Sports
Greiss gets shutout as Isles defeat Flyers to advance to Eastern Conference finals – TSN
TORONTO — The New York Islanders knew they were boarding a plane Sunday.
Getting back to a stifling defensive structure and goals from a couple unlikely sources ensured they’ll be flying west instead of heading home.
Brock Nelson had a goal and two assists as the Islanders defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 4-0 in Game 7 on Saturday to win their second-round playoff series and advance to the NHL’s Eastern Conference final.
New York defencemen Scott Mayfield and Andy Greene — with four goals in a combined 89 post-season games coming into the winner-take-all encounter — also scored for the Islanders, who secured a spot in the conference final for the first time since 1993. Josh Bailey added two assists, while Anthony Beauvillier added an empty netter.
Thomas Greiss had to make just 16 saves to record his first-career playoff shutout.
“Game 7, you never know what you’re gonna get,” Nelson said of Mayfield and Greene. “Everyone wants to be on their game and be a difference maker.
“You never know who it’s going to be or who’s going to have the opportunity.”
The Islanders will now meet the Tampa Bay Lightning in the final four of the league’s restart to its pandemic-delayed season, with Game 1 set for Monday in Edmonton. The Western Conference final is set to feature the Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars in the Alberta capital after both clubs won Game 7s of their own Friday.
“You have to go through adversity to grow as a group,” said New York head coach Barry Trotz, whose team lost Games 5 and 6 in overtime before a suffocating Game 7 victory. “This is part of the growing aspect. I thought last game we deserved to win, and that laid a good foundation for our game tonight.”
Carter Hart stopped 22 shots in defeat for the Flyers, who won three OT games in a series for the first time in franchise history.
“It’s a race to four,” Philadelphia head coach Alain Vigneault said. “We were down, gave ourselves a chance.
“On a night we needed to be good, we weren’t good enough.”
Saturday marked the last action in the Toronto bubble as part of the league’s resumption of play that kicked off Aug. 1 after the schedule was suspended in March because of COVID-19. The Stanley Cup final will also be played in Edmonton.
The third of three Game 7s in the second round — the Golden Knights and Stars both avoided blowing 3-1 leads in their respective series thanks to decisive victories against the Vancouver Canucks and Colorado Avalanche — the Islanders opened the scoring midway through Saturday’s first period.
After the Flyers had a couple of chances at the other end, including Jakub Voracek’s redirection off the post less than a minute in, Mayfield scored his first-career playoff goal at 9:27 when he came down off the point and beat Hart over the blocker on only New York’s second shot.
“We know how we want to play,” Mayfield said. “When we’re moving north, getting the puck in being physical on the forecheck, playing fast, we have our identity.
“It’s nice that we got to that identity pretty much right off the bat.”
There was also a sense of relief for Mayfield, whose stick broke on the sequence that led to Ivan Provorov’s winner in Philadelphia’s 5-4 double overtime victory in Game 6.
“I was kind of down past couple days,” the blue-liner added. “Game 7, game winner Eastern Conference final, I don’t think anyone would think I’d be scoring it.”
The only team from the qualifying round to make the conference finals, the Islanders then had a couple of great chances in front of Hart as they found their legs, and made it 2-0 at 13:12 when Derick Brassard wheeled in the offensive zone before firing a cross-ice pass to a pinching Greene, who had Hart at his mercy. The 37-year-old’s second of the post-season came after he opened the scoring in his team’s Game 1 triumph.
“Last game we thought we were the better team,” Green said. “But all of a sudden it’s Game 7.
“You never know what’s gonna happen in a Game 7.”
Flyers captain Claude Giroux tipped a shot off the post early in the second, but New York carried the majority of play as the period wore on. Hart stopped Nelson on a partial break and Nick Leddy in quick succession before Beauvillier rattled iron with another shot.
But 22-year-old goaltender, who made 49 saves in Game 6, could do nothing on New York’s third after Provorov lost an edge in the offensive zone. The Islanders broke the other way on a 2-on-1, with Bailey feeding Nelson at the last possible moment to bury his seventh at 11:26 and put the game out of reach.
