For the third time in his four-year NHL career, Connor McDavid won't take part in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
His Edmonton Oilers were mathematically eliminated from contention with a 3-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday night, and it left the 22-year-old captain with a sour taste in his mouth.
"It sucks obviously," McDavid said afterward. "It's not good enough all year. We let streaks drag on, times where we couldn't find ways to get wins drag on. You got to find a way to stop the bleeding quick. It's a slim margin of error in this league."
When asked about his frustration level, McDavid was crystal clear.
"It's really high. It's really, really high," he said. "It's frustrating. We want to play in the playoffs as a team. I personally want to play in the playoffs. I'm not happy about it. It's going to be a long summer."
After a playoff run that ended in Game 7 of the second round in 2017, the Oilers have produced a pair of listless campaigns. This season, the organization also replaced coach Todd McLellan with Ken Hitchcock and fired general manager Peter Chiarelli.
"It's been an insane season," McDavid added. "Coaching change, GM change. Good times and bad times. It's been a roller-coaster. It's been emotionally challenging. It's been hard mentally to keep on going, but we were always kind of right there. We were close and then we'd drift away. That's the way it goes."
For his part, McDavid has been sensational in 2018-19 with a career-high 115 points through 74 games. Linemate Leon Draisaitl has also recorded more than 100 points, but the Oilers still rank 20th in the NHL with 222 goals scored and 25th defensively with 261 against.
After Monday's loss, Edmonton sits 13th in the Western Conference at 77 points with three games remaining.
ST. LOUIS (AP) Ryan O'Reilly scored the only goal in a shootout and the St. Louis Blues slowed Colorado's playoff push with a 3-2 victory over the Avalanche on Monday night.
Trying to hold onto the final postseason spot in the Western Conference, the Avalanche had won four straight and were 6-0-1 in their previous seven games. They earned one point to move two ahead of Arizona for the second wild card in the West. Both teams have three games remaining.
Colorado is three points behind Dallas for the top wild card. By getting to 86 points, the Avalanche eliminated Edmonton from playoff contention.
Jaden Schwartz and Vladimir Tarasenko scored in regulation for the Blues, who improved to 7-1-0 in their last eight games. St. Louis has already wrapped up a playoff berth and still has a chance to win the Central Division.
Jordan Binnington made 24 saves in his 22nd win of the season, tying Jake Allen for the most by a Blues rookie goaltender.
Alexander Kerfoot and Gabriel Landeskog scored in the third period for the Avalanche.
O'Reilly scored on the Blues' second attempt in the shootout. Colorado missed all three of its shots.
St. Louis improved to 2-2 in shootouts this season. Colorado fell to 2-2.
The Avalanche outshot the Blues 3-2 in overtime. For the game, St. Louis outshot Colorado 27-26.
Colorado goalie Philipp Grubauer had 25 saves.
The Avalanche tied it late in the third when Kerfoot scored at 19:13. Colorado had an extra man on the ice as Grubauer was pulled with 2:16 to play in the period. Kerfoot redirected in a shot from Landeskog, who scored earlier in the period.
Schwartz scored in the first period and Tarasenko scored early in the third for St. Louis.
Schwartz took a cross-ice pass from Oskar Sundqvist and tipped it in at 7:07 of the first period. It was the first goal in six games for Schwartz.
That goal made up for one that was taken away earlier. Tyler Bozak scored 1:40 into the game but the goal was disallowed. Bozak was ruled offside on the play.
Colorado got its first shot on goal at 14:47 of the first period. St. Louis outshot the Avalanche 15-2 in the period.
Neither team scored in the second as Colorado outshot the Blues 10-3.
Taraskenko gave the Blues a 2-0 lead just 14 seconds into the third. Tarasenko scored his 31st of the season when he put in a rebound of a shot by O'Reilly.
With that goal, Tarasenko into sole possession of fifth place in Blues history with 209 goals, passing Keith Tkachuk.
Colorado cut the lead to 2-1 when Landeskog scored on a deflection at 6:30. It was Landeskog's 34th goal this season.
The win gave the Blues a season sweep over Colorado for the first time in team hisory. St. Louis did sweep the franchise four times when it was located in Quebec and called the Nordiques, with the last time coming in 1991-92. The Blues went 4-0-0 against the Avalanche this season, outscoring Colorado 12-5. At home, the Blues are 7-1-0 in their last eight games against Colorado.
