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| The Detroit News
Dallas – Connor Brown scored after getting hit in the mouth by a skate, Stuart Skinner made 25 saves for his third shutout of the postseason and the Edmonton Oilers beat the Dallas Stars 3-0 in Game 2 on Friday night to even the Western Conference final.
Brown put the Oilers up 3-0 with 4:37 left in the second period, connecting 1:13 after defenseman Brett Kulak’s deflection for his first goal in 36 games since Feb. 27.
It was early in the second period when officials stopped play with Brown bleeding after taking the toe of Mikael Granlund’s skate when the Stars forward fell down by him near the boards.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had another power-play goal for the Oilers, who go home for Game 3 on Sunday after avoiding an 0-2 start on the road for the second time this postseason.
Skinner has four career playoff shutouts, He closed out the second round with consecutive shutouts against Vegas.
Dallas’ Jake Oettinger stopped 22 shots.
Stars forward Roope Hintz left the ice without putting any weight on his left leg after Edmonton defender Darnell Nurse slashed him on top of his left skate early in the third. Hintz went down to the ice in front of the Edmonton net, and immediately reached toward his foot. Nurse was given a minor penalty for slashing after officials reviewed for a potential major penalty.
Nugent-Hopkins, who also had the primary assist on Brown’s goal, put the Oilers ahead to stay 5:51 into the game when had a tip-in Evan Bouchard’s shot from above the right circle that was wobbling toward the net after going off the stick of Hintz. Edmonton had the man advantage after a boarding penalty against Granlund.
It was the second game in a row that Nugent-Hopkins had a power-play goal. He had in a Game 4 win last year when the Oilers went on to beat Dallas in six games in the West final.
Leon Draisaitl had the secondary assist on that goal, and Connor McDavid had a helper on the Kulak’s goal. That pushed Draisaitl and McDavid, 100-point scorers during the regular season, to 20 points in these playoffs – matching Stars forward Mikko Rantanen for the league high.
It is the fourth 20-point postseason in a row for McDavid, matching the longest stretch in NHL history with Sergei Fedorov (1995-1998), Bryan Trottier (1980-1983) and Mike Bossy (1980-1983). Draisaitl hit the 20-point mark for the second year in a row.
Larkins announce birth of daughter
The Detroit Red Wings shared a family announcement for captain Dylan Larkin on the team’s X account on Friday.
Larkin and his wife, Kenzy, are now proud parents of a baby girl, Lennyn Marie Larkin, born May 19.
“Lennyn Marie Larkin — you are our greatest dream come true,” Larkin wrote on his Instagram page.
Congratulations to Dylan & Kenzy on the birth of their beautiful baby girl!
Lennyn Marie Larkin, born May 19th. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/SaYpttNKx9
— Detroit Red Wings (@DetroitRedWings) May 23, 2025
Islanders hire Darche as general manager
The New York Islanders hired Mathieu Darche as their general manager Friday, giving the two-time Stanley Cup-winning Tampa Bay Lightning assistant his long-awaited first chance to run an NHL team.
Darche was named executive vice president and GM and put in charge of the organization’s hockey operations department.
“Mathieu is the perfect choice to lead our hockey operations,” said co-owner John Collins, who ran the GM search. “He will be given every resource available to put the Islanders first-in-class on the ice, with our business initiatives and in the community.”
Darche joins the Islanders after spending the past six seasons with the Lightning, who never missed the playoffs during his tenure. He got his name engraved in the Cup in 2020 and ’21 as director of hockey operations and also worked directly for Tampa Bay GM Julien BriseBois over the past three years.
“Mathieu has served as a key member of the Tampa Bay Lightning and has a diverse background in top-level business models,” Collins said. “He is a proven winner and is committed, as is our ownership group, to building a group that will be highly competitive next season and beyond.”
The 48-year-old former player was considered the top NHL assistant who had not been GM in the league. Darche beat out more experienced executive Marc Bergevin for the job. He succeeds Lou Lamoriello in the role after the 82-year-old longtime executive’s contract was not renewed.
