Without hitting the ice, the Blackhawks (now 50-23-8 with a 4-0 loss in Anaheim Thursday) managed to clinch first place in the division and conference last Saturday thanks to Minnesota‘s loss to Nashville.
This is the Hawk’s 16th division title in franchise history and its second time landing the conference lead–the first was the 2012-2013 season.
Despite a loss to the Bruins Sunday morning, the Hawks sit back just six points from the Washington Capitals (52-18-8) in the run for the President’s Trophy.
Chicago’s been 11-5-3 since March 1, with star power making the significant difference.
Panarin was named the NHL’s first star of the week with five goals and one assist in four games for the week ending April 2 and considered a major factor in helping the Blackhawks clinch first place in the Western Conference.
He tallied one goal in a 5-4 overtime loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning March 27.
Two days later, he had one goal and one assist in a 5-1 victory over reigning Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins.
Panarin contributed 2 out of three goals in a 3-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.
On April 2, he scored one goal when the Hawks fell 3-2 to Boston.
He had 73 points (30 goals and 43 assists) in 80 games this season, with the 30-goal mark serving as a franchise record.
Artemi Panarin: 1st player in #Blackhawks history with 30+ Goals each of first 2 NHL seasons (partial or full seasons)
His second 30-goal season surpasses the franchises’ previous leaders Jonathan Toews, Rich Preston, Denis Savard, and Darryl Sutter. Since 1995, the only other NHL players to do so are Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Alexander Ovechkin.
Beyond those honors, the forward coined “Breadman” could have a lot of dough heading his way, especially if he finishes in the top 10 of forwards in points, goals, assists, or points per game. That would put another $1.275 million in the 25-year-old’s pockets. This is both his second year in the league and his second year tallying 70-plus points.
It’s no surprise Kane was named the NHL’s Third Star of the Month for March. He ranked second in the NHL with 10 goals and 12 assists in 16 games, contributing to the Blackhawks’ 11-3-2 record for the month and ultimately clinching the ninth-consecutive playoff birth.
In 12 of the 16 games, he tallied one or more points. He had multiple points in seven of those matchups, including his fourth-career hat trick March 1 versus Pittsburgh and two other three-point outings.
He’s ranked second in the league with 34 goals and 54 assists for 88 points in 81 games this season.
Of course, both veteran and rookie players have been making exciting contributions and the team has been rotating the roster as they head into the postseason.
The Blackhawks play the L.A. Kings at 5 p.m CT Saturday.
It’s official. The National Hockey League announced on Monday, April 3, that as they go forward and plan the 2017-18 schedule across the league that they will not accommodate a break in the schedule for players to participate in the Olympics in PyeongChang in February 2018. The statement the NHL released was straight forward:
“We have previously made clear that, while the overwhelming majority of our Clubs are adamantly opposed to disrupting the 2017-18 NHL season for purposes of accommodating Olympic participation by some NHL players, we were open to hearing from any of the other parties who might have an interest in the issue (e.g., the IOC, the IIHF, the NHLPA) as to reasons the Board of Governors might be interested in re-evaluating their strongly held views on the subject. A number of months have now passed and no meaningful dialogue has materialized. Instead, the IOC has now expressed the position that the NHL’s participation in Beijing in 2022 is conditioned on our participation in South Korea in 2018. And the NHLPA has now publicly confirmed that it has no interest or intention of engaging in any discussion that might make Olympic participation more attractive to the Clubs. As a result, and in an effort to create clarity among conflicting reports and erroneous speculation, this will confirm our intention to proceed with finalizing our 2017-18 Regular Season schedule without any break to accommodate the Olympic Winter Games. We now consider the matter officially closed.”
NHLPA Suggests Otherwise
Interestingly enough, just after the NHL’s statement, which referenced a lack of interest by the National Hockey League Players’ Association, the NHLPA released their own statement which in essence told a different story:
“The players are extraordinarily disappointed and adamantly disagree with the NHL’s shortsighted decision to not continue our participation in the Olympics.
“Any sort of inconvenience the Olympics may cause to next season’s schedule is a small price to pay compared to the opportunity to showcase our game and our greatest players on this enormous international stage.
“A unique opportunity lies ahead with the 2018 and 2022 Olympics in Asia. The NHL may believe it is penalizing the IOC or the players, or both, for not giving the owners some meaningful concessions in order to induce them to agree to go to PyeongChang. Instead this impedes the growth of our great game by walking away from an opportunity to reach sports fans worldwide.
“Moreover, it is doing so after the financial issues relating to insurance and transportation have been resolved with the IOC and IIHF. The League’s efforts to blame others for its decision is as unfortunate as the decision itself. NHL players are patriotic and they do not take this lightly. A decent respect for the opinions of the players matters. This is the NHL’s decision, and its alone. It is very unfortunate for the game, the players and millions of loyal hockey fans.”
