Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Dougie Hamilton made a point of the fact the Tampa Bay Lightning were significantly above the NHL's $81.5-million salary cap during the playoffs.

Hamilton was asked Thursday how close the Hurricanes are to capturing a Stanley Cup after losing to the Lightning in five games.

"It's hard to say. We're definitely close. We had a great season. We lost to a team that's $18 million over the cap, or whatever they are," Hamilton told reporters.

The Lightning's final cap hit was $98.8 million, according to CapFriendly. That's $17.3 million over the league's ceiling.

"I don't have a problem with it, you just realize how good that team was," Hamilton added.

Tampa Bay was able to legally circumvent the cap in the regular season primarily because Nikita Kucherov - who carries a $9.5-million average annual value - spent the entire season on long-term injured reserve. That meant his contract didn't count against the salary cap.

There is no salary cap in the playoffs, which is why Kucherov was allowed to return with no repercussions.

After spending all season recovering from offseason hip surgery, Kucherov has shown no signs of rust in the playoffs, leading the league with 18 points in 11 games.

Had he not missed the entire season, the Lightning would've faced a cap crunch that likely would've necessitated moving a player such as Alex Killorn. The team put Tyler Johnson ($5-million average annual value) on waivers in the offseason, but there were no takers.

The Chicago Blackhawks famously did something similar in 2015. By placing Patrick Kane on long-term injured reserve in February, the Hawks used that cap room to add Kimmo Timonen and Antoine Vermette for their playoff run. Kane returned for the postseason opener en route to Chicago's third Stanley Cup in six years.

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Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid, Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews, and Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon are the three finalists for the Hart Trophy, awarded to the league's most valuable player.

McDavid is the clear front-runner for the award after producing an NHL-best 105 points in 56 games - 21 more points than the person with the next most in the league, his teammate Leon Draisaitl. McDavid played at a 154-point pace over 82 contests, a number that hasn't been reached since Mario Lemieux racked up 161 in 1995-96. The 24-year-old's seeking his second career Hart Trophy after winning in 2016-17.

Matthews has already claimed the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy after leading the league with 41 goals in 52 games. The 23-year-old also led the NHL with 31 even-strength goals, 12 game-winning goals, and 222 shots. The 6-foot-3, 223-pound pivot also made strides defensively, finishing with a career-best 1.95 expected goals against per 60 minutes. This is Matthews' first time being nominated for the Hart.

MacKinnon got off to a slow start but still finished with 65 points in 48 games, ranking fourth in the league in points-per-game. The 25-year-old was the driving force behind the NHL's top regular-season team, with his 63.7% expected goals share leading all skaters who logged at least 500 minutes at five-on-five. MacKinnon was nominated for the Hart on two other occasions, finishing as the runner-up in 2017-18 and 2019-20.

(Analytics source: Natural Stat Trick)

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Vincent Trocheck is a warrior.

The Carolina Hurricanes center admitted Thursday that he played through a sprained MCL in Game 5 of the second round against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

"It’s just the feeling that if the season was going to end, I didn’t want to be in the stands," he said, according to NHL.com's Michael Smith.

Trocheck suffered the injury in Game 2 of the series when he collided with teammate Warren Foegele.

The 27-year-old missed Games 3 and 4 but returned for Game 5, which ended up being Carolina's last of the season. The injury won't require offseason surgery, Trocheck added.

Trocheck recorded 43 points in 47 games during the regular season and added two goals and one assist in nine postseason contests.

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New York Islanders head coach Barry Trotz credited the raucous fans at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum after his club defeated the Boston Bruins 6-2 in Game 6 to win their second-round series Wednesday night.

"What a great atmosphere," the Islanders head coach said. "I was saying just before we came on here (that) it was deafening. I couldn't hear anything out there. I had some white noise for a while there, so that's fantastic."

The always boisterous supporters at the Islanders' original home chanted "New York Saints" at various points in Wednesday's game, including after the officials gave the Bruins a two-man advantage late in the first period.

They chanted the playful moniker in response to Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy's remarks after Game 5. Cassidy said the Islanders "sell a narrative over there that it's more like the New York Saints" regarding one-sided calls. He was later fined $25,000 for criticizing the officiating.

The Islanders will play all of their remaining home playoff games at the Coliseum before moving into their new facility, UBS Arena, at Belmont Park next season.

