Hurricanes storm surge
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Hurricanes celebrate win with football Storm Surge (Video)

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The Carolina Hurricanes kept pace in the wildly competitive Metropolitan Division on Sunday with a 4-3 shootout win against the Vancouver Canucks.

Justin Williams, playing in his fourth game since returning to the team after sitting out the first half of the season, scored his second shootout-winning goal to help move the Hurricanes back into a playoff position in the Eastern Conference.

Then they celebrated in the most logical way on Super Bowl Sunday — with a football-themed Storm Surge that saw Erik Haula take the (bad!) shotgun snap, play-fake, then find Jaccob Slavin down the middle for the completion.

 

 

The important thing for the Hurricanes, though, is the two points in the standings because everybody in the division keeps winning. As we looked on Sunday, there are six teams in this division — including Carolina — that are good enough to make the playoffs, but one of them is guaranteed to miss. Every point matters right now.

It was also another big day for Williams as he keeps making an impact in his return. In four games he has two goals, an assist, and two shootout deciding goals.

For the Canucks, it snaps what had been a five-game winning streak. They still ended up getting a point to build on their Pacific Division lead and are 14-3-1 in their past 18 games. They are three points ahead of the Edmonton Oilers for first place in the Pacific Division.

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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.

NHL on NBCSN: Playoffs within reach for Blackhawks

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NBCSN’s coverage of the 2019-20 NHL season continues with Monday’s matchup between the Chicago Blackhawks and Minnesota Wild. Coverage begins at 7 p.m. ET on NBCSN. You can watch the game online and on the NBC Sports app by clicking here.

If you gave up on the Chicago Blackhawks’ playoff chances in the middle of December it would have been an understandable decision.

They had won just 12 of their first 31 games, were getting buried in the Western Conference standings, and looking like a deeply flawed team in need of some sort of a reboot. They may still have their flaws, but there is no denying that they are right back in the thick of the Western Conference playoff race, entering Tuesday’s game against the Minnesota Wild (8 p.m. ET, NBCSN) just three points back of a playoff spot with a game in hand.

A win against the Wild, combined with a Coyotes regulation loss in Edmonton, would close that gap to just a single point. Considering where this team was just five weeks ago that is a huge accomplishment and turnaround, especially when you consider just how bad of a start they had, and how much it typically buries a team in the standings. Keep in mind that in the salary cap era only five teams (out of 68) with 12 or fewer wins through their first 31 games of a season have been able to bounce back to make the playoffs.

The Blackhawks still have a lot of work ahead of them (even a three-point gap is a lot harder to make up than it looks) and are going to have to maintain their recent pace, but they have at least given themselves a shot.

What has been driving their recent success?

For starters, their two superstar forwards — Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane — have helped carry the offense. Kane is again one of the league’s top-10 scorers for the season, while Toews is continuing to show that he isn’t yet ready to fade off in a decline. Toews has been especially productive over the past month.

They have also found something in rookie Dominik Kubalik, one of the league’s hottest goal scorers at the moment. He has 13 goals since Dec. 14 and is starting to climb the rookie rankings and look like one of general manager Stan Bowman’s best acquisitions in years.

The biggest factor, though, is the play of the goaltending duo of Robin Lehner and Corey Crawford. The Blackhawks’ defense still has its issues, but Lehner and Crawford have both been outstanding in net this season. This duo was always going to be the Blackhawks’ X-factor this season because they are both capable of playing at a level that can elevate a team around them.

They have done that.

This recent surge also creates a lot of questions for general manager Stan Bowman and how he handles the trade deadline later this month. Is this is a team worth adding to try and get in and make a run in a Western Conference that only has maybe a couple of really strong contenders at the top? What does he do with his goaltending situation where both players are unrestricted free agents at the end of this season? How much is Erik Gustafsson worth a new deal?

The answers to those questions will almost certainly depend on what happens over the next couple of weeks. They have 10 games between today and the trade deadline, with most of them coming against teams they could be competing with for a playoff spot. They’ve already won a couple of those “four-point games” recently (Winnipeg, Arizona) and have a bunch more ahead of them.

Wild have no margin for error

The Wild, meanwhile, are going to need a miracle to play their way back into the playoff race.

They enter the Tuesday’s game having lost eight out of 12 games, are coming off a brutal 6-1 loss to Boston over the weekend, and open the day seven points back of a playoff spot with four teams ahead of them. A win on Tuesday could help close that gap a little, and they do have a favorable schedule in the second half due to the number of home games they have, but this might be too much to overcome.

The big question here is how many more losses general manager Bill Guerin needs to see before he starts selling? And how drastic will he look to get with the changes?

Chris Cuthbert and Pierre McGuire will have the call from St. Paul. Liam McHugh hosts studio coverage with Patrick Sharp and Keith Jones.

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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.

Eichel vows ‘wheels won’t fall off’ Sabres as in past years

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BUFFALO, N.Y. — Sabres captain Jack Eichel is doing everything within his power to prevent his team from falling into an all-too-familiar late-season rut.

The fifth-year player is enjoying a breakout season with a career-best 31 goals – seven of them game-winners – as he displays on-ice consistency.

And then there are continuing signs that the 23-year-old is maturing into a well-rounded leader.

Eichel might still show an occasional outburst of frustration, such as when he smashed his stick over Buffalo’s net in the closing moments of a 3-1 loss to Montreal last week. What’s been more apparent is the self-restraint Eichel has displayed in not allowing his emotions to roil into the following day.

”The biggest thing I think is being able to regroup,” he said, before pausing to gather his thoughts a day after the loss to Montreal.

”It’s not like last year,” Eichel said, referring to how Buffalo unraveled by turning a 17-6-2 start into a 33-39-10 finish that led to coach Phil Housley’s firing.

”We’ve been through these times where we take a couple of hits at this time of year … and then all of a sudden the wheels fall off,” he added. ”That’s not happening here.”

The following day, Eichel backed up his words by scoring 36 seconds into overtime of a 2-1 victory over Columbus.

The win might mean little in the big picture for a Sabres team that at 23-22-7 opened this week 10 points out of contention and is in jeopardy of extending the NHL’s longest active playoff drought to a ninth year.

And yet, the victory over Columbus was significant in how it briefly silenced a disgruntled fan base voicing its displeasure over a team displaying modest hints of development under its fifth coach and third general manager in six years.

Goalie Carter Hutton acknowledged the importance of the win by saying: ”Everyone knows what’s going on. We’re not stupid. The outside, and the pressure that comes with the situation we’re in: So it was a big answer today.”

The Sabres spent much of last week careening toward a state of crisis after coming out of a 10-day break with home losses to Ottawa and Montreal.

The disgruntled masses gained a voice when 32-year-old fan Duane Steinel phoned into the Sabres’ flagship station, WGR-Radio, to deliver a three-plus-minute tirade on the franchise’s shortcomings. His criticisms ranged from questioning the Sabres’ inconsistencies to citing issues beyond the team’s control, such as an inability to print out-of-stock jerseys as part of the franchise’s silver anniversary celebrations.

The clip went viral on social media and was picked up by radio stations in Canada.

”I just want (the Sabres) to care. I just want them to matter again,” Steinel told The Associated Press on Monday, saying his frustrations were prompted by Buffalo’s 5-2 loss to Ottawa. ”It was depressing. I just looked around in the arena, even when the game was tied, there was nobody cheering. The atmosphere was so bad, and it’s been like this for so long, man.”

Two nights later, the Sabres were booed off the ice against Montreal.

First-year coach Ralph Krueger can feel the fans’ pain, even though he’s trying to block it out so as not to distract from his message to the team.

”It’s not that we’re sticking our heads in the sand, and whatever noise is out there is out there,” Krueger said.

”But I really don’t let it into my head or my space because I need to work with this group on a daily basis as constructively as possible,” he added. ”Do fans deserve to boo us after games like Ottawa and Montreal? Yes. Do we need to take that? Yes. And it should fuel us to continue to work in the right direction.”

Buffalo’s season has been a series of peaks and valleys, with the Sabres following a 9-2-1 start with a 1-7-2 slump, before going 13-13-4 since.

Krueger blames the inconsistencies on the team failing to stick to fundamentals.

”Sometimes it takes pain like we’re feeling right now to implement those (fundamentals) to become normal for us, and they aren’t yet,” Krueger said.

Eichel has been the Sabres’ one consistent bright spot and is getting mentioned as an NHL MVP candidate despite Buffalo’s struggles. He’s fourth in the league in scoring and tied for seventh in points.

Eichel has been held without a point 12 times this season, and just three times in his past 33 games – a stretch in which he’s combined for 23 goals and 23 assists.

Difficult as it might sound, Eichel insisted he can do more.

”Everyone needs to kind of look in the mirror and expect more out of themselves going forward. That includes me,” he said.

Though hopeful about the future, Eichel acknowledged the team’s inconsistencies have worn on him.

”Wouldn’t it wear on you?” Eichel said. ”Yeah, I think it wears on everyone. But that’s my job as a hockey player, as a leader, as a person, to be able to find a way to regroup every day, come to work and get better.”

Canada beats US in OT, pulls within 2-1 in Rivalry Series

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VICTORIA, British Columbia — Victoria Bach scored 3:22 into overtime to lift Canada over the United States on Monday night in the third game of the Rivalry Series.

Bach’s backhander off a 2-on-1 pass from Blayre Turnbull beat goalie Nicole Hensley, who faced a Canadian onslaught in the extra frame.

The Canada-U.S. Rivalry Series was at full intensity. Canada’s Brigette Lacquette tied it for Canada with just under seven minutes left in the third period with a wrist shot from just inside the blue line during an intense scramble for the puck.

Canada had a two-player power-play advantage for more than a minute and Lacquette’s goal came with the Americans down one player but facing fierce pressure from the Canadians, who held possession for much of the penalties.

The teams traded goals in the second, with Brianne Jenner scoring short-handed for Canada early in the period. Jenner had a clear breakaway and scored when she bobbled the puck and it squeezed through Hensley’s pads.

Hilary Knight scored on the power play for the Americans with a blast from the right face-off circle the 12:01. It was her 200th career point with the U.S. team.

This was coach Troy Ryan’s first game behind the bench after replacing former coach Perry Pearn last month.

The Americans won the first two games last December in Hartford, Connecticut and Moncton, New Brunswick.

The teams play next in Vancouver on Wednesday, and the series wraps up Saturday in Anaheim, California.

PHT Morning Skate: McCrimmon dispels theories on Gallant firing

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Welcome to the PHT Morning Skate, a collection of links from around the hockey world. Have a link you want to submit? Email us at phtblog@nbcsports.com.

‱ Golden Knights general manager Kelly McCrimmon dispels two theories on Gerard Gallant firing. (Sin Bin Vegas)

‱ Members of the NHL’s 700-goal club expect Alex Ovechkin to get to 800 goals. (NHL.com)

‱ Taylor Hall has been a bright spot during the Arizona Coyotes’ recent dry spell. (The Hockey News)

‱ Playoff vibes are real for the Chicago Blackhawks. (NBC Chicago)

‱ Kasperi Kapanen was scratched by the Toronto Maple Leafs this weekend because he was late for a team meeting. (TSN)

‱ How to watch Games 3-5 of the USA-Canada rivalry series (The Ice Garden)

‱ How Tomas Hertl‘s season-ending injury has changed the San Jose Sharks’ mindset and approach. (NBC Bay Area)

‱ Canadiens’ need for size boosts case to keep Ilya Kovalchuk at trade deadline. (Sportsnet)

‱ The New York Islanders start the second half of the season know it is crunch time. (Islanders Insight)

‱ The Calgary Flames are worse than they were a year ago, but have been better under Geoff Ward. (Flames Nation)

‱ Blues hoping home ice cures what ails them. (St. Louis Post Dispatch)

‱ Brian Dumoulin can not get back soon enough for the Pittsburgh Penguins (Pensburgh)

‱ Kailer Yamamoto looks right at home on the Edmonton Oilers’ second line. (Copper and Blue)

‱ Joel Farabee is growing up for the Philadelphia Flyers. (NBC Philadelphia)

‱ The Los Angeles Kings need to find out who is in and who is out. (Los Angeles Times)

‱ Nathan Gerbe signed a new two-year, two-way contract with the Columbus Blue Jackets (1st Ohio Battery)

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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.