Columbus Blue Jackets News Clips April 21-22, 2018

Columbus Blue Jackets PAGE 02: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets notebook | Playing with lead eludes Jackets PAGE 04: Columbus Dispatch: Caps goalie Holtby needs to face more shots PAGE 05: Columbus Dispatch: After two home losses, best-of-three series awaits PAGE 07: The Athletic: In a series with no home-ice advantage, Blue Jackets hope Game 4 loss was a lesson learned PAGE 10: The Athletic: Been there, won that: Stanley Cup champion Ian Cole trying to help young Blue Jackets manage emotions, conquer playoff adversity PAGE 13: Columbus Dispatch: Capitals win 4-3 over Blue Jackets in OT PAGE 14: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets don’t seem to mind being so close to brink of elimination PAGE 16: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets | Alexander Wennberg returns after injury PAGE 18: Columbus Dispatch: Blue Jackets | Matt Calvert gives offense boost PAGE 20: Columbus Dispatch: Capitals 4, Blue Jackets 3, OT | Tortorella guarantees win in next game PAGE 22: The Athletic: On the Blue Jackets' Matt Calvert, 'the hard way' and not looking too far into the future PAGE 25: The Athletic: 'We'll be back for Game 7′: After OT loss to Caps, Blue Jackets' Tortorella promises Game 6 win in Columbus PAGE 29: USA Today: Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella: 'We'll be back here for Game 7'

Cleveland Monsters/Prospects

NHL/Websites PAGE 30: The Athletic: Can Andrew Hammond rekindle the magic of 'The Hamburglar' for the Avs? PAGE 34: The Athletic: From Ken Dryden to Henrik Lundqvist: 'Imposing' Andrei Vasilevskiy is making a strong impression PAGE 37: Sportsnet.ca: Drew Doughty on free agency: I want to stay an L.A. King PAGE 39: USA Today: Former women's hockey player AJ Mleczko breaks the ice as TV analyst for NHL playoff games PAGE 41: The Athletic: Connection between Devils teammates goes way back to Texas PAGE 45: Sportsnet.ca: All eyes on Leafs' Auston Matthews, for better or worse PAGE 47: Sportsnet.ca: Maple Leafs will need more of Kadri's combative game to force a Game 7

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Blue Jackets notebook | Playing with lead eludes Jackets By Steve Gorten – April 21, 2018

In a tightly contested best-of-seven series that’s tied after four games, three of which were decided after regulation, the Blue Jackets have led a total of 4 minutes, 43 seconds.

The entirety of that advantage came in Game 2, when the Jackets stormed back from a 3-1 deficit to seize a 4-3 edge.

With Game 5 on Saturday, does it matter that the Jackets hold a lead? It depends who you ask.

“Getting the lead and not playing from behind in playoff hockey is so crucial,” captain Nick Foligno said. “You’re able to get your game going and feel good about yourself. We really haven’t done that enough in this series, and hopefully it’s a good lesson for everybody in here.”

Coach John Tortorella downplayed its importance.

“I am not going to put an emphasis on, ‘You have to score the first goal,’ ” Tortorella said. “What if we don’t score the first goal? ‘Oh s---, we didn’t score the first goal — we’re done.’ No. You play the game and just go about your business.”

Added Tortorella: “We’re not going to blow up our game plan. We’re not going to get in a panic mode.”

The Jackets have consistently shown an ability to rally the past two months, and came back from 2-0 deficits in games 1 and 2 wins. In the regular season, they were 30-10-6 in games they scored first, 15- 20-1 in games they didn’t.

“It wouldn’t hurt, right?” right wing Cam Atkinson said of getting the first goal. “It’d be nice to get on the scoresheet first, but we’re a resilient club and whatever happens, happens. We’re never out of the fight.”

Defenseman Zach Werenski said, “It’s a totally different feel” playing from behind.

“When you’re down, you take more chances and try to make more plays,” he said. “I feel like when we’re down, we’re trying to be on the attack at all times to get that lead back. When you’re up by a goal, it’s just making the right decisions. You still want to attack, but maybe you play a little smarter.”

Noted defenseman Ian Cole: “Every game they’ve scored the first goal and we’ve kind of been chasing it. For the most part, we’ve done a good job of staying consistent as far as how we want to play regardless of whether we’re up or down. But, certainly, scoring the first goal is huge in putting the pressure on them to have to score to catch up, instead of the other way around.”

Wennberg practices

Center Alexander Wennberg practiced Friday for the first time since suffering an upper-body injury in Game 1. Tortorella said he had no update on Wennberg’s status. Wennberg, who has missed three games, didn’t participate in line rushes.

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“He looked great. He said he’s ready to go,” Atkinson said. “We’ll see what happens.”

Slap shots

Capitals coach Barry Trotz said left wing Andre Burakovsky, who hasn’t played the past two games because of an upper-body surgery, won’t return this series and will require minor surgery. … After going 4 for 8 on power plays the first two games of the series, the Jackets are 0 for 7 the past two games. The Capitals have scored at least one power-goal in every game. … Caps goalie Braden Holtby said many teammates were unaware of Alex Ovechkin’s guarantee that the Caps would win games 3 and 4, but added, “there was no other option.”

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Caps goalie Holtby needs to face more shots By Steve Gorten – April 21, 2018

After his team lost the first two games of a best-of-seven series against the Blue Jackets, Washington Capitals coach Barry Trotz swapped goalies.

Braden Holtby replaced Philipp Grubauer as the starter for Game 3 and started again Thursday night.

“He said he was going to stop the puck, and he’s stopping the puck,” Trotz said of Holtby after the Capitals’ 4-1 win over the Blue Jackets in Game 4. “He’s a man of his word.”

Holtby has stopped nearly every shot he’s faced, making 23 saves Thursday after 33 in a 3-2 double- overtime win Tuesday. The problem for the Jackets, captain Nick Foligno said, is that they haven’t forced him to stop the puck more.

“I don’t think we’ve tested him enough,” Foligno said. “Really, I just don’t feel like we’ve shot enough pucks and made it hard on him. The saves he’s made, he’s gotten lucky on a couple that just hit him. You start peppering him and over time you’re going to break him down.”

The Jackets’ game-breaker, Artemi Panarin, had a rough game, finishing with more penalties (two) than shots on goal (one). Afterward, Panarin, via a Russian translator, said the team suffered from nervousness and “it felt like the puck was jumping all the time.”

He added that the team’s shots on goal (24) were lower than they should be and “we should fight for the puck more.” Also, “there should be one guy standing in front of the goalie.”

Foligno agreed the Jackets need to get more traffic in front of Holtby.

“Sometimes you look for that perfect play, and right now it seems like we’re doing that,” Foligno said. “We drive down, we turn up, we look for the perfect guy that’s wide open. There’s no such thing in playoff hockey. You might have a couple of chances where there’s a breakdown and you can have a 2- on-1 or 3-on-2 and you can make a nice tic-tac-toe. But for the most part, it’s throw it on net, crash the net, and we have guys that can do that.”

Added Foligno: “We haven’t done that enough. You really watch our game and those are few and far between. We have to get back to that, and I guarantee you we’ll start putting goals in. ... Once you get that mindset, man, it really starts to wear on their team and now they’re playing defense, and they don’t want to do that.”

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After two home losses, best-of-three series awaits By George Richards – April 21, 2018

John Tortorella had some harsh words to describe his team’s performance late Thursday night, describing it as “laying an egg.”

The coach toned things down a bit on Friday, but he did repeat something he said the night before: The Blue Jackets will bounce back.

They had better.

On Thursday, the Jackets gave home-ice advantage back to the Washington Capitals in a 4-1 loss at Nationwide Arena in Game 4 of the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal. Game 5 is Saturday at Capital One Arena in Washington.

“I want them to see that, if you would have said after four games we would be 2-2, we would be doing OK,” Tortorella said Friday afternoon. “We just did it in reverse order. It kind of feels like the bottom fell out. But it’s a series now. I say, let’s start fresh now.

“I think they are going to play freer playing in Washington. It’s a great opportunity for us to try and find a way to put this behind us and find a way to win the next game, then move on from there.”

By losing both games on home ice — after taking the first two in Washington — the Blue Jackets are now in a best-of-three series with the Capitals. The first team to win twice moves on.

“We have three games left in this series and we’re ready to work,” goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky said. “This is the playoffs and everyone has to show up, give their best hockey. I don’t look at the buildings, home or away. We are familiar with this team and it’s all about hockey. We just need to score one more goal than they do.”

The Blue Jackets know they squandered an opportunity to take control of the series — one win at home would have brought a 3-1 series lead to Washington — and one by one, players vowed things would be different come Saturday afternoon.

“We’re back at an even series,” defenseman Ian Cole said. “It may have been downhill for us after the first two games, it’s still not uphill now. It’s a three-game series, and if someone had told us we would have been tied in this series, we would have taken it. We have more familiarity with them. We’re in a good spot, we just need to forget the past two games. We need to move on.”

Said forward Mark Letestu: “We know we had a stinker and got the result that comes with it. We have had the same kind of attitude after wins and losses, and that has allowed us to bounce back from games like that. I would expect our best game on Saturday.”

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The Blue Jackets say there is no panic despite the losses on home ice in front of consecutive record crowds at Nationwide Arena.

“We don’t have to play a perfect game to win,” Letestu said. “Our desperation and compete level has to be better. They outplayed us, no doubt. But we have seen the recipe for winning and I don’t think we have to go too far to keep going in this series.”

Game 6 is Monday night in Columbus. The Blue Jackets, regardless of what happens on Saturday, get another crack at giving their fans something to celebrate.

First, however, comes the challenge of another game in Washington.

“It’s a learning process for guys to handle what you would call pressure,” Tortorella said. “Turn it into excitement, adrenaline; embrace the opportunity. It’s easy to talk about, they have to live it. I’m disappointed for them because they had two whacks at it at home to blow the roof off it. We’re going to have another chance.”

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In a series with no home-ice advantage, Blue Jackets hope Game 4 loss was a lesson learned By Aaron Portzline – April 21, 2018

WASHINGTON — Most important for the Blue Jackets now is to leave their lousy Game 4 loss to Washington in the dustbin of history and hope it was just an aberration, not proof that their first-round series is tilting heavily toward the Capitals.

The Blue Jackets have another game to play Saturday — Game 5 is at 3 p.m. — and they've spent the last 36 hours preaching two key points, perhaps trying to convince themselves of their validity.

1. “It's a three-game series now.” — The Jackets won twice in Washington, and Washington won twice in Columbus. It's a 2-2 series, which the Blue Jackets would gladly have accepted a week ago. “We just did it in reverse order and it kinda feels like the bottom fell out, ya know?” Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said.

2. Lighten up — The Blue Jackets haven't had the lead much in this series — they haven't had it at all since the third period of Game 2 — but they look like they're carrying the weight of the world. “We have to get back to having fun and enjoying this, because it's the most fun time of the year,” defenseman Zach Werenski said. “That's when we play our best hockey.”

Soon enough the Blue Jackets will be back in Nationwide Arena on Monday, either facing first-round elimination for a second consecutive year or presented with a chance to eliminate the Capitals and advance to the second round for the first time in franchise history.

Either way, they'll need to confront a curiosity that reared its ugly head again in Thursday's 4-1 loss.

In most cases, home ice is an advantage. The passion and electricity that are generated in the stands arrive as energy at ice level, a boost for the home team.

Look how Winnipeg dismantled Minnesota in a quick five-game series that ended Friday with the Jets' third home win in the series.

But with the Blue Jackets on Thursday, before a franchise record crowd, the passion and electricity seemed to create an angst that almost paralyzed the Jackets. They skated slowly, couldn't complete a pass, made odd decisions … basically came unraveled in their own barn.

“The weight of something was there, whether it was nerves or just it being a big moment,” veteran center Mark Letestu told The Athletic. “I think it was good to experience that and learn from it. But, yeah, there seems to be a tension or something building toward us getting over that (first-round) hump.

“It's going to happen for this franchise. It's just a matter of the guys in this room making it happen.”

Letestu has been here for two playoff series — he also was here in 2013-14 versus Pittsburgh — and said the feeling was present then.

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It took eight seasons for the Blue Jackets just to qualify for the playoffs (2009). It took five more before they won a playoff game (2014). It took four on top of that to even have a lead in a series.

After nearly two decades in the NHL, getting out of the first round of the playoffs feels like an epic task.

It's like this in Washington, too, where the Capitals haven't made it out of the second round in nearly 20 years. They had 2-0 leads against the Blue Jackets in the first two games, but lost both of them.

There have been traces of boos in both Capital One and Nationwide Arena during these playoffs.

“Their patience, like our patience, wore thin,” Letestu said of the fans. “We started forcing plays right into where there was obvious coverage, turning pucks over.

“We're in the same fight as the fans. We want to win so bad and our patience got tested a bit and we didn't pass that first test.”

Tortorella has tried to keep his team loose and comfortable. He seemed almost mystified by his club's response on Thursday.

“I'm disappointed for them because they had two whacks at it (in Nationwide), at home, to blow the roof off,” Tortorella said. “We didn't do it. But we're going to have another chance.

“When you get in two years in a row, yeah, it's one of the things you need to cross off, finding a way to win a series. I'm sure they feel that. I don't think it should weigh on them. I think it's a learning process for some of the guys to learn what I guess you would say is pressure and turn it into excitement, adrenaline, embracing the opportunity.

“It's easy for us to talk about it; the players have to live it.”

Tortorella and several players seemed excited to be headed back out on the road. They headed out Friday after a brief practice in Nationwide.

“I think it's going to be easier for our team to play in Washington,” Tortorella said. “It's a great opportunity for us to put (Game 4) behind us and find a way to just win our next game, and then we'll see where we go from there.

“We have good people in our game, and I think they want to please. They’re excited about playing in front of our people, and I’m sure they’re disappointed they couldn’t come through for them. I think there is a little bit of added pressure when you do come home, because you want to put on a show.

“But we're gonna get locked in there (in Washington), go about our business, be as simple as possible, play as hard as possible and see if we can get some momentum going our way and then we’ll take the next step.”

The Blue Jackets can't fix Game 4 now. They can only prepare for Game 5 and set the stage for Game 6 — hoping they handle the nerves better next time.

“It sucks to lose (Games) 3 and 4 because some of our fans have been waiting for a long time,” Cam Atkinson said. “They want it so bad; we do, too. We didn't play the way we wanted to, but we want to do it for them because they deserve it.

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“They've had our backs from day one. I'm sure a lot of them were upset (Thursday). We have a nice game in Washington (Saturday) and we're coming back in our building regardless. We need them to be rocking, just like they have been.”

Notebook

• Center Alexander Wennberg practiced with the Blue Jackets on Friday, the first time he's skated since he was knocked out of the lineup by a hit from Tom Wilson in Game 1. Tortorella said he had no update on Wennberg because he hadn't spoken to his trainers, but Wennberg did not skate as part of a line when the Blue Jackets did drills. In the regular season, that would suggest he won't play today. It still seems highly unlikely, but this is the playoffs, so stay tuned.

• The Blue Jackets need desperately to find a second scoring line. To that end, Tortorella changed his bottom three lines in practice. The only significant surprise is Vanek ending up on the fourth line. Here's what they looked like:

F1: Artemi Panarin – Pierre-Luc Dubois – Cam Atkinson

F2: Boone Jenner – Nick Foligno – Josh Anderson

F3: Sonny Milano – Brandon Dubinsky – Oliver Bjorkstrand

F4: Matt Calvert – Mark Letestu – Thomas Vanek

• No sense that there will be any lineup changes for the Blue Jackets. The same six defensemen skated in the same pairs.

• Here's Atkinson on what it would mean for the Blue Jackets to get Wennberg back before the series is finished: “It would be huge. He’s a big-time player for us. Power-play guy, penalty kill guy, plays in all situations. When he’s buzzing, when he’s on top of his game, he’s one of the best.”

• Washington left winger Andre Burakovsky will miss at least the rest of the first round after having surgery for an upper-body injury suffered on a Boone Jenner hit in Game 2. Capitals coach Barry Trotz told reporters in Washington that Burakovsky could return if the Capitals go on a long playoff run.

• Local broadcast news: The first four playoff games on Fox Sports Ohio averaged a 5.64 household rating, up 13 percent from the first four games versus Pittsburgh last spring, the network said.

• National broadcast news: The double-overtime Game 3 earned a 0.54 rating (888,000 viewers) on NBC Sports Network, making it the largest non-clinching first-round audience on cable (non-network) since 2014 (Bruins-Red Wings, Game 4).

• Per the Elias Sports Bureau, no best-of-seven series in Stanley Cup playoffs history has ever seen all seven games won by the visiting team.

• Saturday's game marks the first time the Blue Jackets have played a daytime playoff game.

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Been there, won that: Stanley Cup champion Ian Cole trying to help young Blue Jackets manage emotions, conquer playoff adversity By Tom Reed – April 21, 2018

John Tortorella doesn’t expect Ian Cole to stand up in the locker room and share his experiences of the past two springs with the Penguins.

The defenseman remains a relative newcomer to the lineup and does not have a letter of leadership sewn on his No. 23 sweater. But while the Blue Jackets aren’t his team, the Stanley Cup playoffs are his territory, and Cole knows better than most the range of emotions involved in a long playoff series.

In winning back-to-back Cups, he understands what it’s like to face elimination, to endure scoring slumps and, yes, survive a blown two-game series lead to the Capitals.

Been there, won that.

“(It doesn’t have to be) a structured setting talking about what’s happened in some of the ebbs and flows of a series,” Tortorella said. “(It can be) just joking around with some of the goofy things that went on when they lost a game and they were so down or whatever it may be over a beer or over a dinner. I think that’s really important.”

Cole is embracing the role. The defenseman told The Athletic on Friday he’s starting to speak up a bit more as the Blue Jackets return to Washington with the best-of-seven series knotted after losing a pair of games in Nationwide Arena.

Just a year ago, Cole and the Penguins won the first two games in Capital One Arena and held a 3-1 second-round series lead before Washington roared back to force a Game 7. Pittsburgh held its nerve and prevailed 2-0 in the decisive game.

The Blue Jackets don’t possess the offensive talent of the Penguins, but Cole is quick to point out Columbus already has won twice on the road in this series.

“It’s kind of similar to here,” Cole said. “You get a pretty commanding lead and that team comes back. They are a great team, one that can score goals with the best of them and they have talented players.

Center Mark Letestu said the onus falls on the veterans to lead by example with preparation and execution. Cole has not disappointed in his first playoff appearance with the Blue Jackets.

The pairing of Cole and David Savard has been the club’s most effective in several key five-on-five categories, according to Corsica.hockey. The tandem has posted the top Corsi for percentage (50.41) and best expected goals for/60 (1.94) all while starting the majority of shifts in the defensive zone.

Cole also has registered the best game score (1.6) — a measure evaluating overall individual performance — among Blue Jackets defensemen.

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It’s difficult for a veteran's words to carry weight when he’s not playing well. That hasn’t been the case with Cole, who helped set up Artemi Panarin’s overtime winner in Game 1.

“I think he’s a guy people look up to because of his resume and how he’s won a couple of Cups,” Cam Atkinson said. “Everyone’s dream and goal is to win a Cup. He’s been through the ups and downs.”

In the Penguins’ title run two years ago, they rallied from a 3-2 series deficit, winning Game 6 on the road, to beat the Lightning in the Eastern Conference Final.

One key is managing emotions, Cole said.

In the Blue Jackets’ 4-1 loss to the Capitals on Thursday, Tortorella sensed frustration starting to fester within some players for the first time in the series. He witnessed players barking at opponents and officials. At one point in the second period, an animated Tortorella was spotted on the bench trying to get his players to relax and enjoy the moment.

The Blue Jackets were visibly nervous in Game 4 and it was evident in their lack of execution and poise. Tortorella said coaches can only say so much, and that some mentorship needs to come from within the room.

“The intensity to not get pushed around is good,” Cole said. “I don’t think frustration is an emotion that’s beneficial. I think the ability to stay the course and play a certain way consistently is more beneficial than getting frustrated. We can be much more steadfast in our approach.”

Cole recalls how calm the Penguins were in the 2016 playoff series against the Lightning while twice facing elimination.

“It was like, ‘Boys, we can do this,’ ” Cole said. “All we have to do is win one hockey game against a really good team. We have played them for five games now. There are no surprises. We just need to do it better than they do. There was no panic.”

Cole said the message from the coaching staff over the past few days has been “spot on.”

Captain Nick Foligno thought the Blue Jackets got a bit rattled when the Capitals took a 2-0 lead for the third time in the series Thursday. Players started trying to force plays, which in turn created more problems than they remedied.

Cole said such scenarios require patience. In last year’s Eastern Conference Final, the Penguins scored a combined three goals in the first three games against the Senators. Pittsburgh rallied to win the series, requiring double overtime in Game 7.

“You have to learn to stay with the game,” said Cole, whose Blue Jackets have scored just three goals in the past two games versus the Capitals. “We have to be resilient when we lose a game or when Washington grabs a lead.

“We did a pretty good job of staying patient and finding a way to win the first two games. I still think we can play a lot better than we did in the last two games.”

Three times during the Penguins’ run to two consecutive Cups they lost back-to-back games. These are the details outsiders sometimes forget when they see the Penguins celebrating after the handshake lines at the end of a grueling series.

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“There’s going to be adversity along the way and that’s OK,” Cole said. “We just have to stick with it here.

“If you said at the start of the series we’d be tied 2-2, I think we would say we’re in a very good situation against a really good team that won our division,” Cole noted. “The only way to look at this is it’s a three-game series against a team we’re very familiar with. We know how we need to play against them and I think we all know we haven’t played our best game yet.”

Cole might not wear a letter on his sweater, but he’s emerging as a leader with the Blue Jackets.

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Capitals win 4-3 over Blue Jackets in OT By George Richards – April 22, 2018

WASHINGTON — It went to overtime Saturday at Capital One Arena.

This time, it was the home team celebrating when the final horn sounded.

Washington’s Nicklas Backstrom scored at 11:53 of overtime to lift the Capitals to a 4-3 win over the Blue Jackets to take their first lead of the series.

The Jackets will play for their season in Game 6 on Monday night at Nationwide Arena as Washington comes to town holding a 3-2 series lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal.

For the first time in the series, the Jackets grabbed the initial lead, going up 1-0 midway through the opening period while killing a penalty.

