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Nathan MacKinnon

Sharks’ Joachim Blichfeld Suspended Two Games

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Following a dangerous hit, to one of the league’s biggest stars no less, and a match penalty, then a subsequent hearing earlier today, San Jose Sharks forward Joachim Blichfeld cannot be too surprised about the end result. The NHL Department of Player Safety has announced a two-game suspension for Blichfeld resulting from an illegal check to the head of Colorado Avalanche icon Nathan MacKinnon on Wednesday night. The league ruled as follows on the supplemental discipline handed down:

Blichfeld cuts across the front of [MacKinnon’s] body and delivers a check that makes MacKinnon’s head the main point of contact on a hit where such head contact was avoidable. This is an illegal check to the head.

While we accept Blichfeld’s assertion that he does not intentionally hit MacKinnon in the head, he takes an angle of approach that… makes the head the main point of contact rather than one that more solidly hits through the near shoulder, hips, and core.

While MacKinnon did exit the game following this hit, head coach Jared Bednar seemed optimistic after the game and expects MacKinnon will not miss any time. If MacKinnon had been seriously injured, this easily could have been a longer suspension for Blichfeld. Also helping to limit the suspension to just two games in Blichfeld’s clean record; he has no fines or suspensions in his NHL career, albeit just four games, or in his AHL career. The league also seemed to believe in his statement that the illegal check was not purposeful.

Blichfeld, who had only been recalled by the Sharks earlier in the day on Wednesday and was making his season debut, will now sit for San Jose’s next two games, a back-to-back set with the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday and Saturday. After that, the team will have to decide whether he is worth an extended look or if his suspension is grounds for a return to the AHL.

Nathan MacKinnon Out Week-To-Week

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The Colorado Avalanche are off to a relatively good start to the season, sitting at 6-3-1 through their first ten games and second in goal differential at +13. A big part of that success has been because of the play of Nathan MacKinnon, who scored 14 points in those ten games and generated 41 shots on goal. Unfortunately, MacKinnon suffered an injury against the Minnesota Wild, one that will now keep him out on a week-to-week basis, according to Kyle Fredrickson of The Denver Post.

While he’s clearly the biggest blow, MacKinnon won’t be the only player out for the Avalanche. Pavel Francouz, Erik Johnson, Devon Toews, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, and Matt Calvert are also all out “week-to-week,” according to head coach Jared Bednar. It’s no wonder the team tweeted “depth is the name of the game tonight.”

The Avalanche have plenty of other star power, but that’s a long list of important players to be sidelined all at once. The team takes on the Wild again tonight and Thursday before a two-game series against the division-leading St. Louis Blues on the weekend.

NHL Announces First And Second All-Star Teams, All-Rookie Team

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Following the announcements of the final five NHL regular season awards, the league also revealed their three all-league rosters: the First-Team All-Stars, the Second-Team All-Stars, and the All-Rookie Team. Below are the 2019-20 honorees:

First All-Star Team (link)

G: Connor Hellebuyck, Winnipeg Jets
D: Roman Josi, Nashville Predators
D: John Carlson, Washington Capitals
LW: Artemi Panarin, New York Rangers
C: Leon Draisaitl, Edmonton Oilers
RW: David Pastrnak, Boston Bruins

The 2020 First-Team All-Stars are a historic group, the first time since the inaugural all-league honors in 1930-31 that all six honorees are first-time members of the team. Unsurprisingly, this team also covers most of the league’s major awards with Draisaitl taking home the Hart, Ted Lindsay, and Art Ross, Josi winning the Norris, Hellebuyck winning the Vezina, and Pastrnak earning the Rocket Richard.

Second All-Star Team (link)

G: Tuukka Rask, Boston Bruins
D: Alex Pietrangelo, St. Louis Blues
D: Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay Lightning
LW: Brad Marchand, Boston Bruins
C: Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Avalanche
RW: Nikita Kucherov, Tampa Bay Lightning

The President’s Trophy-winning Boston Bruins finish with a league-best three players on All-Star rosters. Their division rival, and current Stanley Cup finalist, the Tampa Bay Lightning are the only other team with more than one inclusion on the all-star rosters. Noticeably absent from either all-star teams are future Hall of Famers Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals. This is just the third time since 2005-06 that at least one of the pair have not been on a postseason All-Star team, while they have both have been selected in the same year eight times in the past 15 years.

