NHL Pacific

The Vegas Golden Knights announced the hiring of Bruce Cassidy to be their head coach on Tuesday.

ESPN's Kevin Weekes first reported the hire:

The Golden Knights fired Peter DeBoer in May after the team failed to reach the postseason, while the Boston Bruins gave Cassidy the ax in June, a surprising move seeing as how he took the team to six straight playoffs.

Cassidy, 57, went 245-108-46 in his six years as the Bruins' head coach and led the team to the Stanley Cup Final in 2019.

Boston was eliminated in the opening round of this year's playoffs, however, and general manager Don Sweeney decided to go in a new direction.

"After taking some time to fully digest everything, I felt that the direction of our team for both this season and beyond would benefit from a new voice," he said in a statement.

The Golden Knights have had tremendous success in their five-year existence, making the playoffs four times, the conference final twice and the Stanley Cup Final in the 2017-18 season, the organization's maiden voyage.

But missing the postseason this past year led to the team changing course.

"The decision was made based on next year; the decision was not based on last year," general manager Kelly McCrimmon told reporters after firing DeBoer. "I'm not going to be critical of Pete or point out specifics as to why this decision was made. I've got a lot of respect for Pete as a man. I've got a lot of respect for him as a coach. These decisions are made for the future."

In three seasons, DeBoer was 98-50-12 as the head coach.

Cassidy was one of the top names on the coaching market, alongside more experienced options like Barry Trotz and John Tortorella, so his hiring was a solid move for a Vegas franchise looking to have a quick turnaround after a disappointing 2021-22 campaign.

The NHL Department of Player Safety announced that Edmonton Oilers left wing Evander Kane has been suspended one game for boarding Colorado Avalanche center Nazem Kadri.

The play occurred early in Game 3 of the Avs' Western Conference Final series against the Edmonton Oilers.

Kane received a five-minute major penalty.

Kadri is out for at least the remainder of the Western Conference Final because of an undisclosed injury, per Avs head coach Jared Bednar (h/t Peter Baugh of The Athletic).

According to Gene Principe of Sportsnet, Kadri was seen with a soft cast on his right wrist Sunday.

The Avalanche lead the best-of-seven series three games to none after a 4-2 win over the Oilers on Saturday. Game 4 will take place on Monday at 8 p.m. ET in Edmonton.

Kadri is a big loss for the Avs. The 31-year-old has been sensational in this year's playoffs with six goals and eight assists in 13 games. He notably had the primary assist on the Avs' first three goals in a 4-0 win over Edmonton in Game 2.

Kane won't be easy to replace either. The 30-year-old dominated in limited action this year with 22 goals and 17 assists in 43 games. That's in addition to his NHL-high 13 goals in this season's playoffs.

Ultimately, the Oilers' backs are against the wall down 3-0. While not impossible, a comeback is unlikely against the Western Conference's top seed this year. The question for the Avs is the state of Kadri's health come Stanley Cup time.

It's unclear when the Final will take place until the New York Rangers vs. Tampa Bay Lightning series nears its conclusion. Right now, the Blueshirts hold a 2-1 series edge with Game 4 set for Tuesday. But Kadri would be a tough loss if he's forced to miss any Stanley Cup time.

For now, both teams need to regroup without their productive forwards as the Western Conference Final moves on.

Boston Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron has won the 2021-22 Selke Trophy as the NHL's best defensive forward, it was announced Sunday.

He beat out Aleksander Barkov of the Florida Panthers and Elias Lindholm of the Calgary Flames for the honor.

This marks the fifth time Bergeron has won the award, which is the most in NHL history. He was previously tied with former Montreal Canadiens forward Bob Gainey at four wins apiece.

This is also the 11th straight season in which the 36-year-old has been named a finalist for the award, which he last won in 2016-17.

Bergeron finished the 2021-22 season with 25 goals and 40 assists for 65 points in 73 games. He also led the NHL with 991 face-off wins and a 61.9 face-off win percentage, per Natural Stat Trick.

In addition, the Canadian led all forwards in puck possession (65.58). He also finished the season with 78 hits, 45 blocked shots and 37 takeaways.

Bergeron has been a staple in Boston's lineup since being selected in the second round of the 2003 NHL draft. He has tallied 400 goals and 582 assists for 982 points in 1,216 games across his 18-year career.

Besides being a five-time Selke winner, he also won the King Clancy Trophy in 2012-13 and the Mark Messier Trophy 2020-21, on top of leading the Bruins to a Stanley Cup victory in 2010-11.

The Edmonton Oilers fell at home to the Colorado Avalanche 4-2 in Game 3 of the Western Conference Finals on Saturday at Rogers Place, and fans aren't happy with the play of goaltender Mike Smith.

After the Oilers tied the game 2-2 in the third period on a goal from Ryan McLeod, Avs forward J.T. Compher scored what went on to be the game-winning goal just minutes later.

After Oilers defenseman Evan Bouchard rung a shot off the post on the power play, Compher raced out of the penalty box, fended off Bouchard to grab the puck and fired it past Smith from the dot.

