Kind of.
Welcome to Friday, folks! Happy Easter weekend, if you’re observing.
The NHL regular season officially wrapped up last night, with one result of consequence for the Bruins: the Flyers lost to the Sabres.
The loss helped the Flyers leapfrog (reverse leapfrog?) the Bruins to the fourth-worst points mark in the league, putting the B’s in fifth-worst position.
This, of course, means that if there’s no shuffling in the lottery, the Bruins will pick fifth overall in June’s draft; they could win the lottery, or could slide back as many as two spots to seventh overall.
Time will tell.
The playoffs will start on Saturday with two Western Conference games, followed by a three-game slate on Sunday.
Your first-round match-ups:
- Toronto vs. Ottawa
- Florida vs. Tampa Bay
- Carolina Vs. New Jersey
- Washington vs. Montreal
- Winnipeg vs. St. Louis
- Dallas vs. Colorado
- Vegas vs. Minnesota
- Los Angeles vs. Edmonton
Elsewhere, the Bruins held their end-of-season player availability yesterday, with several guys speaking before splitting up.
There wasn’t a ton of noteworthy sound from yesterday, but Charlie McAvoy’s injury was bad — like, really bad.
(You can click here to read an excerpt if you don’t have a subscription to The Athletic.)
A few guys hope to play in the IIHF World Championships (Jakub Lauko), while others plan to skip it (Pavel Zacha).
Also, Elias Lindholm revealed he suffered a back injury in August and felt like was playing catch-up the whole season, which would lead to some optimism that maybe he can turn it around next year.
Lastly (and unsurprisingly), Joe Sacco mentioned that he hasn’t received clarity on his future yet.
I find it hard to believe they’ll hand him the keys full time, but I guess that may depend on who else is out there and attainable for the job.
Again, time will tell.
What’s on tap for today?