NOTES: Avalanche C Nathan MacKinnon needs one goal to reach 40 for the first time in his career and two points to reach 400 in the NHL. Last season, he scored a career-high 39 goals. The last 40-goal scorer for Colorado was Milan Hejduk, who had 50 in the 2002-03 season. ... St. Louis D Jay Bouwmeester needs one assist for 100 with the Blues. ... Colorado forward Mikko Rantanen remains day-to-day with an upper-body injury. ... Colorado had a streak snapped in the loss. The Avalanche had scored the first goal in their previous eight games and nine of their last 10 before Monday. ... Linesman Tim Nowak officiated the game. It was his last game in a 26-year career that spanned 1,729 regular-season games and 114 playoff games. ... Since Craig Berube took over as coach on Nov. 19, 2018, the Blues are 36-19-5.
UP NEXT
Avalanche: Host the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night.
Blues: Host the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday.
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More AP NHL: https://apnews.com/NHL and https://twitter.com/AP-Sports
The Tampa Bay Lightning became the third team in NHL history to win 60 games in a season Monday, joining the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens and the 1995-96 Detroit Red Wings.
The Bolts' 60 wins are tied with the '77 Habs for the second-most of all time, and just two victories back of the '96 Red Wings' record of 62 triumphs. With three games left on the Lightning's schedule, they could still surpass Detroit's mark.
While neither the Canadiens nor Red Wings had the luxury of shootout wins - the Lightning have picked up six victories beyond overtime this season - Montreal and Detroit didn't have the salary cap to contend with.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have officially clinched a playoff spot for the third consecutive season with a 2-1 win over the New York Islanders.
Toronto will meet the Boston Bruins in the opening round for the second year in a row and the third time in its last four playoff appearances.
The Leafs also tied a franchise record with their 23rd road win of the season. They'll have a chance to break that mark on the final day of the campaign Saturday when they travel to Montreal to take on the Canadiens.
Ahead of Tavares' second game back in Long Island, Gillies joined Sportsnet 590 The FAN on Monday and explained he's still troubled by the way that Tavares left the Islanders for his hometown Maple Leafs as a free agent in 2018.
"If he would have been up-front and honest with the team and said, 'Look, I'm not sure. Get what you can for me. If I change my mind, I want to come back to the Islanders, I'll re-sign again next summer,' the Islanders then would have probably gotten a first, maybe a first and a second-round draft pick for him," Gillies said.
"He could have gone on his merry way. Ten years of great service to the Islanders, 'I want to go back home to Toronto,' I think everybody here would have been very happy with that. But it's just the way the whole thing went down that's got everybody in an uproar, and me included."
Although the Islanders have clinched a playoff spot and are enjoying one of their most successful seasons in several decades, Gillies also blamed Tavares for setting the franchise back in its pursuit of the Stanley Cup.
"The last thing on my bucket list is to drink out of the Stanley Cup again," Gillies said, "and in my opinion, John kinda put us back a couple of steps by not doing the right thing last summer, so yeah, I'm a little upset about that."
Gillies was a part of the "Trio Grande" line with Mike Bossy and Bryan Trottier from the late 1970s through the early 1980s. He won four consecutive Stanley Cups with the Islanders from 1980-83 and was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2002.
The Vancouver Canucks have been impressed with Luke Schenn since he arrived in a January trade and the organization will explore offering him an extension once the regular season ends.
"We've been real happy with him and he's done everything we've asked," general manager Jim Benning told Ben Kuzma of The Province.
"He has been physical and excellent with our young players. We're going to talk about this (extension) at the end of the year. He's been a pleasant surprise for us."
Vancouver acquired the 29-year-old Schenn and a 2020 seventh-round draft pick from the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for Michael Del Zotto. He's since appeared in 15 games for the Canucks, recording two assists while averaging 14:28 per night on the club's third pairing.
The right-handed blue-liner is playing on a one-year deal worth $800,000 and is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.
Cooper also said the club is hopeful that Hedman will return for the start of the playoffs.
Hedman was involved in a collision with Washington Capitals forward Carl Hagelin in Saturday's contest. The defenseman was forced to leave the game after Hagelin's helmet appeared to hit him in the head.
