NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – March 14, 2023

by | Mar 14, 2023 | News, NHL | 8 comments

The Sabres, Avalanche and Stars are the winners in Monday’s action, the three stars of the week are announced plus injury updates and more in today’s NHL Morning Coffee Headlines.

GAME RECAPS

NHL.COM: The Buffalo Sabres snapped a four-game losing skid with two third-period goals by Alex Tuch to hold off the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3. Dylan Cozens, Owen Power and JJ Peterka each had two points for the Sabres, who improved to 33-28-5 (71 points) to sit five points behind the New York Islanders for the final Eastern Conference wild-card berth. Auston Matthews had a goal and two assists for the Leafs (40-18-8) as they sit second in the Atlantic Division with 88 points.

Buffalo Sabres winger Alex Tuch (NHL Images).

Colorado Avalanche forward Artturi Lehkonen scored twice and collected an assist in an 8-4 drubbing of the Montreal Canadiens. Cale Makar collected three assists and Valeri Nichushkin had a goal and two assists for the 37-22-6 Avalanche, who sit in third place in the Central Division with 80 points. Josh Anderson scored his 20th of the season for the 26-35-6 Canadiens, who’ve dropped seven in a row.

SPECTOR’S NOTE: Lehkonen left the game in the second period with a broken finger after being struck by a shot. He’s returning to Colorado for surgery. Canadiens forward Rem Pitlick left the game in the first period after going head-first into the boards. No update was provided on his status.

The Dallas Stars downed the Seattle Kraken 5-2. Jamie Benn had a goal and two assists while Miro Heiskanen had three assists for the Stars (37-17-3) as they hold first place in the Central Division with 87 points. Vince Dunn had collected two assists for the 37-23-7 Kraken as they hold third place in the Pacific Division with 81 points.

SPECTOR’S NOTE: Stars forward Tyler Seguin remains sidelined recovering from a superficial cut to his leg. He could return to action within the next couple of weeks.

HEADLINES

NHL.COM: Arizona Coyotes winger Clayton Keller, Pittsburgh Penguins center Sidney Crosby and Toronto Maple Leafs winger Mitch Marner are the three stars for the week ending March 12.

THE NEWS & OBSERVER: Carolina Hurricanes winger Andrei Svechnikov is sidelined indefinitely with a knee injury.

SPECTOR’S NOTE: Svechnikov’s absence is a big blow to the Hurricanes’ offense. He’s third among their scorers with 23 goals and 55 points in 64 games.

GOPHNX.COM’s Craig Morgan tweeted that Coyotes forward Christian Fischer is listed as day-to-day with a lower-body injury. There is no timeline yet for Nick Schmaltz’s return from a lower-body injury.

CBS SPORTS: Minnesota Wild winger Marcus Foligno suffered a lower-body injury during Sunday’s game against the Arizona Coyotes.

NBC SPORTS CHICAGO: The Blackhawks have shut down rookie forward Cole Guttman for the rest of the season due to a shoulder injury.

TSN: The Nashville Predators signed forward Mark Jankowski to a one-year, $775K contract.

SPORTSNET: Eric Engels reports a potential expansion of video review for high-sticking and over-the-glass calls was discussed during yesterday’s meeting of NHL general managers. There was also discussion about meeting with the NHL Players Association to potentially grandfather in cut-resistant equipment as mandatory.

SPECTOR’S NOTE: Oh, goody! More things to slow down the game.

NORTH STAR BETS: Chris Johnston reports NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly takes a dim view of three-team trades where a club acts as a broker to allow trades among cap-strapped teams. He said the league has never favored such trades but relented to them years ago because general managers lobbied to have retained-salary transactions in the collective bargaining agreement.

SPECTOR’S NOTE: I believe that was implemented in the updates to the CBA following the 2012-13 lockout. Former Leafs general manager Brian Burke was reportedly among those GMs at the time leading the charge for retained salary transactions to facilitate more movement in the trade market. I doubt we’ll see the league clamp down on that in the next round of collective bargaining.

Johnston also reported Daly didn’t sound as though there is any need to implement a rule that would prevent teams from sitting out players for “trade-related reasons” as we saw in the weeks leading up to the March 3 trade deadline. However, he didn’t rule out the possibility if it were to become a trend.

SPECTOR’S NOTE: Daly may have said the same thing to the general managers. Probably something along the lines of, “Don’t make it a habit, gentlemen, or else.”







8 Comments

  1. An update on the offers being made for the Ottawa Senators – from Bruce Garrioch’s column this morning in the Ottawa Sun:

    “Rocco Tullio has decided to go it alone in a bid to purchase the Ottawa Senators. A league insider told Postmedia Monday that Tullio, the owner of the OHL’s Oshawa Generals, entered his own bid for the Senators before the Monday, March 6th deadline to make a pitch for the franchise were due at the offices of New York-based banker Galatioto Sports Partners.

    League sources wouldn’t confirm the report last week that there were nine bids and that some were in excess of $900 million. One said GSP received “multiple bids” and the number was “more than four” but Postmedia was able to dig up Tullio as another name that has made an offer.”

    • Nothing pumps up a team’s value like good young players and a team on the rise.
      The fan favourite has the be the bid that includes Ryan Reynolds. Watching him get behind his soccer team you can see his passion and willingness to build a winning team.

  2. I can understand the review on high-sticking. There are a lot of calls that are actually on the follow-through and a few where it’s either an own stick or a team-mates stick that is called wrong.
    The officials get the puck over the glass call right about 95% of the time. There is no need to add this to the reviews list. Plus I don’t see too many of these calls getting reviewed if they keep the 2-minute delay of game on wrong reviews. That would put a team down 2 players.

  3. Re;an other good young Goaltender may enter the Market …..❓

    From Elliotte Friedman & Jeff Marek On his “32 Thoughts” podcast on Monday, its A cut & paste

    Sportsnet NHL insider Elliotte Friedman and co-host Jeff Marek opened up the episode by breaking down a crazy weekend for the Flyers and looking ahead to their future, with Friedman dropping a particularly juicy nugget near the end of the segment.
    “I think you’re Bang On with Carter Hart…., you talked about him Saturday night — I think he’s going to be Available,” Friedman said.

    He joins A few other Good Younger Starters that may be Avalable…..❓
    There are 3 teams in the East that need Starters for next year🤔

    1-Sen’s,
    2-Buffalo
    3-Montreal, but they may wait a year for Allen’s contract to expire and cap space improves

    The West, depending on how the playoffs go
    LA kings and Colorado may look to up-grade in Net for next season…. Avs Georgiev looks very shaky🤔

    -Carter Hart A 24yr old 1X yr at $3.95M RFA in 2024.
    -Demko A 27 yr old with 3X yrs at $5.M
    -Tristan Jarry A 27 yr old and UFA…
    -Gibson, 30 in july has 4X yrs at $6.4M…

    Thoughts on this and where they you think they could land ⁉️🤔

    I Think/Hope Both Otttawa & Buffalo get one of these Goaltender Above…👌

    • I don’t understand how the Flyers and Canucks can put their true NHL number-one goalies on the trading block. Good teams build out from their goalies. When you get these guys you don’t let them go. They are young and will still be around when it comes time for these teams to start competing.

    • To be honest, Elliotte Friedman isn’t the most reliable hockey guy out there. He is also speculating on Hart and not going by anything from what is happening inside the Flyers organization.

      • Hey Kevjam
        thats true but he is Right 90% of the time,

        This season i have head this a few times…
        and i wonder if the flyers are keeping or moving Carter Hart..? now its out in the press…?
        if what Danny Briere more or less said its
        A Re-build… they have a number of good young players but they have a lot of old guys who underperform ….

  4. I agree , I think the Flyer’s will attempt to trade a good deal of their guys: however, I think they will keep Koneckny and Sanheim.I think they are foolish if they don’t but what do I know? The Flyer’s make some dumb moves at times. I think the Avalanche should have made a deal for Hays/ or Koneckny. Could use a little more of those guys. The Avalanche are totally beat up I think from winning the cup last year but they still have the firepower to do some serious damage when they get healthy. Will see how it plays out. Will be interesting to see how the Avalanche play both the Maple Leafs and Senators. To me, that will say a lot. GO AVS!!!!!!!!