The Toronto Maple Leafs and goaltender Matt Murray just can’t seem to catch a break.
The Maple Leafs were the victims of a very unfortunate incident on Sunday night during the first period of their game against the Detroit Red Wings. Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond appeared to accidently trip/slew-foot the aforementioned Matt Murray when he lost his footing and crashed in Murray’s crease.
Unfortunately for Murray, he never saw the Red Wings forward coming and as a result he would crash to the ice, slamming the back of his head in the process. Murray’s head bounced off the ice and he appeared to be feeling the ill effects of that blow to the head almost immediately.
That forced Murray off the ice and subsequently that forced goaltender Ilya Samsonov back into action after he played against the Ottawa Senators just 24 hours ago.
Update: No surprise here but Murray will not return to tonight’s game.
A shocking report published in a Montreal newspaper risks to rock the foundations of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.
A pair of players formerly of the Chicoutimi Saguenéens of the QMJHL have come forward to detail the horrific sexual abuse the suffered while members of that team, and one of those players has come forward and identified himself. Former QMJHL first round pick Carl Latulippe has broken his silence in the hopes of preventing any other young men for suffering a similar fate, one that he says stripped him of his love of hockey.
“My story is not exceptional,” said Latulippe as per La Presse. “That’s what makes me sick, it’s that it is far from unique.”
The accusations made by Latulippe, allegations that have thus far been corroborated by at least one of his former teammates, detail how he and other rookies were beaten with bars of soap in towels, as well as more sexual forms of abuse such as being forced to watch pornography and masturbate while in the presence of adult coaches.
Latulippe describes how the veterans would wrap the soap bars in the towels so that it wouldn’t leave marks on their bodies, claiming that this happened on more than just one occasion
Latulippe says he was finally pushed over the edge during one of the team’s first road trips of the season. That is where he says veteran players forced rookies to watch pornogrpahy and masturbate on the team bus, while the adults were on the bus.
In spite of being a first round pick in 1994, Latulippe would quit the team only weeks into the 1994-1995 QMJHL season as a result of the abuse he says he suffered at the hands of his own teammates.
The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League is now reportedly investigating these allegations, although none of the investigation’s findings have been made public as of yet.
Although no team in the National Hockey League will ever come right out and admit that they are trying their hardest not to win games during the regular season, we all know that tanking is simply a reality of the NHL’s weighted draft lottery.
In some seasons in particular the temptation to tank becomes too much to resist when a potentially generational type of talent is on the line, and many believe that this is one such season with Canadian phenom Connor Bedard projected to go first overall in the 2023 NHL Entry Draft.
Bedard has drawn the eyeballs of NHL teams for some time now, but his most recent season may have catipulted the 17 year old to star status long before he ever steps out onto NHL ice. Over the course of 57 games in the Western Hockey League, Bedard recorded 71 goals and 72 assists for a jaw dropping 143 total points, and now he is continuing his dominance in the WHL playoffs.
On Sunday night, with Bedard and his Regina Pats playing a series against a favored Saskatoon Blades squad, the talented youngster out of North Vancouver, British Columbia once again took center stage. Bedard would record a playoff hat trick, while also recording 2 primary assists for a total of 5 points in a single playoff game.
NHL teams may be desperately trying to get this kid, but quite frankly who can blame them?
The Minnesota Wild were very concerned over the weekend when forward Mason Shaw went down with what looked like a serious-looking injury, and unfortunately those concerns have now been realized.
On Monday, the Wild revealed that Shaw had torn the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee during Saturday night’s game between the Wild and the Las Vegas Golden Knights. Furthermore the Wild confirmed that Shaw would not be seen again this season, no surprise given the serious nature of his injury.
Shaw suffered the non-contact injury when he tried to quickly shift his momentum behind the Minnesota Wild net, only to catch an edge and send himself crashing awkwardly into the boards. His right leg appeared to take the worst of the blow at the time, and we now know that to definitely be the case given the injury update.
