Dan’s Daily: Quiet Penguins, Ba-Bye Capitals, McDavid on Brink

On the plus side, it’s been a while since the Pittsburgh Penguins were competitive in a Round One series. On the negative, the Penguins are in a roller-coaster series with the New York Islanders with more plot twists than a Breaking Bad marathon. The Washington Capitals lost the East Division lead to the Penguins late in the season, and now their season is kaput. Connor McDavid is also on the brink of saying goodbye.

Let’s start with our Penguins coverage.

Pittsburgh Hockey Now: There are three Pittsburgh Penguins who are not doing enough through four games of the series. We name names and just how bad it is.  

The Penguins canceled practice on Sunday and took an off day, but our Shelly Anderson did not. New York Islanders coach Barry Trotz did speak to the media and had high praise for Sidney Crosby. 

NYI Hockey Now: Yep, Ilya Sorokin was the obvious remedy for the Islanders in Game 4. 

NHL & National Hockey Now

Boston: Ba-Bye Washington Capitals, we barely knew thee. The Boston Bruins looked really, really good and mopped the floor with Washington in five.

The Kuznetsov rumors are thick. He’s gone, but I’m not sure who will want him. He broke COVID protocols and contracted the virus twice. The team disciplined him. Alex Ovechkin snapped on his starting goalie in front of the whole world.

Oh, and Ovechkin is a UFA. The Pittsburgh Penguins arch rivals are suddenly a hot mess.

You can also check this highlight — Boston sniper David Pastrnak served early notice with this beauty of a goal to open the scoring. 

Sportsnet: Connor McDavid’s monster season could end quietly. Edmonton blew a 4-1 lead to the Winnipeg Jets and lost in OT. Edmonton is down 3-0 with Game 4 on Monday night. 

That wasn’t a hard upset to predict. Teams without goaltending go the way of the Dodo bird every year.

Colorado: St. Louis Blues forward (and former Colorado Avalanche) Ryan O’Reilly guaranteed victory. It motivated Colorado, which swept St. Louis. The full series thoughts and what lies ahead *ahem, Vegas.

Florida: Down 3-1, the Florida Panthers will pack the house on Monday–they are upping capacity to 14,000 fans. 

NY Post: Could Joel Quenneville bolt from Florida (no pun intended) and become the first Seattle Kraken head coach? 

Vegas: The Golden Knights and Marc-Andre Fleury will go for the kill tonight against the Minnesota Wild. No Max Pacioretty? No problem, the Vegas depth scoring is on fire. 

And so is Fleury.