Former Detroit Red Wings goalie Greg Millen died on Monday. He was 67. The NHL Alumni Association didn’t provide a cause in announcing his death on social media.
Millen suited up in 14 NHL seasons with six different teams – the Pittsburgh Penguins, Hartford Whalers, St. Louis Blues, Quebec Nordiques, Chicago Blackhawks and Red Wings.
He finished his career 215-284-89 with a 3.88 goals-against average and 17 shutouts. In 1991-92, he had a 3-2-3 record in 10 games with a 2.71 GAV and .896 save percentage.
After his playing career, Millen immediately slid over into broadcasting. He was with the Ottawa Senators during their inaugural season in 1992-93.
Over his broadcasting career, Millen was part of CBC’s “Hockey Night in Canada” and the NHL on Sportsnet. He covered three Olympic Games, two World Cups of Hockey, 12 Stanley Cup finals and 12 NHL All-Star games.
“The Pittsburgh Penguins extend their heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of former Penguins goaltender and NHL broadcaster, Greg Millen,” the team wrote in a statement on social media. Millen was a sixth-round pick of the Penguins in 1977.
The Blues echoed those sentiments on social media. Millen spent parts of six seasons with St. Louis.
Chris Pronger, a Hall of Fame defenseman, posted on social media: “Sad day learning of Greg Millen’s passing. He was one of the first NHL players I got to interact with when I was in Peterborough. He was in between NHL jobs and wanted to get some shots. Generous with his time and talking about the game. Lost a great man today. RIP Millsy.”
In a statement, Sportsnet said Millen was a “trusted and familiar voice in the homes of millions of Canadians for more than 30 years.” The network added: ”As both a player and broadcaster, Greg left an indelible mark on the sport, as well as everyone who had the pleasure to know him, watch him, and listen to him.”
Winnipeg, Manitoba – Connor Hellebuyck (Commerce Township) will knock on Scott Arniel’s door or pull his head coach aside for a brief chat. The Winnipeg Jets goaltender usually has one specific question before a road trip.
“What days we have off and should he bring his fishing gear?” Arniel said with a smile. “He’s extremely focused there … and then when he gets to the rink, he does not want to get scored on.”
Opponents have once again found that a challenge in 2024-25.
The two-time Vezina Trophy winner is on course to secure another nod as the NHL’s top goaltender and firmly entrenched in the league’s MVP conversation with less than two weeks remaining in the regular season.
The numbers are impressive. The accolades for a club atop the standings are nice.
The 31-year-old American, however, has just one prize in mind – the Stanley Cup.
“The only goal I have left,” Hellebuyck told the Canadian Press following a recent practice. “All the guys in that locker room feel the same way.”
He leads the league with a 43-12-3 record, .924 save percentage, 2.03 goals-against average and seven shutouts going into Monday’s game against St. Louis.
The Vezina winner in 2019-20 and again last season has impressed teammates by raising his own bar and injecting his name into the Hart Trophy mix alongside the likes of Edmonton Oilers star Leon Draisaitl and Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon.
“We always think that he’s reached his potential,” Jets defenseman Josh Morrissey said. “Then he goes out and does something new and proves that he always has more ceiling and areas to grow. We’re so fortunate to have him. A stabilizing force.”
Winnipeg captain Adam Lowry said Hellebuyck, whose big-money contract extension signed in October 2023 ties him to the Manitoba capital through 2030-31, hasn’t garnered the attention the netminder has truly deserved throughout his career.
“He’s able to anticipate,” Lowry said. “He’s so positionally sound that he gets to where he needs to be. Other goalies are maybe making desperation saves.”
“Makes it look easy,” Morrissey added. “It’s not easy.”
The Jets have also made crease life less chaotic for Hellebuyck with improved structure. Hellebuyck faced 2,155 shots in 2021-22 before former head coach Rick Bowness, who retired last May, took over in 2022-23. The shot number dropped to 1,964 that season and fell further to 1,798 in 2023-24. Hellebuyck has seen 1,561 pucks fired his direction through 59 games in Arniel’s first campaign.
“We hurt Helly’s stats in the past because he was so good and we played very loose,” Lowry said. “Even the best goalie in the world, the best shooters are going to beat him sometimes, especially from dangerous areas. We’ve really got a huge buy-in from the group and are committed to team defense. He’s the anchor.”
Hellebuyck could become the first goaltender to win the Hart as NHL MVP since Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens in 2014-15.
Lowry sees style parallels with the netminders.
“The game almost looks boring to them,” he said. “It’s smooth. It’s that inner drive where (Hellebuyck’s) working off the ice trying to perfect his movement. I don’t expect his aspirations or his pursuit of perfection to decrease. It’s only going to continue to increase until we reach that ultimate goal.”
“His competitiveness,” Arniel added of what stands out about the netminder’s approach. “His attention to detail about what he does every day.”
Hellebuyck, who backstopped the United States at the 4 Nations Face-Off, said the group in front of him is playing with a new level of belief despite losing in the first round of the playoffs the last two springs after failing to qualify in 2021-22.
“Every game is a chance to build,” he said. “We’re all playing with a lot of confidence. It’s not just stretches of confidence. It’s locked in.”
Winnipeg is on track to face Minnesota or St. Louis in the first round of the playoffs. And if the Jets, whose last deep postseason run came when the franchise made the 2018 Western Conference final, can get past that test, either Dallas or Colorado – fellow Central Division heavyweights – will be waiting.
Landing another Vezina or capturing a first Hart could be in cards. Hockey’s holy grail, however, is the sole target for Hellebuyck.
“The only thing we want to achieve,” he said. “Feels like we’re gonna go out and get things done.”
Tampa Bay 5, (at) N.Y. Rangers 1: Brayden Point had two goals an an assist and Nikita Kucherov added a goal and two assists for the Lightning.
Yanni Gourde and Brandon Hagel also scored, and Jake Guentzel had three assists for playoff-bound Tampa Bay, which was 3 for 4 on the power play. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 38 shots.
Mika Zibanejad scored for the Rangers, who lost their second straight and remain six points behind Montreal for the second wild card in the Eastern Conference. Both teams have five games remaining. Igor Shesterkin finished with 18 saves.
The only player in NHL history who has been teammates with Wayne Gretzky and Alex Ovechkin chuckled.
Ex-Red Wing Mike Knuble loves the stat that Gretzky has more assists than any other hockey player has points.
“If he didn’t score a goal, he’d still be leading everybody in points,” Knuble said. “That’s crazy.”
Now, Ovechkin has more goals after breaking Gretzky’s record by scoring the 895th of his career Sunday, putting the “Great 8” ahead of the “Great One” in terms of putting the puck in the net. But Gretzky’s dominance through the high-scoring 1980s and into the ’90s was more about playmaking and setting others up, while Ovechkin entered the league in 2005 during a new era of rule changes that opened the door for more offense and earned the record as a hard-shooting pure scorer who affected the sport in different ways.
“Wayne, the way he changed his game was by his thinking: just the turn-ups, the delaying, kind of evolving the game into a little bit more of a thinking man’s game and figure out how to capitalize the area behind the net, really use that to his advantage,” said Knuble, who played a combined 1,133 NHL regular-season and playoff games from 1997-2013. “Alex is just straightforward like, ‘I’m just going to go around you, I’m going through you or however to get this puck in the net.’ Two different styles.”
Reigning Stanley Cup-winning coach Paul Maurice opined, “They’re completely different styles of play: completely different players, other than what an incredible record.”
By the time Maurice started coaching in the NHL in the mid-’90s, Gretzky and Mario Lemieux were on the downside of their careers, and Ovechkin was nearly a decade from starting his.
Teams turned to clutching, grabbing, hooking and holding to slow down skilled stars such as Gretzky.
“Gretzky made the game offensively so much more dynamic,” said St. Louis Blues coach Jim Montgomery, who played a few NHL seasons against Gretzky as well as one game in Russia against Ovechkin. “That led to real more defensive-minded approach by a lot of coaches: How do we stop these delays? How do we stop Gretzky behind the net, so the game got better offensively and then it got better significantly defensively.”
From a height of 8.02 goals a game in 1981-82, when Gretzky set the single-season record with 92, the so-called dead puck era hit its nadir in 2003-04 at 5.14. The Washington Capitals won the draft lottery that spring – 21 years to the day of Ovechkin scoring No. 895 – but a lockout wiped out the entire next season, bringing with it a salary cap and better enforcement of penalties that encouraged scoring with extra room for skating and creativity and more power plays.
“The game opened for most things, and I think that created the opportunity for a great player to come in and challenge the record,” said Maurice, who has coached the second-most games in NHL history behind the legendary Scotty Bowman. “If the game doesn’t change, you wouldn’t have seen somebody challenge Wayne Gretzky’s record.”
Ovechkin has scored a record 325 power-play goals. Gretzky has the most at even strength with 617 and 73 short-handed.
“Ovechkin is the best goal-scorer ever,” said Hall of Famer Teemu Selanne, who’s 12th on the career goals list with 684. “I don’t think a lot of people would consider Gretzky as a goal-scorer, really. He has 894 goals. It’s unbelievable. And he still has 1,000 points more than No. 2 on the scoring list, so those are sick numbers.”
Technically 936 more than second-place Jaromir Jagr and 714 more assists than Ron Francis. Gretzky’s 2,857 points and 1,963 assists are records are far more untouchable than his goal mark ever was.
Gretzky was also so influential that he made the league rewrite part of its rulebook. His teams were too good at 4 on 4 with more ice to work with that each team taking a penalty no longer led to that, and the play remained 5 on 5.