The Wild are playoff bound, so losing Shaw at this stage of the season will prove to be a big blow to the Wild’s bottom six.
To say that the Montreal Canadiens have been decimated by injuries this season would be something of an understatement, but in spite of that the Canadiens had even more bad news to share on Monday regarding a pair of players.
The first medical update from the Habs was regarding forward Alex Belzile, who according to the Canadiens suffered a leg fracture during the team’s matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes over the weekend. The injury will keep Belzile out of the lineup for what remains of the regular season but there was no mention of any surgery in Belzile’s future.
The other update was on the health of veteran forward Sean Monahan. The Habs confirmed that Monahan has undergone surgery on his groin, and added that the procedure will end Monahan’s season as well.
While these are both significant losses for the Canadiens, the reality is that the team is well out of the playoff picture. With this in mind, it makes sense that the Canadiens are shutting down their players in the hopes of getting them healthy in time for next season.
As Eric Engels points out, the list of season-ending injuries for the Canadiens has become a little absurd. On top of today;’s announcement, the Canadiens have already lost David Savard, Kaiden Guhle, Arber Xhekaj, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovsky, Josh Anderson and Christian Dvorak to season-ending injuries.
On Sunday night, the Maple Leafs suffered a meaningless loss to the Detroit Red Wings given the fact that they are already locked into a first round Stanley Cup playoff matchup with the Tampa Bay Lightning. In spite of that, the Maple Leafs would walk away from the loss feeling dejected for a variety of reasons with the injury to veteran goaltender Matt Murray being the most notable one.
Murray was injured by what appears to have been a freak accident when Red Wings forward Lucas Raymond lost his footing and slid into the back of Murray’s legs. Raymond’s forward momentum was enough to sweep Murray’s legs out from under him, sending the Leafs netminder soaring through the air before landing hard on the ice. The worst part though would be Murray, who has had concussion issues throughout his career, smacking the back of his head on the ice in sickening fashion as a result of the fall.
We would learn later during the game that Murray would not return, and although there has been no update on his status it sounds like there is genuine concern among his teammates. Fellow goalrender Ilya Samsonov, who doesn’t have a flawless grasp of English, offered up some truly heartfelt comments about his injured teammate following the game.
“I’m sad,” admitted the Russian goaltender. “This is hard. Hard for him. Hard for [his] family, yeah, first one, & hard for team. It’s hard for us. It’s third one. We don’t know long-term or whatever. Third injury is really hard and I’m so sad about it.”
There has as of yet been no official update on Murray, but as always I hope he will make a full and speedy recovery.
The Edmonton Oilers had a very strong showing in the month of March and, although the Oilers’ focus will remain on the Stanley Cup playoffs ahead, a number of their players have been recognized for their exceptional performances.
On Saturday, the National Hockey League announced it’s 3 stars for the month of March and two of Edmonton’s top stars made that very short list. Both forward Leon Draisaitl and Oilers captain Connor McDavid were recognized by the league, and they claimed the top two spots on the list on top of it, with the Arizona Coyotes’ Clayton Keller earning the third star in spite of his team’s struggles.
In the case of McDavid, his dominant point production of 11 goals and 18 assists for a whopping 29 points over just 15 games gave him the edge over his teammate, earning him his third “first star” of the 2022-23 regular season so far.
Draisaitl was right behind his teammate in terms of production with 11 goals of his own, albeit only 17 assists, giving him a total of 28 points and falling just 1 shy of his Oilers counterpart.
The pair are the first pair to earn the first and second star in the same month in two consecutive seasons since Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito did it back in the 70s, and that is some legendary company to be keeping.
McDavid and Draisaitl weren’t the only Oilers recognized on Saturday though, with goaltender Stuart Skinner also receiving some love from the league. Skinner appeared in 12 games for the Oilers recording a 2.83 goals against average, a .908 save percentage and earned 10 wins in the process. That was enough to earn him rookie of the month honors from the NHL, edging out forward Matias Maccelli (Coyotes) forward JJ Peterka (Sabres), forward Wyatt Johnson (Stars), forward Luke Evangelista (Predators) and forward Pavel Dorofeyev (Golden Knights) to do so.
