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CAROLINA HURRICANES

NEWS CLIPPINGS • May 11, 2019

Rod Brind’Amour makes the call: it’s time for the Canes to focus on Game 2

By Chip Alexander

Sometimes, it’s hard to read too much into body language, especially with pro athletes.

But in watching the Carolina Hurricanes players Friday at their team hotel, they came across as loose, focused and confident, certainly anything but a silent, sullen group a day after a tough playoff loss.

Rod Brind’Amour? The Canes coach had the look of a man in a hurry, ready to discuss Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals one last time for the media, if a bit reluctantly, and move on.

To be sure, losing Thursday to the Boston Bruins was a stinger. The Canes took a 2-1 lead into the third period only to have the Bruins score two power-play goals in 28 seconds to take the lead, then move on to a 5-2 victory at TD Garden.

The Canes did not practice Friday with Game 2 set for Sunday afternoon. But video sessions could not have been a pleasurable viewing experience. In addition to plays not made in Game 1 -- Brock McGinn, on a shorthanded rush, missing the net late in the second period -- there were any number of borderline calls and no-calls by the referees.

Case in point: Dougie Hamilton’s roughing penalty in the third period. Moments after it, the Canes’ Andrei Svechnikov took a blindside hit from behind from Sean Kuraly, in the neutral zone and away from the puck, without a penalty being called.

“That’s the one I was frustrated with,” Brind’Amour said Friday. “I actually thought we were going on the power play. I didn’t see Dougie’s in the corner. That’s not why we lost the game but, yes, I thought that was a penalty.”

So did most Canes fans, who bombarded Twitter with their opinions -- about the hit on Svechnikov and other calls.

The Bruins had tied the score 2-2 early in the third with a power-play goal after the Canes’ Jordan Staal was called for boarding. After Hamilton’s penalty, Patrice Bergeron’s power-play score on an open shot from the slot gave the Bruins a 3-2 lead.

Brind’Amour used his timeout at that point, but the damage had been done and the Bruins were sensing victory.

“They score two goals, the crowd gets into it, they took a lead,” Canes captain Justin Williams said. “Rod took a timeout to calm us down but we weren’t able to equalize.”

The Bruins had been scoring on the power play at a 28.6-percent clip in the playoffs, the best among the 16 playoff teams. But the Canes took five penalties in the game -- three in a row in the third period -- and as Hamilton put it, “It bit us in the butt.”

The Bruins scored the two in the third with two of their best players doing best-player kind of things, making the right plays to break down the Carolina penalty kill.

After the Staal penalty, the Bruins’ Brad Marchand made a good play to keep the puck in the zone at the blue line. Marchand then got off a shot from the right circle that goalie Petr Mrazek couldn’t swallow up, the puck falling in front of him.

The Bruins’ Marcus Johansson, between defensemen Calvin de Haan and Justin Faulk in front of the crease, knocked the puck in.

Hamilton was called for roughing after spotting the Bruins’ Joakim Nordstrom, a former Canes forward, skating in for a check. Hamilton, at 6-6 and 229 pounds, turned and put a reverse hit on the 6-1, 194-pound Nordstrom, hitting Nordstrom high in the chest.

In the first-round series against the Washington Capitals, Hamilton was criticized for side-stepping a hit by the Caps’ Alex Ovechkin. This time, he took and delivered a hit, only to be penalized.

On the power play, the Bruins’ Jake DeBrusk knocked the puck away from defenseman Brett Pesce after the faceoff in the Canes zone. Getting the puck back along the boards, DeBrusk made a cross-ice pass off his knees to Marchand. Mrazek went to the post, anticipating a Marchand shot, only to have Marchand slide a quick pass to Bergeron in the slot for the shot.

McGinn nearly got his stick on the DeBrusk pass to Marchand, and defenseman Jaccob Slavin nearly got his stick on the Bergeron shot -- a matter of inches -- but the Bruins executed and converted.

“We can’t take penalties. We know that,” Brind’Amour said Friday. “We don’t get into ‘are they penalties are not?’ They’re penalties. If they’re penalties, we have to kill ‘em. At the end of the day that’s not why we lost the game. We have to execute in those situations.”

To even the series Sunday before heading back to Raleigh for Games 3 and 4, the Canes will be after a stronger start than in Game 1. Brind’Amour again will wait to name a starting goalie but it figures to be Mrazek again, and he said there were no injuries in the game -- Svechnikov, shaken up by the Kuraly hit, did return and play.

The Canes will hold a team practice Saturday at TD Garden.

“I don’t like sitting in hotels for two days but again, that’s stuff you can’t control,” Brind’Amour said. “We’ve got to worry about what we can control. We can’t control calls or non-calls, can’t control the schedule.

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“Control what we can control. Bounces, we’ve got to create our own. We’ve got to make our own noise and that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

Brind’Amour said Game 1 would be forgotten as soon as he walked out of the room after the press conference. Moments later, he walked out.

There’s one way to forever remember this Hurricanes’ playoff run. Get a tattoo.

By Jessica Banov

There’s something about the Hurricanes that inspires a certain kind of loyalty in their quest for the Stanley Cup.

We’re not talking about getting a token souvenir T-shirt or puck, or even the bigger investment of a jersey. Those are for the casual fans.

It’s the kind of devotion that compels you to mark your love for the Canes in a more everlasting way, the kind you might not tell your mom about. (But you most certainly will share with the world on social media.)

We’re talking tattoos.

Now that Carolina is in the Eastern Conference finals, the need for Canes ink is at a high right now, and not just among the super fans. At some point during the Hurricanes postseason run, seemingly Twitter is overflowing with tweets from someone vowing — vowing! — to get a Canes or Stanley Cup tattoo, perhaps in a delicate place hidden from the sun, if the team wins the whole shebang.

Or in some people’s case, that was the deal if the Canes won the first round. Because when your team hasn’t been in the playoffs in a decade, what are the chances, right?

“It happened,” said J.C. Bobbitt, with a big laugh.

Bobbitt, a 31-year-old from Durham, told his social media followers he would get a tattoo if the Canes beat the Capitals to advance to the second round. The Hurricanes ended up beating Washington in seven games. And for Bobbitt’s very first tattoo, it would be a special one.

“If the hockey gods can get us a win, I’ll get a tattoo on my rear end of whoever scores the game-winning goal,” he recalled saying.

Like many who tempt fate with such grand gestures, the hockey gods answered his plea. Filled with giddy excitement the night the Hurricanes eked out a Game 7, 4-3 win in double overtime, getting a tattoo wasn’t on his priority list. The next day, though, he felt a nagging sense of obligation to keep his word, though really, who would know if he didn’t get a tattoo on his derriere?

“So when’s your tattoo happening?” texted his mother, who had seen his bet on Twitter.

“In the moment it happens, people ask, when are you doing it?” Bobbitt said. “It becomes a point of personal pride. I said, ‘I’m going to do this. I’m going to be held to my word.’”

In the process, Bobbitt decided to raise money for the Carolina Hurricanes Foundation, which helps area children and promotes youth hockey. He raised about $135.

He booked an appointment to get the number 23, for Hurricanes left wing Brock McGinn, on his rear end, incorporating a Hurricanes flag in the design. Bobbitt, a graduate of Wake Forest, didn’t want people to mistake the

number for another No. 23 well-known in North Carolina: Michael Jordan.

“It never really hurt,” he said about the experience. “I got it before Game 3 in Raleigh, and my concern was sitting in the arena. It was a little sore. If someone was going to smack me on it, it would sting a little bit.”

HAMILTON THE PIG

Leah Adams made a similar pledge on Twitter during Game 7 of the first round of the playoffs. In her case, she said she’d get a tattoo of Hamilton, the Raleigh pig that’s become a symbol of good luck for the team.

“As I call it, an offering to the hockey gods,” Adams told The News & Observer. “Lo and behold, we’ve made it this far.”

This isn’t the first tattoo for Adams, a 29-year-old who lives in Greensboro, so the shock value isn’t there. But if she’s getting a Canes tattoo, this is the year to get that permanent memento. She grew up in Raleigh and remembers when the Hurricanes won the Cup in 2006, a feat that inspired her to learn how to play hockey.

And while it was mostly self-inflicted pressure to follow through with the tattoo, it was never anything she thought she’d regret. She now has a realistic portrayal of the pig on her right thigh — “a solid 4 inches tall,” she said.

“He’s a pretty cute pig,” Adams said. “He’s bringing us a lot of luck. It would be a fun way to remember this playoff run.”

One — well, two — things remain for Adams this season. Winning the Stanley Cup, of course. And, she said: “I have to meet that pig.”

Hamilton has captured Kristopher Wishon’s heart, too. He and a few friends have toyed with the idea of getting Hamilton tattoos as well. It started as a bet — something they would dare each other to do if the Hurricanes win the Cup. But now, it just seems like something they should do, no matter the outcome.

“We’re trying to get everyone’s schedules together and get this thing done,” said Wishon, who lives outside Greensboro and regularly attends games. “This is a memorable year.”

Their Hamilton might look a little different than Adams. It wouldn’t be a portrait, Wishon said.

“In very layman’s term, it’s Porky Pig with Hamilton’s colors waving a Hurricanes flag,” Wishon said. “Hamilton is a big deal.”

FINALLY, A SHOT

And really, this whole season has been a big deal, especially for those who have stuck by the team through its ups and downs, which have been more down than up in recent years. Just ask Amanda Willis, who has been a fan since 2002, when the Hurricanes made it to the Stanley Cup finals for the first time, and can easily rattle off a time line of the team’s history.

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She became a season ticket holder when the team was, as she puts it, “really bad.”

“But it was great,” she said. “I was still obsessed with them.”

She describes the “torture” of the NHL lockout of 2004-05, when “it was like hockey was being ripped away from us.”

But then, it was 2006, and hockey was back and the Canes were good. Really good. She made one of those declarations about getting a tattoo.

“It was just a magic year,” she said, with the night of June 19, 2006, when the Hurricanes beat the Oilers 3-1 in Game 7 to win the Stanley Cup, etched in her memories.

“The best night of my life was Game 7,” said Willis, who is 39 and lives in Raleigh. “Nothing compared to that.”

She got a tattoo of the Stanley Cup with the Canes logo and 2006 on her ankle. It was her second tattoo.

Now, the craziness is back, and Willis is contemplating getting a second Canes tattoo if they win again.

“I just hope we keep going,” she said. “It’s almost too good to be true. I’m just so proud of the team. I really think they have a shot.”

A familiar position for the Hurricanes, albeit with unfamiliar stakes

By Luke DeCock

Here they are again: frustrated, aggrieved and discounted. While losing for the first time in six playoff games may have been a shock to the Carolina Hurricanes’ system, the position they find themselves in now is not. If anything, it’s all too familiar.

The aftermath of Thursday’s Game 1 loss to the Boston Bruins has a lot in common with the aftermath of last month’s Game 1 loss to the Washington Capitals, with the exception of an extra day off, which gave Rod Brind’Amour something else to grump about.

In both games, the Hurricanes felt they were the better team five-on-five, only to be undone by the opposition’s power play. In both games, they felt like they got the short end of the officiating against a more respected opponent in a hostile environment. In both games, they thought they let a chance to steal a win on the road slip through their fingers.

Start breaking down the details, and the comparison starts to break down, not unexpectedly. From 10,000 feet, it looks pretty much the same.

“We’ve been in this situation before,” said Sebastian Aho, who extended his goal-scoring streak to three games with an early power-play goal. “It’s good we have that experience.”

Maybe it is. Maybe the Hurricanes have no margin for error in this series, just like the Washington series, which despite their victory still came down to double overtime in Game 7 and could easily have gone either way. People forget that now, because of everything that’s happened since. It wasn’t exactly the invasion of Grenada.

So this game may very well come back to haunt the Hurricanes, just as their overtime loss in Game 2 in Washington could have, their best chance to flip home-ice advantage in that series. Holding a lead, however tenuous, over the Bruins through two periods on the road is an

opportunity carelessly squandered – and whatever complaints the Hurricanes still harbor over the officiating, they needlessly put themselves in a position for a few of those calls to be made.

Despite the late flurry of Boston goals that turned a one-goal game into a 5-2 win, the Bruins knew how close that was, how narrowly they escaped thanks to a potent power play that capitalized on the plethora of opportunities it was gifted. Take special teams out of the equation – a familiar refrain from the first round – and there wasn’t much wiggle room for either side.

“They are who we thought they were, as far as their compete level,” Bruins forward Chris Wagner said Friday.

The general theme for the Hurricanes on Friday was putting all of that behind them, easier said then done with two days off and nowhere to go. They’ll practice at the arena on Saturday, but needed the rest Friday, sticking to their established playoff routine at the risk of going stir crazy.

“The schedule is not good for me,” Hurricanes coach Brind’Amour said. “I don’t like sitting around hotels for two days. But again, that’s stuff you can’t control. We’ve got to control what we can control. We can’t control calls or non-calls, we can’t control the schedule. We’ll control what we can control. The bounces, we’ve got to create our own. We’ve got to make our own noise.”

The Hurricanes did that against the Capitals, fruitlessly forcing overtime in Game 2, turning their fans’ noise at home into an insurmountable advantage, suffering through a Game 5 debacle on the road before Brock McGinn sent them into the second round.

They have been here before, even if not with these stakes, if not with an opponent as battle-tested as they are, if not in May. That’s all new. They have work ahead. That part is not.

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Often snubbed by NBC, Hurricanes have been a TV ratings bonanza

By Luke DeCock

For a team that gets about one national television appearance a decade, the Carolina Hurricanes’ run through the playoffs has turned out to be a ratings bonanza for NBC and its cable networks.

NBC announced Friday that Thursday night’s Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, a 5-2 Boston Bruins win, checked in with a 1.71 overnight rating on NBCSN, the highest for a conference-final Game 1 in NBCSN history and a 53 percent increase over last year’s Game 1 between the Washington Capitals and Tampa Bay Lightning.

The opponent had something to do with that: The game did a 14.8 overnight in Boston. But in the Raleigh-Durham market, the 8.1 overnight was the second-highest on record for NBCSN, trailing Game 7 of the 2006 Eastern Conference finals (10.3).

Boston was the No. 2 market for NBC going into the conference finals, with Providence, R.I., No. 4, but Raleigh was No. 9, ahead of Las Vegas and seven other U.S. markets with teams in the playoffs. Of the eight ahead of Raleigh, only No. 5 Columbus has had an NHL team for fewer years than the Triangle.

Fox Sports Carolinas, which televised five games in the first round locally, did not immediately respond to a request for ratings information.

AHO UPGRADE While Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said Friday that his team came out of Thursday’s game in good shape generally speaking, he did acknowledge that Sebastian Aho, who has scored in three straight games, was one of the players who benefited from the five days off.

Aho was back in the faceoff circle Thursday night on a limited basis, taking 11 faceoffs after taking a total of 15 in the four games of the second round and 30 in the final four games of the first round. He took 48 over the first three games of the playoffs before cutting back sharply.

Aho had five points in the first nine games of the playoffs. He has that many in the past three. But Aho’s line with Teuvo Teravainen and Andrei Svechnikov was largely stymied five-on-five by the Bruins defensive pairing of Torey Krug and Brandon Carlo, and Brind’Amour made it clear he still

expected more from the team’s leading scorer in the regular season.

“I don’t know how good he was last night, but he was better,” Brind’Amour said. “The rest did him – he needed it. He needed a little break. He’s been pushed pretty hard all year and he had a few nicks that healed up. I would hope he would continue to get better as the series goes on.”

AS ADVERTISED If there were some questions about how the Hurricanes would match up with the Bruins nationally, Boston forward Chris Wagner said there weren’t any in the Bruins’ dressing room, and that the close margins Thursday — at least until Boston blew it open late — were what the hosts expected.

“They came as advertised,” Wagner said. “Watching some of their games before in other rounds, they work as hard as anybody we’ve played. That obviously stems from their coach’s style of play. They have a couple really skilled guys. That goal by Aho, that’s not an easy tip at all. They’re going to compete 200 feet of the ice.”

RUSSIAN MULE Svechnikov’s elevation not only to the Hurricanes’ top line but the (nominal) No. 1 power-play unit Thursday produced a goal, his pass from the left circle setting up Aho’s deflection in front for the Hurricanes’ first goal.

“It’s new to him, being with that group and in that spot,” Brind’Amour said. “There are a lot of new things we’re throwing at him, but we’re in the do-or-die mode now. We’ve got to put the best guys out there, and they’ve got to figure it out.”

The player Jordan Staal called “the Russian mule” on Wednesday has seen his role continue to increase throughout the season and even more since his return from a concussion in these playoffs. In his very limited playoff experience, Svechnikov has three goals and two assists in six games.

“The biggest growth I think is his confidence to play at this level,” Brind’Amour said. “We all saw his ability on Day 1. He can skate as well as anybody. He can shoot as well as anybody. He sees the ice extremely well. But when you’re a kid you don’t really know you can do these moves or play with the big boys, and over the course of the year we’ve given him a little more responsibility and you can see he doesn’t look out of place.”

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Bourne: How Boston’s coaching, centres and confidence propelled it to a Game 1 win over Carolina

By Justin Bourne

I watched the opening game between the Boston Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes with my notebook in hand, ready to jot down what caught my eye in real time with the hopes of identifying some themes. At the conclusion of Boston’s 5-2 come-from-behind win, it was clear that the Bruins were the team that got the job done more often in Game 1. In an effort to illustrate why Boston was the better team, we’ll dig into one key point from each major area of the hockey rink. Starting with the …

Defensive zone

Thanks to a combination of excellent coaching and maturity from their core players, the Bruins once again excelled at playing with the lead in the third period. Their positional play was so good in the final frame that I had the really weird thought that you could easily diagram the Bruins’ D-zone coverages via claymation. Each player’s movements were so precise that capturing it via stop-motion would be a snap. Moving the player’s limbs and position a tiny bit, frame-by-frame would result in perfect symmetry. There were some shifts where all five guys played perfectly.

This is just a random example, but after the Bruins took the lead it looked like they collectively exhaled and they were comfortable to just come back to the right areas of the ice and challenge the ‘Canes to go through them. Whether on the rush:

Or moments later, in-zone:

There always seemed to be Bruins on the defensive side of white sweaters. (Yes, those are pictures of my TV.)

The Bruins names you already know you already know for a reason – they’ve been there/done that and continue to prove that not only can they rise up in the big moments, but just as importantly, they can recognize when it’s time to sit back. Furthermore, the guys who haven’t been there before seem eager to follow, trusting they’ll be taken where they want to go if they just play the same way. They look like a group that can pull together and operate in a stingy five-man unit when the situation requires it.

Usually in any game, let along a conference final playoff game, the team trailing by a single goal in the third period is going to be coming. A fast and tenacious group like Carolina always is, so it seemed certain we’d see a push at some point. This was a group who caused a lot of chaos around the Bruins crease in the second – though they did take their lumps just about every time they went there – but for whatever reason, that expected push never materialized.

Maybe they couldn’t get to the inside, maybe the physical play of the Bruins made them lose interest. Either way, they went quietly into the night in a way you wouldn’t expect from this Canes team. The Bruins have the ability to look like a snake that can squeeze out your life once they wrap you up in a third

period lead. They’re 8-0 when leading after two periods this postseason (really only blowing any lead the one time, which was Game 5 against Columbus, a game they ended up winning).

Charlie Coyle didn’t have the best shot attempt numbers (which doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t play well) but has come to look like an exceedingly valuable centerman for this team right now. He’s excellent on the forecheck, a big body, plays a positionally responsible game and he can chip in a little on the offensive side. When you’re rolling out Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci as your No. 1 and 2 centers, Coyle emerging as much more than a stopgap player for the B’s has been a revelation.

Bruce Cassidy is excellent late in games at getting his best players on the ice in the situations they most excel. As noted by Bruins’ beat writer Fluto Shinzawa, Cassidy is really the first coach to verbalize to the media that he works backward in terms of ensuring that in 5-on-6 scenarios he has his all-world defensive quintet of Chara-Carlo, Marchand-Bergeron-Krejci available to him. Even last night as the Canes got Petr Mrazek out of their net fairly early (so Cassidy would need more than just five players to preserve the lead), he managed to get a pretty excellent trio out on the ice. Chara and Carlo got out with Kuraly, Krejci and Coyle, three centermen who are all responsible low, can take draws and know how to think defence first.

Veteran players, responsible centers and good coaching is a nice arsenal of close-out weapons to brandish in a game’s final minutes. As long as Rask can stay at the top of his game, I’d say Carolina is going to have to do their damage where they’ve done it best this postseason, and where the Bruins have struggled a bit: the second period. The Bs have had their issues with puck management and the long change there, so if there’s a chunk of time the Canes are going to feast, it may have to be there before they find themselves wrapped up in the snake again.

Offensive zone

One of my pet peeves as an offensive player was hearing any iteration of “don’t force it” on the bench when you’d try to make a play that didn’t work out. Certainly, there are times you ARE forcing it, which you generally recognize on your very own roughly 0.19 seconds after you’ve made the play, particularly if you’re a good offensive player.

But why I really hated it so much was because you never heard those comments when it worked out, which happened regularly on very similar looking plays. But it’s a game of inches. Sometimes your sauce pass gets up three inches and is picked off. Sometimes it’s four and it results in a goal. Sometimes the pass is six inches up and doesn’t land in time. But for the times you get it right, making the attempt is the smart play, in terms of expected outcomes.

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With your skill players, you have to trust that they have some sense of when it’s worth trying to make a play that may not work out, as they know that the payoff of a potential goal is well worth trying a play that’ll get intercepted more than it’ll connect. Great offensive players turn the puck over more not just because they have it more, but because they attempt harder, less likely to succeed plays that if they do work out, often end in goals. Seeing those plays (as well as having the skill to convert them) is what makes them — and in turn your team — special.

We saw this with the Bruins early in the third period of Game 1 on a powerplay, where they showed some nice puck movement and got the puck to the left flank for a one-timer. Fans started to sit up in their seats for a big moment … then Pastrnak tried to go back across the grain, the puck was picked off and nothing came of it. There was some mention of overpassing and surely a few fans remarked about getting “too cute,” given the amount of them that we know are Team SHOOOOOOOOOOT and all.

But again: you have to trust your best players to make those calls and not be upset and try to change their games (at least not those with proven successful games) when they don’t work out. I assume this is largely what Cassidy is doing – “too cute” certainly does exist at times – as we saw what happened on the game-winning goal by Bergeron. Much has been justifiably said about the great play DeBrusk made on the play, but imagine how insane it would be to be Brad Marchand there, to receive a cross-ice cross-crease pass on the backdoor on the powerplay in a tie game and NOT just immediately pull the one-time trigger.

Particularly on a rolling puck, which may leave you thinking “anything on the net is good here,” and also “anything on the net is going to be a grenade to handle and hard to stop.” Imagine thinking of one-touching a rolling puck out of that area to your linemate – with a defensive stick in the immediate vicinity no less – adding another step to the process of your team getting a shot andthinking it’s the right play percentage-wise. Well, it was.

Maybe the one-touch pass attempt hops No. 63’s stick, or maybe it hops No. 37’s, or maybe it hops neither and you score the game winner. That’s a great offensive player playing the odds. Sometimes these guys aren’t getting “too cute,” they just know the reward that comes with the risk of some risky plays is so rewarding it’s worth it.

Neutral zone

I don’t bring up the neutral zone to talk structure, whether regroup or forecheck, entries or exits. There’s nothing mind-blowing happening on either side there that I could see. What is mind-blowing, to me anyway, is watching the work put in (mostly) between the bluelines by two super-experienced veteran pros in Justin Williams and Zdeno Chara, in the way they’re working the referees.

One of Chara’s biggest strengths is knowing exactly what he is. He loves intimidating other players or at least trying to as he did with Dougie Hamilton after one whistle. He’s also not oblivious to how important it is to have his –and thus his team’s –side heard when talking to the refs and to not let the ever-charming Williams weasel his way in with the refs and dictate the way they’re seeing the game. You can’t have the refs “what to watch for” list be solely provided by your opponent.

As for that weaseling, I think it’s fantastic. This is going to be an extremely close series and one that could swing on the frequency of special teams play. Didn’t it look like the two captains involved in that game had some idea that might be true?

I found myself thinking about other teams who name captains young, guys who’ve never won or really been deep in the NHL playoffs before. Guys like Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Aleksander Barkov and maybe a guy like Auston Matthews next year. It’s not that having young captains would hurt their teams, per se. The best hockey teams still win more often than not. But in a series like this, where I think it’ll be oh-so-close and every breath of effort can matter, you wonder if a young inexperienced guy would be able to tip the scales the way a 40-year-old Cup winner could with their gravitas and quality center ice lawyering. There’s no way to tell for sure, but I’m guessing that’s an edge reserved for the Williams and the Charas. (Unfortunately for both sides, those powers negate one another here, but the efforts are still fun to watch.)

Game 1 is in the books. With great passing (O-zone!) on some debatably-earned powerplays (neutral zone work?) the Bruins found themselves on top, then leaned on their close-out abilities (D-zone) to take the first one. The onus is now on the Canes to make their adjustments and see if they can’t find a way to take over in any or all three zones in Game 2.

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Hurricanes remain in ‘control’ despite Game 1 loss

Despite a 5-2 loss in Game 1, Carolina is focused on what it can do better rather than worrying about outside influences

By Cory Lavalette

BOSTON — Throughout his entire first season leading the Carolina bench, Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour has made it clear his team’s fortunes — good or bad — are about one thing: his team.

So whether it’s questions about the officiating in the Bruins’ 5-2 Game 1 win or additions to the Boston lineup for Sunday’s Game 2, the rookie coach is all about what his team can control, not any outside forces.

“I think we’ve always, from Day 1, it’s about the next day, the next game, the next shift,” Brind’Amour said on Friday’s off day. “Our focus has always just been on ‘do it right, try to do what you can control and then move on.’ And good or bad, it’s always about the next step.

“That’s what I expect our guys to do. We’ll be probably saying the same exact things after next game. Hopefully it’s in our favor, but we’ll be moving ahead to Game 3 after Game 2.”

There were plenty of questions about the calls in the third period — specifically, a same-sequence roughing penalty on Dougie Hamilton and a neutral zone hit to Andrei Svechnikov that went uncalled — that left many scratching their head in what has already been a difficult postseason for NHL officials.

“That’s the one that I was frustrated with because I thought early in the game there was one where (Hurricanes winger Micheal) Ferland gave the guy less of a shot and there was a penalty,” Brind’Amour said of the neutral zone check to the back on Svechnikov by Bruins forward Sean Kuraly. “So I actually thought we were going on the power play. I didn’t see Dougie’s in the corner. So that was what kind of confused me on the whole thing. But that’s not why we lost the game. But yes, I thought that was a penalty (on Kuraly).”

Still, Brind’Amour quickly grew tired of answering questions about something that can’t be changed, even if he surprised there were more penalties than customary in an NHL playoff game.

“I was, but you gotta adjust to what’s going on in the game,” he said when asked if the game had more penalties than he anticipated. “They were called early (for) some penalties, and

you gotta know that maybe that’s how the game’s going to be called. We can get into it all day if we want. At the end of the day, that’s not why we lost the game. We’ve gotta execute on those situations, and we didn’t.”

Brind’Amour and his team are clearly ready to move on to Game 2, though the coach was wishing it was sooner after having just gone five days without a game.

“The schedule is not good for me,” Brind’Amour said. “I don’t like sitting in hotels for two days. But again, that’s stuff you can’t control. We gotta worry about what we can control. We can’t control calls or noncalls, we can’t control the schedule. Control what we can control. The bounces, we’ve got to create our own, make our own noise. And that’s what we’re going to try to do.”

Another thing the Hurricanes can’t control? Boston’s lineup. The Bruins will get back defenseman Charlie McAvoy for Sunday’s game after he was suspended one match for a headshot on Columbus’ Josh Anderson in Boston’s Game 6 win in Columbus, but his replacement in Game 1, Steven Kampfer, scored Thursday. His success, along with the play of Torey Krug and Brandon Carlo against Carolina’s top line centered by Sebastian Aho, had Brind’Amour praising Boston’s defense in Game 1 while being ready for it to add McAvoy going forward.

“Their D played pretty solid last night, so it’s going to be tough to get that much better,” Brind’Amour said. “But obviously (McAvoy’s) one of their better players, so I would think that they’re going to be that much better. But it doesn’t change what we’re going to be trying to do.”

What the Hurricanes will do, presumably, is try to persevere. Carolina lost the first two games of its first-round series with Washington but is 8-2 since. That included 5-0 and 5-2 wins over the Capitals in Games 3 and 6 of the teams’ series following Hurricanes’ losses.

“We said all along this year we expect to win every night,” Brind’Amour said. “And so it’s frustrating when you don’t, but I don’t think it’s going to hamper anything we’re doing going into the next game.”

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Hurricanes shift focus to Game 2, won't dwell on loss to Bruins

Feel if they get back to their game they can even Eastern Conference Final

by Shawn P. Roarke

BOSTON -- The Carolina Hurricanes aren't interested in rehashing their 5-2 loss to the Boston Bruins in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final at TD Garden on Thursday.

Coach Rod Brind'Amour doesn't want to talk about the penalties they took or the ones against them that may have been missed. He didn't want to hear about scoring chances gone awry or the stellar play of Boston goalie Tuukka Rask.

"You've got to move on," Brind'Amour said Friday. "That's it, I'm already past it. When I walk out the door, I'm not even thinking about last game."

The players have taken the same tack.

The Hurricanes lost the first two games of the first round to the Washington Capitals, the defending Stanley Cup champion. They won four of the next five to advance.

In the second round, they trailed the New York Islanders by a goal after two periods of Game 2 and had just lost starting goalie Petr Mrazek to a lower-body injury. Backup Curtis McElhinney entered, stopped each of the 17 shots he faced, and the Hurricanes rallied for a 2-1 victory that propelled them to a sweep.

"It's good that we have been in this situation before," forward Sebastian Aho said after the game. "We were down in Washington, so it is all good."

Thursday was Carolina's first loss after six straight postseason victories.

"We said all year long this season that we expect to win every night, so it's frustrating when you don't," Brind'Amour said.

The Hurricanes believe if they can get back to their game -- a relentless forecheck combined with an opportunistic offense, a commitment to discipline and suffocating defense in their own zone -- it will translate to victory in Game 2 here Sunday (3 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS).

The proof, they say, is in the first 40 minutes of Game 1. They were down 1-0 on a goal from defenseman Steven Kampfer 2:55 into the first period, but rallied for two goals, by Aho and Greg McKegg, and then turned up the defensive pressure and frustrated the Bruins in the second period.

"That was a good period for us, and their goalie made some good saves," forward Teuvo Teravainen said about Rask, who made 29 saves, 14 in the second period. "That is the game we want to play, for sure."

There certainly were positives.

The Hurricanes were the dominant team during 5-on-5 play for much of the first 40 minutes. Boston's top line of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnakwere held mostly in check at even strength, although Bergeron scored the eventual winning goal on the power play and Marchand had two power-play assists.

Two of Carolina's young players were not intimidated by the stage. Aho, 21, scored a goal and had three shots, and Andrei Svechnikov, a 19-year-old rookie, assisted on Aho's goal and added spark to the first power-play unit. Mrazek returned from a 10-day injury layoff and was strong, making the save on 17 of the first 18 shots. He finished with 23 saves.

"Heading into the third period in a 2-1 game and we are up, and we haven't played our best hockey yet," McKegg said. "We just have to lock it down better and get back at it Sunday."

Brind'Amour expects they will do just that; lock it down and be better Sunday.

"From Day 1 it has been about the next game, the next shift, the next day," Brind'Amour said. "The focus has always just been do what you do right and try to do what you can control and then move on, good or bad.

"It's always about the next step. That's what I expect our guys to do. We'll probably be saying the same exact things after the next game. Hopefully it will be in our favor, but we will be moving toward Game 3 right away."

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Hurricanes playing Bruins in conference final conjuring memories of 2009

Walker overtime goal in Game 7 was difference in series for Carolina 10 years ago

by Tom Gulitti

BOSTON -- The memories came flooding back to Scott Walker, along with phone calls and texts from former teammates, friends and media members, when the Eastern Conference Final matchup between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Boston Bruins was set Monday.

Walker, now director of player development with the Vancouver Canucks, was one of the protagonists for the Hurricanes the last time they faced the Bruins in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, scoring an overtime goal in Game 7 of the 2009 Eastern Conference Semifinals.

It was the only playoff goal Walker scored in his 15-season NHL career.

"Not a bad one," Walker said. "It was awesome. Hockey is a special place and great people and special people and you get to bounce back to memories of 2009. Even though you don't really live in the past, it's fun to reminisce."

Those who played for the Hurricanes in 2009 have been doing a lot of reminiscing during the current Hurricanes' run to the conference final because it has had a familiar feel to it. Carolina goes into Game 2 at TD Garden on Sunday (3 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS) trailing 1-0 in the best-of-7 series after a 5-2 loss in Game 1 on Thursday. It's the same spot the 2009 Hurricanes were in after one game against the Bruins.

But the coincidences go beyond the Hurricanes playing Boston again. Two of them came in their 4-3 double-overtime win against the Washington Capitals in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference First Round.

The first was center Jordan Staal's tying goal 2:56 into the third period, which was similar to the winning goal his older brother Eric, now with the Minnesota Wild, scored with 32 seconds remaining in a 4-3 win in Game 7 of the 2009 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals against the New Jersey Devils. Each came on a right-wing rush and a wrist shot from near the face-off dot that beat the goalie to the far side, past his blocker.

"I knew it right away actually," Jordan Staal said. "I think I saw it on the (video scoreboard) right after I scored and I'm like, 'I remember that goal.' It looked a lot like [Eric's] goal against Jersey. It was pretty cool."

The other coincidence in that game came on forward Brock McGinn's winning goal 11:05 into the second overtime. Forward Justin Williams threw the puck in front from the right corner and McGinn batted it in out of mid-air.

It was similar to how Walker batted in the rebound of Ray Whitney's shot from the right circle 18:46 into overtime in Game 7 against Boston in 2009.

"At that point in the playoffs it's just shoot everything on net," Whitney said. "So I just took kind of a half-slapper at the net and [Bruins goalie] Tim Thomas bounced it off this blocker. Scott was going to the net like he always does and banged it in.

"The best part about that is Scotty was going through a tough time with his wife at the time fighting a cancer thing, so there wasn't a better guy to get it."

Walker admits to being distracted during that game because his wife, Julie, had been diagnosed with cervical cancer earlier in the series and had to undergo a series of surgeries. Walker considered leaving the Hurricanes to be with Julie, who now is healthy, but she convinced him to continue playing.

His memory of his overtime goal mostly is from reading about it and seeing the video afterward.

"I don't even remember it," he said. "You get so emotional you actually black out, and then before you know it you're on the plane going home. It's surreal. You don't even remember breathing."

The other connection for Walker to McGinn's double-overtime goal is that he coached McGinn with Guelph in the Ontario Hockey League for four seasons, including when it won the OHL championship in 2013-14. Walker said he received texts after McGinn scored from former Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford (now with the Pittsburgh Penguins) and Eric Staal.

But Walker decided not to contact McGinn, figuring he was inundated with other calls and texts and busy with the playoffs.

"He's an amazing kid, he's an amazing player," Walker said. "Can't be more proud for a kid like that to carry on the Guelph Storm name. And if anybody says anything about Scott Walker and Brock McGinn, how lucky am I?"

The Hurricanes' 2009 playoffs ended with a four-game sweep against the Pittsburgh Penguins in the conference final. It took them 10 years to get back to the playoffs after that, but now they are reviving memories of when they reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2002, won the Stanley Cup in 2006 and made that run to the conference final in 2009.

Former Hurricanes forward Erik Cole can feel it in the electricity inside and outside PNC Arena.

"Seeing the building being back to the way it was in the really fun times that I had here is great to see," said Cole, who settled in Raleigh after retiring in 2015. "It didn't just magically start when the playoffs started. Probably like the last month of the regular season, when [college] basketball is winding down and things, the fans start to come out a little bit more, and with the fact the team was vying for a playoff position it was an exciting time for everybody."

The common denominator is Rod Brind'Amour, who was Carolina's captain in 2009 and now is in his first season as coach. These Hurricanes are following their own playoff path after eliminating the Capitals in the first round and sweeping the New York Islanders in the second round. But Brind'Amour understands the 2009 comparisons.

"That was a special group, a very special group that is different from this group totally," Brind'Amour said. "Totally different, but a lot of similarities. There was a lot of great moments in that playoff run, for sure, and we're creating some here."

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Whalers fans still rooting, 22 years after the team’s move

By Pat Eaton-Robb

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — For Mark Anderson, the opening game between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Boston Bruins was a trip down memory lane.

Anderson was watching Game 1 closely at a gathering in suburban Hartford Thursday night as the Bruins rallied to beat the Hurricanes 5-2 behind four goals in the third period.

“Look at that,” Anderson said after Patrice Bergeron’s goal put Boston ahead for good. “It’s just like old times. Two b.s. penalties against us lead to two b.s. Bruins goals.”

If Anderson sounds like a Hurricanes fan, you’re not far off the mark. He is in fact a Hartford Whalers fan and was one of several members of the Hartford Whalers Booster Club (yes, it still exists) who watched the game at a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant in Manchester.

Twenty-two years after Hartford’s only major professional franchise left the city for Raleigh, North Carolina, the bittersweet love of the Whalers is still going strong for some.

The 44-year-old Anderson and the others could not resist getting together as the franchise that left them faced their former New England rival. Most said they were rooting for the Hurricanes, even if it caused them to spit up in their mouths just a little bit.

“I’ve always said that no matter what, I’d never root for the Bruins and never root for the Rangers,” said Dan Narvesen, 40, who came from some 25 miles away in Granby to watch with the club. “So, this would be one of the few times that I will root for Carolina.”

“And, whether it was for a money grab or not, the new owner did bring back the Whalers jerseys for a couple games this year, so at least they are finally acknowledging the past,” he added.

Are Narvesen and other Whalers die-hards living in that past? Former Whalers player Bob Crawford doesn’t see it that way.

Crawford, whose first goal in Hartford was a game-winner against the Bruins in 1983, said the city still holds a special place for many who follow the NHL, comparing it to Green Bay in the NFL: It was a small-market team that shared an underdog identity with the city, fighting for respect and recognition between New York and Boston.

“There is still a smile when people say Hartford Whalers,” said Crawford, who played for the team from 1983-86, still calls Connecticut home and owns several rinks in the state. “People who come here feel that warmth. It’s a special place and they love their Whalers, even now. You still see the colors everywhere.”

The fans also still hold out hope for the NHL’s return. Between beers and glances at the big screen, the talk Thursday night, as it often is when Whalers fans gather, is how to make that happen. Two years ago, hopes were raised as the New York Islanders scrambled to find a new home — the governor even reached out to the NHL — but the team wound up settling on a new location near Belmont Park.

Club President Joanne Cortesa said she believes an NHL return is just a pipe dream, “at least while (Gary) Bettman is commissioner.”

Others, like Matthew Greene, 41, are more hopeful. If the state would agree to rebuild or renovate the aging XL Center, the 15,000-seat arena where the Whalers once played and the city promotes the Interstate 91 corridor between New Haven, Connecticut, and Springfield, Massachusetts, as a viable market, well, there’s a path, he said.

“The problem is nobody in politics here dares to think big enough,” he said. “Have you ever been to a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Connecticut? Look at how much of that green is Whalers shirts. The fan base is here.”

The city is currently home to the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack, which draws only about 4,000 fans per game. Whalers fan Scott St. Laurent quickly pointed out the team is a New York Rangers affiliate —and the minors are not the NHL. He said there had been chatter that the Hurricanes might play a preseason game in Hartford, which would allow fans to fill the arena and show the NHL the potential is there.

“Do you think they’d still do that if they win the Stanley Cup this year?” he asked.

“I doubt it,” Cortesa replied.

“A reason to root for the Bruins,” Greene added as Boston scored again.

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Bruins-Hurricanes coaching matchup showcases clear evolution of the job

By Chris Johnston

BOSTON — Butch and Rod.

Two hockey guys to the core, with the names and bonafides to prove it. The head coaches in this Eastern Conference Final are also evidence of how things have evolved in the sport, particularly when it comes to how those running a bench handle players.

There’s a little more trust and a lot less yelling than there once was.

There’s a deeper understanding, too.

Rod Brind’Amour’s Carolina Hurricanes are basically only on the ice when they’re playing games at this point. The head coach began opting for more restful off-days while his players chased down a playoff spot in the final month of the season and has only taken them out for a morning skate before a game once during the post-season.

Bruce Cassidy treads the line between forceful and passive. He can get plenty fired up when energy sags on the Boston Bruins bench, but he also sees value in stepping aside and letting veterans Zdeno Chara or Patrice Bergeron impart their own wisdom instead.

“He lets us as the leaders have control of the room,” Chara said Friday.

The approach can best be described as a player’s touch from men who are probably still players at heart.

Brind’Amour, the 1,400-plus gamer, even had to catch himself after Thursday’s 5-2 loss in Game 1. He was talking about Dougie Hamilton playing on the edge throughout the night and added: “We all were. I mean not me, but the guys were.”

The first-year head coach also produced a highly gif-able moment when cameras caught him reviewing Hamilton’s questionable third-period roughing penalty. It came during a sequence where Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov was simultaneously belted in open ice with his back turned and that infraction wasn’t whistled.

Here’s how it looked to coach Rod:

“That’s the one I was frustrated with because I thought earlier in the game there was one where [Micheal] Ferland gave the guy less of a shot and there was a penalty,” Brind’Amour explained Friday. “I actually thought we were going on the power play. I didn’t see Dougie’s in the corner, so that was what kind of confused me on the whole thing.

“That’s not why we lost the game, but yes, I thought that [hit on Svechnikov] was the penalty.”

Knee injuries kept Cassidy from enjoying the kind of NHL playing career his counterpart had, but he is a former 18th-

overall pick with 36 games on his resume, plus hundreds of others in leagues ranging from the IHL to Italy.

Today he is among the most articulate, detailed and open coaches in the NHL. Cassidy can take a question about why his defencemen aren’t generating many shots on goal — as he did Friday — and turn it into a 100-plus word answer that touches on the impacts of different coverage patterns by opponents, why he doesn’t like seeing the Bruins pass it out to the points, how his skilled forwards create opportunities for better shots … and then punctuate it with a zinger.

“I’m not sure if our defencemen love me for that, but that’s just the way it works out,” said Cassidy. “I think they’re all under long-term contracts so they have nothing to worry about.”

However, by his own admission, the thinker can also put his charges on blast. He believes there are times when buttons need to be pushed, and he doesn’t shy away from those moments.

“I think you are who you are. I don’t think it’ll ever change,” said Cassidy. “I don’t think I’ll ever be this stoic guy behind there that never says a word, it’s just not my personality.”

“There’s times where he gets a little excited and emotional,” said defenceman Torey Krug. “Sometimes you just look over your shoulder and go ‘All right, let’s take a deep breath here and relax.”’

It can be an emotional time of year and teams take their cues from the voice at the front of the room.

When the Bruins scouted Carolina in the lead-up to this series, they saw a team that plays 200 feet and competes all over the ice. In essence, they saw the style Brind’Amour was known for during his 20-year career.

“I think they’re a reflection of their coach and how he approaches things in his own lifestyle, and they’ve got some juice,” said Bruins GM Don Sweeney.

There’s been a renaissance among his own team since Cassidy took over from Claude Julien in February 2017. The 53-year-old began his coaching career with the Jacksonville Lizard Kings more than two decades ago and is well aware of the opportunity at hand now that Boston is among the Final Four still playing in mid May.

He takes a moment each day to remind himself about that.

“Bobby Orr’s in the building [Thursday] night, walks in and I get an autographed book,” said Cassidy. “The guy’s my idol. How can you not enjoy that part of it? Ray [Bourque’s] doing the banner, another defenceman I’ve looked up to for years.

“I mean you’ve got to be in the moment, but for me, I [reflect] a lot, right or wrong.”

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Truth By Numbers: Who has the edge in the Conference Finals?

By Andrew Berkshire

The NHL’s Conference Finals have already begun, but let’s take a few moments to recap how we got here and look forward to what’s to come, similar to what we did in the last edition of Truth by Numbers for the first round.

Let’s start with the Eastern Conference.

The Boston Bruins have already managed to take the advantage in their series with the Carolina Hurricanes with a comeback win in Game 1 thanks to capitalizing twice on a trio of penalties in the third period that managed to erase a one-goal lead and create one of their own.

Looking at how each team played in the last round, the Hurricanes swept the Islanders but the series was much closer in detail than it ended up being in results. The Islanders wildly outchanced the Hurricanes off the rush, and controlled the passes to the slot, similar to what Washington did to Carolina in the first round, while the Hurricanes were slightly better at getting high-danger chances, and pounded the Islanders off the cycle.

The Bruins, meanwhile, took six games to drop the Columbus Blue Jackets, but heavily outplayed them everywhere. What makes the Bruins such a dangerous team is that they aren’t stuck to one style of play — they aren’t just a rush team or just a cycle team, or just a forechecking team. They do everything well, eventually overwhelming opponents.

One issue for the Hurricanes against the Bruins is going to be controlling passing plays, something that has been a weakness for them all playoffs and has been a particular strength of the Bruins for the better part of a decade now.

One thing that will be interesting to watch in this series will be special teams. Against the Maple Leafs, the Bruins’ were a gigantic advantage, whereas the Blue Jackets actually managed to cut into the Bruins on special teams a little bit, cutting their advantages in high-danger chances, shot attempts, and passes to the slot.

After Game 1, it didn’t look like the Hurricanes were fully prepared for the voracious power play the Bruins deploy, and Carolina has been primarily a strong even-strength team all playoffs long. So, can special teams be the difference in the series?

What about the West?

For the second straight series, the San Jose Sharks have prevailed in seven games, despite being pretty heavily outplayed by most metrics against the Vegas Golden Knights and now the Colorado Avalanche.

It’s not like the Sharks are a bad team. They were absolutely dominant at even strength, but the Golden Knights were better, and the Avalanche in the playoffs are just… not of this earth. The Avs’ preparation heading into a series is out of this world good, as I’ve looked into earlier this post-season, but even outplaying the Sharks just wasn’t enough this time.

Surprisingly, after the worst regular season of his career, you could make a good argument that Martin Jones has been one of the most important players on the Sharks’ roster. They

haven’t done a good job insulating him from quality shots at all, and while his overall save percentage isn’t great, he was excellent against the Avalanche.

In five of the seven games in round two, Jones posted a save percentage of .926 or better, and when your goaltender is able to do that despite your defence being relatively porous, you’ve got a pretty good chance at winning if you can get some opportunistic scoring. But it’s probably not a good idea for long-term success.

The Blues, on the other hand, went from playing an extremely tight series against the Winnipeg Jets, by every measure, to another tight series against the Dallas Stars that had some wider disparities in certain areas of gameplay.

The Stars were able to cut the Blues up off the rush, and their incredible defensive control of the inner slot area, especially on special teams, led to a large advantage in high-danger chances overall, while the Blues controlled the overall shot volume and exerted unbelievably impressive control of the cycle game, getting over 62 per cent of the chances off the cycle in the series at 5-vs-5.

With both teams playing seven games in Round 2, there’s no talk of one team being more rested than the other, and there’s not a lot of time for either coaching staff to prepare for this one, so we should get some fun twists and turns as the series goes on and the teams adjust to each other.

While the Sharks haven’t dominated either of their opponents in the playoffs so far, both the Golden Knights and Avalanche were amazing teams at attacking off the rush, and the Sharks were pretty good at generating counterattacks the same way, especially at even strength.

The biggest weakness the Blues have defensively is defending off the rush, so while the Sharks may not have a reputation as a fast team, they can create chances off the rush, which is an area to watch in this one.

BUY OR SELL

• When Joe Pavelski was hurt in Game 7 against the Golden Knights, you had to wonder how the Sharks would weather that loss. The answer has been a huge step up from Logan Couture. For a long time, Couture was one of the ‘young Sharks’ on an older team — now he’s a 30-year-old vet leading the way. Of forwards left in the playoffs, only Timo Meier and Patrice Bergeron have created more scoring chances per 20 minutes at 5-vs-5 than he has.

• The enduring storyline for the Sharks in recent years has been to finally get Jumbo Joe Thornton a Cup, but at 39 years old, he’s not just a greybeard trying to hang onto a role, he’s still a key player. Only Meier and Couture have created more scoring chances for the Sharks than Thornton has.

• How big of a payoff has it been for Boston to bring in Charlie Coyle? It seems like every goal he scores is a key one, even the empty-net ones, and while he’s on the ice the Bruins have controlled 67 per cent of the high-danger scoring chances. The Bruins depth has been massive in the playoffs, because their top line has been uncharacteristically exploitable defensively. The Bruin who’s been on the ice for the most

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high-danger chances-against per minute in the playoffs? Brad Marchand.

• Jordan Staal took a bad penalty that turned the tide against the Canes in Game 1, but he’s going to be a key in that series.

Staal has always been an analytics darling, but his performance in these playoffs might be his best ever. While he’s on the ice, the Hurricanes are controlling 72 per cent of the high-danger chances, 60 per cent of the passes to the slot, and 61 per cent of the shot attempts. That’s beastly.

Canes’ Slavin ‘walks the walk’ as man of faith in NHL

By Frank Seravalli

BOSTON — Carolina Hurricanes defenceman Jaccob Slavin met his wife on Twitter, but probably not in the manner you might think.

“Most people think, ‘Oh, you’re the hockey player. She creeped you or she stalked you, right?’ But no,” Slavin says. “It was a total God thing.”

Long before he had a true path to the NHL, was drafted by the Hurricanes or signed a $37-million deal, Slavin was playing in the United States Hockey League in Chicago as an 18-year-old when he was drawn to a tweet from his now-wife Kylie.

“She wrote about being on fire for the Lord, so I clicked on her profile,” Slavin said. “Reading through her tweets, I could tell she was genuine and really loved the Lord. I clicked on the picture and I was sold. I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll follow her.’ She didn’t follow me back for a while so I had to work at it. Eventually we started talking.”

Slavin convinced Kylie to meet after sending her a Snapchat with a video of him singing Taylor Swift’s “Stay Stay Stay.”

“Then I guess you’d say the rest is history,” Slavin said.

History is His Story, the Bible says – and Slavin’s story is very much his own in today’s NHL. Slavin is unapologetically himself.

Slavin has been a revelation to the rest of the hockey world, leading the Hurricanes in points as a defenceman in their first run to the Eastern Conference final in a decade, and he isn’t afraid to reveal what matters most to him.

“My faith is the most important thing to me, to my wife, and to my family,” Slavin said. “That’s who I am and what I stand for. That’s how I was raised, to not be ashamed of it – even if guys on my team, guys around the league, they might poke fun every now and again.”

The bigger the stage, the bigger the platform to share his message – but it’s been that way since Slavin first got to the NHL, not new since the Canes have become relevant again. This isn’t attention-seeking.

“He walks the walk,” said Glen Wesley, whose No. 2 is retired by the Hurricanes. “He has been given a platform and he’s not afraid of any type of persecution or being stomped on for what he stands for. That’s his No. 1 objective. There is a lot of boldness there and I commend him for being who he is. God has given him a great talent.”

Slavin, 25, has a team-high 11 points in 12 Stanley Cup playoff games this spring – already approaching half his 31-point total from the 82-game regular season. With 11 assists in his first 10 playoff games, he was four off Bobby Orr’s record, and tied in heady company with Paul Coffey and Brian Leetch.

Wesley, now 50, has known Slavin since the Hurricanes drafted him in the fourth round (120th overall) in 2012. Up until last year, Wesley was Carolina’s director of development for defencemen, the man responsible for helping nurture Slavin through the ranks. He left the organization last year after new owner Tom Dundon took over and was hired immediately by the St. Louis Blues.

Some other coaches in the Hurricanes’ organization have tried to push Slavin to play a more mean or physical style, but he won’t try to be something he’s not. No surprise.

“Everybody has a personality and when you are an adult, it’s hard to change that,” Wesley said. “He is always going to be a stick-on-stick guy. That’s fine. He is elite without that edge, the way he gets away from checks, his fast first three steps, his vision is incredible.”

Wesley has a special bond with Slavin. Wesley says he “became a believer” himself while playing for Hartford in the 1990s. On his day with Stanley in 2006, Wesley took the Cup to church. He knows what it’s like to be Slavin, to have teammates look at him sideways in a generally unreligious sport.

It’s common to see NFL players pray in the end zone after a touchdown on Sunday, or to see an MLB player point to the sky as he touches home plate, or for an NBA player to say how he is blessed in post-game interviews. That almost never happens in hockey.

“Very minimal. It’s definitely rare,” Slavin said. “Hockey is probably one of the roughest sports out there that doesn’t talk about religion and, I mean, I don’t know why that is?”

He has a guess.

“I don’t think a lot of hockey players grew up seeing the need for it,” Slavin said. “If you play hockey you obviously grew up in a more wealthy lifestyle, because the game’s so expensive to play. But like with football and basketball, all you need is a field as a ball, you know? So that’s a [big factor].”

Part of the other reason might be hockey’s diversity. According to Canada’s 2011 National Household Survey, 24

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per cent of the country identified as not religious. In the United States, the number is a lot lower, at 18 per cent.

But nearly half the NHL is Canadian. The number of people who identify as not religious is even higher in Sweden (28 per cent), Finland (28 per cent) and Russia (13 per cent). Blend it all together and more players in hockey are less religious, by nature, than other sports.

“Religion is big in Canada, but the religion is hockey,” Wesley said, laughing. “But seriously, hockey is always on the weekend. A lot of times if you’re going to church, it’s at the same time. I think that has something to do with it.”

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Wesley says religion has grown by “leaps and bounds” in the NHL over the last two decades. Slavin hails from Erie, Colo., but he said he attends a Southern Baptist church in Carolina. He watches church services online when he is on the road with the team.

But there are now regular chapel meetings that take place between players at the rink or hotel throughout the season – no special time or place required.

“It’s Christian, but it’s nondenominational,” Slavin said. “It’s every day and everyday interactions and everyday life and great conversations.”

On the Winnipeg Jets, for instance, Mark Scheifele, Adam Lowry, Josh Morrissey and Tucker Poolman have all been cited as players who gather to pray and talk. Boston’s David Backes, Florida's James Reimer, Columbus’ Adam McQuaid, Buffalo’s Tage

Thompson and Vegas’ Paul Stastny have all been involved with Hockey Ministries International.

Wesley said current Canes’ coach Rod Brind’Amour was known to occaisionally attend chapel as a player in Carolina.

“Rod was very respectful of me,” Wesley said. “He’s that guy that created a culture there to be respectful of everyone’s interest, that it’s OK to be different.”

Brind’Amour said he’s enjoyed watching all of Carolina's unique personalities come together - whether it's Slavin or Dougie Hamilton or the team "dad," as he referred to captain Justin Williams - in a special way in his first season as an NHL head coach.

“It’s a family,” Brind’Amour said. “You play at this time of the year, I don’t think you can get this far without having those intangibles as a group. We’ve had them all year … There’s a real brotherhood in there for sure. You can feel it when you’re around on a daily basis.”

Slavin is trying to bring more people together. A gathering is planned to bring current and former NHL and AHL players together in Utah this summer through PAO (Pro Athletes Outreach). Retired playoff pest turned agent Claude Lemieux has spoken with Slavin and others such as David Booth to help organize.

“That’s been pretty fun to see it come together,” Slavin said. “We’re trying to get people aware of it and trying to get people out there just to see that we can still have fun even with what we believe in.”

Systems Analyst: How to Lose a Game in 28 Seconds

The Hurricanes’ penalty kill struggled yet again and it cost them game one.

By Ford Hatchett

The Carolina Hurricanes’ penalty kill was at it again, allowing two more goals in the game one loss in Boston.

Statistically, the Canes’ PK is the worst of any of the conference finalists, now hovering just above 73% for the postseason. The Bruins took full advantage, tallying a pair of power-play goals, one of which would prove to be the game winner, 28 seconds apart in the third period.

The first of the two goals for Boston began with a fortunate bounce off of a linesman’s skate, preventing the puck from escaping to neutral ice.

Once Brad Marchand skillfully held the blue line, the Bruins got to work snapping the puck around the ice. A David Krejci slap-pass down low to Torey Krug draws both Lucas Wallmark and Brock McGinn into the slot, opening space for

a return pass to Krejci and a subsequent feed to Marchand for a one-timer.

Wallmark and McGinn are cheating down to cover Charlie Coyle who is in a high danger area in the slot. When Krejci gets the puck back, Wallmark quickly recovers into Krejci’s shooting lane and forces a pass to Marchand.

Instead of stopping and starting on a direct path towards Marchand, McGinn takes a big, loopy angle to Marchand, following the puck more than closing on the man. That causes him to be a half second late getting into the shooting lane and the Bruins’ 100 point man gets the puck to the net where Marcus Johansson deposits the loose change.

The second Bruins’ power-play goal came on a tic-tac-toe play from Jake DeBrusk, Marchand and Patrice Bergeron.

DeBrusk makes a beautiful cross crease pass to Marchand who one touches it to Bergeron. DeBrusk’s pass is only possible because Jaccob Slavin is so low along the goal line, instead of on the top of the crease.

CAROLINA HURRICANES


Earlier in the period on the penalty kill, Slavin expertly foresaw a wrap pass, cheated towards the boards and intercepted the pass and sent it the length of the rink.

On the Bruins game-winning goal, Slavin again foresaw the wrap pass and cheated towards the back boards, only this time DeBrusk made him pay.

With Brett Pesce tightly on DeBrusk, it’s understandable why Slavin would expect the wrap, but when it doesn’t come Slavin

is too low to recover on Bergeron and the four-time Selke Trophy winner fires home a bouncing puck to give Boston the lead.

Regardless of whether the infractions were undisciplined or bad calls, penalties are going to happen and the Hurricanes have to find a way to better contain a lethal Bruins power play.

About Last Night: A Tough Pill To Swallow

The Hurricanes had game one in the bag and it was taken away from them.

By Cody Hagan

On paper and where it counts, the Boston Bruins took down the Carolina Hurricanes 5-2 last night. Everyone else outside of Boston knows this game was 2-2 when things were allowed to get out of hand. Unfortunately for the Canes, things happen and you have to have the ability to respond, and they were unable to do that amidst controversy last night leading to the Bruins taking a one game lead in this best of seven series.

The Good - The First 40

Going in to game one if you said the Canes would be leading by a goal after 40 minutes most fans would have happily taken that. The Canes put themselves in to that position thanks to two big goals by Sebastian Aho and Greg McKegg.

Aho’s power play goal is set up by winning a face off and Andrei Svechnikov just getting the puck on net. Aho was able to shake his defender and get to the front of the net for the redirection but that play doesn’t happen without the face off win by Jordan Staal.


The McKegg goal is all about determination by Kegger. He got a step of the defender and drove the net where he was able to put it past Tuukka Rask before crashing in to him and the net. The play was reviewed but it was clear the puck went in before any contact was made and at that point the Hurricanes had all the momentum.


Two completely different goals put the Canes atop after two periods. Both goals are a microcosm of everything the Hurricane need to be successful in this series. A goal by their star player on the power play, and a goal from a bottom six guy who scores by pure determination. The Canes need that scoring balance in order to win any game and it was nearly enough last night.

The Bad - Not Quite Enough Dazzle

Before anyone jumps to conclusions, this point is not to say Petr Mrazek was bad last night, just that he wasn’t quite good enough. The sole reason the Hurricanes are even to this point in the playoffs is because they got above average goaltending for the majority of the year. After he missed two games and having been off since April 28th, Rod Brind’ Amour chose to go back to Mrazek in net despite Curtis McElhinney being perfect in net during Mrazek’s absence.

Whether or not that was even the right choice to begin with is up for debate, as it sends a weird message to yank the guy who’s been perfect for you. Yet that was the decision that was made. The Hurricanes needed the Mrazzle Dazzle effect to be in full force shut down mode and he wasn’t quite there last night.

Mrazek is a goalie that plays with a lot of emotions and a lot of the time that leads to a feast or famine situation. McElhinney on the other hand is a calming presence to the entire team when he is in net.

If you look at the Bruins third goal that ended up being the game winner, you can see where a more calming presence may have been better for the Canes. After just giving up the tying goal and having an extremely controversial penalty called against you, a calming voice would be great. Instead Mrazek was jumpy and he left his five hole wide open while trying to push over which allowed Patrice Bergeron to score.

Again, this point isn’t to say Mrazek was bad last night. He made numerous big saves for the Canes, it’s simply saying maybe he wasn’t as good as the Canes needed him to be. We all know Mrazek can shut a team down as he already has two shutouts this postseason. One would imagine he will be back in net for game two and the Hurricanes desperately need him to bring his absolute best on Sunday.

The Ugly - The Entire Third Period

No matter where the fault lies the third period cost the Hurricanes last night. Jordan Staal took a bad penalty to start the period and that allowed the Bruins to tie the game at 2-2. Boston has the momentum at this point and the building was going crazy. What happened shortly after that goal to tie the game is where every Caniac should take major issue.

Dougie Hamilton was called for a roughing minor just seconds after the tying goal. On that very same play just a moment after the back official raises his hand on the Hamilton called Sean Kuraly absolutely obliterates a defenseless Svechnikov from behind. Take a closer look at the plays:

By the letter of the law Hamilton should maybe get a elbowing penalty on his play. But how in the hell Kuraly does not get called for interference on that play is absolutely mind boggling. This may be one of the single worst missed calls of this entire postseason because it directly leads to the Bruins’ game winning goal.

So we are past that go ahead goal now, and the referees call an interference call on Hamilton less than three minutes after

CAROLINA HURRICANES


the missed call on Kuraly. Take a look at this penalty and see how that compares to the non call:

The key point in both situations is: what should determine interference? Is it where is the puck at? On the Kuraly hit, it is not anywhere near the play. On Hamilton’s penalty, the puck is right at their feet while a board battle is ongoing.

Now, the Hurricanes managed to kill off Hamilton’s second penalty but the question has to be posed, why is one of those a penalty and the other not?

When asked after the game about the calls Brind’Amour gave the cliche answer of the team has to go out and kill it. But a penalty should never directly impact the results of a contest yet here we are once again. It’s beyond time for the NHL to take action when it comes to their officiating. The San Jose vs Vegas series showed us that and now there has been another game that has had it’s outcome directly impacted by terrible officiating. Time to step up NHL, this is unacceptable.

Momentum in hockey is sometimes unstoppable. Giving the Bruins another power play on such a questionable call right after they tied the game gift wrapped the momentum to the

Bruins and they easily cashed in. There was nothing the Canes could’ve done about it.

The Canes third period cost them the game, but it certainly was not all their fault. There should be some accountability from the league in regards to the ugly events from last night, but there won’t be and we will go in to game two like nothing ever happened which is truly unfortunate.

Moral of the Story

Last night was a tough pill to swallow because the Hurricanes were the better team through 40 minutes and the game should have been tied early in the third. Instead the Canes found themselves trailing due to something they cannot control. Now they have to find a way to bounce back on Sunday and try to even this series. They cannot let what happened in the last 20 minutes last night affect them going forward. If the Canes come out and play like they did in the first and second they will not only win game two, but they will win this series.

Jeremy Helvig assigned to Florida

by Nicholas Niedzielski

With a week until they begin their Eastern Conference Finals series against Toronto, the Checkers have sent Jeremy Helvig to the ECHL’s Florida Everblades. The rookie goaltender served as Dustin Tokarski’s backup for Game 1 against Hershey and has been Charlotte’s third goalie since Alex Nedeljkovic returned from his NHL stint.

Helvig returns to Florida as they prepare to face the Newfoundland Growlers in the ECHL’s Eastern Conference Finals. The 21-year-old has played in four games during the Everblades’ current playoff run, going 2-2 with a 2.47 goals-against average. Helvig finished the regular season tied for third in the ECHL in wins and posted the league’s third-best goals-against average.

TODAY’S LINKS https://www.newsobserver.com/sports/article230265829.html https://www.newsobserver.com/sports/article230139584.html

https://www.newsobserver.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/luke-decock/article230258904.html https://www.newsobserver.com/sports/article230265734.html

https://theathletic.com/972089/2019/05/10/bourne-how-bostons-coaching-centres-and-confidence-propelled-them-to-a-game-1-win-over-carolina/ https://nsjonline.com/article/2019/05/hurricanes-remain-in-control-despite-game-1-loss/

https://www.nhl.com/news/hurricanes-quickly-shift-focus-to-game-2/c-307333468 https://www.nhl.com/news/carolina-hurricanes-memories-of-2009-conference-final-appearance/c-307330654

https://www.apnews.com/25e4cdb24d4c4627b6f02184d6100cb4 https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/bruins-hurricanes-coaching-matchup-showcases-clear-evolution-job/

https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/truth-numbers-edge-conference-finals/ https://www.tsn.ca/talent/canes-slavin-walks-the-walk-as-man-of-faith-in-nhl-1.1304169

https://www.canescountry.com/2019/5/10/18564314/systems-analyst-how-to-lose-a-game-in-28-seconds-slavin-bergeron-marchand-bruins-eastern-conference

https://www.canescountry.com/2019/5/10/18563930/about-last-night-a-tough-pill-to-swallow-carolina-hurricanes-boston-bruins-game-one-officials-loss

http://gocheckers.com/articles/transactions/jeremy-helvig-assigned-to-florida

CAROLINA HURRICANES


1144300 Carolina Hurricanes

Deadline pickups Charlie Coyle and Marcus Johansson have added life to Bruins

BY MATT PORTER

MAY 10, 2019 07:28 PM

Previous trade deadlines haven’t been kind to the Bruins.

Adding Rick Nash was a strong move last year, in theory. Bruins general manager Don Sweeney paid a significant ransom for a veteran star, but his health hampered his production and eventually forced his retirement. Previous deadlines brought Drew Stafford (2017), John-Michael Liles and Lee Stempniak (2016), Brett Connolly (2015) and Andrej Meszaros (2014), none of whom moved the Black and Gold needle.

It’s too early to say whether Marcus Johansson and Charlie Coyle can lift

the Bruins like Chris Kelly and Rich Peverley did in the Stanley Cup season of 2011. These B’s, however, are more than halfway to hockey

heaven, and the two deadline pickups are a significant reason why.

Coach Bruce Cassidy called them “very, very” important to the Bruins,

who will try to extend their 1-0 Eastern Conference Final lead against the Hurricanes in Game 2, at 3 p.m. Sunday.

“It’s been good timing all around. It’s why we’re still playing,” Cassidy said. “Carolina, St. Louis and San Jose would say the same, that certain people stepped up at certain times. ... If we don’t get secondary scoring, we’re probably not having this discussion right now, so it’s a credit to them.”

The Bruins weren’t looking for superstars on Feb. 25. They did need a third-line center and a second-line right wing, two revolving-door positions at which management’s bets on young players and internal solutions came up empty. The two prime-aged players they acquired -- Coyle is 27, Johansson is 28, with a combined 1,088 regular-season and

142 playoff games between them -- have been productive and versatile as they hunt for their first Cups.

Coyle, snatched from the Wild in exchange for Ryan Donato and a conditional fifth-rounder, is tied with teammate Patrice Bergeron for fourth

in the league in playoff goals (six; with three assists in 14 games). Five of them have come at even strength. He scored twice in Game 1 of the

second round against Columbus, tying the game and winning it in overtime.

Johansson, dealt by the Devils for a second- and a fourth-round pick, missed two playoff games with the flu but has a 3-4--7 line in 12 games. His passing and vision have helped Boston’s third line, with center Coyle and right wing Danton Heinen, create big moments.

In the clinching Game 6 at Columbus, Johansson made it 2-0 in the third period on a criss-cross zone entry with Coyle, snapping a shot through Sergei Bobrovsky. The pair also connected for Coyle’s tying goal in

Game 1 against the Blue Jackets, Johansson finding him on the rush with a stellar backhand feed through a maze of defenders.

Both factored into Thursday’s Game 1 against the Hurricanes. Johansson’s steal and patient setup of Steven Kampfer created the opening goal, and his net-front putback on the power play tied the score at 2. Coyle, trusted to help the Bruins stave off a 6-on-5 attack in a 3-2 game, scored an empty-netter. The Weymouth product has also spotted in as the No. 2 right wing, helping Cassidy keep David Backes’ 35-year-old pistons firing more effectively.

“Couldn’t care less about who scores and who does what, as long as we get it done together,” said Johansson, who spent seven seasons with

Washington, only to see the Capitals win it all the season after he was traded to New Jersey. “I think that’s one of the strengths of this team –

that we have 20 guys that can do it. I think we’ve showed that more than once.”

Johansson impressed many of his teammates by bouncing back from a hit by Carolina’s Micheal Ferland on March 5, which sent him to the

hospital. Chris Wagner, one of the hardest-hitting Bruins, called it “one of the harder hits I’ve seen all year, just how square and solid it was.” Johansson missed three weeks with a lung contusion.

Since coming alive this postseason, he has even changed Mike Milbury’s mind.

Milbury, the hard-nosed ex-Bruins defenseman and coach-turned-NBC analyst, called Johansson “marshmallow soft” on air during the first-round Toronto series, and said his play was “disconnected” and “a

disappointment.” Reached in San Jose, where he is working the first two games of the Sharks-Blues series before heading to Carolina for Games

3 and 4, Milbury didn’t walk back those comments, but he did credit Johansson for making an impact.

“He’s been a pleasant surprise,” Milbury said. “I didn’t know he had the compete level. He seems to have ratched it up at the right time.”

Milbury still didn’t think Johansson was a good fit for Boston as a net-front presence on the first power play unit. But Cassidy trusts him in that

role. To score his game-tying PPG in Game 1, Johansson took a cross-check in the back, as anyone standing there does, and was in position to roof a loose puck over Petr Mrazek.

Wagner shares Milbury’s hometown (Walpole) and alma mater (Colgate), but not his opinion on No. 90.

“I mean, the plays he’s making right now, I don’t know how that would be considered soft,” Wagner said, referring to Johansson’s stop-and-wait pass on Kampfer’s goal. “Last night, to pull up like that when they have good back pressure, you could get hit. That’s a hit he’s willing to take. To have the poise like that to thread it through another guy’s skates, like he

did against Columbus, that’s certainly not soft. And that was a pretty crispy backhand pass, right on Kamp’s tape, so yeah, doesn’t look too soft to me.”

News Observer LOADED: 05.11.2019


CAROLINA HURRICANES


Rod Brind’Amour makes the call: it’s time for the Canes to focus on Game 2

BY CHIP ALEXANDER

MAY 10, 2019 04:26 PM

Sometimes, it’s hard to read too much into body language, especially

with pro athletes.

But in watching the Carolina Hurricanes players Friday at their team

hotel, they came across as loose, focused and confident, certainly anything but a silent, sullen group a day after a tough playoff loss.

Rod Brind’Amour? The Canes coach had the look of a man in a hurry, ready to discuss Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals one last time for the media, if a bit reluctantly, and move on.

To be sure, losing Thursday to the Boston Bruins was a stinger. The Canes took a 2-1 lead into the third period only to have the Bruins score two power-play goals in 28 seconds to take the lead, then move on to a 5-2 victory at TD Garden.

The Canes did not practice Friday with Game 2 set for Sunday afternoon.

But video sessions could not have been a pleasurable viewing experience. In addition to plays not made in Game 1 -- Brock McGinn, on

a shorthanded rush, missing the net late in the second period -- there were any number of borderline calls and no-calls by the referees.

Case in point: Dougie Hamilton’s roughing penalty in the third period. Moments after it, the Canes’ Andrei Svechnikov took a blindside hit from

behind from Sean Kuraly, in the neutral zone and away from the puck, without a penalty being called.

“That’s the one I was frustrated with,” Brind’Amour said Friday. “I actually thought we were going on the power play. I didn’t see Dougie’s in the corner. That’s not why we lost the game but, yes, I thought that was a penalty.”

So did most Canes fans, who bombarded Twitter with their opinions -- about the hit on Svechnikov and other calls.

The Bruins had tied the score 2-2 early in the third with a power-play goal after the Canes’ Jordan Staal was called for boarding. After Hamilton’s

penalty, Patrice Bergeron’s power-play score on an open shot from the slot gave the Bruins a 3-2 lead.

Brind’Amour used his timeout at that point, but the damage had been done and the Bruins were sensing victory.

“They score two goals, the crowd gets into it, they took a lead,” Canes captain Justin Williams said. “Rod took a timeout to calm us down but we

weren’t able to equalize.”

The Bruins had been scoring on the power play at a 28.6-percent clip in

the playoffs, the best among the 16 playoff teams. But the Canes took five penalties in the game -- three in a row in the third period -- and as Hamilton put it, “It bit us in the butt.”

The Bruins scored the two in the third with two of their best players doing best-player kind of things, making the right plays to break down the Carolina penalty kill.

After the Staal penalty, the Bruins’ Brad Marchand made a good play to keep the puck in the zone at the blue line. Marchand then got off a shot from the right circle that goalie Petr Mrazek couldn’t swallow up, the puck falling in front of him.

The Bruins’ Marcus Johansson, between defensemen Calvin de Haan and Justin Faulk in front of the crease, knocked the puck in.

Hamilton was called for roughing after spotting the Bruins’ Joakim Nordstrom, a former Canes forward, skating in for a check. Hamilton, at

6-6 and 229 pounds, turned and put a reverse hit on the 6-1, 194-pound Nordstrom, hitting Nordstrom high in the chest.

In the first-round series against the Washington Capitals, Hamilton was criticized for side-stepping a hit by the Caps’ Alex Ovechkin. This time, he took and delivered a hit, only to be penalized.

On the power play, the Bruins’ Jake DeBrusk knocked the puck away from defenseman Brett Pesce after the faceoff in the Canes zone. Getting the puck back along the boards, DeBrusk made a cross-ice pass off his knees to Marchand. Mrazek went to the post, anticipating a Marchand shot, only to have Marchand slide a quick pass to Bergeron in

the slot for the shot.

McGinn nearly got his stick on the DeBrusk pass to Marchand, and

defenseman Jaccob Slavin nearly got his stick on the Bergeron shot -- a matter of inches -- but the Bruins executed and converted.

Greg McKegg addresses the media following the Hurricanes' 5-2 loss to the Boston Bruins in game 1 of their Stanley Cup playoffs series

Thursday night, May 9, 2019. By

“We can’t take penalties. We know that,” Brind’Amour said Friday. “We

don’t get into ‘are they penalties are not?’ They’re penalties. If they’re penalties, we have to kill ‘em. At the end of the day that’s not why we lost the game. We have to execute in those situations.”

To even the series Sunday before heading back to Raleigh for Games 3 and 4, the Canes will be after a stronger start than in Game 1. Brind’Amour again will wait to name a starting goalie but it figures to be Mrazek again, and he said there were no injuries in the game -- Svechnikov, shaken up by the Kuraly hit, did return and play.

The Canes will hold a team practice Saturday at TD Garden.

“I don’t like sitting in hotels for two days but again, that’s stuff you can’t

control,” Brind’Amour said. “We’ve got to worry about what we can control. We can’t control calls or non-calls, can’t control the schedule.

“Control what we can control. Bounces, we’ve got to create our own. We’ve got to make our own noise and that’s what we’re going to try to

do.”

Brind’Amour said Game 1 would be forgotten as soon as he walked out

of the room after the press conference. Moments later, he walked out.



There’s one way to forever remember this Hurricanes’ playoff run. Get a tattoo.

BY JESSICA BANOV

MAY 10, 2019 04:02 PM

There’s something about the Hurricanes that inspires a certain kind of loyalty in their quest for the Stanley Cup.

We’re not talking about getting a token souvenir T-shirt or puck, or even the bigger investment of a jersey. Those are for the casual fans.

It’s the kind of devotion that compels you to mark your love for the Canes

in a more everlasting way, the kind you might not tell your mom about. (But you most certainly will share with the world on social media.)

We’re talking tattoos.

CAROLINA HURRICANES


Now that Carolina is in the Eastern Conference finals, the need for Canes ink is at a high right now, and not just among the super fans. At some point during the Hurricanes postseason run, seemingly Twitter is overflowing with tweets from someone vowing — vowing! — to get a Canes or Stanley Cup tattoo, perhaps in a delicate place hidden from the sun, if the team wins the whole shebang.

Or in some people’s case, that was the deal if the Canes won the first round. Because when your team hasn’t been in the playoffs in a decade, what are the chances, right?

“It happened,” said J.C. Bobbitt, with a big laugh.

Hi @hockeygods and #CanesTwitter.

As it is game 6, and we are down 3-2…I re-open this plea for the series.

Let’s. Do. This. https://t.co/3Qr0Nv21EP

— x - ECF Bobbitt (@jcbobbitt) April 22, 2019

Bobbitt, a 31-year-old from Durham, told his social media followers he would get a tattoo if the Canes beat the Capitals to advance to the second round. The Hurricanes ended up beating Washington in seven games. And for Bobbitt’s very first tattoo, it would be a special one.

“If the hockey gods can get us a win, I’ll get a tattoo on my rear end of

whoever scores the game-winning goal,” he recalled saying.

GET SPORTS PASS FOR THE HURRICANES IN THE PLAYOFFS

Follow beat writer Chip Alexander, columnist Luke DeCock and our visual journalists wherever the Hurricanes go in the playoffs, at home and

on the road.

Like many who tempt fate with such grand gestures, the hockey gods

answered his plea. Filled with giddy excitement the night the Hurricanes eked out a Game 7, 4-3 win in double overtime, getting a tattoo wasn’t on

his priority list. The next day, though, he felt a nagging sense of obligation to keep his word, though really, who would know if he didn’t get a tattoo on his derriere?

“So when’s your tattoo happening?” texted his mother, who had seen his bet on Twitter.

“In the moment it happens, people ask, when are you doing it?” Bobbitt said. “It becomes a point of personal pride. I said, ‘I’m going to do this. I’m going to be held to my word.’”

In the process, Bobbitt decided to raise money for the Carolina Hurricanes Foundation, which helps area children and promotes youth

hockey. He raised about $135.

He booked an appointment to get the number 23, for Hurricanes left wing

Brock McGinn, on his rear end, incorporating a Hurricanes flag in the design. Bobbitt, a graduate of Wake Forest, didn’t want people to mistake

the number for another No. 23 well-known in North Carolina: Michael Jordan.

“It never really hurt,” he said about the experience. “I got it before Game 3 in Raleigh, and my concern was sitting in the arena. It was a little sore. If someone was going to smack me on it, it would sting a little bit.”

HAMILTON THE PIG

Leah Adams made a similar pledge on Twitter during Game 7 of the first round of the playoffs. In her case, she said she’d get a tattoo of Hamilton, the Raleigh pig that’s become a symbol of good luck for the team.

“As I call it, an offering to the hockey gods,” Adams told The News & Observer. “Lo and behold, we’ve made it this far.”

This isn’t the first tattoo for Adams, a 29-year-old who lives in

Greensboro, so the shock value isn’t there. But if she’s getting a Canes tattoo, this is the year to get that permanent memento. She grew up in

Raleigh and remembers when the Hurricanes won the Cup in 2006, a feat that inspired her to learn how to play hockey.

If we win this game I will get a tattoo of a pig.

— x - Little Bear Adams (@dumpling_prince) April 25, 2019

And while it was mostly self-inflicted pressure to follow through with the tattoo, it was never anything she thought she’d regret. She now has a realistic portrayal of the pig on her right thigh — “a solid 4 inches tall,” she said.

“He’s a pretty cute pig,” Adams said. “He’s bringing us a lot of luck. It would be a fun way to remember this playoff run.”

One — well, two — things remain for Adams this season. Winning the

Stanley Cup, of course. And, she said: “I have to meet that pig.”

Hamilton has captured Kristopher Wishon’s heart, too. He and a few friends have toyed with the idea of getting Hamilton tattoos as well. It started as a bet — something they would dare each other to do if the Hurricanes win the Cup. But now, it just seems like something they should do, no matter the outcome.

“We’re trying to get everyone’s schedules together and get this thing done,” said Wishon, who lives outside Greensboro and regularly attends games. “This is a memorable year.”

Their Hamilton might look a little different than Adams. It wouldn’t be a portrait, Wishon said.

“In very layman’s term, it’s Porky Pig with Hamilton’s colors waving a

Hurricanes flag,” Wishon said. “Hamilton is a big deal.”

Debt paid. pic.twitter.com/tpRNXkN4dx

— x - Little Bear Adams (@dumpling_prince) May 7, 2019

Watch a time-lapse as the Carolina Hurricanes' Andrei Svechnikov

scores and celebrates in the third period of the Carolina Hurricanes' 5-2 victory over the New York Islanders at PNC Arena in Raleigh, N.C.

Friday, May 3, 2019. By

FINALLY, A SHOT

And really, this whole season has been a big deal, especially for those who have stuck by the team through its ups and downs, which have been more down than up in recent years. Just ask Amanda Willis, who has been a fan since 2002, when the Hurricanes made it to the Stanley Cup finals for the first time, and can easily rattle off a time line of the team’s history. She became a season ticket holder when the team was, as she

puts it, “really bad.”

“But it was great,” she said. “I was still obsessed with them.”

She describes the “torture” of the NHL lockout of 2004-05, when “it was like hockey was being ripped away from us.”

But then, it was 2006, and hockey was back and the Canes were good. Really good. She made one of those declarations about getting a tattoo.

“It was just a magic year,” she said, with the night of June 19, 2006, when the Hurricanes beat the Oilers 3-1 in Game 7 to win the Stanley

Cup, etched in her memories.

“The best night of my life was Game 7,” said Willis, who is 39 and lives in Raleigh. “Nothing compared to that.”

Amanda Willis got a tattoo in 2006 when the Carolina Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup playoffs. Amanda Willis

She got a tattoo of the Stanley Cup with the Canes logo and 2006 on her ankle. It was her second tattoo.

Now, the craziness is back, and Willis is contemplating getting a second Canes tattoo if they win again.

“I just hope we keep going,” she said. “It’s almost too good to be true. I’m

just so proud of the team. I really think they have a shot.”

HURRICANES AT BRUINS

CAROLINA HURRICANES


Eastern Conference finals

When: 3 p.m., Sunday

Where: TD Garden, Boston

TV: NBC



A familiar position for the Hurricanes, albeit with unfamiliar stakes

BY LUKE DECOCK

MAY 10, 2019 03:38 PM

Here they are again: frustrated, aggrieved and discounted. While losing

for the first time in six playoff games may have been a shock to the Carolina Hurricanes’ system, the position they find themselves in now is

not. If anything, it’s all too familiar.

The aftermath of Thursday’s Game 1 loss to the Boston Bruins has a lot

in common with the aftermath of last month’s Game 1 loss to the Washington Capitals, with the exception of an extra day off, which gave Rod Brind’Amour something else to grump about.

In both games, the Hurricanes felt they were the better team five-on-five, only to be undone by the opposition’s power play. In both games, they felt like they got the short end of the officiating against a more respected opponent in a hostile environment. In both games, they thought they let a chance to steal a win on the road slip through their fingers.

Start breaking down the details, and the comparison starts to break down, not unexpectedly. From 10,000 feet, it looks pretty much the

same.

“We’ve been in this situation before,” said Sebastian Aho, who extended

his goal-scoring streak to three games with an early power-play goal. “It’s good we have that experience.”

Maybe it is. Maybe the Hurricanes have no margin for error in this series, just like the Washington series, which despite their victory still came

down to double overtime in Game 7 and could easily have gone either way. People forget that now, because of everything that’s happened since. It wasn’t exactly the invasion of Grenada.

So this game may very well come back to haunt the Hurricanes, just as their overtime loss in Game 2 in Washington could have, their best chance to flip home-ice advantage in that series. Holding a lead, however tenuous, over the Bruins through two periods on the road is an opportunity carelessly squandered – and whatever complaints the Hurricanes still harbor over the officiating, they needlessly put

themselves in a position for a few of those calls to be made.

Despite the late flurry of Boston goals that turned a one-goal game into a 5-2 win, the Bruins knew how close that was, how narrowly they escaped thanks to a potent power play that capitalized on the plethora of opportunities it was gifted. Take special teams out of the equation – a familiar refrain from the first round – and there wasn’t much wiggle room for either side.

“They are who we thought they were, as far as their compete level,” Bruins forward Chris Wagner said Friday.

The general theme for the Hurricanes on Friday was putting all of that

behind them, easier said then done with two days off and nowhere to go. They’ll practice at the arena on Saturday, but needed the rest Friday,

sticking to their established playoff routine at the risk of going stir crazy.

“The schedule is not good for me,” Hurricanes coach Brind’Amour said. “I don’t like sitting around hotels for two days. But again, that’s stuff you can’t control. We’ve got to control what we can control. We can’t control calls or non-calls, we can’t control the schedule. We’ll control what we can control. The bounces, we’ve got to create our own. We’ve got to make our own noise.”

The Hurricanes did that against the Capitals, fruitlessly forcing overtime in Game 2, turning their fans’ noise at home into an insurmountable advantage, suffering through a Game 5 debacle on the road before Brock McGinn sent them into the second round.

They have been here before, even if not with these stakes, if not with an opponent as battle-tested as they are, if not in May. That’s all new. They

have work ahead. That part is not.

HURRICANES AT BRUINS

Game 2, Eastern Conference finals

When: 3 p.m., Sunday

Where: TD Garden, Boston

TV: NBC



Often snubbed by NBC, Hurricanes have been a TV ratings bonanza

BY LUKE DECOCK

MAY 10, 2019 02:32 PM

For a team that gets about one national television appearance a decade,

the Carolina Hurricanes’ run through the playoffs has turned out to be a ratings bonanza for NBC and its cable networks.

NBC announced Friday that Thursday night’s Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals, a 5-2 Boston Bruins win, checked in with a 1.71

overnight rating on NBCSN, the highest for a conference-final Game 1 in NBCSN history and a 53 percent increase over last year’s Game 1

between the Washington Capitals and Tampa Bay Lightning.

The opponent had something to do with that: The game did a 14.8 overnight in Boston. But in the Raleigh-Durham market, the 8.1 overnight was the second-highest on record for NBCSN, trailing Game 7 of the 2006 Eastern Conference finals (10.3).

Boston was the No. 2 market for NBC going into the conference finals, with Providence, R.I., No. 4, but Raleigh was No. 9, ahead of Las Vegas and seven other U.S. markets with teams in the playoffs. Of the eight ahead of Raleigh, only No. 5 Columbus has had an NHL team for fewer years than the Triangle.

Fox Sports Carolinas, which televised five games in the first round locally, did not immediately respond to a request for ratings information.

AHO UPGRADE While Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said Friday that his team came out of Thursday’s game in good shape generally

speaking, he did acknowledge that Sebastian Aho, who has scored in three straight games, was one of the players who benefited from the five

days off.

Aho was back in the faceoff circle Thursday night on a limited basis,

taking 11 faceoffs after taking a total of 15 in the four games of the second round and 30 in the final four games of the first round. He took 48 over the first three games of the playoffs before cutting back sharply.

CAROLINA HURRICANES


Aho had five points in the first nine games of the playoffs. He has that many in the past three. But Aho’s line with Teuvo Teravainen and Andrei Svechnikov was largely stymied five-on-five by the Bruins defensive pairing of Torey Krug and Brandon Carlo, and Brind’Amour made it clear he still expected more from the team’s leading scorer in the regular season.

“I don’t know how good he was last night, but he was better,” Brind’Amour said. “The rest did him – he needed it. He needed a little break. He’s been pushed pretty hard all year and he had a few nicks that healed up. I would hope he would continue to get better as the series

goes on.”

AS ADVERTISED If there were some questions about how the

Hurricanes would match up with the Bruins nationally, Boston forward Chris Wagner said there weren’t any in the Bruins’ dressing room, and

that the close margins Thursday — at least until Boston blew it open late — were what the hosts expected.

“They came as advertised,” Wagner said. “Watching some of their games before in other rounds, they work as hard as anybody we’ve played. That

obviously stems from their coach’s style of play. They have a couple really skilled guys. That goal by Aho, that’s not an easy tip at all. They’re going to compete 200 feet of the ice.”

RUSSIAN MULE Svechnikov’s elevation not only to the Hurricanes’ top line but the (nominal) No. 1 power-play unit Thursday produced a goal, his pass from the left circle setting up Aho’s deflection in front for the Hurricanes’ first goal.

“It’s new to him, being with that group and in that spot,” Brind’Amour said. “There are a lot of new things we’re throwing at him, but we’re in the do-or-die mode now. We’ve got to put the best guys out there, and they’ve

got to figure it out.”

The player Jordan Staal called “the Russian mule” on Wednesday has

seen his role continue to increase throughout the season and even more since his return from a concussion in these playoffs. In his very limited

playoff experience, Svechnikov has three goals and two assists in six games.

“The biggest growth I think is his confidence to play at this level,” Brind’Amour said. “We all saw his ability on Day 1. He can skate as well as anybody. He can shoot as well as anybody. He sees the ice extremely well. But when you’re a kid you don’t really know you can do these moves or play with the big boys, and over the course of the year we’ve given him a little more responsibility and you can see he doesn’t look out of place.”



If Hurricanes-Bruins Game 1 is any indication, this will be one heck of a

series

BY TARA SULLIVAN THE BOSTON GLOBE

MAY 10, 2019 11:28 AM

The Bruins tore out of the TD Garden tunnel going 100 miles per hour Thursday night, lapping the Hurricanes across the first 10 minutes of the

first game of this Eastern Conference Final like a varsity squad playing the jayvee.

Carolina stormed back like the hurricane they’re named for, swamping the Bruins with their relentless brand of fast-moving hockey, their fresh

legs carrying them past, through and around the home team.

Back and forth it went like that for a full 60 minutes, spurts of dominance by one side countered by stretches of strength by the other, a 5-2 final victory by the Bruins barely able to convey the madness contained within.

If this is what Game 1 had in store, then let’s go the distance.

If Thursday night’s antics are any indication, then this series has the potential to be wildly entertaining.

As statistically lopsided as the final score ended up, the game was anything but.

Forget those laments about the first-round oustings of top-seed and

President’s Trophy winner Tampa Bay and fun-loving defending champion Washington and replace them with the excitement over what this evenly-matched, intensely played series can be.

The NHL has to be salivating over the possibility it goes the full seven because given what we saw in Game 1, a Game 7 would be insane.

Start with an early Boston lead thanks to the torrid start and a goal from unlikely source Steven Kampfer, in the lineup in place of suspended starter defenseman Charlie McAvoy. Go to the alarmingly short-lived existence of said early 1-0 lead, gone in 47 seconds thanks to an ill-timed penalty and a Carolina power-play score from Sebastian Aho at 3:42 of the first period.

Move to the one-goal second-period lead by Carolina, earned after goalie Tuukka Rask was tackled into his own net, knocking it off its moorings (but only after the puck had crossed the line, negating any potential interference). Mark the breadth of a second period that was completely owned by Carolina and could have resulted in a much bigger advantage if not for the ongoing stinginess of Rask, who made 29 saves and turned himself into a brick wall one more time this postseason. Appreciate how that ongoing brilliance in net was never more needed than across

another listless second period for the Bruins, and how it kept them in the game long enough for a third-period, four-goal explosion they won’t soon

forget.

Greg McKegg addresses the media following the Hurricanes' 5-2 loss to

the Boston Bruins in game 1 of their Stanley Cup playoffs series Thursday night, May 9, 2019. By

Take two early power plays that led to two crucial goals, a tying one from Marcus Johansson and a go-ahead one from Patrice Bergeron, and see a game-winning combination that set the stage for two more Bruins’ goals, an empty-netter from Charlie Coyle at 17:47 and an even-strength capper from Chris Wagner 11 seconds later.

“They had their period and we had ours, the first was pretty even,” Rask said afterwards, reflecting on the night’s roller coaster. “I’d like to take all three, but it was good the way we took the third. We realized after the second period we needed to play harder. I think it helped that we got the power plays, got the game tied and got the lead. After that momentum

was on our side.”

From the moment the lights went down and the yellow towels went

airborne, the Bruins were intent on riding the wave of victory that brought them home from a Game 6 second-round win in Columbus. Much the

way they won that game, by firing on all cylinders from the opening puck drop, they came to play when this one started, backing up the same

words their coach Bruce Cassidy had said after the series-clinching win over the Blue Jackets, when he described his Bruins as a team that

doesn’t look to “weather the storm,” but wants “to create the storm.”

“We want to go out and let them know we’re here to play, be aggressive and assertive.”

That’s how they started out Thursday, but after the toll of two long series — seven games against Toronto and six against Columbus — and against a team fresh as daisies after sweeping the Islanders in the second round, the Bruins ran out of gas. The second period turned into a game of chasing Carolina, of looking to fight an opposing player over fighting for the puck, of reaching and trailing and gasping and flailing.

CAROLINA HURRICANES


Full credit to the quick-skating, well-rested Hurricanes, who made the Bruins fight for every inch of open space, who raced around the ice like they owned it, heading into the third period confident in their 2-1 lead.

“No one was really happy after the second, we talked about it internally, I’m not going to tell you what was said, but we’re not too happy about our second periods, it’s been a bit of an issue for us,” Cassidy said. “Guys they know it, they got to dig in. It’s just the way it is. It’s not magical, you got to out-will a guy on the puck. You take their second goal; we lost four puck battles continually on their way up the ice. They won four, put it that way.

“We have to do more of that and we did. On those (power play) goals, we won some pucks.”

It was as if they’d filled those empty tanks.

“Well I think you see every round starts with Game 1 and the teams are

making adjustments as the game goes on and as the series goes on,” said captain Zdeno Chara. “You could tell both teams were testing the

waters and it was quickly full on.”

Said Wagner: “I thought we were better in the first then we were in the

second to be honest, we were getting chances really early and then we backed off. They woke up and started playing harder. We came in here and talked about how we didn’t want to waste one at home and we successfully didn’t do that in the third.”

A wild night for sure. A wild series? Let’s hope so.



ow Boston’s coaching, centres and confidence propelled it to a Game 1 win over Carolina

By Justin Bourne May 10, 2019

I watched the opening game between the Boston Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes with my notebook in hand, ready to jot down what caught my eye in real time with the hopes of identifying some themes. At the

conclusion of Boston’s 5-2 come-from-behind win, it was clear that the Bruins were the team that got the job done more often in Game 1. In an

effort to illustrate why Boston was the better team, we’ll dig into one key point from each major area of the hockey rink. Starting with the …

Defensive zone

Thanks to a combination of excellent coaching and maturity from their

core players, the Bruins once again excelled at playing with the lead in the third period. Their positional play was so good in the final frame that I

had the really weird thought that you could easily diagram the Bruins’ D-zone coverages via claymation. Each player’s movements were so precise that capturing it via stop-motion would be a snap. Moving the player’s limbs and position a tiny bit, frame-by-frame would result in perfect symmetry. There were some shifts where all five guys played perfectly.



There always seemed to be Bruins on the defensive side of white

sweaters. (Yes, those are pictures of my TV.)

The Bruins names you already know you already know for a reason – they’ve been there/done that and continue to prove that not only can they rise up in the big moments, but just as importantly, they can recognize when it’s time to sit back. Furthermore, the guys who haven’t been there before seem eager to follow, trusting they’ll be taken where they want to go if they just play the same way. They look like a group that can pull together and operate in a stingy five-man unit when the situation requires it.

Usually in any game, let along a conference final playoff game, the team trailing by a single goal in the third period is going to be coming. A fast

and tenacious group like Carolina always is, so it seemed certain we’d see a push at some point. This was a group who caused a lot of chaos

around the Bruins crease in the second – though they did take their lumps just about every time they went there – but for whatever reason,

that expected push never materialized.

Maybe they couldn’t get to the inside, maybe the physical play of the

Bruins made them lose interest. Either way, they went quietly into the night in a way you wouldn’t expect from this Canes team. The Bruins

have the ability to look like a snake that can squeeze out your life once they wrap you up in a third period lead. They’re 8-0 when leading after two periods this postseason (really only blowing any lead the one time, which was Game 5 against Columbus, a game they ended up winning).

Charlie Coyle didn’t have the best shot attempt numbers (which doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t play well) but has come to look like an exceedingly valuable centerman for this team right now. He’s excellent on the forecheck, a big body, plays a positionally responsible game and he can chip in a little on the offensive side. When you’re rolling out Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci as your No. 1 and 2 centers, Coyle emerging as much more than a stopgap player for the B’s has been a revelation.

Bruce Cassidy is excellent late in games at getting his best players on the ice in the situations they most excel. As noted by Bruins’ beat writer Fluto Shinzawa, Cassidy is really the first coach to verbalize to the media that he works backward in terms of ensuring that in 5-on-6 scenarios he has his all-world defensive quintet of Chara-Carlo, Marchand-Bergeron-

Krejci available to him. Even last night as the Canes got Petr Mrazek out of their net fairly early (so Cassidy would need more than just five players

to preserve the lead), he managed to get a pretty excellent trio out on the ice. Chara and Carlo got out with Kuraly, Krejci and Coyle, three

centermen who are all responsible low, can take draws and know how to think defence first.

Veteran players, responsible centers and good coaching is a nice arsenal of close-out weapons to brandish in a game’s final minutes. As long as

Rask can stay at the top of his game, I’d say Carolina is going to have to do their damage where they’ve done it best this postseason, and where the Bruins have struggled a bit: the second period. The Bs have had their issues with puck management and the long change there, so if there’s a chunk of time the Canes are going to feast, it may have to be there before they find themselves wrapped up in the snake again.

Offensive zone

One of my pet peeves as an offensive player was hearing any iteration of “don’t force it” on the bench when you’d try to make a play that didn’t work out. Certainly, there are times you ARE forcing it, which you

generally recognize on your very own roughly 0.19 seconds after you’ve made the play, particularly if you’re a good offensive player.

But why I really hated it so much was because you never heard those comments when it worked out, which happened regularly on very similar

looking plays. But it’s a game of inches. Sometimes your sauce pass gets up three inches and is picked off. Sometimes it’s four and it results

in a goal. Sometimes the pass is six inches up and doesn’t land in time. But for the times you get it right, making the attempt is the smart play, in terms of expected outcomes.

With your skill players, you have to trust that they have some sense of when it’s worth trying to make a play that may not work out, as they know

CAROLINA HURRICANES


that the payoff of a potential goal is well worth trying a play that’ll get intercepted more than it’ll connect. Great offensive players turn the puck over more not just because they have it more, but because they attempt harder, less likely to succeed plays that if they do work out, often end in goals. Seeing those plays (as well as having the skill to convert them) is what makes them — and in turn your team — special.

We saw this with the Bruins early in the third period of Game 1 on a powerplay, where they showed some nice puck movement and got the puck to the left flank for a one-timer. Fans started to sit up in their seats for a big moment … then Pastrnak tried to go back across the grain, the

puck was picked off and nothing came of it. There was some mention of overpassing and surely a few fans remarked about getting “too cute,”

given the amount of them that we know are Team SHOOOOOOOOOOT and all.

But again: you have to trust your best players to make those calls and not be upset and try to change their games (at least not those with

proven successful games) when they don’t work out. I assume this is largely what Cassidy is doing – “too cute” certainly does exist at times –

as we saw what happened on the game-winning goal by Bergeron. Much has been justifiably said about the great play DeBrusk made on the play, but imagine how insane it would be to be Brad Marchand there, to receive a cross-ice cross-crease pass on the backdoor on the powerplay in a tie game and NOT just immediately pull the one-time trigger.

Particularly on a rolling puck, which may leave you thinking “anything on the net is good here,” and also “anything on the net is going to be a grenade to handle and hard to stop.” Imagine thinking of one-touching a rolling puck out of that area to your linemate – with a defensive stick in the immediate vicinity no less – adding another step to the process of your team getting a shot and thinking it’s the right play percentage-wise. Well, it was.

Maybe the one-touch pass attempt hops No. 63’s stick, or maybe it hops No. 37’s, or maybe it hops neither and you score the game winner. That’s a great offensive player playing the odds. Sometimes these guys aren’t getting “too cute,” they just know the reward that comes with the risk of some risky plays is so rewarding it’s worth it.

Neutral zone

I don’t bring up the neutral zone to talk structure, whether regroup or forecheck, entries or exits. There’s nothing mind-blowing happening on either side there that I could see. What is mind-blowing, to me anyway, is

watching the work put in (mostly) between the bluelines by two super-experienced veteran pros in Justin Williams and Zdeno Chara, in the way

they’re working the referees.

One of Chara’s biggest strengths is knowing exactly what he is. He loves

intimidating other players or at least trying to as he did with Dougie Hamilton after one whistle. He’s also not oblivious to how important it is to have his –and thus his team’s –side heard when talking to the refs and to not let the ever-charming Williams weasel his way in with the refs and dictate the way they’re seeing the game. You can’t have the refs “what to watch for” list be solely provided by your opponent.

As for that weaseling, I think it’s fantastic. This is going to be an extremely close series and one that could swing on the frequency of special teams play. Didn’t it look like the two captains involved in that game had some idea that might be true?

I found myself thinking about other teams who name captains young, guys who’ve never won or really been deep in the NHL playoffs before.

Guys like Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Aleksander Barkov and maybe a guy like Auston Matthews next year. It’s not that having young captains

would hurt their teams, per se. The best hockey teams still win more often than not. But in a series like this, where I think it’ll be oh-so-close

and every breath of effort can matter, you wonder if a young inexperienced guy would be able to tip the scales the way a 40-year-old Cup winner could with their gravitas and quality center ice lawyering. There’s no way to tell for sure, but I’m guessing that’s an edge reserved

for the Williams and the Charas. (Unfortunately for both sides, those powers negate one another here, but the efforts are still fun to watch.)

Game 1 is in the books. With great passing (O-zone!) on some debatably-earned powerplays (neutral zone work?) the Bruins found themselves on top, then leaned on their close-out abilities (D-zone) to take the first one. The onus is now on the Canes to make their adjustments and see if they can’t find a way to take over in any or all three zones in Game 2.

The Athletic LOADED: 05.11.2019


Inconsistent officiating isn’t why the Hurricanes dropped Game 1, but it’s getting tough to watch regardless

By Sara Civian May 10, 2019

BOSTON — While Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour fielded pre-series questions about the challenges the Bruins’ menacing first line

presents (valid) and if having a few days of rest when half of his team is nursing a whatever-body injury is Actually Bad (*rolls eyes*), he was

focused on special teams.

“That’s obviously one of the areas they excel at, with some high, high

talent,” he said ahead of Game 1. “It reminds me a lot of our first series with Washington, that battle. We know they have a good power play, and

the best way to combat a good power play is not to take penalties. It’s not how you’re gonna kill it, everyone tries to do the same thing. They have

elite players for a reason. Staying out of the box is going to be crucial.”

He was right about more than the obvious in that assessment. The Hurricanes-Bruins Eastern Conference Final is shaping up reminiscent of that exhausting first round against the Capitals, with the looming vibe that it’s about to get even worse. The physicality, the disdain, any “Kumbaya stuff” (as Justin Williams would put it) between former teammates hurled out the window, less “shit bounces,” more decisive effort.

But the Hurricanes’ Game 1, 5-2 loss at TD Garden mostly exposed the

obvious: They need to stay out of the penalty box.

They tempted the Hockey Gods early, cashing in on a soft roughing

penalty 3:39 into the game and killing Nino Niederreiter’s slashing penalty, but Brind’Amour knew better than anyone that the Hockey Gods

don’t like being taken advantage of.

Just stay out of the box and don’t test anyone’s God.

There are compelling enough reasons the Canes were penalized as this game went on, to be certain. There was Micheal Ferland’s totally

unnecessary interference penalty at the end of the second that they killed off, and Jordan Staal’s boarding 49 seconds into the third that they couldn’t.

Dougie Hamilton’s second penalty of the third period was by most accounts legit, but there’s a reason Brind’Amour retorted “which one” when I asked him for his thoughts on Hamilton’s penalty.

How does this sequence of events end with only Hamilton in the box?

I am looking through the lens of the Hurricanes, of course, because I cover the Hurricanes — not because I think the refs are out to get either team. They missed some pretty blatant high-sticking calls on the Canes,

most notably one at the end in David Pastrnak’s face. It felt like a makeup non-call. This whole game sort of felt like a matchup of makeup

calls when it should’ve felt like a matchup of Patrice Bergeron vs. Sebastian Aho.

CAROLINA HURRICANES


The beautiful thing about playoff hockey used to be enjoying the best of the best dig deeper, knowing they’d get a little more freedom.

This whole playoff season has felt like too much freedom, then too much restriction, then panic, then equal opportunity makeup calls. Players don’t know what to think.

“There’s no point in commenting,” Brind’Amour said. “There were penalties both ways that were called and not called. There’s no point in getting into the officiating. … I haven’t really looked at them, I was as frustrated as everybody with some of the calls.”

ROD BRIND'AMOUR'S REACTION TO DOUGIE HAMILTON'S

"INTERFERENCE" PENALTY. PIC.TWITTER.COM/JYL5TEEQXA

— BRETT FINGER (@BRETT_FINGER) MAY 10, 2019

You don’t say …

“I just watched both of them, and I didn’t agree with either,” Hamilton said postgame. “Not much else to say. Nothing I can do about it now.”

Did he get an explanation from the referees?

“No.”

The Bruins capitalized on the more questionable one to steal the lead because that’s what they do. Marcus Johansson and Bergeron scored on

two third period power plays 28 seconds apart.

As Williams often says, “that’s what good teams do.”

The Canes have been finding ways to win for months, and they got a few good looks as the third waned, but they’re up against a lights-out Tuukka

Rask.

“This playoff, we’ve been successful holding leads, and we got kicked in

the pants a little bit today,” Williams said. “That hasn’t happened in a while, and we’ve got to get the next one.”

It was a jarringly empty comeback effort for a resilient team on a postseason six-game winning streak. No one in the locker room is about to make excuses.

“We took penalties. We needed to kill them,” Brind’Amour offered. “Whether they’re good or not, whether there were some let go we thought should have been called, that’s going to happen every night. So we’ve got to come up with a better way to kill them, and when we get our power plays, we’ve got to make them count.”

No doubt, the Hurricanes made too many mistakes against a team that will pounce on them most of the time. They didn’t muster up enough for a

comeback.

But is this kind of officiating really “going to happen every night“? Does

this have to happen every night?

It seems like we’re in purgatory between “letting the boys play” and a

tighter-officiated National Hockey League. Either would be fine if they could just pick one, already.


1144284 Boston Bruins

Goalie play has paved the way to Western Conference final for Blues,

Sharks

Adrian Walker

SAN JOSE, Calif. — St. Louis’ season started to turn around as soon as goalie Jordan Binnington came up from the minors to help lead the Blues from the bottom of the standings.

‘‘When we put him in Philly as the starter, we haven’t looked back,’’ Blues general manager Doug Armstrong said Friday on the eve of Game 1.

‘‘It would be disingenuous to say that this was anywhere part of the plan. This is the Jordan Binnington story in the sense that he’s made the best of the opportunity.’’

The key moment for their opponent in the Western Conference final came much later in the year when San Jose coach Peter DeBoer made

the decision to stick with struggling Martin Jones in net midway through the first round.

Jones found his game and has helped carry the Sharks into the final four.

The decision to change goalies in St. Louis and stick with one in San Jose now has these two star-crossed franchises eight wins away from a first Stanley Cup title.

Binnington was called up from the minors in December and then had a shutout in his first start against the Flyers on Jan. 7, becoming a big reason why the team in last place in the NHL on Jan. 2 is still alive.

He helped anchor an 11-game winning streak and became a finalist for the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie at age 25. He’s been steady in the playoffs with a .915 save percentage and 2.39 goals against average.

‘‘There were some years there where I wasn’t sure,’’ Binnington said when asked if he ever doubted he'd become an NHL goalie. ‘‘It took a lot of maturing and experience. I was in the right place.’’

Jones came into the season with much pedigree, having led the Sharks to the Stanley Cup Final just three years ago. But he had an .896 save

percentage this season and was pulled twice in the first four games of the first round against Vegas.

But he rebounded from there with a .928 save percentage in the last 10 games, including a franchise-record 58 saves in a double-overtime win at

Vegas that helped spark a comeback from 3-1 down in the series.

‘‘There was never a doubt in anybody’s mind that he'd go out and play well,’’ teammate Logan Couture said.

DeBoer said all Jones needed was a few small adjustments as he had overcompensated from being too passive late in the season to being overly aggressive in the first four games against the Golden Knights.

Having found the happy medium and getting better support from his

teammates, who have limited odd-man rushes, Jones is playing at a high level once again.

‘‘It’s tough as a goalie, you want to go out and make a difference and make a big save,’’ he said. ‘‘You just have to be a little bit more patient

and wait for the game a little bit more.’’

Boston Globe LOADED: 05.11.2019


Bruins trying to shake second-period doldrums

Adrian Walker

“You get excited about that as a teammate when you see a guy that maybe isn’t as comfortable in the locker room, just because he hasn’t

CAROLINA HURRICANES


been here for a while. He stepped up and came out in that third period and scored that early goal and set the tone for us.”

Johansson’s tying goal early in the third period helped the Bruins survive another shaky second period, in a 5-2 win in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final. The Bruins, who lost four puck battles on Greg McKegg’s crease-crashing goal that gave the Canes a 2-1 lead in the second, have gone into the locker room after 40 minutes consistently outgunned.

Boston has the worst second-period shot differential (minus-30) in the playoffs. Its goal differential is best overall (plus-15), but the Bruins are

minus-1 in middle periods, when teams switch ends of the ice and the home team has a longer distance to skate to the bench.

“The fixable parts are bad line changes,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “We tend to change as a group of three, as forwards. Really we should space

it out better. Some of that can be through the course of play, if you just get fatigued, or I should shorten our shifts,” he said, noting that doing that

has a trickle-down effect that can mess with his ice time balance. “It’s puck management as well. If you don’t put it in a good spot, your D can

never get off, so they’re playing fatigued.

“I think our starts have been very good, so the other team I think will generally pick up their game as well.”

The Bruins, thanks in large part to Tuukka Rask, survived the second despite allowing 11 scoring chances, according to Natural Stat Trick. After Johansson and Patrice Bergeron scored 28 seconds apart, Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour called timeout.

“We don’t say much,” Cassidy said of his reaction. “We’re just recharging our batteries, want to get going again. We just had things go our way, so make sure that off that center-ice draw, you’re doing whatever — you

know, some of those draws in the neutral zone aren’t that important. But those ones are. Let’s win the puck and get going right back in their end,

don’t allow them to tilt the ice back in their favor.”

Working on draws

The Bruins lost that draw, Jordan Staal beating Sean Kuraly. They were hit hard at the dot in Game 1, winning 47 percent of drops. Situationally,

they were poor, losing all six on the penalty kill, and 18 of 23 (28 percent success) in the defensive zone. Bergeron, cooking at a league-best clip (61.2 percent) through two rounds, won 40 percent.

Both captains, Boston’s Zdeno Chara and Carolina’s Justin Williams, were working the refs during Game 1 stoppages. Cassidy said he won’t be afraid to engage in similar gamesmanship.

“We’re a good faceoff team, so I suspect — and I know Toronto has in the past voiced their concern about a certain centerman who wears the number 37 — so we’ve had to counter that, Cassidy said. “It’s up to the linesman to keep it in check . . . They were good last night, so maybe

we’re the ones who are going to have to bring it up.”

Decision on D

With suspended top blue liner Charlie McAvoy returning for Game 2, Cassidy’s choice is between goal-scorer Steven Kampfer and rookie

Connor Clifton. Both showed well Thursday, but the coach said he suspects Clifton will stay in. Kampfer (14:56 time on ice) spent 1:15 as

McAvoy’s substitute on the Bruins’ second power play unit. Clifton (18:02 in total) sees secondary penalty-kill duty — Kampfer does not — and was

playing well as Matt Grzelcyk’s partner in his previous eight playoff games . . . Cassidy praised Grzelcyk, who played both sides of the rink and killed penalties for an injury-riddled club in the first half, for his versatility. “He’s a smart player,” Cassidy said. “He can adjust to anything we’re doing.” . . . Krug brought up forgotten backup Jaroslav Halak when asked about Rask’s success. “He’s well rested,” Krug said of Rask, whose 45-start workload was his lowest in six full seasons as a starter. “I think Jaro did a heck of a job in the regular season to give him those nights off. With that, he’s had so much confidence in his routine and how

he prepares for games. He’s getting results because he’s dialed in and seeing pucks.”



Deadline pickups Charlie Coyle and Marcus Johansson are the real deal

Adrian Walker

Coach Bruce Cassidy called them “very, very” important to the Bruins, who will try to extend their 1-0 Eastern Conference final lead in Game 2, Sunday at 3 p.m.

“It’s been good timing all around. It’s why we’re still playing,” Cassidy said. “Carolina, St. Louis, and San Jose would say the same, that certain people stepped up at certain times. If we don’t get secondary scoring, we’re probably not having this discussion right now, so it’s a credit to them.”

The Bruins weren’t looking for superstars on Feb. 25. They did need a

third-line center and a second-line right wing, two revolving-door positions at which management’s bets on young players and internal

solutions came up empty. The two prime-aged players they acquired — Coyle is 27, Johansson is 28, with a combined 1,088 regular-season and

142 playoff games between them — have been productive and versatile as they hunt for their first Cup.

Coyle, snatched from the Wild for Ryan Donato and a conditional fifth-rounder, is tied with teammates David Pastrnak and Patrice Bergeron for

fourth in playoff goals (six, with three assists in 14 games). Five have come at even strength. He scored twice in Game 1 of the second round against Columbus, tying the game and winning it in overtime.

Johansson, dealt by the Devils for second- and fourth-round picks, missed two playoff games with the flu but has a 3-4—7 line in 12 games. His passing and vision have helped Boston’s third line, with center Coyle and right wing Danton Heinen, create big moments.

In the clinching Game 6 at Columbus, Johansson made it 2-0 in the third

period on a criss-cross zone entry with Coyle, snapping a shot past Sergei Bobrovsky. The pair also connected for Coyle’s tying goal in

Game 1 against the Blue Jackets, Johansson finding him on the rush with a stellar backhand feed through a maze of defenders.

Both factored into Thursday’s Game 1 against the Hurricanes. Johansson’s steal and patient setup of Steven Kampfer created the

opening goal, and his net-front putback on the power play tied the score at 2. Coyle, trusted to help the Bruins stave off a 6-on-5 attack in a 3-2

game, scored an empty-netter. The Weymouth product also has spotted in as the No. 2 right wing, helping Cassidy keep David Backes’s 35-year-old pistons firing more effectively.

“Couldn’t care less about who scores and who does what, as long as we get it done together,” said Johansson, who spent seven seasons with Washington, only to see the Capitals win it all the season after he was traded to New Jersey. “I think that’s one of the strengths of this team — that we have 20 guys that can do it. I think we’ve showed that more than once.”

Johansson impressed many of his teammates by bouncing back from a

hit by Carolina’s Micheal Ferland on March 5, which sent him to the hospital. Chris Wagner, one of the hardest-hitting Bruins, called it “one of the harder hits I’ve seen all year, just how square and solid it was.” Johansson missed three weeks with a lung contusion.

CAROLINA HURRICANES


Since coming alive this postseason, he has even changed Mike Milbury’s mind.

Milbury, the hard-nosed ex-Bruins defenseman and coach-turned-NBC analyst, called Johansson “marshmallow soft” on air during the first-round Toronto series, and said his play was “disconnected” and “a disappointment.” Reached in San Jose, where he is working the first two games of the Sharks-Blues series before he heads to Carolina for Games 3 and 4, Milbury didn’t walk back those comments, but he did credit Johansson for making an impact.

“He’s been a pleasant surprise,” Milbury said. “I didn’t know he had the

compete level. He seems to have ratched it up at the right time.”

Milbury still didn’t think Johansson was a good fit for Boston as a net-

front presence on the first power-play unit. But Cassidy trusts him in that role. To score his game-tying PPG in Game 1, Johansson took a cross-

check in the back, as anyone standing there does, and was in position to roof a loose puck over Petr Mrazek.

Wagner shares Milbury’s hometown (Walpole) and alma mater (Colgate), but not his opinion on No. 90.

“I mean, the plays he’s making right now, I don’t know how that would be considered soft,” Wagner said, referring to Johansson’s stop-and-wait pass on Kampfer’s goal. “Last night, to pull up like that when they have good back pressure, you could get hit. That’s a hit he’s willing to take. To have the poise like that to thread it through another guy’s skates, like he did against Columbus, that’s certainly not soft. And that was a pretty crispy backhand pass, right on Kamp’s tape, so yeah, doesn’t look too soft to me.”



Bruins must clean up second-period struggles

By STEVE CONROY | PUBLISHED: May 10, 2019 at 7:45 pm | UPDATED: May 11, 2019 at 12:00 am

There are 27 teams in the National Hockey League who would love to trade places with the Bruins today, 28 if you count the Carolina

Hurricanes. The B’s are in the Eastern Conference finals, part of the NHL’s final four, and on Thursday night they took a 1-0 lead on the

‘Canes, becoming the first team with nine playoffs wins in search of the magical 16.

And yet in the middle of many of these playoff games, the B’s insist on being that daredevil kid around a campfire who insists he can run his

hand through the flame and not get singed.

The second period has not been the B’s friend in these playoffs. While they’ve been very good in the first and third periods (plus-8 goal differential in both), they are minus-1 in the second (10 goals for, 11 against).

If not for Tuukka Rask, the past two games would have looked different. In the Game 6 clincher in Columbus, the B’s were outshot 17-5 in the second period, but Rask somehow kept the Blue Jackets off the board and protected a 1-0 lead. In Game 1 against the Hurricanes, the B’s were outshot 15-10 in the second and were lucky Carolina did not run up a big

lead.

“That second period, we were pretty bad,” Rask said after the game. “We

were fortunate only to be down by one goal.”

Faced with a long change in the second period, coach Bruce Cassidy

said his team needs to do a better job of switching personnel.

“We tend to change as groups of three as forwards, and we should really space it out better. Some of that can be through the course of play when you just get fatigued,” said Cassidy, who also talked about weighing shorter shifts in the seconds. “Puck management as well. If you don’t put it in a good spot, your (defense) can never get off. So they’re playing fatigued. I think our starts have been very good, so I think the other team will generally pick up their game as well. … And there’s always intangibles from game to game, whether we’re taking penalties, etc.”

Chris Wagner acknowledged there could be a momentary lack of focus in the second.

“That’s part of the whole thing, being lackadaisical,” said Wagner, who got on the playoff scoreboard with a late goal Thursday. “It’s between

that and puck management. You don’t want to get stuck out on the ice because that’s a pretty long time. We’ll focus on that and try to get

better.”

Cassidy also tipped his cap to the opposition in a way.

“It’s as much to do with their breakout. If you get it out and you’re changing, they’re stretching right back in your own end. I think that’s

when your D gets taxed. Sometimes … that’s the pace of play by the other team. We try to ply that way,” Cassidy said. “Execution, too. But generally teams that forecheck well, by the time they get it out, you’ve spent time in there, creating turnovers.

“We feel we’re that way when we’re on our game. We get teams fatigued, they punt, they get fresh legs, but by the time they do that, we’re right back down their throats. So that’s what happens. You have to be able to deal with those surges. Some of that is your goaltender, some of it some guys having the ability to settle it down and make a good play when you are tired. Easier said than done.”

So despite the second-period woes, the B’s took the first game of this series, and it was an important one because now they get Charlie

McAvoy back after his one-game suspension. But until they head to Carolina with a 2-0 series lead, they will not have done their job in this

portion of the series. They were not able to get out of Boston with a 2-0 lead in either of the first two series against Toronto and Columbus.

And while the B’s deserve credit for taking advantage of the opportunities presented to them, they cannot rely on the Hurricanes contributing so much to their own demise every game. If they want to hold serve here, the B’s best clean up the middle 20 minutes of games.

Boston Herald LOADED: 05.11.2019


Happy 49th birthday, Bobby Orr flying-through-the-air-goal

By Patrick Dunne May 10, 2019 7:22 PM

Before there was the statue outside TD Garden, there was Ray Lussier of the Boston Record-American's photo of the iconic goal. And, before there was the photo, there was the goal itself.

Happy 49th birthday, Bobby Orr's flying-through-the-air-goal that gave the Bruins their first Stanley Cup in 41 years on Mother's Day, May 10, 1970.

Next year marks the golden anniversary of the goal and as part of the

NHL's 100th-anniversary celebration, the league put together a video celebrating Orr's overtime winner that beat the St. Louis Blues and

completed a four-game sweep for the B's in the Stanley Cup Final.

On this day in 1970, Bobby Orr scored one of the most iconic goals in

hockey history. #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/gJjPmD9DCg

CAROLINA HURRICANES


— NHL (@NHL) May 10, 2019

And with the Blues about to begin the Western Conference final against the San Jose Sharks, the possibility of a Boston-St. Louis rematch is still in play. Orr, 71, was back at the Garden Thursday (see below) to watch the Bruins in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Boston Bruins legend Bobby Orr watches Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final between the Bruins and the Carolina Hurricanes.

The Hall of Fame goalie Orr scored against, Glenn Hall, is 87 and has been living on his 115-acre farm in Stony Plain, Alberta for more than 50

years.

Comcast SportsNet.com LOADED: 05.11.2019


Bruins are finally seeing the best that Marcus Johansson has to offer

By Joe Haggerty May 10, 2019 4:52 PM

BOSTON – Expectations were not incredibly high for Marcus Johansson entering the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the Boston Bruins.

The 28-year-old finished with just a goal and three points in 10 games after arriving at the NHL trade deadline from the New Jersey Devils, and

he had missed a ton of time after suffering a lung contusion when he endured a punishing hit from Micheal Ferland in an early March game

against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Then he missed a couple of games in the first-round series against

Toronto with an illness that must have been epically bad to keep him out of playoff games. But now Johansson is healthy and in the flow of things for the Bruins like he really hasn’t been since arriving, and the Swedish playmaker is making a real impact for the Black and Gold.

And that's making all the difference for the Bruins just as it did in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final.

“[Charlie Coyle] and MoJo seem to have hit it off and we were hoping that would be the case,” said Bruce Cassidy. “We wanted to solidify that

[third] line. As to how important it is? I think it’s very, very important to our success. We had some lines that were scoring as much early and they

got it going for us [against the Maple Leafs]. It’s been good timing all around. That’s why we’re still playing. Carolina, St. Louis and San Jose

would tell you the same thing. They’ve stepped up at certain times. In terms of secondary scoring, if we didn’t get any then we wouldn’t still be

in the [Stanley Cup Playoff] discussion right now.”

It was Johansson who set up Boston’s first goal of the game and then

tied things up in the third period with a clutch power-play strike in Boston’s 5-2 win over the Hurricanes in Game 1. Johansson now has three goals and seven points along with a plus-1 rating in 12 playoff games for the Bruins, and he’s become a legit offensive threat for both the third line and for whichever power-play unit he’s been on.

The game-tying score was really impressive given the important timing in the first few moments of the third period, and given that he outmuscled Carolina defenders at the net-front to pop back home the rebound of a Brad Marchand shot. That’s just getting to the greasy, dirty areas and finding a way to get it done.

“I’m pretty comfortable there and those greasy ones feel pretty good sometimes,” admitted Johansson.

Aaron Ward rips Hamilton penalty: 'What a joke'

Certainly that's not MoJo's bread and butter given that he's a skilled passer and scorer with the puck on his stick, and that creating plays in the O-zone is what he does best.

Those things have been a significant development for the B's deep into the playoffs where bottom-6 scoring becomes an incredibly important thing.

“I’ve felt good. I think this time of year, as long as the team is winning, I think anyone would feel good. I couldn’t care less about who scores and who does what, as long as we get it done together. That’s the main thing,” said Johansson. “I think that’s one of the strengths of this team

that we have 20 guys that can do it and I think we’ve showed that more than once.”

The emergence of Johansson as a consistent secondary scorer is exactly what Don Sweeney had in mind when he brought the skilled

winger in from Jersey, and it certainly didn’t work that way for the first few months of his Bruins career. But now the Bruins are seeing the best that

a healthy Johansson has to offer and it’s definitely been a part of the B’s story getting this deep into a Stanley Cup playoff run that isn’t even close

to over.



Patrice Bergeron aids Bruins power play, nears historic playoff mark

By NBC Sports Boston Staff May 10, 2019 2:21 PM

The Boston Bruins' power-play unit found its stride against the Carolina Hurricanes during the third period of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final.

Patrice Bergeron netted the game winner with a power-play goal 2:54 into the third period, just 28 seconds after Marcus Johansson tied the game with a power-play goal of his own.

Former Bruins defenseman Dougie Hamilton was called for two penalties during the third period, including the infraction that led to Bergeron's goal.

It was Bergeron's fifth power-play goal of the playoffs, which is the most by a Bruins player since Cam Neely established a franchise record and

matched Mike Bossy's NHL record with nine power-play goals during the 1991 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Bergeron has tallied 37 goals and 58 assists for 95 points in 126 career playoff games. He sits five points shy of becoming the fifth player in

Bruins franchise history to collect at least 100 playoff points.

The Bruins take a 1-0 series lead into Game 2 on Sunday. Since the

conference format was adopted during the 1981-82 season, teams that win Game 1 of the Conference Finals own an all-time series record of 46-26 for a 63.9 winning percentage.



Bruins are the better team, and should end Hurricanes series quickly

By Joe Haggerty May 10, 2019 11:26 AM

CAROLINA HURRICANES


BOSTON – The Bruins were saying the right things after taking Game 1 by a 5-2 score, and truth be told they still have some things to work on.

There were times when the speed of the Hurricanes gave the Bruins problems, and the second period with the management of the long change continues to be a period of struggle for the Black and Gold within these playoff games.

But the Bruins also scored four goals in the third period to pull away from the Hurricanes while killing them with their power play, and beating them with veteran playoff experience and guile in spots where the Hurricanes looked like it was their first time in the conference finals. It all

underscored the major mismatch that’s going down in the Eastern Conference Final, and it further hammered home that the Bruins should

win this playoff series — and win it in pretty short order.

The fact that they dispatched Carolina rather efficiently without the

services of their No. 1 defenseman, the suspended Charlie McAvoy, just adds another piece of evidence that this series should be over in four or

five games.

Certainly that had to be the feeling when Marcus Johansson and Patrice

Bergeron scored a pair of third-period power play goals in 28 seconds as the Hurricanes melted into an undisciplined third-period puddle.

“At the end of the day, they’re an experienced group. They know that we need them at that particular point. The power play was what was required because [Carolina] took a few penalties, so it might be the penalty kill on Sunday that needs the big kill,” said Bruce Cassidy. “I think our group’s been pretty good at identifying some key times in games throughout these playoffs [where] we’ve got to step up, and that was one of them. [The game-tying score] was a big goal for us. Both of them, really. It changed the complexion of the game, so good for them.”

Clearly there are still issues that can crop up for the Bruins.

Marchand turns over 'a new leaf' in key Game 1 sequence

There are always injuries that can alter even the biggest favorite’s run to the Stanley Cup, and it’s clear after watching Game 1 that the Bruins are

going to need Tuukka Rask to continue playing at the very top of his game. Then there’s Sebastian Aho, who now has 10 goals and 13 points

in nine career games against the Bruins after scoring a power-play goal in Game 1, and is a certified Bruins killer after only a couple of seasons in the league.

That will be something the Bruins have to focus on throughout this conference final, no matter how long it continues for.

“I thought the third [period] was the way we want to play and not going to lie, the second goal got us going and got the momentum on our side. Then we got rolling,” said Patrice Bergeron, who banged home the game-winner from the slot after a couple of slick passes from Jake DeBrusk and Brad Marchand to set things up. “But yeah, the third period

is a little more of what the type of game that we want to bring, but again, we’ve got to be better. They’re a good team and it was a tough game.

“There’s also a side of it where you can’t panic and you need to stay with it and realize that we’ve been... even though it wasn’t our best, we were

still a shot away from tying the game [to start the third]. So that’s kind of what’s being said, but we definitely needed to be a lot better. They’re a

good team, they did a lot of good things and they’re tough to play.”

Aaron Ward on Dougie Hamilton penalty: 'What a joke'

Certainly, the Bruins aren’t going to underestimate the Hurricanes this close to a Stanley Cup Final berth after they admittedly did that at the beginning of the first-round series against the Maple Leafs.

But they also know that a short playoff series is needed somewhere along the way in a Stanley Cup-winning journey, and the B’s have yet to have that after two long, grueling series against Toronto and Columbus.

This is Boston’s chance to overwhelm a lesser team and end it quickly.

They will play hard, they will play to their strengths and they will use their depth, experience and goaltending advantages to good effect against a lesser Carolina team that’s certainly got to be happy just to get this far into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Ray Bourque fires up TD Garden crowd

On the other side, Cup winners like Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, David Krejci and Brad Marchand know this might be their last, best chance to win a Stanley Cup with an open playoff field and only the San Jose Sharks approaching their roster in terms of depth and overall quality. The Bruins are the better team and they have to be smelling

blood with the fresh-faced Hurricanes after denting them in Game 1 with no McAvoy in the lineup.

Now they’ve got their full lineup and a chance to take a stranglehold on this conference final. The Bruins are the better team and now they just

need to go out and show it for the rest of the playoff series after taking Game 1.



Ex-Bruins, Hurricanes player rips Dougie Hamilton penalty: 'What a joke'

By Darren Hartwell May 10, 2019 11:05 AM

Aaron Ward knows a thing or two about penalty-worthy hits in Boston

Bruins-Carolina Hurricanes playoff series.

But Dougie Hamilton's elbow Thursday night wasn't one of them, he

believes.

Hamilton was called for roughing early in the third period of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final after he elbowed Bruins forward Joakim Nordstrom instead of going for the puck. It was a crucial penalty, as Patrice Bergeron scored the eventual game-winning goal on the ensuing power play.

Apparently Ward was watching, because he lit into the officiating crew Thursday night on Twitter.

This? An NHL referee who I’m certain was assigned this game because he earned it, called this? That sets a ridiculous standard for this game

and both teams, that he can’t maintain... and won’t. What a joke. Do better. https://t.co/Vo1dkZHu4l

— Aaron Ward (@NHL_AaronWard) May 10, 2019

Ward's history with both clubs runs deep: The retired defenseman spent

part of five seasons with the Hurricanes and three seasons with the Bruins during a lengthy NHL career and was the victim of Scott Walker's

controversial sucker punch while with Boston during the teams' 2009 second-round Stanley Cup Playoff series.

Johansson sparks Bruins on power play in Game 1 win

Judging by his Twitter activity, though, it appears Ward is riding the Hurricanes' wave a bit more than the Bruins these days.

Hamilton's infraction was one of two penalties the former Bruins draft pick took in Carolina's 5-2 loss. He said after the game he disagreed with both calls, and apparently he has an ally in Ward.



CAROLINA HURRICANES


Brad Marchand turns over 'a new leaf' with key sequence in Game 1 win

By Joe Haggerty May 10, 2019 8:30 AM

BOSTON – One of the turning points in an important Game 1 win for the Bruins arrived in a third period sequence that underscored Boston’s big-

game experience advantage at this juncture of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

With the Carolina Hurricanes holding a 2-1 lead, Jordan Staal came

barreling into the corner in the opening moments of the third period and crunched Chris Wagner from behind to earn a boarding penalty that gave Boston a power play. Rookie defenseman Connor Clifton arrived and began jostling with Staal in the immediate aftermath, but Brad Marchand arrived quickly and dragged Clifton away from the scene before the B’s could get hit with a retaliation penalty.

�WATCH�

After the hit from behind, Connor Clifton goes at Jordan Staal. Brad

Marchand grabbed Clifton to prevent him from also getting a penalty.

Veteran move pic.twitter.com/w94NmJhAEr

— Evan Marinofsky (@emarinofsky) May 10, 2019

“I would expect that [from Marchand]. He’s a leader,” said Clifton. “Obviously we had a power play and it was a bad hit but he stopped me pretty fast.”

Marchand’s quick bit of coolheaded leadership worked. Carolina got the

only penalty, and Marchand assisted on the game-tying power play goal when Marcus Johansson banged home the rebound of Marchand's shot

less than two minutes later. It was an impressive show of discipline from a guy who's no stranger to the penalty box, and it also sparked Boston's four-goal uprising in the third period that led to a 5-2 win at TD Garden.

Talking Points: Johansson steps up in Game 1 win

“He’s turning over a new leaf, eh, Marchy?" head coach Bruce Cassidy said.

"Listen, he’s been in these big games. He’s a Stanley Cup champion, so he understands maybe a little more than meets the eye sometimes. There’s a time and a place where you really have to be disciplined. You have to be disciplined at all times, but there’s certainly other times where you really have to put yourself in check. So it was great for him to do that. It helped us, right?

Dougie Hamilton not happy with calls in Game 1

“We had the early penalties, so he was starting to get frustrated. We saw that with [Sean] Kuraly’s penalty, and then we kind of settled in and realized that tough is winning pucks battles, toughness is going to the

front of the net, toughness is blocking shots. It’s not how you react in a scrum, so we figured out eventually, and they took some [penalties].

Good for Brad. We’ve put an 'A' on his shirt at times this year for a reason, and I’m glad to see that he made that decision tonight with a younger guy.”

Not too shabby a player who led the Bruins with 96 penalty minutes this

season, and admittedly was “a little crispy” in the last round vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets before very clearly moving on to Carolina this week.



Defensemen, defer: The blue line is not Bruce Cassidy’s preferred source for offense

By Fluto Shinzawa May 10, 2019

Bruce Cassidy the player would not have cared for Bruce Cassidy the coach.

The go-go defenseman liked to buzz the other way. At the peak of his powers in junior hockey, Cassidy was not known for turning down an

offensive opportunity.

Now, Cassidy is instructing like-minded defensemen to decline a shot if a higher-percentage chance can develop elsewhere.

“Not sure if our defensemen love me for that,” Cassidy said. “But that’s just the way it works out. I think they’re all under long-term contracts. At the end of the day, that’s our philosophy.”

It explains why, of the Bruins’ 28 shots in Game 1 against the Hurricanes, only one came off the stick of a defenseman. Steve Kampfer made the most of his one shot when he snapped it past Petr Mrazek in the first period. Other than that, the defensemen fulfilled Cassidy’s wishes in

placing pucks on their attackers’ blades.

In the offensive zone, the defensemen usually serve as wall support and

safeguards against letting the puck escape, not as low-to-high shooting options. Cassidy prefers his forwards to maintain puck control, cycle,

interchange and initiate east-west maneuvers. This requires opposing defenses and goalies to shift, hand off coverage and possibly make

themselves vulnerable to seams.

This is not the case everywhere. The Maple Leafs, for example,

encourage their forwards to execute low-to-high plays to the defensemen. Shots from the point can relieve pressure, stretch out defenses and give forwards time to crash the net.

Low to high is not the first option for the Bruins. If Brad Marchand has the puck in the corner, he will look for Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak, not the point men.

“We feel our best offensive players are our forwards,” Cassidy said. “So we encourage them to make plays to the net, attack off the half-wall, get

to the slot first.”

A wider sample size amplifies Cassidy’s thinking. During the regular

season, Bruins defensemen combined for 1,294 5-on-5 shot attempts, according to Natural Stat Trick. This placed them No. 19 overall. Carolina

was No. 2 with 1,629 attempts, eight short of the league-leading Sharks (1,637) and Brent Burns, who led all players — forwards and defensemen — in 5-on-5 shot attempts, with 497.

Torey Krug, the Bruins’ leader, attempted 209 shots (No. 69 among NHL

defensemen). Dougie Hamilton, No. 2 overall, recorded 422 attempts. Bruins defensemen combined for 19 5-on-5 goals. Carolina’s blueliners totaled 30.

Part of the disparity is because of personnel. Hamilton, Justin Faulk and Jaccob Slavin are Carolina’s primary offensive engines.

Krug, Zdeno Chara, Charlie McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk have offensive qualities, too. In 2016-17, Krug recorded a career-high 314 rips. When he has time to wind up, Chara can drop buildings with his slap shot. McAvoy and Grzelcyk have no trouble joining the rush or sometimes leading it.

But Cassidy believes it is not very productive for his defensemen to take

long-distance, low-percentage shots — looks that also are at risk of going sideways.

In the second round, the Blue Jackets made shooting lanes more crowded than the Red Line at rush hour. It was usually a waste of time

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for the Bruins to take a point shot that had a good chance of being smothered.

In Round 1, the Maple Leafs were instructed to blow the zone and clear pucks at first sight. If the Bruins went wide on a point shot, they were leaving themselves in danger of a rim around the wall, a Toronto retrieval, a rapid exit and a rush the other way.

The Hurricanes, who play man-to-man, skate well in their own zone. But Cassidy believes his forwards, especially his first-liners, play with enough skill, pace and familiarity to break down their opponents.

“We feel we have the personnel that, if we’ve got our legs, we can either

support the puck early to create a two-on-one against their man-to-man. Or, like basketball, isolate,” Cassidy said. “Let the Marchands and the

(Sean) Kuralys of the world separate, win their one-on-one battle, then beat your guy in the slot area. It doesn’t take long for Bergy or Pastrnak

to find a seam or pop toward the puck and get their shot off. That’s just kind of been our way of thinking all year.”

This is the way Chicago liked to play during its three-ring run. In 2011-12, Chicago’s defensemen combined for only 1,053 attempts. Duncan Keith

was more dangerous rotating down low or feeding pucks to Patrick Kane, Patrick Sharp, Marian Hossa and Jonathan Toews.

Krug is a premier offensive defenseman, like Keith was during his prime. But he acknowledges that Marchand, Bergeron and Pastrnak, his most common even-strength teammates, are better equipped to put pucks in nets.

“I think we’re a very effective group when we forecheck, hem them in their zone and cycle the puck,” Krug said. “Particularly for myself, playing with Bergeron’s line, it’s trying to stay out of their way as much as possible while still creating that fourth threat on the rush or something

like that. But when they’re cycling in the zone, there’s not many teams that can defend them. Just try and stay out of their way and let them do

their thing.”



Bourne: How Boston’s coaching, centres and confidence propelled it to a Game 1 win over Carolina

By Justin Bourne May 10, 2019

I watched the opening game between the Boston Bruins and Carolina

Hurricanes with my notebook in hand, ready to jot down what caught my eye in real time with the hopes of identifying some themes. At the

conclusion of Boston’s 5-2 come-from-behind win, it was clear that the Bruins were the team that got the job done more often in Game 1. In an effort to illustrate why Boston was the better team, we’ll dig into one key point from each major area of the hockey rink. Starting with the …

Defensive zone

Thanks to a combination of excellent coaching and maturity from their core players, the Bruins once again excelled at playing with the lead in the third period. Their positional play was so good in the final frame that I had the really weird thought that you could easily diagram the Bruins’ D-zone coverages via claymation. Each player’s movements were so

precise that capturing it via stop-motion would be a snap. Moving the player’s limbs and position a tiny bit, frame-by-frame would result in perfect symmetry. There were some shifts where all five guys played perfectly.



There always seemed to be Bruins on the defensive side of white sweaters. (Yes, those are pictures of my TV.)

The Bruins names you already know you already know for a reason – they’ve been there/done that and continue to prove that not only can they rise up in the big moments, but just as importantly, they can recognize

when it’s time to sit back. Furthermore, the guys who haven’t been there before seem eager to follow, trusting they’ll be taken where they want to

go if they just play the same way. They look like a group that can pull together and operate in a stingy five-man unit when the situation requires

it.

Usually in any game, let along a conference final playoff game, the team

trailing by a single goal in the third period is going to be coming. A fast and tenacious group like Carolina always is, so it seemed certain we’d

see a push at some point. This was a group who caused a lot of chaos around the Bruins crease in the second – though they did take their lumps just about every time they went there – but for whatever reason, that expected push never materialized.

Maybe they couldn’t get to the inside, maybe the physical play of the Bruins made them lose interest. Either way, they went quietly into the night in a way you wouldn’t expect from this Canes team. The Bruins have the ability to look like a snake that can squeeze out your life once they wrap you up in a third period lead. They’re 8-0 when leading after two periods this postseason (really only blowing any lead the one time,

which was Game 5 against Columbus, a game they ended up winning).

Charlie Coyle didn’t have the best shot attempt numbers (which doesn’t

necessarily mean he didn’t play well) but has come to look like an exceedingly valuable centerman for this team right now. He’s excellent

on the forecheck, a big body, plays a positionally responsible game and he can chip in a little on the offensive side. When you’re rolling out

Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci as your No. 1 and 2 centers, Coyle emerging as much more than a stopgap player for the B’s has been a revelation.

Bruce Cassidy is excellent late in games at getting his best players on the ice in the situations they most excel. As noted by Bruins’ beat writer Fluto Shinzawa, Cassidy is really the first coach to verbalize to the media that he works backward in terms of ensuring that in 5-on-6 scenarios he has his all-world defensive quintet of Chara-Carlo, Marchand-Bergeron-Krejci available to him. Even last night as the Canes got Petr Mrazek out

of their net fairly early (so Cassidy would need more than just five players to preserve the lead), he managed to get a pretty excellent trio out on the ice. Chara and Carlo got out with Kuraly, Krejci and Coyle, three centermen who are all responsible low, can take draws and know how to think defence first.

Veteran players, responsible centers and good coaching is a nice arsenal of close-out weapons to brandish in a game’s final minutes. As long as Rask can stay at the top of his game, I’d say Carolina is going to have to do their damage where they’ve done it best this postseason, and where the Bruins have struggled a bit: the second period. The Bs have had their

issues with puck management and the long change there, so if there’s a chunk of time the Canes are going to feast, it may have to be there

before they find themselves wrapped up in the snake again.

Offensive zone

One of my pet peeves as an offensive player was hearing any iteration of “don’t force it” on the bench when you’d try to make a play that didn’t

work out. Certainly, there are times you ARE forcing it, which you generally recognize on your very own roughly 0.19 seconds after you’ve made the play, particularly if you’re a good offensive player.

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But why I really hated it so much was because you never heard those comments when it worked out, which happened regularly on very similar looking plays. But it’s a game of inches. Sometimes your sauce pass gets up three inches and is picked off. Sometimes it’s four and it results in a goal. Sometimes the pass is six inches up and doesn’t land in time. But for the times you get it right, making the attempt is the smart play, in terms of expected outcomes.

With your skill players, you have to trust that they have some sense of when it’s worth trying to make a play that may not work out, as they know that the payoff of a potential goal is well worth trying a play that’ll get

intercepted more than it’ll connect. Great offensive players turn the puck over more not just because they have it more, but because they attempt

harder, less likely to succeed plays that if they do work out, often end in goals. Seeing those plays (as well as having the skill to convert them) is

what makes them — and in turn your team — special.

We saw this with the Bruins early in the third period of Game 1 on a

powerplay, where they showed some nice puck movement and got the puck to the left flank for a one-timer. Fans started to sit up in their seats

for a big moment … then Pastrnak tried to go back across the grain, the puck was picked off and nothing came of it. There was some mention of overpassing and surely a few fans remarked about getting “too cute,” given the amount of them that we know are Team SHOOOOOOOOOOT and all.

But again: you have to trust your best players to make those calls and not be upset and try to change their games (at least not those with proven successful games) when they don’t work out. I assume this is largely what Cassidy is doing – “too cute” certainly does exist at times – as we saw what happened on the game-winning goal by Bergeron. Much has been justifiably said about the great play DeBrusk made on the play, but imagine how insane it would be to be Brad Marchand there, to receive a cross-ice cross-crease pass on the backdoor on the powerplay in a tie game and NOT just immediately pull the one-time trigger.

Particularly on a rolling puck, which may leave you thinking “anything on the net is good here,” and also “anything on the net is going to be a grenade to handle and hard to stop.” Imagine thinking of one-touching a

rolling puck out of that area to your linemate – with a defensive stick in the immediate vicinity no less – adding another step to the process of

your team getting a shot and thinking it’s the right play percentage-wise. Well, it was.

Maybe the one-touch pass attempt hops No. 63’s stick, or maybe it hops No. 37’s, or maybe it hops neither and you score the game winner. That’s

a great offensive player playing the odds. Sometimes these guys aren’t getting “too cute,” they just know the reward that comes with the risk of

some risky plays is so rewarding it’s worth it.

Neutral zone

I don’t bring up the neutral zone to talk structure, whether regroup or forecheck, entries or exits. There’s nothing mind-blowing happening on either side there that I could see. What is mind-blowing, to me anyway, is watching the work put in (mostly) between the bluelines by two super-experienced veteran pros in Justin Williams and Zdeno Chara, in the way they’re working the referees.

One of Chara’s biggest strengths is knowing exactly what he is. He loves intimidating other players or at least trying to as he did with Dougie

Hamilton after one whistle. He’s also not oblivious to how important it is to have his –and thus his team’s –side heard when talking to the refs and

to not let the ever-charming Williams weasel his way in with the refs and dictate the way they’re seeing the game. You can’t have the refs “what to

watch for” list be solely provided by your opponent.

As for that weaseling, I think it’s fantastic. This is going to be an

extremely close series and one that could swing on the frequency of special teams play. Didn’t it look like the two captains involved in that game had some idea that might be true?

I found myself thinking about other teams who name captains young, guys who’ve never won or really been deep in the NHL playoffs before. Guys like Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Aleksander Barkov and maybe a guy like Auston Matthews next year. It’s not that having young captains would hurt their teams, per se. The best hockey teams still win more often than not. But in a series like this, where I think it’ll be oh-so-close and every breath of effort can matter, you wonder if a young inexperienced guy would be able to tip the scales the way a 40-year-old Cup winner could with their gravitas and quality center ice lawyering. There’s no way to tell for sure, but I’m guessing that’s an edge reserved

for the Williams and the Charas. (Unfortunately for both sides, those powers negate one another here, but the efforts are still fun to watch.)

Game 1 is in the books. With great passing (O-zone!) on some debatably-earned powerplays (neutral zone work?) the Bruins found

themselves on top, then leaned on their close-out abilities (D-zone) to take the first one. The onus is now on the Canes to make their

adjustments and see if they can’t find a way to take over in any or all three zones in Game 2.


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The Athletic / Between chasing pucks and recording albums, how the Krebs are making their mark in the WHL and Nashville

By Scott Cruickshank May 10, 2019

The girl grew up on an acreage 11 kilometres south of town. As a figure skater, she showed definite promise.

On a farm 60 kilometres north of town lived a boy who was a solid centreman. He attracted the attention of junior hockey scouts.

In a perfect world, both teenagers would make their merry way out of Valleyview — an Alberta town three hours northwest of Edmonton — for a shot at reaching their potential.

Neither, however, took the road to glory. Or even pre-glory.

“You had to make a decision whether you billet and go to Edmonton (or

you stay put) — what do you do?” Cindy Krebs recalled, who, despite having overshot the reach of local coaches, did not head for the city. “It

was a financial thing. And I didn’t want to put that kind of burden … we had four kids in our family. ”

Greg Krebs, meanwhile, received an invitation to the main camp of either the Lethbridge Hurricanes or the Medicine Hat Tigers. That he cannot

specify which WHL club is an indication of how distant the dream would remain.

“Dad’s like, ‘No. We’ve got harvest. You’re staying home,'” Greg said. “Those were different times.”

Which, around the kitchen table in their Okotoks, Alta., home, the couple is happy to discuss. Married now for 23 years, they reflected without bitterness on the reality of those days.

“Both our paths came to a point where our parents had to send us away and they both chose not to,” Greg said. “Couldn’t afford it.”

With their athletic aspirations tucked away forever, Greg enrolled in

engineering at the University of Alberta, while Cindy, with her mother, opened a gift shop in Valleyview.

Naively unaware of the options, their lives simply carried on.

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“You never got a real glimpse at what the possibilities were because you were just isolated anyway,” Cindy said. “To say no wasn’t that big of a deal because you didn’t know what you were missing, really, right?

“I didn’t know what it could be like. Or where I could go. Or what you could do.”

These stories of unfulfilled hopes must be startling to their kids, all four of whom have earned — then been allowed to attack — every opportunity. Because theirs is a tale that is already long on achievement, none of which would have occurred had they stayed stapled to their home base, half an hour south of Calgary.

Consider the Krebses in full pursuit:

Maddison, 22, is making a living as a singer-songwriter. She settled in

Nashville at the age of 19.

Dakota, 20, returns to the WHL for a fifth season in the fall. He left home at 16 when he cracked the lineup of the Tri-City Americans. He now skates for the Calgary Hitmen.

Peyton, 18, star of the WHL Kootenay Ice, is a sure-fire first-rounder in the NHL draft. By 15, he was billeting in Strathmore, Alta., and playing for the midgets there.

Dru, 16, a second-round selection at the 2018 WHL bantam draft, is bound this winter for the Medicine Hat Tigers.

Asked about their remarkably high-reaching offspring, Greg shrugs — and Cindy leaves the table, ostensibly to fetch water.

“I mean, we get lots of comments from friends and people we meet,” Greg said. “It’s pretty cool. I don’t know. We always say we found what

the kids are passionate about. That’s all we did. I guess they just found their thing. Lots of kids try lots of different things and don’t find that thing.”

Top left: Dakota (8), Maddison (10), Peyton (6) and Dru (4). (Courtesy of Cindy Krebs)

Cindy, plunking down three glasses and returning to the conversation, fesses up. “This is where I always get emotional.” And, on cue, she gets emotional.

Leaving Greg to continue. “One of my famous quotes that my friends always refer to is, ‘We have a no-drag policy.’ So if I’m dragging you to something, it’s not the right thing. People say, ‘You must have been

working with your boys, teaching them stuff.’ No, actually. I said to them, ‘If you want to get better, go out there and shoot pucks. If you don’t, don’t.’ But they did, right? With the boys, specifically, they would push each other.

“Maddison, she didn’t have that sibling to push her, but she’s so self-motivated at whatever she does. Her and Peyton, sometimes we had to say, ‘OK, we don’t need to do that much. You need to be a kid.'”

It’s the bond between the children, according to Cindy, that has truly

spelled the difference. “A synergistic effect.” Chuckling through her tears, she finishes. “I always told them, ‘You need to be each other’s cheerleaders.'”

Seeing his wife in need of a Kleenex, Greg laughs. “Oh, you’re not going to do good at the draft.”

That stands as the family’s next checkmark — the NHL’s annual crapshoot, June 21 at Vancouver.

A dynamic centre, Peyton — freshly home from Sweden after producing 10 points, including six goals, in seven appearances for Canada at the U18 world championship — is rated No. 10 by Central Scouting (and

even higher by The Athletic‘s Scott Wheeler).

Meaning primetime cameras will be trained on the clan as it squirms

through the early selections. Dru, for one, is pumped for the moment.

“You grow up watching each and every draft,” Dru said, a blueliner for the

Okotoks (Midget AAA) Oilers. “You see all those players get picked in the

first round, how they stand up and hug their family, make their way down. It’s pretty crazy that we’ll be the ones hugging my brother and seeing him go down on the stage to take the photo with the team and everything, putting on their colours.

“That’ll be a cool experience.”

Until then, that scrapbook-worthy occasion at Rogers Arena, family members are revelling in rare times — all being home at once. Between chasing pucks and recording albums, a full house is something to treasure.

Clearly, they delight in each other’s company.

Dru details the time mom ventured into the then-unfinished basement — a hockey hot box — and badly wrenched her shoulder trying to uncork a

slapper. In another room, the rest of the family, overhearing the account of an in-house classic, howls in unison.

Then there was the night Maddison, after some coaxing, joined the boys downstairs.

“That was the first and last time I’ll ever do that,” she said. “They’re like, ‘Maddison, just get in the net and we’ll shoot some pucks.’ And they end up doing slapshots and I’m like, ‘OK, I’m out of here. Thanks very much.'”

Dru, with a smirk, added: “It seems that there’s a recurring theme — females in the Krebs family don’t correlate with hockey.”

Siblings being siblings, they relish the chance to carry good-natured ribbing as far as possible. They push buttons. They needle.

Peyton, after his Ice beat Dakota’s Hitmen this past winter, gave his big brother the gears. Fair play. “We’re not very, uh, soft with each other,”

Dakota said while grinning. “We’re good with constructive criticism to say the least.” Competitive spirit runs hot within the brood.

“Whether it’s doing the dishes, there’s always got to be that extra word,” Peyton said. “We have that fire in our belly that keeps us going. In road hockey. Or working out — ‘How much can you lift? How many pull-ups?’ Those things. Sometimes we’ll play card games and there’ll be some chirping going on.”

When the kids aren’t busting a gut, they’re filling it.

Grocery bills soar when the house is brimming. And things do get territorial. The other day a plate of salmon, ear-marked for Dru’s lunch,

vanished. The look on Dakota’s face is a giveaway. And Maddison, according to scuttlebutt, feels compelled to squirrel away her munchies.

“The food goes by pretty quick in the fridge,” Peyton said. “If you leave a snack from when you went out for dinner, you’re usually not going to get

it back.”

Nevertheless, a byproduct of the kids being sprinkled around the

continent for months at a time is that when they do return to the nest, they genuinely appreciate the close quarters. Instead of having had their

patience frazzled by surround-sound siblings, being apart seems to foster a buddying-up of the bunch.

They’re actually devoted to one another.

When Maddison performs at the Ironwood Stage & Grill in Calgary next month, she can count on a full turnout.

“We are like best friends,” she said. “When we get together, we click. We’re all good sports and good friends, so it’s like a good hang all the time. Since we’ve had our own things going on, we understand each other on a deeper level, especially when we’re chasing all of our dreams. We’ve had this common goal as a family, just to pursue everything that

we’re striving for and to cheer each other on along the way.”

When Maddison played the legendary Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, Dakota

was there, even if he’d been unaware of the club’s status as a musical landmark. Plenty proud already, he arrived an hour before the show and

was greeted by a lengthy lineup.

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“Not everybody can sing, right?” Dakota said. “When people find out I have a sister who sings country music, they’re like, ‘No way. That’s nuts. Is she on iTunes and stuff?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah.'”

You can bet on Maddison’s recent EP — a collection of original songs produced by Jeff Trott (who’s worked with Sheryl Crow and Stevie Nicks) — getting some serious play-time at a certain two-storey house in southwest Okotoks.

Sis, in turn, is there for them.

Like singing the national anthems before a Jan. 20, 2017, game in Tri-City between Dakota’s Americans and Peyton’s Ice. Like sitting through

endless weekends of hockey when the boys were younger.

Not that it necessarily turned her into a sports whiz.

“She came, she watched,” Cindy said while laughing. “It would be the third period and she’d be like, ‘What colour are we, again?'”

Although attending Nashville Predators games has cranked up her appreciation — “It was the first time I was watching hockey and I wasn’t watching someone I knew” — she doesn’t deny the disconnect. The game’s finer points do escape her.

Every bit as foreign to her brothers — and her parents — is the concept of show business, of reaching an audience, of touching listeners.

“Singing, it’s just you, so if you mess up, all that’s on you,” Peyton said.

“Definitely a lot more nerve-racking.”

Added Dru: “I wouldn’t have the courage to stand up there. What she

does is actually insane.”

For mom and dad, the music industry, along with its fine print, proved to

be a mystery. Hockey decisions are a comparative snap. If your kid makes this team — or doesn’t — here is your next move. One thing

follows the next. And if they ever have doubts, they can pick up the phone.

“For music? Uh, no,” Greg said.

They have zero contacts for that world.

“The structure of it all is kind of bizarre,” Cindy said. “Everybody wants to basically take everything. So it’s a battle. For Maddison, it’s figuring out who you can trust and learning as much as you can.”

Maddison herself took care of the first step.

For winning the On The Spot contest — sponsored by the label Ole and determined at the 2016 Canadian Country Music Awards in London, Ont.

— she was awarded a publishing and recording deal.

Just like that.

Without hesitation, she signed the papers and packed for Nashville. Her parents, at the time in Tri-City for exhibition games, were stunned. “We’re

like, ‘What does this even mean?'” Cindy wondered.

Said Greg: “That leapfrogged her. That was like getting drafted.”

They were thrilled — but pragmatic — about their daughter’s undertaking, promising to help where they could.

“But I told her, ‘This is your career. You’ve got to make it work,'” Greg said. “And she’s done it, which is very impressive.”

Added Cindy of Maddison, who’s written more than 200 songs since relocating: “She’s paid her own way. There’s a lot of kids down there whose parents are paying for everything, their whole lifestyle. I’m like, ‘No.'”

If that seems like tough love, know that it’s no different for the sons. They’re supported, not babied.

Dakota was snubbed in the WHL bantam draft and cut by the UFA Bisons midgets. Then? His wrist got sliced by a skate. “Right down to the

bone,” Cindy said. “Severed tendons, nerves, everything. Three-and-a-half-hour surgery.” Nevertheless, he returned that season, got promoted to the Bisons, before being listed by Tri-City.

The following fall, the 16-year-old defender was invited to camp by the Americans. Presumably just for a look-see.

“I didn’t even renew his passport,” Greg said. “It was, ‘Well, he’s coming back.’ Then they wanted to keep him.”

“We were like, ‘What? He’s not coming home?'” Cindy said.

In Tri-City, while chumming around with Juuso Valimaki and being

groomed by Brandon Carlo, the boy embraced a productive mindset — throwing himself into practices, throwing himself into slivers of ice time.

“Dakota is such a good story,” his dad said.

Which also meant that he was first out the door. Followed shortly by Peyton, the first overall pick of the 2016 WHL bantam draft, and then Maddison.

Dru, aiming to catch on with the Tigers, is next. Three lads, three WHL outposts.

“Some families want their kids to play together on certain junior teams,” Greg said. “We said, ‘No, you go on your own path. It’ll make you better.'”

Cindy agrees. Embrace adversity.

“Rather than hiding them from it and protecting them,” she said. “That’s a

common theme now, ‘Oh, I don’t want (my child) to get cut.’ No, no. It’s OK to be cut. Then it’s how you respond. That’s what makes the

difference.”

If the environment seems decidedly coddle-free, note that it also comes

without pressure. Even if outsiders conclude that Greg and Cindy are whip-crackers.

Not true.

“It’s driven by you, personally,” Dakota said. “Our mom and dad aren’t going to make us stickhandle in the garage. Or make Maddison go sing. We have personal goals … our parents just support us and love us the way they do.”

Which is not to say there haven’t been sacrifices.

People might look at the Krebs boys — who each, in turn, had been captain of the Okotoks peewee club — and figure that it’s been a bump-

less journey to major junior.

Greg shakes his head.

“What you had to go through, as a family, to make that happen is pretty crazy.”

For instance, the stretch when Maddison was a member of the Young Canadians, an elite group of performers in Calgary, while the boys were

immersed in top-flight minor hockey.

“We were going different directions — we weren’t ever together,” Cindy

said. “There would have been weekends when we paid for three different hotels in three different cities — I slept in one, Greg slept in one, grandparents slept in the other one.”

Spring hockey meant as many as 18 games on a single weekend. So to ensure that their sons got to the rinks on time, they leaned on other parents.

“Everybody was great,” Greg said, “always willing to help out.”

However, Greg, an engineer in the energy sector, was laid off in October 2015. A stab at a start-up company fell through, meaning he needed to “re-jig” in a hurry. “I had hockey fees, so I had to get some cash coming

in,” he said. “It’s not cheap.”

Reinventing himself, he does sales and business development work now.

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“It was at a really expensive time in our life for the oil and gas industry to start doing a nosedive,” Cindy said, who tracked down a job at Foothills Composite High School as a facilitator in the Learning Commons.

But even if there have been income fluctuations, communication is unwavering. Mom and dad are in touch daily with their scattered youngsters.

The preferred mode of catch-up is FaceTime — for one very good reason.

“Because we want to see their eyes,” Greg said. “Over the phone, you can hide lots of stuff, but if I see my kids’ eyes, I can tell how they’re

doing, actually.”

The siblings, too, stay looped in with each other. Conversations may be

nothing too serious — “Just random crap,” Dakota says — but they are still important.

“I definitely need to keep in touch,” Dakota said. “It makes you feel like yourself again.”

From left to right: Greg, Dakota, Cindy, Maddison, Dru and Peyton. (Courtesy of Cindy Krebs.)

But don’t assume the Krebses are carbon copies.

There are two distinct groupings.

There is the Type A side — mom, Maddison, Peyton.

“If we go for a walk, I don’t know what it is, but I need to lead,” Cindy said. “I don’t even do it on purpose. If somebody’s trying to get in front of

me, I walk faster.”

Later, unprompted, Peyton brings it up: “Mom, she’s always been a fast

walker. It’s hard to keep up. You kind of have to jog beside her or a little in front of her just to keep up.”

Like dad, the other boys are more laid back.

“If you talk to Dakota’s teammates, it’s all about how he’s the glue in the room,” Greg said. “Dru’s that way. And I was that way. I get along with everybody.”

Added Cindy: “It works because there’s that balance.”

Whatever it is, it’s hard to knock.

This is a family that laughs together — and succeeds individually.

“It’s a dynamic that’s hard to find … but we’ve been able to create it for

some reason,” Dakota said. “When you’re living in the moment, you kind of forget how cool some of the stuff is. I take it pretty humbly about my

family. To some people, it might seem a little crazy, but we’re just random kids having fun.”

Dru, after giving heaps of credit to his folks, acknowledges the “surreal” rate of achievement in the house.

“It’s insane to see what we’ve done so far,” he said, “but it’ll be cool to see what we can accomplish in the future.”


1144371 Websites

The Athletic / DGB Grab Bag: Terrible offside reviews, missed head

shots, injured goalies and another round of playoff outrage

By Sean McIndoe May 10, 2019

Outrage of the week

The issue: A few weeks ago, we did our annual first round of the playoffs outrage lightning round. That’s usually all we need – as the postseason wears on and there are fewer games, some level of outrage fatigue typically sets in. But not this year. Nope, Round 2 had just as much outrage, and maybe even more. So unlike our friends in Tampa Bay, this lightning is back for Round 2.

The outrage: Charlie McAvoy delivered a check to the head of Josh Anderson, only got two minutes, and then was suspended for one game.

Is it justified: Let’s start with the suspension, which was probably about

right. I thought he might get two, but he’s a first-time offender who didn’t cause an injury and we’re talking about a conference final game, so sure,

one game shouldn’t surprise us.

What did surprise many was the two-minute minor McAvoy received on

the play. Most fans seemed to think he’d get a major, right up until we learned there’s no such thing – head shots are either minors or match

penalties. In other words, if it’s not an intentional attempt to injure, it can only be two. That’s … odd. Apparently, the rule works that way at the

request of the officials. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s changed at some point soon.

The outrage: Referees should be able to review those plays and upgrade them to a major!

Is it justified: And here we go. I wrote all about this just two weeks ago, and now I have to admit I was wrong. I thought we’d at least have reviews of majors for a while before everyone started calling for minors to be reviewed too, but it turns out we were just one call away. Guess that slope was more slippery than we thought. (And needless to say, I stand by my original point: Replay review on penalties will be a disaster and

you’ll hate it.)

The outrage: The Avalanche lost Game 7 after losing a crucial goal to an

offside review that seemed ridiculously nitpicky and maybe even flat out wrong.

Is it justified: Sure. That was a terrible call. It may well have been technically correct, by the strict letter of the rule. But that’s not what any

of us had in mind when offside review first came in, and no reasonable person thinks that the league is better when goals like that don’t count.

Look, I’m trying very hard not to beat a dead horse here, except that many of you still seem to think that the horse is alive and well and doing great. So let’s just put it this way and then move on: If you can watch that offside review debacle help decide a Game 7 and still think it’s a good idea to let the same people who came up with that system start reviewing subjective penalty calls too, I don’t know what to tell you. Replay review, when done well, makes sports better. The NHL has given us no indication that they know how to do it well. Stop asking for more.

The outrage: The Blues were allowed to score a goal in Game 6 even though Stars goalie Ben Bishop was injured.

Is it justified: Nope. That one was the right call. You can understand Stars fan being furious, but the referees called the rule exactly as it’s

written: you don’t blow the play dead until the injured player’s team touches the puck, unless the injury is obviously “serious.” Bishop wasn’t

faking – those shots off the collarbone hurt – but he was able to stay in the game. The refs got it right.

As for why we don’t just blow every play dead the moment someone seems hurt, serious or otherwise, well, meet me down in the YouTube section.

The outrage: Don Cherry criticized the Hurricanes again!

Is it justified: I know some of us desperately want to turn this into a case of Cherry continuing to pick on the poor Hurricanes, but come on. He talked about them for a whole minute after they made the conference final, and only to reiterate that his opinion hadn’t changed. That doesn’t

seem excessive. Meanwhile, the Hurricanes are already selling their

CAROLINA HURRICANES


second T-shirt design based on Cherry not liking a celebration they don’t even do anymore. They’ll be fine.

The outrage: New York’s Brock Nelson patted Carolina goalie Curtis McElhinney on the head after a goal, a patronizing move that was disrespectful if not downright troll-ish and should surely result in some sort of humiliating comeuppance.

Is it justified: Oh, let’s just hold that thought until we get to this week’s comedy stars.

The outrage: Brad Marchand gave an awkward postgame interview with Sportsnet’s Kyle Bukauskas.

Is it justified: It’s not the end of the world, but Marchand came across like a toddler. Sure, he might have been mad at Bukauskas over a question

he’d been asked earlier in the series. But that question was completely harmless, and referenced a joke that Marchand himself had recently

made.

If Marchand was somehow upset by that, he should have refused to do

another interview with Bukauskas. Instead, he pulls that stunt on live TV. If the waiter messes up your order, you’re allowed to be annoyed, but if

you decide to stand up and loudly try to embarrass him in front of everyone over it, you’re being a huge jerk.

Again, not the end of the world, and I realize some fans won’t have any sympathy for the media under pretty much any circumstances. But a jerk is a jerk. Don’t be that guy.

The outrage: You forgot the thing I’m personally outraged about!

Is it justified: No I didn’t, I just ignored it because I hate you.

The week’s three stars of comedy

The third star: Jordan Binnington – The Blues’ Game 7 win was pretty

great. I’m on record as being firmly on the bandwagon, and the whole week was basically filled with Blues fans being adorable. There was the 11-year-old who found out he was going to the game, Pat Maroon’s son reacting to the biggest goal of his dad’s career, and even Jon Hamm for some reason. Everyone was just really, genuinely thrilled to see the

Blues’ run continue.

Then, there was Jordan Binnington, reacting to the biggest win of his life:

ALRIGHT GUYS, IT’S THE GIF YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR:

THE EXTREMELY PASSIONATE REACTION FROM JORDAN BINNINGTON AFTER PAT MAROON SCORES IN DOUBLE

OVERTIME TO SEND THE BLUES TO THE WESTERN CONFERENCE FINAL … PIC.TWITTER.COM/VCXQPBNBOP

&MDASH; CRISTIANO SIMONETTA (@CMS_74_) MAY 8, 2019

Goaltenders are strange people.

The second star: Dan Boyle – Oh look, he’s doing his impression of the NHL when it decided to implement offside review.

DAN BOYLE. LEGEND. � #PLAYOFFMODE

PIC.TWITTER.COM/PQCDBMT0U2

&MDASH; X – SAN JOSE SHARKS (@SANJOSESHARKS) MAY 9,

2019

The first star: Dougie Hamilton – Hey, remember that Brock Nelson head

pat? How’d that work out in the end?

DOUGIE HAMILTON PATS BROCK NELSON ON THE HEAD IN THE HANDSHAKE LINE AFTER SWEEPING THE ISLANDERS. THIS COMING AFTER GAME 3 WHERE NELSON PATTED MCELHINNEY ON THE HEAD AFTERING SCORING.

BEAUTIFUL. PIC.TWITTER.COM/P3HVOS1XHL

&MDASH; FLINTOR (@THEFLINTOR) MAY 4, 2019

I don’t even care if Carolina doesn’t make the final, we need to give Dougie Hamilton the Conn Smythe.

Be It Resolved

Hello, beat reporters covering the playoffs from press boxes around the league.

You guys have a tough job. The travel is brutal, the deadlines are ridiculous, and these days you can’t even write anything in advance because no lead is safe, no game is ever over, and nothing that happens in the playoffs makes any damn sense.

And yet there you are, leaving your family behind to travel from city to city, just so you can report on what’s happening for those of us sitting at home. And you do a great job. We all truly appreciate it.

There’s just one little thing.

Many of you seem to like to live-tweet the games as they happen. You see something important, like a goal or a penalty or controversy, and you tweet it out. Maybe your editor told you to do this, or maybe you just figure you’re adding value. Either way, it’s cool – not everyone can be in front of a TV at all times, so getting updates on Twitter helps.

But some of us are in front of TVs, and that’s where the problem comes in. You see, some of you guys are really quick on the draw. Like, extremely fast. I get it – the guy next to you is live-tweeting too, and only the first tweet is going to get all that sweet, sweet engagement. When it comes to live-tweeting, nobody remembers number two.

But there is such a thing as being too fast. Specifically, when you somehow manage to get your tweet out and onto our feed before whatever it is happens on our TV screen. I don’t even know how this is possible, but some of you are pulling it off.

Stop doing that. You’re spoiling key moments for the rest of us. Here we

are sitting at home, splitting our attention between the game on TV and our Twitter feed and not our family, the way nature intended, and you

have to go and tell us that a goal is going to be scored in three seconds.

Is that cool? No. Do fans deserve it? They do not. Is it possible that this

is actually my fault because I briefly paused the game an hour ago and forgot that I did that? Maybe, sure, but look, this isn’t about assigning

blame. It’s about a problem. One that is completely your fault.

So be it resolved: If you’re live-tweeting the NHL playoffs from a press box, take a quick pause before you tweet. We’re talking just a few seconds, tops, like a few blinks of an eye or a full shift for the Leafs’ top power-play unit. You won’t accidentally spoil anything, and your loyal readers will thank you.

Obscure former player of the week

This week’s obscure player is Alexandre Picard, for reasons we’ll get to in a minute.

Alexandre Picard was a big lefty who was born in Quebec in 1985 and played four years in the QMJHL. He made his NHL debut in 2005-06, seeing action a handful of times before setting a career high in games

played in 2006-07. He bounced up and down between the big leagues and minor-league teams like the AHL’s Norfolk Admirals and had a few

stops with different NHL organizations, including Tampa Bay, although he never got to dress for a playoff game. You may remember him being

traded in advance of the 2010 deadline. He headed to Europe to continue his career in 2012-13, including stops in the KHL and Swiss

league, and was still playing pro as recently as this season.

Here’s the weird thing: Every word I wrote in that last paragraph applies to two different people. Alexandre Picard, but also Alexandre Picard. There were two of them, and they had remarkably similar careers.

It’s the first one that you’re probably thinking of if anyone comes to mind when you hear the name. That would be Alexandre Picard the defenseman, who was a third-round pick of the Flyers in 2003 and also spent time with the Senators, Lightning, Hurricanes, Habs and Penguins.

CAROLINA HURRICANES


He was involved in a few reasonably big trades that included names like Vinny Prospal, Filip Kuba and Matt Cullen. He’d end up playing 253 NHL games, racking up 19 goals and 69 points, and apparently just announced his retirement from pro hockey this year.

But there was also the other Alexandre Picard, the winger who was drafted by the Blue Jackets with the eighth-overall pick in 2004. He never lived up to that lofty selection, playing parts of five NHL seasons in Columbus without scoring a goal. The last of those years came in 2009-10, and his final NHL totals include 67 games and two points, but he’s built a decent resume in Europe over the years.

I’m vaguely fascinating by NHL players who share names – longtime readers may remember our look at the Canucks’ Greg Adams quandary.

But with all due respect to the Stephane Richers and the Petr Svobodi, I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite as much overlap between two players.

Your move, Sebastian Aho(s).

(Thanks to reader Peter for suggesting this week’s player.)

Classic YouTube clip breakdown

So yeah, back to that Ben Bishop injury play. Many Stars fans were

understandably furious about how it played out and wanted to know why the NHL doesn’t just blow a play dead automatically when a player is down and looks injured.

For today’s clip, we’re going to remember why that is, with some help from Alexei Kovalev.

OK, so here’s what’s going on. It’s May 12, 1995, and the Nordiques are in New York to face the Rangers in Game 4 of their opening-round matchup. The Nords are down 2-1 in the series, so they need this one.

No really, they need this. After three straight years of finishing dead last in the late-80s and early-90s followed by the Eric Lindros debacle, a

crushing first-round loss to the Habs in 1993 and then another playoff miss in 1994, they’ve just finished first in the Eastern Conference. But

there are rumors swirling that the franchise is about to move to the United States, so this postseason may well be their very last chance to

have the sort of long run that could save NHL hockey in Quebec, or at least buy it a little more time. Quite literally, the future of the entire

franchise could be riding on this series.

Luckily, they’re already ahead 2-0 late in the first period and about to score again, so I’m sure everything will turn out fine.

The Rangers have the puck in the Quebec zone, and Alexei Kovalev carries it up the boards when Craig Wolanin closes in and delivers a one-handed slash that drops him to the ice. There’s no call on the play, and the puck comes loose in the neutral zone, where Joe Sakic collects it and breaks in on a solo rush. His shot is blocked, but he collects the rebound and backhands it past Glenn Healey. It’s 3-0 Nordiques and they’ve got the game pretty much locked up, as long as you weren’t listening too

closely just now.

Our first sign that something is wrong is that we can hear the whistle

blow right after the goal goes in, which wouldn’t typically happen. We quickly learn why: Alexei Kovalev is hurt.

Well, strike that: Alexei Kovalev is dead. Or at least, he sure looks like it. He’s down on the ice, with his body all contorted like the dummy after a

Super Dave stunt. He seems to be moving, but he’s writhing around so awkwardly that it may just be the final spasms as he expires before our

eyes. RIP, Alexei, we’ll always have The Shift.

Kovalev’s apparent last moments on this earth taking place directly under an image of a hot dog with mustard always struck me as a nice touch by the hockey gods. Ironic foreshadowing is a lost art.

“This. Is. The. Thing. Was. There. A whistle?” Show me a hockey clip that isn’t made 10 times better by the presence of Bob Cole. You can’t do it.

The answer: No, there was not a whistle, at least not one that came before the puck was already in the Rangers’ net. So even as we were watching this in real time, we all figured the goal had to count. Tough break for New York, who now have to try to claw back from a 3-0 deficit and find someone to deliver an in-game eulogy for their star forward.

We see a replay of Wolanin’s slash, casually delivered with one hand. The announcer describes it as “not a vicious chop by any stretch of the imagination.” I’m not so sure – it looks like a pretty decent hack that could do some damage if it landed in the right spot. Today, nobody would dispute that it should be a penalty. But back in 1995? That kind of thing

was pretty standard, honestly.

While we watch the replay of Kovalev dropping to the ice, we also see

something else that’s important: Referee Andy Van Hellemond skating by with his arm down. Remember, this is back in the one-ref days, so there’s

no penalty being called. No penalty, no whistle before the puck goes, no reason this can’t be a goal. Cool. The last 30 seconds of this clip is

probably an ad or something.

“I don’t think it’s a goal,” says one of our announcers.

(Record scratch sound effect.)

(Remembers none of you kids know what a record is.)

(Feels old.)

It is indeed no goal, and we see Van Hellemond explaining the call to the Quebec bench, which allows us to play a rapid-fire round of “Oh right, he was part of the 1995 Nordiques” featuring head coach Marc Crawford, assistant coach Jacques Martin and a guy who looks a lot like Wendel Clark but can’t be because he spent his entire career with the Maple Leafs.

And with that, our clip ends. But the fun was just beginning. Kovalev

made a miraculous recovery and had a goal and an assist as the Rangers came back to win the game in overtime. The Nordiques actually

tried to protest the game, citing Van Hellemond’s apparent explanation that he had blown the play dead, which he hadn’t.

The league denied the protest, and initially backed up Van Hellemond, with then-director of hockey operations Brian Burke offering the hilarious

explanation that “I am not a physicist. I don’t know how long sound takes to travel.” But days later, the NHL backtracked and took the almost-unheard-of step of acknowledging that a referee had made a mistake, publicly fining Van Hellemond and criticizing him for “a glaring error in judgment.”

By then, it was too late for the Nordiques. They’d lose the series in six, and within weeks had announced that they were moving to Denver. They’d win the Stanley Cup in their first season there, but the NHL hasn’t been back to Quebec City since. There’s a good chance it never will.

Years later, of course, Kovalev was part of a similar injury controversy.

That came in 2004, when he was slashed in overtime and dramatically bailed on the play. That time, no whistle came, the other team scored the

winner, and Kovalev’s own coach and teammates publicly ripped him for quitting on the play. But guys, it worked once before!

So there you have it – a play that both reinforced the importance of not whistling down plays in which someone is injured and served as a crucial

chapter in the origin story for the dreaded “intent to blow” rule, all in one play. Worst playoff call ever? It just might be. At least until something

worse happens next week.


1144372 Websites

Sportsnet.ca / Bruins-Hurricanes coaching matchup showcases clear evolution of the job

CAROLINA HURRICANES


Chris Johnston | May 10, 2019, 7:22 PM

BOSTON — Butch and Rod.

Two hockey guys to the core, with the names and bonafides to prove it.

The head coaches in this Eastern Conference Final are also evidence of how things have evolved in the sport, particularly when it comes to how

those running a bench handle players.

There’s a little more trust and a lot less yelling than there once was.

There’s a deeper understanding, too.

Rod Brind’Amour’s Carolina Hurricanes are basically only on the ice when they’re playing games at this point. The head coach began opting for more restful off-days while his players chased down a playoff spot in the final month of the season and has only taken them out for a morning skate before a game once during the post-season.

Bruce Cassidy treads the line between forceful and passive. He can get plenty fired up when energy sags on the Boston Bruins bench, but he also sees value in stepping aside and letting veterans Zdeno Chara or Patrice Bergeron impart their own wisdom instead.

“He lets us as the leaders have control of the room,” Chara said Friday.

The approach can best be described as a player’s touch from men who

are probably still players at heart.

Brind’Amour, the 1,400-plus gamer, even had to catch himself after

Thursday’s 5-2 loss in Game 1. He was talking about Dougie Hamilton playing on the edge throughout the night and added: “We all were. I

mean not me, but the guys were.”

The first-year head coach also produced a highly gif-able moment when

cameras caught him reviewing Hamilton’s questionable third-period roughing penalty. It came during a sequence where Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov was simultaneously belted in open ice with his back turned and that infraction wasn’t whistled.

Here’s how it looked to coach Rod:

“That’s the one I was frustrated with because I thought earlier in the game there was one where [Micheal] Ferland gave the guy less of a shot and there was a penalty,” Brind’Amour explained Friday. “I actually

thought we were going on the power play. I didn’t see Dougie’s in the corner, so that was what kind of confused me on the whole thing.

“That’s not why we lost the game, but yes, I thought that [hit on Svechnikov] was the penalty.”

Knee injuries kept Cassidy from enjoying the kind of NHL playing career his counterpart had, but he is a former 18th-overall pick with 36 games

on his resume, plus hundreds of others in leagues ranging from the IHL to Italy.

Today he is among the most articulate, detailed and open coaches in the NHL. Cassidy can take a question about why his defencemen aren’t generating many shots on goal — as he did Friday — and turn it into a 100-plus word answer that touches on the impacts of different coverage patterns by opponents, why he doesn’t like seeing the Bruins pass it out to the points, how his skilled forwards create opportunities for better shots … and then punctuate it with a zinger.

“I’m not sure if our defencemen love me for that, but that’s just the way it works out,” said Cassidy. “I think they’re all under long-term contracts so they have nothing to worry about.”

However, by his own admission, the thinker can also put his charges on blast. He believes there are times when buttons need to be pushed, and

he doesn’t shy away from those moments.

“I think you are who you are. I don’t think it’ll ever change,” said Cassidy. “I don’t think I’ll ever be this stoic guy behind there that never says a word, it’s just not my personality.”

“There’s times where he gets a little excited and emotional,” said defenceman Torey Krug. “Sometimes you just look over your shoulder and go ‘All right, let’s take a deep breath here and relax.”’

Livestream every game of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, blackout-free. Plus stream the Blue Jays & MLB, Raptors and NBA Playoffs matchups and more.

It can be an emotional time of year and teams take their cues from the

voice at the front of the room.

When the Bruins scouted Carolina in the lead-up to this series, they saw

a team that plays 200 feet and competes all over the ice. In essence, they saw the style Brind’Amour was known for during his 20-year career.

“I think they’re a reflection of their coach and how he approaches things in his own lifestyle, and they’ve got some juice,” said Bruins GM Don

Sweeney.

There’s been a renaissance among his own team since Cassidy took over from Claude Julien in February 2017. The 53-year-old began his coaching career with the Jacksonville Lizard Kings more than two decades ago and is well aware of the opportunity at hand now that Boston is among the Final Four still playing in mid May.

He takes a moment each day to remind himself about that.

“Bobby Orr’s in the building [Thursday] night, walks in and I get an autographed book,” said Cassidy. “The guy’s my idol. How can you not enjoy that part of it? Ray [Bourque’s] doing the banner, another defenceman I’ve looked up to for years.

“I mean you’ve got to be in the moment, but for me, I [reflect] a lot, right

or wrong.”

Sportsnet.ca LOADED: 05.11.2019

1144373 Websites

Sportsnet.ca / Truth By Numbers: Who has the edge in the Conference Finals?

Andrew Berkshire May 10, 2019, 1:56 PM

The NHL’s Conference Finals have already begun, but let’s take a few

moments to recap how we got here and look forward to what’s to come, similar to what we did in the last edition of Truth by Numbers for the first

round.

Let’s start with the Eastern Conference.

The Boston Bruins have already managed to take the advantage in their series with the Carolina Hurricanes with a comeback win in Game 1 thanks to capitalizing twice on a trio of penalties in the third period that managed to erase a one-goal lead and create one of their own.

Looking at how each team played in the last round, the Hurricanes swept the Islanders but the series was much closer in detail than it ended up being in results. The Islanders wildly outchanced the Hurricanes off the rush, and controlled the passes to the slot, similar to what Washington did to Carolina in the first round, while the Hurricanes were slightly better at getting high-danger chances, and pounded the Islanders off the cycle.

The Bruins, meanwhile, took six games to drop the Columbus Blue Jackets, but heavily outplayed them everywhere. What makes the Bruins

such a dangerous team is that they aren’t stuck to one style of play —

CAROLINA HURRICANES


they aren’t just a rush team or just a cycle team, or just a forechecking team. They do everything well, eventually overwhelming opponents.

One issue for the Hurricanes against the Bruins is going to be controlling passing plays, something that has been a weakness for them all playoffs and has been a particular strength of the Bruins for the better part of a decade now.

One thing that will be interesting to watch in this series will be special teams. Against the Maple Leafs, the Bruins’ were a gigantic advantage, whereas the Blue Jackets actually managed to cut into the Bruins on special teams a little bit, cutting their advantages in high-danger chances,

shot attempts, and passes to the slot.

After Game 1, it didn’t look like the Hurricanes were fully prepared for the

voracious power play the Bruins deploy, and Carolina has been primarily a strong even-strength team all playoffs long. So, can special teams be

the difference in the series?

What about the West?

For the second straight series, the San Jose Sharks have prevailed in seven games, despite being pretty heavily outplayed by most metrics

against the Vegas Golden Knights and now the Colorado Avalanche.

It’s not like the Sharks are a bad team. They were absolutely dominant at even strength, but the Golden Knights were better, and the Avalanche in the playoffs are just… not of this earth. The Avs’ preparation heading into a series is out of this world good, as I’ve looked into earlier this post-season, but even outplaying the Sharks just wasn’t enough this time.

Surprisingly, after the worst regular season of his career, you could make a good argument that Martin Jones has been one of the most important players on the Sharks’ roster. They haven’t done a good job insulating him from quality shots at all, and while his overall save percentage isn’t

great, he was excellent against the Avalanche.

In five of the seven games in round two, Jones posted a save percentage

of .926 or better, and when your goaltender is able to do that despite your defence being relatively porous, you’ve got a pretty good chance at

winning if you can get some opportunistic scoring. But it’s probably not a good idea for long-term success.

The Blues, on the other hand, went from playing an extremely tight series against the Winnipeg Jets, by every measure, to another tight series against the Dallas Stars that had some wider disparities in certain areas of gameplay.

The Stars were able to cut the Blues up off the rush, and their incredible defensive control of the inner slot area, especially on special teams, led to a large advantage in high-danger chances overall, while the Blues controlled the overall shot volume and exerted unbelievably impressive control of the cycle game, getting over 62 per cent of the chances off the cycle in the series at 5-vs-5.

With both teams playing seven games in Round 2, there’s no talk of one team being more rested than the other, and there’s not a lot of time for

either coaching staff to prepare for this one, so we should get some fun twists and turns as the series goes on and the teams adjust to each

other.

While the Sharks haven’t dominated either of their opponents in the

playoffs so far, both the Golden Knights and Avalanche were amazing teams at attacking off the rush, and the Sharks were pretty good at

generating counterattacks the same way, especially at even strength.

The biggest weakness the Blues have defensively is defending off the rush, so while the Sharks may not have a reputation as a fast team, they can create chances off the rush, which is an area to watch in this one.

BUY OR SELL

• When Joe Pavelski was hurt in Game 7 against the Golden Knights, you had to wonder how the Sharks would weather that loss. The answer has been a huge step up from Logan Couture. For a long time, Couture

was one of the ‘young Sharks’ on an older team — now he’s a 30-year-old vet leading the way. Of forwards left in the playoffs, only Timo Meier and Patrice Bergeron have created more scoring chances per 20 minutes at 5-vs-5 than he has.

• The enduring storyline for the Sharks in recent years has been to finally get Jumbo Joe Thornton a Cup, but at 39 years old, he’s not just a greybeard trying to hang onto a role, he’s still a key player. Only Meier and Couture have created more scoring chances for the Sharks than Thornton has.

• How big of a payoff has it been for Boston to bring in Charlie Coyle? It

seems like every goal he scores is a key one, even the empty-net ones, and while he’s on the ice the Bruins have controlled 67 per cent of the

high-danger scoring chances. The Bruins depth has been massive in the playoffs, because their top line has been uncharacteristically exploitable

defensively. The Bruin who’s been on the ice for the most high-danger chances-against per minute in the playoffs? Brad Marchand.

• Jordan Staal took a bad penalty that turned the tide against the Canes in Game 1, but he’s going to be a key in that series. Staal has always

been an analytics darling, but his performance in these playoffs might be his best ever. While he’s on the ice, the Hurricanes are controlling 72 per cent of the high-danger chances, 60 per cent of the passes to the slot, and 61 per cent of the shot attempts. That’s beastly.


1144374 Websites

Sportsnet.ca / Young defencemen presented fresh opportunities with Oilers

Mark Spector | May 10, 2019, 4:34 PM

SAN DIEGO — What does Caleb Jones expect to come out of Edmonton Oilers training camp in September?

“I’ll be expecting to make the team,” said Seth’s little brother.

Meanwhile, Ethan Bear, the right shot defenceman with the offensive

instincts that the Edmonton Oilers have been missing for most of a decade, has spent the season looking in the mirror.

“I had my fun last summer, and the summers before. It’s time to grow,” Bear said. “To realize how much hard work it takes to make it in the

NHL.”

This is the funnel-down effect, when an organization gets turned on its

head like the Oilers have these last few months. Every guy down here in the American Hockey League knows: There’s a new boss in town, and

he’s got some issues they can help him with.

Ken Holland needs a couple of defencemen, especially ones that can move the puck. And he could dearly use a couple of D-man on Entry Level contracts, leaving him more cap space to shore up his forward ranks on the Unrestricted Free Agent market.

“Everyone here pays attention. It’s our jobs,” Bear said of the events up in Edmonton this past week. “We want to get to the NHL, and everyone sees that there’s opportunity. Everybody wants to be at the top, right?”

Jones came up to Edmonton for a stint last season, only to become the poster boy for what this organization has done to its prospects for so

long. He started out playing 16, 17, 18 minutes, and held his own. Then injuries struck, and here was a 21-year-old call-up playing 22 or 23

minutes a night.

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Predictably, Jones crashed and burned, making the definitive giveaway in a loss to Calgary that left him facing the media post-game, where he admitted, “that’s the difference between an NHL player and an American League player. Those plays don’t happen, at that juncture in a hockey game. I’ll learn from it, though.”

Jones would play one more game, the next night in another lopsided loss against Carolina. Two days later, the general manager would be fired, and the prospect was back in Bakersfield, dented, but not broken.

He vows he’ll play a lot more than 17 NHL games in the 2019-20 season.

“You come into every camp wanting to stick,” Jones said. “But having a

little taste, a little success up there? I’m going to have a real hunger to make sure I’m making that opening night roster next year.”

OK — let’s take stock. Edmonton has Oscar Klefbom and Adam Larsson, Darnell Nurse and Andrej Sekera, then Kris Russell and Matt Benning,

that leaves a spot for one current Bakersfield defenceman. Swap one of those veterans for a winger — or buy out Sekera — and maybe you have

room for two.

But along with Jones and Bear, Holland was watching a more defensive-

minded William Lagesson while in San Diego this week. And he’s got Joel Persson coming over from the Swedish Elite League next season — on a one-way, $1-million deal.

Then you have Evan Bouchard and Dmitri Samorukov, the former finishing his season in the AHL while he latter carries his Guelph team through the OHL Final.

“The complexion of the D-corps here is made up of different ingredients,” begins Jay Woodcroft, who gets credit for fostering an excellent culture in Bakersfield, the likes of which the Oilers haven’t had in years. “Bear provides that big shot from the point, and I think his defending is under

rated. Jones is a puck transporter. He finds the right time to jump in, and knows when not to jump in. His biggest improvement has been on the

defensive side of things. He was a big minus player last year (minus-25). This year he was (plus-16).

“Lagesson is hard, heavy. He goes against the top check every single night and is having a career year offensively (8-19-27). He is an excellent

hockey player. Bouchard has a big shot, and he’s learning at this level. Here, he’s playing in the second round of the AHL playoffs. This is some intense hockey.”

Ideally, Bear can make play NHL games next season, a place-holder so Bouchard can play a full year in the AHL. After that, who knows? What if both were right-shot Oilers defencemen with bombs from the point?

After showing up last September in less than top shape, Bear talks like a guy who has learned a lesson.

“I will approach this summer a lot more seriously, that’s for sure,” said Bear, who grew up in the Ochapowace Nation near Whitewood, Sask.

“I’ve never really understood the meaning of (what it takes) to make the NHL. I’ve done things more through skill, but I never really understood

the hard work it really takes. There is no off-season in the NHL. I never really understood that. I’d go home, take a week off… Just was never as

smart and as serious as I needed to be.

“I’d still be in shape. But I could have been in better shape. That’s the

biggest growth for me this year. Just learning to be a better pro,” said Bear, who smells the opportunity in Edmonton. “I’m going to spend my

whole summer in Edmonton, and go 110 per cent every day. It’s hard to focus in the summer. You have your friends, you have your family, it’s time off. It’s easy to lose focus and enjoy life a little bit too much.”

Finally, a pipeline in Edmonton where four or five defencemen can battle for one or two spots.

The way the good organizations work.


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Sportsnet.ca / How Jack Hughes built the skill-set that could make him 2019's No. 1 pick

Sonny Sachdeva May 10, 2019, 11:42 AM

TORONTO — For those who bear the same Team USA crest on their chest, he goes by ‘Jack.’ Maybe ‘Hughesy’ on occasion, or something

else in line with hockey’s usual, predictable nickname customs.

But to longtime trainer and mentor Dan Ninkovich, the blue-chip talent likely to hear his name called first overall in the 2019 NHL Draft is simply known as ‘Allen.’ As in Iverson.

“Between him and I, I call him Allen due to his ability to change direction with the puck,” Ninkovich says of Jack Hughes, referencing the NBA great whose deadly crossovers routinely wobbled the opposition with ease. “He knows how to find quiet ice, as well as demand the puck in the areas he feels most effective. He’s a real student of the game.”

Though now on the cusp of entering into the big-league picture via the

June 21 draft, some of Hughes’ earliest days in a pro environment came at Ninkovich’s BTNL (Beyond The Next Level) facility in Oakville, Ont.,

where Jack and his older brother Quinn — now a defender for the Vancouver Canucks — have trained for the past four years.

Ninkovich first met the younger Hughes when Jack was 12 years old, while the duo’s father was a player development coach for the Toronto

Maple Leafs.

A glance at the carousel of elite names who have suited up at the BTNL

facility sheds light on the reason parents Jim and Ellen trusted Ninkovich with their talented sons’ development: Leafs linemates John Tavares and Mitch Marner, two-time Art Ross Trophy-winner Connor McDavid, and two-time Stanley Cup champ Phil Kessel have all broken a sweat at BTNL, among a number of others.

In fact, when Hughes saw the New Jersey Devils gifted the No. 1 pick in April’s draft lottery, he spoke of his work at BTNL with another of Ninkovich’s trainees — Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall.

Hughes’ own hours upon hours at the Oakville facility have helped polish his game into a dynamic, lethal combination of offensive prowess and

two-way acumen. But much of what makes Hughes so lethal now was there from the start.

“His elusiveness, compete level and passion for the game,” Ninkovich says of the aspects of the young centreman’s skill-set that stood out to

him back when they first met. “With the latter two being my main prerequisites when selecting players I want to invest my time with. He

was one of those kids that always wanted to one-up you, no matter what activity we played, and I feel without that compete level you cannot become an elite athlete in any sport.”

And now?

“He’s almost unreadable one-on-one, effective on both sides. Just deadly in transition,” Ninkovich says, later adding: “I personally love to watch his defensive game. He can disrupt zone entry with his tenacity and skating. When he’s on his game, it’s hard to execute any plan on paper, on both ends of the ice.”

Ninkovich’s work with the Orlando, Fla., standout — who’s currently

suiting up with Team USA at the IIHF World Championship in Slovakia, becoming the youngest American to ever do so — has focused primarily on reinforcing proper movement patterns, he says, in line with his philosophy of “efficient training-to-game transfer.”

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It’s been a slow, steady grind, with Ninkovich electing to help Hughes continue building himself up consistently rather than in sporadic bursts.

“His training was systematic,” says Ninkovich, who’s quick to divert credit to the tireless work of Hughes’ parents. “I am a big believer in the accumulation of small efforts year-round rather than dividing the training plan into seasons. You see, being a hockey player is a lifestyle.

“That being said, I don’t even know what his ceiling is, because I feel we have only tapped into his potential.”

Stickhandling specialist Brandon ‘Pavel’ Barber, who’s worked with Ninkovich at the BTNL facility as well, went through the same gauntlet of

on-ice drills and off-ice routines Hughes did — part of the ‘Overspeed’ program at BTNL that many a pro has dabbled in — to get a sense of

their impact.

“The advantages of the drills is that they’re mostly simple things done at

very high speeds,” Barber says. “Learning to combine skating and stickhandling without sacrificing the speed of one or the other, while

making quick decisions, all while being aware of what is around you. It’s high tempo.

“…When you have a player like Jack who’s already advanced, it’s so fun to train them because there’s always ways to push further. I think these drills help him by forcing him to think and do quicker, but at the same time, build a level of consistency in skills other players may call ‘low percentage’ skills.”

The tremendous year-over-year growth, with the help of Ninkovich and Co., has taken Hughes to dominant heights as of late.

In 2018-19, the young pivot put up his 190th point with the National Team Development Program to become the organization’s all-time leading scorer, surpassing Clayton Keller’s 189. A month later, at the 2019 IIHF

World U18 Championships, he broke Alex Ovechkin’s scoring record, posting a combined 32 points over his two appearances in the tourney.

Now, with his pre-NHL days nearing their close, Hughes remains the projected first-overall pick at the upcoming draft, with a fall to No. 2

seeming the worst-case scenario.

For Ninkovich, these historic efforts likely come as little surprise, as the

longtime performance coach sees in Hughes the same fire he once saw in another premier talent that walked through his doors.

“I’d say [it’s the] same development curve as Connor (McDavid),” he says. “Jack found his identity as a player early and has a desire to be the best. It’s an elite frame of mind. You can’t teach that.

“It’s a law of attraction, so to speak. Everyone focuses on physical attributes, but it is the mental habits that separate the elite from the average.”


1144376 Websites

Sportsnet.ca / Ultimate fan follows Leafs for all 89 games: 'Not as crazy as you think'

Luke Fox | May 10, 2019, 9:30 AM

A 40-year-old is attending his first live Toronto Maple Leafs game on Opening Night and has a story he’d like to share with Mike Wilson.

The man had spent a life watching every game with his father on TV. If, for some reason, they couldn’t watch together, his dad would ring the

next morning and — before a hello — open with “What was the score?”

The grown son was inside the arena, watching his dad’s favourite team alone, and explaining what being inside the building means to him.

“The father’s dying words to his son: ‘What was the score?’ ” Wilson says. “He’s telling me this and tears are streaming down his face. I’m trying not to cry myself. How do you top that story?”

You don’t top it. You just add another chapter, 89 of them in all.

Mike Wilson is the self-branded Ultimate Leafs Fan — with a custom jacket and cap to prove it — and after his latest accomplishment, it would be impossible to argue the contrary.

Exhausting his collecting of Leafs memorabilia, an obsession going back 50 years, Wilson set out to collect stories, interacting with fellow diehard fans as he devoted more than six months of his life to attend every single

Maple Leafs game, including playoffs, on the 2018-19 schedule.

With children all grown up, an ultra-supportive wife, Debbie, who pitched in on the social-media front, and a swath of free time since he left Bay Street, Wilson budgeted $35,000, began travel-planning as soon as the

Leafs schedule was released last summer and took planes, trains and automobiles to live out a dream.

“Everybody’s saying, ‘Oh, jeez, wow.’ But think about it: Go to Hawaii or Europe for two weeks — what’s that gonna cost you? It’s really not as crazy as you think,” Wilson says. “The worst part of it is every game I get offered probably 10 beers.”

Um. The worst or the best?

“It’s the worst because I don’t drink at the games, because I talk to a lot of people, a lot of kids, a lot of families. I don’t want to have booze on my breath. I don’t want any excuses. That part of the trip is businesslike.”

In 2015, Canadian superfan Rob Suggitt memorably visited all 30 NHL arenas in a whirlwind 30 nights, but until 2018-19, no fan had followed an

NHL team for 82-plus.

In Pittsburgh, Wilson watched the Leafs with a first responder who was wearing a cast having been shot by the Tree of Life Synagogue gunman. He was moved taking in a game with members of the Humboldt Broncos.

Wilson swapped hockey tales with Harry Sinden in Florida, Jimmy Devellano in Detroit and Bruce Boudreau in Anaheim. He’d bump into Auston Matthews in the hotel lobby, find common ground with Habs nut Jay Baruchel, and teach kids in Colorado the trick to getting Mitch Marner to toss them a warm-up puck.

Leafs Nation, Wilson discovered up-close, knows no borders. He’ll write a book about his couch-surfing adventures one day, but he won’t quote that one guy who drove from Thunder Bay to Minnesota.

“His buddies were all going, but his wife didn’t want him to, so he sneaked out of the house with a Leafs sweater tucked under his coat, jumped in his buddy’s car and drove to the game. Six and a half hours,” Wilson laughs. “This is a 50-year-old man. He thought I was reporting,

and he didn’t want his name or picture in the paper because his wife would see it.”

Prior to the real game in St. Paul, Wilson stood outside to take in the “Gardiner Classic,” a blue-and-white shinny game on a small pad outside

Xcel Center. The Toronto Maple Leafs playing hockey for the sake of it, then untying their skates, grabbing hot dogs and hopping on a bus like

10-year-old kids.

“You hear that sound of pucks hitting boards and skates clamping ice

and voices cheering, and you see them chirping and yelling, and you see their breath,” Wilson recalls.

“I had a tear in my eye looking at that. I thought, ‘This is what the game is all about. This is why I did this.’”

We sat down with Wilson to gather the highlights and lowlights from his unprecedented trek.

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SPORTSNET: What’s the most common question you fielded when people found out you were following the Leafs to every game?

MIKE WILSON: “How much is this costing you?” First thing. And the next thing: “Are you retired?” Yes.

Best rink food?

I don’t eat usually at the rinks because I’m so busy talking to people, I can’t carry food around. Every arena has its own nuance. They have pickerel on a stick in Winnipeg. Perogies on pizza in Winnipeg. Nashville, you get the pulled pork and barbecue. It’s basically the same type of fare everywhere. Macaroni and cheese is big — you get it on hot dogs now,

you get it on burgers, or as a separate entity.

Most surprisingly quality road city?

The surprise city would be Columbus. Lots of history, arena downtown, very sophisticated crowd, and they know their stuff. Nashville was the best city on the tour, a nice surprise because I’m not a big country-and-western guy.

Best in-game arena experience?

Vegas. All the hoopla and dancers and bands playing — it’s a Vegas show. The best is, their 50/50 draw is 51/49 because the house never loses. I thought that was pretty good. Best rink, too.

Best souvenir?

I wanted to collect something the same from all 31 rinks, but something you couldn’t find online. Used pucks from warm-ups were too expensive,

or sometimes the lines were too long, like in Detroit they start lining up for them before warm-ups start. What did I end up with? Newspaper. I got

one from every road game, the game report the next day. I’m going to do a big scrapbook when I’m finished.

Most dominant performance by the opposition?

The Blues in St. Louis [where they beat the Leafs 3-2 in overtime on Feb. 19]. That first six minutes, I’ve never seen a team dominate these Leafs like they did. Their heads were spinning. Goaltending, defence, forwards, skill, toughness — it was the dictionary version of what a Stanley Cup team should look like. And this team was in last place in January. My goodness was that a heck of a hockey team. And the thing about that building, it’s a very sophisticated crowd. They know the game and appreciate good plays. They weren’t sarcastic like the New York Islanders fans. They’re screaming and yelling, but it’s a very hockey-educated crowd.

Safe to say Long Island had the harshest crowd?

Totally obnoxious. Swearing. The rink holds 13,500 people. It’s a low roof, so it’s really loud. You gotta remember, New York City has the Yankees, the glamour, all the stars playing for them. Even New Jersey is home to the Giants, the Jets, the Devils have won some Stanley Cups. What do the Islanders got? They had John Tavares, their star player.

Now he’s taken away from them and they have nothing else. The place is barren. You think Kanata is barren? Kanata looks like the middle of

Manhattan compared to this, with a hotel and a rink. So, they tailgate. I got out of the car. They tailgate in three places: Philadelphia, Carolina

and the Island. Barbeque smell, the music — it was just like a football game. It was terrific, a great atmosphere, but all of a sudden people

would walk by in their [altered] Tavares sweaters and be swearing and yelling. Is that necessary? I mean, really. I check the pre-game warm-ups

and take a little video at every game. Without fail, from centre ice to around the [Leafs] net, that whole horseshoe, is five, 10, as many as 15 rows deep with Leafs fans. Not just Buffalo, Montreal and Ottawa. It was like that in Columbus, Anaheim, San Jose. All the way around the arena. Long Island? I think I saw maybe half a dozen Leafs sweaters, let alone rows of people. All Islanders fans. And the jeering? I’ve never heard anything so loud. Swearing at him, the chants, it went on for 15 minutes. You could see it affected him. I mean, he’s human. He was fumbling the puck a bit, trying to settle down, but it gets to you.

Most enjoyable game?

Going into Chicago [on Oct. 7], Stan Mikita Night. Really loud building. Back and forth, goal after goal. Here they play this tight game against Montreal to win on Opening Night, then they play firebrand in Chicago and outlast them. As a fan, you’re thinking, They can do it all!

Most complete Leafs victory?

In San Jose [a 5-3 win on Nov. 15]. That was their most complete game in all facets for 60 minutes, from goaltending to defence to forwards. They didn’t stop moving their feet the whole game.

Best effort that ended in a loss?

The best game they played was the one they lost 4-1 in Tampa [on Dec. 13]. That first period they hit the post three times. Tampa capitalized on their chances in the second period. Freddy [Andersen] maybe didn’t have his greatest game, but that was their best effort. Then they went back to Tampa and beat them [4-2 on Jan. 17] and played not as good. The best game after that was in Calgary [on March 4]. Won 6-2. I went to the

morning skate that day, and they were buzzed. Fired up. Active. Excited. You could tell they had this feeling about them, first game of the [Western

Canada] trip, and they took it right to the ice with them and played terrific.

Biggest dud?

The one rink I hated going to was Boston, because everything disastrous always seems to happen there. First eight minutes in that first trip [on Nov. 18], the Leafs were outshooting them 15-2. I thought maybe here’s the turnaround. Then all of a sudden that fluky goal goes in, and we were sunk. The two Ottawa games in March [6-2 and 4-2 losses] were probably as bad as it gets. And the first two Islanders games, on Long Island and here. Those were disappointing.

Who is your Leafs MVP?

John Tavares. Not because he got 47 goals. It’s the way this guy plays. I’d never watched him so close for 82 games; I’d just see his stats and

scoring highlights. Watching him consistently for 82 games, this guy never takes a shift off. He doesn’t look like he ever smiles, unless he

scores. Then he goes back to the bench and has a frown on his face again. He works as hard without the puck as he does without it. This guy

gets hit as much as anybody, and he takes it. His tenacity on the puck has impressed me beyond. He is clearly the leader of this hockey club.

Greatest stumbling block with this team?

Using Tavares as the prototype of the perfect forward, these other kids have been star players all the way. The thing about these guys, they’ve had the puck their whole life, from six years old until they got to the pros. And if they didn’t have the puck, the guy playing with them would get it to them. Now they get to the NHL, well, you’ve got to get the puck. They have to grasp the idea that you have to go get the puck. Mike Babcock has preached it since the day he got here: Never let your talent override

your work ethic. That means everything. John Tavares exemplifies that. The sooner these guys realize that – and some of them are starting to –

they’ll go far.

How did it feel leaving Game 7, when the journey was finally over?

I left with two minutes remaining, and crowd was quietest leaving of the four games [in Boston]. I drove for a couple hours and pulled over for the

night. Next morning, I was doing a national radio interview with CBC at 6:10 a.m. The producers asked me to pull over to cut sound, even though

there weren’t any cars on road, so I did. I’m speaking live on the radio when a Massachusetts state trooper pulls in behind my car. I tried to keep my window up as long as possible and whispered, “I’m doing a live radio interview on the car speaker phone.” Well, Barney Fife would hear nothing of the sort and proceeded to scold me for sitting on the shoulder off the highway — heard across the country. Meanwhile, the broadcaster kept speaking. I wanted to say to Barney, “Was this really necessary? I mean, geez. After you guys won, for crying out loud? Let me suffer in peace.”

CAROLINA HURRICANES


Would you do all 82 again?

No. I would, but I wouldn’t. Because there’s all the things I can’t talk about: people too big next to me, sitting in a middle seat, guys bumping you, can’t see, people smell, they’re drunk. I’ve had to watch some periods out in the hall on TV because of the guy beside me is crowding me or too drunk. All those nuisances, you can take it every few games. But I’ll always go to live games. I love them. There’s nothing better than being in an arena, feeding off the crowd, the energy, watching the players, hearing the sticks.


1144377 Websites

Sportsnet.ca / Hurricanes lose grip on Game 1 as Bruins capitalize on power play

Chris Johnston May 10, 2019, 1:43 AM

BOSTON — There was a moment early in Game 1 of the Eastern

Conference final on Thursday where a defiant Dougie Hamilton went face-to-face with Zdeno Chara during a scrum. He didn’t flinch or back

away.

"Just a hockey play, I think," said Hamilton. "An old friend."

It seemed to say a lot about where we’re at to begin this best-of-seven series. You had Hamilton, the former Boston Bruins defenceman of the

future, looking fear directly in the eye — a nice proxy for his Carolina Hurricanes coming into TD Garden and trying to hold their nerve while

keeping company among the NHL’s Final Four.

They were each left with some regrets after a disastrous six-minute stretch in the third period derailed an otherwise encouraging night. It saw Carolina take three penalties — two by Hamilton — and the fans derisively chant "Dougie! Dougie!" while the Bruins instantly flipped a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead on their way to taking Game 1.

"Well, I just watched both of them and I didn’t agree with either," Hamilton said of his penalties. "Not much else to say. The game’s over

now and there’s nothing you can do about it."

The calls were certainly debatable. There seemed to be a never-ending

discussion involving referees Marc Joannette and Dan O’Rourke during stoppages in this uneven opener, with Patrice Bergeron and Chara often

pleading a case for the Bruins, and Justin Williams cross-examining on behalf of Carolina.

So the standard was in question, but the Hurricanes were also in a position of control with a lead on the road and 20 minutes to play.

Then,they let it slip away. A boarding call on Jordan Staal allowed the Bruins to tie it before Hamilton was whistled for roughing Joakim Nordstrom and then given an interference penalty for hitting David Backes in the corner.

"Everyone knows that those penalties kind of cost us the game," said forward Sebastian Aho.

"It took all of the momentum out of us," added Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour, never the excuse-making type.

"We took penalties, we need to kill ‘em. Whether they’re good or not, whether there was some let go that we thought should have been called,

I mean that’s going to happen every night," he said. "We’ve got to come up with a better way to kill ‘em and when we get our power plays we’ve

got to make them count."

The huge swing of special teams momentum was made even tougher by the fact the Hurricanes controlled a healthy swath of the second period at 5-on-5. They were skating and relentless, working the puck around the offensive zone and mostly keeping it away from potential danger.

They’d also spent a fair bit of their preparation in recent days emphasizing the importance of not letting Boston’s league-best power play go to work. Then they handed them five opportunities straight away, including the three at the start of the third period on freshly resurfaced ice.

"You look at their roster, obviously, they’re a pretty talented group," said

Hurricanes forward Greg McKegg. "They’ve had that power play there for a while. There’s a lot of chemistry and they move it around."

For Hamilton, in particular, this loss stung. He was a former ninth overall pick by the Bruins who was part of the team that lost in the 2013 Stanley

Cup final, and then saw his relationship with the organization sour.

He welcomed the change of scenery when the Bruins traded him to

Calgary in June 2015 and appears to be on the upswing at the end of his first season in Carolina. Absent the penalties, he played a hell of a Game

1 — recording a team-best four shots on goal while helping the Hurricanes control 60.7 per cent of even-strength shot attempts and 68.75 of scoring chances while he was on the ice.

But it’s the sight of him sitting helplessly in the penalty box while the entire building screamed his name that will endure.

"I don’t really care," said Hamilton. "They’ve chanted my name before. For me, it is what it is. Obviously unfortunate that I was in the box and taking those penalties. I mean, it’s playoff hockey. That’s what you expect."

As for the heated moment with Chara, the 25-year-old defenceman was

reluctant to delve into the details.

"I don’t remember what he said," said Hamilton. "I don’t remember what I

said."

Brind’Amour thought his player was on the "edge" throughout the night. It

was mostly positive, the kind of thing you want to see in the biggest game for the Hurricanes franchise in a decade.

"Usually, the first game of a series there’s a little tiny feeling out, just to see what you’re up against," said Williams. "Unfortunately, it’s tough, because that game was there for us."


1144378 Websites

Sportsnet.ca / Seattle NHL team gives fans chance to vote on name, jersey colour, more

Mike Johnston | May 10, 2019, 2:54 PM

We’re still a couple years away from seeing the still-unnamed Seattle team make its official NHL debut, which means plenty of work is being done behind the scenes.

One initiative the franchise has been working on, a unique fan website, was unveiled Thursday.

A link was tweeted out by the verified NHL Seattle account, as well as board member and minority owner Mitch Garber.

Launched the website for fans of the soon to be named…2021 inaugural season- playing, @NHLSeattle_ @nhl hockey team. Fans

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contributing input on many things…, and lots of questions answered…So have a look! https://t.co/1V7EpBqWBT

— Mitch Garber (@mitchgarber) May 9, 2019

The site has an FAQ section, photo gallery, links to their social media channels, plus a timeline feature where you can scroll through an infographic of notable announcements while looking ahead to important upcoming dates for the franchise.

Several pages give users the chance to vote on what type of nickname, jersey colours, in-stadium music, goal horn sound and food options the team should adopt when everything is up and running.

For example, one question asks: “What type of team names do you like the most?” The four options to choose from are: “mythical creatures,”

“animals,” “historical references” and “anything that eats Canucks.”

There is also a place at the top of the homepage where fans can submit questions or comments.

Earlier this month, NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly told The Associated Press that Seattle is among the contenders to host the 2021 NHL Draft ahead of the team’s inaugural season.


1144379 Websites

Sportsnet.ca / Devils, Rangers react to Kaapo Kakko goal vs. Canada at

IIHF worlds

Mike Johnston | May 10, 2019, 12:11 PM

Conventional wisdom would see the New Jersey Devils select American Jack Hughes No. 1 at the 2019 NHL Draft followed by the New York Rangers taking consensus No. 2 prospect Kaapo Kakko of Finland with the next pick.

Not so fast.

Kakko scored a highlight-reel goal against Team Canada on Friday in the 2019 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship opener that appeared to have the Devils scratching their collective chins.

The 18-year-old winger corralled a beautiful touch pass from Toni Rajala then proceeded to beat Matt Murray with a nifty backhand deke along the ice.

Moments after Kakko opened the scoring, the Rangers sent out the following tweet.

— New York Rangers (@NYRangers) May 10, 2019

Suffice it to say they liked what they saw.

Six minutes later, however, the Devils took a page out of the same

playbook by adding a GIF of the goal and a second set of � to their

tweet.

#IIHFWorlds pic.twitter.com/m5dqabJi1j

— New Jersey Devils (@NJDevils) May 10, 2019

Perhaps it’s merely some light-hearted gamesmanship by the Devils, or maybe general manager Ray Shero and his staff simply haven’t made up

their minds yet as to which player they’re going to take first overall.

While Hughes remains the likely top pick, Kakko’s stock continues to rise

and a strong showing at the worlds – or a poor one from Hughes, who is

representing the United States at the tournament – could end up impacting how draft night unfolds.

Back in March, Kakko leapfrogged Hughes for top spot on Sam Cosentino’s prospect rankings. Kakko fell back to No. 2 behind Hughes in the April and May rankings.

At the end of the day the Rangers are in a win-win situation, guaranteed that either Kakko or Hughes will be available when it’s their turn.

Goran Stubb, the NHL’s director of European scouting, recently compared Kakko to one of the NHL’s most dynamic young wingers.

“I would say the closest might be another Finn, Mikko Rantanen with Colorado,” Stubb told the NHL Draft Class podcast. “They both come from Turku, they’re both raised by the same club, TPS, and TPS has

quite a good reputation of raising young players.”

Rantanen ranks 16th in NHL points over the past two regular seasons with 171 in 155 games. If Kakko turns out to be anywhere close to as productive as the Avalanche star then it’ll be a serious boon to either the

Devils or Rangers…or whichever team ends up selecting Kakko.

Kakko added an empty-net goal against Canada as Finland went on to win Friday’s contest 3-1. He was named his team’s player of the game.


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TSN.CA / Panarin tops 2019 Free Agent Frenzy class

Frank Seravalli

The Bread Man is going to make cake.

Artemi Panarin delivered the goods despite a circus swirling around him in Columbus, leading the Blue Jackets to the best season in franchise history.

Now, after fulfilling his contract, he’ll head to free agency as the No. 1

player on the market this summer. Panarin is poised to become the rare winger with an eight-figure salary in the cap era.

Former linemate Patrick Kane ($10.5 million) is the only player at that threshold now, but more will hit that mark – most prominent among them restricted free agent Mitch Marner.

Panarin edges out two-time Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson for top spot on TSN’s Free Agent Frenzy board.

Imagine slotting Karlsson at No. 2 a calendar year ago.

In this case, it all comes down to health. What seemed like a slam dunk likelihood for Karlsson to re-sign with San Jose has become a wait-and-see scenario after Karlsson missed 29 games this season.

There is no questioning Karlsson’s talent. There is also no question that

Karlsson will be paid handsomely. Players of his all-world ilk rarely make it to market.

But there have been more than a few questions about his skating – hampered by groin injuries this season – which hasn’t been as effortless

as usual in these Stanley Cup playoffs.

Some moments, he looks like the Karlsson of old, flinging a 125-foot

saucer stretch pass down the ice. Other times, he looks to be labouring, like he’s not going to be able to finish the game.

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Will teams be willing to pay mega dollars at a maximum seven-year term (or eight years for San Jose)? Or will he cash in with a higher AAV on a shorter-term, lower-risk deal?

When Karlsson did play, he produced points at his usual high rate (0.85 per game), but three goals in 53 games represented the lowest goals-per-game rate (.06) of his career.

When asked about his future, Karlsson seemed as confident as ever.

“I know what I am,” Karlsson said on April 30. “I know what type of player I am, what I can contribute, what I can get better at. I strive to do that every year. For the 10 years I’ve been in the league I think I’ve been

improving from Day 1 and I think I’m a better player now than I was at any point in my career previously. It’s just going to keep going that way.

And I feel like I still have a lot left to give.”

Meanwhile, Panarin’s output and effort never wavered during a tough

season. He set a career-high with 87 points, collecting 28 goals and 59 assists. He is one of a handful of forwards in today’s NHL who can drive

play from the wing.

Panarin, 27, then contributed five goals and 11 points in 10 playoff

contests for Columbus. He paced the Blue Jackets in scoring and gave the Nationwide Arena crowd a thumbs up on his way off the ice after the Game 6 loss to Boston.

Speculation has connected Panarin to Florida much of this season – heightened by the hiring of his former Chicago coach Joel Quenneville – but it has also been thought he is in search of a big-market team with a large Russian population.

A return to Chicago doesn’t seem to be in the cards cap-wise, but how would the New York Rangers look?

The Big Apple could be an even juicier fit for Panarin if Columbus

president John Davidson returns home to New York to succeed Glen Sather as Rangers’ president of hockey operations. But there will be no

shortage of interested parties.

There is also no shortage of Blue Jackets on the board – Panarin is

among three in the top five alone with an expected exodus unlike any other. Two-time Vezina winner Sergei Bobrovsky is No. 3 while centre

Matt Duchene is just behind him at No. 4. Add Ryan Dzingel and Columbus is represented by four of the top 16 players.

Here is the first TSN Hockey Top 25 Free Agent Frenzy list of the spring:

1 Artemi Panarin CBJ LW 27 79 28 87 $6M

2 Erik Karlsson SJ RD 29 53 3 45 $6.5M

3 Sergei Bobrovsky CBJ G 30 62 2.53 .913 $7.43M

4 Matt Duchene CBJ C 28 73 31 70 $6M

5 Jeff Skinner Buf LW 27 82 40 63 $5.75M

6 Anders Lee NYI LW 28 82 28 51 $3.75M

7 Joe Pavelski SJ C 34 75 28 64 $6M

8 Brock Nelson NYI C 27 82 25 53 $4.25M

9 Tyler Myers Wpg RD 29 80 9 30 $5.5M

10 Mats Zuccarello Dal RW 31 48 12 40 $4.5M

11 Alex Edler Van LD 33 55 10 32 $5M

12 Gustav Nyquist SJ LW 29 81 22 60 $4.75M

13 Jordan Eberle NYI RW 29 77 19 37 $6M

14 Micheal Ferland Car LW 27 71 17 40 $1.75M

15 Jake Gardiner Tor LD 28 62

3 30 $4.05M

16 Ryan Dzingel CBJ LW 27 78 26 56 $1.8M

17 Kevin Hayes Wpg C 27 71 19 55 $5.18M

18 Brett Connolly Wsh RW 27 81 22 46 $1.8M

19 Marcus Johansson Bos LW 28 58 13 30 $4.58M

20 Braydon Coburn TB LD 34 74

4 23 $3.7M

21 Wayne Simmonds Nsh RW 30 79

17 30 $3.98M

22 Brandon Tanev Wpg LW 27 80

14 29 $1.15M

23 Joonas Donskoi SJ RW 27 80

14 37 $1.8M

24 Colin Wilson Col LW 29 65

12 27 $3.94M

25 Ron Hainsey Tor RD 38 81 5 23 $3M

TSN.CA LOADED: 05.11.2019

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USA TODAY / Hot playoff performers among this summer's top 20 potential unrestricted free agents

Kevin Allen, USA TODAY Published 5:57 p.m. ET May 10, 2019 | Updated 12:55 a.m. ET May 11, 2019

BOSTON – Bruins forward Marcus Johansson is trying to win a Stanley Cup, not worrying about what’s going to happen to him July 1.

But his three goals and seven points in 12 games, including a goal and an assist in Game 1 of Eastern Conference final, has moved him into the

top 20 of USA TODAY Sports’ 2019 list of potential unrestricted free agents.

“Good stick, good acceleration and then has the composure to make a play,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said about Johansson’s work to set up

the Bruins’ first goal in a 5-2 win against the Carolina Hurricanes.

The speedy Johansson knocked the puck away from Carolina

defenseman Justin Faulk and then delivered a nifty backhand pass to Steven Kampfer, who drove the puck into the net. In the third period,

CAROLINA HURRICANES


Johansson knocked home a rebound on the power play to tie the game and start a momentum reversal.

And the first goal of the Eastern Conference Final has been scored by... Steven Kampfer, just as we all drew it up. #NHLBruins lead 1-0 pic.twitter.com/NAkHjEL3vN

— Shayna (@hayyyshayyy) May 10, 2019

CONTROVERSIES: Disputed playoff calls through the years

PREDICTIONS: Which teams will reach the Stanley Cup Final?

Those are plays general managers remember when they start handing

out free agent deals.

“Hundred percent they remember what happened in the playoffs,” Carolina general manager Don Waddell said. “Remember when Bryan Bickell had a great playoff?”

Bickell had nine goals and 17 points during the Blackhawks’ 2013 championship run, and the Blackhawks gave up a four-year, $16 million contract to prevent him from going to free agency that summer. He would have been among the hottest free agents.

“In the regular season, you see the stats, but you may not watch a guy a whole lot, but in the playoffs everyone is watching,” Waddell said.

Johansson has proved he is a 20-goal finesse scorer at the NHL, but in these playoffs you see that he can do the dirty work and perform in high

traffic areas. We have him No. 15 on our list. Here’s the rest of the list.

1. Erik Karlsson, defenseman, San Jose Sharks: Posted 45 points in 53

games and still has a shot at earning a Stanley Cup. He has 12 assists in 14 playoff games with potentially two rounds to go. He’s still the game’s

most dynamic offensive defensemen.

2. Artemi Panarin, right wing, Columbus Blue Jackets: He is the most

dangerous offensive player among potential unrestricted free agents. He has 116 goals in his first four NHL seasons.

3. Matt Duchene, center, Columbus Blue Jackets: The Blue Jackets will try to keep him, but he will have plenty of options if he wants to explore free agency.

4. Anders Lee, center-wing, New York Islanders: He has scored 25 or more goals four times in his first five full-time seasons. He might lead the league in teams interested in signing him.

5. Kevin Hayes, center, Winnipeg Jets: Centers are in high demand, and he’s a 6-5, 220-pound center who can do whatever you need him to do.

6. Jake Gardiner, defenseman, Toronto Maple Leafs: Given how few defensemen are available, Gardiner might have 10-12 suitors. He has

defensive flaws, but he can move the puck effectively.

7. Mats Zuccarello, left wing, Dallas Stars: The Stars' offense became far

more dangerous after he arrived in a trade and joined the second line. He was tied for the team lead in playoff points with 11 in 13 games. He was

one of the Stars' best postseason players.

8. Joe Pavelski, forward, San Jose Sharks: The marriage between the Sharks and Pavelski seems strong, but we thought that about Patrick Marleau, too.

9. Jeff Skinner, right wing, Buffalo Sabres: He’s the only 40-goal scorer available as a free agent. But also factor in this: He is a minus-98 over the past eight seasons and he never has been in the playoffs.

10. Sergei Bobrovsky, goalie, Columbus Blue Jackets: The Calgary Flames will not be Bobrovsky’s first choice, but he'd be a great fit for a contending team.

11. Jordan Eberle, right wing, New York Islanders: Increased his value by registering eight points in nine games in the playoffs. He’s only 28, but

has scored 20 or more goals six times, and 19 goals once.

12. Robin Lehner, goalie, New York Islanders: Lehner found his game with the Islanders. He should be inclined to stay there.

13. Tyler Myers, defensemen, Winnipeg Jets: If the Jets are going to trade Jacob Trouba, it seems like they would make every effort to keep Myers.

14. Brock Nelson, center-wing, New York Islanders: Averaged 22 goals per season for five seasons and he has only missed two games in that span. He also had four playoff goals in eight games.

15. Johansson: Two seasons ago, he had 24 goals and 58 points for Washington. He is only 28.

16. Micheal Ferland, right wing, Carolina Hurricanes: He can score goals and play with an edge, and that will earn him a nice raise from his $1.75

million contract.

17. Justin Williams, right wing, Carolina Hurricanes: At 37, he isn’t going to be looking to move unless the Hurricanes lowball him. He is important to the team in the dressing room and on the ice.

18. Gustav Nyquist, right wing, San Jose Sharks: With eight points in 14 games, he is having the best playoff showing of his career. He has also scored 20 or more goals four times, including in each of the past two seasons.

19. Brett Connolly, right wing, Washington Capitals: At 27, Connolly’s game is coming together. He scored a career-high 22 goals and added two more in seven playoff games.

20. Petr Mrazek, goalie, Carolina Hurricanes: Even though he has been important to Carolina's playoff success, he won’t have many options in the free agent marketplace. The best place for him is probably Carolina.

USA TODAY LOADED: 05.11.2019

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USA TODAY / Russian President Vladimir Putin takes a tumble after big performance at hockey exhibition

Mike Brehm, USA TODAY Published 6:57 p.m. ET May 10, 2019 | Updated 8:20 p.m. ET May 10, 2019

Russian President Vladimir Putin had a red-carpet moment during his

country's annual hockey exhibition Friday.

Just not the kind you want.

Putin, 66, was skating around waving to fans in Sochi, Russia, after his goal explosion at the Night Ice Hockey League gala, an all-star game that features retired Russian NHL players and political and business leaders.

Unfortunately, someone had put a red carpet along the boards and Putin was heading straight toward it.

Hall of Fame defenseman Slava Fetisov sped up to try to warn his country's leader but was too late.

Putin took a tumble.

No problems. He got up as though nothing happened and continued to

skate and wave.

USA TODAY LOADED: 05.11.2019

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