Nick Foligno

Watch Kenan Thompson’s fantastic NHL Awards monologue

By James O'BrienJun 20, 2019, 12:24 AM EDT

While the Adam Sandlers, Steve Martins, and Chris Rocks of the world are the most famous people to come from “SNL,” the performers who were “lifers” land among the most talented. Kenan Thompson is one of those performers who stood the test of time, much like Darrell Hammond and Tim Meadows.

So, maybe it shouldn’t be surprising just how great Thompson was as a host of the 2019 NHL Awards, but either way, he knocked it out of the park on Wednesday.

It says a lot about the quality of the show that, even deep into the telecast – award shows are long, basically always – people were still laughing and smiling. From the emotions of Carey Price surprising a young fan, to Robin Lehner‘s speech about mental health, to the bonkers segments with “Tony Babcock,” the show had a little bit of everything.

And Thompson’s fantastic monologue really set a fun tone with legitimately great jokes.

Considering that the NHL wouldn’t want Thompson to go scorched earth like Norm MacDonald did during that unforgettable ESPYS appearance, this was a great mix of funny and wholesome.

Though, that’s not to say that there weren’t any spicy zingers.

Watch as the Tampa Bay Lightning go stone-faced when Thompson makes a great barb about the Bolts getting swept.

Actually, it was mainly Andrei Vasilevskiy looking displeased. Also, notice Nick Foligno grinning widely in the background. Hmm, I wonder why he might enjoy that joke?

Enjoy the juxtaposition of many hockey people generally not reacting to jokes while their significant others laugh like the rest of us.
Enjoy some great deep cuts, from jokes you’d be more likely to expect, to a really creative bit about The Pope Mobile being a penalty box on wheels, and the Pope getting five minutes for “cross-checking.” (Thompson deserved cheers, not boos, for that one.)
Also, Thompson has a point about the Blues using “Gloria” instead of the actual Blues.

Overall, the 2019 NHL Awards are going to be a tough act to follow. Here’s hoping Thompson gets to try it in 2020, because he (and basically everyone else involved, Jillian Fisher was a great addition, too) did a truly fantastic job.

While it’s not quite at the same level as Thompson’s monologue, the cold open included John Krasinski, Jenna Fischer, and Laila Anderson (!), so you might enjoy it, too:

More: Rounding up the NHL Awards.

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James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.

WATCH LIVE: 2019 NHL Awards

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By Sean LeahyJun 19, 2019, 7:00 PM EDT

NBCSN will televise the NHL Awards Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET from Las Vegas, as the NHL celebrates the top performers of the 2018-19 season from the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

The 2019 NHL Awards will recognize the best regular-season players in a variety of categories, including most valuable player (Hart Trophy), outstanding goaltender (Vezina Trophy), outstanding defenseman (Norris Trophy) and outstanding rookie (Calder Trophy). The Ted Lindsay Award, which is presented annually to the “most outstanding player” in the NHL as voted by fellow members of the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA), will also will be awarded.

St. Louis Blues’ Doug Armstrong, Boston Bruins’ Don Sweeney, and Carolina Hurricanes’ Don Waddell are finalists for General Manager of the Year, while St. Louis’ Craig Berube, Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper, and N.Y. Islanders’ Barry Trotz are finalists for the Jack Adams Award, which honors the league’s top head coach. Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby, Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid are all finalists for the Hart Trophy.

Willie O’Ree Community Hero Award finalists Anthony Benavides, Tammi Lynch and Rico Phillips also will be in attendance.

[WATCH LIVE – 2019 NHL AWARDS LIVE STREAM]

2019 NHL Awards finalists:
Hart Trophy
Sidney Crosby, Nikita Kucherov, Connor McDavid

Ted Lindsay Award
Patrick Kane, Nikita Kucherov, Connor McDavid

Norris Trophy
Brent Burns, Mark Giordano, Victor Hedman

Selke Trophy
Patrice Bergeron, Ryan O'Reilly, Mark Stone

Calder Trophy
Elias Pettersson, Jordan Binnington, Rasmus Dahlin

Vezina Trophy
Aleksander Barkov, Sean Monahan, Ryan O’Reilly

Jack Adams Award
Craig Berube, Jon Cooper, Barry Trotz

Masterton Trophy
Nick Foligno, Robin Lehner, Joe Thornton

GM of the Year
Doug Armstrong, Don Sweeney, Don Waddell

Actor Taylor Kinney also will present at the event. Jon Hamm, Alex Trebek and Kinney join previously announced presenters Hockey Hall of Famers Willie O’Ree and Mark Messier; NHL star P.K. Subban; broadcasters Jackie Redmond, Kathryn Tappen and Elliotte Friedman; actors Jay Baruchel (“How to Train A Dragon: The Hidden World”), Jay Harrington (“S.W.A.T.”), Thomas Middleditch (“Silicon Valley”), Kel Mitchell (“All That”) and Nico Tortorella (“Younger”); “Jeopardy!” champion James Holzhauer; Miss USA Cheslie Kryst; model Camille Kostek; Miss Universe Catriona Gray; and race car drivers Kurt Busch and Simon Pagenaud.

Trevor Gretzky, Alexa Lemieux, Lynn LaPaugh and Jesse Robitaille, family members of NHL legends Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, the late Ted Lindsay and Luc Robitaille, respectively, and special assistant to the executive director with the National Hockey League Players’ Association Mathieu Schneider, also will present.

Blue Jackets’ future cloudy after Kekalainen’s gamble falls short

By Scott BilleckMay 7, 2019, 12:00 PM EDT

11 Comments

If you’re looking for a feel-good story about how the Columbus Blue Jackets ignited hockey fandom in a town for the past month, you won’t find it here on this Tuesday in early May.

Fuzzy feelings are fleeting when a team that went all-in, risking future assets and big returns on key pending unrestricted free agents, crashes out of the playoffs in Round 2.

The talk or progress would be a sentiment I could be more bullish on if they weren’t fixing to lose two or three of their stars come the summer.

Yes, the Blue Jackets beat the Tampa Bay Lightning. Swept them, no less, in emphatic fashion.

Sure, Columbus battled the Boston Bruins hard, taking them to Game 6 before being unable to solve Tuukka Rask

They showed tremendous tenacity during those two rounds and a sense of having bought into a suffocating style of hockey that stymied one of the best regular-season teams of all-time.

Coming back from a 3-0 deficit in Game 1 against the Lightning will be memorable. As, too, will be the play of Sergei Bobrovsky, who gave the Blue Jackets a chance every night, as did the scoring touches of both Artemi Panarin and Matt Duchene, who proved to be crucial pieces that stepped up when the lights shined brightest.

The crowds, the chants, the atmosphere, the cannon — all special while it lasted.

John Tortorella said his team made huge steps forward. True. The exact makeup of the team as of Monday’s Game 6 made huge steps forward over the past month, and there’d be a lot of build on here if it weren’t for this dark cloud that’s also been hovering over the team.

There’d be a reason to be optimistic if every player mentioned above were locked into varying lengths of long-term deals with the organization. The sad reality is they aren’t. And it seems almost certain at this point that they will lose both Panarin and Bobrovsky to free agency, and Duchene could walk to under the same circumstances if he so chooses.

Losing them is, at the very least, a step back, right?

[NBC 2019 STANLEY CUP PLAYOFF HUB]

General manager Jarmo Kekalainen gambled big here, so much so that he can probably skip his flight to Vancouver for this year’s draft because he won’t play a big part having only a third-round pick and Calgary’s seventh-round choice at the moment. (Not to mention no second- or third-round pick in 2020.)

The only thing that lasts forever in hockey is Stanley Cup banners and the engraving on hockey’s holy grail that goes with it.

Hockey’s a sport where if you’re not first, your last. You can raise feel-good banners, but they become the butt-end of jokes rather than revered pieces of fabric.

When the dust settles in or around July 1, the Blue Jackets could be without their top scorer, their No. 1 goaltender and the man they sold a good acre or two of the farm to get at the NHL trade deadline.

Per CapFriendly, Columbus’ projected cap space heading into next year is in the $27 million range. Can that coerce a No. 1 to sign in free agency if Bobrovsky leaves? Maybe, but the No. 1 goalie pool this year is slim at best.

Can it replace a 27-year-old superstar in Panarin? What about a 28-year-old point-per-game player in Duchene?

Kekalainen’s wand is going to need a full charge to pull off that kind of sorcery. That’s not to say it can’t happen, but it’s a tall order in the highest degree.

Sure, the remaining players can draw on the experiences they had. Is there much to extract from that, however, if three big names are out?

“Next year who knows what’s going to happen?” said Cam Atkinson after Game 6. “Who’s going to be in this locker room?”

There’s a core in Columbus that will remain, however: Atkinson, Seth Jones, Pierre-Luc Dubois, Josh Anderson, and Nick Foligno, who’s a consummate captain.

But you don’t just magically regrow a couple of severed limbs. That takes detailed surgery and an unknown timeframe get back to full strength.

Gambles, however well calculated they may be, are still gambles at the end of the day.

Kekalainen pushed all in and got caught by a better hand.

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Scott Billeck is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @scottbilleck

Bruins’ McAvoy to have hearing for Game 6 hit on Anderson

By Sean LeahyMay 7, 2019, 10:44 AM EDT

43 Comments

(UPDATE: McAvoy has been suspended one game.)

When the Boston Bruins host the Carolina Hurricanes Thursday night in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final, defenseman Charlie McAvoy likely will not be available.

The Bruins blue liner will have a Tuesday hearing with the NHL Department of Player Safety following his second period hit on Columbus Blue Jackets forward Josh Anderson in Game 6.

McAvoy was assessed only a minor penalty on the play due to the fact that the official deemed it an illegal check to the head under Rule 48.1, which only carries either a minor or match penalty with it, not a major or game misconduct.

The Blue Jackets failed to score on the ensuing power play and were eliminated following the 3-0 defeat.

