Puck Wire: Top Hockey News Of The Day: April 18th

Talk about a fun night of hockey, huh? The Bruins escaped Toronto with a split while the Avalanche have the Flames on the ropes after their second OT victory in three games. We are on the verge of history, because if Colorado knocks out Calgary it’ll be the first time the top seed in each conference goes down in round one. It’s that kind of playoff.

We’ve got three more games on the slate tonight, including a potential elimination game in San Jose between the Sharks and the Vegas Golden Knights. Winnipeg will host St. Louis is a crucial Game five, while Washington looks to gain a stranglehold on their series against Carolina.

While you wait for tonight’s slate of action, take a break from your work day and kill a little company time with today’s edition of puck wire.

• The Drake curse might just be real. The Canadian rapper was seen at the Bruins/Maple Leafs game on Wednesday night wearing a blue Leafs jersey. Toronto would lose the game 6-4 and the series will head to Boston tied 2-2.
• Adam Foote was an NHL mainstay for the 1990’s and 2000’s, playing a major role on some dominant Colorado teams. This June, his son Nolan will enter the NHL Draft and is likely to be selected within the first round. More on the younger Foote from NHL.com’s draft preview series.
• It’s award season in the NHL. The league began announcing the finalists for their season awards last night, starting with the Selke Trophy. Fitting that all three forwards are on playoff teams, as Patrice Bergeron, Mark Stone and Ryan O’Reilly will head to Vegas.
• Speaking of the Awards and Vegas, those three will head there because the NHL recently announced that the NHL Awards will return to Sin City in June.
• Colorado is on the verge of making playoff history. As mentioned above, if they can punch out the Flames Friday night, it’ll mark the first time in playoff history that both regular season conference champions go down in the first round. Colorado is in this position thanks to a fierce overtime comeback victory last night in Denver.
• The Edmonton Oilers will be one of the most interesting teams to follow this off-season. They are broken, but what exactly needs fixing? Jason Gregor of Oilersnation takes a look.

Photo Credit: Santeri Viinamäki [CC BY-SA 4.0], from Wikimedia Commons