NHL frenzy peaks with lottery luck, front-office drama and playoff heroics

AtlanticBruinsCanadiensLightningMaple LeafsPanthersRed WingsSabresSenatorsMetropolitanBlue JacketsCapitalsDevilsFlyersHurricanesIslandersPenguinsRangersCentralAvalancheBlackhawksBluesJetsMammothPredatorsStarsWildPacificCanucksDucksFlamesGolden KnightsKingsKrakenOilersSharksScores & ScheduleStandingsPodcastsFantasyNHL OddsNHL PicksPlayoff bracketNHL Draft rankingRed Light NewsletterNHL Playoffs The Carolina Hurricanes, up 2-0 against the Flyers, have not lost a game this postseason. Jaylynn Nash / Getty Images Share articleRed Light newsletter 🏒 | This is The Athletic’s hockey newsletter. Sign up here to receive Red Light directly in your inbox. Good morning to everyone except for all you shams, con artists, liars and salesmen. We had some big news off the ice yesterday, a big lottery to look forward to tonight and, oh yeah, some playoff games. Let’s get to it. We saw something last night that we’d never seen before, at least in this year’s playoffs: The Carolina Hurricanes fell behind. The Hurricanes, who never trailed through four games against the Senators and the opener against the Flyers, gave up a pair of goals before Game 2 was even five minutes old. They apparently enjoyed the new experience because they played the next 46 minutes or so from behind before Seth Jarvis tied it midway through the third. At that point, the two teams took turns running over each other’s goalies until overtime, when Taylor Hall summoned his OGWAC powers to win it for Carolina. Learnings, quickly: In the late game, we had some controversy over a waved-off icing that led to the Golden Knights’ winning goal, as they took Game 1 by a 3-1 final. May the ping-pong balls be forever in your favor. Today is one of the biggest days of the offseason for (almost) all non-playoff teams, who’ll find out the official order for next month’s entry draft. None of the prospects is in the can’t-miss territory of a Connor McDavid or even a Connor Bedard, and unlike most years, there’s no clear consensus first pick. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad pool — in fact, this top 10 is remarkably strong. Who will go first? Draft expert Corey Pronman’s estimates have Gavin McKenna at 50 percent, with Ivar Stenberg and Chase Reid at 20 percent each. There’s a 10 percent chance that it’s somebody else entirely. Fascinating. Scott Wheeler has McKenna as his top prospect, but Stenberg is in the same tier. Here’s your refresher on what will happen tonight: Got it all down? Good. We’ve published specific looks at the lottery from the perspective of some of the teams that will be hoping the balls bounce their way: Rangers, Blues, Blackhawks and Canucks. And of course, I released my annual draft lottery Power Rankings, which feature categories such as which team deserves it most, which team needs it most, and which team Gary Bettman is going to rig it all for. Tanking is a big topic of conversation around the sports world these days, especially in the NBA. The NHL has long claimed that tanking isn’t as big a problem for the league — it’s the reason we have a lottery in the first place. Do you know which team was accused of intentionally losing games, leading to the NHL’s introduction of the lottery? And for a bonus point, which player was that team (allegedly) tanking for? 🏒 Even with the NHL playoffs in full swing, there may not be a busier writer at The Athletic than Hailey Salvian. Her recent PWHL coverage includes a playoff guide, a notable player’s suspension and a very weird expansion plan. Here’s what she’s learned covering the action. Keep an eye on this page — plenty more to come. We’re lucky to have Hailey making sense of it all. 🔮 We tapped our experts for their latest batch of Stanley Cup playoff predictions, also known as “Laz Hates The Avalanche.” 🫂 This morning, Lightning captain Victor Hedman revealed that he missed the team’s final 15 regular-season games and the first round of the playoffs to tend to his mental health. 💧 After a disastrous first-round exit, the Oilers will need to answer a pile of questions this summer. Here are just six of the many. ❌ In a quiet third-floor apartment 10 years ago, a newbie hockey fan went viral as he learned the game. What came next was a blur that spawned an unlikely love story. Jeremy Rutherford’s telling of the Tony X story is worth your time. ⚡ What’s next for the Lightning? The Canucks, Kraken and Rangers have won a playoff series more recently than Tampa. Gulp. 🏆 If you needed more explanation as to why the Hurricanes pounced on K’Andre Miller and signed him to an eight-year extension, look no further than this one play. He’s exactly the type of player Carolina covets: talented but misused in his previous stop. 🤝 Perseverance, sportsmanship, dedication. What NHL player comes to mind when you think of those words? The Bill Masterton Trophy goes to the player who most embodied those traits over the past year. Here are the three finalists. 