It certainly does force the question of why the NHL and the Club owners are so adamant about not participating in this particular Olympics. It certainly has little to do with the Olympics being in Asia, or in the actual scheduling of the NHL regular season, as they seem to have already expressed an interest in participating in Beijing in 2022. Combine that with the partnerships between certain hockey clubs, such as the Boston Bruins, and companies like O.R.G. Packaging, and it would seem like traveling to Asia in 2018 would simply build these endeavors.
Only China?
This past summer, the Boston Bruins sent over some players to China to interact with youth interested in the game. Those children then came to Boston later in the year and had even more experiences, including playing games on the ice at TD Garden. The L.A. Kings have plans to host a four-day hockey camp—for youth ages 14 to 16—in Shanghai in conjunction with the Feiyan Hockey Program in July, 2017.
And while the NHL doesn’t want its players to participate in the Olympics in 2018, they announced that the Vancouver Canucks and the L.A. Kings would play in the 2017 NHL China Games Presented by O.R.G. Packaging as part of a multi-year deal with Bloomage International. The games will take place at Mercedes-Benz Arena in Shanghai on September 21, 2017 and then at Huaxi LIVE Wukeson’s Le Sports Center in Beijing on September 23, 2017.
Perhaps the only place that the NHL wants to expand the game when it comes to Asia, is more specifically China.
USA Hockey
For those players who would represent the United States, USA Hockey responded after the NHL announcement was released.
“We knew it was a very real possibility for many months and certainly respect the decision of the NHL,” said Executive Director Dave Ogrean. “The good news is that because of our grassroots efforts over the course of many years, our player pool is as deep as it has ever been and we fully expect to field a team that will play for a medal.”
“We respect the NHL’s decision and will examine our player pool options and plan accordingly,
concurred Assistant Executive Director of Hockey Operations, Jim Johannson. “In the end, we’ll have 25 great stories on the ice in South Korea and will go to the Olympics with medal expectations.”
What Does This Mean for Those Watching the Games?
Anyone who watched the IIHF World Junior Championship game between Team USA and Team Canada in January saw some of the most exciting play between players who brought heart, soul, and passion to the ice and gave 110% during each shift!
For many of the teams who have sent only NHL players in the past, the teams that will take the ice for the 2018 Olympics will consist of players who are hungry, eager to get out on the ice and show everyone what they can do. They will wear their country’s jersey with pride, leaving nothing on the bench.
That means that while the NHL players may not be there, the level of play is going to be not only intense but speak to the level of skill these players will bring to the NHL in a few years.
Disappointment for the NHL players could mean some truly exciting games for viewers all around the world. It’s clear that Team USA is planning on bringing their A game, and it is a certainty that other teams will do so as well.
The Boston Bruins came into their game against the Tampa Bay Lightning riding a season-high five-game winning streak. This included their last away game of the regular season on Sunday, when they defeated the Chicago Blackhawks—a game that took place less than 24 hours after their Saturday win over the Florida Panthers. A win on Tuesday night would guarantee them a playoff slot.
As the game began it seemed that neither team was really connecting on their plays. Though the Bruins were outshooting Tampa, Andrei Vasilevskiy was keeping his Bolts in the game, making some highlight-reel saves.
It was beginning to look like it might be one of those north and south games where it came down to a battle of the goalies, when Bruin Brad Marchand took an ill-advised, and certainly an undisciplined, penalty. He was given a five-minute major and a game misconduct for spearing Tampa’s defenseman, Jake Dotchin, with 40 seconds remaining in the opening twenty, which up to that point had remained scoreless.
Marchand has been a strong component of the Bruins penalty kill and leads the team in goals. However, the Bruins would now have to play two-thirds of a crucial game without this pivotal player.
The teams went into the first intermission with no score, but Boston would still have 4:20 remaining of Marchand’s penalty as the puck dropped on the second period. Even if Tampa did notch a goal on the man-advantage, they would continue on the power play for the full five minutes. This was not the position the Bruins wanted to be in at the top of the middle frame.
“For me, it looked like an undisciplined play,” Bruins interim head coach Bruce Cassidy said after the game. “He got called for it, and, you know, we had to kill the penalty and move on and play with 11 forwards, move people around, and, you know, make up for the loss of a very good player.”
Every one of the Bruins from their goaltender Tuukka Rask to the defensemen and up through the forwards stepped up their game; exhibiting what a real team sport hockey continues to be.
