Contract status: Restricted free agent with $725,000 qualifying offer and arbitration rights.

After bouncing between Rochester and Cincinnati for two seasons, Johansson established himself at the AHL level. He made six appearances in Buffalo with Ullmark injured but wasn’t ready for the task. Just 24 years old, he’ll push to split games with Luukkonen in Rochester. He figures to be the first call-up because the organization wants to develop Luukkonen slowly.

To sum up:

The Sabres need a No. 2 center. It’s expecting too much for Mittelstadt or Cozens to make the leap (though it would be a huge boost if they do).

They’re well-stocked at left wing and right defense.

They need Thompson to fill the hole at right wing.

They could use a left-handed defender to slot between Dahlin and McCabe.

They need steadier goaltending from their current crop or an offseason addition.

The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190550 They have a dependable defence, especially if TJ Brodie continues to play at the same level he did during the play-ins.

And their go-to goalie is in some kind of groove right now. Talbot didn’t Flames could be tough out for a first-round favourite allow a single softie against Winnipeg, posting a splendid 1.51 goals- against average and .947 save percentage.

Wes Gilbertson Perhaps most important of all, the Flames have learned some tough lessons from their past playoff flops and seem — so far, at least — to August 8, 2020 6:02 PM MDT have turned all that frustration into valuable fuel.

Some will argue they had an easier road due to the Jets’ injury woes, but it’s a positive sign that they refused to ease up, sticking with a crash-and- It’s usually a sort of spring tradition around the hockey world — talk about bang brand that clearly took its toll on the undermanned opposition. a lower-seeded team that nobody wants to face in the opening round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. “What’s going to make our team hard is that we’re physical and we have a really good forecheck,” said third-line centre Sam Bennett, who scored In this unprecedented summer restart, perhaps the Calgary Flames fit twice and racked up a team-high 22 hits in that jettison of the Jets. “We that profile. can be hard on the other team’s defence. I think we showed that in the Give them credit — the Flames were impressive in a four-game ouster of Winnipeg series, and we’re not going to let up for whoever we play next.” the in the first-of-its-kind qualification round. With all due Whoever they play next, the Flames — the eighth seed in the play-ins, respect to the other play-in survivors in the Western Conference, this is now sixth among the remaining squads — will be considered the likely the squad that the favourites would rather avoid. underdogs. “Right now, with our team, I think the biggest thing is we’re hungry,” said After finally getting over that first hump, though, this seems like a lesser- Flames first-line centre and alternate captain Sean Monahan, pacing his lite that could do some serious damage. posse with six points so far. “We’ve had chances in the playoffs before and we’ve been embarrassed and obviously been knocked out a few They should be feeling good after their showing against the Jets, times. Right now, you look at our team, every guy is bought in and every although over-confidence has been an enemy in the past. guy wants it. “I thought that was a great series for us — we learned a lot about our “I think the character of our team has stepped up.” team and we played some pretty solid hockey,” Bennett said during Saturday’s Zoom call with media. “But now we’re just looking ahead. Advancing through the qualification round — however you classify it, We’re going to move on. We played good hockey and now we’re moving Calgary’s first post-season series triumph since 2015 — is not an on and worrying about the next team, whoever that is going to be. insignificant step. “It doesn’t really matter to us. We’re a confident group right now.” The Flames’ next opponent will be determined Sunday afternoon, and it’s this simple — they’ll meet the winner of a matinee between the St. Louis Blues and (1 p.m. MT, Sportsnet). Although the action will all occur inside an empty in Edmonton, the other guys will Calgary Sun: LOADED: 08.09.2020 have home-ice advantage in what will be a best-of-seven battle.

The Blues, of course, are the defending Stanley Cup champions and all the key pieces from that run — a list that is headlined by Jordan Binnington, Alex Pietrangelo, Ryan O’Reilly and the once-again-healthy Vladimir Tarasenko — are back in the bid for a repeat.

The Stars seem like a more favourable matchup, especially since they dropped six in a row before the pandemic pause and have lost back-to- back in the bubble. That said, they were the stingiest squad in the Western Conference during the regular season and have a bunch of dudes — led by Jamie Benn, Joe Pavelski and Tyler Seguin — with a history of filling the net against the Flames.

“It doesn’t matter who we play, it will be one heck of a tough series,” promised Calgary’s starting puck-stopper, Cam Talbot. “There are only good teams left.”

Indeed, there are reasons to fear both the Blues and Stars, each able to dodge the play-in round after finishing among the top-four in the regular- season standings.

Thing is, the Flames are a formidable foe, too. From this vantage point, they have serious upset potential.

For starters, they have scoring depth. In fact, every one of their first- liners, second-liners and third-liners tickled twine against the Jets, while Tobias Rieder sniped a shortie and rearguard Rasmus Andersson fired one into an empty net.

“I mean, when you have 11 guys get on the scoresheet … ” said Talbot, no doubt thankful for the run support. “Our best players were our best players (against Winnipeg), but we got contributions from up and down our lineup. Our penalty-kill was really good and our power-play got some big goals, so I think special-teams is going to be huge. But scoring depth, for sure …

“Anytime you can get contributions from everybody, it’s going to be huge, and I think that’s what is going to make us a difficult team to handle moving forward.”

While the Flames still have plenty of top talent, they added some grit and toughness after an early — and easy — exit as a top seed last spring. 1190551 Calgary Flames the Jets, there’s still a long way to go before they accomplish their ultimate goal.

“I think the biggest challenge, to be honest with you, is getting your Flames hope for boost from qualifying round win over Jets headspace back to where it was before the first series,” Ward said. “With us, we’ve got a young team … When you don’t have the experience, there’s a tendency to maybe sit on that first series a little too often. I Daniel Austin think, for us, that’s the big challenge, mentally preparing our guys to get set a few days before we play whoever we play so that we really mentally August 8, 2020 5:47 PM MDT can prepare for what lies ahead.”

Having to win a few big games down the regular season stretch is never Calgary Sun: LOADED: 08.09.2020 a bad thing for NHL teams.

We learned that in last year’s playoffs, when two lowly eighth-seeded teams knocked off the top teams in their conferences and the St. Louis Blues went from last place in early-January to Stanley Cup champions in June.

Hypothetically speaking, surviving a best-of-five qualifying series against the Winnipeg Jets could replicate that for the Calgary Flames. They had to fight tooth-and-nail to earn their spot in the first-round of the NHL playoffs, after all, and playing four high-stakes games should have them battle-hardened, right?

It definitely can’t hurt.

“We weren’t just playing for seeding, we were playing for our lives and I think that helps moving forward,” said Flames goalie Cam Talbot. “But it doesn’t really matter who we’re playing in the next round. Whether it’s (the Dallas Stars or St. Louis Blues), they’re going to be coming in hot. They’re going to be fighting for their lives and they’re two big, heavy teams.

“It’s going to take everyone up and down our lineup. We got contributions from everybody in the last round and we’re going to need that to continue to beat either of those teams. It definitely helps that we’ve been through a round where our lives were on the line and I think we’re going to need to continue with that desperation.”

To be clear, this isn’t about confidence. The Flames had plenty of that last year when they entered the playoffs as the Western Conference’s No. 1 seed, only to get unceremoniously dumped out of the postseason in five games by the Colorado Avalanche.

It’s more about learning how to win high-pressure games. NHL history is littered with great regular season teams who couldn’t find ways to carry that success into the playoffs, where adversity is inevitable.

The qualifying series against the Jets might not have officially been “the playoffs”, but the do-or-die stakes were essentially the same and the Flames do believe the lessons they learned over the last week-and-a-half could be valuable when they face off against the winner of Sunday’s round-robin game between the Blues and Stars.

“I think we’re ready for it,” said Flames centre Sean Monahan. “We just went through a pretty intense series, so we know what’s coming. It’s the playoffs, so whoever we’re playing is going to be ready, too. As a group, we’ve got to step up and whoever we’re playing in Game 1, it’s going to be an important one.”

Again and again, the Flames put an emphasis on the importance of Game 1 against the Blues or the Stars. Whatever momentum may or may not have been gained, that can easily be lost if the Flames lay an egg in their Round 1 opener. They can also build on it with a strong showing, though.

One thing the Flames won’t be relying on, though, is their first-round opponent underperforming just because they haven’t played in a recent do-or-die series.

If there’s an advantage to having played in the qualifying round, that’s great, but it’s not going to be what wins them the next series.

“A team that has been off for a while, the possibility is there that you may come out flat but we can’t count on that,” said Flames head coach Geoff Ward. “We know we’re playing a really good team, whoever it happens to be, and we have to be prepared for the fact that they’re going to come out flying.”

For now, the Flames will focus on themselves. They can’t get too far ahead of themselves because whatever they might have learned against 1190552 Calgary Flames And, on Dec. 22, the visiting Flames made it look easy, bagging a 5-1 decision. Matthew Tkachuk and Elias Lindholm, linemates in those days, each recorded three points. “They’re both smart — I think that’s the thing What — and whom — the Flames can expect in the next round of that stands out to me,” said coach Geoff Ward. “And they’re able to get a playoffs feel now for where each other are going to be on the ice, and that comes with playing together.”

Relatively quiet this winter — combining for only one point in the three By Scott Cruickshank matches — Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin have been known to feast on the Flames. One night at the Saddledome, Seguin scored four times and Aug 8, 2020 Benn registered six points.

A couple of relative newcomers to Texas, Joe Pavelski and , The Calgary Flames know they’ve earned a spot in the next round of the are nonetheless familiar faces, too. NHL playoffs. A haunter of springs past, Perry, as a member of the , But when they woke up Friday, they didn’t know whom to hate — just yet. has scalded the Flames for 14 points in 16 playoff meetings. And Pavelski, former star of the San Jose Sharks, rustled up seven points, Mark Giordano, the previous night, had been keenly aware of the including two game-winning goals, in a single postseason showdown upcoming challenge. Stacked in front of the Flames were the Western against Calgary. Conference’s kingpins, including the reigning — and rugged — Stanley Cup champs. Worth mentioning, too, is the one striking similarity between the clubs.

Combined, those four squads went 9-1-2 against the Flames this winter. Like the Flames, the Stars were forced to work through an in-season (and non-hockey-related) coaching switch. After Jim Montgomery was And now the Calgarians would get saddled with one of those brutes for a fired Dec. 10, Rick Bowness, an old hand, steered the team to a 20-13-5 couple of weeks. While the captain credited his team’s newfound robust record. style for leading it past the Winnipeg Jets in the qualifying round, he understands what the league’s upper crust brings. Ward, taking over for Bill Peters, put together a log of 25-15-3.

“If you look at the teams we could potentially match up against,” said Calgary connections: Winger Blake Comeau played 91 times (2011-13) Giordano, “they’re all big teams who play physical.” for the Flames, collecting 22 points; centre Justin Dowling, a native of Cochrane, Alta., skated for the Airdrie Xtreme and the UFA Bisons, Friday’s action cleared up the picture. before embarking on a pro career; Dillon Heatherington was part of the Calgary Bronks and Flames programs before joining WHL Since the bottom seeds — the Arizona Coyotes and the Chicago Swift Current and getting drafted in 2013’s second round; Stars goalie Blackhawks — are advancing, they’ll face the top two teams from the coach Jeff Reese appeared in 39 games (1991-94) for the Flames. round robin, the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights. ST. LOUIS BLUES Meaning the Flames, no worse than the sixth seed, will pull either the Dallas Stars or the St. Louis Blues. Record: 42-19-10, 94 points, first in conference

That will be determined in Sunday’s final bit of spine-tingling action in the Season series versus Flames: 3-0-0 round robin. Head-to-head versus Flames: 6-3-1 (last 10 in regular season), 69-54-15 Till then, here for the Flames — who average 6-foot-1, 199 pounds, 27.4 (all-time) years of age; who own the least amount of playoff experience of all the bubble contestants; who showed well during the regular season in Tale of the tape: 6-foot-1, 201 pounds, 27.7 years old special teams (12th on the power play, 8th on the penalty kill) — is a Playoff experience: 1,036 games, 5th most peek at their foes. Special teams (regular season): PP — 4th, PK — 18th DALLAS STARS Difference-makers: RW — 34 points, including 17 goals (5 Record: 37-24-8, 82 points, fourth in conference game-winners), in 39 games against Calgary; LW Alexander Steen — 29 Season series versus Flames: 1-1-1 points in 35 games; C Brayden Schenn — 17 points in 19 games; G Jordan Binnington — 3-0-0, 2.13 GAA, .929 Head-to-head versus Flames: 7-2-1 (last 10 in regular season), 51-25-20 (all-time) Easy to make the case for avoiding this crew. Why would anyone want to face the champs? Tale of the tape: 6-foot-1, 202 pounds, 27.8 years old St. Louis, as an encore to its title-winning campaign, posted the Playoff experience: 733 games, 9th most conference’s best numbers.

Special teams (regular season): PP — 13th, PK — 17th To their credit, the Flames hung tough with the Blues.

Difference-makers: LW Jamie Benn — 33 points, including 18 goals, in Twice at the Saddledome, the games had been locked after regulation 34 games against Calgary; C Tyler Seguin — 22 points, including four time. The visitors needed OT (David Perron) to win 3-2 on Nov. 9 and a game-winning goals, in 23 games; C Joe Pavelski — 50 points in 55 shootout finish (with Perron, again, doing the honours) to win 5-4 on Jan. games; RW Alexander Radulov — six power-play goals in 16 games. 28.

No one’s idea of a sure thing, but of the conference’s cream, the Stars Nov. 21 at Enterprise Center, however, had not been pretty — and not may represent the Flames’ best hope in a best-of-seven series. only because Andrew Mangiapane had his nose busted on a hit from (part of a one-goal, plus-three evening for the defender). No slight intended, but it’s right there in the archives — Calgary actually This one finished 5-0 — only Mikael Backlund and Michael Frolik weren’t won two of three meetings between the clubs this winter. on the ice for goals against — and featured a players-only meeting after Oct. 10 at , goalie David Rittich, who foiled the buzzer. Alexander Radulov’s penalty-shot attempt in overtime, bagged his first- “Just a lot of honesty between guys,” Mark Giordano said afterward. “We ever shootout victory, 3-2. “Did you see my record? Don’t even look at it,” all love each other in here. But, at the end of the day, sometimes you said Rittich. “I’m glad I have my first win in a shootout. So don’t look at have to be honest with the guys you’re closest to, and it’s a good thing. I the record.” Johnny Gaudreau, last contestant of the third round, sealed think we’ll get together again tonight at the team meal and hash it out, things by beating Ben Bishop. and hopefully we can get some real positives from hearing guys speak.” The Texans, however, put away a 3-1 decision, with an empty-netter, From there — with a coaching change on the horizon — the Flames did Nov. 13 at the Saddledome. Facing 31 shots, goalie Cam Talbot was find their groove. named first star. Now the challenge for them — or anyone else — is overcoming this playoff-tested collection of winners. It won’t be pleasant for anyone opposite the Blues in August.

But for clingers of history, there’s this bit of precedent.

The last time the Flames participated in a best-of-five series, they beat Winnipeg in 1986 — and ended up going all the way to the Stanley Cup Final.

The last — and only — time they met the Blues in the postseason? Yup, also 1986, with the Calgarians prevailing 2-1 in Game 7 in the conference final.

The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190553 Chicago Blackhawks

The Blackhawks will play top-seeded Golden Knights — and a familiar face — in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs

By PHIL THOMPSON

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

AUG 08, 2020 AT 6:02 PM

The Chicago Blackhawks have drawn the Las Vegas Golden Knights as their first-round opponent in the NHL playoffs, thanks to Las Vegas’ 3-2 win Saturday in the decisive round-robin game to set the top seed in the Western Conference.

The Hawks upset the Oilers as the 12th seed Friday, clinching their best- of-five qualifying series in four games. Now Chicago becomes the eighth seed in the West as they join the field of 16 for this year’s playoffs.

In a bit of irony, the seeding pits the Hawks against Golden Knights Robin Lehner, whom they traded in February when it looked as if Chicago was a long shot to make the playoffs. But then the COVID- 19 pause happened in March, the NHL set an expanded 24-team format for the postseason and fate took care of the rest in the qualifiers.

“It’s going to be fun playing them,” Lehner said. “They’re a very good hockey team and I have a lot of respect for them and their whole organization. But I really like it here, I think we’re a great hockey team and we’ll do well against them.”

The Golden Knights and Colorado Avalanche entered Saturday’s matchup with each having won both of their first two round-robin games. They waged a seesaw battle through the first two periods, but in the third Avalanche defenseman swept Golden Knights forward Jonathan Marchessault’s legs from under him on a breakaway, and Marchessault scored the go-ahead goal on the penalty shot.

But Avalanche forward J.T. Compher wristed a goal with just over a minute remaining in the game to force overtime.

With 15.9 seconds remaining in the extra period, Golden Knights winger Alex Tuch roofed the game-winner against Avalanche goaltender Philipp Grubauer.

Against Colorado Saturday, Lehner made 32 saves and allowed three goals. He had a .914 save percentage.

The Golden Knights win came after what has been dubbed “Black Friday” as the Montreal Canadiens also stunned the Pittsburgh Penguins to advance as the East’s eighth seed. And the Arizona Coyotes also spoiled the Nashville Predators’ series and will take on the Avalanche, Saturday’s loser, as the West’s seventh seed.

Now that the dust has settled, the Blackhawks will see Lehner, who splits duties with Marc-Andre Fleury. He had a .918 save percentage and 3.01 goals against average in the 33 games he played for Chicago. The Golden Knights expect to continue that dual approach in the playoffs.

“We haven’t even thought about Game 1 yet,” Golden Knights coach Peter DeBoer said, “but if we get to where we want to go, I guarantee we will use both guys.”

Chicago Tribune LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190554 Chicago Blackhawks Chicago Sun Times LOADED: 08.09.2020

Blackhawks to face Golden Knights, Robin Lehner in Stanley Cup playoffs

By Ben Pope@BenPopeCST

Aug 8, 2020, 4:59pm CDT

Robin Lehner and Corey Crawford battled throughout much of the regular season for the Blackhawks’ No. 1 goalie job.

A thousand twists in the road later, the two elite goalies — or at least their two teams — now will battle each other in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The Golden Knights, Lehner’s team since being dealt by the Hawks at the trade deadline in February, beat the Avalanche 4-3 in overtime Saturday to clinch the top seed in the Western Conference.

That sets up a best-of-seven series starting next week, with the schedule yet to be announced, against the 12th-seeded Hawks, who advanced to the round of 16 by upsetting the Oilers in the qualifying round.

‘‘It’s going to be fun playing them,’’ Lehner said. ‘‘They’re a very good hockey team, and I have a lot of respect for them, their whole organization. But I really like it here. We’re a great hockey team, and we’ll do well against them.’’

When Hawks general manager traded Lehner — a pending free agent in line for a big contract — for goalie , prospect Slava Demin and a second-round draft pick, it seemed there was no way the Hawks could run into him again this season.

The Hawks and Knights already had completed their three-game season series — with the Knights winning twice — and the Hawks’ playoff hopes were virtually nonexistent.

But a global pandemic, an unprecedented change in the postseason format and the right combination of outcomes in the last week have set up a golden — no pun intended — narrative.

Now Knights coach Peter DeBoer must decide whether he fully will embrace it. He can start Lehner, who is 5-0-0 with a .924 save percentage in his first five starts for the Knights, or Marc-Andre Fleury, who has been to five but posted his worst save percentage (.905) since 2006 this season.

‘‘We haven’t even thought about Game 1 yet; we’re just going to enjoy tonight,’’ DeBoer said Saturday. ‘‘The idea of playing both guys [in the round-robin games] was [that] I believe we’re going to need both guys and both guys are going to play. We’ll see how that rolls out.’’

If Lehner does play, there almost certainly will be some passionate emotions involved. After his news conference Saturday, Lehner tweeted a GIF captioned, ‘‘Awkward Alert.’’

And his kind words about the Hawks somewhat contradicted his scathing quotes from his introductory interview Feb. 27 in Las Vegas.

‘‘I went to Chicago to help them out and got promises of getting a fair chance to play,’’ Lehner told reporters. ‘‘I didn’t play much in the beginning or the middle-beginning of the season, even if I played really well and had a good camp. Eventually I took over, and I won, like, nine out of 10 [games] . . . and we walked up one point behind a playoff spot. Then all of a sudden, I found myself on the bench for no reason. That was tough. Plus, negotiations [on a contract extension] had totally died out.’’

Lehner and Crawford always appeared to have a good relationship in the locker room, but Lehner visibly soured about his situation and was far less outspoken in the weeks leading up to the trade.

If anything can reopen those wounds, it’s a playoff series against the Hawks with livelihoods on the line.

‘‘We’ve got a pretty good task against Chicago here,’’ Knights forward Jonathan Marchessault said. ‘‘They’ve definitely earned some respect in the league. They’re one of the best teams for the past 10 years, so definitely we’re going to focus on that.’’

1190555 Chicago Blackhawks

Blackhawks’ Corey Crawford shows he’s back in top form with Game 4 heroics

By Ben Pope@BenPopeCST

Aug 8, 2020, 3:25pm CDT

Goalie Corey Crawford’s performance in the Blackhawks’ Game 4 victory against the Oilers was by no means beautiful, calming or effortless.

But it was spectacular anyway.

After a summer dominated by speculation about Crawford’s whereabouts, then concern about his health — after he revealed his bout with COVID-19 — then skepticism about his readiness for games, Crawford made it clear Friday he’s the same stellar goalie he always has been.

There’s no need for any more questions in net.

‘‘It was tough luck to get [coronavirus] right before we were starting camp,’’ a reflective Crawford said minutes after the Hawks eliminated the Oilers. ‘‘I would have liked to have more time to get ready. But I guess it was over with, and I was starting to feel better at the right time. [I was] able to start practicing hard and get into the first game.

‘‘The guys played great, so I was able to kind of hide back there until I started feeling comfortable. I still don’t think I’m at the top of my game, but it was definitely better [in Game 4].’’

Crawford was subpar in the first three games of the series. He allowed 13 goals on 92 shots and appeared less confident than usual, hanging deeper in the crease than he normally does.

In Game 4, however, Crawford challenged shots at the top of the crease, moved quickly and agilely, used his pads and glove to cover the net laterally, stayed square to shots from all angles and battled through the rusty spots that he admitted remained.

Rebounds were clearly one of those rusty areas. After allowing only four rebounds in Games 1 and 2 combined, Crawford yielded six rebounds in Game 3 and a whopping 10 in Game 4. But he scrambled and managed to prevent any of those from turning into Oilers goals.

‘‘He’s a huge part of our team, and he played real well today,’’ wing Dominik Kubalik said Friday. ‘‘Obviously, [we] try to help him, but we gave up too many penalties today, so I’m really happy that he shut the door.’’

Shut the door he did, stopping the Oilers’ last 34 shots on goal. Twenty of those were in the third period, including some highlight-reel saves.

Crawford stretched with his left toe to stop Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, then stole a goal by snaring ’s elevated rebound shot with 8:01 left. He used his active stick to break up a centering pass from Nugent- Hopkins to Oscar Klefbom — who had three or four decent chances in the period — with 4:25 left. He made a great read to center himself for a shot by Nugent-Hopkins from the low slot with 2:40 left. Lastly, he robbed Leon Draisaitl racing down the right wing with 2:15 left.

Crawford’s superb effort made his overall stats for the series respectable.

Looking at even-strength situations only — the Oilers’ historically good power play created some skewed numbers — Crawford posted a .905 save percentage. Against high-danger chances, his save percentage was .865.

And he did that despite the matchup of shoddy defense against deadly offense that took place around him. The Oilers’ average shot distance was 29 feet, the closest distance faced by any goalie in the playoffs.

The Hawks hope Crawford can improve those numbers as the postseason rolls on, but his performance Friday quelled any concerns about his ability to do so.

Chicago Sun Times LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190556 Chicago Blackhawks are. “As long as Pat [Foley] and Eddie [Olczyk] are doing the games,” @MGoldstick commented, right on the money.

Poll No. 3: Should the Cubs give up on Craig Kimbrel as their closer? Polling Place: Are CFB coaches, administrators doing all they can to keep players safe? Q3: Should the Cubs give up on Craig Kimbrel as their closer?

Upshot: “Give him more opportunities, only in non-save situations,” @PrattKap suggested. Wait, isn’t that the same as saying give up on By Steve Greenberg@SLGreenberg Kimbrel — owner of a hideous 8.49 ERA in 27 Cubs appearances — as Aug 8, 2020, 8:15am CDT a closer? That’s where roughly half of voters stand, which, let’s be honest, probably won’t sway manager one way or the other.

There certainly are those who believe college football simply won’t — and perhaps shouldn’t — happen in 2020. Chicago Sun Times LOADED: 08.09.2020

Meanwhile, the sport marches on — ill-fated or not — toward the start of what’s scheduled to be a slightly shortened regular season.

Across the country, training camps opened, or at least were scheduled to open, earlier this week. At one of those places, Illinois, it was announced by the school that no fewer than 18 football players had tested positive for COVID-19 since reporting to campus. But Illinois also intends to test players daily, which is more than most schools can say.

At Illinois and everywhere else, some level of debate exists: Is enough being done to protect students? For this week’s “Polling Place” — your weekly home for Sun-Times sports polls on Twitter — we focused that question on football.

Broadly speaking, can football coaches and administrators be trusted to do all they can to keep players safe?

“They want to keep the players safe, but that’s secondary to bringing in the [millions of] dollars that keep the athletic departments afloat and pay the coaches’ salaries,” @howardmoore611 commented.

That’s a “no” vote — there was a landslide of those — and a fairly cynical one at that.

On a lighter note, we asked about watching fan-free hockey on TV, and why not? The Blackhawks are making it pretty entertaining as they hold their own very early in the playoffs.

“I really don’t watch hockey for the crowd,” @PeterGaeta was helpful enough to point out.

Fair enough. We also asked about Cubs closer (OK, former closer) Craig Kimbrel, whose future in that role is a big, fat question mark.

“Four-run lead, minimum,” @TBGOfficial_ wrote. “At this point, he just needs to get through an inning.”

Wouldn’t that be nice? On to the polls:

Poll No. 1: As college football training camps open this week, do you trust that coaches and administrators are doing all they can to keep players safe?

Our weekly @suntimes sports poll is here. We want to hear from you! Selected comments will appear in our Sports Saturday edition.

Q1: As college football training camps open this week, do you trust that coaches and administrators are doing all they can to keep players safe?

Upshot: There’s a reason for the uptick in players — including six at Maryland on Friday — who are opting out of the season. And it’s more than understandable that athletes in the Pac-12, Big Ten and Mountain West have banded together and outlined lists of demands in the name of safety. Clearly, our voters have their doubts that college players ought to be slobberknocking in camps right now or any time soon.

Poll No. 2: How much are you enjoying fan-free playoff hockey for the Blackhawks?

Q2: How much are you enjoying fan-free playoff hockey for the Blackhawks?

Upshot: Starting with Game 1 of their qualifying series against the Oilers in Edmonton, , the Hawks proved they weren’t about to get run over like an empty milk carton in the path of a cement truck. That alone has made them a fun postseason watch. It undoubtedly would be even more exciting under traditional circumstances — screaming fans in the seats, and games in Chicago, too — but voters are digging things as they 1190557 Chicago Blackhawks 4. Resiliency/veteran presence:

Not only did the Hawks allow the first goal in three of the four games, but those tallies all came in the first three minutes. Some teams might start 4 reasons why the Blackhawks beat the Oilers feeling sorry for themselves, then never recover after allowing a second and third goal.

John Dietz But not this group.

Follow @johndietzdh It starts with Jonathan Toews' leadership, but even Toews draws inspiration from others in the leadership core. His postgame comments Updated about 37-year-old Duncan Keith, who averaged a series-high 25 minutes, 36 seconds of ice time, were particularly telling. 8/8/2020 8:50 PM "I look at a guy like Duncs and the experience that he has at his age and

just how he holds down the fort -- power play, penalty kill, 5-on-5 -- you When the NHL decided to resume its season and give 24 teams the feel his presence on the bench and he's competing every single second," chance to play for the Stanley Cup, the Blackhawks had one thought on Toews said. "You learn a lot from a guy like that -- even for a guy like their minds: Let's not waste this opportunity. myself or Kaner or other guys in our room that have some experience.

This opportunity to grow. To come together. To fight for each other. To "That just trickles through our lineup when we have a defenseman that stay disciplined, on and off the ice. And, ultimately, to prove they belong. has done what he's done and (is) going out there and carrying a ton of weight every single shift." They accomplished all of that and more by eliminating the Edmonton Oilers with a 3-2 Game 4 victory in Edmonton on Friday. Now, coach Jeremy Colliton's squad will take on the Vegas Golden Knights in a best- Daily Herald Times LOADED: 08.09.2020 of-seven series

"Right from the time we got to camp, they've been totally committed and the work ethic has been excellent," said coach Jeremy Colliton "It's given us a chance to win. We have an extremely young team, a lot of players who were given their first chance to play in these types of games. ...

"There was a transformation from training camp (in September) to March and then all those guys got a chance to take a little break and ... reflect on the season they've gone through. And they've taken another step."

It may be the only step they take this postseason, but have no doubt -- it's a big one for many reasons. But before we flip the page, let's take a look at four of the biggest reasons the Hawks are moving on:

1. Corey Crawford:

Look, Crawford wasn't perfect. Far from it. But do the Hawks advance if they're forced to play Malcolm Subban and/or Colin Delia?

Highly unlikely.

Crawford, who allowed 10 goals in the first two games, stole the show with a magnificent 43-save performance in Game 4.

To be sure, there aren't many other goaltenders teams would want between the pipes right now.

2. D is for depth:

When your fourth-line winger scores goals in back-to-back games, your third-pairing defensemen end up with a combined 7 points, and a 19- year-old rookie notches 4 assists you know your team has come together.

Matthew Highmore, Olli Maatta, Slater Koekkoek and were huge reasons the Hawks prevailed in Game 3, then ultimately put the series away in Game 4.

3. Sloppy Oilers:

Coach 's team just couldn't get out of its own way.

• There was the first-period collapse in Game 1 when the Oilers found themselves down 4-1 just 10.5 minutes after taking an early lead.

• Then there were the 6 power-play opportunities they handed the Hawks in Game 3.

• Then a bevy of turnovers, two of which led directly to the Hawks' first 2 goals in Game 4.

• Oh, and let's not forget about the worst infractions of the series, both of which came in Game 4. The first was Darnell Nurse's interference penalty midway through what should have been a five-minute power play; the second, a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty with 2:03 remaining as the Oilers were trying to get Mikko Koskinen to the bench.

"Just too many mistakes that just can't happen this time of year," said Leon Draisaitl. "We never really got our 'A' game going; without that, this league's too good to beat anyone. It's obviously very frustrating." 1190558 Chicago Blackhawks So many players are defined by their stats, and define themselves by their stats. Toews only knows that in order to win you have to play the right way. Not everyone does it and that means more of a burden for him, Rozner: Big effort not new for Blackhawks' Toews not that he would ever admit it.

"He was great," Corey Crawford said of Toews. "He's obviously one of our best players, not just offensively, but he had a big block in the third Barry Rozner period when they were pressuring.

Follow @BarryRozner "When a leader's doing that, it just follows throughout the lineup."

Updated Great leaders don't care about credit or what people say about them. They simply want to win and Toews will do whatever he can to ensure 8/8/2020 2:29 PM victory.

"To me, his biggest attribute is his compete level," said Blackhawks It's one of those sports clichés that probably predates the Iliad and the coach Jeremy Colliton. "He wins a 50-50 battle on the winning goal. Just Odyssey. finds a way to come up with the puck and that's the winner."

It's about the player who rises to the occasion, who recognizes the He may not be as popular as he once was, with social media the last few spotlight and finds a sudden desire to perform when the stage is at its years demanding its pound of flesh, but the finest captain in sports just most elevated. goes about his business, sometimes in relative quiet.

Perhaps it's true in some cases, the player who arrives on the scene It's just the nature of the world that we live in that Toews is suddenly when it matters most. admired again -- trending on Twitter Friday night -- as he often was during three Stanley Cup runs and perhaps most recently when he It is not true of Jonathan Toews. scored twice in the first 8:52 of Game 7 on the road against Anaheim in the 2015 Western Conference finals. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of who he is, what he has been and how he plays hockey to think that he needs the limelight in order to He is getting on in years and when you play as hard as he has for 13 summon his best, that because it's the playoffs he finds an extra gear seasons -- not half the ice, but the entire surface -- his body is not always and has a greater wish to lift his team. going to cooperate with his desire, but you saw in the series victory over Edmonton what he can still look like given rest and health. The truth is he's not trying now to be the man in the big situation. The truth is Toews always wants to win and always tries this hard, always The Hawks will be up against it from this point on, huge underdogs in the wants to work so hard every shift that he reaches the bench gasping for next series and deservedly so against the top seed, but Toews will again air. do all he can to win each game by doing all he can to win each shift, one ugly board battle at a time. To see him postgame in the dressing room after a nondescript January game against the Sabres is to understand that he is just as spent then as There will be passengers, just as always, but Toews will go about his job he is after Game 4 against Edmonton. and his effort will never be in question.

Toews leaves everything he has on the ice, regardless of magnitude. It's the only way he knows how to play.

It's just that some nights he has more than other nights. That's the nature of hockey, that there are games when you have your legs and games when you don't. Daily Herald Times LOADED: 08.09.2020

And Toews' game at 32 years old isn't as pretty as it was 10 or 12 years ago, certainly not as pretty as some of the game's biggest stars. Toews is rarely going to dazzle anyone or land on a highlight reel. His game is never giving up on a play or a shift and never giving up on a game.

His game is being responsible through three zones, playing 200 feet and outworking the guy trying to tie him up or beat him to a puck.

That is the essence of Jonathan Toews. It always has been.

His game-winning steal and pass Friday night will garner him much attention, but he makes that play 10 times a game. It doesn't always result in a goal for his team, or even a scoring chance, but sometimes it prevents the same in his own end.

Of course, the first question he got Friday night postgame was the "big stage" question and why he's able to rise to the occasion, to which Toews shrugged his shoulders, changed the subject and talked about his teammates instead of himself.

Finally, he said, "Just trying to do my part."

His great play to steal a puck and set up Dominik Kubalik for the game- winner is a play he makes so often that you probably don't even notice it anymore.

His 7 points in 4 games will get him some good ink. What's just as impressive are the superb games when he doesn't find his way onto the score sheet and no reporter asks to speak to him after the game.

But his teammates know -- and his coaches most definitely know.

"He has respect in the room," said linemate Brandon Saad after the Hawks' 3-2 victory Friday that eliminated the Oilers. "The biggest thing is you can talk the talk, but when you're going out there and leading by example with his work ethic, everyone buys in." 1190559 Chicago Blackhawks

Facing the Blackhawks in Round One is 'going to be fun' for Robin Lehner

By Scott King

August 08, 2020 6:17 PM

Saturday afternoon, after eliminating the Oilers in the Stanley Cup Qualifiers in Game 4 on Friday night, the Blackhawks learned they'll be facing the Vegas Golden Knights and very likely a certain former Hawks goalie in Round One.

Robin Lehner was in net for the Knights in their overtime win against the Colorado Avalanche to help Vegas grab the No. 1 seed in the West for Round One, pitting them against the Blackhawks, who were the No. 12 seed in the qualifying round.

Lehner has seen the majority of the starts in net for the Knights at the beginning of the postseason tournament over three-time Stanley Cup champ Marc-Andre Fleury.

The 2019 Vezina Trophy finalist was traded from Chicago to Vegas ahead of Feb. 24's trade deadline. He was 16-10-5 as a Hawk during the 2019-20 regular season with a 3.01 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage prior to the move.

Related: Former Blackhawks goalie Robin Lehner's birthday cake is unreal

Following Saturday's game, Lehner was asked about facing the Blackhawks and his former goalie partner Corey Crawford in Round One and if playing with them earlier this season carries an advantage.

"I don't know. All I know is it's going to be fun playing them," Lehner said. "They're a very good hockey team and I have a lot of respect for them, the whole organization... but I think I really like it here (with Vegas), we're a great hockey team."

The 29-year-old netminder got off to a hot start with Vegas ahead of the NHL pause on March 12 going 3-0-0 with 1.67 goals-against average and .940 save percentage.

Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190560 Chicago Blackhawks

Several Blackhawks scouted round-robin game for Western Conference No. 1 seed

By Scott King

August 08, 2020 4:43 PM

Following the Blackhawks' series-clinching win over the Oilers on Friday night, several Hawks were in attendance at the round-robin game between the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights determining the Western Conference's No. 1 seed for Round One of the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Saturday afternoon.

Hawks including Patrick Kane and Alex DeBrincat were on hand to scout the competition right where they earned their first postseason series victory since the 2015 Stanley Cup Final the night before, at Rogers Place Arena.

Vegas won the contest in overtime to become the West's top seed for Round One.

As the No. 12 seed in the qualifying round, the Hawks will be facing the No. 1 seed in Round One of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in Edmonton. The Hawks could be facing goalie Robin Lehner in Round One, who played with Chicago during the 2019-20 season before being traded to Vegas.

Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190561 Chicago Blackhawks

Blackhawks to face Robin Lehner, Vegas in Round 1 of Stanley Cup Playoffs

By Charlie Roumeliotis

August 08, 2020 4:58 PM

It's official: The Blackhawks will face Robin Lehner and the Vegas Golden Knights in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Golden Knights defeated the Colorado Avalanche 4-3 overtime win in Saturday's round-robin finale to secure the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference. The Blackhawks, who eliminated the Edmonton Oilers in four games on Friday, will serve as the No. 8 seed.

The Blackhawks went 1-1-1 and had a minus-2 goal differential in three games against the Golden Knights this season. Their most recent matchup was on Dec. 11, which resulted in a 5-1 win for the Golden Knights.

You won't find a better puck possession team in the league than the Golden Knights, who generated the most scoring chances and high- danger chances at even strength of any team this season. The Blackhawks will certainly have their work cut out for them.

"It’s a great challenge for us," head coach Jeremy Colliton said. "I'm happy that we get the opportunity to prepare for them and compete against them. We feel that we’ve been getting better all the time and it’s going to be a great test for us."

Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190562 Chicago Blackhawks If he continues to play at the level he opened the postseason at, anything is possible for him and his Hawks. Stranger things have happened in 2020.

Jonathan Toews ready to be Captain Clutch for Blackhawks' postseason run Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 08.09.2020

By Scott King

August 08, 2020 12:05 PM

The big things, the little things... Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews was doing them all in the Hawks' 3-1 series upset of the Western Conference's No. 5 seeded Oilers in the Stanley Cup Qualifiers.

Toews, 32, finished the best-of-five qualifying round series with seven points (four goals, three assists) a plus/minus rating of plus-2, a faceoff percentage of 55.34 and was on the ice for five goals for and two against in 5-on-5 play vs. Edmonton.

His game-winning goal with 1:16 remaining in Game 3 to make it 4-3, which deflected off his shin pad from a Connor Murphy shot, tied Toews with Stan Mikita, Bobby Hull and Patrick Kane for most postseason game winners (11) in Hawks' history.

"Technically we just made the playoffs now, so the real fun begins," Toews said after Friday's Game 4. "We worked pretty hard in this series to beat a good team and we're gonna have to dig deep to keep getting better and better (against) the next one. It's fun, like I said, even though there's no fans in the building. Guys want to win. Nice to get that series win. I think everyone's feeling good."

After Friday's Game 4 win, the Blackhawks improved to 17-5 in elimination games since 2010. In those games, Toews has 29 points with 11 goals and 18 assists. Patrick Kane also has 29 points in those elimination contests with 14 goals and 15 assists.

The stats speak volumes of the captain's start to the postseason, but the way he played to record them say a lot more regarding the level Toews is performing at.

The three-time Stanley Cup champion center parking in front of the Oilers' net was a familiar sight during the series. After more than a decade of taking abuse in front of the crease, Toews is still willing to pay the price for his team.

It wasn't just his two two-goal games, dominating on the dot and a strong defensive game throughout the series that was impressive, it was the determination that led to it.

There was a retro postseason intensity to his game, on display for the Hawks' younger players to observe the kind of edge successful playoff hockey often requires.

There was pulling up the bootstraps, packing the lunch pail and going to work on the boards, battling to get the puck to create chances, like when he won a battle down low to get rookie Dominik Kubalik the puck for the series-clinching goal at 8:30 of the third period in Game 4.

"Jonny’s been around a long time and he’s got a pretty immaculate track record in the playoffs," Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton said after Game 4. "To me, his biggest attribute that he has is his compete level. He wins a 50/50 battle on the winning goal, just finds a way to come up with the puck, and that’s the winner. He came up big for us throughout the series in those types of situations. Great player."

It's no wonder the Blackhawks' younger players were so effective in the series. When they see veteran Hawks like their captain, several years their senior, doing the right things with purpose, they have no excuse not to.

"Thought he was great," Hawks goalie Corey Crawford said after Friday's game. "He was obviously one of our best players, not just offensively but he had a big block in the third there when they were pressuring. I mean when a leader's doing that I think that just follows throughout the lineup. Obviously he's won some Cups and knows how to play in these games, not much of a difference now. He was great."

Led by their captain, the Blackhawks did a lot right in the play-in series. They'll have momentum heading into Round One, albeit against a better team in the Colorado Avalanche or Vegas Golden Knights, but Toews' team has bought in. 1190563 Chicago Blackhawks The three-time Stanley Cup champ had two two-goal games (Game 1 and Game 3) in the series and won a battle behind the net to get rookie Dominik Kubalik the puck in front for the series-clinching goal in Game 4.

How the Blackhawks upset the Oilers in the Stanley Cup Qualifiers The Crow

After missing the first 12 days of the Hawks' Phase 3 training camp after By Scott King recovering from COVID-19, Crawford progressed into looking like the two-time Stanley Cup champion goalie he is and appears to have plenty August 08, 2020 9:47 AM of quality hockey left in the tank.

After allowing 13 total goals in the first three games of the series, Crawford played his best contest on Friday, saving 43 of 45 Oilers shots There was a lot the Western Conference's No. 12 seeded Blackhawks for the win. It definitely looks like he's now in postseason form. did right to upset the West's No. 5 seeded home ice Oilers in the Stanley Cup Qualifiers. Young guns

Here's some observations: The Blackhawks younger players really stepped up in the qualifying round series. After Jonathan Toews, Kirby Dach was arguably the most Greasy goals consistently good Hawk. There was a common theme for a lot of the goals the Hawks scored Dach, 19, was only held off the scoresheet in Game 4 after logging a against the Oilers, they were hard-earned and a lot of them were three-game point streak with four assists to start the series. He became deflected into the Oilers' net. Five of the Blackhawks' 16 goals in the the first Blackhawks rookie to score a point in his first three playoff series came off deflections. games since in 1985. Matthew Highmore had a tip-in late in Game 3 to set the table for the 4-3 Kubalik, 24, set a new Blackhawks record for rookie points in a playoff comeback victory, then scored the same way to put the Hawks ahead 2-1 game with his five-point performance in Game 1, scoring two power-play in the first period of Game 4. Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews had a goals and picking up three assists. Steve Larmer held the previous Connor Murphy shot deflect off his shin pad for the game-winning goal in record. Larmer had four points (one goal, three assists) in Game 2 of the Game 3 with 1:16 remaining in regulation. 1983 Division Finals. Larmer went on to win the Calder Trophy in 1983. Throughout the series, the forwards got the puck to the D-men in the Kubalik also became the first player to record five points in his offensive zone and got to the front of the net to create a screen or try for postseason debut in NHL history. a tip-in. The formula constantly worked for the Hawks and they need to keep at it for as long as they're in the postseason. Highmore, 24, put the Hawks ahead 2-1 at 7:56 of the first period of Game 4 after tipping in a Duncan Keith shot from in front of the net. It Click to download the MyTeams App for the latest Blackhawks news and was the second straight game Highmore scored off a deflection. In Game analysis. 3, he tied the game 3-3 at 14:13 of the third period, deflecting a shot from Keeping McDavid and Draisaitl in check defenseman Slater Koekkoek past Oilers goalie Mikko Koskinen and setting the table for Toews to complete the 4-3 comeback victory. Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid had the first and second most points in the NHL before the pause, respectively.

Against the Blackhawks in the qualifying round, they had a combined 15 Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 08.09.2020 points (five goals, four assists for McDavid; and three goals, three assists for Draisaitl), which may not read like an accomplishment, but considering the uncanny offensive talent the two possess, the Hawks definitely succeeded in limiting their chances and keeping them from reaching their full level of production or potential in the series.

Related: More hard-earned goals and a killer PK advance Blackhawks to Round One

Coach Jeremy Colliton and his Hawks definitely got the best of McDavid and Draisaitl when they were the home team and had last change in Games 3 and 4. Colliton often put Toews' line against McDavid's — as well as the Blackhawks' fourth line with center David Kamp occasionally.

Toews and his line were able to play solid defense against McDavid and the other Edmonton combos they faced. The Blackhawks captain was also able to help the Hawks hang onto the puck, winning 55.34% of the faceoffs he took in the series. McDavid won 43.1% of his draws in the qualifying round.

The PK

The Hawks went 12-for-17 on the penalty kill, including 5-for-5 in Game 4, in the play-in series against the Oilers. Chicago only allowing Edmonton five power-play goals in the entire series is pretty impressive as the Oilers touted the best power-play in the league during the regular season.

Maintaining a strong PK would benefit the Hawks in Round One, but so would staying out of the box to avoid an unfavorable momentum swing.

Captain seriously good

Toews had a monster series, resembling his former 2010 Conn Smythe- winning self in how he was able to take over some of the games in the qualifying round against top players like McDavid and Draisaitl.

In addition to being able to limit McDavid and win a majority of his draws, Toews had seven points (four goals, three assists) in the series. 1190564 Chicago Blackhawks Dach probably needs to shoot this one, but Kane still has a great chance that the Oilers block.

Kane hits the post with this one-timer. Why Patrick Kane is on track to produce more against Vegas It’s not just the goals that Kane lacked in the series, but also the assists. There wasn’t much more he could do with that, though. The following are By Scott Powers three passes he set up for teammates in just the last game.

Aug 8, 2020 Dach was fed the first one.

Alex Nylander was given this second one.

On the surface, Patrick Kane was fine for the Blackhawks throughout This is another one for Dach. their series against the Edmonton Oilers. As for the Blackhawks’ next opponent, Kane hasn’t had extraordinary He averaged a point a game. He was tied for third among his teammates numbers. He’s had three goals and five assists in nine career games in points. He was on the ice for five goals for and three against in five-on- against the Golden Knights. He’s scored twice in his career on former five play. All his analytics were among the team’s best after he linked up teammate Robin Lehner and four times on Marc-Andre Fleury. with Alex DeBrincat and Kirby Dach on a line for the last three games. The Golden Knights likely will go with Lehner, and you know he and He was fine, probably more than fine, especially when you compare him Kane will be looking forward to this series. with other players. But that isn’t good enough for Kane. He expects more of himself, and the Blackhawks and their fans have come to expect the same. The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020

As the Blackhawks prepare for the Vegas Golden Knights in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, the good news for the Blackhawks is Kane is trending toward providing much more for them. The Blackhawks are going to need him too, facing a more well-rounded team.

If you watch all of Kane’s shot attempts throughout the Oilers series, you notice one common occurrence — he’s left shaking his head after a number of them. The chances were there for him during the series, and he just couldn’t put the puck exactly where he wanted. Kane often talks about how he feels on the ice. If he’s playing well and not producing, he’s somewhat OK with that. He knows the production is probably on its way if he sticks to those same things. It’s when he’s not getting chances that he starts worrying.

So, let’s first discuss the quantity. Kane attempted 37 shots in the four games. Only three players on any of the teams in the qualifying round or round robin attempted more. He had 18 more shot attempts than Jonathan Toews, who was second among the Blackhawks players, and 20 more than Dominik Kubalik, who was third. Kane was getting shots.

To the Oilers’ credit, they did a good job of getting in the way of Kane’s shots. They blocked 16 of them. The Oilers blocked 61 shots in the series, meaning those Kane blocked shots accounted for 26.2 percent of their total.

Kane didn’t miss the net much. If he had a chance, he often put it on net or had it blocked. He had four misses total in the four games.

That leaves 17 of his shots being on goal. That tied him for eighth among all players in the league. He had eight shots on goal on 17 attempts in five-on-five play, and he had nine shots on goal in 17 attempts on the power play.

Kane wasn’t just firing away, though. There was quality there, too. He averaged 11.6 scoring chances per 60 minutes and 4.09 high-danger chances against the Oilers, according to Natural Stat Trick. Those numbers are higher than his regular-season averages. His 7.46 shots on goal per 60 minutes and 7.46 scoring chances in five-on-five play are slightly down from the regular season, but his 15.84 shot attempts and 4.66 high-danger chances were up.

The number that Kane obviously won’t like is his goals. Despite all those chances, he scored just once against the Oilers. And that’s ultimately why he was shaking his head.

Here’s a density map from Sean Tierney on Kane’s shot attempts in five- on-five play:

To give you an even better idea of Kane’s opportunities, the following are some of Kane’s better scoring chances throughout the series. We’ll start with the lone goal.

Kane has a free path to the net on this one on the power play in Game 1.

This is the one Kane probably would love to have back more than any other in the series.

Kane does have a legitimate gripe with a missed slash call on this one. 1190565 Colorado Avalanche club that has had none for more than a decade. Are they ready for this? “We feel like we have another gear,” MacKinnon vowed.

A Nuggets team hit hard so hard by the trials and tribulations of COVID- The Avs. The Nuggets. Two games. Three overtimes. One afternoon of 19 that it has been difficult for coach Michael Malone to conduct practice sweet adrenaline overload. with full five-on-five drills for more than a month, has spent considerable time during recent games searching for anything approaching winning basketball. By MARK KISZLA | [email protected] | The Post “Wake up!” Malone shouted at his players, as Denver fell behind Utah August 8, 2020 at 7:30 p.m. 57-39 in the second quarter.

Maybe the biggest sports challenge of a strange year of disruptions, including a shutdown of the NBA and NHL from mid-March until the Hey, sports: We missed you. A ton. From the hockey rink to the middle of summer, is that too much time has passed for any meaningful basketball court, from Canada to Florida, this was a Saturday of sports carryover from the outstanding work done by the Avs and Nuggets before so intense it gave the entire 303 area code a case of over-caffeinated the pandemic hit. This is a whole new season. Rather than a reset, every jitters, but was as delicious as dark chocolate. Too much is never serious contender needs to establish a fresh mindset. enough. Lunch Special: Did John Elway make bigger mistake with Ja’Wuan The Avalanche. The Nuggets. Two games. Three overtimes. All in one James than Paxton Lynch? crazy afternoon. “I think we’ve gotten back to our game pretty well,” said Bednar. More The Avs and Nugs created a channel-surfing tsunami for Denver than the penalty kill and the power play, his concerns for the Avalanche television viewers. The action left us with the sweaty palms of adrenaline now are consistency and focus. overload. Colorado fans came away with a loss, a win and nerves frayed. “We want to win games. We want to go into the playoffs with some Don’t know about you, but I might have to get back in emotional shape confidence in playing good basketball,” said Malone, still awaiting the for the sweet agony of postseason hockey and hoops. return of injured starters Will Barton and Gary Harris. “We didn’t want to With the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference playoffs on the line, come down here and lose eight games and say, ‘It’s OK. We’re going to Colorado took the ice against Las Vegas. Nathan MacKinnon, whose be OK for the playoffs.’ That’s not going to happen.” feistiness is a deep shade of burgundy, blew a gasket at the refs and The playoff cliché is players need to pick up their games at winning time. scored a spin-o-rama goal fueled by don’t-make-Nate-mad intensity. But in the end, the Avs lost, 4-3 in overtime. But here’s what is closer to the truth: Teams that make a championship run don’t step up, so much as they refuse to let postseason pressure “Losing …” grumped MacKinnon, searching for the right word in his cause them to come unglued. postgame presser.

Losing stinks, Mack decided. (Although he actually employed a PG-13 word too salty for polite company). Denver Post: LOADED: 08.09.2020 Then Nikola Jokic saved the day, transforming from Sleepy the dwarf to Joker the super hero at halftime. With moves as sweet as Tupelo honey, he scored 28 of his 30 points after his wake-up call at intermission, coming up big in the clutch, as Denver beat Utah 134-132 in double overtime.

“There is no pressure,” Jokic claimed.

Well, that’s easy for him to say.

With the playoffs around the corner for two Denver teams that didn’t get their competitive juices flowing for more than four months during an extended timeout forced by the coronavirus pandemic, the Avs and Nuggets have reminded us that to be a bona fide championship contender, it takes more than talent.

Michael Porter Jr. #1 of the ...

Michael Porter Jr. #1 of the Denver Nuggets with a slam dunk during the third quarter against the Utah Jazz at The Arena at ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex on Aug. 08, 2020 in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

Postseason action in both the NHL and NBA is beautiful, but not always pretty. Winning ugly is a measure of true grit.

“If we’re expecting this thing to be easy, we’re in the wrong tournament,” said Avs coach Jared Bednar. His skilled and speedy team outshot Vegas 35-26, but lost because the Knights ultimately delivered more energy-sapping checks, outhitting Colorado 27-18.

Nothing comes easy. Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, playing in a real game inside the NBA bubble for the first time after nursing a nagging hamstring injury, was told to expect 22 minutes of court time Saturday afternoon. Then he gutted out nearly twice that amount of lung-burning labor to beat Utah.

The playoffs can etch lines of fatigue and tension in the face of even a seasoned pro, evidenced by the furrowed brow Bednar wore when he refused to say whether Philipp Grubauer or Pavel Francouz would start in goal as the Avs begin their Stanley Cup pursuit in a first-round matchup against Arizona.

It’s not a question of whether the Avs have the scoring to win a championship, but if they can deal with the pressure of expectations on a 1190566 Colorado Avalanche

Avalanche now No. 2 seed heading into 16-team playoff after overtime loss to Golden Knights

By MIKE CHAMBERS | [email protected] | The Denver Post

PUBLISHED: August 8, 2020 at 4:14 p.m. | UPDATED: August 8, 2020 at 7:00 p.m.

The Avalanche, the team many see as the Western Conference favorite, must settle for second to begin the Stanley Cup playoffs.

With the conference’s No. 1 seed up for grabs in their round-robin finale Saturday, the Avs never led but rallied to force overtime before losing 4-3 in sudden-death to the Vegas Golden Knights at Rogers Place in Edmonton.

“We didn’t execute to our best ability,” Avs star center Nathan MacKinnon said after leading a 35-shot attack. “We feel like we have another gear. (Not) to take away anything from them, but we felt like we could have buried more of our chances and put the game away.”

Vegas will be the No. 1 seed and open a best-of-seven series against No. 8 Chicago. The No. 2 Avs will open against No. 7 Arizona. The traditional 16-team tournament begins Tuesday and will be finalized Sunday.

Colorado went 1-1 against the Coyotes this season, but the teams haven’t played since Nov. 2.

“It would have been nice to win. We didn’t. Now we’re moving on,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said after Saturday’s game. “Through the course of training camp (last month) and the round-robin especially, I think we’ve just played three solid hockey games. We won two and lost one. If I could pick one thing it would be consistency. We weren’t as good tonight as we were in the first two games.”

MacKinnon, Joonas Donskoi and J.T. Compher scored for the Avs, who finished 2-1 (five points) in the round-robin. Vegas went 3-0 (six points).

The Avalanche, trailing 3-2 late in the third period, tied it with Compher’s gritty goal from the doorstep at 18:58 and goalie Philipp Grubauer on the bench for an extra attacker.

With just 15.9 seconds remaining in OT, Alex Tuch beat Grubauer with a wrist shot from the left circle. The Knights outshot the Avs 3-1 in OT.

Jonathan Marchessault scored twice for the Golden Knights, the latter on a penalty shot for a 3-2 lead early the third period. He was tripped on a breakaway by defenseman Ryan Graves.

“Obviously, losing today (stinks) but we’re the No. 2 seed in the West,” MacKinnon said. “We’re feeling good heading into the first round.”

Regarding the Coyotes, who stood five points out of a playoff spot when the NHL paused its season March 12, MacKinnon said: “It’s a huge challenge. They’re a very good team, well structured. Got some good offense. It’s going to be a tough series. We’ll do our homework tomorrow and Monday and I don’t know when we’re going to play, but we’ll be well- prepared and ready to go for Game 1.”

Denver Post: LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190567 Colorado Avalanche

KSE, PointsBet announce partnership that will bring enhanced WiFi, in- arena destination to Pepsi Center

By MATT SCHUBERT | [email protected] | The Denver Post

August 8, 2020 at 11:54 a.m.

The days of spotty wifi inside Pepsi Center may soon be a thing of the past.

As part of a new multi-year agreement with global sports book operator PointsBet, Kroenke Sports & Entertainment announced plans Friday to enhance in-arena wifi and introduce branded areas inside Pepsi Center for the 2020-21 seasons.

The deal makes PointsBet the official, exclusive betting partner of the Nuggets, Avalanche and Colorado Mammoth of the National Lacrosse League. It spans multiple categories of gaming, including sports betting, daily fantasy and online casino games, and names PointsBet as the official sports betting partner of KSE’s Altitude TV and Altitude Sports Radio.

“PointsBet is renowned within the gaming industry for product innovation and its unique PointsBetting product, as well as for having the fastest app in the marketplace,” KSE CEO Matt Hutchings said in a news release. “We know that Nuggets, Avs, and Mammoth fans will be excited to have the opportunity to engage more deeply with their favorite teams via PointsBet.”

Starting with the 2020-21 seasons, the branded in-arena destination will feature three areas: PointsBet Sports Bar, an outdoor patio extension of the bar and the PointsBet Premium Club. The Pepsi Center club level will also be called the “PointsBet Club Level,” with signage and ad placements. In addition, PointsBet branding will appear on the stanchions at Nuggets games and on the ice and boards at Avalanche games.

PointsBet will also be the title sponsor of KSE’s soon-to-be released mobile app, while the sports book operator is expected to soon release a sports wagering app of its own for Colorado bettors.

PointsBet’s new U.S. headquarters is currently under construction in LoDo, with the company soon to add a retail presence at Double Eagle Hotel & Casino in Cripple Creek.

Denver Post: LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190568 Colorado Avalanche Say what you will about MPJ’s off-the-wall coronavirus views. We did last week (Refresher: They weren’t good).

But if the 6-foot-10 forward can give the Nuggets 30 and 10 whenever Grading the Week: CHSAA’s impossible fall football decision, MPJ’s he’s in the starting lineup, the rookie can spread whatever crazy offensive outburst and Altitude in the dark conspiracy theories he wants.

Let’s just make sure everybody’s microphones are turned off first.

By MATT SCHUBERT | [email protected] | The Denver Post

PUBLISHED: August 8, 2020 at 6:00 a.m. | UPDATED: August 8, 2020 Denver Post: LOADED: 08.09.2020 at 8:23 a.m.

We’re two weeks into a bizarre 60-game Major League season and the Colorado Rockies have yet to lose a series.

Trevor Story is blasting bombs, Matt Kemp is channeling his Coors Field magic, and the pitching staff is doing its best Atlanta Braves impersonation. The Grading the Week staff will speak for everyone when we say, “We needed this.”

As just about everything below this illustrates, smiles and lollipops aren’t exactly in great supply these days.

CHSAA — B

It took awhile — less than a week before the scheduled start of football season, to be exact — but the Colorado High School Activities Association finally released its return-to-play plan this week.

First, the disappointment: There will be no Friday night lights this fall in Colorado.

Then, the reality: CHSAA was in an almost impossible position of trying to conduct seasons for all of its sports within the framework of state guidelines while also accounting for a virus that doesn’t care about its plans.

Chris Selle, superintendent of Meeker school, brought up “personal choice” in voicing his concerns about moving football to the spring in rural Colorado communities. Under normal circumstances, it’s a fair point to make. Except that amid this pandemic, our personal choices are rarely entirely personal and often have the potential to directly affect public health.

Will spring high school football be weird? You bet. Is it awful thousands of seniors will be denied the pomp and pageantry of a traditional season? Without question.

Is it better than no high school football at all? No doubt.

All we can do now is hope that it actually happens.

Big Sky Conference — A

The charade is over. The dream is dead.

It’s time to accept the cold, hard truth: College football is doomed this fall.

At least in the Big Sky Conference, which announced Friday it was moving its season to spring.

We’ve got a coronavirus outbreak at Colorado State. We’ve got a handful of other teams that went into quarantine this summer.

Now we’ve got the kids returning to campus — and they’re pretty good at spreading disease even under the best of circumstances. Do we really think they’ll behave themselves just because there’s a global pandemic?

If they’re anything like the 19-year-old version of yours truly, that answer is an emphatic “no.”

Comcast and Altitude Sports — F

The Avalanche are a win away from clinching the Western Conference’s No. 1 seed in the NHL playoffs, while the short-handed Nuggets are mounting a spirited run inside the Orlando “bubble.”

And Comcast and Dish Network subscribers have only been able to catch bits and pieces (legally).

That we’re still in this spot nearly a year since Altitude Sports originally went off the air on the “Big Three” cable providers — DirecTV has since reached an agreement — can only be seen as a failure.

Michael Porter Jr. — A- 1190569 Colorado Avalanche elevated over Grubauer’s right shoulder with less than 16 seconds left in the overtime.

Marchessault gave the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead when his stick What did the round robin reveal about the Avalanche, the West’s No. 2 redirected a long-range attempt from Shea Theodore for a power-play seed? goal with 18:26 remaining in the second period. Vegas’ second goal occurred when Grubauer blocked Nicholas Roy’s initial shot, only for Roy to recover the puck and skate behind the net. Grubauer attempted to By Ryan S. Clark poke check the puck away while Roy was circling behind him, and that left the right side of the net exposed. Roy passed it to , Aug 8, 2020 whose attempt was blocked by a few Avalanche players guarding the net while Grubauer was trying to reach that side of the crease.

Vegas — the oddsmakers, not the Golden Knights or their Twitter Grubauer was partially blocked from getting into his optimal position. He account — still considers the Colorado Avalanche a legitimate Stanley was still able to extend his right leg to provide some cover, but Roy — Cup contender. So there is that. who was one of a few Golden Knights forwards to shoot into the exposed area — found an opening for a 2-1 advantage. Consecutive victories over the St. Louis Blues and Dallas Stars created the narrative that the Avalanche could be the Western Conference’s top Bednar said throughout training camp that he would use the team’s lone seed. A 4-3 overtime loss Saturday to the Golden Knights means they exhibition contest against the Minnesota Wild and three round-robin will be the No. 2 seed and have a quarterfinal date against the Arizona games to make a decision between Francouz and Grubauer. Francouz Coyotes in the coming days. A bid at round-robin perfection fell short, but allowed no goals on 35 shots in a little more than 89 minutes of ice time it still made for an easier path than trying to clinch a playoff spot in the in those games against the Wild and Stars. Grubauer allowed seven last or second-to-last game of the season. goals on 78 shots in nearly 153 minutes against the Blues, Golden Knights and Wild. Not that such a thing has happened to the Avalanche in the past two seasons. Trading spaces with Burakovsky and Namestnikov

But the fact that the Avalanche were a wire-to-wire Cup favorite this One of the items Bednar experimented with over the past two games was season has generated an expectation that still stands: Is this the year moving Vladislav Namestnikov to the first line and adding Andre they claim the franchise’s third Stanley Cup title or will the wait extend by Burakovsky to the third line. at least one more season? How the Avs fare in a series against the The result of that decision, other than Namestnikov scoring against the Coyotes will be the first step in answering that question. The Avs’ three- Stars and Burakovsky having three points in his past two games? It game round-robin effort could provide more insight into what is expected. appears the Avalanche have a more definitive answer for how their first Especially after losing to the Golden Knights, whom Vegas — again, the and third lines will operate should those combinations remain in place oddsmakers but probably also everyone else in the city — gave the against the Coyotes. second-best odds among Western Conference teams and the fourth-best Training camp ended with Bednar pairing Burakovsky with Nathan overall to win the Stanley Cup. MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen on the top line. It was a trio Bednar “I think when you’re going into the playoffs, you have to expect teams to designed with the idea that the group could score goals. But one of the check you hard,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “That’s the goal of primary concerns was who would anchor the unit in the defensive zone. every team; to make sure they’re checking the right way and making it Initially, Gabriel Landeskog served in that role as the Forward 1 in difficult to create offense. We have to expect that. That’s what Vegas did Bednar’s scheme, which allowed MacKinnon and Rantanen to play tonight. Again, I thought at times we handled it well. … There are some higher in the zone so they could pressure pucks in the hopes of quickly positives from the game, for sure. But Arizona has an identity. They play creating breakouts. That new configuration saw MacKinnon occupy that to it every night. They are very consistent in what they do, and they’re position, but adding a two-way forward in Namestnikov allowed Bednar to going to make it difficult on our guys and we’re going to have to be ready restore the dynamic to something similar to what existed with Landeskog to deal with their checking and nothing we haven’t seen before.” while keeping the Avalanche’s captain on the second line.

Will it be Francouz or Grubauer? Furthermore, there was the offensive component of that decision. Nearly 90 percent of Namestnikov’s goals have come from the low slot or net Yes, a question about the Avalanche and goaltending. Bednar said front, which plausibly gives the top line that dimension beyond what Wednesday that Philipp Grubauer is the starting goaltender and Pavel MacKinnon and Rantanen provide in attack. Francouz is the backup as they continue to push each other for playing time. As for Burakovsky, Compher and Donskoi, Bednar created a configuration predicated on the idea that two-way forwards such as A few hours later, Bednar was noncommittal about starting Grubauer in Compher and Donskoi would work for possession that would then allow a Game 1 against the Coyotes. forward such as Burakovsky to have more chances to shoot the puck. That concept played out Saturday but with Burakovsky joining Donskoi in “I’m not going to answer that, and I’m not going to make any lineup fighting for possession along the boards, with Compher getting the open decisions today,” Bednar said. “We’ll evaluate our team and make the shot on net that was then tapped in by Donskoi for a 2-2 tie with 5:09 decision we feel is right going into the Arizona game.” remaining in the second. Grubauer’s starting status is up in the air partly because of how he Compher scored the tying goal in a six-on-five sequence late in the third performed against the Golden Knights and the Blues. St. Louis attempted period while also providing the Avalanche with something else beyond more shots than Vegas. Grubauer stopped 31 of the 32 attempts, with going into overtime. some of that activity coming from the low slot while most of the Blues’ attempts came from the perimeter. Burakovsky finished the round robin with three points in as many games, with all of his production coming in the past two games. Both of Grubauer encountered only five high-danger scoring chances in all Compher’s points came against the Golden Knights, and Donskoi’s three situations when the Avalanche won their opening game against the points in three games matched what he produced over 12 games last Blues. postseason with the San Jose Sharks. The Golden Knights finished with only 26 shots on net while recording 11 “I think we’re finding success from using our speed,” Compher said. high-danger scoring chances across all sequences. “Both of those players are great puck-possession guys and play with a lot Colorado was able to force shots from the perimeter, but Vegas still of speed. As long as we keep finishing to the net, I think we’re going to managed to attack the net with more success, even if the shots on goal be successful.” were limited. Technically, two of the Golden Knights’ four goals Saturday How did the power play look throughout the round robin? were scored from the low slot in a five-on-five sequence, with the third coming from winger Jonathan Marchessault’s finish of a penalty shot. At first glance, it might appear to be a rather innocuous three-game Alex Tuch’s game-winning salvo, however, came on an odd-man rush stretch in February when the Avalanche won twice. The significance, during which he launched a shot from the left faceoff circle that he however, is that was the last time Bednar watched his power-play unit score a power-play goal in three consecutive games.

Or it was until the round robin.

The Avalanche scored at least one power-play goal in their three games against the Blues, Golden Knights and Stars. Establishing some level of consistency was a talking point for the Avalanche going into the postseason, considering the club’s regular-season returns. Colorado had the league’s seventh-best power play in 2018-19, and the idea was this year’s team could at least maintain that success rate with filling the middle and Hobey Baker Award winner Cale Makar at the controls of the first-team unit.

But going on the man advantage was never the issue. The Avalanche led the NHL with 241 power-play opportunities. Scoring goals was not the problem when you take a look at the numbers. The Avs were tied for eighth in the regular season with 46 power-play goals and were four away from being a top-five power-play unit in that category.

Bednar had watched the Avalanche struggle at times, in that they could move the puck but also lacked results. Injuries and inconsistency led them to finish 19th in the regular season.

Grabbing four goals from 16 power-play opportunities gave the Avalanche a 25 percent conversion rate. Establishing that level of consistency all season would have made them the No. 3 power-play unit in the NHL behind the Boston Bruins and Edmonton Oilers.

Colorado was left to lament what went wrong after last postseason. One of the contributing factors was the power play conversion, at just 14.6 percent. A reason that figure was so low was rooted in the Sharks holding the Avalanche to an 8.7 conversation rate over their seven-game series.

A further assessment of what the Avalanche did can be viewed in one of two ways. On one hand, they found a level of consistency during a three- game round-robin series against the three Western Conference teams with the best regular-season records. Yet those three teams all finished in the bottom half in penalty kill. The Stars were 17th, the Blues were 18th, and the Golden Knights were 27th.

And for those scoring at home, the Coyotes were fifth in the regular season but were 19th through four games in this postseason.

“I look at the game and we’re talking like we lost and that our game was poor,” Bednar said. “I don’t see it that way at all. I think for most of the game we were doubled up on them with shots for and we were doing some good things. If we’re expecting this thing to be easy, we’re in the wrong tournament. This is going to be work, and that’s a real good hockey team. I thought we did a nice job for most of the night. I know we could have been better. It would have been nice to win.

“We didn’t and now we’re moving on, and we’re getting ready for an opponent here come Tuesday or Wednesday.”

The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190570 Colorado Avalanche All three Avalanche goals came from in the crease or close to it. Vegas goaltender Robin Lehner stopped 32 shots in the victory. But aside from a late goal from Compher, a power-play tally from MacKinnon and Vegas defeats Avalanche to earn top seed in Western Conference; No. 2 Joonas Donskoi’s goal in the second, Lehner was up to the task and held Avs to face No. 7 Arizona the Avs from taking the lead all game.

“We outshot them by about 15,” MacKinnon said. “We had our chances, Lehner played great. But we didn’t execute to the best of our ability. We By Aarif Deen feel like we have another gear. Nothing to take away from them but we feel like we could’ve buried more of our chances.” August 8, 2020

milehighsports.com LOADED: 08.09.2020 Not one, not two, but three one-goal deficits.

That’s what the Avalanche overcame to force overtime on Saturday against the Vegas Golden Knights before surrendering the game-winning goal with 16 seconds remaining in the extra frame at Rogers Place.

With the loss, Vegas earns the coveted No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, Meaning No. 2 Colorado will open the playoffs against the No. 7 Arizona Coyotes on either Tuesday or Wednesday.

It’s a huge challenge. They’re a very good team,” center Nathan MacKinnon said about the Coyotes, who won one of two games against Colorado in the regular season. “They’re well structure, got some good offense. It’s going to be a tough series. We’ll do our homework tomorrow and Monday and we’ll be well prepared and ready to go for Game 1.”

J.T. Compher scored the Avalanche’s third goal with 1:02 remaining to give the Avs one final chance at victory. The goal, which came with the extra attacker, was the result of a strong play from Compher. The centerman battled a Vegas defender in the crease to put home a rebound after his teammate Nazem Kadri’s shot hit the post.

“That’s how the playoffs are. That’s how you score goals, by getting to the net,” Compher said. “It was a good job by our 6-on-5 unit and we were able to pop one in.”

The Golden Knights scored the go-ahead goal in the third period after being awarded a penalty shot. Forward Jonathan Marchessault was hauled down on the breakaway by Avs defenseman Ryan Graves. While it may have been an unavoidable penalty Graves had to take to stop a golden opportunity, the ensuing result was still a goal past goaltender Philipp Grubauer, who stopped 22-of-26 shots in the losing effort.

Colorado was 1-for-6 on the power play and failed to score on a lengthy 5-on-3 when the game was still scoreless in the first period. Even though they eventually added a goal on the man-advantage, the opportunity that may have been the deciding factor was the one early in the third period. Tied 2-2, the Avs drew a penalty in the opening shift of the third but was unable to do much with that man-advantage. Vegas would take a 3-2 lead 30 seconds after killing the penalty.

“I think we’ve been better than we were tonight,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said of his power play. “We do some good things. Even on the 5 on 3, I felt like we were dangerous a couple of times and missed. I think the power play that we scored on we were tenacious on the puck. We kept some plays alive and we kept them extended on the ice and had them tired. It was a good hardworking power play and came up with a big goal at a key time for us.”

Bednar continued: “There was one early in the third period where we didn’t get anything going. We looked sloppy and out of sync. And that to me is focus. That to me was execution. Lack of focus, lack of intensity, just not being on the same page. We have to be better than we were on that power play. We have to accept that there was a responsibility there to try and make a difference and we didn’t do it on that particular one.”

The Golden Knights eventually broke the scoreless tie in the second period on a power-play of their own. After disputing an icing call, one that was eventually overturned, MacKinnon continued to jaw at the official, Chris Rooney, on his way to the bench. Rooney called MacKinnon for unsportsmanlike conduct to set Vegas up for an opportunity to take the lead.

“I’d rather he didn’t take that penalty for sure,” Bednar said. “I just don’t know how much he did in order to earn that penalty. They got the wrong call on the ice and made the correction and brought it center. I’d like to see us leave it at that as a team. I didn’t hear what was said or what was done.” 1190571 Columbus Blue Jackets "When he feels that he’s at 100 percent or whatever his comfort level is, 95 percent, I don’t know … then maybe the doctor can clear him and he will be ready to go," Kekalainen said. "But he’s skating with the team, Status of Blue Jackets’ Zach Werenski, Ryan Murray for Game 5 unclear getting ready and being as ready as possible when his shoulder is cleared."

Anderson, a pending restricted free agent, hasn’t played since suffering a Brian Hedger The Columbus Dispatch torn labrum in his left shoulder during a fight Dec. 14 in Ottawa.

Aug 8, 2020 at 4:53 PM

Columbus Dispatch LOADED: 08.09.2020 A week ago, there was a lengthy pecking order among Blue Jackets defensemen still waiting to play.

Going into a decisive Game 5 against the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight, the line is shorter and there is a lot more uncertainty on the Jackets’ blue line, including the availability of Zach Werenski and Ryan Murray.

No updates were given Saturday about either, as general manager Jarmo Kekalainen played it close to the vest.

"I guess we’ll always be optimistic, but I can’t answer that any further," Kekalainen said, when asked whether there was reason for optimism about Werenski or Murray playing.

Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella did not meet with reporters Saturday. He was asked about Werenski on Friday night following the Jackets’ 4-3 overtime loss at , and he didn’t provide an update, saying he hadn’t spoken with the team’s medical staff.

Werenski apparently was injured at 9:04 of the third period when he was tripped by Toronto’s Mitch Marner while attempting to lug the puck into the slot area of the Maple Leafs’ zone. Marner was penalized, while Werenski went to the bench after landing awkwardly on his arms and upper chest area.

He returned for a 48-second shift before leaving the game for good, missing the final 9:08 of regulation and 13:10 of overtime, which the Maple Leafs forced on three straight 6-on-5 goals near the end of regulation.

Murray, who has dealt with multiple injuries the past few years, missed the entire game for an undisclosed reason. Dean Kukan returned to the lineup after Tortorella scratched him in Game 3. His partner on the third pairing was Scott Harrington, who played his first game in the series because of Murray’s absence.

The Blue Jackets didn’t practice Saturday, so there was no sneak preview of Tortorella’s lineup, which will likely be released today.

Who gets the net?

Another lineup mystery is which goaltender will start for the Blue Jackets in Game 5?

Tortorella rarely reveals his goalie decisions before game days, so it probably wouldn’t have mattered had he been available for questions, but that doesn’t diminish the interest about which goalie he’ll pick.

Will it be Elvis Merzlikins, who won Game 3 in relief and played very well until the end of Game 4? Or will it be Joonas Korpisalo, who started the series with a 28-save in his NHL playoff debut and played very well until allowing three goals in Game 3?

Kekalainen was careful not to spill any beans, but he did express confidence in both.

"I think our goaltending’s been great, and I’ve said it from the beginning of the series and coming into this qualification round, that it’s a strength of ours to have two goalies that can be competing against each other internally, and both want to be No. 1’s," Kekalainen said. "It’s a great situation for us, and both have shown here they’re capable of carrying that responsibility."

Anderson status quo

Another injured player whose status is unknown is forward Josh Anderson, who is a little more than five months into his recovery from shoulder surgery.

At the time of the March 1 surgery, Anderson was given an expected recovery time of four to six months. Kekalainen said Anderson is practicing in Toronto, but his availability remains a question mark. 1190572 Columbus Blue Jackets

Goaltending depth gives Blue Jackets a decided edge

Brian Hedger The Columbus Dispatch

Aug 8, 2020 at 6:00 AM

Strength in goaltending usually means that a team has one elite goalie for the playoffs plus a solid backup, just in case.

That used to be the Blue Jackets, back when Sergei Bobrovsky was around, but not anymore. Now, with Joonas Korpisalo and Elvis Merzlikins practically viewed as co-starters, Columbus just might rewrite that narrative in this postseason.

Viewed as a concern by some going into a matchup against the Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL’s playoff qualifying round, the Jackets’ goalie tandem has instead been a potent duo.

Korpisalo, 26, won the series opener with a 28-save shutout in his playoff debut and continued his excellence in a 3-0 loss on Tuesday in Game 2. He then started Game 3 on Thursday, allowed three goals on 15 shots and traded spots with Merzlikins — who made 21 saves in relief and didn’t allow a goal while Columbus turned a 3-0 deficit into a 4-3 overtime victory.

"We held ‘Korpi’ out to dry there," right wing Cam Atkinson said afterward. "He kept us in the (first) two games, so it was just one of those things where it’s unfortunate, and Elvis stepped in and played great for us. It was unfortunate bounces, but that’s what we have with those two goalies. Any one of those two guys can step in and keep us in the game."

While true, that statement comes up a tick short.

As each proved while handling the Jackets’ No. 1 job during separate stretches, the Jackets have two NHL starters on their roster. Korpisalo even earned an invitation to the NHL All-Star Game in January, and Merzlikins had even better numbers as his injury replacement.

"We’re not in the bubble out here if it isn’t for those two guys," coach John Tortorella said, referring to the quarantine security zones the NHL has set up in Toronto. "They both had a lot to do with this team getting here, so they both are very capable."

It’s the postseason, but Tortorella did not shy from giving rookie forwards Alexandre Texier and Liam Foudy key roles and regular shifts.

Texier had even worked his way up to left wing on the first line in the third game and played a whopping 25:50 in the Jackets’ comeback win. He also earned a primary assist on a pass into the Toronto zone to spring Pierre-Luc Dubois for a breakaway goal that ended it.

Foudy, meanwhile, played 18:18 at right wing on the third line, skating with captain Nick Foligno and center Boone Jenner.

"I’m not sure what’s best, the total experience of playoff hockey or just youth and dumbness," Tortorella said. "We’ve got a lot of young kids on this team. I don’t think anybody’s afraid of the situation at all. We just play. We don’t overthink things. It’s not adjustments and this, that, the other thing. We just go out and try to play the game the right way."

Carrying the load

It didn’t matter that Game 3 against Toronto was the front half of a back- to-back or that playing extended minutes might sap some juice from the Jackets’ skating Friday night in Game 4.

Tortorella was in a bind Thursday, down 3-0 in the second period with a 2-1 deficit in a best-of-five series staring him right in the face. So, being a man of his word, the Blue Jackets’ coach did exactly what he’d talked about in the postseason training camp. He shortened the bench, rode his top players and it paid off.

Zach Werenski and Seth Jones, the top defense pairing, played 30-plus minutes each, while Atkinson played 30:09 and finished with two assists.

Columbus Dispatch LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190573 Columbus Blue Jackets Preceding the meltdown by about seven minutes was an apparent injury that drove defenseman Zach Werenski from the game. Werenski was tripped by Mitch Marner carrying the puck between the circles and Maple Leafs 4, Blue Jackets 3, OT: Five Takeaways appeared to land on his upper chest, near his collarbone.

Werenski played most of 2017-18 with a painful shoulder injury and missed more time for a collarbone issue early this season, so he’s no Brian Hedger The Columbus Dispatch stranger to shoulder issues. What’s most concerning is that he came back out for one shift, left and didn’t return for the remainder of regulation Aug 8, 2020 at 5:20 AM time or OT.

Without Werenski, Seth Jones skated at different points with Scott It was an ending that was custom made for an athlete’s favorite cliche. Harrington and , while coach John Tortorella and assistant Brad Shaw mixed and matched on the top pairing. It will be a huge void if "It is what it is." Werenski can’t play Game 5, which would take away a strong two-way player. The Blue Jackets inexplicably blew a 3-0 lead against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday night in the span of 3:34 with about four minutes to play The three-goal meltdown, plus Matthews’ goal in OT, all happened at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, falling 4-3 in overtime to the Toronto without Werenski available. Tortorella was asked if he had any update Maple Leafs in Game 4 of a series they were 22.2 seconds from winning. after the game, but said he hadn’t spoken with the Blue Jackets’ athletic training staff about it. It was what it was. ‘Korpi’ or Elvis? Rather than clinching the second postseason series in franchise history and advancing to the official Stanley Cup playoffs next week, the Blue Just when it looked like Joonas Korpisalo was going to be rock solid in Jackets now have a decisive Game 5 to prepare for Sunday night at net, the Maple Leafs tagged him for three quick goals in Game 3 and Scotiabank Arena. Tortorella replaced him mid-game with Merzlikins.

And it is what it is. It was viewed as a good move after Merzlikins stopped all 21 shots he faced to earn a relief win in his NHL playoff debut and his success Returning to the scene of a historic meltdown, inside the same house of carried over into Game 4. In fact, he kept Toronto off the board for a horrors where things went terribly awry Friday, the Jackets will take a shutout streak of 105:38 to set a franchise record before Nylander ended final kick at the can against the Maple Leafs – who played the role of it with 3:57 left in regulation. Lucy pulling the football away before Charlie Brown can boot it. We know what happened next. He allowed two more goals in the third The Blue Jackets are now the ones lying flat on their backs, looking up at and then the winner by Matthews in overtime, although he didn’t have a the sky and wondering how they missed the ball. chance to stop that one-timer. Three straight 6-on-5 goals is the answer, as Toronto scored an There might be a concern about his confidence level going into Game 5, unthinkable three goals in a row to tie the game with their goalie on the though, so who will Tortorella and goaltending coach pick bench. It is what it is. for Game 5? And if it stays what it is Sunday, the Jackets’ bubble in Toronto will pop. It’s anybody guess from an outsider perspective. Just like the regular Here are five takeaways: season, both have shown stretches of excellence and also struggle, so it won’t be an easy decision. Total meltdown Short-suited Something of this magnitude cannot happen without a complete collapse, which is exactly what happened after Boone Jenner scored to give the Tortorella has used his fourth line and third defense pairing sparingly in Jackets a 3-0 lead with 5:42 left. the series, especially these past two games decided in overtime.

It began 1:24 later, when Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe pulled goalie The Jackets are rolling mainly three forward lines as games get deeper Frederik Andersen with 4:18 left in regulation – an eternity to play without into the third period and OT, while the top two defense pairings have a goalie in net. Most coaches will do it with about 2:00 left, give or take a absorbed a lot of ice time. few seconds either way, but these were desperate times and Keefe went Seth Jones, in particular, is seeing a ton of minutes. The star to desperate measures. defenseman played team-high amounts in the past two games, including And it worked. That’s the shocking part. 32:40 in Game 3 and 33:11 in Game 4. The second pair, Vladislav Gavrikov (27:41) and David Savard (29:04), are also being used a lot. As troubling as it was to see Blue Jackets goalie Elvis Merzlikins allow three goals within a 3:34 span, it was even tougher to watch his Keefe isn’t being quite as selective with his ice time allotments, skating teammates come up empty on empty-net goals. his fourth line about 10 minutes a game and limiting only the minutes of defenseman Martin Marincin – who is filling in for injured defenseman According to the NHL’s official play-by-play, Cam Atkinson missed from Jake Muzzin. 27 feet away with 3:18 to play – just 39 seconds after Toronto’s William Nylander cut it to 3-1. Pierre-Luc Dubois missed inches to the left from 56 Depth charges feet out with 1:38 left. Ryan Murray, who has dealt with chronic injury issues the past three And then it was , who nearly got one last try with 46 years, didn’t play in Game 4 for unspecified reasons. seconds left. His attempt from near center ice was blocked by Morgan That paved the way for Harrington to play his first playoff game this Rielly – forcing the puck into the Blue Jackets’ end for Zach Hyman’s season. Tortorella also brought Dean Kukan back into the playing mix tying goal 23.8 seconds later. after missing Game 3, replacing Markus Nutivaara after missing just one The goal Auston Matthews scored in overtime was almost predestined at game for a coach’s decision. that point, as the Maple Leafs gained a whole new lease on their playoff There was also a change up front, as Tortorella went with veteran life in a game they were about to lose. Nathan Gerbe over Emil Bemstrom on the fourth line. It was Gerbe’s first How do the Blue Jackets bounce back? appearance in an NHL postseason game since 2011 with the Buffalo Sabres. He skated just 7:44, so it will be interesting to see what other It’s a good question, but they’ve proven in the past that counting them out lineup changes are in store Sunday. prematurely is often a mistake. Let’s not forget they pulled off the same thing, though slightly less dramatic, in Game 3 on Thursday.

Werenski doesn’t return Columbus Dispatch LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190574 Columbus Blue Jackets “We stopped moving our feet and stopped forechecking and let it slide,” Seth Jones said. “They took advantage of it.”

3. Maintaining discipline Collapse: 3 reasons for optimism, 3 reasons for concern for Blue Jackets The Blue Jackets finished the regular season as the least penalized team in the league (200), and when they’ve played a man down, while not By Alison Lukan back at true power-kill levels of domination, the Columbus penalty kill was able to perform admirably, finishing 12th overall in PK percentage Aug 8, 2020 (81.7 percent). But whether it’s stressing the limits of that PK unit or a reflection of waning discipline, when Columbus takes too many penalties,

it ends up costing the team. Less than 24 hours after the Blue Jackets stunned the Maple Leafs on In this series against the Maple Leafs, when the Blue Jackets have taken Thursday with a 4-3, come-from-behind win in overtime, Columbus got a five penalties or more (Games 2 and 4), they’ve ended up losing the dose of its own medicine. Down 3-0 with four minutes to play, Toronto’s game. For perspective, in the regular season, Columbus took five sticks awoke to score three goals in regulation before adding an overtime penalties only five times, and its game-over-game average was 2.82. In winner to avoid elimination and force a series-deciding Game 5 on Game 4, there were six infractions on the Blue Jackets, three of which Sunday. came within two minutes that surrounded a series of scuffles that With the season on the line, let’s look at some areas of confidence and included Dean Kukan, Cam Atkinson, and Pierre-Luc Dubois. concern for the Blue Jackets after Game 4. Nick Foligno would get called for hooking within that same timeframe. Three reasons for concern But none was more costly than the final penalty taken by the Blue 1. Black and blue line Jackets, a trip by Foligno on .

Defensive play has been Columbus’ engine for more than a few seasons Foligno vociferously protested the call to referee Francis Charron, but now, and it has been built from the ground up by players such as Seth ultimately, the captain headed to the box. Ten seconds later, Matthews Jones, Zach Werenski, David Savard and Ryan Murray. So, it was a potted the game-winner. slight cause for concern when it was announced shortly before puck drop Three reasons for confidence that Murray would not be playing in Game 4 and Scott Harrington was taking his spot in the lineup. Murray, of course, has had to manage 1. Warming sticks ongoing back issues over the past season, but the Blue Jackets miss Murray’s vision and puck-moving ability when he’s not on the ice. As much as Toronto’s offense can be lauded, Game 4 showed the most consistent rate of scoring yet for the Blue Jackets this postseason, and Harrington – who was a solid contributor to the team’s playoff push last the points came from across the roster, a good sign for a team that relies season – comfortably stepped into a third-pairing role, notching 18:44 of on offense by committee. Eight players got on the board, including ice time, two hits and two blocks. Merzlikins, who provided the secondary assist on the opening goal, a beautiful chance created off the rush by Dubois, who fed a trailing But it was a bigger concern when Werenski, who had five shots on goal Atkinson just 3:58 into the game. and six total attempts in 21:24 of ice time, didn’t return to play for the final nine minutes of regulation and then was completely absent from the Vladislav Gavrikov added a second tally early in the second, and Foligno team’s bench in overtime. created a high-quality scoring chance for Boone Jenner that put the Jackets up 3-0 14:18 into the third. Werenski is not only a significant part of the Blue Jackets offense (his 20 regular-season goals led the league among defensemen), but his The Blue Jackets didn’t just score, they were able to rely on playmaking partnership and chemistry with Jones make for a formidable top pair at instead of lucky bounces. According to Natural Stat Trick, within the even strength, not to mention Werenski’s contributions on the penalty kill series, Game 4 represented Columbus’ second-highest degree of and power play. unblocked shot generation (47.62 per 60) and overall shot quality of the series (1.93 expected goals). Head coach John Tortorella did not have an update on Werenski’s status after the game, and the team has a scheduled off day Saturday (the rest There’s still more to hope for from players such as Oliver Bjorkstrand, should do everyone good), so we will have to wait to find out if the former Alexandre Texier and Foligno, but seeing pucks go in the net the right Calder Trophy finalist will be available for the series-deciding game. way from players up and down the lineup is a trend in the right direction.

2. Toronto’s strengths 2. Goaltending

The narrative coming into this series was that it would be the battle of a Even after three straight games in which Columbus has allowed three or high-powered offense (Toronto) versus a stalwart defense (Columbus), more goals against, Joonas Korpisalo and Merzlikins remain reasons to and many predictions gave the advantage to the former. Through three be optimistic about what this team might accomplish. According to games, we had seen the Maple Leafs’ scoring ability, but it wasn’t until Evolving-Hockey, among the 33 goaltenders playing in the postseason, Game 4 that we saw the team’s ability to score almost at will. Korpisalo and Merzlikins rank eighth and ninth, respectively, in terms of saving more goals than expected (GSAx). And, in addition to setting a Entering the final four minutes of play, Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe franchise shutout record, Merzlikins had stopped 57 consecutive shots pulled his goaltender and Toronto played with six skaters. William before Toronto began its offensive barrage Friday. Nylander struck first, setting up in front of the net to receive a backhand feed from Zach Hyman and beat Elvis Merzlikins five-hole. The goal The final four minutes of regulation Friday will not show up on Merzlikins’ ended Merzlikins shutout streak at 1:05:38, which was a franchise record highlight reel. He’d likely want the Nylander goal back, but the Blue for the Blue Jackets. Jackets’ defense also gave players such as Tavares and Hyman too much time and space to execute on the two following scores. Fifty-one seconds later, it was John Tavares from the high slot who put the puck over Merzlikins’ shoulder stick-side after being set up by Auston We don’t know yet who is starting in net for Game 5, but both players Matthews. have shown the ability to perform, and their head coach has shown the trust to change things up if it’s what the position — or the team in front of The Blue Jackets had three bungled empty-net attempts by Pierre-Luc him — requires. Dubois, Cam Atkinson and Gus Nyquist that prevented Columbus from extending its lead before Hyman scored the tying goal with just 23 3. Bounce-back seconds to go in regulation, completing the comeback and forcing overtime. There are signs of a return to form for Columbus that could bode well for the team. After shooting the puck at the net 36 times, Toronto scored on its final three attempts. That firepower is real and scary. Of course, the team was First, defensive play. Though defensive lapses were costly in Game 4, playing with an empty net, but the cost of Columbus letting up the overall improvement in that part of the game by Columbus has been defensively for even a few minutes was no more real than in Game 4. noticeable. Friday, the aggressive forecheck continued to generate turnovers that led to offensive chances — exactly what Columbus wants.

The defense has been more effective in clearing out the dangerous areas of the ice and keeping Toronto to the outside.

Compare the difference in shot locations in Game 1 to Game 4.

Game 1:

Game 4:

Another key part of the Blue Jackets’ identity that came through was their conditioning. After three players (Jones, Werenski, Atkinson) played more than 30 minutes in Game 3, the team looked crisp and energetic in its play and showed no signs of fatigue.

And finally, there’s resilience. Tortorella and his players were unwilling to publicly dissect Game 4 for the nuances of what did and didn’t happen, but this group has shown the ability to come back from everything — from 419 man-games lost in the regular season to performances such as Game 2’s loss.

“This is what happens in a series: ups and downs, it’s a roller-coaster,” Jones said. “We’re going to stay as even as we can.”

Leaflets

For the first time in franchise history, the Blue Jackets will be playing in the final game of a series for all the marbles — the organization has never reached a Game 7. … On Fox Sports Ohio’s pregame show, general manager Jarmo Kekäläinen said that forward Josh Anderson (shoulder surgery) is skating with the team and the Jackets are waiting on medical clearance for him to return to play. … Dean Kukan returned to the lineup. He played 16:06, blocked two shots and fought Jason Spezza. It was the first fight of his NHL career, according to HockeyFights.com.

The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190575 Dallas Stars Briefly: Bowness said goaltender Ben Bishop finished practice Saturday, and the team would see how he feels Sunday. Bishop did not play Wednesday against Colorado, when he was deemed “unfit to play.”

Stars look to flip the switch in a ‘do or die’ round robin finale vs. the Blues

Dallas Morning News LOADED: 08.09.2020

By Matthew DeFranks 4:11 PM on Aug 8, 2020 CDT

The Stars will try to locate their switch Sunday, when they finish the Western Conference’s round-robin tournament against the St. Louis Blues.

Dallas is winless in two round-robin games, surrendering a two-goal third-period lead against Vegas on Monday before being blown out Wednesday by Colorado. St. Louis is also 0-2-0 in the round robin, setting up clear consequences of Sunday’s game.

The winner will earn the No. 3 seed in the West and play No. 8 Calgary in the first round. The loser will drop to No. 4 and face No. 7 Vancouver in the first round.

Regardless of the first-round ramifications, the Stars could use some positive momentum entering the elimination rounds of the postseason. The team has not won a game since Feb. 25, a stretch that included a six-game losing streak at the end of the regular season, a 20-week break because of the coronavirus pandemic, an exhibition loss to Nashville and a pair of round-robin losses.

Each of the last nine times the Stars took the ice, they lost.

“I think our mind-set this last game is trying to approach it like it is a do- or-die,” forward Blake Comeau said. “It’s time for our team to play the way we know to play to give us success. We want to go in, when we do start our playoff series, feeling good about where we’re at.”

An easy rationalization for why the Stars have stumbled is that the intensity of round-robin games pales in comparison to normal playoff games (never mind that the other team has to play in the same circumstances).

Interim coach Rick Bowness was asked about the intensity difference between the qualifying series and the round-robin games and pleaded for his team to ratchet it up.

“It’s not September where you can just lollygag through a couple of exhibition games and find your game,” Bowness said. “We’ve been preaching that since Day 1. The play-in series are very intense, they’re very, very physical. They’re in each other’s faces, and that’s every shift.

“That’s what we’re going to see when we enter the playoffs. We’re trying to prepare our players that this is coming. We have to prepare now. We can’t just flip a switch when the first game of the playoffs comes along and say, ‘OK, now we’re intense. Now, we’re ready to go.’ That’s not good enough.”

Like the regular season, the Stars have struggled to score goals in Edmonton. They have been held scoreless in eight of the nine periods during the return to play. In order to manufacture some offense, Bowness switched lines during practice Friday, reuniting Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin and Alexander Radulov. Denis Gurianov joined Mattias Janmark and Joe Pavelski.

Benn-Seguin-Radulov has been one of the best lines in the league in the last three seasons, and that line has come together at a time when Benn and Seguin have struggled to generate offensive-zone time and scoring opportunities. None of the three has scored in the postseason, but they have positive possession metrics in the last three seasons and the Stars have outscored teams 78-43 at 5 on 5 with them on the ice.

“When you’re not scoring goals, you have to mix it up a little bit,” Bowness said. “The chemistry, we’re hoping they find it again. They didn’t have it earlier. Let’s try it again.”

Bowness said he kept Gurianov and Roope Hintz on separate lines to try to spread speed throughout the lineup. He also kept open the possibility of Hintz and Gurianov playing again with Jason Dickinson.

“We may end up with that again at some point,” Bowness said. 1190576 Detroit Red Wings But again, at least the Wings only play the Oilers twice a year. If an Eastern Conference team is called Monday, it will be so much the worse for the Wings.

Detroit Red Wings could really be haunted by NHL's second draft lottery. Here's how Detroit Free Press LOADED: 08.09.2020

Helene St. James, Detroit Free Press

Published 3:51 p.m. ET Aug. 8, 2020 | Updated 7:54 p.m. ET Aug. 8, 2020

As the qualifying round of the 2020 NHL playoffs concludes, teams with a great deal of talent have emerged as contestants for the next stage of the draft lottery.

That’s the subject of this edition of the Detroit Red Wings mailbag. Reader Paul W. e-mailed to ask: When will we know who picks first, and how will it affect the Wings?

The NHL has scheduled Phase 2 of the lottery for 6 p.m. Monday; it’ll be held at the NHL Network’s studio and also be broadcast on NBCSN. A second lottery was necessitated when, on June 26, a placeholder for one of the eight teams that were included in the 2020 playoffs won the right to pick first overall.

Alexis Lafreniere of the Rimouski Oceanic skates during a QMJHL game Oct. 18, 2019, in .

Instead of limiting the lottery to the teams that were excluded from the playoffs because they had the seven worst records, the NHL included teams deemed worthy of competing for the Stanley Cup. The Wings — whose 17-49-5 record locked them into last place and who were the only team mathematically eliminated when the NHL paused the regular season March 12 because of the coronavirus pandemic — were pushed back to fourth.

The Wings, who finished 61 points behind first-place Boston and 23 points behind 30th-place Ottawa, had 18.5% odds to pick first. The eight qualifying round losers will each have 12.5% odds.

What are chances picks a goalie in 2020 draft?

While one round has yet to be settled, teams vying for the right to draft consensus No. 1 pick Alexis Lafrenière include the Pittsburgh Penguins, New York Rangers and Edmonton Oilers. The others are the , Minnesota Wild, Nashville Predators and Winnipeg Jets. The eighth team will be the loser of the Toronto Maple Leafs-Columbus Blue Jackets series.

It would be best for the Wings if a Western Conference team wins, because then they’d only have to contend with Lafrenière twice a season. The Florida Panthers — and potentially the Maple Leafs — would be the worst, because they’re divisional rivals, meaning four or five meetings per season.

When COVID-19 truncated the 2019-20 season, the NHL altered the lottery, which normally features the teams that didn’t advance to the playoffs. Now the league has created a situation in which teams that already boast some of the best players in the NHL will get a shot at adding a first-overall pick. The Penguins, for example, boast Evgeni Malkin, who had 74 points in 55 games. Sidney Crosby dealt with injuries and produced 47 points in 41 games.

The Rangers boast Artemi Panarin, a Hart Trophy finalist whose 95 points (in 69 games) ranked fourth in the NHL. Their future includes the development of Kaapo Kakko, the second overall pick from 2019.

The Panthers are led by Jonathan Huberdeau, who had 78 points in 69 games, and , the second overall pick in 2013. If the Blue Jackets advance, the Maple Leafs could add Lafrenière to a lineup that includes Auston Matthews, a generational player drafted first overall in 2016, Mitchell Marner, the fourth overall pick from 2015, and William Nylander, the eighth overall pick from 2014.

The Oilers boast the NHL’s leading goal scorer and a Hart Trophy finalist in Leon Draisaitl (110 points in 71 games), and Connor McDavid, arguably the best player in the game. 1190577 Detroit Red Wings

'Easy decision': Red Wings loan forward Filip Zadina to Czech team

Mark Falkner, The Detroit News

Published 9:39 a.m. ET Aug. 8, 2020 | Updated 9:45 a.m. ET Aug. 8, 2020

The Detroit Red Wings have loaned another top prospect to a European hockey team to continue their development during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Forward Filip Zadina, the sixth overall pick in 2018, will play for HC Ocelari Trinec of the Czech Extraliga, the highest-level hockey league in the Czech Republic.

Last week, defenseman Moritz Seider, the sixth overall pick in 2019, was loaned to the Mannheim Eagles of the top league in Germany, the .

"It was an easy decision for me," Zadina told the Trinec team's website. "Trinec belongs to the top. I think that here are the best conditions for hockey in the Czech Republic. Another thing is coach (Vaclav) Varada, who led me in the junior national team. We won the Hlinka Gretzky Cup (in 2016 with Zadina scoring two goals in the gold-medal game against the United States)."

Zadina's father, Marek, is an assistant coach with HC Ocelari Trinec and a former member of the 1992 Czechoslovakia world junior team.

Head coach Varada scored 58 goals in 493 career NHL games with the Buffalo Sabres and from 1995-2006.

"I am glad that the situation with Filip has finally been successfully completed and he will work for us," Varada told the website. "I contacted (general manager) Steve Yzerman, outlining our plans and a vision for his use during the NHL break.

"Both the Detroit management and Filip know that they will work honestly with us, as we are used to, and why it would be good for the Red Wings for their young player to play games at a brisk pace before the start of the NHL."

Trinec sports manager Jan Peterek said Zadina will also contribute to the insurance costs of practising and playing in their 14-team league.

"It would be very risky to pay a lot of money for insurance for NHL players, when it can happen that only three games can be played," Peterek told the website. "Filip offered to share in the financial burden himself. It is a great gesture that we appreciate and it shows how much it is worth playing in Trinec."

Zadina said Red Wings director of player evaluation Jiri Fischer took "the lead" in working out the agreement with Trinec, the 2019 league champions.

Fischer, a native of Horovice in the Czech Republic, was a first-round pick by the Red Wings in 1998, won a Stanley Cup in Detroit in 2002 and retired three years later after he went into cardiac arrest during a game at in 2005.

Varada said Zadina "could be given space" and play in an exhibition game in September before the season starts in October. He is expected to return to the Red Wings as late as November and prepare for training camp, which is tentatively scheduled to begin on Nov. 17 with the 2020- 21 season starting on Dec. 1.

Zadina had eight goals, 15 points and was minus-13 in 28 games in Detroit before suffering an ankle injury in February.

The 6-foot, 195-pound winger also had nine goals, 16 points and was minus-9 in 21 games with the .

Detroit News LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190578 Edmonton Oilers Kampf’s short-handed breakaway when it was 2-1 for the Hawks early in the second period, but didn’t look as comfortable in the net as he did the last while before the NHL Pause.

Magic not there for Oilers forward Kailer Yamamoto against Blackhawks “We needed some saves at times,” said Tippett. “When you do make mistakes, be nice to get a few extra stops. In the third period, we get beat on a battle (Ethan Bear and Jonathan Toews) and give up a short-side goal.” Jim Matheson, Edmonton Journal Adam Larsson’s suspected back injury for Games 3 and 4, and Ethan August 8, 2020 5:42 PM MDT Bear getting rattled into the glass on an Alex DeBrincat smack-down in the middle period in Game 4, left the Oilers exposed on the back-end.

When you lose your Visa, you call, have the card cancelled, and they “The one spot where we couldn’t stand an injury was on the right side of send you a new one. our defence. We traded for Mike Green (he opted out of the Stanley Cup tournament), then Larsson was out and Bear was out (14 minutes in the You misplace your game as a hockey player and it’s a struggle to get it second period). That was an area we needed to be solid in,” said Tippett. back. They had four left-shot D (Oscar Klefbom, Darnell Nurse, Kris Russell Case in point: Kailer Yamamoto. and Caleb Jones) the last two games, and only two righties and Bear. Somewhere between the NHL COVID-19 Pause on March 12 and the Edmonton Oilers attempt at making the 16-team playoff in the Western This ’n that: One telling lineup sign for the Oilers. When Ennis went Conference, the kid who saved the OilerS season because he gave them down, the Oilers chose to play either Gaetan Haas or Patrick Russell for a legit second line, lost his mojo. Game 4. They didn’t consider the speedy Joakim Nygard, who never got a sniff in the play-in series. Nygard, who signed a new one-year deal for After 26 points in 27 games, he had three minor penalties and no points next season, hadn’t played since January when he busted his hand, but in four games against the Chicago Blackhawks. He only had four shots he obviously didn’t show enough in Phase 3 camp to step back into the on Corey Crawford and averaged 16 minutes a night, most of it five-on- picture. five with Leon Draisaitl.

He looked like a kid trying to make the team, not the 21-year-old who had already proven over a two and-a-half month run that he had the right Edmonton Sun: LOADED: 08.09.2020 stuff.

The Oilers badly needed support help for Connor McDavid, Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in the top six, but while there was lots of try from Yamamoto, along with an over-exuberant hit from behind on defenceman Connor Murphy in Game 3, he couldn’t get inside and struggled to make things happen when he had the puck.

Totally the opposite of his splendid play from New Year’s Eve on.

Postseason, Education 101.

“He competed hard but not much happened on the scoreboard for him,” said Oilers coach Dave Tippett. “He’s a young player in his first playoffs and he’s going to learn from this. He gave us such a boost in the regular season and we put a lot of faith in him.

“He tried but didn’t have much luck.”

Yamamoto played 76 shifts (64 minutes), had the fourth most minutes of the forwards behind Draisaitl, Nugent-Hopkins and McDavid but nine forwards had more shots. Gaetan Haas, who only played 10 and-a-half minutes in Game 4, had the same four shots as Yamamoto.

Tippett went back to Yamamoto, Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins, his best line in January and February, late in the third in Game 4 but resisted the urge to start them. He kept Nugent-Hopkins on McDavid’s left side, inserting Andreas Athanasiou on left-wing with Draisaitl with Tyler Ennis done with something worse than a sprained knee after the Kirby Dach hit in Game 3.

“We had the hottest line in the league too with Connor, Leon and Zack Kassian in the first month and we were a better team with them (McDavid and Draisaitl) broken up,” said Tippett. “You can’t just win a series with one line, that’s not the way it works. You need balance throughout your lineup and we need that to become an elite team … not just a team that can get on a hot streak and win. We want to win for a long time and I believe when you have pairs on lines you can get going.”

Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford was pedestrian the first three games with an .859 save percentage, but stopped the last 34 Oilers shots over the final 38 minutes, including a glove save on Zack Kassian on his doorstep and sliding across to get a pad on Draisaitl’s shot with 2:14 left.

When it counted most, when the game was 2-2, Crawford didn’t crack and Mikko Koskinen, who had an .886 save percentage in the series, did.

Not good enough, but you can say that about most Koskinen’s teammates, too.

Dominik Kubalik’s winner squeezed through Koskinen’s six-foot-six frame. Koskinen did make a terrific snow-angel type leg stop on David 1190579 Edmonton Oilers Yes, the Oilers got shafted by the NHL — after basing playoff positions on divisional standings for years, the league changed it to conference standings at the last second for the play-ins. As the second place team in the Pacific, Edmonton never should have been in a qualifying series. The fun is over: Edmonton Oilers turn Hub City into Flub City But if they played the first round like they played the qualifying round they would have been swept anyway, so it all evens out.

Robert Tychkowski They got what they deserved.

August 8, 2020 5:17 PM MDT “I think we’re ahead of where we were at the start of training camp last year, which is a positive,” said Tippett, adding they are still behind where

they hoped they would be. Seven days. “We have a lot of really good pieces in this group, we thought we had a That’s how long Edmonton’s Hub City excitement lasted. chance to be a playoff team, we tried to earn the right to do that and we didn’t get it done. We want to be an upper echelon team and be After the city, the province and the Oilers Entertainment Group put consistent in that every year. We’ve obviously got some more to do to get months of lobbying and preparation into turning Rogers Place into centre there.” stage for their team, and fans spent weeks anticipating what they’d do with this remarkable opportunity, we get this. It’s going to start with developing a work ethic and hockey sense to match their high end skill, because the loss to Chicago clearly exposed Four games. Three of them bad. weaknesses in those areas. The Oilers thought they were focused, thought they were were working hard enough, but a 3-1 series loss to a And, just like that, the Oilers are done, kicked out of their own bubble 12th place team proves that wasn’t the case. after a being taken down, without much of a fight, by the 12th place team in the Western Conference. Alas, one of the disadvantages of never being in the postseason is not knowing what it takes to win in the postseason. Unbelievable. “Our team competed hard, we’ve got lots of try,” said Tippett. “But we You can’t say bringing the hub here was a wasted effort — the only have a lot of growing to do because what we think is competing hard isn’t reason the Stanley Cup playoffs are happening at all is because hard enough to win in the playoffs.” Edmonton and OEG succeeded at what some cities were too irresponsible with their COVID responses to even attempt, and others (Vancouver) were too afraid to even try. But there’s no question the Oilers lukewarm performance sucked all the energy out of this thing. Edmonton Sun: LOADED: 08.09.2020

It doesn’t matter where the games are being played now that the Oilers are out. The playoffs will be what the playoffs always are to Edmontonians: a million miles away.

In the ultimate indignity, the Oilers are evicted from their own building while the post-season starts without them, told to surrender their dressing room to the likes of the Calgary Flames and . Edmonton’s worst enemies will be sprawled on those cozy couches in the Oilers lounge, changing in their stalls, soaking in their hot tubs and laughing about it all day long.

How did this happen? How does a team that contended for first place in its own division all season, that finished 12th overall, with two Art Ross winners anchoring the top two lines, miss the playoffs? How can it look so lifeless in doing so, knowing that the stage it was performing on was created especially for them?

The easy answer is they were lacking in too many of the key areas that win you games in the playoffs: winning puck battles, being smart in your own end and getting good goaltending.

It’s not fair to suggest that one goal can sum up an entire series, but the Chicago’s Game 4 winner late in the third period was a microcosm of everything that went wrong for Edmonton.

Ethan Bear gets pushed off the puck, Leon Draisaitl flies by with a weak stick check, nobody covers Dominik Kubalik in front of the net and a goalie who stands six-feet-11 on skates gets beaten over the shoulder into a four foot high net.

“We were carrying the momentum in the third period and we got beat on a battle and gave up a short side goal,” said Oilers head coach Dave Tippett.

“That’s the way it went for us. There were times when I felt we were doing a lot of good things and times where I felt we took a step back. I guess that’s just the growth of our team.

“We weren’t giving up much, but we were making some critical mistakes and not getting the save at the right time. That’s what costs you. You have to find ways to win games, not find ways to lose games.”

The growth of the team is certainly up for discussion after this unexpected limp into the offseason.

It’s hard to look at this and call it progress. Five years into Connor McDavid, six years into Draisaitl and nine years into Ryan Nugent- Hopkins, the organization has made the playoffs once. 1190580 Edmonton Oilers had an actual answer to their power play. We had great goaltending, obviously, but overall, guys got better as the series went along and for myself it was nice to get on the scoresheet and make a difference that way and hopefully it keeps getting better as we go along here.” Experience pulls Chicago Blackhawks through qualifying series against Edmonton Oilers Regardless of how far the Blackhawks now advance in the playoffs, the experience of winning a post-season series should do wonders for some of their younger players who elevated their game in the series against the Oilers. Derek Van Diest Kubalik, 24, had three goals and six points in the series, Kirby Dach, 19, August 8, 2020 6:19 PM MDT had four assists and was a physical presence, Matthew Highmore, 24, scored two big goals in the series and Alex DeBrincat, 22, had three assists. The Chicago Blackhawks are proof it is dangerous to give champions a second chance. “I look at a guy like Dunc (Keith) with the experience that he has at his age and how he holds down the fort, five-on-five, penalty killing, power Sitting last in the Central Division standings in March, six points out of play, you feel his presence on the bench and he’s competing every single playoff spot with 12 games to play, the Blackhawks were given a lifeline second,” Toews said. “You learn a lot from a guy like that, even myself following the COVID-19 pause by way of the NHL Stanley Cup Qualifiers. and Kane and the other guys in the room who have some experience, and I think that just trickles down our lineup to have a defenceman that is A team supposedly in a rebuild, the 12th-seeded Blackhawks were carrying a ton of weight shift after shift. We have experience but we also expected to be little more than sparring partners for the fifth-seeded have a ton of guys that stepped up in the series, and I get the feeling Edmonton Oilers on the road to the playoffs held at Rogers Place. we’re going to get better as we go along.” Yet, the Blackhawks still have plenty of championship pedigree on their roster who weren’t ready to be put to pasture as evidenced by a 3-2 victory in Game 4 on Friday to clinch the best-of-five series. Edmonton Sun: LOADED: 08.09.2020 “Certainly, this game in particular, you feel good that you have guys in your room who know what it’s like to close out a team,” said Blackhawks head coach Jeremy Colliton. “You have to do it when you get the chance, you don’t want to give those guys extra life. Certainly I think we could have played better (Friday), but we found a way to win anyway and that’s no small part to the leadership that we have. It felt good going into the game and knowing that we have guys that would find a way to get it done and that’s what we did.”

Jonathan Toews, 32, has won three Stanley Cups and proved to be the difference in the series, setting up the winning goal in the third period. Toews won a puck battle against Oilers rookie defenceman Ethan Bear behind the net and set up Dominik Kubalik in front.

Corey Crawford, 35, a two-time Stanley Cup champion, who missed the majority of the Blackhawks return-to-play training camp with COVID-19, then shut the door.

Crawford finished with 43 saves and made a number of key ones late as the Oilers pressed for the tying goal.

Then there was defenceman Duncan Keith, 37, also a three-time Stanley Cup champion, who logged a game-high 28:03 of ice time.

Forwards Brandon Saad, Patrick Kane and defenceman Olli Maatta also have Stanley Cup rings and made important contributions to the series win.

“Some moments where they’re kind of putting the pressure on us, you can see they had some chances, but we have our veterans that are just trying to keep the group calm,” Saad said. “Crow (Crawford) stood in there, he made some big saves for us, stood calm when they had some pucks around our net and I think that helps our team have some confidence moving forward. I think that’s just from the top down what we’re trying to do.”

In a regular year, the Blackhawks would have likely missed the playoffs for a third-consecutive season. However, there hasn’t been anything regular about 2020 and now the Blackhawks are moving on to the opening round of the playoffs at the expense of the Oilers.

Chicago won the opening game of the series 6-4, lost the second 6-3 and then stole the third 4-3 with two goals inside the last six minutes. Toews was credited with the winner 1:16 from the end of the contest, which appeared destined for overtime.

“I think across our lineup guys stepped up their game,” said Toews, who finished with four goals and three assists in the series. “We have a lot of young guys that maybe don’t have a ton of playoff experience showing what they can do and I think that gets you going and motivates you more than anything.

“I’m just trying to do my part out there and do what I can to follow suit with the rest of our team. It was fun out there. We knew what we wanted to do coming into the series and (Friday), I think it was the first time we 1190581 Edmonton Oilers Can you imagine if a player won? The NHLPA has released the player fund distribution from this year’s

post-season pot that was doubled from $16 million to $32 million. Oilers may be out but 50-50 ticket draw must go on The Oilers, Jets, Predators and Wild players departing Hub City as qualifying round losers, will each receive $20,000.

Terry Jones First round losers will take home $40,000, second round losers will receive $75,000, conference final losers $100,000, Stanley Cup runners August 8, 2020 5:05 PM MDT up $150,000 and Stanley Cup champions $227,124 (all funds in US dollars).

This is not the first time the 50-50 at an Edmonton sports event has The Oilers are out. But their world record-setting 50-50 must go on become part of the storyline. without them! The NHL’s first outdoor game, of course, was held here in the form of the You can stop Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins Heritage Classic on Nov. 22, 2003. but the Edmonton 50-50 has become unbeatable, a juggernaut, hitting $15,220.440 — that’s fifteen million dollars — in ticket sales for Game 4. The event became legendary, of course, for all the Winter Classic’s and That’s a tax-free payout of $7,610,220. Stadium Series games it inspired to follow but also for the image of the Edmonton fans.There were 57,167 of them that sat through two games With the way Edmonton’s luck works, expect the Oilers to win the actual that day, the first featuring Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers legends and NHL Lottery and Alexis Lafreniere on Monday. Guy Lafleur and the Montreal legends. Fifteen million dollars! That’s a bigger “gate” than a any Stanley Cup The fans sat through that, with all those famous players taking turns playoff take for an NHL owner in history. And it’s all going back to the scraping the ice in the snow globe scene and were still in the seats as people. the temperatures dipped to -22ºC (-30ºC with wind chill) for the NHL At a time when sports leagues are playing before empty seats to salvage regular season game between the two teams. Edmonton fans the television money from their seasons, this has become one of the themselves became famed for hanging in there throughout both games. most phenomenal financial sports success stories of all time. But talk to anybody that was there. The reason most of them endured Yes, the Oilers 50-50 looked as bad as the Oilers in their own end until late in the third period was the world record 50-50 (it was capped at Saturday due to technical difficulties. $75,000 at the time).

“The technology could not handle the demand and we apologize to Oilers The 50-50 has long been a big thing at Edmonton Ex-imos CFL football fans for the frustration they experienced,” said OEG Senior VP Tim games with six-figure payouts actually contributing to ticket sales and the Shipton. club’s league-leading attendance totals. On the night of July 14, 2017 the EE game night payout was a record $435,919. The winners, Samantha Some ticket buyers were double charged by a technological complication and Quintin Ebertz have since been buying four season tickets per game, and there’s a major mess involving refunds and ticket cancellations to in addition to their own, to give fans who have never gone to a game figure out. Time and patience will win out. Meanwhile this is a huge before to watch the team play in person. victory for Edmonton. The 50-50 became a big part of the story when the IIHF World Junior “We can run a 50-50 if the Oilers are out,” said Natalie Minckler, was held here in 2012. An Edmonton fan went home with $147,000 from executive director of the Edmonton Oilers Community Foundation. “But the Canada-USA New Years Eve game. A scout we first have to make that decision, then determine the specific dates Michael Futa won it one game. It was for $84,642.50. Peanuts. and then apply for a license with Alberta Gaming & Liquor Control as our current license was for this round only.”

They wouldn’t dare to do anything otherwise! Edmonton Sun: LOADED: 08.09.2020

They wouldn’t WANT to do anything otherwise!

That should cover everybody involved.

In 38 games featuring 50-50 draws this season, the Oilers sold just over $5.8-million of 50-50 tickets. Wednesday they damn near did that in a day. Friday they more than doubled that in a day. It may be an almost unmanageable monster to operate, but it’s the most marvelous little monster since Gritty joined the .

So Edmonton has lost the Oilers from the playoffs. Can you imagine the outcry from the public if they took this away too? With the Oilers, it’s wait ‘til next year. With the 50-50 it’ll be wait ‘til next week’s games.

The Edmonton 50-50 went from $762,550 ($381,275 payout) to $3,259,445 ($1,697,223) to $5,417,130 (2,708,565) to $15,220.440 ($7,610,220).

In four hockey games that’s ticket sales of $24,659,565 and a payout of $12,329,782.

Friday was plagued by technical problems. You can understand how they were pulling their hair out by postponing the draw for the winning number.

But they need to fix it and move on and play again. The hockey team doesn’t have that option.

There are still at least 36 game days to go before presents the Stanley Cup on Rogers Place ice.

Forget the economic impact and the beauty shot tourism promotional value involved, the 50-50 has become the No. 1 benefit of playing host to this event. 1190582 Edmonton Oilers Holland had a lot of work to do and didn’t have much in the way of cap room in his first summer. His biggest free-agent addition was Mike Smith, who played a lot, went 11-1-4 in January and February and still posted one of the poorest save percentages among NHL regulars. His overall Lowetide: Ken Holland’s urgent summer as Oilers general manager save percentage (.902) placed him No. 47 among 58 goalies who played begins 1,000 or more minutes in 2019-20. At five-on-five, his save percentage (.900) was No. 52 of 54 qualifying goaltenders.

Despite the impressive stretch in the new year, Holland will want to By Allan Mitchell upgrade the goaltending position over the summer. Aug 8, 2020 Holland signed Zack Kassian to a long-term contract in late January. The deal will pay Kassian $3.2 million per year for the next four seasons and is problematic for several reasons. First, it’s a substantial contract for a There is a restlessness surrounding the Edmonton Oilers, even in the winger who plays a complementary offensive role and who is not a plus early hours after the season ended with a loss against the Chicago defensive player. Second, the overall cap number is flat for the coming Blackhawks. season, so those dollars will be painful to endure for a team with little room and several issues that need addressing. Although Holland could Just 16 months ago, Edmonton’s captain and driving force, Connor not have foreseen the COVID-19 impact at the time of signing the deal, it McDavid, expressed frustration with a season outside the playoffs: “It’s was too much by plenty based on the facts at hand the day it was signed. frustrating. We want to play in the playoffs as a team. I personally want to play in the playoffs. I’m not happy about it. It’s going to be a long It’s an understatement to say Holland didn’t get his money’s worth at the summer.” NHL deadline. Mike Green played just over 32 minutes before he was injured and later opted out of the playoffs. Tyler Ennis played well but Did the Oilers do enough to move the needle? How urgent is the coming was injured during the series against the Blackhawks. Andreas year? Are the Oilers reaching a Rick Nash moment with their young Athanasiou showed flashes, but the team didn’t get a large sample on his generational talent? ability to find chemistry on a skill line. General manager Ken Holland isn’t going to make any panic moves or I applaud the effort and the belief in his team, but in terms of asset repeat summer 2015, when Peter Chiarelli (the GM at the time) bet much management, considering the shortened schedule and the four games of the future on an immediate push for a playoff appearance. against Chicago, Holland spent far more assets than warranted on a Safe to say this is an urgent time for the organization, but the man roster with many flaws. That’s harsh but true. leading the charge has a more measured approach to problem-solving. What needs to be addressed Holland’s progress Mikko Koskinen as one half of a goaltending tandem has merit. He It’s important to place the postseason in context and to give full credit for posted a .917 overall save percentage, placing him No. 15 among progress made in October through March. During the regular season, the goalies playing 1,000 or more minutes in 2019-20. At five-on-five, he team’s 37-25-9 record produced a .585 winning percentage, No. 5 in the finished No. 19 with a .924 total. That’s an NHL-average goalie. Western Conference and No. 12 in the entire NHL. Edmonton had the Holland will need to find a goaltender who is at least equal, and top power play and the No. 2 penalty kill in the league, and the even- preferably superior, to Koskinen. That’s a tall order, but names like Robin strength goal share (48 percent) improved by 2 percentage points Lehner and Alexander Georgiev may be in play. season over season. One goalie who did not have a good season but carries a strong The farm system delivered in a big way during the season, with Ethan reputation is Braden Holtby. It would be no surprise if Holland pursues Bear, Kailer Yamamoto and Caleb Jones all delivering quality play in the him; the general manager’s willingness to sign older players is well push to the playoffs. That kind of quality and quantity is unusual for the known. In the past three seasons, Holtby (who turns 31 in mid- organization, especially the fourth-round (Jones) and fifth-round (Bear) September) has a .906 save percentage. draft picks who developed into actual NHL players. Here are the top five free agents by overall save percentage entering the From 2001 through 2014, only two players chosen after the second offseason: round (Kyle Brodziak, Tobias Rieder) played in 400 or more NHL games during their careers. Jones and Bear, both chosen in 2015, represent a Anton Khudobin (age 34), .930 watershed for an organization famous for poor returns on later picks. Robin Lehner (age 29), .920 That’s not something we can credit Holland for, but he did hire Dave Tippett, who has a history of successful prospect transitions to the NHL. Cam Talbot (age 33), .919

Holland’s procurement during summer 2019 included several useful Jacob Markstrom (age 30), .918 additions: Corey Crawford (age 35), .917 • James Neal scored 19 goals in 2019-20 with Holland offloading a Lehner is going to be expensive, and the others might sign with their noxious contract (Milan Lucic) in that trade. current teams before free agency. Khudobin is an interesting target and • Josh Archibald gave the team secondary scoring (12 goals) from the Aaron Dell (.907) has more risk, but the San Jose Sharks goalie has had bottom six and helped on the penalty kill. just one poor season in the past four. He would likely fit the Oilers’ budget. • Riley Sheahan played heavy four-on-five minutes and filled a centre role in the bottom six. I’ve mentioned in the past the Oilers should be looking for skill forwards who can help offensively and in suppressing opposition offence. I believe Smaller bets on Joakim Nygard and Gaetan Haas were also helpful, but two-way forwards are coming to the skill lines and the time has to be injury and role meant both played small roles in the team’s 2019-20 now. success. Connor McDavid’s 2019-20 season saw him finish 51.7 in goal share at I count Holland’s major contributions in his first season as the hiring of five-on-five while owning just a 47.6 share of the shots. His style lends Tippett, getting rid of the difficult Lucic contract, signing Archibald and itself to big plays and one-off chances offensively, meaning a good two- Sheahan for the penalty kill and depth scoring, plus an aggressive trade way player is required (it’s the chief reason Tippett moved Ryan Nugent- deadline. Also positive: He kept the door open and the lines of Hopkins to the 97 line in the playoffs) for the top unit. communication going with Jesse Puljuarvi and his agent over the winter and into spring. That could pay dividends in the season to come. Finding that player is very difficult, as reflected in Natural Stat Trick’s list of leaders in shots for percentage among regular forwards. These men What didn’t work? are well-paid veterans who have been above average for years, along with young forwards building their résumés. It’s almost impossible to trade for these players. My guess? We see a trade for a very specific player who will be counted on to play a complementary offensive role with McDavid while being the defensive conscience (the role Nuge played against Chicago). My top candidates:

• CR Ryan Strome, New York Rangers. Played 37.8 percent of his five- on-five time against elites, 51.50 Dangerous Fenwick, 2.09 five-on-five points per 60.

