Jonathan Toews might have the captaincy and Cup rings, but he lacks social media savvy - at least in the eyes of Patrick Kane.

In response to Kane wishing him happy birthday over Twitter, Toews had to call out his fellow $10.5-million teammate on the social media platform in order to gain his follow.

Clearly these two are a little more interesting when on the ice in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

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Most NHL dreams are forged on the rinks in small towns considered the backbone of Canada and the United States. Few towns are more representative than Fort McMurray, Alberta - the province's northeastern natural resource hub currently being engulfed by sweeping wildfires.

Chris Phillips is one NHLer who's roots trace back to Fort McMurray. His sister and her immediate family have been safely evacuated from the area, but that doesn't make the harrowing visuals of the town that gave him his start much easier to digest.

"It's really hard. To be honest, I'm trying not to see what it looks like," Phillips said Wednesday, Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun reports. "I'm reading a lot of information on Twitter but I'm trying not to see video or pictures because it's hard to watch.

"To see it, in the shape it's in right now, it's just really hard. There's no easy way to describe that feeling, feeling so helpless, seeing a lot of friends and family trying to get out of there. Thankfully, I haven't heard of any injuries or worse and that everybody did get out of the fire hazard anyway."

Another local kid, St. Louis Blues forward Scottie Upshall, has a distraction: the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. But he admitted prior to Game 3 versus the Dallas Stars that his mind was elsewhere.

"I did not care about the hockey at the time. Once I started reading and I saw photos and video on Twitter, hockey was kind of the last thing I was thinking about," Upshall told Sportnet's Mark Spector.

"I was on my phone for most of the pregame warmup, in the dressing room," he added.

On his phone, Upshall learned that Beacon Hill - the neighborhood where he played his minor hockey - was largely destroyed, including an estimated 80 percent of the area's homes.

"The first arena I ever skated in was called the Beacon Hill Arena," he said. "Man, I can still remember the smell of that place. I'm told Beacon Hill is completely gone."

The rink - since renamed Frank Lacroix Arena - has apparently survived the blaze.

The Blues announced that they'll work to raise money for Upshall's hometown with a raffle and silent auction in advance of Game 4.

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Justin Schultz is being called upon to play for, but not replace, Kris Letang.

Letang will sit Game 4 against the Washington Capitals after being suspended one game, and while tabbing Schultz to fill a hole in the lineup, Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan expects a team effort in the absence of one of their best players.

"I don't think anybody's going to try to become Kris Letang because we don't have him tonight," Penguins coach Mike Sullivan told reporters after the morning skate. "We're just going to be ourselves. We're going to play our game. We're going to try to play to our strengths and we'll see where it goes."

Schultz hasn't played since Game 1 of the first round (three weeks ago), and will look to keep things simple.

"I'm not going to replace him by no means," Schultz said of Letang. "I haven't played for a while so just try to move my feet, jump up when I can, and have fun."

Schultz was paired with Ian Cole in practice. He recorded a goal and seven assists in 18 regular season games with the Penguins.

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Katie Lamb will be providing preview content for the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes, and Belmont Stakes for theScore this season. Katie's horse-racing coverage has appeared in The New York Times and the Toronto Star.

If J. Paul Reddam had his way, two Nyquists would be battling it out for the headlines in the sports pages.

The Windsor, Ontario native and lifelong Detroit Red Wings fan is also the owner of the Kentucky Derby favorite, Nyquist, who Reddam named after Red Wings forward Gustav Nyquist.

But after a stinging loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the NHL Playoffs, in which Gustav Nyquist only managed to score a single goal in five games, Reddam can only hope the right winger’s big, bay namesake can prevail in the Run for the Roses on May 7.

“There's a story that the Stanley Cup is going to be at the barn on Saturday morning,” Reddam said over the phone from Los Angeles. “I don’t know if we’ll be so frivolous to have the horse drink out of it and get a photo. He’ll be the only Nyquist drinking out the Cup - that’s for sure.”

Reddam gave the horse its name as a way to rib friend Eric Johnson, a defenseman for the Colorado Avalanche, who refused to join the Red Wings. He also races Mrazek, named after his beloved team’s goaltender, Petr Mrazek.

Based in California with trainer Doug O’Neill, the 3-year-old colt rolls into the big dance undefeated in his seven starts to date, having most recently won the Florida Derby on April 2 at Gulfstream Park in Florida. A $400,000 purchase as a 2-year-old, Nyquist won four stakes races that first year on the track - Grade 1 Del Mar Futurity, Grade 1 FrontRunner Stakes and the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile - and was voted Eclipse Award champion 2-year-old.

Nyquist is by the white-hot sire Uncle Mo, who has two other Derby entrants in Outwork and Mo Tom, a remarkable accomplishment considering these individuals are a part of his first crop of 3-year-olds.

Mario Guiterrez, who has ridden Nyquist in all of his starts, will pilot him on Saturday.

Four years ago, Reddam, Guiterrez, and O’Neill arrived at Churchill Downs with 12-1 shot I’ll Have Another, and left Kentucky Derby victors. Two weeks later, they won the Preakness, too. Then, a day before Belmont Stakes and a bid for the Triple Crown, I’ll Have Another suffered an injury to his tendon and was scratched. He subsequently retired.