Drew Stafford
“Yeah, I mean, that’s when you get tested to your depth a little bit, and that’s, I believe we’ve got great depth here up front, and not only that, but our penalty kill, we’ve got guys who can step up,” said Drew Stafford after the game. “So, everyone in here has each other’s back, and we’re going to lift each other up when something like that happens. So for us to stick together like that, and obviously come out and swing the momentum our way and score some big goals, like I said that’s huge, because it easily could have gone the other way. You know what, though, it all starts with Tuukka [Rask]. Tuukka’s the rock here. He’s the backbone of the team, so we kind of feed off of him and he was unbelievable tonight.”
As the penalty came to an end, the Bruins had limited Tampa to just a pair of shots on net during the entire five minutes. Boston gained momentum from that and less than two minutes later Stafford—acquired at the trade deadline from the Winnipeg Jets—got the Bruins their first marker of the game on a beautiful backhand shot. For much of the second period the Bruins kept Tampa on their heels.
“What hurt was we had a four-and-a-half minute power play to start the second period and we did nothing with it and we weren’t even really a threat, so instead of that being an energy-boost for us… now you don’t need to score on it but you got to turn the tide of the game and we didn’t,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper shared postgame.
In addition to the full team effort trying to make plays and block shots, the Bruins were dominating in the face-off dot. While the final result saw the Bruins with 69% (36 of 52 face-offs), that makes it look much closer than it was, especially in the second period—when the Bruins were at an amazing 82% (31 out of 38 face-offs through the two periods). Patrice Bergeron went 17 for 17 on the night for 100%: 8 in the first, 8 in the second and 1 in the third.
It’s hard to do much when your players are having to chase the puck—which was exactly what was happening to the Lightning. Not a single one of their centers was above 50% on the night, and only Greg McKegg managed to break even in the circle with 4 of 8.
By the end of the game, the Bruins had scored four goals, while their goal tender, Rask, earned his eighth shutout of the season–a career season-high for him. He sits behind just Tim Thomas for most shutouts in a season. Thomas notched nine during the 2010-2011 season that saw the team ultimately bring back the Stanley Cup to Boston.
For the Bruins, there is certainly a confidence in their locker room and a pure joy in making the playoffs this year, after having missed it the previous two. They have two games remaining in the regular season—interestingly enough against the two teams, one of which they are likely to see in round one of the playoffs. So they will embrace the good vibrations from the win over Tampa and the relief that they have secured a playoff spot, but come Thursday night as the Ottawa Senators come to Boston, the Bruins will be looking to keep their winning streak going. They will close out their regular season with a Saturday late matinee hosting the Washington Capitals, who are likely to clinch the Eastern Conference.
When the horn signaled the end of the game in Boston, the Dallas Stars had notched another one in the loss column—something that has plagued the team much of the season while on the road and contributed to their failing to make it into a playoff position with just five games remaining in their season. Of course, with the Boston Bruins starting goaltender in net and able to see all the shots he faced, it perhaps wasn’t surprising that Tuukka Rask earned his seventh shutout of the season.
“It basically comes down to we’ve had some bad luck scoring, we haven’t scored enough, so I think that’s the biggest issue,” head coach Lindy Ruff said of their road game woes. “You know, we scored one in Montreal, we scored one in New Jersey in regulation, and we didn’t score tonight, so I think at the end of the night, you know it comes down to a little bit of the offense.”
For goaltender Antti Niemi, it was his first start in seven games, and he probably wished to have the first goal back in which Brad Marchand was able to bounce it off the netminder before it went in. However, he didn’t seem to feel he was rusty.
“It felt good, had a pretty good warmup. I was excited to get in the game, it’s been awhile,” Niemi said. “Even giving up a couple goals, I had fun playing today.”
As the season winds down and with them having no chance of getting to the playoffs, it becomes a good chance to work with their younger players. One such young player who got called up was Julius Honka.
“Well, we’ve had a few games with him,” Ruff said Thursday morning before the game. “We want to play him to his strengths, which are, he’s a tremendous skater. We’re probably going to put him on one of our power play units and we just want to see him play his game.”
Honka had 23 shifts that totaled 20:06 of time on ice. And he did spend time on the power play—accumulating 2:26 of time with his power play unit. He and the other young players stepped up as Ales Hemsky ended up going down the tunnel due to an injury he’s been trying to work through and then the Stars lost Curtis McKenzie to an errant high stick from Kevan Miller that resulted in a serious injury very near his eye—which fortunately was spared.
“I thought they worked extremely hard. I liked what our young guys did, you know we lost a couple guys during the game, you know,” Ruff said after the game. “I think for the first time being in this building, I thought [Remi] Elie, [Jason] Dickinson, [Devin] Shore, those players did very well, played hard. Against a team that’s tough to generate, we generated enough probably to have a 2-1 game on them.”
Tyler Seguin
As a veteran of the game, Tyler Seguin now offers advice to some of the young players, especially when they need to deal with a loss—which hockey players never like and some of the younger players newly called up to the NHL may worry more about.
“[I tell them to] learn from that night and try to move on pretty quickly, especially with young guys, you know. I’ve had linemates here for six, seven games in a row now and it’s just trying to talk with them, obviously not really yell or anything, just trying to talk and ease them through everything,” Seguin shared of his approach. “I remember, it feels like yesterday that I was the rookie, you know, I had Shawn Thornton yelling at me and I didn’t like when he yelled at me so I try to do it differently.”
Though only 25 years old, the Brampton, Ontario native has almost completed his seventh season at the NHL level. There aren’t many jobs where you can be considered a veteran at such a young age.
“Yeah, a little bit,” Seguin said of the strangeness of being a veteran. “I just played my 500th game last week, I mean it goes by quick. I can’t believe how fast it goes. Obviously time to keep growing up and take it day by day and be a good vet.”
Unfortunately for the Stars they continue their road trip. They will play the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday evening and then down to Tampa to take on the Lightning less the 24 hours later. They will then close out their season with a three-game homestand.
Ask any of the Boston Bruins about their win over the Dallas Stars on Thursday night and they will admit it wasn’t their best effort. Fortunately, through the impressive play of their goaltender, Tuukka Rask—who notched his seventh shutout of the season and his 37th of his NHL career—Boston managed to walk away with two more necessary points as they come down to their final five games of the regular season.
Overall, it was a generally uneventful game in regard to shots on goal and the play for both sides was a bit lackluster. There were some situations where it was obvious that the Bruins weren’t connecting on their passes as solidly as they had earlier in the week, but even as the Stars began to ratchet up their effort, ultimately outshooting the Bruins in the third period, Rask’s ability to see and react to each shot they sent his way kept the visitors off the scoreboard.
Tuukka Rask
“I thought he earned his keep tonight. He was our best player,” Bruins’ interim head coach Bruce Cassidy said after the game about Rask. “When we broke down he was there. They were off net a few chances, and I think from my vantage point his angles were so solid that there wasn’t much net to shoot at, [had it] under control.”
“We didn’t play a great game. We got the two points, which is huge right now,” Brad Marchand agreed. “But, Tuukka [Rask] played a great game. You have to give him a lot of credit. And D had a lot of big blocks. So, we have to clean it up for next game, but we do have to be happy with the two points.”
Few penalties were called—the usual hooking and interference called just a couple times each—but in the third period an errant stick of Kevan Miller’s caught Curtis McKenzie up high, sending McKenzie to the ice where it was quickly apparent he was seriously hurt. One of his teammates helped him over to the boards where the Stars’ trainer met him with a towel for the blood and hustled him down the tunnel. No matter the animosity of the teams, no player wants to seriously hurt another player.
“I guess they took an ambulance over to the hospital just to make sure he got out of here okay. But, I think I got him somewhere around the eye area and it’s just more a precautionary thing right now,” Miller told media after the game. “But definitely going to reach out and you hate to see that happen. It was really unfortunate. I had, honestly, no idea how it happened. I just turned and I ran into him.”
“I don’t know whether it’s good or not, but it looks like his eye is okay, but he’s got a pretty serious cut that’s going to have to get closed up,” Stars’ head coach Lindy Ruff said of McKenzie’s trip to the hospital. “And there may be some muscle injury up there.”
Of course, after McKenzie left and the blood was scraped up, the Bruins found themselves having to kill a double minor with 8:52 left in a game that could have quickly become completely different if the Stars had been able to capitalize during their man advantage.
“That four-minute penalty kill in the third was definitely a huge aspect of the game that got us that win, so we beared down when we needed to, and obviously [Rask] played great,” shared d-man Brandon Carlo.
The Bruins will put this game behind them and turn to their next one. They will host the Florida Panthers in a Saturday matinee before hopping a plane to take on the Chicago Blackhawks less than 24 hours later.
Tuesday night as the Nashville Predators took to the ice at TD Garden in Boston against the Boston Bruins, it was clear their game Monday night against the New York Islanders, whom they beat, followed by travel to Massachusetts had left the team with a bit of fatigue. The Predators came into the game riding a four-game winning streak, but 2:28 into the period Patrice Bergeron potted a rebound that Pekka Rinne certainly would have liked to have back. During that first period Nashville was only able to put six shots on net and Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask made sure they didn’t go in.
By the time the whistle signaled the end of the first twenty, Nashville was in a two-goal hole. Their sluggishness spoke to where the team was in the season and accentuated the grueling toll of back-to-back games. The one positive they could perhaps hold onto was the fact that throughout the season they had become one of the strongest teams during the middle frame—scoring the most goals in that period of any NHL team.
“You know, we made mistakes early on and gave them the lead,” Nashville’s head coach Peter Laviolette said after the game. “From there, we’re chasing the game. I thought we got better as [the game] went on, but I thought they jumped us in the first.”
Despite getting off to a much stronger game during the second period, outshooting the team in black and gold, as well as beating them in the faceoff, the Predators could not seem to solve Rask. However, it was clear throughout that period that the momentum was clearly with Nashville’s players.
“While we were in the offensive zone we had more attempts. Not all of them got through, but we just had some zone time, some shots, some attempts. We had some big saves,” Laviolette continued. “Could have swung, you know, to 2-1 at any point, and I thought their chances were very limited after the first period, and [we] just couldn’t bury it. Couldn’t get it to 2-1. Eventually did, but then we made a mistake.”
It was 11:16 into the third period before Craig Smith was able to get an ugly one past Rask, after Nashville had had some mounting zone time and a good number of shots on goal leading up to the marker.
The mistake that Laviolette referred to happened about four and a half minutes after Smith cut the Bruins lead in half. Having got caught deep in the Bruins offensive zone, a pass didn’t connect with the stick of P.K. Subban, who continued to get booed in Boston despite no longer wearing the colors of the Canadiens. And just like that the Bruins had a 3-on-1 rush up the other way that managed to beat Rinne on the glove side. An empty netter a couple of minutes later for the Bruins would seal the deal.
“I think we started putting pucks behind their defense, started to shoot the puck more trying to create traffic and a lot of times when you try to shoot the puck that’s going to create more zone time and maybe some penalties, and I thought after that the guys did a really good job,” Rinne said of his view of the game.
The Predators flew home Tuesday night and had Wednesday to rest their bodies and their minds. They will face their third Eastern Conference team in a row, as they host a hot Toronto Maple Leafs on home ice Thursday night.
And while certainly it’s important to give their bodies a break, wiping their minds of a loss is just as important.
“It’s really important, I mean, just having that fresh mind. It’s so much mental, I mean, everybody’s such a good player and it’s a good level of hockey, so I think the difference a lot of times is inside your head,” Rinne shared about their day off on Wednesday. “You know who is willing to push the extra mile or somebody who is going to stay calm and things like that. So, yeah it is really important to be mentally fresh.”
They aren’t kidding themselves though. They know what Toronto has been doing, and Nashville is expecting to see a hungry team hit the ice Thursday night. Of course, there are a couple of Eastern Conference teams that are hoping the Predators can put a checkmark in the win column, holding back the Leafs climb in the standings.
turned down a possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to play for your country, because you knew standing up for your peers ultimately meant more than personal glory,
When the USWNT announced on March 15 that they planned to boycott the IIHF Women’s World Championship unless significant progress was made in their negotiations with USA Hockey over equitable support of both the women’s and girls’ hockey programs, they did not do so lightly. While women’s hockey players have the opportunity to compete for the Clarkson and Isobel cups in the CWHL and NWHL, respectively, the chance to win an IIHF gold medal remains the pinnacle of a female hockey player’s year of training. So it goes without saying that they took a risk when they threatened to sit out and give up on their chance to defend their title.
But it wasn’t just a half-hearted protest destined to peter out with little to no improvement for their cause. No, these ladies were so methodically organized that you wonder what else they could accomplish if they set their hearts to it (seriously, could you guys give us your input on how to take down daylight saving time?). The WWC proved to be a necessary backdrop for progress in negotiations that had staggered since last year. As the opening USA vs. Canada matchup loomed, the time to ensure USA Hockey had the best players in the world out on home ice in Plymouth, Michigan was slipping away. USA Hockey made desperate (and frankly pathetic) attempts to avoid sending out nobody in case the two sides failed to come to an agreement, but that backfired in the most spectacular fashion.
Why? Because the U.S. Women knew what they were doing.
From the very start, the motion to sit out the tournament was expressed as a unified message. All the members of the USWNT tweeted the same statement, accompanied by the #BeBoldForChange hashtag. The message spread like wildfire and was only the first to come in a series of powerful displays of unity.
In her piece commending the USWNT, Cammi Granato called the women “unbreakable,” which perfectly describes the U.S. women both as strong, bold individuals and as a tight-knit group unwilling to break ranks in pursuit of their goals, extending beyond the USWNT all the way down the line through current and former NCAA players, high schoolers, and beer leaguers who (nearly) unanimously told USA Hockey “yeah, no.”
