Jesse joined ESPN Chicago in September 2009 and covers MLB for ESPN.com.
IT WAS AN early Saturday morning at Wrigley Field. Most of the Chicago Cubs‘ roster wouldn’t arrive for their game against the Kansas City Royals for hours. But at 8:30 a.m., about six hours before first pitch, Cubs center fielder/first baseman Cody Bellinger and hitting coach Dustin Kelly took the field.
Bellinger had been unhappy with his approach at the plate in the previous game, a 4-3 defeat. He went 0-for-5 with a strikeout, uncharacteristically swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. And so he and Kelly went through an extended batting practice, working on reading pitches and keeping his hip from flying open.
The work paid off. Later that day, Bellinger had his 17th career multihomer game and surpassed the 20 home run mark in a season for the first time since 2019 — the year he won the National League Most Valuable Player Award for the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Back then, Bellinger’s career arc had him on track to be one of the great players of his era. A Rookie of the Year Award in 2017 was followed by the MVP in 2019 — which came with a Gold Glove, as well. In between, he played in 162 games in 2018. Durable and productive, at one of the game’s premier positions, the 6-foot-4 lefty swinger was also working his way toward a massive payday.
And then he dislocated his right shoulder celebrating a home run in the 2020 National League Championship Series while leaping into the air to meet teammate Enrique Hernandez for a forearm bash. And everything changed.
“I came back as soon as possible from it, not knowing anything,” Bellinger told ESPN. “I never dealt with an injury. I never thought how surgery would really affect me. Didn’t even know that it did until later on in that year (2021) when I did some one-hand drills. I was like, ‘I had no idea where anything [with the shoulder] is right now.'”
“This is about barrel control,” his agent, Scott Boras, said in a phone interview. “You have to have the strength to have the barrel control in your front arm. He couldn’t keep his barrel on plane. He couldn’t extend it. He just couldn’t execute the normal, Cody Bellinger swing.”
Some of the circumstances were out of his control. The pandemic got in the way of his recovery from the shoulder surgery in 2020.
“Then we had a lockout and I couldn’t work with people that I wanted to work with,” Bellinger said. “I never got to get back to who I was until this offseason.”
As a result, his numbers plummeted; Bellinger compiled an OPS+ of just 44 in 2021 and 81 in 2022. He hit .165 in 95 games in 2021, limited by the shoulder and a foot injury. His .210 batting average in 2022 came with just 38 walks and 150 strikeouts. His days in Los Angeles were done. He wasn’t offered a contract for the 2023 season.
“With an actual injury, it can be tough, because it can feel like you’re putting all your energy into just going out to play,” Cubs teammate Dansby Swanson said. “It can rob you of your joy of playing and being present, in the moment.”
Swanson speaks from experience. In 2018, an injured wrist impacted him early and late that season, forcing him to miss the playoffs.
“Mentally, it’s a grind,” he said. “Without knowing it you may be protecting yourself a little bit. ‘I’m trying to do this with my swing, but my body is not allowing me to do what I want to do.'”
It’s the same experience Bellinger had — but this past offseason was a difference-maker. He was healthy and more relaxed, working out with family, including dad Clay, a former big league player.
“I was hitting at my high school with him,” the younger Bellinger said. “Just having fun on the baseball field, remembering again it’s just a game. It’s the same game I was playing since I was 7.”
Bellinger, finally healthy, has found his stroke again in Chicago. He has been so good the surprising Cubs elected not to deal him at the trade deadline despite some high-profile suitors — and instead he has become the face of an unlikely contender. And though his immediate focus is a wild-card spot, if not an NL Central title, Bellinger will become one of baseball’s most sought-after free agents after the season.
NO ONE IN Bellinger’s orbit was shocked when the Dodgers non-tendered him. Even with two down seasons, the arbitration system still meant a hefty salary for 2023, and there were lingering question marks about his game. Could a team contending for a World Series afford the gamble?
“The point I made to [Cubs president] Jed [Hoyer] and others is when a player has 1.000 OPS and .900 OPS seasons, and never below .800, and is ROY/MVP all in three years, then has a .550 and .650 OPS, it’s obviously not skill,” Boras said. “It’s lack of shoulder strength due to surgery.
“Jed agreed. A healthy Cody is the five-tool MVP Cody.”
The Cubs signed him to a one-year, $17.5 million contract in mid-December. They were in the middle of a retooling phase and could afford whatever Bellinger could give them. If he was good, and it helped them win, great. If he was good, but the team wasn’t, they could try flipping him in July. If Bellinger couldn’t return to form, Hoyer could fall back on an old baseball adage: There are no bad one-year deals. Bellinger would move on in 2024, making room for top prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Instead, Bellinger has been great, alternating between center field and first base, playing elite defense while putting up big offensive numbers. His .924 OPS ranks fifth in the NL, as does his WRC+ of 145. He’s not likely to win the NL MVP but he’ll get plenty of down-ballot votes. And he has easily been the MVP of the Cubs, who went 11-15 for exactly a month without him in the lineup because of a knee injury. More telling, their team OPS dropped more than 100 points without him, from .763 to .651.
Bellinger’s average exit velocity (87.2 mph) is actually the lowest of his career, and there’s no one in MLB with a bigger difference between his expected (.266) and actual (.321) batting average. His .333 batting average on balls in play helps in that department, but he gets credit for making more contact than ever. His strikeout percentage has crashed, from a career-high 27.3% last season to a career-low 15.7% this year.
“Being able to control the bat and hit more pitches,” Bellinger explained about what being healthy means. “It doesn’t have to be in one spot of the zone anymore. Able to consistently put my swing on the ball, and that creates results.”
His comeback began in January in those batting sessions with his father, then continued with Cubs hitting coaches with whom he had familiarity — former Dodgers coaches Kelly and Johnny Washington.
“It worked out that I lived super close to the spring complex [in Mesa, Arizona],” Bellinger said. “And I knew those guys. The transition was easy.”
Kelly was asked for some technical reasons for Bellinger finding his groove again, now that he’s healthy:
“A lot of it is setup,” Kelly explained. “He’s grounded in with his back leg a little bit more. He has a little more flex in his back hip. There’s a slight bend in his back knee. And he’s kind of set his hands slightly higher than they had been. We got him back up by his ear. It’s allowed him to set his line. When he’s lined up in the box and kind of gets that release point from the pitcher, he’s got a really good posture and line that he sticks to. I think that’s the feeling he’s been searching for.”
Getting his shoulder right and then his mechanics was half the battle. Baseball might be the only sport for which even stars need constant reassurance. Building up their hitters is also half the job for hitting coaches.
“The game will beat you up,” Kelly said. “We’re constantly reminding them you’re really good. There aren’t a lot of guys in this league that do what you do.
“[The pitcher’s] name doesn’t say Bellinger on the back of his jersey. Confidence is a big deal. We try to pump him up every so often.”
AS BELLINGER FOUND success in the first half, the Cubs were still figuring out the course of their season. Would they be contending at the trade deadline — or offloading? Chicago’s front office executed resets in each of the past two seasons, taking criticism for trading away 2016 World Series stars Javy Baez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo. Those deals look brilliant in hindsight.
For Bellinger’s part, he understood what he was getting into when he signed: “I knew that getting traded was a possibility. You can’t think that far ahead.”
As the trade deadline shook out, with few hitters on the market, it became more clear the Cubs would not only save salary by moving Bellinger, but also likely get a haul in return.
“He was a popular guy,” Hoyer said. “Clearly, he was going to be the best bat available. A lot of teams checked in on him.”
None were ready to be more aggressive than the New York Yankees, according to sources familiar with the situation. But as the days to the deadline ticked down, the Cubs kept on winning.
Scoring eight unanswered runs against the White Sox on July 26 after falling behind 7-2 secured one victory, then, two days later, a two-out, ninth-inning, over-the-wall catch by Mike Tauchman in St. Louis clinched another one. What was going to be a tough deadline strategy decision for Hoyer turned into an easy one: Serious offers for Bellinger, Marcus Stroman and others were never discussed.
“By the time we got to that point, it became obvious,” Hoyer said. “Teams were calling, saying, ‘You’re not selling. You guys are good, you guys are going to buy.’ People stopped taking us seriously as a seller.”
One scout following Bellinger joked, “He wasted my expense account, following this guy around.”
At this point, Hoyer was having daily conversations with ownership involving one simple question: Can the team compete for the playoffs if it adds instead of subtracts at the trade deadline?
“Over the course of those last two weeks of July, the answer kept coming back yes,” Cubs owner Tom Ricketts told ESPN. “We always have the ability to improve in the middle of the season. The players get to decide for us. If we play well enough to add, we do it. If we don’t, then we have to think about the future.
“This is Jed’s call. In the end, he’s responsible for the performance on the field, both the current season and future seasons, so it’s a tough spot to put him in, but that’s his responsibility. We talk every day, but thankfully the team played its way into being really comfortable [in the standings].”
But Ricketts wasn’t the only one Hoyer was hearing from. Swanson, on the IL because of a heel injury, inserted himself into the process, too.
“Dansby on the IL was a dangerous thing,” Hoyer said recently on ESPN 1000 in Chicago. “He was almost a front office member at that point because he was bored.
“He kept on saying, ‘We’re trying to build something and you can’t just snap your fingers and say now we’re winning.’ He wanted to keep pushing. ‘We may make it, we may not, but we’ll continue to have a winning culture.’ That was his point.
“He’s a better shortstop than a front office member, but he was really helpful in the process.”
On trade deadline day, Bellinger had three hits. He would add 16 more over the next 10 games helping the Cubs move further into wild-card contention. The NL Central title is also in reach. His 1.018 OPS in August is seventh in the NL. Barring a terrible September, Bellinger will enter free agency as the best player on the market this side of Shohei Ohtani. A package worth upward of $150 million to $200 million — or more — isn’t out of the question.
Bellinger is waving off questions about his future.
“There’s still so much to do,” he said. “We’re in the playoff hunt. It gives us purpose every day we come to the park.”
But when pushed about staying in Chicago — perhaps at first base as Crow-Armstrong matures to the big leagues — Bellinger added:
“Wrigley Field is an amazing place to play baseball. It’s cool coming here on the road, but it’s something different playing for the home team. It really is one of the best places to play.”
He noted that his former team seemed to visit Chicago early in the season, mostly in April and May, in recent years.
“I never saw the ivy,” Bellinger said with a smile. “It’s cool.”
Every NHL franchise would be elated to select one player who could become a franchise defenseman, a franchise forward or a franchise goaltender in a single draft class.
This is why Stars general manager Jim Nill and his front office staff have typically been averse to trading away from draft picks.
That’s also what made Nill’s decision at the trade deadline so jarring: The Stars traded a pair of first-round picks, three second-round picks and onetime prized prospect Logan Stankoven for Mikko Rantanen.
While the Stars made a statement by adding another franchise winger, the trade also signaled that the Stars are entering a new frontier — deviating from the blueprint that allowed them to be a championship contender in the first place.
“It’s two things: It’s where our team’s at, and it’s Mikko Rantanen,” Nill said. “A lot of times when you go into a trade, it’s for an older player that has two or three years left in his career.
“Mikko is in the prime of his career. He’s one of the elite power forwards in the game, and with where we’re drafting, when do you get a chance to get a player like that? Just because of unique circumstances, he was available.”
After trading for Rantanen, the Stars signed him to an eight-year contract extension worth $12 million annually. That commitment further amplifies how the Stars believe Rantanen can help them win the Stanley Cup that has eluded them since 1999.
But how did the proverbial stars align for Dallas to get Rantanen? What made the Stars comfortable moving away from the foundational strategy of draft-and-develop? And after the current playoff run, what does Rantanen’s presence mean in the short and long term?
“Of course, [trading for Rantanen] sends a message that they’re backing us with the chance that we have to do something special,” Stars defenseman Esa Lindell said. “It’s a chance to win, and that brings expectations to succeed.”
RANTANEN PLAYED FOR the division rival Colorado Avalanche throughout his career, which meant that Nill and others within the Stars’ front office had a close view of his ascent to stardom. They thought he was one of the best players in the NHL but never thought it was possible that he could be a Dallas Star.
“You’re not even looking in [Rantanen’s] direction when you’re analyzing your team and trying to make changes,” Nill said. “It was never really even an option for us.”
Until it did become an option — and even then, the Stars weren’t so sure.
When Rantanen was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes on Jan. 24, the Stars’ front office still didn’t regard him as potentially available to them because the Canes were also in a championship window.
Rantanen scored six points in 13 games for the Hurricanes. But with each week that passed without him signing a contract extension with Carolina, the speculation increased that the Hurricanes could move him again in order to avoid losing him for nothing in free agency in the summer.
“I would say about two weeks before the trade deadline, they started to make some calls just to see what the market was,” Nill said. “We were one of the teams they called to see if there was interest, and then with about a week to 10 days before the trade deadline, we said, ‘You know what? Let’s look at it,’ but still not thinking that was the direction we were going to go.”
Pragmatism remains the principle that guides Nill.
Even before the Stars could devise a trade package, they needed a number of factors to work in their favor. For instance, if Rantanen had become available last season, there was no way they could have made it work financially because of their cap situation.
This season, injuries to Tyler Seguin and Heiskanen meant the pair’s combined $18.3 million cap hit provided wiggle room. That flexibility is how the Stars were able to take on the full freight of Cody Ceci‘s and Mikael Granlund‘s contracts in a trade with the San Jose Sharks on Feb. 1.
Yet the Stars needed more help fitting Rantanen’s contract onto their books, which made the first trade with the Avs and Canes even more crucial. Rantanen, who earns $9.25 million annually, had 50% of his salary retained by the Chicago Blackhawks in that first trade, which meant he’d be joining the Stars at a team-friendly $4.625 million prorated for the rest of the season.
“A lot of factors came into play where we’re sitting there saying, ‘A year ago, we couldn’t do that because he makes this much money and we didn’t have injuries,'” Nill said. “But now that there was a different scenario? An opportunity was there to make it work, and that’s when we got more serious.”
The Stars already had a dynamic that worked, with the bulk of their core group being younger than 26. They had a seemingly annual tradition of introducing a homegrown prospect who went from promising talent to NHL contributor. It was proof their farm-to-table model worked, while also ensuring a level of cap certainty.
So what made Nill and the Stars feel like this was the time to upend that approach? Especially with some of those homegrown prospects, such as Thomas Harley and Wyatt Johnston, going from their team-friendly, entry-level deals to being significant earners on their second contracts?
“You’re not only looking at this year, but when you’re making a major commitment to a player like that trade-wise and asset-wise, you’re probably going to want to sign him,” Nill said. “That’s when we had to sit down and look at what direction we could go with our team here. We got some major players taking some pay hikes that they deserve, and that’s when we asked, ‘How can we make this fit?'”
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‘It’s nuts!’ Stars acquire Mikko Rantanen from Hurricanes
The “TradeCentre” crew gives their instant reaction to the shocking news that Mikko Rantanen has been traded to the Dallas Stars.
CHAMPIONSHIP WINDOWS DON’T last long, and there’s always change.
Just ask Robertson. Even though he’s only 25 years old, he’s an example of how much change the Stars have encountered since their streak of three conference finals in five years started in 2020.
Robertson played three regular-season games the 2019-20 season and was a taxi-squad member who never appeared in the playoffs. But technically, he’s one of only seven players on the current roster who played at least one game from that season. It’s a group that also includes Jamie Benn, Roope Hintz, Seguin, Heiskanen, Lindell and Harley. Oettinger was also a taxi-squad player but never appeared in any games in the 2020 playoff bubble.
“That next year, we didn’t make the playoffs and we kind of made a shift onto new players,” Robertson said. “It was my second year, and we were just trying to make the playoffs as a wild-card team. My third year, [head coach] Pete [DeBoer] comes in with a new staff and a lot of new players too. I don’t know what our expectations were, but we just wanted to make the playoffs.”
Nill said what allowed the Stars to transition from the Benn-Seguin era to where they are now was a farm system that provided key players on team-friendly contracts.
As those players have turned into veteran regulars, the Stars must now get creative with the cap and balance the difficult decisions that lie ahead.
While that’s a consideration every perennial title challenger faces at some point, Rantanen’s arrival accelerated that timeline for Dallas. Before the trade, the Stars were slated to enter the upcoming offseason with more than $17 million in cap space. It was more than enough to re-sign pending UFAs such as Benn and Matt Duchene, while having the space to add elsewhere in free agency, too.
And that was with Oettinger going from $4 million this season to $8.25 million over the next three years while Johnston, who was a pending restricted free agent, also signed a three-year deal carrying an annual $8.4 million cap hit.
The addition of Rantanen’s contract means the Stars will have $5.32 million in cap space, per PuckPedia. That has raised the possibility that Benn, Duchene and Evgenii Dadonov (along with Ceci and Granlund) might not be back, and that the Stars could be limited in free agency.
There’s another way to look at the Stars’ short- and long-term situation. Benn noted the fact that they are in this position lets players know that the front office believes in them so much that it was worth changing its philosophy to get Rantanen and have him in Dallas for the better part of a decade.
“I think it shows confidence in the group that we have and what we’ve been doing this year,” Benn said. “Our draft picks over the last few years have set us up to succeed. When you make a move like that for a player like Mikko, it gives your group a lot of confidence. Now it’s on us as players to take advantage of it.”
So what does that mean for Benn, who is in the final year of his contract, knowing the Stars’ cap situation ahead of next season?
“I don’t see myself playing for anybody else other than this team,” said Benn, who has played his entire 16-year career with the Stars. “Hopefully, it’ll all get figured out this summer, but I am excited for the future of the Stars.”
But beyond the matchups and narratives, it’s also a good time to take stock of which players bring the most value into the postseason.
That’s where goals above replacement (GAR) comes in — my evolved spin on earlier all-in-one value stats like Tom Awad’s goals versus threshold and Hockey-Reference’s point shares. The core idea of GAR is to measure a player’s total impact — in offense, defense or goaltending — above what a generic “replacement-level” player might provide at the same position. It also strives to ensure the league’s value is better balanced by position: 60% of leaguewide GAR is distributed to forwards, 30% to defensemen and 10% to goaltenders.
To then assess who might be most valuable on the eve of this year’s playoffs, I plugged GAR into a system inspired by Bill James’ concept of an “established level” of performance; in this case, a weighted average of each player’s GAR over the past three regular seasons, with more emphasis on 2024-25. And to keep the metric from undervaluing recent risers, we also apply a safeguard: no player’s established level can be lower than 75% of his most recent season’s GAR.
The result is a blend of peak, recent, and sustained performance — the players on playoff-bound teams who have been great, are currently great or are still trending upward — in a format that gives us a sense of who could define this year’s postseason.
One final note: Injured players who were expected to miss all or substantial parts of the playoffs were excluded from the ranking. Sorry, Jack Hughes.
With that in mind, here are the top 50 skaters and goaltenders on teams in the 2025 playoff field, according to their three-year established level of value, ranked by the numbers:
Five series of the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs have begun, and two more will begin Monday. Meanwhile, the two matchups in the Central Division are on to Game 2.
Here’s the four-pack of games on the calendar:
What are the key storylines heading into Monday’s games? Who are the key players to watch?
You might’ve heard about the 2010 playoff matchup between these two teams a time or so in the past week.
In that postseason, the overwhelming favorite (and No. 1 seed) Capitals, led by Alex Ovechkin, were upset by the No. 8 seed Canadiens, due in large part to an epic performance in goal from Jaroslav Halak. Halak isn’t walking out of the tunnel for the Habs this time around (we assume); instead it’ll be Becancour, Quebec, native Sam Montembeault, who allowed four goals on 35 shots in his one start against the Caps this season.
Washington’s goaltender for Game 1 has yet to be revealed, as Logan Thompson was injured back on April 2. But there’s no question that there is a disparity between the offensive output of the two clubs, as the Caps finished second in the NHL in goals per game (3.49), while the Canadiens finished 17th (2.96). Can Montreal keep up in this series?
The Blues hung with the Jets for much of Game 1 and even looked like the stronger team at certain times, so pulling off the series upset remains on the table. But getting a win on the unfriendly ice at the Canada Life Centre would be of some benefit in shifting momentum before the series moves to St. Louis for Game 3. The Blues proved that Connor Hellebuyck is not invincible in Game 1, and they were led by stars Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas, who both got on the board.
The Jets have a mixed history after winning Game 1 of a playoff series, having gone 3-3 as a franchise (including the Atlanta Thrashers days) on such occasions. Like the Blues, the Jets were led by their stars, Kyle Connor and Mark Scheifele, but the game-tying goal came from Alex Iafallo, who has played up and down the lineup this season.
