No one has described this Colorado Avalanche season better than Jon Cooper.
The Tampa Bay Lightning coach was speaking to the media ahead of a Jan. 6 game against the Avalanche, and he said the phrase “three regulation losses.” It wasn’t what he said though, it was how he said it.
There was a little chuckle. It felt inadvertent and instinctual. Like the coach who has won the Stanley Cup twice and a Four Nations gold medal couldn’t help but offer a “this doesn’t even seem possible” reaction.
If Cooper caught one of the clips from Jared Bednar’s postgame press conference Saturday night, it probably brought a wry smile to his face … but also some long-term concern.
Cooper has coached a team like this Avalanche bunch, one that made a historical march through the regular season. Dominant, magical, record-setting, the whole deal — except there was no storybook ending.
The 2018-19 edition of the Lightning was a war machine. Feeding off a devastating Game 7 loss in the Eastern Conference Finals the year before (sound familar), Tampa Bay roared through the season en route to a then-league record tying 62 wins. The Lightning finished with 128 points, 21 more than anyone else.
Tampa Bay had the No. 1 offense, the No.1 power play and was tied for the best penalty kill. The Lightning were “only” tied for seventh in goals allowed per game. Nikita Kucherov paced the league with 128 points, while he, Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point all finished with 40-plus goals.
“Well, we’re going to bring back some memories here,” Cooper said when asked about his 2018-19 team and how he handled the second half of the regular season. “We didn’t run into a whole slew of adversity. To be honest, we would not play well and still win. Everything we touched turned to gold.
“It was just one of those seasons. When you win 62 of 82, that’s kind of what has to happen.”
And then … it all came crashing down. The Lightning took a 3-0 lead after one period of Game 1 in its opening playoff series against the Columbus Blue Jackets and then what came next was one of the most stunning collapses in sports history.
Columbus rallied back to take Game 1, 4-3. Then it just got more progressively shocking. The Blue Jackets rolled in Game 2, winning 5-1 in front of a stunned Tampa Bay crowd.
The series shifted to Ohio, and the Blue Jackets just kept rolling. They won Game 3, 3-1, to push the juggernaut to the brink. Then, the final blow — Tampa Bay rallied in Game 4 to even the score at 3-3 in the second period before Columbus regained the lead a minute later and eventually completed the sweep with a 7-3 victory.
Tampa Bay was outscored 19-8 in the series and 19-5 after the first period of Game 1.
“The problem was, when adversity hit in the playoffs, we didn’t handle it very well,” Cooper said. “I think that adversity carried on to the next couple of years for us that we got to learn from some things that happened in our past.”
The 2025-26 edition of the Avalanche has found a little bit of adversity. Colorado has lost four of the past six games, and doubled the amount of regulation losses since Cooper’s dumbfounded laugh. His team gave the Avs one later that night.
That Tampa Bay team lost back-to-back games just twice in the regular season, and one set included defeats in overtime and a shootout. This Colorado squad did lose four games in a row early in this season, but 0-1-3 with three points collected doesn’t really hit the same.
This past stretch — losses to Florida and Tampa Bay, then two decisive wins, an overtime loss to Toronto and a stinker against Nashville — led to Bednar’s first truly negative assessment of his team this season.
Colorado’s coach said he hated everything about the 7-3 loss to the Predators, save for a decent stretch in the second period, maybe a brief burst in the third. He made it clear he wasn’t happy with the team, and it wasn’t just an off night. He’s seen some trends slipping in the wrong direction, particularly the defensive commitment that has been a hallmark of this club’s historical success in the first half.
“I’m not going to dissect everyone as an individual,” Bednar said. “I mean, I appreciate the question, but we were no good. There were a lot of guys that were no good. So I’m not going to just pick apart a couple guys. We’ve got to be better than that. That was not even close to the standard of hockey that we want to play.”
It’s not hard to see that one of the issues is the players who are missing. The Avs were able to navigate missing Valeri Nichushkin for a handful of games earlier this season — something that has troubled them in the past. But losing Devon Toews and Gabe Landeskog in back-to-back games has hurt.
Having both goaltenders working through minor issues led to a great story with Trent Miner getting his first win and shutout, but it also led to Mackenzie Blackwood having a so-so night in his first game in more than two weeks.
There are still nine games before the Olympic break, and it’s unclear when Toews or Landeskog or Joel Kiviranta will be back. When the Avs stormed to an absurd 31-2-7 record, one thought was, well, individual results in the second half of the season aren’t going to matter all that much as long as Colorado keeps its place at the top of the Central Division and has home-ice advantage locked up.
That might still be true, but this next stretch of games carries far more significance than anyone could have expected just a few weeks ago.
This Colorado Avalanche juggernaut has found some adversity. Now, it is time to sort it out and bank some memories that could be immensely valuable during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“I’ve been in this league 13 years now and (magical seasons) don’t happen very often,” Cooper said. “I’m very thankful I was able to be part of one of them. It is unique. It is special.
“But, you never really want adversity, but in the end, you kind of hope it does happen at some point. You don’t want it to be too easy, because the playoffs are really, really hard.”
Gabe Landeskog left the Colorado Avalanche’s game Sunday with the Florida Panthers after crashing into the opposing net and then the end boards behind it.
The Avs captain was down on the ice for several minutes after he went headfirst into the net at 1:22 of the second period. His left skate appeared to stumble, then Landeskog crashed into the Florida net and then the end boards behind it.
He was helped off the ice without using either leg to stride, and immediately down the tunnel towards the team’s locker room.
Landeskog has played in all 41 regular-season games this season. He missed the previous three regular-seasons and 1,020 days because of right knee issues. He had four procedures, including cartilage replacement surgery in May 2023.
The captain made a remarkable return last season, first playing two AHL games for the Colorado Eagles on a rehabilitation stint and then the final five contests of the Avs’ first-round Stanley Cup Playoffs series against the Dallas Stars.
Landeskog has seven goals and 22 points this season, including the first goal Saturday night in a 5-3 comeback win against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Colorado was already without defenseman Devon Toews in this game. He missed his first contest of the season with an upper-body injury after crashing into the end boards Saturday night in Raleigh.
LAS VEGAS — The Colorado Avalanche could look across the ice Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena and see … themselves, from the past couple of seasons.
Colorado faces the Vegas Golden Knights in a matchup of two division leaders Saturday. It could be the preview of a looming Western Conference postseason showdown.
What it won’t be is two sides going to battle with all of its top weaponry available. The Golden Knights are trying to survive right now, with franchise center Jack Eichel, No. 1 defenseman Shea Theodore and No. 1 goalie Adin Hill all out with injuries.
Toss in Alex Pietrangelo, who is taking the entire year off because of injury a la Gabe Landeskog, and the parallels between the 2025-26 Golden Knights and the past three additions of the Avs, which all dealt with significant availability issues, are even more similar.
Still, the Golden Knights have been able to grind out enough points to lead the Pacific Division. Vegas, Anaheim and Edmonton all reached the holiday break level on 44 points, but the Knights have played the fewest games.
“Teams go through adversity at different times,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “These guys are through it a little bit right now. The parody in the league is as good as it’s ever been … I do think there are some teams that usually have a big role to play that are going to finish right where you kind of expect them to.”
To Bednar’s point, several NHL clubs considered top Stanley Cup contenders in the preseason have scuffled through the first half of the campaign. Vegas and Edmonton both have had struggles, while Florida and Tampa Bay have dealt with significant injury concerns of their own in the East.
Colorado and Dallas have been much healthier, and those two clubs have soared above the rest in the NHL standings. But as the league gears up for the second segment of this season as a lead up to the 2026 Olympic break, the Oilers and Panthers have surged back into a playoff position, while the Lightning and Golden Knights have continued to struggle.
“I think leadership, coaching, culture but also just having really good players and depth is big,” Avs center Jack Drury said. “Those are all well-coached teams. I think that helps a lot.”
Vegas has teetered a bit without Eichel, though. He’s missed the past four games, which includes losses to New Jersey, Calgary and Edmonton. Mitch Marner, the marquee offseason addition for any NHL team, has spent some time at center with both Eichel and William Karlsson out of the lineup.
Marner left Toronto and signed with Vegas for the same contract Mikko Rantanen inked in Dallas — eight years, $96 million. Marner has nine goals and 38 points in 35 games for Vegas.
“I think he just adds a different dynamic,” Avs center Brock Nelson, who lined up against Marner for years in the Eastern Conference, said. “He makes guys around him better. He’s so dangerous with the puck. It’s his vision. He creates turnovers, one of the better sticks in the league. He impacts the game pretty well in every way.”
Scott Wedgewood didn’t need a full calendar year to show the Colorado Avalanche why the club should want to keep him around.
Wedgewood signed a one-year contract extension Thursday morning worth $2.5 million, a source confirmed to the Denver Post. The 33-year-old goaltender is in the final season of a two-year deal he had originally signed with the Nashville Predators, and he would have been an unrestricted free agent this summer.
Instead, the Avs now have the “Lumber Yard” tandem of Mackenzie Blackwood and Wedgewood in place through the 2026-27 season.
“It’s just a place that my wife and I have felt at home with,” Wedgewood said. “A great hockey team. All those guys in the room, I owe them a lot of beers for putting me in this situation. It’s just been a good fit since I got here.”
Wedgewood’s arrival helped stabilize the goaltending position. The Avs were last in the NHL in save percentage before Dec. 1. They added Blackwood 10 days later and had the sixth-best save percentage through the remainder of the 2024-25 season.
Blackwood missed the first 12 games of this season, rehabbing from an offseason procedure. Wedgewood has filled in as the starter and leads the NHL with 10 wins (10-1-2). His .913 save percentage is fifth among goalies with at least 10 games played, and his 2.26 goals against average is third.
Wedgewood said the deal was almost completed Wednesday night, but his wife likely found out on social media when it was officially done Thursday morning because it was just before the morning skate at Ball Arena. His parents are also in town to help celebrate.
“It’s a chance to play 30-plus games, a chance to be on a really good team, a chance of winning (the Stanley Cup),” Wedgewood said. “When you put it in that perspective, it’s probably the best spot in the league to be a 1A and 1B with (Blackwood).”
The Avs also have Ilya Nabokov, a second-round pick in the 2024 NHL draft, under contract for next season. Nabokov, 22, was the KHL playoff MVP in 2024 and is expected to join the Avs in the spring after his season with Magnitogorsk ends.
After back-to-back strong seasons as Magnitogorsk’s starter, Nabokov has struggled at times this year.
“We’ve got Nabokov coming, we’ve got Blackwood locked in (through 2030), but Nabokov’s never played in North America or the NHL,” Bednar said. “(A) good prospect and has some growth that he still needs in his game.
“When you get a guy (like Wedgewood) who wants to be here and fits in your culture and then performs like this on the ice, I think the natural progression is trying to get him locked up.”
