Saturday Storylines: Kadri returns

Welcome to the second Saturday of the NHL post-season. We’ve got three games on tap today, down from the originally scheduled four – thanks, Golden Knights – and we’ll start with the lone evening game.

HNIC Game of the Night: Maple Leafs at Bruins

“If you win, you get to play again. If you don’t win, you don’t get to play again.”

That was Mike Babcock’s post-game message on Thursday night. It’s not fancy, and probably won’t make it into too many books of inspiring sports quotes. But the Maple Leafs can’t afford fancy right now, so simple will have to do.

Before the puck dropped, Game 4 in Toronto felt like a potential series turning point. With Patrice Bergeron out of the lineup, the Maple Leafs’ task was straightforward: win the game, tie the series, and head back to Boston with the momentum. At the very least, you’d expect them to come out flying in a leave-it-all-on-the-ice effort to take advantage of a golden opportunity. Instead they surrendered a goal on the game’s first shift, and failed to find much offence on the way to a 3-1 loss. They played well at times, but couldn’t figure out a way to beat Tuukka Rask while the Bruins buried their chances.

Now the series heads back to Boston, where the Bruins dominated the first two games, and you could be forgiven for assuming it’s all but over. We don’t know yet if Bergeron will be back, although the early indication was that his injury wasn’t a long-term situation. But even if the Bruins’ star sits out again, the advantages all seem to be leaning Boston’s way. They’re getting offence from their other best players, such as Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak, while key Maple Leafs, such as Auston Matthews and William Nylander, have been largely quiet. Rask is outplaying Frederik Andersen. And home ice means the Bruins will once again control the matchup battle, one they won handily in the first two games.

It all adds up to a bleak outlook for a Maple Leafs team that went into the season with plenty of optimism, and largely lived up to the hype with a franchise-record 105 points. But an early exit against the Bruins would represent a step back from last season, as well as a tough message about how far this team still has to go. And it will make the team’s stay-the-course rebuild philosophy just a little bit tougher to sell in a town that’s been uncharacteristically patient up until now.

That’s all getting ahead of ourselves – the Maple Leafs could win tonight to extend the series, then head home to try to force a seventh game. But they’ll need to be better across the board to make it happen. Because if it doesn’t, as a wise man once said, they don’t get to play again.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday Storylines: Don't panic (yet)

Welcome back to the Saturday Storylines, and welcome to the post-season. We’re back for another week or two, since we’ll have enough on the plate each Saturday to keep the storylines coming through the opening round. We’ve got four Game 2s today, three of which feature the home team trying to take a 2-0 series lead. We’ll start our tour around the league in Boston.

HNIC Game of the Night: Maple Leafs at Bruins

Well, here’s the good news for the Maple Leafs: Tonight will probably go better than Thursday did.

Here’s the bad news: It had better.

Game 1 didn’t bring much in the way of positives for Toronto fans hoping to see their team win its first round since 2004. On paper, the matchup with Boston looked tough but winnable. On the ice, the Bruins looked like the better team for just about the entire night. They dominated possession, got the better of the matchups, and had the more effective special teams. The Bruins also got better goaltending, were more disciplined, and even won the coaching battle, with the Leafs failing to challenge what sure looked like an offside on the Bruins’ first goal.

Other than all that, it went fine for Toronto.

In fairness, the 5-1 final score may have been slightly more lopsided than the Leafs deserved – the game was tied until late in the second, and the Leafs were still vaguely in it until Nazem Kadri‘s third-period major for boarding Tommy Wingels. As far as opening-game disasters go, this wasn’t the Flyers losing 7-0 to the Penguins. Not quite.

But however you want to judge it, the loss still leaves Toronto needing a win to avoid heading home down 2-0 in the series. Tonight won’t quite be a must-win, but beating this Bruins team four out of five would be a daunting task, so the pressure is on. At the very least, they’ll want to show that they can look like they belong in the series.

They’ll have to do it without Kadri, who’ll sit out three games for his reckless hit. That’s a major blow to the Leafs’ chances, especially after many of the team’s top forwards had quiet nights on Thursday. The Bruins have a way of doing that to stars, but the Maple Leafs will need to see a lot more from Auston Matthews, William Nylander and James van Riemsdyk, among others, if they’re going to even things up. And with Kadri’s absence highlighting the team’s shaky depth down the middle, they’ll need to finally get something from trade deadline pickup Thomas Plekanec, assuming he even stays in the lineup.

A Leafs win sends us back to Toronto all square, and with a whole new set of narratives. A loss means we can expect to hear plenty of that old cliché about how you’re never really in trouble until you’ve lost at home, and there’s some truth to that. But another effort like the one we saw on Thursday will plant some serious doubt that the series will even still be going on by the time a scheduled Game 5 arrives this time next Saturday.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: The Sedins say goodbye

Welcome to what was supposed to be the final night of the NHL regular season. Tomorrow’s makeup game between the Panthers and Bruins threw a wrench in things, but never mind that — the league is hitting us with everything they have tonight, with the maximum 15 games on the schedule and everyone other than the Penguins in action.

HNIC Game of the Night: Canucks at Oilers

As far as the standings go, this one barely matters. The only meaningful stakes are a few percentage points worth of lottery odds, and maybe Connor McDavid‘s final push for Hart Trophy votes.

But some things are more important than wins or losses or individual honours. And to fans across the country looking at the big picture, tonight represents something much more: Their last chance to see the Sedin twins in action.

It’s been a whirlwind week since the Sedins dropped the Monday bombshell that they wouldn’t be returning for an 18th season. The announcement led to an emotional Tuesday night against the Golden Knights, one that saw each twin take a rare turn in the shootout in front of the Vancouver crowd. That was followed by Thursday’s final home game, one that ended just about perfectly.

Through it all, tributes have poured in from around the hockey world, with fans, media, teammates, opponents and community leaders lining up to sing the twins’ praises. In a league where it’s relatively rare to see players make it through long careers without being turned into villains by at least some segment of the fan base, the Sedins are going out with near-universal respect and admiration.

The only negative has been the schedule, which inconveniently serves up a road game for the Canucks’ season finale. But if the Sedins’ final bow couldn’t be in Vancouver, Edmonton isn’t a bad second choice. There’s even a little symmetry in play – longtime Oiler Ryan Smyth had his final game against the Canucks four years ago, one that even saw his opponents return to the ice to show their respect.

We can expect something similar from the Oilers and their fans tonight, much like the moment that Jarome Iginla and the Flames once provided for another beloved Canuck. And if history is any guide, the Sedins will take it all in stride, without much in the way of fanfare or drama.

Vancouver fans, maybe not so much. It would be hard to blame them, and you can bet that more than a few fans of other teams will be cheering along with them.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: The dream of the all-Canadian final

Welcome to the penultimate Saturday of the regular season. We’ve got a full day ahead of us, with a dozen games in total. One of those games even features 100 per cent of an entire country’s playoff teams, so let’s start there.

HNIC Game of the Night: Jets at Maple Leafs

Yes, I know, even mentioning the possibility of any game being a Stanley Cup Final preview is a reach. It’s almost a clichéd way to treat a late-season game between two decent teams from opposing conferences. And we’re almost always wrong, because in the parity era the Cup matchups often end up feeling nearly random, so we’ll inevitably get to June and be presented with a pairing that nobody’s even thinking about right now.

But still… just imagine.

The Leafs and Jets will be Canada’s only two playoff teams this year, which feels like a letdown after last year’s crowded field of five. But while the nation will head into the post-season low on quantity, the quality factor may be better than it’s been in years. When was the last time there were two Canadian teams that ranked as genuine contenders, and maybe even borderline favourites? Based on points percentage, the Leafs and Jets are shaping up to be the best Canadian one-two combo of the cap era; only the Senators and Canucks in 2007 come all that close.

So, futile as it may be, we can be forgiven for looking ahead and hoping. Because, man, a Leafs-Jets final would be something else. Both teams are young and stacked with offensive firepower. Both cities have been waiting years for any kind of a playoff run. Mix in the Patrik Laine–Auston Matthews debate and Paul Maurice coming back to haunt the team that fired him, and the stories write themselves.

But that wouldn’t even be the main attraction. This is the time of year when we inevitably start hearing about ‘Canada’s Team,’ and whether the country’s fans should unite behind a common cause. It’s almost always nonsense, because Canadian fans don’t think that way. But as we’ve argued before, this year’s Jets may be the only team that could actually pull it off. Winnipeg fans have had so little to cheer about over the years that the rest of the country hasn’t built up any resentment yet. Mix in how likeable the team is and the whole ‘lost our franchise for 15 years’ thing, and if the entire nation was ever going to come together to cheer a team on, this might be this one.

And, of course, it wouldn’t hurt that they’d be playing Toronto. This year’s Maple Leafs are all sorts of fun to watch, and you could list a dozen reasons why Canadian fans should get behind them too. But they won’t. They never will. That’s just how it works in a country where it seems like half the fans root for the Leafs, and the other half root for whoever just beat the Leafs. Put the Jets’ feel-good story on one side of the ledger and a long-suffering Leafs Nation on the other, and you might just tear this country apart.

It would be awesome.

We just have to get there. That’s where things get a little bit tricky, since both teams are facing a tough road out of their own division, let alone all the way to the Final. The Leafs will probably have to go through both Tampa and Boston, while the Jets will presumably have to get by Minnesota and Nashville. As good as both teams are, it wouldn’t shock anyone to see one or both go home early.

Tonight’s game won’t provide all that much in the way of drama — it doesn’t matter much to a Leafs team that’s locked into third spot in the Atlantic, and the Jets are going to finish second in the Central. But it should still provide a good dose of drama, if only because it’s just the second meeting of the year between the two teams. The first came way back on opening night, when the Leafs arrived in Winnipeg and blew the doors off on the way to a 7-2 win. Plenty has changed since then, and maybe we get the payback game tonight. But another dominating performance from Toronto just might plant a few seeds of doubt in a young Jets team.

Would those seeds would sprout into anything by, say, early June? It’s a long shot, and everyone knows it. But for now, at least, Canadian fans can dare to dream just a little.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday Storylines: Extinguished Flames

We’ve got a dozen games on the schedule tonight, and with two weeks left in the season all eyes will be on the teams that are still alive in the playoff hunt. For our key game tonight, we’re going to get really generous with our definition of “still alive.”

HNIC Game of the Night:Flames at Sharks

We don’t need any complicated set-up here. Things are very simple for the Calgary Flames right now. Any margin for error is long gone. They need to win tonight in San Jose, and then win again in L.A. on Monday. And then they’ll almost certainly have to win every game the rest of the way. Then they need to hope for a miracle.

Even seven straight wins would get them to only 94 points, and that wouldn’t be enough unless somebody collapses. Odds are, it’s already over, and a win tonight only postpones the inevitable for a few more days. That’s the reality in Calgary, and the reality is ugly. So let’s be kind and pretend the Flames are still in this thing, if only as an excuse to get invested in what had seemed to be looming as a big game just a week ago.

Even if you’re not a Flames fan, it may be worth rooting for Calgary to stay in it tonight. That’s because after a long season in which there wasn’t much separation between the middle 20 or so teams, we suddenly find ourselves staring down the possibility of a final few weeks without all that much of a playoff race.

The Eastern Conference is already down to the Devils and Panthers fighting for one spot, barring a late collapse by the Flyers. We’d expected the Hurricanes, Islanders and maybe even Rangers to be in the mix down the stretch, but no such luck.

The Western race is a little tighter, but if we write off the Flames then we’re down to just the Blues and Stars still chasing spots. And even that might be generous to Dallas, who’ve lost seven straight and are missing Ben Bishop. Depending on how the next few days play out, it’s not inconceivable that we could go into the final week with all 16 playoff spots more or less wrapped up.

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen. If you’re a Calgary fan looking for optimism, you could point out that the Flames did manage to rip off seven straight not all that long ago, back when everything was clicking and certain dummies were penciling them in for a long playoff run. It happened then. Why not now, right?

Don’t actually answer that; the list of reasons why it won’t happen is a long one. Even the Flames seem to realize that, given that they’re shutting down Sean Monahan for the season. But every miracle journey begins with a single step, so here we go. At the very least, the plan isn’t all that complicated right now. Win out, then hope. It’s not much, but it’s all the Flames have got, and it starts this afternoon.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: Spoiler alert

Happy St. Patrick’s Day. It’s a special occasion, one that hockey fans typically spend drinking slightly more beer than usual, thinking, “Wait, why is my team wearing green?” and watching old YouTube clips of people punching each other.

Today, fans can also spend it with 10 matchups, including a classic Canadian rivalry.

HNIC Game of the Night: Canadiens at Maple Leafs

The Maple Leafs and Canadiens have been back in the same division for nearly two decades now, and they’ve spent most of that time engaged in a strange dance where only one team at a time can be any good. When the Leafs were contending for a Cup under Pat Quinn around the turn of the century, the Habs mostly missed the playoffs. When the Canadiens followed that up by making the post-season in eight of the first 10 post-lockout seasons, the Maple Leafs decidedly did not. And now that Toronto is finally good again, Montreal seems to be on the verge of a rebuild.

But through it all, it’s been a consistent truth that games between the teams always seemed to be good, or at least memorable. Even when one team was awful and had nothing to play for, there was something about the Toronto/Montreal matchup that could be counted on to produce at least a little magic. Whether it was a dramatic goal or some bad blood or a serenade gone wrong, something fun would happen. You can scoff at lame stories about rivalries and history and ghosts all you want, but the Leafs and Habs usually delivered.

Tonight will put that theory to the test. The Canadiens don’t have much of anything left to play for, and come in having lost six of their last seven. With Shea Weber, Carey Price and Max Pacioretty all out of the lineup with long-term injuries, the Habs are clearly in just-get-it-over-with mode down the stretch. Even the usual narrative about playing for next year’s jobs only goes so far, as we’re not even sure whether the current GM will still be around to make those roster calls. You could forgive Montreal fans if they were more interested in making little heart-eyes at John Tavares than in watching what’s left of this roster play out the string.

Meanwhile, the Leafs come into this one riding a franchise-record 11-game home winning streak. It’s been an impressive run, especially with most of it coming without Auston Matthews. But it hasn’t done much to change the standings, where Toronto remains locked into third place in the Atlantic. With 10 games left in the regular season after this one, the Leafs would probably prefer to fast-forward straight to the playoffs, if only to avoid any more injuries like the ones that have claimed Matthews, Frederik Andersen and most recently Leo Komarov.

So two teams, only one of which is any good, and neither with much of anything to play for. And yet… well, it’s still Toronto and Montreal. As eye-rolling as the premise may be, there really is something special about seeing the league’s oldest rivalry play out on a Saturday night. And with the way these things tend to go, would anyone be all that shocked to see a depleted Montreal roster arrive in town and pull off the upset, snapping the Leafs’ record-setting win streak in the process?

If you’ve followed this rivalry over the years, you know to expect the unexpected by now. At the very least, Toronto fans may want to keep the victory songs to themselves until the final buzzer.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: Kids and the Hall

In the words of the immortal Badger Bob Johnson, it’s a great day for hockey. Emphasis on the “day,” as seven of today’s eleven games will start in the afternoon — or even the morning, depending on how far west you are. That includes four 1:00 ET games, making it the day’s busiest start time. But the best matchup of the day is one of the few evening games, and we’ll start there.

HNIC Game of the Night: Penguins at Maple Leafs

This is the third Saturday-night meeting between these two teams, with the last coming just three weeks ago. But plenty has changed on both sides since then.

The trade deadline was part of that, with the Penguins making a big change by bringing in Derick Brassard while the Maple Leafs went the more conservative route by settling for Tomas Plekanec. We’ve also seen a pair of major injuries since that last meeting, with Auston Matthews (shoulder) and Matt Murray (concussion) both sidelined; neither is expected to play tonight, although it sounds like Matthews might be getting close.

But the bigger story, at least in Toronto, is the change in the team’s fortunes since the last matchup. The Leafs went into that one riding a five-game win streak that had them back within range of the Bruins and Lightning in the Atlantic race. That streak had included wins over the Lightning and Predators. Things were good.

They’re no longer good, at least temporarily. The Leafs lost that Penguins game but then rolled off four more wins. But since then it’s been four straight losses, matching a season high, with the nadir coming in Monday’s 5-3 loss to the lowly Sabres. That slump has put an end to any talk of moving up from third spot in the Atlantic, and it’s raised some concerns over Frederik Andersen‘s play. Even when the Leafs were rolling, it was often due to their goaltender’s strong play. Now he’s given up five goals in each of the last two games, and three or more in five straight, and it’s fair to wonder if his workload is catching up to him. If so, the Maple Leafs might be in trouble.

Of course, that’s the nature of goaltending, and if Andersen stands on his head and shuts out the Penguins tonight then we’ll all declare that he’s back and move on to the next narrative. A win tonight would go a long way to calming any jittery Leafs fans out there and keep this four-game mini-slump from turning into something more. We’re still a long way away from any talk of 18-wheelers and cliffs, but it would be nice to nip this streak in the bud before we get there.

As for the Penguins, they come in riding three straight wins and holding down first place in a tight Metro race. After Phil Kessel‘s early heroics carried the team long enough for Sidney Crosby to heat up by mid-season, now it’s Evgeni Malkin who’s looking scary, with eight points in his last four to sneak into the Art Ross conversation. That’s not the guy you want to see when your goalie is slumping.

Hey, speaking of stars riding hot streaks that make Canadian fans sad…

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: Taking it back outside

Our first post-deadline Saturday brings an unusually light schedule, with just eight games and some weird start times. That’s because the NHL is shifting the spotlight to the third and final outdoor game of the season, which is where we’ll start.

HNIC Game of the Night: Maple Leafs at Capitals

It’s OK to admit that you kind of forgot this outdoor game was happening until a few days ago. With all the focus on the Olympics and the trade deadline, it was easy enough to forget that two of the Eastern Conference’s better teams would be facing off under the stars. Call it outdoor fatigue — man there have been a lot of these things — but the days of these games feeling like a major event seem to be fading.

That said, this one should be better than most. The location, the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., is pretty cool. The matchup is great, featuring two good teams that are fun to watch and met in last year’s playoffs. And the uniforms are… well, look, we didn’t say it was perfect. But the location and the matchup are good.

The Capitals come into this one needing every point they can get. They’ve led the Metro for most of the season, but recent surges by both the Penguins and Flyers have put that status in doubt, with Philadelphia briefly taking over top spot earlier this week. Even the Devils are still in the mix, especially after a nicely productive deadline. The Capitals would love to secure first place and home ice through the first two rounds, if only to avoid drawing the Penguins in round one. Those two teams always seem to find each other in the post-season, and it rarely goes well for Washington. Winning the division would likely mean they’d get to avoid that fate for at least a round, which should be enough motivation to finish strong.

The Maple Leafs don’t have quite the same sense of urgency, at least in terms of the standings. They still have a shot at catching the Lightning or Bruins, but it’s a long one. Chances are, they’re going to finish third in the Atlantic and start the playoffs on the road with a tough matchup. That will no doubt reignite the debate over the playoff format, since Toronto would be leading the Metro by six points, but that’s life in the NHL.

The bigger priority for Toronto is to finish strong; they’ve dropped two straight after an extended hot streak, although they picked up points in both losses. They’ll be without Auston Matthews again tonight, so we can expect to see plenty of deadline pickup Tomas Plekanec. There were no similar additions on the Washington side of the ledger, as Brian MacLellan made the interesting choice to let the deadline pass with only minor tinkering. Still, the Caps are deep and skilled, and match up well with a Toronto squad missing its best player.

On paper, it should be a great matchup. That may or may not translate on the ice; these outdoor games tend to feel tentative and choppy at times. The Leafs’ track record in that regard is actually pretty good, with a pair of entertaining wins over the Red Wings on their outdoor resumé. The Capitals have been a little more hit-and-miss, with a decent 2015 appearance overshadowed by this whole mess from 2011. We’ll see what the two teams can cook up for us tonight.

Tonight’s matchup is scheduled for an 8:00 ET start instead of the usual 7:00. And if you’re shaking off that outdoor fatigue, there’s good news: With no more Stadium Series games this year and no Heritage Classic on the schedule for next, this looks like the last outdoor action until the league heads to Notre Dame for the 2019 Winter Classic.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: Deadline weekend

With two days until the deadline, fans have one eye on the transaction wire and one on the scoreboard. We’ve got 12 games on the schedule to look forward to today. As for the number of trades, we’ll have to wait and see.

HNIC Game of the Night: Jets at Stars

We’re starting to get a little bit of separation in the Central. With the Blackhawks falling out of the race and the Jets and Predators pulling away up top, that leaves four teams fighting for what could be anywhere from one to three spots.

The Stars are right in the thick of that group, thanks to a five-game win streak to start the month that finally boosted them from fringe wild-card team into something closer to the contender some of us thought they’d be. They’ve wobbled since then, including bad losses to the Canucks and Sharks, so they’re still well within “need every point they can get” territory, but they kick off a five-game homestand tonight.

For their part, the Jets had a four-game win streak ended on Tuesday by Los Angeles, and followed that up with last night’s win in St. Louis. The Blues’ recent struggles have turned what was shaping up as a three-way race for the division title into a showdown between the Jets and Predators, and those two teams will face each other three times in the next month, including on Tuesday night in Winnipeg.

That might make tonight’s matchup with the Stars a bit of a trap game if the Jets take it lightly. They shouldn’t — the Stars have been neck-and-neck with them since New Year’s and are looming as a potential first-round matchup. Winnipeg has already beaten the Stars twice, but those games both came in November and Dallas seems like a different team now.

Of course, with the deadline looming, lots of teams are about to look different. It remains to be seen whether these two teams are among them. Jim Nill and Kevin Cheveldayoff occupy opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to trading philosophy, with Nill being fairly aggressive and Cheveldayoff typically staying away from major moves.

With David Poile, Doug Armstrong, Joe Sakic and a presumably desperate Chuck Fletcher all still in the Central mix, it’s possible that neither Cheveldayoff or Nill can afford to be cautious. If so, they’ll both have some time to get to work after this one; neither team plays again until after Monday’s deadline.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: Be afraid of the Penguins

We’ve got 11 games on tap tonight, including six of the seven Canadian teams in action. With the races tightening and the trade deadline looming, it’s getting tense out there. So let’s try to keep things calm by starting with two teams that are pretty much already in the playoffs…

HNIC Game of the Night: Maple Leafs at Penguins

It’s officially time to be afraid of the Penguins again.

After two straight Stanley Cups, they were kind enough to give us a bit of a break early in the season. The Pens stumbled out of the gate, including an embarrassing 10-1 loss to the Blackhawks during the season’s first week, and never seemed quite right through the first few months. As late as the first week of January, they’d lost more games than they’d won. They were dipping in and out of a wild-card spot, and GM Jim Rutherford was reportedly ready to make major changes to try to save the season.

But while it didn’t seem like it at the time, a 4-0 win over the Islanders on Jan. 5 now looks like a turning point. They followed that by beating a red-hot Bruins team in overtime, then added wins over the Red Wings and Rangers. They’ve stayed hot ever since — they haven’t lost two straight since the end of December. In all, the Penguins are rolling to the tune of a 13-3-1 record during the stretch, blowing by the wild-card traffic jam and putting them within range of the Capitals for the Metro title.

And they’ve looked scary doing it, scoring five or more goals seven times and winning eight games by three goals or more. Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are back to their old selves after slow starts, and Phil Kessel continues to rack up the points.

Maybe most frightening of all, they’re still not at their best. Matt Murray has been much better lately, but has still been inconsistent. If he were to heat up, the Penguins might start to look unbeatable. Then again, Murray tends to do his best work in the playoffs, and that’s where he and his team are headed. At this rate, they’ll be back among the favourites once they get there.

The Maple Leafs are headed to the post-season too, although their status as legitimate contenders is still in question. It’s been a weird season for Toronto, who’ve spent much of the year all but locked into the third spot in the Atlantic. The Leafs are trying to make that interesting, taking a run at the Lightning and Bruins in an effort to at least land home-ice advantage in the first round, although that’s still a longshot. But with nine wins in their last ten and two lines filling the net, they’re at least looking more like the team that was briefly considered a Stanley Cup favourite back in October. That stretch has included wins over a couple of legitimate Cup contenders in the Predators and Lightning. Tonight, they get a shot at another one.

It all adds up to a good test for both teams, and a decent measuring stick of where we’re at in an Eastern Conference that suddenly seems wide open. We’ll hold off on any conference final preview hyperbole for now, since the Lightning, Bruins and Capitals will all have something to say about that. But if both of these teams keep rolling the way they have, we make no promises about where the hype machine may be at when they face off again three weeks from now.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: Looking ahead in the Battle of Ontario

It’s a relatively light Saturday night in the NHL, with only nine games of the schedule. Vancouver, Winnipeg and Calgary all go Friday/Sunday instead, but that still leaves us with four Canadian teams in action tonight.

Two of those Canadian teams are facing each other, so let’s start there while we all fight the nagging feeling that there was something the NHL was supposed to be doing right now…

HNIC Game of the Night: Senators at Maple Leafs

This is the third time this season that the Leafs and Senators have met on a Saturday night. The first time around, we looked at the Battle of Ontario and acknowledged that it isn’t what it once was. Last time, we focused on the fallout of the Dion Phaneuf trade. Those were worthwhile topics, but focused on the past. Let’s try something different today.

Unfortunately, “the present” doesn’t really work for these two teams. The Senators are a mess right now, and their fans are already well into trade-deadline mode, if not looking ahead to the draft lottery. And the Maple Leafs are in the fairly unique situation of basically knowing where they’re going to finish in the standings, even though there are still another nine weeks left to play.

So instead of the present, let’s focus on the future. This is the last meeting between the Leafs and Senators on this season’s schedule, and since we definitely won’t be getting a playoff matchup, that means we won’t see these two teams on the same ice again until sometime next season.

So what does that matchup look like? It’s going to be kind of fascinating to find out.

The big question, of course, is whether Erik Karlsson will be involved. The idea of the Senators trading Karlsson at some point between now and next season has gone from unthinkable to at least vaguely plausible over the course of the year, with occasional short-term gusts to “downright inevitable.” And if he does go, how many of the (presumably many) assets the Senators would get back would be in the lineup by next season, as opposed to years down the line?

Once you get through that process, you have to start wondering whether any other big-name Senators will also be elsewhere by the next time the team faces Toronto. Phaneuf? Mike Hoffman? Derick Brassard? Will Craig Anderson still be the undisputed starter? Mark Stone will almost certainly still be around, but how much will he be making on his new deal? Will Guy Boucher still be behind the bench?

And since that list of questions is getting kind of depressing from an Ottawa perspective, let’s end with one to perk up downcast Sens fans: The next time they face the Leafs, will they have No. 1–overall pick Rasmus Dahlin in the lineup?

From Toronto’s perspective, things feel a little more stable. But only somewhat so – by the next time they see Ottawa, the Leafs will need to have figured out what to do with James van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak and Leo Komarov. William Nylander will have a new contract, and Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner may or may not have signed extensions. Will there be a new big name anchoring the blue line? And will the team be coming off the sort of multi-round playoff run that has everyone excited about the future, or a first-round exit at the hands of the Bruins or Lightning that leaves the fan base feeling like the team is spinning its wheels?

That’s a lot of questions to ponder, and tonight’s game won’t provide many answers. But given that the final result on the scoreboard isn’t likely to matter all that much, it will be impossible for a hockey fan’s mind not to wander off into the future. Tonight will mark the 116th regular-season meeting in the modern Battle of Ontario; by the time we’re getting to work on writing the preview for the 117th, a lot of key pieces on both sides are going to be looking very different.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: A Western Conference final preview

Welcome to another NHL Saturday, you’ll want to get comfy, because we’re going to be here a while. With the bye weeks over with, we’re back to a nearly full schedule for the first time in a few weeks. We’ve got 13 games on tap including three all-Canadian matchups as part of the Hockey Day in Canada festivities, and we’ll start with the best one.

HNIC Game of the Night: Jets at Flames

Man, this is going to be a great conference final.

OK, sure, we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves here, but the Jets are already a point out of first place in the league’s toughest division, and the Flames are one of the hottest teams in the NHL with seven straight wins — and neither team’s path to the third round looks all that foreboding.

Based on the standings, the Flames will have the conference’s best team to get past in the Pacific, but that team is an expansion squad. Granted, it’s the best expansion team in the history of sports, but do we really think they’re going to roll through their first ever post-season? (Thinking.) Yeah, they might.

However, with the Kings fading, the Sharks looking ordinary, the Ducks struggling to even make the playoffs, and the Oilers and Coyotes all but done, the Flames’ road out of the Pacific goes through an expansion team. You’ll take that every time.

The Jets are facing a tougher path, but the Predators had been inconsistent before their recent win streak and are fighting through various injuries. And after last year’s run to the final there’s a risk of fatigue setting in at some point.

The Blues haven’t looked like the same dominant team they were in the first half, and while the traffic jam for a wild card means that whichever teams grab those spots will probably have closed off the season hot, if the Blackhawks lose Corey Crawford for the season then we can probably write off the division’s most experienced playoff team.

And remember, the Jets are already arguably the division’s best team even with Mark Scheifele injured and Dustin Byfuglien only now waking up. Give them a healthy Scheifele, a hot Byfuglien, and a trade deadline rental or two, and who’s beating them?

Well, maybe the Flames.

One way or another, it would be a hell of a matchup, one that would bring back memories of Smythe Division battles long past, only without Wayne Gretzky and friends waiting to crush the winner in Round 2.

It might be the second-most fun you can have in a plausible Western Conference Final (trailing only the obvious Vegas-Nashville dream matchup). Plus, it would carry the added bonus of guaranteeing Canada a spot in the Stanley Cup final for the first time since 2011.

On Saturday, the two teams face off for the first time since the second game of the season (a 6-3 Flames win). With both teams coming off their bye, we can probably expect a sloppy game as they work the rust off. We’ll have to wait until April to see them again, as they meet in their second-last game of the season.

And after that, we’ll just have to wait for the main event May.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: Happy birthday Connor

We’ve got nine games on the schedule tonight, including several teams coming off their bye week and a few more about to head out for theirs. We’ll start our roundup with one of those teams, as they get ready for a break under some interesting circumstances.

HNIC Game of the Night: Oilers at Golden Knights

Happy birthday, Connor McDavid.

Well, OK, you’re an Oiler. “Happy” probably isn’t in your vocabulary these days. All the best on your special day? Wait, “best” doesn’t work either. Look, just have some cake and be done with it.

In one of those scheduling quirks that was either a fun coincidence or somebody at league headquarters with a strange sense of humour, McDavid will be spending his 21st birthday in Las Vegas. And to make matters more interesting, this is the last game before the Oilers’ bye week. If things were going well, this would probably be a great time for the players to decide to stick around town and kick off a well-earned vacation by helping their captain celebrate the milestone.

Things are, as you may have noticed, not going well for the Oilers, which will probably put a bit of a damper on the party. You know that classic image of a sad child in a tilted birthday hat, sitting at an empty table because he invited all his friends and nobody came? That’s McDavid these days, except instead of friends it’s competent wingers.

This is the part where we’d normally start running down some facts and figures to paint a picture of how a team’s season has been going, but at this point that’s starting to just feel cruel. The Oilers season is a write-off. “Thanks for pointing that out,” Edmonton fans are no doubt thinking — nobody else had mentioned it except for literally every hockey writer on Earth.

So we’ll skip the autopsy and just head straight to the burial. The Oilers are basically done heading into the second half, and they get to head into their bye against one of the league’s best teams, in the league’s toughest building. The Knights are fun, fast and good, kind of like what we all expected the Oilers to be. At the very least, they might serve as a reminder that there should be brighter days ahead in Edmonton. If you can build a Cup contender out of spare parts you found scattered around in one off-season, surely you can do it with the best player in the world.

Somebody will. Whether it’s Peter Chiarelli and Todd McLellan or some other combination remains to be seen. How the Oilers perform over the second half will have a lot to do with how that turns out, which makes this game worth watching. Even if it won’t be the sort of going-away party the Oilers were probably expecting when they first saw the schedule.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: Matthews vs. Boeser

Today’s the day we officially hit the halfway point of the NHL season. We can no longer say “it’s early.” Now, it’s late. For some teams, probably too late. We’ve got nine games on the slate tonight, including one all-Canadian matchup. But we’ll start our roundup out West…

HNIC Game of the Night: Ducks at Flames

Tonight’s top game is a playoff rematch from last year’s opening round. It also may be a battle between two teams fighting for one spot in the tight Western race, as the Calgary Flames host the Anaheim Ducks in a Pacific battle with wild card implications.

The Flames recent struggles may have flown under the radar somewhat outside of Calgary, since they’ve yet to reach the sort of debacle-level depth we’ve seen in places like Edmonton, Montreal and Ottawa. But the Flames aren’t all that far ahead of those teams in the standings, and lately they’ve been spinning their wheels as the Western playoff contenders slowly pull away from them.

Looking back over the team’s last 15 games, it’s not hard to spot the pattern. Beginning in December, the Flames would lose three straight, win two, lose three more, win two again, and then drop another three in a row. Even with a handful of loser points sprinkled in, that’s not good enough to stay in the race, and it’s seen the Flames go from holding down the last wild-card spot to being three points out.

Now we’re back in the win phase of that cycle, with a pair of solid performances this week against the Blackhawks and Kings. That’s encouraging, but now it’s time for the team to break the pattern and keep the win streak going. They haven’t been able to do that in a long while.

So what’s going wrong? Some of the culprits are obvious. Despite two good games this week, the top line of Sean Monahan, Johnny Gaudreau and Micheal Ferland has largely cooled off after a strong start, and the rest of the lineup hasn’t been able to step up and compensate. The special teams have been poor, especially a penalty-kill running south of 80 per cent, and the team doesn’t spend enough time playing with a lead.

The Travis Hamonic trade still hasn’t paid off. As much as we hate to say it, neither has the Jaromir Jagr signing, with rumours swirling that he could be shut down or even released in the near future. And fans have been grumbling about coach Glen Gulutzan, particularly his continued commitment to rolling four lines even when trailing.

That’s a long list, but you could come up with a similar one for most teams. The NHL’s mushy middle is a crowded one these days, and the Flames are firmly stuck in it for the second straight year. There are worse places to be, but this isn’t what Calgary fans were hoping for heading into the season.

All of which brings us back to the Ducks. They’re in that middle, too, although lately they’ve looked like a team headed for better things. Getting healthy has helped, as a brutal stretch of first-half injuries have mostly cleared up. It’s probably too late for Anaheim to make a run at a sixth-straight division title, but escaping the playoff bubble seems like a realistic goal right now. They’d won three straight before dropping Thursday’s shootout in Edmonton, so they’re headed in the right direction.

The Flames are probably going to have to pass them to make the playoffs, so there should be plenty of urgency with a chance to gain some ground on home ice. Calgary hits the season’s midway point with tonight’s game, and they’d love to head into the second half with some momentum. To get it, all they’ll need to do is manage something they couldn’t back in last year’s playoffs: Win a game against the Ducks.

Marquee matchup: Auston Matthews Brock Boeser

There’s no point overthinking it this week. Matthews vs. Boeser is going to make for must-see TV.

The narrative writes itself. You’ve got last year’s Calder winner against this year’s mid-season favourite. Two-thirds of America’s top line in international best-on-best competition for the next decade. The big market golden boy who gets wall-to-wall coverage against the West Coast kid who was only discovered last week.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: Fine, we'll pay attention to Brock Boeser

It’s a relatively quiet Saturday night in the NHL, with only a half-dozen games on the schedule as the league gears up for a busy New Year’s Eve slate tomorrow. Four of the seven Canadian teams have the night off, while three others are in action and chasing a playoff spot…. Kind of.

HNIC Game of the Night: Bruins at Senators

Did you have a good holiday? Looking forward to your New Year’s party? Good. Have your fun while you can. Because for some teams, this is the part of the NHL season where things start getting desperate.

Coming into this week, the Senators hadn’t played the Bruins yet on the season. But the post-holiday schedule served up a pair of games right up front, one in each city. It was basically a home-and-home, albeit an odd one split up by each team having a game squeezed in between their two meetings.

And it represented a great opportunity for a Senators team that’s been desperate for one. With the entire Metro clogging up the wild-card race, Ottawa’s best path to the playoffs looks like it involves catching either the Bruins or Maple Leafs for third place in the Atlantic. That’s a tall order; the Sens came out of the break 13 points back of Boston and 14 behind Toronto. But sweep two regulation wins against the Bruins, and you get the gap down to single digits. That’s still a ton of ground, but at least it starts feeling manageable.

And so the Sens headed into Boston on Wednesday night looking to start their journey of a thousand miles with a single step. Instead, they stumbled through a 5-1 loss. And now, the situation feels critical. One regulation loss was a missed opportunity. Another might all but slam the door on catching the Bruins at all.

That’s not quite must-win territory – even if the Bruins pull away, there’s still the Maple Leafs or the wild card. Those may be better options no matter what happens, as the Bruins have quietly been one of the league’s better teams for much of the first half. They haven’t received enough credit for that, partly because their early record didn’t live up to how they were playing and partly because they spent the first few months having multiple games in hand on just about everyone. If you were only looking at the points column, they were an easy enough team to ignore.

They’re not being ignored anymore; five straight wins tends to do that. And it’s largely the young guys who are driving that success, with players like David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy and Danton Heinen exceeding expectations. Brad Marchand keeps scoring, Patrice Bergeron and Tuukka Rask keep making sure you can’t score, and the Bruins keep winning.

None of that is good news for Ottawa, a team whose struggles on and off the ice have been well-documented. Most playoff bubble teams have a tough time withstanding a four game losing streak; the Senators just ended their third in six weeks. And in the middle of all of that, they need to somehow find a way to win tonight.

If there’s any good news from an Ottawa perspective, it’s this: The Senators should be desperate. We should see them come out with all guns blazing. Given the disparity between the two teams, that still may not be enough. And if it doesn’t happen, it will be fair to start asking some tough questions about the makeup of this team. You certainly can’t say that the stakes aren’t high heading into tonight.

Or maybe it’s already too late, none of this matters, and it’s all about Rasmus Dahlin at this point. There’s that angle too. As far as I can tell, a lot of Senators fans are already there.

Either way, tonight is a chance for the Senators to make a statement. Maybe one of their last.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: Last-minute shopping

Tonight brings a packed schedule featuring the maximum 15 games, as the league crams in as much action as possible before shutting down the schedule for three days over the holidays. The Flames are the lucky team that gets the extra night off, while the country’s other six teams are in action, including one all-Canadian matchup. We’ll start there.

HNIC Game of the Night: Canadiens at Oilers

When these two teams met in Montreal two weeks ago, we wrote about how their respective struggles had dominated so much of the early season storytelling. That game seemed to represent a chance for one team to earn a big win, maybe even the kind that can launch them down the long road back into playoff contention.

It was the Oilers who got it, thumping the Canadiens by a 6-2 final to earn their fourth win in six games, while sending Montreal to their third straight loss. And while Oilers sputtered to a 1-0 loss in Toronto the next night, they’ve won four of five since and are currently riding their first three-game win streak of the season. Meanwhile, the Canadiens won three of their next four.

#Oilers Cam Talbot has now won 6 straight starts, going 6-0-0 with a 2.14 GAA & .922 SV%. pic.twitter.com/oAn6WW8kw1

— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) December 22, 2017

Two weeks after the meeting, both teams are largely in the same place they were before, with the Habs chasing the Bruins and the Oilers still looking up at a long list of teams out West. So let’s call this take two. Who needs the win the most? And more importantly, who can’t afford to go into the holidays without a point?

On paper, the Canadiens are still in slightly tougher shape. They’ve lost ground to the Bruins lately, partly due to Boston finally make up some of those games in hand they’ve been holding over the rest of the division. And while Montreal is sitting in fourth place in the Atlantic, they’re now trailing the entire Metro, meaning the wildcard isn’t in the picture for now. They’re also in the midst of a brutal seven-game road trip, and with Shea Weber’s foot injury seeming more and more like it could be a long-term concern, the immediate picture looks cloudy. It wouldn’t take more than a loss or two combined with Bruin wins before that third Atlantic spot started to drift out of reach.

As for the Oilers, they’d need to play at a 106-point pace over the season’s last 47 games to get to the 95-point mark that we typically think of as the playoff finish line. That would be daunting for any team, especially one that’s still plugging along under the .500 mark, but the Oilers have the talent to make it happen. But with six teams to pass, they’re running out of time to flip the switch. Like the Habs, it wouldn’t take much of a short-term slump to torpedo the long-term hopes.

After slow starts, neither team has much of a margin of error to work with here. It’s cliché to talk about games where both teams need a win, as if there are many games where one team would be fine with a loss. But sometimes, both team really need a win, and with a break in the schedule looming, this would seem to be one of those games.

Of course, they’re not the only ones…

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday Storylines: The Jets get their shot

We’re into double digits as we hit the 10th weekend of the NHL season. We’ve got a dozen games on tap, starting in the afternoon and lasting through a trio of late starts. Here’s what to watch for.

HNIC Game of the Night: Jets at Lightning

The Jets are in the middle of what’s been easily their best season since returning to the NHL in 2011. It might be taking a run at 1984–85 for the best Jets season ever, period. That’s not an especially high bar, but Winnipeg fans probably aren’t too worried about nitpicking right now, because for most of the year this team has been all sorts of fun.

Even after losing two straight to start this road trip, the Jets are still locked in a three-team race for top spot in the Central. But if there’s been a knock against them, it’s one we covered a few weeks back: they haven’t earned many signature wins. They had that one blowout over the Penguins, and they beat the Pacific-leading Kings, but for the most part their wins have come against a long list of also-rans and quasi-contenders.

That’s not entirely their fault, since in today’s parity-soaked NHL almost every opponent will be an also-ran or quasi-contender. But tonight, the Jets get their shot at an unambiguous Cup favourite when they face the first-place-overall Lightning.

