Every week, we’ll update you on all the important musings in the hockey world over the past seven days — from the NHL and beyond.
There were plenty of viral happenings around the game last week, including the drama inside the Canucks dressing room coming to a head, Auston Matthews returning with a vengeance, the World Juniors coming to a close, the decline of the Winter Classic, the most inspiring NHL debut you’ll see, Fleury wanting credit for Ovechkin’s record-hunt and more.
Here’s the top sights, sounds and news you might have missed in hockey last week.
The new year started out a little iffy for Toronto Maple Leafs fans.
Ahead of his sixth consecutive missed game due to a lingering injury, Matthews said he wasn’t sure if he’ll fully get over his lingering ailment this season, one that he’s been dealing with since training camp.
“I don’t know. I hope so,” Matthews told Jonas Siegel of The Athletic on New Years Day — his first time speaking since he last played on Dec. 20.
“That’s obviously the goal. It’s tricky with these things sometimes. It’s a physical sport, it’s a contact sport, so things happen out there sometimes that are out of your control. So I’m just trying to manage it as best as I can, and we can, and you just go from there.”
Matthews, who travelled to Germany for treatment earlier in the season, missed nine games in November because of the same injury.
It was looking bleak for Matthews and the Leafs, until the weekend when Matthews made his triumphant return to the lineup in fitting AM34 fashion — potting a goal and four assists for five points in two games over the weekend against the Bruins and Flyers.
Empty-net goals don’t get more hard-earned than this:
“I’m pretty happy with it,” Matthews said of his return versus Boston on Saturday. “[I] just want to keep that momentum going.”
Head coach Crag Berube was impressed with Matthews in his return, too.
“Overall, I thought he played a pretty good game,” Berube said. “I thought he was very smart tonight. Didn’t overexert himself. Didn’t put himself in tough spots. And we managed his minutes pretty good, I thought. I used him a little bit more at the end of the game, obviously. But it kind of got to that point.”
Berube also detailed what comes next as the team tries to load-manage its injury-plagued captain as the weeks and months go on.
“We definitely have to manage him and get him to a point where he’s fully healthy,” Berube said. “And whether that’s minutes or, you know, a little bit of time off, I don’t know. I don’t have the answer for you right now, but we’re obviously going to stay in tune with it and try to do what’s best for him.”
For the second straight year, Team Canada’s bid for gold at the World Juniors ended in disastrous fashion.
Adam Jecho, a St. Louis Blues prospect, scored the game-winner — fittingly on the power play — with just 40 seconds left in regulation to lift Czechia into the semis with a 4-3 win over Canada in the quarterfinals on Thursday night.
It marked the second-consecutive time Canada was ousted in the quarters at the event by the Czechs.
Poor personnel, in-game adjusting and team management decisions plagued this team from start to finish, with head coach Dave Cameron taking plenty of heat over the disastrous showing at the year’s tournament for Canada.
However, a major lack of accountability from the top on down appears to be the major issue facing the Canadian U20 program and beyond.
Canada GM, Peter Anholt on being asked who is to blame?
“There’s 4 or 5 teams that could win this tournament, and the other teams try to…we’re not the only team that tries.
I wouldn’t make any changes on the lineups that we had and the personnel that we had.”— Cam Robinson (@Hockey_Robinson) January 3, 2025
To make things just a little bit worse for Canada, the country’s biggest sporting rivals, the United States, won the gold medal on Teddy’s Stiga’s game-winning goal in the final against Finland on Sunday.
Team USA has now won consecutive gold medals, while Canada has bowed out in the quarters the past two tournaments.
The NHL tried to switch it up for its flagship “Winter Classic” event this year, and it did not go well.
The league held the event on New Year’s Eve instead of New Year’s Day to avoid direct competition with the College Football Playoff, according to Awful Announcing. The result? All-time low viewership numbers.
According to Sports Media Watch, the game between the St. Louis Blues and Chicago Blackhawks from Wrigley Field in Chicago drew 920,000 viewers south of the border — marking the lowest total in the history of the event. Viewership was down 16 per cent compared to last year’s contest in Seattle between the Kraken and Vegas Golden Knights.
Shifting the game to NYE turned out to be a bad move, but the two teams involved, despite their rich history, was also surely a factor in the low ratings this year as the 2024 event featured the middling St. Louis Blues vs. the lowly Chicago Blackhawks (the Blues won 6-2 in a sleeper of a game).
On top of the poor entertainment value the Blackhawks brought as a basement-dwelling squad, fans are also likely a little tired of seeing Chicago being featured in the big game. The club has been featured in the most Winter Classic games with five, with the Hawks going 0-5 all-time in those contests:
The Winter Classic could see a more tropical feel next year, with the Florida Panthers reportedly set to host the 2026 event in Miami.
The first chunk of the season has been a tumultuous one for the Vancouver Canucks on the ice, but much of the drama involving the team has surrounded two of the team’s top centres: J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson.
Though both players have publicly denied any type of feud or beef between them, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported over the weekend that the organization is actively pursuing trade options for both struggling superstars.
“The Canucks are definitely, definitely looking at the market for both players and you should be prepared for all outcomes,” Friedman reported on the Saturday Headlines segment on Hockey Night in Canada.
“There’s really three [options]: Neither gets dealt, one of them gets dealt, or both get dealt. That’s on the table. I don’t want to predict the likelihood of any particular scenario, but all three of those outcomes are possible.”
Friedman added that the Canucks would prefer both players work out their differences, but that the feud has really begun affecting head coach Rick Tocchet and captain Quinn Hughes.
“Everybody knows Vancouver is open to listening, that they have already … but I think their preference is: ‘grow up and figure it out.’ What’s different now than weeks ago, is this has begun to spill over elsewhere into the Org. It’s bothering Tocchet and Hughes.”
Ex-Canucks players have also started weighing in on the situation:
Off-ice kerfuffle aside, both Miller and Pettersson have been struggling mightily on the ice, too. Miller has posted six goals and 25 points in his 28 games, which isn’t a terrible clip, but hasn’t found the back of the net since Nov. 16. Pettersson, currently out with an upper-body injury, has just 10 goals and 28 points in 35 games so far.
Contract-wise, Miller is in the second of a seven-year, $56-million contract ($8-million AAV) with a full no-move clause. Pettersson is in the first of an eight-year, $92.8-million contract ($11.6-million AAV) with a no-move clause that doesn’t kick in until next season.
The Canucks currently sit fourth in the Pacific Division at 18-12-8.
Ozzy Wiesblatt’s NHL debut was anything but ordinary.
The 22-year-old, who was recalled by the Predators from AHL Milwaukee to make his debut against the Canucks on Friday, posted a video to Nashville’s social media accounts introducing himself while paying tribute to his mom, who is deaf.
“My name’s Ozzy, people call me ‘Oz,'” Wiesblatt said in sign language.
“I learned sign language from my mom — my first language, you could say — all my brothers know it and my little sister,” he explained. “I’m very excited to be here. Excited for my family and everything.”
Though Wiesblatt is not deaf himself, he has a strong connection to the deaf community through his family, especially his mother, Kim.
For those not aware, the family’s story is incredible:
Wiesblatt tried to detail just how much his mother means to him and the family in a feature on Sportsnet in 2020.
“It’s kind of hard to explain what she did for all of us,” he said. “I think everything we do is for her, and we want to give back to her and thank her for all she’s done for us and the all the sacrifices she’s made for us,” he later said.
During his debut last week, Wiesblatt made sure the whole world knows just how much his mother means to him.
Some moments in sports transcend the game, and this is one of them.
Ozzy Wiesblatt throwing a puck to his hero- his mom, Kim, who is Deaf – a beautiful tribute to her sacrifices. Kim worked multiple jobs to raise Ozzy and his four siblings, giving everything to support their… pic.twitter.com/OTGsUH90ZT
— Chris Mason (@cmace30) January 4, 2025
What a moment.
Wiesblatt was drafted in the first round, 31st overall, by the San Jose Sharks in the 2020 draft before a trade last June landed him in Nashville.
Incase you have forgotten, Arber Xhekaj is a bad man.
Maple Leafs forward Matthew Knies bagged a five-point night and his first career NHL hat trick on Saturday in Toronto’s win over Boston.
This one was an absolute gem:
Minnesota Wild goaltender — and former long-time Pittsburgh Penguin — Marc-Andre Fleury has had his battles with Alex Ovechkin over the years.
As Ovi rapidly approaches Wayne Gretzky’s all-time goals record, Fleury wants some credit for his role in Ovechkin’s pursuit:
Marc-Andre Fleury on watching Alex Ovechkin approach Wayne Gretzky’s NHL career goals record: “He probably owes me a few things for scoring so many goals on me. I helped it out pretty good.”
— Stephen Whyno (@SWhyno) January 3, 2025
Fleury absolutely knows what he’s talking about, as Ovechkin has tallied 28 goals against Fleury in 47 regular-season games — the most Ovechkin has scored against any active NHL goalie.
With four goals in his last five games — including one against Fleury’s Wild on Thursday — Ovechkin now sits just 22 back of Gretzky’s all-time goal mark of 894.
Incase you were wondering just how valuable Connor McDavid is to the Edmonton Oilers:
