The final homestand of the regular season continues on Saturday for the Florida Panthers.

So far, Florida has reeled off a pair of victories against two solid clubs, the Atlantic Division-leading Toronto Maple Leafs and playoff hopeful (but not likely) Detroit Red Wings.

Now the Cats will prepare to face a Buffalo Sabres squad that, while already eliminated from playoff contention, has been playing their best hockey of the season.

Buffalo’s loss in Columbus on Thursday snapped a season-best five-game winning streak. The Sabres are 8-2-0 over their past 10, with both defeats coming on the road.

In fact, Buffalo’s last six losses have all come away from home. Their last loss on home ice was all the way back on March 4.

It was a hell of a run that pulled the Sabres out of the Eastern Conference basement and pulled them in with the teams on the outside of the playoff race.

The effort will end up being filed in the too little, too late department, but perhaps the young Sabres will be able to use their strong finish to show up in the fall with a more inspired start to next season.

Surely a win against the defending Stanley Cup Champions would help fuel that kind of mindset, but the Panthers are also playing well of late.

Despite only winning their past two, Florida Head Coach Paul Maurice has made it clear that he’s been pleased with how his team has been performing over the past several weeks.

That should be particularly pleasing for Panthers fans due to the amount of players in and out of the lineup lately.

Don’t be surprised to see that kind of roster management continue as Maurice has said he’s prioritizing getting his team healthy for the playoffs.

Additionally, Florida closes out the regular season with three games in four nights, so load management should be expected.

Here are the Panthers projected lines and pairings for Thursday's dustup with Detroit:

Carter Verhaeghe – Sasha Barkov – Sam Reinhart

Eetu Luostarinen – Anton Lundell – Brad Marchand

Mackie Samoskevich – Tomas Nosek – Evan Rodrigues

A.J. Greer – Nico Sturm – Jesper Boqvist

Gus Forsling – Nate Schmidt

Niko Mikkola – Seth Jones

Jaycob Megna – Uvis Balinskis

Scratches: Sam Bennett, Jonah Gadjovich, Jesse Puljujarvi, Dmitry Kulikov, Rasmus Asplund, Matt Kiersted

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The San Jose Sharks skated as well as they could with the Edmonton Oilers but lost their eighth straight game 4-2 on Friday night.

Edmonton lost Mattias Ekholm and Zach Hyman to injuries during the game. Evan Bouchard, Ty Emberson, Connor Brown and Corey Perry scored for the Oilers, and Connor McDavid had four assists. Calvin Pickard made 22 saves.

Will Smith scored his fifth goal in the last five games, and Henry Thrun scored for the Sharks. Jan Rutta returned from a 27-game injury absence, and Georgi Romanov made 30 saves.

San Jose's penalty troubles failed them once again as they gave up two power-play goals and took five penalties overall.

Bouchard gave the Oilers a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 6:47 of the first period.

Bouch be bombin' 💣 #LetsGoOilerspic.twitter.com/iiG04zVOmy

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) April 12, 2025

Emberson made it a 2-0 lead with a goal against his former team at 15:41.

Edmonton goal!

Scored by Ty Emberson with 04:19 remaining in the 1st period.

Assisted by Connor McDavid and Evan Bouchard.

Edmonton: 2
San Jose: 0#SJSvsEDM#LetsGoOilers#TheFutureIsTealpic.twitter.com/j21g8Rue1A

— NHL Goals (@nhl_goal_bot) April 12, 2025

Smith cuts the lead in half with a wrist-shot through Pickard at 17:13.

Beautiful, beautiful play. 👌 pic.twitter.com/tQESNCzz7J

— San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) April 12, 2025

Thrun throws a puck to the front, and the puck deflects off Darnell Nurse and into the net at 5:42 of the second period to make it 2-2.

Put it to the net and good things happen. 👏#TheFutureIsTealpic.twitter.com/sZ309MEwJd

— San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) April 12, 2025

Perry's power-play goal at 7:32 of the third period gave the Oilers a 3-2 lead.

17 for Scorey 🪱 #LetsGoOilerspic.twitter.com/GzeX7df2Tx

— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) April 12, 2025

Brown added an empty net goal with 25.5 seconds left to close it out.

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The Ottawa Senators were in full prevention mode on Friday night. They prevented the Montreal Canadiens from extending their six-game winning streak, from clinching a playoff spot, and from sweeping their season series four straight.

With the building half full of Canadiens fans, it was a satisfying result for the Ottawa faithful. 

The Senators defeated the Canadiens 5–2 at Canadian Tire Centre. Shane Pinto led the way with a goal to open the game and another to end it.