Tampa’s been dominating the power rankings so far this year, ours included, and it’s not hard to see why. They’re stacked with talent, they score a ton, and they’re racking up wins. And they’re earning them — they’re the only team in the league right now that’s outscoring the opposition by better than a goal a game. They’re good.

The Jets are good, too, but you can forgive the hockey world for being a little bit slower to buy in. That could change with a strong showing tonight. We won’t go crazy and use words like “potential Stanley Cup final preview” here, but we reserve the right to change our mind if the Jets can go into Tampa and dominate.

And if seeing how the young Jets match up with the Lightning isn’t enough proof for any skeptics out there, stand by. Next weekend brings a home-and-home showdown with the Blues, and that’s followed by a game against the Predators. The Central picture is about to get a whole lot clearer, and for once the Jets have a chance to control how they fit into it.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: The Battle of Alberta resumes

In the Saturday Storylines:
- The Battle of Alberta is back, and the stakes feel kind of high
- The Canucks get a visit from their old friend Nazem Kadri
- A coach whose hot seat may be about to melt
- The Atlantic Division is kind of terrible
- A look back at a forgotten classic playoff series with a game seven OT ending
- And more...

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: The return of Carey Price

It’s a bit of a weird weekend this time around, with the NHL taking U.S. Thanksgiving off on Thursday and then jamming the schedule with 14 games last night, the busiest Friday of the year. That means just about everyone will be playing tired tonight, and the combination of fatigue and backup goalies could lead to some high-scoring games.

HNIC Game of the Night: Jets at Sharks

Heading into the season, this wouldn’t have been a game you circled as a potential matchup of the night. And sure, there are other matchups around the league that feature more star power or better teams. But this one is intriguing partly because it features two teams we haven’t quite figured out yet.

The Jets are finishing off a tough road swing that’s seen them play four games in six nights, starting in Nashville and then heading through California. So far, it’s yielded mixed results, with one/two wins in three games. But that still leaves the Jets with one of the better records in the Western Conference at 14-5-3.

We’ve been waiting for this kind of breakout for years in Winnipeg, where a talented young core has played fun-but-inconsistent hockey that’s so far produced more magazine covers declaring them future Cup champions (one) than playoff game victories (still waiting). Last week, we nudged them into our top-five power rankings for the first time, well, ever.

So it’s hard not to get excited about how it’s all coming together this year. But then you look down the list of teams the Jets have actually beaten, and aside from an admittedly impressive 7–1 win over the Penguins you see a mix of struggling contenders, question marks and outright bad teams. Maybe that’s to be expected in a parity league where almost everyone is just kind of OK, but it would be nice to see the Jets make a statement.

The Sharks may not offer that opportunity, since they’ve been up and down all year. We snuck them into the top five on a couple of occasions, too, but they’ve cooled off lately and dropped out of a playoff spot. That’s not a cause for panic quite yet, at least in what’s shaping up to be a weak Pacific Division, and the analytics types still seem to love them. But wins are wins, and right now the Sharks are in danger of moving into that mushy middle of teams nobody pays much attention to. Maybe they should already be there.

If so, then this is exactly the sort of winnable road game that a contender would march in and take. We’re still not sure that the Jets are that team, but they’ve been proving it a game at a time, and they get another chance tonight. At the very least, it may be the biggest Jets-vs.-Sharks matchup in 50 years.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet

Saturday storylines: Leafs vs Habs, chapter two

Welcome to the NHL’s “Centennial Birthday Weekend,” in which the league celebrates its 100th birthday. It’s not the anniversary of the first ever games, since that’s in December, or of the league officially forming, since that’s next week. It’s just … uh … a centennial birthday. Stop asking questions. Look, do you want some cake or not?

HNIC Game of the Night: Maple Leafs at Canadiens

This is the second time this season that we’ve featured a Leafs-Habs game in this spot, and it probably won’t be the last. There’s just something special about a Saturday night matchup between the two long-time rivals. And since the league is using the meeting as an opportunity to douse us with history, all the better.

It’s worth revisiting what we wrote about these two teams the last time they played, if only to serve as a reminder of how many twists and turns can be packed into five weeks. Back on the season’s second weekend, we were wondering if the Maple Leafs could snap Montreal’s 14-game win streak in head-to-head matchups. They did, earning a 4-3 overtime win on an Auston Matthews goal.

We were also wondering if Montreal was ever going to get the offence going. That happened too, although it took a little longer. The Habs’ inability to score went from a curiosity to problem to an outright crisis over the course of the season’s first few weeks, before the floodgates finally opened and all those stats guys were proven right about percentages and regression and sample sizes. The Canadiens aren’t exactly lighting up scoreboards – they still rank just 24th in total goals – and Thursday’s loss to the Coyotes was the first time they’ve scored more than three in a game since Nov. 4. But at least nobody’s panicking about the offence anymore in Montreal. They’ve got other things to worry about.

Instead, we’re all wondering what’s up with Carey Price, who’s “minor” injury has kept him out for two weeks now. He still says it’s no big deal, assuring fans that they “don’t have to be concerned” and that this isn’t a repeat of 2015. That’s reassuring, and with rookie Charlie Lindgren looking fantastic, the Canadiens haven’t missed their superstar all that much yet. But seeing Price try to play through a second pre-game injury raises some fair questions about the relationship between the team and its expensive star. And you can forgive Montreal fans for being a little nervous about the situation, especially when Antti Niemi suddenly shows up via waivers? If Niemi is ever the answer, the question probably isn’t anything good.

As for the Maple Leafs, the last time they were in Montreal they were riding high and scoring a ton. Since then, we’ve seen them boost their record to 6-1-0, be declared Cup favourites, cool off, hit an outright slump, and then reel off five straight wins even though they were missing Matthews for most of that stretch. It’s been quite a journey. And these days, the Maple Leafs are winning thanks to solid goaltending and team defence instead of by just blowing the doors off whoever’s in the opposing net. They even managed a 1-0 overtime win their last time out. That’s not quite as much fun, but it probably makes Mike Babcock a lot less cranky, and that’s worth something.

>> Read the full post at Sportsnet