Red-hot Jack Eichel, Golden Knights face Avs for Nevada Day game
After picking up three points in three games on a difficult Southern road trip, the Vegas Golden Knights return to Las Vegas to open a season-long six-game homestand with a Friday afternoon matinee against the Colorado Avalanche.
Halloween is also a state holiday known as Nevada Day, celebrating the anniversary of Nevada becoming the 36th state on Oct. 31, 1864. The Golden Knights have traditionally celebrated the holiday with an afternoon contest to allow kids that are off from school to be able to attend.
Considering the way the 2025-26 season has started, there also could be a Jack Eichel Day one day for Nevada residents.
Eichel finds himself in the early conversation for the Hart Trophy, which goes to the NHL's most valuable player, thanks to a league-leading 19 points (eight goals, 11 assists) in just 10 games.
Eichel celebrated his 29th birthday on Tuesday with two goals, including the game-winner, and an assist as Pacific Division-leading Vegas salvaged the finale of its three-game trip with a 6-3 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes.
The contest was tied 3-3 before Eichel scored on a breakaway with 4:59 to go. Eichel then made it 5-3 with a one-timer in the slot off an Ivan Barbashev feed with 2:24 remaining before Tomas Hertl sealed the win with an empty-netter, capping a four-goal third period for the Golden Knights.
"It was nice to get a win on the birthday and get out of here with two points and head home," Eichel said. "It was a great win for us."
The trip started with a 3-0 loss at two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida, the team's first regulation loss of the season, and was followed by a 2-1 overtime loss at Tampa Bay.
Eichel gave credit to his teammates for his blistering start.
"The team is playing well," he said. "I play with some great players and have been the benefactor of some really good hockey and good plays. I'm just trying to stick with the process and help the team win hockey games. I think when you do that, sometimes you see some points come with it. It's a credit to the whole group. There's a lot of guys playing well."
One of them is winger Pavel Dorofeyev, who also scored two goals in the win and entered Thursday tied for the league lead in goals with Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon, Montreal's Cole Caufield and New Jersey's Jack Hughes with nine.
MacKinnon comes in off his 56th career multi-goal game in a wild 8-4 victory over New Jersey on Tuesday, snapping a four-game losing streak (0-1-3) for the Avalanche. MacKinnon had two goals and an assist, his 100th career three-point game. Defenseman Cale Makar added the third four-assist game of his career and Victor Olofsson, who played with the Golden Knights last season, had his first career hat trick to go with two assists.
"I think you've got to celebrate wins," Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. "They are hard to get in this league, and we did a lot of really good things (Tuesday)."
The Avalanche lost twice in overtime and once in a shootout during their four-game slide. Colorado has lost in regulation just once in 11 games this season, 3-2 to the Boston Bruins.
"We just want to build on this one especially and make sure that we continue to do the right things moving forward," Makar said.
After Friday afternoon's contest, Colorado heads to San Jose for the second half of a back-to-back on Saturday afternoon.
What Flyers’ lineup might look like with Sean Couturier out injured
The Philadelphia Flyers lost their captain to injury on Thursday night and while we don’t know the timeline, if he’s out for a while, what could the lineup look like?
The Philadelphia Flyers might have won the game Thursday night’s showdown against the Nashville Predators, but they did lose something incredibly important to their season. In the middle of what ended up being a one-sided affair for the final two periods (on the score line anyways, maybe not the shot total), Flyers captain Sean Couturier went down with an injury.
Couturier did not return to the game as almost immediately after he went down the tunnel, the Flyers put out an announcement that the first-line center was staying out. Nothing official was said as to what caused the injury, but as many speculated and as head coach Rick Tocchet somewhat referenced in his post-game media availability, Couturier took a bad shot from teammate Noah Juulsen in the first period and
No one knows how long Couturier is going to be out. The Flyers do not practice Friday, so at the very earliest we’ll find out something during Saturday’s morning skate before they host the Toronto Maple Leafs. Until then, all we can do is guess and with Couturier’s injury history (albeit, recovering from multiple back surgeries is not comparable to taking a puck in your torso) there is a little bit of hesitation to think that he’s completely fine.
So, what does that mean for the Flyers while Couturier is out? The 32-year-old has averaged the most time-on-ice among any center on this team and has been cemented on the first line ever since the season started. Couturier has become more important than even some of the most optimistic followers of this team predicted before this season, as he currently sits second on the team in scoring with two goals and nine points in his 10 games played.
If Couturier is out for an extended period of time, who could we see take his place on the first line, and what could the lineup even look like? We have some guesses.
Keep the status quo as much as possible
Ultimately, the Flyers are winning hockey games and looking good while doing it. Sean Couturier no doubt has contributed to a whole lot of that but it could make sense in head coach Rick Tocchet’s mind to not change a thing. The classic trope of not fixing anything that’s broken or changing a winning lineup is too applicable in this situation, so it’s an option.
What that would end up entailing is trying to re-create Couturier in some sort of way — or at the very least make his replacement have as many similar attributes as he does. Among all potential centers on the roster, that has to be Christian Dvorak.
While obviously not at the same level on either side of the puck, Dvorak was brought in this summer to be a stabilizing force for the Flyers and wouldn’t look completely out of place if he was just given the reins on the top line between Owen Tippett and Travis Konecny. It would most likely make the majority of the fan base unhappy and missing the toothless smile of the captain even more than they already will, but it is something we could certainly see happening.
This would then mean Trevor Zegras moving to be a full-time center — that is something most people have already guessed is going to happen after losing Couturier — and then someone like Nikita Grebenkin, who Tocchet has put with Zegras and Michkov in spurts, or even a minor-league recall like speedy Anthony Richard, for example.
Zegras gets the big promotion
It’s something most people are clamoring for. After his three-point performance against the Predators and looking like he is out for vengeance — to show the hockey world that he truly is a very good all-around player in addition to his overwhelming skill — Trevor Zegras might take the first-line role. We’ve seen Tippett and Zegras connect ever so briefly to mixed results, and we’ve seen Zegras and Konecny on the same line for similarly mixed results.
We’ve seen this exact trio together for about 12 minutes in the preseason and 12 minutes in the regular season during some line-jumbling, so it’s at least popped in Tocchet’s head for a second. And maybe, with Zegras breaking out as of late, he can be freed from the shackles of needing some sort of defensively reliable (boring) linemate.
It would get rid of our loveable Michkov-Zegras connection, but just for a short amount of time and the newcomer deserves to get the push up the lineup. Nikita Grebenkin probably easily falls in line with Dvorak and Michkov on the Flyers’ “third line” but that doesn’t create a whole lot of offensive opportunities for the Russian phenom.
Noah Cates gets his opportunity
It would be very controversial considering how well they have played ever since they were put together last season, but in this time of need, if we’re talking about a player that brings the same defensive acumen as Couturier, it’s all about Noah Cates.
Moving Dvorak up to the first line, like we said, we be keeping the status quo in the sense that the Flyers’ best forward line would stay in-tact. But if Tocchet is less concerned with maintaining Cates, Brink, and Foerster as a unit to suffocate opposing offenses and score timely goals, then the 26-year-old center could move up to the first line.
Cates would provide a perfect balance of skill and tenacity to let Tippett and Konecny go bananas. He might not have the hockey brain that Couturier does, but he can play effective hockey and that might just be what is needed to get Konecny going offensively.
Foerster and Brink would most likely stay together, but if the group of centers are Cates, Dvorak, Zegras, and Abols, then it might make the most sense to put Dvorak with those two wingers, and then have Grebenkin with Zegras and Michkov full-time.
There’s no specific way of determining what is going to happen if Couturier is out for an extended period of time. There could even be a recall for a Phantoms forward and Grebenkin and the unnamed minor-leaguer would be in the lineup over Nic Deslauriers.
No one knows but we can just guess how Tocchet is going to approach his lineup if the captain is on the sidelines.
