Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals thought they'd tied Game 6 midway through the third period on Monday night, but the referees saw it differently.
Ovechkin pounced on Evgeny Kuznetsov's rebound and jammed the puck past Petr Mrazek for what would have been the equalizer. But the referees immediately signaled no goal and stuck with their call after further review.
The referees didn't explain the call on the ice, but the NHL's situation room quickly addressed the controversy.
"After reviewing all available replays and consulting with the referee, the situation room confirmed that Alex Ovechkin interfered with Peter Mrazek by pushing his pad, which caused the puck to enter the net," the league stated, as reported by Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman.
Moments after the call, Justin Williams scored to extend the Hurricanes' lead to 4-2. Carolina added an empty-netter to secure the win and force a decisive Game 7.
Victor Hedman is taking full responsibility for his role in the Tampa Bay Lightning's shocking first-round exit despite battling injury.
The 28-year-old blue-liner suited up for the first two contests of his team's series against the Columbus Blue Jackets and played significant minutes in both, logging 25:18 in Game 1 and 21:10 in Game 2. Despite the valiant effort, Hedman was unable to continue past those tilts.
"I was cleared to play in the first two games but I just wasn't good enough to keep going," the 6-foot-6 rearguard told reporters at the team's exit interviews Monday.
Hedman missed the final four games of the regular season with an upper-body injury after colliding awkwardly with Washington Capitals forward Carl Hagelin on March 30. Hedman said he was dealing with an upper-body ailment during the playoffs but added it wasn't related to that regular-season issue.
"I'm obviously not happy with how I played in those two games and I'm not going to sit here and (make) any excuses that it was because of (the injury)," he said. "It was all on me. I'm not happy with the way I played and that's obviously a tough one to swallow."
The Lightning became the first team in the modern era to win the Presidents' Trophy as the league's top regular-season squad and then be swept in four games in the first round of the playoffs.
Hedman is a finalist for the Norris Trophy for a third consecutive season and looks to defend his title as the league's top defenseman after capturing the award for the first time in his career in 2018.
The Finnish sniper said Monday that he was dealing with a back issue during the year and a "small" groin injury during the playoffs, according to The Athletic's Murat Ates.
Laine captured MVP honors at the 2016 World Championship after leading Finland to a silver medal with seven goals and 12 points in 10 games.
Scheifele has suited up for Canada at the World Championship on three occasions and captured a gold medal at the tournament in 2016. The Kitchener, Ontario, native last played at the event in 2017, tallying three goals and eight points in 10 games en route to a silver medal.
The 32-year-old Wheeler, born in Plymouth, Minn., last represented the United States at the World Cup of Hockey in 2016. He hasn't played at the World Championship since 2011. At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, he recorded one assist in six contests for the Americans.
The Jets were eliminated from the NHL postseason in six games by the St. Louis Blues in their opening-round series.
Jones turned aside 58 of 59 shots in a must-win Game 6, setting a franchise single-game record for saves. He surpassed Jeff Hackett's mark of 57 saves in 1992.
The 29-year-old was considered the Sharks' biggest liability entering the series. He struggled through a poor regular season, posting an .896 save percentage and a 2.94 goals-against average.
Until Sunday, Jones hadn't put Sharks fans at ease. He entered Game 6 with an .866 save percentage and a 4.37 goals-against average in the series and was yanked in Games 2 and 4.
However, the veteran was able to flip the script, helping his team win after being outshot 59-29. The Sharks will hope for a repeat performance in Game 7 on Tuesday in San Jose.
TORONTO - Around the halfway point of Game 6 on Easter Sunday, Boston Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy looked up at the scoreboard hanging over the red line at Scotiabank Arena.
A giant eight - denoting the Maple Leafs' shot count - stared back.
The single digit confirmed to Cassidy what his eyes were leading him to believe: The Bruins were in complete control and it would be the series-leading Leafs - not the team facing elimination - needing to rediscover their offense in a hurry.
“When they get their shot attempts, their shots on net, they’re really humming,” Cassidy said of the Leafs, relaying his mid-game thought process. “So I thought, ‘Listen, we’re on our way now.’”
Claus Andersen / Getty Images
The Bruins, up 3-1 then, finished off the second period strong, withstanding a push from the Leafs in the third to earn a 4-2 victory. The teams have alternated wins through six games to send the first-round series back to Boston for a Tuesday night finale.
"Let's put on our surprise face. Game 7, TD Garden, Boston and Toronto," Cassidy quipped to wrap up his postgame press conference.
Then he rubbed his hands together and clapped. Cassidy is pumped, but Toronto - the city and the team - is decidedly not.
Despite opening the scoring on Sunday, the Leafs again whiffed on their attempt to advance to the second round. The last time the Original Six franchise won a series, back in 2004, Pat Quinn was behind the bench. Up next for the current coach: Slaying those ugly Game 7 demons.
“We started really well, we played really well and then, boom,” Mike Babcock said. “Once they scored, we didn't recover very good. We talked about it and prepared for it, but it didn't happen.”
A sleepy stretch against a talented Bruins team that doesn't back down from a challenge wasted exceptional showings from goalie Frederik Andersen (37 saves) and blue-liner Morgan Rielly (one goal, six shots).
For the Bruins, five players - Torey Krug and Brandon Carlo on the back end, Jake DeBrusk and Brad Marchand up front, and Tuukka Rask between the pipes - registered notable performances, and the team limited Toronto’s potent attack.
Mark Blinch / Getty Images
In Game 6, the Leafs generated just 54 shot attempts, 24 shots on goal, and 26 scoring chances. In the five games prior, they averaged 62 attempts, 33 shots, and 32 chances per game, according to NaturalStatTrick.com. Keep in mind, those early-series numbers were deflated by a low-event Game 5.
The Leafs couldn’t find much space to operate for large chunks of a crucial game.
“I think today we did a really good job containing those stretch passes that were getting behind us (earlier in the series),” said Carlo, who skated for nearly 24 minutes. "The D had good gaps, forwards were great on the forecheck, and we didn’t really allow them to get behind us too much."
"When you don’t let them get into the offensive zone too much it silences the crowd and the team," he added.
On the other side of the puck, the Bruins’ power play continued to soar. Ranked third in the regular season, the unit hasn’t missed a beat through six playoff games, scoring at least once in every contest but Game 5. Overall, Boston has capitalized on seven of 16 power-play opportunities in the series.
Rick Madonik / Getty Images
On Sunday, as Toronto adjusted its penalty kill to collapse in front of Andersen, Marchand scored off a Patrice Bergeron faceoff win to make it 1-1. Six minutes later, Krug pounced on a blocked shot and buried a wrister.
“He really stepped up tonight, shot the puck a little more,” Cassidy said of Krug, who recorded a game-high nine shots. “We talked about getting some more traffic, some more action at the net, and I thought we did a good job with that. He sort of set the precedent.”
A precedent is there for Game 7, too, after the Leafs lost the deciding game of Round 1 last year in Boston. So, who has the mental edge after Game 6?
“I don’t know," Krug said. "I mean, it’s Game 7, anything can happen. That’s a question you’ll have to ask over there, in their locker room.”
Over to you, Leafs.
John Matisz is theScore's National Hockey Writer. You can find him on Twitter @matiszjohn or shoot him a note at john.matisz@thescore.com.
The Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs will settle their series Tuesday night at TD Garden in Game 7, but some Bruins players aren't as thrilled about heading home as one might expect.
"They've played really well in our building so far this series and the ice has been terrible there so we might as well play with a tennis ball, skate around and see who can bounce one in the net," Brad Marchand told NHL.com's Dave McCarthy after Boston's Game 6 win in Toronto on Sunday.
Home ice hasn't been an advantage in this series, as each team has won two of its three games on the road.
Marchand's rant about ice quality didn't end there. After Sunday's game, he said the ice was much better in Toronto.
Marchand wasn't the only Bruin voicing his displeasure with TD Garden's ice.
"Sometimes the ice is good or bad," Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy told the Boston Herald's Marisa Ingemi. "It's not like you can get an unfortunate bounce and they blow it dead and say it wasn't fair."
Opposing players are noticing the poor ice quality in Boston, too. Maple Leafs forwards John Tavares and Kasperi Kapanen have both noted the issue throughout the series, and head coach Mike Babcock said "the ice was tough," after Game 5, according to TSN's Mark Masters.
TD Garden, which houses both the Bruins and the NBA's Boston Celtics, is the league's ninth-oldest building after opening in 1995.
