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Stanley Cup Scores in Ratings

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NEW YORK – (Wire Service Report) – The high-scoring Stanley Cup Final turned into a ratings win for ABC, which drew the highest viewership for the NHL’s championship round in seven years, the network announced.

The Carolina Hurricanes’ six-game win over the Vegas Golden Knights attracted an average of 5.2 million viewers. The last time more people tuned in to see the Stanley Cup Final was in 2019, when 5.3 million on average watched the St. Louis Blues top the Boston Bruins in seven games.

The decisive game of the Hurricanes’ title run brought in 5.9 million, the highest for a finals Game 6 since 2019. The Game 6 rating more than doubled the audience that saw the Florida Panthers lift the cup after winning Game 6 against the Edmonton Oilers last year.

The 2025 finals were carried on the Turner networks. The Sunday clincher saw a 40% viewership rise from the last time ABC had the finals, in 2024, another series featuring the Panthers and Oilers.

The peak for the Sunday game was 7.2 million late in the contest as Carolina wrapped up the second championship in franchise history.

The first five games of the 2026 finals all featured at least six total goals, with both teams pulling off comebacks and two contests extending into overtime. Only the finale, a 3-0 Hurricanes victory, bucked the trend of both teams scoring multiple goals.

Ratings on ABC and ESPN for the entire 2026 playoffs were the highest ever for the company, averaging 2.2 million across 43 games, the networks announced. That figure was up 127% from 2025 and up 19% from 2024. ESPN aired the NHL playoffs from 1994-2002 plus each year since 2021.

–Field Level Media

Vegas Blown Away: Like a Hurricane

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LAS VEGAS — Rod Brind’Amour captained the Carolina Hurricanes to their first Stanley Cup in 2006.

Twenty years later on Sunday night, Brind’Amour got to pick up and hold the trophy again on the ice at T-Mobile Arena after coaching the Hurricanes to another Stanley Cup victory.

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Rookie goaltender Brandon Bussi, a waiver-wire pickup from Florida in October, made 22 saves to win his third straight start and record his first career playoff shutout, and Jackson Blake had a goal and an assist to lead the Hurricanes to a 3-0 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 6 on Sunday night.

Taylor Hall and Nikolaj Ehlers also scored for Carolina, which won the best-of-seven series, 4-2.

“I think it was just our time,” Brind’Amour said. “We weren’t going to be denied.”

Carolina captain Jordan Staal, who tied a Stanley Cup Final record with goals in five straight games to start the series and totaled six goals in the finals, was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player in the playoffs.

According to Sportsnet Stats, Brind’Amour became just the fourth person to both captain and coach a franchise to a Stanley Cup, joining Toe Blake (Montreal Canadiens), Hap Day (Toronto Maple Leafs) and Cooney Weiland (Boston Bruins).

“It felt great (to lift the Cup again),” Brind’Amour said. “I’m so happy for everyone. That’s what this is about. That’s what hockey is about. It’s the ultimate team sport.”

Brind’Amour was asked to compare winning the Stanley Cup as a player and a head coach.

“It’s different, because as a player, I really wanted it for myself,” Brind’Amour said. “Now, sitting back behind (the bench) watching, I really wanted it for these guys because there’s no harder-working group. I see it every day. It’s just like a proud dad watching his kids go to work. Just couldn’t say enough good things about this group.”

At 37 years and 277 days, Staal became the oldest winner of the Conn Smythe. Goaltender Tim Thomas (2011) of the Boston Bruins was the previous oldest at 37 years and 61 days.

Staal also won the Stanley Cup in 2009 as a member of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

“That’s a lot of years,” Staal said. “I mean, it’s amazing. It’s something I’ve been going after ever since I got the first one. You want to win it again and again and again.”

Carter Hart finished with 20 saves for Vegas, which lost in the finals for the second time in the team’s nine-year history. The Golden Knights won the Stanley Cup in 2023.

Hall gave Carolina a 1-0 lead at the 3:47 mark of the first period. Jaccob Slavin set up the score with a stretch pass from blue line to blue line. Hall was open as he took the pass and broke in on the left wing, beating Hart with a wrist shot past his glove side for his seventh goal of the playoffs and second in the finals.

Vegas, which outshot the Hurricanes 11-8 in the opening period, had several excellent chances to tie the game later in the period. Brett Howden broke in alone down the slot midway through the period, but Bussi made a stick save on his five-hole try.

The Golden Knights had a flurry of chances near the end of the period, including two close-in tries by Mark Stone and a one-timer by Pavel Dorofeyev from the bottom of the right circle that Bussi made a diving save to stop.

Carolina tightened up on defense in the second period, holding Vegas to just three shots on goal. The Hurricanes extended the lead to 2-0 at the 13:31 mark when Logan Stankoven fed Blake alone on the edge on the right circle, and Blake blasted a one-timer past Hart’s glove side for his seventh goal of the playoffs.

Vegas had a chance to cut the lead in half midway through the third period when Carolina forward Eric Robinson went to the penalty box for high-sticking Nic Dowd. On the ensuing power play, Stone crossed a pass to a wide-open Jack Eichel at the bottom edge of the left circle, but Eichel’s snap shot against a stickless Bussi went off the crossbar.

The Golden Knights pulled Hart for an extra attacker with three minutes to go, and Ehlers intercepted a pass and sealed the win with an empty-netter with 68 seconds to play, his eighth goal of the playoffs.

“As I’ve always said, it’s a find-a-way league,” Vegas coach John Tortorella said. “All the games were close, and it was just try to find a way, and they did tonight, and they beat us.”

Golden Knights defenseman Brayden McNabb, who played the final four  games with a full cage after taking an Ehlers slap shot on the nose that needed 30 stitches to repair, said he was proud of his team.

“We came together late in the year and we battled our asses off,” McNabb said. “I’m proud of how we got here. We just came up a little bit short.”

Slavin joined Ken Morrow (Islanders, 1980) as the only American-born players to win Olympic gold and the Stanley Cup in the same year.

–Steve Guiremand, Field Level Media

 

Canes Head to Vegas with Confidence

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LAS VEGAS — The five-hour, 2,000-plus-mile trip to Las Vegas on Friday afternoon was a whole lot smoother for the Carolina Hurricanes after their dramatic 4-3 come-from-behind, overtime victory over the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 2  of the Stanley Cup Final on Thursday.

Carolina, trailing 2-0 midway through the third period and staring squarely at an 0-2 deficit in the best-of-seven series, pulled out a comeback for the ages capped by Seth Jarvis’ power-play game-winner 3:56 into overtime.

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It marked the first time since the Montreal Canadiens in 1944 that a team trailing by multiple goals in the final 10 minutes of regulation rallied for a victory in a Stanley Cup Final.

Now the series heads west to Las Vegas for Game 3 on Saturday and Game 4 on Tuesday before returning to Raleigh, N.C., for Game 5 on Thursday.

“I think there’s obviously more good vibes today than there could have been,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. ” … We’ve played two good games, and we’re starting over.”

“It’s a five-game series now,” Hurricanes defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere added. “It’s just managing (the emotions). We’re still human beings. We’re going to get nervous out there and have emotions, but the more you do it, the more you do anything, you get used to it. It’s just trying to holster that and bring it all in focus for the task at hand.”

The Eastern Conference champions, who were an impressive 24-12-5 on the road in the regular season, are 6-0 away from home in the playoffs. Thursday’s win also improved Carolina to 6-0 in overtime in these playoffs.

It looked like Vegas was going to finish a two-game sweep of the games in North Carolina thanks to two more goals by Brett Howden combined with defensive play which was, at times, quite stifling.

But the game turned around quickly with 9:40 remaining when 5-foot-8, 165-pound center Logan Stankoven won a puck battle along the boards behind the net from 6-foot-1, 202-pound Vegas defenseman Rasmus Andersson and then scored on a backhand shot from the right side of the crease.

“You can’t measure that stuff,” Brind’Amour said Friday, pounding his heart when asked about Stankoven’s play that flipped the game and the series. “He just keeps doing it, night in and night out. It’s pretty amazing.”

Just 2:26 later, ex-Golden Knight William Carrier made a diving pass to Mark Jankowski who blasted a shot from the high slot bar-down to tie it at 2.

Jordan Staal then gave the Hurricanes a controversial 3-2 lead with a tip-in on a power play after the Golden Knights drew a delay of game penalty after unsuccessfully challenging a goalie interference call that negated a potential Ivan Barbashev score. But Mark Stone scored a 6-on-5 goal with 1:21 remaining to force overtime.

Jarvis then won it with a one-timer from the left circle off a Gostisbehere pass on a power play after Tomas Hertl went to the penalty box for tripping.

Vegas, which was well-positioned to take full control of the series, instead heads home even at a win apiece.

“It’s fine,” center William Karlsson said of his team’s emotions Friday following the late meltdown. “It is what it is. Obviously, we would have loved to win that game. We didn’t, but it’s in the past. Nothing we can change, so now we just look ahead.”

“We’re good,” Golden Knights coach John Tortorella added. “We’re ready to play. I like a lot of things about what’s gone on in the first two games.”

One potentially very big negative for Vegas occurred in the first period when defenseman Brayden McNabb, who had three assists in the team’s 5-4 Game 1 victory and is the franchise’s all-time leader in blocked shots (1,417) and hits (1,469), was hit square in the middle of his face by an 87 mph slap shot by Nikolaj Ehlers.

A key member of the team’s penalty-kill unit, McNabb skated off immediately while covering his face and was taken to a hospital for treatment. Tortorella refused to give any update on his condition on Friday but said McNabb would fly back with the team.

“I think he’s a vital part of this team,” Karlsson said. ” … Of course, (it was) tough not to have him for the remainder of the game.”

–Field Level Media

NHL: Stanley Cup Final Preview

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RALEIGH – (Wire Service Preview) – The Vegas Golden Knights know that the bookmakers in their own city have them as the underdogs in the Stanley Cup Final.

All that matters to the Golden Knights is what happens on the ice during the best-of-seven finals that begin Tuesday when they face the Carolina Hurricanes in Carolina.

“I honestly don’t really think I care or it matters to us,” Vegas defenseman Shea Theodore said on Monday. “We have belief in our room from the first game of playoffs up until now. Whatever is said is said. At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who picks who. The better team ends up winning.”

The Golden Knights, who are riding a six-game winning streak, and the Hurricanes, who are looking to become the first NHL team to go 16-1 in the postseason, are both chasing a second Cup title in franchise history.

Carolina — the former Hartford Whalers franchise which became the Hurricanes for the 1997-98 season — for the won its only Cup in 2006 and had not reached the finals since. Vegas, which won in 2023, is in the finals for the third time in its nine-year history.

Thirteen players on this season’s Vegas roster played on that 2022-23 team.

“You can draw from your experience, knowing what to expect, having done it before and knowing what this is gonna look like,” said forward Jack Eichel, a member of that Cup-winning team. “But I think every series and every season has its own story, so we’re trying to write that now.”

Although Carolina’s run is garnering more headlines, the Golden Knights have been just as hot since the final few weeks of the regular season. After John Tortorella was hired in a late-season coaching change, Vegas posted a 7-0-1 mark down the stretch to claim the top spot in the Pacific Division and has marched through its opponents with a 19-4-1 record since he took over.

“He’s a big personality guy,” defenseman Brayden McNabb said. “So it’s very easy to get comfortable right away. He tells you exactly what he wants from you and it’s all black and white.

“He came in and preached the right things and got us playing better and better as a team.”

That said, the Hurricanes are worthy of their favorite status. Carolina reached this point by sweeping its opponents in the first two rounds — the Ottawa Senators and Philadelphia Flyers — and then knocking out the Montreal Canadiens in five games in the conference finals, which it concluded with a pair of dominant victories.

The Hurricanes are the first team since the 1976 Montreal Canadiens to win 12 of 13 games to open a playoff run. That Montreal team claimed the Stanley Cup, and the Hurricanes are looking to duplicate the feat.

“We went through so much … now we’re here,” forward Andrei Svechnikov said. “But still the job is not done. This is the biggest stage, we all know that, but now we have one more step.”

Reaching this point was a huge achievement for a Carolina club that reached the Eastern Conference finals for the third time in four years and fourth time in eight seasons, but was becoming known for falling short.

A key to the Hurricanes continuing their success, beyond the club’s stifling defensive play, will be to embrace the situation. After all, hockey history is loaded with clubs that managed to reach a new point but then failed to reload.

“We’ve been knocking on the door for this for a while. To be in this moment now, I think everyone is extremely grateful and super excited,” forward Seth Jarvis said.

“We’re competing for the Stanley Cup with 20 of my best friends. Twenty guys I’ve spent a lot of time with. To be here in this moment with this group of guys, I can’t ask for anything more.”

–Field Level Media

NHL Stanley Cup: Bye-Bye Bruins

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BOSTON – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – The visiting Buffalo Sabres scored two first-period goals and never trailed en route to a 4-1 win over the Boston Bruins on Friday night, clinching their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series in six games for the upstart Sabres and sending the Bruins packing.

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Alex Tuch and Mattias Samuelsson built a 2-0 lead in the opening frame before Zach Benson and Josh Norris added insurance tallies in the third as Buffalo advanced to the conference semifinals for the first time since 2007.

Tage Thompson and Rasmus Dahlin each dished out two assists while Alex Lyon made 25 saves for the Sabres, who won all three games played in Boston in the series.

“To (win the series) on the road — against a team that played so well at home, one of the better home records in the league — I thought our guys dug in and gave us a heck of a game tonight,” Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff said.

David Pastrnak scored the lone goal and Jeremy Swayman stopped 22 shots in Boston’s losing effort.

“We felt the pressure being at home,” Bruins coach Marco Sturm said. “We feel the pressure because we care. We wanted to prove people wrong.”

Buffalo finished 0-for-4 on the power play, while Boston never had a man advantage.

The Sabres needed just 3:25 to score on their first shot and take a 1-0 lead for the third consecutive game. Tuch was open at the top of the crease to net Dahlin’s centering pass from the left circle past a trailing Swayman.

After the game’s first power play ended, Lyon kept the momentum on Buffalo’s side with huge saves in the middle stages of the first period. Among them, Casey Mittelstadt had a break-in attempt and a follow-up after a Morgan Geekie feed sent him ahead of the defense.

“Can’t get much better than that,” Tuch said about Lyon. “He was lights-out. He was in the zone. Attacked every opportunity they threw at him. Steady Eddy. Gives the bench a lot of confidence when you got a guy like that playing the way he was.”

Samuelsson made it 2-0 at 12:26 of the first, sending in a long shot from above the left circle through traffic. The puck sailed past Swayman’s blocker side.

Pastrnak got the second period off to an emphatic start for Boston at 1:54, helping to force a neutral-ice turnover before beating Lyon with a one-time shot off Pavel Zacha’s cross-ice pass on a 2-on-1 rush.

Neither side tallied for the rest of the period, including a stretch of nine-plus uninterrupted minutes. Swayman kept Boston’s deficit at 2-1 by denying close-range shots by Thompson and Bowen Byram during the extended sequence without a whistle.

Lyon made big saves against Geekie and Pastrnak to thwart Boston’s heavy pressure early in the third, helping to set the stage for Benson’s goal at 5:58.

Off a draw in Boston’s offensive zone, Josh Doan beat both Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy to a puck to start the goal-scoring play. While bracing for a hit in the left corner, Doan fired a pass to an open Benson in the slot, where Benson fired home a one-time goal.

Norris punctuated the series victory, hitting the empty net with 3:20 remaining.

“We’re hoping that it’s a long road ahead of us. … We’re going to have to be ready,” Tuch said.

–Field Level Media

“Pasta” Saves the Bruins’ Season

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BUFFALO – (Wire Service Report) – Boston’s David Pastrnak’s breakaway goal at 9:14 of overtime lifted the visiting Bruins to a season-saving, 2-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres in Game 5 of their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series on Tuesday night. Less than two minutes after Boston goaltender Jeremy Swayman made a massive stop on Alex Tuch, Pastrnak received Hampus Lindholm’s long feed while striding over the blue line and broke free to slot the winning goal past the skate of Buffalo’s Alex Lyon.

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Elias Lindholm also scored and Swayman made five of his 25 saves in the extra session to keep the Bruins’ season alive, forcing the series back to Boston for Game 6 on Friday.

Boston has won two of the three series on the road in Buffalo.

Rasmus Dahlin netted the lone goal and Lyon stopped 27 shots for Buffalo, which seeks its first playoff series win since 2007.

Though Boston enjoyed a strong territorial advantage in the first period, Buffalo blocked 11 shots during 5-on-5 play and scored the opening goal for the second consecutive game.

A roughing call on Mark Kastelic just 2:11 into the game led to Dahlin’s goal at 3:35, which broke the Sabres’ 0-for-17 drought on the power play to begin the series. From the right circle, the Buffalo captain slotted home Jason Zucker’s feed through traffic.

Boston started slower in the middle frame, but netted its second shot for a tying goal. At 9:24, Elias Lindholm made a great individual effort, cutting to the front with Morgan Geekie’s pass and scoring a second-effort turnaround shot from the slot.

With the game knotted at 1-1, both goaltenders faced important work in the third. Just after Lyon helped Buffalo kill off an early Tuch high-sticking penalty 4:59 in, Swayman made a huge post-to-post save on Tage Thompson’s redirection at the right post.

Swayman then thwarted a major flurry with inside 2:20 left in regulation, spurred by Jordan Greenway’s trigger from the top of the right circle and extended with Tyson Kozak’s backhand from the wing.

Boston’s Sean Kuraly put the puck in the net 2:58 into overtime, but the play was blown dead while under Lyon’s pads. The Buffalo goaltender stopped Pastrnak and Hampus Lindholm back-to-back thereafter.

Buffalo forward Noah Ostlund exited the game early due to a lower-body injury, as he appeared to get tangled with Boston’s Casey Mittelstadt in a battle in the corner in the first period.

–Field Level Media

Boston Bruins on the Brink

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BUFFALO – (Wire Service Report) – After taking a second straight home loss in “embarrassing” fashion, the Boston Bruins are on the brink of elimination as the scene of their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series shifts back to Buffalo.

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The Sabres will look to land the knockout punch against their Atlantic Division rivals and earn their first playoff series win since 2007 in Game 5 on Tuesday night.

Buffalo’s 6-1 win in Game 4 on Sunday quickly became a laugher. Four first-period goals were more than enough, and Alex Lyon was 39.9 seconds away from shutting out the Bruins in his second straight start in the series.

“We have an extremely high-competitive group. We all have a standard that we all carry ourselves to — and it wasn’t met,” said Boston goaltender Jeremy Swayman, who appeared to yell at his teammates while exiting the bench after being relieved by Joonas Korpisalo in the third period.

The Bruins have never come back from a 3-1 series deficit (0-25) and the Sabres have never let such a lead slip away (7-0) in each franchise’s playoff history.

While history certainly does not favor Boston, the series is not over yet.

“As far as I know, you have to win four games to move on. So they’ve got three. That means we still have a chance,” Bruins coach Marco Sturm told reporters after Sunday’s game. “I can cry about it, but I also have to push my guys for the next game and make sure our intensity is gonna be there.”

“We have a one-game mission,” Sturm added on Monday.

Buffalo’s dominant start on Sunday made Lindy Ruff one happy coach, and not just because his team scored the opening goal for the first time in the series and built a commanding lead.

“That first period was the best period we played all year,” Ruff said. “Puck pressure, scoring opportunities. We moved the puck and got the puck up ice. We didn’t spend much time in our end.”

On Sunday, six different Sabres scored goals, with four of them adding an assist as well.

One shining star in the series has been defenseman Bowen Byram, whose tally at the end of the four-goal frame marked his third in the last three games. He finished the game plus-3.

“He’s obviously been awesome all year and has brought it to another level in the playoffs,” said Owen Power, Byram’s defense partner. “It’s nice having him and all the other guys in here that have some playoff experience to lean on and have them help lead us.”

Byram won a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022.

Power, Peyton Krebs and Alex Tuch have all notched points in all four games of the series, with Power and Krebs logging those streaks to begin their playoff careers. Krebs scored the first goal just 4:17 into Sunday’s game.

The rock-solid team effort has extended to the net, where Lyon took over for Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen in relief in Game 2 and has since posted a league-best .964 save percentage in the playoffs.

The vibes are good in Buffalo, but the message is clear: The Sabres still have to finish.

“We’ve done a good job in this series, but the fourth one is always the hardest,” Byram said of the challenge of closing.

The Bruins had to shuffle their Monday practice lines with forward Viktor Arvidsson and defenseman Nikita Zadorov both off for maintenance days. Arvidsson left Game 4 due to an upper-body injury and did not return.

“We still have to check with medical, but we have to wait until probably (Tuesday) on both of them,” Sturm said of both players’ status.

Ruff expects Buffalo forwards Jason Zucker and Tyson Kozak — who both missed time in Sunday’s third period — to be available going forward.

–Field Level Media

Panthers, Bobrovsky Set Bruins Back

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SUNRISE – (Wire Service Report) – Florida goalkeeper Sergei Bobrovsky made 28 saves to lead the host Panthers to a 2-1 win over the Bruins on Thursday night in South Florida. Mackie Samoskevich and Sam Bennett scored for Florida (37-35-3, 77 points). Samoskevich has a career-high three-game goal streak.

The Panthers, the two-time reigning Stanley Cup champions, started the day next-to-last in the Eastern Conference, although they have not yet been officially eliminated from playoff contention.

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Boston (43-25-8, 94 points) is the top wild-card team in the East. The Bruins had a four-game win streak snapped and fell to 15-15-7 on the road.

Fraser Minten scored for Boston, while Jeremy Swayman made 22 saves.

The Panthers are missing 11 injured players. That includes defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Dmitry Kulikov, who went down this week.

Of the six defensemen used by Florida, only two — Seth Jones and Gustav Forsling — started the season with the Panthers. The other four are all 24 and relatively inexperienced: Michael Benning, Donovan Sebrango, Tobias Bjornfot and Mikulas Hovorka.

For the second straight game, Florida got off to a fast start, leading 2-1 after the first period.

The Panthers opened the scoring with 4:20 gone. A.J. Greer, who entered the game with a team-high 183 hits, got in on the forecheck, forcing a turnover. Samoskevich intercepted the bad pass by Henri Jokiharju. To make matters worse for Boston, Jokiharju inadvertently screened Swayman, and Samoskevich’s shot from the left circle bounced in off the left post.

Bennett’s goal with 7:39 elapsed in the first gave Florida a 2-0 lead. Greer was involved again, getting a primary assist due to his shot from the point. Bennett scored on a rebound from the slot, lifting the puck over Swayman’s blocker.

Boston got on the board with just 27 seconds left in the first. On the play, two Panthers – Sebrango and Matthew Tkachuk — lost their stick in puck battles. Minten took advantage, picking up a loose puck and lifting it over Bobrovsky’s left pad from point-blank range.

With 3:21 left in the third, Greer was penalized for tripping, but Florida killed that penalty. Boston pulled Swayman for an extra attacker, and the Panthers also withstood that for the win.

–Field Level Media

Bruins Begin Four Game Trip

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SUNRISE – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Last season, the Boston Bruins missed the playoffs for the first time since 2015-2016. They also traded away long-time star Brad Marchand to Florida and watched him win a Stanley Cup title with the Panthers.

That was rough.

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This season, however, the Bruins (43-24-8, 94 points) are currently the top wild-card team in the Eastern Conference, and they are closing in on a return to the playoffs.

On Thursday night, the Bruins will visit — ironically — the Panthers in South Florida and it’s amazing how the proverbial tables have turned.

The Panthers, the two-time reigning Stanley Cup champions, are 36-35-3 (75 points), which puts them in next-to-last place in the East. In fact, they are on the verge of being officially eliminated from playoff contention, possibly this week.

Marchand, meanwhile, hasn’t played since March 6 due to a lower-body injury, and his Panthers have lost six of their past nine games.

Even so, the Panthers won’t go down without a fight, and they proved that on Tuesday with a 6-3 home win over Ottawa. The Panthers led that game,  5-0, after the first period.

“We got a couple of goals, and, all of a sudden, we had juice and energy,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “We haven’t had a lot of fun nights in the past month so this ignited our bench. We’re playing for that good feeling.”

But the problem for the Panthers all season has been injuries, and that issue came up again on Tuesday as defensemen Aaron Ekblad and Dmitry Kulikov went down. Ekblad took a puck to the hand, and Kulikov was hit by a puck in the face.

Counting those two, there are now a dozen players on Florida’s injured list as compared to just one for Boston.

Maurice, with gallows humor, joked that there was “a line at the X-ray machine” in order to check for broken bones.

Ironically, Ekblad on Thursday would’ve broken Aleksander Barkov’s record for most games played in a Panthers uniform with 805. But Maurice admitted on Tuesday when asked about Ekblad’s injury, “I don’t think it looks great.”

As for the Bruins, they won their fourth straight game on Tuesday, defeating visiting Dallas 6-3.

Boston’s Viktor Arvidsson recorded his fifth NHL hat trick and his first since March 4, 2022.

“It was three easy ones,” Arvidsson said. “One was two inches from the goal, and the other two were empty-netters.”

David Pastrnak leads Boston in assists (66) and points (95). His previous career high for assists was 63, and he is closing in on what would be his fourth straight 100-point season.

Morgan Geekie leads Boston with 34 goals and ranks second in points (63). And Pavel Zacha ranks third on the Bruins with a career-high 60 points.

“We put a lot of emphasis on being hard on each other and pushing each other,” said Arvidsson, who is fifth on the Bruins with 50 points. “We’re happy where we are, but we have a job to finish to get ready for the playoffs.”

One issue for Boston is its 15-14-7 road record. The Panthers are 20-15-3 at home.

The trip to Sunrise marks the start of a four-game Bruins road trip.

“We have to get the job done,” Arvidsson said. “We have to improve our game on the road.”

–Field Level Media

Bruins Rally for Big Win vs. Sabres

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BUFFALO – (Staff and Wire Service Report) – Boston’s David Pastrnak opened the scoring, then recorded his second assist on Pavel Zacha’s overtime goal as the visiting Boston Bruins rallied to cool off the Buffalo Sabres with a 4-3 victory on Wednesday.

On the rush, Pastrnak pulled back then sent a pass to Zacha, who beat Buffalo goaltender Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (27 saves) 38 seconds into overtime for his ninth goal in March.

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Boston (40-24-8, 88 points) trailed 3-2 when with six minutes remaining in regulation, former Sabre Casey Mittelstadt converted via a friendly carom from the end board of teammate Jonathan Aspirot’s shot and off the skate of Luukkonen.

Trying to better its playoff position in the Eastern Conference, Boston pushed its road point streak to six games (3-0-3).

Atlantic Division-leading Buffalo (44-20-8, 96 points), 33-7-4 since Dec. 9, trailed 2-1 after two periods and found itself killing a penalty early in the third.
Just after that Boston power play ended, Zach Benson took the puck from the Bruins’ Mason Lohrei, broke into the zone and got it past Joonas Korpisalo (22 saves) while crashing the net to tie the game 5:54 into the third.

Lohrei was whistled for cross-checking at the end of the play and the Sabres made him and the Bruins pay. Just 33 seconds later, Tage Thompson sent a pass from behind the net for Jason Zucker to chip in for his second goal of the night.

Boston opened the scoring with 8:53 remaining in the first period. Camped out at the bottom of the circle, Pastrnak successfully one-timed Fraser Minten pinpoint pass from behind the Buffalo net.

Buffalo equalized with 4:42 left before the initial intermission. On the power play, Thompson sent the puck between the legs of Boston defenseman Hampus Lindholm and onto the stick of Zucker to beat Korpisalo.

After tripping himself up on a potential breakaway earlier in the second period, Pastrnak had a hand in giving Boston the lead back with near the midway point of the frame.

Luukkonen was able to poke-check the puck away from a net-front Pastrnak, but it was backhanded in by a trailing Viktor Arvidsson.

–Field Level Media