Tony DeAngelo saved special praise for rookie goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov after the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Boston Bruins 5-2 on Wednesday.

Kochetkov was thrust into the spotlight for his playoff debut as the Hurricanes took a 2-0 lead in what is becoming a fiery series.

With Frederik Andersen already down, tempers boiled over as the Canes had to turn to Kochetkov after Antti Raanta was struck in the head by David Pastrnak's glove as he skated past.

The two teams traded words and big hits throughout, and defenseman DeAngelo made it clear where the Hurricanes stand with the Bruins in this series.

"We're not going to get pushed around, I guarantee you that," he said.

DeAngelo was glowing of Kochetkov's demeanour after the first-period change and his ability to keep it simple in a heated environment, making 30 saves.

"I think he's real calm," his team-mate said. "You don't see any jitters, at least in my eyes. I don't know what he's feeling inside. I'm sure he's a little nervous. Anybody would be, right?

"But I thought he was real calm in the net. He made a lot of saves, wasn't trying to do too much. He was calm. Coming into goal in the first period in a playoff game as a rookie after coming here a few weeks ago, he was really good."

Elsewhere on Wednesday, the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Minnesota Wild tied up their respective series against the Toronto Maple Leafs and the St. Louis Blues with wins.

The Edmonton Oilers also tied up their series, smashing the Los Angeles Kings in a 6-0 shutout.

The NHL's leading goal-scorer and MVP candidate Auston Matthews slotted home two more in the Toronto Maple Leafs' 5-0 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 1 of their playoff series.

Matthews – who is first player since 2011-12 to score 60 goals in a season – got on the scoresheet early in the second period to make it 2-0 for Toronto after Jake Muzzin's opener to close the first frame.

Mitchell Marner assisted the first Matthews goal and also set up David Kampf to make it 3-0, before he got on the scoresheet himself to make it four, capping off a brilliant second period.

Matthews scored his second goal of the game to round out the rout in the last period, with Morgan Reilly collecting his second assist in the process.

Speaking to post-game media, Matthews gave plenty of credit to the Maple Leafs' penalty-killing unit after the Lightning failed to score from five power-play attempts, as well as his running-mate Marner.

"I thought we played fast, we played through the contact," he said. "Our penalty-kill [unit] was huge tonight, I thought that brought us a lot of momentum.

"I thought [Marner] was incredible. He was all over the puck – so much poise – he's just doing his thing out there. 

"It's fun to watch, and fun to be out there with him. I know he's going to continue to elevate, so we've got to look for everybody to do that as well.

"We were able to capitalise on some chances, so I thought it was a really good effort by us. But it's a series – it's going to be a long series – and there's a really good team on the other end. 

"They'll be ready to go next game, so we've got to watch this one, learn from it, and move on to the next one."

Matthews also highlighted the energy inside the building as the Toronto crowd tries to will their team to their first series win since 2004.

"It was humming here tonight," he said. "It was just electric through all 60 minutes.

"I think that's what playoff hockey is all about, the atmosphere and everything. 

"It's been a while since we've been in front of our fans in front of a full arena in the playoffs, so there's a lot of excitement, and the guys fed off the energy."

It was a similarly dominant showing for the Carolina Hurricanes, as they beat the Boston Bruins 5-1 at home.

There were five individual goal-scorers for the Hurricanes as Seth Jarvis, Nino Niederreiter, Teuvo Teravainen, Vincent Trocheck and Andrei Svechnikov put in one each.

The St Louis Blues collected an important road win against the Minnesota Wild, scoring twice in the opening period on the way to a 4-0 result.

David Perron was the man of the hour for the Blues, capping off his hat-trick with the final goal of the game, while Torey Krug had three assists.

The most competitive game of the night was the Los Angeles Kings' trip to take on the Edmonton Oilers, escaping with a 4-3 road win.

After two action-packed periods the sides were tied at 3-3 going into the last, with a late Phillip Danault goal proving to be the difference.

Ryan Reaves has no doubt that the New York Rangers are worthy of their place among the NHL's elite teams.

The Rangers moved to 26-10-4 for the season with a 6-3 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday.

They top the Metropolitan Division and sit third in the overall Eastern Conference standings on 56 points, behind the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers.

Reaves, who turned 35 on Thursday, scored the first two goals of his Rangers career in the win over Toronto, doubling his tally from last season with the Vegas Golden Knights.

When asked if Rangers had to now be considered as one of the best teams in the NHL, Reaves told reporters: "I think we know it. I think maybe some of the league doesn't believe it, but let them keep [not] believing it.

"We're gonna keep doing our thing and, I mean, the standings don't lie."

The Rangers have not won a division title since 2014-15, while their last Conference Championship came a year before that. The most recent of their four Stanley Cup triumphs, meanwhile, was achieved in the 1993-94 season.

Next up for the Rangers is a huge, top-of-the-standings contest against the Carolina Hurricanes, who sit just behind New York in the Metropolitan Division.

"It shows that we can hang with the big boys, that we are one of the big boys," a bullish Reaves continued.

"We've got to keep beating the playoff teams. That's something we've talked about, but I think we're proving to the league that we're a contender."

Sheldon Keefe said the Toronto Maple Leafs would reap the benefits of a convincing 6-2 win over the Los Angeles Kings.

Toronto are 10-2 for November so far, a league-leading number of wins, and sit in second place in the Atlantic Division after that surge.

Wednesday night's victory saw Keefe's team avenge a 5-1 loss to the Kings from earlier in the month when the Maple Leafs had a rare off night.

On this occasion, a 4-1 burst in the second period took the game away from the Kings, with the evening's endeavour leaving Keefe full of admiration for his team come the end of the game.

Goals from Pierre Engvall, Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Michael Bunting, Alexander Kerfoot and Jason Spezza sank the home side, with Rasmus Sandin notching three assists.

Keefe said: "I thought we did some good things in terms of how we want to attack the net, increase our volume a little bit. But I don't know if it's just a matter of some of the luck coming back our way. I don't know if we did anything a whole lot different than what we have been doing in other games, but it was certainly nice to see it going [our way].

"I can't remember the last time we've blown a game open like that. It's been a long time, all season frankly. So it was nice to have that.

"We've played good hockey on the road of late, but we haven't gotten the goals so we've really had to grind it out till the end, so it was nice today to have a nice cushion and leave here with lots of positivity.

"It's great for the team, great for the camaraderie of the group.

"It was nice to have that for our guys. When you’re scoring, the group is feeling good. We have played good hockey on the road here of late, but we haven’t gotten the goals.

"We have really had to grind it out to the very end. It was nice today to have a good cushion. We will leave here with lots of positivity and the group feeling good."

There was a negative among abundant positives as David Kampf hit his head after a coming together with the Kings' Rasmus Kupari and was withdrawn in the first period and kept off the ice thereafter.

Keefe said: "With the nature of the hit, it is precautionary. He will be re-evaluated tomorrow. We will take it from there.

"I saw a replay on the bench. It looked to me like direct contact to his head, so you hate to see that. I don't know how much intent was there, it looked pretty accidental to me."

Toronto Maple Leafs captain John Tavares has been discharged from hospital following a head injury suffered on Thursday that will see him out indefinitely.

Off balance following a collision, a prone Tavares was caught by the knee of passing Montreal Canadiens winger Corey Perry during the opening game of the playoff series.

Tavares initially rose to his knees before then slipping back down to the ice. He was taken from the rink on a stretcher, though did offer a thumbs-up upon his departure midway through the first period.

The Leafs announced on Friday that, following thorough checks, the 30-year-old was cleared to return home and rest. There is no timetable for his return to action, though.

"Toronto Maple Leafs captain John Tavares has been discharged from hospital this morning," read a statement released by the team via social media.

"He was thoroughly examined and assessed by the neurosurgical team at St Michael’s Hospital and the club's medical director.

"He was kept overnight for observation and is now resting at home under the care and supervision of team physicians.

"Tavares will be out indefinitely."

The Maple Leafs lost 2-1 at the start of the best-of-seven series in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Game two takes place in Toronto on Saturday.

Tavares had 19 goals and 31 assists in the regular season, helping his team finish top of the North Division. He has 819 points in his NHL career, having previously played for the New York Islanders.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have not got their hands on the Stanley Cup since 1967.

A member of the "Original Six", Punch Imlach's Maple Leafs conquered their Canadian rivals, the Montreal Canadiens, for their 13th Stanley Cup 54 years ago.

It was Toronto's fourth championship in the 1960s, which formed the second of two recognised dynasties from 1947 to 1951 and from 1962 to 1967.

The celebrations then stopped for the Leafs, leading to the longest active title drought in the NHL – 52 consecutive seasons (not including the 2004-05 lockout).

But, after years of pain and false hope, are Sheldon Keefe's Leafs – spearheaded by Auston Matthews and a supporting cast that includes Mitch Marner – finally on the cusp of ending their long-standing drought?

It has been more than four decades since the Leafs and Canadiens faced off in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

As the Leafs, who have not won a playoff series since 2004, prepare for the mouth-watering first-round showdown, we look at the team's rise from pretenders to genuine contenders, using Stats Perform data.

Leafs find their way under Keefe

There were high hopes when the Leafs and Ontario native Mike Babcock came together in 2015. Toronto made the Stanley Cup-winning head coach the highest paid in NHL history following his success with the Detroit Red Wings.

One of the most coveted coaches at the time, the championship-chasing Leafs viewed Babcock as the perfect man to oversee the culmination of rebuild in pursuit of the ultimate prize. Despite a talented roster, the franchise's vision did not materialise – Toronto never made it out of the first round of the playoffs following three consecutive postseason appearances. Babcock's style did not go down well at Scotiabank Arena.

The Leafs eventually fired Babcock in November 2019 and Toronto Marlies coach Sheldon Keefe was promoted to the top job.

At the time of Babcock's departure, the Leafs led a league-low 21.1 per cent of the time. This season, Toronto rank second for the highest percentage of time leading (45.4), just behind the Colorado Avalanche (45.5).

This season's percentage of time leading is the highest mark in Leafs history, eclipsing the 43.1 per cent recorded in 1924-25.

The Leafs have long been judged by the Babcock era, but the 40-year-old Keefe is finally utilising this highly skilled squad, while helping John Tavares rediscover his best form.  

Toronto also appear to finally have the kind of physicality it needs for the demands of playoff hockey. Complementing their exciting roster with the experience of premier top-line center and former San Jose Sharks All-Star Joe Thornton also bodes well as the Leafs enter the postseason as one of the heaviest teams in the league – 201.1 pounds, only behind the Vegas Golden Knights (207), Dallas Stars (203.1), Washington Capitals (202.9), Anaheim Ducks (202.6) and Tampa Bay Lightning (202.4).

Matthews in a league of his own

The Leafs wasted no time selecting Matthews in 2016 when he was widely considered the top prospect of the NHL draft.

Matthews hit the ground running, becoming the first player in modern NHL history to score four goals in his debut. He also set a Leafs record with 40 goals in his first season, while becoming just the second rookie since the 2004-05 lockout to achieve the milestone.

The centerpiece of the franchise has taken his game to another level this season.

Matthews, who has developed into arguably the best goal-scorer of his generation, tallied a remarkable league-high 41 goals in just 52 games in 2020-21. He managed 47 in 70 regular-season appearances last year. The last Leafs player to lead the NHL in goals was Gaye Stewart in 1945-46.

Matthews' performance led to the best goals-per-game average (0.79) in franchise history, topping Charlie Conacher's record of 0.77 that had stood since 1931-32. The 23-year-old Matthews already has 199 goals and 351 points in his career.

He ranks 14th all time for the most goals before age 24, but he finds himself in good company on a list that is topped by Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky (405) and includes Mario Lemieux (300), Steven Stamkos (222), Alex Ovechkin (219), Sidney Crosby (215) and Jaromir Jagr (202).

Toronto's dynamic duo

While Matthews is the star, Marner is the other half of Toronto's terrific duo.

A much-loved figure in Toronto, Marner has always been a great young player with loads of potential. The 24-year-old right wing took a step forward this season as a model of consistency for the North Division champions.

Marner, who was a fourth-round pick a year before the Leafs brought in Matthews, ranks fourth in the NHL in points (67) and assists this season (47). And with the Ontario-born winger on ice, the Leafs have scored 89 goals and conceded 57 this season – a differential of plus-32. That differential shrinks to just plus-6.0 without him.

Keefe paired Matthews and Marner together midway through last season and it is a move that continues to pay dividends. Marner has assisted on 25 Matthews goals this year, ahead of Edmonton Oilers duo Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid (22) for the most in the league.

Marner and Matthews are also the first pair of team-mates in NHL history to have five 60-point seasons together before turning 24. (This is based on their age when they reached 60 points. Marner achieved the feat before celebrating his 24th birthday.)

With Matthews and Marner leading the way, the Maple Leafs have a real shot of not only beating their rivals in the first round but in ending one of the longest active title droughts in North American sports.

Nick Foligno reflected on a "pretty amazing day" after joining the Toronto Maple Leafs in a three-team trade.

The Maple Leafs landed Columbus Blue Jackets captain Foligno, who can become an unrestricted free agent after this season, on Sunday.

Columbus receive a first-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft and a fourth-round pick in the 2020 Draft as part of the deal.

The San Jose Sharks gain a fourth-round pick in 2021 from the Maple Leafs for forward Stefan Noesen.

Foligno, 33, has been the Blue Jackets' skipper for almost six years but is looking forward to a new challenge.

He said: "It was an emotional couple of days. I have the utmost respect for [Columbus general manager] Jarmo [Kekalainen] and how he brought this to my attention, talking about how if there was something that made sense for the team that he would try to keep me in the loop, and that meant a lot to me.

"Ultimately, it's always what's best for the team, but he was able to fill me in on some things and see where I was headed, and it just fell into place where it worked out to come to Toronto.

"It's been a pretty amazing day once you've made the decision, but a hard day obviously with all the emotion attached to Columbus. Now that it has sunk in and how excited I am to join this team and help in any way I can, it really gets me going."

Foligno has scored 16 points in 42 games this season. He has played a mammoth 950 regular-season games for the Blue Jackets and Ottawa Senators, tallying 482 points - with 203 goals and 279 assists.

Like everything else over the past year, the hockey world has been turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic. The 2019-20 season was completed with teams playing in bubble locations in Toronto and Edmonton and the 2020 campaign will open without fans as part of a condensed 56-game season, among a slew of other changes. 

With the previous season extending several months past the normal ending date, the league had little choice but to delay the start of 2021 and to find a way to make a shortened season work. The new plan is for the regular season to end on May 8, with the Stanley Cup awarded no later than July 9. 

Of course, nothing is set in stone anymore and the NBA and NFL have had to deal with countless COVID-19 issues, so the NHL expects similar problems to arise with the pandemic experiencing another surge. The league knows it may have to adapt and games will very likely need to be rescheduled. 

The NHL has already dealt with this, as the start of the season for the Dallas Stars had to be pushed back to January 19 after six players and two staffers tested positive for coronavirus. While the completion of last season in the bubble locations was virtually flawless, teams are playing in home arenas this season, increasing the chances of players becoming infected. 

To combat this, teams will be allowed to carry taxi squads of four to six extra players who will practice and be prepared to step in when needed. 

While there is less hockey to enjoy, there are some tweaks to the upcoming season that fans will enjoy. 

The four divisions have been realigned and they include an all-Canada division of seven teams, made necessary by border restrictions. The other three divisions are mostly based on geography, but St Louis and Minnesota were shuffled into a division with the three California teams, Vegas, Arizona and Colorado. 

The Chicago-Detroit rivalry gets renewed with the Red Wings moving into the Central Division, and Tampa Bay and Dallas – last season's Stanley Cup Final participants – are now together in the Central.  

There should be no shortage of intensity this season with teams scheduled to play mostly back-to-back sets solely against teams in their own division. So, the Flyers and Penguins will meet eight times, as will the Islanders and Rangers and Kings and Ducks. The teams in the all-Canada division will face each other nine or 10 times.  

The first two playoff rounds will be played within the division, meaning the bad blood that started in the regular season could grow even deeper. The division winners will then advance to the semifinals but seeding will be based on points rather than geography.  

The new setup raises the possibility of a Stanley Cup Final between traditional East teams like the Capitals and Penguins or Canadian rivals Montreal and Toronto.   

To recoup some of the money lost by having no fans or limited fans at the start of the season in some cities, the NHL is allowing teams to include a sponsor name on their helmets and each division will also include the name of a corporate sponsor. 

The condensed season was preceded by an abbreviated training camp without exhibition games and there is concern that the start of the season will be marred by sloppy play. This could be especially true for the seven teams that have not played a game since March after they did not qualify for the expanded playoffs.  

As in any offseason, several big-name players changed teams. It will be jarring to see 43-year-old Zdeno Chara in a Capitals uniform and Joe Thornton playing for the Maple Leafs after 14 seasons in San Jose. Henrik Lundqvist would have looked strange as a member of the Capitals following an 887-game run with the Rangers, but he decided not to play this season due to a heart condition. 

Injuries will also keep some marquee players off the ice for a while. Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov – the 2018-19 scoring leader – will miss the entire regular season due to hip surgery and the Stars could be without top forward Tyler Sequin (hip) and goaltender Ben Bishop (knee) until at least March.  

Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews is out indefinitely with an unknown illness and there is no word on whether the 12-time 20-goal scorer will play this season. 

While this season is full of unknowns and will be like no other before it, the potential is there for it to be one of the most exciting in recent memory.