Wolf's play has helped the Flames surpass expectations and put him in serious consideration for the Calder Trophy.

The New York Rangers and Utah Hockey Club share a commonality of being .500 teams and facing similar deficits in the wild-card races of their respective conferences.

It is a brand new year, and one of the best practices of celebration is to reminisce on the prior one. In the world of hockey, a calendar year can mean a world of change for a fan, a player, a team, and an entire franchise.

After Utah's first matchup against the Rangers delivered a high scoring and dramatic game, more of the same happened the second time around. Both teams went back and forth all night, but the Rangers secured the 4-3 win after it got its first lead of the game in the third.

The Flames said in a news release Monday that Al MacNeil died Sunday in Calgary. No cause of death was provided.

“The hockey world lost an icon today with the passing of Al MacNeil,” said Flames President of Hockey Operations Don Maloney. “‘Chopper’ was a Stanley Cup champion and a Calder Cup champion but most importantly ‘he was our friend and mentor. We will sincerely miss his company and our conversations.”

A mid-January game against the Columbus Blue Jackets originally didn’t jump off the New York Rangers schedule as anything special. But it’s a downright critical game for each team when the Rangers host the Blue Jackets at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.

The Utah Hockey Club had an opportunity to play catch-up in the Western Conference playoff race during its seven-game January homestand. But Utah has gone 1-4-0 to fall six points behind Calgary in the race for the final playoff spot on their side of the league.

A perfect three-game road trip convinced the New York Islanders they were on the verge of mounting another midseason push for a playoff berth.

The Rangers haven’t wavered when describing their games for the past few weeks. Even if the results and their placement in the standings didn’t change much, they’d improved from the lowest points

It’s yet another loss for the Utah Hockey Club at the Delta Center as they continue their extended homestand. This time, it was the New York Rangers who handed Utah their 11th home loss this season despite a close 5-3 game between the two.

Artemi Panarin scored twice, Chris Kreider got the go-ahead goal with 9:38 left and the New York Rangers rallied for a 5-3 victory over the Utah Hockey Club on Thursday night. Reilly Smith tied it 3-all with a short-handed goal 28 seconds into the third period for the Rangers,