NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – February 14, 2024
Oilers captain Connor McDavid has a six-assist performance, Bruins captain Brad Marchand reaches a career milestone, Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly is suspended for five games, and more in today’s NHL Morning Coffee Headlines.
GAME RECAPS
NHL.COM: Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid collected a career-high six assists (including his 600th career NHL assist) in an 8-4 victory over the Detroit Red Wings. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had two goals and an assist while Evan Bouchard had a goal and two assists for the 31-17-1 Oilers, who sit third in the Pacific Division with 63 points. Patrick Kane, Alex DeBrincat and David Perron each had two points for the Red Wings (27-19-6) as they hold the final Eastern Conference wild-card berth with 60 points.
Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid (NHL Images).
SPECTOR’S NOTE: McDavid also extended his home points streak to 19 games. His six-assist performance vaulted him into a tie with Boston’s David Pastrnak for third place in the NHL scoring race with 77 points. Meanwhile, Red Wings goaltender Ville Husso left this game in the first period with a lower-body injury. It was his first game back with the Wings since suffering a lower-body injury on Dec. 18.
Tampa Bay Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov scored a goal for his league-leading 90th point as his club nipped the Boston Bruins 3-2 on a shootout goal by Brayden Point. Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy made 36 saves as his club improved to 29-20-5 and sit third in the Atlantic Division with 63 points. Bruins captain Brad Marchand collected two assists in his 1,000th career NHL game. With a record of 32-11-10 for 74 points, the Bruins sit first in the Eastern Conference and second in the overall standings.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Bruins will honor Marchand’s milestone in a pregame ceremony on Feb. 19. Lightning forward Tanner Jeannot returned to action after missing 12 games with a lower-body injury.
After learning defenseman Morgan Rielly received a five-game suspension for cross-checking Ottawa Senators forward Ridly Grieg on Saturday, the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the St. Louis Blues 4-1. Bobby McMann tallied his first career NHL hat trick for the 27-16-8 Leafs as they sit in the first Eastern wild-card spot with 62 points. Jordan Binnington turned aside 28 shots for the Blues (28-22-2) as they hold the final Western Conference wild-card berth with 58 points.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Leafs roster for this game was further depleted with John Tavares and Mitch Marner sidelined by an illness while Conor Timmins is out with mononucleosis.
The league-leading Vancouver Canucks doubled up the Chicago Blackhawks 4-2. Dakota Joshua lead the way with a Gordie Howe hat trick (including two assists) while Conor Garland tallied twice for the 36-12-6 Canucks (78 points). Petr Mrazek stopped 34 shots for the 14-36-3 Blackhawks as they sit in last place in the overall standings with 31 points.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Speaking of the Canucks, they’ve invited free agent forward Phil Kessel to work out for the team this week in Abbotsford, BC.
Colorado Avalanche forward Artturi Lehkonen scored twice and collected two assists in a 6-3 win over the Washington Capitals. Nathan MacKinnon collected two assists to move within three points of Nikita Kucherov in the NHL scoring race with 87 points. The Avalanche improved to 33-17-4 and sit in second place in the Central Division with 70 points. Capitals captain Alex Ovechkin scored for the sixth straight game but his Capitals slipped to 23-21-8 on the season.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Capitals playoff hopes are fading, winning just twice in their last 10 games.
The Dallas Stars (33-14-6) maintained their two-point lead over the Avalanche in the Central Division by defeating the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2. Jason Robertson and Matt Duchene each had a goal and an assist for the Stars. Jordan Staal had a goal and an assist for the 30-17-5 Hurricanes as they sit in second place in the Metropolitan Division with 65 points.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Earlier in the day, the Stars announced that winger Evgenii Dadonov will be sidelined for several weeks with a lower-body fracture. He suffered the injury during Saturday’s game against the Montreal Canadiens.
Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk’s hat trick powered his club to a 6-3 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets. Claude Giroux had a goal and two assists for the 22-25-2 Senators, who picked up their fourth straight win. Daniil Tarasov made 24 saves for the Blue Jackets (16-26-10) as they remain in last place in the Eastern Conference with 42 points.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Speaking of the Blue Jackets, a derogatory remark about Patrik Laine on a Jackets fan podcast is being used to rally support for the winger and raise charitable donations on his behalf for mental health awareness.
