The Calgary Flames have made some major changes at the top levelings of their organization this morning.
According to an official announcement from the Flames organization, the team has mutually agreed to part ways with general manager Brad Treliving. Furthermore Don Maloney has been promoted to president of hockey operations and will also serve as the organizations interim general manager.
Maloney has experience as an NHL general manager having previously served as the general manager of the Arizona Coyotes, and was acting as vice president of hockey operations for the Flames prior to being promoted today.
It’s hard to imagine how Monday morning could possibly get any worse for the Boston Bruins.
Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery has just shared what can only be described as a boatload of bad news on Monday morning, just hours before his team is set to face off against the Florida Panthers for Game 1 of their first round Stanley Cup playoffs series.
Perhaps the biggest news of the day comes in the form of a call up, with the Bruins calling up Brandon Bussi from the American Hockey League’s Providence Bruins on an emergency basis. The call up of Bussi appears to indicate that the Bruins aren’t sure both Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman will be ready to play for Game 1, and there is good reason for those concerns.
Swayman missed practice on Sunday with what Montgomery described as an illness, although he did skate on Monday morning, as did Linus Ullmark. Montgomery though describe Ullmark as a “gametime decision” which may indicate that he is also feeling somewhat under the weather.
Bussi has never appeared in an NHL game before so it would be a huge step up for him to enter the Stanley Cup playoffs. That being said, he had an outstanding performance with the Providence Bruins of the AHL this season, recording a 2.40 goals against average and a .924 save percentage over 32 games.
It sounds like there is some kind of bug floating around the Bruins locker room and it sounds like several key members of the Bruins roster may be dealing with that illness at this time. Montgomery confirmed that David Krejci is in, Derek Forbort is in, and that Nick Foligno is likely to play, but the lineup remains up in the air given the questionable status of some players.
Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron will also be a gametime decision, and you have to suspect that if he misses Game 1 the Bruins will be heavily criticized for having him play against the Montreal Canadiens in a meaningless game at the end of the regular season.
The last thing you want at this stage of the season is an illness going around the locker room, and unfortunately disaster seems to have struck the Bruins at the worst possible time.
The Tampa Bay Lightning appear to have received some very good news on Monday morning, good news that comes just hours before Game 1 of their first round Stanley Cup playoff series against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
A video published by Eduardo Encina of the Tampa Bay Times clearly shows recently injured forward Tanner Jeannot taking practice with his Lightning teammates for the first time since he was injured.
Jeannot was injured roughly two weeks ago when he got tangled up with the New York Islanders’ Scott Mayfield, resulting in the weight of both men coming down awkwardly on Jeannot’s leg.
Jeannot taking the ice this morning is no guarantee that he has been medically cleared to play in Game 1, but it certainly has to be viewed as an extremely positive sign for a Lightning team headed into a tough playoff series.
Update: Lightning head coach Jon Cooper has officially confirmed that Jeannot will not play in Game 1, but is now being listed as “day to day.”
There had been reports indicating that veteran goaltender Cam Talbot had rejected a contract offer from the Senators during the course of the 2022-23 NHL regular season, and on Monday morning Senators general manager Pierre Dorion confirmed those rumors… and then some.
Dorion not only confirmed that the contract offer had been rejected by Talbot, but shared specific details about the negotiations. Dorion revealed that the Senators offered Talbot a one-year deal with a significant pay cut, understandable given that Talbot posted a 2.93 goals against average and a .989 save percentage over 36 regular season games, not exactly inspiring numbers.
Dorion went on to reveal that Talbot wanted a two-year contract, with rumors suggesting that Talbot also wanted a raise to go along with it. It comes as no surprise that the Senators balked at this suggestion and instead opted to move on from Talbot, something Dorion also confirmed on Monday.
Now that we know that Talbot will not come back next season, the next questions become how will the Senators look to shore up their goaltending in the offseason and where might Talbot end up next?
It seems likely that Talbot’s options will be relatively limited, despite a weak goaltending market this summer, given the struggles he had between the pipes for the Senators this season.
Sports just have a way of bringing people together and that is especially true when you are playing alongside fellow competitors on a team, like in the sport of hockey for example.
Case in point, Minnesota Wild rookie defenseman Brock Faber appears to have quickly integrated himself into the Wild locker room given some of the rather hilarious comments he made about one of his notoriously tough teammates on Saturday.
Faber, who has only played 2 games thus far as a member of the Wild, was asked what it was like to play alongside National Hockey League enforcer Ryan Reaves when he dropped one of the funniest quotes of the season.
“Yeah he’s not that scary though… fake tough guy,” said Faber with a giant smile, eliciting a number of laughs from the media.
Unfortunately for Faber the Wild’s big man was within earshot of his comments and quickly chirped the rookie right back.
“You better hope I re-sign here,” said Reaves, eliciting even more laughter than before.
Faber integrating himself so quickly with his new teammates is no doubt a big positive for the Wild and the humor is a great way of keeping things loose as the team heads into a tough first round playoff matchup against the Dallas Stars. Whether or not the comments might come to bite Faber in the butt later down the line, only time will tell.
You can see the interaction between the two Wild players in the short clip below:
The Boston Bruins are just days away from the start of the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs and after such a successful regular season effort, you know the expectations being placed on the Bruins’ shoulders are at an all-time high.
That being said things aren’t perfect for the Bruins coming into the playoffs and unfortunately that appears to include a few things on the injury front as well. On Saturday, Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery provided a number of status updates regarding his core players, including an update on the status of Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron.
“You know we’re just giving him extra rest,” said Montgomery on Saturday. “He’s had a long year.”
Bergeron was notably absent from practice on Saturday and after he left the final game of the regular season early, that has understandably caused some concern ahead of the playoffs. That being said Montgomery downplayed the situation as best that he could and did something similar when the topic of Bruins forward Marchand came up.
“Same thing with Marchy,” said Montgomery. “Marchy wanted to give it a try today and he had a little bit of soreness so I said ‘Get off the ice.'”
Montgomery cited a hard practice repeatedly as the reason for being extra careful with some of his guys on Saturday, something that lines up with the scrimmage the Bruins had on the day. It sounds like Nick Foligno, Derek Forbort, and perhaps the returning David Krejci were the motivating factors behind that particular decision.
“The reason I wanted to have a hard practice with some scrimmage involved is we’re looking at Foligno and Forbort and we wanna see where their condition at game speed is,” confirmed Montgomery.
You can hear the full comments from the Bruins head coach in the short clip below:
The Toronto Maple Leafs are now just days away from the start of the Stanley Cup playoffs and there will be a ton of pressure on this team to deliver after failing to do so many times in recent history.
While that may be a burden on some players, it would appear that at least some of the members of the Maple Leafs roster are welcoming those expectations as the playoffs draw near. On Saturday, Maple Leafs goaltender Ilya Samsonov was asked about his expectations headed into the Stanley Cup playoffs, and he could not possibly have set the bar any higher. When asked if he felt the Leafs were the best team in the league, Samsonov left no doubt.
“Oh for sure,” answered the Maple Leafs netminder as per TSN, without a hint of doubt in his voice.
Asked to expound on why he felt that way, Samsonov’s comments grew even bolder.
“Because we have a nice group,” said Samsonov matter of factly. “We have the best doctors, best therapists. best workout coaches, we have the best coaches, we have the best players here.”
Although some may scoff at the confidence from Samsonov given the team’s relative lack of playoff success in recent years, it may be a much needed boost of confidence for a team that has fallen in the first round of the playoffs, or the qualifying round in the case of the bubble playoffs, in six consecutive seasons.
It’s worth noting that Samsonov wasn’t a part of those previous teams either, having only joined the Maple Leafs this season, and his confidence may be a reflection of the fact that he didn’t experience some of the heartbreaking losses that other members of his team have.
The Minnesota Wild will be relying heavily on their strong goaltending tandem of Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury when the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs officially get underway, but if the two goaltenders are feeling any pressure they aren’t showing any outwards signs of it.
In fact, Fleury and Gustavsson appear to be in the middle of an all-out prank war as they head into the playoffs with Fleury being the latest to fire off a shot at his fellow teammate. On Saturday, the Wild players who hit the ice were greeted by a bizarre sight as a mock representation of Gustavsson had been erected in the net, and I’m sure you can guess who the man behind the prank was.
If you zoom in to the picture, I thought the face that I presume Fleury drew himself was particularly amusing.
It was of course notorious prankster Marc-Andre Fleury, but in this case it sounds like he may actually have been provoked by Gustavsson.
You see Fleury recently had his socks sewn together by a sneaky prankster, but the veteran goaltender had been left unaware of who had pulled off the stunt. That was at least until Gustavsson outed himself during a recent interview, something that no doubt led to Fleury’s act of revenge on Saturday.
In fact, Fleury specifically mentions that he usually doesn’t target his goaltending partners, but Gustavson’s own prank appears to have prompted a change to that rule.
“I never go for my partner,” said Fleury when learning of the prank. “But I’ve got to give it to him… He must be big-time.”
Not only is this hilarious from the perspective of fans on the outside looking in, but it is also likely doing wonders to keep things loose and jovial as the Wild gear up for a tough first round playoff matchup against the Dallas Stars.
We likely haven’t seen the last of this little prank feud between the two goaltenders either, and quite frankly I can’t wait to see how Gustavsson will respond to this latest stunt from Fleury.
The Boston Bruins were the National Hockey League’s best team in the 2022-23 regular season and, unfortunately for their opposition in the upcoming Stanley Cup playoffs, it sounds like everything is starting to line up for the Bruins as they head into those playoffs.
Injured Bruins forward Nick Foligno has provided a huge update on his status as far as the playoffs are concerned, indicating that he would be ready to go immediately. There was the expectation that Foligno would return at some point during the playoffs, but for him to return so quickly is a huge boon for the Bruins.
Foligno has been working hard to get healthy and last week even joked about the fact that he might make a few threats to make sure he was ready for the first round.
“I’m gonna try my hardest and probably throw some threats at people if not,” joked the veteran forward.
On Saturday, Foligno appeared to confirm that those threats were successful, hinting at the fact that he will be back in Game 1.
“I think I’ve made all the threats I need to make to everybody. So hopefully that did the trick and I’ll be back for Game 1,” joked Foligno once again.
The National Hockey League is on hiatus for a few days as teams gear up for the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs, but there was still some hockey going on over the weekend including what should have been a friendly exhibition game between the NYPD and the FDNY.
The game wasn’t all that friendly though as both teams got physical with one another throughout the contest, and that would be true of the game from start to finish.
With only 30 seconds left on the clock in the game’s third and final period on Saturday night, Thomas Esposito of the FDNY and Ryan Dermody of the NYPD treated fans to what would prove to be the best tilt of the game. Right from the faceoff the two men squared off, dropping their gloves and their helmet’s as Paul “Biznasty” Bissonnette went wild in the booth while making the call.
In the early going it looked as though Dermody would get the best of his opponent, but a devastating right hand from Esposito would send the NYPD’s Dermody down in a heap. Although Dermody was still clinging to Esposito it was clear that he was seeing stars, and the officials on the ice made the right call stepping in to protect him from any further punishment.
Dermody was on shaky legs even when he got back to the NYPD bench, leaving absolutely no doubt about who walked away with the victory in this particular tilt.