Goaltenders also geared up more along the way, adding padding as stick technology improved and shots got harder and faster. It got more difficult to score, yet Ovechkin still did it more than anyone else.
“It’s so hard,” Gretzky said. “I don’t care what era you play in: ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, it’s hard to score goals. Good for him. Players are better today. The equipment’s better. The coaching’s better. But that’s the progression in our game.”
The game also got faster and more physical – not fighting, exactly, but bigger and stronger players dishing out bone-crushing hits. And unlike so many of his Soviet predecessors, Ovechkin was not fancy and finesse.
“You think of the great Russian players – Pavel Bure, Alexander Mogilny, Sergei Fedorov, Artemi Panarin, Kirill Kaprizov – all of these guys are beautiful skaters with great passing, and they’re the chess players that you expect from Russia,” said Steven Warshaw, a marketing executive who lived and worked in Moscow for the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1990s when they invested in a team there. “Whereas Ovechkin is more like Bamm-Bamm from the ‘Flintstones.’ He’s got his 100 mph slap shot. He’s a brutal player. He defines power forward. He is clearly a machine.”
Trying to stop Ovechkin the machine and Gretzky over his career that overlapped theirs, Mike Grier acknowledged one was a physical battle and the other more mental.
Gretzky, Lemieux and their ilk were always thinking two steps ahead, while Ovechkin was two steps from laying out a big hit or sniping a shot into the top corner.
“It was kind of a different job when you checked them versus someone like Ovechkin,” said Grier, now general manager of the San Jose Sharks. “Ovi, you have an idea where he’s going to be and he’ll engage in the physical game with you a little bit. I think that sometimes gets him going. But that was the challenge: He could physically take over games and be hard on you and your defensemen, but I think Wayne and those guys, they were just so smart that you think you had a lane covered or something and they’d find the next option.”
Rick Tocchet, who played against and coached with Gretzky and has been on the other bench facing Ovechkin during several playoff series over the years, thinks physicality is a big reason why Ovechkin broke the record.
“People are like, yeah, he’s a great goal-scorer, but this guy’s made some big hits in his career that’s loosened up those goals,” said Tocchet, now coach of the Vancouver Caucks. “That’s why he gets those goals because the next thing you know, the (defensemen) are not going as hard and they lose him and he gets those slot shots and he scores on a million shots around the net, too, because he’s not afraid to go in front of the net.”
But is it harder to score goals during Ovechkin’s time than Gretzky’s?
Tocchet isn’t sure. Knuble is well aware that changes in equipment, goalies and more make it difficult, if not impossible to compare the two, and he and others around the sport prefer to appreciate the varying degrees of greatness.
“It’s a little different era,” Selanne said, “but getting close to 900 goals like Ovechkin right now, it’s remarkable.”
Sandy, Utah – Utah Hockey Club will open a new practice and training facility for team use on September 1st, the club announced Monday.
The 115,780-square-foot facility, built on the southeastern end of a Sandy shopping mall, will house two NHL standard ice sheets. It will also include training, medical, and dining facilities as well as team locker rooms.
Building a practice facility quickly was one of the immediate challenges Utah owner Ryan Smith faced in bringing an NHL team to the Beehive State. The Utah Olympic Oval, which is primarily used for speedskating events, severed as the team’s practice facility this season, but it was intended to only be a temporary solution.
“We want to be competitive in the NHL and to do that you got to have a place where these guys can practice and they can recover and it’s home,” Smith said. “We did a miraculous job with the Oval, but at the same time that’s not this.”
Players on Utah’s roster had input on the practice facility’s design from the dining areas to the locker rooms. The facility incorporates many of their suggestions.
“We tried to involve them as much as we can in every part of this,” Smith said.
Utah’s practice facility will also be ready for public use in January 2026. It will feature event venues, eight community locker rooms, equipment rentals and a team store. The ice rinks will be available to the public when not in use by the team.
▶ Toronto 98
▶ Tampa Bay 96
▶ Florida 92
▶ Washington 107
▶ Carolina 96
▶ New Jersey 89
▶ Ottawa 88
▶ Montreal 85
▶ N.Y. Rangers 79
▶ Detroit 79
▶ N.Y. Islanders 78
▶ Columbus 77
▶ Pittsburgh 74
▶ Buffalo 74
▶ Philadelphia 71
▶ Boston 71
Tuesday
Red Wings at Canadiens, 7
Wednesday
Grand Rapids at Cleveland, 7
Thursday
Red Wings at Panthers, 7
Western Michigan vs. Denver at St. Louis, 5
Friday
Red Wings at Lightning, 7
Texas at Grand Rapids, 7
Youngstown at NTDP U17, 7
Saturday
Texas at Grand Rapids, 7
NTDP U17 at Youngstown, 6
