NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – December 19, 2023
Penguins captain Sidney Crosby continues moving up among the all-time points leaders, the three stars of the week are announced and more in today’s NHL Morning Coffee Headlines.
GAME RECAPS
NHL.COM: Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby broke a 3-3 tie in a 4-3 win over the Minnesota Wild. Crosby also collected an assist to move into 13th place among the NHL’s all-time points leaders with 1,535. Evgeni Malkin and Jake Guentzel also had a goal and an assist for the 14-13-3 Penguins (31 points), who sit three points out of the final Eastern Conference wild-card berth. Ryan Hartman, Jake Middleton and Vinni Lettieri scored for the Wild (12-13-4) as they overcame a 3-0 deficit before Crosby netted the game-winner.
Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby (NHL Images).
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Crosby will soon overtake Joe Thornton, who sits 12th with 1,539 points. He’s also within range of Ray Bourque (1,579) and Phil Esposito (1,590).
An overtime goal by Justin Barron lifted the Montreal Canadiens over the Winnipeg Jets 3-2. Josh Anderson and Christian Dvorak gave the Canadiens a 2-0 lead but Gabriel Vilardi and Cole Perfetti replied for the Jets to force the extra period. The Canadiens improved to 14-13-4 (32 points) to sit two points out of the final Eastern wild-card spot. The Jets fell to 18-9-3 and slipped into third place in the Central Division with 39 points.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Jets defenseman Josh Morrissey left the game early in the third period after taking a puck to the face but got stitched up and returned 11 minutes later.
Speaking of the Central Division, the Dallas Stars regained first place (40 points) by nipping the Seattle Kraken 4-3 on an overtime goal by Thomas Harley. Matt Duchene tallied twice and collected an assist as the Stars improved to 18-8-4. Matty Beniers and Tomas Tatar each had a goal and an assist for the 10-14-9 Kraken.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Earlier in the day, Stars head coach Pete DeBoer indicated that starting goaltender Jake Oettinger is considered week-to-week with a lower-body injury.
Calgary Flames goaltender Jacob Markstrom stopped 33 shots in a 3-1 upset of the Florida Panthers. Mikael Backlund broke a 1-1 tie in the third period as the Flames have won three of their last four and improved to 13-14-5 (31 points), sitting one point out of the final Western Conference wild-card berth. Sam Reinhart scored for the Panthers (18-11-2) as they sit in third place in the Atlantic Division with 38 points.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Earlier in the day, the Panthers placed forward Anton Lundell on injured reserve.
The Anaheim Ducks held off the Detroit Red Wings 4-3. Adam Henrique and Troy Terry each had a goal and an assist for the 12-19-0 Ducks, who’ve won two straight games. Alex DeBrincat tallied twice and Patrick Kane had two assists for the Red Wings (15-12-4), who have lost three straight and sit just outside the final Eastern wild-card spot with 34 points.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin returned to action after missing the last four games with a head injury. However, goaltender Ville Husso left this game with an injured right leg.
HEADLINES
NHL.COM: Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, Vancouver Canucks goaltender Thatcher Demko and New York Islanders defenseman Noah Dobson are the NHL’s three stars for the week ending Dec. 17.
DAILY FACEOFF: The Columbus Blue Jackets placed winger Patrik Laine (fractured clavicle) on injured reserve.
TSN: The Boston Bruins have loaned forward Matthew Poitras to Canada for the upcoming 2024 IIHF World Junior Championship. Poitras, 19, has 13 points in 27 games with the Bruins this season.
TSN: The Carolina Hurricanes signed free-agent goaltender Aaron Dell to a professional tryout offer.
If Derek Lalonde isn’t feeling the heat, he should be. His team has too often looked like they weren’t prepared to play. That was a problem under Jeff Blashill as well. Newsy isn’t getting it done.
I thought the jets would sellout last night playing the Canadians; they didn’t. Certainly wasn’t from lack of effort from hab fans who were challenging the Jet fans for chanting rights.
Spoke with a friend of mine who was a season ticket holder for 8yrs.
He said he notice the decline when the Manitoba Moose moved into the arena making it much more affordable for a family to go watch a hockey game. He also noted:
Once you’re in the building you couldn’t leave and return and as a smoker that was inconvenience.
The moose made it more difficult to resell your tickets just to get par back was difficult.
The ticket selling office was arrogant when they were trying to upgrade their seats it wasn’t a fun process.
He tells a story of 4 guys who had seats in the 100 sections, two of the guys were opting out and the other two wanted to keep the 4 seats and asked to have them transfer over to them. They were told it was cost a $1500 transfer fee. They were annoyed and didn’t renew their own. Now you have 4 seats available.
All things contribute and the biggest could be the mortgage rate.
A $400,000 mortgage 3yrs ago would’ve been around $1842.05 monthly payments today them monthly payments $2838.71 difference of $996.66 per month. Probably not a lot of discretionary dollars left over.
Wild should have started Fleury last night. You could hear the fans chanting his name over the live TV broadcast. “We want Fleury!” Pretty cool for him I’m sure.