TORONTO/NEW YORK – The National Hockey League Players’ Association and National Hockey League announced today that goaltender Spencer Knight of the Florida Panthers will be unavailable to his Club for an indefinite period while he receives care from the player assistance program of the NHL and NHLPA.
Under the terms of the joint program, Knight will continue to be paid while receiving treatment. He will return to the Club when cleared for on-ice competition by the program administrators.
NEW YORK – Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak has been suspended for two games, without pay, for elbowing Buffalo Sabres forward Kyle Okposo during NHL Game No. 921 in Tampa on Thursday, Feb. 23, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced today.
The incident occurred at 18:23 of the third period.
Under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and, based on his average annual salary, Cernak will forfeit $31,891.90. The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.
NEW YORK – Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand has been fined $5,000, the maximum allowable under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, for a dangerous trip against Seattle Kraken forward Oliver Bjorkstrand during NHL Game No. 927 in Seattle on Thursday, Feb. 23, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced today.
The incident occurred at 14:22 of the third period.
The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.
After winning by a score of 1-0 at Charlotte in June 2022, Austin FC will play this match for the second time in MLS against an expansion team. In the 62nd minute, Daniel Pereira scored the game’s only goal.
Austin FC improved by 25 points from its expansion 2021 campaign (31 to 56 points) to reach the Conference Final in its second MLS season. That improvement, along with Chivas USA’s 25-point improvement from 2005 to 2006, is the largest by a team from its first to second MLS season.
Since 2019, each of the five most recent MLS expansion teams has lost their first regular season match. In 2018, Los Angeles FC is the only one of the 11 newcomers to the MLS who has won its first MLS match (1-0 at Seattle) since 2012. The only time an expansion team has won on the road against a non-expansion team is in that LAFC victory—Fire did the same in 1998 when they beat Miami Fusion, another expansion team.
During the regular season, Sebastian Driussi scored 22 goals, one more than Hany Mukhtar, who led the league with 23 goals. Driussi scored at least one goal in 13 of his 17 regular-season games at Q2 Stadium, tying him for the most in the league with 20 goals (15 goals, 5 assists).
In recent times, it has been difficult to score goals in a team’s first MLS match; Nashville in 2020 was the only one of the four teams to join MLS since 2020 to score in their first match. Vancouver (4-2 vs. Toronto) was the last team to score more than once in their first MLS match in 2011.
The Union have kept clean sheets in each of their five games against the Crew, going unbeaten in those contests (W3 D2). Six consecutive clean sheets against a single opponent are the MLS record, and Seattle has done it three times, most recently against D. C. United from 2011 to 2016.
The Union have won a club record 11 consecutive home MLS games, including victories in their first-ever MLS Cup Final. Philadelphia posted a +40 goal difference, breaking the previous record by 10 goals, and tied the MLS season record for home goals (49, set by the Crew in 1998).
The Crew won 10 of their 17 away matches last season, tying a MLS record. Last season, no team lost more games away from home than Columbus (4, tied with Cincinnati and Montreal), but only six teams won more away games than the Crew did.
Daniel Gazdag set Union single-season goals and assists records with 32. He, Julian Carranza, and Mikael Uhre, both 14, scored 49 goals last season. In the history of MLS, only three sets of teammates have scored more goals together in a single season.
In 2022, Cucho Hernandez contributed to eight goals (5 goals, 3 assists) in eight away games, including a league record of at least one goal in each of his first seven away games.
Last season, Orlando City won its final two matches against the Red Bulls, winning 5-1 in the US Open Cup semi-finals and 1-0 in August at Red Bull Arena. This is the first time Orlando has defeated the Red Bulls in a row after winning just five of the previous 16 meetings (D2 L9).
In the US Open Cup Final, Orlando City defeated Sacramento Republic 3-0 to claim their first trophy in club history. However, following that victory, Orlando went on to lose five of its final seven games (W2), including a playoff loss to Montreal.
The Red Bulls equaled the league record for road victories to begin a season with seven wins in all competitions during the 2022 season, including five victories in MLS regular season play. After a strong start, New York won just four of its final 13 away games in all competitions (D3 L6).
The only Lions player to reach double digits in 2022 was Ercan Kara, who led Orlando City with 11 goals. Orlando City has had no less than one 10-objective scorer in every one of the eight MLS season, the main group in MLS history to have a player hit twofold figures in objectives in every one of its initial eight seasons.
Lewis Morgan led the Red Bulls this season with 14 goals, nearly three times as many as P. Klimala and Luquinhas combined (5 each). Bradley Wright-Phillips was the only Red Bulls player in the last decade to score more goals in a season. Between 2014 and 2018, he scored at least 17 goals in five consecutive seasons.
CF Montréal has won four of the six times it has played Inter Miami (D1 L1), including a 3-1 victory in October at DRV Pink Stadium. In addition, Miami’s only victory in the series was a 21-point victory in Florida in July 2021.
In 2022, with a home record, Inter Miami made its first appearance in club history in the playoffs. Miami had won 11 of its previous 14 home matches in all competitions (D2 L1) before losing to Montréal in its final home game of the season.
Last year, CF Montréal set club records for points (65, 14 more than in any other season), wins (20, 5 more than in any other season), goals (63, 11 more than in any other season), and goal differential (+ 13, 9 better than in any other season).
In the offseason, Inter Miami CF made a trade to acquire Josef Martinez from Atlanta United. Martinez has scored more MLS goals for Atlanta United (including playoffs) than any other player in club history, 81 more than any other player, and 32 more MLS goals since joining the league in 2017.
The longest road winning streak since the breakaway shootout was abolished in 2000 belonged to CF Montréal’s final seven away matches of the 2022 season, which included a 3-1 victory at Miami. There has never been a team in MLS history to win eight straight regular season road games.
D.C. United has won three of their last 12 meetings with Toronto FC, while Toronto FC has only won two of those contests. In its six home matches against the Reds during that time, DC is undefeated, winning twice and drawing four times.
Last season, D.C. United only won one of its final 13 games (D3 L9), losing all but four of them. In 2022, United lost nine of those matches without a goal and were shut out in 16 of 34, just one shy of the league record of 17 games without a goal in a single season.
Toronto FC lost five games in a row in 2022, giving up four goals in four of those five games. Since the start of the 2021 season, the Reds have lost 36 times, tying D. C. United for most losses in MLS.
Pedro Santos, a new D.C. United signing, was one of four players in the league to score at least five assists in each of the last five MLS regular seasons. Despite being traded to Vancouver in July, Julian Gressel (7) led D.C. United in assists last season.
The fewest in the league, Toronto FC has kept just five clean sheets in the last two MLS seasons. Season Johnson, a new signing, kept 22 clean sheets for New York City FC during the 2021 and 2022 regular seasons, second most in MLS behind Andre Blake’s 27.
FC Cincinnati has won both of its MLS matches against the Dynamo (W1 D1), winning the only one in 2019 by a score of 3-2 at home. FC Cincinnati has never lost to the Dynamo in MLS competition, joining Portland (P1 W1) as the other team FC Cincinnati has never lost to.
After setting club records for points (49), wins (12), goals (64) and goal difference (+8), FC Cincinnati made its first appearance in the MLS playoffs in 2022. Last year, Cincinnati scored 49% more goals than it did in its first two full MLS seasons (44, excluding 2020).
Since the start of the 2012 season, the Dynamo have never lost a season opener (W7 D4). In its 17 MLS seasons, Houston has only lost its season opener twice, in 2008 and 2011.
During the 2022 MLS regular season, Brenner and Brandon Vazquez scored 36 of FC Cincinnati’s 64 goals together. They became the first pair of teammates in MLS history to score 18 goals together during a single regular season.
Ben Olsen, the new Dynamo manager, is one of three individuals, along with Jason Kreis (305, 316) and Greg Vanney (270, 269), to play in and coach at least 200 MLS regular season matches.
During the 2022 season, Charlotte FC and New England won at home against each other, with Charlotte winning 3-1 at Bank of America Stadium in March. Charlotte became the third expansion team since Portland in 2011 and Orlando in 2015 to defeat Bruce Arena with that victory.
Charlotte FC finished the expansion season with 42 points, slightly better than the average of 1.14 points per match for the expansion. In 2017, Atlanta United was the only expansion team in the post-shootout era (since 2000) to win more home games than Charlotte did.
After scoring a MLS-record 73 points in 2021, New England fell out of the playoffs with just 42 points in 2022, a 31-point drop. There have only been three larger point drops from year to year in league history, with the most recent occurring in Toronto (-33 points) between 2017 and 2018.
Last season, Charlotte FC’s Karol Swiderski scored a team-high ten goals, the first two of which came in a victory over New England in March. Swiderski scored in six of Charlotte FC’s seven matches last season (L1), but they only won seven of the remaining 27 (D3 L17).
The Revolution have not won any of their first nine games of the season, the second-longest active streak in Major League Soccer behind only the Fire’s (13 straight) current streak. In fact, New England’s previous season-opening victory over the Fire was a 1-0 victory in 2013.
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