We may very well have seen Pavel Datsyuk play his last game in the NHL.
The 37-year-old’s Detroit Red Wings were eliminated by the Tampa Bay Lightning in five games Thursday night, though when asked if he knew what his plans were going forward, Datsyuk said he needed more time to make a decision.
According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, it would be a big surprise if Datsyuk decided stay with the Red Wings for another season.
“I still think he’s going back to Russia, I just think he didn’t want to announce it after the game last night,” said Friedman while on Dean Blundell & Co. Friday morning on Sportsnet 590 The Fan. “I think it’s a bad look, and I think he felt strongly that it was a bad look, if he simply walked off the ice and said that’s it.
“I also think a lot of athletes will tell you you should never make a decision when you’re emotional, you take a couple days or a day and you think about it. And so I expect he’ll take a day or two and then he’ll tell everybody his decision, but if you looked at the handshake line last night and you read the players, the various players on Twitter last night, everybody thinks this is it and we’re just waiting for him to confirm it.”
Listen: Full interview with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman
Datsyuk was held pointless this post-season, the first time he hasn’t registered a point in the playoffs since 2003. He had a couple of excellent chances in Game 5, hitting the post on a first-period 5-on-3 power play and was later denied by goaltender Ben Bishop late with just over a minute remaining in the second.
Bishop has had a stellar start to the 2016 playoffs, with a 1.61 goals-against average and a .950 save percentage. The 29-year-old has made good on the two-year $11.9-million contract he signed this past summer.
He’s scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent following the 2016-17 season and will likely command top dollar from the Lightning, who have had prospect Andrei Vasilevskiy waiting in the wings for quite some time.
“I think it’s going to come down to what he wants contract-wise really and if you take a look at his particular contract he just signed, he signed one that was pretty friendly to the team. It was a short-term deal and he probably could have got some more money but he signed one that didn’t really hurt the Lightning too badly,” said Friedman of Bishop, who led all starters in goals-against average (2.06) and was second in save percentage (.926) this regular season. “I thought he was their MVP this year, to me he was at least a guy I considered (for the Hart Trophy).”
While the Lightning are the first team to advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, several teams are on the verge of joining them. The Washington Capitals, Dallas Stars and San Jose Sharks will all play Friday night and are each up 3-1 in their respective series.
The Pittsburgh Penguins have also opened up a 3-1 lead, after thrashing the Rangers 5-0 on Thursday in New York.
The Rangers had high expectations going into this season, with a veteran core led by all-world goaltender Henrik Lundqvist. They doubled down at the trade deadline, adding pending unrestricted free agent Eric Staal to their forward corps.
Staal put up just six points in 20 games with the Rangers after coming over from the Carolina Hurricanes, and so far has no points and is a minus-6 in four post-season contests.
“The big reason that Eric Staal became a New York Ranger was there wasn’t a lot of conversation contract-wise (with Carolina) I don’t really think they were ever in the same ballpark and so I think the uncertainty that comes from Carolina has now moved in with the New York Rangers,” said Friedman. “This was really their last run with this particular group, they’re going to have some big decisions to make in terms of some of the contracts that they have and they’ve got a lot of young players, (Chris) Kreider, J.T. Miller that they’re going to have to take care of in the next couple of years.”
Although the Rangers erased a 3-1 series deficit to the Penguins in 2014, Friedman thinks the task is much larger this time around.
“If you would have come into this series you would have expected Staal to be a player, I don’t know if you would have seen (Dan) Girardi out,” said Friedman. “The Rangers are just really struggling and they looked awful last night… (Staal)’s just out of sorts and so is the team right now.”