This time, Reddam has the favorite and there is pressure that comes with racing an undefeated champion in the world’s most important race for 3-year-olds.

“The playoffs you can make mistakes in the final and still win the Cup," he said. "In the Derby, all this anticipation that’s been building and will continue to build to Saturday, boom they pop the gate and it’s over in two minutes and you’re either a hero or a goat.

“Here for us running second would just be a loss.”

There are questions if Nyquist will have the stamina for the 1-mile-1/4 distance of the Derby, as it will be the farthest he’s ever run. But more concerning to Reddam is the post. In addition to running the longest race of his career, Nyquist will have to navigate the track amid 19 others, more foes than he’s ever faced in his life. Reddam said he’d like a stall in the gate “toward the outside,” that way he hopes his colt can stay out of trouble and sail home.

“We just want a clear trip. And if he’s the best horse, he’ll win, and, if he’s not, he won’t versus having an excuse,” he said.

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Steven Stamkos will not be supplanted as the face of the Tampa Bay Lightning anytime soon.

So believes Dave Andreychuk, the club's vice president of corporate and community affairs, who said as much on Sportsnet's Hockey Central on Wednesday.

"I still believe that (general manager) Steve Yzerman is trying whatever he can do to sign Steven Stamkos, and I believe it will happen," Andreychuk said.

"Even with all this going on, I think it will happen. He's been around the team, he's obviously on the trip here to New York. He's been very positive with the guys, so he's doing what he can do as the captain of this team."

"All this" refers to a blood clot and subsequent surgery that has kept Stamkos off the ice during the playoffs. Several players have stepped up in his absence, most notably Nikita Kucherov, who leads the postseason with seven goals.

The Russian's performance has led some to believe the Lightning would be fine without Stamkos, taking that cap savings and spreading it elsewhere.

Andreychuk, who won a Stanley Cup with the Lightning in 2004, disagrees, fully believing it's Stamkos that the team must continue to be built around.

From Hockey Central:

(Kucherov) is obviously a great player. I liked him at the start of the year saying, you know - he had 20-something goals last year - he says, "That's not good enough. I need to be a 40-goal scorer, a 30-goal scorer." So he's got that kind of attitude. ...

You need 25 guys on your roster to win a Stanley Cup. You don't win with a few superstars ... Yes, (Kucherov) is a good player. He's a very good player. But you need good players around him. And putting (Stamkos) in that mix, and (Tyler) Johnson in that mix, and (Ondrej) Palat in the mix and (Alex) Killorn and all the talent that we have, you have to put those all together.

You can't just break things up (and) hope that it's going to be successful.

Still, Stamkos will be an unrestricted free agent and command top dollar on the open market, and Kucherov, who need a new deal this summer as a restricted free agent, will certainly not come cheap.

"(Yzerman) has the cap to spend to and he's going to try to get everybody under that," Andreychuk said, admitting it won't be an easy task.

Whether it can be achieved, and whether Stamkos ultimately decides to remains in Tampa Bay, remains to be seen.

For the moment, Kucherov is doing his best to make sure people know the Lightning shine brighter than one player.

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Marcus Johansson appears set to resume play following a day off with an apparent upper-body injury.

The Washington Capitals forward will be available for Wednesday's Game 4 against the Pittsburgh Penguins, a day after being held off the ice with an injury suffered from a Kris Letang hit delivered in Game 3.

Letang was slapped with a one-game suspension and will make his return to the series in Game 5.

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Jonathan Drouin is writing quite a redemption story.

The eccentric Lightning forward found himself in the spotlight again Tuesday after Tampa Bay won Game 3 in overtime by a score of 5-4.

First, Drouin was victim of a colossal hit courtesy of New York Islanders defenseman Thomas Hickey. After leaving the contest, the winger returned to set up the game-tying goal in the final minute of regulation, much to the delight of head coach Jon Cooper.

"Pretty cool he was the guy that set up the game-winner," Cooper said postgame.

The 21-year-old has turned into a focal point for the Lightning due to his play, rather than the off-ice antics that soured his regular season.

"He came back to be a hockey player, and it's been a pleasure to coach him," Cooper said. "He's injected some life into our team. He's been great to be around."

Drouin has recorded eight points in eight games during his postseason emergence, and he's just getting started, according to his coach.

"The story's not over," Cooper added. "We're in the first couple chapters. This guy is going to write one heck of a hockey story for himself."

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Tampa Bay Lightning forward Brian Boyle will not face a hearing with the NHL's Department of Player Safety after a hit levied on Thomas Hickey of the New York Islanders moments prior to scoring an overtime game winner in Tuesday's Game 3.

Hickey, who laid a thunderous hit on Jonathan Drouin earlier in the game, will also not face a hearing.

Here's a look at the two hits in question, beginning with Boyle on Hickey, which Islanders head coach Jack Capuano called "a direct shot to the head":

And here's Hickey on Drouin:

Drouin was able to return to the game and set up a late, tying goal, while no update was given on Hickey by Capuano on Wednesday.

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