Cozy Cast Ep. 5 - Nazem Kadri Out for WCF
Happy Monday, everyone! Welcome to the From Center Ice Cozy Cast. I'm here to kick off your week and get you caught up on the hockey news from the weekend.
We had a few games in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and a new in the Calder Cup Playoffs. Tampa finally showed some life at home. Nazem Kadri was taken out of the series with an injury by a cross-check from Evander Kane.
Plus, do goalies sneeze on the ice? I ask the important questions.
Come hang out!
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Full Podcast Transcript:
00:10
Welcome to From Center Ice the podcast. My name is Courtney, and Happy Monday everybody.
00:17
This is the From Center Ice Cozy Cast, once again brought to you but not sponsored by, Dunkin coffee. Again, I have a good ole Sunrise Blend. I think this may have become my favorite iced coffee at Dunkin. Before, my go to was just a good ole Cold Brew, just plain black. But now I get the Sunrise Blend, also just plain black, and it's a bit more fruity. And I like that and my coffee.
00:50
You typically get the fruitier tastes from like fancy coffee. And as somewhat of a self-proclaimed coffee snob, I enjoy some fancy coffee. So this is the fancy coffee of Dunkin.
01:08
And, of course, if you order ahead on the app on Mondays, you get 100 bonus points. But once again, this is not sponsored by Dunkin. I just go there an awful lot because I live right down the road from one and I love apps that will give you rewards for buying stuff. So then you can get free stuff the more that you buy stuff, like amazing. And if you're a rewards member, medium iced coffees are only two bucks until June 21 I believe. So. All you have to do is sign up on the app. Dunkin should probably sponsor me with how much I talk about them here on the Cozy Cast. So maybe we should make that our goal over the summer, Icees. Let's get Dunkin to sponsor the From Center Ice Cozy Cast. How awesome would that be?
02:01
But how was your weekend? I hope it was good. Mine was alright.
02:07
We had some interesting games in the NHL, I will say. The American League also kicked off their Conference Final. I didn't get to watch any of those games because they were on when NHL games were, except yesterday. But I was editing when Laval and Springfield were playing. So, either edit videos and get out two game recaps for the Avs and the Rangers or watch Springfield and Laval. So, I chose to edit but I did watch game two of the WHL Championship Series between the Edmonton Oil Kings and the Seattle Thunderbirds because Blackhawks prospect Jalen Luypen plays for the Oil Kings, but I will get down to there when I jump into Blackhawks news after the playoffs.
03:00
But one other thing before I start talking about the NHL playoff hockey from this weekend is last night. As I was trying to fall asleep, it was way too late because for some reason on days that I upload videos it takes me forever to fall asleep at night. I don't know why.
03:22
I mean, I was up captioning the two videos from yesterday until about midnight, but I was pretty tired. But once I laid down, nope, couldn't fall asleep. So it was about 3am, and I'm just laying there with my eyes closed. Picture me. This is the scene. Laying in bed, eyes closed trying to fall asleep, and then all of a sudden through my head goes the question, "Do goaltenders ever sneeze while trying to make saves and then they miss the puck?"
03:54
Why?
03:55
Why did this go through my head while I'm trying to fall asleep?
03:59
This is how my brain works, guys. I just, sitting there nice, peaceful and quiet, and all of a sudden I start thinking about goaltenders missing a save because they sneeze on the ice.
04:12
What?
04:13
Like, just imagine a game seven overtime in the Stanley Cup Final. And a goal goes in because the goaltender sneezed and missed the puck.
04:29
This is what I'm dealing with up in this brain of mine. It was ridiculous.
04:34
So, I had to roll over and grab my phone and I had to tweet it out because it was haunting me and haunting my brain. And I woke up to a couple of replies from people who have played the goaltending position saying that it's never happened to them. And the air is pretty dry in arenas and there's not much dust floating around so they haven't had any sneezing issues on the ice.
05:02
But if you are a goaltender or you know a goaltender, please let me know if you have ever encountered this.
05:12
Because I need to know. It's had to have happened at some point, right? It had to have happened. So if you have any experience, please let me know. We need to solve this mystery.
05:25
That will be our two goals of the summer here with the playoffs winding down, get the Cozy Cast sponsored by Dunkin and figure out if goaltenders sneeze on the ice.
05:38
And don't make saves.
05:41
Gosh, guys, this is what you can get used to in the offseason when I don't have actual hockey to talk about. That's when the ridiculousness comes out.
05:51
But we do still have hockey to talk about. So let's jump into that.
05:56
And we'll start out East of course with the New York Rangers and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
06:03
So that series has gone three games so far. The New York Rangers hold a 2-1 series lead over the Tampa Bay Lightning, they won both games at home. Because New York has home ice advantage. They won Game Two by a score of 3-2. And then they came back to Tampa, played yesterday afternoon, and I love a good afternoon start on the weekends. I very much enjoy that.
06:31
But Tampa won 3-2, and Ondrej Palat scored in the last minute of the game. I want to say there was something like 42 seconds left to go. And I was just about to tweet out that the Rangers should clear the puck because Tampa loves scoring in the last minute of periods. And then before I could, you know, click the the tweet box to type it out, in goes the puck off the Ondrej Palat shot. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me, again.
07:08
But there were only 42 seconds left and New York tried to push for the tying goal. But they couldn't get anything going. So that was frustrating. They lost the first game in Tampa.
07:19
But it was the first game that the lightning actually showed life in the series. The two games they played in New York, they looked very lifeless. So you had to assume that they would come out in front of their home fans and give some sort of effort. But even the two goals that went in for them to tie up the game, because the Rangers took a 2-0 lead into, let's see, into the first intermission? Maybe? Now I'm forgetting how it went. I did this whole video recap yesterday, but I don't know. I put the games behind me as soon as all of that's over and move on to the next one. But Mika Zibanejad scored a power play goal, of course. And Chris Kreider scored a power play goal off of a Mika Zibanejad shot. He cleaned up the rebound.
08:13
And then Tampa scored on two power plays as well. Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov.
08:21
But those two goals by Tampa that tied up the game were almost stopped by Shesterkin. The first one went five hole from Kucherov as he was sliding to his left to try to make the stop. And then the second one from Stamkos, he was moving from his left to his right. And the puck just barely went over his left shoulder as he was doing so. So if he hadn't moved so quickly, thinking that the puck was going to go blocker side, it could have just hit him and stayed out. But it may have hit him in the throat if it had, so maybe it's a good thing that it didn't.
09:11
I gave him the benefit of the doubt in game two saying that you never really know with head injuries because he did get clipped by Steven Stamkos. Totally unintentional. And then in this one, I think it was Corey Perry that got the stick up high on him. And he threw his stick and went down. And you know, I said in the first one you never know with head injuries, and sometimes you get bad ones that come off of plays that look like nothing. But I think Shesterkin was trying to sell that one just a little bit. And he did get the goalie interference penalty called and New York did score on that powerplay.
09:55
So I don't know maybe it was some sort of karma for Tampa to come back and tie it up and then win the game for that.
10:03
But this has been a crazy series so far, I don't know that anybody expected New York to take a 2-0 series lead. If anything, maybe a split in New York, but this was never going to be a sweep. So then losing the first game in Tampa shouldn't be a huge deal. They've had to claw their way back in the previous two series to come back and win a game seven.
10:29
So they aren't just undefeated throughout the playoffs and one loss is going to shake their confidence. They're used to losing some of these games and then coming back and having to tie up a series and, you know, try to try to get going there.
10:48
But they started out with the advantage having home ice and getting that 2-0 series lead. So if they can just come out and keep working, they should be okay going forward.
10:59
But before we move on, I have the point leaders for each team in this series so far.
10:59
But Tampa is going to be a hard out, and New York is going to have to keep pushing. Shesterkin is going to have to keep being very good for them. And they're gonna have to keep scoring on the powerplay from Mika Zibanejad shooting from the top of that left circle there.
11:24
So before, I had the point leaders for the entire playoffs, but now I have them for just this series. Because hockey-reference.com - I learned and I forgot who pointed this out to me on Twitter, because I had asked if there was a stat site that just gave me the player stats for one series since the NHL website is notoriously horrible to us.
11:51
And they pointed it out to me that hockey reference does that. So, I have the point leaders for each team so far in this series, and we will start with the team that has the series lead the New York Rangers.
12:09
First is Mika Zibanejad, of course. 3 goals and 2 assists.
12:15
Up next is Adam Fox, 5 assists. He's been very good these last two series, especially here against Tampa. Adam Fox, man. We always heard about how good he was, especially before he signed with New York, when he made it very known that was really the only team that he would go to. He started in Calgary. They traded him to Carolina, and then Carolina ended up having to trade his rights to New York because he wasn't going to sign with them. And we heard about how good he was and he has lived up to every ounce of that. Adam Fox is an amazing defenseman.
12:56
In third we have Chris Kreider, 2 goals 2 assists.
13:00
Up next Artemi Panarin 1 goal 3 assists. He's really picked it up in this series too, as opposed to the series against Carolina where he disappeared for long stretches of time and was very frustrating to watch play. The Breadman has looked a lot better here against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
13:22
And last, but certainly not least, the fifth point leader for the New York Rangers is Filip Chytil. 2 goals 1 assist. That kid line is fantastic with Filip Chytil, Alexis Lafreniere, and Kaapo Kakko. I mean, jeez. What more can you say about them? I know some of the vets on the team say they're just out there having fun. And that's for sure. They are out there just having fun. And Filip Chytil, what a shot the kid has. I mean, in game one, I believe it was he had the two goals. And that pass from K'Andre Miller on the second one. Just fantastic. Maybe it was game two. I don't know. Either way, that line is great.
14:13
And then in net, of course, we have Igor Shesterkin. He's rocking a .943 save percentage in this series. He's made 115 saves on 122 shots. Just he's very, very good.
14:34
Now moving over to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
14:37
Up first we have Nikita Kucherov, 2 goals and 3 assists.
14:42
In second, we have Steven Stamkos with 2 goals and 2 assists.
14:47
And third is Anthony Cirelli with 3 assists.
14:51
Victor Hedman is up next with 3 assists.
14:54
And then you have Ondrej Palat rounding out the top five with 2 goals. And one very big goal in game number three.
15:04
In net, Andrei Vasilevskiy is rocking an .880 save percentage. He's made 81 saves on 92 shots,
15:13
Which, he had a sub-.900 save percentage in the first round against the Toronto Maple Leafs. And then he went into the Battle of Florida and had a ridiculous save percentage. I don't even remember what it was right now. But it was very good. And that just, I think, goes to show you how bad the Florida Panthers were in that series. Because of course, Andrei Vasilevskiy is a great goaltender. And whether the Tampa Bay Lightning win or lose this series, and his numbers against Toronto, and his numbers against the Rangers, those aren't going to say that he is a bad goaltender. That's just preposterous. That team has played a lot of hockey in the past few years. And Andrei Vasilevskiy has really carried them at times when the skaters in front of him have been exhausted.
16:17
So I'm not saying that Andrei Vasilevskiy is a bad goaltender. That's ridiculous, but with him allowing, what was it, three or four goals in total in that four game series against the Florida Panthers. And now let's see, game one, I think was 6-2. And then Game Two, they lost 3-2. And then he allowed 2 goals and game three, even though they won 3-2.
16:51
So it's possible to score on this guy. Just, Florida could not do that. Even though they were the most potent offense throughout the regular season. Florida was just a very strange, strange case, I'm going to need to either listen to Florida-centric podcasts if they exist. I'm sure they do. Or read some sort of analysis about their series with Tampa because what happened there, just mind blowing.
17:27
But I also have some fun stats.
17:31
Game three was the first time that Artemi Panarin has lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning and Andrei Vasilevskiy in the playoffs, since they won the first two games in New York and Panarin was a part of that Columbus team that swept Tampa. So that's pretty funny.
17:50
And then there were some Ranger stats from @NYRstatsinfo on Twitter. And these tweets said, "Both Adam Fox and Mika Zibanejad have points in eight straight games. The last ranger with an eight game point streak was Wayne Gretzky in 1997."
18:16
Just wow. So Adam Fox and Mika Zibanejad up there with The Great One in Rangers playoff history there. If you had forgotten that Wayne Gretzky played for the New York Rangers. There you go.
18:35
And the second tweet that they sent out is, "Chris Kreider has tied Rod Gilbert for most playoff goals in Rangers history with 34."
18:47
So this team, they may have been underrated and may be a bit underappreciated coming into the playoffs, and of course, you had the whole discourse about them only playing backup goaltenders and third string goaltenders in the first two rounds. But, I think they've really showed that they are a competitive team and a team worth respecting whether or not they win this series against Tampa here.
19:17
So we will move out of the East and go out West.
19:22
But first, I must take a sip of my coffee here.
19:31
And out West we have the Western Conference Final between the Colorado Avalanche and the Edmonton Oilers, and that series has also had three games go final so far.
19:45
And the Colorado Avalanche lead that series 3-0. They play game four tonight, and Colorado has the chance to close it out with a win.
20:00
And they won Game three by a score of 4-2. And Game three, it introduced some brand new drama into the playoffs and into the Stanley Cup push for the Colorado Avalanche, but it was also just a wild game.
20:23
Connor McDavid scored something like 38 seconds into the game on Pavel Francouz, since Darcy Kuemper is injured. So they got off to a fast start there in Edmonton. And the series had shifted back to Edmonton here for game three. So Connor McDavid showed up at home in the first minute.
20:49
But, if you recall going back to the second round against St. Louis, in for in the first four games, St. Louis scored the first goal, and Colorado won three of those four games.
21:05
So, when McDavid scored first here, I thought, "No big deal,.Colorado will come back and tie it up and hopefully take the lead and to get the win."
21:21
But it took a while for that first goal to go in.
21:24
They had a five minute major power play in the first period, pretty much like a minute and change into the first period. And Mike Smith just absolutely stoned them. He was not letting anything go in on that power play. And he robbed them a few more times in the first, and while it looked like it was just all Avalanche, Mike Smith was definitely keeping them in this one.
21:51
So even though they lost game three, you can't put that on the goaltender at all. And I am someone who loves to point out when Mike Smith plays poorly, and this was not one of those games.
22:04
The first goal that went in was, of course, a fluky one because that's just how it had to be with all of the amazing setups that the Avalanche were getting and the great saves that Mike Smith was making on them.
22:19
The first goal, Valeri Nichushkin got the puck on the left boards, and he skated down looking for a shot or a pass. And once he got about even with the goal line, he just shot the puck toward the net. But it went off of Darnell Nurse's stick, who is a defenseman for the Oilers. And he was obviously trying to block the puck from getting to his goaltender, but instead, he deflected it past Mike Smith, who was cheating to his left anticipating a pass. And once he realized that it wasn't going over there, he tried to readjust to stop the shot. But that resulted in him, like, lifting himself up with his legs still on the ice. So he kind of jumped without his legs. It . . . it looked as weird as what I am trying to explain. But the puck went between his pad and his butt. And it's just a very Mike Smith goal.
23:28
And then the second goal that Colorado scored was a nice wrist shot from Nichushkin. So he had the first two goals of the game for Colorado after McDavid scored to open the scoring. And he tried so hard to get that third goal for the hat trick. And Mike Smith was just stoning him left and right. He came up with some really big stops against Nichushkin. And he could just not get that third goal.
24:05
But the Oilers ended up tying the game off of a Ryan McLeod wrister from the high slot after he had the puck in his own defensive end, decided to just skate it out instead of dumping it out to the neutral zone, just skated up the middle of the ice into the offensive zone to the high slot, took an unblocked wrist shot, and it just beat Francouz to the glove.
24:33
It was a bad one, I guess. I mean, I said it in my video yesterday that I should probably give McLeod more credit for taking a nice, hard wrist shot there. But it just looked so harmless. Francouz really needed to have that one.
24:51
But later in the third period, J.T. Compher took a penalty. And on that powerplay for the Oilers, Francouz robbed Connor McDavid with his glove. The puck went off of his glove, and off of his mask, and then laid on the ice where he was able to cover it up. And then as the powerplay was winding down, only a few seconds left, Evan Bouchard, who is a defenseman for the Oilers and has a really hard shot. He sent the puck toward the net, and it pinged off of the goalpost. And I called it "The Ping Heard Around the World" in my recap video. It's definitely the ping heard all throughout Alberta.
25:41
And the puck pinged off of the goalpost back into the slot where Andrew Cogliano for the Avalanche cleared the puck to the neutral zone. And as that was happening, Compher was coming out of the penalty box, and he reached the puck at the same time as Evan Bouchard did as he was rushing back trying to stop Compher from getting the puck there.
26:06
But Compher muscled him off of the puck and, all in one motion, started skating it into the offensive zone, took the shot from like the right face off dot, and it just beat Mike Smith five hole.
26:22
Oh, it's the most Mike Smith game you could ever have.
26:31
Because he had some amazing stops, just absolutely shutting down the Avalanche at times in this game. And especially poor Valeri Nichushkin, stopped him from getting the hat trick.
26:47
But then the game winning goal, which Compher's ended up being, just an unchallenged shot from the right faceoff dot just squeaks through his five hole. It kind of reminded me of the goal that, I think, eliminated them from the playoffs last season against the Winnipeg Jets when they got swept by the Jets. I think it was that goal in overtime that just beat him five hole.
27:19
But what a wild game and that wasn't even the worst part of it, because I think it was a minute and six seconds into the game, roughly about that time. Nazem Kadri was heading toward the corner to pick up a loose puck, and Evander Kane was following him in. And instead of reaching for the puck and engaging in a board battle, he decided to cross check Kadri right in the numbers, which resulted in Kadri flying into the boards awkwardly and laying on the ice injured.
28:06
Evander Kane got a five minute major for that. I think he should have been given a game misconduct and ejected from the game. And the announcers on the broadcast were saying since there's no apparent injury, that's probably why he wasn't given the game.
28:24
But I'm sitting there thinking - Kadri is laying down on the ice, obviously in severe discomfort. And then he immediately went back to the room and never returned to the game. Obviously, there was an injury there.
28:42
And, of course, the officials would never have known that Kadri wasn't going to come back into the game, but he was obviously injured. And that was a dangerous, dangerous play. It kind of resembled the play from the second round with Brandon Hagel shoving the Florida Panthers player into the boards which I also thought should have been a suspension because you just you can't do that. It is such a dangerous play. Those boards do not give, and if you hit it the wrong way, that's severe injury just waiting to happen.
29:22
Whether it's a broken collarbone, which we've seen with Connor McDavid and Patrick Kane, or a broken neck, or with Samuel Gerrard in game - what was it? Game three against St. Louis? With a broken sternum.
29:40
Like, nevermind concussions or anything like that. There's so many injuries just waiting to happen with guys being pushed into the boards and, on some plays, they're harmless just hockey plays and an unfortunate injury happens. But when you're heading toward a corner and toward the boards like that, and you cross check a guy just square in the numbers and send him flying face first into the boards, that's, that should be an automatic ejection, whether there is an injury or not.
30:18
This whole punishing players based on if there's an injury on a play is just ridiculous in my mind. Because the player who is pushed or hit or crosschecked or whatever, if they don't get injured, they're pretty much lucky to escape those plays without injury. So if you don't penalize the offending players for doing that, just because there was luckily no injury on the play, it's going to keep happening.
30:51
And Evander Kane was, thankfully, given the five minute major, which the Avs didn't score on like I said. But they looked really good. They got something like eight or nine shots. In that five minute power play, just Mike Smith was not letting any of them go in.
31:11
But Kane was able to play the rest of the game. Thankfully, he didn't injure anybody else. But he was given a one game suspension by the Department of Player Safety. They actually did something. I was shocked. I was fully expecting it to just be a fine. So when I saw it was one game, even though I don't think that is enough, I was happy about it.
31:38
And that's just where we are in the hockey world right now, is we have to be happy that a guy was suspended for one game for taking another player out of the playoffs because it wasn't even guaranteed he would get a suspension at all.
31:56
And Kadri is out likely for the rest of the playoffs. Jared Bednar, the Avalanche coach, said that he's out for the rest of this series at least. But it was reported that he left the arena on Saturday with a cast and he may require surgery, he's still being evaluated. I haven't heard exactly what is injured on Kadri. Its upper body something. I don't know if there's also a concussion involved or if it's just whatever is in a cast. But hopefully we get some updates today from Bednar, since game four is today and there'll be media availability.
32:42
So Kadri is out for at least the rest of the Western Conference Final and, should the Avs advance, I would say that he's likely out for the next round as well.
32:56
And it's just so unfortunate. He was having such a great season and such a great playoff run. And once again, he's taken out of the playoffs. This time with an injury. Before it's been suspensions for him laying questionable to dirty hits. Some of them, you could argue. Some of them, you could very much not argue and he deserved the suspension that he got.
33:25
It just sucks.
33:26
He cleaned up his act so much during this postseason and it was so fun to watch him. And getting that hat trick against St. Louis. And he got a huge goal against Edmonton as well. And he was just having such a good post season. And then to go down on a play like that, that was predatory by Evander Kane.
33:47
And I'm not saying that just because of that one hit, but he was trying to injure guys in game two as well. Had that not been the case, maybe he gets somewhat of the benefit of the doubt, even though he's another one of those players that doesn't really deserve the benefit of the doubt. Much like a Nazem Kadri when he lays bad hits.
34:14
You have people blaming him for things that aren't dirty or not his fault, for example, Binnington being injured. And now with his injury, you have people saying he deserves it because of his history and his past. And you have Blues fans saying that it's exactly like how he took out Binnington.
34:34
Which, just . . . just stop. Just stop. Be somewhat intelligent with things that you say. It is not anywhere close to the same thing. Evander Kane saw that they were heading into the boards, he cross checked him forcefully in the numbers in the back, face first into the boards. The play that took Binnington out of the playoffs, Kadri was going to poke at a loose puck trying to get it into the net. Calle Rosen of the St. Louis Blues ran into him. They both ran into Binnington. It's not the same thing at all.
35:17
If you want to compare it to plays from years past when Kadri has taken guys out, then okay. But it has nothing even closely similar to the play that got Binnington injured, except for the fact that Kadri was involved.
35:35
So once again, Blues fans are being . . . let's see here. How can I say this kindly? I don't think I can. So I will move on from that.
35:51
But after that game, you had the Oilers coach more concerned about the penalty disparities between the two teams, even though Edmonton deserves all the penalties that they get, and both teams have gotten away with a lot. The Avalanche have and Edmonton has as well.
36:21
They've called most of the blatant calls. And I don't think the officiating has necessarily been horrible in this series, unless you want to say they should be calling more, but they've been fairly consistent. I don't know.
36:40
You also had him whining about Nathan MacKinnon apparently slew-footing Leon Draisaitl. Which, if you watch the replay, I could see where you can get a slew foot from. And if you're going to tell me it was a slew foot, I'm not going to argue with you. If you say it's not a slew foot, I'm not going to argue with you. It looks more like just a battle for the puck and MacKinnon out-muscles him and knocks him over. But his leg was behind Draisaitl's. I don't know that he necessarily extended it just for that play. So it's questionable.
37:17
Should he have gotten a penalty there? Yeah, maybe. I wouldn't have argued it if he did. There's certainly been more blatant calls that Colorado hasn't got called against them. But there's also been a lot that Edmonton hasn't gotten called against them. So it goes both ways.
37:37
And just because Edmonton has gotten more penalties called against them in this series doesn't mean that the refs are out to get them, because most of them have been very blatant and should be penalties. So that's annoying.
37:53
Not that you would expect an NHL head coach to be like, "Oh, yeah, our guys are out there [Sorry] our guys are out there playing super dirty and they should be penalized more blah, blah, blah." But, I don't know. I don't know. The play on Kadri by Kane was . . . It was dirty. It was reckless. You had people calling it one of the most dangerous plays in hockey, and it's definitely up there.
38:23
But the NHL doesn't take these things seriously. So they keep happening. And whether one game was enough, that's up for debate. I personally don't think it was. But again, I thought Brandon Hagel should have been suspended in the second round, too. So what do I know?
38:42
But let's move on from that and talk about the point leaders for both teams in this series. And once again, we will start with the team that has the series lead, that being the Colorado Avalanche.
38:57
And up first is Mikko Rantanen. 3 goals 2 assists. And after looking pretty invisible in the first two rounds, even though he was leading the team with assists in the postseason - so quietly racking up those points there - He's been on a whole different level here in the third round, and he's been playing fantastic. So that's good to see.
39:21
And they're going to need more of that from him, especially now with Kadri out. So since Nazem Kadri had such a good first two rounds and first two games and racking up a lot of points, if Rantanen could now step in there and start getting those points and kind of replacing Kadri's production there, that would be huge for the Avalanche.
39:48
And second, we have Nathan MacKinnon. 2 goals and 2 assists.
39:53
Third is Cale Makar. 1 goal and 3 assists. Cale Makar is also having a fantastic third round and not just offensively. But after game one, especially defensively. In games two and three, he actually looks like an elite NHL defenseman. Whereas in game one, I mean, none of the Avs defense really looked good there in game one. But against St. Louis, the defense was also questionable and especially Makar, but maybe that's just because we expect more from him being that number one defenseman and being paid like a number one defenseman. You expect more from him. But in games two and three here in the third round, he has looked absolutely wonderful defensively and on the offensive side of things.
40:54
So number four, sadly, we have Nazem Kadri. 1 goal and 3 assists.
41:02
And then fifth is Devon Toews with four assists, who has also looked very good in this series and of course is paired with Cale Makar. So that defensive pairing is pretty lethal there.
41:15
And it net, I'm just going to go with Pavel Francouz since Darcy Kuemper did not play a full game in this series. But Francouz has a .930 to save percentage. He's made 69 Very nice saves on 74 shots.
41:33
And what I've thought is interesting from the three teams that I've gone over so far with their point leaders, is that it's all of the big guys for these teams. Going back to New York, Mika Zibanejad, Adam Fox, Chris Kreider, Artemi Panarin, and then fifth, Filip Chytil. Of course the kid line.
41:54
And then in Tampa: Kucherov, Stamkos. Cirelli, Hedman, Palat.
42:00
And then Colorado: Rantanen, MacKinnon, Makar, Kadri. Toews.
42:06
But then you come down to the final team still left in it, that being the Edmonton Oilers. And we have up first, of course, Connor McDavid. 2 goals, 2 assists. He's trying everything in his power to make his team do anything.
42:28
But in second, we have Ryan McLeod with 2 goals. In third, we have Derek Ryan with 1 goal and 1 assist. Nugent-Hopkins with 1 goal and 1 assist. And then Zach Hyman with 1 goal and 1 assist.
42:49
Yeah, you have the big guys producing for the other three teams, and then there's Edmonton.
42:57
And then in goal, even though he had a great game three, Mike Smith is rocking an .879 save percentage in this series. He's made 94 saves on 107 shots. So he's definitely seeing more action than Francouz is. And more action than Andrei Vasilevskiy is. Only Igor Shesterkin has seen more shots, and has seen the most shots in this third round so far.
43:32
But Colorado has been taking it to Edmonton pretty good here.
43:39
And before we move on from Colorado, we had a quote from Jordan Binnington last week on May 31, I believe it was during their exit interviews. I didn't get to it on Friday. So I thought I would throw it in here today because you know, it just we have to.
44:03
So Jeremy Rutherford, who covers the St. Louis Blues, tweeted out this quote from Binnington about throwing the water bottle at Nazem Kadri.
