‘We never stop:’ How Matt Murray, Ilya Samsonov have found simultaneous success
TORONTO — Matt Murray and Ilya Samsonov present as an ideal odd couple. A classic yin-and-yang, if you will.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have just wrapped up practice and their goaltenders sit side by side at the front of the room in companionable conversation.
Murray then rapidly becomes focused on removing and storing his gear, politely postponing interview requests until after retreating to the player’s lounge for a replenishing smoothie.
Meanwhile, Samsonov remains sweating through his full kit, engaged in an amiable chat elsewhere about favorite television shows and laughing through the benefits — or not — of selecting subtitles in his native Russian.
It’s one brief snapshot captured of a singular goalie tandem producing two terrific seasons. Look closer, and you start to see what makes them tick.
Murray eventually encourages Samsonov to finish dressing before they’ll sit down together with ESPN to talk about what’s been a flourishing first half to this season.
The ice breaker is asking each goalie to describe the other in a single word. Samsonov doesn’t hesitate.
“Hardworking,” he says of Murray, nodding affirmatively as if to confirm it’s the only correct response.
Murray, now wielding a wry smile, takes longer.
“One word? One word is not enough,” he says, continuing to think out loud. “One word is tough. I can’t narrow him down to just one word. He’s too complex. But maybe I’d say, fun. He’s a fun dude. That’s a good one.”
It’s also what the Leafs have in their goaltending duo: a good one. Murray and Samsonov display an easy chemistry off the ice that reflects in how seamlessly they’ve shared Toronto’s crease. So far, Murray’s produced superbly, at 10-4-2 with a .916 save percentage and 2.57 goals-against average. Samsonov has been stellar, at 12-3-1 with a .916 save percentage and 2.29 goals-against average.
The results from the two are equally excellent. It’s the approaches that aren’t the same. Theirs are different styles, different strengths and weaknesses, different perspectives. Even opposing methods on how to answer the same question. But Murray and Samsonov also seem to click.
Maybe it’s from being thrown into the same fire — via different routes, of course — through a barrage of offseason skepticism that two newcomers could shore up Toronto’s most glaring area of need. Whatever the reason, Murray and Samsonov have arrived exactly where they want to be.
At exactly the same time.
TORONTO REACHED A crossroads last summer.
The Leafs’ incumbent starting goalie Jack Campbell was an unrestricted free agent eyeing the payday to match his breakout 2021-22 campaign (31-9-6 record, .914 SV%, 2.64 GAA). Toronto hadn’t, for whatever reason, ponied up to keep Campbell around.
It also wasn’t likely the Leafs would turn to backup Petr Mrazek either, after the veteran’s disastrous first season with the team — 12-6-0, .888 SV%, 3.34 GAA — to open a four-year long pact.
Basically, changes were afoot. Toronto was ready to restructure.
Mrazek went first, shipped to Chicago on July 7 with draft picks exchanged on both sides to sweeten the deal. Campbell would eventually head west too, becoming Edmonton‘s new No. 1.
While that happened, Murray, 28, was four hours down the highway from Toronto locked in a bad marriage with the Ottawa Senators. The former Pittsburgh Penguin (and two-time Stanley Cup champion) signed there in October 2020, inking a four-year, $25 million deal that failed to pan out as expected. Murray was frequently hurt. The Senators were losing, a lot.
Murray was eventually waived in November 2021 and sent to the American Hockey League’s Belleville Senators to play a pair of games. Back in the NHL, the veteran battled hard (5-12-2, .906 SV%, 3.05 GAA) until a season-ending concussion injury took him out in March.
It was a bad situation. So naturally, Leafs’ general manager Kyle Dubas turned a few heads when he acquired Murray via trade on July 12. The return was future considerations and Ottawa retaining 25% of Murray’s salary. Granted, Dubas and Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe had history with the Thunder Bay, Ontario native from their time as GM, coach and goaltender respectively for the OHL’s Sault-Ste Marie Greyhounds in the early 2010s. But still, Ottawa was practically giving away Toronto’s next starter.
One day later, Dubas secured Samsonov. The 25-year-old was coming off a career-worst season (.896 SV%, 3.02 GAA) in Washington, where he’d played since being drafted 22nd overall by the Capitals in 2015. Samsonov had newly hit the open market after Washington failed to qualify him when Toronto swooped in on July 13 with a one-year, $1.8 million contract offer.
“This is a great team, yeah?,” Samsonov says now of choosing to become a Leaf. “The last five, six years, there’s been very strong leadership. It’s a nice city to play hockey in; it’s the best in the world. It’s not every day that a GM calls you and asks you if you want to go to play in Toronto. It’s not an everyday chance. I wanted to try. You have nice teammates here. And we have a good chance to win.”
That opportunity helps mitigate other, less alluring aspects of suiting up in blue and white. Toronto is a notoriously pressure-packed market desperate for the playoff success it felt promised by an enormous investment in the club’s offensive corps. Murray’s injury history made him an easy target of critics unwilling to believe he could stand tall in Toronto. Those concerns weren’t quelled when he suffered a hip injury in October after playing only one game.
If Murray felt the sting of criticism — before or after — he doesn’t let on.
“I don’t know. It’s hard to compare something like [pressure],” Murray said. “No matter where you play, there’s always going to be pressure. Everybody wants to win. You put pressure on yourself, and you just want to do the best you can for yourself, for your teammates, for everybody, for the organization. It’s just learning how to deal with it, how to take things one day at a time and just try to enjoy the ride. I’m definitely enjoying the ride this year.”
Samsonov releases a noise of assent. He missed time with an injury too, joining Murray on the sidelines in early November with a knee ailment. Despite that, Samsonov said they’re having a good time. And that’s morphed into potent parallel seasons for another big reason they both — shockingly — agree on.
“I think the biggest factor in that [success] is the way the team is playing in front of us,” Murray notes. “That dictates the difficulty of our job and the type of chances that we’re seeing and the amount of them that we’re seeing. Our team is playing incredibly well defensively.”
“If you can see a puck well in a game, life is much easier,” adds Samsonov, entering his own soliloquy about the virtue of a full-team effort. “And you know me and Matt, we both are good guys. We’re good teammates, and we try to push each other. And this [tandem] has felt good for us. We never stop. We’re always trying to get better every day for our teammate.”
Murray and Samsonov were lucky. They bonded from day one (“he was a nice guy,” Samsonov said fondly of meeting Murray). It was correspondingly painless learning how to be each other’s motivation.
“Sometimes you come to the rink, and you don’t want to do nothing,” Samsonov explained. “We’re humans, too. But when you see how your partner is working, you try to get better, or you try to do the same as they’re doing. Sometimes mentally you’re going down, and you don’t want to do nothing, or you feel bad. But to see what’s your partner doing, you ask, ‘can you try to get with him and do more?'”
“Everything feeds off [something else],” Murray said. “On those days when maybe you don’t have all the juice that you’d like to have, you look at the guy across from you, and you see the work ethic that they’re bringing, and you just want to match that.”
SOME TEAMS ARE compelled to pick a starting goaltender and ride him. Others crave a more balanced approach.
Both tracks can work. And Toronto’s choice to lean heavily on its one-two punch is paying off.
Let’s back up: Through Jan. 10, 79 different goalies made at least one NHL start this season. Nine teams started one goalie in at least 70% of their games, to be what you’d call a “workhorse.” Eight of those nine netminders were on teams in playoff position (Arizona’s Karel Vejmelka being the lone exception) and together the nine goalies had a .913 save percentage.
On the other side, 11 teams had started two goalies in at least 35% of their games. Seven of those clubs were in playoff position, and there was a collective .906 SV% among those netminders.
Murray and Samsonov had, to that stage, each played exactly 39% of Toronto’s tilts. Together they sat top 20 in save percentage among goalies with at least 10 starts. Samsonov was fourth in GAA, and Murray was 15th. Both goaltenders have been reliably ascending towards the NHL’s upper tier.
That didn’t happen without setbacks. Murray sat out four weeks with that hip issue. Samsonov’s three-week absence overlapped. Toronto clung then to rookie Erik Kallgren, striving to stay afloat until their regulars returned. Murray and Samsonov came back and delivered, until recent intersecting rough patches led to recycled conversations about Toronto’s propensity for goalie woes.
It was on Murray and Samsonov to keep their own heads up through mutual support.
“It’s hard to do this, because if you didn’t play [in a certain game] you don’t understand,” Samsonov said. “I’m trying not to touch [on] a lot, because he has more insight and you just watched, and your words don’t help too much. But even if your emotion is bad or a little bit lower, the next day, the sun is up again. After [a bad loss], Matt said good words to me. He said, ‘Don’t think about this. You just need to move on. Get some good food, good sleep and you’ll be getting better.'”
“A lot of times with goaltending, results don’t necessarily always show the best picture or tell the best story,” Murray said, a shrewd look on his face. “You could do everything in your power the right way and still get a weird bounce or the guy makes a great play, and you still get scored on or maybe you get a couple of weird bounces in a game. So you focus on the process and just doing what you can to control the situation to the best of your ability. The result will take care of itself if you’re doing the right process.”
And, in a pinch, lean on the guy next to you. He knows better than most.
“We’re always sitting together, always on the ice together early. We’re always paired,” Murray said. “We’re on a different time and pace than everyone else.”
MURRAY AND SAMSONOV are opposites attracting. Goaltending is the common ground; how each player excels at it varies.
“He is doing a lot before a game,” Samsonov said of Murray. “He is good at getting prepared. It’s not superstitions, but it’s a lot of preparation. A lot more than me; way more than me. I’m trying to get ready one hour before our team meeting. I come to the game rink, get simple stuff done. I tape my stick. Get some food. Nothing crazy.”
Murray concedes with a smile that “everybody has their routines.” Those extend to game day mornings too, where — surprise — Murray and Samsonov put faith in opposing rituals when it’s their turn to start.
“I prefer not to [take morning skate],” Murray said. “I just find I get a better nap when I don’t skate. And as I get older, something that comes into contention a little bit more is the wear and tear on hips and knees and all that stuff. And I always just feel more energetic and a little bit looser. If you do skate in the morning, it’s almost like you have to recover again before the game starts, for me anyway.”
His partner rolls entirely the other way.
“I like to skate, not more than 20 minutes though; not too long,” he said. “I just want to see the puck a little bit and have a simple drill just to see, how is my arm working? How is my body prepared for a game? And just to feel the puck with my eyes. It’s just what I need in the morning, so I’ll feel good, and it helps me a little bit mentally, too.”
The duo’s eating habits are another study in contrasts. Samsonov loves all the sushi options available in Toronto’s downtown core; Murray’s favorite spot is a lush Italian restaurant in the city’s posh Yorkville neighborhood, when he’s not indulging in wife Christina’s home cooking.
And those meals before a game? One’s a creature of habit with his plate; another can’t stand food-based monotony.
“I always switch it up because I just tend to get tired of eating the same exact thing,” Murray said. “The base of it kind of stays the same. I usually have a bowl of soup, a salad, pasta of some kind, protein, and then like a sweet potato. But I like to switch up the dressing or the sauce on the chicken. I get sick of eating the exact same thing every game day.”
“I eat the exact same thing on game day,” Samsonov counters excitedly. “At lunch I’m doing just the chicken with rose sauce and spaghetti all the time, before every game. And right before playing I’ll do some oat milk [for fuel]. I didn’t change this for the last five years. I like it. But in the offseason, no spaghetti. It’s not working then.”
Murray laughs lightly as Samsonov finishes dissecting his palate. It’s frequently made clear how much they enjoy each other’s company, how an easy rhythm has formed in just a few months’ time.
And true to form, they cite two distinct moments as their season highlight to date.
For Samsonov, it was beating Washington in his first start as a Leaf. His was the ultimate revenge game.
For Murray, it was watching Samsonov’s triumph in an all-around win. That was a night where Murray could truly feel Toronto’s potential — and how fortunate he and his partner are to be a part of that.
“I was on the bench, we were playing against Anaheim, and we won 7-0 at home,” Murray recalled. “I just remember thinking we were firing on all cylinders. We just dominated play. I thought the whole game, our forecheck was great, we stripped pucks, we barely spent any time in our zone, he [Samsonov] was great. I just thought it was a real, real dominant effort.
“That’s what stands out to me most about us, when we can play games like that. That’s when it’s good.”
One team is a win away from advancing to a third straight Stanley Cup Final. The other is about to once again come up short in a conference final. As drastic as that sounds, that is the reality facing the Florida Panthers and Carolina Hurricanes following the Panthers’ 6-2 win Saturday in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals.
The defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers opened the series by scoring five goals in each of the first two games and exposing the Hurricanes in a way that hadn’t been done by another team this postseason. On Saturday, it appeared that the Canes may have found a solution as they entered the third period tied at 1-1 … before the Panthers exploded for five straight goals to close out Game 3 in emphatic fashion.
How did both teams perform? Who is worth watching in Game 4? And given that there’s a sweep in play, what could Monday mean for both teams, knowing that one of them could see their season come to an end? Ryan S. Clark and Kristen Shilton answer those questions while reviewing what has been a lopsided Eastern Conference finals.
The Panthers withstood an expected early push from Carolina and settled swiftly into their own game. They failed to capitalize on their first-period power-play chance but made up for it by opening the scoring with a goal credited to Niko Mikkola (that actually went off Carolina’s Dmitry Orlov) midway through the first. It was a deflating marker for Carolina goalie Pyotr Kochetkov to cede right after a solid Hurricanes penalty kill and appeared to diminish Carolina’s confidence.
There was potential to shift Carolina’s momentum, though. Before the first period ended, Panthers forward Eetu Luostarinen finished a check sending Jackson Blake awkwardly into the boards. That earned Luostarinen a five-minute penalty and game misconduct, putting the Panthers down two of their top forwards in Luostarinen and an injured Sam Reinhart. But Florida didn’t let the lengthy man advantage hurt its momentum. The Panthers killed it off and matched Carolina’s shot total while shorthanded.
While the score was tied at 1-1 going into the third, Florida regained its lead with Jesper Boqvist undressing (to put it mildly) Orlov in shocking fashion. Boqvist entered the lineup to replace Reinhart, and it was the type of contribution Florida could only hope to see from its depth skater.
It was all Panthers from there, with goals from Mikkola, Aleksander Barkov (capitalizing on a turnover by Orlov), Evan Rodrigues and Brad Marchand giving Florida a 6-1 lead halfway through the third and putting Carolina against the ropes going into an elimination Game 4. Florida will wonder about Mikkola’s status ahead of that tilt. (He left in the third period Saturday after slamming into the end boards.) But the Cats can’t be too frustrated given their win. — Kristen Shilton
0:53
Jesper Boqvist puts Panthers back ahead
Jesper Boqvist goes through the goaltender’s legs to restore the Panthers’ lead vs. the Hurricanes.
Unofficial Canadian poet laureate Avril Lavigne once posed one of more philosophical questions of her generation: Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?
Everything the Hurricanes did through the first two periods of Game 3 created the belief that they could potentially stick with the Panthers. Only to then fall apart in the third period. Again.
There are numerous reasons why losing Game 3 is so damning for the Hurricanes. What might be the most prominent and prevalent is there might not be anything else they can do at this stage. We have seen the Panthers take a 3-0 series lead only to be pushed to a Game 7 in a playoff series. That was the case in last year’s Stanley Cup Final against the Edmonton Oilers.
But through three games of this series? The Hurricanes have switched goaltenders, adjusted their lineups and sought out other alterations within their structure — and still lost by a large margin while once again falling prey to being on the other end of a big period. — Ryan S. Clark
Three Stars of Game 3
Mikkola has had quite a series. The defensemen has broken up plays, taken command off the rush and created quality scoring chances. He had two goals in Game 3 for his first career multigoal playoff game and the fourth multigoal playoff game in Panthers franchise history.
It was two goals and a helper for the Cats’ captain. This was Barkov’s 20th career multipoint playoff game, the most in Panthers franchise history.
3. The Panthers’ third period
The Panthers unloaded in the final frame, scoring five goals to run away with Game 3 by a final score of 6-2. Five tucks is the most in any period in a playoff game in franchise history. The Hurricanes have now lost 15 straight conference final games since they won the Stanley Cup in 2006. — Arda Öcal
0:44
Panthers pour it on with 2 more quick goals
The Panthers net two more goals in just over a minute to pad their lead vs. the Hurricanes.
Players to watch in Game 4
There’s no question Florida’s netminder has been building a Conn Smythe case with his excellent play in this postseason. However, Bobrovsky hasn’t been at his most dominant in (initial) closeout games during the playoffs. He made 26 saves for an .897 save percentage in Florida’s Game 5 win over Tampa Bay to send the Lightning home, and made just 15 stops (.882 SV%) in Florida’s Game 6 loss to Toronto in the second round, when the Panthers had a chance to advance.
Bobrovsky was practically impenetrable in Game 7 of that series as the Leafs imploded, but it’s fair to wonder what version of Bobrovsky the Panthers will get in Game 4.
When Florida had an opportunity to close out Edmonton in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final last spring, Bobrovsky turned in his worst showing of the playoffs, with five goals allowed on 11 shots that saw him chased from the net in an 8-1 thumping. Florida has put itself in a good position to send Carolina home, but wouldn’t it be nice to do it sooner than later? Bobrovsky at his best will help Florida do just that. — Shilton
Benching Frederik Andersen was done with the belief that Kochetkov could give the Hurricanes a stronger chance to win. Through two periods, it appeared that that could be the case, as Kochetkov received the necessary support from the Hurricanes’ defensive structure, something that had been an issue in the first two games.
But the Panthers’ five consecutive goals in the third period derailed things. The Hurricanes have now allowed 16 goals over three games. It’s a stark contrast to the first two rounds, when Carolina allowed 18 total in 10 games against the Devils and Capitals.
Kochetkov’s first two periods of Game 3 provided a level of consistency the Hurricanes have struggled to find at times. Is it possible they take something from the opening two-thirds of Game 3 and parlay it into a different outcome in Game 4? Or will it be game and season over instead? — Clark
Big questions for Game 4
Is Florida ready to end this series?
The cliché that the fourth win of a playoff series is the hardest to get exists for a reason. The Panthers experienced that firsthand last season when they took a 3-0 lead over Edmonton in the Stanley Cup Final, then crisscrossed the continent over the next week as the Oilers clawed back to force a Game 7.
Did the Panthers learn their lesson on how to close an opponent out quickly? Florida did it to these very Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference finals two years ago with a tidy four-game sweep featuring many of the same elements we’ve seen from the Panthers in this round. But Florida appeared to have Edmonton well in hand 11 months ago, too.
Game 3 was arguably the Hurricanes’ best of the series. If they can channel some significant desperation into their game Monday, how will Florida handle the pressure of an urgent club trying not to be embarrassed with a 16th consecutive loss in a conference final situation? The Panthers can’t afford to look past what will be a dramatic Game 4. — Shilton
Is this it for the Hurricanes — and what comes next if it is?
That in and of itself is a rather loaded question for several reasons, with the obvious being: Will Monday be Carolina’s last game of the 2025 playoffs? If it is, what could that mean for the franchise going forward?
The way the Hurricanes have been constructed has allowed them to become a perennial playoff team with a legitimate chance of reaching the conference finals. But that comes with the caveat that the Canes might not go any further than that.
It was a dilemma the Panthers faced before making the changes that saw them not only win a Stanley Cup, but also be one win away from a third consecutive Stanley Cup Final. Maybe it doesn’t come to that point for the Hurricanes. But if they allow five or more goals for a fourth straight game while also struggling to score? It could lead to some difficult questions this offseason in Raleigh. — Clark
-
Greg Wyshynski
SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers are one win away from an Eastern Conference finals sweep. They’ve outscored the Carolina Hurricanes, a team that’s lost 15 straight conference final games, by a count of 16-4. Yet Panthers forward Brad Marchand is still ready for this series to go the distance.
“We’re prepared to go seven here,” he said after their 6-2 victory in Game 3 on Saturday night. “I mean, you can’t start looking ahead. That’s such a dangerous game to play.”
Contextually, that mindset might seem preposterous. The Panthers are trying to match the Tampa Bay Lightning as the only teams since the Edmonton Oilers’ 1980s dynasty to advance to the Stanley Cup Final in three straight seasons, having won the Cup last season. They’ve dominated the Hurricanes with their physicality, scoring depth and the goaltending of Sergei Bobrovsky, who now has a .947 save percentage and a 1.33 goals-against average in the conference finals.
It seems like a matter of when, not if, Florida will eliminate Carolina — and the “when” is trending to be Monday night at home in Game 4. Yet the Panthers are the last team to take a 3-0 lead for granted.
Coach Paul Maurice recalled their semifinals series against the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2023, when they went up 3-0 and dropped a Game 4 on home ice. “We wanted it so bad that we tried to win the game on every play,” he said.
Then came the ultimate lesson on how not to close out a series: The 2024 Stanley Cup Final, which saw the Panthers squander a 3-0 series lead to the Edmonton Oilers before finally winning Game 7 to hoist the Cup for the first time.
Maurice hopes his players understand the dynamics at play in Game 4.
“They have the desperation advantage. You have, potentially, the desire advantage. Both teams will fight that. Can we control the desire emotion and play the game? Can they control the desperation emotion and play the game? The common denominator is just playing the game,” he said.
