Blackhawks Daily: Kraken Hire Dan Bylsma; Stars Rally

Earlier in the day on Wednesday, reports started to come around that the Seattle Kraken made a coaching hire. They decided to promote Dan Bylsma from the head coaching job with the Coachella Valley Firebirds of the AHL to their head coaching position. Of course, he now knows the organization well since he worked for their AHL team.

Bylsma has been a coach in the NHL but it has been a long time. He coached the Pittsburgh Penguins from 2009 to 2014. He took over the team in the middle of the 2009 season after firing Michel Therrien and they won the Stanley Cup that spring.

He was then hired by the Buffalo Sabres in 2015 and served as their head coach for two years before being fired again. His stint with them didn’t go as well as his previous stop but he has been doing other jobs since until now.

With the Kraken, he will have a unique opportunity to jump into a messy situation that can still be saved. The Kraken were one of the league’s biggest disappointments in 2023-24 after they made the playoffs and won a round the year before.

If they want to make it in 2024-25, they must get some of their big kids scoring again. If Bylsma learned some things and he applied it to the NHL, the Kraken would be in good shape.

Later in the day, Seattle’s Pacific Division rival played a very important playoff game as the Edmonton Oilers hosted the Dallas Stars in game three of the Western Conference Finals. Connor McDavid made two very strong plays (1-1–2) within the first ten minutes of the first period and the Oilers had a 2-0 lead. After that, things started to tilt the other way.

When the second period started, Dallas took over. They dominated play and outshot the Oilers by double digits well into the middle frame. Dallas ended up tying the game and taking a 3-2 lead.

It looked like Dallas was going to cruise to another victory but Adam Henrique found a way to score a late second-period goal to tie it back up.

This game had long stretches of dominant play by either team but it never had any true flow. Eventually, Jason Robertson completed the hat trick when he scored a soft goal on Stuart Skinner after he had been making some huge saves. The Stars won 5-3 after putting one in the empty net.

The Stars now have a 2-1 series lead after this win. They will have a chance to take a commanding 3-1 series lead on Wednesday evening in Edmonton. In the East, the New York Rangers will take on the Florida Panthers in game four on Tuesday night in Sunrise. New York leads that one 2-1.

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The Chicago Blackhawks have a lot riding on that mid-first-round pick—a look historically at what it can generate and potential players who were taken in that range.

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