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Canucks push lacklustre Edmonton Oilers to brink of elimination
There goes the last of the breathing room. One more misstep, one more extended lull like they served up in a crucial Game 5 loss, and the Edmonton Oilers are done. In a cruel reversal of what happened in Game 4, when Evan Bouchard scored the game winner with 38.1 seconds left in regulation, Vancouver’s J.T Miller turned the tables in Game 5, shaking off Connor McDavid in front of the Edmonton net and scoring the back-breaker with 32.6 to play. And now the Oilers, who were on their heels for most of this 3-2 defeat, are trailing 3-2 in the series and in serious trouble. In a series where neither side has been able to win two games in a row, the Oilers will have to do it now. Or never. For the first time since Game 1, Vancouver was the better team, and by a considerable margin, for most of the night. They outshot Edmonton 35-23 (including 17-4 in the second period) and made it clear from the midway mark of this one that it was only a matter of time. With Rogers Arena echoing with sympathy chants of ‘Let’s Go Petey,’ as Canucks fans pleaded with an underachieving Elias Pettersson to do something, he finally did. His assist on the game-winning goal brought down the house, and might have just brought down the Oilers. Calvin Pickard had a brilliant night in goal, keeping the Oilers in a game they had no business being in and giving them a chance to steal a 3-2 series lead. But they never took it. It was another quiet night from McDavid, who was held without a point for the second time in the series. He has one assist in the last three games. PAN ADVANTAGE Edmonton went five-for-10 on the power play in the first four games of the series but wasn’t ready for Vancouver’s pressure kill in Game 5. The Oilers went zero-for-five on the man advantage in the first two periods. Five-on-four production has been Edmonton’s life blood for years but it let them down when they needed it most. On the special teams bright side, Edmonton’s penalty killing was four-for-four. FOURTH AND GOAL The depth scoring Edmonton has been looking for reared up late in the first period when the fourth line — Connor Brown setting up Mattias Janmark on a two-on-one — to kill the buzz in Rogers Arena just 23 seconds after Vancouver tied it 1-1. GIVING THEM LIFE Evan Bouchard giveth and Evan Bouchard taketh away. The clutch and gifted defenceman scored the winning goals in Games 2 and 4 but turned the momentum Vancouver’s way in the second period when his behind-the-net turnover gave the Canucks an easy one to tie it 2-2. Vancouver used that goal like a shot of adrenalin and went on a rampage, outshooting Edmonton 17-4 in the middle frame, even though the Canucks spent four minutes short-handed. The Oilers were lucky to make it to the second intermission with a 2-2 tie, thanks to another excellent period from Pickard. E-mail: rtychkowski@postmedia.com
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Edmonton Oilers GM Ken Holland to Columbus? Rumours won't quiet down, says NHL insider
This in from NHL insider Andy Strickland: “Ken Holland to CBJ rumors don’t seem to quiet down anytime soon. Maybe a long run to the Final would change things but there are many who feel he could be headed to Columbus to fill their GM vacancy. Mentor Rick Nash to eventually take over?” My take 1. This is a credible rumour on a few levels. First of all, Strickland is a credible source, a long-time writer on the NHL, the St. Louis Blues Rinkside Report for Bally Sports Midwest and host of 590 the Fan KFNS, co-host of the Cam & Strick podcast. 2. It’s also credible because Ken Holland’s contract is up in Edmonton after this season. Jeff Jackson has moved in as the big boss of Edmonton Oilers hockey operations. I could see Holland staying on as a senior advisor, but Jackson has now had the entire season to learn the ropes from Holland. It’s hard to imagine that Jackson would not now prefer his own man and a younger man in the G.M. job. Related Plot twist: Vancouver benches Top 6 winger, creates Swede Line for Game 5 Knoblauch picks Pick for Game 5 3. Perhaps Holland would prefer a move stateside. He spent a lot of his life in Michigan. He might not be ready to fully retire. He could take a general manager job, or maybe he’d like to lead hockey ops. Who says he’s too old? Lou Lamoriello is 81 and he’s still the hockey boss for the New York Islanders. Jim Rutherford, a big cheese in Vancouver, is 75. Holland is just 68. Why retire when you’re having fun? 4. It’s too early to do a full assessment of Holland’s time with the Oilers. Much depends on this playoff run. There have been moves that failed, such as trading for Andreas Athanasiou and over-paying on a few deals, most notably the Jack Campbell contract. There’s been some moves that have worked out well, such as signing Zach Hyman, trading for Brett Kulak and Mattias Ekholm, and taking a chance on Evander Kane when so many other NHL GMs were too cautious and/or too politically correct to give the notorious Kane another chance. The story of Holland’s Oilers, though, is yet to be fully written, with a crucial chapter going into the books tonight. At the Cult of Hockey Plot twist: Vancouver benches Top 6 winger, creates Swede Line for Game 5 Knoblauch picks Pick for Game 5
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NHL Notes: Let the Rod Brind’Amour coaching sweepstakes begin ... Brad Marchand better, says Sam Bennett hit part of playoff war
In the coming days, teams keen on pursuing Rod Brind’Amour as coach will find out how serious he and the Carolina Hurricanes are about him staying on Tobacco Road. After the sting of losing a late lead Thursday, falling 5-3 and being eliminated in six games by the New York Rangers, talk will turn to getting Brind’Amour’s name on a multi-year deal. Until then, his undeclared status is creating some drama with other vacancies around the National Hockey League. Chris Kreider’s natural hat trick on Thursday ended the Canes’ shot at becoming just the fifth team to rebound from a deficit of 0-3 in a best-of-seven series. But ownership and management put a lot of resources via trades into getting the Canes through the opening rounds, without success. Now the polite assurances that a deal would eventually get done as Brind’Amour’s final year elapsed have to be settled. While the Maple Leafs are taking a good look at Craig Berube to replace Sheldon Keefe, they were no doubt waiting to see which way the wind is blowing with Brind’Amour. Joel Quenneville being stuck in limbo with the league yet to determine his future might also be delaying the final call in Toronto and elsewhere. Quenneville would also be high on the list of clubs such as San Jose, Seattle, Winnipeg and New Jersey, but there has been no official indication from commissioner Gary Bettman when he’ll be allowed to work again. He was shelved three years ago for perceived indifference during the Kyle Beach scandal with the Chicago Blackhawks, which cost him his position in Florida. Todd McLellan flew from Los Angeles, his last post, to be interviewed in Toronto this week, but could also get attention from the Devils, while in the East after they apparently passed on Berube and got Toronto’s permission to speak to Keefe. Former Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft is getting some mentions, too. After being let go by St. Louis earlier this season, Berube returned to the Philadelphia area, where he’d played and first served as an NHL head coach with the Flyers, telling blogger Wayne Fish: “I’m going to wait for an NHL job and see what happens. “It doesn’t matter where. I’m sure I have a shot. It all boils down to talking to a team, talking to the GM, the ownership. If they believe in your message, if they like what you’re saying. In the interview process, if it’s a good fit for me and a good fit for them, probably MARCHAND FEELING BETTER An extra day off in the Boston–Florida series could allow Bruins’ captain Brad Marchand to get back in the lineup Friday night’s Game 6. But Marchand insists his desire to extend the series will out-weigh any wish to retaliate against Sam Bennett, who was accused of camouflaging a sucker punch in the collision that rang Marchand’s bell in Game 3. “He plays hard, he’s an extremely physical player, great player for the group,” Marchand said in describing Bennett to reporters in Boston at practice on Thursday. “I think he got away with a shot (not called by either referee in the game or subject to NHL Player Safety review), but I’m not going to complain. S**t happens. That’s part of especially playoff hockey. I’ve been on the other side of a lot of plays. It sucks to be on