And that unflappable unity undoubtedly put serious pressure on Dave Ogrean and co., but the pressure wasn’t just coming from the players and their united front…
It is important that the best American women players be on the ice for the World Championship and the notion of seeking replacement players will only serve to make relations, now and in the future, much worse – NHLPA
The hockey community is known to be close-knit and supportive of its own, so the encouragement the USWNT got from several current and former players, along with the statement released by the NHLPA and the suggestion of a men’s boycott, actually came as no surprise to me. But the solidarity did not end there, as the players’ associations of all three other major sports added their voices to the rally (NFL, NBA, MLB). Several members of the WNBA and the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team also expressed their pride in supporting the USWNT.
The biggest shockwave for me, though (and I believe most other fans and reporters hungrily following for updates), was the letter to Dave Ogrean and USA Hockey written and signed by twenty United States Senators invoking, among other things, the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act and calling into question the legality of USA Hockey’s actions thus far.
Last night the boycott finally came to an end as both sides reached an agreement that suited them. Dave Ogrean seems to think USA Hockey deserves a pat on the back for “resolving this,” when the real star of the show was the organizational skills of whoever came up with the united messages and meme-worthy inspirational photo/quote releases. I don’t know if anyone in the USWNT camp knew how much their stance would snowball into a movement, but they deserve mad respect for their vigilance.
With this agreement, the world of women’s hockey has taken a giant leap forward, but there is still work to be done by all of us. Right now the team is on its way to Michigan to prepare for the start of the Women’s World Championship, and you don’t want to miss it.
I saluted you for supporting the women’s fight for fairness, now I’m asking you to join me in watching these incredible, brave, limitless, strong, devoted, bold women take on their next challenge: another world championship.
Though Noel Acciari’s goal Tuesday night was not the game winner for the Boston Bruins in their tilt against the Nashville Predators, it was a milestone that the rookie had undoubtedly dreamed about for as many years as he’d been lacing up the hockey skates.
With 4:13 remaining in the third period and the Bruins nursing a one-goal lead in a game of which they needed to take the two points, Riley Nash, skating down the left wing, had Acciari on the right wing and Drew Stafford trailing a bit as center in triangle formation. They skated into Nashville’s zone on a 3-on-1 rush for the Bruins. Though it looked like Nash might try for the goal himself, he drew it backhand and made a solid pass to Acciari, who beat Predators goalie Pekka Rinne glove side to get his first career NHL goal in his 43rd game.
His teammates were so happy for him and David Pastrnak helped him celebrate during a postgame, on-camera, interview with the requisite shaving cream pie to the face.
Postgame all of Acciari’s teammates were thrilled for his accomplishment, but also made a point of discussing the many things he does game in and game out that may not show up on a score sheet but are as important in that physical-style game the Bruins are known for.
“Yeah, I’m glad I don’t have to play against him because those [hits] look like they hurt a lot of the time. It doesn’t matter if he’s hitting you or you’re trying to hit him. He’s pretty sturdy,” Nash said after the Bruins win. “And he just creates a lot of space. If he’s in on the forecheck and hits one of their D-men, it kind of takes them out of the play and gives us a couple extra feet with the puck.”
Noel Acciari
The 5’10” Rhode Island native checks in at 208 pounds, solid as a Sequoia, and may actually be able to demonstrate the answer to what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object. If Acciari is the immovable object or the unstoppable force, the other player usually finds himself on the ice on his behind. An opposing player would probably have better luck running into a bull. And for all the players on the ice, it’s probably a good thing that the 25-year-old Providence College alum isn’t any taller, or he could unintentionally do some serious damage to opposing players.
“I can’t help that I’m solid and they don’t know it, but, you know I just kind of… be aware of if a hit’s coming and kind of be able to brace myself,” Acciari said of how opponents often underestimate his strength. “Just throw hits when I can, but anyway to get to the puck; go through them or around I’ll pretty much do it.”
Veteran NHLer David Backes commented as to how pretty Acciari’s goal was and alluded to how quiet he is, focusing on his job. Backes stressed how pleased he was that Acciari was getting the recognition on such an important moment in the life of any NHL player.
It is those solid hits and the other areas in which Acciari comes up big for his line mates that, though they don’t make the score sheet, play a pivotal role in the Bruins being able to score. And Acciari doesn’t worry that the often, and rather ironic, subtle efforts of his game may go overlooked by fans in the stands.
“If it helps the team, I’m going to continue doing it,” Acciari responded. “And I’m not going to change my style to what got me here, so I’m going to continue doing that and I think keep opening up space for Riley [Nash] and Dom [Moore].”
Though they are fourth liners, they have certainly been a dominant line of players in the last couple of games—especially Nash who had both goals against the New York Islanders on Saturday’s win for the Bruins.
“He has a hot stick, but I was just ready for anything and he happened to pass it—great pass, good poise, and he left me, like I said, with an easier part just to kind of tap it in,” Acciari said of Nash’s assist on the goal.
