Monday LNN: Oh God, Please be Healthy Brady!

The Ottawa Senators are getting perilously close to clinching their post-season birth since 2017, but all that folks around the team were talking about on Monday is the status of Brady Tkachuk. The Sens' captain missed practice today, as did Artem Zub:

#Sens lines from practice:

Halliday-Stutzle-Zetterlund
Perron-Cozens-Batherson
Greig-Pinto-Giroux
Highmore-Gaudette-Amadio

Sanderson-Hamonic
Chabot-Jensen
Kleven-Matinpalo
Gilbert

No Tkachuk or Zub*— Alex Adams (@alexadamssn.bsky.social) March 24, 2025 at 11:47 AM

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Tkachuk appeared to suffer an injury in Saturday's victory over the New Jersey Devils and played sparingly down the stretch of that match-up. With the captain out, Stephen Halliday lined up on the first trio. It goes without saying that for Ottawa to be successful down the stretch, they will need their captain.

• Speaking of Saturday's affair, Wayne Scanlan has a write up of all the ways the Sens are getting it done down the stretch.
• Julian McKenzie had a nice long form profile of Jake Sanderson over at the Athletic. If the hockey world wasn't aware of just how good Jake is, they sure are getting to know him.
• "Craig Berube is still trying to figure out how to get the best out of the Toronto Maple Leafs" is a March column that I feel you could have predicted with a great degree of certainty back in October. Not to put too fine a point on it, but maybe they just aren't as good as everyone in the organization hoped they'd be?
• One player (besides Jesper Bratt) who did stand out to me for the Devils on Saturday was Luke Hughes. I'm not sure he's ever going to be as good as Quinn, but that boy can skate. NHL.com has also noticed his stellar play.
• Continuing with the Devils, Sheldon Keefe apparently thought that Kovacevic could have played a better game on Saturday. I mean... I guess? Not sure that guy's the source of the team's problems, though!
• Friend of the blog Travis Yost has a nice piece today examining the importance of special teams for each of the Cup contenders. He's noticed an interesting trend: it's vital to have a good power play, but less important to maintain a strong penalty kill. To wit:

With the exception of the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2023-24 season, every recent champion has maintained a power play varying from good to electric; their penalty-kill units, meanwhile, were right around league average over teams’ respective regular seasons. It certainly is a far cry from the days of the Los Angeles Kings and Pittsburgh Penguins routinely winning tight-checking games en route to their titles.

Some interesting food for thought, at the very least.

• And last, but definitely not least, Kirsten Simms scored the tying goal with 18.9 seconds left, on a penalty shot, and then the winner in overtime, to give the Wisconsin Badgers the NCCA Women's Ice Hockey title. The highlights from this game are worth watching in their entirety, but if nothing else you must see Simms' penalty shot goal to tie it. Ice water in her veins: