and poked in the puck with 3:42 left.”The second g

The ink was barely dry on his contract when Ryan Donato played his first professional game.Three days after his junior season at Harvard ended Chicago Blackhawks Hoodies Authentic , Donato joined the Boston Bruins‘ lineup in the middle of a playoff chase in a top-six role with a spot on the power play.No pressure, kid.”I definitely had to learn quickly,” Donato said. ”Every game is important, so it had to click right away. I really didn’t have a choice.”Such is the task for Donato and a handful of other young prospects joining contenders in the eleventh hour of the NHL season. It has become common for teams with no postseason hopes to sign players out of school and play them late in the regular season like Vancouver did with Brock Boeser and Arizona with Clayton Keller a year ago.This season, some top teams are taking the chance, too.Just as the Bruins added Donato, Minnesota signed Jordan Greenway after his season at Boston University, Anaheim signed Troy Terry after the University of Denver was out of the NCAA Tournament and Nashville brought over Eeli Tolvanen from Europe after a full year in the Kontinental Hockey League – young talent added for the playoffs without the teams giving up anything, though coaches must now integrate a new player late in the season.”It’s tough if the kids aren’t good,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. ”With our team right now in the midst of this race, every little defensive situation has got to be done right.”Every shift is magnified this time of year, adding to the burden of trying to learn a team’s system. Donato Chicago Blackhawks Hats Authentic , Greenway and Terry went right from college to the NHL, and Tolvanen had to adjust on the fly from the wider, European ice as Nashville tries to shore up home ice throughout the playoffs.”It’s kind of tough to come in the middle of the season and just jump in and you don’t know all the guys,” Tolvanen said. ”You have to do it at some point, so I think it’s a pretty good spot that I came a couple games before the playoffs.”Tolvanen benefited from two rounds of KHL playoffs with Jokerit and carried that intensity across the pond, while Terry and Greenway got a taste of playoff action in the NCAA Tournament. Donato’s season playing for his dad and former NHL forward Ted ended, and he suddenly had to ramp things up to carry a big load for Boston amid injuries to Rick Nash and others.Donato knew he couldn’t take a shift or a game off and has stepped up with seven points in his first nine games. Coach Bruce Cassidy wasn’t worried about getting the soon-to-be 22-year-old up to speed as much as seeing if Donato could handle the size, speed and pace of the NHL.”Most of these kids that come in are offensive-minded guys, so are they going to be able to make their plays and handle a man’s game?” Cassidy said. ”And he’s shown he’s able to do that.”Donato certainly had a body of work coming in, including leading the United States and tying for the tournament lead with five goals at the Olympics without NHL players. The other three young, late-season additions – all of whom also stood out at the Olympics – are being eased in.”We didn’t really do anything at the trade deadline because we knew that we were going to get Jordan Greenway,” Boudreau said. ”He’s gone through the Olympics and the world juniors all in the last year Custom Chicago Blackhawks Jerseys , so he knows what a little bit of pressure is all about. Playing at BU, he’s always (on) one of the better teams playing in important games. We pretty well thought he could handle all this.”Nashville is betting Tolvanen can handle it, too. The impressive Finnish winger set a KHL record with 36 points as an 18-year-old and looked increasingly more comfortable in his first three games for the Predators, who have their sights set on a return trip to the Stanley Cup Final.”It’s important for him to see ice time before the playoffs,” coach Peter Laviolette said. ”The playoffs are a long haul. I think we learned that last year that you need a lot of people and a lot of parts and it’s important to get him involved in the game, with the team, in the systems.”Predators general manager David Poile recalled making one trade too many at a previous deadline and messing with his team’s chemistry.”You have to be careful on both sides because you don’t want to put a young player in a position to fail,” Poile said. ”You want to put him in a position to succeed. You also are very respectful of the players that have been with you all season long. It’s also OK to have depth but you don’t want to move everybody’s cheese too much.”In Boston, it helps that Donato is filling a spot vacated by injuries and showing immediately he belongs. In Nashville, Tolvanen’s reputation preceded him for anyone who saw what he did as one of the leading scorers at the Olympics.”It’s a special situation when somebody comes in this late and joins the team and under different circumstances, but it’s been great,” starting goaltender and fellow Finn Pekka Rinne said. ”Certainly it adds a new www.officialavalanche.com , special element to our team. I think it’s going to be beneficial down the road.”— SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) Roberto Luongo spoke eloquently on the ice and then played brilliantly in net.On a night when the Florida Panthers honored the victims of last week’s shooting at nearby Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, their veteran goalie delivered a stirring speech to the crowd during a somber pregame tribute.Once the puck was dropped Thursday, he made 33 saves in his third game since returning from a groin injury to lead the Panthers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals.”The first 10 minutes of the game was very difficult. I was not in a zone, that’s a good way to put it. Emotions were still running high from the ceremony,” said Luongo, who lives in Parkland, where the shooting occurred.Vincent Trocheck scored the winning goal with 19.1 seconds left for Florida. With the score tied at 2, he redirected a shot by Jonathan Huberdeau past goaltender Braden Holtby during a power play.Nick Bjugstad scored the tying goal for the Panthers late in the third period, and Maxim Mamin got his first NHL goal.It was the first home game for the Panthers since the tragedy. They had been on a road trip in Canada for the past 11 days.”We had little angels helping us tonight to help us pull out a big win here,” Luongo said.Trocheck celebrated his go-ahead goal by encouraging fellow players to sign his stick. He plans on donating it to the students and faculty at Marjory Stoneman Douglas.”It was very emotional,” Trocheck said. ”It was a powerful game. Powerful speech before the game by Lou. Powerful meaning behind the game. Team played great in the third period Colorado Avalanche T-Shirts Authentic , showed a lot of character and to be able to put that in the net at the end of the game, it was exciting.”Andre Burakovsky had a goal and an assist, and Lars Eller also scored for the Capitals. Holtby stopped 30 shots but lost his fifth straight.Before the game, the arena video screen showed the names and faces of each of the 17 students who were killed on Valentine’s Day in nearby Parkland. The darkened ice was then illuminated with 17 circles of light, with a student’s name inside each one.Players from both teams stood for the ceremony, some wiping tears from their eyes.Luongo followed with an emotional address about how he has lived in Parkland for 12 years with his wife and children, and how much he loves the town. He lauded the bravery of those who lost their lives trying to save others and spoke about how inspiring the students have been in coping with the tragedy.”Usually, sporting events start with a lot of fanfare and a lot of noise, and it wasn’t that,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said. ”It had some meaning to the people in this region, it had some meaning to the players on the other side, and it had some meaning to us. After he (Luongo) got through the first period Colorado Avalanche Hoodies Authentic , it settled into a hockey game.”Florida players will wear Marjory Stoneman Douglas logos on their helmets and MSD uniform patches for the remainder of the season.”I thought Louie did a heck of a job with his speech and to get in net and to throw a performance out like that after, it was one of the most impressive things I’ve seen in a long time,” Panthers coach Bob Boughner said.Bjugstad tied the game at 2 when he took a pass from Aleksander Barkov in front and poked in the puck with 3:42 left.”The second goal they got a little fortunate on,” Holtby said. ”I think he misplaced his pass and it went off his back foot. You just move on from those.”Burakovsky’s power-play goal gave the Capitals a 2-1 lead at 9:56 of the second. Alex Ovechkin fed the puck to Burakovsky in the slot, where he lined it up and fired a shot past Luongo.Mamin gave the Panthers a 1-0 lead at 4:50 of the first period when he poked in the rebound of a shot by Ian McCoshen. Mamin’s goal was his first point in eight NHL games.The Capitals tied it on Eller’s goal. Burakovsky took a shot from the high slot that glanced off Eller’s stick and in with 1:05 left in the first.NOTES: Capitals defenseman Michal Kempny, acquired from Chicago late Monday night, made his Washington debut. … The Panthers acquired forward Frank Vatrano from Boston for a third-round pick in this year’s draft. … RW Radim Vrbata was a healthy scratch for the eighth time in 11 games.UP NEXTCapitals: Host the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.Panthers: Host the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.—