Lighting the Lamp: NHL prospects deliver, Connor McDavid, NHL salary cap increase and more

Welcome to Lighting the Lamp, a year-round NHL column. This week, prospects light it up in The Show, the wild-card race gets even more wild and Connor McDavid goes for Art Ross repeat.

This week’s edition of Lighting the Lamp comes to you from the mountains of Lake Tahoe, where I am doing my best Jamie Anderson impression and starting an impressive collection of bruises.

But if anything, vacation means even more time to take in hockey, and almost every game becomes appointment television at this point in the season. Good thing my hotel gets NBCSN.

The Western Conference wild card race continues to be a ping-pong match. On Saturday, the St. Louis Blues snapped the Columbus Blue Jackets’ 10-game win streak and, in so doing, bumped the Anaheim Ducks out of the second wild-card spot.

Four teams have punched their tickets to the postseason: the Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins in the East, the Nashville Predators in the West and, most recently, the Winnipeg Jets. And the Canadians were really nice about it:

The Buffalo Sabres, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Edmonton Oilers, Vancouver Canucks, Arizona Coyotes, Chicago Blackhawks, Detroit Red Wings, New York Islanders and  New York Rangers have all been eliminated from playoff contention. Better luck next year!

Let’s get into the rest of it.

Full standings are here.

NHL power rankings

Top registered name possibilities for the expansion NHL Seattle franchise

1. Seattle Kraken (we’re done here, you can’t top this)
2. Seattle Totems
3. Seattle Sea Lions
4. Seattle Seals (though these will always be the No. 1 hockey seals in my heart)
5. Seattle Cougars
6. Seattle Sockeyes (business at the Pike Place fish market will skyrocket)
7. Seattle Firebirds (not a real thing, but still sounds cool)
8. Seattle Eagles (could they differentiate themselves enough from the NFL Eagles?)
9. Seattle Whales (not very intimidating)
10. Seattle Emeralds (drop the s, it’s cleaner)

Lamp Lighters: The week’s best goals

Boston Bruins fans had been waiting for this moment for four years, and it didn’t disappoint. The Bruins signed star prospect Ryan Donato to a two-year entry level contract on March 18, hoping that his NCAA scoring prowess would carry over to The Show as the injury-ridden Bruins attempt to keep a favorable playoff seeding.

Donato’s first goal, in his first game, was a laser:

Is there anything Connor McDavid can’t do? The league’s leading goal-scorer showed off his skills against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday:

The Winnipeg Jets’ path to the Stanley Cup this season has been in large part supported by rookie Kyle Connor. You don’t hear his name as much as Patrik Laine’s, but Connor has 29 goals on the season, including this one in overtime against the Anaheim Ducks this week:

But the top goal of the week (as well as the top celly) had to have been this one by the New Jersey Devils’ Blake Coleman:

Forget about the one-handed, backhand aspect of the goal. Isn’t spinning around in a circle on your bum after a goal the epitome of hockey? This sport is so fun.

Coast to Coast: What you might have missed around the league

• The league’s general managers agreed on a change to how goaltender interference reviews will be handled moving forward, and the new process should be in effect for the playoffs. Now, the final call will be made by the hockey operations department, rather than referees on the ice.
• The Vegas Golden Knights are the league’s golden child right now, and that glow will carry over into next season regardless of how their Stanley Cup bid goes this season. We also learned as a result of the GM meetings that if (when) the Seattle expansion franchise is approved, the Golden Knights will be exempt from the expansion draft process. Doesn’t seem fair? Think of it this way: the league’s other 30 teams will receive $21.67 million each from Seattle, but the Golden Knights won’t, in exchange for getting to keep their players. A fair price to pay.
• Free agents could get paid this offseason. The NHL salary cap could increase to as high as $82 million next year, up from the $75 million this season.

5-on-5

1. The kids are all right. Bruins’ star prospect Ryan Donato already has four points in three games. Donato also became the first Bruin with a multi-point game in his first NHL outing since Jarno Kultanen in 2000. New York Rangers rookie defenseman Neal Pionk scored his first goal on Saturday, as did Ottawa Senators center Filip Chlapik on Thursday. And then on Sunday night, the Oilers’ Ethan Bear bear-ied one (heh) against the Anaheim Ducks at the end of regulation.

2. In case you haven’t noticed, Connor McDavid is a beast. McDavid scored twice in the Oilers’ huge win over the Kings on Saturday to take the lead in the Art Ross Trophy race with 96 points on the year, including 38 goals. If McDavid can hang on to the lead to finish out the year, he’ll become the first since Jaromir Jagr in 2000-01, his fourth consecutive year.

3. We have a large enough sample size by now to declare a trade deadline winner, and the San Jose Sharks certainly have a foothold in that conversation for their acquisition of Evander Kane, who has been murdering everyone. Since his debut in San Jose against the Oilers on Feb. 27, Kane has racked up 12 points with seven goals and five assists, including his monster four-goal game against the Calgary Flames on March 16. The Sharks are 10-2-0 in that span, and it doesn’t take a genius to connect those dots.

4. The Bruins don’t make any sense. Riddled with injuries at key positions, they’re basically being held together by old stick tape at this point. Yet somehow even without top-line center Patrice Bergeron, top-pairing defensemen Zdeno Chara and Charlie McAvoy, David Backes and three other regulars, the Bruins kept netting points. Then they got Bergeron back on Sunday night and defeated the Minnesota Wild in overtime. Not only do the Bruins look like they won’t relinquish their No. 2 position in the East before season’s end, but at two points back of Tampa Bay, they’re still pushing for No. 1.

5. Don’t sleep on the Devils…especially if you’re the Lightning. At 86 points with 75 games down, New Jersey would be the last team in in the East if the playoffs started today. That also means the Devils would draw the Lightning in a first-round matchup…which could prove to be a nightmare for Tampa Bay. New Jersey swept the season series 3-0-0, with the latest victory coming on Saturday. The Lightning have to be hoping that the Columbus Blue Jackets or Philadelphia Flyers drop a couple, because the Devils seem to have their number.

Tweet of the week

Life is often bigger than hockey, a fact that Eddie Olczyk knows all too well.

The Internet rejoiced when the Blackhawks and NBC analyst announced Thursday that his colon cancer was gone following treatment:

Amazing news, Eddie O.!

How are you liking Lighting the Lamp so far? Is there something you want to see more of? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @MichelleBruton. Want more hockey? Follow @FanSidedNHL on Twitter.