This is the pop to Hedmans head at the end of the first. Looks like Hagelin saw him coming and jumped up a bit on contact which created a head butt to Hedmans face. Seems as though Hedman is in concussion protocol right now. pic.twitter.com/z1ek2w8ARM
Alan May can't recall every single game of his dizzying pro hockey career. After all, he skated for 16 teams across five leagues from 1986 to 1999.
But he does remember the night in February 1994 when a players' bench inside Richfield Coliseum - a since-demolished arena near Cleveland - literally fell apart in the middle of a heated Capitals-Flyers game being aired on national television.
"Washington-Philly games were always super physical back then," said May, who had a five-year run with the Caps and now analyzes their games on TV for NBC Sports Network. "And at one point, the door on our bench fell off. So you're full sweat, you're in a rivalry game, and I believe we were waiting for over half an hour, 45 minutes before the door was put back on … It kinda sucked the life out of the game."
Of course, neither the Capitals nor Flyers called Richfield, Ohio, home. (No NHL franchise has represented the Cleveland area since the Barons merged with the Minnesota North Stars in 1978.) In the early 1990s, however, the NHL made a cameo. The league staged 50 neutral-site regular season games across North America in an effort to broaden its appeal, also hoping to take advantage of Wayne Gretzky's presence on the global sporting scene and in popular culture.
Richfield Coliseum made the cut for venues, despite what May describes as its "horrendous" dressing rooms and excessive cold. The Washington Post's game story suggests that fixing the bench door took only 15 minutes, but also mentions that after Al Iafrate was checked into the side boards, "the top two feet of plexiglass snapped off and fell into the laps of fans. No one appeared to be hurt."
"I don't think the NHL won hockey fans that night," May said.
Wednesday marks the 25th anniversary of the last game in the NHL's neutral-site experiment, which covered the 1992-93 and 1993-94 seasons.
In game No. 50, Gretzky's Los Angeles Kings smashed the Edmonton Oilers 6-1 in front of 10,363 fans at ARCO Arena in Sacramento on April 3, 1994. The nearby San Jose Sharks were only a few years old, and downstate, Anaheim had just welcomed the Mighty Ducks. Gretzky had broken Gordie Howe's record for career goals about two weeks earlier. California hockey was booming.
Bruce Bennett / Getty Images
Of the 50 neutral-site games, Hamilton, Ontario, led the charge with eight dates. Six each went to Cleveland, Minneapolis, Sacramento, and Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Five games were played in Phoenix; three in Halifax, Nova Scotia; and two in Milwaukee. Eight one-offs were held in Miami, Dallas, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, Providence, R.I., and Peoria, Ill.
In relatively short order, the NHL managed to hit 16 cities in 15 states/provinces, splitting the profits between franchise owners and the players' association. To accommodate the initiative, the schedule increased from 80 games per team to 84 in 1992-93 and 1993-94, with every club playing two neutral-site games per season. (The current 82-game format was introduced after the lockout-shortened 1994-95 campaign.)
Joe Cirella, a defenseman for the New York Rangers and Florida Panthers during this time, skated in three games, one in Sacramento and two in his hometown of Hamilton. He considers the neutral-site project a low-risk, high-reward endeavor similar to today's stream of outdoor games.
"Looking back, I think they were testing the waters for expansion and franchisees," Cirella said, "to see if there was enough support in these areas or the arenas to support an NHL team."
The forgotten experiment
A whole generation of fans is unaware of this gigantic grow-the-game concept drummed up by the pre-Gary Bettman NHL and designed to - as the New York Times reported then - "repair its image" in the wake of the 10-day players' strike in April 1992.
Hands up if you knew the Nordiques and Canadiens - bitter Quebec rivals - played a game in Phoenix in January 1994? Or that the powerhouse Penguins and conference-foe Bruins battled in Atlanta in February 1993, more than a decade after the Flames moved to Calgary and six years before the Thrashers arrived on the scene? How about the Islanders and Oilers flying across the continent in December 1992 for a one-off in Oklahoma City?
"It was in the middle of nowhere, hockey wasn't a part of the area, we were playing the Oilers," former Islanders goalie Glenn Healy said of the game at the Myriad Convention Center. "Why would these people in Oklahoma City care about a Canadian team?"
Oklahoma City, however, had been the home of Central Hockey League teams off and on since 1972, and more than 11,000 people showed up to see the NHL in person. "I've always wondered if the NHL could have gone there, to a place with such a rich hockey history, and beat the NBA," May said.
If you include Columbus, Ohio, which is a short drive from both Cleveland and Cincinnati, six of the 16 neutral-site cities have been awarded a relocated or expansion franchise in the intervening years. Clearly, the NHL identified fertile ground over this period - though the tour itself wasn't immune to hiccups.
Exhibit A: Healy's experience in Dallas a handful of months prior to the North Stars' move to Texas in 1993. The apparent lack of air-conditioning inside Reunion Arena wasn't Healy's only problem as the Islanders faced St. Louis.
"I can recall going out for warmup and sticking my head between the panes of glass at the back of the rink and saying, 'We need the nets out for warmup!'" Healy said.
A local asked: "'You need the nets for warmup?! Not just the game?' 'Yeah, they’re going to warm up and shoot on me. It would be nice to have a net.'"
Some neutral-site arenas either had to make ice for the first time or hadn’t done so in years. This led to inconsistent playing conditions for regular-season games, even if ice standards weren't as high as they are today.
"For both teams, it was a road game," said Cirella, now an assistant coach for the AHL's Stockton Heat. "All the logistics behind it - just like any neutral-site game, now or then - it's a nightmare for whoever's setting that up."
The amateur feel didn't stop there. May remains amazed at how naked the boards looked without advertisements. Healy remembers chairs being placed over holes in the ice during warmup, and the entertainment and dining options outside the rinks underwhelmed visiting players, coaches, and staff.
“When you look at NHL cities today, whether it's L.A. Live or Maple Leaf Square, or All-Star Games where there's tents set up and a fan fest … Sorry, no, none of that back then," Healy explained. "Go play your game, order pizza, get out of town.”
May said, "It was a mom-and-pop league the way some of these owners were. You still had some teams not televising games, teams not wanting to put nameplates on jerseys so people would buy a $1 program. It was a lot of small-minded thinking."
The league grows up
The players were gung-ho to help grow the game. They understood the peaks and valleys of attendance and could look past the poor ice conditions. But they had a job to do and games to win, the same way players do in 2019.
"The luster kind of wore off, you know? Much like these outdoor games nowadays," said Warren Rychel, another member of the Gretzky Kings. "I know they sell them out, but as a player, once you've done one, it's like, 'OK, that was great. I got my picture on the outdoor ice with my family. We got to skate.'
"It is what it is," he continued. "It's all about the fans, that's for sure. They're No. 1."
Bernstein Associates / Getty Images
Attendance for neutral-site games varied greatly; 18,782 people packed Richfield Coliseum for a Penguins-Oilers showdown in March 1993, but only 6,222 were on hand to watch Devils-Nordiques at the Target Center in Minneapolis a year later. Hamilton's Copps Coliseum, which is situated between Toronto and Buffalo, and Milwaukee's Bradley Center - a place Rychel describes as the "best arena in minor pro hockey" at the time - drew large crowds.
According to records curated by Kenn.com, the average attendance for the 50-game package was 11,196. Not great, but not bad considering the games were held almost exclusively on weeknights (none were played on Saturday and six were played on Sunday).
The initiative was also part of the league's larger focus on getting the greatest player in the world in front of as many prospective fans as possible. However, Gretzky couldn't play in either of the Kings' 1992 neutral-site games; in September, he'd been diagnosed with a herniated disc, an injury that threatened his career. He was healthy for the team's visits to Phoenix and Sacramento in 1994, though, and recorded three points in each game.
"We all recognized there's a unique opportunity and that we'd be going into different markets," said Kelly Hrudey, Gretzky's teammate in L.A. for eight years. "It didn't seem like anything unusual because, starting when I arrived at my first Kings training camp in 1989, we were traveling North America anyways during the preseason … It was a natural fit for a lot of us."
Higher standards, on and off the ice, were beginning to replace the wild west of the 1970s and '80s. The neutral-site experiment feels representative of the NHL's place in pro sports at the time, just as Bettman was hired as the league's first and only commissioner.
"It's part of the building process. It's part of maturing. We grew up, figured stuff out," said Healy, who's now the executive director of the NHL Alumni Association.
"We tried the neutral-site games. We figured out chartering would be better (than flying commercial), figured out that maybe training would be better this way, or eating this way would be better. Team psychologists, sleep doctors. Everything is better than it once was. But we had to grow up - and we have."
John Matisz is theScore's National Hockey Writer. You can find him on Twitter @matiszjohn.
