Another Edmonton Oilers great appears set to join the club's front office.

Hall of Fame defenseman Paul Coffey is expected to join the organization in some capacity, according to TSN's Bob McKenzie.

Coffey was in attendance for Edmonton's game against Vancouver on Sunday, and reiterated the unspecified nature of his role:

Coffey spent seven seasons with the Oilers, winning three Stanley Cups with Edmonton in the 1980s. He added another Cup to his resume with Pittsburgh in 1991, and amassed a bevy of other personal accolades that include ranking second all time in scoring by a defenseman.

This will mark his first foray into the decision-making side of the game at the NHL level.

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It's all just noise as far as Erik Karlsson is concerned.

Trade rumors surrounding the Ottawa Senators captain have picked up this week, especially after general manager Pierre Dorion went on record Thursday stating that while the team plans to keep the two-time Norris Trophy winner for life, he would still listen to trade offers.

In fact, Dorion made sure to point out even Wayne Gretzky was traded in his prime, seemingly comparing the two players and situations despite Karlsson not fully understanding why.

"This isn't close to that," Karlsson said of the comparison, according to Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun. "I don't know why that parallel is being drawn."

As for the speculation, Karlsson insists he isn't worried about potentially being traded. For the time being, his focus remains solely on the ice.

"This isn't something I can control. I'm going to do the job I've done," said Karlsson. "I'm going to do the best I can to help this team. When the time comes to make a decision, I will make one."

In a down season, Karlsson still ranks tied for eighth in scoring among all NHL defensemen with 31 points in 39 games.

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The Toronto Maple Leafs overcame a 3-1 deficit with a third-period rally to best the Ottawa Senators 4-3 on Saturday night.

It was the Maple Leafs' first win in regulation since Dec. 28, when they topped the last-place Arizona Coyotes. Prior to Saturday's game, the team had gone 2-3-4 in its previous nine contests, with both victories coming in the shootout.

Despite Toronto's shaky play of late, the Maple Leafs remain third in the Atlantic Division with a 13-point lead over the fourth-place Florida Panthers.

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It was a night to remember for 15-year-old San Jose Sharks fan Hayden Bradley.

The team signed Bradley to an honorary three-day contract as part of the Make-A-Wish program, and had planned to have him drop the puck to Joe Pavelski and Sidney Crosby in a ceremonial faceoff.

Instead, the Sharks' captain had Bradley stand in the dot with the Pittsburgh Penguins' superstar center.

Bradley was born with a heart defect that required major surgery last April, and his family recently lost their home in a fire that befell his neighborhood in nearby Santa Rose.

Bradley and his family will travel with the Sharks to Anaheim for Sunday's game against the Ducks.

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Presented with an opportunity to make up ground quickly, the Montreal Canadiens came up short.

Over the course of the last eight days, the Canadiens played the rival Boston Bruins - a team they're chasing for a playoff spot - on three occasions.

The result? Three losses and a single point earned.

Here's how it went down:

• Jan. 13 - Bruins 4, Canadiens 3 (Shootout decision)
• Jan. 17 - Bruins 4, Canadiens 1
• Jan. 20 - Bruins 4, Canadiens 1

The Canadiens now sit 18 points behind the Bruins, who are in turn inching close to the first-placed Tampa Bay Lightning after earning at least a point in their last 16 games overall.

As it stands, the Canadiens face an uphill battle - if there's any hope at all - to clinch a playoff berth.

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The Dallas Stars firmly believe John Klingberg belongs in the Norris Trophy conversation, and rightfully so.

Earlier this week, the NHL Network offered up a graphic displaying the apparent leading candidates for the league's best defenseman this season.

Following a dominant performance in Saturday's 7-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres, the Stars revisited that tweet with some updated information.

Klingberg has recorded six goals and 40 assists through 48 games, some 10 points ahead of Washington star John Carlson for tops among all defensemen.

He's also a plus-14 and boasts a 53.8 Corsi rating at even strength, for those wondering about the defensive side of his game.

There's an obvious case to be made for Klingberg's Norris candidacy, and the Stars won't let anyone forget it.

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The Colorado Avalanche have turned things around in a hurry.

Coming off an historically awful 2016-17, the Avs have reeled off nine wins in a row, currently sit in a Western Conference wild-card playoff spot, and are withing striking distance of third place in the ultra-competitive Central Division.

Following that ninth consecutive victory Saturday over the New York Rangers, defenseman Erik Johnson spoke about the commitment made by the team's core players to avoid a repeat performance of last year.

"The way things went last year, I think the easy thing to say would have been: 'It's not working here, let's go somewhere else, let's jump ship,'" Johnson said Saturday, per Rick Sadowski of NHL.com. "The character guys and core guys in this room said we want to figure things out here in Colorado, make it work."

Earlier this season, Colorado shook up the roster by coming through on a trade request filed last year by Matt Duchene, one made because he was tired of losing.

"I wanted to play playoff hockey," Duchene explained at the time of the trade, per Bruce Garrioch of Postmedia. "I’ve got eight playoff games to my name right now and that’s not where I want to be at this point of my career."

Heading into Saturday's game against Toronto, Duchene's Ottawa Senators sat second to last in the Eastern Conference, all but out of the playoff picture.

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The Toronto Maple Leafs will be without their top defenseman when they take on the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night.

Morgan Rielly will be held out after suffering an upper-body injury during the second period of Thursday's game against the Philadelphia Flyers, according to TSN's Mark Masters. Rielly finished the game against the Flyers, but as head coach Mike Babcock alluded to postgame, he was used sparingly.

Rielly is in the midst of a career year. He's tallied 31 points in 47 games, just two points shy of Auston Matthews, who leads the Maple Leafs in scoring.

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With another win on Saturday afternoon, the Colorado Avalanche extended their winning streak to nine games, the longest managed by any team this season.

The Avalanche topped the New York Rangers 3-1 and in doing so also tied their second-longest winning run in franchise history.

Leading the way on Saturday, once again, was Nathan MacKinnon, who extended his goalscoring streak - netting the eventual game-winner - to five games and his current point streak to nine matchups.

During the team's run, MacKinnon has tallied 19 points and now sits just two points behind Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov for the league lead.

As for the Avalanche, they currently hold down the final wild-card spot in the West but are just four points back of the St. Louis Blues, who occupy the third spot in the Central Division with three games in hand.

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With the New York Islanders bitten by the injury bug, a promising young forward remains in the minors with something left to prove in the eyes of the organization.

That would be Joshua Ho-Sang, who sits in Bridgeport despite some holes in the NHL lineup, the biggest of which was created by an injury to Josh Bailey.

But Ho-Sang was recently a healthy scratch in the AHL, and Islanders' head coach Doug Weight believes it would be sending the wrong message to immediately promote the highly-skilled forward to the team's top line.

"It’s a crying shame (Ho-Sang's) not playing with John Tavares when Bails goes down," Weight said, per Arthur Staple of Newsday. “We had six guys out. It was a perfect opportunity. And Josh should be upset with himself.

"Whether our view of the world is wrong is something we can argue later. But the fact is, we need to be able to look at how some guys are laying it on the line (in Bridgeport) and he’s a healthy scratch. So, to go from that to the first lineup here, where is he learning from that? That’s a big, big part of this."

Ho-Sang has appeared in 19 games for Bridgeport this season, scoring four goals and nine assists. In four games since being benched, he's recorded one assist.

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