the other side. But it is what it is. “People don’t want to say it, but part of the playoffs is trying to hurt every player on the other team. That’s just a fact of the game. Any time you can get an advantage, it’s going to help your team win. That’s part of the benefit of having a physical group. That’s why you see teams go the distance with a big defence corps and physical teams (and) why you rarely see teams that are small and skilled go far, because they get hurt.” JUNIOR SWEEPERS KEEPERS The three champions in the WHL, OHL and QMJHL lowered the broom in their respective league finals this week, the first time all three championship rounds ended in four-game sweeps. On Wednesday, the London Knights defeated the Oshawa Generals 7-1, winning all four meetings and their first league title since 2016. Later in the evening out west, the Moose Jaw Warriors beat the Portland Winterhawks 4-2, rolling to their first Ed Chynoweth Cup. A day earlier, the Drummondville Voltigeurs edged Baie-Comeau Drakkar 4-3 to run the table for the Gilles Courteau Trophy, their first since 2009. That gives all three teams a week to get ready for the Memorial Cup in Saginaw, Mich., where the host Spirit, with their automatic entry, open the tournament May 24 against Moose Jaw, with London playing Drummondville next day. ICE CHIPS The winner of the Frank Selke Trophy for best defensive forward will be announced Saturday. The finalists are Toronto’s Auston Matthews, Aleksander Barkov of Florida and Jordan Staal of the Hurricanes … Oilers’ Zach Hyman, nicknamed Shaq way back on the AHL Toronto Marlies by assistant coach A.J. MacLean, has traded game worn jerseys with O’Neal, the basketball superstar … This spring marks the sixth in NHL history in which all second-round series have gone at least six games, last occurring in 2017 … Avalanche blueliner Cale Makar on Wednesday became the fourth defenceman to score 20 career playoff goals before his 26th birthday, joining: Paul Coffey, Denis Potvin and Bobby Orr … While Dallas veteran Joe Pavelski now has the 13th most goals in NHL playoff history with 74 and now passed Alex Ovechkin for most by an active player, there’s lots of rooting interest in East End Toronto for 21-year-old teammate Wyatt Johnston, a youth graduate of the summer Withrow Park Ball Hockey League. Edmonton Oilers GM Ken Holland to Columbus? Rumours won't quiet down, says NHL insider Who will score PWHL Toronto-Minnesota series-winning goal? Here are our best bets l hornby@postmedia X: @sunhornby
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SIMMONS: Brilliant GM work by Bill Zito in Florida trumps everything Kyle Dubas did with Leafs
When Kyle Dubas was named general manager of the Maple Leafs some six years ago, he began his hockey journey fortunately with Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and Morgan Rielly already on a star-laden roster. You couldn’t ask for a better launching point for a young GM on the rise. When Bill Zito was hired as general manager of the Florida Panthers, without much applause, he being 21 years older than Dubas, he inherited a roster that included Sasha Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Aaron Ekblad and what seemed to be an overpaid goaltender in Sergei Bobrovsky. The Panthers had missed the playoffs the year before Zito arrived. They were undoubtedly a work in progress for the former player agent to solve. The first big move Dubas made in Toronto was the free-agent signing of John Tavares, so exciting at the time, and so strangling and numbing after COVID-19 hit and the salary cap froze, hampering his ability to be bold in his Maple Leafs manoeuvring. Zito, who arrived on the job one year after Dubas and inherited less, wasn’t considered the next great anything. He began with a Panthers team in 19th place in the league and all he’s done since is had a near-sensational run with Florida, winning the Presidents’ Trophy in 2022 even after losing his coach, Joel Quenneville, to unofficial suspension. Dubas had five seasons to make the Maple Leafs better. Zito, in five seasons, has put on a managerial clinic that has everyone in hockey taking notice. He has moved the Panthers from average to great, with bold creative deals, and built a team that already has played for one Stanley Cup and likely will play for more under his supervision. The Panthers likely are on