The Stars might like a redo on Game 1 after the visiting Avalanche essentially controlled the festivities for much of the contest. Stars forward Jason Robertson missed Game 1 because of an injury sustained in the final game of the regular season, and his return sooner than later would be excellent for Dallas; he scored three goals in three games against Colorado in the regular season. Also of note, teams that have taken a 2-0 lead in best-of-seven series have won 86% of the time.
Slowing down the Avs’ stars will be critical in Game 2, which is a sound — if perhaps unrealistic — strategy. With his two goals in Game 1, Nathan MacKinnon became the third player in Avalanche/Nordiques history to score 50 playoff goals, joining Joe Sakic (84) and Peter Forsberg (58). In reaching 60 assists in his 73rd playoff game, Cale Makar became the third-fastest defenseman in NHL history to reach that milestone, behind Bobby Orr (69 GP) and Al MacInnis (71 GP).
This is the fourth straight postseason in which the Oilers and Kings have met in Round 1, and Edmonton has won the previous three series. Will the fourth time be the charm for the Kings?
L.A. went 3-1-0 against Edmonton this season, including shutouts on April 5 and 14. Quinton Byfield was particularly strong in those games, with three goals and an assist. Overall, the Kings were led in scoring this season by Adrian Kempe, with 35 goals and 38 assists. Warren Foegele — who played 22 playoff games for the Oilers in 2024 — had a career-high 24 goals this season.
The Oilers enter the 2025 postseason with 41 playoff series wins, which is the second most among non-Original Six teams (behind the Flyers, with 44). They have been eliminated by the team that won the Stanley Cup in each of the past three postseasons (Panthers 2024, Golden Knights 2023, Avalanche 2022). Edmonton continues to be led by Leon Draisaitl — who won his first Rocket Richard Trophy as the league’s top goal scorer this season — and Connor McDavid, who won the goal-scoring title in 2022-23 and the Conn Smythe Trophy as MVP of the playoffs last year, even though the Oilers didn’t win the Cup.
Arda’s Three Stars of Sunday
For the last several seasons, much of the postseason narrative for the Leafs has been the lack of production from the Core Four. So this was a dream Game 1 against Ottawa for Marner (one goal, two assists), Nylander (one goal, one assist), John Tavares (one goal, one assist) and Matthews (two assists) in Toronto’s 6-2 win over Ottawa.
Stankoven’s two goals in the second period put the game out of reach, with the Canes winning 4-1 in Game 1. Stankoven is the second player in Hurricanes/Whalers history to score twice in his first playoff game with the club (the other was Andrei Svechnikov in Game 1 of the first round in 2019)
Howden had two third-period goals in the Golden Knights’ victory over the Wild in Game 1, including a buzzer-beating empty-netter to make the final score 4-2.
Sunday’s results
Hurricanes 4, Devils 1 Carolina leads 1-0
The Hurricanes came out inspired thanks in part to the raucous home crowd and took a quick lead off the stick of Jalen Chatfield at 2:24 of the first period. Logan Stankoven — who came over in the Mikko Rantanen trade — scored a pair in the second period, and the Canes never looked back. On the Devils’ side, injuries forced Brenden Dillon and Cody Glass out of the game, while Luke Hughes left in the third period but was able to return. Full recap.
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Logan Stankoven’s 2nd goal gives Hurricanes a 3-0 lead
Logan Stankoven notches his second goal of the game to give the Hurricanes a 3-0 lead.
William Nylander zips home a goal to pad the Maple Leafs’ lead
William Nylander zips the puck past the goalie to give the Maple Leafs a 4-1 lead.
Golden Knights 4, Wild 2 Vegas leads 1-0
In Sunday’s nightcap, the two teams played an evenly matched first two periods, as Vegas carried a 2-1 lead into the third. Then, Brett Howden worked his magic, scoring a goal to pad the Knights’ lead 2:28 into that frame, and putting the game to bed with an empty-netter that beat the buzzer. The Wild were led by Matt Boldy, who had two goals, both assisted by Kirill Kaprizov. Full recap.
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Brett Howden buries Wild in Game 1 with buzzer-beating goal
Brett Howden sends the Minnesota Wild packing in Game 1 with an empty-net goal for the Golden Knights in the final second.