NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – April 14, 2023
The Golden Knights and Hurricanes clinch division titles as six first-round playoff series matchups are confirmed, Mikko Rantanen and Brayden Point reach goal-scoring milestones, and much more in today’s NHL Morning Coffee Headlines.
NHL.COM: The Vegas Golden Knights finished first overall in the Western Conference and clinched the Pacific Division crown after beating the Seattle Kraken 3-1. Vegas will face off against the Winnipeg Jets in the first round of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs starting on Tuesday, April 18. The Kraken, meanwhile, will face the Colorado Avalanche or Dallas Stars depending on the outcome of Friday’s game between the Avalanche and Nashville Predators.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Kraken will be playing without winger Andre Burakovsky for at the first two rounds of the playoffs if they make it that far. He underwent surgery on Tuesday for a lower-body injury that has sidelined him since Feb. 7.
Colorado Avalanche winger Mikko Rantanen (NHL Images).
As for the Avalanche, Mikko Rantanen scored to set the club’s single-season record of 55 goals as they doubled up Winnipeg 4-2. They also announced that captain Gabriel Landeskog will miss the entirety of the 2023 playoffs with a knee injury. Meanwhile, Jets winger Nikolaj Ehlers missed this game with an upper-body injury. He’s not in concussion protocol and will be reevaluated on Friday.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Rantanen set the Avalanche single-season record. Michel Goulet still holds the overall franchise record (57) dating back to the club’s days as the Quebec Nordiques. Landeskog, meanwhile, has been sidelined all season by that knee injury, which could also keep him out of the start of next season.
The Carolina Hurricanes clinched the Metropolitan Division title with a 6-4 victory over the Florida Panthers. Brent Burns scored twice for the Hurricanes, who will meet the New York Islanders in their opening-round series starting Monday, April 17. The Panthers will square off against the Boston Bruins starting Monday.
Speaking of the Bruins, they finished their Presidents’ Trophy-winning season with a record-setting 65 wins and 135 points after defeating the Montreal Canadiens 5-4. Boston captain Patrice Bergeron left the game for precautionary reasons with an upper-body injury but is expected to be good to go when the playoffs open on Monday. Bruins goaltenders Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman won the William M. Jennings Trophy for the fewest goals against (177) this season.
For the first time since 2012, there will be a Battle of the Hudson River as the New Jersey Devils and New York Rangers will face each other in the first round starting on Tuesday. The Devils clinched second overall in the Metropolitan Division by nipping the Washington Capitals 5-4 while the Rangers fell 3-2 to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Luke Hughes got the win for the Devils with his first career NHL goal while Leafs forward William Nylander reached the 40-goal plateau for the first time.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Leafs meet the Tampa Bay Lightning in a rematch of last season’s opening-round series commencing Tuesday. For the fourth straight game, the Leafs went the amateur tryout route for a backup goaltender as Matt Murray and Ilya Samsonov remain sidelined. Former UNB goalie Samuel Richard backed up Joseph Woll for this contest. Samsonov is expected to be the Leafs starter on Tuesday.
Speaking of the Lightning, Brayden Point scored twice to reach the 50-goal plateau for the first time (51) while Brian Elliott made 32 saves to shut out the Detroit Red Wings 5-0.
For the second straight year, the Edmonton Oilers and Los Angeles Kings face each other in an opening-round series. The Oilers clinched second place in the Pacific Division with a 5-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks while the Kings got a hat trick from Adrian Kempe to finish third in the division after downing the Anaheim Ducks 5-3. Oilers captain Connor McDavid collected an assist to finish the season with 64 goals and 153 points, winning his first Richard Trophy as the season’s leading goal scorer and his fifth Art Ross Trophy as the leading scorer in points.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Only Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Steve Yzerman have collected more points in a single season than McDavid. Speaking of the Ducks, they finished last in the overall standings, giving them the best odds of winning the 2023 NHL Draft Lottery on May 8.
The Dallas Stars shut out the St. Louis Blues 1-0. Jake Oettinger kicked out 25 shots while Wyatt Johnston scored the only goal for the Stars, who will face the Minnesota Wild or the Kraken in the opening round next week. The Wild, meanwhile, dropped a 4-3 overtime decision to the Nashville Predators. Frederick Gaudreau tallied twice for the Wild, who announced before the game that they re-signed him to a five-year, $10.5 million contract extension.
An overtime goal by Ivan Provorov lifted the Philadelphia Flyers to a 5-4 win over the Chicago Blackhawks. Travis Konecny scored twice and added two assists while Jonathan Toews scored in his last game with the Blackhawks as they announced yesterday that he will not be re-signing with them.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: It’s the end of an era for the Blackhawks. Following the game, Toews thanked the franchise, its fans and the city of Chicago, receiving a long, heartfelt ovation from the hometown crowd. Meanwhile, Flyers defenseman Justin Braun said this game was likely his last as a player after 13 seasons.
Arizona Coyotes forward Clayton Keller collected an assist to tie Keith Tkachuk’s franchise single-season record of 86 points in a 5-4 loss to the Vancouver Canucks. Conor Garland had a hat trick for the Canucks, including the winning goal.
Buffalo Sabres goaltender Craig Anderson announced his retirement after winning his final start by beating the Ottawa Senators 4-3 on an overtime goal by Casey Mittelstadt. The 41-year-old Anderson’s career lasted 20 seasons, including nine with the Senators as their franchise leader with 435 games played and 202 wins.
The Pittsburgh Penguins’ season ended with a 3-2 overtime loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. Johnny Gaudreau netted the winning goal while Penguins captain Sidney Crosby collected two assists to finish the season with 93 points.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry revealed he’d been hampered by an injury throughout the season. That’s raising questions among the Pittsburgh media over why management didn’t attempt to acquire a healthy goaltender before the trade deadline.
Nice to see the Senators lining up to congratulate Craig Anderson following Buffalo’s OT win.
Led by Tkachuk of course , he leads by example.
Anderson was the last remaining NHL player who is older than me…depressing!
As a closet NY Islanders fan even I have to admit that that series against Carolina may be one of the least interesting play off series ever. And it hasn’t even started yet. I don’t really care about either of the teams—it’s not the Isles year, not with this crew. Which is unfortunate. They have a couple of great goalies but the supporting cast is pretty sub par. And Carolina isn’t even the St.Louis Blues of 2019 but they think they are.
I’m not a big bracket guy in any sport but I’ll lay down my predictions for this year.
In the East.
Carolina
Rangers
Lightning
Bruins
Rangers
Bruins
Bruins.
In the West Matchups aren’t 100% set yet but I like who I like so I’ll wing it.
Avalanche
Wild
Jets
Oilers
Wild
Oilers
Wild vs Bruins
Bruins.
Following the Bruins win. Bergeron, Marchand, Krecji announce retirements together.
I think all the Canes fans I know are expecting a one round and done with all the Injuries in the top six they just don’t have the horses and basically a .500 team since Svechnikov’s injury. The Patches injury was tough but when you subtract 120 points (with a entire season from both) from the top six how much can you expect? Then Waddell did almost nothing at the deadline and bit the team in the arse.
I could see Bergy and Krejci doing that. Marchand has 2 more years on his contract though.
I don’t know why… but I feel like the Devils are going to embarrass the Rangers. We will see of course.
Not so sure a NJ win could be considered an embarrassment to any team, theSaint.
Not when they boast the greatest turnaround of all 32 teams when comparing last season to this one.
Last year they finished 28th overall with a 27 46 9 63 pts record, scoring 248g while giving up 307.
This year they’re 3rd overall with a 52 22 8 112 pts record, scoring 291g while giving up 236.
@George
True. I think I meant embarrass more because so many of the pundits just talked about the Rangers as a foregone favourite. Like it was going to be down to them or Toronto in the final. I feel like there will be a LOT of upsets this year.
All the talk I heard, didn’t mention the RANGERS. NHL Network analysts haven’t talked them up, and Ray Ferraro, IMO, gave them little credit when he was covering their games. I believe 2 network analysts said they’d survive a 7 game series with N J. Competition with N.J. and the Islanders is always fierce. Those 2 teams play harder, as it seems more important to beat the RANGERS then vice versa. I have said it a lot…the RANGERS have to HATE them as much, OR MORE!
Bedard would look good as a duck with Athena young talent they currently have
LOL. How the heck does auto-correct come up with “Athena” for, presumably, “all the” ??
George
The auto correct seems to enjoy changing words around. 🤡
It’s just the start of AI taking over the world haha
Boy, if that’s an example of the IQ of AI, God help us all!
Didn’t make sense to dress all the regular last night but they did, so be it.
What i didn’t know was Pastrnak needed one more goal to tie Jagr for most goals in a single season for a Czech born player at 62
After a TV time out, Montreal with their goalie pulled and 24 seconds remaining, i thought for sure i would see Pastrnak on the ice; but no, he was sitting on the bench.
That was a miss by Montgomery; i can only guess that the coach didn’t know.
Penguins clean house
Read that and immediately heard the munchkins singing “ding dong”