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Senators end miserable weekend with absolutely brutal loss

By Adam GretzNov 4, 2018, 10:27 PM EST
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If you know an Ottawa Senators fan, give them a hug.

They probably need it.

Everyone knew this was going to be a tough season for them. They are a ridiculously young team that has been gutted of most of its star power over the past two years as a bumbling ownership attempts to rebuild the organization into something relevant. The immediate future is not particularly bright. The long-term future may not be all that bright, either.

After a fairly decent start to the season that has actually had a couple of bright spots (specifically the play of Thomas Chabot, as well as rookie Brady Tkachuk before his injury) the Senators we expected to see this season finally showed up over the past 48 hours.

On Saturday, they were absolutely run out of the building in Buffalo during a 9-2 loss.

Then they had to come back 24 hours later and face the Tampa Bay Lightning, one of the best teams in the NHL. Not exactly a great matchup.

Surprisingly, the Senators found themselves in a position where they were less than a minute away from coming away with what would have been an extremely impressive win. The kind of win that might have been a big confidence boost for a young team still finding its way. At the very least, it would have been a sensational way to rebound after an embarrassing loss on Saturday and something the home fans could have been happy about.

Then things completely went off the rails in what would eventually turn into a stunning and brutal 4-3 overtime loss.

With less than two minutes to play in regulation and the Senators clinging to a 3-2 lead, veteran forward Mikkel Boedker took a slashing penalty that sent the Lightning to the power play.

With just under 30 seconds to play the Senators’ penalty kill had an opportunity to get the puck out of the zone and perhaps end the game when this happened…

Oh. Oh no. Oh my gosh no. What are you doing?!

First, let’s give some credit to Ryan McDonagh there for forcing that turnover because that was an incredible play. But Ottawa … what are you doing? Specifically the two forwards, and especially Magnus Paajarvi, for completely blowing the zone there. What. Are. You. Doing?! 

I get that it is tempting to go for the empty net goal, but you do not need it. You are on the penalty kill. There is no icing. All you need is a clear and the game is over. All you need to do is not go flying out of the zone before your team has possession of the puck and not leave the lone defender back and your goalie by themselves against that power play unit.

That Brayden Point goal sent the game to overtime.

Overtime was only 14 seconds with Yanni Gourde, fresh off signing a brand new long-term contract this week, scoring the game-winning goal for the Lightning.

It took less than a minute of clock time for an impressive 3-2 win to turn into a 4-3 loss.

The NHL’s situation room reviewed the play for potential goaltender interference but determined that Point’s contact with Senators goalie Craig Anderson was incidental contact outside of the crease, allowing the goal to stand.

Great two points for the Lightning.

Absolutely miserable way for the Senators to lose to wrap up a completely forgettable weekend.

MORE: Your 2018-19 NHL on NBC TV schedule

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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.

The Buzzer: Lundqvist dominates, Fowler’s trick ends Ducks’ losing streak

AP
By Adam GretzNov 5, 2018, 12:12 AM EST
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Three Stars

1. Henrik Lundqvist, New York Rangers. He may be 36 years old, he may not be the player he was a few years ago, but Henrik Lundqvist can still take over and steal a game. He did that on Sunday night in the Rangers’ 3-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres by turning aside 39 of the 40 shots he faced to help lead them to their third consecutive win. The win for Lundqvist is the 435th of his career and he is now just two wins behind Jacques Plante for seventh on the all-time list (via NHL PR).

2. Ryan McDonagh, Tampa Bay Lightning. With Victor Hedman sidelined the Tampa Bay Lightning need some other players on their blue line to step up. Ryan McDonagh has done that and more over the past week. He played an incredible game on Sunday, recording three assists in the Lightning’s wild come-from-behind win and forced the turnover on the game-tying goal in the closing seconds. This is his second three-point game in his past four games.

3. Cam Fowler, Anaheim Ducks. Over the first month of the season Anaheim Ducks games have mostly been the John Gibson show. Even though he was really good again on Sunday night, it was defenseman Cam Fowler that ended up stealing the show as he literally provided all of the offense in the Ducks’ 3-2 overtime win. Fowler scored all three goals in the win, including the game-winner in overtime, to record his first career hat trick. He is just the 12th different defender over the past 10 years to record a hat trick, and the first since Justin Faulk on Feb. 13, 2018. He is the third Ducks defender over the past 10 years to score three goals in a game, joining Hampus Lindholm and Lubomir Visnovsky. This win snapped what had been a seven-game losing streak for the Ducks and came on the same night they lost Ryan Getzlaf to another injury, this time an upper-body injury. To say they needed this one would be quite the understatement.

Highlights of the Night

The Tampa Bay Lightning were 30 seconds away from losing in Ottawa. Then Ryan McDonagh started this play to tie the game.

Here is Cam Fowler completing his first career hat trick.

Factoids of the Night

The New York Rangers scored a pair of goals in the first minute of the second period on Sunday night. That is something they have not done in quite some time.

More on Cam Fowler’s big night for the Anaheim Ducks.

 

Scores

New York Rangers 3, Buffalo Sabres 1

Tampa Bay Lightning 4, Ottawa Senators 3 (OT)

Anaheim Ducks 3, Columbus Blue Jackets 2 (OT)

MORE: Your 2018-19 NHL on NBC TV schedule

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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.

Kings’ problems run far deeper than their coach

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By Adam GretzNov 4, 2018, 8:43 PM EST
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The Los Angeles Kings put an end to the John Stevens era on Sunday afternoon, firing the coach just 13 games into his second season behind their bench. Given how horrendous they looked in their first-round playoff exit a year ago, and how much they have struggled this season, some sort of a change somewhere in the organization seemed inevitable. The coach is usually the first place teams look in a last-ditch effort to save a season that is teetering on the brink of falling apart.

Maybe Stevens wasn’t the right coach for the Kings.

Maybe the team needed a different voice and some new ideas and a new approach and a new system.

But even if all of that is true there should be no mistaking that the Kings’ decision on Sunday is nothing more than a short-term band-aid on what has become a run-of-the-mill franchise with a growing list of long-term problems.

[Related: Kings fire John Stevens]

Last February I argued that the Kings were one of the aging, veteran teams in the NHL that were in dire need of a top-to-bottom overhaul. They were short on high-end talent, short on youth, short on speed, and still trying to play a brand of hockey from an era that no longer exists.

Their solution over the summer: To bring a 35-year-old Ilya Kovalchuk back from Russia following a five year absence from the NHL.

And that was it.

And while Kovalchuk has been as good as the Kings could have possibly expected him to be (he actually leads the team in scoring with 11 points in 13 games), he alone was never going to be enough to fix a stagnant offense that looked like it was playing a completely different, and not to mention vastly inferior, game than the Vegas team that skated circles around them in the playoffs. An offense that has finished higher than 14th in goals scored once over the past decade. An offense that, more often than not, is in the bottom-five of the league.

Unless he brought a time machine back from Russia that could transport him back to 2009 he was not going to be able to make the Kings younger or faster, two of the biggest issues currently plaguing the current organization. He was just going to be another mid-30s player that is a fraction of his former dominant self on a team built around mid-30s players that are fractions of their once dominant selves.

Here is the current situation the Kings are facing on the day they fired their coach.

  • They are at the bottom of the Western Conference standings, already eight points out of a playoff spot, and facing a daunting mountain when it comes to making the postseason. This after missing the playoffs in two of the previous four seasons and not making it out of the first round since 2014.
  • They are the second oldest team in the NHL and still play at a glacial pace.
  • They have one of the biggest salary cap numbers in the league and do not have any big contracts coming off the books after this season.
  • They only have three players on the roster right now under the age of 25 that have appeared in more than eight games this season. Those three players — Austin Wagner, Michael Amadio, and Adrian Kempe — are all averaging less than 12 minutes of ice-time per game and have combined for three points this season.
  • They have seven players over the age of 31 signed for at least three more seasons.
  • The key players that are still in the prime of their careers, specifically Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson, are simply … okay. They are decent middle-six players, but if either one of them ever gives you 50 points in a season it would be considered a huge success. They are not core players to build around.

Anything there that excites you?

Just about the best thing you could say about this Kings team right now to offer any sort of short-term hope is that Anze Kopitar has yet to play his best hockey this season, and that they are finally getting Dustin Brown back in the lineup after he missed the first month of the season.

But is Brown going to be able to repeat his 2017-18 performance, which is looking like a pretty significant outlier given where his career has gone over the past four years? Is Kopitar going to be able to provide enough offense to drag the rest of the team behind him again?

And that’s not even getting into the fact they are going to be playing backup goalies for the next few weeks as Jonathan Quick remains sidelined.

Whether it is John Stevens, or Willie Desjardins, or some yet-to-be-named coach that is sitting at home waiting for a phone call, it is going to be a huge ask to expect them to make something out of this current setup.

Even after firing the coach, the Kings are still a team in need of a rebuild.

It is a team that has been in need of a rebuild for maybe two years now.

Unfortunately for them no one in the organization seems to realize it yet.

MORE: Your 2018-19 NHL on NBC TV schedule

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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.

Kings fire head coach John Stevens in effort to right ship

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By Scott BilleckNov 4, 2018, 3:07 PM EST
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Needing to turn their season around in a hurry, the Los Angeles Kings fired head coach John Stevens on Sunday.

Not even a convincing 4-1 victory on Saturday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets could help Stevens and assistant head coach Don Nachbaur keep their jobs.

Stevens is being replaced by former Vancouver Canucks head coach Willie Desjardins on an interim basis. Desjardins was let go by the Canucks two seasons ago after failing to make the playoffs two years running. He most recently coached Canada’s national men’s team at last year’s Olympics in South Korea.

The Kings also hired former NHLer Marco Sturm, who most recently coached the German National Team to a silver medal at those same Olympics, knocking out Desjardins’ team in the semifinals.

“This is a critical time in our season and our results to date have fallen well below our expectations. With that in mind, this was a difficult decision but one we feel was necessary,” said general manager Rob Blake. “We have a great deal of respect and appreciation for John’s time with our organization. He was a key part of our past success, and we have tremendous gratitude for his many contributions.”

This is hardly surprising, as Stevens seat had only grown warmer as the season has progressed.

Despite Saturday’s win, the Kings are dead last in the NHL with nine points (tied with Florida but have played two more games). A six-game losing streak was only halted this past week and Stevens just couldn’t extract enough out of an aging Kings teams.

Old and slow doesn’t win the race in hockey.

Whether Desjardins can do any better with the same roster is still up for debate.

The addition of Ilya Kovalchuk has done little to help the Kings score more goals, where they sit plumb last in that category, too, with 28 in 13 games — an average of just 2.15 goals per game. Anze Kopitar is a shell of himself compared to last season. Jonathan Quick can’t stay healthy.

A tough task then for Desjardins.

MORE: Marco Sturm on NHL coaching future, growing hockey in Germany 

Scott Billeck is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @scottbilleck

Unlikely teams ruling the roost in Pacific Division

Associated Press
By Scott BilleckNov 4, 2018, 2:37 PM EST
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If you’re a fan of Canadian hockey, then when you woke up on Sunday morning, checked the Pacific Division standings and were met with a sight for sore eyes.

Three western Canadian teams — Calgary Flames, Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers — in that order, 1-2-3 in the Pacific Division standings.

After scratching your head and rubbing your eyes to check if you had truly woken up, you sipped your coffee and wondered, simply, how?

Let’s take a look, shall we?

Calgary Flames

Calgary has found a way to get it done in the third period like no other team in the NHL thus far this season.

Few teams that trail after two periods of play ended up winning after three, yet here are the Flames with a 5-5-1 record when trailing after 40 minutes. That’s right, in 11 of their 15 games this season, the Flames have trailed after two periods of play. While most teams in the NHL might have a win or two in such a scenario, Calgary has five and managed a point out of another to stand atop the Pacific with a 9-5-1 record.

No other team has scored 28 goals in the final frame, either. The next closest is Colorado and Winnipeg, who each have 20.

Calgary has simply made it a point to come out in the third period and take it to other teams, evidenced by their five-goal outburst after trailing the Avalanche 4-1 entering the third on Thursday, and then their three unanswered against the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday night.

The Flames have won four straight now and have a real chance to put an early stranglehold on the division as they embark on a three-game road trip against Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Jose.

Calgary isn’t getting the best goaltending at the moment, but they’ve been able to mask it by controlling possession and scoring a pile of goals — they are tied for first with Colorado with 52 goals scored and are tied for second with 32 of those coming at five-on-five.

Vancouver Canucks

Elias Pettersson is shooting at 40 percent.

That’s an incredible number (and one that’s likely to fall) but the Canucks are certainly enjoying it at the moment.

But he’s proved to be an incredible player thus far, highlighted most recently by his five-point night against the Avalanche on Friday.

Like Calgary, goaltending hasn’t been a specialty but scoring goals has. Vancouver is tied for the third most goals in the NHL at 47, so they, too, are outscoring some of their issues in their own end of the ice.

Vancouver’s possession numbers rank them near the bottom of the league but they’re sixth in the league in overall shooting percentage and 10th in five-on-five shooting percentage. If that well dries up at some point, so too will the wins.

But they are also a team decimated by injury. So who knows. The last thing Vancouver wants is to be in the hunt for a playoff spot, miss it, and get a mid-round pick in the middle of a rebuild.

And man, are the Canucks ever exciting to watch.

Edmonton Oilers

Connor McDavid has 21 points this season. Edmonton has 40 goals.

Where would the Oilers be without McDavid? It’s an intriguing question to explore yet one that doesn’t really matter unless he gets injured. The fact of the matter is they do have McDavid and McJesus is carrying the team.

And while drop off is expected for nearly every other player in the NHL that’s had a great start to the season, McDavid is the exception.

He gets defenseman-type minutes and he cannot be contained.

The good news in Edmonton is that other players have woken up.

Leon Draisaitl is producing, as is Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and they’ve buckled down defensively, giving up the fifth-fewest high-danger scoring chances. Edmonton’s overall team save percentage isn’t great, but their combined five-on-five save percentage is seventh in the league operating at .935.

What does this all mean? 

In one sense, it doesn’t mean much at all, even if we’re nearing 20 percent completion of the regular season.

That said, the Pacific Division as a whole is quite poor this season. That makes it difficult to predict. And by extension, it also means that every team appears to be in the thick of it (save for Los Angeles at this point).

It also means that there will likely only be three Pacific Division spots up for grabs come April. The Central Division is very good and will likely take the available crossover spot should things stay on the same course.

MORE: Your 2018-19 NHL on NBC TV schedule

Scott Billeck is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @scottbilleck