Blue Jackets Doomed By Costly Mistakes Against the Penguins

The St. Louis Blues came back from down 3-0 to win Game 5 in overtime over the Colorado Avalanche. It was an unbelievable game, capped off by a Tyler Bozak goal to send the series to a Game 6. As far as the result of this game, it was fairly...

Darryl Sutter, the head coach of the Calgary Flames, said a lot with little words as he normally does. This time it was after Game 3 of the second-round series against the Edmonton Oilers. He spoke on the use of the forwards for the Oilers and how there aren’t line matchups.

Although the Boston Bruins won 51 games during the 2021-22 regular season, their first-round postseason loss to the Carolina Hurricanes showed that they are not true contenders. Due to this, it seems time for general manager (GM) Don Sweeney to make a major addition to their roster. The Winnipeg Jets would be the perfect trade partner if he’s aiming to complete a blockbuster this summer. Let’s now take a look at why this is the case.

In society, we attach certain meanings to numbers. For example, some call the number seven lucky, while the number 13 is considered unlucky for most. So far in the 2022 NHL Playoffs, it is safe to call the number 91 the former, not the latter. Eight players have worn the...

Somebody once said that coaches get too much praise when their teams perform well, but too much criticism when things aren’t going well. However, in the case of Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Jon Cooper, he may not be getting enough recognition for the success of this team. This...

The Detroit Red Wings have snagged defensemen with their first-round draft pick in two of their last three drafts. Selecting Moritz Seider with the sixth overall selection in 2019, and Simon Edvinsson with the sixth selection in the 2021 Draft. They have even filled their prospect pool with some defensive selections in the second rounds in recent drafts such as Shai Buium (36th overall, 2021), William Wallinder (32nd overall, 2020), and a pair of second-round defenseman in 2019 Antti Tuomisto, (35th, 2019) and Albert Johansson (60th, 2019). Because a top-four caliber defenseman is difficult and expensive to find at the NHL level, don’t rule out the chance that Detroit’s general manager Steve Yzerman will go defense once again with the eighth pick in the 2022 Draft if the right player is there. Here is a look at Kevin Korchinski one of the higher upside defensemen that will likely be available when the Red Wings make their first-round selection this summer.

Elliotte Friedman wondered if this summer will be the “Summer of Kawhi” for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Suggesting he sees this offseason as the time when GM Kyle Dubas might make a big move and send one of his top players off the roster for a top player from another roster, he made a comparison to the Toronto Raptors when they moved a shocked Demar DeRozan, then added Kawhi Leonard. That was the season the Raptors wound up winning the NBA Championship.

The Florida Panthers will have to spend a good chunk of this NHL offseason figuring out what went wrong. The Presidents’ Trophy Winners got ousted by the defending Stanley Cup Champions in four games and in a series where Florida’s own coach said the team needed to find a higher level of urgency. Noting the Lighting wanted it more than the Panthers, that an interim coach said that of his own team is not a good sign for an organization that has a solid young core and should be right in the thick of things again next season.

The Boston Bruins are heading into this offseason with many questions. Although they had a strong regular season, their first-round loss to the Carolina Hurricanes made all of that irrelevant. This team is in need of some roster changes if they hope to be viewed as true contenders again. Thus, they should be active in the trading market this summer, and one team worth calling is the Seattle Kraken. They have a few players who the Bruins should consider pursuing. Let’s now look at each of them.

No player has been better than Connor McDavid in these 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs. That said, perhaps no player has been hotter than Evander Kane. Certainly, no player has scored more goals as he leads the playoffs with 12, two coming in the Game 4 win by the Edmonton Oilers over the Calgary Flames on Tuesday night.

The “Summer of Kawhi?” Seriously, this is an idea the Toronto Maple Leafs should avoid like the plague. It is so perfectly ridiculous, and I wish I would have thought of it. To be direct, the idea is simplistic, ignores reality, and I believe the Maple Leafs shouldn’t...

Before the start of the 2022-23 season, the Philadelphia Flyers need to start thinking about the organization’s goaltending situation moving forward. Obviously, the 23-year-old franchise goaltender, Carter Hart, will continue to be the No. 1 guy, but it would be nice to have a solid secondary option. The last two seasons have not exactly been kind to Hart in the net, so the team has relied heavily on their second guy.

After failing to make the postseason for the fourth straight season, the Anaheim Ducks are officially in offseason mode. With the 2021-22 season in the rearview mirror, we can look back at some of the individual seasons that Ducks’ players had and how they fit moving forward. Max Comtois...

The job security of an NHL head coach is tenuous at best, and while that may be unfair, it’s easy to see why. After all, when it comes to fostering change, it’s a whole lot easier to get rid of one guy (or one coaching staff) than 23 players. With last week’s firing of Pete DeBoer and the unlikelihood of a full-scale blow-up, it appears that the Vegas Golden Knights are on the well-traveled path of changing the coach and running it back.

While the Tampa Bay Lightning continue on their run for a third straight Stanley Cup, it isn’t too early to predict what the roster may look like in 2022-23. One of the biggest question marks for general manager Julien BriseBois will be whether he decides to re-sign forward Ondrej Palat. Palat will be an unrestricted free agent (UFA) for the first time in his career this summer. A seventh-round draft pick in 2011, he was just one of a long list of late-round steals by former general manager Steve Yzerman. Despite his draft position, Palat has been an integral part of the Stanley Cup-winning core in Tampa Bay, making the decision to let him test the market much more difficult.

In this edition of Toronto Maple Leafs News & Rumors, I’ll report that Jim Paliafito is no longer with the organization. He’s been an incredibly important figure in player development for the team and was important in setting up the Maple Leafs’ Russian connection. Second, I’ll talk...

Wily forward Paul Stastny showed his value to the Jets in a number of ways throughout a productive 2021-22. First and foremost, Stastny was a valuable member of the Jets’ offence. Despite turning 36 in December, the veteran of nearly 1,100-career games showed he still has a good scoring touch and strong overall offensive instincts.

The 2022 Draft isn’t seen as one with any potential generational talent, but the strength of this draft will be in the quality of players available later into the second or even third round. Despite the success of the 2019 Draft class out of the United States, there is still less emphasis placed on scouting American junior leagues, as the United States Hockey League (USHL) is considered a weaker cousin to the Canadian-based Canadian Hockey League members.

As a last-place team, the Montreal Canadiens have almost every other NHL franchise beat in at least one key statistical category: number of holes in the line-up. Whether it’s via the NHL Entry Draft, trade or free agency, general manager Kent Hughes will have his hands full trying to plug them this 2022 offseason.

“Whatever it Takes.” That’s the mantra adopted by the Edmonton Oilers in the 2022 Playoffs. It’s been a self fulfilling prophecy. The Oilers have shown strong resilience in their two playoff series against the Calgary Flames and Los Angeles Kings and now they await the winner of the series featuring the St. Louis Blues and Colorado Avalanche. The poster boy for the Oilers’ resiliency would have to be 40-year-old goaltender Mike Smith.