NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – December 13, 2024
A four-goal performance for Scott Laughton, a six-point game for Nikita Kucherov, and much more as we recap a busy Thursday night in today’s NHL Morning Coffee Headlines.
NHL.COM: Scott Laughton tied a Philadelphia Flyers record with a four-goal performance to defeat the Detroit Red Wings 4-1. Travis Konecny collected two assists for the Flyers, who hold the final Eastern Conference wild-card berth with 32 points). Ben Chiarot replied for the Red Wings, who’ve dropped six of their last seven games (1-4-2).
Philadelphia Flyers forward Scott Laughton (NHL Images).
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Laughton became the 17th player in Flyers history to score four times in a game and the first to do so since John LeClair in 2002-03. He also passed the 100-goal milestone.
Tampa Bay Lightning winger Nikita Kucherov had a six-point performance (one goal, five assists) in an 8-3 victory over the Calgary Flames. Jake Guentzel tallied a hat trick, Anthony Cirelli had a goal and two assists, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 19 saves as he became the first Lightning goaltender to play 500 regular-season games. Jonathan Huberdeau had a goal and an assist and Nazem Kadri got his 10th of the season for the Flames.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Lightning captain Victor Hedman missed this game with a lower-body injury and is listed as day-to-day. The Bolts hold the first Eastern wild-card berth with 32 points while the Flames (33 points) sit one point behind the Colorado Avalanche for the final Western wild-card spot.
Six unanswered third-period goals powered the Pittsburgh Penguins over the Montreal Canadiens 9-2. Bryan Rust had a hat trick and picked up an assist while Rickard Rakell scored twice and collected two helpers. Nick Suzuki and Joel Armia scored for the Canadiens as they remain in last place in the Eastern Conference with 25 points.
Edmonton Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl had a goal and three assists as his club thumped the Minnesota Wild 7-1. Connor McDavid, Evan Bouchard, Darnell Nurse and Vasily Podkolzin each had two assists for the Oilers and Calvin Pickard made 20 saves for the win. Frederick Gaudreau replied for the Wild.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Bouchard left the game late in the third period after being knocked into the goal post by a dirty hit from Wild forward Ryan Hartman. Earlier in the day, the Oilers placed defenseman Travis Dermott on waivers. Meanwhile, Wild defenseman Jake Middleton left this game in the first period with an upper-body injury.
The Vancouver Canucks blanked the Florida Panthers 4-0 on a 27-save shutout performance by Kevin Lankinen. J.T. Miller collected two assists as he returned to the Canucks following a leave of absence. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 15 shots for the Panthers as their three-game win streak ended.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Canucks forward Teddy Blueger’s mother Jana was also a winner, taking home over $100K as she won the Canucks nightly 50-50 draw. She’s visiting from Latvia and attended last night’s game to watch her son.
San Jose Sharks rookie center Macklin Celebrini scored two goals and an assist in a 4-3 win over the St. Louis Blues. Goaltender Alexandar Georgiev stopped 17 shots and Nikolai Kovalenko collected three assists in their Sharks debut as their new club snapped a three-game losing skid. Blues forward Jake Neighbours had a goal and an assist.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Sharks forward Klim Kostin left the game with an undisclosed injury. Blues forward Radek Faksa missed this contest with a groin injury.
The Toronto Maple Leafs nipped the Anaheim Ducks 3-2. Max Pacioretty led the way with two goals and an assist and Joseph Woll turned aside 19 shots for the win. Jackson Lacombe had a goal and an assist for the Ducks.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Woll replaced Anthony Stolarz as he left the game after the first period with a lower-body injury. He’ll be reevaluated on Friday. Before this game, the Leafs activated defenseman Jake McCabe (upper body) from injured reserve. Meanwhile, the Ducks announced that sidelined forward Trevor Zegras will miss six weeks following knee surgery. They also activated forward Robby Fabbri (knee surgery) off injured reserve.
