Browsing: Atlantic

There are a number of former Buffalo Sabres players scattered throughout the NHL, having a varied level of success this season. Periodically, we will check in to see how their players are faring. Today, we look at ex-Sabres playing for the seven other teams in the Atlantic Division. The Montreal Canadiens do not have any former Buffalo players currently on their roster, but here are those on the other six clubs.

Boston

Casey Mittelstadt – F, Henri Jokiharju, Nikita Zadorov – D: The Bruins have surprised many by bouncing back from a horrible season to tie for the division lead with 34 points. Mittelstadt, acquired in the deal that sent Charlie Coyle to Colorado, has 12 points (6 goals, 6 assists) in 20 games. Jokiharju was dealt by the Sabres for a draft pick and re-signed with Boston instead of testing free agency. He has six assists in 25 games. Zadorov continues to be a physically punishing blueliner and has nine points, and leads the Bruins with 25 penalty minutes.

Advertisement

Detroit

Jacob Bernard-Docker – D: Bernard-Docker was acquired from Ottawa in the Dylan Cozens / Josh Norris deal and was not given a qualifying offer by the Sabres last summer. Signed to a one-year deal by Detroit, he has played part-time and has one assist in 16 games.

Florida

Sam Reinhart, Evan Rodrigues – F, Dmitri Kulikov – D: Reinhart continues to thrive in Florida and is second only to Brad Marchand in scoring with 15 goals in 28 games. Rodrigues has been elevated in the lineup due to the injuries to Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, and has 14 points (8 goals, 6 assists) in 28 games. Kulikov suffered a torn labrum in the second game of the season and is expected to be out until after the Olympics.

Advertisement

Other Sabres Stories

Six Former Sabres Who Signed Elsewhere

Guerin Gathering Info On Possible Olympic Options

Ottawa

Dylan Cozens – F, Dennis Gilbert – D: Cozens has settled into a third-line center role behind Tim Stutzle and Shane Pinto and has 17 points (9 goals, 8 assists) in 28 games, but his glaring -12 plus/minus is worst on the club. Gilbert signed with Philadelphia in the summer and was dealt back to the Sens last month for Maxence Guenette. Since the deal, the Buffalo native has played one game.

Tampa Bay

Zemgus Girgensons – F, Jonas Johansson – G: The long-time Sabre has settled into a fourth-line role with the Lightning, and has five goals in 21 games. The workload being the backup to Andrei Vasilevskiy is usually light, but this season, the former Vezina winner struggled with back issues early on and forced Jon Cooper to use Johansson more than normal. In nine starts, he is 5-4-0, with a 2.85 GAA and .896 save percentage.

Advertisement

Toronto

Jake McCabe – D: McCabe has settled into being a minutes-eating matchup defenseman who averages close to 22 minutes a night for the Leafs. In 28 games, he has 11 points (3 goals, 8 assists) and leads the club with a +13 plus/minus.

Follow Michael on X, Instagram  @MikeInBuffalo

THN.Com/Free

Source link

For the better part of the season, the Florida Panthers have hung around the bottom of the Atlantic Division standings, despite not being separated by many points.

But, a recent strong stretch with more consistent performances has reintroduced the Panthers back into the division race, and now they sit just four points back of the division-leading Detroit Red Wings with two games in hand.

Advertisement

There are still teams between the Panthers and Red Wings. The Boston Bruins sit in second with 26 points, three more than the Panthers, but the Panthers have three games in hand. The Tampa Bay Lightning and the Ottawa Senators sit one point ahead of the Panthers with the same number of games played.

The Montreal Canadiens are currently tied with the Panthers for 23 points, and the Toronto Maple Leafs sit two points back. The Buffalo Sabres sit in last in the Atlantic with 20 points.

The division is very tight, and there has been plenty of movement in the standings through the first 20 games or so, but the Panthers have the experience to take advantage of the opportunities given to them.

The Panthers are about to enter a stretch of games against teams on the outside looking in, when referring to the playoffs, and it’s time they go on a run. It all starts tonight with a rematch against the Edmonton Oilers before matchups with the Nashville Predators, Philadelphia Flyers, Calgary Flames, Maple Leafs, Predators and Columbus Blue Jackets.

Advertisement

Sergei Bobrovsky will be in between the pipes tonight when the Panthers host Connor McDavid and the Oilers.

Image

For action-packed issues, access to the entire magazine archive and a free issue, subscribe to The Hockey News at THN.com/free. Get the latest news and trending stories by subscribing to our newsletter here. And share your thoughts by commenting below the article on THN.com or creating your own post in our community forum.

Source link

If youâ€ve followed hockey with some attention in the past, youâ€re familiar with how the Atlantic Division usually ends up.

At the conclusion of the 2017-18 regular season, the division was led by the Boston Bruins, Tampa Bay Lightning, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Florida Panthers. The next season Montreal finished fourth, but other than that little blip, itâ€s been nothing but the same four dominant teams until Ottawa climbed into fourth in 2024-25 and Boston finally took its long-awaited fall after an incredible run of success.

Heading into this season, I donâ€t think many people wouldâ€ve forecasted things too much differently, with the two Florida squads and Toronto hanging on to the top, some rising rivals in Montreal and Ottawa, and the potential for maybe, possibly, eventually, Detroit or Buffalo coming on to challenge.

Three weeks and about 10 games apiece into the season, and thatâ€s … not exactly what weâ€ve seen so far.

Just two of these Atlantic Division teams have a positive goal differential — a measure I value as much as anything so early in the season — and that’s Montreal and Detroit.

So, are we seeing a changing of the guard? Is it time for the rest of the division to chase Montreal and Detroit, while those who have had a sustained run of success slowly begin to drop, like Boston?

Letâ€s dig in to what’s real, and what’s not, in the Atlantic so far.

The Canadiens have, unequivocally, taken a step. The additions of Lane Hutson and Ivan Demidov massively and immediately changed the course of the franchise in a way I canâ€t remember seeing from two players who are so young and werenâ€t No. 1 overall picks.

The addition of those two, plus trading for Noah Dobson, plus the development of Cole Caufield and Nick Suzuki (and slowly Juraj Slafkovsky too), have taken the Habs from a scrappy worker team with a low ceiling to a talented group teams struggle to contain. They can beat you on pure skill now, which hasn’t been the case for a long time.

A lot has gone right that couldâ€ve gone either way thus far, and the Habs still have a ways to go to get into the class of the leagueâ€s elite. As we change our expectations of them from “Maybe playoffs?†to “Can they become a Cup threat?â€, there are some notes.

Theyâ€ve played the NHLâ€s softest schedule to date, or at least close to it, depending on which site you use. With that in mind, through 11 games theyâ€ve captured just four wins in regulation, which isnâ€t quite juggernaut status. Theyâ€re 22nd in expected goals percentage (5-on-5), but have the sixth highest “PDOâ€, which combines shooting and save percentages (simply trying to capture teams that have been on the luckier side).

Theyâ€re good, theyâ€re talented, theyâ€re a playoff team, and theyâ€re leading the division right now. But, realistically, they’re probably a team knocking on the door of the NHLâ€s top-10, or maybe have a toe just inside.

Detroit is maybe the most surprising team of the year, save for Utah. They sit second in the Atlantic at 7-3-0 and that doesnâ€t seem overly lucky, at least not by the numbers. Their schedule has been medium-to-hard, PDO is actually bottom-three in the league (they still canâ€t buy a save, even though they literally tried to), and they really work.

The biggest note for me is that Detroit’s young players, whether theyâ€re just OK or actually good, are a clear step up from some of the dead weight theyâ€ve had on the roster in past years. It feels like a lot of addition by subtraction, and Todd McLellan deserves credit for getting them on the right track in his first full season.

I donâ€t think theyâ€re as talented as a Montreal, but the underlying numbers look pretty good, and I wouldnâ€t be shocked if theyâ€re sniffing around the wild card chase in March and April. Maybe itâ€s a year they add at the trade deadline?

The Leafs have had an extremely soft schedule to start, so itâ€s not great they havenâ€t taken advantage of it. After a year where their power play was red hot and their goaltending was even better, those two things have abandoned them: Toronto’s power play is 27th in the league (below 15 per cent) and their team save percentage is bottom-five in the league. That’s not great when youâ€re on the wrong side of 50 per cent in expected goals to begin with.

While that sounds like a lot of doom and gloom, the Leafs havenâ€t played themselves into real trouble yet, and theyâ€ve got a very similar shape to teams thatâ€ve won a bunch in the past. If Joseph Woll can get healthy and help, if Scott Laughton and Chris Tanev can get right, and Auston Matthews can get back into his groove, theyâ€ll be competitive up to the trade deadline (where who knows what theyâ€ll do), lurking between the top-three spots and the wild card race. If teams in the division or conference struggle around them as it appears many may, it could go even better than that.

The Panthers are .500 in a year theyâ€ve lost Matthew Tkachuk, their captain Aleksander Barkov, and numerous others. Theyâ€re top-three in expected goals percentage, theyâ€ve had some bad luck to date, and theyâ€ve got a very recent history of being an excellent team.

The number one fascination this year will be: Will injuries derail them to the point of missing the playoffs as the teams around them in the Atlantic rise up, or do they have enough in the tank to just get in? If they do just get in, theyâ€ll be as scary as ever, assuming they get the big guys back.

• 
• Real Kyper and Bourne

  Nick Kypreos and Justin Bourne talk all things hockey with some of the biggest names in the game. Watch live every weekday on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ — or listen live on Sportsnet 590 The FAN — from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET.

  Full episode

Perhaps the division’s biggest wild card, they could go in either direction, and fast. In a way, that’s a compliment, as not many teams could go up fast. But the Senators are a top-10 expected goals percentage team (via Natural Stat Trick), and are one of seven teams in the preferred quadrant of Sportlogiqâ€s expected goals for/against graph. So, they control play well. Unfortunately, theyâ€re getting terrible goaltending again (third worst team save percentage in the league), and have the leagueâ€s third worst PK.

Those are simple things, right? The Vezina-winning goalie stops playing like an AHLer, and the PK gets back towards its roughly 78 per cent kill from last year (theyâ€re below 64 per cent now), and theyâ€ll be better. They’ll eventually get their incredibly influential captain Brady Tkachuk back, and itâ€s not hard to see how they could win a pile of games from there.

Now, if Ullmark continues to play poorly, injuries and bad vibes pile up, the Senators could do the opposite. But with that defence core, led by Jake Sanderson, they should be OK.

The Sabres are not a punchline this year. Unfortunately, itâ€s tough to have faith in them making the right moves to climb into playoff contention, but theyâ€re not that far off. Theyâ€ve got talent and can look dangerous off the rush, a truth that has them seventh in expected goals for (via Sportlogiq).

Whatâ€s crazy is theyâ€ve got a ton of talent on their back-end, but itâ€s pretty heavily offensive talent, so they still give up way too much. They need those guys to commit to dominating the back-end by keeping the play in the offensive zone.

Josh Norrisâ€s injury obviously hurts, though some might call that self-inflicted since the Sabres traded for a player with such an injury history. In all, thereâ€s just not enough here to call them a playoff threat. They need a bigger, more direction-changing move.

Earlier I said Ottawa was the team with the biggest range of potential outcomes, strictly because itâ€s hard to see Tampa Bay being Actually Bad. The outcomes for the Lightning are mostly in the “theyâ€ll get better†direction. If you took Brayden Point, Brandon Hagel, Jake Guentzel, Nikita Kucherov, Anthony Cirelli, and Victor Hedman, and surrounded them with a dozen players from the Syracuse Crunch, you’d think theyâ€d make the playoffs. Add Andrei Vasilevskiy in there too. Theyâ€ve won three straight since their toe pick out of the starting blocks, but this is a good team.

Theyâ€ve been at the bottom of the division so far, and theyâ€re listed seventh here. But if I wrote this column again in a month, and they werenâ€t in the top three, Iâ€d be surprised. Tampa Bay is still controlling play, is well-coached, and have too much talent to miss the playoffs.

It ainâ€t happening, not yet anyway.

What a weird team. I just did the thing with Tampa where I listed good players and, well, the Bruins arenâ€t devoid of talent either. Prime David Pastrnak and Charlie MacAvoy sure donâ€t hurt, nor do Lindholms Elias and Hampus.

But so far this year they canâ€t control play, and theyâ€re getting the leagueâ€s fourth-worst goaltending, a position they thought they paid Jeremy Swayman to solidify for years to come.

The Bruins wonâ€t hand anyone any free wins, and will probably be better than they ought to be ahead of a draft where Gavin McKenna looms. I donâ€t know if theyâ€ll finish eighth in the division or not, but I do know they wonâ€t sniff the playoffs.

Whatâ€s fun is, I donâ€t know if this exercise answered a lot of questions. Any of Montreal, Detroit, Toronto, Florida, Ottawa, and Tampa Bay could very well make the playoffs, and in any order of finish. There are questions everywhere, as the long-time division leaders take a step back, and others climb for a step forward.

The Atlantic is no longer the NHL’s best division – it used to compete with the Central for that title – but itâ€s solid all the way through.

Points wonâ€t be easy to come by, and drama will remain high. Stay healthy and get saves, and youâ€re probably in.

Miss on either of those goals, and youâ€ll probably find yourselves on the outside looking in.

Source link

It was the best play of the first period, and, fittingly, it flew under the radar by nightâ€s end.

But before top-liners Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky scored beautiful goals to give the Montreal Canadiens a 2-0 lead in Tuesdayâ€s game, depth defenceman Alexandre Carrier eliminated a three-on-one rush with a perfectly timed slide to take away passing and shooting threats from a Seattle Kraken team desperate to create some.

They had been rocked to their heels by the Canadiens through the opening minutes at Climate Pledge Arena, but they sprung to their toes when Arber Xhekaj went for an ill-timed pinch at the offensive blue line and opened the space for Matty Beniers, Joshua Mahura and Berkly Catton to charge up the ice in possession of the puck.

Carrier, who was the only player back for Montreal, didnâ€t panic.

He scanned for back pressure from teammate Joe Veleno and saw he was getting it. Then he steadily closed on Beniers, who was carrying the puck. And, finally, he sharply cut the angle and blocked the shot.

This was Carrier making a hard play look easy, doing what heâ€s done a lot of since the start of the season and, in the process, exposing the greatest strength of a Canadiens team thatâ€s now 8-3-0 atop the Atlantic Division.

They are deep. And they are so deep and strong on the blue line that Carrier — who would be a reliable top-four defenceman on nearly every team in the league, and probably a top-pairing defenceman on a Nashville Predators that traded him to Montreal last season in what appears to be a massive blunder — is only playing the fourth-most minutes amongst Canadiens defenceman because Kaiden Guhle has missed the last six games with a groin injury.

With a 4-3 overtime win in Seattle, the Canadiens took their fourth of those six games. They had a chance to win all six, and it had much to do with captain Nick Suzuki putting up points in all of them as part of a league-leading 10-game streak, with Caufield and Slafkovsky filling the net, with the power play coming alive thanks to Ivan Demidovâ€s move to the first unit, with Mike Matheson and Noah Dobson forming a formidable first pair, with Lane Hutson accumulating six points, and with goaltender Jakub Dobes proving nearly unbeatable.

But the Canadiens wouldnâ€t have won four of them without Carrier stacking up all those unheralded but big plays in the background.

He is the symbol of their depth, as a player who appears to be in the right chair as a No. 4 defenceman — and a player who will be in a luxury recliner as a No. 5 upon Guhleâ€s return.

If that depth isnâ€t as evident for the Canadiens up front to some, third-line winger/centre Alex Newhook made it pop by scoring from the teamâ€s second power-play unit Tuesday to record his third goal and sixth point in the last five games.

That depth is what makes the Canadiens good, even if theyâ€re far from perfect.

The blemishes, which weâ€ve seen throughout this hot start to the season, appeared at the worst possible time Tuesday — after Newhookâ€s goal made it 3-0 Canadiens in the sixth minute of the third period.

Jayden Struble gave the Kraken life when he took a hooking penalty after foolishly trying to turn a two-on-three rush into a scoring chance instead of putting the puck deep.

Brandon Montour scored the first of two goals that bookmarked one by Shane Wright and, just like that, it was 3-3 with 1:43 remaining in regulation.

But Caufieldâ€s ninth goal of the season — the 11th of his career in overtime to become the Canadiens†all-time leader in overtime goals — punctuated an otherwise dominant performance from the whole team.

• 
• 32 Thoughts: The Podcast

  Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.

  Latest episode

“Iâ€d say it was pretty much a perfect 50 minutes,†Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis told reporters in attendance.

Thatâ€s what it looked like on TV, with his team speedily rolling over momentum from line to line and pairing to pairing.

The Kraken, who have played tight through the start of this season, played with the intention of stifling it. They tried to keep the Canadiens from skating, knowing from their earlier game against them at the Bell Centre that if you allow them to skate, they might just skate right through you.

After the Kraken allowed the Canadiens to score the first three goals, they had no choice but to risk letting the Canadiens skate. They traded chances and ended up capitalizing on theirs.

And then the Kraken gave up the last one to Caufield.

“I thought he was excellent on both sides of the puck,†said St. Louis. “He was crisp, and he defended hard. He had his fastball tonight.â€

Even Struble had his, with that one late mistake running completely counter to the rest of his performance.

Carrier has had his fastball since the start of the season.

He got unlucky with Montourâ€s shot banking off him for the power-play goal the Kraken scored while Struble was in the box, but that too was an outlier.

Without that play Carrier made in the first period, the Canadiens might not have won this game. And though that play couldâ€ve easily been forgotten after all the ones that followed it, it should be remembered.

Not just because it was great, but also because of who made it.

Source link

As the Knicks and Nets enter their 2025-26 seasons on entirely opposite trajectories, the conference around them has taken a major step back. Multiple stars hurt or departed, few clear contenders in sight, and Brooklyn doesn’t even have much tanking competition.

Let’s dive into the Atlantic Division as a whole to see how they measure up to each other and a weakened Eastern Conference.

New York Knicks

Projected starters: Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby, Karl-Anthony Towns, Mitchell Robinson

Offseason additions: Mike Browntaking over as head coach for Tom Thibodeau, Jordan Clarkson, Geurschon Yabusele,

Offseason departures: Precious Achiuwa

The Knicks face a depleted East after winning 51 games and finishing second last season, sporting a relatively unchanged on-court roster outside of some badly needed added depth. The big question for the regular season is how quickly and effectively the Knicks adopt their new system under their new head coach.

Philadelphia 76ers

Projected starters: Tyrese Maxey, Jared McCain, Kelly Oubre Jr., Paul George, Joel Embiid

Offseason additions: VJ Edgecombe, Trendon Watford

Offseason departures:Yabusele

Philly is this season’s ultimate anomaly, with possibilities ranging from the high lottery to the Finals. Step one, as always for this team, is health, as their big three of Maxey, George and Embiid only shared the court for 15 games and under 300 minutes last year.

Just playing together and building chemistry would elevate them on talent alone above much of the East, but if they want to make real noise in the playoffs they’ll need a lot more to go right. Most expect bad luck or bad construction (no bigs, small wings) to derail this team long before that, but in a frail East, you can’t ignore this squad’s upside.

May 16, 2025; New York, New York, USA; Boston Celtics guard Jaylen Brown (7) walks off the court after losing to the New York Knicks in game six in the second round of the 2025 NBA Playoffs at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images / © Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Boston Celtics

Projected starters: Anfernee Simons, Derrick White, Jaylen Brown, Sam Hauser, Neemias Queta

Offseason additions: Simons

Offseason departures: Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, Al Horfordand Luke Kornet

What a difference a year makes. One season removed from a championship, the Celtics sold their team, lost to the Knicks, lost their star player for the year and blew the team up in a soft reset.

It’s a skeleton crew compared to what they had, but don’t doubt the mettle and makeup of this team. Brown is still a high-level All-Star in his own right, Simons is a scoring marvel who finally gets a chance in a winning culture, and White and Payton Pritchard are still very much here.

They likely can’t compete too deep in the playoffs, but they’ll be a constant annoyance during the regular season and a “crap, really?” matchup in the Play-In and/or first round. However, one big question coming in is how quickly Brown can recover from a preseason hamstring injury.

Toronto Raptors

Projected starters: Immanuel Quickley, RJ Barrett, Brandon Ingram, Scottie Barnes, Jakob Poeltl

Offseason additions: Collin-Murray Boyles

The team of everybody’s favorite ex-Knicks, New York’s partner in lawfare and colleague in the Andrea Bargnani trade, your Toronto Raptors. They may snatch Philly’s “anomaly” belt quickly, boasting a talented but odd-fitting group of hungry young players vying for the playoffs.

Their big splash came last season when they traded for an injured Ingram; now we get to see him in action alongside this core of prospects, for which this is a pivotal year. The oddsmakers and experts don’t expect much more than a hearty Play-In threat, with a much more variable floor.

Brooklyn Nets

Projected starters: Egor Demin, Cam Thomas, Terance Mann, Michael Porter Jr., Nic Claxton

Offseason additions: Haywood Highsmith, Kobe Bufkin, five first-round draft picks

Offseason departures: Cam Johnson

Has Sean Marks “Jordi-proofed” (as per The Ringer’s Zach Lowe) this team adequately enough? The ultimate goal clearly isn’t winning, and running an entire point guard rotation out of rookies is one way to keep from that, but put good coaching and good talent together, and you run some risk.

There’s much more at play here, of course. Thomas is in a contract year for an organization that doesn’t want him. Many of these veterans could be shipped via trade, and everybody wants to see one of these prospects blow up.

Any way you run it, don’t expect Brooklyn to threaten the division or conference.

Source link

Subscribe to The Dunker Spot

We have a mega episode for you!

Nekias Duncan and Steve Jones kick off the episode with the latest news, covering the Kings†latest news and ending with a salute to Malcolm Brogdon.

Advertisement

Then, the guys continue their NBA season preview series with both the Atlantic and Central divisions. They discuss what they’re excited about, key questions they have, potential breakout candidates, and the lineups that intrigue them the most.

If you ever have NBA or WNBA questions, email us at dunkerspot@yahoo.com.

(0:29) Introduction

(1:10) Kings sign Russell Westbrook, re-sign Keegan Murray

(5:14) Malcolm Brogdon retires

(7:09) Boston Celtics preview

(18:42) New York Knicks preview

(34:18) Toronto Raptors preview

(46:05) Brooklyn Nets preview

(53:20) Philadelphia 76ers preview

(1:00:35) Cleveland Cavaliers preview

Advertisement

(1:10:09) Indiana Pacers preview

(1:18:04) Milwaukee Bucks preview

(1:27:12) Detroit Pistons preview

(1:34:37) Chicago Bulls preview

Jalen Brunson and the Knicks offense will look different under Mike Brown. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

ðŸ–¥ï¸ Watch this full episode on YouTube

Check out the rest of the Yahoo Sports podcast family at or atyahoosports.tv

Source link