With 13 games on the schedule, it was an eventful night in the NHL.
The Tampa Bay Lightning and Pittsburgh Penguins earned home-ice advantage for the first round of playoffs. The Dallas Stars positioned themselves for the top seed in the Western Conference. The New York Islanders wrapped up a season sweep over the New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens goalie Charlie Lindgren won his first NHL start, Mikael Backlund scored his first career hat trick and Nikita Tryamkin of the Vancouver Canucks scored his first career NHL goal. The Jets edged the Sharks in the final seconds, and the Kings closed the night with a close win over the Ducks.
Here are six things we learned on Thursday night:
Bruins back in the race
With playoff hopes on the line, the Boston Bruins picked up a huge 5-2 win over the Detroit Red Wings to add serious intrigue to the Eastern Conference playoff race. (Watch the game’s highlights at the top of this post.)
After Thursday’s results, the Red Wings and Bruins have 93 points apiece and are tied for the third seed in the Atlantic Division. Both teams have one game left to play on their respective schedules, and a wild card spot remains in reach as well after Philadelphia picked up just one point against Toronto. (More on that later.)
Detroit will take on the Rangers on Saturday and the big question for the Red Wings will be whether the team starts Jimmy Howard or Petr Mrazek in net for the crucial contest.
Early indications are that it will be Howard, but he didn’t play well in Thursday’s loss.
Boston, meanwhile, will face the Ottawa Senators in its regular season finale and the club will be hoping to build off one of their best overall performances of the season.
Lundqvist pulled…again
Henrik Lundqvist was voted by the New York media as the team MVP for the eighth time in his career Thursday morning, but the Rangers goalie has been a bit shaky as of late.
Lundqvist was pulled from the game for the second time in the Rangers’ last four games, after allowing three goals on 16 shots in a loss to the New York Islanders.
While that’s not much of a sample size, Lundqvist surprisingly has been pulled more than any goalie in the entire league this season, according to the Sportsnet Stats department.
Overall, Lundqvist still has pretty good numbers (.919 save percentage after the All-Star break prior to Thursday’s start) but the Swedish goalie’s recent slide is certainly worth watching as the Rangers enter the post-season.
Opportunity missed in Philadelphia
You would figure a team with legitimate playoff aspirations would have no problem beating the Toronto Maple Leafs in a crucial game, but weird things happen in sports, don’t they?
The Philadelphia Flyers lacked urgency to start the game, falling behind 2-0 after the first period and later 3-1 before falling to Toronto in overtime on a game-winning-goal by Jake Gardiner on the power play.
With the OT loss, Philly fell a point behind the Bruins and Red Wings for the final wild card spot in the Eastern Conference. The Flyers, however, still have a game in hand, and could secure a berth by winning its last two games.
From the Leafs’ standpoint, the victory put them in a tie with the Edmonton Oilers for the fewest points in the NHL. Both teams have one game left on the schedule, and whoever finishes dead last will have a 20 per cent chance (the highest in the NHL) of winning the draft lottery for the No. 1 overall pick.
If they finish behind Edmonton, the odds drop to 13.5 per cent.
Leafs fans might be sweating a bit more than usual when the team takes on the New Jersey Devils on Hockey Night in Canada.
Crosby outduels Ovechkin
Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin have been going head-to-head for over a decade (see a year-by-year look at the great rivalry here) and Thursday provided another chance to compare the two.
Crosby and Ovechkin were held off the score sheet in regulation before the Penguins captain ended the game in style with an overtime winner to beat the Capitals.
It’s hard to believe that the Penguins and Capitals have only gone head-to-head one time in the playoffs since Crosby and Ovechkin came into the NHL during the 2005-06 season, and with Pittsburgh playing as well as they have all year and Washington being the most well-rounded team in the Eastern Conference, they could be destined for a second-round playoff matchup… or did I just jinx it?
All hockey fans — no matter who they root for — should hope to see another edition of Crosby vs. Ovechkin in the post-season.
Milestone for Karlsson
The Ottawa Senators will not be heading to the post-season like most of the teams mentioned above, but that’s hardly the fault of all-star defenceman Erik Karlsson.
Karlsson recorded an assist in Thursday’s victory over the Florida Panthers to pass Hall of Famer Nicklas Lidstrom to set the record for the most points in a single season by a Swedish defenceman.
There are some special players on that list.
Karlsson already has career-highs in points and assists, and is playing a career-best 29:04 per game.
If you’ve spent any time on Twitter lately, you’d know there’s quite a push for Karlsson to win the Norris Trophy. There’s no doubt he’s a legitimate candidate.
Welcome back, Drouin
It seemed like we had seen the last of Jonathan Drouin in a Tampa Bay Lightning uniform, but the depleted roster needed some help at forward with several players — including their captain — out with injury.
It’s been a season full of drama for the 21-year-old, but the No. 3 overall pick of the 2013 NHL Draft finally had something to smile about as he scored in his first game with the big club since Dec. 30.
Who knows? With all the injuries going on in Tampa, maybe Drouin could end up factoring in during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. (OK, let’s try not to get ahead of ourselves.)
What a story that would be.
