A quick mix of the things we gleaned from the week of hockey, serious and less so, and rolling four lines deep. Confession: I threw the nacho platter. Cheese goop was congealing on me.
1. Some things I think about Friday night’s blockbuster trade that sent Mikko Rantanen and Taylor Hall to the Carolina Hurricanes; Martin Necas, Jack Drury, a second-round draft pick (2025), a fourth-round pick (2026), and prospect Nils Juntorp to the Colorado Avalanche; and a third-round pick (2025) to the Chicago Blackhawks, who are retaining half of Rantanen’s salary.
• Colorado is not playing around with its internal cap. If there was ever an easy candidate to exceed Nathan MacKinnon’s $12.6 million AAV, it was his beastly wingman — a pending UFA who will be signing under a much richer cap climate.
Yet Colorado’s willingness to let Rantanen go for aiming closer to Leon Draisaitl’s new $14 million bar proves that Nate will remain top Dogg.
• Yes, Necas will also be an unrestricted free agent soon (2026), but as excellent as he is, the bargaining power pales compared to Rantanen’s.
• Those saying the Avs outright lost the deal: Would you like one last shot with Rantanen, knowing he’ll walk? Or would you like two runs with Necas, plus $2.75 million in cap space and a couple of decent picks to add another piece?
I might still lean toward Rantanen, but not without a hard think. Let’s see who else Avalanche GM Chris MacFarland can recruit. He’s not done yet.
• Respect the decisive MacFarland for taking care of business swiftly. He did the same thing with his early-season goaltending debacle. Once he realized Rantanen wasn’t going to extend, get him out before he gets hurt and before the good trade packages disappear.
• Speaking of which, did Jim Rutherford and Patrik Allvin miss the boat here? The Canes were keen on J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson. They upgraded their target, and a serious Vancouver Canucks trading partner is off the board.
• Carolina is sick of one-and-done playoff series wins, watching the goals dry up. Only three active NHLers have a better post-season points-per-game average than Rantanen (1.25): Connor McDavid, Draisaitl, and ex-teammate MacKinnon.
• You only hope onetime Hart champ Hall — a bit of a hockey Forrest Gump, with all the major lottery wins and trades he’s been part of — can regain his form and inspiration skating in meaningful games under Rod Brind’Amour.
• So … Chicago helps two opponents, gives away rental Hall, eats money and only gets a third in return?
Kyle Davidson already has a questionable deadline record (see: Brandon Hagel, Jake McCabe).
While the Avs and Canes’ playoff results will determine the winner here, the Blackhawks aren’t even on the podium.
• Eric Tulsky interviewed for the Blackhawks job in 2022. Chicago might have made the wrong pick then.
• Pressure now shifts to Tulsky — and notoriously cash-conscious owner Tom Dundon — to re-sign Rantanen and not have another Jake Guentzel situation on their hands.
Carolina wanted to retain 2024’s big rental swing but dragged its feet, and Tampa swooped in.
The good thing is, unlike MacKinnon in Colorado, no individual Hurricane can be pointed to as better than Rantanen. If he’s willing, he can set the high bar for salaries in Raleigh.
• Hey, Chris Patrick and Tom Fitzgerald: Got anything cooking in response?
• The Hurricanes know how to have fun. Please blare the “Mikko Rantanen” song at Lenovo Center every time the big guy scores …
2. “Stick to playing the piano,” Craig Berube chirped his starting goalie.
It was a mic-drop moment for the Toronto Maple Leafs head coach, who has done a wise job of keeping the mood around his team as light as Joseph Woll’s practice schedule these days.
Berube’s staff showed the lads the viral clip of music-making Woll and music-loving Mitch Marner taking the stage Thursday with Kygo, singing and grooving along to the Norwegian dance-pop DJ’s hit “Stargazing.”
Auston Matthews said he only needs one viewing.
“Mitchy can sing pretty good. He can dance pretty good,” Matthews smiled, discussing the cameo with reporters Friday. “I could never do it, so you gotta give him props for getting out there.”
And Woll?
“Probably need to work on the vocal cords a little bit,” Bobby McMann offered.
Oh, the chirps, they were a-flying.
A great way to turn the page — and the narrative — from a 5-1 thumping the Leafs suffered in the same venue Kygo rocked one night later.
“I think Mitchy was just Joe’s hypeman, to be honest,” Ryan Reaves said. “He’s great at the piano. I know he DJs a little bit, makes music on the side. Hopefully, he doesn’t get caught dancing to his music anymore.”
Woll, who loves the producer’s melodies, presented Kygo with a custom goalie helmet when they met before the show and got a surprise offer to join him onstage for one of his biggest hits.
“Hope I know the words,” thought Woll, who appreciated Marner’s assist. “It would’ve been a lot more nerve-wracking if it was just me out there.
“I warned (Kyogo): ‘I’m not much of a singer. I can maybe play the piano or something.’”
3. A collective eyebrow raised Wednesday night when Matthews, unprompted, noted how quiet Scotiabank Arena was after Reaves and Mathieu Olivier chucked knuckles.
Matthews seldom says something that sparks even mild debate, and we believe his crowd critique had much to do with a captain wanting to rally around a big moment for a fourth-line teammate.
His comments underscored a couple of other things, though.
The atmosphere for the Leafs tilt in Montreal just four days prior had been raucous. The response to warmups was louder in the Bell Centre than SBA’s response to the Reaves-Olivier scrap. Toronto’s faceoff in Ottawa on Saturday night against a relevant Senators group should be charged as well.
It must be a tad confusing (irritating?) when you’re hearing more love on the road than at home.
“He’s our captain, and we look up to him. We follow him into battle, and what he says, we’re right there with him,” said Steven Lorentz, when asked about Matthews’ request to pump up the volume. “Doesn’t matter if you’re on the road or at home, energy is energy. The louder the building is, guys get up for it.
“It can be quiet at times when you’re going through a little rough patch there. But when the building gets rocking — they could be booing you at an away rink or it could be home fans trying to lift your spirits — we feed off that energy.”
That’s the other thing here.
Fans underestimate their own power in this symbiotic relationship between the performers and the observers. We’ve seen it at too many concerts and hockey games to count.
Energy can fly over the glass like a delay-of-game puck.
“There’s places where we’ll have more fans than the other team, places like Buffalo. I think what’s important is we love our fans, and we love when they’re loud and they’re rocking, and that energy is special for us,” said Woll, who will never forget how amped-up Toronto got for his Game 6 start last spring.
“That experience of how loud the fans were will forever be in my mind. How much energy and how much support they bring for us is unbelievable. It’s our job to continue to give them a reason to cheer and a reason to be loud and be there for us. But I have no doubt that we have the best fan base in the world.”
True to form, Reaves himself hit the Toronto fans head on: “This crowd can be good. Sometimes they don’t have it, just like we don’t have it. But we like when they bring the energy. We like to feed off it, for sure. I’m expecting a big game out of them next game.”
Toronto’s next home game will be against Reaves’ former squad, Minnesota.
4. The last time Jon Cooper stood behind Team Canada’s bench, the man who now captains his NHL club team proved to be his nemesis.
The Tampa Bay Lightning’s most prominent figures are no strangers to clashing on the international stage.
“Did you watch the 2017 world championships? So, semifinal was against (Team Russia’s) Kuch and Vasi, and the final was against Victor. We ultimately lost in a shootout, but I think the game was 1-1, and Victor scored the (golden) goal,” Cooper said. “So, disappointing.”
Victor Hedman smiles at the recollection. Whenever he walks into his coach’s office and sees a silver medal hanging near Cooper’s desk, does he relish his role in that disappointment?
“Hundred per cent. Every time,” Hedman said. “I have the gold medal at home.”
Hedman is jacked up for the 4 Nations Face-Off, particularly going head-to-head with Team Finland in what will be televised in a prime-time grudge match on the other side of the Atlantic (a matinee in Montreal), and taking on his three Canadian teammates and Canadian coach.
“I faced Coop before, and I won, so hope we can keep that going,” Hedman said. “It’s going to be tremendous. You look at the lineups throughout the four teams, it’s just superstar after superstar.”
5. When Nikita Kucherov registered his 600th assist last Saturday, the dynamic winger was asked for his thoughts on the milestone.
“Cool,” he told the scrum of reporters.
That’s it.
Kucherov’s scrum — which had some heavy I’m-just-here-so-I-don’t-get-fined vibes — lasted less than 30 seconds.
The man has a brilliant hockey mind but little interest in letting outsiders in. Seldom is the superstar sitting at his stall, waiting for the cameras.
“He doesn’t try to impress media,” teammate Nicholas Paul explained. “He doesn’t try to impress the fans. He does his own thing. He doesn’t really care, and I think that’s why he’s so good. He doesn’t really care about the outside. He cares about winning. He cares about the team, and he cares about the boys in here.
“With media and TV and everything, you’re gonna get someone different. But off the ice, he’s actually a really good dude.”
We’ll forgive him. Kucherov did feed us hungry media the best hockey Zoom conference of all time, after all.
Following Friday’s OT winner, Kucherov carries an 11-game point streak into the weekend and is now only a couple of helpers away from passing Hedman to become the Lightning’s all-time assist leader.
Poor Hedman leapfrogged both Steven Stamkos and Martin St. Louis earlier this season to take the title, but it’s inevitable that he’ll only hold the franchise crown in that category for a couple of months.
“He wants to win. That’s the bottom line,” Hedman said. “Doesn’t matter if you go to Tampa in July, he’s gonna be out there on the ice and working on his craft. So, it’s not a fluke. And he’s just a tremendous person.”
6. We’ve entered some tricky times when it comes to head coaches holding superstars accountable.
Some coaches just open the gate and let their stars do their thing. Others have walked back criticism. Jim Montgomery butted heads with David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand early this season and wasn’t fired long after.
Which is why the relationship Cooper has with his all-world talent is compelling. Cooper healthy-scratched his leading goal man, Brayden Point, for a critical divisional game because the top centre missed a meeting. He has benched Kucherov in the past due to lackadaisical play.
“You know why they’re superstars? Because they get it,” Cooper said. “If they aren’t held accountable, then who else is going to be?”
Sit your best talent, and you risk losing the night — but, hopefully, winning the long game.
“What gets underestimated in those situations, it’s not the actual player that feels it,” Cooper continued. “It’s the rest of the team. And you’re actually coaching the team and not just one player.”
Cooper walks around with two rings. He’s the longest-tenured coach in the league. To be fair, he has more security and sway than many of his peers.
“Coop is very good at the mental side of things with his players,” Berube said. “He does a real good job of keeping everybody motivated. Not changing his style year to year but just tweaking a little bit and giving them a little bit more life and a little bit something new.
“He’s got good relationships with everybody over there, and that’s really important because that’s how you last a lot longer. But he’s there because he’s successful every year.”
Nick Paul is a core Lightning but not a superstar. He notices.
“Coop is the best. Everything is straightforward. You know where you stand with him. If you ever need to talk or talk about hockey or even life, he’s always got your back,” Paul said.
“Doesn’t matter who you are on the team or what you do — the rules are gonna be the rules, and you gotta follow them.”
Captain Hedman stresses the value in everyone being held an identical standard.
“Missing meetings or turnovers in the games, a lot of guys have seen it. So, when you hold everyone accountable to the same degree, it’s what you want as a player — a clear message and clear structure,” Hedman said. “We know what the standard is and the culture that we built together. So, when you follow that, then you can have success.”
7. Seven questions!
Going one-on-one with Columbus Blue Jackets’ Mathieu Olivier, one of 2024-25’s most improved and most compelling characters.
How do you explain your jump to 10-goal scorer at age 27?
“I’ve always believed I could be this kind of player, regardless of statistics, just the role and being kind of a power forward. Everyone got clean slates this year — new GM, new coach. And it was really emphasized that it was going to be earned, not given. That whatever happened in the past wouldn’t be taken into account. That kind of set the tone. I just rode that wave. And true to that statement, they’ve given me more and more opportunity and more ice time, on specialty units and all that. Also, I was ready to go this year. This was the first summer in a couple I was healthy, and that made a good difference.”
How much have you opened your eyes to the fact that you’re more than a tough guy?
“That’s what you want to do. If that’s what people are seeing, great. That was always the goal. I always knew what kind of player I was. Sometimes it just takes time. Stuff happens. You get hurt. Everyone has a different journey. It’s earned every day. Maybe if I don’t keep this up, I go back to being in a certain role — who knows? But I know on our team, my coaches and teammates feel like I have been earning it, and getting the opportunity is great. So, it’s pretty easy to keep going.”
Can we overstate the impact of Dean Evason? Should he be getting more Jack Adams buzz?
“You can’t overstate it. Plain simple, he’s been awesome. The whole coaching staff, every single one of them. It’s funny. People talk about the room, but our coaching staff seems like a tight group as well. They all get along, and it really translates to our whole team. The room’s tight, coaching staff’s tight. Everyone is bought in right now. And we’re in the grind. Playoffs are something else this year. One day we’re in a wild-card spot. You lose one game, you’re out by a point or two.”
You don’t mind peeking at the standings?
“It doesn’t add me extra pressure. It’s a long year. The fact that we’re in it, of course, I look at it. And that’s very important for our group, to treat these like playoff games. They’re all playoff games for us up until the end.”
Most analysts didn’t peg you guys as a playoff team. Is that motivating?
“We want to make playoffs every year. We’ve been at the bottom of the East for two years now, at least since I’ve been here — and now we’re kinda smelling blood. We’re getting a little bit of taste, a little bit of an idea of where we can go. And we’re missing a lot of guys right now. That’s what’s encouraging about our team: We’re getting these results without our captain (Boone Jenner), without Erik Gudbranson. Sean Monahan has been out for a while. We just got back Justin Danforth. So, that’s encouraging for us, and we know what we can accomplish here.”
You’re up for UFA. How badly do you want to remain a Jacket?
“I love it here, yeah. City’s great. People don’t know much about it, especially up in Canada. I grew up in Quebec City; I had no idea. But then when you get to know the whole Ohio State thing, get to know the city and how awesome it is for families, how great it is for young guys that come in — it really is a hidden gem. So, the city’s great, and the organization’s been nothing but great to me.”
Quebec City, eh? You were born in Biloxi, Mississippi, and you don’t have a French accent.
“My dad (Simon) played pro hockey, so I grew up all over. He never made the NHL, but we moved around for his career.”
8. General (manager) observation: NHL executives get too married to their own talent, too gun-shy.
We see the Rangers kicking into gear again as Will Borgen joins their blueline and Kaapo Kakko essentially matching his Rangers output (four goals and 13 points) in half the number of games with the Seattle.
We see Darcy Kuemper jump from an .890 goalie in D.C. to a .924 goalie in L.A., and Pierre-Luc Dubois playing an integral role in Washington’s success.
Surely, these should serve as lessons to cut bait. To take a chance on the fresh start. To trust the change of scenery.
Who among us can’t already see J.T. Miller giving full effort and rediscovering himself as a difference-maker once the inevitable happens?
9. So, let us get this straight.
The Washington Capitals are the best team in the NHL though 48 games, but they aren’t sending a single player to February’s 4 Nations showcase.
Not only are some of their snubbed players twisting their national exclusion into motivation (no room for John Carlson on Team USA, eh?), but the Presidents’ Trophy leaders will get two weeks of rest for the stretch run while so many of the other Cup contenders’ best players will be risking injury in the tournament.
Logan Thompson has every right if he feels insulted that Hockey Canada lost his number when he was willing to tag along as a practice goalie.
But in the long run, it might work out in the Capitals’ best interest that Canada’s best goalie by wins (22) and save percentage (.925) couldn’t crack the country’s top three.
Unlike the other GMs of good teams, Chris Patrick won’t be watching best-on-best through his fingers.
10. Quote of the Week.
“A penalty in the first is a penalty in the third.” —Connor McDavid, calling for more consistency from NHL referees while serving a three-game suspension.
11. Corey Perry, on Monday: “Why aren’t we protecting the superstars? Why aren’t we?“
The same Corey Perry, on Thursday:
Leon Draisaitl, your thoughts?
“He’s probably the best in the league at it,” Draisaitl told reporters in Edmonton of The Worm’s turn. “He knows when to do what, at the right times, and he does it better than anybody else. That’s just a mature, really smart hockey play. I know it has nothing to do with hockey, but it’s a hockey play.”
12. Uncanny, the uncorking.
Love how Winnipeg Jets defenceman Neal Pionk has a grand total of three overtime winners in his career, and two of them are identical full-clap blasts off the wing against the Colorado Avalanche.
