NHL Morning Coffee Headlines – November 10, 2026
Oilers center Connor McDavid extends one streak while another ends, the Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2026 are formally inducted, the three stars of the week are revealed, and more in today’s NHL Morning Coffee Headlines.
RECAPPING MONDAY’S GAMES
NHL.COM: Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid scored to extend his season-opening points streak to 19 games in a 3-1 victory over the New York Rangers. Leo Draisaitl scored two goals, and Devon Levi stopped 28 shots for the Oilers (13-3-3), who hold first place in the Western Conference with 29 points. Jaroslav Chmelar replied for the 10-8-1 Rangers.
Edmonton Oilers captain Connor McDavid (NHL Images)
SPECTOR’S NOTE: McDavid’s historic season-opening assist streak ended at 18 games. Before this game, the Rangers announced rookie defenseman Albert Smits is listed as week-to-week with an upper-body injury.
Rookie forward Ivar Stenberg scored a shootout goal to lift the San Jose Sharks over the New York Islanders, 3-2. Yaroslav Askarov kicked out 30 shots while Tyler Toffoli had a goal and an assist in regulation as the Sharks (8-11-1) ended a five-game losing skid. Ilya Sorokin made 37 saves for the 7-6-4 Islanders, who are winless in their last four games (0-2-2).
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Sharks center Alex Wennberg returned to the lineup after missing 10 games with an upper-body injury.
The Philadelphia Flyers downed the Vancouver Canucks 3-1. Michael Bunting, Travis Konecny, and Travis Sanheim scored for the 5-10-5 Flyers as they ended a three-game winless skid. Jonathan Lekkerimaki replied for the Canucks (3-16-1) as their losing streak reached six games.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Canucks center Filip Chytil and defenseman Tom Willander remain sidelined indefinitely with injuries.
HEADLINES
NHL.COM: The Hockey Hall of Fame held the Class of 2026 induction ceremony on Monday evening. Patrice Bergeron, Carey Price, Pekka Rinne, Keith Tkachuk and Cindy Curley were inducted into the players’ category, while former executive Brian Burke was inducted into the builders’ category.
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Congratulations to the Class of 2026. You can watch the induction speeches at The Score.
Anaheim Ducks winger Cutter Gauthier, New Jersey Devils center Jack Hughes, and Nashville Predators goaltender Juuse Saros are the NHL’s three stars for the week ending Nov. 8, 2026.
WINNIPEG SUN: Jets captain Adam Lowry and forward Kyle Connor said they were disappointed that former teammate Connor Hellebuyck won’t be in goal when they face the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday.
This will be the first game for Hellebuyck in Winnipeg since he was shipped to the New Jersey Devils last month after requesting a trade and skipping training camp, resulting in the Jets suspending him without pay.
The Devils decided not to play Hellebuyck despite his willingness to face his former club, claiming it would “potentially give us a reduction in our expected win probability”.
Jets head coach Scott Arniel chided the Devils’ organization for using analytics as an excuse not to play Hellebuyck. “Seen a lot of analytics in my life since it’s really become into the forefront,” Arniel said. “I am not sure how this works into the analytics part of it.”
Arniel admitted the Devils can do whatever they want, but he felt playing Hellebuyck in this game would’ve brought closure.
“That’s the part for me that’s hard,” said Arniel. “He gave up on us. It’d be nice to just finally walk away and be done with this.”
SPECTOR’S NOTE: Hellebuyck won’t be playing, and he might not even be on the bench, but he will be very much part of this game whether the Devils want it or not.
The Devils can do whatever they want when it comes to managing Hellebuyck’s workload or deciding what games they want him to play. Nevertheless, how they’ve handled this situation still isn’t good optics, though it’s obvious their management doesn’t care.
As I said yesterday, “My theory is Mehta saw how the Ottawa Senators used the return of their former captain Brady Tkachuk as motivation to beat the Florida Panthers and the raucous reaction of Senators fans during that game, and decided he doesn’t want his team to face a similar reception in Winnipeg.
Whatever the reason, it’s not a good look for the Devils, and it doesn’t give Hellebuyck the closure he needs with his former club. It’s also made the situation worse by prompting baseless speculation that Hellebuyck is afraid to face the Jets and Mehta is protecting him.”
We’ll find out soon enough how their decision affects their expected win probability.
Meanwhile, the Jets will use this as motivation heading into Tuesday’s night game. We’ll soon see how that works for them.
OTTAWA SUN: Senators forward Ridly Greig will be back from a lower-body injury for Tuesday’s game against the Washington Capitals. Starting goalie Linus Ullmark will be available, but the Senators might wait to start him on Thursday against the Colorado Avalanche.
DAILY FACEOFF: Columbus Blue Jackets forward Conor Garland is out indefinitely with an upper-body injury.
SPORTSNET: Montreal Canadiens center Jake Evans was being evaluated after suffering an undisclosed injury during practice on Monday.
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The Stars claimed goaltender Remi Poirier off waivers from the Washington Capitals.
DAILY FACEOFF: Former NHL and WHA center Bobby Sheehan passed away at age 77.
In nine NHL seasons from 1969-70 to 1981-82, Sheehan scored 28 goals and 63 assists for 111 points with the Montreal Canadiens, California Golden Seals, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers, Colorado Rockies, and Los Angeles Kings. He also played four seasons in the WHA from 1972-73 to 1974-75 and again in 1977-78.
Watched the NHL HOF ceremonies last night and it was tastefully done with a lot of CLASS. A fantastic shot in the arm for pro hockey!
Nice game last night from Levi, some great saves. He stole that game imo. We will see how his career goes during his time in Edmonton, and I try to temper my hopes because as we all know, goalies can go from hero to zero in no time at all, but cripes the Oilers may have gotten a good one here.
As for not playing Helle in Winnipeg – that is a miss. Yes it will be a hostile environment but do you think the hostility won’t be there simply because he is not on the ice?
If i was Helle id rather be in the net then be heckled on the bench for a couple of long hours.
Keep an eye on the waiver wire to see if the Devils call up Rittich. Also be interesting to see if Hellebuyck is in nets Nov 28 when the 2 teams meet again in New Jersey.
I think the Oilers are comfortable with their goaltenders right now. Plus Rittich isn’t doing that well this year in the AHL with a .897 save percentage.
Levi has been the best surprise this season for the Oilers. 7 or his 9 games he has only allowed 3 goals or less and only 1 loss. Your right though, we need to temper our hopes because we have seen this before with goalies, most recently with Skinner. With the way Levi is playing right now he can limit Anderson’s starts to keep him fresh for the playoffs.
This is the exact start the Oilers were saying they needed to start the season. Just need to keep it up.
Ya 1Oilerfan, I was at that one last night and the Oilers were flat. They spent most of their time in their own end. They defended the fort pretty well and Levi stepped up when they didn’t.
Oilers got a break on McDavid’s goal and they needed it as they couldn’t generate much, even on the PP.
The Rangers can defend. Or at least they did that well last night.
I think the analytics part of the Sunny decision is based on the back to back vs the Caps, those games really matter for the Devs, the Jets game doesn’t. Its a little worrisome that hockey folks don’t understand that, though I get the clickbait aspect of this. And lets be honest, that statement was really poorly written. At the end of the day, I don’t think he cares at all about anybody’s opinion on it, he just makes good bets, and its hard to argue with his bets so far.
There is a day in-between the back to back games with the Capitals and Hellebuyck has only played 5 games this season. The two games with the Caps has nothing to do with this. He just wants to protect his mentally fragile goalie.
I don’t usually agree with what Greg Button says, but I think he is dead on with his comments on this topic. He said that he wouldn’t play Hellebuyck in Winnipeg either, but he wouldn’t name Allen the starter until the last minute.
The whole clickbait of this is from Sunny and the NJD.
It is “fans” like you that Helly and his family will not miss.
Yeah for sure, I guess he wants to protect him as well, but I do think the cap games are a big part of it, Devs are fighting them for 2nd place which will be a huge deal, those 4 points matter a lot. Watching Helly he’s not been great, he hasn’t had to deal with a lot, but he’s clearly not at speed. No pre season, jumping on a moving train will do that. I don’t see Sonny grinding Helly into the ground like the Jets did. He’s gonna play less games in NJ, and if we are being honest, with all due respect, this is a game you sit sit your starter. All this said, definitely boo him, tickets are expensive and it is our right. he created this situation, and he’s going to have to stand up and answer for it.
Agree the back to back thing doesn’t really fly as it isn’t a classic “back to back” when you play on consecutive days.
Where we disagree is I think Hellebuyck wanted to play this game. Like most good NHL players, he is a highly competitive guy and would have really wanted to beat his old team. It’s a tale as old as time in the NHL or any sport. He didn’t seem happy about it, but he isn’t the most personable guy when dealing with the press either so what do I know.
I don’t really buy the “it brings closure” thing either. IMO the closure came when he was traded to NJ. Done, case closed, see ya later.
It’s okay Johnny, I’m not going to miss Hellebuyck either. I’m not even a Jets fan, but I will have fun cheering against him. Plus I never did like the NJD in the first place.
It’s funny that Hellebuyck is using his family’s safety as an excuse for his move to the US. He’s actually going to a place with lax gun control and higher violent crime rate. LOL
Agree 👍 they need a fresh Helly for the Caps games and couldn’t care less about the Winnipeg/fans games
I get the the NJD organization doesn’t careless about the Jets and their fans, but Hellebuyck has only played 5 games this season. How fresh do you want him?!
I think this is were we Canadian hockey fans need to band together and boo and chant at Hellebuyck no matter which Canadian city he plays in. After all he didn’t even consider another Canadian city after demanding out of Winnipeg, so he basically said he wanted out of Canada. So I say give it to him!