For Acciari? Even with the focus on him, like most hockey players, he couldn’t go a couple of sentences in answer to any question about the goal without mentioning his teammates, especially his line mates Nash and Moore.
“Your first NHL goal is a special feeling and to finally have it, you know, like I said before, I couldn’t have done it without the other guys, the other four, five guys on the ice. But it feels good.”
For Acciari, he can revel in the feelings of this moment until he drifts off to sleep, but come Wednesday the team will be back at practice in preparation for taking on the Dallas Stars Thursday night.
As the Boston Bruins took to the ice on Tuesday night, they held on to the second wild card slot in the east by a slim one-point margin. They played host to the Nashville Predators, who flew in Monday night after their victory against the New York Islanders. As the game got underway, it was clear that the Predators were perhaps a little tired. Watching the Bruins though showed a hungry team, and perhaps one that had taken time after their fourth straight loss last Thursday to reflect and, as David Backes put it, “re-educate” themselves on what it takes from each player to be the winning team they know they can be.
“I think we need to re-educate ourselves to those winning ways; of all the sacrifices we made for each other and all the hard areas and all the hard plays that you need to make every night in this league in order to win,” Backes said after their loss against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday.
The Bruins jumped them right from the beginning, and while Nashville was beating Boston at the face-off, it was Boston who was controlling that first period. The energy was almost visibly bouncing off the players in black and gold. When Patrice Bergeron put the Bruins on the scoreboard first, it was as though someone turned up the wattage on the entire team. Going into the first intermission, Boston found itself up 2-0. The second goal came 13:52 in the opening frame as David Krejci got it 5-hole on Pekka Rinne.
Tuukka Rask
Having gone up those two goals in the first, it looked like the Bruins backed off just a bit, allowing the momentum to start to tilt some in favor of the Predators. They outshot the Bruins during that period and managed to spend significant time buzzing around in Boston’s defensive end, but fortunately Tuukka Rask was up to the challenge after having been sidelined with a lower body injury when the team traveled to Brooklyn for Saturday’s win against the Islanders. Rask kept Nashville from cutting the Bruins lead in that middle frame.
“The first period was really good for us, probably came from the focus,” David Pastrnak shared postgame on the mentality of the team on the bench. “We knew that they have a good start. We knew they played yesterday. We tried to jump them and it worked and those two goals we scored were enough.”
While it had been an interesting and in some ways a physical game up to the second intermission, things ramped up a few notches as the third got going. First, the Predators getting their first goal of the game, thus making it a one-goal game, gave them a renewed energy. However, the Bruins were not to be denied and this was accentuated by the impressive 3-on-1 rush Boston had that saw Riley Nash, whose been hot the last bit, make a quick and solid backhand pass to Noel Acciari for the rookie’s first career NHL goal four and a half minutes after the Predators goal.
The Bruins put a bow on it with an empty netter from Backes at 18:29 of the third and six seconds later, with just 1:25 remaining on the clock, the sparks flew as the gloves were tossed and the fists began to fly. Those crazy moments would result in a power play for the Bruins and a lot of extra paperwork for the referees.
In a game that saw only five penalties between the two teams in the first 50 minutes of the game ended up with all sorts of penalties from that spark. Cody McLeod received five for fighting, a ten-minute misconduct and a game misconduct for initiating a fight in the last two minutes with Kevan Miller. Miller received just five for fighting. Vernon Fiddler got a double minor for roughing on Nash. And as the horn blew to end the game, Colton Sissons got dinged for a high stick on Nash.
Despite the extracurriculars, in the end the Bruins earned two necessary points and seemed to be re-infused with the game that had them so strong after Bruce Cassidy was made interim head coach. The team welcomes the out-of-playoff-contention Dallas Stars on Thursday night.
The Blackhawks sit atop the West at 48-21-6, having clinched their ninth-consecutive playoff berth last Sunday.
The team manged only one point with a controversial overtime loss to the Vancouver Canucks Tuesday and have been rollercoasting since then, hitting rock bottom with a 7-0 loss to the Florida Panthers Saturday night–the first time they’ve lost 7-0 since 2001, when I was a high school senior.
It’s odd experiencing postseason play as an expectation now, after many of us merely dreamed of it years upon years. The Blackhawks didn’t qualify at all 1997-1998 through 2000-2001, were felled in the 2003-2004 quarterfinals, and didn’t qualify another five seasons until 2008-2009–not exactly beacons of hope during the prime of my fanhood as someone born in the ’80s.
This doesn’t mean they rest on their laurels. In fact, resting is problematic for them. After a five-day break from action, they lost two straight before regaining their footing.
And, to crack the Avalanche Sunday, the Hawks had a flurry of goals for a comeback.
“There’s no given that you’re going to make the playoffs every year,” captain Jonathan Toews told the Chicago Tribune. “I think you’ve seen teams like Winnipeg, Dallas, and Colorado that have made good runs, made the playoffs one year and then don’t make it the next year.
“Even in the East, it’s a lot tighter this year, but there’s good teams that are on the bubble that just can’t really seem to keep up. So, for us in this day and age to get to that number is a huge accomplishment.”
Less than two weeks ago, Chicago had one point over the Minnesota Wild to lead the Central and two points over the San Jose Sharks to lead the West.
Now, they have seven points on the Wild and nine on the Anaheim Ducks, who flew through the rankings to a one-game lead over the Sharks.
On Saturday, the Canucks beat the Wild 4-2 for Minnesota’s ninth loss in 11 games while the Sharks lost their sixth-consecutive game (and possibly Alternate Captain Logan Couture, who took a Brent Burns shot to the face) in a 7-2 loss against Nashville. The recent collapsing of these two Western leaders gives the Hawks an eight-point lead over the Wild and 11 points over the Sharks.
The Wild lost for the ninth time in their last 11 games on Saturday, a dismal 4-2 defeat to the Canucks. And the Sharks lost their sixth in a row, falling to the Nashville Predators 7-2. That gave the Hawks an eight-point lead on Minnesota and an 11-point lead on San Jose, which is now tied with the Anaheim Ducks for first in the Pacific Division.
Despite that lead, the Hawks need to turn around their play after the games that followed their clinching victory.
Saturday’s Hawks-Panthers game looked like a complete breakdown. Jonathan Marchessault scored his first-career hat trick.
And, goalies Corey Crawford and Scott Darling gave up seven goals on 31 shots while the Hawks couldn’t tally with 25 shots on goal.
On Thursday, the Hawks had to go to a shootout to claim a 3-2 victory over the Dallas Stars.
Kane scored first for Chicago, followed by Ales Hemsky for the Stars, then Marian Hossa and Hemsky again in the third. In the shootout, Kane scored again to stay alive after a Toews miss and a Tyler Seguin goal, then Artemi Panarin scored the winner for the Hawks.
This was just two days after a 5-4 overtime loss to Vancouver, where Ryan Miller made 40 saves and Daniel Sedin scored the game-winner with a power play goal.
Last Sunday’s playoff berth-clincher was a comeback victory for the Blackhawks against the Avalanche. Kane scored first just under five minutes into the game, but Mikhall Grigorenko tallied two before the first period’s end. Then Sven Andrighetto made it 3-1 in the second.
In the third period, though, Toews made it 3-2 about halfway through, starting a series of Hawks goals. Within 34 seconds, Richard Panik and Artemi Panarin gave Chicago a 4-2 lead before Toews and Marcus Kruger scored some cushion goals for a final 6-3 score.
Now, the Blackhawks have to return to whatever place they were in mentally against Colorado. With Artem Anisimov out a couple more weeks with a lower body injury, they’ll need whole team involved in both scoring and protecting the net.
Kane has 33 goals and 48 assists in 75 games and Panarin has 24 goals with 42 helpers. Toews, who got to a slow offensive start this season, has 20 goals and 35 assists in 66 games. Hossa, who played in his 1,300th career game last week, has 24 goals and 18 assists in 67 games.
Johnny Oduya, who has one goal and one assist in his eight games since returning to the Hawks, has come back from injury to add some strength on the blue line.
Toews worded it well when he told the Chicago Tribune the Hawks need to do more than bounce back from the Florida loss:
“You can’t let a score like that affect your confidence or affect your overall game and what you’re going to do in the next game. But there has to be some sense of urgency, a sense of pride where we get back to doing the little things right… When you have that work ethic, the little details of the game take care of themselves.”
They also need to play smart. They had 10 penalties against the Panthers, two from winger Ryan Hartman., who has 29 points and 68 penalty minutes in 70 games.
“We’re not complacent,” Hartman said. “We know there’s other things on the line, other motivators for us to win games. We just haven’t brought it the last few games. We need to start bringing it a little more.”
The Blackhawks need one more road win to tie a single-season franchise record, and two for the current team to capture the record.
They’ll face the Lightning at 6:30 p.m. C.T. tonight (Monday) at Amalie Arena in Tampa Bay then head to Pittsburgh to take on the Penguins at 7:00 p.m. C.T. Wednesday before returning home to host the Columbus Blue Jackets at 7:30 p.m. C.T. Friday.
The mistake that Laviolette referred to happened about four and a half minutes after Smith cut the Bruins lead in half. Having got caught deep in the Bruins offensive zone, a pass didn’t connect with the stick of 
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