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Ottawa Senators head coach D.J. Smith confirmed Wednesday that the six members of the club - five players and one staff member - who fell ill to the coronavirus have fully recovered.

"I'm really glad that everybody in our organization and on that plane is now doing well, but it's certainly a scary time," Smith said, according to the Ottawa Sun's Bruce Garrioch.

Smith said seeing the virus firsthand allowed the organization to appreciate its severity and act accordingly.

"Yeah, it hit us, but at the same time, it probably saved a lot of us because unless you see it up close that quickly, we probably got a little bit of a jump on this," he explained.

Smith also admitted that when his team was in San Jose ahead of its March 7 contest against the Sharks, the city felt different after Santa Clara health authorities recommended the game be played without spectators. The Sharks did not follow that warning and went along with the game as planned.

"In San Jose, it was kind of weird, we got onto Santana Row and there wasn't really a lot of people out," Smith said. "Guys usually like to try and go for a walk and dinner - at that point, no one knew what we know now. Guys were aware, but I don't think there's any way of telling that it would have gotten to this level, certainly for us, anyway."

The NHL season was officially suspended March 12. Since then, eight players in total - five Senators and three from the Colorado Avalanche - have tested positive for COVID-19.

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Last week, we learned the Colorado Avalanche and New York Rangers built a reputation this season as road warriors.

Now, let's scan all the way to the bottom of that list to expose the teams that bled bettors dry.

Note: Profits listed for $100 bettor

1. Detroit Red Wings, -$1,958

This is the first list that accurately reflects which teams actually were the worst, or best, in a given category. Generally, long or short average lines have a large bearing on which teams are included, but the five teams with the worst records away from home this season are the five on this list.

And no team has been worse on the road than the Red Wings, who've posted an abysmal 5-29 (14.7%) straight-up record away from home. They picked up their fourth road win Dec. 14 and were 1-16 from that point before the season was paused. Detroit hasn't been favored on the road since March 15, 2017.

2. Ottawa Senators, -$1,640

The Senators really haven't fared much better than the Red Wings, as they're 7-27 (20.6%) on the road. Notably, five of those seven wins came during a one-month stretch starting Nov. 4. They were 5-7 SU over that period, actually earning bettors $50 thanks to an average line of +166. Outside of that, Ottawa is 2-20, costing backers a hefty $1,690.

3. Buffalo Sabres, -$1,000

The season started off so well for the Sabres before taking a sharp turn for the worst - stop me if you've heard that before. Buffalo fans must feel as though they're watching the same bad movie on repeat. The Sabres were 4-3 on the road (+$215) to start the campaign and then proceeded to go 6-21 (-$1,215).

4. Los Angeles Kings, -$820

The Kings have been slightly worse than the Sabres, with a record of 10-26 compared to Buffalo's 10-24. However, thanks to a longer average line on the road (Los Angeles' +162 to Buffalo's +151), they sit fourth on this list. The Kings' struggles have been more pronounced as they travel further to visit their opponents. L.A. is a brutal 2-14 away to Eastern Conference teams this season, losing bettors a cool $1,095.

5. San Jose Sharks, -$734

When it comes to the teams on this list, the Sharks have been the most respected by oddsmakers, with an average line on the road of +140. That's largely due to the fact that San Jose entered the season with lofty expectations. Its average line on the road through the first two months of the campaign was +124, compared to +158 from January until the pause.

Alex Moretto is a sports betting writer for theScore. A journalism graduate from Guelph-Humber University, he has worked in sports media for over a decade. He will bet on anything from the Super Bowl to amateur soccer, is too impatient for futures, and will never trust a kicker. Find him on Twitter @alexjmoretto.

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Sports history is littered with great teams that dominated their regular seasons only to fall short of ultimate glory in the playoffs. Our writers are paying tribute to those teams who were Almost Famous. After tackling MLB, NHL, and NFL, up next is another NHL edition.

Rarely in sports does a decade, a familiar yet stilted unit of measurement, sum up an era so tidily. Three teams dominated the NHL in the 1970s: Bobby Orr’s Boston Bruins, the Broad Street Bully Philadelphia Flyers, and the dynastic Montreal Canadiens, who bridged Jean Beliveau's last hurrah with the incredible reign of Guy Lafleur, Ken Dryden, and company.

Other franchises could have won a title; three came within games of doing so. But they never broke through, and some of history's longest Stanley Cup droughts persisted instead.

Those poor recurrent runners-up were the Chicago Black Hawks - the name's two words weren't merged until 1986 - the New York Rangers, and the Buffalo Sabres, who each iced at least a few excellent teams at varying points of the '70s that invariably fell short in the playoffs. Sometimes they lost to each other. Sometimes they were favored in the Cup final against, say, Montreal, only to squander a two-goal lead at home in Game 7.

Different strengths turned Chicago, New York, and Buffalo into contenders. The Rangers had starpower and were built to defend; the Sabres' famed French Connection line powered offenses that scored nearly 4.5 goals per game. All three aligned behind a common sob story: In a league that expanded in phases from 12 to 18 teams, they were on the right side of the competitive imbalance that ensued, but couldn't top the whole gauntlet in any one year.

Chicago was first to suffer from this period's particular cruelty.

Three Hall of Famers - forwards Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita and goaltender Tony Esposito - played for the Black Hawks in the early '70s, an assemblage of top-tier talent on par with that of Boston (Orr, Phil Esposito) and Montreal as Beliveau handed the torch to Lafleur. Like several fellow contenders in a polarized league, coach Billy Reay's clubs frequently surpassed the 1.00 mark in Hockey Reference's Simple Rating System (SRS), which gauges a team's strength based on its schedule and goal differential. (By comparison, no 2019-20 team was above 0.75 when the season paused.)

Chicago's regular-season promise was rendered hollow when Tony Esposito, who won the Vezina and Calder Trophies in 1970, flopped in a semifinal sweep that season against the soon-to-be-champion Bruins. The Black Hawks came similarly close in 1972, when a superior Rangers team edged them in the semis; 1973 was the year of a surprising run to the final following Hull's jump to the World Hockey Association; and 1974 ended, along with another Vezina season from Esposito, against Boston in six games.

In all, Chicago's best five-year span produced losses in three semifinal series and two Cup finals. No playoff defeat hurt more than 1971, when Montreal's quarterfinal upset of all-time juggernaut Boston (SRS: 2.29) established Chicago as the remaining favorite. Up three games to two against the Canadiens in the final, the Black Hawks fell 4-3 in Game 6 in Montreal and then blew a 2-0 lead at home in the decisive matchup. Such is the risk of letting Jacques Lemaire aim, fire, and score from the neutral zone.

Though Montreal delivered this smarting blow, Bruins-related misfortune bookended and shaped Chicago's lost half-decade. Black Hawks general manager Tommy Ivan kneecapped his team with an infamous 1967 trade that sent Phil Esposito to Beantown alongside Fred Stanfield and Ken Hodge. Chicago got one back on Boston by signing Orr in 1976 - after the mangling of the wondrous defenseman's left knee ensured his best days were behind him.

Rather than end sometime in the '70s, the Black Hawks' spell without a Cup totaled 49 years (1961-2010). They were upstaged in that category by the Rangers, whose record 54-year drought (1940-1994) endured because the GAG Line wasn't able to buck it.

Three Rangers teams were stellar in this era: 1971, 1972, and 1973. In the first of those years, they lost in the semis to a better Chicago squad; in the third, Chicago's semifinal win without Hull constituted a big upset. The intervening '72 season marked the peak of Jean Ratelle, Vic Hadfield, and Rod Gilbert's cumulative powers: these members of the GAG (goal-a-game) Line became the NHL's first trio to score 40 goals apiece. Bolstered by the Hall of Famers Brad Park on defense and Ed Giacomin in net, New York recorded a .699 points percentage despite losing Art Ross Trophy candidate Ratelle to a broken ankle in early March.

When the playoffs opened a month later, New York ousted the reigning champion Habs in six games and then swept Chicago, setting up a gem of a meeting for the Cup. Boston was the opponent, and though the Rangers held Phil Esposito without a goal all series, Ratelle managed just one assist after hastening his return from injury. The Bruins won Games 1, 2, and 4 by one goal. In Game 6 they clinched the title at Madison Square Garden with a 3-0 shutout, the product of a team effort that Orr, who scored the winner, described as a "perfect game."

Like Chicago, the Rangers' best shot to win had faded by the time Buffalo, an expansion entrant in 1971, arrived on the scene in earnest. The franchise has never won a Cup, a deficiency that was consummated in the '70s despite four straight seasons of standout play. Led by Gilbert Perreault, Rick Martin, and Rene Robert - the French Connection line - the Sabres could skate with anyone and score in bunches. But after the comparably great Flyers beat them in the 1975 final, they went on to bow out in three consecutive second rounds.

In that '75 season, Buffalo posted a .706 points percentage and then authored a signature six-game victory over the powerhouse Habs (SRS: 1.72) in the conference finals, delaying the dawn of Montreal's next dynasty by a year. Two memories resonate from the subsequent Cup final. One is the Fog Game, when humid weather and the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium's lack of air conditioning conspired to cloud the action at ice level. (How severe was the fog? We don't call Game 3 the Bat Game, even though Sabres center Jim Lorentz straight up killed one with his stick that same night.)

The second memory: Bernie Parent shutting the door. Buffalo won the Fog Game 5-4 in overtime, but the Flyers' netminder still allowed only 11 goals in the series, stymying the Sabres' vaunted offense with a .937 save percentage. Parent cemented his Conn Smythe Trophy performance when the series returned to The Aud for Game 6: his 32 stops powered Philly's 2-0 Cup-clinching win.

So went a decade that was uniquely unforgiving to all but a select few teams. Final confirmation of this trend came in 1979, when Lafleur, Lemaire, and Dryden's impossibly stacked Canadiens rolled to the title, their fourth in four years, with a five-game win in the Cup final.

Montreal's vanquished opponent: the Rangers, who were nowhere near as loaded as in the GAG Line's heyday, but who resurged unexpectedly that season to pull off a seismic upset in the conference finals. With Phil Esposito - acquired from Boston for Park and Ratelle a few years earlier - in tow, the Rangers eliminated the heavily favored New York Islanders in six games, postponing the coronation of a new dynasty until 1980.

Nick Faris is a features writer at theScore.

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As the No. 2-ranked North American skater ahead of the 2020 NHL Draft, Quinton Byfield has heard himself compared to numerous players, but one parallel seems to resonate more than the rest.

"Definitely drawing a couple comparisons out there. I think Evgeni Malkin. That's just an honor to be compared to that guy," Byfield told TSN. "He's a soon-to-be Hall of Famer."

Here's a tale of the tape:

The Pittsburgh Penguins selected Malkin No. 2 overall in 2004, and many project Byfield to go second overall at this year's draft behind Alexis Lafreniere.

TSN's Craig Button is the most prominent draft analyst to draw the comparison. He called Byfield a "Malkin clone" last summer, and later said he has "Evgeni Malkin hands" ahead of the world juniors. The Athletic's Corey Pronman didn't make any player comparisons in his scouting report, but he did write that Byfield has "truly elite hands" and that his skating ability is the "foundation" of his game. That has Malkin written all over it.

Byfield plans to try and emulate Malkin's game.

"I'll definitely watch as (many) Pittsburgh games as possible just to see what he does on the ice and how he plays," he said. "He's a big 200-foot center, and just (the) amazing offensive ability he has and just how he plays is unbelievable. I'll definitely watch him quite a bit and try and mold my game a little bit after him."

NHL director of central scouting Dan Marr has also compared Byfield to the legendary Jean Beliveau. Either way, there are some lofty expectations for the 17-year-old.

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Ottawa Senators head coach D.J. Smith wants growth from his core players, specifically on the mental side of the game.