Game 3 saw the Hurricanes play with more desperation than they’ve exhibited in this series. The game was tied 1-1 entering the third period after Carolina’s Logan Stankoven — who Bobrovsky robbed earlier in the second period with a lunging blocker save — managed to knock the puck past him for a power-play goal at 14:51 to even the score.
The Hurricanes were finally looking like the stingy, tight-checking team they’re known for being. Maurice wasn’t expecting a windfall of offense from the Panthers after the first 40 minutes of Game 3.
“We’re not going out to the third period saying, ‘Well, we can tell this is going to work out [for us]. I’ve got an extra piece of gum in my pocket for the second overtime. That’s how our experience with Carolina has been,” the coach said.
The gum stayed in his pocket. Florida scored five goals in the first 10:37 of the third period to put the game — and potentially the series — away.
“We knew we needed to be a little better than what we were in the second period, so we tried to keep things simple and I think we got rewarded for that,” said captain Aleksander Barkov, who had two of the goals in the onslaught.
Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour was left dumbfounded.
“We’re playing better and then we just turn pucks over. It’s not what we do. I think everyone’s just pretty surprised, you know what I mean?” he said. “Just you can’t do that. In a preseason game it’s going to cost you. But against that team, and you turn it over for odd man rushes? Forget it.”
The key to the rally was a goal by forward Jesper Boqvist, who was put on Barkov’s line as an injury replacement for Sam Reinhart, the Panthers’ leading scorer in the regular season. He took a short pass from linemate Evan Rodrigues and then turned Carolina defenseman Dmitry Orlov (minus-4) inside out before scoring on the backhand against Pyotr Kochetkov (22 saves), who got the start over Frederik Andersen in Game 3 for Carolina.
Boqvist had just one goal and one assist in 9 playoff games this postseason, averaging 8:53 in ice time. In Game 3, he had three points (1 goal, 2 assists) and skated 15:08 for the Panthers.
“He’s an extremely gifted player. I love playing with him. He can kind of play anywhere in the lineup and he’s such an incredible skater. So strong with the puck, so smart. And that was a massive goal,” Marchand said.
The Panthers won Game 3 without Reinhart and without having forward Eetu Luostarinen for most of the game, after he was ejected for boarding Carolina forward Jackson Blake in the first period. Luostarinen was tied for the team lead with 13 points entering Game 3, with 4 goals and 9 assists.
The Panthers would kill off that 5-minute major in what Maurice called “a real inflection point in the game,” considering that Florida was missing key penalty killers in Luostarinen and Reinhart, who is day-to-day with a lower body injury. When they needed him, Bobrovsky (23 saves) was a great last line of defense.
Thanks to their third-period deluge, the Panthers are now poised to sweep the Hurricanes in the conference final for the second time in three postseasons. Yet even with Florida’s domination of the series, Marchand said his team is anything but overconfident.
“I don’t think the way the games have been played is really an indication of what the outcome’s been, score wise. They’ve been pretty tight. It just seems like we’ve gotten a couple bounces, a couple lucky breaks here and there that have given us a pretty good lead,” he said.
“But it doesn’t matter. It’s not going to change anything about next game. We’ve got to come in and prepare the same way. It’s always the toughest one to get, so we got to make sure we bring our best.”
-
Greg Wyshynski
SUNRISE, Fla. — Florida Panthers forward Eetu Luostarinen was ejected from Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals after a boarding major against forward Jackson Blake of the Carolina Hurricanes.
With 3:01 left in the first period, Blake was chasing the puck back in his own zone with Luostarinen behind him. As Luostarinen reached out with his stick, Blake stopped short of the boards and Luostarinen hit through him. Luostarinen drove Blake’s head into the boards, bloodying the Carolina forward.
The on-ice officials gave Luostarinen a five-minute major and then reviewed the hit. They confirmed the call on the ice. Per NHL Rule 41.5, when a major penalty for boarding is called, a game misconduct is automatic. A major penalty for boarding is determined by “the degree of violence of the impact with the boards.”
Luostarinen was tied for the team lead with 13 points entering Game 3, with 4 goals and 9 assists. He scored 12 of those points on the road. Blake returned to action in the second period.
The Panthers lead the series 2-0 and had a 1-0 lead in Game 3 when the major penalty was called.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway