Are you not entertained?

On Monday, the final multi-game night of the NHL season, the hockey world was gifted a pair of captivating Game 6s - the Boston Bruins' series-clinching 3-0 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Colorado Avalanche's 4-3 overtime victory over the San Jose Sharks to force Game 7.

Based on the final scores, those teams are Monday's winners and losers. At a personal level, though, who won and lost? Let's take a look.

Winner: David Backes

Backes is 36 years old. He'll make $6 million per season through 2020-21.

Usually, this is a problem for the Bruins. Despite being paid like a first-liner, Backes is a non-factor on most nights. The big winger is typically unable to keep up with the league's abundance of speed and skill, or he's dealing with an injury, or both.

But none of that mattered Monday, because Backes - who cracked coach Bruce Cassidy's lineup for only the third time in six games against Columbus - scored Boston's third goal in front of 19,219 rivals fans at Nationwide Arena. And while the veteran skated for fewer than nine minutes in the contest, he managed to make his presence felt on virtually every shift.

Everybody loves a redemption story - in this case, a previously solid player finding solid footing again. Even if it's just for one night.

Winner AND loser: Charlie McAvoy

McAvoy delivered a high hit on Jackets forward Josh Anderson at the end of the second period, but was sentenced to just two minutes in the box for an illegal check to the head. The on-ice officials chose to not hand out a match penalty and didn’t have the authority to issue a five-minute major or a game misconduct, according to Rule 48 guidelines.

Columbus didn't score on the ensuing power play, and Boston advanced to the third round. So, for the moment, McAvoy's a winner.

In a day or two, though? He'll probably be on the losing end of the incident.

The NHL's Department of Player Safety will strongly consider supplemental discipline, seeing as McAvoy's main point of contact was Anderson's head. The Bruins defenseman could very well be suspended for Game 1 against the Carolina Hurricanes.

(Speaking of Bruins stars behaving badly, what was that Marshawn Lynch impression from Brad Marchand all about?)

Winner: Jarmo Kekalainen

OK, this one requires a nuanced explanation.

Kekalainen is obviously unhappy with Monday’s result. The Blue Jackets GM wanted nothing less than a Stanley Cup, and his team is no longer in contention. He's not a winner in that sense.

However, he's absolutely a winner given the team's unlikely trip to Game 6 of the second round. The final contest will be a mere footnote in the grand scheme of things.

After all, Kekalainen essentially put his job on the line by holding onto Artemi Panarin and Sergei Bobrovsky - pending free agents who'd stated their intentions to test the market this coming summer - and acquiring assets ahead of the trade deadline.

Columbus wasn't guaranteed a playoff spot then, and didn’t punch its postseason ticket until the second-last day of the regular season. The Jackets could have easily missed it altogether, but instead they swept juggernaut Tampa Bay to mark the franchise's first-ever series win before pushing Boston to six games.

The trades for Ryan Dzingel, Adam McQuaid, and Keith Kinkaid didn’t work out, but the Matt Duchene swap certainly paid off. You can live with the whiffs when Duchene puts up 10 points in 10 postseason games.

Kekalainen energized the Central Ohio market with five playoff home dates. Even in defeat, he's been vindicated and - quite ironically, given the thin ice he stood on a few months ago - might be due for a promotion.

Loser: Sharks' 3rd line

San Jose's forward line of veteran Joe Thornton between Marcus Sorensen and Kevin Labanc had performed admirably this postseason, putting up a combined 17 points in 12 games coming into Game 6.

The trio's been coach Pete DeBoer's under-the-radar weapon for a few months and offers the bench boss another look on offense. Despite being 39 years old, Thornton drives a sneakily efficient unit.

Unfortunately for San Jose, Game 6 produced a whole lot of nothing for the line. In 10 minutes of five-on-five play, the group scored no goals and allowed one. Meanwhile, Labanc recorded the lone shot among the three skaters. It was arguably their worst showing of the playoffs.

That's what you call getting neutralized by the opposition.

Winner: J.T. Compher

Aside from Tuukka Rask's fine work in the Bruins' crease, Compher was the MVP of Monday's doubleheader. Quite simply, the dude came to play.

In 15 minutes of ice time, the 2013 second-rounder exploded, doubling his playoff point total overnight. Compher set up Tyson Jost for the opening goal and then sniped the Avalanche's second and third tallies. It was his second career three-point game. What's more, the right-handed center paced the club in five-on-five shot attempts differential, at a sleek 56 percent.

Coach Jared Bednar needs Compher and the rest of the Avalanche's bottom-nine forward group to chip in here and there. As always, Nathan MacKinnon was buzzing in Game 6, but his line can't carry the team every step of the way. The puck won't always go in for Colorado's big guns.

Wednesday's Game 7 is going to be an outright battle. The Avs, a young outfit, will need their secondary scorers to contribute. Compher included.

Loser: NHL officiating

It's going to happen ... isn't it?

The Stanley Cup Final is going to be decided on a dramatic call made by either the on-ice officials or the NHL's Situation Room.

That's a guess, of course. Yet, at this point, it feels like a perfectly fair prediction.

There have been reviews galore through nearly two rounds (and hey, better to get the call right slowly than wrong quickly, right?), which seem to be turning off a portion of the league's fan base.

Plus, we had the Cody-Eakin-on-Joe-Pavelski blunder in Game 7 of the Vegas-San Jose first-round series, and now the McAvoy-on-Anderson miscall in Game 6 of the Boston-Columbus matchup.

While the refs are human and make mistakes, the outside world is pretty cruel. And to be honest, can you blame it?

Golden Knights fans don't care that the NHL apologized for giving Eakin a five-minute major. Their team is out.

Jackets fans don't care that McAvoy might get suspended. Their team is out.

What will happen next? Hopefully nothing. Then again, based on how things are trending, don't bet on it.

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

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Warning: Story contains coarse language

John Tortorella wasn't ready to accentuate the positive after a season-ending loss to the Boston Bruins.

When a reporter pointed out that this is the furthest the Columbus Blue Jackets have ever gone in the playoffs and asked if there's a sense of accomplishment for their head coach, he made his feelings crystal clear.

"Don’t even go there," Tortorella said after suffering a 3-0 defeat in Game 6. "Don't even go there with me. I’m not going to listen to that shit about an accomplishment, 'you get to the second round,' I don't even want to listen to it."

Tortorella appeared to motion as if he was going to get up to leave when the reporter asked a follow-up wondering if it felt as empty as it did last year, when the Blue Jackets lost in the first round.

"I don't remember last year's feeling," the bench boss said.

Tortorella also declined to discuss Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy receiving a minor penalty for his hit to the head of Blue Jackets forward Josh Anderson, and called Game 6 Columbus' best of the series.

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Brad Marchand wasn't in the mood to talk after his Boston Bruins eliminated the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday night.

The Bruins forward gave a slew of brief responses in a postgame scrum.

The succinct session with reporters followed an equally terse on-ice exchange with Sportsnet's Kyle Bukauskas shortly after the game ended.

During the warmup before Game 2 of the series, Marchand skated away from Bukauskas after the reporter asked him, presumably in jest, if he managed to get his skate resharpened "after Thursday."

That was a reference to Marchand stomping on Blue Jackets forward Cam Atkinson's stick and breaking it in Game 1, as well as the ensuing war of words between the two players.

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Boston Bruins blue-liner Charlie McAvoy was assessed a minor penalty after hitting the Blue Jackets' Josh Anderson in the head on Monday night in Game 6, and he defended himself postgame.

"Hockey play," he said following the Bruins' 3-0 win that eliminated Columbus, according to Sportsnet's Chris Johnston. "Just trying to deliver a legal check."

Blue Jackets general manager Jarmo Kekalainen didn't seem to agree.

"I think the video on that hit was pretty self-explanatory," Kekalainen said, according to TSN's Frank Seravalli.

Columbus captain Nick Foligno initially called the hit "unnecessary," but then added he felt referee Kelly Sutherland made the right call to issue a minor penalty.

“You’d like to see it be five minutes, but we didn’t score on the power play and we didn’t score on the one after that,” Foligno said.

McAvoy hit Anderson in the head with 20 seconds left in the second period.

Anderson left the game but returned for the start of the third period.

The Bruins prevailed and are moving on to the Eastern Conference Final.

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The Boston Bruins eliminated the Columbus Blue Jackets and advanced to the Eastern Conference Final with a 3-0 victory in Game 6 of their second-round series Monday night.

Boston will face the Carolina Hurricanes in the next round.

This is the deepest the Bruins have gone in the playoffs since they lost to the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2013 Stanley Cup Final.

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Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy wasn't ejected for his high check on Columbus Blue Jackets forward Josh Anderson late in the second period of Game 6 on Monday night.

McAvoy was instead assessed a two-minute minor for a hit to the head.

Retired referee Kerry Fraser explained the decision officials faced.

Anderson left following the hit but returned for the third period.

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The Edmonton Oilers' reportedly imminent anointing of Ken Holland as general manager appears to be sitting well with their captain.

Connor McDavid is feeling "very positive" about the move and has a lot of "respect for Holland's experience and acumen," according to TSN's Ryan Rishaug, who reached out to the superstar's camp to gauge his reaction.

Rishaug reported late Sunday night that Holland had accepted the Oilers' offer and that the team was expected to make it official over the next few days.

Following a game in early April, McDavid made his feelings known about Edmonton missing the playoffs, calling his frustration level "really, really high."

With Holland as GM, the Detroit Red Wings failed to qualify for the postseason in each of the past three campaigns and have failed to advance beyond the first round since 2012-13.

However, before their current postseason drought, the Red Wings made the playoffs in every campaign since the 1997-98 season, when Holland was named Detroit's GM. They also won the Stanley Cup three times during that span.

The Oilers missed the playoffs this spring for the second straight year after reaching the second round in 2016-17.

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Kyle Dubas put any remaining speculation about Mike Babcock's future to rest on Monday.

The Toronto Maple Leafs general manager told TSN's Bob McKenzie that the head coach will be back with the team next season.

“We’re all in on Mike and Mike is all in on us," Dubas said. "We’ve had productive management meetings as an organization and Mike and I have had some really good meetings as well since the season ended. It’s our very strong belief Mike is the one to lead us. That’s the reality of it.”

The GM also acknowledged the team still has areas of concern to address, but he made it clear Babcock will be included in that process.

“There are things we need to improve upon," Dubas said. "There are things we need to do to adapt and evolve and continue to get better. As an organization, we believe we can do that together.”

The GM refrained from committing to Babcock or anyone else in the organization in his end-of-season comments last month.

In March, Babcock insisted there were no issues in his relationship with Dubas.

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