Unless you live under a rock, you know the top story in hockey Tuesday was the Toronto Maple Leafs firing Randy Carlyle and all the fallout from that — also, if you do live under a rock, how are you reading this right now?
Trouble in Leafs Land was just the tip of the iceberg on a busy night of puck.
Semyon Varlamov made all the saves, David Backes scored all the goals and Roberto Luongo made Canucks fans have all the regrets. Here are five more things we learned in the NHL Tuesday:
P.K. Subban loses his cool
P.K. Subban plays with emotion every night and it’s one reason we love the guy, but the Montreal Canadiens star defenceman lost his cool Tuesday against the Tampa Bay Lightning and it cost his team – even though he wasn’t on the ice for any of it.
Midway through the second period of a Canadiens’ 4-2 loss, Lightning forward Brett Connolly blocked a shot and as he hobbled to the bench he hit Andrei Markov near an open door at the Tampa bench. Subban, who was on his team’s bench at the time, didn’t like what he saw and went over to confront Connolly. During the confrontation, Subban’s stick hit Connolly (albeit not very hard) and was assessed a slashing penalty.
It certainly wasn’t a slash in the conventional sense, but he was given a conventional two-minute minor nonetheless and Tyler Johnson scored 19 seconds into Subban’s penalty to put the Lightning up 2-1 at the time. Subban is a great leader, but this was an undisciplined move that ended up being the turning point in the game.
Elias and Staal hit significant milestones
Patrick Elias can still get it done. The 38-year-old had a goal and two assists in a 4-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres Tuesday, surpassing 600 career assists and joining the 1,000-point club in the process. Another milestone is right around the corner for the Trebic, Czech Republic native because the next goal he scores will be his 400th in the NHL
“It’s special to do it for one team,” Elias told reporters after the game. “Sometimes it’s hard to score, the way we’ve played our systems. You have great years, you have injuries. You have to battle through it. It’s not easy to get to 1,000 points.”
While Elias showed he’s still going strong late in his career, Eric Staal showed he remains money with the man advantage. Staal recorded his 300th career goal in a 3-2 loss to the Nashville Predators. The milestone happened to be his 102nd power-play goal, which means 34 percent of his goals are notched with the man advantage.
It has been a forgettable year on the ice for Staal – 22 points in 34 games, which is on pace for his worst season statistically since his rookie campaign – but he is slowly catching up to Ron Francis (382) for the franchise’s all-time lead in goals and that’s something to be proud of.
This probably should have been icing…
It can be frustrating when calls are missed and no one felt that more than San Jose Sharks netminder Alex Stalock Tuesday on a play where an icing call was waived off when it shouldn’t have been. Stalock seemed taken aback when realized he had to leave his crease to play the puck and Minnesota Wild forward Jason Zucker was the beneficiary of this terrible gaffe from Stalock below. Luckily for him, Sharks were able to win the game. In fact, it was the team’s fourth win of the season when they’ve trailed after two periods – they only did that four times all of last season.
This probably should have been offside…
Close plays like the one below that result in a goal have many fans and pundits clamouring for an expanded use of instant replay. The Ottawa Senators opened the scoring in a tight game against the Philadelphia Flyers with a goal that likely would have been called back if offsides were reviewable. It’s water under the bridge for the Flyers since they were able to win the game in a shootout, but it was still controversial (in fairness to the linesman, catching that at full speed would have been incredibly difficult). Also, lost in all this onside-offside controversy was how damn sweet Mike Hoffman’s goal was.
It takes guts to play this game
As you can see from a few items written above, it’s easy to nitpick certain aspects of the NHL – missed calls, players struggling or making poor decisions on the ice – but sometimes it’s important to recognize the type of mettle it takes to play hockey at its highest level.
There were two examples Tuesday of the dangers players can face during a standard shift in the NHL. First, Antoine Vermette takes a puck to the face then Brayden Schenn avoids serious injury. Both players were bloodied, but thankfully after some repairs they were able to return to the ice. Scary stuff.