"Yeah, I thought we just got on them quick," Pinto told the media. "We got behind them, forechecked their D. I think that's been our M.O. all year and got 2 quick goals from it and it obviously set us up for a pretty good game."

The Senators outshot the Canadiens 33–22 on the night. The other goals came from Ridly Greig, Dylan Cozens and Drake Batherson. Michael Amadio had two assists.

The Senators got busy early in this one—just 28 seconds into the game. Pinto parked himself in front of Montreal's net and buried a nice centering pass from Greig. Both Greig and Amadio did some great forechecking to set up the opportunity. That line was outstanding all night.

Less than four minutes later, Cozens scored his first goal in 10 games, going hard to the net and burying a rebound after a shot from the point by Nikolas Matinpalo.

At that stage of the game, Brendan Gallagher decided it was a good time to settle old scores with Tim Stützle, whom he once very publicly accused of diving. The 5-foot-9 Gallagher tried to goad Stützle into a fight, but the young German wasn't having it. For his antics, Gallagher did nothing more than force his teammates to kill off a penalty.

The Sens struck again in the second. This time it was Greig parked in front of Montreal’s net. He took a pass from Amadio and buried it to make it 3–0 Ottawa.

The Senators, however, had a hard time making a three-goal lead stick on this night. Just over a minute later, Christian Dvorak got the Canadiens on the board. Tyler Kleven got too aggressive, pinching in the neutral zone while his partner, Matinpalo, was going off for a change. Dvorak took advantage, got a breakaway pass, and beat Linus Ullmark.

Batherson restored the lead, tipping home a shot from Thomas Chabot—but it was short-lived. Nick Suzuki picked up a loose puck in the slot after it was mishandled by Matinpalo. Suzuki, with 12 points in his last six games, was the wrong guy to give the right chance. He beat Ullmark to cut the lead to 4–2.

Ottawa didn’t get much offensive zone time in the third, but they also did a good job of limiting any chances around Ullmark. The Habs had just 4 shots in the final period.

With the goalie pulled, Lane Hutson sent an errant pass to the front of Ottawa’s net, right onto Nick Jensen’s stick. Jensen banked a long lead pass off the boards that Pinto caught up to and buried into an empty net for the dagger—ensuring Montreal would not clinch a playoff spot on this night, nor would they sweep the Senators this season.

The victory all but clinches the first wild-card spot for the Senators, who are now five points ahead of the Canadiens with just three games left. Ottawa’s next game will be Sunday afternoon at 1:00 PM, as they host the Philadelphia Flyers at Canadian Tire Centre.

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NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin each had a goal and an assist as the Pittsburgh Penguins rallied from two goals down and beat the New Jersey Devils 4-2 on Friday night.

Bryan Rust also had a goal and an assist, Valtteri Puustinen also scored and Matt Grzelcyk had two assists for the Penguins. Tristan Jarry finished with 27 saves as Pittsburgh won for the third time in four games.

Erik Haula and Ondrej Palat scored for the Devils, and Jake Allen had 17 saves. The Devils have lost two straight after a three-game win streak.

Haula got the Devils on the scoreboard on a breakaway just 15 seconds into the game, and Palat made it 2-0 at 6:17.

Malkin scored for the Penguins with 3:50 remaining in the first, his 30th career goal against the Devils. It was also No. 514 for his career, passing Jeremy Roenick for 42nd place in NHL history.

Puustinen tied it with a power-play goal at 1:05 of the second, Crosby’s power-play goal with 6:39 to play in the third put the Penguins ahead, and Rust added an empty-netter with 36 seconds remaining.

Takeaways

Penguins: Pittsburgh went 2 for 4 on the power play, scoring with the man advantage for the sixth straight game — the team’s longest streak since a 10-game run in 2022.

Devils: New Jersey entered the game third in the NHL on the power play, but went 0 for 3 while managing just four shots in those chances.

Key moment

Crosby gave the Penguis the lead in the third period as he scored his 32nd goal of the season from one knee after he took a pass from Rust at the right post, where he was unguarded.

Key stat

Jarry stopped 19 straight shots after giving up two goals in the first period.

Up next

Penguins host Boston on Sunday, and Devils host the New York Islanders to finish a five-game homestand.

Against the Boston Bruins on Thursday night, the Chicago Blackhawks dressed six defenseman who are all 23 years old or younger. Louis Crevier, 23, was the oldest player to play defense for Chicago in this one. 

The Frozen Four semi-finals were going on at the same time as this game. One of the teams, Western Michigan, dressed six defenseman who had an older average age than the Blackhawks had vs the Bruins. The commitment to youth is on full display for Chicago. 

One of the defenseman in the lineup, Sam Rinzel, is playing well beyond his years. He is one of the 20-year-olds that the Hawks had on defense. You'd think that he would be one of the guys sheltered on the third pair, but he was the number one for the entire game. 

Rinzel had an assist, but it was more of his defensive work that was noticeable. He can make an impact with his play in all three zones. In his sixth NHL game, he led the Blackhawks in ice time by playing 24:54.

That is almost three minutes more than Alex Vlasic who played 22:07 which was the second most on the team. Vlasic has been this team's number one all year long until Rinzel came around. Now, they form a wonderful pair that Anders Sorensen is comfortable putting in any situation.

Rinzel had flashes of this when he was at the University of Minnesota but you never know if it is going to translate at the game's highest level. It did for Rinzel and it only took a couple of weeks. 

How is Rinzel going to be when he's 25-28 years old? It's scary to think about the level of impact that he could make when he is in the prime of his career.

After the game, a 5-2 victory for the Blackhawks over the Bruins, interim head coach Anders Sorensen spoke highly of his young defense unit dressed in that game.

 “Give them a lot of credit,” Sorensen said when asked about them being so young together. He knows it can be difficult to be impactful at this level with such a limited amount of experience. 

“Yeah, that’s a young D-core," Sorenson continued on his group. "I think they held together well. It’s not easy to come in here and play against [Pastrnak] and some of these guys. They did a good job, they hung in there”. 

There is a lot of growth still coming with this group. They won't continue to dress six defensemen under 23, but a good veteran or two will help them grow. 

The fact that Sam Rinzel is already capable of leading a blue line in the NHL speaks volumes about how well he can play. His ability to shut down the opposition and make waves in the offensive zone is the best on the team at this time. 

If Levshunov can match Rinzel's level of play, they will be a force to be reckoned with. Tons of other young defensemen are right there with them in the organization. Good times are ahead for Chicago. 

Visit The Hockey News Chicago Blackhawks team site to stay updated on the latest news, game-day coverage, player features, and more.

The Pittsburgh Penguins are heading into Newark, New Jersey with a bit of a different look for their forward group.

After some season-ending injuries for a group of forwards - including Noel Acciari, Blake Lizotte, Matt Nieto, Tommy Novak, and Rutger McGroarty - the Penguins will turn to younger faces who have been up and down between the NHL and AHL levels this season.

Forwards Vasily Ponomarev, Emil Bemstrom, and Valtteri Puustinen were recalled from Wilkes-Barre/Scranton (WBS) - Pittsburgh's AHL affiliate - on Friday, and they all figure to slot into the lineup when the Penguins square off against the New Jersey Devils on Friday.

Ponomarev sees the value in his time spent in the AHL, and he looks forward to the opportunity to show that players can transition well to the NHL from that level.

"I just want to show that the AHL is a good league where you can develop and turn into an NHL player," Ponomarev said.

Head coach Mike Sullivan wants to see Ponomarev play to his strengths, which includes a simplistic, energy-driven game. 

"We just want him to bring the game that sets him up for success," Sullivan said. "He's a good energy guy. I think has the potential to be tough to play against, he's gritty, he's an effort-driven guy, and when he plays with energy, plays a simple, smart game, I think he can be an effective player."

Tristan Jarry will get the start in goal. Here is the rest of the lineup for the Penguins:

Ville Koivunen - Sidney Crosby - Bryan Rust
Danton Heinen - Evgeni Malkin - Rickard Rakell
Connor Dewar - Kevin Hayes - Valtteri Puustinen 
Joona Koppanen - Vasily Ponomarev - Emil Bemstrom

Matt Grzelcyk - Kris Letang 
Conor Timmins - Erik Karlsson
Ryan Graves - Ryan Shea

Even In Passing, Shero Leaves Legacy On Penguins OrganizationIt's hard to talk about the Sidney Crosby-era Pittsburgh Penguins without talking about former general manager Ray Shero.

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The Devils have clinched a postseason berth after missing last season with a heavily depleted roster, and they currently sit third in Metropolitan Division behind the Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes. They are 5-4-1 in their last 10 games, which have been without star forward Jack Hughes and top defenseman Dougie Hamilton, both out for the rest of the regular season.

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The path to the Buffalo Sabres for Zach Benson has been similar to many of the club’s high draft picks, with limited or no time in the minors before being pressed into duty in the NHL. The talented and speedy winger played in a depth role as an 18-year-old, and late in his second season with the Sabres, he is making up for his lack of stature with a high level of effort.

"(Zach) he's always around the net making plays and doing his thing, winning battles," Sabres forward Peyton Krebs said of Benson late last month. "It's good to see. That's how we want to build guys coming into our organization with those foundational details and if we continue to do that, we're going to have success."

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Benson took advantage of an injury to Matthew Savoie at the Sabres 2023 development camp and impressed enough in the pre-season to make the club and burn the first year of his entry-level contract instead of returning him to Wenatchee of the Western Hockey League. His rookie season was streaky, but the youngster ended up with 30 points (11 goals, 19 assists), playing mostly in a third and fourth line role.

The Chilliwack, BC native filled a similar role, drifting up and down the lineup until last month, when Sabres head coach Lindy Ruff placed Benson on the top line with rookie Jiri Kulich and leading scorer Tage Thompson. In spite of being goalless in 13 games, the 19-year-old has been effective at being a facilitator and doing some of the dirty work down low against bigger players and helped Buffalo in their recent success.

"I think his tenacity on the puck. He's a little rat. I love the way he plays. He's hard working. He moves his feet. Doesn't matter the size of the guy, he's going against, he's going to come out with the puck," Thompson said. "When I'm playing with him, I just try to put it in areas where he's going to be able to get it...... He's got really good hands and vision. So pair that with his work ethic, he's a lot of fun to play with."

Follow Michael on X, Instagram, and Bluesky @MikeInBuffalo

The Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens – the two Eastern Conference Wild Card holders who've been cranky with each other all season – will face off on Friday night at Canadian Tire Centre in a game with heavy playoff implications.

A regulation win would secure the Canadiens' first playoff berth since 2021, the year they made a surprising run to the Stanley Cup Final. But there’s more than just their ticket to the postseason on the line: Montreal also has a chance to gain ground on the Sens, who hold a three-point lead on the Canadiens for the top wild card spot in the East.

A good chunk of both fan bases is buzzing about the idea and entertainment value of a first-round showdown against the Toronto Maple Leafs, and Friday’s outcome could bring the winner closer to that. 

A win for Ottawa would pretty much nail down the top Wild Card spot, extending their lead over Montreal to five points with three to play. It would also prevent the Canadiens from completing a season sweep of the Senators, who have dropped the first three meetings between the two clubs.

Sens centre Shane Pinto was unable to pinpoint why the Canadiens have played them so well this season, describing their 0-3 record against them as "annoying."

"Yeah, they're a good team with a lot of skill players," Pinto told the media on Friday.  "Every game we play against them, I feel like it's been highly competitive, and it's a bit of a rivalry. But they're just a good team. I feel like they play us well, and hopefully, we turn those tables and get a win. But no specific reason. I think they've just kind of had our number this year, but hopefully, that changes tonight."

Ottawa will once again be without captain Brady Tkachuk, who's sidelined with an injury suffered nearly two weeks ago in Pittsburgh. On Thursday, he said he expected to resume skating on Friday. If he did, it wasn't at Friday’s optional skate. 

The Senators are still without forward Nick Cousins, who hasn’t played since January. Cousins practiced fully for a second straight day without the non-contact jersey, but the team says he won’t dress for Friday’s game.

At the last full practice on Thursday, head coach Travis Green gave his top two forward lines a hard reboot, but wouldn't commit the same combos against the Habs.

Tim Stutzle centred one line with David Perron and Drake Batherson, while Dylan Cozens slotted in on the second line alongside Claude Giroux and Fabian Zetterlund. The third and fourth lines remained unchanged, with Shane Pinto centering Ridly Greig and Michael Amadio, and Adam Gaudette likely to skate with Matthew Highmore and Angus Crookshank.

"I wouldn't read too much into (the changes)," Green cautioned after Thursday's practice. "Timmy and Drake played together before in the past. They played the other night together after the first (in Columbus).

Cozens, acquired at the trade deadline, got off to a strong start in Ottawa with eight points in his first nine games, but his production has cooled in the past two weeks—he has just two assists in his last eight appearances. 

Jake Sanderson has now recorded points in each of his last six home games. He’s now one game away from becoming just the third defenseman in franchise history to register a seven-game point streak on home ice, joining Erik Karlsson (eight games) and Filip Kuba (nine).

Montreal, meanwhile, continues to surge at the right time. Nick Suzuki has helped lead the way with six goals and 12 points in the past six games.

Adding to the excitement in Montreal these days is the late season arrival of KHL star Ivan Demidov, Montreal’s first-round pick in the 2024 Draft. While he is expected to join the Canadiens before the end of the regular season, his NHL debut will not be on Friday in Ottawa. 

Puck drop is set for 7:00 p.m. (RDS, SNE, SNO, SNW).

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