Pressed into action after the shaky Semyon Varlamov allowed a combined nine goals in Games 5 and 6, Greiss didn’t have a lot to do, but denied Kevin Hayes on a break later in the period.
“It was an unreal game,” said Greiss, the first Islanders goalie to pitch a Game 7 shutout since Glenn Resch in 1975. “That was the best defensive game I’ve ever seen this team play.”
Sean Couturier returned to the Philadelphia lineup after missing Game 6 with a sprained knee ligament, while Oskar Lindblom dressed for the second consecutive contest. The 24-year-old Lindblom was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer back in December, but completed radiation treatments in early July.
Trotz and Vigneault battled in a Game 7 for the second time in their careers. Back in 2015, Vigneault’s New York Rangers came back from a 3-1 deficit to beat Trotz’s Washington Capitals to reach the conference final.
Philadelphia got a power play midway through the third desperately looking for a spark with its season on the line, but Greiss, who made 36 saves in New York’s Game 4 victory before watching the next two, was there to shut the door.
The Flyers had another surge before Beauvillier scored his eighth into an empty net with 6:18 left in regulation as the Islanders secured their first conference final berth in 27 years.
“We’re excited. We’ve earned it,” said Green, a trade deadline acquisition from the New Jersey Devils. “Not too long to bathe in it.
“We’ve gotta get focused again get ready for Monday.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 5, 2020.
___
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Sports
Marchand says Maple Leafs are Bruins’ ‘biggest rival’ ahead of 1st-round series – NHL.com
BOSTON – Forget Boston Bruins-Montreal Canadiens.
For Brad Marchand, right now, it’s all about Bruins-Toronto Maple Leafs.
“You see the excitement they have all throughout Canada when they’re in playoffs,” Marchand said Thursday. “Makes it a lot of fun to play them. And I think, just with the history we’ve had with them recently, they’re probably our biggest rival right now over the last decade.
“They’ve probably surpassed Montreal and any other team with kind of where our rivalry’s gone, just because we’ve both been so competitive with each other, and we’ve had a few playoff series. It definitely brings the emotion, the intensity, up in the games and the excitement for the fans.
“It’s a lot of fun to play them.”
The Bruins and Maple Leafs will renew their rivalry in their first round series, which starts Saturday at TD Garden (8 p.m. ET; TBS, truTV, MAX, SN, CBC, TVAS). They’ll be familiar opponents.
Over the past 11 seasons, the Bruins have faced the Maple Leafs four times in the postseason, starting with the epic 2013 matchup in the first round. That resulted in an all-time instant classic, the Game 7 in which the Bruins were down 4-1 in the third period and came roaring back for an overtime win that helped propel them to the Stanely Cup Final.
That would prove to be the model and, in the intervening years, the Bruins have beaten them in each of the three subsequent series, including going to a Game 7 in the Eastern Conference First Round in 2018 and 2019.
Which could easily be where this series is going.
“Offensively they’re a gifted hockey club,” Bruins general manager Don Sweeney said Thursday. “They present a lot of challenges down around the netfront area. We’re going to have to be really sharp there. We’re a pretty good team defensively when we stick to what our principles are. So I expect it to be a tight series overall.”
But if anyone knows the Maple Leafs — and what to expect — it’s Marchand. In his career, he’s played 146 games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, 11th most of any active player. Twenty-one of those games have come against the Maple Leafs, games in which Marchand has 21 points (seven goals, 14 assists).
“They’re always extremely competitive,” Marchand said. “You never know which way the series is going to go. But that’s what you want. That’s what you love about hockey is the competition aspect. They’re real competitors over there, especially the way they’re built right now. So it’s going to be a lot of fun, and that’s what playoffs is about. It’s about the best teams going head-to-head.”
But even though the history favors the Bruins — including having won each of the past six playoff matchups, dating back to the NHL’s expansion era in 1967-68 and each of the four regular-season games in 2023-24 — Marchand is throwing that out the window.
