Deryk Engelland isn't exactly the Calgary Flames' marquee offensive talent, but the veteran rearguard stepped up his game with a gorgeous assist during Tuesday night's tilt with the Washington Capitals.
Engelland's spinning feed led to a Troy Brouwer goal, marking his 11th assist of the season, and Brouwer's 11th goal.
Taylor Hall picked up one of the prettier goals of his season on Tuesday night.
The New Jersey Devils forward gave his club a 2-1 advantage over the New York Rangers in the second period when - after corralling a pass from Kyle Palmieri - Hall fired a perfectly-placed wrist shot over the blocking glove of Antti Raanta, all while falling to the ice.
The goal was Hall's 18th of the season and gives him six points in his last six games.
That might not sound too surprising, but the Washington Capitals winger's 30th of the season - scored Tuesday night against the Calgary Flames - in fact marked the first time he's ever reached that plateau.
Oshie's career-best tally came off a brilliant play started by Nicklas Backstrom and finishing with an Alex Ovechkin cross-ice feed to No. 77 in front of the net.
With every passing day, the Las Vegas Golden Knights inch closer to playing their first NHL game.
With his team set to take the ice next season, and the expansion draft on the horizon, general manager George McPhee held court with season-ticket holders Monday, writes the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Steve Carp, and talked shop on a number of fronts.
Team funds
"Money's not a problem," McPhee said.
The club's doing its due diligence with respect to scouting and free agency, and will spend what it needs to spend in order to ice a competitive hockey team.
"Our owner, Bill Foley, is not afraid to spend to get the right player, and it's our job to identify who those players are."
Head coach
Vegas plans to hire its head coach after the regular season, McPhee said. The last day of the schedule is Sunday, April 9, with the playoffs beginning Wednesday, April 12.
"We want someone who is very current with the game, someone progressive on how the game should be played."
Jerseys
McPhee said the Golden Knights expect to unveil their jerseys in June, and that they'll be available for purchase ahead of the expansion draft.
Advanced stats
Count the Golden Knights as believers in analytics. McPhee said the club will use every tool at its disposal to put the best team on the ice, including advanced stats, in the hopes of striking the perfect team-building balance.
AHL affiliate
While it hasn't been confirmed, it's expected the AHL's Chicago Wolves will serve as Vegas' affiliate beginning next season. An announcement is expected next month.
"We're in a good place with our (AHL) club," he said.
Sidney Crosby scored arguably one of the finest goals of his incredible career Tuesday night against the Buffalo Sabres.
No. 87 went end to end, slicing through four different Sabres, before using a one-handed backhand to record his 41st of the season behind poor Robin Lehner, who could never have imagined that kind of abuse.
Here's the goal:
Twitter lost its damn mind, all the adjectives were flying, because as much as we talk about Crosby, Connor McDavid, Brad Marchand, and Patrick Kane and the races for the Art Ross and Hart trophies, we were reminded once again Tuesday that there is Crosby and then there's everyone else.
The best player on earth and Pittsburgh Penguins captain was at it again Tuesday, going end to end against Buffalo, cutting through four Sabres, before casually one-handing a backhand past Robin Lehner for his 41st goal of the season.
Like, come on.
The beauty of Crosby, all these years later, is that he still has the ability to surprise. What a talent.
The play came midway through the first period, as Ristolainen laid out the young Penguins winger while the latter skated without the puck, with his head turned.
Guentzel was bloodied by the hit, stumbling as he attempted to leave the ice. Ristolainen was given a five-minute interference major for the incident, as well as a 10-minute game misconduct.
With the 2017 NHL postseason just weeks away, an interesting imbalance has crept up among the league's top clubs.
In both conferences, offenses have turned out to be significantly lopsided, with the top three playoff-bound clubs from one division outscoring all three teams from the other.
Just take a look at the West. On one side, the Chicago Blackhawks, Minnesota Wild, and Nashville Predators - the Central Division's top three - all have at least 212 goals, while not even the top scorer in the Pacific Division has reached that minimum mark:
This isn't simply an annual occurrence given how the league is set up. Last season, the offensive production was far more mixed - the top team in the Atlantic would have ranked third among Metropolitan goal-scorers, while two of the Pacific's top three teams outscored two of the Central's. The 2014-15 campaign shows a similarly mixed output within each conference.
It seems 2016-17 has just been a strange one.
Needless to say, that discrepancy doesn't bode well for the playoff hopefuls from the Pacific and Atlantic divisions. They'll be spared in the first two rounds, as none of these top-three clubs will face their counterparts from their conference's other division (the second- and third-ranked teams will face each other, while the division champ will get a wild-card opponent).
But things should get interesting come conference finals time.
For example, whoever emerges from the pile of Washington versus their wild-card draw, and Pittsburgh versus Columbus, will match up against the best of Montreal, Ottawa, Boston, and the other wild-card club - a daunting task to say the least.
However, interestingly, this divisional discrepancy could favor one wild card team in particular.
(Photo courtesy: Action Images)
The New York Rangers hold the first eastern wild card spot, and - in seemingly typical Metro fashion - have crushed the Atlantic's wild-card team (the Toronto Maple Leafs) by netting 15 more goals. In fact, New York's 231 goals rank higher than even Washington or Columbus.
If the playoffs started today, the Rangers would enter the mix on the Atlantic's side of things, giving Montreal a taste of the Metro's offensive prowess as early as Round 1 - potentially an easier postseason path for New York.
There are certainly no guarantees, and it takes far more than prolific goal-scoring to march through the playoffs, but it's clear this season's lopsided offense should throw an interesting wrench into the postseason.
And the two divisions on the lower end of this goal-scoring imbalance won't have much ground to stand on in terms of hoping those highly offensive clubs are lacking in defensive play.
A quick look at the starting netminders for the top Metropolitan and Central teams should do away with that thought fairly quickly - all but one of them (Nashville's Pekka Rinne) boast save percentages ranking in the league's top 10.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman continues to sing a somber tune.
Bettman spoke at the Sport Business Summit in New York on Tuesday where he echoed the sentiment that as things stand it is looking more and more like NHLers will not be participating at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
"There are no negotiations ongoing," Bettman said, according to Steve Keating of Reuters. "We were open to having discussions on a variety of things that might mitigate the damage to our season but that had no resonance.
"As things stand now people should assume we are not going."
Bettman reiterated the fact that the league would have to shut down its season for two weeks in February if it were to allow players to participate in the games. He also remained adamant that the league would not benefit from doing so.
"Remember, this is February, there is no baseball, no football, it is just us and basketball and we just disappear," said Bettman. "We don't get content for the NHL Network, we don't get content for our social media platforms and NHL.com.
"Why did we do it five times? Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time but we have been unable to quantify any benefit from it."
It should be noted that no formal decision has been made and as it stands no hard deadline for a final decision exists.
The 31-year-old scored a late power-play marker that propelled the Toronto Maple Leafs to a crucial 4-2 victory, and, more importantly, helped the club complete a series sweep of the Boston Bruins.
The win helped the Maple Leafs inch within a point of the Bruins for third place in the Atlantic Division, and was just another example of Bozak's importance to the team.
He has long been considered Toronto's best faceoff man. So the fact that his 56.27 percent success rate is by far the best mark on the team, and makes him one of just two Maple Leafs centers to possess a success rate of 50 percent or better, should come as no surprise.
Then there are his offensive contributions.
This year, the media frenzy caused by the Maple Leafs' rookie class has allowed Bozak to fly under the radar. While it hasn't been a topic of discussion, the longtime Maple Leaf is in the midst of a career season.
He's just three goals away from hitting the 20-goal mark for the second time in his eight-year career, a point away from tying his previous career high, and two power-play points back of his career best, and his 31 assists are his highest single-season total.
What also shouldn't be forgotten is how vital Bozak has been to rookie Mitch Marner's development. He has seemingly taken Marner under his wing, and has assisted on 11 of the 19-year-old's 17 goals.
Factor all this in with his friendly $4.2-million cap hit this season and next, and you can appreciate the Maple Leafs' return on investment.
Bozak is the longest-tenured member of the team, having dressed in 502 games since joining the league during the 2009-10 season. His 124 goals and 315 points during that span rank second only to Phil Kessel.
He has been through some tough days in Toronto, and, at times, has received criticism for failing to live up to the standard set by many of the league's top centermen, but he continues to trek on.
The Maple Leafs are on the cusp of just their second postseason appearance in the salary-cap era, and it goes without saying that much of the credit is due to Bozak.
