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What you need to know for the NHL playoffs – CBC.ca

Published

4 years ago

July 31, 2020

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Here’s what you need to know right now from the world of sports:

Quick note before we get started: no newsletter Monday on account of the holiday. Back Tuesday.

Here’s your guide to the first stage of the NHL playoffs

On Saturday — 143 days after putting its season on pause — the NHL will finally play meaningful games again. It’s cutting right to the chase, too. Unlike the NBA, which is having its teams play eight more de facto regular-season games each, the NHL is going straight to an expanded version of the playoffs.

Refresher on how this will work: The first stage, branded the Stanley Cup Qualifiers, consists of two parts. The more interesting one matches up the 5th through 12th seeds in each conference for best-of-five series. While those are going on, the top four seeds in each conference play a round robin against each other. Everyone in the round-robin is guaranteed to advance, but their records in these games will determine seeding for the conventional 16-team, best-of-seven Stanley Cup playoff bracket that follows. The No. 1 seed in each conference gets to play the lowest-seeded survivor from the best-of-five series, and the teams will be re-seeded after each round so that the top remaining seed always gets to play the weakest seed.

The four teams in the East round-robin are (in order of best to worst record) Boston, Tampa Bay, Washington and Philadelphia. In the West it’s defending Cup champion St. Louis, Colorado, Vegas and Dallas.

The Stanley Cup champ is more likely to come from that group of eight. Most bookmakers have Tampa Bay as the favourite to win the Cup, but the odds suggest it’s a wide-open race. Boston, Vegas and Colorado are all packed in closely behind the Lightning, with several other teams not far away.

Some teams will undoubtedly rise up the board if they survive their best-of-five series. Let’s take a quick look at those matchups:

Western Conference

#5 Edmonton Oilers vs. #12 Chicago: There’s plenty of star power in this battle between two of the leagues’ top-heaviest teams. The Oilers have the NHL’s No. 1 and No. 2 point scorers in Leon Draisaitl (an MVP finalist) and Connor McDavid (the best player in the world). Chicago’s Patrick Kane had 84 points in 70 games this season, and Jonathan Toews is one of the top two-way players of his generation.

#6 Nashville Predators vs. #11 Arizona Coyotes: Probably the least interesting matchup, but there’s some freshness to it. The Coyotes are making their first playoff appearance since 2012, and Arizona star Taylor Hall is making just the second of his career.

#7 Vancouver Canucks vs. #10 Minnesota Wild: Vancouver is back in the playoffs for the first time in five years and looking to win a series for the first time since falling one victory short of the Stanley Cup in 2011. The Wild are the deeper team, but the Canucks have more stars, including last year’s rookie of the year (forward Elias Pettersson) and also possibly this year’s (defenceman Quinn Hughes, who’s a finalist for the award).

#8 Calgary Flames vs. #9 Winnipeg Jets: The only all-Canadian matchup is one we haven’t seen in the playoffs since the 1987 Smythe Division semifinals. Top to bottom, Calgary’s skaters are stronger, but the Jets have one of the best goalies in the league in Connor Hellebuyck, a finalist for the Vezina Trophy.

Eastern Conference

#5 Pittsburgh Penguins vs. #12 Montreal Canadiens: Everyone is calling the Habs impostors because they had basically no chance of making the playoffs the conventional way this year. But a best-of-five series introduces even more randomness into the already notoriously random NHL playoffs, and Carey Price can steal one of these if he gets hot. But he’ll be facing a healthy and rested Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

#6 Carolina Hurricanes vs. #11 New York Rangers: This one looks fun. The Rangers’ Artemi Panarin finished third in the league in scoring to earn an MVP-finalist nod, and he and Mika Zibanejad are a dynamite tandem. Carolina made a surprising run to the conference finals last year, but its goaltending is still a big question mark.

#7 New York Islanders vs. #10 Florida Panthers: The Panthers spent a ton in free agency, but they were probably on their way to missing the playoffs before they got rescued by the expanded playoff format Still, they have a pair of stars in Jonathan Huberdeau and Alexander Barkov, and a high-ceiling goalie in Sergei Bobrovsky. The Islanders are a classic Barry Trotz team: a collection of no-names who beat you with effort and dedication to their brilliant coach’s stifling system.

#8 Toronto Maple Leafs vs. #9 Columbus Blue Jackets: A fourth consecutive opening-round exit would be devastating to the Leafs and their fragile fan base. So it’s a bit cruel that they drew the team who shocked juggernaut Tampa in round 1 last year. Columbus, though, won only three of its last 15 games before the NHL shut down the regular season.

A few more things to note: From now through the quarter-finals, all Eastern Conference games are being played in Toronto. Edmonton is hosting the Western games, and will host both conference finals and the Stanley Cup final.

As for the schedule, it’s a binge-watcher’s dream. Five games are on tap Saturday, with start times ranging from noon ET to 10:30 p.m. ET. They’re staggered in such a way that you’ll be able to watch about 13 consecutive hours of hockey with very little gaps in the action (please consult your doctor first). A similar slate is in line for at least the first six days, and probably a bit longer unless there are a bunch of sweeps. This handy graphic from the NHL lays out the full schedule for the Stanley Cup Qualifiers:

(NHL Public Relations)

Quickly…

Another baseball game was postponed — and more might be coming. Today’s matchup between St. Louis and Milwaukee got called off after two Cardinals players tested positive for COVID-19. That makes three games on today’s schedule postponed because of positive tests. Philadelphia-Toronto and Washington-Miami are the others, and their games through the weekend have already been nixed. At our publish time it was unclear what will happen with the Cardinals-Brewers games on Saturday and Sunday. It’ll also be interesting to see if the Minnesota Twins and Cleveland get pulled into this. The Cardinals said that their positive results came from tests conducted on Wednesday, prior to a game in Minnesota. The Twins are scheduled to play Cleveland tonight, Saturday and Sunday. Meanwhile, the Miami Marlins’ outbreak resulted in a 20th positive test today. The count is up to 18 players and two coaches. Read about the latest in baseball’s growing list of problems here.

The Canadian Elite Basketball League’s tournament has been quite competitive. After the 0-2 Ottawa Blackjacks beat the 2-0 Fraser Valley Bandits last night, all seven teams were either 2-1 or 1-2 at the halfway mark of the round robin. This stage runs through Wednesday. At that point, the top two teams will get a bye to the semifinals while the teams ranked 3-6 will square off in a pair of quarter-final matchups on Thursday night. Every game in the tournament is being streamed live on CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem. Today’s matchups are Edmonton vs. Niagara at 3 p.m. ET and Saskatchewan vs. Guelph at 5:30 p.m. ET. Both of Saturday’s games — Hamilton vs. Fraser Valley at 1:30 p.m. ET and Edmonton vs. Saskatchewan at 3:30 p.m. ET — will also be broadcast live on the CBC TV network. Stream everything live and see the full schedule here.

The LPGA Tour is back. The first tournament since mid-February teed off today in Ohio. Canada’s best player, Brooke Henderson, isn’t there. The world No. 7 decided to skip the first three events and return for the next major, the British Women’s Open on Aug. 20. The only Canadian in the field this week is 107th-ranked Alena Sharp. If not for the pandemic, she and Henderson would be in Tokyo right now competing in the Olympics. Read more about Sharp here.

And one more thing…

The NBA is back, which is great. But so is load management, which is not.

It was genuinely uplifting to watch the return of meaningful NBA games last night. They looked and sounded as close to normal as you could hope under these circumstances. And the moment before the opener in which every single player, coach and referee involved in the Utah-New Orleans game took a knee for the national anthem was quite powerful.

But it was not so great to be reminded that load management is still very much a thing. Star rookie Zion Williamson, like the rest of the league, had been off for four and a half months. He’s now nine months removed from the arthroscopic knee surgery that was initially supposed to keep him out for 6-8 weeks, and he already came back and got 20 games under his belt before the pandemic hit. So you’d think he’d be good to go.

And yet, in the final few minutes of a tight, nationally televised game last night, New Orleans refused to budge from the minutes restriction it has placed on him. Zion came out of the game with 7:19 left and never returned — even when the Pelicans got the ball with 6.9 seconds left and trailing by two. They missed a potential game-winning three and lost. After the game, coach Alvin Gentry said “We wish we could have played Zion down the stretch. But he had used the minutes that had been given to us.”

It’s understandable that New Orleans would want to be protective of Zion. He has a history of knee injuries and the Pelicans’ chances of winning a championship this year are extremely slim. So in some ways it makes sense to play the long game — for both the team and for Zion. But New Orleans still has a chance to make the playoffs, and one of the selling points of this final stretch of regular-season games (or “seeding games” as the NBA has branded them) was supposed to be watching Zion lead his team on that push. Now we know that isn’t the top priority for the Pelicans.

This kind of indifference is something the league might have to reckon with before long. It’s become pretty plain that many teams and players don’t really care about the regular season. Pretty soon, fans might stop caring too.

You’re up to speed. Have a good long weekend.

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NHL roundup: Hurricanes beat Flyers 6-4 for seventh straight win

Published

1 hour ago

November 6, 2024

Anne Joseph

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Martin Necas scored a go-ahead goal with 29 seconds left and the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Philadelphia Flyers 6-4 on Tuesday night.

It was the seventh straight win for the Hurricanes, who also got goals from Jack Roslovic, Jordan Martinook, Eric Robinson and Jackson Blake. Seth Jarvis added an empty-net goal in the final seconds.

Necas typically saves his game-winners for overtime, with nine in his career, but he was able to take care of business in regulation with his team-best seventh goal of the season.

Travis Konecny scored two goals and had two assists for the Flyers. Morgan Frost and Owen Tippett also scored for Philadelphia.

Aleksei Kolosov made 28 saves for the Flyers, who trailed 2-1, 3-1 and 4-3 but kept coming back. Carolina’s Pyotr Kochetkov struggled in net allowing four goals on just 16 shots.

Elsewhere in the NHL on Tuesday:

—

SABRES 5 SENATORS 1

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Bowen Byram and Tage Thompson scored 16 seconds apart to open the third period, and Buffalo snapped a three-game skid with a win over Ottawa.

Byram scored twice, JJ Peterka had two goals and an assist and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 37 saves.

Ridly Greig converted his own rebound in cutting Buffalo’s lead to 2-1 with 7:31 left in the second period. Linus Ullmark made 29 saves in dropping to 1-4 in his past five starts.

Buffalo went up 3-1 on Byram’s second goal 21 seconds into the third period. The defenceman’s shot from inside the blue line sneaked through Ullmark, with the puck rolling down the goalie’s pad, dropping into the crease and trickling across the line. Thompson scored when he crashed the net, was knocked over by defender Jake Sanderson and was lying in the crease when Alex Tuch’s shot went in off his shoulder.

—

MAPLE LEAFS 4 BRUINS 0

TORONTO (AP) — Anthony Stolarz made 29 saves for his first shutout of the season in Toronto’s 4-0 victory over Boston.

Morgan Rielly had a goal and two assists as Toronto connected three times on the power play. William Nylander and Matthew Knies added a goal and an assist each. Mitch Marner had two assists of his own. Steven Lorentz rounded out the scoring into the empty net.

The Leafs played without captain Auston Matthews, who is listed as day-to-day with an upper-body injury.

Jeremy Swayman made 23 stops for Boston, which was coming off consecutive weekend shutouts of the Philadelphia Flyers and Seattle Kraken.

Toronto’s porous 31st-ranked power play scored for the second time in as many games at 8:44 of the second period when Rielly fired through a screen. Nylander banked in his team-leading 10th goal of the season on another man advantage 1:14 later for a 2-0 lead.

The Bruins entered the game 8-0-0 in the regular season against their Atlantic Division rival dating back to Jan. 14, 2023.

—

FLAMES 3 CANADIENS 2 (OT)

MONTREAL (AP) — Matt Coronato scored twice as Calgary came back to defeat Montreal in overtime.

Coronato tied the game with 2:46 remaining in regulation when he cruised into the slot and went off the post and in. He then buried the winning goal seven seconds into the extra period.

Connor Zary also scored for Calgary, which won its second game in seven outings. Dustin Wolf stopped 21 shots.

Joel Armia — with a short-handed goal — and Brendan Gallagher scored for Montreal (4-7-2). Armia also provided an assist, while Sam Montembeault made 32 saves as the Canadiens’ losing streak extended to four games.

Zary opened the scoring with his third 4:20 into the second period when he pounced on a loose puck in the slot and fired a shot past Montembeault.

Gallagher then slipped the puck between Wolf’s pads at 16:23 to level the score with his fifth of the season.

—

BLUES 3 LIGHTNING 2

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Jordan Kyrou, Alexey Toropchenko and Oskar Sundqvist scored to help St. Louis beat Tampa Bay 3-2.

Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington made 21 saves for his 149th career win moving him past Jake Allen for second place in franchise history, just two wins behind Mike Liut’s 151.

Nick Perbix and Victor Hedman scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 20 saves for the Lightning who have lost three straight games.

Kyrou scored his fourth goal of the season 8:51 into the third period to give St. Louis a 3-1 lead.

Toropchenko scored his first goal of the season with 1:35 remaining in the second period to put St. Louis ahead 2-1 after Sundqvist tied the game with his first of the season 7:47 into the period.

—

ISLANDERS 4 PENGUINS 3 (SO)

NEW YORK (AP) — Bo Horvat scored the only goal in a shootout and New York rallied past Pittsburgh 4-3.

New York goalie Ilya Sorokin denied Rickard Rakell, Sidney Crosby and Kris Letang in the shootout and finished with 32 saves. Kyle Palmieri had a goal and an assist for the Islanders, who trailed 3-1 midway through the third period.

Simon Holmstrom and Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored in the third for New York. Horvat had two assists.

Evgeni Malkin had a goal and an assist to lead Pittsburgh. Crosby got his 598th career goal, and Michael Bunting also scored. Rakell added two assists.

Alex Nedeljkovich stopped 23 shots for the Penguins, who have lost seven of nine. They won their previous two following a six-game skid.

—

KINGS 5 WILD 1

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Trevor Lewis scored twice, Kevin Fiala added another on the power play and Los Angeles beat Minnesota 5-1.

Warren Foegele and Quinton Byfield also scored for Los Angeles, which was playing the second night of a back-to-back after a 3-0 win in Nashville a night earlier. David Rittich made 23 saves for the Kings.

Fiala, who was traded to Los Angeles in 2022 by Minnesota for a first-round pick draft pick and defenceman Brock Faber, scored his seventh goal of the season. He now has three goals and six assists in his last seven games against the Wild.

Minnesota, which had won three in a row, opened the scoring in the second period on Zach Bogosian’s first goal of the season. Goaltender Filip Gustavsson stopped 23 shots for the Wild.

—

JETS 3 UTAH 0

WINNIPEG, Man. (AP) — Nino Niederreiter scored twice in his 900th NHL career game and Connor Hellebuyck made 21 saves to help Winnipeg defeat Utah 3-0.

It was Hellebuyck’s second shutout of the season and 39th of this career.

Gabriel Vilardi also scored for the Jets. Adam Lowry assisted on both goals by Niederreiter.

Utah ended a run of picking up points in three consecutive games (1-0-2).

Karel Vejmelka stopped 25 shots for Utah in its second stop on a four-game road trip.

Jets winger Kyle Connor had his franchise-record, season-opening points streak end at 12 games.

—

AVALANCHE 6 KRAKEN 3

DENVER (AP) — Arturri Lehkonen scored the go-ahead goal on a power play in his season debut and Nathan MacKinnon had five assists as Colorado beat Seattle 6-3.

Mikko Rantanen added two goals for the Avalanche, who snapped a three-game losing streak. Ivan Ivan, Nikolai Kovalenko and Chris Wagner also scored for Colorado.

Cale Makar had two assists but the star defenceman barely played in the second half of the game and appeared to be slowed by an apparent injury during a brief shift.

MacKinnon and Makar extended their season-opening point streaks to 13 games.

Lehkonen played for the first time since off-season shoulder surgery.

Jared McCann, Jaden Schwartz and Brandon Montour scored for the Kraken.

—

CANUCKS 5 DUCKS 1

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Brock Boeser, Danton Heinen and Kiefer Sherwood had a goal and an assist apiece, and Quinn Hughes recorded his 300th career assist in Vancouver’s victory over Anaheim.

Jake DeBrusk and Elias Pettersson also scored and Hughes had three assists for the Canucks, who have won six of eight. Kevin Lankinen made 21 saves in Vancouver’s sixth consecutive win over the Ducks.

Olen Zellweger scored a power-play goal early in the first period for Anaheim, which has lost seven of nine. Lukas Dostal stopped 31 shots.

Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko took shots from teammates again after the morning skate, and he could return to practice this week. The Southern California native and 2023-24 Vezina Trophy finalist hasn’t played this season due to a knee injury incurred late last season.

—

SHARKS 2 BLUE JACKETS 1 (OT)

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Alex Wennberg scored 3:11 into overtime and San Jose celebrated the return of No. 1 overall draft pick Macklin Celebrini with a win over Columbus.

Defenceman Jack Thompson scored his first career goal for the Sharks (4-8-2), who entered the night with the worst record in the NHL. San Jose has won four of five.

Celebrini, the top pick in the 2024 NHL draft, missed 12 games with a hip injury he sustained in the season opener Oct. 10 — an injury first incurred during the pre-season. Celebrini didn’t score and missed a shot early in overtime.

San Jose goalie Vitek Vanacek was fantastic in net, making 49 saves.

Blue Jackets right wing Kirill Marchenko scored for the second consecutive game. Columbus (5-6-1) has lost three straight.

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Canada’s Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Routliffe pick up second win at WTA Finals

Published

1 day ago

November 5, 2024

Anne Joseph

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.

The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.

The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.

Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.

Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.

The final is scheduled for Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.

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Allen nets shutout as Devils burn Oilers 3-0

Published

1 day ago

November 4, 2024

Anne Joseph

EDMONTON – Jake Allen made 31 saves for his second shutout of the season and 26th of his career as the New Jersey Devils closed out their Western Canadian road trip with a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.

Jesper Bratt had a goal and an assist and Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored for the Devils (8-5-2) who have won three of their last four on the heels on a four-game losing skid.

The Oilers (6-6-1) had their modest two-game winning streak snapped.

Calvin Pickard made 13 stops between the pipes for Edmonton.

TAKEAWAYS

Devils: In addition to his goal, Bratt picked up his 12th assist of the young season to give him nine points in his last eight games and now 15 points overall. Nico Hischier remains in the team lead, picking up an assist of his own to give him 16 points for the campaign. He has a point in all but four games this season.

Oilers: Forward Leon Draisaitl was held pointless after recording six points in his previous two games and nine points in his previous four. Draisaitl usually has strong showings against the Devils, coming into the contest with an eight-game point streak against New Jersey and 11 goals in 17 games.

KEY MOMENT

New Jersey took a 2-0 lead on the power play with 3:26 remaining in the second period as Hischier made a nice feed into the slot to Bratt, who wired his third of the season past Pickard.

KEY RETURN?

Oilers star forward and captain Connor McDavid took part in the optional morning skate for the Oilers, leading to hopes that he may be back sooner rather than later. McDavid has been expected to be out for two to three weeks with an ankle injury suffered during the first shift of last Monday’s loss in Columbus.

OILERS DEAL FOR D-MAN

The Oilers have acquired defenceman Ronnie Attard from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenceman Ben Gleason.

The 6-foot-3 Attard has spent the past three season in the Flyers organization seeing action in 29 career games. The 25-year-old right-shot defender and Western Michigan University grad was originally selected by Philadelphia in the third round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Attard will report to the Oilers’ AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.

UP NEXT

Devils: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.

Oilers: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.

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