Sixers’ Embiid out indefinitely with orbital fracture Stamkos hat trick lifts Bolts
MIAMI — Joel Embiid feared this would be the case. Turns out, he was right.
The Philadelphia 76ers announced Friday night that Embiid — the NBA scoring champion and an MVP finalist — has a right orbital fracture and a mild concussion. Those injuries, for now anyway, have him listed as out on the injury report and will keep him there for the foreseeable future.
The 76ers open an Eastern Conference semifinal series at Miami on Monday night.
The injuries stem from a hit Embiid took with 3:58 left of Thursday night’s game in Toronto, when the 76ers were up by 29 points and well on their way to getting an East first-round-clinching win over the Raptors.
He got hit in the face by a driving Pascal Siakam, and immediately took several steps back in obvious pain.
Embiid checked out moments later. Now, nobody knows when he’ll play again. He sat down for a postgame interview with NBA TV immediately following the game, and one of the first questions he got was about how he was feeling.
“I think he might have broken my face,” Embiid said. “It’s all good. It’s the playoffs.”
Steven Stamkos scored three goals for his first hat trick of the season, and the Tampa Bay Lightning rallied to beat the New York Islanders 6-4 Friday night.
Corey Perry, Ryan McDonagh and Brandon Hagel also scored for Tampa Bay, which trailed by two before scoring five times in the third period. Ondrej Palat added three assists and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 33 shots as the Lightning secured third place in the Atlantic Division. Tampa Bay will face Toronto in the first round.
Penguins 5, Blue Jackets 3 —
Evgeni Malkin scored his 20th goal of the season and had an assist, and Pittsburgh beat Columbus.
Kris Letang, Brian Boyle, Evan Rodrigues and Marcus Pettersson also scored for the Penguins, who will open the playoffs next week at the New York Rangers.
Rangers 3, Capitals 2 — Dryden Hunt scored the goahead goal in the third period, Alexandar Georgiev made 34 saves and New York Rangers downed Washington.
Washington will go into the playoffs as the East’s second wild card, and will match up with the Florida Panthers.
Canadiens 10, Panthers 2 —
Cole Caufield had his first NHL hat trick and Montreal routed Florida, which won the Presidents’ Trophy.
As Tyler Pitlick netted Montreal’s 10th goal, “Guy! Guy! Guy!” chants rained from the Bell Centre rafters honoring late Habs great Guy Lafleur.
Stars 4, Ducks 2 — Jason Robertson scored on a power play against an emergency replacement goalie midway through the third period and Dallas beat Anaheim.
Robertson gave Dallas a 3-2 lead with his 41st goal of the season, with puck going off an Anaheim stick and Thomas Hodges, making his first appearance in an NHL game after goalies John Gibson (upper body) and Anthony Stolarz (lower body) were injured.