"Whether we play this year or next, our mentality has to change," Smith told Sportsnet's Wayne Scanlan. "It's time for us to take a step. How big a step that is, we're going to find out. But we certainly need to take a step mentally, with the Tkachuks, Chabot, and Whites, etc."

Thomas Chabot, 23, signed an eight-year, $64-million extension in September. Colin White, also 23, inked a six-year, $28.5-million contract in August. Besides those two players, only Nikita Zaitsev and Bobby Ryan are signed beyond next season. Brady Tkachuk, 20, probably won't take long to join them; he's eligible for an extension on July 1 - or whenever the new league year begins.

Smith believes the best way for his team to progress is to create an internal belief that this group can contend.

"You watch the best teams, the Boston Bruins and the Washington Capitals, for example, when they come to the arena they expect to win every night," Smith continued. "I think every team wants to win every night - there's a difference between wanting to and knowing that you can win every night."

The Senators did not do much winning this season. With most preseason prognosticators expecting a dead-last finish, they ranked 30th out of 31 teams when play came to a halt on March 12.

But it's still early in the rebuilding process, and Smith will likely have more youngsters to groom next season. Ottawa projects to have the second and third overall picks in the upcoming draft, so it's possible the Sens' roster will feature another teenager or two in 2020-21. With fresh faces coming in, Tkachuk, Chabot, and White will be further counted upon as leaders - even if they're young in their own right.

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Although Winnipeg Jets defense prospect Dylan Samberg signed his entry-level contract on Tuesday, it almost didn't happen.

The Jets tried to get Samberg, a second-round pick in 2017, signed last summer, but he opted to return to the University of Minnesota Duluth for his junior season. He even considered going back again for his senior year so he could become an unrestricted free agent and sign with any team.

"You think about that stuff," he said Tuesday, according to Sportsnet's Sean Reynolds.

The Jets haven't had much success luring big-name free agents to Winnipeg. Every skater on the roster making over $1 million was either homegrown or acquired via trade. The organization prides itself on keeping its own talent, which makes the Samberg signing all the more important, especially with the team's depleted defense corps. Winnipeg lost Jacob Trouba, Dustin Byfuglien (presumably), Tyler Myers, and Ben Chiarot within the last year.

A clear path to the NHL was part of Samberg's decision to sign.

"I know there’s a lot of opportunity up there which I’m really excited for," he said. "I felt like this is what I wanted to do."

Josh Morrissey and Neal Pionk are locks for the team's back end next season. Tucker Poolman's job is likely safe as well, and deadline rental Dylan DeMelo could potentially be re-signed. Depending on what Winnipeg does this offseason, it could be a battle for the final two or three blue-line spots between youngsters Samberg, Ville Heinola, Logan Stanley, and Sami Niku.

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NHL Central Scouting released its final rankings for the 2020 draft Wednesday. Here's a look at the top 10 North American and international players.

North American

The full rankings for North American skaters can be found here.

Leading the way in the North American group is consensus No. 1 overall pick Lafreniere, who had a gigantic draft year that included 112 points in 52 QMJHL games as well as a gold medal and tournament MVP honors at the world juniors.

Byfield, another gold medalist with Canada, maintained his No. 2 spot after 82 points in 42 games with the Sudbury Wolves. Younger and bigger than Lafreniere, he's an enticing prospect who projects to be a strong two-way center in the pros.

International

The full rankings for international skaters can be found here.

Stuetzle maintains his No. 1 status atop the international board from the midseason rankings after posting 34 points in 41 games in Germany's top professional league as a 17- and 18-year-old.

Swedish winger Holtz also held his spot at No. 2, but Lundell jumped up one position from the previous rankings and into the top three after registering 10 goals and 18 assists in 44 games with HIFK.

The 2020 NHL Draft was scheduled to take place June 26-27 in Montreal but has been postponed due to coronavirus concerns. A new date hasn't been determined. The draft lottery to determine the order of picks is also up in the air as the league deals with the pandemic.

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