The Tribe Has Spoken

With the NHL's Stanley Cup Plaoffs wrapping up last night, another postseason of Survivor: NHL Playoffs also came to a close as we looked to crown a winner. Sixteen people started the contest hoping that their randomly-selected team would advance to the Stanley Cup Final before winning the NHL's top trophy, but only one person would get to claim that honour. The prize vault needed emptying, so let's get to who did all the winning this year on Survivor: NHL Playoffs!

We'll start with the Challenge Prizes that were being handed out as teams achieved certain points of greatness. The challenges were:

• First shutout recorded in the playoffs.
• First hat trick recorded in the playoffs.
• First goaltender point recorded in the playoffs.
• First team eliminated from the playoffs.
• First to advance from the second round to the third round.
• First team to score seven goals in one game in the playoffs.
• First upset of the playoffs.

The first shutout went to the Florida Panthers back on April 24 when they shutout the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game Two of their first-round series, so Will earned himself a challenge prize there while also grabbing the first upset as Florida ousted Tampa Bay on April 30.

Ethan put his mark on the Survivor contest when he scored two prizes on the same night when the St. Louis Blues hung seven goals on the Winnipeg Jets on April 24 with Pavel Buchnevich scoring a hat trick.

Derek grabbed himself a prize after the New Jersey Devils were the first team eliminated from the playoffs on April 29, and GM Jared picked up a prize by having the Edmonton Oilers become the first team to advance to the third round. Prizes for all challenges will be organized and we'll be contacting winners in the coming days.

The only challenge that went unclaimed this season was the goaltender point, and that surprises me because of how most of the netminders in these playoffs don't have a problem sending an outlet pass up the ice. I can't remember the last time this prize wasn't handed out, so it's been a while. We'll figure out what to do with this prize, but rest assured we'll give it away as well.

Of course, everyone was gunning for one of the two NHL jerseys we were giving away as the grand prizes. Winning the Stanley Cup allowed the winner to choose between a blue Seattle Kraken jersey and a white Buffalo Sabres buffa-slug jersey, and we'd tack on a few other prizes as well. The finalist who fell short would win the other jersey, but receive no additional accoutrements with that jersey.

Not surprisingly, both finalists won challenges this season as GM Jared and his Edmonton Oilers squared off against Will and his Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final. I don't need to remind you who won, so congratulations to Will as he earns the 2025 Survivor: NHL Playoffs crown! We'll reach out tomorrow, Will, so we can get the grand prize to you, but the random teams worked out well for you!

Jason and I will get everything sorted out and we'll start contacting people tomorrow for prizing. No, we haven't forgotten about anyone - we simply left all the prizing until the end of the contest this year to ensure we have everyone covered. We'll work through all these prizes and make sure everyone has their prizing in-hand by July!

Thanks to everyone who entered the Survivor: NHL Playoffs this season, and we'll do this again next season... assuming The Hockey Show hasn't been cancelled by then. All jokes aside, thanks for making the playoffs fun for Jason and I with the exit interviews and the chatter, and we'll do this all again when we put sixteen more people on Survivor: NHL Playoffs island in 2026!

Until next time, keep yor sticks on the ice!

Los Gatos... De Nuevo

It seemed like it was almost an inevitable conclusion after the Florida Panthers rag-dolled their in-state rivals, the Tampa Bay Lightning, in the opening round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Yes, they were tested by the Toronto Maple Leafs before steamrolling the Carolina Hurricanes, and they found themselves against another familiar foe in the Stanley Cup Final. However, just like last season, it didn't matter if it was Nikita Kucherov, Auston Matthews, Sebastian Aho, Leon Draisaitl, Andrei Vasilevskiy, or Connor McDavid standing in between the Panthers and the Stanley Cup, the Panthers simply weren't going to be denied in the championship defence.

It didn't matter who opposing teams looked to shut down in their series against the Panthers because someone else always stepped up. Whether it was Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Aleksander Barkov, Brad Marchand, or Carter Verhaeghe, the Panthers had the right mix of chemistry, grit, desire, determination, and experience to push them through to a second-straight Stanley Cup. Sergei Bobrovsky was sensational in shutting down any Oilers scoring attempts, and his defence were quick to clear pucks or wrap up sticks. The Panthers rarely made mistakes, they were quick to recover if they did, and losses were rarely followed by another loss.

Those ingredients will almost always guarantee success, and that's why the Florida Panthers hoisted the Stanley Cup for the second time in as many seasons tonight: they played like champions.

"This is as good as the first one," Game Six star Sam Reinhart said. "We learned some lessons. We stayed on the gas, foot on the pedal, and obviously the result speaks for itself."

Speaking of having his foot on the gas, Sam Reinhart was exceptional in Game Six as he became the sixth player in league history and first since Maurice Richard in 1957 to score four goals in a Stanley Cup Final game. While some eyebrows may have been raised when he was named as one of Canada's first six players for the 2026 Olympic Games, Reinhart erased any doubt with a performance that proved he belongs in that group with Crosby, McDavid, and MacKinnon.

Sam Bennett was named as the Conn Smythe Trophy winner, and it's hard to argue when a record 13 of his 15 playoff goals came on the road. For a guy who scored a career-high 28 goals in 71 games, seeing him put 15 past goalies in 23 postseason games this season was a big part of why the Panthers were so hard to defeat. No other team was even close to having a third-line player with those stats, let alone an entire third line with those numbers. Having Bennett post a career-best scoring rate certainly helped in this Stanley Cup run.

Of course, the talk turned towards the looming free agency that Bennett will face on July 1, but he didn't seem to concerned tonight.

"It's actually been pretty easy," he told Luke Fox of Sportsnet, referring to thinking about his future. "I mean, competing for a Stanley Cup has always been my goal and my passion and what I've wanted to do. That's all I want, and it's been quite easy to just not even think about what's to come."

With another Stanley Cup parade being planned and celebrations that will likely last through the night into tomorrow, the Panthers can now focus on letting the injuries heal before they begin the process again in September. Three-straight Stanley Cup Finals appearances with two ending in celebration certainly will take their toll, but the jubilation of hoisting the Stanley Cup erases the strains, sprains, bruises, and cuts for at least a few minutes for the winners.

For the Oilers, the retooling will begin again as they claimed to have been grittier, stronger, and better defensively when it came to this season, but it ended one game sooner than it did a season ago. In both seasons, Connor McDavid watched Barkov accept the Stanley Cup from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, and you know that sour taste won't sit well. The Oilers will have to address some of the glaring problems seen in this playoff run once again - goaltending, defensive deficiencies in players expecting big pay days, and depth scoring - in much the same fashion as last season. Can they buy their way into a third-straight Stanley Cup Final through free agency and trades or is it time for a larger retooling? What will it take?

Those will be questions that can be answered in a few weeks, but the Oilers deserve some kudos for making it back to the Final as well. That grind is never easy, so doing it twice in two seasons is an impressive feat. I'm not going to armchair GM and say the Oilers need to change this or that, but they do deserve a little credit for being back-to-back Western Conference champions, especially when you consider some of the teams that play in the west. The Oilers can't be bridesmaids forever, and I have a feeling Connor McDavid will win a Stanley Cup or two before his time in the NHL is done. Will it be with Edmonton might be the more pressing question, but time will tell.

Tonight, though, the victors get the spoils. Congratulations to the Florida Panthers who are back-to-back Stanley Cup champions! Enjoy the summer en route a three-peat next season! Viva los Gatos!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Awakening

If you were excited about the marketing that could be done for the ECHL's newest team, things are starting to really get started as the Greensboro Gargoyles have been busy over the last month. We still don't know who the first player will be that will wear the Gargoyles uniform, but we do have a schedule for the team for the 2025-26 ECHL season and we now know who will be coaching the Gargoyles as they take flight in their inaugural season! Let's dig into all the Gargoyles news posted so far!

The Gargoyles posted their first schedule on May 15, so this has been out there for a while. The good news is that we know who the Gargoyles will face in their inaugural game, and that would be the Jacksonville Icemen when they travel to Greensboro on October 18. The home- and season-opening game will see the teams clash at 7pm ET at First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro on Friday before playing a second game on Saturday, and the Gargoyles will host the Reading Royals for two games the following weekend on Friday, October 24 and 25 before hitting the road for the first time in their history!

That first road trip takes them north of the border for a clash with the 2025 Kelly Cup champions in the Trois-Rivieres Lions on Halloween, November 1, and November 2 in a three-day, three-game affair. While I don't usually make a deal about the ECHL schedule, not having the Gargoyles play at home on Halloween in their first season seems like a crime against humanity, but that's the ECHL for you.

Two weeks after the Canadian road trip, the Gargoyles will host the Tahoe Knight Monsters for a three-game set starting on Thursday, November 13. Having the two new mythological teams battle could be a lot of fun for the Greensboro marketing team, but we'll have to see how they treat this three-game half of the six-game homestand during November. Frankly, it could be a lot of fun!

There are no games scheduled against the Fort Wayne Komets which seems like a miss, but the Gargoyles will visit the Idaho Steelheads for some reason on January 9 and 10. There's also just one singular game against the Savannah Ghost Pirates on the Gargoyles' schedule as well. Not having the Ghost Pirates and Gargoyles meet more often again seems like a miss for the ECHL, but that lone game will be played in Savannah, Georgia on Thursday, March 5, 2026. Let's hope the Ghost Pirates hype that meeting for the fun it could be!

The ECHL champs will return the favour with a visit to Greensboro as the Trois-Rivieres Lions visit for three games from March 13 to 15. Six games in one regular season against the lone Canadian ECHL team is six more games than the Toledo Walleye have played in their history against the Lions despite meeting them in the Kelly Cup Final, so the Gargoyles should be happy with that scheduling!

After having a few weeks to digest the schedule, the Gargoyles announced that they had found their first bench boss who will wrangle the Gargoyles for the 2025-26 season. On June 4, the Gargoyles announced that Scott Burt would be their inaugural head coach, and he brings a wealth of experience with him to Greensboro.

The 48 year-old Burt spent the last four seasons head coach and general manager of the ECHL's Rapid City Rush after being an assistant coach with both the ECHL's Idaho Steelheads and the Alaska Aces and the WHL's Spokane Chiefs for the previous nine seasons. As a player, Burt was a three-time Kelly Cup champion, winning with Idaho in 2004 and 2007 and with Alaska in 2011 while posting 356 points and 1067 penalty minutes in 586 ECHL games over 13 seasons.

"I am grateful for the opportunity to lead the Gargoyles into their first season," Burt said at his introduction. "There is a lot of buzz about hockey in Greensboro and across North Carolina as a whole and we are excited to make an impact in the region both on and off the ice. I am looking forward to beginning the process of building a team that will bring a competitive brand of hockey that Gargoyles Nation will be proud of."

While the Gargoyles landed themselves a solid head coach, we're still waiting on the unveiling of the team's jerseys. The good news is that the Gargoyles' online store has more shwag in it now, so I recommend checking out the various merchandise they have for sale in order to be ready for the first game. Maybe purple is your colour?

The schedule is set, the head coach is in place, and we'll soon start to see players being signed and added to the Gargoyles' roster. With their affiliation to both the Carolina Hurricanes and the AHL's Chicago Wolves, we could see some future Hurricanes assigned to the Gargoyles soon, and that should help sell a few more tickets. All of this will happen before October 18, 2025 when the Gargoyles come alive that night in their first regular season game, and here's hoping they find success both on and off the ice in Greensboro!

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

Late-Night Hockey In The Early Afternoon

If you needed more hockey action following the Florida Panthers' Game Five win over the Edmonton Oilers, the AIHL was kicking off its Sunday games with a contest between the Perth Thunder and the Melbourne Mustangs. Depsite this game starting at 2pm on Sunday in Australia, we were treated to an 11pm start here in the Central Time Zone. That gave me enough time to settle in and cheer for the black-and-orange as the Mustangs looked to pull even with the Thunder at third-place in the AIHL while having a game in-hand. Who doesn't enjoy a little late-night Aussie hockey to cap off a Saturday night of hockey?

