1- STANLEY CUP FINAL PREVIEW: With apologies to the New Jersey Devils – who oddly will visit Amerant Bank Arena on both Tuesday and Thursday evenings this week – the Game of the Week for the Florida Panthers comes Saturday when the Winnipeg Jets come to town. The Jets are the NHL’s #1 team and are off to the best start in League history, winning 14 of their first 15 games (14-1-0). Hot on their heels are the Panthers, just five points back (11-3-1) and holders of the #2 spot. Oh, and the Cats have won seven games in a row including a 4-3 shootout triumph over Philadelphia on Saturday night at the Bank.
2- FORTUNE TELLING: Last spring, NHL Radio host Scott Laughlin predicted a Florida-Winnipeg Stanley Cup Final in 2024 on my daytime sports talkshow. The championship series ended up being Florida-Edmonton (which the Panthers won in seven games), but could Scott have simply been a year ahead of schedule? Adding fuel to the fire, immediately after handing off the Stanley Cup back on June 24, Panthers coach Paul Maurice told a national TV audience, “If I could have one more thing, it would be for the Winnipeg Jets to win the Stanley Cup.” It was a jaw-dropping comment by Maurice, and we wonder if he’d feel the same way if Florida meets Winnipeg this June!
3 – ONE MORE THING: They’ll be eagerly awaiting Thursday’s game in the Manitoba capital. Maurice spent nine seasons as head coach of the Winnipeg Jets before shockingly stepping down on December 16, 2021. I’ll never forget where I was when the notification came across my phone; standing in the PNC Bank parking lot on North Federal Highway in Boca Raton. I couldn’t believe my eyes and was eager to get the backstory. However, as the story goes, Maurice simply felt his message got old in Winnipeg and honorably stepped down to give someone else a try. The rest, as they say, is history as Maurice took the Panthers job the following summer and it’s resulted in back-to-back trips to the Stanley Cup Final. The Jets have gone on to great things too! It sets up a delicious match-up on Saturday.
4 – OOPS, ONE MORE THING: Bet the under on Saturday’s game. The clash features the two best goaltenders in the National Hockey League. Jets target Connor Hellebuyck won the Vezina Trophy as NHL Goaltender of the Year last season while Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky was a finalist. Bob has won the trophy twice before, in 2013 and 2017 as a member of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Goals will be at a premium.
5 – POWER OUTAGE: A couple weeks back we were touting in this space that the Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning were 1-2 in the Atlantic Division standings. Since then, the Bolts have gone oh-for-November, riding a four game losing streak which includes their most recent outing, a 2-1 home shootout loss to Philadelphia. The Lightning visit St. Louis on Tuesday before returning to Amalie Arena for a Thursday date with the redhot Winnipeg Jets. Tampa’s cold stretch has seen them tumble to the eighth, and final, playoff spot.
6 – LIGHTNING HALL OF FAME: On Thursday the Lightning announced the nominees for the 2025 induction class of the franchise’s Hall of Fame. The committee consists of 10 individual voters (all of which have strong ties to the Lightning franchise) while the 11th ballot will come from a fan vote! The nominees are Ryan Callahan, Ben Bishop, Nikolai Khabibulin, Pavel Kubina, Jay Feaster, Brian Bradley, Henry Paul and Rick Peckham. In 2023 the inaugural induction class consisted of Phil Esposito, Vincent Lecavalier and Martin St. Louis and the 2024 class was headlined by Dave Andreychuk and Brad Richards.
7 – HOCKEY HALL OF FAME: On Monday evening the HHOF in Toronto inducted its 2024 class and it consisted of Jeremy Roenick, Shea Weber, Pavel Datsyuk, Natalie Darwitz and Krissy Wendell in the Players Category along with Colin Campbell and David Poile in the Builders Category. I have to admit I don’t follow the Hockey Hall as much as I used to thanks largely to the snub of my dear friend Theoren Fleury. The Calgary Flames great boasts a Stanley Cup win on his resume, Olympic and World Juniors gold medals, and a career that boasts 1,084 games played and 1,088 career points. Fleury was sexually abused by his junior hockey coach Graham James and fell into addiction during his fiery career. Canadian media pundits have said there’s a “stigma” around Theoren’s name.
8 – HOT SEAT: It was November 12 last year when the Edmonton Oilers made the first coach firing of the 2023-24 season, torching Jay Woodcroft after an abysmal 3-9-1 start and replacing him with Kris Knoblauch. The club rallied to appear in the Stanley Cup Final seven months later. This season the hot seat has turned into a game of musical chairs with Detroit’s Derek Lalone seemingly feeling the most pressure of late. The Red Wings are 6-7-1 and sit seventh in the Atlantic Division despite a lavish off-season free agent spending spree by GM Steve Yzerman. Meanwhile Nashville’s Andrew Brunette has seemingly been given a vote of confidence by GM Barry Trotz despite their 5-9-1 record and last-place standing in the Central Division. Following the Predators’ listless 6-2 loss to the Panthers in Sunrise last Thursday, I was expecting to receive a notification on my phone by the time I reached the parking lot that Brunette had been fired. At the very least, by the next morning. It didn’t happen.
9 – POWER RANKINGS: Here are our weekly Top 5/Bottom 5 in the NHL: 1) Winnipeg, 2) Florida, 3) Minnesota, 4) Carolina and 5) Los Angeles. At the bottom are: 28) Anaheim, 29) Philadelphia, 30) San Jose, 31) Nashville and 32) Montreal.
10 – STAR-GAZING: Winnipeg Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, Colorado Avalanche centre Nathan MacKinnon and Buffalo Sabres goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen have been named the NHL’s three stars of the week.
Hellebuyck was named first star after stopping 88 of the 89 shots he faced over three appearances as the Jets extended their winning streak to six games.
The 31-year-old Hellebuyck leads the league (minimum six games played) with 11 wins, a 1.83 goals-against average, a .935 save percentage and three shutouts.
See you at the rink!
(Rod Pedersen covers the NHL for the South Florida Tribune. He also hosts the award-winning Cats N Bolts Podcast and the daily Rod Pedersen Show on Game+ TV, WQEE Radio & YouTube)
