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.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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USA Hockey's deadline elapsed without any backtracking from the national women's team, and the players' stance hasn't changed.

The governing body of American hockey gave the female players a 5 p.m. ET deadline Thursday to revoke their plan to boycott the upcoming World Championship unless significant headway is made in negotiations over wages.

"We were aware of USA Hockey's deadline and have allowed it to pass," the U.S. women's national hockey team said in a statement, according to ESPN's Craig Custance.

"We are focused on the issue of equitable support and stand by our position. We continue to be grateful for the encouragement and loyalty of our fans."

The players' attorney, John Langel, echoed that sentiment, telling The Associated Press' Stephen Whyno that his clients are "resolute in their focus on equitable support."

USA Hockey spokesman Dave Fischer told veteran reporter Philip Hersh that the deadline was "never meant to be (a) line in (the) sand," adding that "efforts will continue to come to (a) resolution so players we have selected can play."

Training camp for the World Championship begins Tuesday in Plymouth, Mich., and the tournament itself starts March 31.

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Three American Washington Capitals defensemen with international experience say they don't disagree with the U.S. national women's team's decision to threaten a boycott over what they claim are unfair wages.

"I respect it," Capitals defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk told ESPN's Scott Burnside. "I think it takes a lot of courage to make that sort of stand. And I've known some of those girls for a little while now from my (Boston University) days training in the summers with them and seeing them at Olympics."

The U.S. women, including team captain Meghan Duggan and veteran Hilary Knight, announced Wednesday they plan to boycott the World Championship - for which training camp begins next week - if stalled negotiations over compensation don't progress significantly beforehand.

Related: Hilary Knight: 'I kind of dare' USA Hockey to go to worlds without us

"Those girls have a full plate, year-round, with what they do," Shattenkirk said. "For them to ask for better pay and substantial pay for all the sacrifice that they give to the program, I think is valid and it's warranted."

USA Hockey set a 5 p.m. ET deadline Thursday for the women's team to revoke its boycott threat, according to The Canadian Press.

The governing body issued a statement Wednesday in response to the threat, citing the support it already provides and claiming each player could earn up to $85,000 in stipends and medal bonuses at the 2018 Olympics, but Duggan called that claim "misleading and dishonest," denying the offer was ever made.

John Carlson believes the women are entitled to more financial support than they're receiving and acknowledged their struggle is entirely different from that of the men.

"They deserve every bit of everything they get and probably a lot more because they've been awesome competitors and it's a whole different landscape that they have to deal with," he said.

Brooks Orpik agreed with his U.S. compatriots and Capitals teammates, particularly on the point that they can't fully relate to what the female players are up against.

"It's tough for us to know exactly what situation they're in financially but knowing what most of the salaries are in that (women's) league, asking for a little bit more than what they're supposedly getting doesn't seem unreasonable to me."

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