Darche played 268 regular-season and playoff games from 2001-12 as a winger with Columbus, Nashville, San Jose, Tampa Bay and Montreal. The Quebec native left hockey for a few years before moving to Tampa to begin working for the Lightning.
Taking over the Islanders, Darche starts with the No. 1 pick in the draft thanks to their unexpected lottery win and more than $25 million in salary cap space to use to inject some high-end talent into a roster lacking it. They traded center Brock Nelson at the deadline in March and missed the playoffs for the second time in four years.
“With the Islanders owning the first overall pick in the upcoming NHL draft and preparing to welcome the Olympic sendoff at UBS Arena next season, there is much to which our franchise, our players, and our passionate fans can look forward,” Collins said. “Mathieu’s arrival adds to that momentum.”
Darche inherits coach Patrick Roy, a Hall of Fame goaltender who has established himself as a fiery and effective voice behind the bench. He has been in charge on Long Island since Lamoriello hired him as a midseason replacement in January 2024, and Roy led a turnaround that season to get into the playoffs.
“I am truly honored by the opportunity,” Darche said. “I’d like to thank Scott Malkin, Jon Ledecky, John Collins, and the entire ownership group for entrusting me with the hockey operations of this great franchise.”
With 2023 All-Star and Vezina Trophy finalist goalie Ilya Sorokin signed long term and a reliable core of veterans around, the next step is drafting, developing and attracting more players who can bring offense. Only four teams scored fewer goals than the Islanders this past season.
Panthers sign Canadian singer Buble
The Florida Panthers have signed Canadian singer Michael Buble – for a good cause.
Buble, a five-time Grammy-winning pop icon, has signed on to be part of the team’s fundraising efforts for the American Cancer Society. The “Panthers on the Prowl” initiative combines art and philanthropy to support cancer research and patient services, and donors get the chance to sponsor life-sized panther sculptures that will be placed around South Florida.
The program is the brainchild of Panthers hockey operations president and general manager Bill Zito and his wife Julie Zito.
“’Panthers on the Prowl’ is a creative and really cool and uplifting way to demonstrate and show our support for those people that are suffering, so we can generate the much-needed funding to keep this fight going,” Buble said. “Cancer touches all of us, my family, friends, yours, neighbors, everyone. I joined my buddy Bill Zito and the Florida Panthers and all of our NHL hockey community because I want to be part of the solution.”
The issue is clearly one of deep personal significance to Buble. His son Noah, now 11, was diagnosed with a form of liver cancer in 2016 and was declared to be in remission about 18 months later. “The worst possible thing that you could hear as a parent, and as maybe a human being,” Buble said years later.
The Panthers’ program formally launched in March and has been backed by famed artist Romero Britto along with NFL players – and South Florida natives – Nick Bosa and Joey Bosa, among others.
Julie Zito is a cancer survivor, Bill Zito lost his mother and sister to cancer, and the Zito family recently lost a close friend to cancer as well. The couple got the inspiration for the artwork element of the initiative from the Cows on Parade public art project in Chicago; donors to the Panthers’ project can decorate their panther statuette in any way they’d like.
The team is hoping to raise at least $1 million.
“It’s in all of our families and all of our friendships,” said Zito, who joined the Panthers in 2020. “It makes me more determined not to achieve a goal for the goal’s sake, but to achieve a goal to bring people together.”
PWHL plans further expansion
As impressive as the PWHL’s growth has been less than two years since its launch, with the league blowing past initial attendance and revenue projections, and already into its first phase of expansion, Stan Kasten says you’ve seen nothing yet.
The league’s advisory board member laid out an ambitious vision of the PWHL’s future during a phone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday.
Kasten foresees further expansion – beyond the recent additions of Vancouver and Seattle to grow the PWHL to eight teams – within the next few years; the league capitalizing on the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics to broaden its reach internationally; and the prospect of turning a profit by 2031, when the league’s current CBA with its players expires.
“By every measure, we’re ahead of where we thought we would be. And we never thought we were going to be this niche six-team league in the northeast of North America,” Kasten said.
“Our manifest destiny is a lot more than six. It’s a lot more than eight. I don’t know how many,” he added. “My point is, we’re going to be a league like every other real major league, and that’s our goal. … We’re going to be spread – our footprint will be across this continent and hopefully others as well.”
