Maple Leafs are 1st team with 3 rookies to hit 50 points in decades

With an assist on Connor Brown's second-period goal Thursday night, William Nylander picked up his 50th point of the season.

In doing so, Nylander became the third Toronto Maple Leafs rookie to hit the 50-point plateau, joining Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. The achievement makes the Maple Leafs the first team to have three first-year players reach the milestone since the 1992-93 Winnipeg Jets.

Matthews and Marner - who picked up an assist Thursday - have 55 points, while Nylander has 50. They sit second, third, and fourth in rookie scoring, respectively, all trailing Jets forward Patrik Laine.

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Boudreau: Wild can handle adversity

No problem for the Minnesota Wild.

Despite losing their third straight game, there is no reason to believe the Wild can't get their season back on track, coach Bruce Boudreau told reporters following Thursday's 3-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.

"I've seen them play great, so why wouldn't I think that they're going to fight their way out of it?" Boudreau said. "It doesn't make any sense to think that they wouldn't."

It's been a rough March for the Wild, who own a 2-6-0 showing so far. The team has also won just four of 10 contests since trading three draft choices - including this year's first-round pick - to the Arizona Coyotes for center Martin Hanzal.

The recent performances have been in stark contrast to the 41-14-6 record that Minnesota owned at the end of February, after running a 12-game win streak earlier this season. The Wild now sit three points back of the Chicago Blackhawks for top spot in the Central.

Minnesota's inability to score has been evident in its recent slump. The team has been limited to two or fewer goals in six of eight games in March.

If anything, Boudreau isn't casting blame on goaltender Devan Dubnyk, who took the loss to the Hurricanes. Afterward, Boudreau said: "He allowed two. We should be able to score three in a game."

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Bozak credits off-ice bonding for strong effort vs. Lightning

Maybe a few extracurriculars aren't such a bad idea, after all.

Following one of the club's most dismal displays of the season on Tuesday night against Florida, the Toronto Maple Leafs rebounded in a big way on Thursday, cruising to a 5-0 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The team received a lot of backlash after Tuesday's 7-2 shelling by the Panthers, as photos posted on Instagram showed that players - including Morgan Rielly, Tyler Bozak, Mitch Marner, Leo Komarov, and Josh Leivo - had spent Sunday fishing.

What a day of fishing 🐠🐟

A post shared by Mitch Marner (@marner_93) on

Following Thursday's game, Bozak took joy in hinting that time spent away from the rink was to thank for Toronto's effort vs. the Lightning.

"We had a lot of energy," Bozak said with a smile, according to TSN's Mark Masters. "Whenever you have a few days to bond, do some stuff outside the rink it helps. It helped us tonight."

Never a dull moment with the Maple Leafs.

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Watch: Craig Cunningham walks without assistance in latest update

What a difference a week makes.

Seven days after TSN's Ray Ferraro tweeted an inspiring video of Craig Cunningham using a walker to make his way down a hall, the analyst shared a new one showing the former Arizona Coyotes farmhand walking purely under his own power.

Cunningham collapsed in an AHL game back in November and required emergency surgery. During the surgery, he went into cardiac arrest and had to have his left foot and part of his leg amputated.

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Arvidsson snipes 1st career OT winner past Holtby

The Nashville Predators bested the league-leading Washington Capitals on Thursday, thanks to Viktor Arvidsson's first career overtime goal.

The 23-year-old beat Braden Holtby on a two-on-one break to seal the win and hit the 25-goal plateau in the process.

The victory was the Predators' third straight and pushed their point streak to five; the Capitals have now dropped six of their last 10.

(Video Courtesy: NHL.com)

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Coyotes sport Diamondbacks threads in warmup

Arizona pride.

Prior to Thursday's contest against the Detroit Red Wings, the Arizona Coyotes sported the look of a fellow desert club, wearing Arizona Diamondbacks-style uniforms in the pregame warmup.

The Diamondbacks are in the midst of spring training. The team resumes Cactus League play Friday, with split-squad games against the Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners.

Diamondbacks center fielder A.J. Pollock dropped the puck in a pregame ceremony.

As for the Coyotes, they'll try for their fourth straight win Thursday after scoring victories over the New Jersey Devils, Colorado Avalanche, and Los Angeles Kings.

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Watch: Maroon’s 2nd goal in a minute comes off unreal McDavid pass

Think Patrick Maroon likes playing with Connor McDavid?

The Edmonton Oilers teammates combined for a brilliant goal Thursday night against the Boston Bruins.

Maroon finished it off for his second tally in 59 seconds, after McDavid set it up spectacularly by redirecting Leon Draisaitl's saucer pass.

The Oilers scored three times in less than four minutes in the first period, a frame in which the teams combined to strike six times.

(Video courtesy: NHL.com)

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Bettman: No reason for NHL to focus on Seattle in absence of arena

Build it and they may come.

Amidst his Western Canada media tour, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was in Vancouver on Thursday and spoke about the possibility of an NHL future in bordering Seattle.

"There's been a lot of talk for a long period of time about a building or not, and frankly if the city ever gets it act together on a building, then maybe there will be a reason for us to focus on it," Bettman told reporters. "I'm not saying it will happen if there is a reason, but there's no reason to focus on it in the absence of a building."

Local businessman Chris Hansen has been connected with building a new arena in the city, but with a focus on returning the NBA to Seattle. The SuperSonics left for Oklahoma City in 2008.

Seattle has often been mentioned as a new market for the NHL, and an addition in the Pacific Northwest would create a natural rival for the Canucks.

The city has a rich history of hockey. In 1917, the Seattle Metropolitans won the Stanley Cup. Forty-five years later, KeyArena opened and played host to the WHL's Thunderbirds from 1985 to 2008, when the team left for nearby Kent.

In the meantime, a local Seattle group, led by Tim Leiweke, who has previously been part of both the NHL and NBA, wants to renovate KeyArena in order to accelerate the city's efforts in attracting a pro team.

Leiweke told Geoff Baker of the Seattle Times that he believes KeyArena can be brought up to par in three to four years. It's a similar time frame to the construction of the new T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, which broke ground in 2014 and will open to the NHL's Vegas Golden Knights next season.

Still, Leiweke was quick to add Seattle will need to build its team through expansion, noting neither the NHL or NBA sees a franchise relocation on the horizon.

"We believe that there is no franchise today in the NHL or in the NBA that is in danger of being lost as an opportunity over the next few years," Lieweke told Baker. "And we believe that should Gary Bettman make a decision to expand, that if you look at the last process they just went through, it was a three- to four-year process to get that building built and to get that (Las Vegas) team up and running this next season."

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Hall’s incredible Forsberg-esque goal forces Mason from game

Talk about adding insult to injury.

Taylor Hall scored a beautiful one-handed deke goal early in the third period to give the New Jersey Devils a commanding 4-2 lead on Thursday.

Unfortunately for the Philadelphia Flyers, not only did the goal hurt them on the scoreboard, but netminder Steve Mason also appeared to stretch too far on the play and was forced to leave the game with an apparent lower-body injury.

The goal was Hall's 16th of the season and extended his point streak to three games.

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Watch: Del Zotto finishes off pretty tic-tac-toe with Giroux, Voracek

Michael Del Zotto snapped his 25-game goalless skid thanks to some nifty passing on Thursday night.

The Philadelphia Flyers defenseman finished off a pretty tic-tac-toe with Claude Giroux and Jakub Voracek, ultimately putting the puck past a down-and-out Keith Kinkaid.

The goal gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead, but the New Jersey Devils responded with a tally from Kyle Palmieri.

(Video courtesy: NHL.com)

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