“That means nothing,” he said.
The Maple Leafs bring the No. 2 offense in the NHL into their series, having scored 3.63 goals per game. They were led by Auston Matthews and his 69 goals this season, a new record for him and for the franchise.
“You have to be hard on a guy like that and limit his time and space with the puck,” forward Charlie Coyle said. “He’s really good at getting in position to receive the puck and he’s got linemates who can put it right on his tape for him. You’ve just got to know where he is, especially in our D zone. He likes to loop away after cycling it and kind of find that sweet spot coming down Broadway there in the middle. It’s not just a one-person job.”
Nor is Matthews their only threat.
“They have a lot of great players, skill players, who play hard and can be very dangerous around the net and create scoring opportunities,” forward Charlie Coyle said. “You’ve just got to be aware of who’s out there and who you’re against, who you’re matched up against, and play hard. Also, too, we’ve got to focus on our game and what we do well and when we do that, we trust each other and have that belief in each other, we’re a pretty good hockey team.”
Especially against the Maple Leafs.
Marchand, who grew up in Halifax loving the Maple Leafs, still gets a thrill to see their alumni walking around Scotiabank Arena in the playoffs. And it’s even more special to be on the ice with them, to be competing against them — even more so when the Bruins keep winning.
But that certainly doesn’t mean this series will be easy.
“They’ll be a [heck] of a challenge,” Marchand said.
Sports
NHL sets Round 1 schedule for 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs – Daily Faceoff
The chase for Lord Stanley’s silver chalice will begin on Saturday.
After what could be described as the most exciting season in NHL history that saw heartbreaks and last-ditch efforts to clinch playoff spots, players and staff now get ready as 16 teams go to battle.
We saw the Vancouver Canucks have a massive year and finish first in the Pacific Division with captain Quinn Hughes leading all defensemen in points. The Winnipeg Jets set a franchise record for most points. The Nashville Predators went on a franchise-record winning streak in order to lock themselves into a Wild Card spot, and the Washington Capitals clinched the last Wild Card spot in the East after a wild finish that saw the Detroit Red Wings and Philadelphia Flyers see their playoff hopes crumble in front of them.
While Auston Matthews missed out on scoring 70 goals, Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid and Tampa Bay Lightning standout Nikita Kucherov became the first players since 1990-91 to record 100 assists in a single season. They joined Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Bobby Orr as the only players to do so.
With the bracket set, it’s time to expect the unexpected.
Here is the schedule for Round 1 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs:
Eastern Conference
#A1 Florida Panthers vs. #WC1 Tampa Bay Lightning
Date | Game | Time |
Sunday, April 21 | 1. Tampa at Florida | 12:30 p.m. ET |
Tuesday, April 23 | 2. Tampa at Florida | 7:30 p.m. ET |
Thursday, April 25 | 3. Florida at Tampa | 7 p.m. ET |
Saturday, April 27 | 4. Florida at Tampa | 5 p.m. ET |
Monday, April 29 | 5. Tampa at Florida | TBD |
Wednesday, May 1 | 6. Florida at Tampa | TBD |
Saturday, May 4 | 7. Tampa at Florida | TBD |
#A2 Boston Bruins vs. #A3 Toronto Maple Leafs
Date | Game | Time |
Saturday, April 20 | 1. Toronto at Boston | 8 p.m. ET |
Monday, April 22 | 2. Toronto at Boston | 7 p.m. ET |
Wednesday, April 24 | 3. Boston at Toronto | 7 p.m. ET |
Saturday, April 27 | 4. Boston at Toronto | 8 p.m. ET |
Tuesday, April 30 | 5. Toronto at Boston | TBD |
Thursday, May 2 | 6. Boston at Toronto | TBD |
Saturday, May 4 | 7. Toronto at Boston | TBD |
#M1 New York Rangers vs. #WC2 Washington Capitals
Date | Game | Time |
Sunday, April 21 | 1. Washington at New York | 3 p.m. ET |
Tuesday, April 23 | 2. Washington at New York | 7 p.m. ET |
Friday, April 26 | 2. New York at Washington | 7 p.m. ET |
Sunday, April 28 | 2. New York at Washington | 8 p.m. ET |
Wednesday, May 1 | 2. Washington at New York | TBD |
Friday, May 3 | 2. New York at Washington | TBD |
Sunday, May 5 | 2. Washington at New York | TBD |
#M2 Carolina Hurricanes vs. #M3 New York Islanders
Date | Game | Time |
Saturday, April 20 | 1. New York at Carolina | 5 p.m. ET |
Monday, April 22 | 2. New York at Carolina | 7:30 p.m. ET |
Thursday, April 25 | 3. Carolina at New York | 7:30 p.m. ET |
Saturday, April 27 | 4. Carolina at New York | 2 p.m. ET |
Tuesday, April 30 | 5. New York at Carolina | TBD |
Thursday, May 2 | 6. Carolina at New York | TBD |
Saturday, May 4 | 7. New York at Carolina | TBD |
Western Conference
#C1 Dallas Stars vs. #WC2 Vegas Golden Knights
Date | Game | Time |
Monday, April 22 | 1. Vegas at Dallas | 9:30 p.m. ET |
Wednesday, April 24 | 2. Vegas at Dallas | 9:30 p.m. ET |
Saturday, April 27 | 3. Dallas at Vegas | 10:30 p.m. ET |
Monday, April 29 | 4. Dallas at Vegas | TBD |
Wednesday, May 1 | 5. Vegas at Dallas | TBD |
Friday, May 3 | 6. Dallas at Vegas | TBD |
Sunday, May 5 | 7. Vegas at Dallas | TBD |
#C2 Winnipeg Jets vs. #C3 Colorado Avalanche
Date | Game | Time |
Sunday, April 21 | 1. Colorado at Winnipeg | 7 p.m. ET |
Tuesday, April 23 | 2. Colorado at Winnipeg | 9:30 p.m. ET |
Friday, April 26 | 3. Winnipeg at Colorado | 10 p.m. ET |
Sunday, April 28 | 4. Winnipeg at Colorado | 2:30 p.m. ET |
Tuesday, April 30 | 5. Colorado at Winnipeg | TBD |
Thursday, May 2 | 6. Winnipeg at Colorado | TBD |
Saturday, May 4 | 7. Colorado at Winnipeg | TBD |
#P1 Vancouver Canucks vs. #WC1 Nashville Predators
Date | Game | Time |
Sunday, April 21 | 1. Nashville at Vancouver | 10 p.m. ET |
Tuesday, April 23 | 2. Nashville at Vancouver | 10 p.m. ET |
Friday, April 26 | 3. Vancouver at Nashville | 7:30 p.m. ET |
Sunday, April 28 | 4. Vancouver at Nashville | 5 p.m. ET |
Tuesday, April 30 | 5. Nashville at Vancouver | TBD |
Friday, May 3 | 6. Vancouver at Nashville | TBD |
Sunday, May 5 | 7. Nashville at Vancouver | TBD |
#P2 Edmonton Oilers vs. #P3 Los Angeles Kings
Date | Game | Time |
Monday, April 22 | 1. Los Angeles at Edmonton | 10 p.m. ET |
Wednesday, April 24 | 2. Los Angeles at Edmonton | 10 p.m. ET |
Friday, April 26 | 3. Edmonton at Los Angeles | 10:30 p.m. ET |
Sunday, April 28 | 4. Edmonton at Los Angeles | 10:30 p.m. ET |
Wednesday, May 1 | 5. Los Angeles at Edmonton | TBD |
Friday, May 3 | 6. Edmonton at Los Angeles | TBD |
Sunday, May 5 | 7. Los Angeles at Edmonton | TBD |
Sports
With matchup vs. Kings decided, Oilers should be confident facing familiar foe – Sportsnet.ca
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