It was the day of overtime with three games finishing beyond regulation on Saturday. We are also guaranteed no first-round sweeps, as every series now sits at 2-1. I'll run through these games and try to pick out a few fantasy-relevant bits along with some other trivia.
Golden Knights 5, Jets 4 – 2OT (Golden Knights lead series 2-1)
Michael Amadio scored the winning goal in 3:40 of the second overtime period. Watch the poor clearing attempt from Dylan Samberg that allowed Amadio to score.
The Jets were perhaps lucky to drag Game 3 as long as they did, as they were left with five defensemen for most of the game. Josh Morrissey left the game early in the first period with a lower-body injury after colliding knee-on-knee with Zach Whitecloud. According to Rick Bowness, Morrissey will be out for the rest of the series. In addition, the Jets also entered the third period down 4-1, but they managed to tie the game late in the third period with this Adam Lowry goal.
Lowry, by the way, is tied for second with four goals in the playoffs so far.
As expected, Neal Pionk took over on the first power-play unit and should likely remain there for the foreseeable future. Pionk registered assists on all three third-period goals and logged a game-high 41:08. On the Jets blueline, Dylan DeMelo played 36:31, Brenden Dillon played 30:30, Nate Schmidt played 28:42, and Samberg played 22:00. Pionk will be key in any attempt that Winnipeg will make to win this series.
After waiting eight seasons, Jack Eichel is making the most of his first-ever playoff series. Eichel scored two power-play goals and added an assist with seven shots in Game 3. The funny thing is that Eichel scored just two power-play goals in the entire regular season. Eichel now has three goals in three playoff games.
Alex Pietrangelo led the Golden Knights with 34:30 in icetime, also assisting on both of Eichel's goals. He has two assists in back-to-back games.
Maple Leafs 4, Lightning 3 – OT (Maple Leafs lead series 2-1)
This game itself almost went to double overtime, but Morgan Rielly scored on a shot from the point with less than a minute to give the Leafs the lead in the series.
The Leafs won despite being outshot 39-28 in the game and not registering a double-digit shot total in any period. As well, they were able to force overtime thanks to a Ryan O'Reilly goal with exactly one minute left in regulation.
O'Reilly (not to be confused with Rielly) finished the game with a Gordie Howe hat trick and more, scoring the above goal, 2 A, +2, 5 PIM, 3 SOG, and 3 BLKS. This game had some unusual fights, which included O'Reilly fighting Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos forcing Auston Matthews into the first fight in NHL history between players that have scored 60 goals in a season. It appears that Stamkos got away with no instigator penalty.
Victor Hedman returned to the Bolts' lineup after missing Game 2 with an undisclosed injury. He logged 32:35 in Game 3, which was second to only Mikhail Sergachev (37:27) among Tampa players.
Speaking of Bolts defensemen, Darren Raddysh has picked up additional minutes with the absence of Erik Cernak. Raddysh scored a goal on five shots with four hits in 31:50. Raddysh reached the 20-minute mark in just three of 17 regular-season games, but he has reached at least 22 minutes in all three playoff games.
Tanner Jeannot finished the game with 11 hits. He fell just shy of reaching 300 hits for the second consecutive season, so he qualifies as that category killer. The downside with Jeannot is that he fell from 24 goals and 41 points to just six goals and 18 points this season. The scoring seemed a bit unexpected last season, but his shooting percentage plummeted from 19.4% last season to 5.6% this season. A reasonable expectation next season might be something like 30 points, which would still make him serviceable in bangers leagues.
I meant to share this the other night when it was more top of mind: Corey Perry was a minus-28 during the regular season. No other Lightning player was worse than a minus-10. Yet Perry is in the lineup every game because he is the perfect curmudgeon for playoff hockey. If only they could simply save him for the playoffs.
Devils 2, Rangers 1 – OT (Rangers lead series 2-1)
Dougie Hamilton scored the overtime winner 11:36 into overtime to give the Devils a much-needed win to avoid facing elimination in Game 4. Jesper Bratt earns a much-deserved primary assist with some sublime playmaking.
The road team has won each game in this series, although these teams don't have to travel very far to meet their opponent.
The Devils made a goaltending switch prior to this game, replacing Vitek Vanecek with Akira Schmid. Both of Vanecek's games had qualified as really bad starts, with Vanecek allowing a combined nine goals over those two games. Schmid settled things down with a superb playoff effort, stopping 35 of 36 shots he faced for the win. The fact that Lindy Ruff bypassed Mackenzie Blackwood and gave the nod to Schmid might speak volumes about where the Devils goalie situation may go this offseason.
Vanecek is signed for two more seasons after this one before reaching UFA status, while Schmid is signed for one more before becoming an RFA. Blackwood is an arbitration-eligible RFA who would require a qualifying offer of $3.36 million as per CapFriendly. That's not a terrible number, but Blackwood has had his share of injuries (not a Band-Aid Boy, Dobber?) As well, Schmid had far stronger ratios than Blackwood in a similar number of games, allowing an average of over one fewer goal per game. Vanecek is still the starter next season (barring a miraculous playoff run from Schmid), but the #2 goaltending spot in Jersey will be an offseason development worth following.
Chris Kreider scored the Rangers' only goal in Game 3. He leads the playoffs with five goals and has at least one goal in each of the three games in this series.
Avalanche 6, Kraken 4 (Avalanche lead series 2-1)
For the first time in just over 100 years, a Stanley Cup playoff game was played in Seattle. The Seattle Metropolitans were the first US-based team to win the Stanley Cup back in 1917.
The modern-day Seattle hockey team has solid scoring depth, but they don't have a gamebreaker like Nathan MacKinnon. Here are his two goals from Game 3. The second goal is cheat code material, but the first one demonstrates incredible breakaway speed.
The two goals were MacKinnon's first of the playoffs. He's fired a minimum of five shots in each of the three playoff games against the Kraken.
Mikko Rantanen didn't have a bad game either, scoring a pair of goals while adding an assist with a plus-2 and six shots.
Devon Toews assisted on a pair of goals, giving him two points in back-to-back games.
Valeri Nichushkin missed this game, which according to Jared Bednar was for personal reasons. Bednar didn’t know how long Nichushkin would be away from the team. Not having Nichushkin, who starred in last year’s playoffs with nine goals and 15 points in 20 games, would be another roster hit to an Avalanche team already without Gabriel Landeskog.
With Nichushkin out of the lineup, Artturi Lehkonen was back on the first-unit power play. Lehkonen also has two points in each of his last two games, none of which were on the power play. Matt Nieto was also moved onto a scoring line with Rantanen and J.T. Compher.
Jaden Schwartz finished with two goals and a minus-4, which is very odd. One of Schwartz's goals was on the power play.
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Enjoy Sunday's playoff action! Follow me on Twitter @Ian_Gooding for more fantasy hockey.
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