• RW Connor Brown, Ottawa Senators. Played 42.5 percent of his five- on-five time against elites, 48.90 Dangerous Fenwick, 1.99 five-on-five points per 60.

• RW Jakob Silfverberg, Anaheim Ducks. Played 35.9 percent of his five- on-five time against elites, 49.80 Dangerous Fenwick, 1.90 five-on-five points per 60.

• RW Jesper Fast, New York Rangers. Played 38.4 percent of his five-on- five time against elites, 46.30 Dangerous Fenwick, 1.65 five-on-five points per 60.

Puck IQ is invaluable in helping to identify the men who are playing difficult minutes and these men appear to fit the bill. A player like Silfverberg might be an ideal candidate and Brown is also intriguing.

Finally, a No. 3 centre. Tippett needs a pivot who can slide behind McDavid and Draisaitl and ahead of Riley Sheahan, Jujhar Khaira and Gaetan Haas. Ryan McLeod may be able to fill this role by next season (2021-22), so a one-year free-agent deal with Sheahan may be enough to bridge until McLeod is ready.

What does it all mean?

Holland had a good year. He was patient on the Lucic deal and found a quality fit, and men like Neal, Archibald and Sheahan contributed. He hired a coach with enough finesse to find good spots for rookies Bear, Yamamoto and Jones.

The general manager has a surplus on defence. Some veterans on the blue line are going to be traded. He will also have a first-round draft pick (we don’t know the actual number yet) that could be in play.

The Oilers had a good regular season and a poor playoff performance in the postseason against Chicago. That’s all gone.

There’s a sense of progress and of urgency, with a counter acknowledgment that the team wants a perennial contender in the next 12 to 18 months.

Edmonton needs a quality goaltender capable of playing above-average hockey for 40 nights this winter. Holland needs another Nuge for the McDavid line and a veteran centre who can kill penalties, score 12-15 and possibly mentor Puljujarvi.

There are fewer holes this year than last, and that’s a good thing. Holland’s goal is to be at the top of the Pacific Division, for the Oilers to be mentioned with the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights as strong Cup contenders from the Western Conference.

The heat is on. Already.

The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190583 Edmonton Oilers deficit. That’s hockey for you, a game where there is no “justice,” where anything that can happen, apparently will. Friday’s matchups were the living embodiment of that.

‘This is gonna hurt for a while’: The fallout from a wild elimination Friday Craig Custance: Following Toronto’s historic comeback win over the Blue Jackets, Jason Spezza summed up not only the ridiculous game but also what was a crazy day when he concluded: “I’ve never been a part of anything like that.” The NHL hadn’t had six elimination games since 1988 By Scott Burnside, Pierre LeBrun and my first thought is that we shouldn’t have to wait another 30 years for Aug 8, 2020 this to happen again. Pierre reported earlier this week that the league isn’t considering expanding or modifying its postseason, but c’mon, that was awesome. The whole week was pretty great. Let’s put everything on the table to try and replicate it. My only criticism is that we nearly lost Bloody Friday. Chaos Friday. Really Weird Friday That Made You Shake Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby and Auston Matthews before the Your Head For 14 Straight Hours. playoffs even officially started. As others have mentioned, that’s a lot of Okay, maybe not that. star power. But then again, big moments like Friday, are when new stars are formed. Regardless, any number of sobriquets would be fitting at the end of an epic day of elimination games as the NHL said goodbye to a cornucopia Scott Burnside: I’ll paraphrase a Tweet from our fine Islanders beat writer of the league’s brightest stars. Arthur Staple late in Bloody Friday; stop whining and win a game. He is so right. Boo hoo, Pittsburgh, Edmonton, Nashville et al. Don’t let the Sidney Crosby. bubble door hit your ass on the way out. Not one of the five teams that Connor McDavid. lost elimination games on Friday deserved a different fate. Not one. And that means there should be a lot of soul-searching in those cities where Evgeni Malkin. teams rolled into the NHL’s bubbles believing they had the goods to go on a long run. Teams like Pittsburgh, Edmonton, Nashville and Florida Leon Draisaitl. were invariably revealed as not having enough depth or discipline or will Filip Forsberg. to beat teams that, on paper, were lesser or at the very least seemed beatable. So adieu to some of the NHL’s biggest stars and in their place Roman Josi. we celebrate the work of Dominik Kubalik in Chicago and Clayton Keller in Arizona and in Montreal and Anthony Beauvillier of the Aleksander Barkov. Islanders and wait with great anticipation for what lies ahead when the Jonathan Huberdeau. ‘first’ round of the playoffs begins next week.

Six teams stepped onto the ice in the NHL’s twin bubbles facing Pierre LeBrun: I know there are some Habs fans who preferred losing for elimination including the two prohibitive favorites in the NHL’s best-of-five a chance at the No. 1 pick in the draft. But do not underestimate the play-in rounds, Edmonton and Pittsburgh. When the dust cleared in the impact of what this dramatic win over Pittsburgh does to convince Carey early morning hours of Saturday, five of those teams were headed home. Price, Shea Weber, , — the vets — that the “reset” is showing signs of bridging the gap, that there’s light. Suzuki and The only team that survived for a fifth game was Toronto, which Jesperi Kotkaniemi were terrific in this series. Who knows if they can somehow managed to erase a three-goal third-period deficit in Game 4 muster another series win, likely not, but the offseason outlook for exactly 24 hours after they’d blown a three-goal lead to give Columbus Montreal has already been dramatically affected. the 2-1 series lead. Game 5 is set for Sunday. Somehow the fact that just one of eight play-in series went the distance remains almost as Josh Yohe: We may be looking at the end of an era in Pittsburgh. The mindboggling as the abrupt exit of teams from whom much was Penguins have now lost three consecutive playoff series after being expected. humiliated by the Canadiens in four games, the final kick to the teeth coming in a lifeless, 2-0 setback on Friday. It would have been one thing What does it mean? if Price had stolen the series, but he barely had to break a sweat. The Penguins, still mighty on paper, never really showed up and looked like a Our roundtable of writers weighed in after the carnage. beaten team throughout their week in Toronto. Crosby and Malkin remain Eric Duhatschek: Thus far, the NHL’s qualifying round has most closely great, but it can certainly be argued that they are now officially past their resembled the lightning round of a television quiz show – rapid-fire respective primes. Crosby turned 33 on Friday and Malkin turned 34 last questions, boom, boom, boom, one after another, and before you know week. Matt Murray will likely be traded this summer and a roster shake- it, you’re done and you’re left to wonder, what just happened? What up seems quite likely. The Penguins spend like Stanley Cup contenders should these teams do next? The immediate answer is: Not much. and fancy themselves as Stanley Cup contenders, but for a couple of Rushing to long-term judgments based on anything we witnessed this years now, they’ve been nothing more than a good regular-season team week would be fraught with peril. Realistically, how much can you read that has been ambushed in the postseason. There are real problems in into what unfolded in a six-day span, following a four-and-a-half month Pittsburgh and it should be a fascinating offseason as Jim Rutherford layoff and a quickie training camp, while playing games in an empty isn’t one to stand pat. arena and quarantined in a bubble? Very little. Presumably, calmer, Daniel Nugent-Bowman: The Oilers got offense from their big three of rational heads will prevail, once the sting of losing passes. Unless you’re Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, but not a Edmonton, of course, where the loss will linger until a Stanley Cup whole lot else – and not too much of anything else from anyone else. champion is declared, since it will remain the host city for the duration of They took far too many penalties (many of them the stupid variety), didn’t the playoffs, even with the Oilers on the sidelines. Considering they were stop point shots from getting through and didn’t box out Blackhawks only a fraction of a percentage point away from automatically qualifying forwards from in front of their net. Deflected goals against were aplenty. for the playoffs, this is gonna hurt for a while. And they seldom got a timely save from either of their goaltenders. The Dom Luszczyszyn: Before the stoppage, the Penguins had a 99 percent one silver lining is the Oilers got further than almost anyone expected chance of making the playoffs. The Oilers were at 95 percent. Both are before the 2019-20 season began. Few thought they’d be a playoff team out, and in their place are the Canadiens (0.1 percent) and Blackhawks last fall. Instead, they finished fifth in the Western Conference by points (three percent). Add the Coyotes (15 percent) to the mix and Round 1 will percentage. Series result aside, the Oilers are on the upswing. They feature three teams that would have no business being a playoff team in have the world’s best player and an MVP finalist. There were surprising a normal season – in place of the game’s two biggest stars no less. But performances this season from rookies Kailer Yamamoto and Ethan this isn’t a normal season, it’s pure chaos, love it or hate it. It’s beyond Bear. But what this series showed is GM Ken Holland still has much work unjust (the odds of winning a five-game series are far tighter than where to do. Adding another offensive winger, a top-four defenseman, at least each team was pre-pandemic), but boy has it been entertaining. one more bottom-six forward, and a goaltender to replace UFA Mike Elimination day featured no shortage of that, highlighted by an epic Smith would be ideal. That’s a big to-do list in a flat-cap world. comeback few could’ve imagined the Leafs had the heart to pull off. Want Adam Vingan: Moments after being eliminated by the Coyotes in to talk about long odds? According to MoneyPuck, Toronto’s chances of overtime, Predators defenseman Ryan Ellis said, “I think we thoroughly winning were as low as 0.2 percent before coming back from a 3-0 outplayed them in a lot of areas.” There is some truth to that, but the Predators were still bounced from the playoffs. Underachieving seasons have become the norm in Nashville, and it is past time for the Predators to do something to rectify that. The problem is that there is no clear path toward improvement. Their salary cap is full of bloated, long-term contracts. Also, GM has whiffed on many of his recent big moves. Another critical offseason awaits for a team that is trending downward.

Mike Russo: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 500 times, shame on me. Isn’t that the saying? Well, it’s something like that. This was my 15th season covering the Wild. You’d think I’d have learned by now that a 3-0 shutout by the Wild in the opening game of a play-in series wouldn’t remotely be close to a sign of things to come. The Wild proved for the gazillionth time that they’re just not good enough and got dinged in the playoffs fast and furiously for the fourth time in five years, this time in four games by the Canucks and only 11 seconds into overtime of the series clincher by a defenseman who rarely scores. The Wild went the first three games without a 5-on-5 goal. They went 0-for-13 on the power play in Games 2 and 3. They finally got to Jacob Markstrom in Game 4 but couldn’t hold two one-goal leads and a two-goal lead because of defensive breakdowns and average goaltending. The only good news about the return to play tournament if you’re a Wild fan is GM at least got another look at this constantly disappointing team and shouldn’t be fooled by the decent way they finished the season before the pause five months ago. Guerin has got a lot of work to do to get this team faster, better up the middle and between the pipes. The good news is they’ve got a shot at the No. 1 overall pick Monday. Actually, who are we kidding? They’re battling against Edmonton, Pittsburgh and the Rangers for the lucky BINGO balls. They’ve got no shot.

Burnside: Was there a team among the seven play-in round losers (the eighth will be determined after Sunday’s Toronto/Columbus game) that accomplished less than the Panthers? Nope. Even the Rangers, swept by Carolina, earned valuable experience and are a team trending in the right direction. Florida? Not so much. If anything the timid manner in which the Panthers were dispatched by the Islanders reinforced that you can’t buy success in the aisles of the free agent marketplace. Sergei Bobrovsky, Anton Stralman, , Brett Connolly, Noel Acciari, even head coach , all of whom were signed or hired in the offseason, could not create a meaningful identity for a team that is the epitome of aimless. This franchise has failed to develop enough homegrown talent. Of the players in the lineup for Game 4 only one, depth defenseman Riley Stillman, was drafted after Aaron Ekblad who was selected first overall in 2014. Successful teams grow up and develop and coalesce together. As the Panthers headed home with the future of GM up in the air they revealed this week just how far they have to go to get there.

The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190584 Minnesota Wild “But I’ve had my moments where you feel like someone is talking about you because of the color of my skin.”

Lozano consumes a massive amount of media about the Wild and chats Give a chance to show unity with Wild's Matt Dumba, NHL players with other fans on social media. He has noticed a difference between the stumble as they stand weak stance of the league, the team and Wild players, and the fans he knows. The majority of them, he said, are “extremely disappointed that nobody has had Dumba’s back.”

AUGUST 8, 2020 — 11:10PM Lozano wishes he could have played hockey. He wants to see more people of color in the league, and the stands. He lives near Xcel Energy JIM SOUHAN Center and would like to see the Wild do more community outreach in his JIM SOUHAN @SOUHANSTRIB neighborhood,

For now, he would settle for a hockey player or two with the guts and decency to protest alongside Dumba. To spend time at any Minne•sota rink is to hear that hockey players are the most grounded and selfless of athletes, the ultimate teammates. “I am waiting to see change,” Lozano said. “It just has to happen.”

After watching the Wild last week, I don’t believe that anymore.

Defenseman Matt Dumba stood alone in an arena and before the sports Star Tribune LOADED: 08.09.2020 world, asking for equality and awareness, raising a fist to protest racism. His teammates left him hanging.

No teammate stood by his side and raised a fist. No teammate took a knee alongside him. Teammates have spoken in support of Dumba or touched his shoulder during the national anthems, but none has offered the most simple, obvious gestures in support of Dumba.

They left him hanging when it mattered most.

When it comes to racism, the NHL and most of its overwhelmingly white players appear to be playing coy, trying to avoid overt statements that might anger an overwhelmingly white fan base that might be uncomfortable with activism.

I know one Wild fan of color. His name is Elan Lozano. He is a season- ticket holder who owns 19 hockey jerseys and would love to work in the sport. He watched Dumba’s protest and wondered about the state of hockey.

“It’s disheartening,” Lozano said. “I’m disappointed. But I don’t think I can say I’m surprised.

“I think the NHL wants to cover their butts on this. They’re trying to do just enough to avoid scrutiny. They want to do the bare minimum, but it’s 2020. That’s not enough, not anymore.”

Most major sports leagues other than the NHL have embraced the Black Lives Matter movement. Players and coaches in the WNBA, NBA, MLB and MLS have been overt in their activism, and not just Black members of the sports establishment.

An incomplete list of local, white sports figures who have worn shirts or held signs reading “Black Lives Matter,” or who have taken a knee during the anthem, includes Lynx boss Cheryl Reeve; Timberwolves coach Ryan Saunders; Twins boss Derek Falvey, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli and Twins players Trevor May, Taylor Rogers and Tyler Duffey; Loons coach Adrian Heath and his players.

Nationally, NBA coaches Gregg Popovich and Steve Kerr have continued to lead social justice conversations.

The NHL has settled for dabbling with hashtags, featuring slogans like #WeSkateFor or #EndRacism, while avoiding using the exact phrase “Black Lives Matter.”

End racism? A lovely sentiment, just like “Ride unicorns to work to save gas.”

Racism isn’t going to magically end. That’s why athletes like Dumba are protesting for equality and justice.

“I would like to see the NHL take a stand and really make a difference in the world,” Lozano said. “Even from a business perspective, it would be a really smart move to include more people, including people of color. You talk about wanting to grow your sport. Why wouldn’t you want to make everyone feel welcome?”

Lozano, who is Mexican American, hasn’t always. When he sits in his seat at Xcel Energy Center, or visits local establishments before games, he sees few faces of color. “I saw ‘The Mighty Ducks’ when I was 6 or 7, and that was it for me,” he said. “I was a hockey fan. And you know what? The X is usually a warm, great place to be. 1190585 Minnesota Wild

Wild players stunned by sudden end to season

By Sarah McLellan Star Tribune

AUGUST 8, 2020 — 10:38PM

EDMONTON, Alberta – hung his head, Jordan Greenway stood up from the bench and Ryan Hartman skated down the ice.

Wild players reacted in different ways to having the season nixed only 11 seconds into overtime Friday night in a 5-4 loss to the Canucks that expelled them from the NHL’s Edmonton bubble. But the stunning fashion in which the team was eliminated from the best-of-five play-in series reverberated around the group in the aftermath.

“There’s never anything intelligent you can say in those situations,” coach Dean Evason said. “We just said how proud we were of them, how we battled right from the first day of training camp and even obviously before the pause. Proud of how we conducted ourselves, how we prepared, how we came here and obviously gave everything we had.

“It’s obviously a very disappointing end. Someone’s obviously got to lose in overtime, but to have it that sudden it was a bit of a shock with that first shot. But very proud of the group.”

Parise mentioned the rollercoaster vibe of the playoffs, starting with a Game 1 victory on Sunday and then a spiral of losses the next three, and Friday’s Game 4 had that gamut with the Wild establishing three leads before Vancouver rallied each time — the last one, a tying goal by with 5 minutes, 46 seconds left in regulation, the most significant.

“It just feels pretty sudden,” said. “The experience, it was fun, it was competitive. Any type of playoff hockey is what you love to do and why you love to play. The results stink. We will try and move forward and prepare for next season.”

Goalie decision

Alex Stalock started every playoff game for the Wild and even though he finished with a .897 save percentage and 3.03 goals-against average in the tournament, the team was encouraged by his effort.

It remains to be seen if the performance affects the hierarchy next season, since Stalock and usual No.1 Devan Dubnyk are both under contract for 2020-21.

“Alex was great,” Evason said. “Competed his butt off and gave us a chance every night. There’s not one game or a situation or a goal where we said, ‘He wants that one back’ or, ‘He should have had that one.’ We never felt that as a group, and [he] gave us a chance to win every night. So, there’s no question that he’s a quality goaltender and going forward we’re going to have some decisions.”

Not so special

The Canucks scored only one more power-play goal than the Wild, but special teams play still drew a line in the sand between the two teams.

Not only did the Wild blank on more opportunities, finishing 3-for-22 compared to Vancouver’s 4-for-19 showing, but less 5-on-5 action seemed to work against the Wild.

It prevented the team from getting into a rhythm with its lines and flexing its depth, which looked like an edge the team had over Vancouver that it never really was able to showcase.

“Obviously we want to play a hard playoff series, and I don’t know if we can say we expected it to turn into a special teams battle,” Stalock said. “You look back at some of these games and there’s eight, nine power plays a side, and that’s not playoff hockey and that’s the way it goes sometimes. Power-play, penalty kill series was what it was.”

Star Tribune LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190586 Minnesota Wild “There’s always tweaking, obviously, at the end of the season,” said Evason, who received a two-year extension ahead of the playoffs to take over as coach full-time. “Our hockey club is no different. We’ll take some time to evaluate what happened here. We’ll go forward. But there’s no Wild's old issues re-emerge as bubble bursts in sudden fashion question they’ll be tweaking.”

Some of the scoring troubles should be addressed by Kirill Kaprizov, who is set to make his NHL debut next season after signing his entry-level By Sarah McLellan Star Tribune contract in July. But it might take more reinforcements, especially lower AUGUST 8, 2020 — 11:06PM in the lineup.

Captain Mikko Koivu’s next move is a mystery, as the 37-year-old’s contract is expiring, and while the Wild’s defense is rife with experience, EDMONTON, Alberta – This time could have been different. better depth could have helped it overcome Suter’s absence.

Given a second wind after months to rest up and prepare, the Wild had a And then there’s the goaltending. Normal starter Devan Dubnyk was chance to capitalize on the NHL’s streamlined, tournament-style return to shelved in favor of Stalock, and both are under contract for next season. finally achieve the postseason success that has eluded the franchise for years. Add in the uncertainty of the future and the ongoing threat of COVID-19, and the Wild could be searching for quite a few answers during this Instead, the team was foiled by a familiar set of glitches — spotty ensuing layoff. scoring, an untimely injury and inconsistency that was a microcosm of the season that crumbled late Friday night after the Canucks rallied 5-4 in But one of the questions the organization is facing isn’t new, and that’s overtime in Game 4 to claim the best-of-five series 3-1 and oust the Wild how to avoid yet another early demise. from the NHL’s Western Conference bubble and the Stanley Cup “It’s going to sting for a while, and you don’t really know what’s ahead for qualifiers. this next season,” Spurgeon said. “But I’m sure when it does start, we’ll “It was pretty disheartening for everyone,” Zach Parise said. have this in the back of our mind and want to get off to a good start so that we’re in a better position going forward.” The exit was as swift as it was shocking.

After blowing 1-0, 3-1 and 4-3 leads, the Wild had an opportunity to answer back in overtime, but the team didn’t even make it to the Star Tribune LOADED: 08.09.2020 Vancouver end of the rink inside Rogers Place.

A point shot by Christopher Tanev sealed the Canucks’ comeback 11 seconds into OT, a goal tied for second-fastest from the start of a postseason OT session in NHL history.

“We thought we had the game in our hands [Friday] and just didn’t make the plays at the end,” Jared Spurgeon said.

Despite a near-perfect debut Sunday in a 3-0 textbook victory, the Wild couldn’t duplicate that effort vs. Vancouver.

Penalty trouble was costly in a 4-3 loss in Game 2, and the offense sputtered in the 3-0 loss in Game 3. Not until the first period Friday did the Wild register a goal at 5-on-5 and end an 0-for-14 skid on the power play.

And the pressure to score only increased once the Wild’s blue line wasn’t at full strength.

Ryan Suter didn’t play for an undisclosed reason; coach Dean Evason called him “unavailable.” His loss was notable since Suter could have helped protect each lead and ward off the Canucks late in regulation.

“He’s definitely a big piece of our team, and obviously, you missed him [in Game 4],” Spurgeon said. “But that’s no excuse. I’ve got to play better.”

This one-step-forward-two-steps-back waddle, however, wasn’t confined to the playoffs; the entire season was a string of stop signs after green lights.

It took a season-high, 11-game point streak in November and December to help clean up the damage from the worst start in franchise history, but the Wild was still uneven in January — the penalty kill in the NHL’s gutter and a woeful team save percentage its albatross.

The second half started to look promising once Kevin Fiala became the offensive leader and Alex Stalock stabilized the crease, but the improvement wasn’t enough to save coach Bruce Boudreau’s job. He was fired Feb. 14, and Evason was promoted from his post as an assistant on an interim basis.

What happened next was the team’s best hockey of the season, with its 8-4 run under Evason putting the Wild on the brink of a playoff berth.

But then the pandemic halted the season, and the team never got a chance to find out what could have been had it been able to continue that push.

Although Evason was pleased with his team’s play vs. Vancouver, the results weren’t the same as they were before the pause. And that accentuates the problems, not the progress. 1190587 Minnesota Wild If there’s any consolation to bowing out of the postseason, it’s that the Wild now have a 12.5 percent chance at winning the No. 1 overall pick and with it, the right to draft dynamic winger Alexis Lafreniere.

Five Wild storylines heading into a pivotal offseason There hasn’t been a prospect this coveted since Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby before him. In other words, Lafreniere could change the landscape of whichever franchise gets him.

By DANE MIZUTANI | [email protected] | Pioneer Press This is a position the Wild have never been in, as they have been stuck in the NHL’s version of purgatory pretty much since their inception. More August 8, 2020 at 5:05 p.m. often than not they aren’t good enough to contend for a Stanley Cup, yet they aren’t bad enough to have a legit shot at the No. 1 overall pick.

Wild coach Dean Evason is no dummy. That changed this season thanks to a wonky wrinkle in the NHL Return To Play Plan that saw a placeholder team win the draft lottery. That While he will remain in the Twin Cities next season after inking a contract means every team that lost in the qualifying series will have the same extension about a month ago, he knows his team as a whole will look odds — 12.5 percent — at winning the No. 1 overall pick during a much different than it does now. separate draft lottery at 5 p.m. Monday.

That’s simply the way it works in the NHL, regardless of circumstance. That list obviously includes the Wild. You can almost see Guerin crossing his fingers and toes from here. “There’s always tweaking obviously at the end of the season, and our team is no different,” Evason said. “There’s no question there will be WHO’S THE STARTING GOALIE? tweaking. We do like our group and the way that we played for each other and the way that we conducted ourselves. We liked the way we Alex Stalock got every start in the postseason, and rightfully so. His play played throughout this series, for sure.” this season is the reason the Wild even had an opportunity to compete for the Stanley Cup in any capacity. For the Wild, the 3-1 series loss to the youthfully unproven Vancouver Canucks was yet another example of this core not getting over the hump. That said, it’s fair to wonder if the 33-year-old Stalock will be the guy moving forward. He has been a backup for most of his career, and while They are good enough to make the playoffs. They aren’t good enough to he proved capable this season, he’s not getting any younger. contend for the Stanley Cup. It’s possible that Guerin could make a splash this offseason and get a It’s long been the same story for owner Craig Leipold, which prompted household name between the pipes. It’s also possible that Guerin is his decision to part ways with well-respected general manager Chuck content having Stalock compete with Devan Dubnyk and Kaapo Fletcher after the 2017-18 season, as well as his decision to fire the Kahkonen ahead of next season. much-maligned general manager Paul Fenton after a tumultuous tenure. If that’s the case, the edge might actually go to Kahkonen considering the Now the job belongs to general manager Bill Guerin. He took over last trajectory of his career. He was recently named the best goaltender in the August and will have to navigate through a sea of unknowns in his first and appears to be ready to take the next step. offseason at the helm. He went 3-1-1 with a 2.96 goals-against average and a .913 save percentage this season during his cup of coffee in the big leagues. Here are five storylines to follow: WHEN WILL NEXT SEASON START? WILL MIKKO KOIVU RETIRE? All of these storylines could end up being moot if the NHL has to This could be it for the only permanent captain the franchise has ever continuously push back its start date for next season. known. While it’s reportedly supposed to start in December, that could change Since being drafted with the No. 6 overall pick in the 2001 draft, Mikko with still so much uncertainty amid the coronavirus pandemic. Koivu has become synonymous with the Wild. He’s the franchise’s all time leader in games played (1028), points (709), assists (504) and many It’s also unclear how the logistics of next season would work. other statistical categories. While the NHL has rightfully garnered praise for having no positive tests That said, the 37-year-old Koivu is in the final year of his contract, and over the past few weeks, that success is largely due to the bubble there’s a good chance Guerin decides not to re-sign him. His role system in Edmonton and Toronto. It seems unrealistic that the NHL significantly decreased late this season, and that doesn’t appear to be would have a bubble system again next season. changing anytime soon.

That said, if Koivu doesn’t garner a contract, he has already made it very clear that he has no intentions of playing for any other NHL team. Thus, if Pioneer Press LOADED: 08.09.2020 he wants to continue his playing career, there’s a chance he could do so by sailing off into the sunset in his native Finland.

IS KIRILL KAPRIZOV READY?

You have to feel for Kirill Kaprizov. He will have almost no margin for error when next season rolls around.

As far as the impatient Wild fan base is concerned, the 23-year-old Kaprizov better be a 40-goal scorer from the moment he steps on the ice.

Those are the expectations that come with being the best player in the world not currently in the NHL.

There’s no doubt Kaprizov is a star in the making. He has scored at every stage of his career, his release is generational, and he appears to live for the big moments.

That said, there are growing pains that come with making the jump to the NHL that can’t be ignored. It will be interesting to see how Kaprizov handles that moving forward.

ALEXIS LAFRENIERE SWEEPSTAKES 1190588 Minnesota Wild third-period lead that came courtesy of rookie Nico Sturm in the final minute of the middle frame.

The Wild defended mostly well in the third period, but it felt like they were Wild’s bubble bursts in 11 seconds and brings another season to a harsh trying to play prevent defense all the way to a Game 5 Sunday night. end Vancouver played a lot in the Wild’s end.

Finally, one major defensive breakdown — Kevin Fiala was out of position, Tanner Pearson won a puck battle with Spurgeon and Soucy By Michael Russo was defending nobody — led to Horvat’s overtime-forcing goal.

Aug 8, 2020 “We didn’t think we gave them much,” Evason said. “Just a couple glaring breakdowns ended up in our net, and that’s the game of hockey.

You make mistakes sometimes, and we made a couple mistakes that Eleven lousy seconds. ended up in the back of our net.”

The third intermission lasted almost 17 minutes longer! The final mistake came on what very possibly could have been captain Mikko Koivu’s final NHL shift. If you were late coming back from the bathroom, if you were in the kitchen brewing a wee-hour-of-the-morning cup of joe so you’d be able to To open overtime, Evason decided to match his fourth line of Sturm- keep your eyes open into the 1 o’clock hour because of the potential of a Koivu-Ryan Hartman against the Canucks’ star-studded top line of J.T. lengthy, end-to-end, action-packed overtime, you probably returned to Miller, Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser. Koivu muscled the opening your recliner only to see another Wild season end suddenly and faceoff backward toward his own teammates but the Canucks got there prematurely. first and dumped the puck.

In their history, the Wild have created some memorable moments in Defenseman Matt Dumba rimmed the puck from the right corner up the playoff overtimes. wall. The puck slid by Jonas Brodin along the wall right to Sturm. But the 25-year-old, who had played a great second career playoff game and Richard Park. Andrew Brunette. Mikael Granlund. Nino Niederreiter. only an hour before looked like he could be the Wild’s hero after becoming the second Wild player in history to score his first NHL goal in However, this latest one will only be memorable because somehow 11 the playoffs, couldn’t chip a clear attempt out of the zone. seconds into overtime, the Wild watched as a 30-year-old defenseman with no career playoff goals and 22 goals in 514 career-regular-season That little gaffe proved lethal once Tanev fired through Miller’s fly-by games let rip a seeing-eye shot that burst their return-to-play bubble. screen for the shocking winner. It was a tough position for Sturm to be in, but Evason showed trust in him all game and foreshadowed the overtime Chris Tanev took the Vancouver Canucks’ one and only shot of overtime deployment by playing the first-year pro in the final two minutes of for a 5-4 victory, tied for the second-fastest overtime finish in playoff regulation. history. The bullet through traffic that sailed past Alex Stalock for a 5-4 Minnesota loss ended the game, the playoff series and the Wild’s season “When you lead, especially with the type of group we have, you expect to so quickly that nobody on the ice even had time to sweat again. get the job done and (have) the right result at the end of the night,” said Eric Staal, one of the Wild’s goal-scorers Friday. “Credit them, they kept Most players wearing green, like a demoralized Zach Parise, could only coming and kept attacking and were able to cash in on a couple broken sink their heads on the bench in exasperation. plays and a couple of good plays. Disappointing finish, for sure — “To lose 11 seconds in overtime, it was pretty shocking for everybody,” especially, how quickly in overtime. We wanted to have a little longer of a Parise said. “Anytime your season ends just like that, it’s, I don’t know crack at it. It stinks.” the word for it. It’s not an enjoyable moment.” Koivu, who was not made available for comment after the game, is in the The Wild, on the outside looking in back when the NHL paused its final year of his contract. season in mid-March, have technically made the playoffs seven of the The 37-year-old all-time leader in Wild games played, assists, points and past eight years. But they’ve only advanced past the first round twice countless other categories said throughout the season and before the since 2013 and suffered three consecutive first-round exits before their playoffs that he was trying to not look too far beyond this postseason. But quick, four-game dismissal from the NHL’s Stanley Cup playoff play-in he declined to waive his no-move clause before the trade deadline round this year. because he couldn’t envision wearing another NHL team’s sweater and It was just the latest disappointment for a franchise that not only hasn’t has indicated that he could perhaps ride off into the sunset next season been able to get on par with the elite of the league, it now was defeated by playing hockey in his native Finland. by a young, inexperienced Canucks team that finished one point ahead After the sudden end to the game, Koivu buried his head, skated to the in the standings and frankly possesses a blue line (after everybody not Wild bench and stared at the Canucks’ celebratory pile of players. He named ) and third and fourth line that should have been stared over the glass toward the NHL-logoed vinyl that covered the exposable. empty seats in this bizarre, unprecedented postseason, then did a In the fourth and decisive game, the Wild were forced to play without beeline and led the Wild’s handshake line. defensive stalwart Ryan Suter. It takes a lot to remove the veteran from After congratulating each Canucks player, Koivu skated toward the the lineup, and it’s believed he was unable to play after being nailed by a bench but looped back. He waited by the bench door and looked at his puck late in Game 3. teammates wistfully. He stood poised on his stick, resting his chin on his The Wild missed him desperately. glove hand for a moment.

“To have his leadership, his veteran presence, his heaviness down low in Mats Zuccarello and Jordan Greenway skated over to him, but he moved front of the net, he’s a tough guy to play against,” Wild coach Dean aside. He skated back to the blue line and sought out Canucks coach Evason said of Suter’s absence. “Absolutely sorely missed in our lineup and the rest of Vancouver’s coaching staff that he missed here tonight.” the first time through.

Rookie Carson Soucy took Suter’s spot on the top defense pair and was He skated back toward the bench, then waited for each Wild teammate to on the ice for three goals, including being the player that was lost in la-la leave. After Stalock stepped through the bench door, Koivu, 19 years land on Bo Horvat’s tying goal with 5 minutes, 46 seconds left in the third after being drafted in the first round and 15 years after making his Wild period. Jared Spurgeon, Suter’s defense partner, was on the ice for the debut, was the last Wild player to leave the ice. first four Vancouver goals. This very well could be it for a player that has long bled Wild. “I’ve got to play better, and we definitely missed him,” Spurgeon said. And it was another disappointing end, for sure. “But … no excuses.” Another series where the Wild weren’t as disciplined as they needed to The Wild finally scored their first three 5-on-5 goals in the series, but then be and didn’t score enough at even-strength or on the power play. they blew three leads, including one two-goal lead in 84 seconds and a And in Game 4, when the Wild finally figured out how to beat big Jacob Penguins GM Jim Rutherford told The Athletic Minnesota on July 12 that Markstrom with shortside goals from Luke Kunin, Staal and Sturm and if the Penguins lost to the Canadiens and wound up in the second phase what should have been a huge two-goal lead provided by Joel Eriksson of the lottery, they could decide whether to defer the pick to 2021 after Ek, Stalock wasn’t able to shut things down. they find out if they win the lottery or not.

“Anytime you get the chance to play for the Stanley Cup, any player in If they don’t win the lottery, that would be the 15th pick. Chances are this league will say it’s a ton of fun and it was a great opportunity,” Rutherford would defer the first-rounder to 2021 if he assumes the Stalock said. “Obviously, we’re on the outside looking in when this thing Penguins would make the playoffs and pick lower than 15th next season. ended on March 12 and we got into it. We wanted to make the most of it, showed up in our training camp and worked our butts off and came here and wanted to show the league what the Wild was about.” The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 Stalock was perturbed, understandably, after the game and took some potshots at the referees for how tight they called the games, especially the last three. The Wild’s specialty during the regular season was 5-on-5 play and forechecking, and he felt the whistle-happy zebras took the Wild out of their game.

“We came back hungry. Everybody was healthy and rested,” Stalock said. “We come in here and obviously we want to play a hard playoff series and I don’t know if we can say we expected it to turn into a special teams battle. You look back at some of these games and there’s eight, nine power plays a side and that’s not playoff hockey and that’s the way it goes sometimes.

“Power play, penalty kill series was what it was.”

But, the truth is, the Wild proved yet again they’re just not good enough.

Wild general manager Bill Guerin got an up-close and personal view of that in this brief reality check.

The good news is by losing in this qualifier, the Wild have a one out of eight chance to win Monday’s second phase of the draft lottery (5 p.m., NBC Sports Network, NHL Network) for the right to select first overall in the 2020 NHL Draft in October.

The consensus No. 1 pick is Rimouski Oceanic captain Alexis Lafrenière.

At a minimum, the Wild will pick in the top-10.

That’s because if the Wild don’t win the lottery against the likes of other qualifying round losers, including Pittsburgh, Edmonton, the New York Rangers, Winnipeg, Florida and Nashville, they are a lock to move from their original position of 12th to ninth. That’s due to the fact they entered the play-in with the fourth-lowest points percentage (.558) of the 24 participants. Because the three teams behind them advanced — Montreal, Chicago and Arizona, the Wild now end up with the highest draft pick after the original Nos. 2 through 8 picks created in the first draft lottery.

But the current cast of players couldn’t care less about that.

They’re just stinging that another season in careers that aren’t infinite has come and gone with nothing to show for it.

“You don’t really know what’s ahead for this next season, but I’m sure when it does start, we’ll have this in the back of your mind and want to get off to a good start so that we’re in a better position going forward,” Spurgeon said.

Evason addressed the team briefly after the game, a team he will continue to coach on a full-time basis next season.

“We just said how proud we were of them, how we battled right from the first day of training camp and even obviously before the pause,” he said. “Proud of how we conducted ourselves, how we prepared, how we came here and obviously gave everything we had. It’s obviously a very disappointing end. Someone’s obviously got to lose in overtime, but to have it that sudden, it was a bit of a shock with that first shot. But very proud of the group.”

And what about the Pens’ pick?

The Wild are also still waiting to learn if they’ll have the one first-round pick or two first-rounders. Remember, they acquired a conditional first- rounder from the Penguins in February’s Jason Zucker trade. The pick was lottery protected, meaning if the Penguins didn’t make the playoffs and ended up in the lottery, they could defer the pick to 2021.

Pittsburgh was eliminated Friday by 12th-seed Montreal in the East.

Even though the NHL considered all 24 teams in the return-to-play tournament playoff teams, the Penguins are not a “playoff team” when it comes to the draft lottery. 1190589 Montreal Canadiens important minutes (and) Dale Weise, under pressure, made some good decisions.”

Important minutes or not, Domi has been a bit player in this series. He Canadiens to face Flyers in first round of playoffs hasn’t picked up a point and he’s been pushed out of the top three lines by 20-year-old centres Nick Suzuki and Jesperi Kotkaniemi. He’s a restricted free agent whose value has dropped since he led the Canadiens in scoring in the 2018-29 season. Pat Hickey • Montreal Gazette

Aug 09, 2020 Montreal Gazette LOADED: 08.09.2020

TORONTO — The Canadiens will meet the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round of the NHL Return to Play playoffs.

The Flyers earned the top seed in the tournament Saturday night when they defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 at Scotiabank Arena. The win gave the Flyers a 3-0 record in the round-robin to determine the top four seeds.

It’s a bit of a break for the Canadiens, who shut out the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-0 Friday to win their best-of-five qualifying round series in four games. Montreal had a 1-0-2 record against the Flyers in the regular season, while they lost all four games against Tampa Bay.

Rookie Nicolas Aubé-Kubel scored two first-period goals to pace the Flyers, while Joel Farabee and Tyler Pitlick added insurance goals. Tyler Johnson scored the lone Tampa Bay goal on a power play.

The Lightning started the game without high-scoring forward and they lost Norris Trophy finalist Victor Hedman when he suffered a lower-body injury in the first period.

The Price is right:When the plans for the NHL Return to Play tournament were unveiled, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported the Pittsburgh Penguins were wary of having to face Carey Price in a short series.

As it turns out, their concerns were justified.

Price played some of the best hockey of his career as the Canadiens won the best-of-five series in four games. He had a career-best .947 save percentage and finished with a 1.67 goals-against average after blanking the Penguins 2-0 in Game 4 Friday.

“I don’t want to pump his tires too much because he’s sitting here, but he’s the backbone for us,” defenceman Shea Weber said during the postgame video conference. “He’s so solid every night and that allows us to play with confidence, and not worry about giving up chances.

“Obviously, we want to maintain the structure (and) we kept a lot of stuff to the outside. But having him back there, the way he plays the puck on bounces, his rebound control in the series helped not only the back end, but everybody.”

Price and Sidney Crosby engaged in some trash-talking and the occasional clash of sticks in the final. After one save, Price tossed the puck in Crosby’s direction.

“It’s just two guys caring about what they’re doing,” Price said. “A lot of the guys in front of me were the guys giving him the gears. It’s just part of the game.”

Crosby had goals in each of the first two games and an assist in Game 3. His fellow superstar, Evgeni Malkin had a series-high 21 shots on goal, but was limited to one secondary assist.

Price joined Jacques Plante (4) and George Hainsworth (3) among the goalkeepers of the CH who managed at least three shutouts in a match with the possibility of eliminating the opponent. He did it against the Boston Bruins in 2008 and the Ottawa Senators in 2015.

Belzile makes debt:Coach Claude Julien tabbed 28-year-old as the replacement for the injured and that was a surprise because Belzile had never played an NHL game. He played on the fourth line with Dale Weise and and didn’t look out of place. He delivered three hits, had a takeaway and a blocked shot, and earned praise from Julien for his passion.

“I’ve been preparing for a long time, hoping to play in the NHL,” Belzile said.

“We’ve been saying it from the start — with four lines, you can play with a lot of energy,” Julien said. “Domi only played 10 minutes, but those were 1190590 Montreal Canadiens had been a very long year of hockey, he had just turned 19, and he needed some rest.

But this time, once he was fully cleared to do so, Kotkaniemi sought out How Jesperi Kotkaniemi worked himself to playoff relevance for the Hänninen’s and Summanen’s help. Canadiens “We talked to Hänninen and Summanen and we made the decision to go there, and it was a good decision because they’ve been helping him, not only physically, but mentally,” Mikael said. “Summanen played in the By Arpon Basu NHL and he’s been very good mentally for him. They talk every week.”

Aug 8, 2020 Over a six-week period, Kotkaniemi spent one week in Helsinki to train with Hänninen and Summanen and one week at home in Pori. Those

three or four times Kotkaniemi hit the ice were with them in Helsinki, Look closely after scored the series-winning goal for the which was nowhere near enough time to make significant adjustments to Canadiens late in Game 4 against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday, his skating stride. It was a start, but it can’t be looked at as a reason and you’ll get a quick glimpse of an endangered species. Kotkaniemi’s skating has improved so dramatically in the past six months. At the end of the Canadiens bench, as soon as that puck went in, Jesperi Kotkaniemi began jumping up and down, giving a big It’s just added strength right now. Kotkaniemi was also training off the ice hug, then tapping to share the moment with the guy from his with Hänninen and Summanen in Helsinki, living in his grandparents’ hometown. apartment while they spent their summer at the cottage, and following their program when he was home in Pori. That version of Kotkaniemi, the enthusiasm, the joy this game brings him, had been missing for much of this season. The smile that once seemed What is important here is that Kotkaniemi was doing all this without to be constantly on his face was almost never there. knowing if the Canadiens would even be inviting him to training camp, whenever that might have been. With the way his season had gone, and But here he was, back in a Canadiens uniform, healthy and an important especially since he was in the AHL when it was suspended, Kotkaniemi member of the team again after ending the regular season with the Laval couldn’t know what the Canadiens’ plans were. But he was still putting in Rocket with yet another injury, this time to his spleen, a condition that the work. had the potential to keep him out of these playoffs. “He didn’t know what to expect. I think he thought they wouldn’t call him Instead, Kotkaniemi is not only playing but also playing extremely well. back,” Mikael said. “He was really happy when they called him. He But five months ago, when Kotkaniemi returned home to Finland, this already started to pack his suitcases right then.” outcome was not easily envisioned for him. And when that call came, Kotkaniemi was ready. There have been interested observers in Pori. Kotkaniemi’s parents, Mikael and Kati, were waking up at 3 a.m. to watch their son live on “When he left here in July, I was watching him and he was in really good television through the first three games of the series, and they stayed up shape,” Mikael said. “He’s been working really hard with Summanen and late to watch the Game 4 clincher that began at 11 p.m. in Finland. Hänninen. So I watched him and I said to Raimo Summanen that he looks like he is in very good shape. I didn’t know what to expect or are And more than the impressive way Kotkaniemi handled himself on the they going to give him playing time or what, but everything’s been so ice, with increased responsibilities given to him by coach Claude Julien, great, he’s playing very well.” going head to head at times against two of the best centres in the world, the one thing Mikael was most happy to see was that trademark smile on He’s playing better than anyone could have reasonably expected. In four his son’s face. games and 43:12 of five-on-five ice time against the Penguins, Kotkaniemi had a Corsi for percentage of 64.2 percent, the best on the “He was a serious guy when he came back to Finland,” Mikael said in a team by a pretty wide margin (Lehkonen was second at 57.9 percent). phone interview Saturday. “But right now he’s smiling again. That’s a He was on the ice for 10 high-danger scoring chances by the Canadiens good sign.” and two by the Penguins. His expected goals allowed in that time was 0.47, again, best on the team by a decent margin ( was This is indeed the best sign for Kotkaniemi because it is a reflection of second at 0.76). He was one of four Canadiens players – Byron, how important it was for him to draw something positive out of this Lehkonen and Shea Weber were the others – who played in all four season. This play-in has provided that, but it’s been a long road for him games of the series and were not on the ice for a single five-on-five goal to get to this point. against. When Kotkaniemi returned home, he still was not cleared from the spleen Julien tried to keep Kotkaniemi away from Sidney Crosby and Evgeni injury he suffered a few weeks earlier on March 6. But by the time he Malkin for much of the series, but considering what Kotkaniemi’s baseline completed his mandatory two-week quarantine, Kotkaniemi was given was, it was a remarkable performance. Dating back to last summer, the green light to start working himself back into shape, and he didn’t Kotkaniemi has had minor knee surgery, a core injury at the end of waste any time. training camp, a concussion in December and then the spleen injury in “Just a little bit, three or four times a week, just walking and a little March. He has never gone through a year like it. But he’s come out on jogging and cycling and playing tennis, things like that,” said Mikael, a the other side of it stronger, with this unexpected opportunity to show it in former professional player and coach in Finland. “He didn’t take so much these playoffs. rest. He started right away.” “I think it’s proof that he’s got a lot of will,” Mikael said. “When he came But then it was time to get serious. back here, he started training right away. He wanted to show what he is. I think he’s quite a strong guy, a strong kid. A strong head.” The Kotkaniemi family has a small gym in the backyard in Pori, and whenever Mikael looked, that’s where his son would be, doing squats. Those late nights in the Kotkaniemi household in Pori, watching his son lining up for a faceoff against Crosby or Malkin, have been tons of fun, “He did so many hundred squats per week, so he’s been getting more despite the lack of sleep. power to his legs,” Mikael said. “He worked six days per week just on conditioning. He only skated three or four times.” “I think he trusts himself more right now,” Mikael said. “It’s an amazing feeling because the Pittsburgh Penguins, they’re very strong, and they This power in his legs is the reason Mikael thinks his son looks so much have played in so many playoffs and so many games in the NHL. I’ve more solid and quicker on his skates. But it wasn’t just doing squats in been enjoying every moment watching when he’s been playing, and the the backyard that is responsible for that power. way the whole team has been playing because they are playing so well. The previous summer, Armia had invited Kotkaniemi to join him and How (Carey) Price is playing, and how Weber and (Ben) Chiarot are attend training sessions in Helsinki with former Olympic speed skater playing, they are making no mistakes. It’s really nice. I can only enjoy.” Janne Hänninen and former NHL player Raimo Summanen. Kotkaniemi But what makes it more enjoyable is knowing how much his son has decided against it because, as his father explained, he needed a break. It been through and how he’s handled it, the maturity he has shown and the work he has put in. Because of all the lows Kotkaniemi went through this season, the value of having this high right now is immeasurable.

“It’s going to help him very much,” Mikael said. “I think it’s much easier to come back to Finland and continue that training and start preparing for next season. I think mentally, this is good for his head. He’s been so excited when I’ve been talking to him, and he’s enjoying every second of playing in this tournament.

“He looks happy, and it’s been fun for me that he’s enjoying playing, enjoying being with his teammates and winning.”

Basically, it’s been fun seeing that smile on his son’s face again.

The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190591 Nashville Predators up to their contracts if the Predators fancy themselves Cup contenders next season.

After his worst season in a Predators uniform, Johansen showed some Predators have plenty of time to ponder strange 2019-20 season pep in his step during the postseason, when he was reunited with Filip Forsberg and Viktor Arvidsson. The three combined for 13 points, with Johansen and Forsberg tied for the team lead with five. Duchene, though, mostly struggled through the first three games. Paul Skrbina Now, after nearly four months off because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nashville Tennessean the Predators will have plenty of time to think.

"I haven't really thought about that yet," Hynes said. "When you're in the In unfamiliar times, the Predators found themselves in an all-too familiar middle of a series your sole focus i on the series. ... I can guarantee that position. we're going to utilize it the right way and we're going to continue to get better." There they were Friday afternoon, center ice at Rogers Place in Edmonton in another postseason, post-series handshake line, exchanging fist bumps and handshakes and passing along begrudged Tennessean LOADED: 08.09.2020 congratulations to a team that just eliminated them.

Like the Stars last season and the Jets the season before, the 11th- seeded Coyotes eagerly accepted the pomp of the circumstance. The Predators' suitcases awaited packing for an early trip home after a series that lasted six days and four games.

This was, by all measures, a "bubble" wrap for a team that outplayed its opponent for most of the series but came up short again.

"We certainly outplayed them in a lot of areas (but) not on the score sheet," associate captain Ryan Ellis said.

Which ultimately is all that matters in a playoff series.

Results, not excuses, must be of the highest priority for a team that went from a surprise Stanley Cup Final run in 2017 to a second-round exit the next season, to a first-round exit last season, to a qualifying-round defeat this year.

Still, the way Ellis sees it, the Predators don't need to change much to continue to be contenders.

"I couldn't be prouder of this group, the way we were in a pandemic and the way this group responded coming in through training camp and into the bubble," he said. "If you asked me (if) you would have got that kind of play out of this group, I don't know after the last couple of (playoff) series if I would have believed it. But I think there's a new sense of belief and pride in that room even though we lost."

With the salary cap likely not going up next season, general manager David Poile will have little wiggle room to make significant changes to the team's core. Poile listened to pleas from the group to keep the core together after 2018. He traded P.K. Subban to sign Matt Duchene after last season.

Oh, and Poile brought in a new coach, John Hynes, midseason, something he'd done just one other time during his career.

Hynes preached the importance of mental fortitude and said there have been "strides in that area." Ellis said the response has been noticeable.

"In the past when we got down and we struggled at times, we kind of caved," Ellis said. "We were our own worst enemy at times. If it was the old team, and a lot of the situations we were put in, we wouldn't have played as hard as we (do now)."

Now they won't play again until at least early December, when the NHL plans to begin next season.

How different the team might look in a few months remains to be seen.

One option is to buy out Kyle Turris' contract, which would cost the team $2 million against the cap through 2027-28. Another is to let unrestricted free agents Craig Smith and/or Mikael Granlund go and give prospects such as Eeli Tolvanen and Philip Tomasino a chance.

Granlund largely underperformed since he was acquired at the trade deadline last season for Kevin Fiala. Turris struggled mightily under and showed some improvement under Hynes.

"I love our core, love my teammates," captain Roman Josi said. "There's a lot of belief in our room."

That core, those teammates, such as and Duchene, who described his first season with the team as up and down, will need to live 1190592 Nashville Predators The presumption is that Forsberg, Johansen and Arvidsson (four years, $17 million left on his deal, another bargain) will be back, and back together. And that the defensive quartet of Josi, Ryan Ellis (seven years, $43.75 million left), Mattias Ekholm (two years, $7.5 million left) and Rexrode: A plan to halt the Predators’ plummet, aside from draft lottery Dante Fabbro (young and entry-level cheap, something this team needs luck more of) will be intact. And that Craig Smith will be re-signed if he’s willing to take less than the $4.25 million he made in this final year of his

deal. By Joe Rexrode But maybe one of the big names in that last paragraph, penciled in for Aug 8, 2020 2020-21, ends up in fruitful discussions between Poile and one of his colleagues. There’s just no obvious or easy move, not like a year ago when Gnash could have told you Poile was going to dump Subban’s salary and go get Duchene. I’m 87.5 percent sure the Nashville Predators are screwed, stuck in the realm between teams that are rebuilding and teams that are actually Duchene is not a name Poile is going to be uttering on the phone to good, and it’s really only 12.5 percent not screwed if you’re 100 percent another GM. Not after one year of a seven-year, $56 million deal. Poile sure Alexis Lafreniere is going to be a superstar. may as well drop the phone, pick up a megaphone and announce to Nashville that he blew it. Lafreniere, a high-scoring 6-1 forward in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, is the presumed No. 1 pick in the upcoming draft. The Duchene, 29, was not worth that money in his first season, collecting 13 NHL weirdly didn’t confine the top pick to the seven teams that didn’t goals and 42 points in 66 games. The devastating offside is part of make the postseason, so the Preds and the other seven teams that lose Predators playoff lore, like it or not. To Duchene’s credit, he responded in the Qualifying Round have an equal shot — 12.5 percent — at it. That with a fury in Game 4, a power-play goal the result of many impactful drawing is Monday (5 p.m., NBC Sports Network). Let’s assume the shifts. As with Johansen, it’s fair to wonder why that qualifies as Preds don’t win and pick 11th or lower in the draft, the far more likely uncharacteristic. scenario. Poile is relegated to hoping Duchene steps up in the future. And Poile The realistic plan to halt this undeniable slide then starts by paying Kyle must find the right two players to put with Duchene on the secondary Turris $2 million a year over the next eight years to go away. scoring line he has unsuccessfully tried to construct for years. Maybe Eeli Tolvanen is close to ready. Maybe Philip Tomasino’s ascent will remain That’s not to blame Turris for the Predators’ most recent postseason rapid. Maybe there’s a name, coming from a GM on the other end of failure, a four-game loss in a best-of-five series to the Arizona Coyotes, Poile’s phone, that can somehow be part of a jarring transaction that capped by Friday’s 4-3 overtime crusher. Relative to most of his tenure fortifies Duchene’s line. with the Predators, he performed well. He gave the Predators their last “lead” in a game, a tie-breaking goal in the third period of Game 3 that “I’ve got a lot of years left in Nashville, I’m proud and so happy to be stood for a few seconds until a replay review determined that linemate here,” Duchene said after Game 4. “I love this team, I love this group, Matt Duchene had trickled offsides. But Turris has not worked out and and I believe in this group. I know better days are ahead, for sure.” has four years and $24 million left on the deal he signed when David Poile dealt for him in November of 2017. The Predators can buy him out There was a lot of that kind of optimism after Game 4, and too much for two-thirds of that amount, spread out over twice the length of the satisfaction in dominating and losing to Arizona. Being happy with a remaining contract, and take a $2 million cap hit in each of those years. sustained effort and comparing this performance favorably to last spring’s against Dallas — a much better and heavier team than Arizona — is That’s worth it to change up this thing that badly needs changing. It’d be comical. Darcy Kuemper was great in goal, no argument. Give the a lot better if Poile could trade Turris and his contract for something, but Coyotes credit for taking advantage of too many Predators mistakes in he’s tried that. When you’ve made as many moves that haven’t worked the defensive zone. And then recognize that this is embarrassing, as Poile has in the past three years, you have to eat something. Buy out unacceptable and indicative of continued decline. Turris and bid farewell to unrestricted free agent Mikael Granlund — the $5.75 million-a-year forward Poile traded Kevin Fiala to Minnesota to get “We played well enough to win,” Forsberg said, “but we’ve also got to find — and Poile has $9.75 million more at his disposal in a flat-cap year. that little extra to win.” Though he also has $5 million more counting against the cap as Roman It feels like more than a little. Ellis, who had dazzling assists on the Josi’s eight-year, $74.47 million extension with a no-movement clause Forsberg equalizer and an earlier Arvidsson goal to tie, gave a strong kicks in. endorsement of Hynes after the game. Hynes has made a positive Those moves are the easy part. The hard part is figuring out if a major, impact since taking over for the fired Peter Laviolette in January and will daring, unforeseen trade is necessary to push this team back into work to keep that going. relevance. And then executing it. A trade like Shea Weber for P.K. But this roster clearly isn’t the right mix. And we haven’t even talked Subban in 2016. A full rebuild makes no sense. The Predators have Josi about the most important position. Juuse Saros was the right choice over at the top of his game. They have Filip Forsberg for the next two seasons 37-year-old Pekka Rinne, and Saros was solid in this series. He’s good. at $6 million a year. If there was a stray doubt in Nashville left about the He also hasn’t demonstrated that he can be what Rinne was at his best, value of that deal, Forsberg zapped it with his play in this series, capped in his prime, in the biggest moments. by his clutch rip to force overtime Friday. So Poile will hope to hit the lotto Monday and add what could be an He was great, and so was Viktor Arvidsson before he took a puck to the instant difference-maker. His chances are 12.5 percent, which is roughly rib area late in the second Friday and exited. So was Ryan Johansen. his approval rating with Predators fans these days. He needs to do Coach John Hynes got an eyeful of what that line can be. Thing is, if something to keep their attention. In this pandemic year that feels like 10, Johansen plays like that or close to it in the regular season, this team the glory of April 2017 through April 2018 feels more and more distant, might not need the Qualifying Round. There’s still a question of what the and uncharacteristic. 28-year-old Johansen is going to give you over the next five years for the fee of $40 million.

“The way he performed in this series are the expectations,” Hynes said. The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 “He was a dominant player. He was a driver of our team. On the top line he had tough matchups, he played a lot of minutes, he played in a lot of key situations, and it was really good to see. He really went through some struggles this year. I thought he evaluated himself and what he needed to do better, I think the pause was good for him. He’s a real prideful guy. He cares a lot. And to see him perform the way he did I think is something that’s really encouraging. We can continue to build off it, and that’s gonna be the expectations when we come back together.” 1190593 New York Islanders

Anthony Beauvillier’s ‘have fun’ mantra paying off big for Islanders

By Mollie Walker

August 8, 2020 | 1:31PM

Anthony Beauvillier certainly looked like he was having fun during the Islanders’ play-in series against the Panthers.

Though having fun apparently has been Beauvillier’s message to himself on the ice for the past several years. Cameras during Game 3 of the qualifying round got a good look at that message with a closeup shot of the tape job on the top of the left winger’s stick, which had “Have Fun” written on it.

“Sometimes you just have to remind yourself a little bit why you’re doing this,” Beauvillier said on a Zoom call following Friday’s series-clinching 5- 1 win. “I’ve been writing that on my stick for six, seven years now. It’s almost a routine now to just write that on my stick. It’s just something I do every time.”

Beauvillier’s two-goal performance helped the Islanders knock the Panthers out of the bubble and clinch a spot in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. But the 23-year-old rose to the occasion the entire series, garnering a team-high five points (three goals, two assists) as he managed to record at least one point in each game.

On the left wing, alongside Brock Nelson and Josh Bailey, Beauvillier made the Islanders’ second line a deadly force. Panthers coach Joel Quenneville made it obvious he was watching that line, ensuring his top line of Jonathon Huberdeau, Aleksander Barkov and Noel Acciari took the ice as much as it could against Beauvillier and Co.

It didn’t make much of a difference, as that line combined for five of the Islanders’ 13 goals, seven assists and 35 shots in the series.

“I just think right now that Beau is just enjoying playing good hockey, and he’s getting rewarded for it with production,” coach Barry Trotz said Friday. “He is skating on the puck, he’s working, he’s just focused on his job in that moment. I think that’s the maturity of a good young player in Beau.

“I think earlier, maybe a year or two back, if he wasn’t having any production, he worried too much about that rather than playing well.”

Beauvillier’s first goal of the series came in Game 1 on a five-hole shot on goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. His slap shot from the right circle in Game 2 deflected in off Jordan Eberle for an assist in the Game 2 victory.

In the Islanders’ Game 3 loss, Beauvillier kept in pursuit of the puck instead of making a change, and it led to a big assist on a goal from J-G Pageau to tie the game before Florida took over in the third period.

It was only appropriate that Beauvillier’s two Game 4 goals, just over three minutes apart, jump-started the Islanders on their way to a playoff berth. That’s just what he did throughout the entire series.

New York Post LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190594 New York Islanders

Islanders' next opponent is either the Capitals or Bruins

By Andrew Gross [email protected] @AGrossNewsday

Updated August 8, 2020 6:01 PM

It’ll be the Capitals or the Bruins.

The Islanders will find out Sunday which of the Eastern Conference’s two division winners they’ll meet in the first round of the NHL playoffs. The teams play Sunday at noon at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto and the Islanders will face the winner in a best-of-seven series.

The top four teams in each conference are concluding a round-robin concurrent to the best-of-five qualifying series to determine seeding. The Islanders, who eliminated the Panthers with a 5-1 win in Friday’s Game 4, slid up to the sixth seed with the 12th-seeded Canadiens upsetting the fifth-seeded Penguins.

The -champion Capitals had one point through their first two round-robin games. The Atlantic Division-champion Bruins, who finished the truncated regular-season with an NHL-best 100 points, have lost twice in regulation so far in the round-robin.

Here’s how the Islanders fared against them this season:

Bruins – The Islanders went 1-1-1 against Boston, losing both games in New York. Mathew Barzal scored a goal and the shootout winner, defenseman Johnny Boychuk had a goal and an assist and Semyon Varlamov made 27 saves in a 3-2 shootout win at Boston on Dec. 19. had his left wrist slashed by Patrice Bergeron’s skate blade in the third period and missed the next 30 games. Bergeron had the power-play, overtime winner in a 3-2 Islanders loss at Barclays Center on Jan. 11 as Varlamov made 30 saves. Tuukka Rask made 25 saves as the Bruins won, 4-0, at NYCB Live’s Nassau Coliseum on Feb. 29. Varlamov made 25 saves in the loss.

Capitals – Islanders coach Barry Trotz led the Capitals to the Stanley Cup in 2018 and the teams split four games this season, with the road team winning each time. T.J. Oshie’s second-period, power-play goal was the difference as the Capitals spoiled the Islanders’ season-opener at the Coliseum, 2-1, on Oct. 4, with Varlamov making 26 saves. Casey Cizikas scored twice, Tom Kuhnhackl had the second-period winner and Varlamov made 35 saves in a 4-3 win at Washington on Dec. 31. Alex Ovechkin’s hat trick paced the Capitals to a 6-4 win at the Coliseum on Jan. 18, with making 24 saves. Anthony Beauvillier scored twice, Greiss made 25 saves and the Islanders built a four-goal lead in a 5-3 win at Washington on Feb. 10.

Newsday LOADED: LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190595 New York Islanders

Islanders returned from pause a refocused team, and it showed vs. Panthers

By Andrew Gross [email protected] @AGrossNewsday

Updated August 8, 2020 5:19 PM

So much is different in this NHL postseason, being played without fans as teams are sequestered in one of two hub city, quarantined bubbles.

And so much is the same. Namely, the feeling of winning.

The Islanders were off on Saturday after eliminating the Panthers from their best-of-five qualifying series with a 5-1 win in Friday’s Game 4 to earn a berth in the 16-team playoffs. The Islanders will face the winner of Sunday’s Bruins-Capitals round-robin game at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto in the best-of-seven first round, likely starting either Tuesday or Wednesday.

