2023 Playoffs: Farewell Winnipeg

The Winnipeg Jets could not overcome injuries to key players and the team’s season petered out early. Winnipeg fell to the Vegas Golden Knights 4-1 last night managing only one win in the best of seven series.

Without Mark Scheifele and Josh Morrissey, the Jets couldn’t keep up with Vegas on the scoreboard. What’s more, Vezina candidate Connor Hellebuyck looked human and could not steal the series for Winnipeg.

The Golden Knights move on to face the winner of the Los Angeles Kings/Edmonton Oilers series.

Today, April 28, 2023

Get ready for a wild weekend and it all kicks off tonight with four games on the schedule.

Carolina Hurricanes at New York Islanders 4 p.m. PT – The Hurricanes have another shot at closing out the team’s series with the Islanders tonight. New York dug deep to pull out a 3-2 win on Tuesday and stay alive in the series. The Islanders will have to do that twice more in a row if the team wants to move on. It’s hard to envison that happening.  

Boston Bruins at Florida Panthers 4:30 p.m. PT – The Bruins had the opportunity to close things out in Boston in front of a home crowd, but lost it in overtime thanks to some nifty stickwork by Matthew Tkachuk.

The Bruins have two more shots at closing out the series. The first one is tonight in Sunrise, Florida.

Dallas Stars at Minnesota Wild 6:30 p.m. PT – There are question marks on both sides of the ice for this Game 6. Dallas leads the series 3-2 and veteran forward Joe Pavelski is a gametime decision. Meanwhile, the Wild won’t know if Ryan Hartman or Mats Zucarello are ready to play until closer to gametime.

Dallas won Game 5 by a score of 4-0. Jake Oettinger made 27 saves for his first shutout this postseason. He’ll have a chance to win the series tonight.

Colorado Avalanche at Seattle Kraken 7:00 p.m. PT – The Seattle Kraken have pushed the defending Stanley Cup Champions to the brink of elimination. Seattle fans are dishing out a lot of money to attend tonight’s game at Climate Pledge Arena.

Seattle went up 3-2 in the series thanks in part to a bit of melodrama on the part of Nathan MacKinnon.

MacKinnon was clearly tripped, but instead of sticking with the play and heading back the other way, he spent some time conversing with the ref. As a result, Seattle went the other way and scored to make the game 2-1. The Kraken eventually went on to win 3-2.

Tomorrow, April 29, 2023

Toronto Maple Leafs at Tampa Bay Lightning 4 p.m. PT – The Maple Leafs had a chance to close out the series in front of a sellout home crowd and failed. Now, the team is back in Tampa Bay and trying to keep that self doubt from creeping in.

Toronto has lost 11 straight series-clinching games. But the team has two more shots, starting tomorrow in Tampa Bay.

New Jersey Devils at New York Rangers 5 p.m. PT – Just when you thought the Devils were out of it, the team roared back into the series. New Jersey has won three straight games and will go for the series-clinching fourth tomorrow.

Rangers fans are understandably disappointed. Things got so bad last night that goaltender Igor Shesterkin started giving it to the team.

The Rangers look down and if there’s not an attitude adjustment before tomorrow, the team will be out.

Edmonton Oilers at Los Angeles Kings 7 p.m. PT – The Oilers lead the series 3-2 and the team is firing on all cylinders. Guys not named Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl factored into the scoring in Game 5, leading Edmonton to a 6-3 win.