44:14
After game three of that second round series Binnington said, quote, "I went to get my knee checked out mid game, I was coming back to the rink and the game just ended. Walking down the hallway, I couldn't find a recycling bin on my way down the hallway. Right before I walked into the locker room, I see him kind of doing an interview there smiling, laughing and I'm there in a knee brace limping down the hallway. I just felt like it was a God-given opportunity. I could just stay silent and go in the room or I could say something and just have him look me in the eye and understand what's going on. Something to think about. Yeah, I just thought threw the water bottle an empty water bottle, it landed like two feet from him. It is what it is there. I mean, but it is what it is. It's hockey and it's a competitive game."
45:10
So that's it. So you have Jordan Binnington here using the competitive excuse, just like one Tony DeAngelo did when explaining his use of racial slurs. So Tony DeAngelo is racist because he is competitive. And Jordan Binnington is a trash human because he is competitive.
45:43
They are professional athletes, I believe most of their peers are competitive. And yet, not all of them do such things. I am a very competitive person. I don't believe I've ever thrown a water bottle at somebody or thrown racial slurs around toward people, because it's just not in my vocabulary.
46:09
And yeah, so there's that.
46:13
And also he says, he could just stay silent and go in the room or say something. But, Jordan, you didn't say anything.
46:25
You threw a water bottle at him and walked away like the little coward that you are. You didn't say anything. So what are you talking about? You could say something or stay silent and walk into the locker room? You did stay silent. All you did was throw a water bottle and look like a child. And now you look even more like a child and saying it was your God-given opportunity. What are you even talking about?
47:00
So when I say I don't like Jordan Binnington, he just keeps proving why. Because he is a child that just hides behind random things. Throwing a water bottle and walking away, trying to start quote unquote "fights" on the ice and then running away and hiding behind officials when somebody tries to fight back. He's been doing this since the AHL, and probably earlier, but I didn't watch his earlier career. I just saw him when he was with the Chicago Wolves when they were affiliated with the Blues. He would always try to start stuff against the IceHogs and then just run away and hide behind the officials.
47:45
So you didn't say anything, Jordan. You threw a water bottle, you fucking coward.
47:52
Anyway, moving on from Jordan Binnington but still staying with the Colorado Avalanche and Nazem Kadri. Tim Peel put on another clown show on Saturday.
48:04
He had tweeted after the Jordan Binnington play about Kadri's history and all of this and it's just a mess.
48:17
If you aren't aware of who Tim Peeleis, he is an ex-NHL referee and, or a linesman, an ex-NHL official. And he was fired last season after he was caught on a hot mic talking about wanting to give a team a penalty. So, basically admitting that the refs are biased and just call things to try to even out games.
48:49
So, he was fired for that and has since become a clown show on Twitter.
48:55
So, Saturday night, right after Evander Kane hits Kadri into the boards and Kadri is down injured and goes off to the room, you have Tim Peel on Twitter tweeting out in all caps with an exclamation point after it, "Karma!".
49:17
So he did go on to delete said tweet, but the screenshots live forever. And he's really wishing that they didn't because now he is blocking every person on Twitter who reposts it, who quote tweets it and mentions how much of a clown he is. Yeah.
49:42
So if you think that NHL officials aren't biased and don't have ideas about certain players, well here's Exhibit A of that is false, because they 100% do it.
50:00
But moving on from that, because I'm just gonna get angry, I will say that Nazem Kadri deserves better.
50:06
But I will also say that people who are throwing racial slurs at Evander Kane because of this need to fucking stop. That is not acceptable in any way. Any. Way.
50:18
We talked about this when Kadri was getting them thrown at him after Binnington was injured. And now that Evander Kane injured Kadri, now they are getting thrown at him.
50:31
Granted, the ones that I have seen online have not come from Avalanche fans. I just want to put that out there. But I am also sure there are some Avalanche fans who are tweeting those things or putting them on Instagram. I just personally have not seen any come from Colorado fans. But to people who are doing that, that is not acceptable in any way.
50:58
I don't care who it is. I don't care that it is Evander Kane, and he is one of the least likable people in the NHL, that is not okay.
51:08
So moving on some, Blackhawks news.
51:16
I had mentioned how Jalen Luypen, who is a Blackhawks prospect playing with the Edmonton Oil Kings, is in the WHL Championship Series with his Oil Kings. And they're playing the Seattle Thunderbirds.
51:29
That series is now tied 1-1 because they [Edmonton] won yesterday. I don't remember the score, 6-5, possibly? Something like that. There were a lot of goals scored.
51:44
But Jalen had, at least, one assist that I saw. I didn't check the box score after the game but he got an assist. I want to say it was on the powerplay.
51:55
But more than that, Nashville prospect Luke Prokop had a game! Oh, my goodness, I believe he had a hat trick. And he had two other assists and maybe a five point game. And when Jalen Luypen got his assist, he passed it up to Prokop who took the shot, which was then tipped in the slot into the net. So he got the secondary assist there. But if you aren't aware of who Luke Prokop is outside of being a Nashville Predators prospect, he was also the first openly gay NHL prospect. He came out last summer, I believe it was. So it's pride month now.
52:41
Happy Pride! I have my pride Jersey behind me here that Jonny Rockford designed for me that has my number 50 on it and has Dagger on the back for Courtney Dagger for our EASHL team.
52:55
The Happy Hour on Friday was very pride heavy. But I thought I'd mentioned that here too.
53:02
And with Luke Prokop having such a fantastic game yesterday, I thought that was just awesome. Open up Pride Month here with a wonderful game by the first openly gay NHL prospect. So that was really cool.
53:21
But in less fortunate news, Luc Snuggerud, who was a Blackhawks prospect. He was drafted in the fifth round of the 2014 NHL Entry Draft. He's only 26 years old, and he had to officially announce his retirement from hockey due to injuries.
53:42
And he played the last few seasons in Europe. Parts of the last three seasons. He played eight games in the American Hockey League in 2019-20 with the Syracuse Crunch and the Binghamton Devils. And the last season he played with the IceHogs was 2018-19, and they let him go due to injuries as well.
54:09
He joined the IceHogs after his college season in 2017. So he played the end of the 2017 season, the 2016-17 season. He played 2017-18 And then 18-19 with the IceHogs. And he played 57 games total scoring 6 goals and 17 assists for 23 points as an IceHog.
54:32
And from what I remember, this was a few years ago now and a lot has happened since then. But he wasn't bad. I don't think I disliked his game. It was just unfortunate that he never really got to progress because of these injuries. So he officially announced his retirement and that's really unfortunate.
54:53
Moving on to NHL news here. I've got five minutes left. I gotta kind of rush through this, but we have some more NHL awards.
55:01
The Willie O'Ree Community Hero Award was given out to Noel Acton, and there is an article on nhl.com written by Tracey Meyers, highly suggest you go check that out. Tracey was a beat reporter for the Blackhawks for a while. Now she works for nhl.com but she does still cover the Blackhawks from time to time. Love Tracey. She does a wonderful job and she's outspoken about mental health on Twitter, which I greatly appreciate as well. As somebody who suffers from depression and anxiety and ADHD. It's nice to see people kind of in your realm, in the hockey world, being outspoken with what they go through as well. So I'm a big fan of Tracey Myers, go check out her work, give her a follow on Twitter, all that.
55:51
But a quote about what the award is here, "The award is given to an individual who, through hockey, has positively impacted his or her community, culture or society. The award honors Willie O'Ree, the former NHL forward who became the first black player to play in the NHL on January 18, 1958, and has spent more than two decades as the NHL's diversity Ambassador. O'Ree was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2018."
56:22
And as I said, that award was given to Noel Acton and he is the founder of Tender Bridge Foundation which helps at risk youth get off the streets and involved in sports in Maryland, I believe. So good for him. That's awesome.
56:40
Next up is the Masterton Trophy, for the player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. That was given to Carey Price.
56:52
Of course, he suffered through injuries and then at the beginning of this year, he entered the NHLPA players assistance program for substance use.
57:04
So, good for Carey.
57:07
He did end up playing five games last season at the end of the year after recovering from that knee surgery. And he went 1-4-0 with an .878 save percentage and a 3.63 goals against average. But the Montreal Canadiens were not very good last year.
57:28
So let's look at his last post-season, last year. Of course, they beat the Toronto Maple Leafs in around one and then went on to face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Stanley Cup Final. And in 22 games played, he went 13-9 with a .924 save percentage and a 2.28 goals against average.
57:50
And Carey Price was basically the reason that the Canadiens got to the Stanley Cup Final in 2021.
57:59
So, congratulations to Carey there.
58:02
The other nominees where Zdeno Chara of the New York Islanders, which I never remember happening. After he left Boston, it's just a blur. He went to the Capitals and then the Islanders, which is just strange, and he just keeps trucking along there. Man, feels like Zdeno Chara is just going to be around forever.
58:23
And then the other nominee was Kevin Hayes of the Philadelphia Flyers. And of course his brother, Jimmy Hayes, passed away. Was it over this summer? Or early this season, due to an overdose. Jimmy was a former Blackhawk, a former Devil, former Bruin and widely loved throughout the league and by every single one of his teammates. So his brother, Kevin Hayes, of the Philadelphia Flyers now was the third nominee for the Masterton trophy.
59:00
And every year, a $2,500 grant from the PHWA, the Professional Hockey Writers Association, is given to the Masterton Scholarship Fund in the name of the trophy winner.
59:15
But other news coming out of Montreal about Carey Price is he's preparing this offseason as if he's going to play for the Canadiens next year. He doesn't know how his future is going to look. He's going to take the summer to kind of figure that out, see how he feels. But also, while recovering from this knee surgery, he got a platelet-rich plasma injection after the season ended, and I have never heard of such a thing. So apparently he's waiting for the full effects to kick in and then we'll see how that goes. So I guess we look forward to more news about that.
59:55
And the final award given out was the Selke Trophy for the best defensive forward. And that was, once again, given to Patrice Bergeron. It is his fifth time winning it. This season, he led the NHL in faceoff percentage with 61.9% of his face off being won. And he was first place in the number of face offs won with 991. They couldn't have gotten him nine more for 1000? Come on. And that's the seventh time in his career he has been first there.
1:00:34
This year, he was third on the Bruins in average time on ice with 18 minutes and 10 seconds per game. He was second on the Bruins in short handed average time on ice with one minute and 41 seconds per game. He was second in blocked shots with 45, which blew my mind when I read that. Because we all know Patrice Bergeron is the best defensive forward in the league, year in and year out. Sometimes other guys come in and steal the trophy from him. And Toews was up there for a while. But whenever I think of him, I don't think blocked shots. But I also don't watch very many Bruins games. So, if that's just like his specialty, I apologize. Clearly he's very good at it because he was second on the team with 45.
1:01:25
And he was third in takeaways on the Bruins with 37.
1:01:30
And this season in 73 games played, he scored 25 goals and added 40 assists for 65 points.
1:01:40
So not only is he killing it on the defensive side of the ice, but on the offensive side as well. I mean, his wingers are Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak. That line is lethal.
1:01:55
But Patrice Bergeron is a unrestricted free agent this summer. And there is an article on nhl.com by Amalie Benjamin. And it's about his future with the team. He had surgery to repair a tendon in his left elbow last week, and apparently that's been ailing him for the past two seasons now, the recovery time is going to be 10 to 12 weeks, and he hasn't decided on his playing future yet. But if he does come back to play next season, he only wants to play for the Bruins.
1:02:35
So I feel like should the healing process for this surgery go well, he will be back with the Bruins next year. I mean, he had a fantastic year this year. It's hard to see him not coming back. But maybe he wants to go out having a great season. We never know about these guys and how much time they want to spend with their families and all that. But if he does call it a career, I mean, what a hell of a career for Patrice Bergeron. But the NHL won't really be the same without him. So hopefully he does come back but is able to heal up 100% before doing so.
1:03:15
We're running a bit long on time here but there's two more contract extensions to talk about. The first is Chris Wideman with the Montreal Canadiens, the 32 year old defender had 27 points last year four goals and 23 assists. And Calle Rosen signed an extension with the St. Louis Blues. Apparently no hard feelings between him and Jordan Binnington. And his two year contract has an average value of $762,000 per season.
1:03:49
And quickly here before we wrap up, I will go over the American Hockey League playoffs. I will just run through it super quick.
1:03:57
So in the Eastern Conference Final, we have the Springfield Thunderbirds, the affiliate of the St. Louis Blues, taking on the Laval Rocket, the affiliate of the Montreal Canadiens.
1:04:08
That series is tied 1-1.
1:04:11
Game one, Springfield won that game 2-1 in overtime. In Game Two, Laval won 4-2. And that game two was the first game all postseason that Springfield has lost.
1:04:27
And I was looking at the box scores for both games, and neither team has scored a goal on the powerplay in this series. Laval is 0/7 and Springfield. No, I'm sorry. Laval is 0-for-4 and Springfield is 0-for-7.
1:04:43
But they are getting a lot of shots in these games. In Game one, the shots on goal were 42 to 39 in favor of Laval. Of course, they did play half of an overtime period. Their goal came nine min. . . nine minutes, I can speak. Nine minutes and 32 seconds into overtime.
1:05:04
And then Game Two, the shots on goal were 35 to 26 in favor of Springfield. So that will be an interesting series to watch as it continues.
1:05:15
In the West, we have the Chicago Wolves, the affiliates of the Carolina Hurricanes taking on the Stockton Heat, the affiliate of the Calgary Flames.
1:05:25
They have only played one game so far, and Chicago won that game 5-4 in overtime.
1:05:34
Josh Leivo had three points. Joey Keane had two points. Jalen Chatfield, Espresso Jesus, had 2 points. Stefan Noesen had 2 points.
1:05:43
And then for Stockton, Andy Welinski had 2 points.
1:05:47
And in that game, Chicago went 3-for-3 on the powerplay. And Stockton went 0-for-4.
1:05:55
And the shots on goal were 40 to 28 in favor of Chicago. So they are still on their same bullshit of getting a bunch of shots per game, just like we saw against Rockford.
1:06:09
And it's kind of comforting to know that they can pull out a 5-4 win here with shots like that against the best team in the Pacific. So it wasn't just the IceHogs, guys, Chicago's just there a wagon here in the West, and so was Stockton. We'll see if they can tie it up. They play game two tonight, Monday.
1:06:34
But going through the West . . . going through the West? The rest* of the week schedule ahead in the American Hockey League.
1:06:42
Of course, like I said, tonight the Chicago Wolves and Stockton Heat play Game Two. We'll see if Stockton can tie it up or Chicago takes the 2-0 series lead.
1:06:52
There are no games on Tuesday.
1:06:55
Then on Wednesday, they double up. We have Springfield and Laval playing game three, and Chicago and Stockton playing in game three.
1:07:04
And then on Thursday, there are no games.
1:07:07
So for the NHL, tonight, Monday night we have game four between the Colorado Avalanche and the Edmonton Oilers. With a win, Colorado can close it out and move on. We'll see.
1:07:22
And then tomorrow, Tuesday, we have game four between the New York Rangers and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
1:07:27
On Wednesday, if necessary, we have game five between the Avalanche and the Oilers.
1:07:33
And on Thursday, we have game five between the Rangers and the Lightning.
1:07:38
So, there you have it. Sorry for going a few minutes over here. There was just a lot to talk about, especially in regard to Colorado and Nazem Kadri, and all of that gets me rather fired up and angry. But you know it's the - my doorbell ringing is what it is apparently. I don't know who that is.
1:08:01
But it's the Sunrise Blend Coffee that gets me through the the Cozy Cast here and keeps me a bit sane even when talking about this crazy stuff.
1:08:12
So, as I take a sip of my coffee here and wonder who was ringing my doorbell, probably the mail person.
1:08:22
Thank you guys for tuning in on this Monday for the From Center Ice Cozy Cast.
1:08:28
If you would like to hear more from me or From Center Ice, you can check out fromcenterice.com There's links to all the places over there where you can find us.
1:08:38
I've been putting up game recaps for each of the games here in the Conference Finals, much like I did for the last round, except I recaped each night in the last round because there were two games per night. Now it's just one game per night. So I can go over each game individually and talk about them more.
1:08:58
And of course, every Monday we have the Cozy Cast. Every Friday we wind down the week with the From Center Ice Happy Hour.
1:09:05
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1:09:15
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1:09:29
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1:09:47
But all of that housekeeping has been taken care of, I'm going to go see what was left at my door.
1:09:54
And thank you guys again so much for tuning in. I appreciate each and every one of you.
1:10:00
I hope you all have a fantastic week, and I will catch you all either in a video or in the Happy Hour on Friday.
1:10:09
Bye, guys!
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