With 26 teams hitting the ice today, it was another busy Saturday in the NHL.
The Bruins lost in a shootout, the Calgary Flames dropped an important game, the Canucks (finally!) defeated the Kings, the Islanders got back on track with Halak and the Jets won their fourth in a row.
Those are just a few of the things we learned in the NHL on Saturday. Here are six more:
League continues to seek improvements
There has been a lot of news coming out of the GM meetings in Boca Raton, Florida this past week about how the league can make some changes for the better, from proposed 3-on-3 overtime to reviewing goalie interference. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman brought up two more topics during Saturday night’s broadcast when he discussed coaches’ challenges and some changes to the All-Star Game. Friedman explained that unlike football, coaches won’t be throwing any flags. Instead, challenges would work very much the same way timeouts work, with the coach simply calling the referee over after a play to determine whether or not they’d like to use a challenge. As for the All-Star game, the league is asking for suggestions from general managers, but one idea tossed around is a possible tournament-style setup. (Hello, March Madness!)
Senators keep on rolling
The Ottawa Senators beat the Toronto Maple Leafs to extend their win-streak to six, and it couldn’t come at a better time. The two points brings them one away from the Boston Bruins (who lost in a shootout to the Florida Panthers Saturday) for the final wild card spot in the Eastern conference.
Of course, you can’t talk about the Senators without mentioning goaltender Andrew Hammond — he’s the talk of the league right now.
The record is 16, held by Patrick Lalime (PIT, 1996-97).
Price takes the lead
Speaking of goaltending, no goalie has been consistently solid between the pipes like Montreal Canadiens netminder (and all-around good guy) Carey Price. Price earned his second-straight shutout versus the struggling San Jose Sharks Saturday, and is now tied with Pittsburgh’s Marc-Andre Fleury with a league-leading nine shutouts this season.
Even more impressive is that this isn’t the first time this year that Price has had back-to-back shutouts.
Goalies gone wild
Clearly, goaltending was the theme of the night. Five of Saturday’s 13 games saw shutouts, tying the league record for most shutouts in a single day. The Stars’ Kari Lehtonen (vs. Chicago), the Jets’ Ondrej Pavelec (vs. Washington), the Predators’ Pekka Rinne (vs. Buffalo) and the Islanders’ Jaroslav Halak (vs. New Jersey) were the other four netminders to earn the goose egg.
Latta could get a phonecall
LA Kings’ Tyler Toffoli should expect a phonecall from the league for his dangerous hit from behind on Vancouver’s Alex Burrows — but should Michael Latta be waiting by the phone, too? The Capitals’ centreman committed a blatant crosscheck to the neck of Winnipeg’s Tyler Myers.
Eichel’s pretty good, two
(See what we did there?) The hockey world can’t stop talking about Connor McDavid. (Seriously, we can’t. He’s just so good.) But let’s take a moment for no.2 Jack Eichel, shall we? The Boston University star had a dazzling goal against UMass Lowell in the Hockey East Championship game.
