Panthers unsure of Tkachuk’s status for Game 5
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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
SUNRISE, Fla. — The status of Florida Panthers star Matthew Tkachuk was uncertain after their Game 4 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday night.
Tkachuk played just 16 minutes, 40 seconds in the 3-2 loss, which moved Vegas one win away from capturing its first Stanley Cup. He was clearly laboring in the game and skated only four shifts during the third period.
“Obviously, you want to be out there playing. Just was able to go out there at the end and tried to make some magic happen late but ran out of time,” Tkachuk said.
Florida coach Paul Maurice wouldn’t disclose what was affecting Tkachuk and wouldn’t confirm his status for Tuesday’s potential elimination game back in Las Vegas.
“We got two days off to assess that. Get some good rest and we’ll make that decision [then],” he said.
What would it take for Tkachuk to miss Game 5?
“That’s a tough question. I don’t really want to talk about that right now,” said the winger, who leads the Panthers with 11 goals and 13 assists this postseason.
It was the second-lowest total ice time for Tkachuk in the playoffs, behind Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final, during which Tkachuk amassed 22 penalty minutes.
He did very little shooting in warmups and didn’t have his usual velocity during Game 4. He managed four shots on goal on eight shot attempts, but Tkachuk went 10:41 between shifts in the third period as Florida attempted to rally from a 3-0 deficit.
“Matthew’s been a grinder his whole life, and he was again tonight,” Maurice said. “We were just looking and hoping to get into a situation where he could use what he had to give us and hopefully get on the power play a little earlier, I guess, than certainly at the end of the game.”
The Panthers earned their only power play of the game with just under 18 seconds remaining after Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo sent the puck over glass in the defensive zone.
There was speculation after the game that Tkachuk might have been feeling the effects of the Game 3 hit delivered by Golden Knights forward Keegan Kolesar. Tkachuk was pulled from that contest in the first period by NHL concussion spotters but was cleared to return in the second period. He would eventually score the game-tying goal ahead of Carter Verhaeghe‘s overtime winner.
“That’s just not going to come out right now,” Tkachuk said, when asked about the Game 3 hit.
Tkachuk was asked if his time off the ice in the third was due to being in too much pain.
“I don’t even know how to answer that, really. Just trying to find a way out there to make it work tonight and came up just probably a second short,” he said. “Time ran out there with me and [Sam Bennett] whacking away. Two more seconds there, you never know.”
The end of the game was chaotic. The Panthers scrambled to get pucks on goalie Adin Hill (29 saves) in the final seconds of their 6-on-4 power play. Tkachuk had the puck on his stick right before the buzzer sounded. Then several scrums started, as Hill took exception to Florida defenseman Brandon Montour crashing his net after the horn sounded.
As garbage and plastic rats littered the ice — fans had been frustrated with the officiating for the two games in Sunrise — Hill earned a minor for unsportsmanlike conduct while Montour was given a charging minor and a 10-minute misconduct.
Tkachuk was given slashing and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties as well as his fourth 10-minute misconduct of the series. Tkachuk now has five 10-minute misconducts this postseason, the seventh player all time to have that many in a single postseason.
“A little mayhem after the buzzer there, but everyone on our ice there did our job to keep the puck out,” Hill said.
Florida captain Aleksander Barkov said it was a by-product of a hard-played game.
“Those scrums are going to come. We were close to tying the game, and there are a lot of guys at the net, and those things happen,” he said.
Teams up 3-1 in a best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final have won 36 of 37 series. The only team to rally from that deficit was the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs, who came back from a 3-0 hole to defeat the Detroit Red Wings for the Cup.
But the Panthers do have something to cling to heading into Game 5: their shocking first-round win over the Boston Bruins after rallying from a 3-1 series deficit. It all started with a Game 5 overtime victory on the road, on the first of three overtime winners from Tkachuk in this run to the Stanley Cup Final.
“It was just like a really short-term mindset or there: Get the first goal in Boston, get it to overtime,” Tkachuk said. “Just the longer games go against all these teams, all the pressure starts to shift to them. So it’s going to Vegas, and the longer it goes, longer the game goes, the longer the series goes, all the pressure goes to them.”
Maurice said that before Game 5 his players will be reminded plenty of that rally against the Bruins.
“We’ll tell stories over the next two days, for sure, reminders of the energy level we brought into Game 5 in Boston,” he said, “and we’ll celebrate it. We’ll celebrate it before the puck drops.”
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Greg Wyshynski
Ken Holland, who won four Stanley Cups as an executive with the Detroit Red Wings, is expected to become the next general manager of the Los Angeles Kings, multiple NHL sources told ESPN on Monday, confirming a report.
Inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder in 2020, Holland replaces Rob Blake, the Kings’ general manager and vice president of hockey operations whose contract was not renewed after a fourth straight first-round playoff exit.
An announcement is expected later this week. Rod Pedersen, host of “The Rod Pedersen Show,” first reported the news.
Holland, 69, was the executive vice president and general manager of the Red Wings from 1997 through 2019, winning four Stanley Cups for the franchise. He was bumped upstairs in 2019 to senior vice president, clearing the way for Steve Yzerman to become the team’s general manager.
That promotion lasted only a month, as Holland left to take over the Edmonton Oilers as general manager and president of hockey operations. Powered by stars Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, the team made the conference finals in 2022 and 2024, losing in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final last year with a roster Holland constructed. Among his key acquisitions were forward Zach Hyman (free agent) and defensemen Mattias Ekholm (via trade with Nashville) and Philip Broberg (drafted eighth in 2019). The Oilers made the playoffs in all five seasons of Holland’s tenure.
Holland’s five-year contract with the Oilers expired on July 1, 2024. Edmonton eventually hired former Blackhawks GM Stan Bowman to replace him. Since then, Holland had been working as a consultant to the NHL’s hockey operations department.
Sources told ESPN that Holland had been considering a front office role with the New York Islanders, either as team president, general manager or both. Former Montreal Canadiens GM Marc Bergevin, a senior adviser for the Kings who many believed might be their next general manager, is in the mix for the Islanders’ openings.
Kings president Luc Robitaille played for Holland’s Red Wings from 2001-2003, winning his only Stanley Cup as a player in 2002. He will now reconnect with Holland, who will take over a Kings roster that features holdovers from their Stanley Cup wins in 2012 and 2014 (Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty), scorers in their prime (Adrian Kempe and Kevin Fiala), young players on the rise (Quinton Byfield and Brandt Clarke) and goalie Darcy Kuemper, who was a finalist for the Vezina Trophy this season.
But Los Angeles has failed to advance past the first round of the playoffs since 2014. The Kings have lost four straight first-round series to the Oilers — conveniently, Holland’s former team — including their six-game defeat this postseason.
Holland will now determine the fate of Jim Hiller, who finished his first season as Kings head coach after serving on an interim basis in 2023-24. Hiller was an assistant coach with the Red Wings for one season (2014-15) during Holland’s time in Detroit.
RALEIGH, N..C. — The Carolina Hurricanes twice found their two-goal margin halved in the third period of their latest playoff game with the Washington Capitals.
Each time they found a prompt response.
And that pushed the Hurricanes to within a win of the Eastern Conference finals for the second time in three seasons.
Taylor Hall scored on a breakaway chance roughly three minutes after the Washington Capitals scored their first goal, then Sean Walker added one minutes after NHL all-time goals leader Alex Ovechkin struck with a 5-on-3 one-timer. Those kept the Hurricanes in control on the way to a 5-2 win Monday night, securing a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven second-round series.
“We get an individual effort, and that’s really what those were, good plays,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “But burying it, finishing your chances at a crucial time in the game. … Both of those goals were huge for us.”
Both Hall and Walker finished with two points, with Walker getting the second assist on Hall’s score and Hall returning the favor by springing Walker’s surge up the ice on the way to his first career postseason goal. But the timing of the goals stood out, with each blunting the momentum of a Washington team that had been shutout for five straight periods going back to Saturday’s 4-0 loss in Game 3.
Carolina carried a 2-0 lead into the third before Jakob Chychrun beat Frederik Andersen on a feed from Matt Roy after Roy had denied Carolina’s chance to clear the zone. That score came at the 5:18 mark of the third to add a jolt of tension rippling through the Lenovo Center after Carolina had kept a firm grip on the game to that point.
But Hall — acquired in January in the blockbuster deal that brought in Mikko Rantanen as the headliner — made a veteran read to blunt that momentum.
After being knocked to the ice in the offensive zone, Hall was getting up as the Capitals pushed the puck toward the other end. But as Hall got to center ice, he was alone — Washington coach Spencer Carbery said the defense lost track of Hall behind the forecheck and were too deep in the zone — and the Hurricanes were on the verge of collecting the puck as it went around the end wall.
So Hall turned in back toward the blue line, straddling it long enough to stay onside until Jack Roslovic‘s long pass arrived to spring the breakaway chance.
“Yeah, everyone’s asking me if I was cheating for offense,” Hall said, adding; “I thought it was just something to try.”
Hall skated in and beat Logan Thompson to the glove side at the 8:24 mark, pushing the margin back to 3-1.
“It’s a read, we had possession of the puck,” Brind’Amour said. “So that’s actually a good play by him.”
The Capitals again kept the pressure on with Ovechkin’s blast past Andersen on a two-man advantage at the 12:14 mark, dampening the rowdy zeal in Carolina’s home arena. But that’s when Hall and Walker teamed up for the goal that would reassert control.
It started on a puck battle and the unusual sight of Washington’s Rasmus Sandin skating in to get the puck from Walker, only to get the blade of his stick stuck in a gap along the boards. Walker got to his feet as Hall collected the puck, then flipped a pass to Walker as he charged up the left side.
Walker hesitated to cut inside Roslovic toward the slot and beat Thompson at the 16:45 mark, pushing the lead back to 4-2 in what became a backbreaking score.
“I feel like they were backchecking really hard, so I kind of just read that,” Walker said. “Tried to be patient. Once I stepped inside, I felt like I had a good lane so I shot it, and just happy it went in.”
Ovechkin’s blast got the NHL’s career goals leader on the scoresheet for the first time this series. Thompson finished with 32 saves.
“We’re giving ourselves some opportunities, we’re just not executing, making the play, whatever you want to call it,” Washington coach Spencer Carbery said. “And making some mistakes — and they’re capitalizing.”
To that point, the Eastern Conference’s top seed got a quick start after a Game 3 shutout, starting with Connor McMichael getting a 1-on-1 chance on Andersen in the opening minute. Aliaksei Protas followed by ringing the right post shortly after.
Washington also managed only one shot on goal during a 4-minute power play, the first 3½ minutes of those coming to close the first period.
“Their penalty kill is excellent, best in the league, has been for the last, whatever, five years call it,” Carbery said. “But it can’t look like that. It cannot look like that.”
Andrei Svechnikov added the empty-net clincher less than a minute later to deny Washington’s bid to retake home-ice advantage, the capper to Carolina’s steady response amid growing third-period danger.
“I think that’s something that’s really important, especially this time of year,” Walker said. “You’ve got to answer when teams are making their push.”
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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