Today’s set brings us a couple interesting game threes that feature favored Canadian teams keeping up foreign relations with a couple pain in the butt American teams, some fun qualifiers and a Jet trying to avoid Flaming out. By the end of the night we should have a much better idea of who is lead and who is the wingman.
Here’s what’s on tap for today’s games. We’ll use this as an open thread for today’s games.
Vancouver Canucks (7) at Minnesota Wild (10)
Rogers Place, Edmonton
Best of 5: Series tied 1-1
Time: 2:30 pm ET
TV: NHL NETWORK, NHL.TV, SN, FS-N
Team Sites: Hockey Wilderness, Nucks Misconduct
Vancouver shook off a sluggish game one to jump out to a 4-1 lead in game two early in the third period and weathered a Kevin Fiala storm in the last 4 minutes to win game two and tie the series. That despite only two points total from Elias Pettersen and Quinn Hughes (one assist each) through the first two games. For Minnesota, the aforementioned Kevin Fiala and Jarred Spurgeon have carried the lion’s share of the offense so it will be interesting to see if they can continue their red hot play or if Vancouver can find a way to slow them down and force a different Wild player to beat them.
Washington Capitals (0-0-1) at Philadelphia Flyers (1-0-0)
Scotiabank Arena, Toronto
Time: 4:00 pm ET
TV: , NBCSN, NHL.TV, SN360, TVAS, NBCSP, NBCSWA
Team Sites: Jasper’s Rink, Broad Street Hockey
Philadelphia opened their round robin play with a spirited win over the Boston Bruins. Washington lost in a shootout to the Tampa Bay Lightning in a fairly entertaining game. A Flyers win sets up a battle between Philadelphia and Tampa Bay for the top seed in the East while a Capitals win sets up a potentially wild finish to the Eastern Conference qualifiers where every team except the Bruins could walk away with the top seed.
Vegas Golden Knights (1-0-0) at St. Louis Blues (0-1-0)
Rogers Place, Edmonton
Time: 6:30 pm ET
TV: , NHL NETWORK, NHL.TV, SN360, ATTSN-RM, FS-MW
Team Sites: St. Louis Game Time, Kinghts on Ice
Vegas rode a hot third period against the Dallas Stars to turn a 3-1 deficit into a 5-3 victory in their first-round robin game. St. Louis fell victim to literal last second heroics by Nazem Kadri to lose their opener to Colorado 2-1. This one is simply going to be fun to watch the hard charging Golden Knights against the very sound and physical Blues. Fun fact, a loss by the Blues would leave both regular season conference leaders without home ice advantage in playoffs.
Toronto Maple Leafs (8) at Columbus Blue Jackets (9)
Scotiabank Arena, Toronto
Best of 5: Series tied 1-1
Time: 8:00 pm ET
TV: NBCSN, TVAS, FS-O
Team Sites: The Cannon, Pension Plan Puppets
Toronto played a much better game overall in game two, but how does the loss of Jake Muzzin to injury for the rest of the season affect them long term? Does Columbus have enough magic left in chip on their shoulder to rebound from the loss? This one could get very interesting.
Calgary Flames (8) at Winnipeg Jets (12)
Rogers Place, Edmonton
Best of 5: Calgary leads 2-1
Time: 10:30 pm ET
TV: CNBC, NHL.TV, SN, TVAS
Team Sites: Arctic Ice Hockey, Matchsticks & Gasoline
Two, three goal spurts pushed Calgary to a win in game three and one win away from the second round. These two teams developed some good ole fashion playoff hatred for each other early on and that has suited the Flames just fine. They seem to relish playing the bad guy and Winnipeg is going to need to find a way to focus on the game and not the likes of Matthew Tkachuk to push this to a game five.
