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.
Giordano enjoyed the best year of his career in his age-35 season. He finished second among all defensemen with 74 points and led the league with a plus-39 rating.
Burns once again provided forward-like production from the blue line, leading all rearguards with 83 points. It's the highest point total from a defenseman since Brian Leetch's 85 points in 1995-96.
Hedman missed 12 games due to injury this season but still managed to collect 54 points. The 6-foot-6 Swede was an invaluable member of the Lightning during their historic regular season.
Winnipeg Jets captain Blake Wheeler had no time for a reporter who implied his team may not have been at its best after being eliminated from the playoffs by the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night.
Wheeler reeled it in after telling the reporter to "f--- off," adding that the Stanley Cup "is a tough trophy to win" and perhaps the Jets' best effort "just wasn't good enough."
Winnipeg bowed out of the postseason with a 3-2 loss in Game 6 in St. Louis, the first road loss by either team in the series. The club's exit in Round 1 comes a year after reaching the Western Conference Final in 2018.
Wheeler recorded five points during his short six-game stint in the 2019 playoffs.