Expansion plans
Without making a firm commitment, Kasten said there was enough interest from major markets that missed out on expansion this year to add even more teams by 2026-27. He said the league will have a better timeline on the next expansion phase based on how smoothly Vancouver and Seattle are incorporated.
“I’ll know by midseason what I think we should do and we’ll go from there,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s the year after or the year after that, but I think it’ll be sooner than most people ever imagined.”
Eye on Europe
What’s clearer is the league turning its focus toward Europe to coincide with the Olympics, and a women’s hockey tournament predominantly featuring PWHL talent.
Kasten said there have been discussions about playing exhibition games in Europe within the next two years, as well as building ties with European leagues for developmental purposes and even of one day establishing teams there.
“Europe is a big part of our future,” Kasten said.
“I think our presence on the international stage next year is going to be really well-timed, a propitious step for us,” he added. “We think the period before the Olympics, during the Olympics and after the Olympics are very important to the next stage of our development.”
Kasten spoke from Ottawa where he attended Game 2 of the best-of-five Walter Cup Finals series, which is tied at 1 after defending champion Minnesota’s 2-1 overtime win.
Attendance jumps
The PWHL is closing its second season, which featured jumps in attendance, revenues, sponsorships and goal scoring – from 4.8 to 5.02 per outing – over the inaugural season.
Average attendance rose from 5,448 per contest last year to 7,260 due in part to nine neutral site games drawing a combined 123,601 fans.
Attendance in Toronto and Montreal jumped with both teams playing in larger venues, though Minnesota and Ottawa had slight drops in average turnout when not including their designated “home” neutral site games.
Turnout continues to lag in New York where the Sirens finished last in the standingsfor a second straight year while averaging a league-low 2,764 fans per game – up from 2,496 last year – at the NHL Devils home, the Prudential Center.
Executive vice president of business operations Amy Scheer said the league’s sponsorships increased from 40 to 60, and merchandise sales doubled – helped by the PWHL unveiling logos and nicknames for its six teams this season.
Kasten doesn’t discount needs the PWHL has to address, noting the league intends to increase promotions and improve venues in various markets. Another concern is how fanbases will respond to each of the six existing teams standing to lose four players each as part of the expansion process next month.
Hopeful future
For Kasten, that doesn’t take away what the league has accomplished in 23 months since being launched by his boss, Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter and wife Kimbra, tennis icon Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss. As the PWHL’s financial backer, Walter committed hundreds of millions of dollars as part of a long-term vision to bring together the world’s top women players in one league.
Kasten said the initial projection for attendance was 1,000 per game for a league that in March surpassed the 1 million mark, including playoffs.
“I see us on a very distinct upward track able to look towards seasons where we can start to turn the corner and be in the black,” Kasten said, looking ahead to 2031.
“We’re far away from that now and that’s OK. We projected that,” he added. “But when that happens, we can also think about expanding the schedule. And with an expanded schedule in an environment where you’re finally making money, well, now there’s more money for more people.
“And so I hope by then we’re at that point. That would thrill me.”
Conference Finals scheduleEastern ConferenceCarolina vs. Florida
Panthers lead 2-0
▶ Game 1: Florida 5-2
▶ Game 2: Florida 5-0
▶ Game 3: Saturday at Florida, 8
▶ Game 4: Monday, May 26 at Florida, 8
▶ x-Game 5: Wednesday, May 28 at Carolina, TBA
▶ x-Game 6: Friday, May 30 at Florida, TBA
▶ x-Game 7: Sunday, June 1 at Carolina, TBA
Western ConferenceDallas vs. Edmonton
(Series tied 1-1)
▶ Game 1: Dallas 6-3
▶ Game 2: Edmonton 3-0
▶ Game 3: Sunday at Edmonton, 3
▶ Game 4: Tuesday, May 27 at Edmonton, 8
▶ Game 5: Thursday, May 29 at Dallas, TBA
▶ x-Game 6: Saturday, May 31 at Edmonton, TBA
▶ x-Game 7: Monday, June 2 at Dallas, TBA
x-If necessary
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