Kane scoring, Red Wings losing
The Bruins on Sunday, in their 5 p.m. New Year’s Eve matchup in Detroit, will get their first look at Patrick Kane, the ex-Blackhawks great, with that Winged Wheel crest on his chest.
When Kane and his refurbished hip hit the open market in November, he and the Bruins had keen interest in his joining Boston, but the Red Wings nabbed him with a one-year deal at a budget-friendly $2.75 million. The Bruins, tight to the cap, would have needed to get very creative with payroll to cook him into the books even at that rate.
Kane, 35, made his Red Wings debut Dec. 7, and while he’s again been an effective scorer of late, Detroit’s win-loss results have not been encouraging.
Following their 6-3 loss Wednesday night to the Wild, the Red Wings were a woeful 2-8-1 with Kane in their lineup. They went from a promising 14-7-3 start (two of those wins over the Bruins) to a barely break-even 16-15-4, which the next morning left them parked 3 points out of a wild-card berth in the East.
The good news: Including Sunday, the Red Wings have 46 games to go, and Kane has been sizzling (five goals over a recent four-game stretch). Lots of runway to chip back into the qualifying eight.
Coach Derek Lalonde recently has had Kane riding with top scorers Dylan Larkin and Alex DeBrincat. If Kane’s hip remains as strong as it has appeared, it could be a dominant trio, a line driven by Larkin’s blazing speed in the middle.
Defense and goaltending have been Detroit’s biggest bugaboos. Lalonde has been alternating No. 1 Ville Husso with the well-traveled James Reimer (six goals against on 35 shots vs. the Wild). Both have been carrying GAA’s around 3.50 and save percentages south of .900. In today’s game, that’s beer league netminding.
Had they filched him off the UFA market, the Bruins could have toggled Kane and David Pastrnak at right wing on the top two lines and rolled Kane out with Pastrnak on the No. 1 powerplay unit. For now, it’s all what could have been, though there could be a second chance. Kane is scheduled to hit the market again July 1.
Scary scene in Columbus
It was hard on the eyes Saturday night to watch Sean Kuraly, hunkered over and gripped by abdominal pain, glide slowly and deliberately to the Blue Jackets’ bench after getting sandwiched between the Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews and Jake McCabe on the rear wall at Nationwide Arena.
Kuraly, the ex-Bruin fourth-line center, was taken immediately to nearby Grant Medical Center for testing and observation. With players on the Blue Jackets’ bench clearly shook, on-ice officials sent both teams to their rooms and added the remaining 18.4 seconds on to the second period.
“Scary moment,” said Columbus coach Pascal Vincent, noting the “urgent” response of emergency and medical personnel.
Doctors determined Kuraly, 30, was not seriously injured and he did not spend the night at the hospital. Video replay showed the 6-foot-2-inch, 215pound Kuraly was speared in the midsection by the butt end of his own stick, his blade fixed at the base of the wall as he banged up between Matthews and McCabe. A self-skewering.
When play resumed out of the Christmas break, the Blue Jackets listed Kuraly as day-to-day, and he did not suit up for Wednesday’s 4-3 loss at New Jersey.
“Sean’s a big part of our leadership group,” said Vincent.
Kuraly was obtained by the Bruins from the Sharks, along with the firstround pick that brought Trent Frederic, in the quick flip of goalie Martin Jones. It was Milan Lucic’s trade to Los Angeles that brought back Jones and the Round 1 pick that became Jakub Zboril.
Kuraly left Boston as a UFA after the 2020-21 season, the Blue Jackets getting him for four years/$10 million. The Bruins play Tuesday in Columbus.
His head is in the game
You know it’s Winter Classic time when Bruce Cassidy is pondering what headwear he’ll sport behind the bench for the glitzy outdoor game Monday, Golden Knights vs. Kraken (staged this time at T-Mobile Park in Seattle).
Five years ago, at Notre Dame, the then-Bruins coach wore a fashionable fedora that Brandon Carlo loaned him out of his “Peaky Blinders” wardrobe. The entire Bruins squad that afternoon rolled off the team bus in post-World War I British attire.
Two years later, in the February 2021 outdoor game aside Lake Tahoe, Cassidy wore a very Boston-like scally cap, a gift from Doc Emrick, the Hall of Fame play-by-play announcer.
As the weekend approached, Cassidy, 58, had yet to reveal his choice of haberdashery. Outdoors in Seattle would seem to call for raingear, but a Golden Knight in a rain hat? Kind of feels like Mike Dukakis, helmet on his head, being propped Snoopy-like in that US Army tank.
Loose pucks
The Fenway Sports Group Penguins, on Causeway Street Thursday night, have yet to see the pop they expected out of Erik Karlsson after acquiring the Norris Trophy winner from the Sharks over the summer. But they saw plenty of it Wednesday night from veteran backliner Kris Letang, who delivered six assists, five in one period, in a 7-0 trouncing of the Islanders in Elmont, N.Y. The handful of helpers were the most ever by an NHL defenseman in one period. At night’s end, Letang’s totals were 3-20–23 for the season, and Karlsson stood 6-16–22. They’re not bad totals, but vastly underwhelming given the expectations, especially for Karlsson, who last year piled up 101 points with the Sharks . . . Paul Maurice
coached his 1,800th game Wednesday, his Panthers trimming the Lightning, 3-2. The ex-Whalers bench boss became the third coach to hit the 1,800 plateau, and trails only Scotty Bowman (2,141) and Barry Trotz (1,812). Maurice is 56 years old. Bowman was 68 when he coached his final game behind the Red Wings’ bench in the spring of 2002. Trotz, now Nashville GM, was 59 when he lcoached the Islanders in the spring of 2022 and was unexpectedly turfed by
Lou Lamoriello . . . Like the Bruins, 13 other NHL teams woke up Wednesday for flights to cities where they’d play that night. Sounds like a great advantage for the home team, right? Nope. Hockey being hockey, the home teams won only eight of the 14 games . . . Ryan Spooner keeps on rolling. The ex-Bruins center, his exit in Boston coming in the trade for Rick Nash, is playing a fifth season in the KHL. Headed into weekend play, he was Omsk-Avangard’s No. 3 scorer with 46 points in 41 games. He has played for three KHL clubs, including three seasons with Minsk Dynamo. Raised in Ottawa, he said during his Bruins days that he might like to become a hometown cop in his retirement years. Omsk Avangard’s No. 2 scorer is Reid Boucher,
who once was a teammate of Matt Grzelcyk and Frank Vatrano on the US National Team Development Program
. . . Late in the week, North Chelmsford’s Jack Eichel, the ex-Boston University Terrier with his name on the
Cup now with Vegas, was the lone NHL forward averaging more than four minutes on the power play and more than two minutes on the penalty kill per game (4:21 and 2:05). Only two defensemen could say the same, Colorado’s
Cale Makar, ex- of UMass (4:17/3:03) and Montreal’s Mike Matheson, ex- of Boston College (4:03/2:43). Hockey
East guys like a heavy workload . . .
Pierre McGuire, during his “The Sick Podcast” with sidekick Jimmy Murphy,
extolled the virtues of BU’s Macklin Celebrini, the 17-year-old forward playing with Team Canada at the World Junior Championship. Celebrini, from Vancouver, is the presumptive No. 1 pick in the June draft. McGuire: “He’s everything you’re reading about and probably more.” . . . From the Black-and-Gold 100-year history file: We’re closing in on the date 51 years ago when the Bruins, with a 31-16-5 record at the time, ditched Tom Johnson as coach, not even a year removed from winning the Cup in 1972. The end for Johnson came after a 2-2 tie with the Flyers, Feb. 4, 1973, with Bep Guidolin named his successor. The Bruins surged under Guidolin, 20-6-0, only to get knocked off by the Rangers, 4-1, in Round 1 of the playoffs. It was the same season, by the way, that legendary goalie Jacques Plante, acquired in trade by the Bruins from the Maple Leafs in March at age 44, played his final NHL game (followed by a brief tour with the WHA Oilers). Part of Plante’s deal in Boston included use of a car, which he drove home to Montreal when the playoffs ended. Newly hired PR man Nate Greenberg and righthand man Frankie Vona were dispatched to Montreal by new GM Harry Sinden to bring the wheels back to Boston.