• Leafs rookies continue to make history
• Battles for Presidents’ and Vezina Trophies remain tight
• Tampa Bay refuses to quit
• McDavid takes over scoring race
• Flames lose back-to-back for first time since January
There’s been a lot of talk about the rookies on the Toronto Maple Leafs this season, and luckily for Leafs fans (unfortunately for non-Leafs fans) there’s going to be even more in the coming weeks.
Toronto’s young trio of Auston Matthews, Mitchell Marner and William Nylander inked the team in the history books recently as the first team to have three rookies score more than 50 points since the 1992-93 Winnipeg Jets.
On Thursday night against the New Jersey Devils, Nylander broke another Leafs rookie record with an assist on Toronto’s first goal of the game by Josh Leivo.
Nylander’s assist gave him a point in 10 straight games, breaking the previous record originally set in 1943-44 by Gus Bodnar.
This is just the first of three rookie records that the young studs will surely break in the nine games remaining in the season.
During the second period, James van Riemsdyk netted his 23rd goal of the season on which Marner recorded his 40th assist in his rookie campaign. That marker puts Marner in a tie for first for most assists by a Leafs rookie, a record also originally set by Bodnar during the 1943-44 season.
Meanwhile, Matthews has 33 goals on the season and if he manages to score two more, he will break Wendel Clark’s 1985-86 record for most goals scored by a Leafs rookie. Clark was in attendance at the Devils game and told Sportsnet’s Christine Simpson mixed messages as to whether or not he wants to see his feat bested.
Get back to the office in no time with BPs New Half-Time Lunch and $10 Combos. Dine-In Only. Click here to learn more.
Battle for Presidents and Vezina Trophies remains tight
Thursday night featured a heavyweight battle between the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Washington Capitals.
The stars were aligned for this one as the Capitals entered the game at the top of the NHL standings with 102 points while the Blue Jackets were looking to pull even just two back.
Between the pipes it was Sergei Bobrovsky and Braden Holtby squaring off while already sporting Vezina-calibre seasons. Both only allowed one goal while making fantastic saves like this one.
Bobvrosky registered the better save percentage of the two (.978-.967) as the Capitals fired a whopping 40 shots on net compared to the 28 mustered by Columbus, but at the end of the day it was Holtby that walked away with the ‘W’ after this one went to a shootout.
Surprisingly, it was Holtby’s first shootout win in six attempts this season.
As for the race for the Presidents’ Trophy, Washington extended its lead to 104 points while the Blue Jackets and Pittsburgh Penguins — who also lost in a shootout on Thursday night — sit at 101. All three have nine games remaining.
Tampa Bay refuses to quit
The Tampa Bay Lightning faced off with the Boston Bruins in a must-win game. They were on a three-game losing streak and watched as their playoff aspirations were slowly slipping away as the Leafs and the New York Islanders continued to find ways to win.
The first period went by with no goals, but things really kicked it up in the second.
The Bruins opened up the scoring just 1:33 into the period, but the Lightning tied it up 44 seconds later. Then, Zdeno Chara gave Boston the lead again until Nikita Kucherov tied it at two just 24 seconds later.
Finally, the Bruins took the lead with under seven minutes to go in the frame and that’s when the Lightning struggled to even things up. It took them a whole 1:35 to tie the game at three so that the two teams were headed to the third after a six-goal second period.
In the final frame it was all Lightning.
They doubled up their score as Kucherov picked up the hat trick to keep the door from closing on their playoff chances. They now sit just three points shy of the Bruins (one behind the Islanders) for the second wild-card spot in the East.
McDavid takes over scoring race
The scoring race had been really heating up recently.
Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Brad Marchand, Nicklas Backstrom and Patrick Kane had been keeping pace with each other and were separated by only a couple of points. On Wednesday night, McDavid was the only player in action and put up an incredible four points to give himself a two-point cushion at the top of the scoring charts.
All five took to the ice on Thursday but these prolific scorers did little to impress.
McDavid put up another two points to give him 87 on the year, but the other four combined for just one: a goal by Kane.
Now with a sizable six-point lead, McDavid becomes the favourite to close the race out with eight games remaining. Marchand and Kane also have eight games left while Crosby and Backstrom have nine.
Flames lose back-to-back for first time since January
Over the last couple of months, the Calgary Flames were the hottest team in the NHL.
Going into Thursday’s tilt with the Nashville Predators, the Flames were 16-5-1 since the start of February, which was the primary factor in their meteoric rise up the standings and into comfortable playoff position.
However, after a loss to the first-place Capitals on Tuesday and a 3-1 defeat on Thursday, Calgary did something it hadn’t done since January: lose in back-to-back games.
But Flames’ fans need not panic.
They are one point ahead of the Predators for the first wild-card spot and have an 11-point buffer between them and the next best team in the West, the Los Angeles Kings, who have 75 points.
[relatedlinks]