Sat Shah and Bik Nizzar breakdown the Canucks 5-4 OT win over the Columbus Blue Jackets. Hear from Head Coach Rick Tocchet (44:45) and JT Miller (15:00) post game. 

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New Jersey Devils captain Nico Hischier was frustrated by his squad's performance during Saturday's 6-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

"Disappointing, I'm embarrassed a bit, to be honest," he said. "Just outworked, outplayed in such a big game. The way we performed is embarrassing."

The Lightning dominated play in virtually every category, outshooting the Devils 42-24 at all strengths while controlling over 60% of the shot attempts, scoring chances, high-danger chances, and expected goals at five-on-five, per Natural Stat Trick.

The third period, in particular, was rough for the Devils. All three of their goals came in the final frame, but the Lightning had a quick response for each of them. In the case of Ondrej Palat and Tyler Toffoli's tallies, the Bolts restored their two-goal lead within one minute.

Hischier was a man of few words when asked why the Devils have been unable to match the intensity of their opponents this season.

"I wish I could answer that," he said. "Just not good enough. Gotta calm down here and think about it. I don't have an answer to that right now."

The center added that he thought his team needed to have more "emotion" on the bench.

Saturday's clash featured two teams on opposite trajectories. The Lightning have now won eight of their last nine games, while the Devils have only picked up two wins in their last seven contests.

As a result, New Jersey is now in sixth place in the Metropolitan Division with a 24-20-3 record. The Devils are six points behind the Detroit Red Wings for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, though the former has two games in hand. Tampa Bay, meanwhile, occupies third place in the Atlantic Division.

Hischier and Co. will fight for their playoff lives when they return from the All-Star break on Feb. 6 against the dangerous Colorado Avalanche.

"I hope everybody goes and rests up a bit and thinks about what team they want to be a part of coming down the stretch," Hischier said. "If we want to be a playoff team, we've gotta figure something out. ... Everybody's gotta start looking in the mirror."

Last season, the Devils made the playoffs for the first time since 2018. They were eliminated in the second round by the Carolina Hurricanes.

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New York Rangers captain Jacob Trouba has been suspended two games for elbowing Vegas Golden Knights rookie Pavel Dorofeyev during Friday's contest, the NHL's Department of Player Safety announced on Saturday.

Trouba was not penalized for the incident, which occurred late in the second period of the Rangers' 5-2 loss. Dorofeyev was unable to return to the game.

Both players were jockeying for position in New York's zone following a faceoff. Trouba's elbow struck Dorofeyev up high, knocking the forward to the ice. The league found that Trouba wasn't attempting to make a play on the puck, nor was the motion natural or incidental.

Trouba had previously been suspended once and fined twice in his 727-game NHL career. In 2017, he was handed a two-game ban for an illegal check to Mark Stone's head.

The defenseman missed the Rangers' clash against the Ottawa Senators on Saturday and won't play in New York's showdown against the Colorado Avalanche on Feb. 5 following the All-Star break.

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New York Islanders forward Mathew Barzal believes his team's middling 20-17-11 record was the driving factor behind Zach Parise's decision to sign with the Colorado Avalanche.

"I'm sure if we had won eight of the games that we probably could have this year and were 15, 16 points - 10 points even - ahead of where we're at today, I'm sure he'd be in blue and orange," Barzal said ahead of Saturday's clash against the Florida Panthers, per Newsday's Andrew Gross.

"He knows his time is ticking and Colorado is a front-runner for winning the Cup. I wish that we had done a better job to allow him to come here."

The Islanders currently sit sixth in the Metropolitan Division and seventh in terms of points percentage, ahead of only the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets. New York is four points behind the Detroit Red Wings for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference and has played the same number of games.

The Avalanche, meanwhile, won the Stanley Cup in 2022 and remain one of the league's best teams. They've been challenging for first place in the Central Division all season and currently hold the top spot with a 32-14-3 record, but the Winnipeg Jets are two points behind with three games in hand, while the Dallas Stars are trailing by just one point.

Parise is 39 years old and has never lifted Lord Stanley's Mug. He appeared in the 2012 Stanley Cup Final as a member of the New Jersey Devils, but they fell to the Los Angeles Kings in six games.

The veteran signed a one-year, $825,000 pact with the Avalanche on Friday after spending the last two seasons on Long Island. He didn't miss a game while wearing an Islanders jersey, totaling 36 goals and 69 points in 164 contests.

"It's exciting for him," Islanders forward Brock Nelson said of his former teammate's new opportunity. "We definitely would have loved to have him here. He was a great guy for this group. A veteran guy that deserves to win and has another chance to do that in Colorado."

Last spring, both the Islanders and Avalanche were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Parise told reporters in May that he'd likely return to New York or retire.

The Islanders will not face Colorado again this campaign.

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Toronto Maple Leafs forward Ryan Reaves will make his return to the lineup Saturday against the Winnipeg Jets, head coach Sheldon Keefe confirmed to The Hockey News' David Alter.

Exiting the lineup is forward Calle Jarnkrok, who'll be out week-to-week with a broken knuckle sustained during practice on Friday.

Reaves last played on Dec. 14 against the Columbus Blue Jackets. He sustained a lower-body injury during the game on an awkward collision into the boards.

The 37-year-old recently noted his frustration about not getting into the lineup. Despite being on injured reserve until Tuesday, Reaves said he's been ready to play "for a couple weeks."

Reaves, who was signed to a three-year, $4.05-million contract on July 1, has one goal and 16 penalty minutes in 21 contests with the Maple Leafs. His minus-11 rating is the worst on the team.

Jarnkrok ranks fifth on Toronto with 10 goals. The 32-year-old versatile winger has played 15:18 per contest, accruing 19 points on the campaign.

Forward Bobby McMann was placed on injured reserve with a lingering injury, Keefe confirmed to TSN's Mark Masters on Friday.

McMann's and Jarnkrok's injuries leave the Maple Leafs with 12 available forwards on the active roster.

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When he retired in 2008 after a 15-season pro hockey career, he'd amassed an unassailable record of 4,493 penalty minutes in the American Hockey League, more than 1,500 ahead of his closest challenger and enough to earn him an induction into the league's Hall of Fame on Feb. 5 at the All-Star gathering in San Jose.

He fought in all levels of the game. From Junior A near his hometown in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, up to the NHL for the Oilers, Blackhawks, Penguins, Avalanche, Bruins, and Senators - wherever he could find a team needing two fists with something to prove. He fought top enforcers in an age when that role was inseparable from the game itself. If you ask, he'll reluctantly rattle off the biggest matchups. Bob Probert. Tie Domi. Gerry Fleming. One bout against Ryan VandenBussche lasted more than two minutes.

He fought until his hands were crooked and his body was spent.

But say the name Dennis Bonvie to anyone who played with him or crossed paths with him during his subsequent 15-year career as a pro scout - that is to say, much of the hockey world - and you won't hear a lot about fights, at least not at first. You're likely to hear a quiet laugh, a sigh, and the words: "Bonvie was a good teammate."

It wasn't just that Bonvie took penalties - it was the way he did it, with almost every minute of his HOF record traceable to a teammate he was protecting, some in less traditional ways than others.

"I wasn't one to drop the gloves at all, but I remember I had gotten into my first fight," says Stephen Dixon, a fellow Maritimer who played with a veteran Bonvie as an AHL rookie for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins. "I went to the penalty box and I looked over and Dennis is standing up, giving me the thumbs up and talking to the coach. All of a sudden, they're getting the puck ready for the faceoff and Dennis jumps on, lines up next to a guy, and his gloves come off. He's in a fight as well."

Bonvie arrived in the penalty box with a grin. "Stand up and give me a hug," he told Dixon. "It's your first fight. I'm not going to let you sit in the penalty box alone.

"He sat there with his arm around me the whole five minutes."

For Bonvie, that three-word distinction - a good teammate - was the highest honor in hockey. "Hopefully that stands for what I did, for as long as I did it," he says.

That Bonvie had the career he did - he retired months shy of his 35th birthday - is owed, from start to finish, to his burning desire to stick around long enough to play another game. "There's nothing like being on a team, and there's nothing like competing," he says.

His career began rather inauspiciously in 1991 when he was drafted into the Ontario Hockey League by the Kitchener Rangers. He went in the 19th round, 277th overall, the sixth-last pick of the draft. "I think the janitor called my name out," he likes to joke.

He was later traded in a package to the North Bay Centennials and that's when he knew fighting would be his path up. "The coach said he liked tough Maritimers and I fit the bill. I told him I wanted to be the toughest guy in the league. I said, 'Just give me a chance to prove my worth.'"

Bonvie got to work, tallying 261 penalty minutes in 49 games in his first season and 316 penalty minutes in 64 games the next. But the effort wasn't enough to get drafted into the NHL. After a tryout with the Flames went nowhere, he enrolled in university back in Nova Scotia, but never made it to class. Instead, he reported to a tryout with the Cape Breton Oilers, then Edmonton's farm team, and his illustrious AHL career began.

"At first when I went there I was worried there wasn't a spot for me, maybe they didn't want to keep me around," he says. He promptly made himself useful by switching from defense to forward to fill a gap in the lineup. "I knew I was the underdog, I knew I was trying to prove I belonged."

While he was still trying to impress front offices, Bonvie already had the confidence of his teammates.

"My first experience with Dennis was when I got sent down to Cape Breton and got thrown into the lineup," says former Oiler Louie DeBrusk, who knew how to defend himself on the ice. "The first scrum that I get into in front of the net, I'm thinking the gloves are going to come off. All of a sudden he comes into the pile and separates me from another guy and wants to fight him. And I'm thinking, 'That might be the first time in my career that somebody actually stepped up for me.' He was so game. That was how the AHL was back then. There was a lot of toughness and a lot of skill. Dennis felt like he was protecting his players, which he did. And he was one of the best ever at it."

It was his work ethic, too, that gained notice. "I remember watching him lift weights after practice, he'd be in there bench pressing, he was just all-in," DeBrusk says. "He had that burning desire to make it. He never got satisfied. He was never content. He always felt like somebody could take his job on a nightly basis. You had to have that attitude in that role. Every single day, somebody might be looking to try and take your job. He was going to do whatever he could to make sure that didn't happen."

Bonvie didn't have to wait long for his big shot. "When I started, I wanted to prove and get respect from all my peers that I could do it, that I was as tough as everybody else. In doing that, you start thinking: maybe there's a chance I could play a game or two in the NHL."

By the 1994-95 season, what started as an outside chance at the NHL became a reality when Bonvie made his debut in Edmonton in a late-season game against the Kings. In his first shift, Bonvie immediately tried scrapping with L.A. enforcer Matt Johnson. When that didn't happen, Bonvie remembers the Kings dumping the puck into the Oilers' zone and bringing on their first line - anchored by Wayne Gretzky. "I think I just dumped it in and went off the ice, I was kind of in awe," says Bonvie. "Welcome to the show."

Bonvie spent the rest of his career going up and down from the AHL to the NHL. "I played 15 years just trying to play one more game." He collected 92 total NHL appearances.

"Every time you get called up to the NHL is the best day in the world; every time you get sent down, it's the worst thing in the world," DeBrusk says. "It's a really emotional roller coaster going up and down and trying to make the NHL on a regular basis."

But if the emotional whiplash ever wore on Bonvie, he didn't let it show. "I just love to play. I love to be part of a team. I loved to protect my teammates and make sure they felt comfortable. At first you start and you're trying to get up in the NHL. You're trying to get another opportunity to get up when you get sent down.

"Then, you get halfway through your career and realize, 'You know what, I might end up spending a lot more time in the minors.' Well, then you have to try to be the best veteran you can be and try to develop those kids."

Growing up in Nova Scotia provided Bonvie with the perfect framework for how to build community. "In Nova Scotia, you just drop in," his wife Kelly Bonvie says. "You just drop in to people's houses, you end up staying for dinner, there's always enough, and the door is always open."

"My mom was a tremendous cook," Dennis says. "My dad would come home on weeknights from the mill and my mom would always have meat and potatoes. Sunday was family dinner. Whatever holiday it is, you go to somebody's house and everybody is there. We were brought up like that."

So Bonvie brought that family tradition to his team. "I'm not sure if you can print about the bottles of wine at these dinners because that's what I remember," says Chris Kelleher, who played with Bonvie in Wilkes-Barre and who is now the Minnesota Wild's director of player personnel. "He'd invite anyone - rookies, veterans, whoever it was."

"He wouldn't want anybody to feel left out," Kelly Bonvie says. "He just wanted to make sure that these guys felt supported and there was always somebody to go to if they had a problem. I look back and I really treasure the memories of hanging out with some of these guys. You know, they were still growing up and they just appreciated having a home-cooked meal. It was just the simple things that they really appreciated. We were happy to be able to do it."

The dinners often led to swapping tales about on-ice antics. "When Dennis was around, he was always telling stories," says John Slaney, now an assistant coach for the AHL's Tucson Roadrunners. One of the favorites that still gets retold is a famous one-liner Bonvie would feed the opposition.

Kelleher's version of it takes place in Philadelphia. "Dennis was really our only legitimate, tough-guy fighter. He could fight anybody, right? So we go to Philly and everybody's nervous. Dennis was trying to keep it light. The puck doesn't even drop and he goes over to the Philly bench. He says to them, 'I got three fights in me. You guys decide which three it's going to be. Now let's drop the puck," Kelleher says. Three fights were the league maximum before getting ejected.

"He had a lot of chirps," Slaney says. "He would yell at the bench if everyone was looking down, 'Hey, did you lose all your quarters on the floor?' When Dennis got mad it was almost like when your grandfather got mad."

Bonvie became the first person to call when you needed someone. "I played one game in the NHL," Kelleher says. "It was for the Bruins. I got called up. The morning of the game, I realized with the travel schedule, I was going to get to the rink at 9 a.m. - I was just going to sit there for hours getting more nervous. So I called Dennis up. He played for the Bruins at the time. And he met me at the rink and sat with me. He was more excited for me than I was. That's something I'll never forget."

That empathy and leadership carried well beyond Bonvie's on-ice career and into his scouting pursuits. He's now the Bruins' director of pro scouting.

"What I admire most about my dad is how much time he makes for us," his 19-year-old son, Rhys Bonvie, says. "Sometimes he'll take me along to NHL games and I love being in the press box with him. He knows everyone. Even the elevator lady. He says she's the one who knows everyone but I know it's him, too."

Rhys says people who know he's Dennis' son assume he must be tough, like his father. But tough isn't the word he uses to describe his dad. "I would say he's a teddy bear," Rhys says.

Bonvie's never hidden that soft side off the ice. Learning about his HOF induction openly brought him to tears. "He called me and he couldn't even talk," Kelly says. "He was just so emotional. I was just so grateful that his hard work for all those years got recognized."

With hockey having changed drastically in the nearly two decades since Bonvie's heyday, with far more emphasis on skill and speed, his on-ice accomplishments might be overlooked. But many former players have pointed out that Bonvie's stats speak loudly: he had 84 goals and 191 assists in the AHL, so he could do more than fight. But still, his main role has become a bit of a throwback to a different era of hockey.

"It's an entirely different game," DeBrusk says. "Players like Dennis, the role that he had, call it the enforcer, call it the tough guy, you can even call it the goon, I really don't care. I think when you look over the history, they were so influential on how the game was played. They were incredibly popular in every market they played in - whether it was negative or positive, people knew who those guys were.

"I think Dennis worked hard, harder than anybody. I don't think people really understand how difficult that position is, to do it on a nightly basis and for as long as he did. The toughness is what got him to pro hockey, got him a job. But to stick around for as long as he did, you have to be a good teammate."

For Bonvie, when he reminisces about his Hall of Fame career, that's what he's usually thinking about. "I don't even like to talk about the fights too much because it's not fair to the guys I was fighting or vice versa," he says. "There's ones that I lost that I shouldn't have, and the ones that I did really well in I don't need to talk about because it could have been me on the other side. Proud of them? I just did my job."

Instead, Bonvie's far more proud of the designation he earned from the chirps, the dinners, from showing up when he was asked: "A good teammate."

"(A) coach told me way back in the day that when you retire, if your teammates can stand up and say, 'That was one heck of a teammate, a really good guy,' that's something to be proud of. I think I was the best teammate I could be."

Jolene Latimer is a feature writer at theScore.

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Dan and Sat answer your questions about what all-in moves the Canucks could make if they threw caution to the wind, what jerseys they'll wear in the playoffs, and more!

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