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The Edmonton Oilers signed forward Devin Shore to a two-year contract extension Wednesday.

The deal carries an average annual value of $850,000.

Shore, who was a pending restricted free agent, gets a yearly raise of $150,000 after inking a one-year pact with Edmonton for the league minimum in January. He produced five goals and four assists in 38 games with the Oilers this season.

The center, who turns 27 on July 19, began his career with the Dallas Stars, playing three-plus seasons with the club that drafted him 61st overall in 2012. He played for the Anaheim Ducks and Columbus Blue Jackets in 2019-20, notching five goals and seven assists over 45 contests.

Edmonton still has a slew of pending free agents, including potential unrestricted free agents Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Adam Larsson, Tyson Barrie, and Mike Smith.

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New Jersey Devils defenseman P.K. Subban will work as an NHL analyst for ESPN throughout the remainder of the postseason, reports Andrew Marchand of the New York Post.

Subban will reportedly make his ESPN debut Wednesday night on SportsCenter.

The 32-year-old is one of the league's most prominent personalities. He's no stranger behind the mic, either, as he hosted a hockey trivia game show during the league's pause and has appeared on Sportsnet's NHL broadcasts in the past.

Subban recorded 19 points in 44 games with the Devils last season. He still has one year left on his contract, so a full-time move to the broadcast studio anytime soon seems unlikely.

The Walt Disney Company signed a seven-year deal for half of the NHL's U.S. TV rights package starting next season. As a result, Disney-owned ESPN has ramped up its hockey coverage.

ESPN is also reportedly bringing in former goaltender and current NHL Network analyst Kevin Weekes as a studio and game analyst. The company is hiring A.J. Mleczko Griswold and Ryan Callahan as analysts as well, a source told Arizona Coyotes Insider Craig Morgan.

Those personalities will join a group at ESPN that includes analysts Ray Ferraro and Brian Boucher and play-by-play broadcaster Leah Hextall.

Bob Wischusen will also reportedly call games for ESPN. The network hasn't decided who its top play-by-play commentator will be, but internal candidates Steve Levy and Sean McDonough are both reportedly in the running.

Meanwhile, Turner Sports, who bought the other half of the U.S. TV rights package, is bringing in former NHL winger and current NBC/Sportsnet analyst Anson Carter as an analyst.

Carter joins a TNT team that includes Wayne Gretzky and Eddie Olczyk as analysts and Kenny Albert as a play-by-play broadcaster.

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The Minnesota Wild have hired Ray Shero as a senior advisor to general manager Bill Guerin, the team announced Wednesday.

Shero previously served as the GM of the New Jersey Devils from 2015 to 2020, and he held the same role with the Pittsburgh Penguins from 2006 to 2014.

Guerin played under Shero in Pittsburgh for parts of two seasons and began his post-playing career as a development coach with the Pens in 2011.

Shero won a Stanley Cup in 2009 and was named GM of the Year after the 2012-13 campaign.

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Winnipeg Jets pivot Mark Scheifele believes the Department of Player Safety cost him a chance to compete with his teammates during their second-round sweep to the Montreal Canadiens.

"I still believe (the suspension) was excessive," Scheifele told reporters Wednesday. "They knock me out of the series, I don't even get a chance to play with my teammates and battle with my teammates in the series. For a guy with a clean record ... I'm just gonna stop talking before I get fined or something like that so I'll just leave it as it is."

He added that the league did his opponent's job of shutting him down for the series.

"Obviously, it's crushing that my season was ended by that and I wasn't able to play in this series," Scheifele said. "I thought I was going to be tried to be shut down by Phillip Danault, but it was the Department of Player Safety that shut me down. So that definitely sucks."

Scheifele was suspended four games for charging Montreal's Jake Evans at the end of Game 1. Evans suffered a concussion on the play.

The 28-year-old will miss the 2021-22 regular-season opener to serve the remainder of the suspension.

The Department of Player Safety wasn't Scheifele's only target during the press conference, as he also took aim at the Winnipeg media for discounting the team earlier in the year.

"We were written off from Day 1 of the season and we proved people wrong all season long," Scheifele said, according to The Athletic's Murat Ates. "We go through that slide towards the end of the year and we were written off again ... We don't get a lot of respect in the grand scheme of things."

The Jets finished third in the North Division with 63 points before sweeping the Edmonton Oilers in Round 1.

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