Connect with us

Published

on

DENVER — Brayden Schenn and Pavel Buchnevich each scored three goals and the St. Louis Blues beat the Colorado Avalanche 8-2 on Saturday night.

Alexey Toropchenko and Torey Krug also scored for the Blues, and Jordan Binnington stopped 36 shots as St. Louis evened a loss to Colorado earlier this month.

Schenn got his fourth career hat trick — first since 2017 — and Buchnevich got his third.

“Our offense has really changed or started to come around since the last time we were here in this building,” Schenn said. “We had some meetings and (were) kind of shown leaguewide trends and how to score and what really works and what we were doing that wasn’t right. So ever since then, the buy-in has been there and guys are getting rewarded for it.”

Mikko Rantanen and Jack Johnson scored for Colorado, which lost its second straight at home after opening the season 4-0 at Ball Arena. Alexandar Georgiev gave up six goals on 28 shots before being pulled early in the third period. Ivan Prosvetov came on and finished with 12 saves. Colorado coach Jared Bednar lit into his squad after the game, complaining the team was outplayed in virtually every aspect of the contest and appeared to “quit” in an ugly third period for the Avalanche.

“There’s no other explanation for it,” said Bednar, who remained one win shy of 300. “Poor execution and guys giving up all over the ice. How many breakaways did they have in the the third period? Three. Two of them end up in the back of our net.”

The Blues raced to a 4-0 lead before Rantanen’s tip-in with 3:53 left in the second period.

“Special teams were really good,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “Our (penalty) kill got a couple of shorties out of it, and scored a couple of big power-play goals in the third period. But overall I thought it was a good team effort, getting to an early start and scoring early. Our goaltender was really solid, too.”

Schenn scored the first of his two goals in the opening period just 1:08 into the game, tipping-in a slap shot from just inside the blue line by Krug. He made it 2-0 with 1:07 left in the period when Brandon Saad drove past the net and left a drop pass to the trailing Schenn, who wristed the shot past Georgiev.

Krug beat Georgiev with a wrist shot off a centering pass from Robert Thomas for his first of the season with 2 seconds remaining.

Buchnevich scored the first of his two short-handed goals with 8:08 left in the second to make it 4-0. He had a power-play goal at 1:20 of the third and Schenn completed his hat trick with another power-play score 1:29 later to make it 6-1 and chase Georgiev.

Buchnevich finished off his hat trick with 4:03 remaining and Toropchenko made it 8-1 with 49 seconds left.

Johnson added a late goal for the Avalanche to complete the scoring with 28 seconds to go.

The Avalanche were without Artturi Lehkonen, who suffered an upper body injury when he collided with the boards in Thursday night’s loss to Seattle. Andrew Cogliano also was out with an upper body injury.

Continue Reading

Sports

Sources: Knights land Marner, give star 8 years

Published

on

By

Sources: Knights land Marner, give star 8 years

Mitch Marner was traded to the Vegas Golden Knights — with an eight-year extension in place, sources told ESPN on Monday. Forward Nicolas Roy will go to the Toronto Maple Leafs in return.

Marner’s new deal has a $12 million average annual value, according to sources. Marner, 28, was the biggest name entering Tuesday’s NHL free agency, and multiple teams were hoping to make pitches. Marner was the NHL’s fifth-leading scorer last season with 102 points — 36 more than the next-closest free agent. The winger was drafted by his hometown Maple Leafs with the No. 4 pick in 2015.

The Maple Leafs knew that Marner was looking to test free agency at the end of the season. Over the past few days, Toronto worked with Vegas, which was Marner’s preferred destination, on a trade. The Maple Leafs held Marner’s rights until just before midnight Tuesday.

Had Marner become an unrestricted free agent, he couldn’t have signed a deal for more than seven years.

Marner finished a six-year deal that paid him $10.9 million annually. Marner, who played for Team Canada at Four Nations and likely will make their Olympic team, has 221 goals and 741 points in nine NHL seasons.

Toronto general manager Brad Treliving has stayed busy this week, re-signing John Tavares and Matthew Knies while trading for Utah forward Matias Maccelli earlier Monday.

Roy, 28, is a center who is entering Year 4 of a five-year deal that pays him $3 million annually.

Ahead of the Marner trade, the Golden Knights created cap space by sending defenseman Nicolas Hague to the Nashville Predators on Monday.

The deal makes Marner the highest-paid player on Vegas, however, center Jack Eichel ($10 million AAV) is entering the final year of his contract and is eligible to sign an extension this summer. The Golden Knights might not be done this offseason. According to sources, defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is expected to go on long-term injured reserve, which could create more flexibility.

Sign-and-trades ahead of free agency are becoming a trend for NHL teams that know they will not sign their coveted player; last season, the Carolina Hurricanes dealt Jake Guentzel‘s rights to the Tampa Bay Lightning before he signed a seven-year deal.

Continue Reading

Sports

Sources: Panthers keeping Marchand, Ekblad

Published

on

By

Sources: Panthers keeping Marchand, Ekblad

Hours after re-signing Aaron Ekblad, the Florida Panthers kept another integral piece of their Stanley Cup team by re-signing Brad Marchand to a six-year contract extension, sources told ESPN’s Emily Kaplan.

Marchand’s deal has an average annual value of $5.25 million, sources told Kaplan.

Coming to terms with Ekblad on an eight-year extension worth $6.1 million annually left the Panthers with what PuckPedia projected to be $4.9 million in salary cap space.

There was the possibility that Marchand, 37, could have left the Panthers for a more lucrative offer elsewhere considering there were teams that had more than enough cap space to sign him.

Instead? Marchand, who arrived ahead of the NHL trade deadline from the Boston Bruins, appears as if he will remain in South Florida for the rest of his career.

Acquiring defenseman Seth Jones from the Chicago Blackhawks and then adding Marchand were two decisions made by Panthers general manager Bill Zito with the intent of seeing the Panthers win a second consecutive Stanley Cup as part of a run that now has included three straight Cup Final appearances.

Marchand, who was a pending UFA entering the final day before free agency begins Tuesday, used the 2025 postseason to further cement why the Panthers and other teams throughout the NHL would still seek his services. He scored 10 goals and finished with 20 points in 23 playoff games.

For all the contributions he made, his greatest came during the Cup Final series against the Edmonton Oilers.

Marchand, who previously won a Cup with the Bruins back in 2011, opened the series with a goal in the first three games. That includes the two goals he scored in the Panthers’ 5-4 double-overtime win to tie the series with his second being the game-winning salvo.

He scored two more goals in a 5-2 win in Game 5 that allowed the Panthers to take a 3-1 series lead before returning to Sunrise, Florida, where they closed out the series with an emphatic 5-1 win.

Capturing a consecutive title created questions about whether the Panthers can win a third in a row. But there was the understanding that it might be difficult given there was only so much salary cap space to re-sign Conn Smythe winner Sam Bennett, Ekblad and Marchand.

Knowing there was a chance they could lose one, or more, of them, Zito laid the foundation to retain the trio. He began by signing Bennett to an eight-year contract worth $8 million annually on June 27 before using Monday to sign Ekblad and Marchand.

Continue Reading

Sports

Sources: Provorov nets 7-year deal from Jackets

Published

on

By

Sources: Provorov nets 7-year deal from Jackets

Ivan Provorov decided to forgo free agency, with the veteran defenseman finalizing a seven-year extension Monday worth $8.5 million annually to remain with the Columbus Blue Jackets, sources told ESPN, confirming earlier reports.

With free agency slated to start Tuesday, the 28-year-old was one of the most notable defenseman who had a chance to hit the open market.

Provorov’s decision to stay with the Blue Jackets comes shortly after it was reported that Aaron Ekblad also avoided free agency by agreeing to an eight-year extension to remain with the Florida Panthers. That now leaves players such as Vladislav Gavrikov, Ryan Lindgren, and Dmitry Orlov among the more prominent pending UFAs who could be available should they fail to strike a deal with their current teams.

Retaining Provorov comes months after a season that witnessed the Blue Jackets shed the title of being a rebuilding franchise to one that could challenge for the playoffs in 2025-26.

Four consecutive seasons without the playoffs created the idea that the 2024-25 campaign could be another challenging one. But a six-game winning streak in January saw Columbus post a 22-17-6 record to create the belief that a turnaround could be in order.

The Jackets closed the season with another six-game winning streak but fell short of the final Eastern Conference wild-card playoff spot, which went to the Montreal Canadiens by two points.

Provorov would finish with seven goals and 33 points in 82 games while his 23 minutes, 21 seconds in average ice time was second behind Norris Trophy finalist Zach Werenski.

Re-signing Provorov comes in an offseason that saw the Blue Jackets also strengthen their bottom-six forward corps by adding Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood in a trade with the Colorado Avalanche.

PuckPedia projects that the Blue Jackets now have $20.957 million in cap space ahead of free agency.

TSN was first to report news of Provorov’s decision.

Continue Reading

Trending