The broadcast began by announcing that there would be some history equalled tonight as Melbourne starting goaltender Tom Papas as the 16 year-old who played for South Alberta Hockey Academy in 2023-24 would be starting! Papas is seven days, at the time of writing, from his 17th birthday which means he could have his first professional hockey victory before he has his full driver's license in Australia. According to the broadcast, Papas' debut tonight would tie him with Fraser Carson as the youngest goaltender to play in the AIHL!

Obviously, the Mustangs have a lot of faith in their netminder as they got set to battle the third-place Perth Thunder, and it would be Perth who opened the scoring as Yannic Lodge ruined Papas' shutout just 2:24 into the game to put the Thunder up 1-0. Melbourne, though, wasn't going to let that goal stand as the only one of the opening frame. Melbourne's Dean Klomp scored at 10:17 to make it a 1-1 game before Kieran Webster scored with six seconds remaining in the period to send Perth into the intermission with a 2-1 lead.

Papas, for the record, stopped 10 of 12 shots as Melbourne held a 17-12 edge in shots on goal after one period. He looked more confident as the period wore on, but the Mustangs trailed by a goal.

Melbourne bounced back in the second period as Dean Klomp went off while killing a penalty. He scored his second goal of the game while shorthanded at 16:37 before capping off his hat trick - still while shorthanded - 14 seconds later as Melbourne grabbed a 3-2 lead after 40 minutes! Papas was solid through the middle frame as he stopped all 15 shots sent his way as Melbourne took the lead and a 32-27 shot edge into the third period. Could he pick up the win?

Papas would be victimized by Lodge once again as Lodge found the back of the net at the 7:27 mark to make it a 3-3 game. Melbourne would respond on the power-play 52 seconds later when Mac Roy scored his ninth goal of the season to put the Mustangs back up by a goal. From there, Papas and the Mustangs defence held the fort through the remaining eleven minutes as Tom Papas backstopped the Melbourne Mustangs to the 4-3 victory and his first AIHL win!

Papas also added his name to the AIHL record books as he becomes the youngest goalie to win his debut game in the AIHL as Papas stopped 34 of 37 shots for a .919 save percentage in his first AIHL win. Not that I'm complaining about Papas' performance in any way, but this was the picture they posted on Twitter prior to the game.

Yes, Papas wore #4 as he stopped pucks tonight for the Mustangs, but I have to say that the "4" on his back needs some better centering on the jersey because that looks way off. Technically, the number is in the proper spot on the jersey based on Barrett's jersey, but that gap of black fabric between his name bar and the number is massive!

In any case, Papas looked like a seasoned professional out there tonight in his AIHL debut, and the starting netminder for Australia's U18 National Team earned a major milestone with his first professional win in his home country tonight. The young man appears to have a big future in front of him when it comes to hockey, and there's no telling where he may end up in his career. It would be pretty incredible to see Tom Papas on an NHL roster one day, and I'm hopeful that he'll get a shot like fellow countryman Nathan Walker got. Starting his 17th year on the planet with a professional win in the AIHL with the Melbourne Mustangs under his belt is a good way to continue to chase that dream!

Congratulations to Tom Papas on his successful AIHL debut and to the Melbourne Mustangs on their win tonight/tomorrow afternoon! Considering that this is being finished on Sunday morning after a few more photos were published, the sleep I got wasn't nearly enough considering when this game ended in Nort America. In saying that, I'm going to squeeze a nap in today so I'm somewhat functional.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!

The Cincinnati Myth

For years, I have heard the story about how the WHA likely could have sent five or six teams to the NHL when it came to the 1979 absorption of the WHA into the NHL. The four teams that were incorporated into the NHL - the Edmonton Oilers, the Hartford Whalers, the Quebec Nordiques, and the Winnipeg Jets - had varying levels of success in their histories after joining the NHL, but I was always told that both the Houston Aeros and the Cincinnati Stingers could have made the jump to the NHL as well. Knowing how the NHL has never been the league to turn down free money or opportunities to make money, it has always struck me that having two more teams join the circuit in 1979 wouldn't have hurt the league in any way. So why did it not happen?

The 1978-79 Cincinnati Stingers had a collection of talent that would have put them in a good place in the NHL had they been able to retain that talent. Robbie Ftorek was the scoring leader at 116 points while Peter Marsh had 43 goals that season. The Stingers boasted five guys with more than 25 goals including an 18 year-old from Ottawa named Mike Gartner who scored 27 times that season. Add in the goaltending duo of Mike Liut and Michel Dion, and the Stingers appeared to have a roster as solid as any NHL team at the time.

Despite repeated attempts between the NHL and WHA to come to an agreement on a merger between 1977 and 1979, the NHL would finally agree to the merger in March of 1979. Terms still needed to be set when it came to which teams were going to be absorbed in the merger, but there was a framework that was proposed by NHL President John Ziegler in June of 1977 that would have seen six teams join the NHL if various conditions were met. This proposal was voted down by the NHL, and four WHA teams folded after that vote failed, leaving the WHA with eight teams for the 1977-78 season.

Negotiations resumed in 1978, but Ziegler presented a new proposal to the NHL Board of Governors where only four teams would be accepted instead of the six originally proposed. While the WHA wanted all three Canadian teams added, the American teams being considered came down to both Houston and Hartford. The Aeros tried to get Boston owner Jeremy Jacobs to support their inclusion, but Jacobs was against expansion entirely as he declined to support either team. With the NHL owners still being ice-cold to the merger, these negotiations went nowhere as the merger was voted down.

For the 1978-79 WHA season, Aeros owner Kenneth Schnitzer ceased operations for his team as he applied directly to the NHL for an expansion franchise. The NHL balked at that application with a number of teams in financial dire straits, so Schnitzer proposed that the NHL relocate a team to Houston with the Cleveland Barons being the most likely choice. Instead, the NHL sold the franchise rights to the Gund brothers who merged the franchise with the Minnesota North Stars. As a result, Schnitzer folded the Aeros on July 8, 1978.

As the WHA season began with seven teams instead of the eight that was expected, another franchise pulled the plug midway through the season as the Indianapolis Racers shut their doors after 25 games. Down to six teams, it was clear the WHA was on the shakiest of ground it had ever been in its existence, and the NHL seized upon that as they now saw expansion as a business idea to boost the NHL.

In March of 1979, the two leagues agreed that four teams would be merged into the NHL despite the owners only wanting three - the New England Whalers, Winnipeg Jets, and Edmonton Oilers. The Nordiques and the WHA insisted on all three Canadian teams being included, and the NHL finally agreed on March 22, 1979 in a second vote to bring the four teams into the NHL, leaving Birmingham and Cincinnati on the outside despite Cincinnati having a decent team.

It's seems ridiculous that the league wouldn't include Houston and one additional team as part of the agreement in 1978 considering how strong the Aeros franchise was in Houston, and Cincinnati historically had been one of the strongest teams in the WHA to that point. As stated, the story of Cincinnati being considered by the NHL has been a story told a few times, so what happened to the Stingers?

I was actually looking for something else in the newspaper archives when I came across a Febraury 5, 1979 article that literally explains why the Stingers never jumped to the NHL. Here's that article!

Despite the story being about the Stingers selling Rick Dudley to the Buffalo Sabres so they "can buy some rowboats", reporter Reyn Davis included a solid reason as to why the Stingers wouldn't be going to the NHL for the 1979-80 season as an expansion franchise.

As Davis wrote,

"The Stingers' owners have indicated to their WHA partners that they are more interested in collecting an indemnity to fold rather than acquire an expansion franchise in the National Hockey League."

In short, it sounds like the Stingers' owners wanted to recoup as much money as they could from the WHA venture rather than potentially lose more money supporting an NHL franchise in Cincinnati. If they were selling players like Dudley midway through the WHA season to bring in less expensive players, that's suggests money troubles. Getting paid to abandon the franchise would be an easy out.

I think this admission by the Stingers' owners can put the myth to rest that the Stingers were poised to join the NHL. While they certainly had a roster of future NHL stars, the ownership group clearly had no intention of spending more money to keep the franchise afloat, and their selling of star players for less expensive options is evidence that there were money troubles in Cincinnati. There was no honeypot.

The Stingers were never going to the NHL, so this myth is busted.

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!