New Jersey Devils forward Jack Hughes had a goal and two assists in a 3-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings, snapping the latter’s six-game win streak. Ondrej Palat had a goal and an assist for the Devils, who sit second overall in the Eastern Conference with 41 points. Jordan Spence replied for the Kings.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Devils scratched forward Tomas Tatar in favor of getting Kurtis MacDermid into the lineup.
Washington Capitals forward Aliaksei Protas tallied twice, including the winner in overtime, to lead his team over the Columbus Blue Jackets 2-1. Jakob Chychrun had two assists and Charlie Lindgren kicked out 32 shots as the Capitals (42 points) hold first place in the Eastern Conference. Zach Werenski scored for the Blue Jackets as they’ve dropped five of their last six.
New York Islanders forward Simon Holmstrom had a goal and two assists as his club held on for a 5-4 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks. Ilya Sorokin made 26 saves and Jean-Gabriel Pageau had three assists for the Islanders. Tyler Bertuzzi tallied twice and Connor Bedard had a goal and two assists for the Blackhawks, who’ve dropped seven of their last 10 contests.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Isles head coach Patrick Roy was fuming over his club’s performance in the final eight minutes of the third period as the Blackhawks scored three goals to make it interesting. “In my day, if my team would have done that to me, I would break a stick in that room,” said Roy. “Our goalie (Sorokin) deserved more respect than this from ourselves.”
The Nashville Predators got two goals and an assist from Ryan O’Reilly in a 4-1 victory over the Dallas Stars. Justus Annunen made 35 saves for his first win with the Predators as they snapped an eight-game winless skid (0-5-3). Stars rookie Lian Bichsel tallied his first NHL goal.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Predators played without defensemen Alexandre Carrier and Roman Josi. Carrier is week-to-week with an upper-body injury while team captain Josi (lower body) is day-to-day. Stars defenseman Matt Dumba missed this game with an upper-body injury.
An overtime goal by Ivan Barbashev lifted the Vegas Golden Knights over the Winnipeg Jets 3-2. Victor Olofsson tied the game late in the third for Vegas while teammate Shea Theodore collected two assists. Connor Hellebuyck stopped 33 shots for the Jets, who hold first place in the Central Division with 43 points.
The Utah Hockey Club rolled to a 4-1 victory over the Colorado Avalanche. Dylan Guenther had two goals and an assist and Karel Vejmelka stopped 23 shots for his club’s fifth straight road win. Nathan MacKinnon scored for the Avalanche as their three-game win streak ended. They’re clinging to the final Western Conference wild-card spot with 34 points.
Seattle Kraken forward Oliver Bjorkstrand scored twice to beat the Boston Bruins 5-1. Philipp Grubauer stopped 33 shots as the Kraken are 4-1-1 in their last six games. Bruins captain Brad Marchand scored on a penalty shot.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Bruins center Elias Lindholm left this game with an upper-body injury.
I wonder how much Jana Blueger actually gets to take home after taxes!
Canada doesn’t charge tax on lottery winnings 🙂
Congrats to Teddy B’s mom. Travel half way around the world and spend buckets o’Euros to see her son play (and win) and then wins $100,000 .
Nice!!
Glad to see 9 goals by Pens. Would rather have those extra goals spread out when we needed them, Fantastic game by the Crosby-Rust-Rackell line. Keep it up.
Look out MacKinnon, Kuch is jumping in leaps and bounds to try to overtake you.
A Trade, Ottawa and Buffalo 🤔
Buffalo need to add to the blue line and A good top 6 Scoring forward up front
To Buffalo, Centre josh Norris 25 yr old Sen’s,
and
To Ottawa Buffalo’s
-23 yr old Dylan Cozens
-1st pick in the 2025 NHL draft (Not protected)
& a 3rd pick in 2026??
The other team bottom 6 in a re-build
Sen’s trade Josh Norris, to CBJ,
for
CBJ,for there top 6, 1st round pick
and RD man, Damon Severson,…..❓
Teams in the Eastern Conference have played from 27 (Tampa) games to 32 (NJ) – or roughly one third of the season. If they maintain their current points percentage, goal scoring, and goals against paces – or close to it – from here to the end, this is how they’d finish in terms of playoff, including WC, positions:
Atlantic
Toronto 50 25 7 107 .652 239 212 +27
Florida 49 26 7 105 .640 295 262 +23
Tampa 48 30 4 100 .610 327 246 +81
Metropolitan
Washington 58 17 7 123 .750 327 237 +90
Carolina 50 25 7 107 .652 320 245 +75
New Jersey 49 25 8 106 ,646 271 220 +51
Wild Card
NYR 42 34 6 90 .549 251 245 +6
Boston 41 33 8 90 .549 230 253 -23
Philadelphia 40 33 9 89 .543 253 279 -26
Ottawa 40 40 2 84 .512 249 249 E
NYI 32 31 18 82 .500 236 247 -11
Columbus 33 40 9 75 ,457 272 294 -22
Pittsburgh 33 40 9 75 .457 248 322 -74
Buffalo 32 41 9 73 .445 246 270 -24
Detroit 32 41 9 73 .445 212 262 -50
Montreal 32 42 8 .439 228 310 -82
Of course, many factors can (and likely will) come into play that will change the course of a number of teams from this stage on, but it is interesting to contemplate how it will finish. I, for one anyway, and barring devastating key injuries, certainly don’t see any of the current top 3 in each division fading into the nether regions or even dropping down into one of the WC slots. But those two spots could, based upon the play of late of the current holders, could well change, with perhaps Philadelphia and the Islanders scratching their way in. Ottawa has an outside chance, but with this upcoming stretch of 15 games, most on the road and including 5 back-to-backs, they’ll have to emerge from that no worse than .500 to have any chance at all.
George O,teams in the East should consider themselves lucky! They are not close to the teams in the West!
That’s the truth Ruth!!!!
Not sure I get your point, Sr, So I’ll look at it from two perspectives.
First, if it’s a reference to a suggestion that, overall, Western teams are better, the facts don’t bear that out.
There are just 2 team currently sub-.400 – Nashville and Chicago – and both are the West. So too are the next 2 lowest % teams – Anaheim (.422) and San Jose (.429). The next 2 lowest % teams – Montreal (.431) and Buffalo (.448) in the East are doing better than Anaheim & San Jose.
The top 2 teams in the West, on a % basis, are Minnesota (.724) and Vegas (.707). Matching them in the East are Washington (.750) and Carolina (.661).
The next top 5 in the West are Winnipeg (.694), L.A. (.638), Vancouver (.625), Edmonton (.621) and Dallas (.607)
In the East it’s Toronto (.655), New Jersey (.641), Florida (.633), Tampa (.593), NYR (.554)
In the West, other than the above, there are 5 teams .500 and above – Calgary (.550), Colorado (.548), Utah (.534), Seattle (.516), and St. Louis (.500).
In the East you have one less – Philadelphia (.533), Boston (.532), NYI (.500), Ottawa (.500)
No teams in the West sit in the high .400 range, whereas in the East you have Pittsburgh (.484) and Columbus (.483)
In the West the teams have combined to score 1,380 goals while relinquishing 1,310. In the East they have combined to score 1,482 while giving up 1,477.
So, where are great differences that would make Eastern teams feel lucky they aren’t closer to the teams in the West?
Second, on the other hand, if you reference was related to geographic locations and, hence, greater debilitating travel distances, then I wholeheartedly agree 🙂
Not to mention, a tougher brand of hockey with speed and physicality mixed in makes for a difficult road to travel. The Central is a prime example!!! But Vegas, Edmonton, Vancouver and Calgary? LA! .
Of the top 10 in terms of hits per game, 6 are in the East. Same ratio for the next 10 – so 12 out of 20 are in the East.
https://www.statmuse.com/nhl/ask/what-team-has-most-hits-per-game
Trying to find a similar analysis for team speed.
i don’t know, not everything is about stats? i am not saying your wrong but just watch the culture of those teams; they are extremely difficult to play against: dallas, vegas, st. louis , minnesota and winnipeg. a heavier brand of hockey. probably leaving someone out?