This season’s NHL Trade Deadline is April 12 at noon Pacific. There will be lots of fan talk on social media, sports radio, Zoom calls, you name it, during the next three weeks. Expect some franchises pushing for a long-sought Stanley Cup to be seeking some added players at key positions.
Let’s drop the WaFd Bank Weekly Warmup puck, the first one of the official Spring 2021 season (only Summer 2021 now stands between us and the Kraken’s first game!):
Future Division Rivals Watch
Center Trevor Zegras starred for the gold-medal Team USA at this winter’s 2021 World Junior Championship in Edmonton. He scored seven goals and added 11 assists in seven games, earning the elite tournament’s MVP honors. Teammate and defenseman Jamie Drysdale was arguably the best all-around defenseman for the Americans. Zegras and Drysdale are now officially Anaheim Ducks teammates and a pair of likely stars Kraken fans will see play in seasons ahead.
Drysdale (made his NHL debut last Thursday in a 3-2 overtime win over Arizona. After the Coyotes took a 2-0 after the first period, Drysdale scored his first NHL goal 12 minutes into the middle period. Then two-and-a-half minutes later, Drysdale notched an assist on Zegras’ first NHL goal to tie up a game that turned into a victory that severed the Ducks’ four-game losing streak.
Fun numbers from the NHL stats crew: Drysdale (18 years, 344 days) and Zegras (19 years, 363 days) scored 2:29 apart, making them the youngest teammates in NHL history to each score his first goal less than 2:30 apart. Drysdale had a goal and an assist to become the third defenseman in NHL history to have a multipoint game in his NHL regular-season debut before turning 19, joining Ray Bourque of the Boston Bruins and Petr Svoboda of the Montreal Canadiens.
Grand in the Central
After a slow start for a team expected to contend for playoff spot in the Central division, the Columbus Blue Jackets have climbed to fourth place. In alternating starts, goalies Joonas Korpisalo and Elvis Merzlikins starred in a win and shootout loss against Dallas (three of four possible standings points) then continued their stellar net play in a pair of late-week wins over Carolina, which started the week in first place but now is looking up at Tampa Bay and Florida.
Chicago has accelerated the CBJ rise by losing four straight (against Florida and Tampa Bay) and five of its last six games (splitting a series with Dallas) on a six-game road trip. Columbus and Carolina have two more games this week, Monday and Thursday, while Chicago starts a homestand with, uh-oh, Florida. The Panthers, led by former three-time Cup winning coach Joel Quenneville has earned eight points in four games against the Blackhawks (which did get one point in an overtime loss early in the season).
All in the (Granato) Family
When Ralph Krueger was fired by the Buffalo Sabres last week, the league talk focused on a 12-game losing streak and Krueger’s comments about the confidence level of his players. But Kraken fans take note: The interim coach in Buffalo is Don Granato (yes, the brother of Kraken pro scout Cammi Granato), who started his coaching journey in 1993.
Granato has been a head coach in the USHL, ECHL, AHL, plus top jobs with the U.S. National U17 and U18 teams, with a year as a St. Louis Blues assistant coach (2002-06) and another year as associate coach for the University of Wisconsin’s men’s team (2016-17, working alongside head coach and brother Tony, a former NHL player).
More recently, Granato joined the Chicago Blackhawks staff for two seasons and is in his second season in Buffalo. He was behind the bench for a 4-1 loss to Boston Thursday, then got a chance to re-set his team a bit Friday through Sunday when the team’s Saturday game against Boston was postponed due to four Bruins players entering the NHL’s COVID-19 protocols.
Media reports highlighted “a fast pace to every drill” in Granato’s first practice as head coach Friday. Observers pointed to more intensity, sharper play and “competing drills that included contact.” Buffalo is back in action Monday, on the road against the New York Rangers, the team for which brother Tony played at the start of his 13-season NHL career (248G, 244A, 773 games). Don Granato is expecting star-in-the-making Dylan Couzens back in the lineup but star center and team captain Jack Eichel is still out indefinitely.
On Sunday, Tony’s Wisconsin team was selected as one of 16 teams in the NCAA men’s hockey tournament. The Badgers are seeded No. 4 overall, while North Dakota (No. 1), Boston College (No. 2) and Minnesota (No. 3) are the other top seeds.
Speaking of Wisconsin…
The Wisconsin men’s team, loaded with top NHL prospects, has some big skates to fill in its 2021 tournament play ahead. The Badgers women’s team won the NCAA title Saturday night, 2-1, in an overtime thriller against Northeastern. It is the sixth Wisconsin women’s title, tying Minnesota for the all-time most.
Senior forward Daryl Watts scored the OT winner three-plus minutes into extra time. It was Watts’ third overtime winner of the season. Watts scored from behind the net by deciding to bank a shot off the back of Northeastern defender that deflected into the goal past Northeastern goalie Aerin Frankel, who was 20-2-1 this season with nine shutouts, a .965 save percentage and 0.81 goals-against average.
“My mind is kind of a blur right now,” said Watts, who finishes her college as the NCAA women’s hockey 14th highest all-time scorer. “I was pretty sure I could bank it off her.”
Wisconsin coach Mark Johnson, a star on the USA “Miracle” men’s gold-medal hockey in 1980, has now won the most NCAA women’s hockey titles, passing Minnesota’s Shannon Miller, who won five. Johnson is also the winningest coach with 539 career wins.
Games to Watch This Week
Tuesday and Thursday: Tampa Bay, which beat Florida 5-3 Sunday, rides a four-game win streak into a pair at Dallas, the other 2020 Stanley Cup finalist. TBL is rolling with a league-high 48 standings points while the Stars are in seventh place in the Central with a .500 record and 28 standings points but with four games in hand compared to fourth-place Columbus (33 points).
Thursday and Saturday: Vegas travels to Colorado for two-game series. Amid doubts about goaltending, Colorado is on a six-game winning streak and just three points back of first-place Vegas. The Avalanche start the week with two games against Arizona while Vegas has St. Louis Monday.