The National Hockey League has been looking to expand beyond the borders of North America for quite some time now, hosting a growing number of international games season after season, and it sounds like they intend to expand their reach further than ever before.
On Saturday night, NHL insider Jeff Marek revealed on Hockey Night in Canada that the NHL intends to send a pair of teams to the land down under with a game to be played in Australia as early as next season.
“Although nothing official yet from the NHL, we know the league is going down under for games in Australia,” revealed Jeff Marek on Saturday night.
Additionally Marek revealed the identity of the two teams he believes have been earmarked for the trip, the Los Angeles Kings and the Arizona Coyotes.
“Again, nothing official coming out from the league but it sounds very much like it is trending in the direction of the Los Angeles Kings and the Arizona Coyotes,” added Marek.
The inclusion of the Arizona Coyotes seems like a bizarre decision given the team’s relative lack of success in their own market, but perhaps NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is just desperately trying to grab some more eyeballs on his pet project in the desert.
The topic of favoritism is always a hot button issue in the world of sports and on Saturday, Boston Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery may have hit that button.
After his Boston Bruins took a hard fought win over the Pittsburgh Penguin, Montgomery shared his thoughts on some of the officiating that took place during the game. Specifically, Montgomery called out what he calls “Sid Rules,” special treatment shown to the face of the National Hockey League, Penguins captain Sidney Crosby.
Montgomery admitted that the favoritism shown to the NHL’s top star made him hesitant to challenge a goal during the course of the game, although Montgomery didn’t seem to mind too much.
“OK, we thought it was goalie interference because Swayman was hit in the head,” said Montgomery of a failed coach’s challenge during today’s game. “Now, you know how there used to be the Jordan Rules (in the NBA)? I’ve been here (in Pittsburgh) now five times, and something I’m almost sure that’s going to happen – didn’t happen tonight: They’re going to get a 2 on 1 in the first minute, because we’re going to make a mistake; they’re going to get a 5 on 3, and you’re going to be killing a lot of penalties. This is the third time l’ve been here where we challenge – you get it wrong sometimes. I call it the Sid Rules. He’s a great player. He’s a great player. And you know what, the league should take care of their superstars. That’s why I was kind of hesitant about challenging it.”
Montgomery has superstars of his own on the Bruins roster in the form of players like Patrice Bergeron and David Pastrnak, so a world in which officials give superstars some leniency benefits him in the long run. When asked if he felt his team had gotten the short end of the stick in terms of the officiating on Saturday, Montgomery again indicated that he didn’t have an issue with how things were called.
“No. No, I don’t think we were on the wrong end of anything,” admitted the Bruins head coach. “But I do think the hockey gods rewarded us in the end.”
A rookie in the National Hockey League is having the worst kind of April Fools day, and unfortunately there won’t come a point when he realizes it was all just a joke.
According to a report from Columbus Blue Jackets insider Aaron Portzline, Blue Jackets head coach Brad Larsen has given rookie forward Trey Fix-Wolansky a harsh lesson today by sending the 23 year old back down to the American Hockey League for violating the team’s rules.
According to Portzline, Fix-Wolansky overslept on Saturday and as a result ended up missing a team meeting. While this may not sound like a big deal, it is universally frowned upon across all teams in the National Hockey League. For example, we recently saw former NHL star turned head coach of the Montreal Canadiens Martin St. Louis publicly humiliated one of his players for a similar infraction.
Unfortunately for Fix-Wolansky this means that he will return to the Cleveland Monsters of the American Hockey League and reports indicate that he will be suiting up for that team this evening. For a player that has only appeared in a total of 13 NHL games since being drafted in 2018, this has to feel like a monumental mistake.