All-Rookie Team (link)

G: Elvis Merzlikins, Columbus Blue Jackets
D: Cale Makar, Colorado Avalanche
D: Quinn Hughes, Vancouver Canucks
F: Victor Olofsson, Buffalo Sabres
F: Dominik Kubalik, Chicago Blackhawks
F: Nick Suzuki, Montreal Canadiens

The rookie elite, led by Calder Trophy-winner Makar, is an older group than usual. Merzlikins, Olofsson, and Kubalik, all 25 or older, played in Europe for a considerable amount of time before jumping to North America as a polished product, while Makar and Hughes each played a pair of seasons in the NCAA and Suzuki aged out of juniors before turning pro. Nevertheless, the first-year pros were all impressive and still have many  quality years ahead of them.

Leon Draisaitl Wins 2020 Hart Memorial Trophy

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Last but certainly not least, the Hart Memorial Trophy was announced as the finale of the NHL Awards presentation. The Edmonton Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl was named the recipient of the award, which is presented to the player deemed most valuable to his team. Draisaitl adds MVP honors to his impressive trophy shelf for this season, having already received the Art Ross Trophy and the Ted Lindsay Award. The Colorado Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon and the New York Rangers’ Artemi Panarin were Draisaitl’s competition for the Hart, as they were for the Lindsay as well.

While Draisaitl won earlier in the night as the “most outstanding player”, the Hart puts more emphasis on which player is most valuable to his team, which makes the arguments for MacKinnon and Panarin much stronger than they were for the Lindsay. Both MacKinnon (43 points more than Colorado’s next-best scorer) and Panarin (20 points more than New York’s next-best scorer) were crucial to their teams’ successes this season and did not play with any other players who were even remotely in the conversation for the Hart. Having two or more elite players on one team often makes it hard for either to win MVP, as evidenced this year by the Boston Bruins’ David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand, who finished third and sixth respectively in NHL scoring but fourth and ninth in Hart voting.

Why then was Draisaitl able to win when Connor McDavid finished second in points and fifth in Hart voting? The answer lies not in the teams’ top talent, but in their depth. The Avalanche and Rangers are more similar to the Bruins in top-to-bottom talent than are the Oilers, who lack any real impact forwards outside Draisaitl, McDavid, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Panarin’s Rangers are deeper in difference makers than Edmonton and New York would not have even made the playoffs in a typical year, while MacKinnon’s Avs were missing some of their best players for much of the year, but had that star power nonetheless and likely would have been a playoff team even if he had played at a replacement level. The Oilers needed Draisaitl and McDavid to play at superstar levels this season to be a successful team, so with Draisaitl outplaying McDavid and covering for him when McDavid missed seven games, he really was immensely valuable. That explanantion can at least explain the slim margin of victory for Draisaitl over MacKinnon, as the former received just 147 voting points more than the latter.

Leon Draisaitl Named 2020 Recipient Of The Ted Lindsay Award

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Next up on NHL Awards night was the Ted Lindsay Award, a unique honor of “most outstanding player” as voted on by the players. This year’s winner is Leon Draisaitl of the Edmonton Oilers. Not only was Draisaitl objectively the best player in the league this season as the Art Ross Trophy-winner with the most points in the NHL, but his peers also viewed him as the game’s best in 2019-20. Draisaitl won the award over the Colorado Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon and the New York Rangers’ Artemi Panarin.

Draisaitl has been on the cusp of superstardom for the past few years, but the 24-year-old sealed the deal this season with his second straight campaign with more than 100 points. Draisaitl led the NHL in points, points per game, assists, and game-winning goals in 2019-20, while also finishing in the top-five in goals and power play goals and leading all forwards in time on ice per game.

By nearly all metrics, Draisaitl was the best offensive player in the NHL this season and can hold his own defensively as well. His fellow players clearly saw this and voted him as the Ted Lindsay winner. However, this win not only signifies that Draisaitl was an elite player this season, but that he has now officially escaped the shadow of Connor McDavid in the eyes of his teammates and competitors. While McDavid, considered by many to be one of if not the best player in the NHL, missed some time this season, he was outplayed by Draisaitl on a per-game basis when healthy too. If anyone still saw Draisaitl as the Kurri to McDavid’s Gretzky, those days are now over.

 

Nathan MacKinnon Wins Lady Byng Trophy

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Though Colorado Avalanche superstar Nathan MacKinnon certainly cares more about the results of the Hart Trophy and Ted Lindsay Award, for which he is also a finalist, he can add at least one major award to his mantle for this season. The NHL announced this evening that MacKinnon is the 2020 recipient of the Lady Byng Award, his first time receiving the honor.

The Lady Byng Trophy, as voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association, is awarded to the player who “best combines sportsmanship, gentlemanly conduct and ability.” MacKinnon undoubtedly has the ability; he has topped 90 points in each of the past three seasons including finishing fifth in scoring this season with 93 points. However, MacKinnon is also among the elite in staying out of the penalty box, especially given his considerable ice time.  Skating in 69 games this season at over 21 minutes per game, MacKinnon managed just 12 penalty minutes on the year.

While voting for the Lady Byng often casts a wide net, MacKinnon received 64 of a possible 170 first-place votes, more than double that of Jaccob Slavin of the Carolina Hurricanes, who received the second-most first-place votes. In total voting points, MacKinnon also finished more than 350 points ahead of Toronto’s Auston Matthews in second, with St. Louis’ Ryan O’Reilly and Slavin even further behind in third and fourth respectively.

 

2020 Hart Trophy Finalists Announced

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It’s time for the big one. The NHL has announced the finalists for the Hart Trophy, given annually to the “player judged most valuable to his team.” Last year’s winner, Nikita Kucherov, took home the Ted Lindsay and Art Ross as well in an impressive trifecta after scoring 128 points.

This year’s finalists are Leon Draisaitl from the Edmonton Oilers, Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche, and Artemi Panarin of the New York Rangers, the same three that were nominated by their peers for the Lindsay earlier this month.

Like with the Lindsay, Draisaitl seems to be the odds-on favorite after his incredible offensive season. The Oilers forward led all players with 110 points in just 71 games, including a league-leading ten game-winning goals. He even eclipsed teammate Connor McDavid in the scoring race and proved he can carry a line away from his fellow superstar. It’s hard to really discount anything he did, though some voters may feel as though he wasn’t quite as “valuable” to the Oilers because of McDavid’s presence.

MacKinnon, on the other hand, had to carry the Avalanche all by himself for stretches this season. His 93 points were 43 more than the second-highest player on the Colorado roster—rookie defenseman Cale Makar—thanks to major injuries to his normal running mates like Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen. Add that to the fact that MacKinnon has received Hart votes in each of the last two seasons (finishing 2nd in 2018 and 6th in 2019) and you could understand why he’s still a candidate to snatch the award from Draisaitl.

In Panarin’s case, you may not have even considered him in the running halfway through the season. Though he was still obviously one of the most skilled players in the league, his 34 points in 28 games weren’t enough to make the Rangers anything special. From that point in December on however, he put up 61 points in his last 41 games and formed a dynamic duo with Mika Zibanejad that made New York one of the most dangerous clubs in the Eastern Conference. At any point, they might put up a huge number of goals even if their overall team was still not quite polished enough to be a real Stanley Cup contender. With the expanded playoffs this summer they’re in, and Panarin’s game-breaking talent could change that contender assumption in an instant. There’s no question he is one of the most valuable players in the league, but will it be enough to take home the crown?

2020 Lady Byng Trophy Finalists Announced

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The NHL continues to release the finalists for the major regular season awards, this time announcing the nominees for the Lady Byng Trophy. The award is given out to “the player adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly play and conduct” and is often given to those players who perform at a high level without taking many penalties. Last year’s winner was Aleksander Barkov of the Florida Panthers, who took just eight penalty minutes all season.

This year’s finalists are Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche, Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and Ryan O’Reilly of the St. Louis Blues.

MacKinnon, who is also one of the finalists for the Ted Lindsey, saw his penalty minutes plummet this season even as he took on an even larger role for the Avalanche. The 24-year old center was left without many of his talented running mates for long stretches but managed to still score 93 points and take only 12 PIM. That continued a downward trend since he set his career-high with 55 minutes in 2017-18. MacKinnon has received votes for the Lady Byng on just one occasion previously and has not won an individual award since the Calder Trophy in 2014.

Matthews meanwhile also set a career-low in penalty minutes, but his total of eight isn’t surprising given how few he’s taken in his career so far. Through four seasons and 282 games, the Toronto superstar has amassed just 46 PIM and has finished in the top-8 for Lady Byng voting in each. He too has only taken home a Calder Trophy among individual awards, though he trailed David Pastrnak and Alex Ovechkin by just a single tally for this year’s Rocket Richard.

O’Reilly represents the only past winner of the Lady Byng among the finalists. He took it home in 2014 when he took just a single minor penalty all season. That’s a feat he repeated in 2018, but he ended up losing the award to William Karlsson of the Vegas Golden Knights. Though such a strong defensive center, O’Reilly has been one of the best players in the entire league at staying out of the penalty box. He has just 106 PIM over an 11-year, 804-game career and hasn’t taken more than 12 in a season since he was a teenager. In addition to the Lady Byng he won in 2014, O’Reilly also won the Selke and Conn Smythe trophies last season with the St. Louis Blues.

2019-20 Ted Lindsay Award Finalists Announced

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Now that the regular season is officially finished and we’re on our way towards the playoffs, the league and player’s association will be releasing the finalists for the major awards this week. First up is the Ted Lindsay Award, given to “the most outstanding player in the NHL” as voted on by members of the NHLPA.

The three finalists this year are Leon Draisaitl (EDM), Nathan MacKinnon (COL), and Artemi Panarin (NYR).

It’s hard to not see Draisaitl as the favorite in this vote, given his pure dominance at the offensive end of the rink this season. The 2019-20 Art Ross Trophy winner with 110 points in just 71 games, Draisaitl eclipsed even teammate Connor McDavid in Edmonton and proved that he could be a force of his own. With 43 goals he came fourth in the Rocket Richard race while logging nearly 23 minutes a night for the Oilers. Draisaitl now has exactly 422 points in his 422-game NHL career and is one of the premier talents in today’s game.

Not to be outdone is MacKinnon, who has been a finalist for the award in the past. The Colorado Avalanche powerhouse recorded his third-straight season with at least 90 points, this time tallying 93 in just 69 games. MacKinnon led the entire league in shots on goal with 318 and was once again the engine that drove the Avalanche to the playoffs. While some critiqued the 2013 first-overall pick for a slow start to his NHL career, the last three years have been proof that he is one of the elite offensive weapons in the league and will likely contend for awards such as these many more times.

Panarin’s story is a little bit different than those of Draisaitl and MacKinnon, though he is certainly their equal in terms of skill and offensive prowess. Some of the respect he has received from his peers today may come from his situation however, as Panarin’s New York Rangers were an afterthought for much of the season. With Mika Zibanejad as his only real star-powered help up front, Panarin managed to record 95 points in 69 games (36 more than the third-place Ranger) and drag New York to a playoff qualification round. Sure, the team may be a long-shot to win the Stanley Cup in the early years of their rebuild, but for the 20 minutes of ice time he logs each night the Rangers know they usually have the best player out there.

Nathan MacKinnon To Miss 1-2 Weeks With Lower-Body Injury

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While it obviously isn’t the worst news they could have received, the Colorado Avalanche will still be shaking their fists in frustration today. Head coach Jared Bednar told reporters including Ryan S. Clark of The Athletic that Nathan MacKinnon will be out for one to two weeks with a lower-body injury.

The team is already without several other forwards including Mikko Rantanen and Nazem Kadri, weakening their depth up front considerably. One positive is that Cale Makar is expected to return for the Avalanche tonight, though MacKinnon’s absence will still obviously be felt.

Not only does it hurt Colorado’s chances of catching the St. Louis Blues for first place in the Central Division, but this also may rob MacKinnon of his first 100-point season. The explosive forward has recorded 97 and 99 points the last two years and sits at 93 in just 69 games so far this year. Two weeks could mean missing eight of the team’s final 13 games though, making it tough to crack the elusive threshold.

It could also potentially impact any Hart Trophy votes that may have been coming MacKinnon’s way, though Leon Draisaitl’s 110 points may have already done irreparable damage to that campaign.

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