NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – March 26, 2026
The Bruins defeat the Sabres, the Rangers are officially eliminated from the playoff race, and more in today’s NHL Morning Coffee Headlines.
RECAPS OF WEDNESDAY’S GAMES
NHL.COM: An overtime goal by Pavel Zacha lifted the Boston Bruins over the Buffalo Sabres 4-3. David Pastrnak had a goal and two assists for the 40-24-8 Bruins, who hold the first Eastern Conference wild-card berth with 88 points. Jason Zucker tallied twice for the Sabres (44-20-8), who remain in second place in the conference standings with 96 points.
Boston Bruins winger David Pastrnak (NHL Images)
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Sabres captain Rasmus Dahlin’s fiancée, Carolina Matovac, attended her first Sabres game since her heart transplant last year. She’s spent the seven months recovering in the couple’s native Sweden.
Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Joseph Woll kicked out 40 shots in a 4-3 victory over the New York Rangers, officially eliminating the latter from this season’s playoff race. Dakota Joshua had a goal and an assist for the 31-29-13 Maple Leafs. Alexis Lafreniere had a goal and two assists, and Mika Zibanejad tallied twice for the 28-35-9 Rangers.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: The Rangers are the first Eastern Conference team, and the second overall, to be eliminated from the postseason chase. On Sunday, the Vancouver Canucks’ postseason hopes were ended.
HEADLINES
TAMPA BAY TIMES: Lightning captain Victor Hedman has taken a temporary leave of absence from the club for personal reasons. He missed the last three games with an ailment.
FLORIDA HOCKEY NOW: Another member of the Panthers has been sidelined by an injury. Center Anton Lundell could miss the rest of this season with an injured rib. He’s not expected to require surgery, but his recovery time could be between two and six weeks.
OTTAWA SUN: The Senators might have to continue their playoff push without Thomas Chabot. The 29-year-old defenseman suffered an injured arm after being cross-checked by New York Rangers captain J.T. Miller on Monday. It’s speculated that Chabot could be out of the lineup for six weeks.
PITTSBURGH HOCKEY NOW: Penguins winger Anthony Mantha is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
DETROIT HOCKEY NOW: The Red Wings signed defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker to a two-year contract extension with an average annual value of $1.6 million.
THE SEATTLE TIMES: Jacob Winterton, brother of Kraken forward Ryan Winterton, died Tuesday at age 25 following a battle with cancer. Jacob spent two seasons in the OHL from 2018-19 and 2019-20 with the Flint Firebirds and Oshawa Generals, followed by four seasons playing for the University of Guelph
SPECTOR’S NOTE: My condolences to the Winterton family and Jacob’s friends and former teammates.
THE ATHLETIC: Harman Dayal recently examined why NHL goaltending has become one of the most volatile positions in all major sports.
Several reasons explain this problem. One is that offenses have improved while goalies haven’t caught up. There’s also been a generational loss of workhorse goalies in recent years, as stars such as Roberto Luongo, Henrik Lundqvist, Carey Price, and Marc-Andre Fleury have retired.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Dayal’s column is behind a paywall, but it’s well worth the read if you have access to it.
Bruins .. every game is a playoff game … if the Bruins skated at home against Toronto like they did in Buffalo last night they would’ve had 4 pts in their pocket … 2nd line played a nice game
Mason Lohrei Can’t be on the ice any more in these games the kid just might be the worst defensive Dman in the league … Brutal
Seeing Mason Lohrei at top of offensive zone near the blue line with the puck on his stick is scary… watching his Defensive coverage in front of the Net in the D zone is also scary and it’s been that way most of the season
Sabres looked like a team that believes their press clippings lately. I still believe the team we saw last night is what they still are. Soft, dumb and think they’re the Harlem Globetrotters.
Your statement on Lohrei is amazing after watching 23, 25 and 26 in blue last night. That is as bad as you can play in an NHL game. 600 plus pounds of brain dead meat.
Bruins are painful to watch. Kudos to them for consistently finding ways to win all year. Ugly but effective. Good night if goaltending and Pasta being Pasta is their formula. Everyone else just throws sand in the gears of the other team most nights. Pasternak is so under appreciated. Gets his due to an extent, but he is in a level where very few others reside.
Joe other than a Bruins victory last night the TML win pushed them ahead of a couple of teams in the league securing that the Bruins get this years 1st round pick!
Ottawa may not have gotten any help from their own nemesis (Buffalo) last night after the Sabres dropped that OT loss to Boston, but they can still help themselves tonight when they host the Penguins in one of 13 games on tap.
A win would move them to 87 points,1 up on Pittsburgh and tied with Columbus and back to 1 behind the Bruins, both with 10 games left (IF, that is, they get a favour from the Habs who host the Blue Jackets and who desperately need a win since they’re tied with Boston in points and just 1 up on Columbus, 2 up on Pittsburgh, and 3 up on each of Ottawa and NYI).
(pause to take a breath) … Holy Crap, if it gets any tighter we’ll start to hear squeaks. In the final analysis, the teams that manage to stay loose in the clutch in these pressure-filled games will avoid the warning of one Dr. Alan Goldberg (Peak Performance For Athletes) who observed “If you get serious you’ll get tight, and when you get tight, you can just kiss your game good-bye.”
George you’ve been watching hockey for how long ? Just when we think we have it figured out we don’t …. Every Game is a playoff game ROS
Joe, in my memory the 1969-70 East Division and 1997 Eastern Conference race to the wire stand out as closest to what we’re experiencing these days – both East and West.
And you’re absolutely right. With the exceptions of Buffalo, Tampa, Carolina, Colorado, Dallas and Minnesota, who could each likely begin to give players nursing various dings a night off and here and there to get to full health before the playoffs, both Conferences have had multiple teams in full playoff mode for the past month, and that will not stop until the final whistle. Both East and West have 9 teams battling for 5 positions.
I love it!
As for how long I’ve been following the game, my earliest memories go back to about 1948-49 when I was 10/11 and went to a lot of Ottawa Senators games at the old Ottawa Auditorium when they were part of the then QSHL, and followed the Habs on both English and French radio (BT) – that’s “before television.” 🙂
And again, you’re right. Even as I morphed from being among your average, constantly “in awe” kid fan to spending more time digging deep into what then passed for analytics as I grew older ( I was going to say “matured” but some who know me well say I have yet to reach that stage – lol), as soon as I think I’ve finally got things figured out, just as quickly I realize i don’t!
And you know what? I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Does anyone think “load” management is an issue as it relates to goaltending.
The best in the league play a lot of games generally speaking. Are they playing so many games because they are good or are they good because they play so many games.
Somewhere we transitioned from a bonafide starter and back up to tandems.
Can some of the challenges be in coaches swapping all the time. You look at the best guys, they will sit on a back to back…or after a brutal game. Otherwise they are starting.
Teams with a 1a/1b never seem to let one or the other go for extended periods and swap after a couple of games or sometimes just a loss.
I have to think it could be a struggle to get into a rhythm and consistent feel for the game and the team.
Nah, goalie tandems used to be a staple
Sawchuk/Bower
Worsley/Hodge
Worsley/Vachon
Giacomin/Villemure
Smith/Reche
Moog/Fuhr
the list goes on
Swayman/Ullmark.. Recently & seemed to work well for them
Goalie games started
21-22…. 39-39
22-23…48-33
23-24 .. 39-43
Looking at the “work horse” goalies of the past, the most starts/appearances in any one season belong to
79 by Grant Fuhr St. Louis Blues 1995-96
78 by Martin Brodeur New Jersey Devils 1995-96, 2007-08, 2009-10
77 by Bill Ranford Edmonton Oilers/Boston Bruins 1995-96; Arturs Irbe Carolina Hurricanes 2000-01; Marc Denis Columbus Blue Jackets 2002-03; and Evgeni Nabokov San Jose Sharks, 2007-08.
The last to reach at least 70 games was Cam Talbot, who started 73 for the Oilers in 2016-17. Not counting the shortened seasons, and so going back to 2022-23, these are the goalies with the most appearances:
2022-23 – 64 each by Juuse Saros of Nashville and Connor Hellebuyck of Winnipeg
2023-24 and 2024-25 – 63 each by Connor Hellebuyck of Winnipeg
2025-26 to date – 55 by Karel Vejmelka of Utah
I think we are getting a bit away from what I am supposing.
At its core, I am simply asking would goalies that are in that 1a/1b position benefit from a team just picking 1 as the defacto starter and play them play them 50 or so games a year rather than platooning and playing 35 or so?
With players…we often argue they need more ice, more opportunity and what i see with goalies seems somewhat counter intuitive by having guys play only 35 odd games a year.
George, Khabubulin hit 70 games played a couple of times in the 90’s. I think 72 in a season as well as the others that you listed.
Yep. Another good example of a work-horse. Thanks Some Old Guy.
Goalies.
From my life experience I personally blame Quebec.
For a good….20 year plus run they were a factory for some of the top goalies in the league. French Canadian goalies were just the creme de la creme. I just don’t think the quality is the same for goalies. The russian studs almost seem anomalies, same as the couple american goalies who are really good. Exceptions not necessarily rules.
1Oilerfan, now I grasp what you were asking.
I suppose the theory that they are no different than Fs and D in that only increased ice-time/opportunity can lead to consistency in production.
But unlike those positions, of which there are multiple representatives on each team, there are just 2 goalies. And they are the only players who, when they start – and unless pulled or injured – spend virtually 100% of the game in constant action, including OT/SO phases.
So coaches/GMs likely map out – as much as possible – points in a season (such as the ever-increasing back-to-backs) where the so-called # 1 needs a break. And, of course, that will differ from team to team depending upon the quality of the # 1 … and his capacity for work.
But they also need to make sure the 1B remains sharp – especially in the event of !A going down with an injury (or some unrelated issue). When it comes to goalies, it’s a delicate balancing act for most teams.
I’ve likely over-looked some other salient point, but that’s basically the way I see it.
George O – exactly and i see it that way as well and it all makes sense…but is there a detriment that comes with that approach?
IDK.
It is the one area of hockey where it is hard to come up with a definitive approach. I guess, in the end, it might boil down to developing some sort of combination of a certified # 1 work-horse who thrives on getting a large bulk of the action paired with one who, through experience, is comfortable with the reduced back-up role and, at the same time, give quality performances more often than not.
And the fact three-quarters of the league are seemingly constantly in search of such a combination sort of underscores just how difficult it is to find “the perfect pair.”
I should add that, whenever a team figures it might have come up with something close to a perfect tandem, that great equalizer known as “the cap” can raise its ugly head, and if the GM can’t (or won’t) re-arrange the roster to accommodate what the free-agent is seeking, he moves on to (literally) “greener pastures.”
The Swayman-Ullmark situation being a good recent example, along with Hill-Thompson in Vegas, Carolina losing Curtis McElhinney a few years back, Shesterkin-Georgiev in NY.
Tidbit Time
Among major North American professional sports, the NHL (National Hockey League) typically has the shortest offseason, often lasting around 118–122 days
Man I did not want Korpisalo to start lastnight.
But what a win that was without question the biggest win of the season compared to that awful performance Tuesday. I’m going to a friends house almost directly after the bs game and watch Providence this guy can get anything on his set so I’ll get to see Hagens looking forward to that. Let you know how he does Saturday.
1Oilerfan,
I mentioned goalie tandems from different decades deliberately, some if not all shared Vezina’s, to show that there was a time before workhorse goalies.
Considering the evolution of the position, the workhorse era will keep diminishing if for no other reason than the demands on the body.
One by one goalies are falling to hip, knees and groin injuries/surgeries.
Lighter equipment has helped prolong the inevitable but the butterfly post to post is physically taxing and players have found new gaps to exploit, eg short side behind the knee from the goal line. top shelf side of the head. They are finding different angles and goalies will adjust to it.
Coaches need to split the load and among the many considerations is who does better against specific team as well as actual scheduling.
Comparing their load to skaters isn’t reasonable considering their ATOI is 60 min/game