NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – March 17, 2026
Recaps of Monday’s action, the host cities for the 2028 World Cup of Hockey are announced, the three stars of the week are revealed, and more in today’s NHL Morning Coffee Headlines.
RECAPPING MONDAY’S GAMES
NHL.COM: Evgeni Malkin had two goals and an assist in his return from suspension to lead the Pittsburgh Penguins to a 7-2 drubbing of the league-leading Colorado Avalanche. Erik Karlsson had a goal and two assists, and Bryan Rust had a goal and an assist for the 34-18-15 Penguins, who hold second place in the Metropolitan Division with 83 points. Nathan MacKinnon tallied his league-leading 45th goal of the season for the Avalanche (44-13-9).
Pittsburgh Penguins center Evgeni Malkin (NHL Images).
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Malkin served a five-game suspension for slashing Buffalo Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin. Brent Burns also scored for the Avalanche, netting his 271st career NHL regular- season goal to move past Bobby Orr into seventh place on the list of most goals by a defenseman.
Third-period goals by Jack McBain, Kailer Yamamoto, Michael Carcone, and Lawson Crouse lifted the Utah Mammoth over the Dallas Stars 6-3, snapping the latter’s 15-game point streak. With the win, the Mammoth improved to 35-27-6, holding the first Western Conference wild-card berth with 76 points. Sam Steel, Wyatt Johnston, and Adam Erne replied for the Stars (42-15-10), who sit second in the overall standings with 94 points, three behind the Avalanche.
Los Angeles Kings winger Artemi Panarin had an assist in his first game against the New York Rangers in a 4-1 win over his former club. Alex Laferriere had a goal and two assists, and Mikey Anderson netted a goal and an assist for the 28-24-15 Kings, who sit just behind the Seattle Kraken for the final Western wild-card spot with 71 points. Vincent Trocheck scored for the 28-31-8 Rangers.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Panarin received a standing ovation from the Madison Square Garden crowd. The 34-year-old winger spent the best seasons of his career during his nearly seven years with the Rangers, with 205 goals and 402 assists for 607 points in 482 regular-season games. He’s sixth among NHL scorers during that period.
The Kings have the same amount of points as the Kraken, but the latter holds that wild card with a game in hand. They also have three more wins than the Kings. Meanwhile, Kings winger Adrian Kempe missed this game as he’s day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
The Detroit Red Wings defeated the Calgary Flames 5-2. Patrick Kane tallied twice, and Alex DeBrincat collected three assists for the 37-23-8 Red Wings, who hold the first Eastern Conference wild-card berth with 82 points. Morgan Frost and Matt Coronato scored for the 26-34-7 Flames.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Red Wings are tied with the Montreal Canadiens in points, but the latter holds third place in the Atlantic Division with two games in hand.
An overtime goal by Paul Cotter lifted the New Jersey Devils to a 4-3 victory over the Boston Bruins. It was the second of two goals by Cotter while Jack Hughes collected three assists for the 34-31-2 Devils. David Pastrnak scored twice for the Bruins (37-23-7), who hold the final Eastern wild card with 81 points.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Hughes passed the 400-point milestone (402). He became the fastest player in Devils history to reach that mark, doing so in 414 regular-season games.
HEADLINES
NHL.COM: The NHL and NHL Players Association announced the host cities for the 2028 World Cup of Hockey. Calgary and Edmonton will be the North American hosts, while Czechia’s capital city of Prague will be the European host.
The tournament will be held during the 2027-28 season, with 17 games in 13 days held in February 2028.
THE ATHLETIC: Speaking of the World Cup of Hockey, Canada will have a new general manager as Doug Armstrong has stepped down from the role. Armstrong is the GM of the St. Louis Blues, but he will hand over that job to assistant general manager Alex Steen at the end of this season.
NHL.COM: New York Rangers winger Alexis Lafreniere, Dallas Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger, and St. Louis Blues winger Jimmy Snuggerud are the league’s three stars for the week ending March 15, 2026.
EDMONTON JOURNAL: Oilers center Leon Draisaitl will be sidelined with a lower-body injury. Head coach Kris Knoblauch isn’t sure how long Draisaitl will be out of the lineup.
TVA SPORTS: Montreal Canadiens general manager Kent Hughes said winger Kirby Dach’s recent upper-body injury isn’t expected to be a long-term issue.
DAILY FACEOFF: The Washington Capitals recently signed prospect defenseman Cole Hutson to a three-year entry-level contract. He’s the younger brother of Montreal Canadiens defenseman Lane Hutson.
The Chicago Blackhawks signed prospect forward Sacha Boisvert to a three-year entry-level deal.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Hutson and Boisvert played for the Boston University Terriers, whose season ended on Saturday when they were eliminated by the Connecticut Huskies in the Hockey East quarterfinals.
I don’t understand how, after seeing Lane Hutson and seeing Cole more or less put up the same points in the USA program and college all those GM’s passed on him until Washington in the 2nd round.
5′ 10″ 172lbs – soaking wet D
Yep. Lane went 30th in second round.
barr ar maidin!
Seeing the Kings struggle to claim a wild card spot, I have to wonder how Ken Holland keeps getting GM jobs. His “specialty” seems to be handing out big contracts to players in the twilight of their careers and letting talented youngsters go elsewhere to be successful. It’s been a long time since Detroit gave him the boot after he’d driven them into mediocrity.
Certainly a fair question, Paul. The results speak for themselves.
Under Holland the Wings won three Cups, albeit in the early part of his tenure.
The same question might be asked of Yzerman as at the start of the year the Wings have missed the playoffs 6 straight years.
Success can vary, Paul. The blue jackets under jarmo kekalainen made the playoffs 5 times in 11 years and only won one playoff series. The day he is hired by the Sabres they go on an epic winning streak that continues. Go figure.
If L.A., is perceived to be in a struggle to make a playoff spot, then you have to say that about every team out West from Vegas (currently 5th in the Western Conference) on down. All would be somewhere below Ottawa, currently sitting TENTH in the East – including the entire Pacific Division from Anaheim down.
No less than 10 of the 16 Western teams have goal differentials in the minus category, including 2 currently holding down a playoff spot.
What L.A. is experiencing seems to be a general malaise in that Conference.
The Holland is brutal narrative always gets me fired up!
Yes, the results do speak for themselves regarding Holland. One of the best GM’s in the NHL over the last 30 years.
In fact Sports Illustrated had him as the 2nd best executive in all of sports since 2000, that was in 2009. To think that Holland had nothing to do with rise, development , and long term success and just came on late to Detroit isn’t accurate.
After his playing career ended, he was a scout, then director of amateur scouting for 7 years, 3 years as asst GM, and then the GM in 1997 for the next 20 plus years. Who had a bigger influence on that team than Holland? Just asking.
So he played a key role in building that team and then managing it for a decade plus of success.
Ya, he sucks.
Then he comes to Edmonton after the Chiarelli sh*t show of chaos and missing the playoffs. Calms it all down, patiently works through the cap hell, adding quality support players and guides the organization back to the SCF’s. He let players season in the minors instead of rushing them. Instead of walling himself off like Chiarelli, he communicated and respected everybody in the organization.
Quiet, professional confidence and the culture changed in the entire organization. From losing to winning and expecting to win.
So his contract expires, Katz in his wisdom hires McDavid’s agent, Jackson, to run the team who hires Bowman. They could have kept the steady, experienced Holland who wouldn’t be panicky right now. Instead they lose Broberg and Holloway to offer sheets as they sign UFA’s, who weren’t that good, and expose those 2 to offer sheets. And make a panic trade for Jarry giving up a quality playoff proven D man and a tender that is better than the one they got. Change for the sake of change. AKA – Stupid.
Pretty sure Oiler fans miss Mr Holland.
The big question regarding Holland in LA isn’t why they hired him, it’s why he took the job. And it was obviously going to be try and win now before both Kopitar and Doughty retire. I guess he wanted to keep doing it, and there aren’t a bunch of GM jobs out there and it’s a quick flight up to Kelowna in the off season.
No GM is perfect, and Holland has made his share of mistakes over all those years, but overall his resume is top shelf. And the results prove it.
Rant over.
When inferior teams like the devils beat you the writings on the wall, I cannot for the life of me figure out why Korpisalo at this point is even starting in any game I know Swayman gets the nod tonight but Dipietro deserves a shot he’s earned it, Brunet is already way better than peak and at least 2 other bruins d. What can it hurt and it just might save the season.
Your Bruins are dust in the wind, Johnnie.
We will see tonight in Hab-land!👍
I think your right George you have got to win games like this. My only question is this, Dipietro and that other goalie in Providence have the baby bs in first place overall now in the ahl. Brunet is gearing up to be a very good nhl defenseman & with Korpisalo looking very ordinary and some of the d faltering why not bring these guys up for a game what’s it going to hurt?
Korpisalo is overpaid by $1M or so, but he is a better than average backup tender. In fact his save % is slightly better than the overall NHL average. The problem will be this off season when they could lose Dipietro on waivers and he has earned a shot.
I’m not so sure the AHL’ers your promoting on here would be better than the established NHL players, especially at this time of the year. Big risk IMO.
It’s a big jump and more often than not they struggle when they first come up. If we get an injury, then sure. If we were out of the race, absolutely. But gotta disagree they hep us right now vs the guys we have on the roster. History would suggest otherwise.
Sharks vs Oilers tonight in what the Oilers will try to convert into another low event game.
Since the break…or since Coffey’s return the Oilers have the 3rd best (tied with Colorado at 2.21) goals against x 60 min. Or so it was reported, behind only Dallas and Columbus.
Small sample size but along with the eye test of late they seem to be looking like they once again understand defense. And their pk in turn has been much improved of late.
Also loved what was then the 3rd line and what will be the 2nd likely until Leon returns of Rnh-dickenson – roslovic.
And Savoie with McDavid looks like something is there.
That Savoie / Mcleod looks like one of those rarer trades that has worked out well for both clubs.
Agree 1Oilerfan, they do look different.
The additions of Murphy and Dickenson have helped in area’s they needed help. A good move by Bowman, after some head scratchers.
I like the Nurse Murphy pairing, or at least how it has worked so far when together. If that continues, they can roll their D with some confidence.
High-scoring Twins Markus (6′ 175lbs left-shot C 20g 82a 102 pts in 66gp) and Liam Ruck (6′ 175lbs RW 43g 56a 99pts in 66gp) of Medicine Hat Tigers in the WHL figure to go somewhere early in the 2nd Round in this year’s draft.
Wonder if some GM (Vancouver??) will try to emulate what Brian Burke did to get the Sedins, and make a move or two to get back-to-back picks? The brothers are from Osoyoos and apparently are rabid Canucks fans.