Category Archives: Hockey News

Top 5 saves of the 2019-20 season

With the 2019-20 regular season officially in the books, it's time to relive some of the best moments of the campaign. After breaking down the top five goals of the season on Monday, let's take a look at the year's top five saves.

5. Carter Hart robs Mikko Rantanen

A defenseman doesn't have much time to think when two of the most menacing wingers in the league are bearing down on a two-on-one. Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog provided Rantanen the puck on a platter, but Hart showed off his quick glove hand to bail out his Philadelphia Flyers teammates.

4. Devan Dubnyk whips out the windmill

Dubnyk didn't waste any time setting a high bar, making his bid for save of the year in the Minnesota Wild's first game of the campaign. He was clearly dialed all the way in, robbing Nashville Predators forward Mikael Granlund with a superb windmill glove save. It was an early beauty, but it didn't hold up as the best of the season.

3. Tuukka Rask did what?!

Year in and year out, Rask conjures all sorts of magical saves. This season was no different. With a completely wide-open net behind him, the Boston Bruins netminder somehow sprawled to deny the Buffalo Sabres an easy goal, whacking the puck out of midair with his blocker hand. Who needs a glove anyway?

2. Antti Raanta is the scorpion king

If you have the puck on your stick a few feet in front of the net and the opposing goalie is flat on his stomach, there's not much that can stop you from scoring. Unless that goalie is Raanta. The Arizona Coyotes netminder showed off a deadly combination of reflexes and flexibility against the Chicago Blackhawks, unleashing the scorpion to keep the puck out of the net.

1. Marc-Andre Fleury shocks Maple Leafs with incredible diving save

The Toronto Maple Leafs rode a five-game losing streak into this matchup against the Vegas Golden Knights. Down by a goal in the dying minutes of regulation, Toronto appeared to be on the verge of a turnaround as Nic Petan found a juicy rebound with a completely empty net in front of him. Fleury had other plans, though. The three-time Stanley Cup champion made this stunning diving grab, securing the win for Vegas and locking down save of the year honors.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

O’Reilly: 24-team playoff will be ‘toughest tournament’ we’ll ever play

Ryan O'Reilly knows what it takes to win a Stanley Cup. He took home the Conn Smythe Trophy last season after leading the St. Louis Blues on a miracle run to the title. And if the NHL proceeds with its 24-team postseason, he believes it will be a grueling tournament like nothing seen before.

"Every team is starting from scratch. Every team that's involved in this right now is looking that they have an opportunity to win a Stanley Cup, so it's going to be one of the toughest stretches of hockey that any of us will ever be in and the toughest tournament that any of us - it's like nothing else," O'Reilly said Monday.

"It's going to be extremely difficult - I think as a group we know that. We know it's going to be completely different from last year. We're not coming in finishing a season playing very well and having momentum and coming in. We're all starting at the same point."

The Blues looked to have a good chance to repeat as Stanley Cup champions this season, entering the shutdown on March 12 sitting first in the Western Conference. As a result, St. Louis is guaranteed a berth in the 16-team postseason and will play a round-robin tournament against the conference's other top three teams to determine playoff seeding.

O'Reilly, 29, is eager to finish the campaign and ensure the work players have put in to this point doesn't go to waste, though he knows that's easier said than done.

"There's so many things that will be unfortunate - being away from our families, being confined in these small spaces. But I think it's important for our game - the growth of it - to be able to salvage this season and have a winner, not let the whole thing go to waste," he said. "But again, the priority is the safety and the safety of our families, the guys, whether they've had young kids or have kids ... that's definitely the priority.

"But I think the NHL's doing a good job putting in good practices to help us make sure nothing happens. But again, there's still a lot of uncertainty."

O'Reilly was enjoying another strong season before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted his second year with the Blues. He recorded 12 goals and 49 assists in 71 games.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Brind’Amour will ‘go with whoever is ready’ in Hurricanes’ lineup

Carolina Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind'Amour will have some tough decisions to make about his lineup if play resumes.

When the season was paused March 12, the Hurricanes had a handful of injuries - namely within their defensive group. Blue-liners Dougie Hamilton, Sami Vatanen, and Brett Pesce were all on the shelf, and now all three have a chance to return.

"There's going to be definitely a feeling-out process to see how everyone meshes, but those are pretty good options to be thrown into your team," Brind'Amour said, according to NHL.com's Dan Rosen.

He added, "If everybody is healthy then we have extras, so I think it's going to be a question of, really, how do they look by the time this camp is done? It's not like you get too long of a warmup period. When we start, every game counts, so we've got to go with whoever is ready."

Hamilton suffered a fractured fibula in January and is now expected to be ready for training camp. Vatanen - who was acquired at the trade deadline to fill the gap on the blue line - hasn't suited up in a game for the Hurricanes but is also expected to be available.

Meanwhile, Pesce - who had surgery in March - was expected to miss four-to-six months, but Brind'Amour now says that he's a "long shot" to return.

The coach noted that part of the difficulty in making lineup decisions is because he doesn't know how players have been training since the season was paused.

"It's not like we just picked up where we left off," Brind'Amour said. "I know guys are telling me they're doing OK, but I don't know how much training they're doing and where they're going to be at when we get started."

Training camps for all teams are expected to begin July 10.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

26 NHLers test positive for COVID-19

Fifteen of the 250 players who reported to training facilities for Phase 2 of the NHL's return-to-play plan have tested positive for COVID-19, the league announced Monday.

An additional 11 players who didn't report for voluntary workouts have tested positive since the opening of Phase 2 on June 8.

All players who tested positive have self-isolated and followed CDC and Health Canada protocols.

Training camps (Phase 3) are scheduled to open July 10, and the NHL does not plan to quarantine teams in "bubbles" during that time.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Bruins HC welcomes Toronto as hub: ‘We’ve played well’ there in playoffs

Boston Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy wouldn't mind if Toronto serves as one of the NHL's two hub cities.

"We've played well in that rink in the playoffs, for the most part," he said, according to WEEI's Scott McLaughlin.

The Bruins defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round of the past two postseasons, clinching each in a Game 7. Three of Toronto's last four playoff appearances ended in a Game 7 loss to the Bruins in the opening round, including the 2013 contest in which the Maples Leafs were up 4-1.

Cassidy became the Bruins' head coach in 2017, and the team owns a 3-3 playoff record at Scotiabank Arena since his hiring.

The NHL's hub cities are expected to be announced sometime this week, according to TSN's Bob McKenzie. He adds that Las Vegas and Toronto appear to be the front-runners, though it's still a "fluid process."

Toronto's latest proposal reportedly featured players and team personnel living in a 40-acre bubble on the grounds of the Canadian National Exhibition just outside the downtown core.

The Eastern Conference's No. 1-seeded Bruins received a bye to the first round of the playoffs and will jostle with the conference's other top-three teams for seeding while clubs ranked fifth through 12th partake in the qualifying round.

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Commentators to likely work remotely for NHL playoffs

Only production staff for television and radio broadcasts are expected to be allowed inside the two hub-city bubbles if the NHL resumes play, which means play-by-play commentators and color analysts will likely work remotely.

"It's different," vice president of Sportsnet and NHL Production Rob Corte told CBC's Jim Morris. "A lot of the energy they draw is from within a building and the crowd. When you're in an arena you see everything. There's going to be things that will be missed or not seen just because it's not available to their eyesight."

Corte added that one feed will likely be produced for each game and supplied to all NHL rights-holders. Sportsnet will have its commentators watch games on monitors in Toronto, where a score bug and graphics will be added.

Many media-related details have yet to be finalized, though.

"Part of the challenge is, there's been so many different ideas and potential ways to do this," Corte said. "We've been having so many discussions, and when you think you're moving in a certain direction, then about 10 more questions come up that actually disqualify everything you have been thinking before.

"That's probably been the frustrating part."

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

NHL podcast: Ken Dryden on COVID-19, Scotty Bowman, and head hits

Welcome to Puck Pursuit, an interview-style podcast hosted by John Matisz, theScore's national hockey writer.

Subscribe to the show on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and Spotify.

Hockey Hall of Famer Ken Dryden - who's also an author, a lawyer, and, formerly, a politician - joins the show to discuss a variety of topics, including:

  • His thoughts on COVID-19, NHL's return-to-play plan
  • Why Scotty Bowman has lived a hockey life like no other
  • Getting into Bowman's mind for Dryden's 2019 book, "Scotty"
  • Breaking down the case for penalizing all hits to the head
  • Reaction to his thought-provoking book, "Game Change"

... and more!

Copyright © 2020 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.