It's a shot that Smith likely should have stopped. Instead, the puck squeaked through his legs and trickled into the back of the net.

Smith, as many fans have put it, has been a rollercoaster for the Oilers this postseason. He has made some incredible saves, but he has also let in some dreadful goals and could ultimately be the reason Edmonton fails to reach the Stanley Cup Final.

Smith entered Saturday's game with an 8-4 record in the postseason, including a .916 save percentage and two shutouts. However, he hasn't been great against the Avs, posting a .846 save percentage over the first two games of the series. And though he saved 39-of-42 shots (.929 save percentage) in Game 3, he failed to make the most important stop of the night.

If the Oilers are going to extend this series, they're going to need Smith to play more consistently. Mikko Koskinen has posted an 0-2 record and an .897 goals-against average this postseason, leaving Smith as the best option in an elimination game.

The Oilers enter Monday's Game 4 in a must-win situation and likely won't see Game 5 unless Smith or Koskinen come up big.

Calgary Flames head coach Darryl Sutter has won the 2021-22 Jack Adams Award as the coach "adjudged to have contributed the most to his team's success," it was announced Thursday.

He beat out New York Rangers head coach Gerard Gallant and Florida Panthers head coach Andrew Brunette for the honor.

Sutter accepted the award from his brother, Brian Sutter, who won the honor in 1991 as head coach of the St. Louis Blues.

Sutter was also up for the award during his first stint coaching the Flames in 2003-04. This is his first time winning the award.

The 2021-22 season was Sutter's first full season back behind an NHL bench since the 2016-17 campaign when he was head coach of the Los Angeles Kings. The 63-year-old replaced Geoff Ward as head coach of the Flames during the 2020-21 season.

Sutter guided the Flames to a 50-21-11 record this season, good for first place in the Pacific Division. It was a significant improvement from the 2020-21 campaign, in which Calgary missed the postseason after finishing 26-27-3.

The Flames also improved from 2.77 goals per game during the 2020-21 season to 3.55 goals per game during the 2021-22 campaign. They also allowed just 2.51 goals-against per game, a drop from the 2.86 per game they allowed the season prior.

Sutter is just the second Flames head coach to win the Jack Adams Award, joining Bob Hartley, who won in 2014-15.

Connor McDavid continued his remarkable playoff run with an overtime goal Thursday night to eliminate the Calgary Flames and punch the Edmonton Oilers' ticket to the Western Conference Finals.

If McDavid hadn't already established himself as the NHL's best player before this year's Stanley Cup playoffs, he's done it over the past month with 26 points (seven goals and 19 assists) in 12 postseason games to put the Oilers within eight wins of a title.

Hall of Fame winger Teemu Selanne is among those who've taken notice:

Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic analyzed McDavid's performance before Game 5. He determined the 25-year-old center is on pace for 11.2 wins of value in the playoffs, which would be the highest mark of the current era (since 2008) and puts him closer to the more heavily involved NBA superstars than his own NHL counterparts.

"Connor McDavid is in god mode," Luszczyszyn wrote.

Those comments proved prophetic as the two-time Hart Memorial Trophy winner ended Calgary's season and sent Edmonton to the conference finals for the first time since 2006.

Here's a look at some other reaction to McDavid's latest highlight-reel moment:

The Oilers advance to face either the Colorado Avalanche or St. Louis Blues in the penultimate round. The Avs hold a 3-2 advantage in that series.

A showdown between McDavid and Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon would be must-see TV.

Just two weeks ago, with his Edmonton Oilers facing elimination against a lower-seeded and perceived inferior Los Angeles Kings team, stories about Connor McDavid debated exactly how long he'd put up with chronic playoff disappointment in the league's northernmost outpost.

Blow it up. Move him out. Let the league's best player perform on a worthwhile stage.

Funny how quickly a narrative can change.

Fast-forward 14 days, and after dispatching the Calgary Flames in five games—capping off the series with an overtime winner—No. 97 is reveling in a final four spotlight.

Finally.

Long the star of the internet's most clicked-upon highlights—and collector of enough summertime hardware to stock a scrap yard—McDavid is finally within hailing distance of a Stanley Cup.

And if his first 12 games this postseason are prelude, we'll see his legend continue to grow in the coming weeks and further justify the lofty comparisons he's drawn since his days as a prospect.

McDavid was a few months past his ninth birthday the last time the Oilers reached this stage of the postseason, got plucked first overall at the NHL draft nine years later and helped the Oilers get to a second-round date with Anaheim in 2017 that started with a pair of road wins but eventually ended in a seventh-game disappointment.

He signed an eight-year, $100 million extension that summer, and optimism was high that the team would grow around its precocious star the way the Wayne Gretzky-led teams had in the early 1980s.

Even Edmonton Journal columnist Terry Jones was all-in on the positive vibe.

"It's a good thing the Ducks won this one," he wrote on May 10, 2017, "because chances are it's going to be a while before teams are going to be beating the Edmonton Oilers in a playoff series.

"Orange Crush Era is just beginning."

Or, well…not so much.

Though he and running mate Leon Draisaitl have combined for five scoring titles, three MVPs and four Ted Lindsay Awards, the team has been more pedestrian than prolific when it comes to challenging the four banners Gretzky and Mark Messier hung before their partnership ended in 1988.

In fact, before the current run, the Oilers won far more games in those 2016-17 playoffs (7) than they had in two appearances since (1) while never coming close to a second-round berth.

And if you think that didn't concern the NHL's powers that be, think again.

Though he's hardly the league's only marquee player, it was certainly a disappointment to see its most productive athlete annually relegated to irrelevance during championship season.

Imagine Michael Jordan in Sacramento. Or Patrick Mahomes in Jacksonville.

Doesn't move the needle much, does it?

But now, thanks certainly to a sturdier supporting cast than he'd had in past years—including free-agent pickups Evander Kane and Zach Hyman, among others—McDavid can draw mainstream attention to the exploits he'd largely been performing in the shadows.

Here's a tip: The kid's pretty good.

He produced a preposterous 105 points in 56 games in 2020-21—a per-game average (1.875) bested by exactly six players in 50 years—before leveling up to a career-high 123 while playing all but two of 82 games this season. And believe it or not, it's been even better since crunch time began.

His 26 points in 12 games are at least 10 more than anyone not sharing his locker room this spring and compute to 2.17 per game, which is fifth-highest in history for players with double-digit games in a single playoff run. The only players to post higher marks are Mario Lemieux and Gretzky.

It's the stuff of legendary comparisons.

And the more eye-popping his feats, the more valid those comparisons become.

At 6'1", 193 pounds, McDavid is a smidge taller and heavier than Gretzky in his prime, and he's added a physicality to his game—though clearly a few notches below enforcer—that No. 99 never had.

He's also a three-time winner of the Fastest Skater competition during All-Star Weekend festivities, which wasn't around during Gretzky's best years but wasn't his greatest strength anyway compared to a uniquely spectacular instinct that allowed him to see plays develop and get to the right spots.

The game has changed to the point where there's no real shot McDavid approaches his predecessor's statistics—in fact, Gretzky's 92 goals and 215 points in separate seasons still seem otherworldly about 40 years later—but it's reasonable to suggest no player in the NHL (and maybe pro sports as a whole) has created a bigger chasm between he and his peer group over the last two seasons.

Despite differences in their skills, styles and eras, the gap between the two superstars and everyone else on the ice with them mandates their names in the same sentences with increasing regularity. McDavid has a long way to go before his accolades and team success approach Gretzky's, but his remarkable play in the first two rounds suggests the gap won't stay so wide much longer.

Sit back and enjoy the show, hockey fans.

It's one of those you'll brag to your grandkids about.

Connor McDavid will eventually need a Stanley Cup title to join the list of the all-time greats, and he took one step closer to accomplishing that feat with more brilliance Tuesday.

He led the Edmonton Oilers to a 5-3 victory over the Calgary Flames in Game 4 of their second-round playoff series with two more assists. Edmonton now leads the series 3-1 and is one win away from reaching the Western Conference Final for the first time since the 2005-06 season.

Social media didn't hold back the praise of the 25-year-old star:

It wasn't a one-man effort, though, as Evander Kane and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins each scored two goals in the win. Nugent-Hopkins' second one with less than five minutes remaining was crucial and broke the 3-3 tie while saving the Oilers from collapse.

They seemed to be in full control with three goals in the first period, but Calgary came storming back behind three straight goals from Elias Lindholm, Mikael Backlund and Rasmus Andersson. Lindholm and Backlund cut the deficit to 3-2 with goals within 40 seconds of each other in the second period, and Andersson's goal was a short-handed one in the third.

Yet Edmonton's star power proved to be too much at the end with Nugent-Hopkins breaking the tie and McDavid assisting on Kane's second goal as insurance. McDavid has now scored two or more points in seven straight games and 10 of Edmonton's 11 postseason contests.

He will look to close out the Flames in Thursday's Game 5.

The Edmonton Oilers once again relied on their explosive offense to propel them to a win over the Calgary Flames, and this time it was Evander Kane who led the way.

Kane recorded a natural hat trick in the the Oilers' four-goal second period as the Oilers went on to win 4-1 to take a 2-1 series lead. It was the 30-year-old's second hat trick of the 2022 playoffs.

In addition to Kane's scoring eruption, Edmonton star centers Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl were excellent distributors. Draisaitl had four assists, while McDavid had three. The Oilers displayed a special offensive chemistry that led to a dominant win Sunday.

Fans online enjoyed the show the Oilers put on with Kane leading the way as they cruised to victory.

Kane now has 10 goals and three assists in the 2022 postseason. Edmonton was hoping it would pay off when it signed Kane to a one-year deal in January, and so far he has delivered.

The Oilers did a great job with their offensive pressure Sunday, sending 41 shots at the net. Not to be overshadowed, Edmonton goaltender Mike Smith was a brick wall in the net and made 32 saves.

If the Oilers can continue their high-octane offensive performance, it will be difficult for the Flames to keep up. With Kane, McDavid and Draisaitl clicking on all cylinders, Edmonton looks like a well-oiled machine heading into Tuesday's Game 4.