‘Disjointed’ Stars face elimination; DeBoer heated
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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
DALLAS — Like the majority of the Dallas Stars, Matt Duchene is seeking his first Stanley Cup championship. But after their Game 5 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Friday night, he’s searching for reasons the conference’s top seed is one loss away from elimination.
“We haven’t had our best for other than probably Game 3,” he said after the Oilers’ 3-1 win gave them a 3-2 lead in the Western Conference finals. “We’ve been a bit disjointed offensively this whole series.”
The Stars averaged 3.59 goals per game in the regular season. They’ve scored two goals or less in their three losses in the series.
Forward Tyler Seguin said the Stars aren’t “connected” as a five-man unit on the ice. Duchene said they didn’t retrieve enough pucks in the offensive zone — and when they did, Dallas was far too tentative in setting up for scoring chances against Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner (19 saves).
“Sometimes when you want something so bad, you want to try and be too perfect. We need to trust our game,” Duchene said.
The Oilers, in their second straight victory, controlled play for the majority of the game. They limited the Stars to four shots on goal in the first period, and Dallas went 9:43 without a shot on goal in the second.
Dallas coach Peter DeBoer was asked about what one reported called a “lifeless” second period, and he responded by calling the description an attack on his team’s character.
“You can sit here and question our character if you want. You know what? I’m not going to do it. You go ahead and write whatever the f— you want,” DeBoer said.
The coach said Edmonton played “a perfect road game” in shutting down his team.
“If you’re going to draw a road game, that’s pretty much what you want to do, right?” DeBoer said. “They want to come out, get two power-play goals early in the game, get the lead and then defend well all night. So it’s tough to crack through.”
Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who scored those two power-play goals, said the key to defending the Stars is to not give them anything to work with by making mistakes.
“It starts with getting through the neutral zone, not turning pucks over and not giving them anything easy coming back at us,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “Sometimes you got to live to fight another day. You don’t need to be too aggressive.”
“Sometimes when you want something so bad, you want to try and be too perfect. We need to trust our game.”
Matt Duchene
Nugent-Hopkins also plays on the Edmonton penalty kill, which has not allowed a Dallas power-play goal all series. The Stars are 0-for-11, with five of those power plays coming in Game 1.
“There hasn’t been that many power plays this series. So you can maybe attribute a little bit of that [lack of success] to reps,” Seguin said. “But there’s no excuse at this time of the year. Sometimes the special teams need to win you the game, and theirs did tonight.”
The Oilers return home with a chance to advance to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2006. But the Stars believe they have a rally in them. Dallas was the best road team in the regular season and has gone 6-2 away from home in the playoffs. Plus, the Stars believe Edmonton has yet to see their best.
“We have the confidence that if we play our best game, then we can beat anyone. So it’s just a matter of us doing that next game,” said forward Wyatt Johnston, who scored his 10th goal of the playoffs in the loss. “I mean, we can’t lose another game for the rest of the series. Our backs are definitely against the wall.”
The Carolina Hurricanes have reached a three-year, $9.5 million extension with forward Taylor Hall through the 2027-28 season.
The team announced the signing Wednesday, a day after the Hurricanes closed out the New Jersey Devils in their first-round playoff series. It marked the seventh straight year that Carolina has won at least one postseason series.
Hall, 33, acquired in a blockbuster January deal that included Mikko Rantanen‘s arrival, scored the first of Carolina’s four second-period goals that helped it erase a 3-0 deficit before winning in double overtime. He’s a 15-year veteran who won the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s MVP in the 2017-18 season.
“Taylor has proven to be an outstanding fit for our team, and we are thrilled that he is excited to make Raleigh his home for another three seasons,” general manager Eric Tulsky said in a statement. “He’s been a solid veteran presence in the locker room and a difference maker on the ice.”
Hall had 18 goals and 24 assists in 77 regular-season games between Chicago and Carolina, and also had two assists in the five-game series win against New Jersey. He had missed most of the previous season due to knee surgery and was making $6 million this year with free agency looming, then led Carolina skaters with four power-play goals in the regular season after his arrival.
The Hurricanes acquired the 2010 No. 1 overall draft pick on Jan. 24 in the three-team deal that snagged Rantanen from Colorado, though they later sent Rantanen to Dallas with forward Logan Stankoven as the primary trade-deadline return when it became clear Rantanen was unlikely to sign long-term to stay with Carolina.
Hall and Tulsky are scheduled to address reporters by Zoom later Wednesday.
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Greg Wyshynski
Utah Hockey Club officials wouldn’t confirm whether “Mammoth” was their new name after it allegedly leaked on the team’s official YouTube channel Tuesday night.
Fans and media noticed that the channel’s handle was changed from “@UtahHockeyClub” to “@UtahMammoth,” on both its landing page and URL. The channel was soon deactivated and remained so on Wednesday morning, but not before screenshots of the name change went viral.
Utah Mammoth was one of three finalists featured in a fan vote at Delta Center to help determine the permanent name of the team, which played its inaugural season in 2024-25 after SEG purchased and relocated the former Arizona Coyotes franchise. Fans voted with iPads located at stations around the arena that featured the names, logos and potential branding for each option.
Originally, the three names voted on were Utah Mammoth, Utah Hockey Club and Utah Wasatch, which was quickly swapped out for Utah Outlaws after the team saw early vote returns.
Mammoth made the final four in the initial fan vote last year.
Utah HC executives wouldn’t confirm or deny that Mammoth will be the team’s new nickname.
Mike Maughan, an executive with Utah HC owner Smith Entertainment Group, said on Wednesday that “progress continues on exploring all three of the name options that were chosen as finalists by our fans. We’re fully on track to announce a permanent name and identity ahead of the 25-26 NHL season and look forward to sharing that with our fans when we do.”
When pressed for an explanation on the alleged YouTube leak, Maughan would only say, “We’re fully on track to announce a permanent name and identity ahead of the 25-26 NHL season.”
One NHL source told ESPN that the revelation for the team’s new name and logo could come before the NHL draft in late June. This year’s draft is a “decentralized” event, meaning that teams will be making selections from their own sites rather than in one central location. That opens the door for Utah to have an event in Salt Lake City with team officials around the draft.
In other Utah HC news, the team announced Wednesday that Delta Center, home to Utah HC and the Utah Jazz, will be undergoing a renovation to optimize hockey sightlines while maintaining the proximity of basketball fans to the court using a state-of-the-art retractable seating system. It’s a multiyear project that will also create a new main entrance and outdoor plaza.
The first-of-its-kind seating system accommodates a nearly 12-foot variance in elevation between rink and court endlines to offer optimal sightlines for both the NBA and NHL. Every seat in the lower bowl will have a complete view of the ice at the start of next season — the team estimates that 400 seats currently can only see one goal net during games.
The new hockey configuration adds capacity behind the goals and above and around the event tunnels on the north and south side of the lower bowl and improves access to seating behind the boards.
When all renovations are complete, seating capacity for hockey will increase from 11,131 to approximately 17,000 — with every seat in the upper and lower bowls having full views of both goals — and capacity for basketball will increase from 18,206 to nearly 19,000 seats.
“Delta Center was built for basketball. When you come and put the size of an ice sheet in that venue with those sight lines, the geometry just doesn’t work. So that’s where you come up with the riser system configuration. You come up with raising the floor 2 feet,” said Jim Olson, president of the Jazz and executive representing SEG on all facilities projects.
“We are absolutely protecting the basketball experience, but then also creating a great hockey experience where all the seats can see all the ice,” he said.
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