It will be a much shorter break than the 10 days off the Islanders had last year between sweeping the Penguins in the first round and being swept by the Hurricanes in the second round.

“It’s a totally different situation,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. “I can tell you what I did learn: It’s a lot more fun winning that first series than losing in the second.

“We don’t know who we’re going to play yet,” Trotz added. “They are going to play each other [Sunday] and that will be a game of great interest. Whoever we end up playing, we’ll be prepared.”

The Panthers scored four of their seven total goals against the Islanders on the power play and, really, it was five since one other was scored just two seconds after a Panthers’ man advantage had expired.

So, Trotz is happy with his team’s five-on-five defensive structure, an Islanders’ core strength.

How the Islanders played in their series against the Panthers much more resembled their consistency in a franchise-record, 17-game point streak (15-0-2) from Oct. 12-Nov. 23 than the inconsistency that plagued them later in the season, particularly after injuries to Cal Clutterbuck on Dec. 19, defenseman Adam Pelech on Jan. 2 and Casey Cizikas on Feb. 11.

The Islanders lost 11 of their last 13 before the season was paused on March 12 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I think teams go through different things,” Trotz said. “When you’re not winning, you lose swagger. It doesn’t matter if you’re a top team or on the bottom. If you look at our record down the stretch, we had multiple overtime losses [0-3-4 going into the pause]. I knew we were coming out of it.

“We had that break. Our focus was good. It translated back into our game. We know how we have to play.”

Of course, the challenges will just get harder the deeper the Islanders advance into the playoffs.

“I’ve said in the past, you work 82 games and you want to get through that first series so you can move on and your hard work that you put in pays off,” Trotz said. “That still applies in this series. The guys put in a lot of work to get through that series. The difference was we had that long break and we didn’t know what the bubble situation would be. You want to get an invitation to the dance. We got our ticket stamped [Friday].”

Newsday LOADED: LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190596 New York Rangers resemble the team that went to the second round of last year’s playoffs and not the floundering outfit that lost its last seven (0-3-4) and went 2-7- 4 in its final 13 matches.

Slap Shots: NHL going crazy inside bubble It is never pond hockey with the Islanders.

It is Trotz Hockey.

By Larry Brooks And, for the second straight year, Barry Trotz is one Washington victory away (Sunday against Boston) from a matchup with his former team. August 8, 2020 | 5:31PM Quick quiz: Which Rangers goaltender has the highest playoffs winning percentage (minimum five decisions) in the modern era traditionally recognized to have begun in 1944-45? Let me be the first to observe that there has never been a week like this in NHL history. It is not Mike Richter, third at .554 with 41-33.

The teams that finished 22nd, 23rd and 24th in the overall standings are It is not Davey Kerr, .567 at 17-13 (and two ties). in the Stanley Cup playoffs ,and a team that finished in the top 10 is alive in the lottery for the first-overall draft pick. The stuff about the bubble, Not John Davidson, either, at .552 with his 16-13 record. COVID-19 testing and protocols, and no fans in the building(s)? Old It is … , clocking in at .600 by going 9-6 in 1982 and 1983. news. The Puddy Tats of Florida, now coached by the estimable Joel At approximately 10:15 Friday night, it was common wisdom that the Quenneville, have not won a playoff round since 1996 and are looking at Maple Leafs were a structural disaster and would obviously have to re- six more years of Sergei Bobrovsky at $10 million apiece. examine the wisdom of devoting $40.5 million of cap space — essentially half of the club’s allotment — to four forwards. Are you really so sure that Aleksander Barkov, 25 in September, is sticking around when his contract expires in two more years? Fifteen minutes later, those four forwards — Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner and William Nylander — had been on for the I’ve heard it too from a number of sources the last couple of months. The three Toronto goals within the final 3:57 of the third period that erased a folks at Sixth Avenue are lobbying for Peter Chiarelli to snag another shot 3-0 Columbus lead and created the overtime in which the Leafs as an NHL team’s general manager, and I guess I’d have to ask why? completed the most stunning comeback in playoff history to stave off elimination. Finally, ratings for last weekend were lukewarm in the heat, with the audience for Pittsburgh-Montreal on NBC down about 9 percent from Which means we won’t know until late Sunday night, following the 2019’s first-round Boston-Toronto telecast over the network. decisive Game 5, whether everyone was right about the Maple Leafs in the first place. Which serves as a welcome reminder for those who think this new crazy calendar might suit the NHL: It is the summer and it does not. Checked to see whether, 45 years and 4 months later, Zach Parise was on the ice for Alex Edler’s overtime goal for the Canucks at 0:11 that KO’d his Wild on Friday just the way his dad, J.P. Parise, was for the New York Post LOADED: 08.09.2020 goal he scored at 0:11 to knock out the Rangers at the Garden in 1975.

The answer was no.

By the way, two playoff-round victories to show for the eight years Parise and Ryan Suter have been teammates in Minnesota after signing those twin, 13-year, $98 million free-agent contracts in July 2012.

Can I say this? If the Rangers had beaten Carolina, David Quinn would have received a fair share of credit. But I am still trying to figure out what share of the blame, if any, should fall on the coach for his team’s abysmal showing in Toronto.

He was not part of the solution, so he obviously was part of the problem. But I cannot figure out if it went wrong after the Rangers arrived in the bubble or before?

Because, after Montreal-Pittsburgh, I think we can discount the catch-all of inexperience versus a grizzled playoff team.

Though Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov are hardly grizzled.

New rule: A moratorium on comparing Kaapo Kakko to Svechnikov.

Please.

Here’s one following Week 1 of August Madness: Two of the three Hart Trophy finalists, Artemi Panarin of the Rangers and Leon Draisaitl of the Oilers, are from teams that wound up not making the playoffs.

But you say that Draisaitl’s official career record includes a stat line of three goals, three assists in six points in four playoffs games? (And Panarin’s shows one goal, one assist and two points in three playoff matches?)

That’s so 2020.

And while we’re on that topic, no, it does not bother me that, say, Matthews, has these extra five games to produce playoff scoring records any more than it bothered me that Jean Beliveau’s playoff record of 12 goals in 1956 while playing two rounds was broken by ’s 13 in 1970 while playing four rounds.

Montreal and Chicago, of course, and Vancouver, too, but no team was better served by the 4 ¹/₂-month pause than the Islanders, who suddenly 1190597 New York Rangers

Rangers hope to have winning ticket in Alexis Lafreniere sweepstakes

By Colin Stephenson [email protected] @ColinSNewsday

Updated August 8, 2020 4:33 PM

Hockey season, for the Rangers, was over shortly after it restarted. They were swept in three games by the Carolina Hurricanes in the NHL’s playoff qualifying round in Toronto. So now, while 17 teams continue to chase the Stanley Cup (Toronto and Columbus play a series-deciding Game 5 Sunday night to determine the last team to advance to the 16- team playoffs), the Blueshirts have begun their offseason.

There are many questions the management team of president John Davidson, general manager Jeff Gorton and assistant GM need to resolve in the offseason, such as how best to wrap up the Henrik Lundqvist situation, and which of the team’s free agents to re-sign. But before all that, there is a golden opportunity coming their way in the form of the second phase of the NHL’s draft lottery, which will be at 6 p.m. Monday.

The Rangers, and the other seven qualifying round losers, will enter that lottery, with each having a 12.5 percent chance to win the top pick and the right to select forward Alexis Lafreniere, the 2019 Player of the Year and the MVP of the 2020 World Junior Championship.

Last year the Rangers won the second pick overall, which they used to take forward Kaapo Kakko.

Should lightning strike for the Rangers and they get the 6-1, 192-pound Lafreniere, a speedy, playmaking left wing who led the QMJHL with 112 points (35 goals, 77 assists) in 52 games in 2019-20, that would provide a turbo boost to their two-year-old rebuild. In fact, it might end the rebuild and make them Stanley Cup contenders as early as next season.

The Rangers having a shot at Lafreniere (Pittsburgh, which had the seventh best record in the league, by points percentage, has a shot at him, too) is a result of the NHL overcomplicating the draft lottery process as the league was figuring out some of the minute details of its return-to- play plan after the coronavirus shutdown in March.

Because the league wanted to maintain its 16-team playoff format, and because its restart in the two bubble cities of Toronto and Edmonton included 24 teams, the first layer of series was called a qualifying round, rather than a playoff round. Therefore, the eight qualifying round losers were not considered playoff teams, and thus were eligible to be included in the draft lottery. So when the league held the draft lottery in June, the qualifying round losers were represented by a placeholder, which ended up winning the first pick overall. That meant the eight qualifying round losers would have a second lottery for the first pick, with each having an equal chance to win.

Even if the Rangers don’t win the right to draft Lafreniere, though, they hold two first-round picks in the draft, scheduled for October 9-10. Based on points percentage in the regular season, the Rangers would pick ninth overall with their own selection, and they also will be getting a pick from Carolina in the Brady Skjei trade. Carolina owns Toronto’s first-round pick and will send the lower of the two picks they own to the Rangers to complete the Skjei deal.

The Rangers recently signed Cornell forward Morgan Barron, a 6-2, 210- pounder who was a sixth round pick in 2017 and developed into a First Team NCAA All-America in ’19-20, and a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award, as the best player in college hockey. Adding Barron, and/or Lafreniere to their roster next season would be a nice improvement to a Rangers team that managed just four goals in their three postseason games.

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1190598 Ottawa Senators And evaluating prospects next season could be difficult. The U18 World Championships, in which underage players tend to show

off their skills and boost their draft stock, have already been cancelled. What the Islanders’ win means for the Senators — and why it’s not a bad Hockey Canada’s National Junior Summer Development Camp, a key thing camp for the World Junior Championship, is prohibited from on-ice training and meetings will happen remotely.

We really don’t know what will happen with tournaments like the World By Hailey Salvian Junior A Challenge and even the world juniors.

Aug 8, 2020 Meanwhile, the top Canadian junior leagues have released their plans for next season. The QMJHL hopes to begin Oct. 1 and the WHL and OHL

are eyeing December starts. They hope they can play full seasons, but if It’s official — the Senators will have three first-round picks in October’s things go wrong, players will lose games and developmental draft. opportunities. It will be harder to get a full evaluation of them.

With the New York Islanders moving on to the first round of the Stanley Although this season was cut short, a normal schedule was mostly Cup playoffs after defeating the Florida Panthers 5-1 on Friday, the played, with a full slate of tournaments for players. conditional first-round pick sent to Ottawa in the trade for Jean-Gabriel The odds are a pick between Nos. 10-15 in 2021 is going to be better Pageau will remain in this year’s draft. than a pick in the Nos. 20-23 range this year, even if there is no clear The highest the pick could be is No. 18. That would require plenty of idea of the quality of talent available next year. lower-seeded teams advancing and the conference finals consisting of Still, the Senators knew this season’s draft class would be deep, and four of the bottom six teams. It’s hard to imagine a team such as general manager has said they stockpiled their picks for Montreal, Arizona, Chicago or Minnesota outlasting the best, but it is that reason. They’ve done all their homework and had almost a full 2020 so yes, there is a chance it could be No. 18. season to watch players. Still, it most likely will be No. 21 or No. 22. Why would they want to change course? Some might argue that is the worst-case scenario for the Senators. And let’s not forget, the Senators still have the third and fifth picks in The selection could have been much higher, even as high as No. 13, had October and plenty of prospects and young players in the organization. the Islanders not advanced and not won the Phase 2 draft lottery. The Islanders’ pick, in either the upcoming draft or the next, is not likely to be a game-changer. If the Islanders would have landed the top selection, the Senators would have received the pick in 2021. Since it’s believed the Islanders will take On top of that, some pretty good players are expected to be available in a step back next year, the Senators would get a higher pick in 2021 than the Nos. 18-23 range this year. they will get this year. In The Athletic’s mock draft in June, I selected Tim Stutzle and Cole Realistically, having the pick come October really shouldn’t be looked at Perfetti at Nos. 3 and 5. Corey Pronman selected Hendrix Lapierre, a as a bad thing. In fact, it could be the best-case scenario for the centre from the QMJHL, for the Senators at No. 22. Senators. “With Stutzle and Perfetti picked, and so many other great young players First, wishing for a San Jose Sharks-like collapse is like wishing for in the system, the Senators are in a position where they seemingly have lightning to strike twice. Don’t bet on it. few organizational needs in the system,” Pronman wrote. “The best player available according to the industry is Lapierre, who has significant And, it is unlikely the Islanders take the kind of step back next season injury question marks. Many scouts question if he will go in the first that Senators fans would hope they would. round, but Ottawa seems to be in the best position to that swing.”

Yes, it’s true the Islanders are in cap trouble and that, at an average age Other players in that range included Seth Jarvis, Dylan Holloway and of 28.9 years, they were the oldest team in the qualifying round. Lukas Reichel. Wheeler has gone in depth on every player in that range as part of his top-100 prospect rankings. But The Athletic’s Arthur Staple isn’t convinced the Islanders will be “worse” or “flame out” next season as some would suggest. Those players may not be in the same tier as those who could be available at a higher slot in 2021, but they could still end up in the They just signed their goalie of the future, Ilya Sorokin, for only $2 million Senators’ top or middle six. for next season. They will be able to get younger and shed salary from a few players. Their scouting staff has done a great job with their middle- to late-round picks, and even their second-rounders, and developing them into top- “The team won’t be substantially different,” Staple said. “I think they’ve pairing or top-six players. got one or two more years to be at this level before they have to get younger.” Thomas Chabot was the No. 18 pick in 2015. Lassi Thomson went 19th last year. Jacob Bernard-Docker was the 26th pick in 2018. Alex It’s tough to project whether the Islanders would make the playoffs next Formenton was drafted at No. 47 in 2017. year. The Metropolitan Division isn’t easy and teams like the New York Rangers, Carolina Hurricanes and Philadelphia Flyers are going to And consider the timeline. Do the Senators want a player now, or do they continue to improve. want to wait another year? Even if that player is taken five or 10 slots lower this year than he would be the following year, whomever they draft Still, Staple predicted “the Isles would still solidly be in the mix” next is going to be a year older and a year ahead on the developmental curve. season. That means something, especially for a team hoping to get out of its Even if the Islanders fail to make the playoffs and end up as a lottery rebuilding years and back into winning. team, the draft may not be the one they’d want to rely upon. How long do fans want to wait for the Senators to rebuild while acquiring It’s still early, but next year’s draft class is not projected to be as deep as picks? They could draft a player and start developing him this fall. this year’s. And there is no true superstar-level prospect, according to The Athletic’s prospect analyst, Scott Wheeler. Sure, the pick they got for Pageau could have been higher next year, but it being in the low 20s is far from the worst-case scenario for the Wheeler said the draft will be heavy on high-end defencemen. Senators. Defencemen Jamie Drysdale and Jake Sanderson stand out this year in a forward-heavy draft.

The Senators, based on need, are better off with multiple elite forwards The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 than multiple defencemen. 1190599 Philadelphia Flyers

Observations from the Flyers’ 4-1 win over the Lightning

by Ed Barkowitz

Updated: August 9, 2020- 12:15 AM

The Flyers won the Eastern Conference’s top seed, and (gasp!) beat Tampa Bay to do it. They never beat Tampa Bay. Some observations:

First of all. The Flyers first period was their worst throughout the season, but they came out Saturday and dominated. Nic Aube-Kubel had two goals and five shots on goal. The Lightning team had six shots.

Nic of time. Aube-Kubel had the first two goals, hit a post, and nearly got free on a breakaway. He averaged 10 minutes, 28 seconds in the first two games. Alain Vigneault rewarded him by playing him 14:09 on Saturday.

Lightning strike. The Flyers had lost seven in a row to the Lightning, giving up at least five goals in six of those games. Carter Hart (23 saves) also had never beaten the Lightning.

Our . Nic Aube-Kubel, Carter Hart, Shayne Gostisbehere.

Power-play lineup. With Jake Voracek unfit to play, Joel Farabee went up to the first unit on the first power-play. James van Riemsdyk was on the second unit, where Farabee had been in the prior game. Also, Gostisbehere was in for Travis Sanheim. The Flyers entered the night 0- for-8 with a man advantage in the first two round-robin games. Make it 0- for-10.

Good Ghost. Gostisbehere played for the first time since the July 28 exhibition against Pittsburgh and looked terrific. When he’s healthy and skating well, he can be the Flyers best offensive defenseman. Gostisbehere, who took Robert Hagg’s place in the lineup, assisted on Aube-Kubel’s first goal with a nifty twist-and-shoot move from the blue line.

No Jake, no problem. Farabee also took Voracek’s place on the top line with Sean Couturier and Claude Giroux. He fit right in, scoring the Flyers’ third goal and was plus-two.

No fighting. Scott Laughton drilled with a check near the boards late in the second period that Zach Bogosian did not appreciate. The Tampa Bay defenseman immediately dropped his gloves and challenged Laughton to a fight. Laughton declined, and Bogosian let him off without throwing a punch. Smart move by Bogosian. The Lightning already were without Victor Hedman and to lose another defenseman for 5 minutes for fighting, and probably two more for instigating, would have not gone over well. Bogosian was scratched in Tampa’s previous game.

Philadelphia Inquirer / Daily News LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190600 Philadelphia Flyers A little over six minutes later, Aube-Kubel finished a two-on-one with Couturier to make it 2-0. That gave the 24-year-old right winger the first two-goal game of his young career.

Flyers win 4-1 over Lightning, take East’s top playoff seed with 2 goals “The team result is what makes me confident,” Aube-Kubel said after from Nic Aube-Kubel firing a game-high six shots and blocking three in 14:16 of ice time.

Aube-Kubel, known for his physical play, has emerged as a key player since being recalled from the AHL’s Phantoms during the season. by Sam Carchidi “There’s a young man who figured out what it would take for him to be able to play at this level,” Vigneault said. “I mean, he’s a strong kid, a powerful skater, and if he plays high-percentage, he can be a very Right from the start of Training Camp 2.0, the Flyers downplayed the effective player. He’s strong on his one-on-one battles, and when he round-robin tournament’s results and said their focus was on getting goes to the net, he goes hard and is tough to stop. prepared for this week’s Stanley Cup playoffs. “He had the opportunity and he grabbed it.” Consider them ready. With the Flyers on a power play later in the first, a Travis Konecny They blitzed through the round-robin tournament with three straight turnover led to Killorn’s breakaway, but he was turned aside by Hart, who “upset” wins, including Saturday night’s 4-1 triumph over Tampa Bay in was dialed in like he was in Game 1 of the round-robin tournament, a 4-1 Toronto, and climbed from No. 4 to No. 1 in the seedings. win over NHL-best Boston in which he made 34 saves. Rookie right winger Nic Aube-Kubel scored a pair of goals for the surging Tampa suffered a major loss when Victor Hedman, one of the NHL’s elite Flyers, who will face surprising Montreal in the Eastern Conference defensemen, fell to the ice with an apparent injury to his right ankle quarterfinals, with Game 1′s date still unannounced. midway through the first period and did not return to the game. Hedman “This is a dream since I’m a little kid to play in the playoffs, and I’m slammed the railing with his stick as he walked to the locker room. excited for the next game,” Aube-Kubel said. In the first minute of the second period, the Flyers lost one of their top In the regular season, the Flyers went 2-1 against the Canadiens (both defensemen as Travis Sanheim went to the locker room with an apparent wins were in overtime), who shocked Pittsburgh, three games to one, in hand injury. Sanheim (eight blocked shots) returned midway through the the play-in round. period.

As a tuneup to facing Montreal’s outstanding goaltender, Carey Price, the The win gave the Flyers the top seed for the 11th time in franchise Flyers defeated Andrei Vasilevskiy, one of three finalists for the Vezina history and the first time since the 1999-2000 season, when they reached Trophy, awarded to the league’s best goalie. the conference finals and lost to New Jersey, four games to three.

The Flyers, victors in 12 of their last 13 games, ended a seven-game The Flyers lost both games against Tampa in the regular season, losing streak to Tampa since a win over the Bolts on Dec. 29, 2017. They dropping a pair of close games. But they are now peaking at the right beat the top three seeds in the round-robin tournament at Scotiabank time. They won nine of their last 10 when the season was stopped by the Arena. coronavirus on March 12, and they haven’t skipped a beat since the restart. “A lot of guys got to Philadelphia early and we had a great camp,” Aube- Kubel said when asked how the Flyers were able to continue their Now they will focus on winning their first playoff series since 2012. momentum after nearly a five-month break.

Tyler Johnson, left all alone in front, converted ’s pass into a Philadelphia Inquirer / Daily News LOADED: 08.09.2020 power-play goal with 14:39 left in the second, getting the Lightning to within 2-1. The Flyers’ penalty kill had been 8 for 8 in the tourney before Johnson beat Carter Hart (23 saves).

But rookie Joel Farabee (two points) scored from the right circle as he one-timed a cross-ice pass from revived defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere (two assists) to give the Flyers a 3-1 cushion with 5:38 remaining in the second. Sean Couturier (two assists) made a clever poke-check to get the puck to Gostisbehere.

Farabee, 20, was superb as he went to the top line and replaced Jake Voracek, who was sidelined by an illness or injury.

“We’re excited here. Like coach said, those are three big wins and we’re ready to go dancing,” said Farabee, whose team never trailed in the tournament and outscored their three higher-seeded opponents, 11-3.

Tyler Pitlick made it 4-1 with an empty-net goal late in the game.

“If you look at tonight’s game, probably the difference was Carter making those two breakaway saves early on,” coach Alain Vigneault said.

Tampa controlled the third period as it outshot the Flyers, 11-4.

“We bent a little bit, but we didn’t break, a lot of it thanks to Carter,” Vigneault said. “That’s an elite team and they pressed (us).”

The Flyers dominated the first period, building momentum after Hart stopped on a breakaway by making a five-hole save with 13:05 left in the session. They got two goals from the blossoming Aube- Kubel and outshot the Lightning, 20-6, as they built a 2-0 first-period lead.

Gostisbehere, who has shown much more mobility after returning from knee surgery, took a point shot that Aube-Kubel deftly deflected past Vasilevskiy with 12:20 to go in the first. 1190601 Philadelphia Flyers “It’s been a great experience,” he said Friday. “All the guys since Day 1 when we went to Prague have been great to me. Taught me a lot. Just thankful for that. Fun time. Hopefully, we go far in the playoffs here.”

Flyers happy with NHL’s solution, but hope to go back to old playoff Breakaways format next season Carter Hart had a .966 save percentage in his two round-robin games. Now he gets to face Montreal’s Carey Price, the goalie he idolized when he was growing up. ... The Flyers loaned right winger Linus Sandin to by Sam Carchidi HV71 of the . He signed a one-year, entry-level contract a few months ago. Sandin, 24, had 19 goals in 51 games for

HV71 last season. ... The Flyers were scheduled to practice Sunday, but The NHL’s 24-team tournament, established after the pandemic played it was canceled after their 4-1 win Saturday over Tampa Bay. havoc with the regular season, has run rather smoothly at its two hub cities, Toronto and Edmonton. Philadelphia Inquirer / Daily News LOADED: 08.09.2020 The players and coaches praised the league for the setup, but based on interviews with a handful involved, they don’t want the 24-team field to be a permanent thing.

They prefer the usual 16-team field, which doesn’t have an eight-team play-in round.

Some teams in this year’s playoffs will have to win five rounds (instead of the usual four) to capture the Stanley Cup.

“Having been there a couple times, to win four rounds is a big challenge,” coach Alain Vigneault said before the Flyers captured the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed by whipping Tampa Bay, 4-1, on Saturday in Toronto. “To add this to an already 82-game schedule, it would be real challenging to players, their body, their physical health.”

The four-round format is “challenging enough,” he added. “It’s the most demanding trophy there is, in my estimation. I don’t want to take anything away from the other sports. In my estimation, it’s the hardest trophy to get.”

“Personally, I like it the way it is.”

Matt Niskanen concurred.

“My personal opinion, no,” the 33-year-old defenseman said, echoing many of his teammates, when asked if the 24-team field should be used in the future. “It’s fine for the extreme circumstances. In my opinion, they did the best out of a crappy situation. If everything else was normal, I like the normal years.”

Rookies shine

Rookies Nic Aube-Kubel (two goals) and Joel Farabee (goal, assist) helped steer the Flyers to Saturday‘s win over Tampa.

According to the NHL, Aube-Kubel became the 10th different rookie to ever score at least two goals for the Flyers in a playoff game. The others: Matt Read (2012), Sean Couturier (2012), Andy Delmore (twice in 2000), Dainius Zubrus (1997), Todd Bergen (1985), Tom Gorence (1979), Mel Bridgman (twice in 1976), Orest Kindrachuk (1974), and Rosaire Paiement (1968).

Hail, Toronto

Carter Hart praised the round-robin setup in Toronto, which is also where the first two Eastern Conference playoff rounds will be held.

“I think it’s very similar to a World Championship, where you’ve got three games a day,” he said earlier in the week. “You’re watching a lot of hockey. You’ve got all the teams at the hotel. It kind of reminds me of those kind of vibes and minor hockey tournaments back in the day, which were always a blast.”

The league, he said, has done a “really good job of setting things up for us. We’re at a really nice hotel. We’ve got a lot of things to do in our spare time. A lot of hockey to watch. I think we lucked out here in Toronto.”

Bunnaman comfortable

Rookie forward Connor Bunnaman started the season with the Flyers in the Czech Republic, spent most of the year with the Phantoms, and is now back with the NHL team and on its valuable and hard-to-play-against fourth line with Nate Thompson and Tyler Pitlick.

And feeling comfortable with his role. 1190602 Philadelphia Flyers That was the first power-play goal allowed by the Flyers during the tournament.

At 14:22 of the second period, Gostisbehere found Farabee open at the Flyers down Lightning, earn right to face lowest-seed Montreal right post for his first NHL playoff goal.

Gostisbehere and Couturier each had a pair of assists for the Flyers. Farabee had a goal and an assist. By Wayne Fish www.flyingfishhockey.com If the Flyers had lost this game, they would have played the winner of Posted at 2:01 AM Sunday night’s Game 5 of the Columbus-Toronto series, which on paper would have looked like a much tougher assignment.

“We’re excited,″ Gostisbehere said. “They (the Canadiens) just played a The Flyers swept through the Round Robin portion of the NHL seeding big series, a big win, they were underdogs there (vs. Pittsburgh). They’re tournament to earn the top seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. a good team, you can’t take anyone lightly. You have to be ready at the Attention, Montreal Canadiens, get ready to play the hottest team in ice drop of the puck. For us, I think it’s a good matchup.″ hockey. Hedman suffers leg injury That label was made abundantly clear on Saturday night with the Flyers’ Tampa’s premier Victor Hedman, a Norris Trophy finalist, slipped and fell manhandling of the Tampa Bay Lightning, their 4-1 win giving awkwardly at about the nine-minute mark of the first period. Hedman Philadelphia the top seed in the Eastern Conference for the upcoming smashed his stick in anger as he headed to the locker room and did not Stanley Cup playoffs’ round of 16. return to the game. Rookie Nicolas Aube-Kubel scored the first two goals of his brief NHL Voracek scratched career and goaltender Carter Hart turned in another strong performance as the Flyers finished 3-0 in the round-robin tournament at Scotiabank Jake Voracek was listed as “not available″ and did not play. Farabee took Arena in Toronto. his place on the Couturier line. . .Steven Stamkos was an injury scratch for the Lightning. Another rookie, Joel Farabee, registered the Flyers’ third goal.

The Flyers, who were seeded fourth in the round robin, now will play the lowest seed in the East which happens to be the eighth-ranked Burlington County Times LOADED: 08.09.2020 Canadiens, who upset the Pittsburgh Penguins, three games to one, in the best-of-five qualifying round.

The Flyers wound up outscoring Boston, Washington and Tampa Bay, 11-3, for the tournament, allowing each team just one goal.

Coach Alain Vigneault had to be impressed, especially with kids like Aube-Kubel and Farabee.

“There’s a young man (Aube-Kubel) who figured out what it would take to play at this level,″ Vigneault said in a Zoom call. “He’s a powerful skater that if he plays high percentage, he can be a very effective player.″

As for Farabee, he looked like a poised veteran even though he just turned 20.

“He’s a young player just scratching the surface as far as his full potential,″ Vigneault said. “He gets an opportunity tonight (on the top line) and that goal, that was a hard pass from ‘Ghost’ (Shayne Gostisbehere). It takes a special skill set to be able to one-time that.″

Aube-Kubel opened the scoring at 7:40 of the first period when he stationed himself in front of goaltender Andre Vasilevskiy and managed to tip Gostisbehere’s long shot into the net.

At 14:00, Aube-Kubel struck again, this time completing a give-and-go rush with Sean Couturier. That goal gave Aube-Kubel his first two-goal game in the NHL.

The 24-year-old forward has really blossomed this season.

“I thought I played well the two previous games,″ he said. “Skating hard, finishing hits. The team result is what makes me confident.″

Hart was brilliant in the first period, stopping a shorthanded breakaway by Alex Killorn and making a couple other top-notch saves. He also stopped Nikita Kucherov on a breakaway.

“They (the Lightning) came hard early,″ Hart said. “We battled back and just kind of stepped it up. I think for the majority of the game we were in their zone.

“We knew they were going to come at us in the third period. Throwing pucks from everywhere. But we got a lot of blocks, a lot of guys collapsing to compete on loose pucks. And our PK (penalty kill) was really solid tonight, too.″

The Flyers outshot the Bolts by a 20-6 margin in the first period.

Tyler Johnson finally got the Lightning on the board at 5:21. With Tampa on a power play, Johnson finished off a pass from behind the end line by Killorn. 1190603 Philadelphia Flyers Meanwhile, Bunnaman’s stock continues to rise in the organization. Especially in Vigneault’s eyes.

“I thought Bunny when we called upon him during the season gave us Fish: Van Riemsdyk still confident despite benching, lower line placement very good speed, good physicality along the wall, could play left wing, could play in the middle,″ the coach said. “I thought with Nate (Thompson) and Tyler (Pitlick) that would be a hard line to play against.″

By Tom Rimback Vigneault sent Bunnaman out to shadow superstar Alexander Ovechkin’s line and held the much-heralded unit without a point. @RimbackBCT “That’s a big physical line with Ovi,″ Vigneault pointed out. “I thought they Posted Aug 8, 2020 at 3:39 AM handled themselves real well.″

Bunnaman, a former fourth-round pick (109th overall) in the 2016 NHL When James van Riemsdyk signed that five-year, $35-million free-agent Entry Draft, welcomed the challenge. contract back on July 1, 2018, everyone figured he would be a top six “We kind of just went out there and did our job,″ Bunnaman said. “I think forward on the Flyers for years to come. we did a pretty good job at that. Not much communication. Just shutting And why not? He was coming off a 36-goal season in his final year at them down I guess.″ Toronto Not only did Bunnaman’s unit keep Ovechkin off the scoreboard, he After a first Flyers campaign of 27 goals in 66 games mostly played on barely got a shot on net. the second line, things appeared to be in good shape. Bunnaman said he didn’t overthink the task at hand. But the hiring of a new coach, Alain Vigneault, brought with it some “That’s basically my game,″ he said. “Keep it simple, get the puck deep changes and JVR spent much of this season on the third line. Result: 21 and go to the net. Holding a guy like Ovechkin pointless is pretty good. goals in the same 66 games. He’s a pretty good player I guess. It was fun out there. We did our job. I A few heads were turned on Thursday when Vigneault decided to sit the don’t know what else you can ask for.″ New Jersey native for the round-robin game against Washington. Well, you could ask to stay in the lineup on a more regular basis but With Michael Raffl injured, the insertion of two rookies — Joel Farabee maybe it’s just better to let his actions do the talking. and Connor Bunnaman — could be taken two ways: Vigneault just wanted to get a look at the two kids in a less than do-or-die situation, or he just hasn’t been that impressed with van Riemsdyk’s work. Burlington County Times LOADED: 08.09.2020 “It was less about benching James than looking at the big picture,″ Vigneault said Friday afternoon in a Zoom call from Toronto. ” Yes, James has been okay, just okay so far after having in my estimation a real strong training camp.

“I wanted to get Joel in. I also wanted to get ‘Bunny’ in at some point. I felt with the opposition that it was the right time. It was probably less to do with the benching and more to do with the big picture.″

Vigneault said JVR will be back in the lineup Saturday vs. Tampa.

There’s no way van Riemsdyk was going to push the red-hot Scott Laughton out of the left wing spot on the Kevin Hayes-Travis Konecny line so for now, he will have to be satisfied with playing on a third unit with Derek Grant and Nicolas Aube-Kubel.

JVR might get to see some playing time on the power play, since Jake Voracek is listed as “not available″ to play.

As always, van Riemsdyk is taking the high road. He was a former Flyers’ No. 2 overall draft pick in 2007 behind Chicago superstar Patrick Kane and has always been loyal to this organization, even after he was traded away to Toronto.

There’s no extra motivation to prove anything, he maintains, just because he had to sit a game.

“No,″ he said. “For me, I look back at my career and playing in the playoffs and all these things. I’ve had success doing that in the past. My approach is going to stay the same, try to be the best player I can be and maximize every day.

“That’s always how I approach things no matter what. I love the game. We have a great team and a great shot this year. My motivation and my approach remain consistent day in and day out, no matter if you have a day that doesn’t go your way or if you have a day where things are going well.″

He sounds confident he can get his game back on track when it matters most. His resume — 18 goals in 59 playoff games, suggests that’s a strong possibility.

“I think looking at my first couple games, when you think about playoff hockey, you think about detail and doing the little things right, I think I was doing some of those things well,″ he said.. “I like to be a little more productive, in the sense of just being a little more dangerous and creating a little bit more.″ 1190604 Philadelphia Flyers “There's a young man that figured out what it would take for him to play at this level,” Flyers coach Alain Vigneault said of Aube-Kubel. "He deserves the ice time and he deserves to be playing right now.”

Flyers clinch top seed in East with 4-1 win over Lightning “We bent a little bit. We didn’t break, a lot of it thanks to Carter,” Vigeneault said.

Farabee then sealed the victory by one-timing in Gostisbehere’s pass By JOHN WAWROW AP Hockey Writer into the right circle to put the Flyers ahead 3-1 with 5:38 left in the second period, and 10 minutes after Johnson scored a power-play goal.

TORONTO (AP) — Rookie Nicolas Aube-Kubel scored twice, and the Philadelphia Flyers defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 on Saturday Delaware County Times LOADED: 08.09.2020 night to clinch the Eastern Conference’s top seed through the playoffs.

The Lightning not only dropped the game in completing preliminary round-robin play with a 2-1 record, Tampa Bay’s star defenseman Victor Hedman did not return after appearing to twist his right ankle while going down untouched midway through the first period.

Coach didn't have an update on Hedman's status or how much time he might miss, though acknowledged his potential loss would create a notable hole in the Lightning's lineup.

“It's a little frustrating because we feel like we're going in the right direction and to lose some of the star power we have,” said Cooper, noting the Lightning are also without captain Steven Stamkos and played Saturday minus Hedman's defensive partner . “We’ve got to circle the wagons.”

Stamkos has been out since sustaining a lower body injury before the start of training camp last month. Cooper would only list Rutta as being unfit to play.

Joel Farabee had a goal and assist, Tyler Pitlick scored into an empty net with 1:20 left, and Carter Hart stopped 23 shots for the Flyers, who finished 3-0. Philadelphia didn’t allow more than one goal in also defeating Boston and Washington, and out-scored its opponents by a combined 11-3.

The Flyers, who entered round-robin play as the East’s fourth seed, move on to the first round next week and face the 12th-seeded Montreal Canadiens.

Montreal upset Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins in four games of their best-of-five preliminary round series. Philadelphia and Montreal have split their previous six playoff meetings, and the teams meet for the first time since the Flyers defeated the Canadiens in five games of the 2010 East finals.

Tyler Johnson scored for the Lightning, and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 26 shots. Tampa Bay was coming off a 3-2 win over Boston on Wednesday, and also had a 3-2 shootout win over Washington.

Hedman, a Norris Trophy finalist this year, went down as he spun around to skate backward at the Tampa Bay blue line with Pitlick driving up the right wing. Hedman then got up slowly and broke his stick while heading down the tunnel to the locker room.

“You hate to see any of your teammates have to leave a game. Obviously, we know the significance and the role that Heddy plays on our team," Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. “It was tough to see but we've got to roll with what happens.”

Tampa Bay will enter the first round of the playoffs as the East’s second seed.

The Lightning will face the winner of the best-of-five preliminary round series between eighth-seeded Toronto and ninth-seeded Columbus, which will be determined in Game 5 on Sunday. The Lightning were swept by the Blue Jackets in a first-round meeting last year, and after Tampa Bay won the Presidents’ Trophy. The Lighting and Maple Leafs have never met in the playoffs.

Aube-Kubel, who has seven goals in 45 career NHL games, enjoyed his first career NHL two-goal outing by staking the Flyers to a 2-0 lead by scoring less than seven minutes apart in the first period.

A Lightning turnover in their own zone led to Aube-Kubel standing in front and deflecting in Shayne Gostisbehere’s shot from inside the blue line 7:40 in.

His second goal came on a 2-on-1 break during which he converted Sean Couturier’s pass from the right wing. 1190605 Philadelphia Flyers • Carter Hart, who turns 22 years old next Thursday, looks primed for the first round.

The Bruins had an NHL-most 100 points during the regular season. The Flyers sweep round robin, earn East's No. 1 seed in 2020 NHL playoffs Lightning scored an NHL-best 3.47 goals per game. Hart totaled 57 saves on 59 shots in matchups with those clubs.

• In 2018-19, Aube-Kubel got his first taste of the NHL ... hardly. Called By Jordan Hall up from AHL affiliate Lehigh Valley, Aube-Kubel went scoreless in a nine- game stint with the big club, playing only 5:35 minutes per night. August 08, 2020 11:00 PM “It’s pretty hard, especially when you spend some 15 minutes without

playing, 10 minutes without playing, so it’s really hard for the legs," Aube- Heading into the first round of the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs, everyone Kubel said in February about the limited minutes last season. "When is looking up at the Flyers. you’re out there, you’re just so stressed about not making a mistake that you don’t really show anything. For the first time since 2000, the Flyers will be the Eastern Conference's No. 1 seed in the postseason after winning the round robin of the NHL's “Last year, I didn’t really get a good chance to show what I could do. I’m return-to-play 24-team tournament. glad this year … even in my first game, I got put in a good situation with good players and it worked out for me.” They punctuated their climb Saturday night with a 4-1 win over the Lightning at Scotiabank Arena in the Eastern Conference's hub city In 2019-20, the Flyers eventually summoned Aube-Kubel in mid- Toronto. December. The new coaching staff has done a solid job of giving him opportunity but also constantly keeping him motivated. It's resulted in a Nicolas Aube-Kubel had a big game with two goals, while Joel Farabee hungry, hard-working, forechecking winger who gave the Flyers a and Tyler Pitlick tallied markers, as well. monstrous boost against the Lightning with the club's first two goals.

After going 3-0-0 through the round robin, the top-seeded Flyers will face In a game against the loaded Lightning, the 24-year-old Aube-Kubel was the 12th-seeded Canadiens in the first round of the playoffs. one of the best players on the ice. During training camp last month, he mentioned how his style of play suits the playoffs. It sure looked like it Back in 2000, the year of the Flyers' five-overtime playoff classic with the Saturday. The Flyers would love that type of effort and jolt throughout the Penguins, the team lost the Eastern Conference Final to the eventual playoffs. champion Devils in seven games. • It appears the Flyers avoided what would have been a costly injury right Twenty years later, it's the No. 1 seed again. before the first round. "We're excited here," Farabee said postgame in a video interview. "We're Travis Sanheim left the game 22 seconds into the second period after ready to go dancing." taking a hit from Blake Coleman. It looked Sanheim was nursing his wrist • Just how impressive were the Flyers in the round robin? They swept the or arm after the check as he went up the tunnel. Bruins, Capitals and Lightning by a combined score of 11-3. Fortunately for the Flyers, Sanheim returned later in the period. Pretty darn good tune-up for the Flyers as the real deal begins next • An injury scare like that creates a reminder of the Flyers' young, week. They've always been a confident team, particularly from January promising stable of blueliners. Playing his first round-robin game, Shayne on, but this was a measuring-stick round-robin tourney and they turned Gostisbehere reminded everyone of his game. heads. If Gostisbehere is the Flyers' seventh defenseman, he did everything to The Capitals and Bruins finish the round robin Sunday (noon ET). potentially shake that status moving forward. Gostisbehere, who has had 1. Flyers — 3-0-0, six points to undergo arthroscopic surgeries on both of his knees in 2020, had a good camp and said he has felt "10 times better" compared to during the 2. Lightning — 2-1-0, four points regular season.

3. Capitals — 0-1-1, one point Against Tampa Bay, he looked like his mobile, confident, making-things- 4. Bruins — 0-2-0, zero points happen self from the blue line, recording two assists and a plus-2 rating. Gostisbehere made a sharp play to help create Aube-Kubel's first goal • NBC Sports analyst mentioned at intermission how the and showed his vision to assist Farabee's goal, which was a big one as it Flyers come at their opponents in waves. Their depth was excellent extended the Flyers' lead to 3-1 in the middle frame. through the round robin and will be arguably their biggest difference- maker in a playoff run. "That was a hard pass from Ghost, it takes a special skill set to be able to one-time that," Flyers head coach Alain Vigneault said postgame in a In the round robin, Claude Giroux went scoreless, James van Riemsdyk video interview. "Great play by Ghost but also great shot by Joel." went scoreless in two games, Jakub Voracek had an assist in two games, Sean Couturier had a few assists, Travis Konecny (two assists) The 27-year-old offensive-minded defenseman displayed good instincts didn't have to score a goal, Kevin Hayes (four assists) didn't have to defensively, as well. score a goal, and the Flyers convincingly earned the No. 1 seed. A performance like that will have Vigneault thinking, that's for sure. The Flyers' goal-scorers in round robin: sixth and final spot on defense will come down to Robert Hagg and Gostisbehere. Hagg likely has the slight edge for now, but Gostisbehere Laughton — 3 has drawn much closer and should be called upon if the Flyers don't have a positive start to the first round. Aube-Kubel — 2 • With Voracek out (undisclosed issue), Farabee jumped to the first line. Thompson — 1 Given he opened the tournament fighting for a spot in the lineup and Pitlick — 1 likely the bottom six, this was a golden opportunity for the 20-year-old rookie winger. Farabee — 1 He took advantage of it pretty well, scoring a goal and tallying an assist. Myers — 1 His game allows him to scale the lineup but he truly stands out when he's with talented players. Good stuff from him and he's pushing for a bigger Sanheim — 1 role, especially depending on the statuses of Voracek and Michael Raffl Raffl — 1 (undisclosed injury), who missed the final two games of the round robin.

Only one had double-digit goals in the regular season (Laughton) and "You look at our lineup, we have such great depth," Farabee said none were in the Flyers' top five. postgame in a video interview. "Ghosty and I are sliding in, we've got guys sliding out, coming back in, it just goes to show how good of a team we are and how deep we are."

• The power play never really got going during the round robin as the Flyers finished 0 for 11 through the three games. That will have to be better over a course of a best-of-seven series.

• The Flyers caught some breaks throughout the round robin, but give them credit for taking advantage of those breaks.

They didn't face Vezina Trophy finalist Tuukka Rask in the 4-1 win over the Bruins. They didn't see James Norris Memorial Trophy finalist John Carlson in the 3-1 win over the Capitals.

Against the Lightning, they avoided Steven Stamkos (lower-body injury), who had 66 points in 57 games during the regular season. In the first period, Tampa Bay also lost stud defenseman Victor Hedman (undisclosed injury), who is also a finalist for the Norris Trophy.

These games weren't necessarily close, though, either — the Flyers did damage against three of the best clubs in the NHL.

• As the No. 1 seed in the first round, the Flyers face the 12th-seeded Canadiens, who upset the fifth-seeded Penguins in the best-of-five qualifying round, taking the series 3-1.

The Flyers went 2-1-0 against Montreal in the regular season, with a 3-2 overtime win Nov. 7, a 4-3 overtime victory Nov. 30 and a 4-1 loss Jan. 16.

The first round of the playoffs is scheduled to begin next Tuesday. The Flyers' schedule is to be determined.

Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190606 Philadelphia Flyers

Flyers vs. Lightning round robin: Live stream, storylines, game time and more

By Jordan Hall

August 08, 2020 4:15 PM

So far, the Flyers have taken advantage of their opportunity in the round robin of the NHL's return-to-play 24-team tournament.

They can take full advantage Saturday when they play the Lightning in their round-robin finale.

Let's begin with Carter Hart. The young goalie is just starting to build his playoff résumé. He has not yet beaten the Lightning in his career (0-3-0, 3.83 goals-against average, .867 save percentage).

Tampa Bay boasts the NHL's most prolific offense, scoring a league- most 3.47 goals per game during the regular season. After Hart made 34 saves on 35 shots in last Sunday's 4-1 win over the Bruins, a strong follow-up performance against a team like the Lightning would only boost the 21-year-old's frame of mind going into his first-ever best-of-seven NHL series.

If the Flyers do go on a deep run, there's a solid chance they'll have to go through the Lightning in the Eastern Conference Final. Hart finding some success against Tampa Bay before then would be huge.

"We know they’ve got some top players that have a lot of skill," Hart said Friday in a video interview. "They’ve got a really good power play. But, I mean, that’s like any team, we always prepare the same, we go over their systems. We know they've got some guys that have some skill. We’ve just got to go out and play our game because we have guys on our team that have a lot of skill, as well, and can shut their guys down. We’ve just got to trust our game and just play."

As well as the Flyers have played in the round robin, their power play has not been productive. The man advantage is 0 for 8 through the first two games. The Flyers aren't having difficulty with entries or getting set up; it's more inconsistency in looks and not being able to finish.

Without Jakub Voracek (undisclosed absence), the first-unit power play will have a new face. Perhaps James van Riemsdyk, a guy with a man advantage track record of finishing, jumps onto that unit.

The Lightning had the worst penalty kill among the four round-robin teams during the regular season. The Flyers would love to light the lamp on the power play Saturday to gain a little momentum in that regard entering the first round. Head coach Alain Vigneault said the team worked on the man advantage a lot in practice Friday.

• Speaking of van Riemsdyk, the 31-year-old winger will be a player to watch in this round-robin finale. A bit surprisingly, van Riemsdyk was healthy scratched for Thursday's 3-1 win over the Capitals.

"Probably less to do with benching, more to do with the big picture," Vigneault said Friday.

JVR can be an X-factor for the Flyers with his production, especially if it's from a depth role. Could this be the team to help him show his coach some more? In 36 career regular-season games against Tampa Bay, van Riemsdyk has 29 points (16 goals, 13 assists), his second-most points vs. any NHL team.

• The winner of Saturday night's game will earn the Eastern Conference's No. 1 seed in the first round of the playoffs, while the loser will settle for the No. 2 seed.

Here's a breakdown of the Flyers' outlook and possible first-round scenarios.

• While Voracek is out for the Flyers, the Lightning will miss the services of Steven Stamkos (lower-body injury), who had 66 points in 57 games during the regular season.

Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190607 Philadelphia Flyers 2. Lightning — 78 4. Blues — 77

— Jordan Hall (@JHallNBCS) July 15, 2020 2019-20 Flyers season grades: Jakub Voracek Since Nov. 1, Voracek had 47 points (eight goals, 39 assists) and a plus-

14 rating in 58 games. And since Nov. 23, just after he moved to By Brooke Destra, Joe Fordyce, Jordan Hall Couturier's line, Voracek recorded 43 points (eight goals, 35 assists) and a plus-17 mark in 47 games. August 08, 2020 6:20 PM In a system predicated on balance and depth, Voracek played 17:03 minutes per game, his fewest since 2011-12, his first season with the Flyers. As a result, the veteran was more effective in all three zones The 2019-20 NHL regular season has concluded and the race to the because he had greater help offensively and still finished with a team- Stanley Cup is on in the 24-team tournament. The Flyers are hungry and best 44 assists to go along with a career-best plus-14 rating. ready to battle it out, but that is thanks to the hard work from back in October. An A- for an underrated 2019-20 regular season from Voracek.

In an End to End series, NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Brooke Destra, Joe Fordyce and Jordan Hall have graded players based on individual performances. Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 08.09.2020

Today, we finish the series by looking at Jakub Voracek.

Destra

Voracek had a rather slow start to the season. With the winger as one of the top veterans on this team and a key leader, head coach Alain Vigneault expected more out of him and others in similar positions. When Vigneault was looking at Voracek’s line at the time, which also consisted of Kevin Hayes and James van Riemsdyk, he made his expectations for them known.

“All those guys, I love the person,” Vigneault said back in November. “I love Kevin Hayes as a person, James and Jake I’m starting to know, they’re great people. I need more from the hockey player. Two different distinctions, right?

“It’s time. I’m not telling you anything that I haven’t told them. Obviously they feel pressure, but that’s why they’re paid the big bucks. You’ve got to deliver, you’ve got to produce, and we expect those guys to produce.”

Following that, in terms of production, Voracek had one heck of a season. He finished with 56 points, which was third best on the team, and his 44 assists earned him the top spot. This was his sixth consecutive season in which he finished with 40-plus assists — you can’t ask for much more consistency than that.

In fact, he passed Hall of Famer Eric Lindros and Flyers Hall of Famer Rick MacLeish for sixth on the franchise’s all-time assist list. With just three more regular-season assists, he’ll also pass Hall of Famer Mark Recchi.

Voracek rightfully deserves a B+ for this season.

Fordyce

Voracek is another player for the Flyers who is extremely streaky. When he’s on a hot streak, he can pile up points at the same pace as anyone in the NHL. Voracek’s vision is the best part of his game and his 44 assists this season led the Flyers. In fact, Voracek was third on the team in points behind only Travis Konecny and Sean Couturier.

Voracek is a player at times who seems hesitant to shoot. You could even say he’s too unselfish sometimes (if there is such a thing) and, at times, passes up goal-scoring opportunities. If Voracek were to think shot first a little more, those numbers could look even better. When Voracek is an aggressive player, he’s one of the top wingers in the sport. He just needs a little more consistency.

B+ for Voracek.

Hall

Voracek had a very good 2019-20 regular season.

There were some early growing pains under a new head coach and in a new system, but that's understandable. The Flyers as a whole took until November to get things going.

NHL's most points since Nov. 1:

1. Bruins — 80

2. Flyers — 78 1190608 Philadelphia Flyers stronger the relationship between variables, and neither of these is even close to that mark.

But what about goal differential? Maybe strong forechecking makes it How important was the Flyers’ forecheck to their success in 2019-20? more likely the Flyers would outscore opponents in all situations, as a result of them imposing their will on the other team.

Again, the relationship is extremely weak. When the Flyers had a strong By Charlie O'Connor Recovery Percentage or Combined Forecheck Success rate, they weren’t measurably more likely to outscore or outplay their opponent. Aug 8, 2020 Does this mean the Flyers’ forechecking was useless? Almost certainly

not. Recovering a loose puck is clearly a positive play, as is preventing a With hockey back in full swing and the Stanley Cup playoffs just days clean zone exit. Anyone from a head coach to a casual hockey fan would away, it’s time to put a bow on our Flyers forechecking project. Since late say as much. But it seems also clear that forechecking is one small piece June, we’ve looked at everything from the team’s best first-man-in of the play-driving and winning puzzle. forecheckers to the impact of hitting on the forecheck to a direct It makes sense. With offensive-zone work after a dump-in, the forecheck comparison of the Flyers’ most promising rookie forwards to a breakdown is just half the battle. The team still needs to create tangible offense — of the best secondary forechecking performers. shots, chances and goals — after recovering the puck. In many of these But those articles were primarily focused on the player level. What can games, the Philadelphia forecheck might have been clicking, but its the tracking project teach us about the Flyers’ team-level forechecking offensive-zone creativity could have been off. Or perhaps the opposite: results? The forecheck wasn’t firing on all cylinders, but when the Flyers had control of the puck in the offensive zone, they were especially efficient in There are of course limitations to how much it can tell us about team- testing opposing goaltenders. level forechecking effectiveness. Because it’s impossible to know how Philadelphia’s results stack up to others without tracking all 31 teams — Still, at least in the Flyers’ case, a strong forechecking game didn’t a worthy endeavor, to be sure, but one with a scope far beyond the equate to a good all-around game during the regular season. That’s an ambitions of this two-man project. intriguing finding.

Still, that doesn’t mean our team-level data can’t help answer some Did forechecking wear down opponents? questions about the impact of the Flyers’ forecheck on their results in Now we come to one of the more intriguing theories surrounding the games. So for this final installment of the project’s findings, we’ll focus on 2019-20 Flyers. three key questions we can answer, at least to a degree. Both of these statements are objectively true: The Flyers were a Did the Flyers get better at forechecking as the season progressed? forecheck-centric team that leaned toward the dump-and-chase as its It’s no secret that the Flyers improved dramatically in the second half of leading method of entry into the offensive zone; and the Flyers improved 2019-20. They looked like a playoff bubble team for the better part of the as games progressed, playing better in the second period than the first first three months of the season before morphing into the Stanley Cup and better in the third than the second. contender that has been rampaging through the bubble in Toronto. Logically, some surmised the two facts might be connected. In other To do so, they improved multiple aspects of their all-around play. Did words, the Flyers’ dump-in-heavy style would essentially wear down their forecheck efficiency improve as well? teams by forcing them to go back and retrieve pucks in the early going, leading to a cumulative draining effect that left opponents ripe to be Let’s look at a five-game rolling average of the Flyers’ team-wide exploited later in games. Recovery Percentage (how often they regained the puck because of their forecheck) and their Combined Forecheck Success Rate (recoveries plus So is that what happened? Is there evidence that an early emphasis on uncontrolled zone exits forced) to see if we can spot an upward trajectory forechecking led to territorial dominance later in games? as the season progressed. Well, sort of. And … we’ve got an upward trajectory for both! The improvement is even If you’re purely looking at the relationship between the number of more obvious when viewing a before/after chart using the game generally forechecks in the first period and the Flyers’ play-driving ability at five-on- accepted to be the “turning point” of the Flyers’ season, the Jan. 8 five in the third period, you’ll notice it’s not particularly strong. That showdown with the Washington Capitals, which Philadelphia won 3-2 doesn’t bode well for this supposed “cumulative effect.” despite playing in the second game of a brutal road/home back-to-back at the conclusion of a long road trip. However, let’s look at the data another way. Because a forechecks-per- first-period metric is going to only produce whole numbers, let’s look at The Flyers’ forecheck had more bite in the “good half” of the season than the average third period xG For percentage for the Flyers for each in the other half, which shouldn’t come as a major surprise. After all, it number, five through 20 (with 19 missing as Philadelphia never finished a was always going to take time for the players to become accustomed to first period with 19 forechecks). the intricacies of Alain Vigneault’s system and the expectations that accompanied it. As the year progressed, the Flyers actually forechecked That’s a pretty steady upward trend. When the Flyers forechecked 14 or less often but were more effective when they did. Hard to argue with more times in the first period, they averaged about a 60 percent expected those results. goals share in the third period. We’re dealing with small samples, and as the scatterplot shows, there’s a fair amount of variance. But generally Did good forechecking games produce dominant efforts? speaking, when the Flyers were especially engaged on the forecheck Effective forechecking is an undeniable positive for a team. Not every early, they tended to produce strong results late. zone entry can come with control, and recovering dump-ins — or at least Final thoughts preventing the opponent from successfully breaking out of its end and going on the attack — gives a team more opportunities to create shots, Forechecking isn’t the most glamorous aspect of hockey. But even the chances and goals. most rush-centric clubs still dump the puck into the zone on their entries about 45 percent of the time. In other words, an effective forecheck is a But was there a direct correlation between the Flyers’ best five-on-five weapon for every team, regardless of style. forechecking games and their most dominant performances on the whole? As it turns out, not really. First, let’s look at whether good The Flyers, of course, relied heavily on the dump-and-chase during the forechecking games tended to be games in which Philadelphia would regular season, which led me to wish there was a way to measure the handily control the five-on-five expected goals battle as well. forecheck’s effectiveness, since it had become such a staple of their game. That led to the summer forechecking project, a way to stay busy If forechecking success was directly correlated with play-driving success, and hopefully learn more about the Flyers players and the team as a the trend line would go steeply up and to the right, with the dots tightly whole. Collaborator Brian Weitz and I tracked 2,161 forechecks over two bunched around it. Instead, the points are largely scattered, implying a very weak relationship. The closer an “r-squared” result is to 1.0, the months, with the goal of sharing what we learned with The Athletic’s readers.

Hopefully, you enjoyed the project. After the playoffs, whenever they end for the Flyers, I might explore the results a bit more. But in the interim, if anyone is interested in doing so on their own, the raw data can be found at this link. Five articles surely are not enough to break down every interesting finding from the project, so for any curious readers, I pass the torch to you. Good luck and happy analyzing!

The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190609 Pittsburgh Penguins Carolina Hurricanes, the Penguins probably would have advanced. Instead, they got the inferior Canadiens and the superior Price.

Perhaps if the qualifying round was a best-of-seven series instead of a What went wrong for Penguins against the Canadiens? best-of-five, the Penguins would have had had enough time to mount a more potent attack or could have broken Price down. But this was the hand they were dealt.

SETH RORABAUGH Jarry and Murray were adequate in this series. And Murray was even the better goaltender in Game 2, a 3-1 win. But over the series, there was Saturday, August 8, 2020 6:31 p.m. enough incremental space between Price and his Penguins counterparts to create a chasm.

Mike Sullivan was relieved. 2. Power play

On March 10, in the aftermath of a tidy 5-2 road win against the New One of the few legit carryovers from the regular season to the Jersey Devils, the Penguins coach stood outside the visiting dressing postseason was the Penguins’ sputtering power play. room of the Prudential Center in downtown Newark, N.J., and offered Much like the Penguins from October through March, the Penguins in body language that suggested he finally resolved a great conundrum. August had moments where their power play looked dangerous, Struggling in their previous 10 games, the Penguins lost eight of those particularly in Game 3, but had plenty of other instances where they contests and infrequently looked at ease in the two they won. Add in the looked like they couldn’t spell “power play,” even if they were spotted the fact they were still working in some new players acquired via trade in late two “Ps.” February, and the Penguins very much were a team in flux. And it wasn’t just that the power play didn’t produce in bulk as much as it But that night in Newark, the Penguins played under their terms for didn’t come through in vital junctures. nearly 60 minutes, albeit against an admittedly underwhelming Devils In Game 1, with the Canadiens’ fantastic defensive center Philip Danault team. in the penalty box early in overtime, the Penguins had a power-play It was the first time they could claim such an achievement in many chance on fairly clean ice but failed to score, only to yield a goal later in weeks. the period. And during the late stages of Game 3, they were afforded a chance with the man advantage while trailing by a goal. Working on “That was one of the more complete games that we played in a while,” choppy ice, they could only get one shot on net. Sullivan beamed. “All four lines were going. The defensemen competed out there. We played the game the right way.” The power play could have been a dominant advantage for the Penguins. Instead, it was mostly inert, going 3 for 17 (17.7%). The Penguins, retooled in the previous offseason to be a deeper team that attacked the opposition with speed and sound puck management, 3. Depth up front looked normal again. The return of a healthy Jake Guentzel, sidelined for the remainder of the Of course, that was the last time anything would resemble normal for regular season because of a devastating right shoulder injury in them for the next for months. December, had a trickle-down effect on the Penguins depth. With Guentzel back, Jason Zucker was bumped to the second line, and Two days later, the NHL went into hiatus because of the coronavirus Patrick Marleau found himself on the third line. pandemic, and whatever inertia the Penguins or the NHL’s 30 other teams had harnessed came to a halt. On paper, the Penguins were one of the deepest teams in the postseason. In reality, they only had three lines that displayed any sort of Fast forward to August and the Penguins’ season came to an abrupt halt cohesion. once again, this time because of the Montreal Canadiens, who beat the Penguins, 3-1, in their best-of-five qualifying round series at Toronto’s The trio of Marleau, Jared McCann and Patric Hornqvist rarely displayed Scotiabank Arena. any chemistry. The abundance of special teams early in the series limited the time that group could get on the ice together, but it just never clicked Whatever successes or flaws the Penguins possessed in mid-March bore for that group. little impact on their feeble showing in early August. After their 2-0 loss to the Canadiens in Game 4 on Friday, the Penguins were hesitant to draw McCann was particularly disappointing. Asked to be a third-line center in any connection to their disrupted regular season and their unappetizing the vain of or Jordan Staal, he looked more like Derrick postseason. Brassard or Brandon Sutter. McCann’s play was so poor, he was scratched in favor of rookie Sam Lafferty in Game 3. “I don’t think you can associate what just happened (in the postseason) to the regular season,” defenseman Kris Letang said via video Hornqvist played the same game he always offers, which might be conference from Toronto. “The break that we just witnessed was longer limited but it’s still effective. Marleau, on the other hand, was very than an offseason. I thought guys prepared themselves well, but when ordinary. He looked like a 40-year-old who took four months off and had the puck dropped, I think we faced a well-balanced team with a great little time on the ice because of the quarantine rules. goaltender that played better than us. You have to evaluate the season 4. Depth in the back and the playoffs (as) two different things.” The Canadiens realized they had limitations with their third defensive With that, here’s a look at what went wrong for the Penguins in four pairing of Victor Mete and . That suspicion was validated in games over seven days. Game 3 when they were overwhelmed by the Penguins’ line of Zach 1. Goaltending Aston-Reese, Teddy Blueger and Brandon Tanev for a goal.

It’s not an insult to Tristan Jarry or Matt Murray to say the 12th-seeded Knowing this, Canadiens coaches limited their playing time, and they Canadiens had the better goaltending this series. only played a combined 104 minutes, 16 seconds of ice time in this series. It’s more a confirmation Carey Price is still a master of his craft. Meanwhile, the Penguins went far heavier with their beleaguered third Rarely during the series did Price look fazed by the Penguins’ skilled pairing of Jack Johnson and Justin Schultz, who logged a combined attack. Granted, there were rare occasions where that skilled attacked 137:57 of ice time. posed a sustained threat to Price, particularly when Penguins forward Conor Sheary failed to even hit the net on a penalty shot in the third Granted, much of that was devoted to special teams as Schultz works period of Game 1, but at no time did Price look uncertain of himself. the power play and Johnson is a regular penalty killer. Regardless, the Penguins seemed more determined to spread their ice time on the blue Had the Penguins played the 11th-seeded New York Rangers, who line than the Canadiens, who leaned on on their top two pairings of Ben propped up the husk of Henrik Lundqvist in net for two games against the Chiarot and Shea Weber as well as Jeff Petry and and relied on them to do the heavy lifting. 5. The conditions

None of this was ideal for anyone involved. Every team had to do a hard restart out of a lengthy stasis and then get locked down in a luxury hotel to play hockey on poor ice.

The Penguins tried to adapt to the environment while the Canadiens were born in it.

Without the benefit of top-tier talent or even adequate time to regain conditioning, the Canadiens made the sloppy ice rink in Toronto their domain. This series was not an overly entertaining affair, and that’s because the Canadiens made it that way.

The Penguins, on the other hand, tried to fight through the conditions and play their aggressive game, particularly early in the series. But after they gave up a two-goal lead to lose Game 3, 4-3, they regressed into a safe, defensive posture throughout Game 4 and tried to beat the Canadiens at their own staring contest.

Giving up a goal late in regulation, the Penguins blinked first, and their season, as disjointed as it was, was over before it really restarted.

Tribune Review LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190610 Pittsburgh Penguins Hard-to-believe fact No. 3: Letang has gone 66 consecutive postseason games without a power play goal.

Guentzel Ron Cook: Don't let Penguins' stars off the hook He had a goal and two assists against the Canadiens and gets a bit of a pass because he was playing in his first games since his serious shoulder injury Dec. 30. But he didn’t do much in the two losses to the RON COOK Capitals and the four against the Islanders with a combined one goal and one assist. He had 23 goals and 19 assists in 35 postseason games Pittsburgh Post-Gazette before the past 10. AUG 9, 2020 5:00 AM Murray

He won Game 2 against the Canadiens, 3-1, with 26 saves but was bad Blame Jack Johnson and Justin Schultz all you want. They deserve it. enough in the 4-3 loss in Game 3 to be benched for Tristan Jarry in Blame Jared McCann, Patrick Marleau and Zach Aston-Reese. They Game 4. In his past nine postseason starts, he went 1-8 and allowed at deserve it, too. Even blame Mike Sullivan, the best coach in Penguins’ least three goals in six of the games, a total of 26. His fine play in the history after . He had no answers for Montreal coach team’s Cup runs in 2016 and 2017 seems like ancient history. Claude Julien in his team’s embarrassing collapse last week. Stars? But me? I don’t think so. I’m blaming the stars, who were anything but stars. Malkin turned 34 on July 31. Crosby had a miserable 33rd birthday on But it gets worse. Friday. Letang also is 33. It’s easy to believe they won’t return to the level they once achieved. Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Kris Letang, Jake Guentzel and Matt Murray haven’t been postseason stars for a long time. Sullivan didn’t want to go there, of course, Friday night after the Penguins had been eliminated. You have to go back to May 3, 2018, when the Penguins beat the Washington Capitals, 3-1, to even their second-round playoff series at “I think these guys are still elite players. I believe in this core. I just think two games apiece. Malkin scored the game-winner, Guentzel had two they are such character guys,” he said. “They’re elite hockey player and I goals, Crosby chipped in with two assists and Murray made 20 saves. still think there’s elite play left in them.” The Penguins’ chances for a third consecutive Stanley Cup seemed “I can’t say enough about him,” he said. “He’s just such a tremendous realistic. athlete. I have the privilege of watching him every day, up close and At least until Game 5. personal. He’s such a motivated player. I’ve never been around a player as motivated and driven as he is. I don’t know that I can find the words to The Penguins lost that night, 6-3, then were eliminated by the Capitals articulate how I really feel about him. I just have that much respect for when they lost Game 6, 2-1, on home ice in overtime. They were swept him.” by the New York Islanders in the 2019 playoffs, losing the four games by a combined score of 14-6. They just lost three of four to the woeful All of us share that respect for Crosby. All of us have had the privilege of Canadiens — the 24th seed in the 24-team, COVID-19 impacted playoffs watching his magic with Malkin and Letang. Who could have dreamed of — in the franchise’s most humiliating postseason exit. three Cups? We’ve been lucky, almost beyond belief.

Allow me to add up the numbers for you: All I’m saying is it used to be more fun.

The Penguins have lost three consecutive series and are 1-9 in their past A lot more fun. 10 playoff games.

Cup contenders? Post Gazette LOADED: 08.09.2020 How about Cup pretenders?

I blame the stars.

Crosby

He wasn’t terrible against the Canadiens and might not have been completely healthy after missing 28 games during the regular season with a sports-hernia injury that required surgery and then missing most of training camp 2.0 with an undisclosed issue. Nonetheless, he wasn’t the Superman who led the team to three Cups. He had two goals and an assist against the Canadiens, which doesn’t seem bad. But in that 1-9 slide? He had four goals and three assists and was a minus-6. He had averaged 1.16 points per postseason game before those 10 games.

Hard-to-believe fact No. 1: Crosby has just one power-play goal in his past 28 playoff games.

Malkin

He managed just one assist in the four games against the Canadiens despite putting 21 shots on goaltender Carey Price. He was just as unproductive in the past 10 games as a whole, a minus-8 with one goal and four assists. He had averaged 1.05 points per postseason game before those 10 games.

Hard-to-believe fact No. 2: Malkin has gone 16 playoff games in a row without an even-strength goal.

Letang

He didn’t have a point against the Canadiens and just one goal and one assist in the games against the Capitals and Islanders. He was a minus-7 in those 10 games. 1190611 Pittsburgh Penguins Crosby ranks second all time in scoring for Rimouski with 303 points over two seasons. Lafreniere is fourth on the franchise list with 297 points over three seasons.

What you need to know about consensus top draft pick Alexis Lafreniere By the numbers:

In three seasons with Rimouski, Lafreniere tallied 297 points. His production increased in each season, from 80 points in 2017-18 to 105 MIKE DEFABO last year. This season, he recorded 112 points in just 52 games.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette His 2.15 points per game average was the highest in the CHL since Connor McDavid had 2.50 in 2014-15. AUG 8, 2020 12:31 PM What they’re saying about him:

Lafreniere said in an interview before the draft lottery that he tries to A disappointing end to the Penguins postseason could come with an model his game after Patrick Kane. In April, NHL.com's Mike Morreale unexpected consolation prize: the No. 1 pick in the draft. likened Lafreniere to Florida Panthers forward Jonathan Huberdeau. To refresh your memory, when the NHL held Phase 1 of the draft lottery Here’s what some others are saying… on June 26, a placeholder team won. That means all eight teams that exit the postseason in the qualifying round will have the same exact 1-in-8 “Lafreniere attacks the net, has some physicality in his game and gets a odds of securing the top pick. The result will be revealed live at 6 p.m. lot of goals in the dirty areas.” — Corey Pronman, The Athletic Monday on NBCSN and NHL Network. “Expectations surrounding Lafreniere are slightly less harried than they During a normal season, the Penguins wouldn't have ever had to worry were around ‘Sid the Kid,’ but Lafreniere has proven time and again that about the name Alexis Lafreniere. But after a club with the seventh-best he is a serious prospect to keep an eye on.” — Ryan Kennedy, The points percentage in the NHL bowed out to the No. 24 seed in the Hockey News tournament, it's time to start cramming. “Whichever team wins the No. 1 pick shouldn't need much time to make Here's what you need to know about the skilled winger and consensus its decision. Lafreniere combines elite puck skills, high-end decision- No. 1 overall pick. making and a physical edge. He's by far the top talent in the 2020 draft and should be able to step into a significant NHL role early next season.” Montreal Canadiens left wing Artturi Lehkonen (62) celebrates his goal — Adam Kimelman, NHL.com as Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry (35), defenseman Justin Schultz (4), defenseman Brian Dumoulin (8), center Zach Aston-Reese (46) and How he fits with the Penguins: center Teddy Blueger (53) react during the third period Friday, Aug. 7, 2020, in Toronto. Lafreniere is an NHL-ready prospect who could immediately step into a star-studded forward group. He’d play in the top-six instantly. But where? The basics: Maybe he skates alongside Crosby and Jake Guentzel. Or perhaps the Penguins feel Lafreniere’s creativity meshes with a similarly creative Age: 18 forward in Evgeni Malkin. Birthplace: Saint-Eustache, Quebec Either way, he would give the Penguins a piece that helps them Height: 6-foot-1 maximize their current window — and open a new one.

Weight: 192 points Other options:

Shoots: left Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford has never hesitated to make a trade. This could come in one of two ways. He could either give up the Kris Letang wraps around the net of teammate Tristan Jarry as the top pick to a team that wants to go into full rebuild mode in exchange for Canadiens' Paul Byron trails behind in the first period Aug. 7, 2020 in a couple more seasoned veterans or picks. Or, he could trade back in the Toronto, . draft to acquire more assets.

On the ice: If the Penguins lose the lottery:

Lafreniere has long been considered the top player in the 2020 draft So what if the Penguins don’t get the No. 1 pick? In short, they’ll end up class, and he's lived up to that billing. He brings creativity, playmaking with No. 15. and physicality. He has a good inside game and is not afraid to get to the front of the net. Draft analysts also consistently praise his competitive The seven teams that lost in the qualifying round will be assigned picks spirit and second-effort plays. No. 9-15 based on points percentage. Because the Penguins had the highest points percentage among teams that exited early, they’ll have the If you’re looking for a knock on Lafreniere — and it takes some searching no. 15 pick. — some believe he’s not the fastest or quickest skater. However, his stick skills are good enough that he can make elite moves at high They’ll have two decisions in this situation. Per the terms of the Jason speeds, which helps allow him to play faster than his pure skating ability Zucker trade, the Penguins owe Minnesota a first-round pick in either suggests. 2020 or 2021. However, they don’t have to make a decision until after the draft lottery. Eventually, they'll need to decide if there’s a player that Crosby connection: interests them in that range or if they want to cough up the pick now.

Last September, Sidney Crosby’s Rimouski Oceanic jersey was lifted into the rafters during a retirement ceremony, as the Penguins captain delivered an emotional speech. Post Gazette LOADED: 08.09.2020

From 2003-05, Crosby played two seasons of junior hockey in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Over 121 regular season games, he scored 303 points, including 120 goals with 183 assists. He was named Canadian Hockey League Player of the Year two straight times and helped the Océanic capture the 2005 President’s Cup.

A night that began with Crosby ended with Lafreniere. He kicked off his second-straight CHL player of the year season by scoring an overtime winner, lifting Rimouski to a 4-3 win. 1190612 Pittsburgh Penguins asks them to, and he has given no indications that he wants to finish out his contract elsewhere.

Go to section Six pressing questions the Penguins face going forward 3. What will the blue line look like?

Probably a lot different than today, but only if they can make the money MATT VENSEL work.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Marino was a steal and the Penguins believe he is about ready to be a top-pair defenseman. Marcus Pettersson made strides in Year 2 in AUG 8, 2020 11:06 AM Pittsburgh. Brian Dumoulin and Letang formed a quality pair again before Dumoulin was sidelined three months. As far as top fours go, that’s a

pretty good starting point. What the heck just happened? But Johnson and Schultz were problematic for the Penguins all season, How’d they go out like this again? so they need to try to find two new defensemen to plug into their top six. That’s going to be a challenge since none of their prospects look ready Those might be the first two questions that come to mind after the — Pierre-Olivier Joseph will get a chance — and they might not have Penguins lost to the Montreal Canadiens, who won only 31 of 71 games much financial wiggle room. during the shortened NHL regular season, in their five-game qualifying- round series up in Toronto. 4. What must the Penguins add?

Montreal Canadiens left wing Artturi Lehkonen (62) celebrates his goal Beyond a couple of new defensemen, they must figure out whom their as Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry (35), defenseman Justin Schultz third-line center will be going forward if it’s not Bjugstad or steady Teddy (4), defenseman Brian Dumoulin (8), center Zach Aston-Reese (46) and Blueger. That key lineup spot has been a revolving door since Bonino left center Teddy Blueger (53) react during the third period Friday, Aug. 7, town in 2017. 2020, in Toronto. New options are needed for the bottom six with Marleau and others If you want to read about what went wrong for the Penguins, both in this expected to move on. Preferably, a couple of the new guys swing right- series and in a once-promising season that ended in more puzzlement, handed sticks. give this piece a read. If you just want to turn the page, you’ve come to And that brings us to the power play. It wasn’t right this season, largely the right place. because they didn’t have a suitable replacement for Kessel in the left This is the most important offseason for the Penguins since summer circle. Can they find an affordable right-handed veteran capable of 2015, when general manager Jim Rutherford’s hot streak at the blackjack balancing out the top unit? table really got going with big bets on trade acquisitions and 5. Is a philosophy change required? Nick Bonino. Mike Sullivan looked like a lock to be a finalist for the Jack Adams Award It’s clear after a second consecutive flameout that some things need to before the team started its tailspin in late January. Rutherford gave him a change. They presumably will not include the GM and coach, whom both new contract last summer and last month called him the best in the biz. received contract extensions within the last 20 months. They’ll oversee Still, it’s fair to wonder if the Cup-winning coach needs to change his this likely overhaul. approach, both in terms of tactics and messaging. Here are six of the most pressing questions they must face together this The Penguins twice won the Cup under Sullivan because they doubled fall: down on speed and skill and literally pulled away from the competition in 1. Will Matt Murray be back? 2016 and 2017. The NHL followed suit and some teams have caught up. Look at those Canadiens; they outraced the Penguins to loose pucks Both Matt Murray and Tristan Jarry will be restricted free agents, throughout the qualifying-round series. meaning the Penguins can keep one or both around if they want. So, who’s it going to be? The two-time Stanley Cup winner or the first-time Can the Penguins still win playing this way? Or is a new identity needed? All-Star this season? As for motivating his players and getting them to play as one, this is the Murray hasn’t lived up to expectations after he was the first goalie to win second straight year they got steamrolled by a lesser squad. Xs and Os the Cup twice as a rookie. He had some rough moments in these playoffs were a factor, no doubt, but the Canadiens and New York Islanders were and he figures to cause more sticker shock than Jarry. The upside that clearly hungrier, too. It’s insanely difficult to lift that Cup, but the Penguins Jarry showed in December and January, when he was the NHL’s hottest haven’t come close in three years. goaltender, is enticing. 6. Has the Cup window closed? Canada's Alexis Lafreniere celebrates after scoring during the U20 Ice For the current core? It sure seems so. It’s hard to envision the Penguins Hockey Worlds semifinal match. running back essentially the same squad and getting a much different But just three years ago the Penguins shipped out fan favorite Marc- outcome. Tough decisions must be made to pry it back open. You’ve got Andre Fleury to free up the crease for Murray. Can they stomach moving to figure we see more members of those Cup teams say goodbye. on already? It likely comes down to money. And if Murray’s price is right, There’s not too many left now. both may be back. But as long as Sidney Crosby is here, you can hold out hope they deliver 2. Who else might be on the move? one more magical run. If Rutherford has another hot streak in him, you never know. We delved into this topic in greater detail here, but if you don’t feel like clicking, here’s the CliffsNotes version.

Justin Schultz, Conor Sheary and Patrick Marleau are their unrestricted Post Gazette LOADED: 08.09.2020 free agents. Their restricted free agents include forwards Jared McCann, Dominik Simon, Sam Lafferty and Evan Rodrigues and defenseman Juuso Riikola.

If the Penguins want to clear salary cap space, Jack Johnson and Nick Bjugstad have fairly hefty salaries. Johnson, of course, will prove difficult to move.

And if the Penguins want to make a significant move to shake up the makeup of the team, they can dangle Kris Letang after the emergence of John Marino. It is unlikely they will look to trade Evgeni Malkin unless he 1190613 Pittsburgh Penguins Given the cap situation, moving Letang might be the only way for Rutherford to make significant changes to this roster. It’s unclear if ownership will insist Letang be a Penguin for life.

Analysis: Seven Penguins who could depart this offseason Matt Murray: We wrote about 2,000 words in April about how the Penguins have reached a crossroads in the crease, with Murray and Tristan Jarry both set to be restricted free agents. There is a ton of analysis in there about both Murray’s play and his value. Mostly MATT VENSEL everything remains relevant today after he did not, in this postseason, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette make a case to be locked up long term. Jarry replaced him in Game 4.

AUG 8, 2020 7:00 AM Sadly, the final lasting memory of Murray in black and gold could be Jeff Petry’s shot sneaking over his right shoulder for the back-breaking goal in Game 3. That would be a shame because he earned his multiple inscriptions on the Stanley Cup here and the 26-year-old can still turn his For the second straight year, the Penguins flamed out of the playoffs career around with a change of scenery. against a team with fewer stars but stunningly more discipline and determination. Mark Recchi: Sullivan is expected to stick around, but he might have to make a change or two to his coaching staff. Recchi, a Hall of Fame The Montreal Canadiens, the 24th seed in the NHL’s expanded 24-team player, joined Sullivan behind the bench after Rick Tocchet left for postseason field, finished them off Friday with a 2-0 win at Toronto’s Arizona in 2017. One of Recchi’s main duties is focusing on their power Scotiabank Arena. play, which was unable to find fixes this season after Kessel joined When this happened a year ago, in that four-game sweep at the hands of Tocchet in Arizona and the Penguins battled injuries. the New York Islanders, the Penguins traded Phil Kessel and Olli Maatta. Justin Schultz: The puck-moving blue liner has arguably been But they hung on to Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang after discussing the Rutherford’s most successful reclamation project here and the Penguins merits of dealing each player. They also doubled down on their don’t go all the way in 2017 without him playing the way he did once commitment to coach Mike Sullivan. Letang was lost. But he rarely resembled that player the past two Canada's Alexis Lafreniere celebrates after scoring during the U20 Ice seasons, in part due to injury. Schultz was a mess in these playoffs, too. Hockey Worlds semifinal match. The Penguins probably let him skate away to free agency.

This offseason, after another postseason dud, the changes may be Conor Sheary: It was worth a shot bringing him back at the trade seismic. deadline, giving up a different type of middle-six player in Dominik Kahun to get him. But Sheary didn’t produce on the Crosby line despite ample Hall of Fame general manager Jim Rutherford got a contract extension opportunities. He, too, will be an unrestricted free agent and must take a during the 2018-19 season and has since given no indication that he bargain-bin deal to be back. plans to retire. Veteran wing Patrick Marleau is also an unrestricted free agent and can’t On July 15, he called Sullivan “the best coach in the game.” It would be a possibly return. The team’s restricted free agents include forwards Jared surprise if he fired that coach just three weeks later, especially when you McCann, Dominik Simon, Sam Lafferty and Evan Rodrigues and consider the team furloughed a bunch of employees early in the COVID- defenseman Juuso Riikola. 19 pandemic. Ownership will spend to win, but that sure would be a lot of money to light on fire.

So that GM-coach duo, if it indeed remains intact, must take a long look Post Gazette LOADED: 08.09.2020 in the mirror to determine if Sullivan’s speed-first philosophy can still allow the Penguins to win one more Stanley Cup with Sidney Crosby, and whether Rutherford has to trade a fan favorite or two to assemble a new championship core.

Here are seven guys who could be goners once that self-reflection is finished:

Nick Bjugstad: Injuries wrecked the big center’s season, and he underwent spinal surgery in May, ending his season. Without him, the Penguins were never able to settle on a third-line center. His production hasn’t matched his possession stats in his 49 games with the Penguins, including playoffs. And his $4.1 million salary is not ideal. But with one year left on it, the Penguins can likely find a hockey deal that includes him if they decide they want to try yet another third-line center.

Jack Johnson: Don’t get your hopes up. Yeah, you figure the Penguins may look to move on from the embattled blue liner. But with a flat salary cap due to financial losses from the pandemic, dumping his $3.25 million salary will be difficult. Heck, if Johnson was making just $3.25, finding a taker would be tough enough. Are they willing to throw in something of real value to get him off the books?

Montreal Canadiens left wing Artturi Lehkonen (62) celebrates his goal as Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry (35), defenseman Justin Schultz (4), defenseman Brian Dumoulin (8), center Zach Aston-Reese (46) and center Teddy Blueger (53) react during the third period Friday, Aug. 7, 2020, in Toronto.

Kris Letang: It was a quiet playoff series for Letang, both in a good way and in a bad way. The All-Star was more cautious and defended much better than he did against the Islanders last year. But he was less assertive offensively and had just one point against Montreal. He has two years left on the contract that pays him an annual salary of $7,250,000 — not an unreasonable salary given his play this season.

But Sullivan and Letang do not always see eye-to-eye when it comes to his cavalier style, and John Marino might be ready for a top-pair role. 1190614 Pittsburgh Penguins Conor Sheary: D He played well in Game 2 but otherwise was never a factor. The penalty

shot effort in Game 1 was weak. Montreal pushed him around all series Yohe: A Penguins series report card for the ages and he didn’t particularly look like he belonged in the top six. Granted, he wasn’t the only one who struggled, but he really never made an impact.

Jared McCann: F By Josh Yohe Wow, was he disappointing. The Penguins fancy him as their long-term Aug 8, 2020 No. 3 center. Are we sure about that? He’s a talented player, yes, but he bombed in this series in a big, big way.

The benching in Game 3 was justified. He ended the regular season in a The Penguins’ older players looked so old against the Canadiens last horrendous slump. Troubling. week. And the Penguins’ younger players, with a couple of exceptions, didn’t look much better. Patrick Marleau: F

Still, the old guys looked so old. And that’s a problem. Hall of Famer? Check. Accomplished player? Check. Can he still play in the NHL? I guess, but he certainly never looked good in a Penguins Last season’s playoff report card was ugly and painful to write. This one sweater. is even more gruesome. He did not make one positive contribution in this series. Not one. It was a sorry effort for the Penguins against the Canadiens, particularly in their final two games. There is plenty of blame to go around. Patric Hornqvist: C

Read at your own risk. He scored a goal in Game 3 and the power play looked much, much better with him on it. So there’s that. And the mess that was the third line Sidney Crosby: C probably wasn’t his fault. I’ll go easy on him. The truth is, there’s no way he was 100 percent in this Still, I didn’t see the usual fire that has become a playoff tradition from series, not after missing much of training camp with an injury. Given that, Hornqvist. Just kind of a blah series from him. and given how his timing was probably impacted, it’s understandable that he wasn’t in full flight. Teddy Blueger: C-plus

And hey, he scored a big goal in Game 1 and a bigger goal in Game 2. He was OK. Scored a goal. His defensive work was fine. But I wouldn’t He played pretty well and was a presence. Plus, the Canadiens really really say he provided a spark, either. And that’s what the Penguins abused him throughout. All in all, it wasn’t a bad performance from needed more from their bottom six. Nice enough season, but didn’t make Crosby. It just wasn’t a performance that reached his customary level of an impact in this series. greatness. Brandon Tanev: C Evgeni Malkin: F I’m a really big fan of his, but he did commit the turnover that lost the The way he played simply wasn’t acceptable. He produced one point in series — they weren’t going to score in Game 4 anyway, so it was four games, didn’t beat Carey Price once, was invisible in Game 4 and inevitable — and that’s not acceptable for anyone, let alone a bottom-six took a bad offensive zone penalty. The most puzzling aspect of his player. performance is that he looked extraordinarily motivated, and good, before the postseason began. He also had a magnificent regular season and we He made that great play in Game 3 to set up Blueger’s goal, but can’t forget about that. otherwise, I didn’t feel like he was quite as noticeable in this series as he was during the regular season. But still, Malkin’s recent postseason performance is atrocious. In the Penguins’ past three series, all of them losses, Malkin has produced two Zach Aston-Reese: F goals and seven points in 12 games. He’s a minus-10 in those outings. I really hated his performance in this series. No offensive impact. No He is still a great player, but he’s also a player who once took control of a physical impact. Took a horrible retaliation penalty in Game 3. playoff series. I don’t see that guy anymore. I’m starting to wonder about his long-term future in the organization. He Jake Guentzel: C just needs to play with more energy, more passion. I’m not seeing it.

I won’t be too rough on him because he’s returning from a very serious Sam Lafferty: Incomplete shoulder injury and wasn’t in game shape when the postseason began. The guy played five minutes all series. That’s not enough for a grade. But I’d be lying if I said he played well. He was consistently knocked off the puck in this series and was one of a few Penguins players who Kris Letang: B-minus actually had some good looks. He was pretty good in this series, though I know some disagree with me. His only goal was scored into an empty net. He made some really careless plays, namely the thoughtless pass through the center of the ice while his goaltender was without a stick in He needs to rest for a few months and get ready for next season, when Game 4. And his decision-making on the power play wasn’t good, he’ll presumably be at full strength. prompting his removal from that unit. He’s not great on the power play. Jason Zucker: B He never will be. It’s just reality.

What a good player he is. He scored twice in this series and, as I’ve But I felt like he defended very well and largely made good decisions with mentioned many times, he’s a better all-around player than I had the puck. He was fine. realized. He’ll be a top-six fixture for a long time. Brian Dumoulin: C-minus Nothing but good things to say about him. He was really off all series and I wonder how healthy he is. Dumoulin Bryan Rust: C-plus wasn’t a disaster or anything. Far from it. But he’s typically the Penguins’ best defensive player, and I didn’t feel that way about him in this series. He always gives an honest effort and scored a big goal in Game 1. But it would have been nice to see some more productivity from him. John Marino: A-minus

Rust enjoyed a spectacular season and he’s a legitimate top-six player He just keeps getting better and better. He was beaten on Montreal’s who could be in line for a huge raise in a couple of years. But given his third goal in Game 3, but really, that was his only mistake in the series. postseason history, his performance in this series was a little I’d rank him as the Penguins’ best player in the postseason. He’s special. disappointing. Marcus Pettersson: C-plus Nothing special, but he was perfectly fine. I’d like to see his offensive game take another step, but still, he’s perfectly reliable and a good partner for Marino.

Jack Johnson: F

He really struggled and his two seasons in Pittsburgh haven’t been good. The coaching staff played him too often and he shouldn’t have been paired with Justin Schultz. They don’t work. Johnson looked slow in this series and was consistently out of position. Not good.

Justin Schultz: F

Schultz was no better. The series undeniably changed in Game 3 when the Penguins were ahead, 3-1. All Schultz had to do was tie up Jonathan Drouin’s stick. It was the simplest play and he failed to execute it. He was a defensive disaster in this series.

Matt Murray: D

He wasn’t that bad in Games 1 and 2. In fact, he was very good in Game 2. The final two goals Murray allowed in Game 3 were of the poor variety and I agreed with the decision to sit him.

Something with his game is broken. He’s just not the same goaltender as he was in 2016 and 2017 and that was on display in this series.

Tristan Jarry: A

It was only one game, but it was a really impressive one. The most impressive thing about Jarry is that everyone expected him to play well in Game 4. And he did. He should have been the starter in Game 1.

Mike Sullivan: F

It was his lowest moment as the Penguins’ coach and, ironically enough, it came directly after a regular season that provided perhaps his finest coaching job. I believe him to be an excellent coach who is putting together a Hall of Fame resume.

But his mistakes in this series were many and undeniable.

Jarry was the better goalie all season and in training camp. Sullivan went with old reliable in Murray. It was the wrong decision.

Johnson and Schultz struggled mightily and the Penguins have solid replacements available in Chad Ruhwedel and Juuso Riikola. Sullivan never went to them. It was a mistake.

Sullivan never figured out what to do on the power play after Phil Kessel departed. He and Mark Recchi run the power play. It was up to them to figure it out. They never did.

Sullivan stuck with Marleau when he was clearly shot.

Sullivan didn’t give Tanev an additional role when it was clear he could have helped any of the top three lines.

Lafferty and Evan Rodrigues were two of the best players in training camp, yet saw a combined five minutes of ice time in this series.

Sullivan’s player deployment late in games was bizarre. So was the fact Johnson and Schultz played nearly as much as Crosby and Malkin did in Game 4.

The Penguins never appeared to make tactical adjustments to combat Montreal’s stingy neutral-zone play.

More than anything else, the Penguins played with zero passion in this series. Is that on the players? Sure. Do I think the Penguins quit on Sullivan? I certainly would hope not, but I’ve never seen them fail to respond to him less than they did in this series.

He’s a great, accomplished coach. He won’t be fired, nor should he. But for the first time, it’s fair to wonder about his long-term future in Pittsburgh. This series was not his finest moment.

The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190615 San Jose Sharks

Why Sharks should sign Patrick Marleau for third go-around in San Jose

By Brian Witt

August 08, 2020 6:54 PM

It has been widely presumed that if Patrick Marleau returns for a 23rd NHL season, he will do so with the Sharks, back where it all began.

He still is without a Stanley Cup on his career résumé after he and the Pittsburgh Penguins were eliminated by the Montreal Canadiens in the qualifying round of the NHL's expanded playoff format. The Penguins acquired him prior to the trade deadline in exchange for a 2021 third- round draft pick after he returned for his second go-around with San Jose early in the season.

Based on what his wife, Christina, tweeted Friday, it appears Marleau already has made up his mind about playing next season.

That really shouldn't come as a surprise. Though he isn't the top-end player he once was, Marleau showed this past season that he still has some left in the tank. And, on top of that, he only needs to play in 45 more games to pass NHL legend for the most games played in league history.

Frankly, it would only be fitting if he set the record in a Sharks sweater. And now it would appear the ball is in San Jose's court as to whether or not Marleau will return to the franchise that drafted him with the No. 2 overall pick in the 1997 Entry Draft.

Aside from the appetizing narrative, there's reason why Marleau might get a third go-around in teal. All indications are that the Sharks intend to return to playoff contention next season, but due to their salary structure, don't expect any large salaries to be brought in -- San Jose already has plenty of those. Consequently, the Sharks are going to need to fill the lineup with some minimum-salaried players.

At this point, you can bet that money isn't a top consideration for Marleau. If a true Cup contender doesn't present him with an offer, it would be difficult to envision a more appealing destination for him than San Jose. Marleau could be signed for the veteran's minimum, and given he scored 10 goals in 58 games with the Sharks this year, that might be a pretty good value.

It's certainly possible the Sharks find a superior player to take Marleau's hypothetical spot, or would rather give it to a younger player that is part of the future.

If that's not the case, though, signing Mr. Shark makes an awful lot of sense.

Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190616 St Louis Blues

Preview: Blues vs. Stars

Jim Thomas

About the Stars: Dallas finished third in the Central Division with a 37-24- 8 record good for 82 points, and entered the Edmonton round-robin as the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference. Known for strong defense and goaltending, the tandem of St. Louisan Ben Bishop and Anton Khudobin helped Dallas finish second in team goals-against average in the NHL at 2.52. Bishop finished the regular-season with a 21-16-4 record and a 2.50 GAA. Khudobin’s numbers were better as the backup: a 16-8-4 record and 2.22 GAA, which tied for third in the league. It’s unclear who’ll start against the Blues.

Speedy rookie Denis Gurianov led the team in scoring with 20 goals, followed by Jamie Benn and Roope Hintz at 19 goals apiece. The Benn- Tyler Seguin-Alexander Radulov line is expected to be reunited for the first time since Feb. 1 on Sunday.

Interim head coach Rick Bowness replaced Jim Montgomery on Dec. 10. He played 34 games for the Blues over two seasons (1978-80) at forward.

St Louis Post Dispatch LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190617 St Louis Blues “I bought it in St. Louis at Arch Apparel, I think it’s called, right before we left,” Blais said. “Just representing St. Louis a little bit in Canada.”

Tinkering timeBerube mixed up his defensive pairings for the Vegas Blues notebook: Schwartz, Schenn have exemplified slow start for game, putting Marco Scandella with Alex Pietrangelo and Justin Faulk offense with Colton Parayko. For most of the season, it’s been either or Faulk with Pietrangelo and, since the Blues got him in a trade, Scandella with Parayko. Gunnarsson sat out the Vegas game with going in. Bortuzzo was partnered with Vince Dunn. Tom Timmermann “We wanted to move some guys around,” Berube said, “shake it up a

little bit. We didn’t really like the first game that much either and the way Brayden Schenn and Jaden Schwartz, two-thirds of the Blues’ top line, they played. That’s all it was.” combined for just one shot attempt on Thursday against Vegas, a shot by Game on Channel 5NBC has exercised its right to nationally televise Schwartz that missed the net. With Vladimir Tarasenko being held out of Sunday’s Blues-Stars game. Therefore it will be shown locally on KSDK the game as a precaution, Jordan Kyrou joined the line and he had their (Channel 5) instead of Fox Sports Midwest. Coverage begins at 2 p.m. only shot on goal. The radio broadcast is on WXOS (101.1 FM). In the first round-robin game, Schenn, Schwartz and Tarasenko While the Blues had plenty of games on NBCSN, this will be the first time combined for three shots on goal, two of them by Tarasenko. In the three in the 2019-20 season the defending Stanley Cup champions have been games the team has played since action resumed, two real games plus on a national over-the-air network this year. the warmup game, the three don’t have a goal, though that’s an issue affecting every other forward beside David Perron and Troy Brouwer.

“A lot like our whole team, they have to get in there more,” Blues coach St Louis Post Dispatch LOADED: 08.09.2020 said on Saturday, “and be a harder forechecking line, possess the puck more and get numbers in on it and go north more. I think they’re not playing the way they need to play. They will, they’ll get there, Vladi will be back next game so I expect that line to be good.”

In Corsi percentage, which uses shot attempts as a measure of puck possession, Schwartz and Schenn are 17th and 18th on the team, ahead of only Kyrou, Marco Scandella, Robert Bortuzzo and Mackenzie MacEachern. In the regular season, Schwartz had a Corsi percentage of of 52.4 and Schenn’s was 50.2. In the first two round-robin games, with admittedly a very small sample size, Schenn is at 32.3 percent and Schwartz 31.0.

Berube said that Tarasenko and Robert Thomas, who both sat out the Vegas game for what the coach termed precautionary reasons, would be back in the lineup against Dallas. Tarasenko is recovering from shoulder surgery. It’s not known what the issue is with Thomas.

That will probably mean that Kyrou, who made his postseason debut on Thursday, comes out. Kyrou played just 9:07 in the game, the least among any forward other than fourth-liner MacEachern.

“He was OK,” Berube said of Kyrou. “He’s got to learn some things defensively and he’s just got to be more alert when he doesn’t have the puck, he’s got to skate harder. I think that he’s a very skilled hockey player, but he’s still in a learning phase and he’s learned a lot this year but he has still has a lot to learn going forward here, and he will. He’s a big part of our future here, and now. He’s a good player, but he was OK. He’s got to be more aware without the puck and be more assertive without the puck. And with it.”

Allen’s upJake Allen, who summed up his previous experience this postseason, a period in the warmup game with Chicago, as “brief,” will get the start on Sunday. He’s had good numbers against Dallas this season: 3-0, a 1.62 goals-against average and a .939 save percentage.

“It wasn’t really scripted,” Berube said. “We started (Jordan Binnington) the first game, we were going to do that, and we talked and decided to get Binner in against Vegas and so, this is the last game of the round robin and we want Jake to get a game, so that’s why he’s playing.”

No tiesBerube and his staff on the bench have forsaken the coats and ties they normally wear in favor of zippered jackets in blue or gray.

Berube said there really wasn’t a lot of thought put into it.

“We talked around the league as coaches and a number of them talked about doing it, but there’s only three teams doing it,” Berube said, revealing that he’s been keeping an eye on the competition. “Our general manager is fine with it. He thought it was a good idea and so did we, so that’s the only reason. There’s not much thought process into it.”

The other head coaches to go without ties on the bench are Rick Tocchet of Arizona and John Tortorella of Columbus.

In other fashion news, Zach Sanford showed up for his availability wearing a gray St. Louis Cardinals cap, while Sammy Blais had a black cap that just read “314.” 1190618 St Louis Blues During the regular season, the teams played five times, with the Blues going 4-0-1 in those games.

“We had some really good games in St. Louis,” Stars interim coach Rich Blues hope players-only meeting leads to course correction Bowness said. “Even that last game, I know we lost in a shootout but we had a couple breakaways. We had a great breakaway in overtime, we could have easily won that game.”

Jim Thomas That was a 4-3 shootout loss to the Blues on Feb. 29 at Enterprise Center. Three weeks earlier in St. Louis, Dallas claimed a 3-2 overtime

victory on a Roope Hintz goal. EDMONTON, Alberta — After an 0-2-2 stretch in October, the Blues “We need to play against St. Louis like we did when we were in St. used an off-day for a players-only meeting to discuss how to get back on Louis,” Bowness said. course. In Edmonton, the Stars have picked up where they left off in March They defeated Colorado the next night 3-1, reeling off nine victories in 10 before the coronavirus pause — losing games and failing to generate games. That marked the first big push on the way to the Central Division much offense. title and the top record in the Western Conference. They lost their last six games of the regular season (0-4-2), getting shut Fast forward to the present. The Blues are 0-for-Edmonton so far, losing out twice and getting outscored 17-9. Including their exhibition game, three games if you count the exhibition loss to Chicago, and being they are 0-3 in Edmonton, getting shut out twice and getting outscored outscored 13-5 in the process. 11-3. It adds up to a nine-game winless streak at 0-7-2 for a team that When’s the last time the Blues lost three straight games in regulation? finished 26th in scoring this season at 2.58 goals per game. Well, it never happened during the regular season. The Blues did have a “Yeah, I think they’ll be desperate,” Berube said. “I think they’re in a five-game winless streak in early-to-mid February, but had two overtime similar situation with us. I don’t think they’re very happy with their game, losses in that skid. either. Knowing that team, and playing against them, coaching against So no matter how you feel about the importance of round-robin hockey, them for a number of years, they’re competitive guys over there and what’s happened here to date is unacceptable to the coach or the they’re gonna be ready to go.” players. The Blues simply haven’t been themselves on the ice. Bowness sees it the same way: “They’re kind of like us, trying to search With that in mind, it’s not surprising that the team held a players-only and find their game. I watched their game against Vegas the other night; meeting here on their off day Friday. it just didn’t look like they were on top of their game, either.”

“It’s always good when you get the whole group together and have a talk So there you have it. Two unhappy teams, trying to find their game — with everyone, and kind of get everyone on the same page,” Zach before it’s too late. Sanford said. “Especially with the veterans and the leaders we have on our team, they always have good input.” St Louis Post Dispatch LOADED: 08.09.2020 Sanford said it’s especially valuable for younger players like himself to hear what the veterans are seeing and thinking.

“Hopefully, we all took the same thing out of it and we’re on the same page going into (Sunday),” Sanford added.

Leadership shouldn’t always come just from the coaching staff, so Craig Berube was glad to see the players take the initiative.

“Players, they’re not happy with their game right now,” Berube said. “It’s a good thing. It’s good leadership I think by our leaders.”

The Blues close round-robin play with a 2 p.m. (Central) start Sunday against the Dallas Stars at Rogers Place. If the Blues win, they get the No. 3 seed in the West and face Calgary in the Round of 16 next week. If they lose, they get the No. 4 seed and face Vancouver.

More importantly, the Blues want to get back to being the Blues. Berube wants to see the intensity and “compete” level turned up several notches. It’s time to crank it up because the real hockey is right around the corner. The Dallas contest serves as the final dress rehearsal.

“It’s important to go out on a good note, for sure,” Berube said. “We want to win the game. We gotta obviously play better. Looking for a better game all-around — a 60-minute game start to finish. Just better play. Better play with the puck, better play without the puck.”

Other than in goal and Ivan Barbashev back in St. Louis for the birth of his first child, the Blues are expected to employ their regular lineup against Dallas. Vladimir Tarasenko and Robert Thomas, who both sat out the Vegas game, will return to action according to Berube.

“Everyone knows how good we can be,” Sammy Blais said. “We haven’t really showed that yet, but we have one more game to improve and I think everyone’s gonna be ready to go.

“We were always the team that works the hardest on the ice, but we haven’t done that yet. I think (Sunday), our main goal is gonna be to be the hardest-working team on the ice and just build our game for the playoffs.”

The Blues have seen a lot of the Dallas Stars over the past year or so. Obviously there was the dramatic playoff series last season, won on Pat Maroon’s double-overtime goal in Game 7. This preseason, they played twice. 1190619 St Louis Blues

Blues-Stars game Sunday will be televised on Channel 5

Dan Caesar

NBC has exercised its right to nationally televise Sunday’s Blues-Stars game. Therefore it will be shown locally on KSDK (Channel 5) instead of Fox Sports Midwest. Coverage begins at 2 p.m.

Blues roster, salaries and player profiles

NHL live odds and latest line

Updated: NHL scores and schedule

While the Blues had plenty of games on NBCSN, this will be the first time in the 2019-20 season the defending Stanley Cup champions have been on a national over-the-air network.

St Louis Post Dispatch LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190620 Tampa Bay Lightning

Lightning lose to Flyers, settle for No. 2 seed

Staff Report

Tampa Bay will play the winner of Sunday’s game between Toronto and Columbus.

The Lightning’s final round-robin game, a 4-1 loss to the Flyers on Saturday night, did not come without a cost.

Tampa Bay started the contest without defenseman Jan Rutta — who missed Friday’s practice after blocking a shot against the Bruins on Wednesday — and lost Victor Hedman after the Norris Trophy finalist seemed to hurt his right ankle in the first period. He left the game and didn’t return.

With the loss, the Lightning settled for the No. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. They will meet the winner of Sunday’s qualifier elimination game between the Maple Leafs and Blue Jackets in the first round, which starts Tuesday.

“I thought there was some pretty big positives in our game, so you can take that, but, you know, I still think we need to kind of play a full 60 (minutes),” said right wing Tyler Johnson, who scored the Lightning’s goal. “You know, I think we knocked some rust off and played some really good teams, got a couple wins there, and then obviously the last night. But, you know, I think we’re excited for the challenge.”

The Flyers got on the board first, as Nicolas Aube-Kubel scored twice in the first 14 minutes.

Johnson finally put Tampa Bay on the board early in the second period with a power-play goal, sneaking the puck past Philadelphia’s Carter Hart.

Brayden Point passed the puck along the boards to Alex Killorn, who was standing just behind the left goal post. Killorn passed in front of the crease as Johnson crept down the slot.

The goal was Johnson’s second of the postseason. He passed Steven Stamkos and moved into third place among the Lightning’s all-time playoff scoring leaders with 54 points.

The Flyers restored their two-goal lead before the end of the second period on a goal from Joel Farabee, who was left alone in front of Andrei Vasilevskiy and one-timed a shot from the right faceoff circle.

Philadelphia capped off the night with an empty-net goal with less than 1:30 remaining in the game.

Stamkos didn’t play in the game, sidelined by a leg injury suffered in voluntary workouts before training camp last month. He missed all three round-robin games for playoff seeding and is uncertain for the playoffs’ start.

Tampa Bay Times LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190621 Tampa Bay Lightning spurs the offense and the defensive side of the game, the power play.

Players can step into each of those roles — McDonagh and Cernak likely Lightning’s Victor Hedman injured, leaves game in first period would become the top pair; Braydon Coburn or could return to the lineup; can play on the first power-play unit — but the question is if they could collectively add up to what Hedman can do. By Diana C. Nearhos “Right now, it looks like Victor Hedman is in a lot of trouble,” NBC analyst Published Yesterday Keith Jones said on an intermission report of the network’s broadcast of Updated 4 hours ago the game. “You go up against Toronto or Columbus without Victor Hedman or Steven Stamkos and you’re in a world of hurt.”

With the loss giving the Lightning the No. 2 seed in the East, their first- Victor Hedman made a move that happens countless times in a game. round playoff opponent will be the winner of the Blue Jackets-Maple And it may cost him a chance to start the playoffs with the Lightning. Leafs series, which will be decided today in Game 5 of their best-of-five qualifier series (8 p.m., NBCSN). The star defenseman left Saturday’s 4-1 round-robin loss to the Flyers in Toronto that gave Philadelphia the top seed for the Eastern Conference Stamkos’ availability to start the playoffs also is unclear. During voluntary playoffs. Hedman appeared to injure his right ankle in the first period and workouts before training camp last month, he incurred an injury didn’t return. connected to his recovery from the core muscle surgery and didn’t play in any of the three round-robin games. His frustration was obvious. If the pain on Hedman’s face wasn’t clear enough, smashing his stick against the wall as he made his way down While the Lightning have other talented forwards who can help fill the the tunnel to the locker room made his feelings apparent. hole Stamkos leaves — and Mitchell Stephens has stepped up, granted a spot in Stamkos’ absence — Hedman’s breadth of impact is harder to “When Victor, your perennial Norris Trophy finalist every year, is out that replace. creates a hole,” coach Jon Cooper said. “But we’ve dealt with injuries before — our captain (Steven Stamkos) is out; he’s been out for a long “Last year, we saw what happens when Hedman is out of the lineup time (since core muscle surgery in March) — and it’s a little frustrating against Columbus,” Jones said. because we feel like we’re going in the right direction and then to lose some of the star power we have.”

The Lightning didn’t have Hedman in full form at the end of last season, Tampa Bay Times LOADED: 08.09.2020 either. He missed the final games of the regular season, then didn’t look like himself in the first two games of the playoffs before leaving the lineup again as the Lightning was swept by the Blue Jackets in the first round.

On his fourth shift of the game Saturday, Hedman pivoted from skating forward to backward, to keep up with Flyers forward Tyler Pitlick entering the Lightning zone. It’s an innocuous move. There was nothing obviously different about this time.

But his skate appeared to catch on the ice and his right ankle twisted, taking the brunt of Hedman’s 229 pounds.

He took an extra couple of seconds to get up before heading to the bench. During the TV timeout a few minutes later, Hedman got on the ice briefly to test the ankle. He returned to the bench, grimacing as he tried to put weight on the leg.

Grimace might not be a strong-enough word for the expression of pain on Hedman’s face as he spoke with athletic trainers Tom Mulligan and Mikey Poirier.

Poirier and Hedman left the bench for the locker room at Scotiabank Arena, Hedman pausing along the way to give his stick three strong whacks.

If Hedman’s injury is a sprain, he could take weeks to recover. Speaking earlier in the week about Ondrej Palat’s high ankle sprain last season, Cooper said he considered the standard “four to six weeks” to be more like “four to six months” for full recovery.

The size of the hole Hedman’s absence leaves in the lineup is obvious. His status as a finalist for the Norris Trophy, given to the defenseman of the year, for the third straight season gives some indication.

“If he can’t start the playoffs, it really creates urgency to tighten up their team game,” Lightning play-by-play broadcaster told the Tampa Bay Times. “No freewheeling Norris Trophy winner to control play all over the ice. Forwards have to support the play consistently. Bear down on special teams to maximize key situations.”

Hedman averages almost four more minutes a game than anyone else on the roster, in part because he plays in all situations.

“It’s a tough, tough job to fill, but we have to do it collectively,” defenseman said. “It’s not just going to be one person coming in and and trying to emulate Victor Hedman.”

Ryan McDonagh and Erik Cernak are the shutdown pair that often takes on an opponent’s top line, but Hedman is the one that sets the tone. He 1190622 Tampa Bay Lightning But this point cannot be overlooked: Vasilevskiy had a chance to rescue the Lightning, and he never did. He

never made the game-changing save, he never put the Lightning on his The Lightning will go as far as Andrei Vasilevskiy takes them back and won a series-changing game. Combined with Games 6 and 7 losses to Washington in the Eastern Conference final in 2018, he was riding a six-game postseason losing streak.

By John Romano “The goalie’s job is obviously to make those big saves, but the team has to come up with its ‘A’ game, too,” Jean said. “The whole thing doesn’t Published Yesterday just rely on the goaltending. Goaltending is part of the solution. And I Updated Yesterday think ‘Vasy’ has shown he can bring that type of hockey in the playoffs.”

That was evident through the first two games of the round-robin tournament in Toronto. Vasilevskiy had some trouble covering rebounds He has been good, no doubt about that. He was 20 years old when he and deflections, but those are the kind of plays that are difficult to came off the bench to win Game 2 of the Stanley Cup final against the simulate in practice after a four-month layoff. Blackhawks in 2015. He was 23 when he led the NHL in shutouts, and 24 when he accepted the Vezina Trophy as the game’s best goaltender. “I’ve been really happy with Vasy’s game. He’s looked confident in the net,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “You look at his third periods in But has Andrei Vasilevskiy been as good as you expected? Or as good (the first two) games; that’s when you need your goalie and he’s been as the Lightning have needed? there for us.”

The questions are undoubtedly unfair. Mostly because they are borne of The official start of Tampa Bay’s postseason is just days away. Vasilevskiy’s enormous potential. He is so talented that you have come to expect otherworldly performances and are disappointed when he is How will we recall Andrei Vasilevskiy? merely grand.

So, tell me, is that his fault, or is it ours? Tampa Bay Times LOADED: 08.09.2020 Either way, Vasilevskiy, 26, has a chance in the coming weeks to shape perceptions to his liking, for it is the Stanley Cup playoffs where goaltender legacies are typically written.

Now it’s true, Vasilevskiy still has plenty of years ahead of him. Dominik Hasek and Tim Thomas didn’t win the Stanley Cup until they were 37 and 36. But the window of opportunity is not going to remain open forever in Tampa Bay, and the Lightning already have fallen short more times than you would care to remember. This isn’t do-or-die for Vasilevskiy’s career, but it’s a pivotal moment on his journey.

“Every discussion we have, every adjustment we make is to put ourselves in a better spot to win the next game,” said goaltending coach Frantz Jean. “The championship is at the end of a long playoff road, so what we want is to win the next playoff game and slowly advance towards our objective. You don’t look at a player’s legacy until the player is done.

“It’s very hard to coax a legacy out of a player while he’s still playing.”

Nevertheless, a couple dozen postseason games often create a goaltender’s greatest legacy. A skater might have a few bad shifts, or even a few bad periods, and it isn’t as noticeable. But a single slip or one great game by a goaltender can shift the direction of an entire series.

For instance, how do you recall Nikolai Khabibulin in Tampa Bay?

He was a big-money acquisition who was never close to being the league’s top goaltender during his three full seasons here. In Khabibulin’s third season he surrendered a lot of playing time to backup John Grahame, who had a better goals-against average, a better save percentage and a better winning percentage. If that had been the extent of his time here, Khabibulin would have been a massive disappointment.

And yet, his place in Tampa Bay lore is forever secure because of the 2004 Stanley Cup run. After getting three shutouts in 55 regular-season games, Khabibulin got three more in the first-round series against the Islanders. His 2.33 goals-against average in the regular season was in the middle of the pack, but he had a spectacular 1.71 average in 26 postseason games. His save percentage went from .910 to .933.

That’s the type of legacy Vasilevskiy is capable of creating. In fact, Vasilevskiy has a chance to be even greater. There have only been a half-dozen goaltenders in the past 20 years to have won a Cup and a Vezina Trophy. When you start talking about multiple Vezina Trophies — which is certainly within Vasilevskiy’s grasp — then you’re talking about and Martin Brodeur.

It’s premature to lump Vasilevskiy anywhere near that conversation, but he has that potential. And he needs more postseason success to make it happen. Especially after what went down last year.

To be sure, the first-round debacle against Columbus in 2019 was not Vasilevskiy’s fault. The defense in front of him was shaky, and the star forwards vanished in crunch time. 1190623 Tampa Bay Lightning

Lightning continue to honor Community Heroes

Staff Report

TAMPA — The question was not if, but how. The Lightning always knew they’d recognize their remaining seven Community Heroes.

Before the season was paused in March due to the coronavirus, the organization hoped to continue the feature at live, sold-out games. The next plan was to do so at live games in an empty . When it became clear there would be no games at their home arena, the Lightning needed new ideas.

Not wanting to save these seven heroes for next season, the organization decided to take a page from its lockout book.

“When we realized we weren’t going to be able to honor them in game, we decided to, since the hero can’t come to us, we are going to them,” Lightning Foundation executive director Elizabeth Frazier said.

She, team CEO Steve Griggs and other representatives are visiting the Heroes on site, learning more about the work they do and then presenting the giant check there, instead of at the arena.

It’s not the same as sharing the video and making the presentation in front of a captive audience at Amalie, but the benefit is learning more about the organizations.

Of the non-profits they visited, Frazier had only been to one previously. She has a wide network of organizations through the Community Hero program as well as the foundation’s other work and enjoys being able to connect groups that can help each other.

She and others in the Lightning toured 1Voice Foundation in Brandon, the area’s only private pediatric cancer research lab, to honor Cameron Tebbi. Since then, they recognized DJ Reyes at Bay Legal Services (a nonprofit law firm), Mike Alstott at the Mike Alstott Foundation (which provides experiences for children in the hospital), Bruce DeGrace at Neighborly Care (an adult day center), David Siracusa at Religious Community Services (a homelessness, hunger and domestic violence crisis center), and Alan Bomstein outside Amalie Arena.

There is one more hero to be recognized, but they have elected to wait due to the pandemic. The donation has already been made to the selected non-profit, but will be announced at a later date.

In all, the Lightning Foundation made donations to 13 non-profits on behalf of the last seven heroes. The program passed the $20 million milestone this year and will finish the season having recognized 406 people.

Tampa Bay Times LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190624 Tampa Bay Lightning every year is out, that creates a hole. We’ve dealt with injuries before. Our captain has been out for a long time. It’s a little frustrating because we feel like we’re going in the right direction, and to lose some of the star power we have, we’ve got to circle the wagons.” Why ‘cornerstone’ defenseman Victor Hedman is one player Lightning can’t lose The fact Zach Bogosian has looked — and felt — as good as he has since he signed in late February is a good sign that he can provide some depth. You could plug him in on the right side of the third pair with Coburn, giving more minutes to the McDonagh-Erik Cernak shutdown By Joe Smith pair and the Sergachev-Kevin Shattenkirk pair. McDonagh also played a little with Bogosian on Saturday night after Hedman’s injury. Cernak played 20:18, Bogosian played 19:01 and Shattenkirk 20:27. The way Lightning coach Jon Cooper describes Victor Hedman’s impact on his team, there’s no subtlety in the Norris Trophy winner’s “You know you have to manage the game a little bit as a D-core,” significance. Shattenkirk said. “You can’t take too many chances, you’ve got to make sure you’re pacing it out. You’re able to play more and feel the game out “As Heddy goes, we go,” he said. a little bit more, put in situations you’re not normally in. We rolled with it.

So when Hedman awkwardly fell to the ice during Saturday’s first period, “It’s a lot of minutes against other teams’ top players. It’s not going to be appearing to twist his right ankle, there was a collective cringe by the one person coming in trying to emulate (Hedman). We all have to do it as team’s fan base. And when Hedman frustratingly slammed his stick four a group. We’re all asked to do a little bit more, and we’re collectively times against the boards on his way into the dressing room, you had to ready for that.” wonder if the Cup favorite’s chances disappeared with him into the bowels of an empty Scotiabank Arena. McDonagh, who said he feels fully recovered after breaking his foot late this season, looks like he’s ready to step into the No. 1 defenseman role. The Lightning can overcome the long-term loss of many players. Captain Sergachev, who has earned the coaching staff’s trust in more situations Steven Stamkos (lower body) is still out and questionable for the start of since midseason, likely will get some tougher matchups and more the playoffs. They could make up for Nikita Kucherov’s absence, even special-teams duties. The forward group is going to have to help out and ’s. tighten up, knowing there will be no Hedman to erase their mistakes. As Norris Trophy favorite Roman Josi said, Hedman is “the most complete But if there’s no Hedman, there’s a good chance there’s no hockey holy defenseman in the league.” grail coming back to Tampa. As for what Hedman’s injury is, we don’t know for sure. It could be a “He’s pretty much the cornerstone of our back end,” defenseman Kevin high-ankle sprain, in which case he’d be out several weeks. Cooper Shattenkirk said. referenced that type of injury earlier this week when talking about Ondrej Cooper said Saturday night that he didn’t know how long Hedman would Palat, pointing out that the usual four-to-six-week timeline is more like be out, with more evaluation likely to come on Sunday’s off-day. The four to six months. There’s a chance it’s not as bad as it looks, in which Lightning managed to play well after the Swede left before falling 4-1 to case Hedman would be back sooner. the Flyers in their final round-robin game. Tampa Bay will face either There’s still plenty of firepower and talent on this Lightning roster. Vezina Columbus (wouldn’t that be fun) or Toronto in the first round, depending Trophy winner Andrei Vasilevskiy looked good overall in these three on which team wins Game 5 on Sunday night. round-robin games and can keep the team in any game or series. The The good news for the Lightning is that veteran defenseman Ryan top line of Palat-Point-Kucherov has been dominant, helping make up for McDonagh looks better than he has all season, playing 26 minutes the absence of Stamkos, who is out indefinitely. Saturday night. The same with fellow left-shot Mikhail Sergachev, who But you can argue that Hedman is the team’s most important, and has emerged as a two-way force and is the likely replacement for irreplaceable, player. You can hold down the fort without him. But it’s Hedman on the team’s top power-play unit. This is the deepest team the hard to imagine the Lightning hoisting the Cup. Lightning have had in the past 10 years. They’ve got a Rocket Richard Trophy winner (Stamkos), a Hart Trophy winner (Kucherov), a Vezina Trophy winner (Andrei Vasilevskiy) and a Selke Trophy candidate (). The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020

But for how much Hedman controls the game and plays in every situation (team-high 24 minutes), he’s impossible to replace. The Lightning found that out the hard way against Columbus last spring, when Hedman didn’t seem fully healthy to start the series, then got re-injured in Game 2 of the stunning sweep.

“If you go up against Columbus or Toronto without Victor Hedman or Steven Stamkos, you’re in a world of hurt,” NBCSN analyst Keith Jones said Saturday at the first intermission. “Last year, we saw what happens when Hedman is out of the lineup.”

“If I had to pick, Steven Stamkos is a player you can go without,” said former NHL forward , another NBCSN analyst. “Victor Hedman, you definitely can’t.”

The Lightning won two of three round-robin games coming out of the pause, beating the Bruins and Capitals. They showed they had the type of physical “no backdown attitude” they might have lacked in the past and the kind of mental toughness that could propel them through all types of challenges. But this would be one heck of a hurdle to start a playoff run, having to take on the firepower of the Leafs (who just scored three goals in less than four minutes to force a Game 5) or try to exorcise the demons of Columbus. The fact Hedman’s regular partner during the season, Jan Rutta, is “unfit to play,” according to Cooper, adds to the problem, likely thrusting Braydon Coburn into the lineup.

“That’s a big part of our D-core,” Cooper said, “I’m sure you asked the players the same questions, and I think all their answers reflect the way that I think. It’s hard when you lose your teammate, and we don’t know how long he’s going to be out. When your perennial Norris Trophy finalist 1190625 Toronto Maple Leafs We still don’t know if firing Babcock was the right idea. If the Leafs end up losing this series, it wasn’t. They could’ve lost just as easily with Babcock playing the fourth line all night as you did with Sheldon Keefe giving the kids the keys to the car. Leafs pull a rabbit out of the hat If Babcock was the one going down here, that would’ve given management the freedom to fire him in the off-season and start fresh. There are no more fresh starts now. Now now and not ever. CATHAL KELLY A side-effect of firing Babcock – one no one will start seriously PUBLISHED AUGUST 7, 2020 considering until this season is done one way or the other - is introduce UPDATED 19 HOURS AGO the concept of ‘change’ into this Leafs team for the first time.

Until now, there was faith that time would do the trick. As the young core got older, it would get better. More important, it would become more Auston Matthews and his Toronto Maple Leafs teammates celebrate his mature, less flaky, less likely to turtle once things got tough. game winning goal at 13:10 in overtime to defeat the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-3 in Game Four of the Eastern Conference Qualification Round That impression now depends entirely on one game – Sunday’s decider. at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Aug. 7, 2020. If the Leafs take it, they have – huzzah! – won a (faux) playoff series. Once again, the Toronto Maple Leafs are playing their dangerous game. There is only one city in the world where that allows a squad full of luxuriously rewarded superstars to celebrate like they’ve achieved That game isn’t hockey. The Leafs play that all the time, at wildly something, and fortunately the Leafs play in it. disparate levels of skill and engagement. Maybe there’s something to the ‘monkey on the back’ theory. Maybe the On Friday night, they had one of their ‘Oh, sorry, I didn’t realize we were Leafs just have to get off the launch pad in order to break orbit. It’s that getting paid to do this’ games. After sleepwalking through the first 56 sort of magical thinking that makes this market simultaneously the best minutes of play, Toronto woke up in the final four. and worst in the world.

Down three goals? No problem. But since this is a newspaper column, let’s focus on worst-case scenarios. Having given people hope, let’s say the Leafs lose. Let’s say Pull the goalie and go to town? Just like they drew it up in practice. they lose badly – either blown out or (worse) on some horrible lapse in An overtime winner? Auston Matthews, obviously. the final minutes of the game.

It says something wonderful and awful about the past decade of Toronto That will make people angry. For the first time in a while, it will make hockey that this 4-3 win was probably the best game of all of it. them angry enough that they expect the team to change. The top guy on most hit lists will be (insert Goat-du-Jour here). He’s a) been largely Now we move on to Sunday and what would represent the greatest invisible in this series; b) makes a lot of money, which bothers people playoff triumph in recent Leafs history. Admittedly, that’s not a high bar. and c) has the sort of contract that can be moved. It’s not even a bar. But it would be something. This isn’t because people think the Goat-du-Jour is to blame for this still- But that dangerous game the Leafs are playing is flirting with theoretical loss. He isn’t. It’s because they want the team to prove to competence. If the Leafs manage that – and I would strongly caution them they feel bad for losing, and the easiest way to do that is by them to think very hard about this next step – that will create punishing someone for it. expectations. The Leafs aren’t going to trade Goat-du-Jour because they know to a Those expectations will continue to grow in the next few hours. Should certainty that they are not getting back as much quality as they’ve giving they lose on Sunday, those now quite large expectations will become away. And, more important, because they don’t want to start going down bitterness. And bitterness is what turns the hockey audience in Toronto the road of giving angry fans what they want. Once you start that, you into a frothing mob. can’t stop.

Everyone on this Leafs team not named Morgan Rielly has never seen Then people get really upset. this town when it gets like this. For the past few years, they’ve had a soft ride. ‘Lost again? I bet that hurts. You’ll be better next time, champ. We And now Shanahan and Dubas find themselves where so many of their believe in you.’ predecessors ended up – fighting off their own fanbase as well as their opponents. The Leafs have never given anyone a reason to believe. They continue to make the same mistakes, lose the same sorts of games and trot out This is how expectations get you in trouble. The Leafs created some exactly the same excuses. ‘Just didn’t have it’; ‘disappointed in huge ones on Friday night. Now they have until Sunday to clean this ourselves’; ‘try to learn from this and come back better’. mess up.

And people have accepted that.

Much of that is connected to the primary philosophy that management Globe And Mail LOADED: 08.09.2020 has banged into the heads of Toronto fans – that they will no longer trade players or fire coaches just because you are upset. This is the team you’ve got, so like it or lump it.

This has been the key virtue of the era – stability. But at a certain point, if you haven’t made any progress, stability begins to look like stasis.

One thing changed this year. The club broke its own rule. Firing made it clear that the Leafs will make major changes if enough pressure is applied.

Unusually, in that case, Babcock was the one applying the pressure. He was asked to make small changes to his style and refused. What had come off as self-belief early in his tenure now began to resemble egoism and pig-headedness. And so an example was made.

History teaches us that after you’ve made an example of one person, you tend to make a few more before you’ve finished. 1190626 Toronto Maple Leafs Scottsdale — Matthews ranked 58th and Marner 66th in average playoff ice time.

They’ve both justified the increased responsibility with some timely The Miracle of Game 4 might be the push the Maple Leafs need for injections of skill and big-play wizardry. But they’ve also both been spotty Game 5 presences in the opening four games. Whether that’s a function of the need to pace oneself in the face of a league-topping workload, or whether it’s the reality of playing big minutes against one of the best defensive teams in the league, their performances in this series will By Dave Feschuk Sports Columnist ultimately be coloured by Sunday’s result. Ditto Morgan Rielly, who has Sat., Aug. 8, 2020 played an average of 28:19 a game, more than any bubble defenceman not named Seth Jones, and who has seen some wild downswings in his mostly excellent performance.

Now that the Maple Leafs have had an adrenaline-fueled night to revel in Columbus captain Nick Foligno, for his part, insisted his team’s late- their unfathomable comeback, here comes the undeniable truth. It’s the game collapse wouldn’t “faze” its “resilient” group of players. nature of sports history that the Miracle of Game 4 only becomes iconic if the series gets closed out. “I’m looking forward to making a good memory (in Game 5),” Foligno said. Legends aren’t built on playoff bow-outs. So just as Toronto’s star players delivered a flurry of goals to turn a 3-0 dying-moments deficit into Marner said the key for the Leafs is to avoid the self-inflicted damage a 4-3 overtime win in Friday’s Game 4, it’ll be on Toronto’s star players to that’s put them in difficult situations all season. seal the deal in Sunday’s decisive Game 5. “We can’t beat ourselves,” he said. “We know that we can play a great Win and the Leafs will be among 16 teams remaining in the hunt for the defensive game when we put our minds to it — back-checking-wise, Cup. They’ll be winners of a post-season series, of a sort, for the first forechecking, not giving them a whole lot coming up the ice … That’s time since 2004. Maybe more important, they’ll be breakers of the recent something we’ve got to have in our minds.” franchise habit of underperforming when the stakes overwhelm. This is a team, of course, whose collective mind has been known to Lose and the Leafs risk furthering their reputation as a talent-stacked wander. As veteran defenceman Cody Ceci explained back in January, in tease of a team — one with an amazing tendency to perform dazzlingly attempting to achieve teamwide buy-in on the defensive side of the puck, when it’s pushed to the brink, yet somehow can’t seem to find a way to Keefe has long been partaking in a delicate dance. push itself over a finish line unprodded. “We’re still trying to eliminate the stuff we’re giving up … but you don’t Maybe that’s unfair in some eyes. This has already been a zany opening want to bore the skill guys, either,” Ceci said. “(If the skill players are week of competition in the NHL bubble, where the only thing that’s been asked to play too defensively) they can fall into a lull like they’re not predictable has been Columbus coach John Tortorella’s clockwork accomplishing much.” childishness in post-defeat media conferences. Indeed, even with playoff advancement at stake, sometimes it’s as The NHL’s midsummer return to play is about mitigating the massive though the Leafs have needed to be snapped out of that lull and loudly financial losses wrought by the coronavirus, and providing some reminded they’re in a hockey game that counts. Keefe can only hope the welcome entertainment in the midst of a pandemic. But it’s certainly not buzz of an all-time comeback — not to mention the burden of heavy ice about fairness. Consider the Pittsburgh Penguins and Edmonton Oilers, time for the big guns — will keep that not-inconsequential fact top of mind two of the four teams bounced from the bubble on Elimination Friday. come Sunday night. The Miracle of Game 4 could sure use a mindful Those two clubs spent a five-month regular season compiling the Game 5 from the Leafs to make the kind of good Toronto hockey seventh- and 12th-best records in the league, only to be eliminated in memory that’s long overdue. best-of-five series by Montreal and Chicago, respectively — the eighth- and ninth-worst teams, and playoff no-hopers before the shutdown. Neither the Penguins nor the Oilers were gifted anything resembling a Toronto Star LOADED: 08.09.2020 home advantage for their regular-season superiority — just the randomness-infused reality of the wrong end of a short series. The losers’ only consolation now is a respective one-in-eight chance at the No. 1 pick in the NHL draft lottery on Monday.

And maybe, for the Penguins, in a week that’s seen franchise cornerstone Sidney Crosby turn 33, that can be spun as a win. But for the Oilers and Leafs, whose best players are about a decade younger and infinitely less competitively decorated than Pittsburgh’s No. 87, the time is now. And this tournament, no matter its various inanities, is a proving ground, if not a conventional one.

“That’s when you find out who’s who,” Tortorella told reporters in a less trying moment before the series began, speaking of the kind of do-or-die hockey that’ll be played on Sunday. “This is an added pressure. And some guys just want it, and they revel in it. Other guys shrink … That’s mental, to me. That’s not physical. That’s a mental toughness, to be able to handle these types of situations.”

If Game 5 will be a test of mental toughness — not to mention the usual spin of the roulette wheel of bounces and puck luck and goaltending fortune — Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe also figures to turn it into a measure of his star players’ physical endurance. Keefe has been playing his best players like management is paying them: boatloads. Game 4 overtime hero Auston Matthews is averaging 25:41 a game in ice time. Mitch Marner is clocking 25:01. There isn’t a forward in the league that’s been getting more run since play resumed. Which, of course, marks a sea change in philosophy from Keefe’s predecessor, Mike Babcock. Last post-season under the latter, Matthews and Marner averaged around 20 minutes a game, with Marner ranking 19th among forwards and Matthews 32nd. Two post-seasons ago — in the lead-up to a summer that required Babcock to make a house call to the Matthews abode in 1190627 Toronto Maple Leafs “Just the effort and the commitment that we’re seeing from some guys that I think are at a higher level than what we’ve seen from them before, and that’s what we’ve been asking for,” said Keefe Saturday. “Those are the types of things that I’m saying that we deserve. But that’s playoffs, After Leafs captain John Tavares and William Nylander, centre, scored right? I mean, on the other side, they have many players that they’d feel late in regulation, Auston Matthews beat Jackets goalie Elvis Merzlikins the same way, and they feel the same way about their team. It’s such a to start the Game 4 celebration in overtime late Friday. fine line between winning and losing, and that’s just the way that goes.

“We’ve seen really good progress in the areas that we’ve wanted to improve upon, from the beginning of camp. I feel like that’s given us a By Bruce Arthur Columnist chance to win games. And we’ll bring as much of that as we can here to Sat., Aug. 8, 2020 this final game, and look to bring the whole thing together.”

It doesn’t seem like the highest bar, but it’s the reality of a wildly talented team that is still developing the right habits, and a mindset that would Often, we paint hockey in terms of what you deserve. How hard you mean they push long before it takes a miracle to save their year. In work, how well, how much heart and brains and teamwork you put into it. Game 4, at a point when they didn’t look like the better team, the Leafs It’s one way hockey is sold as more than a Canadian game; it’s a summoned a series of miracles. It was, despite the elation, a dangerous crucible. From there, it’s a short trip to becoming myth. way to live.

Through 55 minutes in Game 4 of their best-of-five play-in series with the Sunday night the Leafs and Blue Jackets will play Game 5, and at the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Toronto Maple Leafs might have deserved end of it one of them will be done. And after a season in which Toronto’s better. They had a few more shots on goal. The expected goals, which talent wasn’t enough to avoid having to play this game, in which they weigh where the shots come from, favoured the Blue Jackets by quite a made the same mistakes over and over again, and in which they saved bit. Toronto, somehow, had more shots from the truly dangerous areas. themselves, what do the Toronto Maple Leafs deserve? Columbus led 3-0. It’s hard to say, really. All you can say is they’re going to get it, either “I was thinking about some of the great efforts that we’ve had here in the way. last numbers of days, that we might not be rewarded for it, and I felt bad for that because I think we have had some individuals that have been really, really great through all of this,” said Leafs head coach Sheldon Toronto Star LOADED: 08.09.2020 Keefe after Toronto’s wild, season-saving 4-3 comeback win in overtime. “And it turns. You get a bounce, and it comes, and all of sudden you are getting rewarded. And you get new life.

“It would have been so disappointing, of course, for it to end the way that it was looking like it was going to. But I mean, this is a funny game. Funny, funny game. And I think there’s been times in this series where we haven’t been rewarded perhaps as we should have, and we had a little bit of good fortune today, as a result of some of our resilience.”

Indeed, then came the defining four minutes of this edition of the Leafs: three goals with the goalie on the bench, which was followed by an eventual win in overtime. It changed everything; it kept this strange season alive. Never mind that those were the only shots on goal that Toronto managed in the final 10 minutes of regulation, and that it took a six-on-five situation with Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, Morgan Rielly and Zach Hyman to do it.

“With the firepower we have with these guys, the way they can put the puck in the net, we’re never out of it,” said Jason Spezza late Friday night. “And there’s a great sense of belief in our group, and we stuck with it the whole way and got some big goals by some big players.”

In some ways, that’s been the blessing and the curse of this team, and it helps explain a lot about how they got here. If you want to zoom out, both teams have shut out the other guys, and both teams have blown three- goal leads and lost in overtime. For the series, the Leafs have 52.5 per cent of the shot attempts at five-on-five, 52.8 of the shots and nearly 56 per cent of the expected goals, even if you account for the time they have trailed in Games 1 and 4.

That’s good hockey. The wild and crazy analytics Leafs do some things differently than most, sure. But it’s all based on doing what they have done, in the big picture: put yourself on the right side of the percentages, and control what you can from that.

But they also keep making some of the same mistakes they have been making since Keefe took over in November, and go long periods where they look disconnected from each other, even flat. Some teams don’t hesitate no matter the pressure, and just know what to do; that’s how champions are made. The Leafs weren’t that, for 55 minutes.

Then they attacked, and Matthews made the right passes to both Tavares and Hyman instead of trying to be a watch-this-drive hero, and then finished it off. That was the kind of ferocious poise you need.

So what do they deserve? Keefe was asked what he thinks that means. He talked about how even when their team game or structure wasn’t what he wanted, they had worked, and some individuals hadn’t been rewarded for monster performances. And then he allowed, essentially, that’s hockey. 1190628 Toronto Maple Leafs Was it the turning point? Perhaps not. The Leafs went down 3-0 in the third before the rally saved their season. But perhaps it was, in terms of getting the team to focus on the task at hand.

Jason Spezza’s seventh NHL fight, at age 37, marked a turning point in “He wants it more than anybody,” said Hyman. “He’s been in the league Game 4 against Dean Kukan and the Blue Jackets. for so long. He was a first-line player throughout his career, an all-star, (future) Hall of Famer, and now he’s playing on the fourth line and he’s willing to drop the gloves and give our team momentum when we’re down. By Kevin McGran Staff Reporter “You can’t say enough good things about Spezza. He’s a leader on our Sat., Aug. 8, 2020 team, a huge part of our team. We all love him. It was a great play for him, and it was big for our team and we got going.”

When Jason Spezza dropped the gloves late in the second period of That was Spezza’s seventh NHL fight, according to hockeyfights.com. Game 4, the message was clear: He wasn’t going down without a fight. For the 27-year-old Kukan, from , it was his second. There were no haymakers, like in the old days of enforcers, but for fans of While he was praised up and down by his coach and teammates for hockey fights it fit the bill. Spezza’s most recent fight came against doing everything in his power to turn the game around, there was current linemate Clifford in the 2018-19 season, when Clifford was a King someone else enjoying what he was seeing: — Spezza’s and Spezza a Star. friend, former mentor and espouser of fighting in hockey. Spezza is from , where Cherry lives, and played for the “It’s what got them going. One of the players said it after the game: OHL’s Mississauga IceDogs when Cherry owned them. Spezza Spezza’s fight woke them up,” said Cherry. “He’s not a fighter, as expressed some sympathy for Cherry when he lost his job on Hockey everybody knows. He knew the team needed something to wake them Night In Canada in November — for inferring new Canadians don’t up. support war veterans, comments deemed racist and anti-immigrant by many. Cherry is carrying on with a podcast, Don Cherry’s Grapevine, and “You notice, the only time the players ever bang the boards is when monitoring the Leafs closely. there’s a fight. He’s been around a long time, and he knew the team needed something. They needed a spark, and it woke them up.” “(Spezza) said: ‘I gotta do something, I gotta wake them up,’ and by golly he did,” said Cherry. “They’re thinking: If Spezza, who’s not a fighter, can In a way, this Stanley Cup qualifying round has seen a return to the kind drop the gloves and go at his age, at least we can turn it on. I really do of tough hockey once espoused by Cherry, now deposed from his perch believe it woke them up.” on Coach’s Corner. Referees have handed out 17 five-minute majors in the qualifying round. There were only nine through four rounds of the The Leafs and Blue Jackets will meet in Game 5 Sunday at 8 p.m. playoffs last year. Cherry likes the Leafs’ chances if they play a certain way.

It may be a sign that there is a lot on the line in a shorter period of time. “When they play run-and-gun, that’s their style,” said the former hockey There is certainly a lot on the line for Spezza, who saw his team on the analyst. “When they play desperate, there’s no team better. They got to ropes and facing elimination. play desperate all the time. That’s the teams that will win. You’ve got to play desperate in the playoffs. You just can’t play a regular game. “Just trying to spark the guys,” said the 37-year-old Spezza, called Vintage by his teammates. “I think just trying to show some desperation “They saw they were down 3-0, and I love the word ‘desperate.’ They and have some push back. Sometimes without the crowd you don’t have were hungry and they were desperate and that’s why they won.” that, so just trying to create some emotion and play the role that I’m in, and just try to get everyone going. You’re just trying to do what you can The winner moves on to the next round, while the loser joins some do at this time of year.” surprising names on the sidelines, including Connor McDavid’s Oilers and Sidney Crosby’s Penguins. Spezza signed with the Maple Leafs — his hometown team — to win the Stanley Cup, not to go down in four games in the qualifying round. So, Cherry credits goalie Carey Price, for the most part, for Montreal’s upset indeed, the 17-year veteran who has seen a thing or two did what he felt of Pittsburgh. Like Spezza chasing a Cup in Toronto as his career winds he had to do. down, the 32-year-old Price is doing the same in Montreal. To a similar extent, so is the Habs’ 34-year-old captain, Shea Weber. The Leafs were trailing 2-0 when he took on Columbus defenceman Dean Kukan. His teammates noticed: standing on the bench and banging “I predicted on my podcast that that was an upset that was coming their sticks through it, and when it was over. The moment was not lost. because Price, he knows he’s 32 years old and this is his one chance at winning the Stanley Cup. If they don’t have him and Weber, they don’t “That’s a guy who’s just not wanting to go down, literally, without a fight,” win. Pittsburgh ran into a nightmare, a hot goaltender. Not much you can coach Sheldon Keefe said after the game. “It was great. It would have do when you face a hot goaltender.” been so disappointing, of course, for it to end the way it was looking like it was going to.”

The Spezza fight was perhaps overshadowed by the three goals that tied Toronto Star LOADED: 08.09.2020 the game, and the fourth that won it in overtime. But the fourth line of Spezza, Pierre Engvall and played some of its best hockey. They played in the final four minutes, too, giving the scoring heroes a rest between the William Nylander and John Tavares goals, and before the tying goal by Zach Hyman.

“That line in general was doing a lot of great things for our team, producing a lot in the offensive zone, controlling the play,” Mitch Marner said Saturday. “Spezza comes every day ready to play. It’s been great to be able to talk to him. He has all this experience. It’s been awesome to have on his team. That was a big fight. It got our team turned around and got us going.”

Spezza’s leadership and hunger to win is not lost on Keefe.

“Spezza has meant a lot to our group through this whole pause, and getting our team ready. He was very hungry to come back and play,” Keefe said Saturday. “He was not going down without leaving it all out there.” 1190629 Toronto Maple Leafs

The numbers suggest the Maple Leafs and Blue Jackets are in for a heart-stopping finish

By Mark Zwolinski Sports Reporter

Sat., Aug. 8, 2020

The Maple Leafs rebounded to beat the Blue Jackets after a miraculous four minutes in Friday night’s Game 4 of their Stanley Cup qualifying series. Now, they have to win again Sunday night to advance — ideally, for themselves and their fan base, without having to defy the odds and overcome another three-goal deficit.

With the season on the line and the team playing inconsistent hockey, here’s a look at some of the trends in this series:

OFFENCE

The Leafs hold an impressive edge in offensive zone puck possession, leading to a 156-137 advantage in shots overall and 76-61 from the slot. They trail, though, in two areas that are usually strengths: rush chances (43-39 in favour of Columbus) and rush goals (4-3 Blue Jackets). That’s the result of too many turnovers all over the ice, and dangerous passing through the middle in particular. The Blue Jackets deserve credit for hustling to match the Leafs’ speed, but they have also played out of character as one of the top cycling teams in the NHL. The Leafs have produced more chances (51-39) and goals (3-1) off the cycle, after a regular season in which they allowed the most goals in that area. There is also this to consider: The Leafs have improved dramatically throughout the series in creating quality scoring chances. They have, however, only scored the first goal once through four games.

DEFENCE

The Blue Jackets have not been as thorough as advertised defensively, despite a shutout win in Game 1. On the one hand, no playoff team makes better use of the blocked shot. Columbus has blocked just over 30 per cent of Toronto’s shots, compared to 24 per cent (still higher than expected) by the Leafs. However, the Blue Jackets have made life tougher on their goalies by allowing 41 high-danger shots against, while the Leafs have allowed 19. And perhaps the biggest concern for John Tortorella’s coaching staff heading into Game 5 should be the Columbus turnover rate: 17.9 per cent, the highest of any playoff team. Toronto is next, however, at 15.9 per cent.

GOALTENDING

The Leafs’ Frederik Andersen and the Blue Jackets tandem of Joonas Korpisalo and Elvis Merzlikins have been relatively even in terms of overall save percentage and on shots from the slot. Andersen, though, tails off dramatically on high-danger save chances: .789, with the Columbus duo sitting at a combined .902. Along with the offence of Pierre-Luc Dubois, Korpisalo and Merzlikins have given Columbus an edge. The Blue Jackets netminders have combined for 6.58 goals saved above average — the best figure among playoff teams and well above Andersen’s 3.10 mark. The stat attempts to measure goals allowed relative to expected goals against, based on the number of high-danger chances for each team. Both clubs have four goals from high-danger areas — a category where the Leafs would normally excel.

DIFFERENCE MAKERS

Leafs captain John Tavares leads all playoff performers with 12 inner-slot shots.

Dubois tops the Blue Jackets with several key stats: 11 shots, three goals, five rush chances (two resulting in goals), 13 slot passes and 2:30 of puck possession in the offensive zone.

Toronto Star LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190630 Toronto Maple Leafs

Lightning will face Leafs-Jackets winner after Flyers snatch top seed in the East

By John Wawrow The

Sat., Aug. 8, 2020

Rookie Nicolas Aube-Kubel scored twice, and the Philadelphia Flyers defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 on Saturday night to clinch the NHL Eastern Conference’s top seed through the playoffs.

The Lightning not only dropped the game in completing preliminary round-robin play with a 2-1 record, but Tampa Bay’s star defenceman Victor Hedman did not return after appearing to twist his right ankle while going down untouched midway through the first period. The Lightning did not provide any details on the 2017 Norris Trophy winner’s status except to announce he would miss the rest of the game.

Joel Farabee had a goal and assist, Tyler Pitlick scored into an empty net with 1:20 left and Carter Hart stopped 23 shots for the Flyers, who finished 3-0 in the Stanley Cup seeding round. Philadelphia didn’t allow more than one goal in also defeating Boston and Washington, and outscored opponents 11-3.

The Flyers, who entered round-robin play as the East’s fourth seed, move on to the first round next week and face the 12th-seeded Montreal Canadiens.

Montreal upset Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins in four games of their best-of-five preliminary round series. Philadelphia and Montreal have split their previous six playoff meetings, and the teams meet for the first time since the Flyers defeated the Canadiens in five games of the 2010 East finals.

Tyler Johnson scored for the Lightning, and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 26 shots. Tampa Bay was coming off a 3-2 win over Boston on Wednesday, and also had a 3-2 shootout win over Washington.

Hedman, a Norris Trophy finalist for the fourth straight year, went down as he spun around to skate backward at the Tampa Bay blue line with Pitlick driving up the right wing. Hedman then got up slowly and broke his stick while heading down the tunnel to the locker room.

Tampa Bay will enter the first round of the playoffs as the East’s second seed, and was already without captain Steven Stamkos, who has been out since sustaining a lower-body injury before the start of training camp last month.

The Lightning will face the winner of the best-of-five preliminary round series between eighth-seeded Toronto and ninth-seeded Columbus, which will be determined in Game 5 on Sunday. The Lightning were swept by the Blue Jackets in a first-round meeting last year, and after Tampa Bay won the Presidents’ Trophy. The Lighting and Maple Leafs have never met in the playoffs.

Aube-Kubel, who has seven goals in 45 career NHL games, enjoyed his first career NHL two-goal outing by staking the Flyers to a 2-0 lead by scoring less than seven minutes apart in the first period.

A Lightning turnover in their own zone led to Aube-Kubel standing in front and deflecting in Shayne Gostisbehere’s shot from inside the blue line 7:40 in.

Toronto Star LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190631 Toronto Maple Leafs Which should mean better puck management from the risk-taking Leafs and better discipline from a Columbus team that can usually frustrate with big bodies and active sticks, while staying away from penalties.

Joe Bowen's overtime Leafs goal call was loud and clear “We know we can play a great defensive game when we put our minds to it, backchecking, forechecking, not giving up a lot coming up the middle,” said Leafs forward Mitch Marner. “If we play well defensively, we’ll play well offensively and score on one of those chances. We can’t beat Lance Hornby ourselves. Aug 09, 2020 “The 3-1 lead probably is one of the scariest to have, especially if you were up 3-0. Tides turn pretty quickly.”

Joe Bowen, through the years, has been forced to tone down his delivery Columbus general manager Jarmo Kekalainen would not divulge if in a few dramatic playoff reversals for the Maple Leafs. defenceman Zach Werenski would play in Game 5 after leaving early on Friday. Game 6 against Los Angeles in 1993 comes to mind, the infamous Boston botch-up in 2013, and as recently as Thursday night of the JACKETS DON’T FEEL BLUE Columbus series when a 3-0 Leafs lead went poof. But a monster Nick Foligno was last seen Friday chewing out the ref for what he saw as moment such as Friday night, when the season was going down the an unfair stick call, going for a puck and taking out Morgan Rielly’s skate. sewer before a four-goal rally was topped by Auston Matthews in Matthews scored on the ensuing man advantage. On Saturday, the overtime, allowed Bowen to fire up his famous pipes. Columbus captain was all for moving on. People might have heard him all the way from TSN’s studio in Agincourt “You never want to be in that position to put your team in a bad spot,” where he and partner Jim Ralph broadcast on radio while watching the Foligno said. “That’s on me, but it’s a matter of understanding what got action on a 40-inch screen back at Scotiabank Arena. Many TV sports us in that spot (losing a three-goal lead) as well. That’s part of the game, shows led with the 69-year-old’s full-decibel call: “Rielly keeps the puck part of hockey. I’m looking to tomorrow. Take ownership of what in, on the wing for Tavares, in front of the net … THEY SCORE! THEY happened, put my best foot forward.” SCORE! AUSTON MATTHEWS HAS WON THE GAME! THE LEAFS WIN IT IN OVERTIME!” Foligno insisted the Jackets were upbeat at a team breakfast when they could’ve been watching the Leafs pack up at the hotel for home. If only Bowen were there in his usual perch at centre ice in the Gondola. The many who had him trending on Twitter might have “We know we have a great opportunity and we’re not going to waste this thought so. because of one game,” he said. “We sat back. They thrive on power- plays. They’re looking to get those calls, that’s their engine. For us, it’s “It’s extremely difficult when you’re trying to create excitement in a doing the things that don’t put us in that spot. vacuum,” Bowen said Saturday morning from his home. “You can’t feed off the crowd. We were also getting the (raw) sound about a second “It’s amazing what can happen when you’re forcing them to play without before the picture, so I heard the goal horn go off before I actually saw the puck. Shore that up and we’ll have a good chance to win the game.” Matthews score it.” LOOSE LEAFS Bowen, who’s been working out of TSN or Sportsnet studios as broadcast rights dictate in the series, adds that it’s hard to see if goals go Keefe let the Leafs sleep in Saturday rather than practise, but to “break in sometimes in this COVID-affected broadcast because there are no up the day” indoors, bussed them out of the bubble to Ford Performance fans leaping to their feet. Centre for a meeting … Matthews had the fifth overtime power play goal in Leafs history, says NHL stats. He joins (2017), Mats “The glass-bangers right behind the net are usually the best clue,” he Sundin and (a few days apart in 1996), then back 51 years laughed. “Sometimes you can tell the players aren’t sure the puck is in, to Frank Mahovlich against Boston. Detroit’s Herbie Lewis (1934) and too, and they’re standing around for a moment. Gerry Melnyk (1960) did it to the Leafs and most recently, Larry Robinson of Montreal in ’79 and of course, Wayne Gretzky … The league “But in normal times, Friday would’ve been an actual road game. I’m took mercy on the media Saturday and replaced terse coach John thinking it would’ve been just as quiet (at Nationwide Arena) as it was Tortorella for the daily briefing with the more affable Kekalainen. with only me, Jim and the engineer alone at our studio. Or maybe they’d have aimed that Columbus goal cannon right at me.”

Bowen, who has worked radio and TV for the team since 1982, hasn’t Toronto Sun LOADED: 08.09.2020 had many chances to let loose vocally as he did Friday since Nik Borschevsky’s OT strike in the first round of ‘93 against Detroit. Friday’s Leafs comeback of three goals in 3:34, then Matthews’ winner, was the hockey gods evening up the score just a bit.

“It’s going to be huge for this team,” Bowen said. “At some point, you have to slay the dragon, whether that meant meeting Boston face-to-face again or what happened on Friday when it looked so bad. Maybe it won’t happen for them Sunday (Game 5) and Game 4 becomes yesterday’s news. But they can really use it going forward. Sports is such a great thing in that you never know what can happen until that last second is gone.”

FLIP A COIN?

The Leafs and Jackets have each won a game both by methodical shutouts and three-goal comebacks with overtime. So, do the Leafs in particular let the horses run or circle the wagons in Game 5 on Sunday?

As thrilling as the Option No. 1 is, it would go against the conservatism that governs most deciding playoff matches.

“Certainly the last couple of games, the 3-0 lead has proved interesting,” said Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe, unable to suppress a smile. “But we’ve come to expect that each game has its own personality. The key for us is to ride the momentum (of Game 4), but recognize it’s a fresh scoreboard and teams have had time to re-group.” 1190632 Toronto Maple Leafs And if they capitalize on those chances, we would imagine sleep will come a little easier on Sunday night.

Jason Spezza provides for the Maple Leafs off the ice — the leadership, Leafs know if they put their minds to it, they can win Game 5 the experience, the great-guy quality — let’s not forget what the 37-year- old veteran has meant on the ice in the series against Columbus.

Spezza and his fourth-line pals Kyle Clifford and Pierre Engvall have Terry Koshan been solid for the Leafs, often sustaining the kind of offensive-zone presence that helps wear down the Jackets’ defence corps. Aug 09, 2020 On Friday night during Game 4, when coach Sheldon Keefe needed to

give his stars a breather late in the stirring Toronto comeback, over the Mitch Marner tossed and turned on Friday night or, to be precise, in the boards went the fourth line. early hours of Saturday morning. “It speaks to how they were competing and the impact they’re making,” “The adrenalin does keep you up a little bit, but regardless of the Keefe said. outcome of games, it’s usually pretty hard to get to bed,” the Maple Leafs “It’s a credit to that entire line, but Spezza definitely brings a lot to our winger said on Saturday. “Last night was probably a little harder than group. most.” “It goes beyond our team. In the Players’ Association, he had a very And for good reason: The Leafs, seemingly headed for another crushing strong voice in that as well and was very hungry to come back and play.” post-season defeat, roared back with three goals in the final four minutes of Game 4 to tie the Columbus Blue Jackets 3-3, and then got the Spezza is among four Leafs, along with Clifford and defencemen Tyson overtime winner from Auston Matthews. Barrie and Cody Ceci, who will be headed for unrestricted free agency once the season is over. No heading back to the Royal York to pack their bags, leave the bubble and drag themselves home. We’ve seen nothing to suggest, whether the Leafs are done Sunday night or head to the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, that they Instead, the Leafs went into preparation mode for Game 5 of the should not bring Spezza back for 2020-21. qualifying round on Sunday night, with the winner going on to play the Philadelphia Flyers or the Tampa Bay Lightning (depending on the outcome of the round-robin match between those teams on Saturday night) in the first round of the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs. The loser will be Toronto Sun LOADED: 08.09.2020 done, and then will cross its fingers that the 12.5% chance to win the draft lottery on Monday night and choose Alexis Lafreniere first overall becomes reality.

As enticing as playing with Lafreniere would be, the Leafs and Jackets just want to keep playing deeper into August.

For Leaf coach Sheldon Keefe, there are crucial factors at play.

“It was a huge boost for us, it gives us great positive momentum, the feeling after the game was tremendous,” Keefe said of the celebrations after Game 4. “The amount of joy I saw from our team is beyond anything that I’ve seen from us. I think the moment reflected that.

“We have to bring that momentum forward, but recognize that it’s a new game. We have to have a better start than we did, and we have to recognize that the opposition is going to reset themselves.”

The prediction game can be a foolish one — one could make an argument for either team to win Game 5 — but there are encouraging signs for Keefe that have been developing through the series.

“The effort and the commitment that we’re seeing from some guys are at a higher level than what we’ve seen from them before and that’s what we’ve been asking for,” Keefe said. “On the other side, I’m sure they have many players they would feel the same way about and feel the same way about their team.

“It’s such a fine line between winning and losing. We’ve seen really good progress in the areas that we really wanted to improve upon as we started camp. I feel like that’s given us a chance to win games.”

With the Leafs headed toward elimination on Friday, the circumstances led Keefe to use John Tavares, Auston Matthews and Marner on the same line, and we know what happened. But unless the Leafs fall behind on Sunday, it didn’t sound like Keefe will go to that well again.

“As I’ve said all along, I like the look of that line, I like what it brings,” Keefe said. “It does have impact on the remainder of the lineup, so that’s something for us to consider. We haven’t spent a great deal of time on that piece of it (Saturday) as a coaching staff.”

The Leafs will be the home team for the series decider, giving Keefe last change. Rather than practise on Saturday, the players were given the day to recover and get themselves in the right head space for Game 5.

“We know that we can play a great defensive game when we put our minds to it, back-checking wise, forechecking, not giving them a whole lot coming up the ice,” Marner said. “We’ve shown it in this series and we’ve shown it in the season. We know that if we play the right way defensively, we’re going to get our chances offensively.” 1190633 Toronto Maple Leafs post-season have been Seth Jones in Columbus and Weber in Montreal. Both traded away by Poile. Imagine a defence with Jones, Weber, Josi. It’s not exactly Larry Robinson, Serge Savard and Guy Lapointe, but by today’s standards, it would be pretty darn close … I keep hearing that SIMMONS: Game 5 couldn't possibly top the previous two for drama, Dale Tallon will be out as GM of the Florida Panthers. I hope it’s not true. could it? And if it happens, I hope it’s because he wants it to happen … One secret to watching post-season hockey: Discovering a player you didn’t

know that well, who is way better than you believed him to be. My early Steve Simmons choice: Anthony Beauvillier of the New York Islanders … Nobody loves restaurants more than or TSN’s Gord Miller, working for Aug 08, 2020 NBC these playoffs and both have been smart enough to take advantage of one bubble secret: They can’t leave the bubble, but they can order in

food in from their favourite Toronto restaurants. Wonder if Tomas But two times in two nights by the same two teams? In the same building, Kaberle would deliver to the bubble from his wife’s restaurants? same pandemic? SCENE AND HEARD It’s as impossible as hockey can be. Two teams, playoff opponents, I’ve been fortunate enough to play golf with McDavid, been at blowing 3-0 leads late, losing in overtime on consecutive nights. The tournaments with him, had enough conversations with him over the years offensive star of each team scoring the winning goal both times. to see his personality, witness his sense of humour. I’ve even seen him There is no clear explanation for what happened to the Columbus Blue dancing the horah at an anniversary party. What I don’t want to see: Jackets and the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday and Friday night, McDavid doing in-game interviews. Clearly, he hates them. Clearly, he’s games won and then lost on the very same night. It was hockey at its not comfortable doing them. Those who handle his career should make it most random. clear: No more in-game interviews. It only makes him look miserable and tightly wound and he’s neither of those … No matter what happens It was heart-breaking on Thursday for the Leafs. It was worse on Friday Sunday night, this has proven to be true: The Maple Leafs were harder to for the Jackets, who were an empty-net shot away from advancing to the play against with Nazem Kadri in the lineup than they are without him … first round of the real portion of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Tyson Barrie scored 73 goals in six seasons in Colorado — an average Pierre-Luc Dubois, hero of Game 3, hat-trick scorer, had the series won of 12 goals a season playing defence. He’s had five for the Leafs, three with 98 seconds to play when he barrelled down the left wing and shot of them coming in Sheldon Keefe’s first three games as Toronto coach. from 56 feet out at the empty Leafs net. Under normal circumstances, it’s He has gone 23 games without a goal now, with no points against the an easy goal and game over for Columbus. Not only did Dubois miss, his Blue Jackets … What never made sense to me: The Leafs wanting to shot stuck on the mesh beside the goal post, causing a neutral zone trade Kadri to Calgary for T.J. Brodie, who was a pending free agent, and faceoff. Just 75 seconds later, Zach Hyman sent Game 4 into overtime. then turning around instead and trading him for Barrie and Alex Kerfoot, with Barrie being a free agent, as well. Kadri has two years left on his Instead of series over, it became game on, Sunday night. value deal in Colorado. I understand why the Leafs traded Kadri and agree with the notion of moving him. The fact that Barrie hasn’t fit in with Who knows what will happen in Game 5? How can you have any idea? the Leafs has made the deal look worse than it should have been.

After Thursday and Friday and the three-goal leads left behind, how can AND ANOTHER THING know what to think anymore? How not baseball is this? The St. Louis Cardinals have played five THIS AND THAT games this season. The Cincinnati Reds have played 14. They’re in the Before the late comeback and the crazy emotion of Friday night, this was same division … I don’t know, with hockey playoffs on television every a fair question to ask: Has any Leaf played great in this series? There night, with NBA playoffs not far from beginning, I wouldn’t mind the have been some moments, although not many before the final four occasional afternoon baseball game. There don’t seem to be many of minutes of Game 4. But individually, who was has been transformative, those these days … You can’t blame Charlie Montoyo for the lineup card the way Shea Weber and Jeff Petry were for Montreal in its round against screw-up the other night, just as you couldn’t blame for the Pittsburgh? The answer for now: Nobody …. Crazy stats: Auston lineup card mess-up when he was coaching the Leafs. So I wonder who Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander — the is filling in as the Jays’ bench coach these days, Rick Ley? … I don’t Leafs’ $40-million men — had combined for seven points in the first 10 think I ever had more fun than working the first year of sports radio at the periods against Columbus. In the final 17 minutes and seven seconds FAN1430 (Foster Hewitt’s old numbers, now 590). I had the 10-noon Friday, the four scored 10 points … Nylander had three goals in his first shift, alongside Mary Ormsby and neither of us knew what we were 20 playoff games as a Leaf. He has two in four games in the Columbus doing. I bring this up now because the delightful Ormsby worked her last series … Wow, does Boone Jenner ever work hard and does he ever day at the Toronto Star on Friday. She and her husband Paul Hunter miss a lot of great scoring opportunities for the Jackets … I’ve spent so have retired. Wishing both of them nothing but happiness and lots of time many years around Mike Babcock that he’s in my head at times. And I to blow dry their hair … This kid, , used to hang around the hear his voice, telling players that nothing happens on most shifts, and FAN back then, so did Gord Stellick, Joe Bowen, Bob McCown, you have to be patient and smart and take advantage when the Stephanie Smythe and Norm Rumack. Wonder what became of them? opportunities come. Their best players did that Friday night … I have no … I’m not crazy about a 24-team playoff round in the future, but I think problem with John Tortorella’s short post-game availability after the the NHL should look long and hard about developing some kind of all- collapse in Game 4. He had nothing to say. The questions he was asked hockey playoff format days. This has worked wonderfully well for most weren’t particularly effective. His interview ended quickly. He wasn’t rude. fans … Are you surprised by how few hockey players have taken a knee He wasn’t nasty. I do have a problem with Tortorella not being available for national anthems? I thought post-Matthew Dumba speech, more on Saturday. That’s bush … If the Leafs can’t beat Columbus, who can would comply. But you know hockey, it’s not a game of individuals. It’s a they beat? … And completely unrelated, has anyone read the novella, team game and few want to step out of what their team is doing. The Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth. A decent movie, too, with Richard Leafs wore ‘Black Lives Matter’ T-shirts because they were given to Benjamin. them. But no one has yet to take a knee … Happy birthday to Rod Laver (82), Bob Cousy (92), Ken Dryden (73) (56), Deion Sanders HERE AND THERE (50), Pat Mahomes (50) Rod Brind’Amour (50), Doug Williams (65), Marcello Simmons (49), Alvis Woods (67), Tyson Gay (38) and Sable Elimination Friday was a fabulous day of hockey and had the feel of (53) … And hey, whatever became of Frazer McLaren? excitement that comes along with a great day in the NCAA basketball tournament. That was the good part. The bad part: So long Sidney The Maple Leafs like to sell themselves as a young team. By age, they Crosby, Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Roman Josi and Evgeni Malkin. might be that. By experience, they are not. In one day, the two biggest stars in hockey were gone along with the likely Hart and Norris Trophy winners … No general manager has been This is John Tavares’ 11th big league season. This is Morgan Rielly and more bold in the trade market over the years than Nashville’s David Frederik Andersen’s seventh. Same for Cody Ceci. Jake Muzzin, now out Poile, but not only are the Predators out before the real playoffs begin, with injury, is in his ninth season and won the Stanley Cup in his second. and looked rather lost against Arizona, but among the best players in the The big money kids — Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander — are all in their fourth full-time season, as is Zach Hyman. And the fourth line has fossils such as Jason Spezza in his 17th year and Kyle Clifford in his 10th.

There is experience in almost all the key positions on the club. And when you look around the NHL, this is what you see: Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane won their first of three Cups in Chicago in their third NHL season. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin played in a Cup final for Pittsburgh before winning their first the following year: That was Year 4 for both of them. In his fourth year, Drew Doughty won in Los Angeles.

The Leafs have more than enough experience to win a Cup. Question is, do they have the right roster, the right mix of players, enough talent, enough sandpiper, enough smarts, enough battle, enough good coaching and goaltending, to win?

On Monday, some lucky NHL team will become home for Alexis Lafreniere.

And before we know which team it is, understand this: However the NHL expected its lottery draft to work out in this crazy interrupted season, they didn’t anticipate this mess.

If I were GM Steve Yzerman in Detroit, in need of talent almost everywhere, or Pierre Dorion in Ottawa or in Los Angeles, I would be furious that Lafreniere, the clear No. 1 choice and projected superstar, would be going to a team ahead of mine in the standings.

Imagine Lafreniere in Pittsburgh, for example, along with Sidney Crosby. Imagine him in Edmonton, beside McDavid or Leon Draisaitl? Imagine him with the New York Rangers, with Artemi Panarin or Mika Zibanejad? The matter is enticing for the teams eliminated in the play-in round of the post-season.

But go back in history, look what or Sidney Crosby meant to Pittsburgh, the franchise and the team. Look what Patrick Kane meant to Chicago. Look what Connor McDavid has done in Edmonton, although playoff success will be here one of these years.

The NHL needs to make certain that nothing like this can ever happen again — the wrong team winning the lottery — and hope that a team such as Minnesota winds up with Lafreniere. Now that’s a franchise in need of a star.

What an opportunity this has been for Rogers Sportsnet to strut its stuff during the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Hockey is on every day, all day in some cases. And what you’re seeing from Sportsnet are some great things and frankly, too many not so great things.

The play-by-play teams, led by and , have been top-flight. They are both top five in the industry at what they do.

The problems have come between periods, after games and occasionally leading into games. If Elliotte Friedman is on — and please, can we lose that beard? — or Brian Burke is on, or the impressive rookie, the anecdotal Kevin Bieksa is on, good stuff tends to be happening. (Although we’re not getting enough Burke — or enough Burke antagonism.)

The other panels at times, though, look and sound too much like Rogers Cable games rather than a major sports network.

All you have to do is turn to NBC between periods to see how much better their intermissions have been than what Sportsnet is offering.

Television is not easy to do well. You find only so many Ray Ferraros or Craig Buttons out there who have important things to say. Sportsnet has Friedman or Bieksa or Burke or host who do that. And , who hasn’t been on enough. But after that, the lineup is thins out.

Hockey is what we are supposed to do best on television. Sportsnet should be better than it is.

Toronto Sun LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190634 Toronto Maple Leafs “I was at Game 4 at Nationwide Arena last year when they beat the Lightning, it was incredible to be there for the first playoff series win in their history.”

Miracle on Bay St. Citizens in the former town of Newburg’s Landing and later, Sloanes Station, voted to change their name in 1881, backing civic leader Thomas M. Daniels’ assertion that the new Canadian city, then just 48, was ‘a place worth emulating’. Lance Hornby “When I’m away from home and asked where I’m from, I say Toronto and Aug 08, 2020 almost everyone says ‘you don’t sound Canadian’,” Pappas laughed in a phone interview. “But when the Raptors won, I bought a championship shirt online that included ‘Toronto, World Champions’ and I liked that play The Causeway St. Collapse in Boston might never leave the collective on words.” mindset of Leafs Nation and the current generation of players were looking at a long summer after blowing a three-goal lead on Thursday. But Pappas, a wrestler in his junior year at Fairmont State University across the water in West Virginia, admits he’s something of a rebel in But the Miracle on Bay St. will be top of mind at least a couple days and Toronto, which maintains a longer loyalty to the Penguins. a frequent reference of what this team is capable of in the crunch, no matter what happens from here. “Pittsburgh is just a half hour away,” reminded his mom, Stephanie Elverd, from behind the bar taps at Smitty’s. “If I have the Jackets game Auston Matthews finished the four-goal comeback with a power play on TV here, there’s a few people, but the bigger viewing party is for the overtime marker and a victory whoop that rattled through the empty Penguins.” building, to the rafters of retired numbers. Elverd was a sportswriter from Steubenville, Ohio, who left the business “I think this group has to be unbelievably proud of each other,” said to buy Smitty. Despite River’s attempts to back the home state NHL Matthews, the one young gun whose consistency can’t be criticized in the team, her allegiance is to Mario Lemieux. series. “I don’t know what to say … what a comeback.” “When the Jackets came into the league (in 2000), the Penguins made a In a 3:34 span in the third period, with everyone writing their obituary as big push to keep this area theirs. (Executives) Eddie Johnston and Craig part of favoured teams fall in Shocky Night In Canada, the Leafs penned Patrick came through here a lot.” their own chapter of standing tall in adversity. Matthews had two assists, Mitch Marner a pair, goals by William Nylander, John Tavares and the But she’s well aware of the bond of the two Torontos and knows some tying marker from Zach Hyman. Leaf connections, too.

Again, there’s still another must-win game Sunday before Toronto can “One of my favourite Penguins was (Scarborough, Ont., native) Larry think of coming full circle to celebrate its first series win since 2004. But Murphy. When I used to go to old Mellon Arena (the Igloo) for games, Friday took just a little sting out for fans’ who’ve never forgotten the 4-1 you’d see the players come and go with $80,000 cars, but Larry drove an lead in Boston that disappeared seven years ago and led to major old rag top Mustang sh–box. We respected him for that. changes. “And (the late Leaf coach) coached the Wheeling Nailers of WE THE SIX the ECHL near here. The Leafs came down for a mini-camp many years ago.” Sometimes a team is lucky to get one goal from pulling its netminder. EUROPEAN VACATION But three? With the same six guys on the ice? League officials were scouring the record book late Friday night. The Leafs were the third team The Leafs continue to find some summer/autumn/winter jobs for their in league history to win a playoff game after overcoming a three-goal apprentice Europeans. Rather than play another season with the Marlies, deficit in the final four minutes of regulation. The 1997 Edmonton Oilers forward Egor Korshkov is being ‘loaned’ to Yaroslavl Lokimotiv of the and 2017 Anaheim Ducks pulled off similar feats. KHL. Korshkov was among the training camp invites last month. The Leafs did likewise with defenceman Mikko Lehtonen to , with an Columbus was choking the Leafs at even strength as is its specialty, but eye to getting both back in plenty of time next year for depth purposes as long as Toronto maintained possession, with its talent, could risk the with the NHL season likely going into June and July. empty cage. LOOSE LEAFS “It’s finding the space,” Matthews explained of the added sixth player dimension, “finding some guys coming down (the boards and into the Frederik Andersen became the eighth goalie in team history to reach at slot). Five-on-five, they’ll obviously play tight.” least 1o playoff wins … If you’re wondering, had the last series-winning goal for the Leafs, from Bryan McCabe and Nik Antropov William Nylander had the first goal of the comeback. For the first time in on April 20, 2004 against Ottawa. Toronto lost the next five series … four playoff series, he has more than one goal in a series that has gone The has hired Detroit-born Everett Fitzhugh as their radio at least four games. play-by-play person in ‘21-22, the first Black to regularly call games for a team. He was with the ECHL’s Cincinnati Cyclones. They’ve also hired “I knew there was four minutes left,” Nylander said. “It was an uphill the guy who runs the Vegas Golden Knights game presentation that set battle, but we’d got one.” the rest of the NHL on its ear. OHIO EXPRESS

Born in Toronto, raised on the Blue Jackets. Toronto Sun LOADED: 08.09.2020 Yes, there are fans out there with that lineage, though we should explain they mostly live in Toronto, Ohio, two hours east of Columbus. The ‘other’ Toronto, nestled on the Ohio River, has a population of about 5,000 and when the title tides are coming in, such as the champion Blue Jay and last year’s Raptors, they share the pride. But this first-ever playoff series between the Maple Leafs and Jackets has meant choosing sides.

“Of course the Jackets will win, but I think it will go the distance,” said River Pappas, a 20-year-old fan whose mother owns Smitty’s Sports Pub in town. “I’m no bandwagon jumper, I liked the Jackets before they started winning last year (upsetting Tampa Bay in playoffs) back to the time they started getting good with Bob (Sergei Bobrovsky) in net. 1190635 Toronto Maple Leafs It didn’t happen to Toronto on Thursday. It didn’t happen to Columbus on Friday. And who knows now — how you can possibly predict? — what might happen Sunday night.

SIMMONS: Spezza fights, Matthews scores as Maple Leafs remarkably The Leafs didn’t come out strong on Friday night. They seemed unwilling stay alive to battle, unwilling to match the Jackets loose puck for loose puck. One team had desperation. The other, the Leafs, seemed laissez-faire. And without fight.

Steve Simmons Until there was a fight. The seventh fight of Spezza’s career. Seven in 17 years. One of them against Carlo Colaiacovo. The third fight in a decade. Aug 08, 2020 There was a purpose to the glove-dropping. It isn’t what Spezza does.

He understands the game, his role, and what might change a game. He The hug on the ice mattered. It was a moment. It was more than an saw a reason to try something. He tried it. acknowledgment. It woke up the Leafs bench. The crowd, had there been one, would have gone crazy with Jason It didn’t provide three goals to tie the game. The talent took care of that. Spezza jumping off the bench and virtually into the arms of Auston William Nylander scored and John Tavares ripped a shot not long after Matthews. that. Still it didn’t look like the Leafs would have the opportunity to get One scored the overtime goal to bring the Maple Leafs all the way back one more goal to keep the series alive. in this best-of-five series against the Columbus Blue Jackets. But a combination of Columbus errors, a rare weak goal on Elvis The other, Spezza, the unlikely fourth-liner, provided some life for the Merzlikins, and Zach Hyman being desperate enough to shoot when it rather limp Leafs when it looked like their season was about to come to mattered meant there would be overtime. The big guys coming through an inauspicious ending. for the Leafs. Matthews with the goal and two assists. Mitch Marner setting up three scores. Nylander with a goal and an assist. Tavares with I wouldn’t know how to explain what happened Friday night at Scotiabank a goal and an assist. Arena if the same thing hadn’t happened on Thursday night. Just in reverse. A crazy ending of sorts to a crazy series not yet completed. We know there will be a winner Sunday night. We don’t know who, and certainly The Leafs had Game 3 won and somehow lost it. after all of this, we don’t know how.

The Jackets had Game 4 and the series won — and somehow lost the game. Toronto Sun LOADED: 08.09.2020 Matthews, the goal-scorer who had been rather invisible for two periods, came to life in the third and one-timed the winner 13:10 into overtime off a pass from John Tavares.

The Leafs, not competing, not matching the Blue Jackets in battles for loose pucks — not looking, frankly, like they cared at all — suddenly got into the game after Spezza, who doesn’t fight, dropped his gloves against Columbus defenceman Dean Kukan.

Those who don’t believe that fighting matters would dispute what happened here — and I’m often on that page — but not Friday night. Not after what happened once Spezza decided to wake up his team of high- priced sleeping giants.

And the Leafs, down and almost out late in the third period, trailing 3-0 — just as they had led in Game 3 — scored once, then twice, then three times, the final goal coming with 23 seconds left in the series and Toronto about to be eliminated.

It gave them a chance to come back. A chance to salvage what hasn’t been a pretty or impressive performance against the Blue Jackets, except for the final three minutes and 44 seconds of regulation play Friday night that inspired the drive and effort that brought Toronto out for the overtime they basically dominated.

Matthews had a chance in the first 20 seconds of overtime and another chance about five seconds later and the puck was following him in a way it hadn’t for most of the series. He was doing what Matthews does when he’s at his best, changing games, altering outcomes, scoring goals that others cannot.

And now a best-of-five is a best-of-one.

Sunday night. Winner take all.

A tennis-like series, back and forth and back and forth, and may the last big serve win.

The Jackets shut out the Leafs and dominated Game 1. The Leafs shut out the Jackets and dominated Game 2. And then the three-goal comebacks — the Leafs losing in overtime having led by three, the Jackets then losing in overtime having led by three.

And it must hurt the Jackets just a little — and maybe more than that — that they had this thing won, had it all figured out, it seemed, were dominating on the loose pucks and in the important areas of the ice. And all they had to do was kill three minutes of clock to advance to the next round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. 1190636 Toronto Maple Leafs

This time, Toronto (Ohio) is cheering for the Jackets

Lance Hornby

Aug 08, 2020 • Last Updated 21 hours ago

Born in Toronto, raised on the Blue Jackets.

Yes, there are fans out there with that lineage, though we should explain they mostly live in Toronto, Ohio, two hours east of Columbus. The ‘other’ Toronto, nestled on the Ohio River, has a population of about 5,000 and when the title tides are coming in, such as the World Series champion Blue Jay and last year’s Raptors, they share the pride. But this first-ever playoff series between the Maple Leafs and Jackets has meant choosing sides.

“Of course the Jackets will win, but I seeing it go the distance,” said River Pappas, a 20-year-old fan whose mother owns Smitty’s Sports Pub in town. “I’m no bandwagon jumper, I liked the Jackets before they started winning last year (upsetting Tampa Bay in playoffs) back to the time they started getting good with Bob (Sergei Bobrovsky) in net.

“I was at Game 4 at Nationwide Arena last year when they beat the Lightning, it was incredible to be there for the first playoff series win in their history.”

Citizens in the former town of Newburg’s Landing and later, Sloanes Station, voted to change their name in 1881, backing civic leader Thomas M. Daniels’ assertion that the new Canadian city, then just 48, was ‘a place worth emulating’.

“When I’m away from home and asked where I’m from, I say Toronto and almost everyone says ‘you don’t sound Canadian’,” Pappas laughed in a phone interview. “But when the Raptors won, I bought a championship shirt online that included ‘Toronto, World Champions’ and I liked that play on words.”

But Pappas, a wrestler in his junior year at Fairmont State University across the water in West Virginia, admits he’s something of a rebel in Toronto, which maintains a longer loyalty to the Penguins.

“Pittsburgh is just a half hour away,” reminded his mom, Stephanie Elverb, from behind the bar taps at Smitty’s. “If I have the Jackets game on TV here, there’s a few people, but the bigger viewing party is for the Penguins.”

Elverd was a sportswriter from Steubenville, Ohio, who left the business to buy Smitty. Despite River’s attempts to back the home state NHL team, her allegiance is to Mario Lemieux.

“When the Jackets came into the league (in 2000), the Penguins made a big push to keep this area theirs. (Executives) Eddie Johnston and Craig Patrick came through here a lot.”

But she’s well aware of the bond of the two Torontos and knows some Leaf connections, too.

“One of my favourite Penguins was (Scarborough, Ont., native) Larry Murphy. When I used to go to old Mellon Arena (the Igloo) for games, you’d see the players come and go with $80,000 cars, but Larry drove an old ragtop Mustang sh–box. We respected him for that.

“And (the late Leaf coach) John Brophy coached the Wheeling Nailers of the ECHL near here. The Leafs came down for a mini-camp many years ago.”

Toronto Sun LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190637 Toronto Maple Leafs five men and getting out to our point when need be. We can’t make ourselves lose. We can’t beat ourselves.”

Or, trust the process, as it were. Three keys to the Leafs winning Game 5 and erasing their playoff “We know that we can play a great defensive game when we put our demons minds to it, backchecking-wise, forechecking and not giving them a whole lot coming up the ice,” Marner said. “It’s something we have got to make sure we have in our minds that we know if we play the right way By Joshua Kloke defensively, we’re going to get our chances offensively. And I think we’ve just got to have that belief that we’ll score on one of those chances we do Aug 8, 2020 get.”

Besides high-octane offence, one thing the Leafs showed in the final It didn’t last long, but for a brief second on Saturday afternoon, the minutes of Game 4 that hasn’t always been evident against Columbus normally serious Sheldon Keefe almost cracked a smile. was a sense of staying power.

He was being asked about whether the three-goal lead has become the “We had the belief in our room and on that bench that we could come most dangerous in hockey after the Maple Leafs and the Blue Jackets back,” Marner said. each surrendered one in Games 3 and 4 of their Eastern Conference Keefe noticed that staying power when he was asked after the game qualifying-round series. what he would remember most from the comeback. “What we’ve come to expect really is that each game, despite there being “Just the resilience of our team and how it just put new life in our group,” some similarities, they really have their own personalities,” the Leafs’ Keefe said. head coach said. If the Leafs can carry that resilience into Game 5, there’s a decent It’s clear why he’d smile, even in exasperation. There’s still a sense of chance they’ll develop that belief that great teams have and good teams bewilderment about the Leafs given the way things have shaken out. just long for. They have swung from dominant one game to inefficient and lackadaisical the next. “The amount of joy that I saw from our team was beyond anything that I’ve seen from us,” Keefe said. “But we have to bring that momentum The momentum is now on their side after mounting an improbable three- forward but recognize that it’s a new game.” goal comeback in the final 3:34 of the third period on Friday night that led to them winning Game 4 in overtime. The result stunned Jason Spezza, Get game-breaking performances from the game-breakers he of 17 NHL seasons. The manner in which Keefe loaded the ice with his stars in the final “I’ve never been a part of anything like that,” Spezza, 37, said on Friday. minutes of Game 4 was intriguing for, and can be interpreted in, a number of ways. Perhaps it was a desperation play from Keefe to get Now, Spezza will try to be a part of another act that has not occurred Marner, Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares, Morgan throughout much of his career: a Leafs postseason series win. They’ve Rielly and Zach Hyman out there together. Maybe he thought those six, lost five series since beating the Ottawa Senators in the Eastern who had just seven even-strength points combined before the third Conference quarterfinals in 2004. period of Game 4, would wear the series loss to Columbus more than the Defeating the Blue Jackets would allow the Leafs, as The Athletic’s rest of their teammates and deserved a chance to change their fate. James Mirtle wrote on Saturday, a chance to rewrite their own narrative. One thing is for certain: Keefe has a pretty clear pecking order when it “The key for us, of course, is to ride the momentum into the next game comes to who to play in the most important situations. Those six players but recognize that it’s a fresh scoreboard,” Keefe said. are at the top of the list.

How can the Leafs close out the Blue Jackets in Game 5 on Sunday Keefe will need more of the same from that core, which registered nine evening? More than a few things will have to go their way. even-strength points combined in that final flurry of action.

Develop the belief they can close out a series That includes possibly rolling out a line of Matthews, Tavares and Marner, which Tyson Barrie has described as an “All-Star Game line.” Keefe has adopted a far dourer tone with the media throughout the past week than he has all season. He’s often been critical of his team and Keefe conceded Saturday that the coaching staff didn’t spend a great terse with his answers. deal of time on Saturday discussing that line, though still had praise for the trio. That is why one of his rare moments of light ahead of Game 3 stuck out. Keefe was discussing how the Leafs would use the Toronto Raptors’ “I liked the look of that line. I like what it brings,” Keefe said. dressing room that evening. That was clear: Matthews’s 28:15 of ice time on Friday was the most he’s “That’s kind of cool and unique and we talked a bit about it,” Keefe said played in a playoff game. Marner’s 27:58 was the second most by just on Thursday. “Lots of winning has gone on in that room and hopefully, two seconds. And Tavares’ 26:52 was the third most he’s played in his we can get some of that to rub off on us.” 35 playoff games.

Watching the Raptors become NBA champions last season meant Those six showed what they’re capable of when Keefe instills a weighty watching them lean on Kawhi Leonard, who oozed a rare brand of self- sense of trust in them. They rescued the Leafs’ season from the brink. If belief in difficult moments. He’d been there, having won a championship anything, that late-game response will likely give Keefe the confidence to in 2014. There was no doubt who was getting the ball when the game roll with them as much as possible on Sunday evening. And it’s doubtful was on the line. we’ve seen the last of the Matthews-Tavares-Marner combo.

Right now, it could be argued the Leafs don’t have that kind of player. “Even the times when we haven’t liked our team game or our structure They’re getting close, but without a series win among their core players, hasn’t been what I expect from our team, I think we’ve had some they’re not there yet. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg question, but how individual performances that have been really good,” Keefe said. “Just does a team develop a belief it can win a series-clinching game when it the effort and the commitment that we’re seeing from some guys that I hasn’t done it before? think are at a higher level than we’ve seen from them before. And that’s what we’ve been asking for.” Mitch Marner believes that will only come by believing in, and adhering to, a style of play that has made them as successful as it did in a Game 2 Let’s put Rielly’s defensive-zone gaffe that led to the Blue Jackets’ third win. goal last night aside. He’s moved well and has created offensive opportunities all series. The Leafs have had 55.5 percent of the expected “We know that their chances are coming off the turnovers we’re giving goals against Columbus with Rielly on the ice at five-on-five, according to them and the odd-man rushes the other way,” Marner said. “For our Natural Stat Trick. team, I think we’re doing well in our D-zone staying tight, staying (with) His 33:51 of ice time in Game 4 was the second most of his playoff career. And perhaps just as notable was the 2:28 he spent on the power play. It would appear Keefe sees him as the de-facto option on the blue line for the first power-play unit.

Rielly has been a rare bright spot on the blue line, and his importance to the Leafs’ success this series is only amplified with the absence of Jake Muzzin.

And with the amount of confidence Keefe has in Rielly, it’s likely he’s in for another heavy workload on Sunday. His ability to be aggressive in the offensive zone and responsible in the defensive zone makes him a linchpin for any short-term postseason success.

“He’s just getting better and better every game,” Keefe said. “He seems to be more and more comfortable in his skating. Certainly the last two games, the way he’s skated up and down the ice and getting involved both offensively and defensively, I think he looks really, really comfortable in that regard. And in my mind, has taken a really big step here since our loss of (Muzzin).”

The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020

1190638 Vegas Golden Knights LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL LOADED: 08.09.2020

Marc-Andre Fleury or Robin Lehner in goal? Stay tuned

By Ben Gotz Las Vegas Review-Journal

August 8, 2020 - 6:26 PM

Golden Knights coach Pete DeBoer said Saturday he hadn’t decided on his starting goaltender for the team’s first-round series against the Chicago Blackhawks.

But Robin Lehner has built quite a case to get the start against his former team when the Stanley Cup playoffs begin.

Lehner was outstanding in the Knights’ final round-robin game Saturday against the Colorado Avalanche in Edmonton, Alberta. He stopped 32 of 35 shots, allowed only one five-on-five goal and made several spectacular saves to help his team earn the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference.

Now, DeBoer must decide whether Lehner or Marc-Andre Fleury will start Game 1 against the Blackhawks. The coach said Saturday he hadn’t “even thought” about it, and Lehner played it cool.

“Every game I get to play, I’ll do my best and whenever they need me, they need me,” Lehner said. “Marc is a world-class goaltender, and he’s been one of the best in the league for a very long time.”

Lehner, 29, has been excellent since the Knights acquired him at the trade deadline, going 5-0-0, including the round robin.

His fifth win was one of his most impressive. Playing against the Western Conference’s highest-scoring team, Lehner was calm, composed and made difficult saves look routine.

His most spectacular stop came late in the first period when the Avalanche had a five-on-three power play. Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen fired an unchecked one-timer to Lehner’s left, and the goalie stretched his glove out to snag the puck.

“I thought we played that five-on-three fairly well,” Lehner said. “I saw most of the pucks and (got a) lot of good blocks. Colorado is a very good team. They’re going to get their chances, and they made a good play. I was fortunate to get over there.”

Lehner finished the round robin with a .903 save percentage in two games, making his career mark in the playoffs .928. Fleury has a .917 save percentage in the postseason and a much longer track record. He’s won three Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins and led the Knights to the Final in their inaugural season.

But this season hasn’t been Fleury’s best. The 35-year-old’s .905 save percentage and 2.77 goals-against average were worse than his career averages. He also allowed four goals on 17 shots in his one start of the round robin.

DeBoer didn’t let on whether that means Lehner has won the job. The coach has stressed repeatedly since the restart that he thinks both goaltenders probably will play during the postseason.

Still, when it comes to who goes first, Lehner got in a pretty strong last word.

“We have two world-class goalies,” defenseman Shea Theodore said. “Two very different styles, but we’re confident with (Lehner) back there. He’s solid, and he makes a lot of big saves for us.”

DeBoer said he liked the round-robin format the NHL used to keep the top four teams in each conference occupied while everyone else played best-of-five series.

He said along with giving the Knights a chance to earn the No. 1 seed, the three games got them ready for the first round.

“I don’t see any cons,” DeBoer said. “My concern coming in was (whether) we would play intense games that would prepare us for the first round. I think the format has made these games intense. That was a playoff game out there today.” 1190639 Vegas Golden Knights Lehner was more diplomatic when asked about the matchup Saturday. He doesn’t know if he’ll be starting against his former team because coach Pete DeBoer said Saturday he hadn’t begun those conversations.

Golden Knights to play Blackhawks to open NHL playoffs “It’s going to be fun playing them,” Lehner said. “They’re a good hockey team, and I have a lot of respect for them, the whole organization. I really like it here. I think we’re a great hockey team, and we’ll do well against them.” By Ben Gotz Las Vegas Review-Journal Other common links between the teams include Blackhawks goaltender August 8, 2020 - 3:06 PM Malcolm Subban and forward Ryan Carpenter. Subban, the Knights’ Updated August 8, 2020 - 5:06 PM former backup, went to Chicago in the Lehner trade. Carpenter signed a three-year deal with the Blackhawks in the offseason after two years with the Knights.

The Golden Knights’ reward for earning the No. 1 seed in the Western Now, they will be reunited. Chicago was even scouting the opposition Conference: Facing the No. 12 Chicago Blackhawks in the first round of Saturday, as the team watched the Knights play the Colorado Avalanche the NHL playoffs in Edmonton, Alberta. at Rogers Place.

Chicago (32-30-8) had the second-worst points percentage among the “We have a pretty good task against Chicago here,” left wing Jonathan teams that returned to play and was last in the Central Division when the Marchessault said. “They’re one of the best teams (in the NHL) for the NHL season paused because of the coronavirus pandemic. The past 10 years.” Blackhawks even shipped out players at the trade deadline, sending defenseman Erik Gustafsson to Calgary and goaltender Robin Lehner to the Knights (39-24-8). LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL LOADED: 08.09.2020 Still, Chicago rallied during the qualifying round to defeat Edmonton in four games in the Oilers’ building. It’s a team that has top-end talent, plus a mix of youth and playoff experience. Whether it has enough depth to hang with the Knights remains to be seen.

“I thought we got better as the year went on,” Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton said Saturday. “Our team, there was a transformation from training camp to March, and then all those guys got a little break to reflect on the season they’d gone through, and they’ve taken another step. For me, that’s probably the biggest reason we’re a better team now.”

The Blackhawks are led by players who should be familiar to fans. Former Hart Trophy winner Patrick Kane had another impressive season with 33 goals and 84 points in 70 games. Center Jonathan Toews had 60 points in the regular season and continued to cement his reputation as a playoff performer with seven points against the Oilers.

“It starts from the top with him,” left wing Brandon Saad said of Toews, the team’s captain.

Veteran defenseman Duncan Keith also showed he still has life in his legs by recording four assists versus Edmonton while averaging 25:36 minutes. All three are holdovers from Chicago’s Stanley Cup-winning teams in 2010, 2013 and 2015.

Goaltender Corey Crawford, who won Cups in 2013 and 2015, was solid against the Oilers despite missing the start of training camp because of a positive COVID-19 test. He had an .891 save percentage for the series, but he stopped 33 of 35 shots in Game 4.

The Blackhawks’ veteran core has been supplemented with young talent, too. Left wing Dominik Kubalik is a Calder Trophy finalist after scoring 30 goals in the regular season, and he added three more against Edmonton. Forwards Alex DeBrincat, Dylan Strome and 2019 No. 3 overall pick Kirby Dach can cause headaches.

The rest of Chicago’s roster isn’t as inspiring. The team finished 18th in offense, 16th in defense, 28th on the power play and ninth on the penalty kill. The Knights put up better marks in all categories except the penalty kill.

The Knights won two of three regular-season games against the Blackhawks. The first game, on Oct. 22 at United Center, featured a memorable comeback, as defenseman Nick Holden scored with 1:33 to play to tie the score 1-1. The Knights then won in a shootout.

The Blackhawks’ win also was notable because the game featured a penalty shot by each team. Both were saved, and Chicago won 5-3 on Nov. 13 at T-Mobile Arena.

The teams have a fair amount of connective tissue. Lehner is the most notable example. He signed a one-year deal with the Blackhawks in the offseason with dreams of getting a long-term contract but was traded at the deadline. He said upon arriving in Las Vegas that he wasn’t happy with how things played out. 1190640 Vegas Golden Knights also had a fantastic glove stop on Mikko Rantanen in the final minute of the first period during a five-on-three.

The Knights finished 5-for-6 on the penalty kill. Golden Knights secure No. 1 seed in Western Conference “I saw most of the pucks and (there were a) lot of good blocks,” Lehner said. “Colorado is a very good team. They’re going to get their chances, and they made a good play (on the five-on-three). I was fortunate to get By David Schoen Las Vegas Review-Journal over there.”

August 8, 2020 - 2:59 PM After feeling each other out in the first period, MacKinnon gave the Knights a power play early in the second when he was sent off for Updated August 8, 2020 - 5:53 PM unsportsmanlike conduct. The Knights cashed in at 1:34 when Theodore’s wrist shot deflected off the shaft of Marchessault’s stick.

There was a bit of a theme to Saturday’s round-robin playoff game with MacKinnon, one of three finalist for the Hart Trophy as league MVP, players on both teams atoning for previous mistakes. made up for the penalty with Ryan Reaves in the box for roughing.

It was fitting for the Golden Knights, who used the final two months of the Cale Makar’s drive went off the crossbar and sailed high in the air. When regular season and first week of August to make up for a slow start that the pop fly landed in front of Lehner’s crease, chaos ensued and cost their coach his job. MacKinnon was able to backhand in the loose puck to tie the score at 1.

Alex Tuch scored his team-leading third goal of the postseason with 15.9 “In the future we definitely need to be a little bit more disciplined, seconds remaining in overtime, lifting the Knights to a 4-3 victory over especially with a power play like Colorado,” Marchessault said. “I thought Colorado at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta. our game was nice, and we don’t even have (Pacioretty) in the lineup during those (three) games. He’s definitely a big part of our puzzle, and The Knights finished an undefeated run through the three-game round it’s going to be good to see him.” robin and clinched the top seed in the Western Conference.

They will meet the Blackhawks, who upset Edmonton in the qualifying round, in the quarterfinals. The start date for the best-of-seven series has LAS VEGAS REVIEW JOURNAL LOADED: 08.09.2020 yet to be announced.

“We came here to take every challenge ahead of us. We did a good job,” Knights left wing Jonathan Marchessault said. “We wanted first seed after the round robin, and we got it done. I think it’s pretty positive. We’re really happy where our game is at as a team.”

Marchessault, who was held without a point in the first two playoff games and took an ill-advised retaliation penalty against St. Louis on Thursday, finished with two goals.

He opened the scoring early in the second period and converted on a penalty shot at 3:02 of the third period to put the Knights ahead 3-2.

But Colorado’s J.T. Compher pounced on a rebound with 1:02 remaining in regulation and tied the score at 3.

In the overtime, Tuch carried the puck from his own zone down the left wing and snapped a shot over the glove of Avalanche goaltender Philipp Grubauer.

“To be able to get that first seed means a lot,” Tuch said. “Personally it’s probably one of my bigger goals in the playoffs. I’m just trying to move forward, trying to continue that push.”

Nicolas Roy added his first career postseason goal, and defenseman Shea Theodore had two assists for the Knights, who won for the 18th time in 25 games under coach Pete DeBoer since he replaced Gerard Gallant on Jan. 15.

Nathan MacKinnon and Joonas Donskoi also scored for Colorado. The Avalanche finished as the No. 2 seed and will meet Arizona in the first round.

The Knights and Colorado cannot meet again until the Western Conference final.

“You want to give yourself the easiest path, and the easiest path for us was to come in here and do what we did, which is win our round-robin games and get the first seed,” DeBoer said.

The Knights were outscored 13-4 in two matchups against the Avalanche during the regular season but proved they can skate with one of the NHL’s fastest teams.

Despite playing without injured left wing Max Pacioretty for the third straight game and struggling to stay out of the penalty box, the Pacific Division champions never trailed.

Robin Lehner, who is competing against Marc-Andre Fleury for the starting goalie job, won for the fifth time in five starts since he was acquired by the Knights and finished with 32 saves.

He turned away former Knights center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare on a partial breakaway with less than six minutes remaining in regulation and 1190641 Vegas Golden Knights 34 shots per game. Vegas will have no trouble getting the puck to the net to put a major strain on Chicago’s goalie.

Robin Lehner’s old team Take 5: Getting to know the Golden Knights’ playoff opponent That goalie will most likely be Crawford, but a February trade between these two clubs adds intrigue to that position. They flipped goalies, with Robin Lehner coming to Vegas and Malcolm Subban going to Chicago. By Justin Emerson Lehner might start, and if anything happens to Crawford, Subban could see the net against his old team. Sunday, Aug. 9, 2020 | 2 a.m. Lehner was polite Saturday when discussing his old team, but it’s clear

he wasn’t happy about how things ended. The matchup is set: The Golden Knights, the top seed in the Western Here’s what he said in February after the trade: Conference, will take on the 12th-seeded Chicago Blackhawks in the first round of the official playoffs. “I went to Chicago to help them out and got promises of getting a fair chance to play. I came there with a good mindset, fit into the team. I Vegas swept the Western Conference round-robin and the Blackhawks didn’t play much in the beginning, or middle, beginning of the season, knocked off the No. 5 Oilers in a qualifying series to set up this series. even if I played well, had a good camp. Eventually, I took over and I won Here are five things to know about Vegas’ first-round opponent. — I think I won like nine out of 10, 12 out of 15 — and we walked up one point out of a playoff spot. Then, all of the sudden, I found myself on the The original crew bench for no reason. That was tough. Plus, negotiations totally died out.

If you haven’t tuned into many Chicago games since the dynasty days, I thought there was a future there and I did everything to have a future welcome back. You haven’t missed much. The Blackhawks have there and I still couldn’t get a future there. So, in the end, the last couple struggled since winning the Stanley Cup in 2015, with no playoff series weeks were tough mentally to kind of find the motivation needed.” wins and missing the playoffs altogether the past two seasons. It’s extra personal for the goalies, which adds to the excitement of But all the players you remember are still there. Patrick Kane is still a watching these two teams meet in a playoff series. superstar, with 33 goals and 84 points this year. Jonathan Toews is having a career renaissance with 60 points this season. Duncan Keith No. 12 seed may not be a Norris-caliber defenseman anymore, but he’s still playing The Blackhawks upset the favored Oilers to reach the playoff round, but 24 minutes a night on the blue line. Corey Crawford remains the goalie remember where Chicago was when the season paused. and had a tremendous year behind a porous defense. The Blackhawks were out of a playoff spot and had just traded one of its Chicago is assimilating younger players into bigger roles as its rebuild goalies and its best offensive defenseman in Erik Gustafsson. They had progresses, but you’ll still see plenty of old friends you may not have no expectations for the playoffs, and instead were looking at another seen since they were raising multiple Cups. draft lottery. Scary young forwards Suddenly they found themselves in a qualifying round and ousted a Who are those young players? A Calder finalist as Rookie of the Year, a superior team in the Oilers. Now they take on the Golden Knights, a team No. 3 overall pick and the player selected right after Connor McDavid and without the defensive or goaltending deficiencies that plagued Edmonton, Jack Eichel in the 2015 draft and his old junior teammate. but without the top-end forward talent the Oilers possessed and the Blackhawks overcame. First up is Dominik Kubalik, who came out of nowhere to score 30 goals, tops among NHL rookies and 17th overall. He had a five-point night in Anything can happen in the postseason of course, and a Blackhawks the Game 1 victory against the Oilers in the qualifying round, and is a victory over the Golden Knights wouldn’t be a blip in the radar of historic potent threat on the power-play. upsets. But it would certainly be an upset. The Golden Knights earned the top seed and Chicago squeaked in as a 12 seed. Vegas, which swept Kubalik may be the Calder finalist, but Kirby Dach might end up as the the season series with Chicago, will be the heavy favorite in the seven- best player on the team in a few seasons. Dach turned 19 in January, game series. making him the youngest player on either team. He was the third overall pick last summer, and forced the Blackhawks to keep him on the roster with his early-season play. He had three points in three games against LAS VEGAS SUN LOADED: 08.09.2020 Vegas this season, including his first-career goal in his second-career game in October.

Dylan Strome is the forgotten man in a loaded 2015 draft, and after struggling early in his career in Arizona, found new life when he was traded to Chicago. He had 51 points in 58 games after the trade last season, and though he didn’t keep up that pace this year, still managed 38 points in 58 games.

Then there’s Alex DeBrincat, who was behind just Kane, Toews and Kubalik in scoring for the Blackhawks with 45 points this year. He played on the Erie Otters in junior hockey with Strome (and some guy named McDavid), and helps form an enviable core of young forward talent.

Not as scary defense

You may have noticed the last section focused on Chicago’s forward group. That’s a positive for the Blackhawks where the defense was not. Keith is still the anchor of that unit, but finding an heir-apparent as the No. 1 defenseman has been a challenge.

The Blackhawks have relied on Connor Murphy, and Olli Maatta this season, and the results have been a lot of shots on net. The Blackhawks allowed more shots per game (35.1) than any team in the league and the third-most high-danger chances per game, according to Natural Stat Trick.

In three regular season games, the Golden Knights fired off shot totals of 34, 42 and 37. In their four qualifying games, Chicago allowed more than 1190642 Vegas Golden Knights Tuch, after being injured most of the year, scored his third goal of the postseason with 16 seconds remaining in overtime. Tuch, who had just eight goals in 42 regular-season games, fired high over Philipp Grubauer’s shoulder for the game winner. Golden Knights on a roll, will face Chicago in first round of playoffs had Vegas’ other goal, and Shea Theodore had a pair of assists. Stone assisted on Tuch’s winner for his team-best fifth point in the round-robin. By Justin Emerson (contact) The Golden Knights were not the best Western Conference team in the Published Saturday, Aug. 8, 2020 | 2:59 p.m. regular season. In mid-January, they were even below .500 in points Updated Saturday, Aug. 8, 2020 | 5:08 p.m. percentage and out of a playoff spot. Right now though, they are the textbook example of peaking at the right time, beating the three other top-four teams in the West, and earning the top seed.

Golden Knights’ goalie Robin Lehner didn’t think he would have to see Now the elimination games start for real. The Golden Knights weren’t the his old team again, but the pandemic and an expanded NHL postseason best over 71 regular season games, but they look like they just might be foiled those plans. one of, if not the best, now. And the next test is the Blackhawks in a best- of-seven series on the road to the Cup. Suddenly, the Chicago Blackhawks squeezed into the new look postseason, meaning Lehner and his Golden Knights only needed to beat the Avalanche on Saturday to draw them in the first round. LAS VEGAS SUN LOADED: 08.09.2020 Lehner did indeed help the Golden Knights beat Colorado, 4-3 in overtime, and secure the top seed in the Western Conference. Jonathan Marchessault had two goals and Alex Tuch had the game-winner to help Vegas advance to a first round date with the Blackhawks.

“They’re a good hockey team and a I have a lot of respect for them and the whole organization,” said Lehner, who was traded to Vegas from Chicago in the middle of the season. “But I really like it here. I think we’re a great hockey team and we’ll do well against them.”

Vegas swept the round-robin for seeding of the NHL reboot after the pandemic paused the season to grab the No. 1 seed throughout the Western Conference playoffs. Those begin on Tuesday, though dates and times for individual games and series have not been announced.

It’s still unknown whether Lehner will see his old team. He split split the three round-robin games and the one exhibition with Marc-Andre Fleury, and coach Peter DeBoer says he hasn’t decided on a Game 1 starter.

“We’re going to need both guys and both guys are going to play,” DeBoer said. “I can guarantee you if we get to where we want to go, we’re going to use both guys.”

Lehner made a strong case for himself on Saturday.

He batted away 32 of the Avalanche’s 35 shots, including a near- miraculous glove save on a Mikko Rantanen offering on a 5-on-3 power play. It’s hard to argue Lehner wasn’t better in the round-robin or even this season in general, but it’s also hard to argue against Fleury’s playoff pedigree, particularly the way he played in Vegas’ run to the Stanley Cup Final two seasons ago.

Lehner, of course, was diplomatic when asked about the possibility of starting over Fleury.

“I don’t think like that. I think that every game I get to play I’ll do my best and whenever they need me, they need me,” Lehner said. “Marc is a world-class goaltender and one of the bets in the league for a very long time. They traded for me at the deadline and I’m here whenever they need me.”

Having two capable goalies is a luxury for Vegas, which will now have, at least on paper, the easiest path to the Stanley Cup Final. That starts with the 12th-seeded Blackhawks in the first round.

Chicago was seven points out of a playoff spot when the season paused, but showed strong offensive firepower in a four-game series win against the favored Oilers to advance into the first round.

The Golden Knights entered the round-robin as the No. 3 seed in the West, making up six points on the Avalanche and eight points on the Blues in a three-game sweep that also included Dallas. Vegas scored 15 goals in those three games, more per-game than any other team in the round-robins or qualifying series.

Marchessault led the way on Saturday, getting things going with a pretty power-play redirect in the second period to start the scoring. He gave Vegas the lead with a penalty shot in the third period.

“We wanted the first seed after the round-robin and got it done,” Marchessault said. “We’re really happy where our game is at as a team.” 1190643 Vegas Golden Knights

Keys to a Golden Knights victory against Avalanche, powered by Credit One

By Justin Emerson

Saturday, Aug. 8, 2020 | 2 a.m.

The Golden Knights take on the Colorado Avalanche today at noon on NBC in the final seeding game for the Western Conference playoffs.

The winner will claim the top seed and the loser grabs the No. 2 seed in what could be a Western Conference Finals preview.

Here are three Golden Knights keys to victory, powered by Credit One Bank.

Limit the superstar

If you can name multiple players better than Nathan MacKinnon, you might be lying to yourself. The Colorado center is one of the top players in the game, and naturally has feasted on the Golden Knights with four assists in the two meetings this season. He’s due for a point or two just about every time he takes the ice, so the Golden Knights need to ensure he doesn’t run wild and break the game open.

Lockdown defense

How do you limit MacKinnon? Put your best defensive player on him. Against Brayden McNabb at 5-on-5, Colorado’s MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog had zero points in the two games and had negative puck possession. They weren’t on the same line in Colorado’s other two round-robin games, which could complicate things, but how McNabb and Nate Schmidt handle Colorado’s stars will play a large role in today’s outcome.

Keep staying out of the box

With all the weapons the Avalanche possess, it’s almost hard to believe their power play ranked just 19th in the NHL this year. It’s shown positive signs in their two round-robin games, cashing in three times in 10 tries. And it’s not just the stars. Rookie phenom Cale Makar has a goal, as do forwards Nazem Kadri and Andre Burakovsky. Vegas though, hasn’t been in the box much, just four times in the two round-robin games. That’s a trend the Golden Knights hope to continue against what would be a dangerous Avalanche power play.

LAS VEGAS SUN LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190644 Vegas Golden Knights

Top seed at stake as Golden Knights try to figure out the Avalanche

By Justin Emerson

Saturday, Aug. 8, 2020 | 2 a.m.

The Golden Knights have put themselves in position to claim the Western Conference's top seed for the playoffs when the officially begin next week. All that's left to do is the one thing they've struggled to do the last two seasons: beat the Avalanche.

Vegas has lost the last four meetings against Colorado by a combined 13 goals, so it will be no easy task. But with the top seed on the line and the Golden Knights coming off a commanding effort, they feel good about making sure past is not prologue. Puck drop is scheduled for noon at Rogers Place in Edmonton.

"Yeah, we didn't have our best games against Colorado, there's no doubt about that," forward Reilly Smith said. "They caught us on some bad nights. We expect that to change. Just one of those teams that really got us this year, and the best thing we can do against a team like that is defend smartly and defend quickly."

No team manhandled the Golden Knights quote like the Avalanche this season, with two victories over Vegas by a combined score of 13-4. That including surrendering a season-high seven goals in December when they last met.

Plenty of things are different from their last meeting. The Golden Knights didn't have expected starter Robin Lehner. They didn't have Nick Cousins or Alec Martinez, as all three came over near the trade deadline in February. Vegas also didn't have coach Peter DeBoer, whose San Jose Sharks beat the Avalanche in the playoffs last year. From what he's seen, the Golden Knights are facing a challenge they are ready for.

"The've got it all — they've got depth, they've got superstars at different positions, they can score, they defend better than people give them credit for," DeBoer said. "They're loaded and it's going to be a great test for us."

Those superstars are finalists for the Hart Trophy as MVP and Calder Trophy as Rookie of the Year. Nathan MacKinnon finished fifth in the league with 93 points and Cale Makar led all rookies in points per game as a defenseman.

The scary thing about Colorado is in the regular season, it wasn't the superstars who beat the Golden Knights. MacKinnon had four points, sure, but former Vegas forward Pierre-Edouard Bellemare had five points, and J.T. Compher and Nazem Kadri each had three points. There's plenty of ways that Colorado scores, and that doesn't even factor in Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog, who were both 75-plus-point players two years ago.

But the Golden Knights will need to overcome their recent history against the Avalanche in order to secure the top seed. Until Monday they had never overcome a multiple-goal in the third period. Until Thursday they had never beaten the Blues in regulation. This postseason has already shown us that the Golden Knights don't care about the trends, they just want to win hockey games and stake a claim as the best team in the Western Conference.

"I think we have a lot to gain with these extra games before the series starts, and we came in with the mindset that we want to win every one of them," Smith said. "We're focused, we're ready and we're excited about the challenge. It's nice to be able to play hockey again."

LAS VEGAS SUN LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190645 Vegas Golden Knights The Golden Knights have allowed the fewest shots and scoring chances against at even strength of any team since the restart, so though Chicago does have firepower, its 11th-ranked scoring offense isn’t too much for Vegas’ strong defense to handle. Instant preview: Golden Knights versus Chicago Blackhawks Special teams

Special teams have become crucial in these playoffs, with more penalties By Jesse Granger being called than ever before. In their qualifying series, the Blackhawks averaged only 44:49 per game at five-on-five, with an average of seven Aug 8, 2020 minutes on the power play per game and 7:14 short-handed. So essentially, Chicago spent 25 percent of the game on special teams.

With their 4-3 overtime win over the Avalanche on Saturday, the Golden The Blackhawks converted four goals out of their 18 power-play Knights wrapped up round-robin play 3-0-0 to claim the top seed in the opportunities against Edmonton, getting two goals each from Toews and Western Conference. Kubalik. And though the Golden Knights have fared much better on the penalty kill in round-robin play, the Blackhawks have the high-end skill to It’s a fantastic start for the club, but there’s no time for celebration, as make them pay if they spend too much time in the box in this series. And attention immediately turns to their first-round playoff opponent — the though Keith isn’t the player he used to be, he’s an excellent Chicago Blackhawks. on the power play and registered two primary assists on it during the qualifying round. Chicago ousted the Edmonton Oilers in the qualifying round, sneaking into the playoffs despite finishing with the 12th-best record in the Western On the other end, Vegas should be able to feast on its power-play Conference. It’s been a roller-coaster season for the Blackhawks, but opportunities. Chicago’s penalty kill during the regular season was they appear to be peaking at the right time, as they put on an offensive decent, killing 82.1 percent of power plays. But in their qualifying round, display against Edmonton with 16 goals in four games. the Blackhawks surrendered five power-play goals to Edmonton on 17 tries, which tied them for a league-worst 70.6 percent. Historically, the Golden Knights have had success against the Blackhawks, winning eight of their nine meetings all time. In those nine Now, the Golden Knights don’t have the same firepower on their power contests, Vegas has outscored Chicago by a combined score of 40-24. play as the Oilers, but it has looked fantastic since the restart. In their first two games, Vegas created more shots per 60 minutes on its power play However, much of that is from blowout victories in 2017-18 and 2018-19. than any team in the league and scored two goals on seven attempts. This season, Vegas went 2-1 against Chicago, including one win in a And that was without its primary power-play scoring option — Max shootout. The games were much more competitive. Pacioretty. To examine the first-round matchup further, let’s analyze how the teams The Golden Knights should be a significantly better team at even stack up at even strength, special teams and in net. strength, so it’s probably in their best interest to keep these games at Even strength five-on-five as much as possible, but they match up well on special teams, too. The Golden Knights should have no issues carving through the Blackhawks’ defense. Chicago had some of the worst defensive Goaltending coverage in the entire league this season, allowing the most shots on This season, the Blackhawks ranked 31st in the league in shots against, goal (34.82 per 60 minutes), scoring chances (30.22 per 60 minutes) and scoring chances against and high-danger chances against, but only 22nd expected goals (2.64 per 60 minutes). in goals allowed. Chicago’s defensive core is led by an aging Duncan Keith. The 36-year- Why? Because they got exceptional goaltending, finishing eighth in the old led all Blackhawks with 102:22 of ice time in the opening round league in even-strength save percentage (92.51). That should be a good against Edmonton and tallied four assists in four games. He’s surrounded thing, except for the fact they traded their best goalie at the deadline — by a competent-but-underwhelming group in Connor Murphy, Calvin de to Vegas. Haan and Olli Maatta. The Golden Knights should have no issues creating chances against that group. Robin Lehner had another strong season in net after Chicago signed him as an unrestricted free agent in the summer, but the Blackhawks looked Even in the qualifying round, where Chicago played well and won three destined to miss the playoffs in February and dealt him to the Golden out of four games, the Blackhawks still surrendered 33.89 shots against Knights. Corey Crawford also has been good this season, with a .917 per 60 minutes at even strength. Meanwhile, the Golden Knights have save percentage and 9.01 goals saved above average. been an offensive powerhouse against much stronger defensive opponents such as Dallas and St. Louis. However, he wasn’t nearly as sharp since the restart, with an .891 save percentage against a high-octane Oilers offense. He gave up a lot of When the Golden Knights have the puck, it’s a major mismatch. goals in that high-scoring series, but he certainly wasn’t to blame on But part of the reason Chicago was so porous on defense this season is many and did come up with several momentum-changing saves at key the system it runs. The Blackhawks prefer a run-and-gun style of hockey, moments. constantly racing up and down the ice. It leads to tons of chances Meanwhile, the Golden Knights have two starting goalies from which to against, but also allows their dynamic playmakers space to work on the choose. Marc-Andre Fleury obviously has the playoff pedigree, with 14 other end. consecutive seasons of postseason participation and three Stanley Cup Patrick Kane was spectacular with 33 goals and 51 assists during the titles. But Lehner has been the better goalie since the restart and was regular season, and captain Jonathan Toews exploded offensively with outstanding in Saturday’s overtime win over the Avalanche to clinch the four goals and three assists in the qualifying round. Add an emerging top seed. young star in Dominik Kubalik — who had six points against Edmonton – Whether it’s Fleury or Lehner (and they might very well use both), the and Chicago has plenty of firepower. Golden Knights should get solid goaltending. But more concerning for the Golden Knights is how the Blackhawks In the end, the Golden Knights are a superior team in almost every scored their goals against Edmonton. Chicago scored three goals as a measurable statistic, but these are the Stanley Cup playoffs — where result of tipped shots in front of the net — more than any team in the both 12 seeds already took down the 5 seeds in qualifying — so anything qualifying round, and another goal off a deflection in front. can happen. Toews is a master at it, and tying up his stick in front of the net will be It’s in Vegas’ interest to keep this series at five-on-five as much as crucial for the Golden Knights. It’s something they haven’t done possible, where the Golden Knights have carried play all season. If they particularly well. Even during the round-robin play, Vegas allowed shots can avoid costly penalties, this series could be over quickly. to be redirected in front of the goalie.

Keeping the net-front presence from not only deflecting pucks but also screening the goalie will go a long way to suppressing Chicago’s offense. The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190646 Vegas Golden Knights

Golden Knights Claim Number One Seed In West With Tense 4-3 OT Win Over Colorado Saturday

August 8, 2020

By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com

Even in Edmonton, they played Viva Las Vegas.

So it meant only one thing.

A Vegas Golden Knights win.

The VGK allowed the Colorado Avalanche to tie the score at 3-3 with only 1:02 left in regulation.

But Golden Knights’ forward Alex Tuch scored the game-winner in overtime to deliver the dramatic win and a number one seed for the Knights in the NHL’s Western Conference playoffs.

The Knights won their three round-robin games against Dallas, St. Louis and Colorado to determine seeding and will play the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round of the playoffs.

VGK goalie Robin Lehner was the winning goaltender for the Golden Knights.

Coach Pete DeBoer said his team played the three round robin games as if they were elimination series games.

LVSportsBiz.com LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190647 Washington Capitals “He is a high-energy coach; he brings a lot of energy to the bench. He is really positive,” center Nicklas Backstrom said. “And … overall, he’s got a pretty good understanding of what is happening out there, and he is reading the game like no one I’ve had before. He’s very smart, so that’s Todd Reirden, confident and calm, guides Caps during an what he is bringing to the bench. He is very positive; he tells guys what is unconventional postseason happening out there. So that is a positive for us.”

Reirden’s demeanor on the bench and in news conferences usually comes across as stoic, and to some he could be described as composed By Samantha Pell to a fault. But Reirden sees himself as a leader who needs to stay August 8, 2020 at 8:38 AM EDT focused and in control.

“When there is time to be shown passion, I don’t think there is one player in the room that would wonder how passionate I am about winning, TORONTO — As Washington Capitals Coach Todd Reirden reminisces coaching and my love for doing it and my love for making players better on his coaching career, a memory from June 7, 2018, comes racing and winning hockey games,” Reirden said. “That comes out in the times back. The Capitals led the Vegas Golden Knights by a goal late in Game that it should come out, and there is no doubt they know the passion that 5 of the Stanley Cup finals. I have being a hockey coach and being a good one.”

The players gathered to the bench, the fans inside T-Mobile Arena Reirden grew heated several times on the Washington bench toward the unrelenting as Reirden, still an assistant to Barry Trotz, drew up a plan. It end of the regular season, notably during the second period of the team’s was surely a frantic, maddening time for viewers at home and in the 5-1 loss to the in mid-January and again when the stands. But it was a precise, calm moment for Reirden. In the highest of Philadelphia Flyers scored three goals on their first four shots in early high-pressure situations, Reirden tried to stay composed as he laid out February. instructions for the end of the game. But getting upset on the bench isn’t the only way to show passion. The rest, as Capitals fans know well, is history. Reirden is a coach who likes to teach and help his players develop, especially the •blue-liners, and he makes sure to take time off the ice “That to me was a really important, defining moment of my coaching during the season to pull them into his office and talk about their game career,” said Reirden, who took over after Trotz departed in 2018. “Now and their mind-set. He notably did so with Michal Kempny when the the players now know that [is how I operate] in those situations. They defenseman was struggling toward the end of the regular season. He learned that from me as an assistant. I worked with them now for six also reached out to Oshie in the offseason to help him work on his years and now as a head coach, and I think that that will hopefully help scoring chances by the net. The pair ultimately decided to tweak Oshie’s them during this time of uncertainty and through stuff that is approach, which led to an uptick in goals in the first part of the season. unpredictable and unknown.” Reirden realizes hockey is a competitive business. He is confident in his The 2020 postseason, while unconventional and full of situations out of ability to coach but knows he needs postseason results. coaches’ and players’ control amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, is Reirden’s second go-round at the helm of a playoff team. It’s a second “I love coaching here,” Reirden said. “I love Washington, love the players, opportunity for him to bring his team back into the finals and ultimately have a special bond with many of them from being able to accomplish a hoist the Cup again. Stanley Cup together, and our goal is to focus on doing that again and giving ourselves every chance to have that opportunity.” In this ultimate time of uncertainty, Reirden firmly believes in his coaching ability and the planning that has gone into preparing for this year’s postseason. But ahead of Washington’s third round-robin game Sunday against the Boston Bruins, the team’s overall play has been subpar. Washington Post LOADED: 08.09.2020 Back-to-back losses have been filled with undisciplined play and unforced errors for a group that has only preached confidence up to this point.

Whether being thrown into an actual do-or-die playoff scenario will shift the team into that extra gear that Reirden has alluded to is unknown. But as the days creep closer to the first round, last year’s early playoff exit is still fresh and in the forefront of conversations.

This season, Reirden’s group seemed to be bouncing back after 2019′s disappointing end. The team raced out of the gate, led by a fiery offense and a hot start from Norris Trophy finalist John Carlson. Then the Capitals slowly started to unravel as inconsistencies started to emerge and the team sputtered before the four-month pause.

Supposedly refreshed and re-energized despite an unusual break and short training camp to prep for the playoffs, Reirden and the Caps hope they can regain that early season efficiency.

“It is always difficult coming off a Stanley Cup championship team and take over, and I knew that coming in. But, obviously, it has not been perfect, nor would I want it to be perfect because then it is probably too good to be true,” Reirden said. “You need to go through a little bit of adversity, and that makes me a better coach and makes our players accountable for righting the ship and being a part of the process and getting better.”

Players are quick to note that their 49-year-old coach is a “very detail- oriented” person. He wants to think one step ahead, both in terms of the team and the opposition, and wants everybody to be on the same page, both on and off the ice. Every situation is thought-out and scrutinized.

Forward T.J. Oshie said Reirden makes sure to let players go out and make plays while staying within the team’s structure. And noted Reirden’s attention to video, making sure the players know their assignments and the plan heading into each situation. 1190648 Washington Capitals

Capitals' Lars Eller shares picture of his second child, Alexander

By Ethan Cadeaux

August 08, 2020 4:53 PM

Capitals' forward Lars Eller departed the NHL bubble on Wednesday to be with his wife, Julie, for the birth of his second child. A few days later, the couple welcomed their first son into the family.

The couple already has one child together already, a daughter named Sophia.

The forward wasn't the only D.C. athlete to share exciting baby news on Saturday, as Washington Nationals shortstop Trea Turner announced that he and his wife are expecting their first child together in February.

Eller has stated he plans to return to the Capitals following the birth of his son, but it's unclear when he will return. Once he does return to Toronto, however, he must undergo a specific NHL-mandated quarantine before he's cleared to play again.

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How to WATCH: Washington Capitals vs. Boston Bruins

By NBC Sports Washington

August 08, 2020 2:19 PM

The Washington Capitals take on the Boston Bruins noon on Sunday as the finale of their round-robin play.

With both teams looking for their first win since the restart, there will be key seeding at stake. If the Caps win, they finish third and will play the Islanders in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. If the Caps lose, they'll finish fourth and go up against the Hurricanes.

While this postseason bubble format has been a joy to consume after four months without any hockey, it isn't anything that should be continued. That's what the winless Capitals should be thinking, that is, of course, unless the Caps make another far postseason run.

As the last contest that won't result in a step closer to going home if the Caps lose, Washington's possible opponents have become clearer. Also, while long-time rivals Pittsburgh got eliminated from the postseason, they somehow have a chance at the top overall pick in the NHL draft.

Look out for an intense Caps squad to come out playoff-ready against these Bruins.

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Caps to determine their playoff future in round robin finale against Boston

By J.J. Regan

August 08, 2020 12:04 PM

The Capitals will determine their playoff future on Sunday in the round robin finale against the Boston Bruins (12 p.m., NBC Sports Washington Plus).

Be sure to catch all the coverage on NBC Sports Washington Plus starting with Caps Pregame Live at 11 a.m. followed by the game at 12 p.m. Stick with NBC Sports Washington Plus after the game for Caps Postgame Live.

Here is everything you need to know for Caps-Bruins.

What's at stake

Sunday's game will determine who finishes third and fourth in the round robin. If the Caps win in any fashion, they will finish third in the round robin standings and play the New York Islanders in the first round of the playoffs. A loss in any fashion and Washington will finish fourth and play the Carolina Hurricanes.

Neither the Caps nor Bruins have managed a win yet in the round robin. Washington has a point after a shootout loss to Tampa Bay while Boston has zero with two regulation losses.

When last we met

This is a team the Caps typically play well against and that was true in the regular season as Washington went 2-1-0 against Boston, but the last game they played was a 7-3 loss on Dec. 23. That game was the start of Washington's downward spiral through the rest of the regular season. From there, the Bruins went on to dominate the league and finish as the Presidents' Trophy winners with the top record. Washington barely went .500 until the season was paused.

Lineup question marks

Head coach Todd Reirden did not provide any update on defenseman John Carlson on Friday other than to say he practiced. His status for Sunday's game is uncertain. As of Friday, Lars Eller was still in Washington with his family for the birth of his second child so he will not be available on Sunday. Nicklas Backstrom did not practice on Friday. Reirden did not specify why.

"I can't say much about Nick's situation," Reirden said. "We'll see how he is tomorrow and then as we get closer to Sunday."

As if that wasn't enough, Evgeny Kuznetsov did not play again in Thursday's game after Philadelphia's third goal. Reirden benched him after only three shifts in the third.

All of this means that we really have no idea what the lineup is going to look like at all on Sunday.

Holtby in net

What the lineup in front of the net will look like is anyone's guess at this point, but we do at least know who the goalie will be.

"At this point, we're going to go with Braden Holtby," Reirden said. "I think that this best prepares him for Round 1, Game 1 is getting more in- game action after discussion with him and how he's been feeling and continue to have him building his game for the playoffs. Obviously things can change, but that's where we're headed today."

Vitek Vanecek has been the backup, but he has no NHL experience so there was some speculation as to whether the team would try to get Vanecek some time during the round robin. Reirden, however, is focused on preparing for the playoffs in the wake of Thursday's loss which was a definite step back for the team in terms of its performance.

Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190651 Washington Capitals postseason format are all being quick to declare this a success before seeing how everything ultimately plays out.

The best-of-five series are fun, but this year is different. It's OK to let It's been fun, but the NHL should not stick with the 2020 playoff format 2020 be its own success and move on. The only thing the NHL needs to do is get rid of the awful divisional format, take the top eight teams from each conference and re-seed after each round. This year is different. Let's not pretend we need all these changes when life returns to normal. By J.J. Regan

August 08, 2020 8:00 AM Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 08.09.2020

This was going to be the year to experiment. No matter what, the 2020 postseason was going to be different. The coronavirus dictated that. The NHL should be applauded for thinking outside the box and trying different things this year, but when the league looks forward to the next season and beyond, let's not get nuts.

The 2020 postseason format has been great given the time we are living in and the adjustments that had to be made, but no, the NHL should not adopt this postseason format going forward, regardless of how fun it has been.

Let's be clear, the regular NHL's playoff format is bad. This is in no way a defense of the nonsensical divisional format which sets up the same matchups over and over and over again and punishes teams in good divisions. A wild card format so complicated you can't explain it to a casual fan? Having the two best teams in a division play in the second round even if they are the two best teams in the conference? Blech. It's terrible. The 2020 postseason format, however, is not a good alternative.

Look, I get it. The best-of-five series are fun! The best-of-seven series can feel drawn out by comparison. In a best of five, every game feels really important!

When the NHL was presenting its plan for the 2020 postseason, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was asked about why the league elected not to shorten some of the playoff series to best-of-five as well and he said the players advocated not to do that so as not to cheapen the Stanley Cup. It takes 16 wins to win the Cup. Period. Even in a pandemic.

The NBA used to have best-of-five series in the first round and that made sense because a lot of those first-round matchups were garbage. The NBA does not have nearly the same level of parity as the NHL and the top teams almost always advanced with little drama at all. The first round of the NHL playoffs is fantastic and full of upsets. There's no reason to fast-forward through those series and play fewer games because those series are compelling.

OK, so keep the four-round, best-of-seven format. What about a play-in best of five series?

First, you can't have 24 teams out of 31 (soon to be 32) reach the postseason. For a league that wants its fans and players to care about an 82-game season, having 24 teams make the playoffs renders the regular season nearly meaningless. The only reason the NHL extended the postseason out to 24 teams this year is because the league canceled the end of the regular season and those bottom teams did not have a chance to make a final push for the playoffs like we see every year. There's no reason to extend the field in a normal season.

While there are few who would advocate expanding the playoffs to 24 teams, there is a case to be made for adding one or two more teams per conference and having a play-in. Even that, to me, is a step too far. When the league expands to 32 teams, exactly half of them will make the playoffs. Do we really need more than that? It's easy to get excited about that prospect now in the midst of the postseason when the level of play is at its best and interest is at its peak, but let's think about the real dog days of the season in January and February. Would devaluing the regular season by adding more teams to the playoff make those January and February games when the season starts to drag more fun to watch or less? We all know the answer to that question.

And, by the way, all of the support to change the playoffs is a reaction to the qualifying series. We haven't seen what this postseason will look like when the playoffs actually get started. Will the round-robin teams end up at a disadvantage when they face off against teams that already played in a do-or-die series? Will injuries become even more rampant in the always grueling postseason because of those teams playing an extra round? It certainly seems like the proponents of adopting the 2020 1190652 Winnipeg Jets The playoffs proved no different. Even after nearly five months off and a clean bill of health for most of the team, there was no evading the injury bug.

Surreal season produces tremendous adversity, hell of a fight from Jets Mark Scheifele, along with Laine and Appleton again, were banished.

“We just couldn’t catch a break,” Wheeler said.

Scott Billeck Indeed.

August 8, 2020 10:54 AM CDT Well, they did catch one, actually: Connor Hellebuyck.

The likely Vezina winner this season snatched wins from the jaws of defeat, sometimes all by himself. Without him, there would have been no Leafs know if they put their minds to it, they can win Game 5 playoffs to speak of. Hellebuyck may not have had the playoffs he wanted — and it would be incredibly unfair to pin Winnipeg’s loss to the “Stay in the fight.” Calgary Flames on him — but his regular season dragged his club into The Winnipeg Jets played a particular brand of hockey that, very early on the playoffs. in the 2019-20 season, became an earned badge worn invisibly on each The Jets struggled without the cast that they had iced the year before, of their jerseys. but regression began to show in the second half of the 2018-19 season It became a rallying cry for a team that took more punches than most. It — long before any of the adversity of the following year set in. became their identity — a scrappy bunch, severely undermanned at Did Winnipeg’s management do their best? times, that clawed and scratched for wins again and again. That will be debated. The seemingly long list of odds began stacking against them on July 1 and continued to heighten all of the way until the team’s final game of the Laine and Connor hamstrung management in what would become the NHL’s 24-team playoff format — one introduced during a global summer of contract stalemates across the NHL. Restricted free agents pandemic that truncated Winnipeg’s tumultuous regular season. (and their agents) flexed their muscles, some teams suffered.

If there was a statistic that could quantify adversity, the Jets would be No. Byfuglien then held them hostage, a situation that dragged on and on. 1 atop a 31-team column. Could general manager have done better? It’s a topic They dealt with a lot and did so admirably right to the bitter end. worthy of debate, and one we will get to in the coming weeks.

In the blame game that often ensues after a team gets bounced from the Last summer was dubbed as Winnipeg’s most important since returning playoffs, very little rests at the feet of the players who dug in at times they to the city in 2011. Cheveldayoff locked down two of his brightest stars, could have checked out. but the funds tied up in that halted the ability to buy adequate replacements on the blue line in free agency. “Realistically, there are plenty of opportunities for us to fold it in and chalk it up to a lost season and move on to next year,” Jets captain said, I straddle on the line of the handcuffs placed on Winnipeg’s GM and the moments after shaking hands with the Calgary Flames on Thursday. lack of creativity shown to Houdini his way out of it.

He’s not lying. Was it even possible? Other teams seemed to navigate cap issues with all sorts of clever measures. Winnipeg had its own unique circumstances, One could say Winnipeg’s season seemed destined for disappointment surely. But so did a lot of teams who fared better. from the start. There are few out there that would have envied head coach Paul In some respects, that eventually rang true. Maurice’s job this season. Losing Dustin Byfuglien unexpectedly proved quite the problem, a loss Every hit the players took meant a corresponding setback on Maurice’s impossible to overcome. roster card. Another hole to fill and not always enough to fill it adequately. In lesser terms, perhaps only slightly, watching more than half of your There are a couple of arguments here. blue line depart (Jacob Trouba, , Tyler Myers and Byfuglien) in one way or another ended in much the same way. One is that Maurice was hamstrung by how the summer went, and then faced an impossible battle, due to the summer and with the lack of depth The team couldn’t make up for it. Not with who they brought in over the in the organization to handle it, to put together the pieces of what was left summer to fill in the gaps, nor what they were able to acquire off the and turn them into a competitive team. waiver wire to plug holes that the injury grim reaper would open again and again. The truth is, despite everything, the Jets were competitive in the regular season, enough to enter the pause in the first wild-card spot in the But suggesting the season was doomed seems disrespectful to what the Western Conference. The analytics will show a team that, at times, was Jets did achieve in spite. on par with the dismal Detroit Red Wings. But there was Hellebuyck, The hits began on July 1, when the exodus on the blue line began. saving the team’s blushes again. Money to do anything was tied up in eventual contract stalemates with The other argument is that Maurice didn’t optimize enough with what he Patrik Laine and Kyle Connor. Those lasted until the final days of training had. And furthermore, he couldn’t get a handle on his team’s defensive camp. woes and atrocious penalty kill. Nor could he figure out the team’s On that final day, the Jets played their last pre-season game in misfiring (and predictable) power play. Minnesota. Bryan Little was concussed and missed the start of the year. Reality lies somewhere in the middle. The Jets were without a second-line centre before the regular season proper even began. Fully blaming Maurice would be a mistake. He lost key players throughout the season (and especially in the playoffs.) Little would eventually return, and six games and change later, his season was over after taking a Nikolaj Ehlers one-timer to the head. Little Depth helped the Jets overcome Scheifele’s injury during the 2017-18 was lost for the season. season. They were 11-2-3 in his absence. This time around they were 1- 3. The injury bus would have plenty of passengers, it would turn out. The Jets aren’t the team, at this point in time, to outscore their woes. Josh Morrissey. Patrik Laine. Adam Lowry. Andrew Copp. Dmitry Maurice’s job has to be fixing the team’s defensive structure and Kulikov. Mark Letestu. Gabriel Bourque. Nathan Beaulieu. Mason disastrous penalty kill. That ultimately didn’t happen. Appleton. Mathieu Perreault, twice. I’d argue he also needed to be given more pieces to do so. That, too, went largely unaddressed. While last offseason was the team’s most important in terms of re-signing top, home-grown, drafted and developed players, this offseason seems far more significant in returning the team to contender status.

Simply put, with the funds Cheveldayoff will have this summer, he has no choice but to improve the team.

He’s coming up on 10 years in charge of building the club. As of now, only one of those seasons appeared to bear the fruit of drafting and developing.

The Jets should be in position, by now, to have sustained success, but no team only drafts and develops solely and becomes a contender. Cheveldayoff needs to do more.

I’ll point to the Carolina Hurricanes for this one. They have been aggressive and now have a world-beating defence that features only one player in their three defensive pairings that was drafted by the organization.

The Jets have drafted well. They have developed some elite players.

But supplementing that with shrewd moves in free agency or through trades has been few and far between. Winnipeg will have at least $15 million to play with (and more could be available depending on the Little situation.)

Perhaps the hockey gods shine on the Jets on Monday, when the draft lottery will determine who gets the No. 1 pick and the keys to Alex Lafreniere.

Maybe there’s a payoff at the end of this wild 2020 tunnel after all.

But another player to draft and develop won’t cure the team’s ailments elsewhere.

With a surreal season in the books, the next chapter needs to be less chaotic and, simply, better.

Winnipeg Sun LOADED 08.09.2020 1190653 Vancouver Canucks If he goes three days with three negative results, he can then rejoin the rest of his teammates.

That timeline means it’s unlikely he’ll be available for Game 1 of the Canucks notebook: Miller deal was all about playoffs; blue-liner Benn Canucks’ first-round series. If the series opens Tuesday, he won’t have works his way back cleared anyway. If the series opens Wednesday, he won’t have skated with his teammates in nearly a month.

Oscar Fantenberg, who supplanted Benn as the team’s sixth PATRICK JOHNSTON defenceman in December, played the first three games of the series against Minnesota, but was scratched in favour of Olli Juolevi for Friday’s August 8, 2020 4:27 PM PDT Game 4 victory. It was the NHL debut for the young Finn, who showed well enough in limited minutes.

Let’s be clear here: It may have been unstated, but making the playoffs The NHL’s unfit-to-play designation is airtight in its limitations against was the Vancouver Canucks’ main objective to start the 2019-20 NHL reporting on injuries. season. That was made obvious from the moment general manager Jim So whatever issue forward is dealing with — we believe it’s Benning traded for J.T. Miller. something to do with his foot or ankle — nothing will be revealed in Benning’s deal for Miller, with a first-round pick a key piece going the official terms. other way to the Tampa Bay Lightning, was a move designed to make That said, it’s a telling thing the veteran winger remains with the the playoffs. Canucks. He was injured last Sunday. By the time the next round starts, For the deal to make sense, that first-round pick needed to be a mid- it will have been 10 days or so that he’s been on the sidelines. round selection, more ideally a pick that ended up in the 20s. If he’s only out for a couple weeks, that would put him back on a path to Mission accomplished, then. The Canucks are in the playoffs and now return as soon as next weekend. If he wasn’t ready to play soon, it have a chance, if they can win their first-round, best-of-seven series seems likely he’d not be sticking around the bubble. against the St. Louis Blues or Dallas Stars, to push that pick further toward the bottom of the first round of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft, an online affair that’s scheduled for Oct. 9. Vancouver Province: LOADED: 08.09.2020 Benning’s voice was notably delighted when reached by phone Saturday morning. It’s been a long run for the veteran hockey man in Vancouver, and most of it hasn’t gone according to plan. But in the celebration of Chris Tanev’s overtime goal Friday night, which sealed the Canucks’ qualifying-round series against the Minnesota Wild, the pure joy of the moment was plain.

The players took Saturday off to rest and recuperate. They’ll be back on the ice for practice Sunday, but they won’t know until Sunday afternoon which team they’ll play next; it will be the loser of Sunday’s final Western Conference round-robin game between the Stars and Blues.

That series will begin Tuesday or Wednesday. The schedule remains tentative because of TV demands. Once the Toronto Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets play Game 5 of their series on Sunday, the Final 16 playoff picture will be clear.

Benning has been able to watch just about every game played by Western Conference teams at Rogers Place in Edmonton over the past week, one of the best pro-scouting opportunities ever presented to NHL general managers. By all reports, most — but certainly not all — of the league’s GMs have taken advantage of the opportunity.

“It really gives us a chance to watch and become familiar with the whole conference,” he said Saturday morning. “It’s like a bantam tournament on steroids.”

If all goes to plan, defenceman Jordie Benn will be able to get back on the ice Sunday, Benning said.

Benn self-isolated in Vancouver in late June, then skated in the first few days of the Canucks’ return-to-play training camp before he returned to Dallas in mid-July to be with his fiancée Jessi Kohout, who was due to give birth. Their daughter, Billie, arrived just over a week ago. After a weekend getting used to their new addition, Benn flew to Edmonton on Tuesday to rejoin his team.

Under the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols, approved by Canadian and Albertan public health officials, players like Benn don’t have to follow the 14-day quarantine rules that most people arriving in Canada from abroad have to endure, but they still have to spend time in isolation.

The key item in this variance is the NHL’s ability to test players daily for the COVID-19 infection. After his arrival, Benn had to spend at least four full days in isolation in his hotel room. Each day he’s been tested for COVID-19. He had to test negative four times over four days to move to the next stage, being allowed to skate on his own, still in isolation from the rest of the team.

Sunday, Benning said, would be the first day of the next stage. If he’s approved to progress to this solo-skating stage, he’ll still be tested daily. 1190654 Vancouver Canucks Tanev and Hughes formed an enduring partnership this season, and therein lies a story for the 30-year-old Torontonian. Tanev played all 69 Canucks games in 2019-20 before the COVID-19 pause, which is the first time that’s happened since, well, forever. We don’t have the space to Ed Willes: Tanev takes turn playing hero, albeit teammates say he's recite his injury history here. Suffice to say there are some 25 recorded always super entries on his medical chart that have cost him almost two full seasons (152 games).

He’s missed games with the mumps. He’s missed games with food ED WILLES poisoning. He lost 6½ teeth in 2018 when a puck deflected and caught August 8, 2020 3:28 PM PDT him squarely in the mouth, raising the question, how do you lose half a tooth? He suffered broken legs and broken feet blocking shots and the Tanev memorial walking boot has become a permanent part of Canucks lore. EDMONTON — He was one year removed from the Rochester Institute of Technology when he made his first appearance with the Canucks and, This season, he finally stayed healthy, sort of, but he still needed the since then, Chris Tanev and his team have taken a long and eventful intervention of a global pandemic to recover for the postseason. In the journey together. Canucks’ final game before the pause, March 10 against the New York Islanders, Tanev suffered what was believed to be a knee injury when he He was there in the spring of 2011 as a guileless 22-year-old rookie was hit by Anders Lee. playing in the Stanley Cup Final, and he was there when the best-ever Canucks team collapsed on itself. He was there for John Tortorella and He was immediately pronounced week to week, a prognosis that the the bounce-back year under Willie Desjardins. And he was there for the COVID-19 outbreak would make irrelevant. He was cleared to return six lost four years that led to this NHL season. weeks later.

Along the way, he’s suffered injuries that would have driven a lesser man Again, if you doubt the existence of the hockey gods, perhaps you should from the game, but always he’s come back, ready for the next fight. And rethink your position. Friday night, literally at the stroke of midnight at Rogers Place, he became the unlikely hero on this unlikely Canucks team and, in that “It’s awesome,” Tanev said after delivering the series winner against the moment of triumph, it all seemed to make sense. Wild. “Obviously, the last few years have been tough and we haven’t won much lately. It’s fun to win. We have a great group of guys and we’re all “He’s a warrior,” said head coach Travis Green, shortly after Tanev’s enjoying every minute right now.” overtime goal sent the Canucks on to the next round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. “He’s been a great mentor for our young players, a great There is, of course, one more act to play out in Tanev’s story with the teammate. He’s been there when Vancouver had some pretty good times Canucks. He’s headed into unrestricted free agency this off-season on a and he’s been through some hard times. team that’s already tight to the cap, and there’s long been a thought this would be his final season in Vancouver. “He’s a big part of where we’re trying to go. I’m happy for him, for sure.” But Tanev wants to stay and GM Jim Benning prizes the attributes he Green had a lot of company on this night. brings to the table. The Canucks will try to sign him.

Earlier in the postseason qualifying round, Winnipeg captain Blake The rest will be up to the hockey gods. Wheeler wondered aloud about the existence of hockey gods, wondered if they didn’t sit in the rafters and dispense justice to the mortals who play this game. If you believe they exist, then you believe they looked down Vancouver Province: LOADED: 08.09.2020 on Tanev in Game 4 of the Canucks’ best-of-five series with the Minnesota Wild.

Just 11 seconds into overtime,Tanev took the puck along the wall like he’s done a thousand times before, walked into the middle of the ice, and let go a harmless wrister that missed teammate J.T. Miller’s stick, missed Wild defenceman Matt Dumba and found its way behind Alex Stalock into the back of the Wild net. That goal set off a mob scene, partly for the Canucks’ first postseason victory since the season in which Tanev first joined the team, and partly for the player who scored the goal.

“He does a lot of quiet work,” goalie Jacob Markstrom said of Tanev. “He’s an outlet for (rookie wunderkind Quinn Hughes) and lets him play his game, and he’s saved my behind multiple times. It was a great feeling to win the game and the series, and for Chris to get that goal was unbelievable.”

What about your blue-line partner, Quinn?

“Chris is the heart and soul of this team,” said Hughes. “It was awesome to see him score there. He’s been big for me on and off the ice.”

The series with the Wild, in fact, represented one of the high-water marks of Tanev’s career with the Canucks all the way around. In addition to the game winner Friday night, he chipped in two assists, giving him four points in the series. He averaged 22:34 of ice time per game, behind only Hughes and longtime comrade Alex Edler. In the 3-0 Game 3 win he blocked five shots.

Hughes, meanwhile, led all Canucks scorers with six points. The kid from Michigan doesn’t need a lot of help, but in the reliable veteran he’s found the perfect partner.

“I don’t think you can put a price on it,” Hughes answered when asked about the role Tanev played in his development this season. “He does a lot of things in the D-zone I’m not capable of doing. As we’ve played longer and longer together, our offensive game has gotten better.” 1190655 Vancouver Canucks yawning cage and instead firing back into Stalock who was scrambling across the crease.

The game’s first goal featured the tiniest of mistakes, a surprising one in The Skate: It's the playoffs! The playoffs! normal times, but of course these aren’t normal times.

That’s a rare skate-on-post mistake by Markstrom that leaves gap between post + bottom of pad; normally pretty precise getting skate PATRICK JOHNSTON inside post and toe box of pad sealed up— Kevin Woodley (@KevinisInGoal) August 8, 2020 August 8, 2020 6:32 PM PDT Positional problems were a feature for Markstrom all night. It seemed an

obvious sign of fatigue. Surely the fact he was playing his fourth game in The Canucks won a 5-4 thriller in overtime on Friday night. More here on six nights was a factor. that game, and from around the league. Markstrom was brutally honest about his performance post-game. He Oh, the aging we’ve done in nine years. apologized to his teammates and then with the media owned his poor play. It was fitting that a meme went around on Twitter after the Vancouver Canucks won a 5-4 thriller in overtime on Friday night, a win that sends “I want to thank all the players for scoring one more goal than I let in,” he them to the official Stanley Cup playoffs, suggesting people share a said with a grin. photo from now and a photo from 2011, when you may remember the I asked Markstrom how relieved he was to be able to get a few days of home team won three (but not four) playoff rounds. rest now, with the first proper round of the playoffs looming. This is very much a new team. It took a while to put together. It may not “We’re happy to finish this in four instead of going to five with Minnesota stay as good as it is now. But it’s definitely its own team. The Sedin era is having some momentum,” he said. “We’ve got a long ways to go still. over. The Twins retired two years ago, but they remained The Last Good We’ll enjoy this win but then it’s time to go back to work.” Team. Lots of practice on deck, he insisted. We’ll see how things develop in the years to come — yes, the same constrictions remain for 2020-21 and beyond — but for now, this is Elias His head coach was honest about how his team felt about Markstrom. Pettersson’s team. Quinn Hughes’s team. Brock Boeser’s team. Bo They were glad they bailed him out for once, he said. Horvat’s team. And yes, Jacob Markstrom’s team. “He didn’t have his best night, he knows that. We laughed a bit about it It was also somewhat fitting that the game-winning goal Friday night was post game,” Green said. “I told him it’s about time the team put you on scored by one of their grizzliest veterans, Chris Tanev. their back.”

Tanev, he of the toothless grin and wry smile, has scored 22 career And the captain went to bat for him too, interrupting the NHL’s host to regular-season goals. Six of those are game winners. give his own answer about the big goalie’s meaning to the team.

He now has a lone playoff goal. It’s a game winner. “Marky doesn’t give himself enough credit. He’s been a brick wall all season, and we wouldn’t be where we are right now without him,” he “Tanny doesn’t get a lot of credit for that part of the game. He’s a warrior. said. He’s a great mentor for our young players,” head coach Travis Green said of Tanev post-game. Years ago, an interesting study by Eric Tulsky, now the numbers man with the Carolina Hurricanes but in those days just a hockey fan with a “Coaching this group is enjoyable. They let you coach them, they listen PhD, found that goalies had a terrible save percentage in the second …they buy in. That’s what you want from a team.” start of back-to-backs if they played both games. Tanev said luck was a big factor, as the puck bounced over a defender’s Turns out, the two seasons he looked at were the worst two seasons in a stick. And he was shooting to make a tip opportunity for J.T. Miller. broad span of time. If you expanded the data, the variance basically “I was shooting for Millsy’s stick. He just missed it. I don’t know if that disappears. fooled the goalie,” he said. So, it’s not quite the dumb decision we long thought it was. Let’s look over this game on another version of the Skate. Interesting that Travis Green said the day off on Monday was a big key to Bo Horvat didn’t just tie the game in the third period. the series.

He played a monster game from start to finish. He was up against the “I felt like we had to pick our team off the mat a little bit,” he said of why Wild’s top two lines all night and came out a massive winner. he made Monday a day off when another coach might have chosen to practice instead. The Canucks controlled play all night. They out-shot-attempted the Wild 52-36 at even strength. Instead, he said, the players got their mental focus reset and the Canucks never looked back. They played much better in Game 2 and A huge part of this dominance was the play of their captain. The Canucks won. They then shut out the Wild in Game 3. And of course kept pushing out-shot Minnesota by 10 with Horvat on the ice. That’s all about the in Game 4. work of him and his wingers Loui Eriksson and Tanner Pearson. I found myself wondering a little bit about the terrible night in Tampa in “He was a horse tonight. I think he’s another guy who got better as the January. The next day had been meant to be a day off, giving the players series has gotten on. Our top six wasn’t very good in Game 1. And they a chance to have some beach time in Fort Lauderdale. knew. And they’ve all responded,” Green said. Instead he chose to have a midday practice, hoping to get his players’ “This is Bo’s kind of hockey. It’s hard hockey. It’s heavy hockey. You’ve minds off the loss quickly, resetting their view towards the game the next got to get to the net if you want to score.” night against the Florida Panthers.

Horvat found himself all alone in front of Minnesota goalie Alex Stalock You may recall that didn’t work either. They were shellacked for a second when a perfect pass from Pearson landed on his stick and the captain night in a row. Maybe a day off then would actually have been a good one-timed the puck through Stalock’s legs, the goalie dropping to his idea? knees far too late. One of those questions you’d love to ask as a follow-up, but in a Zoom “Pearson made a heck of a pass. Stalock had my number the whole call you only get one and I wanted to hear his thoughts about Bo Horvat series, so it was nice to see it finally go in,” Horvat said. in the moment more.

It was his second goal of the series, but could easily have been his Every season has its learning moments. The year before there was fourth, as Stalock had robbed him down low earlier in Game 4 and somehow spending three nights in Vegas *before* they had to play a Horvat had misfired on a shot in Game 3 on a 2-on-1, missing the matinee against VGK. I’ve long wondered if the Canucks would like to plan that one again. And like that one, I wonder if Green would like a Hughes? When he gets it right, it’s such a weapon. That happens too second guess at that practice in January. rarely though.

Yes, yes it is He took nine minor penalties in the series. Against a team with a better power play than Minnesota’s — two defencemen, why, Dean Evason, Don't mean to get ahead of ourselves here but if the Canucks advance why? — they could have been punished brutally. and St. Louis beats Dallas on Sunday, the Stars and Canucks will meet in the playoffs which, if you're familiar with the history between the two Against the Dallas Stars or St. Louis Blues, you can’t get away with that. owners, is noteworthy.— Ed Willes (@willesonsports) August 8, 2020 Whatever good pitches Dale Tallon might have had in the late aughts in Brandon Sutter has had a tough go the last few seasons. helping to assemble that championship-winning Blackhawks team — and even that should feature some doubt, on further review — he didn’t have It’s been to the point that yours truly had doubts he could be useful even them much in Florida. as the team’s fourth-line RW. That was a shame, because in the right role, he’s a handy player to have. (To be clear, that role never was as the He made the playoffs twice in 10 years, but both times there are some second-line second coming of .) serious caveats that need discussing. We’ll get to that.

And in this series, Sutter has been everything the Canucks had hoped he His expansion draft moves immediately after getting his GM job back in would be. When he was slotted in to take over for Adam Gaudette as the April 2017 have been well-documented. It was absolute folly for him to third centre in Game 2 — Gaudette hadn’t been good in Game 1 — his have shipped Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith to the Golden presence was slow and steady in emerging. Knights like he did, all so he could protect four defencemen.

He scored in Game 4, swatting a loose puck into the net. They were choices made out of spite for the forward-thinking, savvy thinkers who had pushed him out the season before, having the ear of The Canucks only gave up two scoring chances with him on the ice, a owner Vinnie Viola, who bought the team in 2013. Viola, who made defensively reliable effort that you want from a depth centre. billions betting on oil markets and building investment startups, was It’s like the one deadline where they explored trading Sutter, found that skeptical of Tallon from the start. he had value, then decided to keep him because if he has value then he Tallon had been handed the keys to the Panthers in 2010. With him must be good. around, the team made the playoffs twice: once in 2011-12, a year of Green shortened his bench to three lines in the late going, putting Sutter good fortune for the Cats, where they were badly outscored (203 for, 227 with Tyler Motte and Zack MacEwen. Jay Beagle, normally one of against) and played in an atrocious division. Green’s go-to guys in close games but a player with no offensive talent, The other team that made the playoffs? The 2015-16 squad, the first rode the pine, along with Antoine Roussel and Jake Virtanen. edition of the Panthers where we can see the hands of the so-called The Canucks needed a goal and Sutter brings more to the table Computer Boys, the outsiders leaned on by Viola for advice. offensively, so the choice wasn’t a huge surprise, but it’s also notable Tallon’s signing of Dave Bolland in the summer of 2014, Viola’s first that Beagle blocked a shot with what looked like his hand late in the summer as an owner, was a disaster almost from the start. The checking second period. centre’s reputation was outsized. Signed to a massive contract, he was Will that have a lasting effect? never going to be able to provide value for money. He hadn’t shut down the Sedins, despite a narrative out there. More player returns? Viola quickly grew skeptical of the GM he’d inherited. Tallon’s style was Tyler Toffoli’s health, of course, remains a question mark. All we know is to run everything himself. There may have been people listed in other he’s in a walking boot of some kind. The Athletic’s Thomas Drance says roles, but he wouldn’t let anyone make any decisions. Like a paranoid tin- he’s heard it’s a smaller walking boot. pot dictator, decisions it would seem were made on a whim.

Could he make a return during the next round? To counteract this, Viola began to lean more and more heavily on Eric Joyce, a former West Point hockey player and Steve Werier, a young And what about Jordie Benn? Oscar Fantenberg wasn’t great during the Canadian lawyer who Viola counted as a family friend. first round, to the point that Green felt he could risk exposing the raw Olli Juolevi to his first NHL action. The 2016 first rounder did well in limited Neither was initially even listed in hockey operations, but eventually both minutes, but if Jordie Benn is available in the next few days, would he would be made assistant general managers. It was Werier who would slot back in? bring in Canucks Army alums Josh Weissbock and Cam Lawrence — a Canadian military data head and a shrewd businessman, respectively, The NHL did suggest to teams a while back that some players might both hockey fans and with minds for big data and the lessons that can be have to isolate in their rooms for a week or longer, depending on where drawn from them — into the fold. Both still work for the team, so valuable they’d been. Benn travelled to Dallas and of course the COVID situation has their prospect data modelling proven to be. in Dallas has not been good lately, so it seems this longer-quarantine rule will apply to him. Florida changed internally a lot earlier than conventional wisdom would have you believe. Lawrence and Weissbock actually began collaborating Has he run a marathon in his room yet? with Werier as early as 2015 — well before he was named AGM — using For the record, the J.T. Miller trade is now complete. The Devils will get their public CHL Stats website data to complement a data-driven draft the Canucks’ 2020 first rounder, which was previously traded to the board, built as an alternative to the conventional board built by Tallon’s Lightning and the Devils subsequently acquired. trusted scouts, who number less than a handful. That board is the talk of urban legend but among other major differences from Florida’s board At the time, it was a hefty price. I always said if they made the playoffs, it under Tallon, this one recommended Barzal, Connor and Konecny in the would be worth it. They have. top 10, each far above Lawson Crouse, who Tallon selected at 11.

So kudos to GM Jim Benning for a bold roll of the dice. He picked up a There were huge battles between Tallon’s scouts and Viola’s new staff in player who really did make a difference. The Canucks are better for it the war room. In 2016 some of Tallon’s old scouts got in a shouting and the price is a mid-round draft pick. match over Adam Fox not being good and just having “good analytics” because he “played with good players” on the national development Too many minors team. I’m not as harsh as many are about Tyler Myers. He’s been a useful Other moves in that period that from the outside perspective clearly have player. His contract is probably too long. this new thinking behind them was the trade for Reilly Smith, a player For the most part he’s made the team better on offence. Their breakouts, who was on the outs in Boston but who made the Panthers better. The for one, are better. Panthers took Marc Savard’s cap hit along with Smith. Savard’s contract was paid out mostly through insurance, so the price to add Smith was But he’s also not great defensively. Why can’t we see him use his reach obviously deemed to be worth it. like he did on the back-check in the first period, covering for Quinn Going the other way was Jimmy Hayes, a big-bodied Boston boy coming many of those minutes as possible?— Steven Sandor (@stevensandor) off a career-high shooting percentage. He would bomb out of the league August 8, 2020 in less than three seasons. On the other hand … On the ice, the influence of the new thinking could be seen too: one of the big changes made in deployment in 2015-16 was to split up Erik The Leafs did it right. Gudbranson and Willie Mitchell as a defence pairing. They were a The 6-on-5 lineup that produced all three goals for the Leafs: Matthews, disaster in terms of possession. Some of Gudbranson’s best play in Nylander, Tavares, Marner, Hyman, Rielly.— Jonas Siegel Florida was alongside Brian Campbell, a defenceman who made every (@jonassiegel) August 8, 2020 player he skated with better in his career. Campbell, known as an offensive defenceman, was also handed penalty-killing time, a move that Ride your stars. earned immediate dividends. When you put it that way … That was also Bolland’s second season in Florida and it was becoming I don’t really have a solution beyond having been brutal and just figured quickly clear that he was a bust. He became a regular scratch and was out the eight teams in each conference. eventually waived. No other team in the league was interested and Bolland lasted two games in the AHL before he announced his back was I don’t thing the first round proper is going to run very long. a mess and he couldn’t play. Those round robin matchups for the one seed come with getting the The corpse of his contract was shipped to the Coyotes the next summer 23rd/24th best regular season teams in the first round. So, some along with Crouse, who turned out to be a serviceable forward, but still incentive there I’d imagine.— Justin Bourne (@jtbourne) August 8, 2020 just a depth player. His selection at 11th overall in 2015 was considered a reach at the time, and even crazier knowing the players most thought Out of town hot take of the night at the time should have gone in that spot, including Matt Barzal. Mike Babcock wasn’t the problem.— Sid Seixeiro (@Sid_Seixeiro) A year later, the Computer Boys were fully in charge at the draft, despite August 8, 2020 the arguments between them and Tallon’s waning old guard. That was A closing note: I didn’t know Tyson Giruriato that well, but he and I did the draft where the Panthers flipped Gudbranson to Vancouver, picking break into the business around the same time. up Jared McCann, a very serviceable middle-six centre, in return. I first came across him as the face behind a Canucks prospects Twitter The Marchessault trade ahead of the 2017 expansion draft is nuts. A account almost a decade ago. We first met at the 2012 Canucks summer player on a tidy, cap-friendly deal, who was clearly a rising star, is not a development camp. I think he’d been hired by Canucks.com to write player you leave exposed in the expansion draft. And to ship him away some profiles. I was there for Hockey Now, the hockey newspaper you along with a player who had proven to be a key forward like Smith was can pick up at your local rink. further folly. He was a friendly, quiet face. We enjoyed the hustle. And yet, that was Tallon’s plan, once he found himself back in charge. Slowly but surely, he picked up freelancing work. I was always inspired to Viola got gun shy during a losing streak in 2016-17, eventually allowing know he was getting it done. I knew I could be like that too. Tallon to take charge again. The veteran hockey man had been punted up to the president’s suite the year before and while neither Joyce nor Over the years, we didn’t talk as much, but it was always nice to see him Werier was put officially in charge, they basically were. Tom Rowe was at Canucks prospect events. And then we got a chance to catch up at elevated to the GM’s title as a hockey-man cover, but he proved far more last year’s training camp in Victoria, where he lived. erratic than was expected. I was very sad to learn Friday that he’s passed away, suddenly. My One of the first things after Tallon was officially restored to leadership thoughts are with his family. was to chase after Erik Gudbranson. The Canucks were willing to move the big blue-liner back to Florida. Jason Demers, a solid defenceman who would have made the Canucks better, was the price. Vancouver Province: LOADED: 08.09.2020 But Demers had a modified no-trade clause and was able to block the move before training camp in 2017.

I'm sure Tallon had just enough influence to say "No, I don't want to alienate all of my similarly minded old white dude friends by doing something that is 100% allowed in the CBA"

Tallon was in charge for 10 years in Florida and none of his decisions ever took the team anywhere. It could even be argued that much of the time he worked against himself.

This is a guy who takes league meetings so seriously, his only notable impact is he spends most of them chirping his colleagues. A GM who wouldn’t have contemplated the idea of making an offer sheet to Nikita Kucherov — something that the Computer Boys were apparently considering — because so many of the NHL’s managers have their thinking stuck in high school, acting like teenaged buddies afraid to piss off the cool kids.

Where do the Panthers go now? It’s going to be a big battle in the world of COVID. Because of their tiny fan base, they’re already heavily dependent on revenue sharing. It’s hardly the most promising scenario for any prospective owner or GM.

But there’s still hockey-playing opportunity here.

You’re trying to win?

Kris Russell was on the ice for the Oilers as they were chasing a tying goal in the final minute.

Consider me well and truly baffled.

How about, you have a five-minute PP in an elimination game and don't call a timeout to ensure McDavid and Draisaitl can be on the ice for as 1190656 Vancouver Canucks In playoff overtime, a memorable goal can feel inevitable in retrospect. That’s how quickly and powerfully it becomes etched in one’s memory.

It’s why the “how” barely matters. The playoffs aren’t a process time of ‘Heart and soul’: Chris Tanev’s overtime winner marks the end of year. It’s a results time of year. Canucks rebuild “It went in,” Tanev said, and in so doing noted efficiently the only fact that really matters.

By Thomas Drance It went in and symbolically, at least, marks the end of what’s been a lengthy, fitful and often draining Canucks rebuild. There’s still work to be Aug 8, 2020 done to mold them into a true contender, work that will be extraordinarily challenging, but Tanev’s overtime winning goal means the Canucks are a

playoff team again. EDMONTON — “I’m pumped a good friend and a good player like Chris “Playoff team” is a sticky label. A playoff team is expected to remain a Tanev won (Vancouver) their first playoff series since 2011!!!” playoff team, to qualify again and again, for years to come. So read the text message from former Vancouver Canucks defensemen Such progress may not be linear. There could yet be fits and starts. Kevin Bieksa — himself the most recent player to score a series- clinching overtime winner in a Canucks uniform, way back in 2011 — That’s where the expectations have to be now in Vancouver, though. Its replying to The Athletic from the Sportsnet broadcast studio in Toronto on young talent is too good for further patience. The way Hughes and Elias Friday night. Pettersson overwhelmed the veteran Wild on Friday night makes that plain. What was left unsaid by Bieksa’s three exclamation points was made apparent by the urgency with which 2011 is still remembered. Yes, it’s And if this is in fact the start of a run in which the Canucks compete been nine long years since the Canucks won a round in the postseason. annually in the postseason, then Tanev’s early-August goal in Edmonton will stand up in the collective memory for Canucks fans — as Tanev Whether it was the qualifying round or not, this meant something. himself likely will — as a bridge between eras. It meant something to Bieksa. It meant something to every member of “He’s been there when Vancouver has had some pretty good times, and the Canucks organization. It definitely meant something to the success- he’s been through some hard times too,” Green said. starved hockey fans in Vancouver. “The last few years have been tough. We haven’t won much lately,” And it meant a little bit more too, felt fitting in a way, because it was Tanev said. “It’s fun to win. We have a great group of guys here and Tanev who scored the dramatic overtime winning goal that sealed the we’re enjoying every minute right now.” comeback and punched Vancouver’s ticket to the round of 16. All of which raises the unavoidable and inconvenient question: Will Tanev Tanev, 30, has been a standout for the Canucks over the course of a — a pending unrestricted free agent, who is at an age when defense-first turbulent decade. Signed as an undrafted free agent out of the Rochester blueliners tend to be hazardous bets — be part of that next step with the Institute of Technology in 2010, Tanev has quietly, with little credit, been Canucks in the years to come? one of the best defensive defencemen over the past seven seasons. Make no mistake, his teammates want him back. Through some of the most successful, most chaotic and leanest seasons in Canucks history, Tanev has been a mainstay. He’s blocked shot “He’s not a guy that gets much credit in the media, but he does a lot of attempts at a higher rate than anyone else, played lockdown defense, quiet work, blocking shots and being an outlet for Huggy, so Huggy can logged massive minutes when healthy, never once shied away from kind of play his game,” goaltender Jacob Markstrom said. “He’s always taking a hit to make a play and picked up all manner of savage injuries in backing him up, he’s saving my behind — he did it multiple times in this service to the team. series. For Chris to get that goal was unbelievable.”

“Chris is the heart and soul of this team” was the matter-of-fact His coach, ideally, would like him back, too. summation from Tanev’s defence partner, Quinn Hughes, on Friday night. “Tanny doesn’t get a lot of credit for that part of the game,” Green said. “He’s a warrior, been a great mentor for our young players, great Don’t believe Hughes? Tanev has the impressive flow, the toothless grin teammate. He’s been a big part of where we’re trying to go.” and the penchant for nicknames to prove it. His defense partner, Hughes, has all but openly lobbied for the Canucks For a player like Tanev, a game like the one he had Friday night doesn’t to extend Tanev’s contract since Phase 2 began in early July. Hughes come around very often. In Vancouver’s 5-4 come-from-behind overtime seemed to take the opportunity to do so again Friday night. victory, which eliminated the Minnesota Wild, Tanev had three points, making it just the second three-point night in his decade-long NHL “I don’t think you can put a price on it,” Hughes said pointedly when career. asked about Tanev’s impact on his historic performance as a first-year player. The goal that dug the dagger into the Wild’s heart? That was Tanev’s first career playoff goal. So, yes, Tanev wasn’t exactly a likely overtime hero “He does a lot of things in the D-zone that I’m not capable of doing. As for the Canucks. we’ve played longer and longer together, his game has continued to get better. It’s awesome to see him score there. He’s been big for me on the “I actually picked him in the pool to score,” joked head coach Travis ice and off the ice as well.” Green. “So I’m happy about that.” Those are the types of future-forward discussions that will have to wait, The goal itself was a strange one. Young Wild forward Nico Sturm of course. This is the playoffs, and contract negotiations are on the back misplayed a rolling puck along the wall and Tanev corralled it. He had the burner. space to walk a couple of steps into the middle along the blue line before unfurling a low, hard wrist shot. What’s substantive instead is that the Canucks are back in the playoffs, to which they return on the back of an unlikely overtime goal scored by a Tanev’s wrist shot had eyes. As the puck cruised cleanly along the ice at well-liked, defense-minded defender who stands as a symbol of their knee level, it could’ve hit any number of obstacles. The puck narrowly turbulent past and uncertain future and how they have earned the right to missed the blade of Sturm’s outstretched stick, avoided J.T. Miller’s continue to play in the present. deflection attempt and fluttered just a millimetre to the left of Matt Dumba before it beat Wild netminder Alex Stalock just inside the post on the far side. The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 “The puck just bounced over their winger’s stick. I walked to the middle,” Tanev said. “I was shooting for Millsy’s stick and he just missed it and I don’t know if that fooled the goalie. The goalie might’ve thought he was going to tip it, but their D skated by and might’ve screened him a bit.” 1190657 Websites December. It was lifeless, it was baffling and it seemed impossible until we were in the middle of it.

It should’ve been, at least. The worst ones always seem to be. The Athletic / he worst loss of Sidney Crosby’s career was totally So, the focus turns forward. They’ve got a 12.5 percent chance at landing avoidable one of the best draft-year wingers in recent history — the Canadiens had their eye on Alexis Lafreniere until Friday afternoon. Funny how that turns out. The job should be Jarry’s, after three mediocre-to-bad seasons By Sean Gentille from Murray. Whether he’s on the roster at all is a major question. A year-older John Marino, a still-productive veteran core, a still-remarkable Aug 7, 2020 group of top-six forwards … there are reasons to think they could run this back in the fall. Truly, it feels like they’re in a better spot now than after the 2019 sweep by the Islanders. That was a system meltdown; this, in a Whatever we’re supposed to call the next round of the Stanley Cup vacuum, was more about bad luck, brutal play by a couple and average playoffs, Phil Kessel is in it — and the Pittsburgh Penguins aren’t. play by too many.

Whether irony, poetic justice or coincidence, a few hours after Kessel In the moment, it was tough to see how that group — flawed from the scored a goal in the Coyotes’ qualifying-round win over Nashville, the start, Kessel included — could’ve beaten the Islanders. This time, the Penguins were done. For the second straight year, their postseason was issues were more obvious. They were either ignored or addressed too finished after four games. late.

This year was a little different — they won a game. It was also a lot So, failure? Regret? Whatever the Penguins want to call it, it’s bad. And it worse. The most brutal, pointless series loss of the Sidney didn’t need to be this way. Crosby/Evgeni Malkin era? Yep.

Doesn’t it have to be? Think about it. In 2010, a team of robots and the Red Army couldn’t have solved Jaroslav Halak. The Capitals had already The Athletic LOADED: 08.09.2020 failed.

2012 against the Flyers? A clown show on both sides, featuring some strain of communicable rage virus that Philly harnessed a little more effectively.

2013 against the Bruins? Those were the Bruins. In 2014, an outmatched team ran out of gas after going up 3-1 against the Rangers.

There’s no good playoff series loss — just degrees of badness. The worst ones are the ones that feel preventable. And it’s tough to remember any that felt more preventable than whatever we just watched.

Start at the end of the regular season; complain about the five-game series as much as you want, and the players were and remain annoyed by the format. The solution, though? Don’t lose eight of 11 down the stretch. If they scrape together four more points in that run — maybe against the three worst teams in the Western Conference, maybe against the Buffalo Sabres — this is never an issue. It never has a chance to be.

And even when it turned into an issue, after fate was taken out of their hands, they still were gifted a matchup against the 24th-best team in the NHL. The 24th-best team in the NHL. This wasn’t a 4-5 matchup. This was a team designated by its coach as special, led by two of the best players on Earth — elite, if aging — against a group that finished fifth in a bad division, with 71 points in 71 games and a minus-9 goal differential. The Penguins bought Patrick Marleau, Evan Rodrigues and Conor Sheary at the trade deadline. The Canadiens sold.

Still, we knew if they lost, how it’d look; Carey Price would be great. The Penguins’ power play would be terrible. Bounces wouldn’t be with them. And the Canadiens were going to exploit their weak spots: Matt Murray in his current form and a third pairing that shouldn’t have existed.

Seeing that come to pass in Game 1 could’ve been a gift. It was their worst-case scenario borne out, yes, and some elements were outside their control, sure. Playoff hockey is voodoo, and so are goaltenders. Sullivan couldn’t buy bounces. He could control who was in his lineup, though, and he could control how much they played. Jack Johnson? For more than 17 minutes in Game 1, in between being on the ice for three even-strength goals? That’s preventable.

As for Murray, starting him initially made sense. He has a short leash, or so we all said. Turns out it was a little too long. The right moment for the Tristan Jarry pivot was after the Canadiens’ third goal in Game 3. It doubly felt that way after Murray shrugged a short-side, zero-angle shot into the net for Montreal’s game-winner.

And it triply felt that way in Game 4; Jarry wasn’t just their best player. He might’ve been their only good player. That’s a guy who should’ve been starting his fourth career playoff game, not his first.

So, no, it didn’t need to be like this — but they made it this way, and then, whether it was nerves, resignation or some combination of the two, played an elimination game that could’ve doubled as a Tuesday night in 1190658 Websites In the strangest of years, Pittsburgh — which finished with the NHL’s seventh-best points percentage (.623) and one win behind a bye team (Philadelphia) — now holds one-in-eight odds of landing a franchise forward. Sportsnet.ca / Quick Shifts: Why Maple Leafs' shocker could catapult to big things The worst team in Monday’s lottery, Minnesota (.558) finished 21st. From both a competitive and image standpoint, the Wild is most in need of Lafreniere.

Luke Fox | @lukefoxjukebox The Rangers’ left-wing depth would instantly become incredible if they won. August 8, 2020, 2:18 PM Nashville might finally generate elite-level scoring from someone who

doesn’t also play defence. A quick mix of the things we gleaned from the week of hockey, serious Winnipeg — the original Team E — might be the most justifiable winner. and less so, and rolling four lines deep. Is it Sunday yet? And if Edmonton or Toronto wins, Twitter might just explode into a zillion 1. “Today is a new day,” Sheldon Keefe announced in those few hours pixels. between the Toronto Maple Leafs’ 3-0 implosion and their 0-3 explosion. 3. It was hard not to swallow the lump in my throat watching Henrik That, in a nutshell, is the beauty and agony of sport and this one in Lundqvist go out the way he did, two playoff losses and a seat on the particular. bench to see his incumbent, Igor Shesterkin, lose one more. Each game is a clean page. Longtime teammate Chris Kreider spoke with emotion after Game 3’s Each ending packs potential for a The Usual Suspects-level twist. loss.

When Auston Matthews was stuck quarantined on his Arizona “He wants to win more than anyone,” Kreider said. “He battled his ass off compound, keeping company with the team’s goalie and a pool like he always does. basketball set, the superstar thought about that. “He deserved better from us.” “Since our first year, it’s no secret — three years, kind of the same 4. If you’re not following the Carolina Hurricanes on social media, you’re result,” Matthews said. “You’d love to get to that point again and change doing it wrong. up the narrative, and we’ve been working our way to get to that point.” I feel like running through a wall for Rod Brind’Amour after his post-game They’re at that point now, boy. speeches, and I’m not even on the team. Big home game. A shame the crowd will be too scattered for the Maple The Hurricanes fans saw the club off to the airport when they flew to Leafs to hear. Toronto, and the team has surprised their players with videos recorded Watch Sunday's series-deciding Game 5 between the Toronto Maple by their loved ones. Wholesome stuff. Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets on Sportsnet and SN NOW. Coverage The Canes repaid their supporters with a decisive sweep of the Rangers. gets underway at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT. I wouldn’t want to face these guys next round. “The difference is going to be the team that wants it more,” Columbus “It’s obviously a crazy time, but we’re just really grateful to be able to do Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno said Saturday. this and try to bring some happiness and joy to our fans,” Brind’Amour Agreed. says. “They deserve some smiles, so hopefully we’re bringing that.”

Game 4 felt like it could be the franchise’s defibrillator moment. Being the first team to clear the qualification round, Carolina has bought itself precious extra time to heal. The hope is to get Brett Pesce and “We were getting CPR for a little bit there, and we found our way back,” Dougie Hamilton back in uniform. Keefe said post-game. Brind’Amour was asked if he’d watch some of the other series while he The coach was talking about the last 73 minutes, but he could’ve been waits. talking about the last, what, 16 years? Twenty-seven years? Fifty-three years? “Well, there’s not much else to do, so…” he replied.

“To develop mental toughness, you need to go through experiences. Do “This is going to be tricky. I’ll be quite honest. We could have a week off. you fall in fetal position or do you handle it head on? Do you succeed? That’s probably the worst thing you could have when there’s not really Do you fail?” John Tortorella said. anything to do. We’re gonna have to get creative and find things to keep the guys mentally sharp. The downtime is what kills you in this kind of The coach was talking about his own team, but he could’ve been talking setting.” about the 2019 Blues, the 2018 Capitals, or even his immediate opponent. 5. Players and coaches have been asked if they’d like the 24-team playoff format to stick, and the vast majority are in favour of the traditional “It’s not from coaching; it’s from players experiencing certain situations. 16-team bracket. The mental part of the game, to me, far outweighs the Xs and Os of the game right now. We do try to coach it quite a bit, a lot more than Xs and Yes, this has been a highly entertaining week. Os. But then it falls on the players how they handle it.” But! Not only does allowing 75 per cent of the league to qualify for the How the Maple Leafs and Blue Jackets turn the page in this newfangled post-season devalue the 82-game regular season, a five-round playoff qualification round’s only Game 5 will reveal much. results in more injuries and could weaken the calibre of hockey at the tail end. Sixteen wins is already a war of attrition. Blank canvas. Buckets of paint. What can you come up with? Further, allowing weak teams to enjoy a hot week means running the risk “Pretty crazy 24 hours,” Keefe said. “What we’ve been through as of trying to promote the sport for two months without Connor McDavid, coaches and players and staff and I’m sure fans, media, everything all Leon Draisaitl, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin after worthy seasons. the way around, it’s been a very interesting and unprecedented 24 hours. One prominent voice in favour of keeping the 24-team format is Islanders “We’re really, really excited to play on Sunday.” coach Barry Trotz, arguing that best serves the parity in the league.

As sports fans, we’re excited to watch. Vegas coach Peter DeBoer prefers a Sweet 16 but could see a silver lining if the NHL widened its doors. 2. Curious if Canadiens fans are truly overjoyed they upset Pittsburgh or if they’d rather a 12.5 per cent shot at Alexis Lafreniere Monday might. “If 24 teams made the playoffs every year,” DeBoer says, “a lot more coaches would keep their jobs.” 6. Matt Dumba continues to raise a fist. Ryan Reaves, Robin Lehner, 10. It’s only round robin and all that, but the Presidents’ Trophy champs Tyler Seguin and Jason Dickinson took a knee. — suddenly a No. 3 or 4 seed — are having issues exiting their own zone. If one NHL team was to do it as whole, my money was on the Maple Leafs due to their player-driven initiative to wear BLACK LIVES MATTER When most coaches don’t have interest in delving into their tactical T-shirts on the first day of camp and their tight organizational ties to the details at this time of year, Boston Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy is happy Toronto Raptors, doing the movement proud in Orlando. to give a thoughtful, detailed response as to what he’s looking for in a breakout. Several Leafs, including alternate captain Morgan Rielly, have been effusive in their praise for Dumba’s courage and say they, too, believe “That usually starts with creating some time and space for yourself. change is imperative. Second part of it is support. Who’s nearby? How long a pass is it? You have to thread the needle, or do you have good options? When there’s a Yes, the Leafs players “definitely” discussed kneeling for anthems, Rielly breakdown with puck movement, the first thing you look at is, did the says, but he believes action against systemic racism can take many player just fail to execute, right? That one is pretty easy to analyze,” forms. Cassidy said Friday.

Reading between the lines: some Leafs wanted to kneel. Others didn’t. “Other times it’s, OK, what happened? Why didn’t we make a play? Why They decided to act as one unit. So, they stand. did it take so long to develop? Where are the other four guys on the ice? “It’s important that you try to respect that. You want to respect people’s Everybody should be an option. Obviously, option A and B are probably opinion on things,” Rielly said. “In terms of what we’re going to do moving the ones you’re looking to first, but the other guys should be looking to forward, we have to continue to talk about that as a team and as a group. their spots to get available.” We’re only going to move forward with certain things if we have everyone Interesting to me is that Cassidy believes the officials are calling more on board, and I think that’s important.” hold-ups than in most playoffs. To defend a strong forecheck, back- When Sportsnet posted Dumba’s anti-racism speech on YouTube, checkers will skate opponents out of forecheck angles, pushing the significantly more viewers gave it a thumbs-down than a thumbs-up. boundaries of an interference call. More whistles favours the team chasing the puck into the O-zone. NASCAR walked with Bubba Wallace. Hockey isn’t there yet. “They’re calling that tighter, so the puck carrier is a little more on his own 7. Several players are saying that the questionable August ice at [trying to break out],” Cassidy explained. “It’s not just us. I’m watching, Scotiabank Arena has actually improved as the triple-headers have gone seeing that a lot in games. Heavy forechecks are a little more successful on. Much better than those early exhibition contests. right now.”

A dip in humidity no doubt helps. So has keeping the building The solution? temperature cold enough that reporters are wearing parkas and camera guys can be spotted in toques. I stayed for all three games once and “Ask our forwards to work a little harder. Or, maybe just punt it out. Try began losing feeling in my typing fingers. not to force anything, keep it a little safer,” Cassidy said. “It’s not as pretty to watch, but sometimes it can be as effective if you chase the puck “The ice has gotten better the longer we’ve been here,” says Tampa’s down in the neutral zone.” Alex Killorn. “When there’s so many games being played in the same day — we know playing in Tampa the ice does get bad just because of the 11. Shout out to Kevin Bieksa, whose analysis on Hockey Night in weather outside — you do have to keep things simple. Canada has been a fantastic addition. Bordering on Tony Romo-esque.

“You have to realize that sometimes when a puck’s coming your way you Huge benefit having a guy who was so fresh from the league and has do have to be ready for it to bounce, because that could [result in] a behind-the-doors knowledge that fans crave. chance against. You’re cognizant of it, but in playoff hockey you’re 12. A little something for those wondering why it was worth all that effort always trying to make smart plays on the ice.” to bring hockey back in the midst of a global pandemic…

8. My little brother Jake is full of interesting thoughts and ideas. He started a blog that has nothing to do with sports, but this week he wrote something that fits: Sportsnet.ca LOADED: 08.09.2020

During the return-to-play exhibition games, they weren’t funneling the canned EA Sports fan noise live into Scotiabank Arena; they added it in the studio for the TV audience only.

Since the games started counting, they switched it up. Now, that same hum of phony cheers and gasps is played loud enough for the players to hear.

I’m spoiled, of course, but I liked it better au naturel.

9. Despite the fake fan noise, one could clearly hear John Tortorella scream, “Are you [bleeping] kidding me?” from Section 307, Row 24 when Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno was called for this tripping penalty on Morgan Rielly:

Of course, the man-advantage helped complete the crazy comeback, resulted in Auston Matthews’ game-winning power-play strike.

Foligno never watched the replay and won’t complain. At least publicly.

“You just never want to be in that position to put your team in a bad spot. That’s on me,” Foligno said Saturday. “I’m not going to worry about what’s gone on in the past. I can’t change any of that. Take ownership of it, and you move past it.”

Perfect attitude less than 12 hours after an epic collapse.

“Our group’s resilient. If you’ve watched us at all this year, you’ve seen the things we’ve gone through. This isn’t going to faze us,” Foligno asserted. “It was an upbeat group at breakfast today, and we know we have a great opportunity in front of us.” 1190659 Websites letdown, they have to regain a confidence and mindset that brought them so close to an impressive series win.

Unlike Toronto, the Blue Jackets probably don’t have the runway to be Sportsnet.ca / Blue Jackets in tough spot after epic collapse: 'We can’t second-best for much of Game 5, nor the spread of offensive weapons to live in the past' pull off the four-minute flurry Toronto just did. Columbus must start Game 5 with the same intensity and team-wide commitment they’ve had throughout. These are pros of course, but that will be the mental challenge on Sunday. Rory Boylen | @RoryBoylen “There’s things you always want back, even in wins,” Foligno said. “You August 8, 2020, 3:39 PM can’t dwell on things. It’s how you respond to adversity that’s going to allow you to have success. Especially in the playoffs. If there’s anything we’ve learned, that’s what makes good teams great in the playoffs — With five minutes left in Friday night’s Game 4 it was all falling into place they respond the right way. I have full confidence our team will respond for the Columbus Blue Jackets. the right way.

Leading the high-powered Maple Leafs 3-0 in an elimination game, the “Our group’s resilient…this isn’t going to faze us. There was an upbeat Blue Jackets had the hub hosts on the ropes and seemed on the way to group at breakfast today.” another huge playoff upset. The hardest part seemed to be in the rear view mirror. Columbus had survived a second period push when the That resilience will be put to the test, especially if defenceman Zach Leafs held an edge in shots (16-13), 5-on-5 scoring chances (7-6) and Werenski is either unable to go, or slowed by injury. Werenski, a huge high danger opportunities (2-0). Toronto’s expected goals percentage at part of Columbus’ success to this point, did not take a shift in the final 5-on-5 in the second frame was 65.63, and yet Columbus scored the only half of the third period or at all in OT. Kekalainen had no update on goal and were up 2-0 after 40 minutes. Werenski’s status for Game 5.

With just under six minutes to go in the third, Boone Jenner scored to With the series on the line for both teams in Sunday’s do-or-die, Toronto increase the lead to three and that should have been what buried the would seem to have all the momentum. They were buzzing down the Leafs. stretch and in overtime, where they held a 14-7 shot advantage, and their best players had an extra jump that wasn’t always there earlier. There’s And then history happened. no excuse for the Leafs to come out flat.

Watch Sunday's series-deciding Game 5 between the Toronto Maple Senior Writer Ryan Dixon and NHL Editor Rory Boylen always give it Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets on Sportsnet and SN NOW. Coverage 110%, but never rely on clichés when it comes to podcasting. Instead, gets underway at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT. they use a mix of facts, fun and a varied group of hockey voices to cover Canada’s most beloved game. “I just think we obviously sat back,” Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno said the morning after. “It wasn’t what went wrong, we just allowed a But Columbus? How do you recover from such a collapse, in an team to get some energy off of one goal and just didn’t have that push elimination game no less? Comebacks are the theme of this series so it’d back we needed. A couple of unfortunate bounces with empty nets and be foolhardy to rule them out if they fell behind early, but we’ll get an idea that’s the difference in the game. It’s unfortunate because we played a of where this team is at mentally shortly after puck drop when we see really good hockey game up until that point.” what kind of push back they can bring, or if the Leafs are in total control.

Columbus was doing everything they’d hoped. They were frustrating It’s hard to think this loss isn’t weighing on the Blue Jackets players Toronto’s lineup of elite shooters, making it hard for them to get the puck today. They’re human after all. There’s got to be a sour taste on to the middle for the best opportunities. Rookie goalie Elvis Merzlikins, Saturday, and somehow they’ve got to put it back together again by starting his first post-season game after coming on in relief in Game 3, tomorrow night. had made 57 consecutive saves without allowing a goal across the two games and had settled right in. Toronto had only five shots in the first 15 “The difference is going to be the team that wants it more,” Foligno said minutes of the third period. about Game 5. “I think you’ve seen both teams at their best of what they bring. For us, I think it’s going to be to try to get to that game faster than At 16:03 of the third and with the goalie pulled for a Hail Mary attempt, them and really that’s the difference in this series. William Nylander scored to give the Leafs a glimmer of hope, although that felt like a parcipitation ribbon goal — just happy to not get shutout. “We can’t live in the past.” Fifty-one seconds later John Tavares scored a beauty under the bar.

Now, suddenly, it was a one-goal difference and a comeback could be completed with one lucky bounce, which Toronto got when Pierre-Luc Sportsnet.ca LOADED: 08.09.2020 Dubois’ empty net shot was caught in the outside of the net instead of going in. What were the odds of Columbus’ best player in the series missing in that moment?

And of course, Toronto tied it in the final minute, then won it in overtime, becoming the first team in playoff history to blow a three-goal lead and lose one night, then rally from a three-goal deficit to win the next.

Columbus was that close to winning this series and having a few days off until starting their next. Now, they have to regroup in a day and try to fend off the Leafs’ potent — and now re-energized — attack all over again for 60 minutes on Sunday. How does a team recover from being so close to a series win, and blowing it in such shocking fashion?

“Every day is a new opportunity to learn something,” general manager Jarmo Kekalainen said. “It’s a tight series. We’ve seen two pretty good comebacks in the last two games. It’s a great series in my opinion. It’s a battle and just have to get ready for Sunday because it’s another one there.

“Nobody expected this to be easy.”

Yes, Toronto was able to rebound from its own blown three-goal lead in Game 3, but it took nothing short of a miracle to pull off. Columbus’ situation is similar, but different in that they had this thing closed out. They had the upset in their hand. They may even have started thinking about the next round a little. And now, very quickly after such a huge 1190660 Websites Only time will tell, but the fact remains the Golden Knights are comfortable with either guy in net, even if Fleury’s save percentage was down and his goals-against average was up this season. He’s a guy who has come through when the organization has needed him and that Sportsnet.ca / How Golden Knights shed 'misfits' label, grew into a counts for a lot. At the very least, Lehner provides a valuable safety net. consistent contender “When we traded for him, I thought our whole team got a boost,” said Theodore. “We have two world-class goalies.”

Ken Wiebe | @WiebesWorld From the Stanley Cup Qualifiers to the Stanley Cup Final, livestream every game of the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs, -free, on August 8, 2020, 8:52 PM Sportsnet NOW.

On the free-agent front, the Golden Knights addressed their centre depth EDMONTON — Born as a group of misfits and castaways, the Vegas by signing veteran Paul Stastny to a three-year deal in the summer of Golden Knights have grown up before our very eyes. 2018. Stastny has plenty of playoff experience and has been a productive player for a long time, and right now he’s playing with original Although they haven’t abandoned some of the important character traits cast members Smith and Marchessault — who had two goals on that allowed them to become the most successful expansion outfit in Saturday, including a penalty shot. , there’s a new label which is much more representative. Not everything has gone smoothly for the Golden Knights, though.

Bona fide Stanley Cup contender. Most notably, they made a coaching change this year, bringing in Peter DeBoer to replace Gerard Gallant — who enjoyed a lot of success during The Golden Knights closed out the round-robin portion of the round-robin his first two seasons. DeBoer made a few changes to the Golden tournament with a 4-3 overtime victory over the Colorado Avalanche on Knights’ systems but eventually the group got back to playing an Saturday afternoon at Rogers Place, leaving them with a flawless 3-0 aggressive style that allowed them to win the Pacific Division. record as they prepare to face the 12th-ranked Chicago Blackhawks in the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Even if it was odd to be playing a system they were more familiar playing against when DeBoer was the bench boss of their rival. The Avalanche will meet the Arizona Coyotes, while the two other series in the Western Conference will be determined by the result of Sunday’s “He brought a lot of structure to our game, some small clarifications,” said game between the St. Louis Blues and Dallas Stars. Marchessault. “And at first it was kind of hard a little bit to get where it was going because we were all seeing San Jose Sharks systems and The Golden Knights still feature more than a dozen members of the stuff like that, which was kind of like a little funny. But we all bought into original roster, so they haven’t really broken up the band. The core still his system and honestly, we’ve been really good since he’s here.” includes top-six forwards William Karlsson, Reilly Smith and Jonathan Marchessault. On the back end, Nate Schmidt and Brayden McNabb are Now that the Golden Knights secured the top seed in the Western still making a valuable contribution, but it’s Shea Theodore whose game Conference, they’re going to look to build from the experience of has reached new heights. advancing to the Stanley Cup Final in 2018.

“He has the ability to raise his level, depending on the moment and how Only this time, the plan is to finish the job. important the game is,” said Golden Knights head coach Peter DeBoer. “It’s something we talked about since the beginning. We came here with “You saw that (against the Avalanche). He was elite. That’s in both ends. one goal and obviously it’s the Stanley Cup, but we’ve got to take it one He’s learned to defend with his feet and I’ve said this before, but I think step at a time,” said Marchessault. “We came here to take every this guy is going to be in the Norris conversation for years to come here.” challenge ahead of us and we did a good job. We wanted the first seed The Golden Knights’ core group has been bolstered by the combination after the round robin and we got it done. It’s pretty positive. We’re really of sound drafting, shrewd trades and free-agent signings. A pair of happy where our game is at as a team.” blockbusters brought in Mark Stone from the Ottawa Senators and Max Having said that, the Golden Knights aren’t about to look past the Pacioretty from the Montreal Canadiens. Blackhawks, who turned heads by bouncing the Edmonton Oilers in the Stone is the Golden Knights’ best two-way forward, a guy who quietly qualifying round. piles up points while providing Selke-level defensive play. Pacioretty, “Obviously we’ve got a pretty good task against Chicago here. They who led his team with 32 goals and 66 points in 71 games, remains back definitely earned some respect in the league,” said Marchessault. in Vegas dealing with an undisclosed injury or ailment, though the hope “They’re one of the best teams for the past 10 years. Definitely, we’re is that he will rejoin his teammates sooner rather than later. going to focus on that.” Deadline deals have also been critical, including this year’s addition of As much fun as the Golden Knights had with their unexpected run to the goalie Robin Lehner, defenceman Alec Martinez and depth forward Nick Stanley Cup Final in 2018, losing in five games to the Washington Cousins. In those deals, GM Kelly McCrimmon added some important Capitals still left them feeling unsatisfied. depth between the pipes to go with incumbent Marc-Andre Fleury, and a blue-liner with Stanley Cup-winning experience that can help on the “First and foremost, every game means a lot,” said Golden Knights penalty kill. winger Alex Tuch, who scored the overtime winner with 15.9 seconds left on Saturday. “We learned it that first year, that if we can get up on a team When you include the single exhibition game, Fleury and Lehner, who or 1-0 in a series or jump ahead or even when we’re behind, to be able to made 32 saves and was sensational on Saturday, split the action right come back and show some resilience, I mean, every little play, every little down the middle. DeBoer wasn’t about to show his hand when asked if game matters. That’s one of the biggest things I took away from the first he’s decided who is going to get the call in the series opener against the year, and obviously we came up short and we don’t want that to happen Blackhawks. again.” “We haven’t even thought about Game 1 yet,” said DeBoer. “I believe When asked about the most important lesson he learned during the we’re going to need both guys and both guys are going to play. We’ll see pause caused by the pandemic, DeBoer mentioned the commitment and how that rolls out. I haven’t even thought about it yet and we haven’t had engagement level his players showed, whether it was during Zoom calls those discussions yet. I can guarantee that if we get where we want to or informal workouts. go, we’re going to be using both guys.” The desire to win it all remains at the forefront and now it’s time to see if Lehner was quick to deflect when asked about it after the game. He’s they can deliver as the No. 1 seed. here to support Fleury, not supplant him. “While we don’t have home-ice advantage, it gives you last change and it “Every game I get to play, I’ll do my best,” said Lehner. “Marc is a world- gives you the lowest seed every round to play against. You hope that class goaltender and has been one of the best in the League for a very becomes an important piece because at the end, there is very little that long time. I said when they traded for me at the deadline, I’m here separates teams,” said DeBoer. “I’ve gone on record before with this — it whenever they need me.” might be the hardest Cup to win ever. Circumstances, the format and the path you’ve got to go and (with) how healthy everybody else in the league is and fresh, you’re going to get everybody’s best.

“It’s an exceptional opportunity to go out and compete for, at least in our minds, the greatest prize in pro sports.”

Sportsnet.ca LOADED: 08.09.2020 1190661 Websites “I just tried to go in and give us a chance to win and make that decision look like a good one. I’ve got to thank them for that opportunity, and I’m trying to take it and run with it for now.”

Sportsnet.ca / Flames' Talbot rewarded with yet another Vezina-calibre Stopping 104 of 110 Winnipeg shots in the qualifying round, he enters post-season test the first round with significant momentum, not to mention the respect of teammates who could count on him whenever their formidable defensive structure broke down.

Eric Francis | @EricFrancis “We have full confidence in Talbs right now and it’s a good feeling as a player to really trust your goalie as much as we do now,” said Sam August 8, 2020, 6:53 PM Bennett, one of 11 Flames players to score in the series.

“He’s been outstanding and I’m sure he’s going to be for the rest of the EDMONTON — One Vezina Trophy-calibre goalie down, one to go. playoffs as well.”

Whether the Calgary Flames face St. Louis or Dallas in the first round, Noted for his calming demeanor and solid positioning, Talbot rarely had Cam Talbot will once again be pitted against one of the league’s elite to come up with the sort of spectacular saves was noted netminders. for.

Having already outplayed Vezina favourite Connor Hellebuyck in the first Against Winnipeg he made it look much easier than it was, giving further round, Talbot embraces the opportunity to face either Jordan Binnington confidence to his troops. or Ben Bishop. “He stepped up big time — he was great for us the whole series, making The first was unquestionably the NHL’s best goalie last year, the second lots of big saves,” said Sean Monahan, whose top line aided in the cause is a three-time runner up for the prime puck-stopping prize. with a more concerted defensive focus.

And while Talbot and his teammates will watch the two battle with great “He’s got confidence back there too. He’s a veteran guy and he wants to intrigue Sunday afternoon to determine Calgary’s next dance partner, the win — he did a great job.” Flames veteran insists he doesn’t see the matchup moving forward as But can he do a better job than the man who led St. Louis to the Stanley being an individual challenge. Cup last year? Or can he outplay the tallest goaltender in NHL lore, who Unlike some goalies, Talbot doesn’t go into games focused on outplaying used his size in Dallas last year to be a Vezina finalist once again? his counterpart. Binnington and the six-foot-seven Bishop will face off against one “No, for me it’s just about playing my game and being as calm and another Sunday for the final seeding game of the Western Conference, composed as possible to give us a chance to win,” said the 33-year-old with neither of their teams having posted a win in two tries. Hamilton-area native. The winner of that game plays the Flames as early as Tuesday. “I can’t really worry about what’s going on at the other end. It’s out of my The Blues were 3-0-0 against the Flames this year, while the Stars were control. My focus is on myself and helping us win.” 1-1-1. It certainly worked in the qualifying round when he allowed just six goals NOTES: Ward said Johnny Gaudreau practiced with the Flames against a high-powered Jets squad, compiling a .945 save percentage to Saturday and “is fine.” Gaudreau left with four minutes to go in Game 4 be anointed series MVP by coach Geoff Ward. against Winnipeg, favouring his right hand after a collision along the Yes, the series that was supposed to be all about Hellebuyck ended up boards with Nikolaj Ehlers. being trumped by Talbot.

From the Stanley Cup Qualifiers to the Stanley Cup Final, livestream Sportsnet.ca LOADED: 08.09.2020 every game of the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs, blackout-free, on Sportsnet NOW.

After out-battling David Rittich to be named the Flames’ Game 1 starter one day before the playoffs, he out-duelled 31-game winner Hellebuyck, whose only consolation will come in the form of this year’s Vezina.

Not bad for an Oilers castoff who finished in Philadelphia last year hoping someone around the league would give him a chance to resurrect his career.

“It has been a long journey,” said Talbot, whose third career playoff shutout punctuated the four-game disposal of the Jets.

“The last couple years didn’t really go the way I wanted it to. I was looking for that kind of redemption year. When you look at this lineup and I had the opportunity to sign here, it was kind of a no-brainer to play behind a group like this. I knew that if I could come in and get back to playing my game and get some confidence back, I could prove I can be a starting goaltender in this league.”

Kind of like three years ago when he tied for the league lead with 42 wins in Edmonton, yet was somehow overlooked as a Vezina finalist.

Fast forward through two painful seasons on two bad clubs (he wound up in goalie-graveyard Philadelphia late last season) that led to unrestricted free agency when he inked a one year ‘show-me’ contract with Calgary to ride shotgun with Rittich.

By season’s end he was the better goalie who, more importantly, outplayed Rittich in training camp 2.0.

“It was a huge confidence boost for me when the coaching staff and the guys had the confidence in me to go with me in Game 1,” said Talbot, who made the same $2.75 million Rittich made. 1190662 Websites “I think our team played a great game and I’m so happy we won,” Markstrom said. “I want to thank all the players that they scored one more goal than I let in.”

Sportsnet.ca / Canucks' blend of youth, veterans soars into playoffs “We wanted to come out and prove ourselves and play hard,” Horvat ahead of expectations said. “We’ve got a great group of guys here and to finally get a win under our belt and win a playoff series, it definitely feels great, but we’ve got a lot more work to do. This is only the first series of many, and we can’t wait for the next one.” Iain MacIntyre | @imacSportsnet Four games into the series, this is a different Canucks team than the one August 8, 2020, 3:24 AM that never troubled the Wild while trailing – and losing – the opener. To be fair to Minnesota, they weren’t the same, either, with workhorse defenceman Ryan Suter unable to pay Game 4 due to an undisclosed EDMONTON – The youngest players on the Vancouver Canucks call injury. defenceman Christopher Tanev “dad,” but it only seems like he is old enough to be their father. The Canucks will start the next round Tuesday or Wednesday.

The 30-year-old is one of only two Canucks who actually has first-hand memories of the last time the franchise won a Sportsnet.ca LOADED: 08.09.2020 playoff round before “dad” drifted an overtime wrist shot past Minnesota Wild goalie Alex Stalock very late Friday to get Vancouver’s kids out of the qualifying round of this extraordinary Stanley Cup tournament.

Tanev’s goal — nine years after he was a depth player on the Canucks team that went to the 2011 Stanley Cup Final — was scored just 11 seconds into overtime as Vancouver won 5-4 and took the series 3-1 in games.

Rebuilt in the five years since they last made the playoffs, these Canucks feel different than most of the teams that have unsuccessfully chased a Stanley Cup since Vancouver entered the NHL in 1970.

Led by dynamic, young stars Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes and Brock Boeser, supported by a few veterans and some key mid-career players still at their peak, anything seems possible for the Canucks.

Livestream the Canucks in the Stanley Cup Qualifiers, plus every game of the 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs on Sportsnet NOW.

They will play either the St. Louis Blues or Dallas Stars in the next round. And although 2020 seems a little early for Vancouver to be thinking again about trying to win Lord Stanley’s soup tureen, the Canucks have already soared far higher and sooner than anyone predicted when this season began 10 months ago.

“I’m so proud of all our guys,” Canucks general manager Jim Benning said. “They worked and competed the whole series, and when we lost some guys (to injuries), other guys stepped in. They just kept fighting and working. You can’t replace this experience. Hopefully it helps them and makes them ever stronger going forward.”

There were nine Canucks in Friday’s lineup who had never been to the NHL playoffs until this week. Coach Travis Green was new to the post- season, too. This included defenceman Olli Juolevi, who made his NHL debut Friday due to an injury to Oscar Fantenberg.

But it was fitting that after so many lean, losing years for the Canucks, Tanev should score the winner. And that the tying goal with 5:46 remaining in regulation time was scored by 24-year-old captain Bo Horvat, who was set up beautifully by Tanner Pearson, a former Stanley Cup winner in Los Angeles and one of a handful of experienced players brought in by Benning the last couple of years.

Hughes, the 20-year-old Calder Trophy-finalist defenceman, led the Canucks with 27:20 of ice time and had a goal and assist on a night when the veterans otherwise drove the team.

Horvat had two assists to go with his goal, and Pearson also scored. Brandon Sutter scored his first playoff goal in five years as the Canucks rallied from 3-1 and 4-3 deficits against one of the NHL’s best five-on-five teams.

The Wild had looked defensively impenetrable while winning the series- opener 3-0 last Sunday. But the Canucks put together their first three- game playoff win streak since 2011 and on Friday were able to rescue shaky starter Jacob Markstrom, who had done the same for his teammates numerous times during the season.

Markstrom allowed awful goals to Eric Staal and Nico Sturm — whose shot from an acute angle rattled through the goalie’s arm and body to put Minnesota ahead 4-3 with 51 seconds left in the second period. 1190663 Websites “We know that we can play a great defensive game when we put our minds to it. We’ve shown it in this series,” Marner insisted. “Just backchecking-wise, and forechecking and not giving them a whole lot coming up the ice. It's something that we have to make sure we have in TSN.CA / Shilton: Sheldon Keefe urging Toronto Maple Leafs to stay our minds, that if we play the right way defensively, we're gonna get our level-headed ahead of do-or-die Game 5 chances offensively and I think we just have that belief that we're going to score on one of the chances we do get.”

Without naming names, Keefe said he felt like there are players on his Kristen Shilton team who have had bad luck in that respect, falling short of what they’ve maybe deserved in terms of production throughout the series. But there’s no time like the present for the luck of those players to turn. TORONTO — If the Maple Leafs and Columbus Blue Jackets have made anything apparent about their NHL qualifying-round series it’s that, “Even the times when we haven't liked our team game or our structure frankly, anything is possible. hasn't been what I expect, I think we've had some individual performances that have been really good and not shown up on the How else to explain playing back-to-back games on Thursday and Friday scoresheet,” said Keefe. “But just the effort, and the commitment, that that toggled between the Leafs giving up a three-goal lead and losing in we're seeing from some guys that I think are at a higher level than what overtime of Game 3, to Toronto overcoming a three-goal deficit to win in we've seen from them before. That’s what we've been asking for. It's overtime of Game 4 and force a decisive Game 5 on Sunday? such a fine line between winning and losing; that’s just the way it goes.”

“It was crazy that it happened,” agreed Mitch Marner of the Leafs’ late- If anything, Keefe is banking on the Leafs hard-earned lessons to guide game heroics on a Zoom call with reporters from the Eastern Conference them in Game 5. With a victory, Toronto will advance to the round of 16 Hub at the Royal York Hotel on Saturday. “But we believed from the start. and face either the Tampa Bay Lightning or Philadelphia Flyers. Lose, It’s a big win. Obviously, what happened in Game 3 was unfortunate for and it’s back to the drawing board, with questions about what could have us, we weren't happy with that, but we all talked about how we're happy been. that we can get right back at it. I think we had the belief in our room and on that bench that we could come back.” “What we've been through here, we've seen really good progress in the areas that we really wanted to improve upon as we started [training] Toronto was down 3-0 and less than four minutes from being eliminated camp,” Keefe said. “That's given us a chance to win games and that's from the postseason on Friday when William Nylander broke through with very positive for us here so we're going to be looking to bring as much as a 6-on-5 goal to cut the deficit. Less than a minute later, John Tavares that as we can here to the final game, and really look to bring the whole scored again 6-on-5, bringing the Leafs to within one. thing together.”

And then, with 22.2 seconds remaining in regulation, Zach Hyman scored Toronto’s third 6-on-5 goal, sending Game 4 to an overtime frame where Auston Matthews would pot the game-winner on the power play. TSN.CA LOADED: 08.09.2020

It was a startling turn of events for the Leafs, especially after playing like a team defeated for much of that game’s second half. The night before, it had been Toronto in Columbus’ shoes, leading 3-0 midway through the second before giving up four unanswered goals in a 4-3 overtime defeat.

Whatever resiliency the Leafs dug into flipping the script, they’ll need all of it in spades come Sunday.

“[The win] was a huge boost for us, it gives us great positive momentum,” said Sheldon Keefe. “The feeling after the game was tremendous. The amount of joy that I saw from our team was beyond anything that I've seen from us. We have to bring that momentum forward here but recognize that it's a new game [tomorrow], and that the opposition is going to reset themselves and both teams are going to leave it all out there.”

It’s crucial to Keefe that his players heed that message and play accordingly come Sunday. Although he gave the Leafs a day off from the ice on Saturday, Keefe still convened the team at their practice rink for a meeting, to ensure everyone’s focus was sharpened.

“I think what we've come to expect really is that each game, despite [having] some similarities, they've really had their own personalities,” he explained. “The key for us is to ride the momentum into the next game here tomorrow, but recognize that it's a fresh scoreboard. Teams have had time to regroup here, and we've got a start anew.”

In Toronto’s case, that can start with digging into the archives of the series’ earlier games. Prior to Game 3’s implosion, the Leafs executed a solid defensive strategy in their first two outings, with only 17 giveaways combined compared to 29 in Games 3 and 4.

Keefe made it clear after Game 3 he was disappointed with the lack of “plan or purpose” Toronto had to its structure, and the Leafs know winning the series will require an about-face in that category.

“We know that really their chances are coming off the turnovers we're giving them on the odd-man rushes the other way,” Marner said. “For our team, I think we're doing well in our D-zone staying tight, staying five- man and getting out to our point when need be. But I think we can't make ourselves lose; we can't beat ourselves. We got to make sure we're coming out and playing the way we want to.”

And if the Leafs need a refresher on any of that, they don’t have to look far for inspiration. 1190664 Websites "They thrive on the power play," Foligno warned. "They're always looking to try to get calls and that's kind of the engine of their team."

Before the Matthews goal in overtime, Toronto had actually only gone 1- TSN.CA / Masters: Toronto Maple Leafs look to ride wave of momentum for-11 on the man advantage in the series although Keefe liked the and 'bring the whole thing together' chances they had been generating.

The Jackets’ penalty kill ranked 12th in the regular season (81.7 per cent). Mark Masters The off day in the series gave everyone a chance to catch their breath and Morgan Rielly likely appreciated the rest. No one played more than him over the last two games as the Leafs alternate captain logged 66 The Leafs and Blue Jackets held limited media availabilities on Saturday. minutes and 17 seconds of ice time. That's 10 minutes clear of the next The Leafs’ season looked to be over. From the second period of Game 3 closest Leaf (Matthews) and almost 15 minutes more than the next to late in the third period of Game 4, Columbus scored seven straight closest Leaf defenceman (Tyson Barrie). goals and Elvis Merzlikins stopped 57 straight shots. But then, "He's just getting better and better every game," said Keefe. "He seems remarkably, Toronto's high-end talent made some magic. Three goals in to be more and more comfortable in his skating. Certainly in the last two three minutes and 34 seconds tied the game and opened the door for games, the way he skated up and down the ice and getting involved both No. 34, Auston Matthews, to be the hero in overtime. offensively and defensively, I think he looks really, really comfortable in And now, Toronto is a win away from one of the most improbable series that regard. In my mind, he has taken a really big step here in particular victories in franchise history. since our loss of [Jake] Muzzin."

"We had the belief in our room and on the bench that we could come Seth Jones led the way for the Jackets playing 65 minutes and 51 back," insisted winger Mitch Marner in a Zoom session with reporters on seconds in the last two games. Saturday afternoon. "Obviously, it was crazy that it happened, but we In Jake Muzzin's absence, Morgan Rielly has picked up the slack, believed from the start." logging over 66 minutes of ice time over the last two games. Sheldon After wild overtime games on consecutive days, both the Leafs and Keefe has noticed the value and impact his defender has made and has Jackets stayed off the ice on Saturday. The big question: will what witnessed Rielly getting 'better and better every game' and looking more happened on Friday carry over into Sunday's do-or-die Game 5? comfortable in his skating.

"It was a huge boost for us, it gives us great positive momentum," said In the aftermath of Friday's crazy comeback, Leafs players paid tribute to head coach Sheldon Keefe. "The feeling after the game was tremendous. 37-year-old Jason Spezza, who fought figuratively and literally to keep The amount of joy that I saw from our team is beyond anything I've seen the season alive. He dropped the gloves with Jackets defenceman Dean from us. We have to bring that momentum forward here but recognize Kukan in the second period, only the seventh fight in Spezza's NHL that it's a new game. We have to have a better start than we did career, which has spanned 18 years and more than 1,100 games. yesterday and we have to recognize that the opposition is going to reset "Just trying to spark the guys," Spezza explained. "I think just trying to themselves and both teams are going to leave it all out there tomorrow." show some desperation and have some push back. Sometimes without "Our group's resilient," said Jackets captain Nick Foligno. "If you've the crowd you don't have that so just trying to create some emotion and watched us at all this year you've seen the things we've gone through, play the role that I'm in and just try to get everyone going. You're just this isn't going to faze us. It was an upbeat group at breakfast today and trying to do what you can do at this time of year." we know we have a great opportunity in front of us." Spezza signed a bargain-basement contract to play with his hometown Columbus lost Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky to free agency last team this season as he chases an elusive Stanley Cup. summer and then lost the most man games due to injury in the regular "He wants it more than anyone," said winger Zach Hyman. "He's been in season. Still, here they are, one win from another upset over an offensive the league so long. He was a first-line player throughout his career, an juggernaut. But the Leafs feel, like they have all series, that the result is all-star, and now he's on the fourth line and willing to drop the gloves. in their hands. They dominated Game 2 and were in complete control in He's a real leader on our team ... we all love him." Game 3 before squandering a 3-0 lead of their own. Spezza's play has also improved with each passing game in this series. "It's such a fine line between winning and losing," Keefe noted. "We've In Game 1, remember, he played just three minutes and 53 seconds seen really good progress in the areas that we really wanted to improve failing to get a shot on net. On Friday night he played 10 minutes and 37 upon as we started at the beginning of camp. I feel like that's given us a seconds while firing three pucks on net and dominating possession chance to win games and that's very positive for us so we're going to be alongside Kyle Clifford and Pierre Engvall. looking at bringing together as much as we can to the final game and really look to bring the whole thing together." "That line, just in general last night, was doing a lot of great things for our team," Marner said. "They were really producing a lot in the O-zone, The No. 1 priority at training camp was improving team defence and that really controlling the play in the O-zone." remains front of mind. They were doing such a good job that Keefe even sent them over the "We know we can play a great defensive game when we put our minds to boards late in the third period when the big boys needed some rest amid it," Marner said. "That's something that we got to make sure we have in that frantic final push. our minds ... We can't beat ourselves. Just play smart with the puck. We know that, really, their chances are coming off the turnovers we're giving "It speaks to how they were competing and the impact they were making them." on the game yesterday," the coach said. "It's a credit to that entire line but Spezz definitely brings a lot to our group and through this whole Foligno was furious at the officials on Friday night after they called a pause and getting our team organized and motivated." tripping penalty on him in overtime, but the 32-year-old took responsibility on Saturday. 'We all love him': Spezza fights, literally, to keep Leafs season alive

"You just never want to be in that position to put your team in that spot so 37-year old Jason Spezza dropped the gloves to spark the Maple Leafs that's on me," he said. "I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I'm not going to and it did the job, with his team mounting an impressive comeback. His worry about what's gone on in the past. I can't change any that. You take teammates talked about his leadership and why he's been a huge ownership of that and move past it." addition to their room.

The Jackets were short-handed the fewest times in the NHL in the After refusing to answer questions and speaking only 23 words in his regular season (2.4 per game) but in the Game 2 loss they were whistled Zoom session last night, Jackets coach John Tortorella got a day off from six times and in Game 4 they found themselves down a man on four his media duties on Saturday. Instead, general manager Jarmo occasions. Kekalainen took the podium. He did not have an update on defencemen Zach Werenski, who exited Game 4 in the third period with an upper- body injury, or Ryan Murray, who missed the game altogether.

Any optimism that those guys will play on Sunday?

"I guess we'll always be optimistic, but I can't answer that any further," he said.

TSN insider reported that Werenski, who led all NHL defencemen with 20 goals in the regular season, was due for an MRI on Saturday afternoon.

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