Tag: Stanley Cup Playoffs

SUNRISE, Fla. — The Eastern Conference Finals have been a goaltender duel, and nobody should have expected otherwise.

Seems fitting that the Florida Panthers and New York Rangers are knotted at one game apiece heading into Game 3 on Sunday afternoon, given that a pair of Russian netminders and past Vezina Trophy winners as the league’s top goalie — Sergei Bobrovsky for the Panthers, Igor Shesterkin for the Rangers — have basically matched each other save-for-save, stat-for-stat.

Bobrovsky has allowed the Rangers to score two goals. Shesterkin has allowed the Panthers to score two goals, not counting an own goal deflected in by a teammate and an empty-netter that New York yielded in Game 1. And the similarities hardly end there.

“It’s definitely fun,” Bobrovsky said.

Fun is one way to describe it. Hair-raising, gut-churning, and nail-biting would also apply.

The Rangers evened the series on Friday with a 2-1 overtime win at Madison Square Garden, Barclay Goodrow the hero 14:01 into the extra session by beating Bobrovsky and giving New York — which finished with the NHL’s best regular season record — a needed split of the first two games before heading on the road for Games 3 and 4.

There’s been almost no breathing room over the first two games: Through 134 minutes and 1 second of hockey so far in the East finals, 130:13 of it has come with the margin on the scoreboard being one goal or less. The goalies have just been that hard to beat.

“He’s been terrific, he’s been terrific this year and he’s certainly been terrific in the playoffs,” Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said of Shesterkin. “I thought there was good goaltending at both ends. … Both of these guys are good goaltenders.”

Take away the own goal from Game 1 — Florida’s Carter Verhaeghe got credited with a score that made it 2-0 late in the third when Alexis Lafrenière tipped the puck past Shesterkin — and the goaltender numbers are almost perfectly matched. Bobrovsky has stopped 52 of 54 shots he’s seen, a .963 save percentage. Shesterkin has stopped 50 of the 52 Florida shots that have gotten to him, a .962 mark.

And it’s not a new thing that Bobrovsky and Shesterkin are mirroring one another. Consider these stats, which include both this regular season and the playoffs:

— Shesterkin’s record is 45-20-2, Bobrovsky’s is 45-21-4. They both had 36 regular-season wins, they both have nine wins so far in the playoffs.

— Shesterkin’s save percentage is .915, Bobrovsky’s is .914.

— Bobrovsky’s goals-against average is 2.33, Shesterkin’s is 2.51.

— Bobrovsky’s even-strength save percentage is .922, Shesterkin’s is .920.

— Bobrovsky’s save percentage when facing a power play is .877, Shesterkin’s is .871.

“Two really good goaltenders at each end,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “It’s an exciting series, exciting hockey. Lots of hits, lots of action.”

Just not a lot of goals.

“Obviously, two of the best goalies in the world and it’s a showdown out there,” Verhaeghe said. “We’re looking to get chances and they both are playing unreal. That’s all I can say.”

Goodrow scored four goals, one of them a game-winner, on 61 shots in 80 games during the regular season for the Rangers. In the 12 playoff games, he has four goals, two of them game-winners, on just 12 shots.

He was asked to explain. He could not.

“I don’t know,” said Goodrow, the only skater in the Rangers lineup who has won a Stanley Cup; backup goalie Jonathan Quick is a three-time Cup hoister, including last season with Vegas. “I’m just trying to bring the same game every night, trying to do whatever I can to help the team win games.”

Going back to his time in Columbus, Bobrovsky had won 12 consecutive overtime playoff games — tying the longest such streak in NHL history with Patrick Roy.

And the Panthers had won 11 OT playoff contests in a row, which ends up as the second-longest run in Stanley Cup playoff history behind a 14-game stretch of OT wins by Montreal from 1993 through 1998 (with Roy in the net for much of that).

Florida fell to 13-9 all-time in playoff overtime games.

Friday’s game was the 100th playoff overtime game in Rangers history. It was the 98th playoff game — total — in Panthers history.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl kept Edmonton even with Vancouver and Evan Bouchard capped the Oilers’ big win over the Canucks.

McDavid and Draisaitl each had a goal and three assists, and Bouchard scored 5:38 into overtime as Edmonton beat Vancouver 4-3 on Friday night to even their second-round playoff series at one game apiece.

“When they put on a show like the did tonight it’s hard to stop them,” the Oilers’ Mattias Ekholm said.

Ekholm also scored and Stuart Skinner finished with 16 saves for Edmonton.

Draisaitl was listed as a game-time decision earlier in the day due to an undisclosed injury after he appeared to be in pain late in Edmonton’s 5-4 loss Wednesday. He played and had a big game when the Oilers needed it.

“He’s a great player,” McDavid said. “He’s an amazing player, one of the best players in the world, the best player in the world on a lot of nights. And tonight was one of those nights.”

Nikita Zadorov had a goal and an assist, and Elias Pettersson and Brock Boeser also scored for the Canucks. Arturs Silovs made 27 saves.

“We’re not going to get too high or too low,” Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes said. “For the most part we played a pretty solid game and now we just look forward to Edmonton.”

Game 3 in the best-of-seven series is Sunday in Edmonton.

In the extra period, Bouchard got the game-winner with a shot from near the boards that skittered in past Silovs.

“There was lots of resilience,” McDavid said. “I thought we were a little unlucky to be down in the third but we stuck with it, we hung in there all night. It feels good to come into their building and earn a win.”

McDavid used his speed to tie the score 3-3 at 5:27 of the third. The elite center picked up a contested puck in the neutral zone, sprinted down the ice ahead of a pair of Canucks defensemen, and sent a shot flying under Silovs’ blocker for his second postseason goal.

Edmonton continued to press for the winner late, hemming Vancouver into its own end for extended stretches and outshooting the home side 15-2 across the third period, but had to settle for overtime.

“Too many guys were flipping pucks when we didn’t have to,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said about his team’s play in the third period. ”I guess that’s playoff experience. You have the puck, you have someone on your back, skate with it, keep your heart rate down. I feel as soon as somebody got it, they flipped it. Everybody. There were plays to be made but we never gave then anything to defend.“

Edmonton and Vancouver both went 1-for-3 on the power play.

The Canucks opened the scoring on an early power play. With Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in the box for tripping, J.T Miller wound up and looked like he was about to launch a big shot from the faceoff circle. Instead, he sliced a pass across the slot to Pettersson, who fired a quick snap shot past an out-of-position Skinner 4:16 into the game for his first of the playoffs.

Edmonton’s potent power play got to work before the first intermission after Tyler Myers was called for hooking. Stationed at the goal line, McDavid sent a pass in the slot to Draisaitl, who fired it in to tie the score at 1-1 with his sixth goal of the playoffs at 10:56.

Silovs kept the Oilers from taking a lead into the locker room with some last-second heroics at the end of the opening period. Ekholm fired a slap shot from distance and the rookie goalie got a glove on it. He couldn’t contain the puck, however, and Hyman was there to scoop up the rebound. Silovs then dove across the net to stop the sniper from the side of the net.

The ice opened up early in the second after Edmonton’s Derek Ryan was sent to the box for interference and Vancouver’s Nils Hoglander was called for slashing, setting up two minutes of 4-on-4 hockey.

Fifty-three seconds into the period, Carson Soucy fired a shot on net from inside the blue line and Boeser tipped it in past Skinner from the middle of the slot. His fifth goal of the playoffs put the Canucks up 2-1.

The lead lasted 23 seconds.

With both sides still down a man, Draisaitl sent a pass to Ekholm from the blue line and the veteran defenseman sent a shot sailing past Silovs from the high hash marks, knotting the score at 2-2 with his second of the postseason.

Zadorov put the home side up once again with 1:43 left in the second. The bruising defenseman picked up a puck from Miller in the neutral zone, streaked down the ice and unleashed a wrist shot that soared up and under the cross bar to make it 3-2. It was Zadorov’s fourth of the playoffs.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

DALLAS — Miles Wood screamed for the puck, and delivered the game-winner in overtime for the Colorado Avalanche once he got it.

Wood scored on a hard-charging backhander 11:03 into OT after getting the puck from Andrew Cogliano, and the Avalanche, after trailing by three goals in the first period, beat the top-seeded Dallas Stars 4-3 on Tuesday night in the opener of their second-round Western Conference series.

“Instead of just turning and firing it … (Cogliano) gets his eyes up and Wood was fresh and went slashing through their D,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “When Woody get’s going like that, he’s hard to stop. He’s fast and he’s powerful, and he just took it to the house.”

Staying ahead of defenseman Miro Heiskanen, Wood got the puck around Jake Oettinger to wrap up only the Avalanche’s third three-goal comeback to win a playoff game in their history — and first since 1997.

“There’s a scrum in the corner there. … I was just screaming ‘Chip, chip, chip.’ He made a great play, and from there on out, I just used my speed,” said Wood, still breathing heavily from the game-winning play. “I definitely kicked it into high gear there.”

Cale Makar had a goal and two assists for Colorado, while Valerie Nichushkin had a goal and an assist. Nathan MacKinnon had the tying goal only 39 seconds into the third period when left open just to the left of the net, and Mikko Rantanen, who had two assists, had a shot off the post midway through the third period.

“It would have been easy to kind of fold after that first period,” MacKinnon said. “But we felt like we were playing better than what the score showed. We wanted to see it through”

Alexander Georgiev had 19 saves while winning his fifth consecutive start in goal for the Avs. But Dallas, after nine shots on net in the first period, had only seven combined the rest of regulation, and six in overtime when he denied Tyler Seguin twice in less than a minute and knocked down a couple of long high shots by Thomas Harley.

“He’s been playing great for us. We’re all so pumped for him,” Wood said of the goalie. “He let in three there in the first quickly, but he was solid from there on out.”

Stars goalie Oettinger stopped 22 shots, ending his six-game streak of allowing two goals or less.

Dallas led 3-0 in the first period against the 2022 Stanley Cup champion, only two nights after wrapping up a seven-game series against Vegas, last year’s champ, in which both teams finished with 16 goals and the margin was never more than two goals.

“It’s a tough turnaround for us as a group. I thought we had a great start,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “The fatigue from Game 7 I thought hit us in the second half of that game.”

Jamie Benn had a goal and an assist for the Stars, who lost their series opener at home like in the first round when they dropped the first two games. Ryan Sutter and Wyatt Johnston also scored goals.

Game 2 is Thursday night.

Colorado scored 28 goals in five games against Winnipeg, and had gone a full week since wrapping that series up in five games. The Avs had three comeback wins against the Jets, but none of those were from more than one-goal deficits.

It wasn’t the first time this season for the Avalanche to come back from a 3-0 deficit in Dallas. They were down that early in the second period back in November before scoring six unanswered goals in a 6-3 win.

“You can’t take a breath with these guys,” Benn said. “They’re a great team.”

Colorado scored two power-play goals in the second period, with Nichushkin getting his eighth goal of the playoffs, and extending his goal-scoring streak this postseason to six games before assisting on Makar’s goal that got them within 3-2.

Nichushkin, the 10th overall draft pick by Dallas in 2013, knocked in the loose puck after Makar had a shot off Oettinger that Ryan Suter was unable to clear. Makar did get a wrister from about 50 feet into the net on his next shot.

Suter, the 39-year-old defenseman whose 1,444 career regular-season games are the most for any player without winning a Stanley Cup, put the Stars up 1-0 with a 60-footer from near the left boards only 7 1/2 minutes into the game. Georgiev never saw the puck because of all the traffic in front of the net after Suter got a pass from Matt Duchene, who had just gotten up from taking a hit.

The Stars made it 2-0 directly off a faceoff win by Benn, with the 20-year-old Johnston scoring from the top of the left circle for his fifth goal this postseason.

Dallas was on a 5-on-3 power play when Benn scored with three minutes left in the first period by deflected a flying puck into the net.

And the Stars captain almost had another goal in the closing seconds on another power play. He made a nifty move and made a swiping shot while falling down to get the puck behind Georgiev before defenseman Josh Manson knocked it away from the goal line.

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AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL