Ondrej Kase has been shut down for the year by the Boston Bruins. Remember that he was injured very early in Boston's regular season, missed four months, returned for a few shifts for a game a couple weeks ago, was injured again, and is now done for the year. In total, going back to 2018-19, he has played 88 regular season games over three years.

This is well and truly awful. Kase had all the makings of being a top-line winger on a Cup contender but the guy just cannot stay healthy at all. I have to be honest when I say I wonder about his future in the NHL in general. Missing an entire season with a concussion, returning for basically half a game, then leaving for the rest of the year says that this is very, very bad. We don't know the extent, but this is giving me shades of Stephen Johns. I really hope I'm wrong.

All the best to Kase. No one deserves to go through what he's going through.  

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When I was watching the Tampa Bay game, I had a question: where do Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow go next year? Tampa doesn't have the cap space to keep them so they're both gone, but both are bordering or crossing past 30 years old, and this isn't 2019. Both are also going to get significant raises from their combined $2.725M cap hit. Who could use them?

I think both are best served in the roles similar to Tampa Bay: third line, penalty kill, sometimes scoring. These aren't guys that can play 19-20 minutes a night, but they're both incredibly effective, and Coleman is a good scorer.

They should go as a tandem and give a team a competent third line. Maybe a young team that needs depth. Can Jim Benning clear some cap space? How about Los Angeles and their abundance of cap space?

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Check for Oliver Wahlstrom's status as he took a hard, and illegal, hit from Michael Matheson in the third period of their game Monday night:

Oliver Wahlstrom down the tunnel after getting crushed into the boards by Matheson. Bad whiplash from Matheson's stick. Oooff pic.twitter.com/pGQoy5WsRs

— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) May 25, 2021

Josh Bailey scored the game-winner less than a minute into the second OT for a 3-2 win and a 3-2 series lead. Ilya Sorokin was outstanding in net, saving 48 of 50.

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Cole Caufield took Eric Staal's spot in the lineup, skating on a line with Nick Suzuki, but it wasn't enough for Montreal as they fell 2-1 to Toronto in Game 3. This gives the Leafs a 2-1 series lead, with Game 4 on Tuesday night.

It wasn't on Caufield, obviously, because this game was on Montreal's top-6. They got absolutely throttled, with the top line basically hemmed in all game long. It didn't help that Artturi Lehkonen was hurt and left the game, but if Montreal is going to rely on their bottom-6 and special teams to win, this series won't last much longer.

Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner looked exceptional in this game, even if they weren't lighting the lamp. That duo is truly on another level right now.

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Spencer Knight made 36 saves in his playoff debut to keep the Panthers alive in their series against the Lightning with a 4-1 win. He made several key saves all game, including a stretching pad save late on Nikita Kucherov that salted away any hope of a comeback. A truly wonderful story for Knight and the Panthers here.

Mackenzie Weegar had a goal, an assist, and three blocked shots in an outstanding fantasy performance. He has been excellent all year, and especially since the injury to Aaron Ekblad.

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The Blues and the Caps were eliminated on the weekend and Dobber had some coverage yesterday about what went wrong and what to look forward to. I want to dig into these two teams because I think they're kind of on similar trajectories, but one has more hope than the other. Let us begin with Washington.

Alex Ovechkin being a free agent is obviously the big news here. He just finished his 13-year contract and turns 36 years old in September. His shot rate and ice-time rate were the second-lowest for him for any season since the 2013 lockout (2016-17 excepted). It could be the start of a decline.

This is where I mention that we thought he was declining in his mid/late 20s, when there was a run of Caps coaches that crushed him offensively. Then, we thought he was declining in 2016-17 when he was 31 and had the worst season of his career. He then scored 148 goals in the next 231 games, putting up over two hits and over four shots per game in that span. It also needs to be mentioned what a disaster of a season this was for Washington, with all the injuries and COVID pauses, not to mention an injury of Ovechkin's own at the end of the year. Yes, it could be the start of a real decline, or it could be any other number of very valid reasons. Or a mixture of both.

When we look at Washington's future, it hinges on what Ovechkin does. If he's gone, Anthony Mantha could be playing 20-21 minutes a game next year on the top line with Nicklas Backstrom. If he's not, maybe it's 17-18 minutes a game instead. And also: what happens to the Washington power play without Ovi? It has been basically a top-10 power play every year he's been in the league, and that has a cascading effect on the power-play production of guys like Backstrom and John Carlson. If Ovi's PP goals leave, can the others pick up the slack or does everyone fall off?

There is also the age of the team. Assuming Ovechkin returns, the youngest player in their top-6 will be Mantha, who turns 27 in September. Ovi, Backstrom, Oshie, and Carlson will all be at least 31 years old for next season, with the first three names all being at least 34. Lars Eller and Carl Hagelin will be 32 and 33 years old for 2021-22, and every single defenceman will be at least 30 years old. Not everyone breaks down at 30, but having so many elder players is an issue. And that doesn't even get to their goalies, which, who knows if either of them are 'for real'.

In this case, I would look for prospects to see if there's anyone coming that can pick up the slack. They have Hendrix Lapierre and Connor McMichael as top forward prospects. They have one NHL game between them. That is to say, they may be very good, but we just have no idea yet. In that sense, there are players who might be able to pick up some slack, but they also may not be better options than what they have already. And even if they crack the roster, it is unlikely either of them get to the top-6 anytime soon.

I am bearish on the Caps. There are a lot of old players, a couple unproven players, one very key free agent, and a giant question mark in net. Not that they should be expected to fall off, but even Ovechkin returning doesn't mean this is an elite offensive team. All that said, they should still be good and four months from now should have a handful of names in the top-100 draftees.

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On the St. Louis side of things, I see a lot of similarities here. There is an aging core – Perron, O'Reilly, Tarasenko, Faulk, and Krug all will be or will turn 30 years old sometime next season – and this is a team with high expectations. Where I think the two teams differ is with Robert Thomas and Jordan Kyrou.

There is every chance in the world that both Lapierre and McMichael end up better than Thomas and Kyrou. The thing is, they haven't proven it yet. On the flipside, Kyrou was top-10 in primary points per 60 minutes at 5-on-5 this year; this is the list: McDavid, Matthews, Marner, Robertson, Farabee, Stone, Marchand, Kyrou, MacKinnon. Pretty good company, yes? Meanwhile, Robert Thomas's WAR/60 over the last three seasons is top-50 among all forwards in the league, nestled between Tomas Tatar and Teuvo Teravainen. That, as well, is good company. (Those stats from Evolving Hockey.)

That could be the difference here. With Thomas/Kyrou, the Blues have two-thirds of a line, both of whom have been good offensively in a small sample. Presumably, with a bigger role, as these two kids keep maturing, they'll only keep getting better. Even if they don't re-sign Jaden Schwartz, it leaves the Blues with three forward pairs of ROR/Perron, Schenn/Tarasenko, and Thomas/Kyrou. That gives them three playable lines (which is great for them, but maybe not great for fantasy if the ice time starts spreading out).

For the reasons of Thomas/Kyrou, I have more faith that the Blues will turn around their woes than the Caps. But that doesn't mean the Blues will have more, and better, fantasy options. Far from it. We really do need to see what Ovi does. All I will say is that I fully expect the Blues to return next year as a Cup contender. I cannot say the same with as much confidence for the Caps.