Valeri Nichushkin will miss at least a handful of games and is week-to-week, Bednar said Thursday morning. The club expects to have a better handle on his timeline early next week.
“Nothing too serious, which is good, but serious enough that he’s going to miss a handful of games at least,” Bednar said.
The Avs have had players missing with injuries this season, but the top-nine forwards all played each of the first 17 games.
In the meantime, Brindley will move up to the second line Thursday night against the Buffalo Sabres and play next to Brock Nelson and Ross Colton. Brindley has been an early-season surprise for the Avs, earning more trust from the coaching staff while playing primarily on the fourth line.
“Gavin Brindley — that’s how we (replace him),” Bednar said. “With Val, it’s power play, it’s penalty kill, it’s top-six minutes, it’s empty net when you need one and empty net when you need to keep the other team off the board. It’s a lot of different duties that we will split up.
“It’s a great opportunity for Gavin. I think he’s earned that.”
Girard returns from upper-body injury
While the forward group will be missing a key figure, the defense corps gets Samuel Girard back Thursday night against the Sabres.
Girard missed all of training camp with a lower-body injury, but returned in time for the season opener. He played two games, then was lost for nearly five weeks with an upper-body issue.
He will play with Sam Malinski on the club’s third pairing to start. Bednar said he’s liked how Josh Manson and Brent Burns have fared as the second pairing.
“I feel good,” Girard said. “It’s been a long five weeks, but I’m excited to be back. … Obviously, it sucks. You want to be out there. You want to be playing. Second game, something happened and I had to go back to zero. I’m glad to be back today.”
Two things have always been true for Casey Mittelstadt in his hockey career: He can be too hard on himself, but he always digs his way out of a slump through hard work.
Then he encountered a rough patch unlike anything he’d ever experienced last year with the Colorado Avalanche. It cost him a chance to settle at a place he thought might become home.
It also gave him time to reflect on a whirlwind two years that saw him uprooted twice — and helped him realize that when times get tough, he needs to work on putting down the shovel.
“Sometimes you almost care too much, and it’s better to go out and play carefree and not worry about the consequences as much,” Mittelstadt said. “It’s something I’ve struggled with, I would say, my whole career, not just even pro hockey. Something I’m definitely working on and going to continue to work on.
“I think all of us are so competitive, and to some degree, we’re all perfectionists. Sometimes you get a little hard on yourself and get in that hole.”
Mittelstadt returned to Ball Arena with the Boston Bruins on Saturday, back to the site of the worst hole he’s ever encountered. He arrived in Denver in a shocking trade that saw the Avs send their best young player, defenseman Bo Byram, to Buffalo for Mittelstadt, who was expected to be part of the core of the next great Sabres team.
It was the type of one-for-one challenge trade of young players with immense potential that rarely happens in the NHL. Mittelstadt was the next in line to fill the No. 2 center position behind Nathan MacKinnon.
The trade looked like a home run for the Avs. Mittelstadt fit in with the team immediately. He and MacKinnon quickly became practice buddies, as he tried to soak up everything he could from one of the best centers in the world. They’re both hockey nerds at heart, and it looked like a good match.
Mittelstadt was productive at the end of the 2023-24 season and had a strong showing in his first Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Avs signed him to a three-year contract at $5.75 million per season. Then, he got off to a hot start last year when the depleted club needed him.
Then … it just went sideways for him.
“I don’t know,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said when asked what went wrong. “… It’s different for every player and how he feels in the environment. Some guys thrive in it, some guys don’t. You can hit a streak. You lose confidence, and things don’t go well. There’s high expectations and moves are made. Other guys gain confidence and play well. Every team’s not going to be a fit for every player.”
From the day after the trade until mid-November of last season, Mittelstadt had 37 points in 48 games, including nine in 11 playoff contests. That’s a 63-point pace over a full season — exactly what the Avs have been looking for in that role.
Then he had four goals and 16 points in his next 44 games. The next game after that came with the Bruins, when he was traded, along with prospect William Zellers and a second-round pick, for Charlie Coyle. That the Avs had to include two assets to acquire a less-productive center suggests that Mittelstadt’s stock had plummeted.
“I think especially in the season when you’re playing every other day and things are crazy, it almost feels like it’s something different every game when it’s not going well,” Mittelstadt said. “Sadly, I think I probably fell into that rabbit hole a little bit too much.
“It’s part of it, though. It’s part of growing up and maturing and learning from your mistakes. I think as long as you do that, you look back on every experience as a positive one.”
Mittelstadt is already on his second coach with the Bruins, something he has experience with after spending the first six seasons of his career in Buffalo. He’s centering the second line for a franchise in transition. The spine of a potentially great team is still there with David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman, but the rest of the roster is a bit of an odd collection of players.
He’ll have a local kid, Littleton’s Michael Eyssimont, on his wing Saturday night in Denver. Mittelstadt has two goals and no assists in five games this season, and six goals but just two assists in 23 games overall for the Bruins.
“It’s been fun. Obviously, a crazy couple of years,” Mittelstadt said. “Trying to get settled in and get comfortable. It’s a great group of guys, so I’ve been having a good time. I think we’ve played overall pretty well and some things to improve on. I think we have a good team.”
Mittelstadt was a phenom growing up in Minnesota. He struggled at first with the Sabres but eventually matured into one of their best players and a productive NHL player.
He and the Avs looked like a great fit until it suddenly wasn’t. In a whirlwind year for the organization, his slump was one of the more perplexing developments. Other players have not worked out in Denver, but he was a unique case. He fit with the culture of the team, but it just went awry on the ice.
Now he’s trying to find the magic he had near the end of his time in Buffalo, while sorting out life in a new city.
“I think it’s a work in progress a little bit, trying to regain some of the confidence, and some of the things maybe I’d lost in the past couple of years,” Mittelstadt said. “At the same time, I think there’s a lot of positives and a lot of things going in the right direction.
“I learned so much in Colorado. I’m very grateful for my time there, and I feel like the staff taught me a ton, along with a lot of the players. I feel blessed to have that opportunity, but also happy to be here.”
Jared Bednar, an avid angler, likes to compare his hockey team over a long season to a boat.
He sees it like this: The team builds its identity and what it wants to be over the first part of the season, and then there are aspects that just break during the grind of 82 games — kind of like a well-used fishing vessel. How quickly the club fixes the issues and regains its optimal performance is a big part of a successful campaign.
The Colorado Avalanche left the dock with a major leak last season. Fixing the boat on the fly was an all-hands-on-deck situation, from the coaching staff to the front office.
The start of the 2025-26 season has been a complete 180. The Avs were 4-0-1 heading into a Saturday night contest at Ball Arena with the Boston Bruins, and the one blemish might have been the best overall performance considering the foe.
Colorado’s NHL team is relatively healthy, stable and off to a strong start. The Avs allowed eight goals in the season opener last year. They’ve allowed eight total in the first five contests.
“Overall, a pretty good start, being able to win hockey games without really having played our best as a team,” Avs captain Gabe Landeskog said. “If you can figure out your game as a team while winning, and kind of go through some of those growing pains at the start of the season while racking up some points, I think that’s a positive thing.
“And I think we are only scratching the surface.”
Here are some observations from the first five-game segment of this Stanley Cup-or-bust season in Denver.
1. Nathan MacKinnon is already in Hart Trophy finalist form
Natural Stat Trick had MacKinnon on the ice for 17 scoring chances in Buffalo. He took 17 shifts in the game. The 2024 league MVP has been on the ice for 49 scoring chances at 5-on-5, which is tied for third among forwards. The two players ahead of him and the one who is even are all on the two-time defending champs, the Florida Panthers, who have also played an extra game.
The Avs have outscored the opposition 7-0 at even strength with MacKinnon on the ice, 10-0 overall. Those are just some numbers in a small sample size.
He and Martin Necas are flying at the start of this season. They’ve combined for seven goals and 17 points, and both could easily have a few more.
MacKinnon has already seen a steady diet of Zach Werenski, Drew Doughty, Mikhail Sergachev, Rasmus Dahlin or Owen Power and Miro Heiskanen or Esa Lindell.
He’s got a chance to have four straight 100-point seasons for the Avs. MacKinnon can also finish this year with six of the top 15 season point totals since the club moved to Denver if he gets to 97 or more points. Joe Sakic would be next … with three.
2. Gabe Landeskog feels good, and there are flashes of his vintage work
The captain has one point in five games, an empty-net assist. He’s played six minutes per game less than he did in 2021-22.
He’s not concerned.
“In terms of my game, it’s kind of the same thing — just scratching the surface,” Landeskog said. “I’m trying to find my game again, establish my game again. There’s been some good shifts here and there, but overall I’ve got pretty high expectations for myself. … I just have to remind myself that it’s a marathon here.”
Landeskog doesn’t look slow or a step behind the play. He’s not making costly mistakes. He’s been solid, with a sprinkling of impactful plays. The ability to win puck battles in dirty areas and make skillful plays in tight spaces is still there.
It hasn’t been the “Holy (expletive), how is he doing this?” version from the playoffs last year, but even he wasn’t expecting that at the start of this season. He’s not playing as much in part because Landeskog is on the second power-play unit and isn’t killing penalties.
The Avs haven’t needed him to, but having him available for every game and just being a solid player is obviously a huge boost compared to the past three years.
3. The penalty kill has benefited greatly from roster stability
Colorado has a new coach in charge of the power play and might still be looking for its optimal configurations with the man advantage. It’s a work in progress, with generally positive early returns.
The penalty kill looks like it’s ready for Game 1 of the playoffs right now. It is 12 for 14 to start the season, which is great in a small sample.
But it also just looks good. The two goals against were a 5-on-3 and one three seconds after a faceoff on a puck that fooled Scott Wedgewood.
“I really like the way it looks right now,” Bednar said. “Special teams are a big focus this time of year, building chemistry and dialing in those details that you need.”
Of the six forwards killing penalties, Parker Kelly and Jack Drury were new last year and figuring it out on the fly, while Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen weren’t available at the start of the year. Adding Brent Burns has allowed Cale Makar to play a little less on the PK.
4. Scott Wedgewood is going to be tough to unseat
Wedgewood would like a word about those 2026-27 roster projections.
Yes, the Avs are expecting to welcome Ilya Nabokov to North America at the end of his KHL season. Yes, it could be a natural fit for him to slide into the backup role next season behind MacKenzie Blackwood, given that Wedgewood is in the last year of his contract.
But Wedgewood is balling out to start the season. He’s second in save percentage, goals against average and total saves among goalies with at least three starts. He’s tied for third in goals saved above expected, per MoneyPuck.
“He just grinds,” Avs center Brock Nelson said. “He’s a competitor. He’s a gamer, but he’s also just good all the time. He’s frustrating to shoot on in practice. I feel like he’s got a great read on shooters, the puck, the play. He’s just a solid, sound goalie.”
Wedgewood’s play will determine whether the Avs want to try to keep him beyond this season, but he’s obviously become a key figure and well-liked teammate in the locker room as well.
5. This team, with some good health luck, can finish first in the Central
In part because of the injuries, trades and availability issues over the past couple of seasons, the Avalanche as a team hasn’t focused that intently on the regular-season standings. The best teams in the NHL typically don’t, partially because of the parity and because home-ice advantage in the playoffs is fleeting.
Do enough to get in, get things right at the right time and make a run. That said, finishing first in the Central Division does have one specific perk: You don’t have to beat Dallas and Winnipeg to reach the second half of the tournament.
Minnesota, St. Louis and Utah are all good teams, but it’s going to take something weird for the top three in the Central to not be Colorado, Dallas and Winnipeg in some order. And for the first time in a few years, the Avs look like they’re equipped for a run at the division title.
Everything at the top of the league standings is dependent on health, and usually a decent dose of good fortune when it comes to scoring goals or preventing them. This Colorado roster, 1-20, is one of the best in the league and looks locked in at the start of the season. Finishing first in the division, the conference or even the league could be in play.
“You snap your fingers and your career is over, and it’s so short in the big picture of your life,” Johnson, who patrolled the Avalanche’s blue line from 2011-2023 and then again for a smidge earlier this year, mused at Family Sports Center. “And it’s so short in the big picture of your life, that I just figured that, ‘Why not come to the rink every day like it’s the best day ever?’ I hope that rubbed off on people over time.”
Sure did. But seeing the affable EJ call time on a stellar run was also a reminder, and not a sunny one, that the Avs’ current core is creeping closer to the end of the movie than the beginning.
The Avs’ roster as of Monday morning featured nine players 30 or older. It’s the first time a Colorado roster sported an average age over 29, according to the Elite Prospects database, since 2006-07. Joe Sakic was 38 then. That group totaled 95 points but missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since the franchise relocated from Quebec City.
Coach Jared Bednar is juggling a few katanas while the Sword of Damocles dangles over his head this season. But load management is among the trickiest, given the annual grind of the Western Conference and the usual stratospheric stakes.
“I think Bedsy and the staff … are going to be smart, particularly with (Gabe) Landeskog, right?” Avs general manager Chris MacFarland replied Monday when I asked about the load. “We’re going to glean information on how (Gabe) does in back-to-backs, or three (games in four days), or four (in six days) and his practice schedule … He’s a really important player. So I think we’ll just we’ll glean that information … and we’ll read and react off that.”
For years, C-Mac’s Avs were young, to paraphrase noted philosopher Bob Seger, and they were strong, running against the wind. Only those winds blow even harder now, and they’re not so young anymore. Big Val Nichushkin turns 31 in March. Landeskog turns 33 in November. Brock Nelson turns 34 next month. Among the defense, Josh Manson turns 34 on Tuesday. Devon Toews turns 32 in February. Burns turns 41 in March.
Time is no longer on Bednar’s side. At one point Monday, MacFarland even sounded reflective, if slightly defensive, about the expiration date on what should’ve been an NHL dynasty.
“COVID hurt us,” MacFarland said. “There’s no ifs or buts about it. And then the uncertainty of Gabe’s situation and the unfortunate stuff with Val. But that stuff’s in the past.
“I think our guys, what Bedsy and our players have done is, that they have a chance. I think the organization’s job is to try and give them as good a chance as possible, and their play dictates that. I think over the last seven, eight years, their play (has) consistently dictated that. Hopefully, it will continue to do so this year as well.”
To his credit, MacFarland has been as dedicated to tweaking and shuffling the fringes of his roster as former Nuggets GM Calvin Booth was to sitting on his hands. Better to try and fail than to shrug, as Booth did, while Father Time coldly ripped the pages from Nikola Jokic’s desk calendar.
But Avs 1.1 (2023) and 1.2 (2024) never got as close as version 1.0 (2022 Stanley Cup champs) did in terms of bottling that combo of strong health, strong depth, strong special teams, strong goaltending, strong intangibles and strong matchups.
Although 1.3 (2025), on paper, flew awfully close. Wise puckheads looked at Stars-Avs last spring and declared that the winner was easily bound for, at worst, a Western Conference final — and that we were getting a main event far, far too early. They were right, in hindsight. Not that it should make anyone in burgundy and blue feel any better.
A long Cup run is a marathon, a two-month, uphill march of sweat, blood, guts, focus and willpower. It’s a battle of attrition and desperation; a story that inevitably demands a dozen hands and five or six heroes.
Lord Stanley is one of the hardest trophies in sports to win and even harder to keep. And yet the fact that the Florida Panthers have made it look even easier than the Lightning did does not reflect as kindly on MacFarland and Bednar, who have been good at their jobs at the same time some peers have been great.
It’s not unfair to assume the pair’s window might have already come and gone. If you’re curious, the last 14 teams with an average age of 29 or more from 2020-21 through 2024-25 averaged 95.2 points during the regular season. Eight of the 14 “old” squads reached the playoffs. And four of those eight got bounced out of the bracket in the first round.
Feast or famine. Which pretty well sums up the Avs’ postseason narrative since 2019, now that you mention it.
A few months ago, I asked Nathan MacKinnon about turning 30, about a core getting old.
“Cale’s 26,” MacKinnon cracked, nodding at Cale Makar’s locker across the way. “So I’ll probably be retired before we’re bad. Yeah, we’ll be fine. Cale will be all right.”
With that, he smiled. Time flies when you’re having fun. Just not always with a tailwind.
“Every day, you see (MacKinnon) do 10-12 things that are like, ‘Holy (expletive),’” Burns, a veteran defenseman who came over from Carolina, cackled. “And usually I’m at the wrong end of it. So it’s not good.”
Practice had just ended. MacKinnon’s skates were inside his locker. The rest of him was gone. Grinding.
“Working out,” an Avs staffer told me.
Twenty minutes became 25.
“He’s riding the bike now,” another staffer said. “Will be a bit of time.”
Twenty-five minutes became 30.
Then 35. Then 40. Then 45.
My phone buzzed.
“He’s on the way,” a voice said.
Think this man is easing up at age 30? Think he’s satisfied with one Stanley Cup?
You must be joking.
“I enjoy the day-to-day grind of it,” the Avs’ iconic center explained. “I enjoy working out. I enjoy skating with guys back home — just relaxing and working hard and trying to get better. So that kind of keeps me in the moment. ”
The rocket never rests. MacKinnon stands 6-foot in socks. But if carrying the Avs on his back, if dragging them kicking and screaming, gets Colorado another Stanley Cup in 2026, he’s good with that, too. Hop on.
“Just trying to get my mind and body ready for a long season,” MacKinnon continued. “Each day I come here, I’m just trying to get a little better. Just try to win every day I have. And hopefully that takes me and the team to a good spot.”
He’s in a better place than last May. That’s when old friend Mikko Rantanen, in what we hope doesn’t become a recurring theme, tore into MacKinnon’s chest and ripped his heart out. Rantanen, a stalwart of the Avs’ 2022 Cup champs, scored a hat trick to lead his new team, the Dallas Stars, to a maddening, series-clinching Game 7 win over his old one.
“It’s like getting over a breakup,” MacKinnon said of last season’s ignominious end. “It just takes a long time. Time heals everything.”
Including the Avs. Last spring’s wounds are this fall’s scars. Last October’s concerns are this year’s colonnades.
“I think when you all lose together, you’re in a painful experience together, I think you can come out of it stronger,” MacKinnon said of the Avs’ first-round elimination by a depleted Stars roster. “No one (in this locker room) was blaming each other; it was all on each other. I think it was a tough loss. We lost to a really good team. But I think we’ll be better because of it.”
Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon (29) takes the puck down ice against Dallas Stars center Mikael Granlund (64) and Esa Lindell (23) in the first period of game four of the first round of the NHL playoffs at Ball Arena in Denver on Saturday, April 26, 2025. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)
One Cup? For Nate, it’s not enough. It was never enough.
Mighty MacK’s good pal Sidney Crosby went seven years between championships. Colorado’s Burgundy Bolide turned 30 on Sept. 1. Father Time is the only dude MacKinnon can’t beat to the goal line.
“This is our fourth year (since 2022), so you just never know when it’s going to come,” the Avs center mused. “It’s just … sometimes, you win a couple in a row. Sometimes, it took (the Penguins) seven. And (then) they won two in a row. Hopefully, that happens for us one day. But I like where we’re at.”
Enter Burns. Enter Olofsson. Enter new assistant coach Dave Hakstol to help put some pep back into Colorado’s special teams. The Avs’ power play buzzsaw of the ’22 postseason was positively toothless in ’25 against the Stars.
“It’s not a ton of turnover, like last season (when) we had like nine new guys,” MacKinnon said. “Most of those guys are back. So I think it’s going to be a positive year — positive that we have so many returning guys.”
The negative? Landy turns 33 in November. Val turns 31 in March. Nelson’s 34th birthday falls on Oct. 15. Burns is lurching toward 41.
There’s a lot of mileage in that locker room. And an awful lot of tread worn off an awful lot of tires.
“I won’t look at Nate any differently if he wins one (Cup) or if he wins three,” Eddie Olczyk, the Warner Bros. Discovery and TNT analyst, told me by phone. “He’s won. He’s separated himself from many, many great players who have played this game.
“In terms of game-breakers and difference-makers, (the Avs) have two of the very best at different positions in (MacKinnon) and (defenseman) Cale Makar. But you need to stay healthy.”
Fortunately, the big 3-0 for Big Nate is no big deal. Like traffic on South Broadway and snow at Wolf Peak, MacKinnon’s wheels feel eternal.
Last spring, No. 29 became the first Avs player to post three consecutive seasons of 100 points or more, and the first in Colorado/Quebec annals since Peter Stastny pulled it off six times from 1980-86. MacKinnon is 33 goals away from 400 for his career.
During that ill-fated Stars series, MacKinnon took things as far as he could. His scoring clip of a goal per game was a new postseason high over nine different Cup runs. His 1.57 points per tilt were the most he’d produced in the playoffs since the 2020 COVID-19 bubble (1.67).
The problem? MacKinnon was a one-man wolf pack. No. 29 accounted for seven of Colorado’s 24 goals that series. The next-closest scorers were Artturi Lehkonen and Nichushkin, with three apiece. Coach Jared Bednar got juice from his top line and from his fourth — get well, Logan O’Connor — but the middle six vanished.
Dallas, meanwhile, eliminated the Avs minus the services of top defenseman Miro Heiskanen or forward Jason Robertson. Could you imagine Colorado knocking out a top-4 seed without Makar or MacKinnon?
“They (were) missing their best (defender) and maybe their best forward,” a crestfallen MacKinnon had said in Texas. “We still couldn’t beat them. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
He knows now.
“Yeah, obviously, it was (emotional),” MacKinnon said. “Hopefully, we are better next spring. But we’ve got a lot of hockey before that.
“It was heartbreaking. It was definitely the most tough loss of my career. By a mile.”
The best revenge is living well, Lord Stanley cradled in your loving arms. Payback’s a stitch. And Hell hath no fury like a Nathan scorned.
Colorado Avalanche Nathan MacKinnon, right, and Gabriel Landeskog answer questions from reporters at Ball Arena in Denver on Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
Sometimes, just the reactions to a question confirm it is a good one.
“You’re throwing yourself into the fire with that one, so have fun with that.”
“You are making me think way too hard too early in the morning.” (For context, this was said at 11 a.m.)
“So anyway … good luck with that. It does seem like an impossible question.”
Here is the question: A proverbial Mount Rushmore for the Colorado Avalanche includes Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Nathan MacKinnon and …?
Here are the choices: One of the two greatest goaltenders in the history of the sport, who backstopped the Avs to a pair of Stanley Cup championships? Or the best defenseman on the planet right now, who might spend his entire career with the franchise and end up as one of the best to ever do it at his position as well?
Patrick Roy? Or Cale Makar? This is intended to be a lighthearted, fun debate.
But also, choose your fighter.
“Anytime you’re trying to pick four guys from a historic franchise with some really historic teams, it’s going to be difficult,” Avs defenseman Devon Toews said. “Nobody’s going to be happy, no matter what you write. Cale is a name that should obviously be in consideration. By the end of his career, he is probably one of the first names on that list.
“There’s great players that you’re able to put on, and 10 others that probably deserve to be.”
Sakic and Forsberg are obvious as icons who came with the franchise from Quebec City, and two of the most popular players in league history. MacKinnon has already surpassed Forsberg — at least in the latter’s eyes — and cemented his place with league MVP honors in 2024.
Makar, predictably, quickly deferred to Roy. MacKinnon, full transparency here, wasn’t even asked to chime in. Both of those guys are humble about their legacies and accomplishments, almost to a fault.
“I don’t think I compare to (Roy) at all,” Makar said. “In terms of achievements and stuff, he’s on a completely different level. I appreciate your confidence in me, but I don’t know if I’m quite there yet.”
Both MacKinnon and Makar often reject the idea of being compared to past Avs greats because of one number: Two. As in, those guys won two titles, and they only have one to this point.
Makar may also be comparing his career to the totality of Roy’s, but that is where the case for the future Hall of Famer begins.
Roy won the Stanley Cup four times. He is the only three-time Conn Smythe Trophy winner in league history. He won the Vezina Trophy three times. Those accomplishments do dwarf what Makar has done so far.
But Roy entered the NHL in 1985. Nearly 54 percent of his regular-season games came with Montreal. All three of his Vezina wins and two of the three Conn Smythe honors came with the Canadiens, in 1986 and 1993.
The trade, from Montreal to Colorado, is one of the most important moments in franchise history. His addition helped Sakic, Forsberg and Co. win the Stanley Cup in the first season in Denver. It made the Avs a Cup contender for all of his eight seasons with the club, until his retirement in 2003.
Two championships, six trips to the conference finals, every career franchise record of note for goalies that exists, just an icon of the sport —it’s a good argument. Hard to knock it.
“I am always partial to … like, who is on Mount Rushmore right now?” NHL Network analyst Brian Boyle said. “They’re all dead. All former Presidents. We did this at NHL Network for the whole league, and for me, it’s Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. This is Founding Fathers type of stuff.
“So to me, it’s Joe Sakic. It’s Peter Forsberg, who was my favorite player to watch. It’s Patty Roy. He was that guy. And Nate, well, he’s a different animal. Cale is right there, too. I think it’s close. I think they might be carving out some stone soon, but I think it’s Patty Roy right now.”
Boyle makes a strong point about the essence of what a Mount Rushmore could or should be. Maybe every team’s “Mount Rushmore” should be older players who established the franchise’s footing.
But … that’s not really how people look at this sometimes silly, always engaging idea. And further to Boyle’s thoughts, this isn’t really a debate about Roy vs. Makar.
It’s really a debate about time. It’s about when, not if. Has Makar accomplished enough in his career to nudge Roy from this fictional mountain?
“I’m very biased, but I’m spoiled to watch Cale and his entire career,” Avs captain Gabe Landeskog said. “Every shift, every practice, every game, therefore I’m picking Cale because of the way he can impact both sides of the puck.
“It’s a pretty good problem to have, to be picking between the two of those guys.”
So, here it goes …
Makar has won the Norris Trophy twice as the best player at his position. Roy did not do that with Colorado.
Makar has been a finalist for the Norris five times. Roy was a Vezina finalist in Denver twice.
The NHL All-Star game has become nearly useless for legacy purposes. Makar should be a six-time participant (one more than Roy in Colorado), but the league hasn’t staged one twice in his career, and one was played in St. Louis, so the Central squad was stuffed with Blues.
Makar has been named a postseason NHL All-Star five times (three first teams). Roy was named to the first team once, and did finish in the top four two other times.
Those are the facts in Makar’s favor. There are other parts of the argument as well.
He’s a homegrown player and won the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie. If anyone deemed it too close to call, that would be a good way to break the tie.
Makar has already spent more time as the unofficial best defenseman in the world than Roy spent at the goalie position during his time in Colorado. That’s a debate inside of a debate and further into the weeds than we probably need to go.
“I thought of Patrick Roy first, but that is because I’m old,” said E.J. Hradek, host of NHL Tonight: First Shift on NHL Network. “Patrick Roy is a Hall of Famer and a legend. But, as I’ve said on the air, Cale Makar might be the best defenseman to ever play when it’s all said and done, beyond Bobby Orr and whoever else you want to talk about.
“That would certainly mean that he’d have to be on that hill.”
And that is probably where the battle lines are drawn. Older Avalanche fans will almost certainly side with Roy. Younger ones will be more likely to back Makar.
Soon, it will be an easy call for Makar. For now, it’s right in the sweet spot for a spirited conversation.
John-Michael Liles, former Avs defenseman and analyst for Altitude Sports, may have had the best solution.
“There should just be five heads up there,” he said.
Bernie Parent, the Hall of Famer considered one of the great goalies of all time who anchored the net for the Philadelphia Flyers’ only two Stanley Cup championships in the 1970s during their Broad Street Bullies heyday, has died. He was 80.The Flyers made the announcement Sunday but provided no details. Parent died overnight in his sleep, former teammate Joe Watson said.Watson, a star defenseman on the Stanley Cup teams, said by phone that he saw Parent and other former Flyers players at a function Friday night in Delaware.“Bernie was in such pain, he could hardly walk,” Watson said, citing Parent’s bad back. “We had a great time, but I felt bad because he was in such terrible pain. To see this happen, it’s very sad.”Parent’s steel-eyed stare through his old-school hockey mask landed him on the cover of Time magazine in 1975 when the Flyers reigned as one of the marquee teams in sports. He won Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe and Vezina trophies in back-to-back seasons when the Flyers captured the Stanley Cup in ‘74 and ’75, the first NHL expansion team to win the championship.“The legend of Bernie Parent reached far beyond the ice and his accolades,” the Flyers said in a statement. “Bernie had a deep love for Philadelphia and fans of the Flyers. He was passionate about his role as an ambassador for Ed Snider Youth Hockey & Education and inspired an entire generation of hockey fans. He dedicated his time, energy and enthusiasm to not only grow the game, but also to spread joy to anyone he encountered.”After he made his NHL debut with Boston in 1965, Parent was left unprotected by the Bruins in the 1967 expansion draft and was selected by the Flyers. After 3 1/2 seasons, he was traded to Toronto but ended up back in Philadelphia ahead of the 1973-74 season. He won a league-high 47 games that season and led the NHL in wins again the next season with 44.Parent was accidentally struck in the right eye with a stick in 1979 and was temporarily blinded. He never played again, retiring with 271 wins — 231 of them for the Flyers — over a 13-year career.“At his unbeatable, unflappable best on the ice when the stakes were highest, Bernie was a warm, gregarious bear of a man off the ice who was venerated in Philadelphia and adored throughout the hockey world,” Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “The entire National Hockey League family mourns the passing of this beloved icon and sends its deepest condolences to his wife, Gini, his family, and his countless fans and friends.”The Flyers beat the Bruins in six games to win the Stanley Cup in 1974 and beat Buffalo in 1975. Parent had shutouts in the clinchers each season.On the flight home from Buffalo, the Flyers plopped the Stanley Cup in the middle of the aisle. For close to 90 minutes, they couldn’t take their eyes off hockey’s ultimate prize.“We were able to just sit back, look at the Stanley Cup and just savor it,” Parent said in 2010. “It was just a special time.”With Parent the unstoppable force in net, “Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent,” became a popular slogan in Philadelphia that stuck with him through the decades.“We used to joke about it in the dressing room. We’d say, ‘Bernie, how many goals do you need?’ He’d say, ‘One, two, that’s it, and we’ll win the game,’” said Gary Dornhoefer, a winger on the two Cup teams.Parent, team captain Bobby Clarke and Dave “The Hammer” Schultz all became stars for the Flyers under owner Ed Snider in an era when the team was known for its rugged style of play that earned the Bullies nickname. They embraced their moniker as the most despised team in the NHL and pounded their way into the hearts of Flyers fans. More than 2 million fans packed Philadelphia streets for each of their championship parades.“We always felt comfortable with Bernie in the net,” former Flyers winger and enforcer Bob Kelly said. “He would challenge the guys in practice. He’d stop the puck and throw it back at you and say, ‘Go ahead, try and catch this one.’ He was the first guy to jump in line to help another teammate if they needed it. He was a real testament to what a team player is all about.”Parent’s No. 1 jersey was retired by the Flyers and still hangs in the rafters of their arena. In 1984, he became the first Flyers player inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. He is still their career leader in shutouts with 50.Parent remained connected with the team over the years as an ambassador.“He was so good with people,” said Watson, who first met Parent in 1963. “A lot of athletes don’t get it or don’t give fans the time of day. Bernie gave everyone the time of day. He’d always have his rings on. He’d show them to the people and people loved to see them. This past Friday in Delaware, people were coming up, they wanted to see the rings. People were so excited to see him. He had a great sense of humor. Bernie was a funny guy.”Flyers coach Rick Tocchet, who played 11 seasons over two stints with the team, choked back tears at the New Jersey practice rink as he described Parent’s influence.“As a young kid, you’re stressed trying to make the team. When he would come in, he’d just break the room up. He really helped me out when it came to that,” Tocchet said. “It seemed like every day was a great day to him. I don’t know if he ever had a bad day. But that (Stanley Cup) group was very close, and Bernie was kind of the glue. Bob Clarke obviously unreal, and Billy Barber and all those guys, they came around a lot. Bernie was one of those guys, he would just, we’d lose three in a row, somehow he’d come in there and loosen us up the Bernie way.”The final career highlight came in 2011 when Parent was in the net for an alumni game outdoors at the baseball stadium Citizens Bank Park ahead of the NHL Classic. “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!” echoed throughout the park for the affable goalie, who played 5 minutes, 32 seconds and stopped all six shots. Each save made the “Bernie!” chants return.“He was a man who was always happy, always laughing and was always fun to be around,” Clarke said. “He did what all great hockey players do: He played for the hockey team. The two years that we won the Stanley Cup, he was the only member of that team that we could not have been without if we were going to win. He was the best goalie in hockey for those two years.”Parent was the third Hall of Fame goaltender to die this month. Ken Dryden, who helped the Montreal Canadiens win six Stanley Cup titles in the 1970s, died at 78 after a fight with cancer. Ed Giacomin, one of the faces of the New York Rangers’ franchise in the 1960s and ’70s, died at 86 of natural causes.“They’re big losses,” Kelly said. “They were just prime, super goaltenders.”
PHILADELPHIA —
Bernie Parent, the Hall of Famer considered one of the great goalies of all time who anchored the net for the Philadelphia Flyers’ only two Stanley Cup championships in the 1970s during their Broad Street Bullies heyday, has died. He was 80.
The Flyers made the announcement Sunday but provided no details. Parent died overnight in his sleep, former teammate Joe Watson said.
Watson, a star defenseman on the Stanley Cup teams, said by phone that he saw Parent and other former Flyers players at a function Friday night in Delaware.
“Bernie was in such pain, he could hardly walk,” Watson said, citing Parent’s bad back. “We had a great time, but I felt bad because he was in such terrible pain. To see this happen, it’s very sad.”
Parent’s steel-eyed stare through his old-school hockey mask landed him on the cover of Time magazine in 1975 when the Flyers reigned as one of the marquee teams in sports. He won Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe and Vezina trophies in back-to-back seasons when the Flyers captured the Stanley Cup in ‘74 and ’75, the first NHL expansion team to win the championship.
“The legend of Bernie Parent reached far beyond the ice and his accolades,” the Flyers said in a statement. “Bernie had a deep love for Philadelphia and fans of the Flyers. He was passionate about his role as an ambassador for Ed Snider Youth Hockey & Education and inspired an entire generation of hockey fans. He dedicated his time, energy and enthusiasm to not only grow the game, but also to spread joy to anyone he encountered.”
After he made his NHL debut with Boston in 1965, Parent was left unprotected by the Bruins in the 1967 expansion draft and was selected by the Flyers. After 3 1/2 seasons, he was traded to Toronto but ended up back in Philadelphia ahead of the 1973-74 season. He won a league-high 47 games that season and led the NHL in wins again the next season with 44.
Parent was accidentally struck in the right eye with a stick in 1979 and was temporarily blinded. He never played again, retiring with 271 wins — 231 of them for the Flyers — over a 13-year career.
“At his unbeatable, unflappable best on the ice when the stakes were highest, Bernie was a warm, gregarious bear of a man off the ice who was venerated in Philadelphia and adored throughout the hockey world,” Commissioner Gary Bettman said. “The entire National Hockey League family mourns the passing of this beloved icon and sends its deepest condolences to his wife, Gini, his family, and his countless fans and friends.”
The Flyers beat the Bruins in six games to win the Stanley Cup in 1974 and beat Buffalo in 1975. Parent had shutouts in the clinchers each season.
On the flight home from Buffalo, the Flyers plopped the Stanley Cup in the middle of the aisle. For close to 90 minutes, they couldn’t take their eyes off hockey’s ultimate prize.
“We were able to just sit back, look at the Stanley Cup and just savor it,” Parent said in 2010. “It was just a special time.”
With Parent the unstoppable force in net, “Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent,” became a popular slogan in Philadelphia that stuck with him through the decades.
“We used to joke about it in the dressing room. We’d say, ‘Bernie, how many goals do you need?’ He’d say, ‘One, two, that’s it, and we’ll win the game,’” said Gary Dornhoefer, a winger on the two Cup teams.
Parent, team captain Bobby Clarke and Dave “The Hammer” Schultz all became stars for the Flyers under owner Ed Snider in an era when the team was known for its rugged style of play that earned the Bullies nickname. They embraced their moniker as the most despised team in the NHL and pounded their way into the hearts of Flyers fans. More than 2 million fans packed Philadelphia streets for each of their championship parades.
“We always felt comfortable with Bernie in the net,” former Flyers winger and enforcer Bob Kelly said. “He would challenge the guys in practice. He’d stop the puck and throw it back at you and say, ‘Go ahead, try and catch this one.’ He was the first guy to jump in line to help another teammate if they needed it. He was a real testament to what a team player is all about.”
Parent’s No. 1 jersey was retired by the Flyers and still hangs in the rafters of their arena. In 1984, he became the first Flyers player inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. He is still their career leader in shutouts with 50.
Parent remained connected with the team over the years as an ambassador.
“He was so good with people,” said Watson, who first met Parent in 1963. “A lot of athletes don’t get it or don’t give fans the time of day. Bernie gave everyone the time of day. He’d always have his rings on. He’d show them to the people and people loved to see them. This past Friday in Delaware, people were coming up, they wanted to see the rings. People were so excited to see him. He had a great sense of humor. Bernie was a funny guy.”
Flyers coach Rick Tocchet, who played 11 seasons over two stints with the team, choked back tears at the New Jersey practice rink as he described Parent’s influence.
“As a young kid, you’re stressed trying to make the team. When he would come in, he’d just break the room up. He really helped me out when it came to that,” Tocchet said. “It seemed like every day was a great day to him. I don’t know if he ever had a bad day. But that (Stanley Cup) group was very close, and Bernie was kind of the glue. Bob Clarke obviously unreal, and Billy Barber and all those guys, they came around a lot. Bernie was one of those guys, he would just, we’d lose three in a row, somehow he’d come in there and loosen us up the Bernie way.”
The final career highlight came in 2011 when Parent was in the net for an alumni game outdoors at the baseball stadium Citizens Bank Park ahead of the NHL Classic. “Bernie! Bernie! Bernie!” echoed throughout the park for the affable goalie, who played 5 minutes, 32 seconds and stopped all six shots. Each save made the “Bernie!” chants return.
“He was a man who was always happy, always laughing and was always fun to be around,” Clarke said. “He did what all great hockey players do: He played for the hockey team. The two years that we won the Stanley Cup, he was the only member of that team that we could not have been without if we were going to win. He was the best goalie in hockey for those two years.”
Parent was the third Hall of Fame goaltender to die this month. Ken Dryden, who helped the Montreal Canadiens win six Stanley Cup titles in the 1970s, died at 78 after a fight with cancer. Ed Giacomin, one of the faces of the New York Rangers’ franchise in the 1960s and ’70s, died at 86 of natural causes.
“They’re big losses,” Kelly said. “They were just prime, super goaltenders.”
Bernie Parent, the beloved goalie who backstopped the Philadelphia Flyers to back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1974 and 1975, died Sunday, the organization announced.
Parent was 80.
One of the major faces of the “Broad Street Bullies” and the greatest goaltender in franchise history, Parent was crucial to the Flyers’ rise into NHL respectability, Philadelphia’s transformation into a hockey town and, above all, those consecutive Stanley Cup titles and the ensuing parades that saw Lord Stanley go traveling down Broad Street.
During the Flyers’ golden era, Parent wasn’t just the team’s star goaltender, he was the best in hockey.
He won two Vezina Trophies as the league’s best goaltender for the 1973-74 and 1974-75 seasons, the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoffs’ MVP for those respective seasons, and at the end of all of it, the Cup – first over the Boston Bruins in ’74 and then the expansion Buffalo Sabres in ’75.
Philadelphia embraced all of it.
“Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent” became one of the famous sayings from fans during the Flyers’ Cup runs, and the image of Parent and Flyers captain Bobby Clarke skating off with the Cup, as fans surrounded them on the Spectrum ice after they defeated Boston, has become an essential part of Philadelphia sports lore.
Parent’s impact went far beyond the crease, though.
After he retired, he remained in the area and around the Flyers.
He was a common face around what is now called the Xfinity Mobile Arena during the season for fans to approach and greet, and kept involved in the community as an ambassador for the Ed Snider Youth Hockey & Education Foundation, which has helped countless kids throughout the Delaware Valley get introduced to hockey.
“He dedicated his time, energy and enthusiasm to not only grow the game, but also to spread joy to anyone he encountered,” the Flyers said in a statement. “Anyone who had the pleasure of being around Bernie always walked away with a smile. He will be dearly missed. We offer our condolences to his beloved wife, Gini, and the entire Parent family.”
When the Flyers hosted the NHL’s Winter Classic at Citizens Bank Park in 2012, they held an alumni game with the New York Rangers on New Year’s Eve a couple of days before.
Parent, at 66 years old, trained up to make one last appearance between the pipes. He stacked the pads and threw up a wall against the Rangers alum streaking down the ice for several minutes, until a stoppage allowed the Hockey Hall of Famer to make his exit.
The fans, who packed the converted ballpark, stood and roared for Parent as the cameras focused on him making his way to the bench, with hugs and high fives pouring in from his former teammates and the generations of Flyers that succeeded him.
Then “BERNIE!” chants from a 45,000-capacity stadium showered him. It meant that much. He meant that much.
The Minnesota Wild signed center Marco Rossi to a three-year, $15 million contract on Friday, following a career-best season for the 2020 first-round draft pick who had become a restricted free agent this summer.
Rossi had 24 goals and 36 assists, both career highs, in 2024-25. He also led the Wild with seven power-play goals. During his first NHL playoff series, Rossi had two goals and one assist in six games after being moved down to the fourth line, which frustrated him. But general manager Bill Guerin said too much was made of the switch.
Rossi said after the season he wanted a top-six role, which the Wild agreed with.
“His production kind of fell off on the back end of last season, but he was still a good player,” Guerin said. “When you’re in a playoff series, you’re constantly adjusting and not really worried about who’s playing with who. You’re worried about winning games.”
The 5-foot-9, 185-pound native of Austria has 45 goals and 56 assists in 185 games for the Wild over parts of four seasons. Rossi has also played in every game for two straight seasons on a streak of 167 consecutive regular-season games played. He is the third Austrian player in league history to record a 50-point season, following Thomas Vanek and Michael Grabner. Vanek did so nine times.
After sitting out the 2020-21 season due to complications from COVID-19, Rossi returned to the ice for the 2021-22 season with the Wild’s AHL affiliate in Iowa and made his NHL debut with Minnesota on Jan. 6, 2022.
“He’s shown steady progress. He went through a lot as a young player,” Guerin said. “He’s just kind of scratching the surface, and I think this three-year contract really gives him a good runway to be the player he can be.”
Note: The above video first aired on June 30, 2025.
SAN JOSE — The high-flying, supercharged Colorado Avalanche did not show up Sunday at SAP Center, but Justus Annunen made sure that version of the club wasn’t needed.
Annunen made 25 saves, including a few key ones while the Avs were clearly on the back foot, and Colorado defeated a plucky San Jose Sharks outfit, 4-1. Given the roster limitations — Colorado was again without five of its 10 best players — the Avs need to scratch out as many points as possible.
“It was huge to get a solid goaltending performance,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “Wasn’t a lot of work but he made key saves at key times. We did a nice job of blocking shots in front of him. He looked solid in there. He looked big in there.
“He lets the one squeak through him on the power play, and from then on he looked better and better as the game went on.”
After beginning the season with four straight losses, the Avalanche has now won back-to-back contests. Colorado’s next four contests are all against teams that, like Anaheim two nights ago and San Jose, did not make the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Ross Colton scored twice early, then Joel Kiviranta provided a critical insurance goal early in the third period after the Sharks controlled play at times in the middle of this penalty-filled affair. Cale Makar added an empty-net goal as part of a three-point night.
Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen combined for six points in this game. They have 34 in six games — Makar has 12, which is tied for the NHL lead, while MacKinnon and Rantanen have 11 each.
“It’s been huge to have them going, because the bulk of our offense is coming from those guys as we’d expect it to, at this point,” Bednar said. “It’s a lot of pressure on them. We talked a little about making sure we’re still focusing on the defense side of it, which they really have in the last (few) games. It’s really paid off, and everyone else is sort of following suit and doing what they can.”
The first period went exactly as the Avs might have planned, save for the final couple of minutes. Colton gave Colorado a 2-0 lead with his fifth and sixth goals of the season.
Colton’s first game at 6:23 on the power play. He’s become a fixture in the bumper spot for the top power-play unit with Jonathan Drouin, Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen not available. MacKinnon fed him for a one-timer in the slot. Colton’s first five goals of the season came on one-timers.
He did not need a one-timer to make it a two-goal advantage. Rantanen feathered a perfect pass to Colton as he got behind the San Jose defense for a goal at 16:37 of the period.
“(Colton) plays hard. He plays with the edge,” Rantanen said. “On the power play, he’s good in little spots, good at finishing plays like we’ve seen this year. (Jonathan Drouin) is obviously a big part of the power play, but (Colton) has been stepping up.”
Josh Manson took exception to a hit on John Ludvig and ended up with two roughing penalties instead of a fighting major. The Sharks scored 18 seconds into the power play when William Eklund was left open to the left of Annunen and roofed a shot from in tight with 1:35 left in the period.
The first period might have been one of Colorado’s best of the season to date, but the second was probably the worst outside of the loss against the New York Islanders. The Avs failed to take advantage of a 5-on-3 early in the period, then took four minor penalties themselves.
Annunen stopped all 13 shots he faced to keep it a 2-1 advantage.
This was Annunen’s first start of the season, and it came the day after Kaapo Kahkonen finally joined the club. Colorado claimed Kahkonen on waivers Oct. 11 from the Winnipeg Jets, but it took a week to resolve immigration issues before he could fly to Denver.
Alexandar Georgiev started the first five games of the season, and has improved his play after two duds to start the season. Annunen replaced him in both of those games, but quickly yielded a pair of goals in each of them, and entered this contest with a .765 save percentage (13 saves on 17 shots).
“I thought he looked really calmed,” Rantanen said of his fellow Finn in net. “It’s probably easier mentally, I’ve never been a goalie, than being put in mid-game when we are down and pushing. Now he got the start and I’m happy for him. He played well.”
EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Connor Hellebuyck made 30 saves for his 38th career shutout and the Winnipeg Jets routed the Edmonton Oilers 6-0 on Wednesday night in the opener for both teams.
“The guys in front of me were just keeping everything outside, allowing me to see pucks, allowing me to feel it, clearing rebounds, clearing lanes,” Hellebuyck said. “They made my night really easy. Once in a while I made a big save, which allowed me to feel like a part of the team.”
Mason Appleton had a goal and two assists, Adam Lowry and Mark Scheifele each had a goal and an assist and Rasmus Kupari, Dylan Samberg and Kyle Connor also scored.
“It’s great, just to get the season off on a good note,” first-year Jets coach Scott Arniel said. “I did have a sleepless night just worrying about some of these guys on the other team there and how powerful they are as a group. … It’s a road win in a tough barn. We’ll take that and move on.”
Edmonton outshot Winnipeg 30-20. The Oilers lost to Florida in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final last season.
“You had an incredible year that finished with disappointment and it’s tough to just say ‘Forget about it, let’s think about now,’” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said. “But there is a point where we need to do that.”
Oilers starter Stuart Skinner allowed five goals on 13 shots before being pulled midway through the second period. Calvin Pickard gave up a goal on seven shots.
“I feel terrible about what happened tonight,” Skinner said. “It is very frustrating to start like this. It is just not ideal. I don’t feel great.”
Takeaways
Jets: Connor scored in an opener for an NHL-record seventh consecutive year. He walked in from the top of the circle on the power play midway through the second period and whipped a shot off the post and in. Three players scored in six straight openers: Cam Atkinson, Yvan Cournoyer and Mud Bruneteau.
Oilers: Leon Draisaitl’s opening night points streak ended at eight.
Key moment
Winnipeg scored twice in a 20-second span early in the second period to take a 4-0 lead. Kupari ripped a shot past Skinner and, while that was still sinking in, Nino Niederreiter passed through traffic to Samberg for a shot over Skinner’s shoulder.
Key stat
The Jets scored four times on their first 10 shots.
Up next
The Oilers host Chicago on Saturday night in the second of four home games to start the season. The Jets open a four-homestand Friday night against the Blackhawks.
National Hockey League (NHL) legend Patrick Sharp returned to the Philadelphia Flyers last summer with a brief to install a winning mentality in the club.
Sharp’s broad role as special adviser to hockey operations effectively handed him the power to influence the Flyers at all levels on and off the ice.
“In adding Patrick Sharp to our group, we are gaining an individual who has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to building an environment of winning at all levels,” Flyers president of hockey operations Keith Jones said after appointing Sharp.
“Patrick knows what it takes to win – he understands how to convey that to our players and is a relationship maker. He will be a vital component as we continue to build the foundation of the Philadelphia Flyers.”
Flyers Lay Solid Foundations in Year One
The Flyers have not won the Stanley Cup since 1974/75, so anyone expecting Sharp to immediately transform their fortunes was in for a rude awakening.
They have failed to qualify for the playoffs in each of the past four seasons but did show signs of improvement during Sharp’s first year with the club.
Their 38-33-11 record was a step forward from the previous campaign and gives them a solid foundation to work from in 2024/25.
Sharp’s influence was also felt off the ice, with the club running several initiatives designed to rebuild a connection with their long-suffering fans.
These included an Irish heritage night, which resonated strongly with Philadelphia’s strong Irish community and Flyers fans on the Emerald Isle.
PHOTO: Pixabay
Establishing that connection will also reignite interest in the Flyers in the Irish betting community, who love wagering on teams with Irish connections.
With Sharp pulling the strings behind the scenes, the Flyers’ odds of 51.00 to win the 2024/25 Stanley Cup on betting apps in Ireland may garner plenty of interest.
Sharp’s track record as a three-time Stanley Cup champion as a player demonstrates that he knows what it takes to rise to the pinnacle in this tough sport.
Ironically, Sharp won his first Stanley Cup title as a Chicago Blackhawks player against the Flyers in 2010. He bagged two more titles with the Blackhawks in 2013 and 2015.
His move to the Blackhawks remains one of the more regrettable trades in the Flyers’ history, which may have influenced their decision to lure him back into an advisory role.
The Canadian’s name carries a unique resonance in Philadelphia, a city renowned for its profound Irish diaspora.
Sharp’s Return Could Be the Catalyst for Flyers’ Success
Sharp boasts a profound popularity in Philadelphia, and his return may prove to be a major turning point for the Flyers, who have been itching to get their hands on a Stanley Cup. His trade to the Blackhawks in 2005 is often cited as one of the Flyers’ most regrettable moves of the past quarter of a century.
The Canadian brings plenty of experience to the Wells Fargo Centre, and his role as a special advisor to hockey operations could be a masterstroke for the Flyers.
The Flyers missed out on a playoff spot in 2023/24 by just four points from the Eastern Conference (87) – a far cry from their 75-point haul the previous season.
If they continue their upward trajectory and eventually clinch a playoff spot, Sharp would be a major reason for their success.
Intriguingly, former NHL coach Bruce Boudreau believes the Flyers could emerge as surprise Stanley Cup contenders this season.
“They’re going to be an enthusiastic team,” he said. They’re going to be younger. They got the young Russian (Matvei Michkov) coming over. I do believe the Flyers are on the way up.
“(Jamie) Drysdale being there for a year now and being healthy to start, I think, is going to be a big addition. So, it’s all of these things make me think that it’s about time the Flyers got back into the hunt.”
Given Sharp’s track record of success as a player and the improvements he sparked last season, it would be no surprise if Boudreau’s prediction came to fruition.
The Florida Panthers made history Monday night in front of more than 19,000 fans at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida, beating the Edmonton Oilers 2-1 to win their first Stanley Cup.
As expected, Game 7 was a hard-fought contest with both teams going toe to toe throughout the game.
Panthers’ Sam Reinhart and Carter Verhaeghe scored goals, Sergei Bobrovsky made 23 saves.
This time, they were on the right side of history — after avoiding what would have been a historic collapse. The Panthers won the first three games of the series, then lost the next three and needed a win on Monday to avoid joining the 1942 Detroit Red Wings as the only teams to lose the final after taking a 3-0 lead in the title round.
It wasn’t easy. Not even close. But it’s done. It took until the very end for the Panthers to deny Connor McDavid his first title, and Edmonton what would have been its first Cup since 2006.
CBS News Miami cameras caught images of fans at watch parties throughout South Florida cheering and screaming for every goal scored.
This year marked the Panthers’ third time playing for the Stanley Cup. In 2023, the Cats fell to the Golden Knights and in 1996, the Year of the Rat, to the Avalanche.
Panthers fans had to wait three long decades to reach this moment. It took 30 seasons, 457 different players, 18 different coaches, about two decades of irrelevance wedged in there along the way, rumors of contraction, rumors of relocation, and who knows how many bad nights to get to this moment.
The Cats and their fans suffered in this series, but in the end, they won the Cup through sheer effort in their building.
This developing story will be updated as soon as more details become available.
Aaron Ekblad #5 of the Florida Panthers skates against Mattias Janmark #13 of the Edmonton Oilers in Game Six of the 2024 NHL Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place on June 21, 2024 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
The Edmonton Oilers face the Florida Panthers for Game 7 of the 2024 NHL Stanley Cup Final. The Stanley Cup will be awarded tonight. Either the Panthers will win the championship for the first time in franchise history, or the Oilers will become the first team since 1942 to come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the Stanley Cup.
How and when to watch Edmonton Oilers vs. Florida Panthers NHL Finals Game 7
Game 7 of the Edmonton Oilers vs. Florida Panthers NHL Stanley Cup Final will be played on Monday, June 24, 2024 at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT). The game will air on ABC and stream on Sling TV and the platforms featured below.
How to watch Edmonton Oilers vs. Florida Panthers Game 7 without cable
If your cable subscription doesn’t inciude ABC or you’ve cut the cord with your cable company, you can still watch the finals. Below are the platforms you can watch the NHL Stanley Cup Final without cable.
One of the most cost-effective ways to stream the NHL Stanley Cup Final Game 7, and top-tier sports this summer including NBC-aired Olympic events, is through a subscription to Sling TV. To watch hockey in the postseason, you’ll need a subscription to the Orange + Blue tier.
Sling’s Orange + Blue tier costs $60 per month, but the platform currently offers 50% off your first month of service, making the Orange + Blue tier $50 for the first month. You can cancel anytime. (Note that some people are seeing different introductory deals.)
Note: Because Sling TV doesn’t carry CBS, you won’t be able to watch CBS-aired programming like next year’s NFL games on CBS. To watch these games, plus PGA golf, UEFA Champions League and more live sports, we recommend you also subscribe to Paramount+ with Showtime. Paramount+ with Showtime costs $12 per month after a one-week free trial.
CBS Essentials and Paramount+ with Showtime are both subsidiaries of Paramount.
You can watch today’s game on Fubo. Fubo is a sports-centric streaming service that offers access to access to local network affiliates, ESPN and more. To watch the NHL Final for free, start a seven-day free trial of Fubo. You can begin watching immediately on your TV, phone, tablet or computer. In addition to NHL hockey, you’ll have access to NFL football, MLB, NBA, NASCAR, MLS and international soccer games. Fubo’s Pro Tier is priced at $80 per month after your free seven-day trial.
Sports fans will want to consider adding on the $7.99 per month Fubo Extra package, which includes MLB Network, NBA TV, NHL Network, Tennis Channel, SEC Network and more channels with live games. Or upgrade to the Fubo Elite tier and get all the Fubo Extra channels, plus the ability to stream in 4K, starting at $90 per month ($70 for the first month).
Top features of FuboTV Pro Tier:
There are no contracts with Fubo, you can cancel anytime.
The Pro tier includes over 180 channels, so there’s something for everyone to enjoy.
Fubo includes most channels you’ll need to watch live sports, including CBS (not available through Sling TV).
All tiers come with 1,000 hours of cloud-based DVR recording.
Stream on your TV, phone, tablet and other devices.
You can watch tonight’s game with the Hulu + Live TV/ESPN+ bundle. The bundle features 95 channels, including ABC, TNT, TBS, local network affiliates and ESPN. It also includes the ESPN+ streaming service. Unlimited DVR storage is also included. Watch the 2024 NHL Playoffs, MLB this season and network-aired NFL games next season with Hulu + Live TV/ESPN+ bundle.
Hulu + Live TV comes bundled with ESPN+ and Disney+. It’s priced at $77 per month after a three-day free trial.
You can also watch the NHL Stanley Cup Final on ESPN+. ESPN+ offers exclusive live sports, original shows, and a vast library of on-demand content, including the entire 30 For 30 series and more.
It is important to note that ESPN+ does not include access to the ESPN network. It is a separate sports-centric service, with separate sports programming.
An ESPN+ subscription costs $11 per month, or save 15% when you pay annually ($110). ESPN+ is also currently offering a cost-saving bundle. Get ESPN+ (with ads), Disney+ (with ads) and Hulu (with ads) for $15 per month.
Here’s a sampling of what’s available on ESPN+:
Exclusive fantasy sports tools and content from some of the sports world’s most respected voices in sports.
Select WNBA games, including Caitlin Clark’s WNBA regular season debut.
Every Fight Night UFC event UFC PPV event (PPV events are subject to an additional charge).
Soccer including EFL Championship, US Open Cup and Bundesliga.
College sports including the Ivy League, Big Sky Conference and Atlantic A10 Conference.
MLB and the World Series.
Top-tier tennis including the Australian Open and Wimbledon.
Watch the NHL Stanley Cup Final live on ABC with a digital HDTV antenna
Amazon
You can also watch tonight’s game on TV with an affordable indoor antenna, which pulls in local over-the-air HDTV channels such as CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, PBS, Univision and more. Here’s the kicker: There’s no monthly charge.
For anyone living in a partially blocked-off area (those near mountains or first-floor apartments), a digital TV antenna may not pick up a good signal — or any signal at all. But for many homes, a digital TV antenna provides a seriously inexpensive way to watch NHL hockey without paying a cable company. Indoor TV antennas can also provide some much-needed TV backup if a storm knocks out your cable.
The ultra-thin, multi-directional Mohu Leaf Supreme Pro digital antenna with a 65-mile range can receive hundreds of HD TV channels, including ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox, and Univision and can filter out cellular and FM signals. It delivers a high-quality picture in 1080p HDTV, top-tier sound and features a 12-foot digital coax cable.
This antenna is currently 10% off at Amazon. For a limited time get this digital antenna for $63, reduced from $70.
See the latest NHL Stanley Cup Final gear at Fanatics
Rooting from home is more fun while repping your team with the latest NHL fan gear. Fanatics is our first stop for the newest NHL fan gear, our go-to for the latest drop of NHL Final merch like jerseys, commemorative T-shirts, hats and more. Fanatics also has just-released NFL Draft jerseys, like No. 1 overall draft pick Caleb Williams‘ new Chicago Bears jersey. Get free shipping on orders over $24 through June 25, 2024 (use code 24SHIP).
2024 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs and Final: Full schedule
The 2024 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs began on April 20, 2024.
Stanley Cup Final
The 2024 NHL Stanley Cup Final is a best-of-seven series beginning on Saturday, June 8, 2024.
Managing editor Fox Van Allen is an expert in tech, laptops and computers, toys and video games for CBS Essentials. When he’s not writing about (or playing) the Nintendo Switch and PS5, Fox’s hobbies include reality TV podcasting, designing board games and hanging out in his favorite warehouse stores.
Before the puck drops and before 18,000 fans sing “O Canada” in unison at Edmonton Oilers home games, the audience hears from Chief Willie Littlechild.A message from Littlechild plays on Rogers Place video screens, welcoming the crowd to Treaty 6 territory, the homelands of Métis and Inuit and the ancestral territory of the Cree, Dene, Blackfoot, Saulteaux and Nakota Sioux.Video above: Florida Panthers clash with Edmonton Oilers in 2024 Stanley Cup Final“The recognition of our history on this land is an act of reconciliation, and we honor those who walk with us,” Littlechild says, ending with “kinanaskomitin” — thank you, in Cree.The land recognition video, a tradition that began in 2021, is getting major airtime across North America with the Oilers on national television in the U.S. and Canada in the Stanley Cup Final against Florida. Littlechild called it a significant step, but it is only one piece of the Oilers’ outreach to First Nations tribes and the Indigenous community in central and northern Alberta that has grown significantly over the past decade.“We’ve had significant progress,” said Littlechild, who has served on the team’s community foundation board for nine years. “The Oilers have really been pioneers in the country, and I would say in the whole National Hockey League, in terms of inclusion and access for Indigenous peoples.”Much of it stemmed from Canada’s National Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, a six-plus-year study conducted from 2007-15 in the wake of the country’s largest class-action lawsuit settled over the treatment of First Nations children sent to Indigenous residential schools. Littlechild said one of the findings was a call to private industry, including sports, to build better relationships with the Indigenous community, and he cited steps made in inclusion and business as evidence of progress.“We don’t do this just to check a box of inclusion on the calendar,” Oilers Entertainment Group executive vice president Tim Shipton said Wednesday. “The Indigenous community in northern Alberta is significant. There are nations right across Oil country and members of the community are such passionate members of our fanbase.”Littlechild said Indigenous girls hockey has seen a particular boost from efforts, including the Oilers hosting a First Nations hockey celebration and working with Edmonton’s Inner City Youth Development Association and the Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society.The land recognition video is one piece of the puzzle and something Littlechild as recently as last week across the country in Quebec City got comments on from fans who noticed it on TV during this playoff run.“It has been a very significant step forward to advance reconciliation through the power of sport,” Littlechild told The Associated Press by phone. “It’s so important as a message to the Indigenous peoples both in Canada and the U.S. that we have an opportunity here through a sport like hockey to build good relations, and we’ve been doing that. It’s really appreciated, I know, by our Indigenous nations across the country.”Shipton, who leads the Oilers’ Indigenous outreach, said other organizations and teams have reached out about the video since it first aired Oct. 13, 2021, and drew positive reactions locally and nationally.“It’s something that people who are new, people coming from out of town or other teams across the league, they come in and it really spurs a conversation around why do you do it, what does it mean,” Shipton said. “And it creates that opening to talk about the things that we can do from a reconciliation perspective.”Florida attendanceAttendance at Panthers home games this season reached a new record of 1,000,160, breaking the 1 million mark for the first time with a sellout in Game 5 on Tuesday night.The Panthers will be pleased if it stops there.The only way the figure goes up this season, obviously, is if there’s a Game 7 in Sunrise on Monday night.Florida can win the Stanley Cup with a win at Edmonton on Friday. The team is hosting a watch party at its arena for Game 6; about 16,000 people came to the arena to watch Game 4 on the scoreboard and with images on the ice as well. (No, they don’t count toward the attendance for the season.)Bouchard passes CoffeyWith three points in the Oilers’ Game 5 victory, Evan Bouchard reached 32 in the playoffs, second only to captain Connor McDavid among all scorers in the playoffs. It’s also the most by a defenseman in a single postseason, passing Hall of Famer Paul Coffey, who is now an Oilers assistant coach.“(Bouchard) has been very key for the entire series and through the entire year,” coach Kris Knoblauch said, pointing to the 24-year-old’s shot from the point as a key to his team’s potent power play. “He does have the shot, but he’s also a very smart hockey player who sees the ice really well and can make that next pass.”Save BillPanthers hockey operations president and general manager Bill Zito had a viral moment of sorts late in Game 5, when he threw a water bottle against a wall in frustration after McDavid’s empty-net goal sealed the Oilers’ win.Upon hearing about it, Panthers coach Paul Maurice expressed some very funny, very faux concerns.“Were the bottled water association people upset? We going to cancel Bill?” Maurice asked.
Before the puck drops and before 18,000 fans sing “O Canada” in unison at Edmonton Oilers home games, the audience hears from Chief Willie Littlechild.
A message from Littlechild plays on Rogers Place video screens, welcoming the crowd to Treaty 6 territory, the homelands of Métis and Inuit and the ancestral territory of the Cree, Dene, Blackfoot, Saulteaux and Nakota Sioux.
Video above: Florida Panthers clash with Edmonton Oilers in 2024 Stanley Cup Final
“The recognition of our history on this land is an act of reconciliation, and we honor those who walk with us,” Littlechild says, ending with “kinanaskomitin” — thank you, in Cree.
The land recognition video, a tradition that began in 2021, is getting major airtime across North America with the Oilers on national television in the U.S. and Canada in the Stanley Cup Final against Florida. Littlechild called it a significant step, but it is only one piece of the Oilers’ outreach to First Nations tribes and the Indigenous community in central and northern Alberta that has grown significantly over the past decade.
“We’ve had significant progress,” said Littlechild, who has served on the team’s community foundation board for nine years. “The Oilers have really been pioneers in the country, and I would say in the whole National Hockey League, in terms of inclusion and access for Indigenous peoples.”
Much of it stemmed from Canada’s National Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, a six-plus-year study conducted from 2007-15 in the wake of the country’s largest class-action lawsuit settled over the treatment of First Nations children sent to Indigenous residential schools. Littlechild said one of the findings was a call to private industry, including sports, to build better relationships with the Indigenous community, and he cited steps made in inclusion and business as evidence of progress.
“We don’t do this just to check a box of inclusion on the calendar,” Oilers Entertainment Group executive vice president Tim Shipton said Wednesday. “The Indigenous community in northern Alberta is significant. There are nations right across Oil country and members of the community are such passionate members of our fanbase.”
Littlechild said Indigenous girls hockey has seen a particular boost from efforts, including the Oilers hosting a First Nations hockey celebration and working with Edmonton’s Inner City Youth Development Association and the Bent Arrow Traditional Healing Society.
This content is imported from Twitter.
You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
Want to give a special thank you to Chief Willie Littlechild on Indigenous Celebration Night!
The land recognition video is one piece of the puzzle and something Littlechild as recently as last week across the country in Quebec City got comments on from fans who noticed it on TV during this playoff run.
“It has been a very significant step forward to advance reconciliation through the power of sport,” Littlechild told The Associated Press by phone. “It’s so important as a message to the Indigenous peoples both in Canada and the U.S. that we have an opportunity here through a sport like hockey to build good relations, and we’ve been doing that. It’s really appreciated, I know, by our Indigenous nations across the country.”
Shipton, who leads the Oilers’ Indigenous outreach, said other organizations and teams have reached out about the video since it first aired Oct. 13, 2021, and drew positive reactions locally and nationally.
“It’s something that people who are new, people coming from out of town or other teams across the league, they come in and it really spurs a conversation around why do you do it, what does it mean,” Shipton said. “And it creates that opening to talk about the things that we can do from a reconciliation perspective.”
Florida attendance
Attendance at Panthers home games this season reached a new record of 1,000,160, breaking the 1 million mark for the first time with a sellout in Game 5 on Tuesday night.
The Panthers will be pleased if it stops there.
The only way the figure goes up this season, obviously, is if there’s a Game 7 in Sunrise on Monday night.
Florida can win the Stanley Cup with a win at Edmonton on Friday. The team is hosting a watch party at its arena for Game 6; about 16,000 people came to the arena to watch Game 4 on the scoreboard and with images on the ice as well. (No, they don’t count toward the attendance for the season.)
Bouchard passes Coffey
With three points in the Oilers’ Game 5 victory, Evan Bouchard reached 32 in the playoffs, second only to captain Connor McDavid among all scorers in the playoffs. It’s also the most by a defenseman in a single postseason, passing Hall of Famer Paul Coffey, who is now an Oilers assistant coach.
“(Bouchard) has been very key for the entire series and through the entire year,” coach Kris Knoblauch said, pointing to the 24-year-old’s shot from the point as a key to his team’s potent power play. “He does have the shot, but he’s also a very smart hockey player who sees the ice really well and can make that next pass.”
Save Bill
Panthers hockey operations president and general manager Bill Zito had a viral moment of sorts late in Game 5, when he threw a water bottle against a wall in frustration after McDavid’s empty-net goal sealed the Oilers’ win.
Upon hearing about it, Panthers coach Paul Maurice expressed some very funny, very faux concerns.
“Were the bottled water association people upset? We going to cancel Bill?” Maurice asked.
While the score of the first Stanley Cup final playoff game may not have impressed us much, the Edmonton Oilers are aiming to amp up the home game experience with pre-puck drop performances by two legendary Canadian musical acts.
The Rogers Festival at the Final concert series aims to celebrate the 2024 Stanley Cup final between the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers, the NHL and Rogers announced on Monday.
Game 1 this past Saturday night in Florida saw the Panthers shut out Edmonton 3-0. Game 2 takes place Monday, before both teams travel to Edmonton for Games 3 and 4.
Country-pop singer Shania Twain and rock band Our Lady Peace will headline free concerts outside of Rogers Place ahead of those games in Edmonton.
Both concerts will take place at the Scotiabank Fan Park, directly to the east of Rogers Place along 104th Avenue in Ice District.
Story continues below advertisement
Our Lady Peace will perform before Game 3 on Thursday, June 13.
Shania Twain will be the featured performer before Game 4 on Saturday, June 15.
Both performances will begin at 4 p.m. MT, prior to the 6 p.m. MT game times. Portions of each performance will be broadcast on television ahead of the games as well.
Both concerts will be open to the public as first come, first serve, with no tickets required to view the performances.
Doors to the arena will open at 4:30 p.m. MT for fans with tickets to the hockey games.
Twain is the only person to perform the Grey Cup halftime show twice. Our Lady Peace had a concert at Hamilton Golf and Country Club on May 31 following the second round of the RBC Canadian Open, Canada’s men’s golf championship.
Ryan McLeod #71 of the Edmonton Oilers skates past Jamie Benn #14 of the Dallas Stars during the first period in Game One of the Western Conference Final of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs at American Airlines Center on May 23, 2024 in Dallas, Texas.
Cooper Neill/Getty Images
The Edmonton Oilers face the Dallas Stars tonight for Game 2 of the NHL Western Conference finals. The Oilers lead the series 1-0 following the team’s double overtime victory in Game 1.
Keep reading for how and when to watch the Oilers vs. Stars Game 2 tonight.
How and when to watch Edmonton Oilers vs. Dallas Stars Game 2
Game 2 of the Edmonton Oilers vs. Dallas Stars NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs series will be played on Saturday, May 25, 2024 at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT). The game will air on TNT and stream on Sling TV and the platforms featured below.
How to watch Edmonton Oilers vs. Dallas Stars Game 2 without cable
If your cable subscription doesn’t carry TNT, or you’ve cut the cord with your cable company, you can still watch the playoffs. Below are the platforms on which you can watch today’s NHL Playoffs game.
If you don’t have cable and you want to watch the today’s game, one of the most cost-effective ways to stream playoff games is through a subscription to Sling TV. To watch hockey in the postseason, you’ll need a subscription to the Orange + Blue tier.
Sling’s Orange + Blue tier costs $60 per month, but the platform is currently offering $25 off the first month of any pricing tier, making the Orange + Blue tier $35 for the first month. You can cancel anytime. You can also prepay for three months of any subscription tier and save $30 (regular rates apply after three months).
Note: Because Sling TV doesn’t carry CBS, you won’t be able to watch CBS-aired programming like next year’s NFL games on CBS. If you’re looking for one live TV streaming platform to watch all your favorite sports, we suggest a subscription to Hulu + Live TV.
Top features of Sling TV Orange + Blue tier:
Sling TV is our top choice to stream the NHL Playoffs.
There are 46 channels to watch in total, including ABC, NBC and Fox (where available).
You get access to NHL games airing on TNT and TBS, which Fubo doesn’t carry.
All subscription tiers include 50 hours of cloud-based DVR storage.
Max, formerly known as HBO Max, is known for streaming top-tier HBO content like “Succession” and “House of the Dragon”. Now, hockey fans can enjoy NHL Playoffs games airing on TNT on the streamer with the B/R Sports add-on. You’ll need a Max subscription to access B/R Sports content like the NHL Playoffs and the NBA Playoffs. Some blackouts do apply.
A subscription to Max starts at $9.99 per month. The B/R Sports add-on is currently free.
You can watch today’s game with the Hulu + Live TV/ESPN+ bundle. The bundle features 95 channels, including ABC, TNT, TBS, local network affiliates and ESPN. It also includes the ESPN+ streaming service. Unlimited DVR storage is also included. Watch the 2024 NHL Playoffs, MLB this season and network-aired NFL games next season with Hulu + Live TV/ESPN+ bundle.
Hulu + Live TV comes bundled with ESPN+ and Disney+. It’s priced at $77 per month after a three-day free trial.
Fanatics has the latest NHL Playoffs fan gear
Rooting from home is more fun while repping your team with the latest NHL fan gear. Fanatics is our first stop for the newest NHL fan gear, our go-to for the latest drop of NHL Playoffs and NHL Finals merch like jerseys, commemorative T-shirts, hats and more. Fanatics also has just-released NFL Draft jerseys, like No. 1 overall draft pick Caleb Williams‘ new Chicago Bears jersey. Shipping on orders over $24 is free (used code 24SHIP).
2024 NHL Playoffs: Full schedule
Below are the schedules, standings and scores for the 2024 NHL Playoffs.
2024 NHL Conference Finals schedule
The NHL conference finals are a best-of-seven series beginning on Wednesday, May 22, 2024.
Game 1: | Oilers 3, Stars 2 (2 OT) Game 2: | Saturday, May 25, 8 p.m. | at DAL | TV: TNT Game 3: | Monday, May 27, 8:30 p.m. | at EDM | TV: TNT Game 4: | Wednesday, May 29, 8:30 p.m. | at EDM | TV: TNT *Game 5: | Friday, May 31, TBD | at DAL | TV: TNT *Game 6: | Sunday, June 2, TBD | at EDM | TV: TNT *Game 7: | Tuesday, June 4, TBD | at DAL | TV: TNT
Second round schedule
Below are the scores for the second round of the 2024 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Stanley Cup Final is currently scheduled to begin on June 3, 2024. That date could change based on the duration of the Stanley Cup Conference finals.
PHOTO: Pixabay
