NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – October 15, 2025
Recaps of Tuesday’s games, Penguins captain Sidney Crosby reaches another milestone, Senators captain Brady Tkachuk sidelined for weeks, and more in today’s NHL Morning Coffee Headlines.
GAME RECAPS
NHL.COM: The Montreal Canadiens took their home-opener by downing the Seattle Kraken 5-4 in overtime. Cole Caufield scored twice, including the winning goal, and Ivan Demidov tallied the tying goal late in the third to force the extra period. Jared McCann had a goal and an assist for the Kraken. The Canadiens have won three straight since dropping their season-opener to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Montreal Canadiens winger Cole Caufield (NHL Images).
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Before the game, the Canadiens held a video tribute to their late Hall of Famer Ken Dryden, prompting a touching standing ovation from the fans.
Earlier in the day, the Canadiens announced that president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton and general manager Kent Hughes agreed to contract extensions. The duo has done an impressive job rebuilding the roster by focusing on young talent.
Speaking of young talent, RG. Org’s Marco D’Amico reports that Canadiens prospect Michael Hage is following up an impressive freshman season with the University of Michigan to become a more complete two-way center in his sophomore campaign.
The Habs see the 19-year-old Hage as a future center. For now, he’s focused on playing for Canada at the 2026 World Juniors and helping Michigan win a national championship.
Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews had two goals in a 7-4 drubbing of the Nashville Predators, handing the latter their first loss of the season. John Tavares, William Nylander, Matthew Knies, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson each collected three points for the Leafs while Nick Perbix had a goal and an assist for the Predators.
Anaheim Ducks forward Chris Kreider scored twice, including the winner late in the third period, to nip the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3. Penguins captain Sidney Crosby collected two assists, moving past Steve Yzerman into ninth place among the all-time assist leaders with 1,065.
Edmonton Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner stopped 30 shots to blank the New York Rangers 2-0. Trent Frederic and Adam Henrique were the goal scorers. Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin allowed one goal on 21 shots.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Rangers became the first team in NHL history to be shut out in their first three home games of the season.
The Vegas Golden Knights extended their season-opening points streak to four games (2-0-2) by overcoming a 2-0 deficit to double up the Calgary Flames 4-2. Jack Eichel tallied twice while Mitch Marner and Tomas Hertl each had two points. Mikael Backlund and Blake Coleman scored for the Flames.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Golden Knights goaltender Adin Hill left the game after the first period with a lower-body injury and was still being evaluated after the game. Akira Schmid made 19 saves for the win.
An overtime goal by Jakob Chychrun lifted the Washington Capitals to a 3-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tom Wilson had a goal and two assists for the Capitals as they picked up their third straight victory. Jake Guentzel and Brayden Point scored for the Lightning.
Dallas Stars goalie Jake Oettinger kicked out 39 shots in a 5-2 victory against the Minnesota Wild. Roope Hintz had a goal and two assists for the Stars, while Kirill Kaprizov had a goal and an assist for the Wild. Stars center Matt Duchene left the game in the third period following a hit by Wild defenseman Jacob Middleton.
The Carolina Hurricanes beat the San Jose Sharks 5-1. Hurricanes goalie Brandon Bussi made 16 saves in his NHL debut, and Logan Stankoven collected two assists. William Eklund scored for the Sharks.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Before the game, the Hurricanes placed netminder Pyotr Kochetkov on injured reserve.
HEADLINES
TSN: Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk is expected to miss at least four weeks with a hand/wrist injury suffered during their loss to the Nashville Predators on Monday.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Tkachuk’s absence will be a significant early test for the Senators. Someone must step up and fill the leadership void.
DAILY FACEOFF: Speaking of the Senators, winger Drake Batherson is expected to make his season debut on Thursday against the Buffalo Sabres. Batherson missed the first three games of the regular season after suffering an upper-body injury during training camp.
NBC SPORTS PHILADELPHIA: Flyers head coach Rick Tocchet cited his club’s high penalty minutes and an offseason ankle issue as the reasons behind Matvei Michkov’s reduced ice time thus far. The 20-year-old sophomore winger has yet to score while averaging 15 minutes of ice time per game.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Michkov was among the league’s rookie scoring leaders last season. His performance will be a crucial part of the rebuilding Flyers this season.
SPORTSNET: Elliotte Friedman reports revenue projections for this season are strong enough that the players won’t have escrow deducted from their paychecks. They’ll also have escrow money refunded from 2022-23 and 2023-24.
Friedman also said that there’s talk of the salary cap for 2026-27 being higher than the projected $104 million. There could be more clarity on the issue following the Board of Governors meetings in New York this week.
COLORADO HOCKEY NOW: Former NHL defenseman Erik Johnson has landed an analyst gig with ESPN. Johnson announced his retirement earlier this month.
Well… pens lost but the record setting performance of the rangers so far is like a soothing balm.
Rangers play is as expected. Panarin missed all of camp and preseason. Ditto Miller.
New coach, system. Trocheck not playing, lines shuffled with no chemistry. But all in all, the rangers look fantastic while losing and being shut out for their first 3 home games.
The Capitals and Oilers were both outshot and outplayed. They’ve only allowed 7 goals this in 5 games and 3 were empty net goals. The caps specifically were grossly outplayed. Lindgren just dialed up his inner Hasek. Probably had the save of the short season .
At some point, the new system will be better executed and goals will start going in. Defense and goaltending have been spectacular. If they figure out offense soon. This team will not have you too enthusiastic about the Pens. Who on the flip side have allowed 13 goals in 4 games. About half of those goals off Ranger sticks.
It would take a miracle to get me enthusiastic about the pens. Enthusiastic about the rebuild sure. Certainly not about this season. And that drubbing by the rangers is why that record made me grin.
Watched the rangers vs oil yesterday.
The ice seemed atrocious, Nurse, Mcdavid and at least 1 ranger fell on their own accord without anyone touching them, in nurse’s case he was alone behind the net lol. Puck was on edge all night it seemed to futher confirm the ice issue. Not a particularly fun watch at all.
Skinner – give the man his due – he was very good. Calm and cool all evening.
Embersson Kulak pairing was poor last night and felt like they were on the wrong end of most of the Rangers best chances.
Roslovic looked good, he played most of the game with nuge and savoie and he and huge seem to have some good chemistry. Line had a few chances. Later he and nuge flanked Leon late.
Gutsy road win on the back of Skinner.
Ya, watched much of that game as well 1Oilerfan, everyone seemed to struggle with a bouncing puck. Oilers more so obviously to Captain’s point. Stu stole this one, so good for him.
Other than a brain fart in the opener, he’s played well. The other 2 in the opener seemed like bad puck luck or bounces.
Tough spot for Skinner, he could play great for 20 games and there will still be questions as fans won’t trust him. And I get that. Question is do the players, coaches and management trust him if he plays well for most of the year?
It’s tough, the Oil have been to 2 straight cup finals, and he’s been good enough to get them there. But it’s also true that the tender at the other end during the finals has been better. So it’s a natural place for fans to focus, and for management to look at. Who can they get? That’s the hard part, and they will overpay if they do.
You can’t be a cup winning caliber tender, until you win one.
Big pressure, I’m rooting for him.
Ray Bark
Absolutely. There really is no one better that can be had. Add in the experience that Stu has and do you want to take a chance with Stu in a game 7 or someone with better stats, but never won a playoff round? Idk.
The concept that a goalie is good enough to get to finals but not good enough to win is absurd to me. I can list a few other reasons why they lost in both finals beyond goaltending.
I think everyone directly involved with the team trust the goalies or they would have made a lateral move if nothing else.
I’m of the opinion Ottawa is short a top 6 forward when fully healthy. batherson out now Tkachuk. Scoring will be an issue. Roster isn’t built to over overcome injuries to multiple top 6 guys.
Hopefully I’m wrong
As the Sun front page reads “Tkachuk Tkaput” – and you’re not wrong.
Even with a semi-healthy Tkachuk and a healthy Batherson last season, they finished near the bottom of the 32 teams in goals scored 5-on-5!
Not only have they done nothing to remedy that in the off-season, now they don’t have either of those two who were among their BEST goal scorers.
I’m not optimistic that Stutzle, Cozens, Greig, Perron, Amadio, Zetterlund can increase their goal production enough to improve that category to at least middle of the pack (Pinto can’t do it all himself, although he, at least, is off to a good start), and in the tough, competitive, Eastern Conference there are just too many teams that finished behind them in the WC race that HAVE improved their rosters.
Happy for Brandon Bussi winning his first NHL game. Was in Boston along with Dipietro at Providence. Leads to the question,Why is Korpisalo still with the Bruins. He played 2 of the first 4 games and was 1-1. Hope Sweeney is showcasing him to trade him. Why else would Swayman only play 2 of the first 4 games.
Because they just played 4 games in 6 nights to open the season!