🎙️ On a loaded Monday episode of “The Athletic Hockey Show,” the crew discusses the Canadiens’ nine-shot victory over the Lightning and the 15-goal Game 1 between the Wild and Avalanche. Plus, Chris Johnston weighs in on the Leafs. Watch or listen here. Did you enjoy that news conference? I sure did. You can criticize the Leafs’ hiring of John Chayka and Mats Sundin all you want, though you’d be hard-pressed to do a better job of it than Jonas Siegel did in this sizzling takedown. Realistically, nothing we saw during yesterday’s official announcement is likely to change your view all that much, whether you’re one of the (many) doubters or taking more of a wait-and-see approach. But as far as entertainment value? The show delivered. We had CEO Keith Pelley trying to lay on the charisma while selling Chayka and Sundin’s credentials. You had both new hires giving prepared statements that didn’t reveal much. You had some, shall we say, skeptical lines of questioning from the assembled media that included Chayka being called a “con artist” to his face. And we got due diligence. So, so much due diligence. Did you know that the Leafs did their due diligence? They did due diligence. Deep due diligence, even, which I’m going to go ahead and assume is the best kind. Add it all up, and you have a scene that our own Chris Johnston accurately described as “uncomfortable” and which the Leafs fans in my group chat described using other words. And maybe that was what we should have expected, given fans’ mood these days and the generally negative reaction since the hirings first leaked last week. Can it all work? Sure! This is the NHL, where roughly half the teams in the league seem to get thrown in a randomizer every year. It’s absolutely possible Chayka and Sundin will come in and make the sort of big, bold moves this franchise has lived in fear of for the last decade. If it’s about exceeding expectations, then at least the bar is low after this process. And like any new hire, they deserve a chance to succeed or fail on their own merits. I’m far from sold, but what do I know? Let’s see if this works. Or how quickly it can all fall apart. At least it should be entertaining. 🫣 For extra fun, stick around in the comments sections on those pieces to see how all of this is playing with fans. 📺 Wild @ Avalanche 8 p.m. ET on ESPN / Sportsnet / CBC / TVA We’ve got only one NHL game tonight, but based on Sunday’s opener, that might be all we can handle. The Wild and Avalanche delivered a ridiculous 9-6 final in Game 1, in possibly the most entertaining game of the playoffs. What can they do for an encore? Maybe mix in a few saves. Full NHL schedule here. Try streaming games like these for free on Fubo. Why is embellishment never called on its own? – Tom H. Hoo boy. Tom is really stirring things up with this week’s question. Every fan knows the drill by now. A player gets knocked down and sure seems to hit the ice more easily than you’d think. You tell anyone nearby that it was a dive, and the referee agrees, serving up two minutes for embellishment. But inevitably, the original foul is called, too, so the penalties just cancel out. We saw it play out against Sidney Crosby, of all people, earlier in the postseason. Why do they always call it that way? Well, they don’t. Or at least, there’s nothing in the rulebook that says they’re supposed to. Embellishment — or “diving/embellishment,” as it’s referred to in the book — is Rule 64. And there’s nothing in there about the ref having to make two calls. So, no, it’s not mandatory. Or is it? I figured I’d find you an example from last season to illustrate that officials will indeed call just a diving penalty on its own. But I couldn’t find one. I can’t guarantee that I was able to check every embellishment call from the 2025-26 season, but I definitely found most of them, and every single one had an offsetting call on the other side. The closest I can come is a play you might remember from last year’s playoffs: Scott Laughton’s hit from behind on Florida’s Evan Rodrigues. That hit resulted in Rodrigues heading back to the room, but he was given two for embellishment in a controversial call. If you check the box score, Laughton wasn’t given a penalty for the hit on Rodrigues. But he did get a roughing call for the subsequent scrum, so the penalties still evened out. Just like they pretty much always do. Why? What’s the deal with this apparently unwritten rule? I think it just comes down to some basic human psychology. Refs don’t want to miss calls. But if you think about it, mistakenly calling somebody for a dive they didn’t commit is actually like missing two calls — the original penalty, and the imagined dive. Refs don’t seem to want to risk it, so they cover their bases by calling both or neither. Essentially, the refs who make this call are saying, “Hey, I saw the original penalty and I was already going to call it before you decided to dive. But you did, so now I’m calling both.” And I guess that makes a certain amount of sense. But it’s nowhere to be found in the rulebook. The NHL introduced the lottery for the first time in 1995, and it was largely in response to allegations of tanking leveled against the Ottawa Senators in 1993. That was the year everyone agreed that Alexandre Daigle was the next can’t-miss prospect; it’s fair to say he fell short of expectations. While the league ultimately cleared the Senators of the accusations, it instituted the lottery shortly after. For corrections or feedback, email redlight@theathletic.com to let us know how we’re doing. 📫 Love Red Light? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms