Category: Sports News

Cleveland Monsters forward Stefan Matteau has announced his retirement from professional hockey, it was announced earlier this week. 

Hailing from Chicago, Ill., Matteau spent this entire season serving as the captain of the Monsters, scoring two goals and adding five assists for seven points in 15 games. 

Drafted by the New Jersey Devils in the first round of the 2012 NHL Draft, Matteau appeared in 92 career NHL games with the Devils, Montreal Canadiens, Vegas Golden Knights, Columbus Blue Jackets and the Colorado Avalanche. Over that time, he collected six goals and five assists for 11 points. 

Throughout his 13-year pro career, Matteau spent the majority of his time in the AHL, playing in 411 regular season games, putting up 76 goals and 93 assists for 169 points. Matteau also spent one year playing overseas, splitting time between the SHL (Linkoping HC) and the DEL (ERC Ingolstadt) in 2022-23.

With Matteau officially having up the skates, he can sit back and reflect on what was a solid playing career. Although he never stuck at the NHL level, Matteau always provided solid depth for the teams he played for.

The Philadelphia Flyers hired Rick Tocchet to be the 25th head coach in franchise history Wednesday, and his appointment will benefit certain players in certain ways.

And for others? Not so much.

The crux of the criticisms sent Tocchet's way lie in the lack of offense his teams typically create. For example, during his time in Arizona, the Coyotes never ranked higher than 22nd in the NHL in goals scored.

In parts of three seasons with the Vancouver Canucks, Tocchet's scoring offense ranked 13th, sixth, and 23rd--largely a mixed bag of results with a far superior group of players that was headlined by Quinn Hughes, J.T. Miller, Elias Pettersson, Filip Hronek, and, for a week, Bo Horvat.

The Flyers don't have names like that in their rolodex... yet. Although Matvei Michkov is on his way towards star status in short order. Maybe we can include Travis Konecny, too, even if the end of his 2024-25 season left much to be desired.

Irregardless, someone will have to fill the shoes of Tocchet's old stars, and the 61-year-old bench boss will be putting notes together on who, if anyone, can achieve this.

Winners: Cam York and Jamie Drysdale

Let's talk numbers for a moment, yes?

Last season, the Canucks were not great. Tocchet's club went 38-30-14 while weathering injuries to Thatcher Demko, Quinn Hughes, and, at times, Elias Pettersson, in addition to the rift between J.T. Miller and Pettersson.

That's a lot for any team to deal with, and Tocchet's role in mediating the feud between the two stars is neither here nor there at this point.

Despite Hughes's injury, the Canucks' defensemen scored a lot. Their 38 goals from defensemen ranked 10th in the NHL last season, trailing only teams like Winnipeg, Minnesota, Carolina, Buffalo, Edmonton, St. Louis, Seattle, Columbus, and Colorado.

Guess what? Six of those teams made the playoffs this year. Directly below the Canucks were Washington, Tampa Bay, and Florida, and each of those three made the playoffs as well.

For comparison, the Flyers had 31 goals scored by defensemen, which ranked 26th in the NHL and below the Chicago Blackhawks. Ouch!

Another stat to consider: 35.3% of the Canucks' goals were assisted by defensemen, which was the fourth-highest rate in the league. The Flyers had just 25.1% of their goals assisted by defensemen, which was 31st in the NHL ahead of only the Dallas Stars.

The Stars, as we know, lost Miro Heiskanen for an extended period of time and were or are actively relying on names such as Ilya Lyubushkin, Matt Dumba, and Cody Ceci to get it done offensively. That's just not going to happen.

Also, Hughes never scored more than eight goals in a season before Tocchet became his head coach on the Canucks. Then he scored 17 goals in 82 games last year before adding 16 in 68 this year.

For a Flyers team that has been perennially abominable on the power play, it would be a massive revelation if guys like Cam York and Jamie Drysdale took steps forward and became even glimpses of the players they were drafted to be.

York scored 10 goals and 30 points last year, but injuries and benchings this year limited him to four goals and 17 points in 66 games.

Drysdale, of course, has battled with injuries himself, but he's also scored just 30 points since the start of 2022-23.

These two are the most talented on the Flyers' blueline, and if they can become regular 40-point players under Tocchet, that would be a win in and of itself.

Losers: Egor Zamula and Emil Andrae

Egor Zamula struggled a lot in the 2024-25 season. He was more disciplined, dropping down to just six PIM in 63 games, but struggled to keep up more often than not.

That led to his scoring dropping by six points (21 to 15) and his offensive involvement plummeting. Zamula recorded just 37 shots on goal in 63 games, and while his shot is above average for a defenseman, his poor mobility and slow processing strongly hamper his fit in a Rick Tocchet team.

It's why Noah Juulsen and Vincent Desharnais, who was traded twice this season, combined for three assists in 69 games between them.

Andrae, on the other hand, is far more mobile than Zamula and boasts surprisingly good puck skills, but might be too similar to an Erik Brannstrom, who was not Tocchet's cup of tea in Vancouver.

This could open the door for a player like Helge Grans, for example, to compete during training camp.

Skating, passing, urgency, and pace of play will be key for these young Flyers defensemen if they want to thrive during life under Tocchet.

Winners: Nikita Grebenkin, Matvei Michkov, and Tyson Foerster

Most of the Flyers' wingers will be eating good if Tocchet deploys a style similar to the one he used in Vancouver.

The Canucks generated the NHL's fewest chances on the rush per game, and they were quite close to the bottom of the league in converting on those chances, too.

And given the Flyers' lack of speed and skill at center, they will have to become a forechecking, cycling team bar the odd individual skill moment from Owen Tippett, Travis Konecny, or Ryan Poehling.

That bodes well for Nikita Grebenkin and Matvei Michkov, who play their best hockey when utilizing their mean streaks, winning wall battles, and making east-west passes from the half wall and other favorable lateral angles.

Tyson Foerster, like the other two, is not a speedster, but he employs a shoot-first mentality, knows how to get open, and knows how to win the puck.

There will be a lot of low-high and high-low passing in the future for this motley crew, but only time will tell whether that translates to quantifiable offense.

Winner: Sean Couturier

Sean Couturier was the first Flyers player to get the phone call from Danny Briere saying Rick Tocchet was the new head coach, and while he may not have sounded overly ecstatic over the phone, it's a big win for the Flyers captain.

The since-dismissed John Tortorella preferred high-energy, pacey centers like Noah Cates and Poehling to Couturier, who is a slower skater by nature and a more calculated player.

Plus, Couturier and Tortorella just never saw eye to eye. That much was apparent when Couturier was benched last season and had no idea why. It was weird and silly.

The 32-year-old, who quietly scored 15 goals and 45 points this season, has a new lease on life under Tocchet, and his style of play will aid Tocchet's cycle game immensely.

After all, Tocchet did just go a full season with Pius Suter as his most effective center with Pettersson playing injured and dealing with other drama.

Health permitting, it would not at all be a surprise to see Couturier flirt with 60 points next season if all goes according to plan.

For the second consecutive night, a former Pittsburgh Penguin played hero for his current playoff team. 

On Tuesday, it was forward Mikael Granlund, who recorded a hat trick for the Dallas Stars in their 3-1 Game 4 victory over the Winnipeg Jets to put his team ahead 3-1 in their second-round series.

And tonight, the heroics came from a far more unlikely source.

Ex-Penguin Kasperi Kapanen - claimed by the Edmonton Oilers off waivers on Nov. 19 - played overtime hero for the Oilers in Game 5 against the Vegas Golden Knights, earning the only tally of the game on a second-chance effort at the goal line to send Edmonton to the Western Conference Final.

Kapanen was playing in just his second game of the playoffs for the Oilers, and it was his first postseason game since 2022 with the Penguins. 

Pittsburgh selected Kapanen 22nd overall in the 2014 NHL Draft, and since then, he's been quite the journeyman. The 28-year-old forward was initially dealt to the Toronto Maple Leafs as part of the deal that brought Phil Kessel to Pittsburgh in 2015, and he came back to Pittsburgh via trade in 2020.

Even though his NHL career with the Penguins got off to a good start, he couldn't find consistency in Pittsburgh and was waived on Feb. 24, 2023. In parts of three seasons with the Penguins, Kapanen registered 29 goals and 82 points in 162 games. 

He was claimed by the St. Louis Blues, who then waived him less than a year later, which is when he was claimed by the Oilers.

Edmonton - heading to its second consecutive Western Conference Final - will face the winner of the Dallas-Winnipeg series.

Ex-Penguin Records Hat Trick In Critical Game 4 WinThere are a lot of former Pittsburgh Penguins partaking in the Stanley Cup playoffs right now.

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Don’t look now, but the Florida Panthers appear to be hitting their stride.

After dropping back-to-back games to open their second-round series with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Florida has fought back with a few haymakers capped off by Wednesday’s 6-1 victory in Game 5.

Now the Panthers are heading back to South Florida with a chance to knock out the Maple Leafs for the second time in three postseasons.

It won’t be easy, but it appears that over the past week, Florida has started to look more like the team they want to be, physically overpowering their opponent while allowing their skills to shine through.

That was certainly the game on Wednesday night.

Let’s get to Game 5’s takeaways:

BOQVIST'S BIG NIGHT

Jesper Boqvist had been on the ice for each of Florida’s first seven playoff games, skating primarily on the fourth line.

When Florida fell into a 0-2 hole against Toronto, Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice made a fairly drastic change to his forward group, swapping out the entire fourth line.

Well, the Cats haven’t lost since, which understandably kept the roster intact, but when Evan Rodrigues was ruled out of Game 5, Maurice turned to Boqvist to take Rodrigues’ spot on Florida’s top line.

The 26-year-old Swede responded with one of his best games in a Panthers jersey, picking up a goal and an assist while logging a plus-3 on-ice rating and adding three shots and eight hits in 15:15 of ice time.

“He’s kind of a guy that scored big goals for us this year,” Maurice said. “He ended up with 12, but they weren't the last goal in a run. Those are the fun stories for a room when (Boqvist) gets one, (Gadjovich) has one, because those guys work hard. They don't get on the magazines, right? They're not the front of it, but it's special on the bench when those guys score.”

BOB KEEPS ROLLING

Sergei Bobrovsky is locked in.

He came 66 seconds away from logging his second straight shutout on Wednesday night, boasting an impressive goalless streak of 147:58.

Despite a tough start to the series in which he allowed 13 goals on just 81 shots, Bobrovsky is showing why he’s earned a reputation as one of the NHL’s absolute best money goalies of his generation.

Over the past two-plus games, because Bob was stellar at the end of Game 3 and during the overtime, we’re seeing exactly Florida’s players and coaching do nothing but exude confidence in their netminder.

“I think Sergei is always available to get into a groove,” Maurice said. “I think his prep doesn't change, he has no idea about his stats, but I think recently, and it was true in the latter half of the Tampa series, the guys in front are playing a game that he understands, that he has history with this year. He's had stretches this year where the shot total wasn't big for him, he never got warmed up in the game, he didn't get a bunch of outside angle shots that let him feel good about his game, (instead he faced) a breakaway, but not a ton of them. So he's kind of trained himself with this style of game that we play, (other than) the breakaways, which is a silly thing to say. He has a fairly consistent expectation of what's going to happen next. I don't know if that makes saving the puck any easier for him, just his anticipation and becomes very good.”

BEFORE THE BLOWOUT

Looking at the final score, one might believe that this was a Panthers-dominating game from start to finish.

That wasn’t quite the case.

While yes, Florida did score the first goal and play a statistically strong opening period, the game was still incredibly tight for basically the entire first half of it.

If not for a couple big saves by Bobrovsky and a couple fortunate goal posts that Toronto hit, the game could have taken a much different turn.

“(Taking an early lead) felt important because that game was really fast and well executed by both teams up and down the ice early,” Maurice said. “There was lots of really good execution in that for both teams, so getting the first one was important. I thought it flat lined a little bit after that for us, and then probably, where the game doesn't break, is Sergei Bobrovsky. He made saves on two or three breakaways tonight night, so I think he was the pivot point in the way that game went.”

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The Edmonton Oilers are headed back to the Western Conference final for the third time in four years.

And the goalie the Oilers swapped out early in the first round got two straight shutouts to help the team move on.

Stuart Skinner made 24 saves against the Vegas Golden Knights in Wednesday night's Game 5, which was tied 0-0 after regulation. At the other end of the ice, the Oilers' Kasperi Kapanen found the puck in a scramble and jammed it into the net just over seven minutes into overtime to win the game 1-0 and the series 4-1.

Skinner returned to the lineup in Game 3 after Calvin Pickard was ruled out day-to-day with an injury.

Pickard is 6-0 in this year's playoffs with a 2.84 goals-against average and .888 save percentage. Skinner, meanwhile, had an .810 SP and 6.11 GAA after losing Games 1 and 2 in the first round against the Los Angeles Kings, leading coach Kris Knoblauch to change netminders.

Skinner allowed four goals on 24 shots in Game 3 against Vegas, including one with 0.4 seconds left in the match. But in Game 4, Skinner stopped all 23 shots he faced to extend the series lead to 3-1 instead of a potential 2-2 tie. 

With Game 5's shutout performance out of the way, the 26-year-old Skinner said Wednesday night was the least nerve-wracking of the three matches he's played in the series.

"I had a feeling of peace tonight," Skinner told Sportsnet's Gene Principe post-game. "My job's just to give the team a chance to win. I can't really do too much else, so just trying to do my best out there, and whatever happens happens."

There was a lot of mental and emotional resolve to end the series the way he played compared to being on the bench at the start of it.

"It's hard. It's very difficult, to say the least," Skinner said. "It's definitely been a grind, lot of work – lot of work just to try to stay sane in all of it, too, and obviously a moment where we were able to step up.

"I got so much to thank for my teammates with all their support even through that and then also how they've been playing since I've been in."

'He Just Loves The Pressure': Evander Kane Showed The Oilers Exactly What To Do Against VegasEdmonton Oilers left winger Evander Kane should give a tutorial on irritating the Vegas Golden Knights.

The Oilers limited the Golden Knights to 24 shots in Game 3, 23 in Game 4 and 24 in Game 5. That average of 23.67 would be the lowest in the NHL this post-season if they were like this the whole time.

That said, Skinner still had to stand tall, and he did.

He logged 1.98 goals saved above expected, which accounts for the quality of the scoring chances, according to moneypuck.com. In Game 4, he had 2.23 goals saved above expected in a 3-0 Oilers win. His play was a big step up from Game 3, when his minus-1.69 rating may have been the difference-maker in a 4-3 loss.

Skinner's stats improved to a 2-3 record, 3.05 GAA and .884 SP in five playoff games. He and the team now get to rest as they await the winner of the Winnipeg Jets and Dallas Stars series. The Stars lead 3-1 with a chance to eliminate the Jets on Thursday night.

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