their way to a second Eastern Conference final in two years after winning a Presidents’ Trophy the year before with a different kind of team and a different coach. Zito was like one of those TV show renovators — he took an axe to a lot of the Panthers roster. Most GMs fall in love with first-place teams. Zito let coach Andrew Brunette walk, hired Paul Maurice and began the further dismantling of the roster. This after a 122-point season. In all, Zito has changed five of his six defencemen. He has changed 10 of his 12 starting forwards. He has altered backup goaltenders behind Bobrovsky, many of them playing a large role in the success of the Panthers. But the work done — in particular the trades and free-agent signings (none of which got the splash of a Tavares signing) — has not won him a Jim Gregory Award for GM of the year, but if there was an award for GM of the past five years, he’d be the runaway winner. Over a three-month period in 2021, Zito showed his moxie as a manager by making deals for right-shot defenceman Brandon Montour, game-changing centre Sam Bennett and scoring winger Sam Reinhart. He took advantage of the inexperienced GM in Buffalo, Kevyn Adams, getting Reinhart for goaltender Devon Levi and a first-round draft pick just after he plucked Montour for a third-round choice from Buffalo. What’s happened since then? Montour, the pending free agent, has been so good on the Florida blueline that he gets Team Canada mentions for the 2026 Olympic team. So does Reinhart, who was second behind Matthews in goal-scoring this year in Florida and also has his contract up at the end of the season. All the whirling dervish Bennett has done is take Brad Marchand out of the second round of the playoffs, all but physically overwhelm the Maple Leafs last year and, in between, has provided the Panthers with a different kind of look as an unconventional second-line centre. That was 2021 for Zito. By comparison, that summer, Dubas signed David Kampf, Michael Bunting and Ondrej Kase as free agents. Almost all of the Panthers’ big moves came after Zito signed a relatively inexpensive free agent in one-time Leafs draft pick Carter Verhaeghe. All he has done is score at a 31-goal pace over his four seasons in Florida. But the big move — the franchise-changing move — would come in the summer of 2022. The Panthers had finished first in the league with Brunette as interim coach and led by the explosive winger, Jonathan Huberdeau. There was something about the team — even with a record 122 points — that Zito didn’t buy. On July 22, 2022, he made a blockbuster deal with Brad Treliving, then GM of the Calgary Flames, to bring Matthew Tkachuk to South Florida. In the trade, which seemed relatively even at the time, he gave up Huberdeau and one of his top defencemen, MacKenzie Weegar. It hasn’t turned out to be even at all. Treliving was fired in Calgary. The Flames are now in rebuild mode. And Tkachuk has become one of the NHL’s premier leaders in his two seasons in Florida. The deals for Bennett and Tkachuk do not look impressive on Treliving’s resume at a time he has been given the reins to run the Leafs. Whether intentional or not, the moves Zito has made, one by one, have taken the Panthers to a new level. He picked up Gustav Forsling on waivers at the delayed start of the 2021 season. All Forsling did this season was lead the NHL in plus-minus at a rather startling plus-56. He will get some Norris Trophy votes. Makar scores 2 goals, Avs win Game 5 to stay alive in NHL playoffs Maple Leafs' prospect Easton Cowan caps OHL playoff ride with MVP honours Zito had to beef up his defence of Ekblad and not much else and added near all-stars in Montour and Forsling and later signed veterans Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Dmitri Kulikov at rather inexpensive prices. Dubas’ best signing on the blueline was bringing in the now-extinct TJ Brodie. Since his large moves, Zito has done some roster finishing. He brought in Steven Lorentz, Eetu Luostarinen and Kevin Stenlund — all inexpensive depth forwards — before he swung big for rentals Vladimir Tarasenko and Kyle Okposo at the trade deadline. And now, a possible shot at the Stanley Cup, brought to you by Bill Zito. The general manager whose name everyone should know. ssimmons@postmedia.com x.com/simmonssteve
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