Seth Jones worked the puck off of Alex Ovechkin’s stick along the far wall and got it over toward Matt Calvert at the top of the defensive zone. Calvert and Josh Anderson then rolled up the ice on a 2-on-1 with Calvert holding onto the puck and bouncing one through Braden Holtby.

Washington answered moments later on a fluky goal in which the puck bounced off of Blue Jackets defenseman David Savard and over Sergei Bobrovsky and off his back. Savard tried reaching behind his goalie as Bobrovsky lost sight of the puck to clear it from harm’s way.

Washington took its first lead of the day early in the second when Evgeny Kuznetsov scored — only to watch Calvert get his second of the afternoon at 4:45 to tie it again.

Calvert brought the puck into the Washington zone on a breakaway, whiffed on his initial shot yet had the presence of mind to corral the puck back. Calvert then pushed the puck beyond Holtby’s reach by barreling through the cage.

Washington retook the lead on its fourth power play chance as T.J. Oshie knocked in a long shot from John Carlson.

Despite failing to cash in on their fifth power play of the game to start the third, the Blue Jackets forced things even again 2:30 into the period when Oliver Bjorkstrand got in front of Holtby and knocked down a long shot from Ian Cole.

The Blue Jackets were flying in the third and bottled up the Capitals in the offensive zone.

The Jackets outshot the Capitals 16-1 in the third as the Capitals didn’t get their lone shot on Bobrovsky until midway through the period.

A wild overtime period — in which both goalies made one big save after another — Backstrom knocked down a long shot and put it past Bobrovsky for the winner.

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Blue Jackets don’t seem to mind being so close to brink of elimination By Michael Arace – April 22, 2018

WASHINGTON — Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella’s postgame media event, staged Saturday on the basketball practice court in the basement of Capital One Arena, was terse. He was asked five questions. He used 76 words, total, to answer.

I’m not an advanced metrics guy, but I think that’s 15.2 words per answer. Somewhere, the ghost of Calvin Coolidge had to be smiling. Silent Cal. The Sphinx of the Potomac.

This type of oratorical elegance is not unprecedented with Tortorella — but it’s not typical, either. It is easy, then, to parse and find the message. It’s right there.

Asked if he thought his team could shake off this 4-3 overtime loss to the Washington Capitals, Tortorella said, “Yeah. Yeah. We’ll be back here for Game 7.”

Asked how he’d prepare his team for Game 6, Tortorella said, “I won’t have to say a (darn) word to them. No. We’ll be back here for Game 7.”

There, in those two responses, was 35 percent of Tortorella’s public issuance after the Jackets finished squandering the 2-zip lead they once had in their series. The Capitals have come back to win three games in a row, and they can close out the series with a Game 6 victory Monday night at Nationwide Arena.

“We’ll be back here for Game 7.”

(No, Tortorella didn’t say it three times. I added that last one for effect.)

Game 5 was another thriller. It was the fourth overtime game of the series. Like Game 2 — which the Jackets won on Matt Calvert’s one-handed putback — and Game 3 — which the Capitals won off Zach Werenski’s knee and Lars Eller’s toe — the deciding goal on Saturday was a seemingly benign thing until the puck wound up in the net. Dmitry Orlov lobbed a shot down the left side of the slot and Nicklas Backstrom redirected it past Jackets goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.

The goal came at 11:53 of the fourth period. The sellout crowd went crazy. The folks outside of the arena danced up and down F Street.

According to a few Jackets, the mood in the visitors’ dressing room was set with just a few words by veteran Thomas Vanek, who joined the team at the Feb. 26 trade deadline. As players slumped into their stalls, Vanek said something like: “Since I’ve been here, we always do things the hard way.”

Vanek joined a team that needed a wicked, late-season push just to make the playoffs. He has spent 25 games with the Jackets and, in that span, they’ve played 12 one-goal games, including the four overtime playoff games.

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“Since I’ve been here, I’ve seen the hard way,” Calvert said with a smile.

Calvert is the longest-tenured Jacket. He was drafted by the team in 2008 and made his NHL debut in 2010. He scored nine goals the past regular season. He has scored three in these playoffs, including two Saturday. Nearly had the hattie, too.

The Jackets are in a tough spot, but they are almost relishing it. At the least, they’re looking forward to Game 6 — primarily because they finally found their game in the third period of Game 5. They’re kicking themselves for not potting more than one goal in the third period and leaving their Game 5 fate to caprice. But their kicks seem to be propelling them.

“We dictated play in the third period,” Nick Foligno said. “That’s how we need to play. That’s what we do — we overwhelm teams. And there’s no answer for it. They were just dying to get off the ice (at the end of regulation).”

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Blue Jackets | Alexander Wennberg returns after injury By George Richards – April 22, 2018

WASHINGTON — Alexander Wennberg returned to the scene of the crime Saturday.

Wennberg was back in the Blue Jackets lineup for the first time since being knocked out of Game 1 by a hit to his head from Capitals forward Tom Wilson.

The hit happened early in the third period and led to a power-play goal for the Blue Jackets. It also cost his team one of its top centers for the next three games.

“It doesn’t matter what I think of the hit,” Wennberg said after playing 18 minutes off 25 shifts in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Capitals in Game 5 of the first-round playoff series. “It happened and I can say whatever I want. It’s in the past.”

The addition of Wennberg allowed coach John Tortorella more options on his forward lines. Captain Nick Foligno slid back to the third line with Wennberg reunited with Thomas Vanek and Boone Jenner — at least initially.

Wennberg also helped in the faceoff dot as the Blue Jackets won 57 percent of their draws — besting the Capitals after losing 64 percent in Game 4.

“He played great and was a real boost for us,” Foligno said. “That helped us put guys in spots where they need to be.”

The Jackets again struggled on the power play, going scoreless on all five attempts, including one that bled into the third period. They have not scored a power-play goal in this series since Game 2 when Zach Werenski scored late in the second period to give the Jackets a 4-3 lead.

The Jackets began the series going 4 of 7 on the power play; they have failed to score in their past 13 attempts.

Washington, on the other hand, has at least one power-play goal in all five games. The Capitals scored on one of their four chances Saturday.

“Special teams were not great, we struggled on the power play,” Seth Jones said. “We’re just not executing. It’s all execution.”

More of ‘Puck Girl’

First-grader Keelan Moxley has become a local celebrity after the video of Washington forward Brett Connolly trying to get a puck to her during warmups before Game 2 here went viral on social media and elsewhere.

On Saturday, Moxley and two other youngsters helped kick off the game with high-pitched chants of “Lets go Caps,” and she was given front-row tickets to the game.

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Moxley and her parents were guests of Capitals owner Ted Leonsis, who presented her with an autographed stick from Connolly when he met with the family before the game.

“It’s a good story,” Connolly said. “I hope she had fun, hope her family had fun. Happy we could get her a win.”

Slap shots

Brandon Dubinsky had a busy first period. On one penalty kill, he lost his stick and spent half a shift chasing down the Capitals without one. He also blocked a shot from Alex Ovechkin. Dubinsky played just 7:28 but won 8 of 11 faceoffs. ... Jones led the Blue Jackets with 31:51 of ice time Saturday, followed by Cam Atkinson (28:25) and Artemi Panarin (27:11). ... The Jackets led in shots on goal for the first time, outshooting the Capitals 42-29. Matt Calvert, Atkinson and Jenner combined for 17 of them.

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Blue Jackets | Matt Calvert gives offense boost By George Richards – April 22, 2018

WASHINGTON — Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno knows how much playoff hockey means to Matt Calvert.

On Saturday, Calvert scored the first two goals of Game 5 for the Blue Jackets — first giving them a 1-0 lead, then tying the score at 2 — in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Washington Capitals.

“He was huge. What a big momentum boost for our team,” Foligno said of Calvert. “We get up, we get tied, he comes back with a huge one after we go down. That kind of effort you need from guys. Great to see him put the puck in the net, but he’s doing so many other things as well. He loves this time of year.”

Calvert certainly seems to take to the postseason.

Statistically, Calvert has been one of the Jackets’ top offensive players — although two goals in one game pushed him to the top of that list. But for a guy who scored nine regular-season goals to pop in three in the first five games of this best-of-seven series, Calvert has been a big lift as the Jackets are desperate for scoring.

“I love this time of year,” said Calvert, who scored the winner in overtime in Game 2 the last time the teams played at Capital One Arena.

“The best players in hockey are playing right now and we’re lucky to have this opportunity. It’s a lot of fun. You keep getting your number called to jump over that wall, then a couple go in and you really get some confidence going.”

Calvert gave the Jackets their first 1-0 lead of this series midway through the first period as the Jackets were trying to hold off the Capitals’ killer power play.

Seth Jones got things going with a terrific defensive play along the boards in the Jackets zone, jacking the puck off the stick of Alexander Ovechkin and getting it up along the boards to Calvert.

Calvert and Josh Anderson got behind the Capitals on the rush and took it down the ice. Calvert looked like he was going to pass but didn’t — shooting at Braden Holtby and getting the puck to bound into the net.

“The one thing in my mind was how gassed I was,” Calvert said of taking off after spending time killing the penalty.

“I got caught out there and it was like a double shift. I was just going to dump it in, then I realized we had a 2-on-1. It was straight legs and I was hunched over, but (the defender) was playing Anderson so strong, I threw it at the low blocks and it went in.”

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His second goal was a beauty, and it was meaningful because the Capitals had taken momentum back, leading 2-1. Calvert got loose and drove in on Holtby but whiffed on his shot. Instead of losing it completely, he wrested control of it again and slid it past the Washington goalie — all while crashing into the cage.

“I don’t know if it jumped or I just missed it,” Calvert said. “Whatever happened, I made a quick move with the backhand and it went in. I turned on it, and luckily he bit on the shot. It turned out to be a great fake that worked out in our favor.”

There was no goalie interference as Washington watched the replay and didn’t challenge.

“We all need to help out offensively,” Calvert said, mentioning Oliver Bjorkstrand’s game-tying goal early in the third. “We just need to put our heads down and keep moving. We would have liked to win, but we’re not too disappointed.”

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Capitals 4, Blue Jackets 3, OT | Tortorella guarantees win in next game By Steve Gorten – April 22, 2018

WASHINGTON — Alexander Ovechkin fulfilled his guarantee after Game 2. On Saturday, Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella made his own bold promise minutes after the most painful playoff loss in franchise history.

“We’ll be back here for Game 7,” Tortorella said.

Thirty seconds later, asked how he’d get his team ready emotionally for a must-win Game 6 after this 4- 3 overtime loss to the Capitals, Tortorella again vowed victory Monday night at Nationwide Arena.

“I don’t have to say a (darn) word to them,” he said. “We’ll be back here for Game 7.”

“Well, what else are you going to say?” Capitals coach Barry Trotz countered. “That’s good. He wants to get it out there (that) he believes in his team, just as I believe in my team. So it’s our job for that not to happen.”

Added Ovechkin: “It’s not going to be easy. They’re not going to give us an easy one.”

On Saturday, the fifth game extended to overtime like three others in this fiercely contested best-of- seven series. It ended at 11:53 when Nicklas Backstrom redirected Dmitry Orlov’s shot from the point past goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.

It took that “lucky stick on it,” Jackets captain Nick Foligno called the deflection, to give the Capitals their third consecutive win in a first-round series they now control.

Six days after leaving D.C. with a pair of overtime wins and a 2-0 lead, the Jackets flew home Saturday knowing they must win Game 6 on Monday to save their season, and then Game 7 back at Capital One Arena on Wednesday to advance.

“I feel like we’ve been like this all year,” Foligno said, adding that in a disappointed dressing room veteran forward Thomas Vanek had just reminded teammates, “We’re the Blue Jackets: We don’t do things easy. We do it the hard way.”

The Jackets, who Tortorella said played “liked robots” and “laid an egg” in a 4-1 Game 4 loss, responded as hoped Saturday. They didn’t play nervously. They played freely, scoring first for the first time in the series and dominating a third period that started with them trailing by a goal.

They got two goals from Matt Calvert, who notched the first one short-handed and the second after initially whiffing on his breakaway. Calvert leads the Jackets with three goals in five playoff games after nine in 69 games during the regular season.

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They got the tying goal 2:30 into the third period from fourth-line wing Oliver Bjorkstrand, who deflected in Ian Cole’s shot from the blue line after Alexander Wennberg dove to slide the puck to Cole. Wennberg played for the first time since an upper-body injury suffered in Game 1.

And they got another sterling goaltending performance from Bobrovsky, who in overtime alone robbed Ovechkin on a one-timer from the high slot and John Carlson wide-open in front. Bobrovsky finished with 25 saves.

They even played the final 35:25 without committing a penalty after taking four penalties the first 36:28, the last of which led to a T.J. Oshie power-play goal and 3-2 Capitals lead late in the second period.

But in a third period that was one of their best of the season, a 20-minute clinic in which they outshot the Capitals 16-1, they could only score once on goalie Braden Holtby.

“We were desperate. We had the puck pretty much the whole time and we had a lot of Grade-A chances around the net. Holtby made some big saves,” defenseman Seth Jones said. “It sucks, outshooting them 16-1 in the third.”

Holtby, who ended with 39 saves, said, “It wasn’t an ideal period for us, but we played well under pressure.”

Tortorella was asked if the Jackets deserved a better fate.

“We played well. It doesn’t matter what we thought we deserved,” he said. “We lost, so we’ll get ready for our next game.”

And then there will be Game 7. Tortorella guarantees it.

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On the Blue Jackets' Matt Calvert, 'the hard way' and not looking too far into the future By Tom Reed – April 22, 2018

WASHINGTON — On a night of The Guarantee, Matt Calvert boarded a plane home to uncertainty.

The Blue Jackets winger hopes John Tortorella is right when the coach said Saturday, “we will be back here for Game 7.”

The reality is the organization’s longest-tenured player and unrestricted free agent might be appearing in his final game as a Blue Jacket on Monday. If you know anything about the gritty Manitoban, Calvert will do everything in his power to make Tortorella’s prediction come true.

Few Blue Jackets have given themselves so completely to the franchise and so consistently to the cause when it matters most.

Calvert scored two more goals in Game 5 and was close on several occasions to notching his first career postseason hat trick. But after a 4-3 overtime loss to Washington at Capital One Arena, he and his teammates find themselves on the brink of another early playoff exit.

“We owe our fans a great game and that’s what we are looking for (Monday) — to get it to a Game 7,” he said.

Calvert, 28, does not want to discuss his future beyond this season, recently telling The Athletic he’s “just trying to stay in the moment.” Fair enough, but heroic efforts like the one he’s delivered in this series — Calvert also scored the Game 2 overtime winner — will make him an attractive option if he hits the open market in July.

His second goal of the game Saturday, an outrageous breakaway in which he fumbled the puck on his forehand only to score on a spin-o-rama, tied him for the all-time franchise postseason lead with six. His nine points in 15 career playoff games puts him just one behind Cam Atkinson and Boone Jenner.

The Blue Jackets aren’t a high-profile team, but his uncanny ability to raise his game in the playoffs is not lost on anyone around the NHL. Calvert’s ice time has soared to 17:33 in the postseason, a 4-minute, 11- second spike from the regular season.

“He kind of got buried all season long on that roster and I never felt like he was a fourth-line player,” NBC and NHL Network analyst Darren Pang told The Athletic after the game. “To see him get elevated in terms of ice time and responsibility, that’s what Matt lives for. His history tells you that. He’s great in the postseason.”

Calvert has been noticeable in almost every game. He led the way Saturday in giving the Blue Jackets some much-needed secondary scoring. At the end of an extended first-period shift, he converted a two- on-one shorthanded opportunity with Josh Anderson.

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It marked the first time the Blue Jackets scored first in the series.

His second goal, the breakaway that tied it 2-2 at 4:45 of the middle period, was quintessential Calvert. All hustle and second effort. He stripped the puck from T.J. Oshie at the Blue Jackets line and skated up the ice with nobody between him and Braden Holtby.

Calvert never gave up on a play that appeared doomed after the puck hopped over his stick and he whiffed on his initial attempt. Somehow, he corralled the uncooperative disc and, in one motion, spun around and tucked a backhander into the net as he crashed into Holtby.

On the telecast, NBC analyst Ray Ferraro said, “that is the worst move I have ever seen on a breakaway.” Calvert chuckled in recounting the memorable tally.

“It happened so fast,” he said. “It’s more of a reaction … I won’t give away where I was going (with the original attempt) but whether it bounced or I missed it, I just turned around on it and luckily (Holtby) had bit on the shot. It turned out to be a great fake, so it worked in my favor.”

Calvert and the Blue Jackets just kept coming in what was their best all-around performance despite the outcome. Holtby robbed Calvert on a point-blank bid later in the second period and stopped him again in the third as the diminutive winger was falling to the ice.

The Blue Jackets outshot Washington 16-1 in the third period, but couldn’t produce a winner.

“We had our opportunities to finish it off,” Calvert said. “One of (Ian Cole’s) shots hit the knob of Holtby’s stick.”

The overtime was evenly played, but Nicklas Backstrom sent the red-clad and nervous home crowd happy with a beautiful redirection of a Dmitry Orlov point shot at 11:53.

Inside the cramped visitors locker room there was disappointment, but not despair. Despite three consecutive losses, the Blue Jackets believe they can force a Game 7 with a win Monday night.

Calvert said teammate Thomas Vanek, who arrived at the trade deadline, spoke up first and noted since he’s joined the club, the Blue Jackets always “do it the hard way.”

Asked whether Vanek’s description jibed with Calvert’s take on the franchise during his eight seasons, the forward smiled.

“Since I’ve been here, I’ve seen the hard way,” he said.

Last offseason, the Blue Jackets inked Markus Hannikainen to a two-year, one-way deal. The 25-year-old plays a similar game to Calvert and, at the time, some interpreted the contract as the first step toward the Finn becoming the veteran’s replacement.

But at the most pivotal time of the year here again is Calvert coming up clutch for the Blue Jackets. While he scored just nine times in the regular season, he leads the team with three playoff goals.

There’s little doubt the franchise wants to re-sign him, but it will need to splash the cash if it hopes to secure long-term deals for Sergei Bobrovsky and Artemi Panarin.

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Will there be enough money and salary-cap space left over for a role player with Calvert’s postseason pedigree? Four years ago, he delivered the Blue Jackets’ first playoff victory with an OT winner in Pittsburgh.

Calvert has witnessed the worst and best the franchise has had to offer.

He endured seasons that were essentially over by Thanksgiving and watched the team’s first great player, Rick Nash, ask out in 2012. He was there for Scott Arniel behind the bench, an 0-8-0 start in the 2015-16 standings and Boomer waving to mortified supporters on a night Penguins fans got rides on the arena Zambonis.

Calvert also has been a significant part of the two greatest campaigns in the organization’s history. He scored an unforgettable game-winner last season against the Rangers with his head wrapped in blood- soaked bandages. A few days later, he was diagnosed with a concussion.

Yeah, Matt Calvert has “seen the hard way.”

Maybe he gets his last view of it Monday night when Nationwide Arena is at full throat again. But that’s not how Calvert thinks, it’s not how he’s wired.

“We have to focus on Game 6 and get out of the first round,” he said. “And hope to put a few more (goals) in the net.”

Calvert will give it his best effort. That’s a guarantee.

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'We'll be back for Game 7′: After OT loss to Caps, Blue Jackets' Tortorella promises Game 6 win in Columbus By Aaron Portzline – April 22, 2018

WASHINGTON — The Blue Jackets stayed standing on the visitors bench in Capital One Arena for several seconds after Nicklas Backstrom ended the latest overtime thriller in this series with a brilliant redirection of a point shot.

Maybe they were shocked. Maybe they were waiting to see whether the goal would be reviewed for a possible high-sticking. What they weren't doing, said their coach, was taking one last look around the place.

Backstrom's goal at 11:53 of the first overtime gave Washington a 4-3 win and a 3-2 lead in the best-of- seven series, with Game 6 — an elimination game for the Blue Jackets — coming up at 7:30 p.m. Monday in Nationwide Arena.

Asked how he could get his club to recover from the latest devastating loss, Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella dismissed the very question in one breath, then added a Game 6 guarantee for good measure.

“I won't have to say a damn word to them, no,” Tortorella said. “We'll be back here for Game 7.”

That's two high-profile figures in this series who have made guarantees: Washington's Alexander Ovechkin vowed that the Caps would win both Games 3 and 4 in Columbus and return home with the series tied. He was right.

As for Tortorella's bold assertion?

“What else are you gonna say?” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said. “That’s good, he wants to get it out there. he believes in his team. Just as I believe in my team.

“It's our job for that not to happen.”

The Blue Jackets believe they can still play better, but they may have played their best game of the series. (We'll take nominations for Game 3, which also was a loss.)

This was the fourth of the five games to go to overtime. Each team has won two of them, which is only fair given how bizarre and unpredictable this series has been. The Caps are the first team to win at home.

“It's overtime again,” said Blue Jackets left winger Matt Calvert, who had his second two-goal playoff game. “The first two games (of the series), I don't know if we loved our games and we won both of them.

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“They win one game in double overtime, they get a tip on one tonight in overtime. It's a seven-game series, and we're going to have to give it that much more and try to make the bounces go our way.”

Trailing 3-2 after two periods, the Blue Jackets had a massive push in the third period, outshooting the Capitals 16-1 and earning the equalizer on Oliver Bjorkstrand's goal at 2:30 of the third.

Bjorkstrand deflected a point shot from Blue Jackets defenseman Ian Cole to get the puck past Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby. It was Bjorkstrand's first career playoff goal.

“We came out after the second period like, 'Let's take over!' ” Nick Foligno said. “We felt really good about our game, but it was like, 'All right, guys, enough. This is how we're going to dictate the game.'

“We needed a goal to get back into it, but once we got it — a huge goal by Bjorky — the way we were playing started to snowball.”

The Capitals didn't get a shot on goal until the 11:39 mark of the third period.

“We never executed getting out of our own zone,” Trotz said. “We just weren't in that battle well enough.

“As I was leaving the room after the third period, I could hear the guys — the right guys, too — all saying the right things. I thought we had a real good push in OT.”

The Blue Jackets had prime chances to win it in overtime, but Boone Jenner and Bjorkstrand couldn't convert. Sergei Bobrovsky made big saves on Ovechkin and John Carlson in OT.

But he had no chance on Backstrom's deflection. He reached to his right, deftly got his stick on Dmitry Orlov's slap shot and watched it shoot lower, skipping off the ice and into the net.

“I saw the point shot,” Jackets defenseman Seth Jones said. “(Backstrom) was kind of moving away from me as I came in, so I wasn't right on him. I turned around and it's in the net.

“No shot's a bad shot in overtime. They know that. All you need is a little tip like that, a little redirection, a little bounce to go your way or go off your skate.”

The Blue Jackets' dressing room was anything but devastated after the game. The players didn't even seem to be dejected, but resolute and eager to play Game 6.

A few players mentioned how the Game 3 overtime loss in Nationwide was such an emotional loss that it may have bled into their lousy showing in a 4-1 loss in Game 4.

But after Saturday's game, veteran Thomas Vanek, who was thumped around all day by Capitals defenseman Brooks Orpik, was the first player to step forward in the dressing room.

“It wasn't too long after he came in when he piped up,” Calvert said. “He just said, 'It's the Columbus Blue Jackets way … we do it the hard way.' It's pretty true.”

Only Tortorella guaranteed a Game 6 win — he did it twice in his terse postgame comments, actually — but Foligno wasn't short of confidence.

“We're really hoping this carries into next game,” he said. “Because, man, they didn't have an answer. We have to find a way to will our game on them. It just overwhelms them.

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“The fans (in Columbus for Game 6) are going to be even louder than they've been, and we're going to give them a reason to be loud.”

Notebook

• Told defenseman Ryan Murray was suffering from tightness in his back after the game and may not be available for Monday's Game 6. If he's not able to play, look for veteran Jack Johnson to make his 2018 playoffs debut.

• Alexander Wennberg returned to the lineup after missing three games with an upper-body injury. He went back in his usual spot between Boone Jenner and Thomas Vanek, allowing Nick Foligno to slide to the third line and Brandon Dubinsky to the fourth.

• Wennberg declined to talk about the hit by Washington's Tom Wilson that knocked him out of the previous three games. “It doesn't matter (what I think),” Wennberg told The Athletic. “I have no comment on it. It happened. I can say whatever I want and it's not going to change anything. So put it in the past. For me, it's just, looking at the next thing coming up.”

• Wennberg had an assist, no shots on goal, three blocked shots and played 18 minutes. “I've been off the ice for a little bit,” he said. “It's part of the game, trying to get back from an injury. I tried to do my best. I don't know if it's my best game, but all you can do is go out and try to battle.”

• The Blue Jackets' power play is a slasher film at this point. It's in an 0-for-13 rut since Game 2, and it's generated only 10 shots in those 13 man-advantages. The Capitals are standing four across the blue line on entry, a web that the Blue Jackets keep getting stuck in. When they dump the puck, Holtby gathers it and helps clear it. When they try to skate through, they get caught in the web. Hate to say it, but the Blue Jackets only started possessing the puck and creating chances in the third period when the penalties stopped for both clubs.

• Bobrovsky made a brilliant save on Carlson from all alone in front in overtime. He also stoned Ovechkin alone from the slot. He didn't get much work after the second period, but he made some huge high-risk stops.

• Holtby on Bobrovsky, who finished with 25 saves: “I've played enough against him to know he's going to come up with big saves every game. That's who he is. As a fellow goaltender, I just try and block out as much as I can. What happens at the other end of the ice has absolutely nothing to do with my job. I'm just focusing on my job because I know he's going to do his. That's just part of knowing your role, knowing how to prepare to play your best.”

• A new twist on an old axiom: This series didn't start until a home team won a game.

• Here's Backstrom on the Caps' rollercoaster ride of losing the first two, then winning the next three: “The whole team felt like we played better than the results (in the first two). That’s the way it is in the playoffs. It’s gonna go up and down. It’s best out of seven, so you just gotta keep grinding, I think. The last three games, we've been doing that, we’ve been playing some good hockey and, hopefully, we can bring our confidence to Columbus on Monday.”

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• With Wennberg back, Foligno slid to the third-line center position and Dubinsky was dropped to the fourth line. Dubinsky won 8-of-11 faceoffs, but played only 7:28. Mark Letestu, the fourth-line center, drew just 7:51.

• The Blue Jackets are 1-3 all-time in elimination games. To be clear, that's games in which the Jackets can be eliminated. The win came in Game 4 last spring against Pittsburgh before they were dispatched in Game 5.

• Backstrom's overtime winner was the fourth of his career, the most in Washington franchise history.

• Here's Backstrom on the plan for Game 6: “We need to come out a little harder and play way better for 60 minutes, I think. It feels like we score and we let them back in right away. I feel like we can play a little tighter and keep them on the outside. I feel like they had a lot of chances tonight and (Holtby) played great. Yeah, 60 minutes complete game on Monday. You know it's going to be rocking there in Columbus.”

• Ovechkin, looking forward to Game 6: “Just play our game. It's simple, but it's hard. It's not going to be easy. They're not going to give us an easy one. We have to fight through it. It's going to be interesting.”

• Two more streaks continued … unfortunate ones if you're the Blue Jackets. First, they've allowed a power-play goal in every game against the Capitals this season, including 8 of 24 (33 percent) in this series. That's the most power-play goals by any team in these playoffs. Second, in 20 all-time playoff games, the Blue Jackets have never allowed fewer than three goals in any game. Yes, Bobrovsky's been really good in this series, but the great ones steal games.

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Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella: 'We'll be back here for Game 7' By Mike Brehm – April 22, 2018

Columbus Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella can be a man of few words in his postgame news conferences.

In fact, in blowout losses, he sometimes makes an appearance to just say he has nothing to add.

But with the Blue Jackets losing 4-3 in overtime to fall behind the Washington Capitals 3-2 in a series that Columbus once led 2-0, seven words from Tortorella stuck out.

"We'll be back here for Game 7."

Granted, no coach is going to say he'll lose the next game, but Tortorella later repeated those words.

"I won't have to say a damn word to them," he said when asked about preparing his team for Game 6 at home on Monday night. "We'll be back here for Game 7."

Can the Blue Jackets end their three-game losing streak with the season on the line?

Well, in Game 5, they "played well," said Tortorella, who had called a 4-1 loss in Game 4 a "good old- fashioned laying an egg."

Matt Calvert scored twice in the game, a short-handed goal and a breakaway goal in which he muffed his shot, then made a spin move to beat Capitals goalie Braden Holtby.

And goalie Sergei Bobrovsky, a two-time Vezina Trophy winner who inexplicably has a 3.41 goals-against average and .894 save percentage in the playoffs, showed some good signs. He reacted slowly on Evgeny Kuznetsov's shot and his bid to break up a centering pass led to a fluke goal. But he also made brilliant saves in overtime before Nicklas Backstrom beat him with a perfect deflection.

Predicting victories is nothing new. New York Rangers center Mark Messier famously did it in the Eastern Conference final in 1994 and backed up his words with a hat trick against the New Jersey Devils.

More recently, Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin said Washington would have the series tied up before it returned to Washington for Game 5.

That also ended up being true.

Maybe Tortorella will be right, too.

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Can Andrew Hammond rekindle the magic of 'The Hamburglar' for the Avs? By Scott Burnside – April 21, 2018

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Everyone knows the Cinderella story as it relates to the NHL playoffs.

Teams rise up seemingly out of nowhere to enjoy unimagined success. Players with little or no profile or pedigree lead their teams or save their teams or impact games and series that no one could have foretold. It is a well-worn it not overused dramatic device.

But do you know the one about how Cinderella goes down with an undisclosed injury on the way to the ball and has to be replaced by the Hamburglar?

Now that is a story worth celebrating. That is a story that demands attention.

And so it shall be in Game 5 of the opening round series between the NHL’s best regular season team, the Predators, and the gritty, upstart Avalanche that Colorado will pin its hopes of surviving on third- string netminder Andrew Hammond, “The Hamburglar.”

Not that saving seasons is all that new to Hammond, who was acquired from Ottawa in the three-way trade that sent Matt Duchene to Ottawa and Hammond’s former teammate Kyle Turris to Nashville earlier this season.

The 30-year-old Hammond’s story is the stuff of legend passed around goaltending campfires and whispered by aspiring goaltenders of all ages late at night. In the 2014-15 season, Hammond literally came out of nowhere to save the Senators' season with a 20-1-2 run that propelled the hitherto dead-in- the-water Senators into the playoffs, making him a cult figure in the Canadian capital and for Senators fans everywhere.

“I think everyone kind of counted us out, (then) he obviously came in and did incredible things and that obviously uplifted the whole town, the whole city, and it was exciting to see from first-hand experience,” longtime NHLer David Legwand, who was part of that Senators squad, said Thursday.

Hammond’s college nickname was The Hamburglar, a nod to an old McDonald’s ad campaign, and Senators fans embraced the nickname, regularly showering the ice with the fast food chain's burgers during their late-season charge to the postseason. At one point, Hammond picked one up off the ice and raised it triumphantly. Later, teammate Curtis Lazar actually ate one of the offerings.

It was glorious.

Legwand, who is currently part-owner and associate coach of the OHL’s Sarnia Sting, has an interesting perspective on this Predators-Avalanche series and the Hammond factor as it relates to Game 5 Friday night. Legwand was the first-ever draft pick of the Predators when they came into the league in 1998. He played for the Predators until going to Detroit at the 2014 trade deadline.

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There he saw first-hand how Hammond rallied the Senators when Craig Anderson and Robin Lehner both went down with injuries. Hammond recorded a sparkling 1.79 goals-against average and .941 save percentage, bringing calm and confidence to the Senators’ dressing room with an uncanny ability to make critical save after critical save.

“He’s a level-headed person, he’s not going to get too high to low,” Legwand said. “He’s going to stay even-keeled. If they (the Predators) get an early one it’s not going to rattle him and those types of things. That’s good for him and good for Colorado, I think. Obviously, he’s going go in there and he’s going to have to make some saves, you got to weather the storm in the first little bit and then go from there.”

There is a kind of Zen attitude about Hammond that is common among backup netminders. It comes with the territory and is pretty much a required attribute for those who must stay mentally sharp during long periods of inactivity but are then expected to perform miracles when they are called on.

If it’s possible, Hammond seems perfectly suited personality-wise to be thrust into a must-win situation having started just one game for the Avalanche this season before being called on in the third period of Game 4 Wednesday when the Avs fell 3-2 in spite of a spirited third-period comeback and the team now trails the Predators 3-1 in the series.

Now it falls to Hammond to find a way to send the series back to Denver for Game 6 on Sunday.

“I mean just trusting all your preparation. Especially this time of year, you’re doing everything that you normally would as if you were playing, so from that standpoint not too much changes,” Hammond said shortly before the Avalanche jetted off to Nashville.

“Just need to trust your experience, trust the things you do in practice,” the Surrey, British Columbia native added. “You always want to play meaningful hockey and I think tomorrow night it doesn’t get more meaningful than that, so from that standpoint, I think it’s very exciting to get that opportunity.”

Hammond stopped all eight shots he faced in the third period Wednesday. Bernier has been dealing with a nagging injury and Hammond said he wasn’t all that surprised to get the call to come in.

“To get a little bit involved with this series I think it helps you get a little bit more feel for the game I think it was, in hindsight, probably a good thing to get that under my belt,” he said.

Longtime NHL goaltender and analyst Jamie McLennan saw up close Hammond’s sudden emergence on the national stage with the Senators, providing analysis for many of those games for Canadian broadcaster TSN.

“The biggest thing for me is he’s a battler,” McLennan said Thursday. “Sometimes you just throw structure out the window.”

McLennan crossed paths with Hammond in the summer at a goaltender seminar in Madison, Wisconsin, where Hammond has trained in the offseason. “He’s very hard-working,” McLennan said. “That’s the one thing I know and respect about him. He works very hard at his craft. Which I think is very admirable.”

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Both McLennan and Hammond use the term “battle” in their description of Hammond’s game, but Hammond said that since he’s come to Colorado and started working with goaltender coach Jussi Parkkila he has tried to bring more structure to his game and not just rely on intuition and athleticism.

“Jussi’s kind of gotten us into working on the technical aspect and bringing things out of us that we maybe didn’t know we had,” Hammond said. “I guess I would always consider myself to be a goalie that battles hard. It might not always look pretty, but Jussi’s kind of dialing that in where it’s more of a technical approach, and it’s been great. It’s something that I didn’t necessarily know I had in me, but we’re finding out the more you work at it, you can definitely kind of add to it to your game.”

Undrafted and really not even playing that well in the AHL when he got the fateful call to come to Ottawa (he had a 3.51 GAA and .898 save percentage with Binghamton at the time) Hammond parlayed his star turn for the Senators into a three-year contract.

He played 24 games for Ottawa the next season but injury and uneven play saw him play only sporadically over the past two seasons.

His appearance on Wednesday night was just his 32nd appearance of any kind since the start of the 2016-17 season.

With his contract up at the end of this season, there is much on the line with this rare opportunity.

This is an opportunity for him to show not just Colorado but other teams that he belongs, McLennan said. “He’s technically fighting for his NHL life,” McLennan said.

Beyond that there is the strong allure of the potential for heroics of an unexpected nature. Will goalies everywhere be watching Hammond on Friday night and wishing him well in his first playoff start of any kind since he played twice in Ottawa’s first-round exit at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens?

Of course, McLennan said.

How can you not? It’s the understudy on Broadway getting a chance to play the lead role. It’s the whole premise of American Idol or the many similar shows.

Occasionally some of the Avs have brought up the whole Hamburglar mystique thing since Hammond was summoned from the minors. Now the chance to extend the franchise’s storybook season lies with Hammond’s ability to recreate some of that magic.

“Yeah, some of the guys bring it up every so often,” Alex Kerfoot said Thursday. “He obviously had the great run there and that’s what he’s known for. It was no fluke he’s a really good goalie.”

Avs coach Jared Bednar praised Hammond’s work ethic and professionalism as he’s bided his time. Bednar, too, is hoping for yet another player to step into the breach as his team continues to battle without the services of top goaltender Semyon Varlamov, top defensemen Erik Johnson and Samuel Girard and now Bernier.

“Well, it’s a great opportunity for Hammy. I think that he’s been working hard since he’s been here, he hasn’t played a lot of hockey this year but he’s jumped in some games for us and played real well,” Bednar said. “We’ll see where it goes. We’ve seen him catch lightning in a bottle before and play real well and win some hockey games and hopefully he can do it again for us; that’s the situation we’re in.”

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Hammond understands all of these things: the situation the team is in, the opportunity to prove that he is an NHL goaltender, the allure of the storyline. But he remains concerned with just one thing and that’s performing as well as he can in one of the hardest buildings to play in on the NHL circuit.

After that? Well, who knows?

“You know what, it is something, but at the end of the day, it won’t really matter unless I kind of prepare the right way and do the right things to make sure I’m ready to play; so that stuff’s nice, but I kind of have, I guess, more important things to worry about,” Hammond said. “I mean my focus is just on getting ready for tomorrow night and making sure I’m ready to play a good game.”

33 https://theathletic.com/321869/2018/04/20/from-ken-dryden-to-henrik-lundqvist-imposing-andrei- vasilevskiy-is-making-a-strong-impression/

From Ken Dryden to Henrik Lundqvist: 'Imposing' Andrei Vasilevskiy is making a strong impression By Joe Smith – April 21, 2018

TAMPA, Fla. – There's never been a more decorated, dominant playoff goaltender than Ken Dryden.

Dryden won six Stanley Cups in eight seasons during the Canadiens dynasty in the 1970s. Five of those years he was awarded the Vezina Trophy, given to the league's best goaltender.

But Dryden, 70, believes a key to his position is not just about stopping pucks. It's about having a presence, an intimidation factor, where even good goal scorers defeat themselves. The 6-foot-4 Dryden would shake his opponent's psyche.

And after watching Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy during this first-round playoff series with the Devils, Dryden believes the 24-year-old Russian has that trait. Vasilevskiy, at 6-foot-3, is not only big, but he plays big.

“He's imposing,” Dryden told The Athletic. “That's something you notice right away. You're always needing to deliver a message to your opponent. If you can deliver a message that you are a formidable presence in net, you're on your way. And (Vasilevskiy) appears to have that.”

Just ask the Devils. Vasilevskiy has helped the Lightning grab a stranglehold of this series, up 3-1 heading into Saturday's Game 5 at Amalie Arena.

This might have been a 2-2 stalemate had Vasilevskiy not made three breakaway saves in Wednesday's game, two of which came when the Lightning trailed 1-0.

“You can see our bench gets a little bit taller,” coach Jon Cooper.

This is the first playoffs where Vasilevskiy entered as the No. 1. He showed poise beyond his years in relieving mentor Ben Bishop in the 2015 Stanley Cup final and was the only reason the Lightning lasted seven games against the Cup champion Penguins in the 2016 Eastern Conference finals.

Yet there were many wondering how Vasilevskiy would hold up under the pressure of carrying a Cup contender four rounds. They read Vasilevskiy admit in March that he was mentally and physically tired. They saw his numbers dip in the second half, though largely due to his team's play in front of him.

But there's a reason why Vasilevskiy is an All-Star and Vezina finalist in his first full season as a starter. It feels like a role he was born to play. You want pressure? How about being labeled — as a 15-year-old — the greatest goalie prospect since three-time Russian gold-medal winner Vladislav Tretiak.

Alexander Tyjnych, Tretiak's former backup and a Vasilevskiy advisor since the Lightning goalie was a teen, said there are a lot of similarities between the two in preparation and attention to detail.

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“My first impression was he had the balls, had the drive,” Tyjnych said. “He had the drive to be the best goalie in the world.”

When Vasilevskiy arrived in Tampa in September for training camp, he didn't just acknowledge the responsibility that came with being the guy, he embraced it.

“It's good pressure,” he said. “Right pressure.”

Vasilevskiy, whose father, Andrei Sr., was also a goalie, was thrown into the fire at an early age. He's played for Russia in three World Junior Championships and two World Championships, including earning goalie of the tournament honors in Russia's bronze medal finish in Cologne in May.

When Vasilevskiy was drafted 19th overall in 2012, he was a starter in the KHL, facing some players nearly twice his age. Vasilevskiy led them to the conference finals.

“He handled it like he was doing it since he was two years old,” said KHL teammate Brent Sopel, 41, a former NHL defenseman.

Lightning center Tyler Johnson knew the franchise had something special back at the 2014 World Juniors in Sweden. Johnson's U.S. team was shut down by Vasilevskiy in a pre-qualifier.

“He robbed us many times,” Johnson said. “He still makes fun of me. I had a 5-on-3 backdoor chance. It was a great shot and I hit it well. But he came over with his blocker so easily and swat it away.

“During the postgame handshake, he came up to me and said, 'see you in Tampa.' After that game, I was glad he was in our organization, and not anybody else's.”

Sopel joked that Vasilevskiy's composure reminds him of a 40-year-old.

And he's not far off.

Vasilevskiy is an old soul. He loves classic rock music like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and The Doors (though he did attend a Coldplay concert last summer). A first-time father at age 19, Vasilevskiy said he's not the kind of guy who likes bars. He'd rather go for walks in his South Tampa neighborhood with his three- year-old son, Lukas, or play stick hockey with him at home.

“It's about hockey and family,” Vasilevskiy always says.

Vasilevskiy met his wife, Ksenia, eight years ago while on a two-hour flight to Moscow for one of his junior tournaments. They were in the same row and have been inseparable ever since.

“Two hours,” Vasilevskiy said. “That was enough.”

Vasilevskiy's softer side — and his sneaky sense of humor — don't typically translate on the ice. He's relentlessly competitive, even during end-of-practice shootout attempts. Nikita Kucherov, an MVP candidate and 100-point scorer, said, if he can score on Vasilevskiy in practice, he feels like he can beat anybody.

“There are times where we'd almost rather not score because we don't want him to be pissed off the rest of the day,” Johnson said. “He battles and works so hard. As a goaltender, you need to know your

35 goaltender is going to do absolutely everything he can for you. And he does. He's the first guy here and one of the last to leave. You never have to worry about him.”

Both former Rangers Ryan McDonagh and J.T. Miller have compared Vasilevskiy's competitiveness to New York's Vezina winner Henrik Lundqvist.

And Lundqvist has been impressed with Vasilevskiy.

“He's really, really skilled,” Lundqvist said. “Technique-wise, it's so effortless. He's got really quick feet. Probably the best goalie in the league this year and it starts with his footwork. He has all the tools.”

As Vasilevskiy made 41 saves in the Lightning's Game 2 win in Tampa Saturday, the sellout crowd of 19,092 would chant, “VASY! VASY!”

Dryden, up in the press box as a guest to his former coach Scotty Bowman, was struck by Vasilevskiy's size and awareness in net. Dryden recalled his first season as No. 1 in the playoffs, when he won the Conn Smythe for the 1970-71 Cup-winning Canadiens.

Dryden said you're so immersed in the games and the schedule, you only find it nerve-wracking if you take a step back. “You just play,” he said. And he senses that's what Vasilevskiy is doing.

It also looks like Vasilevskiy is getting many Devils' shooters to defeat themselves.

“Part of that is the impression you give,” Dryden said. “And he gives a very strong impression.”

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Drew Doughty on free agency: I want to stay an L.A. King By Josh Beneteau – April 21, 2018

Drew Doughty says he wants to sign a new contract with the Los Angeles Kings, the only team he’s ever known in the NHL.

“I always wanted to be an L.A. King and I want to stay an L.A. King,” Doughty said Friday, according to NHL.com. “I can’t remember what day we can start talking, but I’m sure we will when the time comes.”

Doughty, 29, addressed his contract situation at the team’s locker clean out after the Kings were swept by the Vegas Golden Knights in the opening round of the playoffs. He will be a free agent on July 1, 2019 when he finishes an eight-year, $56 million contract.

Doughty said he likes the direction the team is headed and wants to be a part of the future.

“(General manager) Rob Blake and (team president) Luc Robitaille, they took this job because they want to win and they want to transform this team into their winning ways again,” Doughty said. “Whether or not they do a lot in the off-season, I don’t know, but we have these young guys coming up that I think are going to make a difference. I think that shows me how much potential we have in the future and I’m good with it and I’m happy to hopefully re-sign here.”

Doughty made headlines earlier in the year when he mentioned that he and fellow 2019 free agent defenceman Erik Karlsson would discuss their next contracts

“I know I’m going to talk to Karlsson back and forth, kind of see what money he’s looking for,” Doughty said in an interview with The Athletic in November. “I’ll kind of look at what money I’m looking for. I don’t know if he’s going to re-sign with Ottawa. I don’t know if I’ll re-sign with L.A. You just never know what’s going to happen.”

Doughty and Karlsson both are allowed to begin negotiating with their teams this summer. In the same interview in November, Doughty suggested that he and Karlsson would look to P.K. Subban and his $9 million salary with the Nashville Predators as a comparable in negotiations.

“Right now, I guess we’d be gauging off what P.K. makes. I think both of us deserve quite a bit more than that,” Doughty said.

The Kings drafted Doughty second overall in 2008 and since then he has become one of the best defencemen in the league. In 770 regular season games he has 102 goals, 422 points and a plus-93 rating. In 84 playoff games, he has 16 goals and 51 points.

Doughty’s also a two-time Stanley Cup champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist. He has been a finalist for the Norris Trophy four times, including this year, and he won it in 2016.

Needless to say, he’s going to get a big pay raise in 2019.

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Sportsnet’s Iain McIntyre looked at what the Kings should do heading into a contract negotiation with Doughty in a recent column.

“If you’re the Kings and in transition, are you going to pay Doughty, say, $100 million for eight more seasons?” asked McIntyre in the piece. “Or are you going to speed the transformation of your roster by getting a bundle of assets in return for the best defenceman in the game?”

These are the questions the team will be asking in the months ahead. July 2019 is a long way off, but whatever Doughty and the Kings decide will affect the team for years to come.

38 https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nhl/2018/04/20/aj-mleczko-womens-hockey-nhl-playoffs- broadcast-nbc/536691002/

Former women's hockey player AJ Mleczko breaks the ice as TV analyst for NHL playoff games By Kevin Allen – April 21, 2018

When former U.S. Olympian AJ Mleczko left her audition for an NBC television analyst job in the spring of 2005, she assumed her broadcasting career was over before it launched.

Nobody had told her she would audition with legendary play-by-play man Mike Emrick and they would broadcast her U.S. team’s loss to Canada at the 2002 Olympics. Intimidation. Sentimentality. Nervousness. Mleczko had it all going on.

“It was a difficult audition,” said Mleczko, an Olympic silver and gold medalist. “I was thinking, ‘Well, this was a great experience, but that may well be my one-and-done broadcasting career.”

To Mleczko’s surprise, she was offered the job as an analyst for the women’s games at the 2006 Olympics. Twelve years later, Mleczko is the first woman to be working NHL Stanley Cup playoff games as an in-booth analyst.

She will work beside Kenny Albert on Friday for Game 5 of the Nashville Predators-Colorado Avalanche Western Conference quarterfinal in Nashville (9:30 p.m. ET, NBC Sports Network). Mleczko also served in the role for Game 1. Nashville leads the series 3-1.

“I have to believe (NBC) saw potential because I was very unpolished at the time I was hired,” Mleczko said.

Allison Jaime (AJ) Mleczko, 42, never considered broadcasting before her NBC tryout. Today, Mleczko is a trailblazer because she is helping open the door for other women to work in the booth in a male- dominated sport.

“AJ is an authentic hockey voice and knows how to break the game down,” said Sam Flood, the executive producer and president of NBC and NBC Sports Network. “After her work at the Olympics this year, there was no question that she deserved more opportunities on our hockey telecasts.”

Mleczko’s first NHL in-booth appearance came March 6 when she did the Detroit vs. Boston game. By then, she had already worked 13 years as an analyst on women’s international games, men’s college games, plus sled hockey and Olympic field hockey.

“In my mind, it was always a dream that I would be able to do some NHL, but (NBC) has such an incredible array of talent in their broadcast booth that I just thought it was a pipe dream,” Mleczko said.

NBC has previously used former U.S. women’s star Cammi Granato as an "Inside the Glass" reporter. Kathryn Tappen is a highly respected NBC studio host for hockey. Mleczko presumed that the network would someday place a woman in the hockey booth. But Mleczko said she “wasn’t holding my breath” it would be her.

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Emrick isn’t surprised. He has no memory of her flubbing her audition, but he isn’t shocked that she left the studio wanting to be better.

“She sets a very high standard,” Emrick said. “She works really hard and prepares incredibly hard.”

Mleczko said there has been no adjustment to make the switch from women’s hockey to the NHL, other than doing homework on players and team tendencies.

“When you break it down to the x’s and o’s, it’s the same sport,” she said.

In three of her four NHL games, she has worked with Brian Boucher, who is stationed "Inside the Glass." She said there is chemistry because they both offer a different perspective. Boucher was an NHL goalie and Mleczko was a forward.

“I expected he would want to talk a lot about the goalies, and what I found is he likes to talk about the shooter because as a goalie, that’s what he saw,” Mleczko said. “While I’m looking at the goalie a lot, and saying, ‘He was off-balance or look at this about him.’ That surprised me. But when you think that I was a skater, it makes sense.”

Mleczko, who played on a boy's hockey team until she was a teenager, is appreciative of other women broadcasters paving the way.

That’s not say it is always easy. Mleczko said social media has helped her develop “thick skin.”

Some comments she receives do stick with her, like the man who “said the only way I can be useful is if I get coffee for the male members of the crew.”

Mleczko doesn’t let that bother her because she knows other women are pushing to join her. Monique Lamoureux, one of the stars of the gold-medal winning U.S. women’s Olympic team, recently worked as a studio analyst for NHL Network. Meghan Duggan, the captain of that team, is doing postgame analysis for Bruins’ playoff games.

Said Flood: "We want the best people to analyze hockey, regardless of gender. The goal is to have a talented mix of voices to inform and entertain the hockey audience.”

40 https://theathletic.com/322905/2018/04/21/connection-between-devils-teammates-goes-way-back-to- texas/

Connection between Devils teammates goes way back to Texas By Sean Shapiro – April 22, 2018

Pete Murray was a line juggler.

He'd change his combinations from game-to-game, defensemen would become forwards and forwards would often become defensemen.

But, hey, that's expected when you're coaching a team of 6-year-olds.

“We were just trying to put them out together and all the time it was different lines,” Murray told The Athletic. “Just put them in an area and have some fun.”

Results didn't matter much to Murray, but he fondly remembers a pair of players from those Dallas Junior Hockey Association teams that despised coming up short.

“They both had a drive and they hated to lose and did anything not to,” Murray said. “Even when they were yay tall.”

Two decades later those two players are heading into their biggest game to date when the New Jersey Devils visit the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 5 of their first-round playoff series.

New Jersey trails the series 3-1, so a loss ends the season, and Murray is pretty sure Blake Coleman and Stefan Noesen are probably just as competitive as they were as mini-mites.

“They always wanted to win at everything,” Murray said. “And with two kids like that we won quite often. It wasn't the goal, we wanted to have fun, that was the goal. But I think they had even more fun winning.”

It's a pretty remarkable story how two kids from Plano, a Dallas suburb, not only ended up on the same team but on the same line in the NHL.

“That's pretty wild, isn't?” Rusty Coleman, Blake's father, said. “We got to know the Noesens when Blake was 5 or 6 years old, now we were in Tampa for Game 1 and 2 and we're watching them play an NHL playoff game on the ice at the same time.”

“It's something parents joke about when watching their kids play,” Glen Noesen, Stefan's father said. “'Maybe they'll both be in the NHL together someday, wouldn't that be something?' But that's a joke you tell yourselves, it never happens, especially for two kids from Plano, Texas.”

Professional hockey history in Texas dates back to 1941 when the Dallas Texans were established. But the state is still lagging a bit when it comes to homegrown talent.

A handful of successful NHLers were born in Texas, including Brian Leetch, but they learned the game or honed their craft after moving elsewhere during their childhood.

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Stefan and Blake, along with Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman Seth Jones, are the first true Texan success stories where the players were both born and learned the game in the Lone Star State, and then became full-time NHL players.

“And they both took different paths from that first team,” Glen Noesen said. “I think that makes it even better. They started at the same spot and somehow ended up playing together in the NHL.”

For his third birthday, Stefan Noesen got a pair of Fisher-Price rollerblades, and he immediately tried to join the neighborhood street hockey game with a handful of kids eight years older.

“He had a plastic stick and a bike helmet and he just went out the door and down the corner and started playing roller hockey with them,” Glen Noesen said. “I remember those kids would actually come knock on the door and say, 'Can Stef come out and play?' And I'd tell them they didn't have to entertain him, and then they'd say, 'No, no, he's actually pretty good.'”

Glen remembers Stefan was a “bundle of energy from Day 1.” When he wasn't putting on Fisher-Price rollerblades, he was running around the house, so out of what they called “parental survival,” they signed him up for ice hockey around his fourth birthday when a new rink opened in Plano.

As part of the beginner hockey program, kids had to take skating lessons before progressing to playing the game. Noesen was bored after the second session. He wanted a stick in his hands, he wanted to play a game, generic stopping and starting was growing tiresome.

At that point, the Noesens met Murray, who helped Stefan enroll in a house hockey league in Plano. The 4-year-old was a natural. At 5 years old, Noesen joined a travel team made up of 6-year-olds that Murray was coaching. He became teammates with Blake Coleman for the first time.

“That was so long ago. It’s hard to remember,” Noesen told The Athletic's Corey Masisak. “I just remember being one of the youngest guys on the team. Those days, that’s when hockey is new and fun and entertaining.”

Blake, who is 18 months older, also started his path to the NHL in roller blades as a 3-year-old.

A family from Ottawa moved into the neighborhood and had a son who was Blake's age. The neighborhood newcomers had a net in their driveway and Blake would spend hours playing street hockey.

“They would play hockey whenever they could,” Rusty Coleman said. “Then what happened was the Stars had their partnership with youth hockey and built the Dr. Pepper Stars Center in Plano. He was into hockey, so we decided we'd get him on the ice and it sounded fun. We thought when he gets a little bit older I'm sure he'll get into football or basketball or baseball because he lives in Texas.”

That never happened.

“He tried a little bit of soccer and lacrosse and baseball, but hockey was it,” Rusty Coleman said. “Those things basically became things he was doing when he wasn't playing hockey. He always wanted to be on the ice.”

There was slight hockey history in the Coleman family, his mother Sandy Coleman played high school hockey in New York, but having an NHL team in town really pushed Blake's love for the game.

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His grandmother, Marie Hoffman, had Dallas Stars season tickets and would often take her grandson to games. When he started playing organized hockey, he'd try to emulate the Stars. An impressionable Blake was 8 years old when the Stars won the Stanley Cup in 1999.

“I knew nothing about hockey, my wife was excited, but I'm from Oklahoma and didn't know anything about hockey,” Rusty Coleman said. “So I was actually concerned about him being able to have opportunities to play, but he put his mind to it and he would go to the games, and I remember he told my wife one day after going to a game he said, 'I want to be an NHL player.'”

It's one thing to make that claim, and millions of kids have probably made that claim at some point; it's another to find a path from Texas to the NHL.

Both Blake and Stefan played for the top teams in Texas growing up but started on separate paths as teenagers.

In 2006, Blake, then a freshman in high school, moved to Detroit to play for the Bell Tire AAA Under-16 team and lived with a billet family.

One year later, Stefan and his parents rented a house in the Detroit area so he could play for the Compuware AAA program.

“We didn't really know what we were doing, but this was something Stefan really wanted to go after and I had some flexibility with work, I could work virtually,” Glen Noesen said. “So we rented out our house in Plano and actually rented a home from a family that had a kid who was a really good baseball player, and they were moving to Florida.”

Blake only spent one season in Detroit and returned to Dallas at the same time the Noesens were heading North. He joined the Dallas Stars Under-18 team and played for two more seasons in Texas on a team coached by former Dallas Stars defenseman Craig Ludwig before making the jump to the USHL in 2009.

“No one was ever going to deny Blake,” Ludwig told The Athletic. “He was that kid that you kind of had to almost hold back. He wanted to hit everything, he wanted (to) run things over, and he just worked so hard. So often you see people talk about points, points, points. Well, Blake made the NHL eventually by doing the exact same thing he did on our AAA team.”

While Blake returned to Texas, Stefan remained in the metro Detroit area. After two seasons with Compuware, he was drafted by the Plymouth Whalers in the OHL draft and moved in with a billet family as his parents moved back to Plano.

“We told him that if he was going to go the OHL route, and he really was working for this, that he was going to do it right,” Glen Noesen said. “He was 16, the rest of the players going this route live with billets, so we moved home so he could keep on the path.”

Blake Coleman and Stefan Noesen's first stint as teammates. Middle row, Blake is on the left end and Stefan is next to him. (Courtesy the Noesen family)

Their paths started to intersect during the 2010-11 season heading into the 2011 NHL draft.

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Stefan had 77 points in 66 OHL games with Plymouth and was considered one of the top prospects heading into the draft. Blake, who had gone undrafted the prior year, was dominating the USHL with the Indiana Ice and was named the USHL Player of the Year after registering 92 points in 59 games that season.

Stefan was the 21st overall pick, taken by the Ottawa Senators in the first round. Two rounds later, New Jersey picked Blake with the 75th overall selection.

“We actually didn't know if we were going to go (to) the draft,” Rusty Coleman said. “We were told he might be anywhere between a fourth to sixth round pick, fifth round maybe. But we were told we should go and it's kind of a funny story.

“It was the third round and Blake is about to get up to go to the bathroom and my wife tells him to sit down. Blake tells her it's not a big deal, he'll be right back. She told him, no wait. What if they call your name? I think it was four picks later, and they are going pretty quick at that point, they called his name.”

The draft was another launching point on a lengthy road to the NHL.

Blake spent the next four seasons at Miami of Ohio, got a degree in Interdisciplinary business management and turned pro in 2015 with the Albany Devils. He reached New Jersey on a part-time basis the next season and scored his first NHL goal against Dallas of all teams, before winning a full-time job this season.

Stefan was traded to the Anaheim Ducks soon after he was drafted and spent two more seasons in the OHL with Plymouth. He spent four seasons with the Ducks organization, splitting time between the NHL and AHL, before getting waived and claimed by the Devils on Jan. 25, 2017.

Like his fellow Texan, he found an NHL home heading into this season and, for the first time in his career, spent a full season in the NHL with one team.

“I can't speak too much to Stefan because I didn't coach him,” Ludwig said. “But to see and watch them play in the playoffs — and now it's been 25 years since we came to Dallas — and they're around the same age, I think it's something special for hockey in Dallas. If I'm sitting at home or at the bar and I watch them play, and Tampa Bay should be worried about those two, it's a nice feeling to know they started in Texas.”

Murray, who now lives in Chicago, has similar thoughts.

“It's really cool isn't it?” Murray said. “It's something you don't really think about when you're coaching kids that age. It's fun for them, it's fun for you. But when you look back and you see them playing together in the NHL today, it's just really cool.”

44 https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/eyes-leafs-auston-matthews-better-worse/

All eyes on Leafs' Auston Matthews, for better or worse By Chris Johnston – April 22, 2018

BOSTON – When Auston Matthews was 12 years old, he got on a plane from his home in Arizona and flew across the country for a one-game tryout with a team from Ukraine. He scored three goals in a period. That earned him a spot in the Quebec Peewee tournament.

A couple years later, he arrived at the tryout for USA Hockey’s national development team program. Charlie McAvoy hadn’t heard of him before then and was placed on his team for scrimmages. It didn’t take him long to realize Matthews was special.

“He did the Jason Blake-like spinarama and he didn’t even score,” said McAvoy. “It went wide, he slid it wide, but the goalie was all the way out of the net. He had beaten him pretty good and I just was like ‘Wow, I can’t believe that kid tried that.”’

Matthews was one of the top scorers in the Swiss league at age 18. He played for Team USA at the IIHF World Hockey Championship and starred for Team North America at the World Cup before ever playing an NHL game.

Then he played his first for the Toronto Maple Leafs and scored four goals.

This brief history of things is important to keep in mind with Matthews and the Maple Leafs facing elimination sooner than they ever imagined on Saturday night. It has subjected the 20-year-old to an unfamiliar level of criticism – particularly in the wake of a flat performance against the Boston Bruins in Game 4, which put the Leafs down 3-1 in the series.

In some ways, it’s a sign he’s truly arrived as a superstar.

There’s a certain mania that descends at playoff time and it seems to come with an undue amount of blame on an individual for the failings of a team. How often was Sidney Crosby doubted and criticized during the seven-year winter between his first and second Stanley Cup?

You don’t hear much of that talk now.

Matthews still has a chance to change the conversation and history tells us that he will, whether it happens now or in the fall when his third NHL season begins. He projected confidence ahead of a must- win game at TD Garden – one where he’ll start with Connor Brown on his right wing rather than William Nylander, a shakeup designed to get more accomplished in the offensive zone while going head-to-head with Zdeno Chara.

“Nothing to lose,” said Matthews. “So you just go out, relax, play our game and do what we’ve done to be successful all season. You’ve just got to outwork the other guys. Those 50-50 battles have been huge and I think so far they’ve done a better job in that area than us.”

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His playoff “struggles” have been overblown. Granted, he’s not tilted this series to anywhere near the same degree Boston’s offensive dynamos have – David Pastrnak is the NHL’s scoring leader with 11 points in four games – and Matthews is expected to do that.

He does have one big play under his belt, scoring the winner in Game 3. You saw in his celebration how much that meant to him.

At even strength in this series, Matthews has posted better Corsi and scoring-chance percentages than he did in the regular season. He has 17 shots on goal, already more than he had in six playoff games against Washington last spring.

But the score is 6-2 Bruins with him on the ice at evens. Toronto was ahead 63-31 during the regular season in those situations – meaning that Matthews’ line produced more than one goal at 5-on-5 for every game he played.

Boston has done a good job of keeping his line out of the high-danger areas, which is why Matthews will start Game 5 with two puck retrievers. The instructions for Brown and Zach Hyman are pretty straightforward: Win battles along the wall and find Matthews in the middle.

“I mean they’re a dangerous line, obviously, but you’ve just got to try and play ‘em hard. Play ‘em hard,” said McAvoy, Chara’s defence partner. “When the puck gets on the wall we’ve got to end those plays. We’ve got to be the ones winning the puck battle and getting it out.

“They’re going to get chances. … They’re NHL players, they’re special.”

In Babcock parlance, about the highest compliment a player can be granted is being called a “serial winner.”

Matthews has all of the bonafides to become one of those. It’s why his sweater was the most sold of any NHL player this season and why he’ll eventually be the captain. Unfortunately, the role comes with some drawbacks – namely being blamed heavily for playoff losses while the goaltender with an .880 save percentage and the second-line centre who just finished serving a three-game suspension largely fly below the radar.

But the players? They know.

“He’s a competitor,” McAvoy said of Matthews. “He shows up and he competes. When I was [at the NTDP] … Jack Eichel was a ’96 so he was a U-18 and Auston was a U-17, and it was just so well-known that Auston was our best player and Jack was their best player and they were both these generational talents that everyone spoke so highly of and they are. They are. They’re special players.”

Five games in April won’t change that.

46 https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/maple-leafs-will-need-kadris-combative-game-force-game-7/

Maple Leafs will need more of Kadri's combative game to force a Game 7 By Ryan Dixon – April 22, 2018

BOSTON – Nazem Kadri has been known to dish out some shots, so it’s only fitting he’s taken some good-natured ones from his Toronto Maple Leafs teammates in recent days.

“We were joking with him: He’s the most rested guy in hockey,” said Leafs right-winger Connor Brown.

The boys will happily retire that line now that Kadri is back in the lineup, looking like his old self. And if this team that showed it won’t go away quietly by beating the Boston Bruins 4-3 on Saturday night is truly serious about making this a series, they’ll need even more of the combativeness that seems to come so naturally to Kadri.

After chuckling about the moniker that was bestowed on him, Kadri acknowledged — all kidding aside — that he did feel fresh after returning from a three-game suspension that forced him to miss Games 2 through 4 of a series the Bruins now lead 3-2.

“I felt pretty rested out there, I felt good,” Kadri said. “I just wanted to make an impact however I could, I tried to be physical early and still play on that edge. I don’t think my game is going to change. That’s how I’m most effective and I was able to make some plays out there.”

Yes, everything Kadri can do — from the pretty to the gritty — was on display in his much-anticipated return. Like everyone else on the Leafs, he was playing on a revamped trio after coach Mike Babcock went to the blender in the hopes of finding a winning formula. With rookie Andreas Johnsson on his left and William Nylander to his right, Kadri wasted no time landing on the scoresheet thanks to a beautiful feed on Johnsson’s first career post-season marker.

The play, which occurred just before the halfway point of the first period and put the Leafs up 2-0, saw Kadri slide into the high slot and feather a puck toward the goal Johnsson could blast onto like a soccer striker and stuff past Tuukka Rask on the backhand as he whizzed through the crease.

“I tried to yell at him to drop it first,” Johnsson said. “It was a really good job by him to draw both [defencemen] to him. I just tried to skate to the net, I thought he was going to shoot first and then he made a nice pass to me.”

Kadri made a second sweet setup to Nylander early in the second that would have resulted in another goal if not for the quick feet of Rask. And while that skill — we’re talking about a 32-goal scorer here, don’t forget — is the most tangible way Kadri’s return provides a boost, his contributions are by no means limited to goals and assists.

In the middle frame, Kadri made a great — if not painfully executed — block on a Torey Krug shot when he got spun around and actually stopped the puck with the back of his leg. In the final minute, he won a defensive zone face-off against the king of the dot, Patrice Bergeron, at a time when every possession is crucial. In between that, he confirmed his commitment to the troublemaking lifestyle by taking a pretty serious swipe at Jake DeBrusk after he felt the Bruins left winger took a run at him from behind.

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No NHLer is going to change who he is based on one sentence handed down by the league, but there’s a certain defiance to Kadri, an unwavering self-belief that makes him well-suited to life as a pro athlete and just the kind of skilled, salty player who can help drag a team out of a nasty hole.

“He plays with a lot of heart and we feed off a lot of things he does out there,” Brown said. “And he’s a tough guy to play against. Any time he’s in the lineup, we’re a better team.”

Kadri has made no secret of the fact he didn’t agree with the three games handed to him for launching himself into Boston’s Tommy Wingels in Game 1. Still, the 27-year-old says his brush with the NHL law has not placed any additional burrs under his saddle. All he’s focused on is being the player who was such a big part of the Toronto’s success all season, one whose presence makes the lineup fall perfectly into place.

“I just wanted to play, it wasn’t about the suspension,” he said. “It was just about being out there with my guys and trying to contribute. It’s just a helpless feeling watching when you know you can help. That was tough for me.”

Now that it’s over, it’s going to be that much harder to put Kadri and the Leafs on permanent vacation.

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