It all comes down to this: the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Every team either suffers immense heartbreak or incredible joy.
The Colorado Avalanche knows about the incredible joy, after all, they recently won the Cup in 2022. However, this is a different year, marked by distinct challenges and new personnel.
One of those new faces is going to be a key piece for the Avalanche’s success.
Martin Necas was the big piece coming back in the Mikko Rantanen trade. To say that things have gone well since his acquisition is certainly an understatement.
After the trade, the Czech forward scored 28 points in 30 games while playing 20:30 a night. Necas found a home alongside Nathan MacKinnon and Artturi Lehkonen. That line was able to dominate the fancy stats (63.1 Corsi For Percent) and out-score the opposition whenever they were on the ice (13-4).
The Avalanche are going to need that magic in the postseason.
This is why Necas is the Avalanche’s X-Factor for this playoff run. MacKinnon has been his usual self through two games, amassing three goals and one assist for four points total. But, the Avalanche are going to need more than their (assumed) Hart Trophy Finalist to win the Stanley Cup. They definitely need more to make it past the Dallas Stars in the opening playoff round.
Necas currently has one assist in two playoff games. Jack Drury, Ryan Lindgren, and Logan O’Connor all have more points than he does. He’s going to have to step up his game on the offensive side of the puck to become an X-Factor for the Avalanche.
With Game 3 scheduled for Wednesday night, fans will see if tonight is the night that Necas kicks things into high gear for the Avalanche.
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The Vegas Golden Knights looked poised to take control of the series in Game 2, but the Minnesota Wild had other plans. The Wild blitzed the Golden Knights early with…
The Ottawa Senators are heading back to the nation's capital empty-handed, and it figures that Tie Domi’s son would eventually emerge as a factor in the Battle of Ontario.
3:09 into overtime, Max Domi's shot from the high slot went off the goalpost and in, beating Linus Ullmark and the Senators, 3-2. With the victory, Toronto takes a strong 2-0 series lead.
Ullmark stopped 18 of 21 Toronto shots on the night, while Anthony Stolarz made 26 of 28 saves. Ottawa got goals from Brady Tkachuk and Adam Gaudette. John Tavares had a goal and an assist for the Leafs, while Morgan Rielly had the other goal.
It was a much more disciplined effort from the Senators, who gave the Leafs only one power play on the night.
In regulation, the two clubs each swapped goals that weren't exactly the highlight reel variety.
For the second straight game, the Leafs grabbed a 2-0 first-period lead. The first goal came off a nice pass off the half-boards from William Nylander. Nylander out-hustled Thomas Chabot to find a passing lane, then hit Morgan Rielly at the far post. Drake Batherson was able to take Rielly's stick away, but Rielly redirected the puck into the net with his skate to make it 1-0.
Tavares made it 2-0 on the power play. His shot was stopped by Ullmark, but the puck then banked in off Nick Jensen and into the net.
The Sens did seem to get their feet under them after that and played an excellent second period, where they outshot the Leafs 13-3 and led in shot attempts 33-7. Tkachuk got the only goal of the second period when his centering pass deflected in off of Brandon Carlo’s skate to cut Toronto's lead in half.
While the Senators launched a shooting gallery at Stolarz in the second period, their first shot of the third period didn't come until just over 5 minutes left in regulation. It was a goal by Adam Gaudette, who tipped home a shot from the point over the right shoulder of Stolarz. The Leafs bench feverishly reviewed their replay monitors in hopes of challenging the goal for a missed offside. No luck.
That took the game to overtime, where it was decided just over 3 minutes in. On one ill-fated shift, the Senators' poise went right out the window.
Toronto's Simon Benoit grabbed the puck inside his own blue line and sprinted up the right wing on what turned out to be a 2-on-4 rush as the rest of the Leafs made a line change. Max Domi came along for the ride and accepted a drop pass from Benoit. Domi went right through Dylan Cozens and then right through Batherson, who both overcommitted and failed to take the body.
Then, with Chabot backing up too far to cover anyone, he and Benoit appeared to serve as the perfect screen. Domi then put one in off the post to win it.
Despite being down 0-2 now in the series, Senators head coach Travis Green was deadly calm in his post game availability, which set a fine example for his troops. He says there is no reason to panic.
"I think first of all, a lot of our guys haven't played a lot of playoff hockey,” Green said. “They haven't lost a playoff game in that way either. We talked about that quickly. I talked about earlier today that we had to play better. I really like the way we played tonight. A big step as a group. Looking forward to the next game.
“We came on the road, played two road games. Like someone said earlier, we probably deserved a better fate tonight. But that's part of playoff hockey, and we've said it all year: we don't get too far ahead of ourselves. We don't look behind. We worry about the next game, and if you do that, good things happen."
The Senators now face a near must-win situation on Thursday night at Canadian Tire Centre as the series shifts to Ottawa for Games 3 and 4.
Max Domi scored the overtime winner as the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Ottawa Senators 3-2 to take a 2-0 lead in their best-of-seven series on Tuesday.
For a while, it looked like the Leafs were going to steamroll the Senators after scoring twice on their first four shots on goal for the second consecutive game. However, the Senators hung on and dominated the second period, which led to their first goal of the game from Brady Tkachuk.
The third period saw the Leafs play tighter defensively as they tried to hand on to the one-goal lead. But Senators forward Adam Gaudette deflected a shot past Toronto goaltender Anthony Stolarz to tie the game and force overtime.
It didn't take long before Max Domi scored the winner at 3:09. Toronto is 10-0 all-time in the best-of-seven series, where they won the first two games at home.
After the game, Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube broke down the flow of the game.
"Yeah, it was great to see that goal by Max. Obviously a great play. (Simon) Benoit made a great play on it," Berube said. "But first period was really good. I liked our start a lot, came out playing on our toes, and got through our forecheck. We were aggressive. We got a good lead, our power play came through again. Second period I thought that they were the better team. We didn't make plays, we kind of looked like we were just protecting the lead a little bit and didn't make enough plays. Didn't advance and get to the offensive zone enough. Took a couple of penalties. And third period was fine. We were in good shape. The goal was the first shot we gave up in the third period. We were playing the right way and doing the right thing. It was a mistake and mistakes happen. We stayed with it and ended up getting the win."
In addition, Berube addressed:
* The change in Morgan Rielly's game (he scored Toronto's first goal of the game).
* Leafs goaltender Anthony Stolarz' performance (26-save performance)
* Why the Leafs elected not to challenge the Gaudette goal after mulling it over.
* The impact of Pontus Holmberg and his ability to draw penalties (leading to John Tavares' power-play goal that made it 2-0 Toronto)
Q: What have you seen different from Morgan Rielly that has allowed him to perform in the way he has? (one goal t
I don't think it's different in the playoffs than the last 20 games, I would say, or so, where he is up in the play more like I talked about. Playing with (Brandon) Carlo, I think he feels very comfortable with his partner. They got a good chemistry together and I think that he's freed up a little bit to do his thing offensively.
Q: Max looks like he's been putting in extra work. Good to see a goal like that pay off for him?
Yeah, he still works hard. I mean, he's always trying to improve and get better and work with people, skill guys, and practice and stuff like that. And I feel very good. I feel very happy for him to get a goal. It's a big goal, obviously, and it's a great feeling to score one of those. I've got a couple. *laughs* I'm very happy for him. He's a hard worker. I thought he had a good game tonight overall. You know, he was skating. I always say when Max skates and attacks, he's on his game.
Q: You've know Anthony his whole career. What are the lessons for a goalie who has waited this long to get his shot and see it pay off?
Yeah, I had him at the start of his career in Philly. He's just getting going in pro. You go through your career, how he went through it. Kind of always was like the backup, but, you know, not a starter. And still a valuable position. Ge's coming off a very good season last year and won him a Stanley Cup and he came in this year, wanting to be a starter. And I know it was a shared net for the most of the year. I think, you know, a lot of the reason for that was we had two guys that have not played a significant amount of games throughout the season. So I like the combination of both of them, but, you know, he's been excellent all year. I mean he got injured there, coming back from the injury, he took him a bit to establish himself again. But he's doing the job for us now.
Q: What did you make of Anthony sticking up for himself and take a roughing penalty?
I mean, I think it gets annoying after a while, right? And I've seen that with goalies before. I really don't have a problem with it.
Q: What was the conversation on the bench like of Ottawa's second goal?
Oh the tying goal? Well Stutzle's coming in, you know, he's not over the blue (line) the other way yet. And the puck just fired in and it looks like it hit him. We couldn't really identify that immediately, so call timeout so our video guys can take a little bit more time to look at it, but we made the decision that it did not hit him.
Q: Pontus draws a penalty. Can you talk about the little things he's done in this series?
He draws a lot of penalties. He's very good at that. One of the best. I think, like I said, I talked about Pontus and to me his game has gone to another level in the last 20 or so where he's way more aggressive. He has the ability to hang on to pucks and keep pucks and win battles and things like that. But for me, the skating part of it has gotten to another level where he's not waiting to be safe or, you know, he's just going now. Skating. I thought he had a real good game tonight. He was strong on things in the corner, helping out, battling, doing a lot of good things. He was at the net most of the night too for that line, which is important.
Q: You've been through a lot as a coach. How frustrating does it get when you go through stretches where it looks like your team stops playing?
Yeah, and I thought in a second, like I said, we stopped skating and watched a little bit and stopped making plays. It is frustrating, but at the same time as a coach, you've got to, you know, we're asking our players to be composed. I've got to be composed too. Talk to them about things, try to motivate them a little bit on the bench and get them going again, get them skating again. It was a funny period because it was a lot of different matchups going on and whistles and penalties. We had a couple penalties, so, you know, there's certain guys that don't hit the ice and they get out of rhythm a little bit. So we definitely got to play better in the second period.
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The Tampa Bay Lightning got all banged up and blown out by the Florida Panthers in Game 1 of the Battle of Florida. In their fourth series meeting over the…
There were plenty of fireworks during Game 1 between the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning.
Receiving a boost from the return of Matthew Tkachuk to the lineup, Florida scored early and often, taking down the Lightning 6-2 Tuesday night at Amalie Arena.
It didn’t take long for the Panthers to get things going.
Sam Bennett picked up the puck in Florida’s zone and quickly moved it up the ice, where Mackie Samoskevich eventually poked it into Tampa’s zone along the boards.
The rookie quickly collected the puck and sent a saucer pass toward the net, where Bennett was quickly heading, and the veteran deflected the pass from the rookie to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead at the 3:44 mark.
Playing in his first Panthers game since early February, Matthew Tkahcuk took the game’s first penalty. It was a roughing call on a hit on Nikita Kucherov that was more than questionable, especially during the playoffs.
Florida nearly killed it off but a late faceoff led to Jake Guentzel plucking a Kucherov rebound from the side of the net and quickly dangling it behind Sergei Bobrovsky to tie the game at one.
Another deflection goal would give the Panthers their second lead of the game. This time it was Dmitry Kulikov sending a wrist shot toward the net that Sam Reinhart redirected past Andrei Vasilevskiy with just 44 seconds left in the opening period.
A great shift by the Anton Lundell line led to Florida’s third goal of the game.
Pinning the Lightning deep in their zone, Bennett came flying off the bench and forced a turnover along the boards. The puck was picked up by Brad Marchand, and after his shot was stopped by Vasilevskiy, Nate Schmidt came barreling down the slot and poked in the loose puck.
Tampa Head Coach Jon Cooper challenged the play for goalie interference, but after a quick review the goal was deemed good, and Florida was given a power play for the failed challenge.
It took only 14 seconds for the Panthers to make Tampa pay.
Reinhart found Tkachuk all alone in front of the net, and he showed off his soft hands, dangling around Vasilevskiy to give Florida a sudden and commanding 4-1 lead.
A questionable hit by Emil Lilleberg on Anton Lundell put the Panthers back on the power play, and once again it was Tkachuk beating Vasilevskly to pump Florida’s lead to four.
Just over three minutes later, Brayden Point one-timed a nice pass from Ryan McDonagh past Bobrovsky’s blocker to trim Florida’s lead by one.
Florida’s third power play of the game would lead to their third power play goal.
A perfectly placed wrist shot by Schmidt from the point beat Vasilevskiy over the glove, restoring the Cats’ four-goal lead just over five minutes into the final frame.
On to Game 2.
QUICK THOUGHTS
Two goals and an assist for Tkachuk in his first game in over two months. The three points match his playoff career high.
Bennett’s goal was his first since March 28 against Utah.
Reinhart picked up where he left off after finishing the regular season with seven goals in 12 games.
Bobrovsky finished with 20 saves, including on six of Tampa’s seven high danger shots.
Florida’s two goals in 14 seconds during the second period were the fastest two goals scored in Panthers playoff history.
Schmidt’s goals were the eighth and ninth he’s scored during the Stanley Cup Playoffs over 77 postseason games.
The Panthers improved to 20-0 when leading after two periods during the playoffs under Paul Maurice.
The Nashville Predators reassigned forward Fedor Svechkov and defenseman Marc Del Gaizo to the AHL's Milwaukee Admirals Monday. The pair started the 2024-25 season in Milwaukee and now return to aid the Admirals in their quest for the Calder Cup.
Milwaukee won the AHL’s Central Division for the second consecutive season with a record of 40-21-5-6 (91 points), earning their fifth straight trip to the Calder Cup Playoffs. The Central Division semifinals begin May 1, when the Admirals will take on on the winner of the best-of-three Central Division first round series between Chicago and Rockford.
Svechkov is coming off his first season of NHL action, in which he recorded 17 points in 52 games for the Predators. Nashville's first-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft, Svechkov was thrust into a larger role once the team traded Tommy Novak to the Pittsburgh Penguins at the deadline.
Del Gaizo was eligible for reassignment after clearing waivers last week. He appeared in 46 games for Nashville this season, and brief demotion to the Admirals in early March made him eligible to play for them in the postseason.
Del Gaizo is eligible for Group VI unrestricted free agency this summer as a player with at least three professional seasons and fewer than 80 career NHL games while also being 25 years old. It's unclear whether he will be back with the Predators next season, but the team's recent signing of Andreas Englund to a one-year, $775,000 contract makes it seem unlikely.
Welcome to The Hockey News Playoff Frenzy Live, streaming nightly during the NHL's Stanley Cup playoffs.
After the big game of the night, our experts go live to react to the match that was, break down the key moments and storylines, provide updates on the rest of the night's NHL slate and read your opinions.
'I Can't Say Enough': Jared Bednar Praises Avalanche GM For New Additions“All the pieces, including depth pieces, serve a purpose.”
A Round One Schedule for the Stanley Cup Playoffs is HereNHL Public Relations announced the full schedule for games 1-4 of round one for the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs on Thursday morning. Dates for games 5-7 were also announced with times listed as TBD, meaning they will be announced once or if they become necessary.