Laine is undergoing treatment through the NHL/NHLPA player assistance program. One of the podcast hosts said the Blue Jackets winger was away because he was contemplating a “Remington retirement”, which is a slang term for suicide by gunshot. If you’d like to donate to Laine’s charitable fund you can do so at this link.
The Buffalo Sabres thumped the Los Angeles Kings 7-0 as Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 33 saves for the shutout. Jordan Greenway scored twice and collected an assist for the 23-25-4 Sabres. With 58 points, the 24-16-10 Kings are clinging to a wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Kings forward Carl Grundstrom left the game in the second period with an undisclosed injury. Earlier in the day, the Sabres announced defenseman Owen Power will be sidelined for the next two weeks with an upper-body injury.
New Jersey Devils captain Nico Hischier tallied two third-period goals in a 4-2 victory over the Nashville Predators. Nico Daws stopped 30 shots for the Devils (27-21-4) as they sit two points out of the final Eastern wild-card berth with 58 points. Juuse Saros kicked out 43 shots for the 27-24-2 Predators (56 points) as they remain two points out of the final Western wild-card spot.
A 26-save performance by Philipp Grubauer carried the Seattle Kraken over the New York Islanders by a score of 2-1. Tomas Tatar netted the winning goal in a shootout for the 22-21-10 Kraken (54 points) as they sit four points out of the final Western wild-card berth. Ilya Sorokin turned aside 29 shots for the Islanders (22-18-13) as they sit three points out of the final Eastern wild-card berth with 57 points.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Kraken winger Pierre-Edouard Bellemare returned to action after missing 19 games with a fractured bone in his leg.
Montreal Canadiens goaltender Cayden Primeau made 13 saves for his first NHL shutout to blank the Anaheim Ducks 5-0. Juraj Slafkovsky had a goal and two assists for his first NHL three-point game while Nick Suzuki had two goals and an assist to extend his points streak to eight games for the 22-23-8 Canadiens. Lukas Dostal stopped 33 shots for the 18-32-2 Ducks, who welcomed back defenseman Pavel Mintyukov after being sidelined since Jan. 9 with a separated shoulder.
Never did find the actual Laine remark, but the fund-raiser is a very good come back on that! Great!
Follow the link I provided, it’s there.
Bruins got off to a slow start vs TB but recovered after falling behind 2-0… looks like they need some help on the PP whether it be a C or winger
Re; Bruins
I think Boston wait till the UFA period Starts July 1st to get there Centre and have some money to sign him…like a Elias Lindholm?
unless they Trade DeBrusk for top 6 scoreing help before the deadline as JD has been Very inconstant in Boston this season…..?
I agree maybe the try a Band-Aid somewhere on the top 6 won’t go far in the playoffs without a working PP
Habs game was the opposite of the St Louis blowout, as bad as looked then they looke great last night.
This Pavel Mintyukov kid looked really good, plays much bigger than his size and skates well.
The Rielly suspension, some will think it’s too short, others just right, no surprise I think it’s too long.
My guess is that this will be the turning point in TML season and they adopt an us against the rest mentality, Sens poked the teddy bear and woke a big bear.
I don’t know about that habfan30. Every time you think the Leafs will or should something, they find a way to disappoint.
The ruling was typical in the sense it’s 5 days after the event occurred and we are still talking about it rather than what George briefly touched on, losing again to another bottom feeder of a team.
As reckless as that hit was, Parros had to give a suspension worthy of the noise it drummed up. Something that in other markets except Montreal, would be on to the next topic in a day or less.
I think there’s a few of us on here that although we cheer for other rival teams, can still make intelligent and honest comments regardless of the player and the team they play for. When we do more of that, we can have better and more meaningful dialogues.
The absolute worst of any of the aftermath comments had to come out of Reaves’ yap – among other things “violence needs to be returned to hockey” – or words to that effect.
Do you really think they’ll keep him and his $1,350,000 per cap hit for 2 more years when he’ll be pushing 40 – just to have some “muscle?”
That 6-3 win by Ottawa over Columbus is not indicative of any sort of dominance.
I haven’t seen a lot of the Blue Jackets this season, but it seemed to me they owned a LOT of the territorial play on the night – out-shooting the Senators 40 to 29.
Giving up two early shorthanded goals seconds apart didn’t do Columbus any favours, and Tarasov seemed shaky in nets throughout … but they remained very much in the game until very late in the 2nd, and even then seemed to be beating Ottawa to most loose pucks.
Paul and other Blue Jacket fans – if you had to pinpoint their most glaring problem would it be overall goaltending?, D?, team defense?
With 194 goals against they’re mired at the bottom with SJ (199) and Chicago and Montreal (187 each) – but their offense on 153 goals ranks right up there with teams ahead of them like NYI, Nashville, Calgary, St. Louis, L.A., Buffalo, Arizona and Montreal and even BETTER than Pittsburgh, Seattle and Washington.
Do you see them active leading up to the trade deadline and, if so, who or what do you see being dangled?
True, but I will say at least goaltending was not the issue for a change.
I still find it funny, there was a article on TSN yesterday saying the Reilly suspension will galvanize the Leafs. Had no idea pudding could be galvanized.
The more you think about this “Code” thing is just horse crap. You seen a grown man have a tantrum and attempted to injure another because he slap shotted a puck in the net and hurt a teams fragile ego. There is absolutely no way to justify it and he hurt his own team in the end.
Disgusting as is Reaves comments. He is a relic and absolutely useless. I am all for tough hockey but not this cowardly tantrum crap that you seen from Reilly.
Hi George… I’ve been in and out nice to see you back
Laine tweeted yesterday “this is not OK” I seen the video as the podcaster talking about Columbus injuries and then reference “Laine contemplating Remington retirement” fellow podcaster chuckling.
What an Idi*t! Is this how low you need to go t get people to listen to your podcast. The comment is disgusting, classless and disturbing.
Report out today that Markstrom waive his nmc to be move to New Jersey, but the teams couldn’t agree on the the amount of retention; nothing said about what the return might have looked like.
Anybody see the bodycheck that 5’9″ Nathan Walker put on Ryan Reaves. It was a text book hit.
For the Blues fans here, would #13 be available to trade? Seems like a really good middle six left winger that I’d love to have on my team. I think his name is Torochecko (sp?). Great motor, seems a bit green and sports a big body.
What’s your thoughts on him? Best to keep or is there interest in trading him for help elsewhere?
As amazing as McDavid is Bobby Orr got to 600 assists faster than Connor. Only Wayne and Mario did it faster than Orr and Bobby played Defense. When you take time to really think about this it’s hard to imagine a better player ever in the NHL than Robert Gordon Orr.
Second that motion, Obe.
Sen’s and CBJ
Last nights game with the Sen’s and CBJ I watched some of the highlights, CBJ young back up goaltender Daniil Tarasov had a bit od a shacky night in net,
Brady Tkachuk is just a Horse out there and Never Stops, an other Great game from him, loved his 2nd goal when he gets his own rebound
Sens played the Game with only 5 D/men….
Artem Zub and D Jake Sanderson were scratches for the Senators last night,
Really happy young Ridly Greig Scored a nice deflection goal last night and played an other really good game with all the chatter about the Morgan Reilly hit going on hopfully this wont efect RG and he keep playing great for the Sen’s…
Tidbit from last night bruins game; crazy stat Kucherov was stopped on a breakaway. The boys said Kucherov is 0-9 on breakaway. Too much time to think.
Re: Reilly suspension
He got what he deserved, even If Greig goaded him, he’s been in the league for 10 plus years -he should the consequences.
There is no excuse for his action- drop the gloves, but he didn’t want to fight –
And speaking of weak minded individuals the comments made by Reaves are those of a guy who needs to just go away – the leafs think they can win with this clown?