“I thought it was a hockey play,” McAvoy said afterward. “I mean, I put my shoulder into it. When I hit, I do my very best to keep my elbow tucked so I don’t get it out there. I hit with my shoulder. I try to hit with as much power as possible. He’s a bigger guy, it was a hockey play.”

[NBC 2019 STANLEY CUP PLAYOFF HUB]

John Tortorella did not divulge what the officials told him regarding the call. The Blue Jackets players were obviously frustrated considering it was 1-0 at the time of the hit and had Kelly Sutherland and Steve Kozari been able to call a five-minute major, that extra power play time could have swung the game.

“It sucks,” said Blue Jackets captain Nick Foligno. “Kelly is a good ref. I don’t want to get into it. He had a tough call to make. I just think when your player is injured, it’s an automatic five minutes. … At the end of the day, he probably makes the right call, but at the time you probably want to see it be a five. Then again, we got a two-minute power play and we didn’t make anything of it. We got another power play after that and we didn’t make anything of it.”

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Sean Leahy is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @Sean_Leahy.

No punishment for Bruins’ Marchand, who doesn’t ‘regret’ cheap shot

By James O'BrienMay 1, 2019, 4:19 PM EDT

19 Comments

Boston Bruins star-miscreant Brad Marchand isn’t expected to face supplemental discipline for his very Brad Marchand sucker-punch of Blue Jackets defenseman Scott Harrington, according to The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline.

If you’re hoping that Marchand might have “learned” something from this experience, well, you haven’t been paying much attention, have you?

Marchand admitted to The Boston Globe’s Matt Porter that his punch to the back of Harrington’s head (while Harrington’s back was turned, and he was off his feet), was “unnecessary,” … but Marchand also said that he doesn’t regret doing it, explaining it away as “playoff hockey.” Then cue some whataboutism, in regard to Columbus apparently roughing up Jake DeBrusk.

To Harrington’s credit, he’s not throwing gas on the fire. Instead, he called it a “hockey play” and emphasized that the Blue Jackets are moving on, as NBC Sports Boston’s Joe Haggerty reports. (This article has even more on Harrington brushing it off.)

Allowing Marchand to be his own worst enemy?

You may chalk this up as “living well is the best revenge.”

The Blue Jackets have won two consecutive games to snare a 2-1 series lead against the Bruins in Round 2, including Tuesday’s strong Game 2 effort.

Bottling up Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and David Pastrnak has been a big part of Columbus’ success. Marchand specifically is on a four-game pointless streak, stretching back to Game 7 of Round 1 against the Maple Leafs, and he must be getting frustrated being that he’s failed to score a goal despite generating nine shots on goal against Sergei Bobrovsky over three games.

While going without a point, Marchand’s taken two penalties, and both resulted in power-play goals for the Blue Jackets. Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston reports that the Bruins are planning on having a talk with Marchand about discipline.

Honestly, it’s hard not to chuckle at the thought of the Bruins having what must be the billionth “talk” with Marchand about his antics.

Years ago, even stretching back to the later days of the Peter Chiarelli era in 2014, there were rumblings about Marchand being traded, in large part because of his sometimes self-destructive tendencies. Marchand’s ascent from a very good player to a full-fledged superstar has been aided by a better balance of scoring versus shenanigans, yet it sure seems like it’s too much to argue that he’s fully reformed.

(Granted, his playoff lick count appears to be at zero, unless we’ve missed some sneaky snacking.)

All things considered, the Blue Jackets are being pretty smart here. Sure, some of John Tortorella’s no-comment approach is to avoid fines for officiating, but if this side stuff gets Marchand off of his game and into the penalty box, that could be the sort of factor that helps Columbus win a Round 2 series that’s been very extremely close so far.

In other words, the Blue Jackets may profit off of a “don’t feed the troll” approach.

Teaching moment

Onlookers have been quick to voice their disapproval, however.

USA Today’s Kevin Allen believes that a suspension is warranted, considering Marchand’s history. Even those who argue that it wasn’t suspension-worthy also called it “greasy” or even “a greasy rat play.”

The “it is what it is” feeling spreads when you realize that sneaky punches do happen quite often during these scuffles. The Blue Jackets experienced this before when Steven Stamkos snuck a shot in on Nick Foligno (note Foligno’s death stare), and plenty was made of Zdeno Chara landing a punch on John Tavares.

“These things happen” makes it tough to suspend Marchand, yet maybe this moment could inspire some broader change? What if the NHL decides during the off-season to ramp up punishments for these types of moments, particularly involving punches to the head, especially as we gain more awareness of the dangers of head injuries? Would other players – not just recidivists like Marchand – really take the chance to throw unnecessary punches like those if there was a more credible threat of a suspension?

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Whether he’s getting under the Blue Jackets’ skin, scoring goals, or having a meltdown while failing to accomplish either task, it should be fascinating to watch Marchand in Game 4 and as this series goes along. Just don’t expect some big change of heart from one of the most prolific pests of the playoffs.

Game 4 goes at 7:30 p.m. ET on Thursday on NBCSN (Stream live).

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James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.